Commons-l October 2011

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

31 participants
10 discussions

Video skills and equipment
by Lars Aronsson 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania. Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes, some only played the first minute and then stopped. I don't think the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems. Video is new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with still images. How can we learn to make better videos? Are there some good instructions? Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we need. In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in different operating systems. There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain. Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate "good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality? Is the Commons village pump enough for this? Commons has a separate graphics village pump. Do we also need a separate video village pump? Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards, instead of tape cassettes. Many new models cost less than 300 euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps not included). Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess that kind of usage is what drives the price down. What models are good, and what should one watch out for? We can find free still photos on Flickr and copy them to Commons. Is there somewhere we can find free videos and copy them? Yes, at the Internet Archive. Somewhere else? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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translation of categories
by bawolff 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

Someone in the thread on friendliness mentioned that categories are always in one language (usually english). Well still a long way from fixing the issue, perhaps if we allowed unrestricted {{DISPLAYTITLE:...}}, combined with the {{int: hack, that'd allow better translatable categories. (of course you'd only be able to use the actual category name in [[category:Foo]] links. I suppose one could use a bot to automatically change links to redirect categories to their canonical name, but then we're getting really really hacky). Anyways, just a thought. cheers, bawolff

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ALAC is open source
by Magnus Manske 31 Oct '11

31 Oct '11

The Apple Lossless Audio Codec has been released under Apache license 2.0: http://alac.macosforge.org/trac/wiki Something to add to the Commons file format portfolio? Do we support FLAC already?

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GOOD: The Most Important Occupy Wall Street Photographer You've Never Heard of
by David Gerard 30 Oct '11

30 Oct '11

http://www.good.is/post/the-most-important-occupy-wall-street-photographer-… Nice piece on David Shankbone. - d.

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Re: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content
by Andreas Kolbe 18 Oct '11

18 Oct '11

Note: This foundation-l post is cross-posted to commons-l, since this discussion may be of interest there as well. > From: Tobias Oelgarte <tobias.oelgarte(a)googlemail.com> > It is a in house made problem, as i explained at brainstorming [1]. > To put it short: It is a self made problem, based on the fact that this > images got more attention then others. Thanks to failed deletion > requests they had many people caring about them. This results in more > exact descriptions and file naming then in average images. Thats what > search engines prefer; and now we have them at a top spot. Thanks for > caring so much about this images and not treating them like anything else. I don't think that is the case, actually. Brandon described how the search function works here: http://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-second-image-returned-on-Wikimedia-Commons-… To take an example, the file http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Golden_Shower.jpg&actio… (a prominent search result in searches for "shower") has never had its name or description changed since it was uploaded from Flickr. My impression is that refinement of file names and descriptions following discussions has little to do with sexual or pornography-related media appearing prominently in search listings. The material is simply there, and the search function finds it, as it is designed to do. > Andreas, you currently represent exactly that kind of argumentation that > leads into anything, but not to a solution. I described it already in > the post "Controversial Content vs Only-Image-Filter" [2], that single > examples don't represent the overall thematic. It also isn't an addition > to the discussion as an argument. It would be an argument if we would > know the effects that occur. We have to clear the question: It is hard to say how else to provide evidence of a problem, other than by giving multiple (not single) examples of it. You could also search for blond, blonde, red hair, strawberry, or peach ... What is striking is the crass sexism of some of the filenames and image descriptions: "blonde bombshell", "Blonde teenie sucking", "so, so sexy", "These two had a blast showing off" etc. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=blon… One of the images shows a young woman in the bathroom, urinating: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blonde_woman_urinating.jpg Her face is fully shown, and the image, displayed in the Czech Wikipedia, carries no personality rights warning, nor is there evidence that she has consented to or is even aware of the upload. And I am surprised how often images of porn actresses are found in search results, even for searches like "Barbie". Commons has 917 files in Category:Unidentified porn actresses alone. There is no corresponding Category:Unidentified porn actors (although there is of course a wealth of categories and media for gay porn actors). > * Is it a problem that the search function displays sexual content? (A > search should find anything related, by definition.) I think the search function works as designed, looking for matches in file names and descriptions. > * Is sexual content is overrepresented by the search? I don't think so. The search function simply shows what is there. However, the sexual content that comes up for innocuous searches sometimes violates the principle of least astonishment, and thus may turn some users off using, contributing to, or recommending Commons as an educational resource. > * If that is the case. Why is it that way? > * Can we do something about it, without drastic changes, like > blocking/excluding categories? One thing that might help would be for the search function to privilege files that are shown in top-level categories containing the search term: e.g. for "cucumber", first display all files that are in category "cucumber", rather than those contained in subcategories, like "sexual penetrative use of cucumbers", regardless of the file name (which may not have the English word "cucumber" in it). A second step would be to make sure that sexual content is not housed in the top categories, but in appropriately named subcategories. This is generally already established practice. Doing both would reduce the problem somewhat, at least in cases where there is a category that matches the search term. Regards, Andreas [1] > >http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Controversial_content%2FBrainst… >[2] >http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069699.html > >Am 17.10.2011 02:56, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: >> Personality conflicts aside, we're noting that non-sexual search terms in Commons can prominently return sexual images of varying explicitness, from mild nudity to hardcore, and that this is different from entering a sexual search term and finding that Google fails to filter some results. >> >> I posted some more Commons search terms where this happens on Meta; they include >> >> Black, Caucasian, Asian; >> >> Male, Female, Teenage, Woman, Man; >> >> Vegetables; >> >> Drawing, Drawing style; >> >> Barbie, Doll; >> >> Demonstration, Slideshow; >> >> Drinking, Custard, Tan; >> >> Hand, Forefinger, Backhand, Hair; >> >> Bell tolling, Shower, Furniture, Crate, Scaffold; >> >> Galipette – French for "somersault"; this leads to a collection of 1920s pornographic films which are undoubtedly of significant historical interest, but are also pretty much as explicit as any modern representative of the genre. >> >> Andreas >

