Commons-l January 2012

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

7 participants
8 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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Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Deploying Swift for thumbnails next Mon-Thurs Feb 6-9
by Guillaume Paumier 31 Jan '12

31 Jan '12

Forwarded per Ben's request. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ben Hartshorne <bhartshorne(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 8:43 PM Subject: [Wikitech-l] Deploying Swift for thumbnails next Mon-Thurs Feb 6-9 To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hi Everyone, Next week we're going to switch the back end system that hosts thumbnail[1] images. We have been using ms5<http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/latest/?r=day&cs=&ce=&m=&c=Miscellaneous+pmtpa…>(a Sun server running linux) to serve all thumbnails. We are switching to Openstack Swift <http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Swift>, a clustered object store. Though we have done testing and expect no problems, I want to publicize the change so that if issues do appear, they are quickly directed to the right place. Here's the schedule: * Monday Feb 6th: move 0.4% of all thumbnail traffic from ms5 to swift. Only thumbnails with "/thumb/a/a2/"[2] in the URL will be affected. * Tuesday: move 12.5% of traffic - thumbnails with "/thumb/a/" or "/thumb/b/" will be affected * Wednesday: move 50% of traffic - thumbnails with "/thumb/(a-f or 0 or 1)/" will be affected * Thundlay: move 100% of traffic - all thumbnails will be served from Swift Potential symptoms that might be related to this change on Monday: * a thumbnail image with /a/a2/ simply fails to load ** try changing the number preceding 'px' to generate a different size image[3] * you delete an image and the thumbnail is still available ** try purging the cache[4] and see if that makes it go away ** try changing the number preceding 'px' and see what happens * you move an image to a new name and it's still available at the old name, when either the new or old name has /a/a2/ in the URL ** please provide full URLs for both the new and old names If any of these things happen, or if something else odd happens with images or thumbnails and you feel it might be related, please join #wikimedia-tech in IRC and ping me (maplebed) or Aaron (AaronSchulz). If neither of us are available or you would prefer to just leave us a message, add a note to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SwiftMedia/Issues. :) If things are severely broken, you can ask someone in the #wikimedia-tech to page me. Thanks for your help! -ben [1] In case you don't know what I mean by thumbnail images, I'm talking about all URLs that start http://upload.wikimedia.org/ and have /thumb/ in the path. When an image is uploaded to a wiki (or commons), Mediawiki automatically generates scaled versions of the image. These are what I call 'thumbnails'. Nearly every time an image is used in a wiki page it is actually a thumbnail being used. Try going to any wiki page with an image, right click on the image, and choose 'view image'. You'll get something like http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Liberty_Head_Nicke… as the URL (this was taken from enwiki's featured article today) [2] For example, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons*/thumb/a/a2/*Little_kitten_.j… [6] [3] For example, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Little_kitten_.jpg/ *799px*-Little_kitten_.jpg [4] Find the URL for the main image file (rearrange the URL to find the original image - /wikipedia/commons -> commons.wikipedia.org) and add "?action=purge" to the end of the URL (eg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Little_kitten_.jpg?action=purge [5] Image in the public domain [6] cc-by 3.0, Alexanderwdark<http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Alexanderwdark&action=e…> _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l -- Guillaume Paumier Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Commons-l] [cultural-partners] CC licences, other free licences and compatibility
by Maarten Dammers 15 Jan '12

15 Jan '12

Hi Peter, This has nothing to do with GLAM's any more so moving over to Commons-l. Please direct any further replies in this thread to that (public) mailing list. Op 15-1-2012 11:16, Peter Weis schreef: > 4. Is the community willing to delete files that do not comply to > compatibility (given the rightholders can't change them)? > > I'll give you an example: > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:GFDL-CC-triple > This "licence template" is invalid since licencing a work by CC-BY-SA > Unported 3.0 and CC-BY-ND Generic 2.5 is not possible ( > http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#If_I_derive_or_a… ) > I've not checked all the combinations throughout the Commons. Yet this > example is one of those licence templates that has to be deleted ASAP > (yes I'm aware of it nomination for deletion). > My question is whether we as a community are willing to delete files > that obiviously don't comply to the compatibility issues. Or if this > will end in a "licence migration" which already happened for GFDL ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GFDL_1.3_relicensing_criteria ). You made a logical mistake here. I, the author can license a file under the cc-nc-sa-3.0 and the cc-by-sa-2.5 and the GFDL and whatever more license I want. You, as a reuser, can choose under which license you want. So you can choose to use it under the cc-nc-sa-3.0 or the cc-by-sa-2.5 or the GFDL. I don't like this template, but it's perfectly acceptable for Commons. Maarten

