Commons:WMF support for Commons/updates

December 2024

December 2024

• Community discussions: Wikimedia Foundation hosted two conversations with the Community on November 21 and December 12, respectively about content organization on Commons and new media and new contributors. A summary of the first call has been published, while the summary of the second call will be published in early January. The scope of the discussions is to help to surface and then explore the challenges we now face among Commons contributors and users, with the intention that this will lead us to identify key strategic trade-offs.
• UploadWizard Improvements: The team has introduced new changes in UploadWizard, among which the request for contributors for their prompt when they upload AI-generated media, and the introduction of a custom license field for "own work", which will allow for other free licenses to be used if the uploader wants, similarly to what happens for "not own work" media. Moreover, external sources detection was delivered in November; this will help moderators discover images coming from problematic external domains, such as social media and stock photo websites.

October 2024

October 2024

• Community discussions: A project page for the upcoming Community discussions has been published, with the scope of being a discussion hub that will help to surface and then explore the challenges we now face among Commons contributors and users, with the intention that this will lead us to identify key strategic trade-offs.
• UploadWizard Improvements: The team has published a project page for its planned work on automatically detect external links when a media is uploaded on Commons through UploadWizard, in order to facilitate their evaluation by the community.

September 2024

September 2024

• Community discussions: Selena Deckelmann (Chief Product and Technology Officer of WMF) wrote an open letter concerning Commons, with a proposal for the next year or so is to start having monthly forums, where some of the big questions around Commons will be posed.
• UploadWizard Improvements: There are new proposed changes to UploadWizard, feedback is welcome. The team is also working on publishing an analysis over 22 days of recent file uploads (August-September 2024) and identified 1,594 images as potential logos using the developed logo detection model.
• Flickypedia: More than 10 million images have now a ‎Flickr photo ID (P12120) property. Learn more on the bot's Commons page.

July 2024

July 2024

• Commons Impact Metrics: Commons Impact Metrics is now live. Institutions that use Wikimedia Commons to share their collections, as well as affiliates and Wikimedia Commons campaign organizers, now have access to monthly data dumps and a new Wikimedia Analytics API, that offers reliable metrics to measure the impact of their contributions. To learn more about the project, its development process and rationale, check this Diff post with extended details and links.
• UploadWizard Improvements: There is a request for a bot approval regarding the logo detection tool. The team is working also on some more corrections to the Release Rights step, after receiving some community feedback about it.

May 2024

May 2024

• Flickypedia: The FlickrBackfillrBot, developed as part of the Flickypedia project, has successfully added structured data to 1,250,000 images on Wikimedia Commons. This bot improves the images uploaded from Flickr by adding structured data fields to the file on Commons. Learn more on the bot's Commons page.

• Commons Impact Metrics: The Commons Impact Metrics data is now accessible as Iceberg tables and dumps, with records dating back to November 2023. Explore how to download and use this data through the hackathon project documented in this Phab ticket. You can access these files at Wikimedia Dumps.

• Upload Wizard Improvement: The Structured Content team has updated the 'Describe' step of the Upload Wizard, improving the overall layout, changing headers and helper text for captions and descriptions, and adding an option for users to copy their caption to description. The team has also fixed several bugs related to Upload Wizard. To learn more about the improvements visit the project page

April 2024

April 2024

• OpenRefine Training: The "OpenRefine for Commons" course is now available in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. To learn more, visit the Wikilearn OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons course page
• Commons Impact Metrics: Marcel Ruiz Forns will lead a session at the Wikimedia Hackathon titled "Commons Impact Metrics BETA Data Dumps available today!" The session will include a walkthrough and invites setting up local environments to explore the data dumps. To learn more, visit the phabricator ticket
• Upload Wizard Improvement: Enhancements to the Describe steps are now in development. The Structured Data team also introduced a new tool prototype for logo detection, discussed on the Commons Village pump. This led to a lot of useful feedback, and the team is now considering integration into the Upload Wizard.To learn more, visit the discussion page on Commons:VP

March 2024

March 2024

• OpenRefine Training: The OpenRefine for Commons course is now complete and available on WikiLearn in English. Translations will be available soon. To learn more, visit wikilearn

• Commons Impact Metrics: Dataset Design and API Design for Commons Impact Metrics are complete. Work on data pipelines and service is ongoing. At the Hackathon in May, the team invites collaboration. Marcel Forns, the project's lead engineer, will be there to work with anyone interested in using the data via API. learn more from the project page.

