Hi Pete. I agree that the app could do more to explain to the user what is appropriate for commons. And I'd hate to see this app sunsetted, because it makes it very convenient to snap pictures and upload them in a few gestures. A couple of questions, tho:
* Pete, there's already a tour when you open the app for the first time. Have you created an enhancement bug in bugzilla to add an explanation of commons and what is appropriate to upload? It's important that we trap great feedback like this in a workflow.
* Everyone, if the app is sunsetted, does anyone know if the functionality will be added to another app? I see this functionality as tremendously useful, and I'd love to see sound recording and video (not sure if video is already covered or not) supported, as well.
Thanks. ,Wil
On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 7:21 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
As an experienced user, the Commons app is tremendously useful (when it doesn't crash). But as a Commons curator, I see a steady stream of "test uploads" and the like -- things that are utterly and completely unrelated to our educational mission -- that require a great deal of volunteer resources to process. The vast majority are tagged as mobile uploads.
The Commons app gives the user absolutely no idea what Commons is about, or what kind of uploads are desirable. I think that is significant. The UploadWizard on the desktop version of Commons starts off with a cartoon explaining issues like copyright and personality rights, and then guides the user through related questions. Although I have not done a formal analysis, it seems to be overwhelmingly the case that files originating from Mobile uploads are much more often problematic than those originating from the Upload Wizard. I don't think that's a coincidence.
It would be really awesome to have the ability for experienced users to use our devices to upload directly -- and even better if it opens doors to new contributors *in a way that meaningfully guides their participation*. But if new contributors are given no guidance, and unknowingly do stuff that puts a high load on our volunteer curators -- is that cost too high?
I hope that kind of improvement is part of the discussion. Personally, I'd rather see a revamped app, than that the app just disappears.
Pete
On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 6:41 PM, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Yann,
The Commons app would need lots of love to continue to be worth
advertising
as a mainline app. It's not been updated since October, and code rot sets in after a while (I can easily reproduce crashes when logging in with an account that has pre-existing uploads, which it tries to display for convenience but quickly chokes on). With the small app team we have, our focus is mainly on the official Wikipedia apps right now, which are
already
quite solid and receiving very positive reviews, esp. the Android app.
[1]
The team is discussing whether the Commons app should be sunset (which would still leave open the option of community maintainership) based on
the
numbers, and will be posting an update later this week.
Erik
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia
Hi Erik,
The Wikipedia app description includes "Share: Use your existing social networking apps to share in the sum of all human knowledge."
Does it support uploading media to Commons? Does it fix the problems with the official Commons app? If so, can they share a library which would allow the Commons app to be more of a specialised front-end to the same functionality that the WMF mobile apps team are developing for Wikipedia?
-- John Vandenberg
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