[Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

I think there ate two issues here, not one, even though all the replies
concentrate on just one issue: 1) why (good quality) pictues do not make
it to Commons, or make it insufficiently; 2) why they do not make it ot
the articles. I tried to make the point in the recent thread on the
purpose of Commons, but somehow it did not draw enough attention.
Realistically, if somebody uploaded a good picture (not necessarily of a
person, it could also be a landscape, a PD piece of art or smth else), and
if this somebody is an active editor of only one Wikipedia, this picture
has very little chance to make it to other Wikipedia articles, except may
be for the ones which are created after the file has been uploaded.

I believe that this problem is a meta issue and can be solved (i) either
by the Commons itself actively promoting newly uploaded files or (ii) by
writing a bot updating all Wikipedias on newly uploaded files (for
instance, if the article exists and does not contain any illustrations).

Cheers
Yaroslav