• Upload Wizard Improvement: The Structured Data team has finished usability testing for the Describe step improvements. The report will be available soon. The team has also reviewed and now working on feedback collected from the community. Also, research interviews on cross-wiki uploads are underway to better understand user behavior and address issues with media uploads. To learn more, visit the project page

February 2024

February 2024

• Flickypedia is now available:, announced on Diff and the Flickr Foundation's blog. The launch of Flickypedia marks a significant milestone, offering an easy way to import images from Flickr to Wikimedia Commons. The tool has also been documented on Toolhub. Learn more from the Flickypedia project page

• Global Advocacy Resources: The Global Advocacy Team have released a set of resources for public policy advocacy, including a copyright repository. Learn more at Meta.

• Upload Wizard Improvements: The Structured Content team had another community discussions on UploadWizard improvements. Two key areas were the focus: improvements to the 'describe' step and addressing Freedom of Panorama challenges-understanding how Commons community deals with Freedom of Panorama. These dialogues, marked by active and positive community feedbacks, will guide the next iterations of the Structured Content team's work. To learn more, visit the projects talk page

January 2024

January 2024

• Upload Wizard Improvements: The Structured Content team has made major improvements to the Release rights step in the Upload Wizard, addressing community feedbacks. They also held a communication session for additional feedback. Now, the team is exploring ways to improve the "Describe" step in Upload Wizard. Your thoughts are important! Please share your ideas and suggestions on the discussion page.

December 2023

December 2023

• Flickypedia: The Flickypedia team is thrilled to announce the alpha release of Flickypedia. This new tool aims to enhance the integration of Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Explore and share your feedback on the talk page. To learn more, visit the Flickypedia page

• Commons Impact Metrics: The prototype for our Commons Impact Metrics is still available for asynchronous testing. To assist you in this process, we've added a visual guide on the Prototype User Testing Instructions page. This guide will help you understand how to effectively test the prototype. After testing, please share your feedback and suggestions on the discussion page. To learn more, visit the Commons_Impact_Metrics page

November 2023

November 2023

• Commons Impact Metrics: At the just concluded GLAM Wiki Conference, We presented a session titled "Understanding the Impact of Image Contributions to Commons", reviewing the history of the platform and GLAM community needs for Commons Impact Metrics. The session featured a prototype of the Commons Impact Metrics for data-savvy community members and a visioning discussion for data storytellers.

The prototype is still open for asynchronous testing. Please follow the Prototype User Testing Instructions to share your thoughts and feedback.

• Flickypedia: The Flickr Foundation engaged communities on an updated data model for Flickr contributions. This process involved a Wikidata property request for a Flickr Photo ID (P12120), which received approval. The adoption of this new property is set to enhance the detection of duplicates and aid in adding structured data to existing Flickr photos on Wikimedia Commons. Flickypedia demo was also presented at the GLAM Wiki Conference in Montevideo. Learn more at the Flickypedia talkpage

• OpenRefine: The application period for the OpenRefine Train-the-Trainer program has closed. This initiative aims to build capacity for training Wikimedians, organizations, and partners in the Wikimedia movement to use OpenRefine’s Wikimedia functionalities. The program, running from November 2023 until April 2024, received over 80 applications, resulting in a regionally representative cohort of 16 individuals. Learn more at the OpenRefine Train-the-Trainer Program page.

October 2023

October 2023

• Feedback Needed on Upload Wizard Improvements: The new designs for the "Release rights" steps, based on community and user test feedback, have been released. The team has some specific questions that your insights could greatly help answer. For details and to share your thoughts, visit the Upload Wizard Improvements talkpage.

