[Wikimedia-l] How to fix Commons

I felt kind of meh about the previous thread, so I'm forking it. geni wrote: An alternate solution would be to ban automated notices. :-) Or at least make them far less obnoxious. Saying "if you look over here, you'll see the same or worse" is a pretty poor argument, in my opinion. It's a great option if we want most users to not use the feature. User defaults are _hugely_ important. Most users (probably over 90%) have few uploads, so consequently looking at the default from this perspective alone, it makes sense to enable media usage notifications by default (at least in-site notices, maybe not e-mail notices). We could even (smartly) disable media usage notifications at a particular upload threshold (e.g., if you have greater than 1,000 uploads, you probably don't want the notices). There are a few edge cases here, such as an image being added to a template, but these are likely solvable. Eh, if they're hotlinking from Commons, we presumably have HTTP referers in the server access logs. Otherwise, there are services (Google Images, TinEye, etc.) that can perform reverse image searches. These aren't trivial technical problems, but they're also not insurmountable. Now, whether investing in such a "thanks for your upload, look where it's being used!" service is worth the cost, given the benefit, is a separate question, as always. For Commons, my personal view is that I'd like to see its search functionality suck a lot less. Commons search needs: * search by tag (which we have already with categories, but we're apparently supposed to wait until the magical future of Wikidata); * search by color; and * search by file size and type. As much as the term is an awful buzzword, Commons could also do with additional gamification, from what I've seen. If we can set up an easy keyword/tagging system, having users help us sort and tag media would be amazing. Building up and tearing down a queue is still not trivial. :-( Commons also needs at least four in-browser editors (for rasterized images, vector graphics, audio files, and videos) and additional supported file upload types (e.g., .ico would be great to have). And much more. Currently we have a database of free media, but I think it'd be really cool if we made it dramatically easier to find, re-use, and re-mix this media. And, for better or worse, we know we cannot hope that the Wikimedia Foundation alone will fix these problems. This is a nasty cop-out. We already do this in a limited fashion, but we need to get better about soliciting and accepting donations to Commons. There's definitely a shared interest in preserving and promoting all kinds of media that we're not doing very well to capture and utilize. There are at least two broad categories I see that could make donations: GLAMs and individuals who have an article that currently has no image or a bad image. Eh, I think Commons certainly has its share of bad admins, but I'm not sure it's the admins who are the problem. As you say, broader clarification about what is and isn't acceptable at Commons would probably be helpful to have. It's likely better to spend time and energy focused on the tasks discussed in this e-mail or elsewhere across Wikimedia. I think doing so will actually move Commons forward. Not that it's bad to occasionally vent frustrations, but we can do better (in more ways than one!). MZMcBride