good morning from sunny London!

A very early morning from Toronto 🙂

Hello from Tel Aviv 🙂

good afternoon from sunny Johannesburg!

Good mid day from Marseille, super sunny

Soooo sunny here in India too! ;)

Hi everyone from Nyköping, Sweden!

New Zealand - not so sunny

Hello from Berlin!

Vienna Calling

Hi from New Zealand - evening

Hello from Hokitika, New Zealand (middle of the night)

Hello everyone from Serbia! :)

Hi from sunny Helsinki!

Hi all - Commons is the multimedia repository and community of the Wikimedia movement

Also in sunny London (but with an unseasonal cold and no voice)

Good morning from Southern California

Hello Suyash from India

”You know, the images in Wikipedia? That's where they are stored.”

G'day from Melbourne, Australia

Hello from Washington DC

Good morning from Northern California!

Good definition Larissa

Please get us warmed up with your explanation of what Commons is for someone who has never used it before

Hello everyone,Interpretation is available in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic.But for Arabic, kindly select the "German" channel.

Hello everyone. Good afternoon from Indonesia!

Commons is a treasure trove

Good afternoon from Tartu, Estonia :)

hello from Kazan/Tatarstan/Russia

please slow

Wikimedia Commons : an image repository by everyone for everyone 🙂

Wikimedia Commons - is like the media file you have on your computer but much larger and global....

describe Wikimedia Commons?

Commons is "the place where you can find old photographs of your country for free"

Commons is a multimedia repository and *community* of the Wikimedia movement

media repository where everything is available under a free license

The image library that Wikipedia uses, full of photos that everybody can use for anything for free.

catalogue of media files by topic

Q1: It’s place on the internet where open freely reusable images can be uploaded, stored and where they can be accessed and reused.

You know the images you see on Wikipedia? this is where they are stored, described and with copyrights statements.

its a repository of media under a free license

Interesting that most people mention « image » more than media ;)

@Flo agree!

"In short: Wikimedia Commons in the media repository of Wikipedia."

It ain’t just images

Commons is like Flickr, a place to upload photos (and other types of media) but with all images free to use by anyone for any purpose.

The global hub of freely usable media files

@Flo It ain’t just images, but it’s support for more than images is… NOT good 🙂

yup

sorry brb, problems on connection

If I use “media files” I find I then have to define that too!

Hi @Siobhan! True

and yes i’m claiming i’m still in Europe!!1

Hi @Andrew! Nice to see you too.

hi Siobhan nice to see a kiwi here

Yes, I always just talk about photos to newbies, because sound files, for example, are so badly curated and hard to use (let alone upload).

https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/commons-app

+1 Mike

+mike

Hi @gnangarra - I’m pretty sure there are at least 2 other NZers here. 🙂

Hi @Siobhan!

Hi @Victoria!

remember to add yourself to the list of participants, if you like :)

hi Maryana!

Please use the German channel for Arabic

Agree @Mike - Hopefully we can give this feedback today and get better support beyond images

Though at least on en.wp there is a significant bias (ambivalence?) for media beyond images

@Andrew - this seems such a shame. I can remember spending ages working out how to upload an openly licensed conference presentation video to Commons purely because it had the only openly licensed video of New Zealand sign language that I could find.

Thank you @Fiona 🙏

Agree @Siobhan - Sadly, the state of open video standards/activity is pretty poor. The tools we have today have barely changed (and arguably are worse than 10 years ago) and we still don’t have a robust video creation community

https://easyretro.io/publicboard/ybPhZSBgxPRgNWWBuHd3tW2w3s52/c4014e76-136c-4296-a73c-b12c1737869d

+1 Andrew

Try to add up to 3 of your needs for Commons. If someone else already types it, just give their point a +1

LOVE the bird chirps!

Love this Satdeep!

A Commons contribution from the British Library

again for everyone: https://easyretro.io/publicboard/ybPhZSBgxPRgNWWBuHd3tW2w3s52/c4014e76-136c-4296-a73c-b12c1737869d

The retro board won't close, so you can keep adding points as they arise during the call.