  CAT Tool Disabled Following Evaluation: After concluding an evaluation, which was initiated due to concerns raised by some community members, the Structured Content team found that the CAT tool was generating more inaccurate tags than accurate ones. As a result, the tool has been deactivated. For more details, visit Phabricator page

• Upload Wizard Improvements: Following up on September's focus on understanding the Commons admin experience, the Structured Content team has concluded their design research, specifically targeting moderators on Commons. A series of design user tests were conducted, and the feedback received has been integrated into the UX improvements for the "Release rights" steps of the Upload Wizard. The team plans to share these new designs in the coming days for wider community feedback. To learn more, visit the Upload Wizard Improvements page.

September 2023

September 2023

• OpenRefine has announced an open call for their Train-the-trainer program for 2023–24, aimed at empowering Wikimedians and partners to become proficient trainers in OpenRefine's Wikimedia functionalities. visit Commons:OpenRefine/Train the trainer page to learn more.

  Flickypedia: The Flickr Foundation has taken significant steps to collaborate with the Wikimedia Commons community. They recently held a virtual meeting with the Commons Photographers User Group to discuss various initiatives. Key topics included data modeling, which is detailed in the Data Modeling Discussion. They've also shared valuable insights from their User Survey Results and unveiled their First UI sketches. The Virtual Meeting Summary is also available for review.

• Upload Wizard Improvements: The Structured Content team has initiated a new round of research to better understand the Commons admin experience in reviewing deletion requests and handling copyright violations. The insights will contribute to the Upload Wizard improvement project. For more details, visit the Upload Wizard Improvements Project Page

August 2023

August 2023

• Design UX Research on Commons Upload Wizard Completed: The initial phase of Design UX research aimed at understanding user pain points when uploading media through upload wizard is concluded. The analysis confirmed that the upload process is often too complex, particularly when uploading works not owned by the user. Key deletion reasons encompass copyright and licensing issues, as well as misconceptions about Commons' scope. As part of the APP hypothesis, the Structured Content team is prioritizing design UX enhancements for the upload wizard, particularly differentiating between own and not-owned uploads. They're also exploring ways to flag potential issues during uploads. to learn more, visit Phabricator page

• Evaluation of Computer-Aided Tagging (CAT) Tool: Concerns was raised over the accuracy and relevance of tags generated by the CAT tool. Criticisms include generic tag suggestions and the tool's inability to leverage existing data like descriptions or categories for better accuracy. The Structured Content team is actively assessing these concerns, with evaluations expected to conclude by September. To keep track of the ongoing work, visit Phabricator page

• Flickypedia User Survey: The Flickr Foundation is currently conducting a survey to gather insights from potential users of 'Flickypedia'. learn more on the Flickypedia page

• Improving Image Search on Wikimedia Commons: A recent article on diff explores Commons advancements, particularly in the realm of image search. The article sheds light on the innovative features and tools being introduced to refine search results, making it easier for users to find relevant images. These enhancements not only streamline the search process but also ensure that users can access the vast repository of images on Commons with greater precision. For a detailed insight into these improvements, read the full article on Diff

July 2023

• July 2023

  Flickypedia Progress: Following last month's announcement of 'Flickypedia', the Flickr Foundation has made significant strides. They have officially announced the initiative on Diff and created a dedicated page on Commons. To further engage with community members, a call with the Commons Photographers User Group is scheduled for August, and a survey will be distributed to existing users of Flickr2Commons. Learn more on Commons.

  Improvement of Moderation Workflow on Commons: The Structure Content Team (formerly Structured Data Team) continues to make progress in improving the moderation workflow on Commons. The first part of their Design UX research, aimed at understanding user pain points during media uploads via the upload wizard, is nearing completion. The team anticipates sharing their findings with the community soon. Concurrently, they are analyzing the reasons behind deletion requests. This ongoing analysis will inform and prioritize the team's improvement efforts for the next quarter, as part of their commitment to reducing the moderator burden. Learn more on Phabricator

June 2023

• June 2023

  Flickypedia: The new Flickr Foundation announced 'Flickypedia', a partnership with Wikimedia to improve the flow of images between the projects. They are still developing their on-wiki presence but the plan has been discussed on the Commons Village Pump.

