Hoi,
You have it the wrong way around. Our projects have a function, they exist
for us to share in the sum of all knowledge. When a search engine provides
results to a public in any language, it does not make a difference to how
Commons is run. Your claim that finding pictures is only allowed when a
community allows for it exposes a bias that is fundamentally wrong. What
Commons contains is freely licensed and consequently anyone can search it,
use it.
Your claim that people worked hard to make Commons usable in other
languages is fine. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It
is the purpose of Commons that its images are actually used, used world
wide in any language. You claim that it is the community that allows for
re-use. It is not, it is the license. It is the purpose of the Wikimedia
movement to make the most of what we have and do. It is the responsibility
of the Board to ensure that we do.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 at 20:39, Fæ <[email protected]> wrote:
> It would be far more effective to make community and project proposals
> or run a wider community RFC about how the "common" projects work
> together rather than become a board member to make a difference in
> this area. The detail of how projects work and their policies is not
> something that the WMF board is well placed to dictate. Trustees are
> busy with WMF operational oversight and strategy, not lobbyists for
> how technical implementation might work.
>
> A board that starts dictating how projects must function, is probably
> a board that volunteers would never elect, if they have a choice.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
>
> On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 at 15:26, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > You make your point and you are essentially wrong. When you search in
> English for "beaver" you do not find beavers. They are mostly false
> positives related in one way or other to "beaver" but they do not depict a
> beaver[1] . This is true for all languages. My point is that Commons is not
> useful when people cannot find what they are looking for. Compare this to a
> search using the Wikidata labels linked to "depicts" statements in any and
> all languages, this is where they DO find beavers [2] (this app is by Hay
> Kranen and it shows the same functionality special:mediasearch used to have
> in a previous iteration).
> >
> > I am totally aware that it is only a subset of the images at Commons
> that can be found in this way. It however works for a general public and it
> does work in any language. The current search is however not functional
> when you "just" want to find a picture. When you argue that special purpose
> files with a Spanish description are a reason not to provide a functional
> search, I do wonder what Commons is for. Why have the biggest freely
> licensed resource of media files when it has no functional search, when it
> is essentially closed in all languages to the public.
> >
> > The reason why I aim to be a member of the board is exactly that we need
> a public for all the work that we have done. I do not mind when we start
> with a minimal service that works over a service that does not bring us the
> attention to Commons that it deserves. We do not truly value the data that
> we have.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> >
> > [1]
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=image&search=beaver
> > [2] https://hay.toolforge.org/sdsearch/#q=haswbstatement:P180=Q181191
> >
> > On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 at 13:42, Fæ <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, 6 Jul 2021 at 17:32, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Hoi.
> >> > One reason why I am a candidate for the board of the WMF is that in
> my opinion one function is lacking. There is no reflection of the fact that
> all that we do is to share the sum of all knowledge. It is not only about
> the creation of content but also about sharing the sum all the knowledge
> that is available to us.
> >> >
> >> > For obvious reasons, the contributors to the projects are heard. I do
> not subscribe to the notion that the "projects" need to be in the
> organisational chart. With 300 languages and potentially multiple projects
> for each language it is impossible to have equity among these projects. The
> point that I have made repeatedly: Commons is not useful in any language
> but English, this does not need to be as there is software that works
> equally well in any language dependent on the availability of labels in
> Wikidata. This is just one example, there are more.
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > GerardM
> >>
> >> "Commons is not useful in any language but English" is nonsense. The
> >> idea that displaying "labels" and imposed transclusions from Wikidata
> >> would make, say, a Commons image page Spanish description of a PDF
> >> book in Spanish redundant, and an English description is all that
> >> Commons should aim for, disregards the valued work that many Commons
> >> contributors make to keep the project multilingual.
> >>
> >> I would hope that the WMF board would understand how the projects
> >> function and their value to public reuse rather better than this.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Fae
> >> --
> >> [email protected] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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