+1 @gnangarra

+1 to Andrew search is key factor to gain access

+1 Larissa!

+1 larissa

+1 Larissa

+1 @Larissa & @Andrew

We have already SDC suggestion feature on Commons to "remind" uploaders to add depicts to their uploaded media. It would be useful to add the same mechanism to encourage people categorize their photos.

Remember everyone to speak slowly, thank you!

Oh, yeah. +10 to this cultural/welcoming gap

(Side note to organizers - I ran out of my “thumbs up” quota very early on, so the later columns of the Retroboard will likely not see a lot of support) 🙂

In many cases - like if using platforms like Trello, WP, one can use openly licensed media from Unsplash…is this integration possible for WikiCommons ?

+1 @Mike

Nice work Mike.

Commons admins seem to have far too much work, and that creates super hostile environment for the photographers.

help us taking notes on the etherpad https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/commons-app

++++ mikes comment commons is very strict on licenses that comes off as unfriendly

Are there any admins or VRTs on the call who could speak to why copyright patrolling might feel the way it does for newcomers?

@G - Agree. There is a very good reason why we need to be strict, but that doesn’t necessitate us being *mean*

who own indigenous/intangible knowledge is an issue

+1 Susanna

Or the pressures of the admin/ VRT backlog

+1 Susanna

We will surface some comments from the chat as well :)

We had a dream at the beginning for Commons... Make it multilingual from the start. We failed :(

BTW, great job so far WMF’ers on keeping the meeting lively and engaging!

@Delphine - True. Though with SDC, we are starting to live the dream

@Andrew yes, but so many years later...

@delphine I would like to hear more about where Commons falls short of its multilingual promise. Could you share some remarks shortly?

I have done this @Florence 😊

@Delphine @Fiona, yes the category system is a complete mess

+1 Florence, English centric categories in Commons is severe sadness

+1 Florence, video is a mess too

Yes the point of campaigns was that you could prefill categories. Unfortunately campaigns never took off

+1 @Florence re format. THIS is exactly what I struggled with!

empty categories also get deleted

Wiki Science Competion also has 80...90% newcommers, and that shows rather clearly, that newcommers have lot of problems on how do do things: https://www.wikisciencecompetition.org/ (and in there we are actually also collecting sound files, videos, etc)

+1 Florence, also because of the trauma from Selfiegate, uploading images to Commons from mobiles is intentionally not easy

wrong filenames can be changed (but you still need the rights)

commons app is great to use from androids but no apple support

Yes my phone is full of photos I would like to upload at some point

@Jane - the only easy to use tools for image uploads are… Wikidata oriented. WikiShootMe or PictureThis are what I use

Wiki Loves Africa does so much hard work to support their newcomers

+1 Florence - What good is a wishlist if we don’t have a project manager or overseer for Commons development at WMF?

I made my own kludge for uploading images from a museum visit, but it needs lots of wikilove afterwards even so

When bringing structured data on Commons, it should have focussed on categories and not images. A lot of category-related madness could have been solved by now.

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Visual_Story:The_hat-making_industry_in_Cura%C3%A7ao

Great points from @Florence

+1 Andrew yes we need tech support responsible to ensure accountability to phabricator fixes

@Jane Interestingly enough the reason why the Wikidata tools are useful is because (sheepishly here) it doesn’t ask you ANYTHING about metadata or licensing. It just works. No questions asked. That’s dangerous-ish but super friendly

True! But that pre-supposes you already know the item of course

+1 to Andrew & Florence particularly

@Ivo - I’d like to hear more about your ideas. We’re still in early days of SDC

I started a wishlist that focuses on needs from the perspective of GLAM, which currently has comments from me and Patricia Diaz, but I would like us to collect comments more broadly https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wishlist_for_Commons_and_GLAM_in_2022

@ivo my understanding is that SDC was meant to be a stepping stone to soften that transition at some future point

Yes thanks for making that Susanna

Thanks Susanna - saving that link!