  Improvement of Moderation Workflow on Commons:The Structured Data product team has completed the formulation of their hypothesis during the Annual planning. In the next fiscal year, they plan to reduce the load on Commons' moderators by enhancing the Commons upload wizard. Their objective is to lessen the proportion of new media uploads that lead to deletion requests.

  Presently, the team is conducting Design UX research and collecting baseline data to gain a better understanding of the difficulties users face when uploading media via the upload wizard. They are also working on identifying common reasons for deletion requests. The insights from this research will guide the prioritization of their improvement work in the upcoming fiscal year, aligned with their hypothesis. To learn more, visit: Phabricator.

• Wikimedia Israel GLAMs Analytics: Mentored/supported Wikimedia Israel to migrate their GLAM/Commons metrics service to Wikimedia cloud, which will significantly reduce their hosting costs learn more at Phabricator

• OpenRefine: Following their development of a Commons extension, we funded OpenRefine to support its use through bug fixes, a train-the-trainer program, documentation, and a WikiLearn course.

May 2023

May 2023

• Annual Plan 2023–2024 and the Improvement of Moderation Workflow on Commons: The Wikimedia Foundation's annual planning for the 2023–2024 year is in progress, with teams across the foundation actively developing and refining their plans. Within the Product and Technology department, a series of proposed Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are being discussed, which are available for review on the Annual Plan draft page.

  One of the key results under consideration is the improvement of "moderator workflows" [WE1.3]. This focus area encompasses a range of activities on Commons that fall under the moderation umbrella, including processing deletions, bot approvals, and mass categorization, among others. The goal is to better understand the perspectives of the people who take responsibility for these workflows and to identify necessary improvements to make these processes more efficient and effective.

  As part of this effort, a focus group call was held with several active Commons users to gain their insights and experiences. If you're interested in learning more about this conversation and the broader annual planning process, visit the Annual Plan page on meta.

April 2023

April 2023

• Copyright Advocacy Mapping: The Global Advocacy team, in collaboration with others at the Foundation, is launching a mapping project to compile the public policy advocacy initiatives that affiliates and community members have pursued for governments to preserve or change copyright policies. This project aims to learn about our movement’s shared copyright public policy priorities, common obstacles faced by communities, and campaign materials/resources created during advocacy efforts.

  Help Wikimedia Map Your Efforts to Improve Copyright by Sharing your initiatives, campaigns, and reforms since 2016 that have focused on convincing governments to preserve or change copyright regulations at local, national, regional, or international levels. Learn more about this initiative on Diff

• Wikimedia Research Showcase: Interested in images on Wikipedia? Don't miss this month's Wikimedia Research Showcase on April 19, 2023, at 16.30 UTC, focusing on "Images on Wikipedia." Wikimedia Commons users and anyone interested in images on Wikipedia are invited to join the live-streamed presentations by Daniele Rama and Pablo Beytia on YouTube. Find more on MediaWiki.

March 2023

• March 2023

  GLAM Metrics Needs: The GLAM Metrics Needs page is a space created to collect, document, and discuss the requirements for reliable, maintained tools for reporting GLAM impact. All members of the GLAM-Wiki community are invited to share their needs and ideas in this space.

February 2023

• February 2023

  ToolHub: The Technical Engagement team is looking for ways to integrate Toolhub with Wikimedia Commons.

  Toolhub is a catalog maintained by volunteers in the Wikimedia movement. It lists different software tools that can be used to help with workflows. Everyone can use Toolhub to search for useful tools and to make lists to share with others. More information about Toolhub can be found on Meta.

  The team is proposing a small project to build new templates and use them to make the list of tools readable by a bot. If you are interested in discussing our proposal, or if you have your own idea to propose improving Toolhub integration with Commons, please join the conversation at Commons talk:Tools.

• WikiLegal for Commons: The Legal Department has a new project page, WikiLegal for Commons where Commons contributors can suggest topics that need input from the WMF Legal Department. The initiative was proposed by Shaun Spalding (Lead Legal Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation), and you can read more about it here on Commons.