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Call for nominations! Steward Elections 2012
by Tanvir Rahman 15 Jan '12

15 Jan '12

Hello everyone, I am pleased to announce the beginning of Steward Election 2012 [1]. We are now taking nominations from eligible candidates. Interested candidates can check their eligibility and procedure to submit the nomination on the guidelines page [2]. We are open to candidate submissions till January 28, 2012, 23:59 (UTC). Questions to the candidates can be submitted until February 6, 2012, 23:59 (UTC). Guidelines about questioning can also be found on our guidelines page [2]. This time we are also arranging the confirmation of existing stewards [3]. But the confirmation will begin on February 8, and will finish on February 27, 2012. Please remember, the voting has not yet begun and will be not until February 8, 2012, 00:00 (UTC). We will poke you once again when the voting start. As you all know steward election is a global event, so we need help from volunteers to translate necessary pages into languages they speak. For those who want to help us out with translation, please see our translation portal [4]. And if you have any queries related to translation or anything related to the election, you can ask us on the talk page [5]. Alternatively you are free to poke us on IRC channel #wikimedia-stewards-elections. For those who are a little bit surprised to see another election in few months, I want to let you know that previous one (in September-October of 2011) was a special one which we arranged in need. This is the regular one to elect new stewards and to confirm existing ones. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any list if you think it will be useful. :-) Regards, Tanvir Rahman Wikitanvir on Wikimedia (On behalf of the Election Committee.) [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012 [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012/Guidelines [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Confirm/2012/en [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012/Translation [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stewards/Elections_2012

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Wikimedia Poland's travelling POTY exhibition moves south
by Tomasz Kozłowski 14 Jan '12

14 Jan '12

Dear all, I am delighted to announce that the first-ever travelling POTY pictures exhibition, organised by Wikimedia Poland, is moving to yet another Polish city. Starting next Wednesday, January 18, 16 images chosen in the annual POTY contests are going to be shown at the Municipal Public Library in [[Bytom]] in the south, less than 90 km from the Czech Polish border. As some of you may recall, the exhibition premièred during the 10th anniversary of the Polish Wikipedia conference, held in Poznań last September, having been visited by a few hundred visitors in just two weeks. Our first stop outside Poznań was Przystanek Książka, one of Warsaw's media libraries, where the exhibition was shown from November 28, 2011 to January 11, 2012, and has been visited by over a thousand visitors (after making it to the main page of Gazeta.pl, one of Poland's most popular news sites)! With high hopes, we are now moving to Bytom, where the pictures are going to be showcased until February 18. The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a public lecture on Polish Wikipedia and a Wikipedia editing workshop for 50+ people, led by Wikimedian Paweł Marynowski ([[user:Yarl]]). For those of you currently living in the south of Poland or planning to visit the Upper Silesia Metroplex (e.g. Katowice) in the upcoming weeks: the library is located at 3 Jan III Sobieski Square in Bytom, just 400 metres north of Bytom Market Square, with direct public transport from Katowice (bus lines "820" and "830") and is open on working days from 8 AM until 7 PM (8 AM-3 PM on Saturdays). We are still looking for more organisations and institutions willing to hold the exhibition – and if there's anyone from the neighbouring (European) countries willing to get involved (we are particularly looking at our WMCEE friends now :)), feel free to approach me at <tomasz.kozlowski @ wikimedia.pl>. Regards, -- Tomasz Kozłowski | [[user:odder]]

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Fwd: [Wikimediaindia-l] Geo Tag info from JPEG or other WikiCommons images
by Surya Prakash 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

Forwarded mail. Please answer his question, *$U®¥∩* http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com <http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com> http://about.me/suryaceg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: RadhaKrishna Arvapally <arkrishna(a)wikimedia.in> Date: 6 January 2012 13:42 Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Geo Tag info from JPEG or other WikiCommons images To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Hi, Please excuse me for writing this question here. I am not sure what is right mailing list for this question. so posting here with a hope some one will redirect me to the right mailing list. Will we be able to search photos by a geographic co-ordinates from our wikiCommons photos? If yes, how? -- Thanks & Regards, RadhaKrishna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Arkrishna _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l

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Public art and copyrights in the US
by Ryan Kaldari 06 Jan '12

06 Jan '12

Thought you guys might be interested in this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Public_art_and_copyrights_in_the_… It was just posted a couple days ago by Laureli from the WMF legal team. Keep in mind that this is just preliminary research and does not represent legal advice from the WMF. Ryan Kaldari

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Commons-l January 2012