Thanks Susanna!

We can probably apply Wikifunctions to Commons tag translation

How does anyone feel about Gadgets ? It feels that some super useful gadgets are kinda hidden there, and their use made a bit difficult by having to go through changing one’s js page for example. What are your practices to push for new comers to adopt some of the super useful ones ?

And when thinking about the future, then a lot of stuff is being added to Commons, which means, that lot of it would never be used and it gets harder to find it. There need to be more ways to showcase work. Here I imagine, that one of the next projects we need is WikiMuseum for the virtual exhibitions. Like: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:GLAM/Kynnap

@florence are there gadgets that should be considered for productionising?

there categories like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fish which have language translations but this manual language additions where as it should just be feed from Wikidata

https://glamwikidashboard.org/

I am a big fan of VFC for example….

Remember to edit your own interventions here: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/commons-app(or add your own comments to the etherpad too)

+1 Ido

I agree, Florence. There are particular gadgets or tools that I use in certain workflows for example uploading species images which are extremely helpful but I have to talk newbies through if they want to replicate my workflow.

We have been talking to our partnerships team about exploring more of these integration opportunities. Trello is a great suggestion.

As for SDC, then that seems supper messy (especially for photographers, who would just want to get their images uploaded, and not too lot of additional work, like adding depictions etc). If it would focus on categories, then it would be a substantially easier stepping stone. For images, what is needed, is some new functionality. Like rating images based on quality to not rely solely on FP and QI.  

The personal connections have been a necessity, a lifeline, but can this sustain Commons's growth and expansion

I agree Larissa!

+1 Larissa !

In response to feedback, we have increased votes on the retro board from 5 to 10, so you can add a plus one to 5 more issues if you want to. https://easyretro.io/publicboard/ybPhZSBgxPRgNWWBuHd3tW2w3s52/c4014e76-136c-4296-a73c-b12c1737869d

FP = Featured PicturesQI = Quality images

I think one of the most fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves is whether Commons is here to serve the rest of the Wikimedia Projects or has a much different destiny... (repository for the world's media, illustration bank for the world etc.)

FP = featured pictures, QI = quality images

Until captions are more used, it will always be confusing what the difference is between caption, description and depicts anyway

MediaSearch does provide filtering based on quality etc.

It might be interesting if GLAMs who have uploaded to Commons can showcase the same.. “Wiki Commons Feed” on their website, fo example.

There seems to also be a number of comments related to the video encoding and uploading workflow (or lack thereof) - it would be nice to have more support in this area

Delphine, an issue that has been an open question ever since the creation of Commons. There was no consensus, and even now still does not

@Medhavi I like that - more “frictionless sharing” of Commons files to use an old Facebook phrase

I wonder, is there a way to further streamline connecting newcomers with experienced Commonists? Is that something that's viable, is there a way to scale this or are there insufficient Commonists? Improved UX is great, and so is a bond between people.

@Florence - I’m still not sure what captions are for

@Flo yes

+1 Andrew. My understanding is that it would typically be the default Alt text when the picture is used

@Florence Alt text is very different from a caption!

But unless there is a HUGE improvement on picture caption… this is unlikely to be really implemented

We at AvoinGLAM are starting a project GLAM School, interviewing GLAM practitioners about support structures, learning materials etc that are needed to successfully contribute to the open ecosystem https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_School

@gnangarra Flickr's “no known restrictions" was a useful workaround when they launched their Commons project.

@Susanna.. wonderful! we’re working on a similar thing..maybe we join forces ;)

@Mike, it is different. But could not it be used as default « small description » of an image ?

@medhavi: sounds superb!

While we are honing in on problems, it is important to note that we have a significant win - we went from problem to solution in 9 months when we had no way to add references to SDC statements. That was a May 2021 user story leading to an August 2021 development start to a Jan 2022 launch. So we can get things done.

