[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Pharos]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 6:28 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> On Tuesday 09 December 2008 08:23:07 Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons why
>> they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
>> "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
>> search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"  and
>> you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.
>>
>> It is indeed ridiculous that for people who do not read / write English,
>> Commons not a resource that is functional as a resource where you find
>> freely lincensed pictures. It is however a fact. Do some studies and ask
>> people to find images, people who do not read English. Try it in Arabic,
>> Russian, German, Mandarin, French or Dutch. When that does not convince you
>> try Neapolitan, Nepali, Bangla, Hindi or Xhosa. Have them search for things
>> that are of interest to a seven year old. Things like a horse...
>>
>> I have had the financing to create a demonstration project that
>> demonstrates that this is a problem that can be solved. Our resources were
>> limited so the result is not as polished as I would hope for, but it does
>> include the category tree translated.
>
> Me too - perhaps not as perfect solution, but hopefully adequate:
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php
>
> Examples:
>
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=nl&search=paard
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=el&search=%CE%AF%CF%80%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%82

Something like this looks pretty good for starters.  Why don't we just
flip a switch?

Thanks,
Pharos

> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>