I thought a bit more about the issue, and I think there is a point we (possibly all of us) are missing. Actually, Commons must be not just a depository, it can also play an active role within WMF projects. Let me give an example. More than a year ago I uploaded this file: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Presentation_church_Borisoglebsky.jpg which I used to illustrate an article on ru.wp on the town where the church is located. (In the meanwhile, about 10 other pictures of the same town have been uploaded). I see now that articles about the town exist in four Wikipedias, en, fr, ru, and fi. fi.wp article uses this image since it has been apparently created after the file was uploaded. en and fr articles do not use any images at all for illustration: apparently, they have been created before I uploaded the image, and I was too lazy to insert images in these articles even though I speak both English and French. Now since I have noticed this I will of course do it myself, but generally this could be difficult: imagine an article with 10 interwikis, some of them in languages I have no idea of like Japanese. This is of course a meta issue and somebody (me for instance) could take an initiative and create a project alerting other wikipedias of new image arrivals (I vaguely remember we even had a script like this which was very helpful in adding images), but I guess it would be a natural task for Commons. Another example - actively searching for images and uploading them: for instance, approaching users living in certain areas, searching for PD images of works of art etc. May be I am just ignorant and all these things are already going on, but then it is strange that I have never heard of them being an active editor and being in principle interested in meta issues.
To conclude there is definitely a room for an active role for Commons, not just as a passive file depository. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
