[Foundation-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Ray Saintonge]

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Finn Rindahl wrote
>> If there was more active admins, we could have done our job 
>> better - especially when it comes to take the necessary time to 
>> communicate with the other users who need help. The only way as 
>> I see it to actually get volunteers to work at Commons is to 
>> build a "community feeling" at commons like in other projects.
>>     
> You need a community feeling among admins, so they can learn to 
> know and trust each other and collaborate against individual 
> admins who abuse their rights (which surely will happen 
> occasionally).  And you need to foster a community feeling between 
> admins and regular/occasional/beginner users.  But I doubt that 
> the latter is possible.  If it fails, I wouldn't blame you.
>   
Trust is the key to success in any of these projects.  Presumably the 
current admins on Commons have built that trust among themselves, but to 
the extent of being a closed community,   Aspiring to join a closed 
community requires a person to comply with the norms and standards of 
that closed community until it is satisfied that the supplicant is fully 
compliant.  This strongly discourages any kind of innovative behaviour 
or individuality, and protects the received wisdom of the controllers.

Commons is not unique in wanting more admins, but really experienced 
admins from other projects are not going to be overly anxious to join a 
project when that project would require them to swim among sharks.
> The problem is that many users don't feel at home in Commons.  
> Many of them just upload a few images as part of writing Wikipedia 
> articles.  Having to enter Commons is more of a necessary evil, 
> just like we all have to learn some wiki markup.
>   
I don't participate in Commons, and do my best to avoid it.  I have had 
concerns about it ever since Erik first suggested the idea.  Commons now 
houses many page scans on behalf of Wikisource.  Uploading the 500 page 
scans for a single book can quickly inflate the Commons page count seems 
to support an obsession for quantity over quality. 
> Consider this recent comment from one user: "I don't understand 
> the title: 'Please link images'. All my pictures are linked to 
> articles in the Swedish Wikipedia."  This user didn't categorize 
> his images on Commons, and received a complaint for this from a 
> bot.  He has no interest in categorizing images on Commons, he 
> only wanted to illustrate his articles.
>   
Whatever happened to the old wiki notion of leaving things for others to 
do.  There is no need for an uploader to do his own categorisation when 
there are admins available to do this. 
> Maybe he should just upload the images locally to the Swedish 
> Wikipedia, where they are used, and someone else, with a primary 
> interest in Commons, should forward them to Commons and categorize 
> them there.
>   
Indeed.  If the Commons bot then finds that the image does not meet its 
copyright or other standards it just leaves that image where it is found.
> This is how we normally distribute tasks among users within each 
> language of Wikipedia: One person creates an article, another adds 
> wiki markup, a third adds categories.  But once you upload an 
> image, you need to go out through the door, across the street, 
> into the Wikimedia Commons building, and there you have to feel as 
> part of a new community which doesn't fully speak your language, 
> and each image must be categorized and correctly licensed and 
> attributed (including the incomprihensible distinction between 
> "source" and "author"), or else all your actions will be reverted.
>   
If it were just a language problem that could be helped by insisting 
that any uploaded image must have all its data in two languages. ;-)   
By insisting on this as strongly as for categorisation and other 
requirements.  Any image without two language data could be speedy 
deleted.  This should only create problems in that small handful of 
countries where knowing a second language is an exception. :-P
> Commons was set up in 2004.  It was a great idea and has served 
> its purpose well.  But as we recruit new users, less experienced 
> users who we have to actively recruit, this is not a vehicle for 
> the best possible user experience and productivity.
>
>
>   
I support the notion that we should start moving away from the single 
monolithic Commons.


Ec