[WikiEN-l] A Solution to the Image Problem

[Jesse W]

On Mar 23, 2006, at 11:04 AM, Mark Wagner wrote:
> 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.

Either of those two tasks are useful.  I was merely saying that we are 
making progress, not falling behind, afaict, so changing the process 
may not be necessary.

>> 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.
OK.  That is an issue.