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Blog entry about finding free images
by Magnus Manske 18 Oct '11

18 Oct '11

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/how-to-find-free-pictures-for-your-blog/ Guess which site with lots of free images is not mentioned...? We /seriously/ need to do more PR (viral or otherwise) for Commons!

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wikistream and commons updates
by Ed Summers 16 Oct '11

16 Oct '11

I thought it might be of interest to Wikimedia Commons folks that I recently updated the Wikistream visualization of real time edits to include updates from the Commons, and to automatically update the background to the latest uploaded images: http://wikistream.inkdroid.org It's not perfect by any means, but I thought it was interesting to see the updates that are coming in all the time to the Commons. //Ed

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Stewards Elections closing in 45 minutes
by Jyothis E 14 Oct '11

14 Oct '11

All, The election closes in less than an hour. If anyone still needs to vote, please head over to metawiki and cast your votes. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net My Malayalam Wikipedia page <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis> Metawiki page <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis>

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Re: [Commons-l] Commons search function vs. Google
by WereSpielChequers 13 Oct '11

13 Oct '11

> ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:22:37 +0100 (BST) > From: Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: [Commons-l] Commons search function vs. Google > To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: > <1318346557.48784.YahooMailNeo(a)web29620.mail.ird.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > We are wondering on Meta[1]?what criteria the Commons search function uses > to establish the order of search results displayed. > > To give some examples, searching for "pearl necklace" in Commons shows a > woman with sperm on her neck as the first image result: > > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=pear… > > > The same image is way down in a Google search (with safe search off) for > pearl necklace on Commons: > > > http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cucumber+site:commons.wikimedia.org&um=1&h… > .,cf.osb&biw=1111&bih=774&uss=1#um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=pearl+necklace+site: > commons.wikimedia.org&oq=pearl+necklace+site:commons.wikimedia.org > &aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=113279l114967l0l115854l14l11l0l0l0l8l261l2003l0.8.3l11l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=49f703222a617ec&biw=1111&bih=774 > > > Searching for "electric toothbrushes" in Commons shows a woman masturbating > with a toothbrush as the second image result: > > > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=elec… > > > The same image turns up in Google as well (with safe search switched off), > though not as one of the first results: > > > http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cucumber+site:commons.wikimedia.org&um=1&h… > .,cf.osb&biw=1111&bih=774&uss=1#um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=electric+toothbrushes+site: > commons.wikimedia.org&pbx=1&oq=electric+toothbrushes+site: > commons.wikimedia.org > &aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=341351l344565l0l345961l21l19l0l0l0l13l255l3528l0.11.8l19l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=49f703222a617ec&biw=1111&bih=774 > > > Searching for "cucumber" in Commons shows a woman with a cucumber up her > vagina on the first page of search results: > > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=cucu… > > Doing a Google search for cucumber on Commons (with safe search off) does > not bring this image up among the first hundred or so results: > > > http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cucumber+site:commons.wikimedia.org&um=1&h… > .,cf.osb&biw=1111&bih=774&uss=1 > > > Why is our listing so different from the one in Google, and why are sexual > images so much higher up in our listing of search results? > > > Andreas > > > [1]?http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming? > > I don't know how Google does it, but I'd bet that our search prioritises by word order in the description. So a description that starts Pearl Necklace comes before "A white pearl necklace". If you amend the description them I suspect the search results will change. WereSpielChequers

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(no subject)
by Geoffrey Plourde 11 Oct '11

11 Oct '11

http://www.styledecor.com.au/hello.php?html143

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Commons-l October 2011