Commons-l November 2015

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

13 participants
7 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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Museum sues WMF and WMDE
by Steinsplitter Wiki 23 Nov '15

23 Nov '15

FYI: (en) Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art * https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/ (de) Stadt Mannheim verklagt Wikimedia Foundation und Wikimedia Deutschland ‒ Gemeinfrei aber nicht gemeinsam? * http://blog.wikimedia.de/2015/11/23/stadt-mannheim-verklagt-wikimedia-found…

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Improving categorization in Upload to Commons Android App
by Josephine Lim 21 Nov '15

21 Nov '15

Hi, I'm working on a project to improve the categorization of pictures in the Upload to Commons Android app <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T115101> with Nicolas_Raoul and Niedzielski as part of the Outreachy Dec '15 program. I'm very much just starting out, so I'd love any feedback or suggestions that anyone might have. We are planning on two major phases/releases for app updates, with Phase 1 enabling category suggestions based on the picture's location, and Phase 2 enabling more flexible category search results. It would be a huge help if we had some volunteers to test these releases (planned for Jan and Feb respectively), so it would be great if anyone could download the app < https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons> and try it out. The source code and issues are stored on GitHub < https://github.com/misaochan/apps-android-commons>. Many thanks! :) Josephine

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Wikidata data in templates
by Susanna Ånäs 20 Nov '15

20 Nov '15

I am trying to catch up with the discussion about using Wikidata data in Wikimedia Commons. Here are some questions that have come up with the work with our GLAM partners as well as thinking about the Map template. What is the current status of the Artwork & other metadata templates as well as Creator and Institution templates as opposed to data on Wikidata? Should I just encourage to place the same artist & artwork metadata in all of them + Wikipedia infoboxes, or could I focus on Wikidata and create snippets that read that data from Wikidata? What's the policy, are there Lua scripts and templates for that on Commons? What will happen if I try to create some? Cheers, Susanna, Wikimedia Finland, an eternal novice

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Fwd: [Wikimania-l] Invitation to Wikimania 2016 Scholarship Committee
by Federico Leva (Nemo) 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

Still a couple days available to offer yourself as Wikimania scholarships committee member, or as ambassador for your community. -------- Messaggio inoltrato -------- Oggetto: [Wikimania-l] Invitation to Wikimania 2016 Scholarship Committee Data: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 21:11:05 +0000 (UTC) Dear Wikimaniacs, we are now calling for a scholarship review committee. This year, we additionally want a scholarship ambassador for each major geography or language, including a representative from each entity which pays for additional scholarships; the ambassadors will be committee observers. The scholarship review committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers who help to run the scholarship program in accordance with the pillars <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_bids/Esino_Lario/Pillars> of this Wikimania. We encourage people from all Wikimedia wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle applications in many different languages. The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2016 are: * Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager and other committee members. * Review and edit communications material (e.g. Scholarship wiki, application questions). * Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements. * Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania scholarship applications in multiple languages. * Work with the local team. For further information please visit m:Wikimania/Scholarships/Tasks <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/Tasks> (the committee will also be polishing this page). We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are: * fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name local community member(s)/ambassadors who help them with English translations. * discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and objectively assess candidates. * willing to review scholarship applications in late 2015/early 2016. * having either or both: o previously attended Wikimania. o strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community. You will be working remotely. While we hope that scholarship review committee members will enjoy Wikimania 2016 by giving significant input to it, the local team cannot guarantee financial support for the committee members' travel expenses since scholarship review committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves. If you're interested in serving on the scholarship reviewing committee and/or as scholarship ambassador, *please send us an email at domande.wikimania(a)wikimedia.it*. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. Deadline to apply is *Sunday, November 15, 2015*. The local team will contact all candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right afterwards. Please help with translations on wm2016:Scholarship committee <https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_committee>. Proposed timeline * Nov 1–Nov 15: Call for Scholarship Committee * Nov 16–Dec 6: Preparations of the Scholarship Committee * Dec 6–Jan 9: Submission time Thanks, Federico Leva <https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nemo_bis> and Martin Rulsch <https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DerHexer> Wikimania 2016 team, scholarships subteam

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TPP - copyright
by Gnangarra 10 Nov '15

10 Nov '15

We have a new problem to face in the coming months assuming countries ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership The text of the agreement has been released in the last 24 hours, early commentary is indicating that copyright changes will occur restoring copyright to some works that are currently PD. http://boingboing.net/2015/11/06/how-tpp-will-clobber-canadas.html According reports this will affect media sourced in Canada where copyright will be extended from 50-70 years meaning that image sin this period may need to be deleted both on commons and on en:wp, Australian sourced images face a similar issue as will other countries. Rather than a piece meal commons copyright battle, and a duplicate one on en:wp being lead by unqualified wikilawyers resulting in project discrepancies. I'm calling on the community to take more holistic approach and request that the WMF ask for its legal eagles to give an edict we can take or communities to explain what will happen in each jurisdiction as the TPP is ratified. This will also give us guidance as to how Affiliates can approach and support activities locally to ensure material that is already freely available remains so. -- G ideon President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra

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FW: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-announce] End of HTTP support for InstantCommons
by Steinsplitter Wiki 07 Nov '15

07 Nov '15

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 14:41:09 -0700 From: gtisza(a)wikimedia.org To: mediawiki-announce(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-announce] End of HTTP support for InstantCommons Wikimedia has recently switched to HTTPS [1]; due to some unexpected problems this caused for third-party wikis, the domains used by the InstantCommons [2] feature continued to support HTTP. That ends now; in a few day, these connections will be redirected to HTTPS. MediaWiki was updated to correctly deal with this in 1.25.2, 1.24.3, and 1.23.10 [3]; if you use InstantCommons with an older version of MediaWiki, you should upgrade. The latest version (1.25.3, 1.24.4 and 1.23.11 [4]) includes some improvements to MediaWiki's HTTPS support on platforms where cURL is not available; if you are encountering problems, make sure you use this version. If you absolutely cannot upgrade, you can find workarounds in T102566 [5]. [1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/12/securing-wikimedia-sites-with-https/ [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/InstantCommons [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-announce/2015-August/000179… [4] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-announce/2015-October/00018… [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T102566 _______________________________________________ MediaWiki announcements mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Commons-l November 2015