+100 to Adam's comment. I have received a lot of support from experienced Commons contributors in the photography journey in the past 5 years :)

@Andrew Agree!

@Fiona at the moment the default is do no harm whish means if theres doubt on licensing its rejected

Do we have any admins or VRTs here who can share some of their challenges keeping up with the backlog?

Oh, good point Fiona ! Permission fun….

I'm a VRT admin, but i deal only with Estonia. So that is not really it.

Kudos to Shari (on this call) for prioritizing that references feature

@andrew glad to hear this about adding references

@fiona I'm on VRT... its a long back and forth process trying to get the sufficiently right wording for the image to be released especially where the photographer is a third party but the copyright was handed to the uploader'

Oh uploading

@gnangarra Do you think the majority of VRTs would welcome policy or process changes to make this easier, or

Think dick pics

🤣

Happened a few time. Even the old fromowner system had a very high copyvio rate

@fiona yes simplifying would be great but it mans accepting less precise wording on the release

Apologies, I need to go for a meeting. Good to see you all, thank your for the opportunity to provide some feedback for this important project.

responding to the annual plan doc’s tone… and the idea of two-way planning… perhaps another way to think about what WM Commons needs is ‘what should WM Commons NOT do?”

thanks Ido

(note, i work at flickr.org) 😄

Thanks for all of your input @Ido

+1 Flo WikiLoves is good source of those carp images

@Fional I am a dormant admin. Every time I try to reengage, I don't know where to start :( Even knowing what I know about copyvio (which is probably enough), which is usually what I tackle, I often don't know how to do this right. I end up deleting 5 pics in one hour because I go back to each project using them, leave messages on talk pages etc. It's very very time consuming.

@Gnangarra - carp or crap?

Delphine, want me to hook you to the forthcoming Wiki Loves Africa image clean-up ?

I'm sure without checking we have good carp images

I am a HUGE fan of tools. I use https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kaldari/inat2commons.js ALL the time when uploading species images for reuse in Wikidata and English Wikipedia articles. I wish there were more tools like this for other workflows.

@Flo yep

+Susanna we don't communicate well from Commons to the other projects especuially around license issues

Let’s do that…

I wonder if we go to an upload to other projects and draw them photos onto commons

Yes I agree about it still being hard when you have lots of tools

And I am NOT an admin

@Gnangarra - Yes, that was the appeal of WikiShootme and PictureThis as it used Wikidata as a vehicle to get more commons photos. We need more things like that

Though you do run into the cultural clash between the traditional Commons community/admins and this new vector for adding images/media

But what are captions for…

English isn't one language, its nuianced

Thank you Shari!

plz slower in the future

friendly reminder: we're taking notes at https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/commons-apphelp is appreciated, and please edit/add your own comments!

Design research sign up: https://commons.youcanbook.me/

Thanks Jeff!

Wikimeidia :D

good morning!

Jeff, could you share a bit more about your priorities for the research? If there is time at the end.

Wikimeida (sp!)

LOL no problem

Sure thing, Fiona

You don't have to worry so much about mistyping for an audio project

@francesc also adding product strategy to the notes

Touché Fiona

slower

sounds exciting

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Sound_Logo

I look forward to this sound logo thing

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/03/15/you-cant-see-the-puzzle-globe-on-an-audio-speaker-a-sound-logo-for-wikimedia/

about what sorry?

Volunteer Response Team and admins on Commons, i.e. the people who are patrolling, and dealing with licensing issues

thanks, trying my best to take notes :)

maybe some kind of job share with commercial media platforms, to do skills exchange on moderation/admin stuff...

(and other things)

Here’s the link again to sign up for the research: https://commons.youcanbook.me/

Can you say more about after Mike, George?

moral rights

Superb, Mike!

+1 Mike!!!

Personnality rights in particular

+1 mike

+1 Mike

Cultural status of media

interesting comment! +1 Mike

This is really important, Mike, and we can look to NZ and Australia for good models

👏👏👏

Ehhh

😄

Thanks Mike for bringing this up I tried to use content from several books published, but largely by indigenous Australians. Theey were strongly of the view that I should not use any of their content

@Fiona I wish we could say NZ has sorted out how to identify cultural permissions for images!