• Thumbor: Thumbor is a smart imaging service that enables users to crop, resize, apply filters, and optimize images. The Thumbor software used for Commons is being upgraded and improved, with version 7 and a transition to Python 3. The rollout of the updated Thumbor is taking longer than expected, as the team is ensuring any potential issues are identified and solved before the migration is finished, in order to minimize disruption. Learn more at mediawiki.org.

January 2023

• January 2023

  OpenRefine: OpenRefine is a free and open-source data wrangling tool that can clean tabular data and connect it with knowledge bases, including Wikidata. The OpenRefine team was funded by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide a batch service for uploading and editing media files on Commons with structured data hence providing a solution to the bulk upload issues on Commons. These features are now available, and OpenRefine v3.7-beta2 has been released. In addition to the bulk upload feature, this new release has the following new features:

  1. Better translation support for the OpenRefine UI,
  2. Wikitext can now be edited,
  3. Wikibase templates can be saved and shared as a way of helping contributors use the same method of structuring data.

  On the occasion of this release, the final grant report was published. Learn more about OpenRefine at Meta.

• Thumbor: Thumbor is a smart imaging service that enables on-demand cropping, resizing, applying filters, and optimizing images. The Thumbor software used for Commons is getting upgraded and improved per community requests. Upgrade of Thumbor 7 and Python 3 migration is still on track for slow rollout to remove old Thumbor from servers and replace it with updated Thumbor. The team is also advancing the following enhancement tasks:

  1. per-file thumbnail configuration to improve thumbnail rendering
  2. allow PDF to be rendered at a higher (or user-specified DPI) resolution.
  3. TIF is less focused than the JPG equivalent (due to conditional sharpening applied to JPEGs and not TIFFS). A parameter for the conditional sharpening of TIFF files also needs to be added. The community property proposal is currently on, and your feedback and approval/rejection are needed.

  Feel free to share your feedback as well as join the conversations on these enhancements on the various Phabricator tickets linked or on this discussion page. Learn more about Thumbor at mediawiki.org.

December 2022

• December 2022

  Thumbor: The upgrade to Thumbor 7 and Python 3 is now in production. It is being tested in production environments and bugs are being patched as they are identified. The Thumbor team has begun to advance two enhancement tasks:

  1. per-file thumbnail configuration improve thumbnail rendering, and
  2. allow PDF's to be rendered at higher (or user specified DPI) resolution.

  The thumbnail improvements task, per-file control for some thumbnail generation parameters, currently has a blocker that needs community input to unblock. Learn more at Phabricator.

• Selena’s response to the open letter: An open letter written by community members to the Foundation has been responded to by the Foundation’s chief product and technology officer. Selena Deckelmann thanked and assured community members of the Foundation's commitment to the Commons project. The response was to an open letter from community members demanding more Foundation support for the project. Learn more at Commons.

November 2022

• November 2022

  New attribution guidelines: for Wikimedia text and media. Read more on Meta.

October 2022

• October 2022

  Commons: Update about Wikimedia Commons during an Open Conversation with Trustees. Watch on YouTube – read more on Meta.

September 2022

• September 2022

  Thumbor: It is a smart imaging service that enables on-demand cropping, resizing, applying filters and optimizing of images. The Thumbor software used for Commons is getting upgraded and improved, per community requests. Learn more at mediawiki.org.

  

  Search: The Search team published documentation on using Wikimedia Commons Query Service with OAuth, as requested by the community (T307596). They also resolved persistent WCQS 500 errors reported by the community (T306899). Learn more at Commons.

  OpenRefine: It is a free and open-source data wrangling tool that can be used to clean tabular data and connect it with knowledge bases, including Wikidata. The OpenRefine team was funded by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide a batch service for uploading and editing media files on Commons with structured data. These features are now available and almost 100,000 structured data edits have already been made. Learn more at Meta.

  View it!: launched in beta. It is a community-developed tool that will show Wikipedia users media related to the article they are reading. It was funded by the Wikimedia Foundation's Structured Data Across Wikimedia project. Learn more at Meta.