[WikiEN-l] A Solution to the Image Problem

[Mark Wagner]

On 3/22/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:30 AM, Mark Wagner wrote:
> > Wikipedia's got a problem with images.  2000 of them are uploaded
> > every day, and most of them have inadequate source information, an
> > incorrect license tag, or an invalid fair-use claim.
>
> I think this is a little premature.  It is really important to remember
> that, with our current methods - *The Number Of Untagged Images Is
> Going Down*.  The images tagged as lacking source or license info no
> longer *have* a backlog(due to the change in CSD policy allowing them
> to be deleted, and the hard work of a number of Wikipedians), and the
> backlog of Un-tagged images *is going down*.  Not by much; about 300
> per day on average, but it *is going down*.
>
> Give us working on the untagged image project time to get the backlog
> cleared up, and then we can see the problem more clearly.  Quite
> possibly, the rate of new unacceptable images is not too great for us
> to handle.  Maybe it is, but the current facts don't seem to show that.

And once you finish with the untagged images, which project are you
going to move on to? Verifying the fair-use claims on the 150,000
images in [[Category:Fair use images]]?  Checking the accuracy of the
80,000 or so "GFDL" images?  Finding the few images where the "No
rights reserved" claim isn't bullshit?  Image tagging is an important
task, but it isn't the only place where work is needed, either.

> It's also important to note that 95% of the images on the english
> wikipedia do have tags (although many may be wrong, it's true).

I haven't checked already-tagged images, but new uploads (based on the
data at http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-March/041534.html)
have at least a 40% error rate for tagging.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]