Interesting idea George!

+1 Mike. New Zealand isn't as far along as the rest of the world thinks....

This issue is that commons has been quite careful and aggressive in making sure that it only concerns itself with copyright

There are ethical think tanks doing research around this too

its hard working with indigenous cultures that have been abused and face a stolen knowledge

"The New User Experience on Commons" is a movie I really don't want to watch - too depressing

@Victoria Unfortunately everybody else seems to be even worse than us!

It can be a thriller Jane

+1 @wa

@Mehrdad - a horror show!

easy to fix!

The new user experience has become worse. Any new user trying to invent/find categories or use depicts and people think they need to feel this in

Absolutely agree: improved user experience is a fundamental goal of all the work we're talking about here.

ehh current upload setup is a lot better than it used to be

its be a murder mystery

There are definitely people we haven't heard from yet. Don't be shy!

time on Thursday?

I'll regretfully decline a 4am meeting but I've enjoyed this evening.

midnight AWST

Finally, please everyone share in the chat an image you recently uploaded to, or found on, Commons. Let's remember why we care about Commons so much.

Can Sherry starting points be put in written format somewhere ?

Thursday 28 April, 4-5.30pm UTC // https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/83877607603

the sadiest train https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Railway_train,_Fintown_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2108945.jpg

(I think it was Sherry, but not sure of the name)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bees_on_capped_worker_brood.jpg

Unsurprisingly its a New Zealand endemic moth! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Epiphryne_charidema_autocharis_175891430.jpg

File:Euphorbia tithymaloides BradshawFTA.jpg

@Victoria - classic!

@Flo, Shari has put her points in the Etherpad notes

a video https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cattle_run_robbs_jetty_gnangarra_051121.webm

New images described from The Met - adding P180/depiction info to these. Maybe we can turn this into a Wikimedia Hackathon activity

@Florence they are in the notes. I'll work with Fiona on how to share more and always reach out to me directly.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Mar%C3%A9s

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_Plant_Flask_by_Max_Gruber.jpg (from a BBC research project about representing AI)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euphorbia_tithymaloides_BradshawFTA.jpg

A bonkers anti-vax cafe in Collingwood. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Collingwood_MRD_03.jpg

how many staff at WMF now?

The 2nd Annual Plan for Wikimedia Commons is on Thursday 28 April at 16:00 to 17:30 UTC.Zoom link: https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/83877607603

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MA_I173814_TePapa_Captain-SW-Onslow-and_full.jpg For a project I'm doing on British Army soldiers of the New Zealand Wars

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_of_Order_of_Australia_honours_to_women.svg (gets used by a lot of media outlets)

A painting https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Codde_-_Portrait_of_a_richly_dressed_young_lady,_full-length,_before_a_draped_table_2018_NYR_15654_0044.jpg

I love all of these images, thank you, and keep them coming

My last upload: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Melchior_the_Apothecary

Cant find them in the notes….

No .STLs?

Thank you to our interpreters! Bravo!

Thanks for the call

Thank you all so much! Wonderful being here

This is my last image upload, a historical building https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lot_16_in_Convent_quarter.jpg

My latest Featured Picture on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Khairdeen_urf_Pritam,_Black_and_White.jpg

Thanks so much everyone - really useful

You're fancy @satdeep

thank you to Maryana Lisa and everyone else from the WMF for listening to our needs

My last upload 🙂 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LE_BABENDA.webm

Thank you so much Lisa for your incredible, last-minute facilitation. What a pro!

Thanks interpreters, thanks all. Be well.

Thanks all!

Thank you for this meeting. It was very stimulating and thought provoking.

thanks

tk

thank you!

+1

Thanks!

🙏🥳

Heroic note-taking Sannita

Etherpad link once again: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/commons-app

thanks all! bye!