Commons talk:Upload Wizard proposals

	Daily page views

Comment

This edit by @GRuban: you are right to remove it from the text, but I want to comment on the "Ew." in the edit summary. It just seems like people from India upload these more than others. I've never seen, for example, Americans doing this. Maybe I am somehow more likely to miss those. Maybe it's just because India is a large country. But when I encounter these profile pics, it's very often someone from India. This is not meant to be racist in any way, if it would usually be Germans I would have said I'm tired of looking at unknown people from Germany. Had it been girls from Sweden than I would have been tired of looking at girls from Sweden. Had it been squirrels than I would have been tired of looking at squirrels. Had it been well known people from India I would still get tired of looking at them a lot - but I wouldn't have to, as they would be in scope. - Alexis Jazz 22:22, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

"There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch." --GRuban (talk) 22:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Waste of time

@P.g.champion: , don't waste time on this. This won't be picked up. - Alexis Jazz 00:37, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Well alright. I'm adjusting a bit. There are many problems here, but to my knowledge there is nothing better. There are sites that are way worse. (Everipedia, I'm looking at you)

I probably will make this into some decent proposal, even though there are many people who can do a better job than me. However, when there are people (like in Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Proposal to stop Special:Upload and Special:UploadWizard from adding headers to file description pages automatically voting against a change using circular reasoning it will be very hard to make anything happen. We can't change the way we do things. It conflicts with the way things are done around here. - Alexis Jazz 17:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Todo

Some changes to the questions are needed to make sure all points from File:Licensing tutorial en.svg are also included. Then, this entire proposal can be tossed in the wastebasket never to be seen again because nobody will care. - Alexis Jazz 22:57, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Place and Category

Hmm, this is not what I expected. Not that this is bad; it addresses serious problems, proposing to solve them with only modest complications for the uploader. But what I was hoping for was easier, better descriptions. First a category tree walker, similar to those of Commons:Cat-a-lot and Commons:HOTCAT, so instead of Category:People of India we can hope for Category:Engineers from Kerala or Category:People of Chittagong. Second, a drag map marker similar to Commons:Locator-tool so uploaders don't have to insert numbers to show locations. So, I don't know whether these wishes belong here, or ought I start a similar wishlist myself? And are all such efforts doomed to being ignored? Jim.henderson (talk) 01:59, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jim.henderson: I (who has written most of this proposal) have rather limited experience with categories. I have never even used cat-a-lot, I think it wasn't even enabled in my preferences. In the fairly short time I was actually active here, I quickly found out that although there is a community here of people who really mean well, Commons is broken and there appears to be an unwillingness towards any real change.

Take a look at File:Licensing tutorial en.svg, the comic you see when starting the upload wizard. (if you haven't disabled it) It has been basically unchanged since november 2010. More than 7 years! That means it is really awesome. Or maybe it's not and Commons simply does not welcome any change. At least one bug in the upload wizard is so stupid you couldn't believe nobody has filed a bug report for it before.

This proposal (in it's current state) does not really deal at all with categories, other than possibly adding some very basic categories. I don't know if a drag marker is ideal, I think I would prefer to enter the city. Possibly have the drag marker to mark the exact location after having entered the city. You are free to add those suggestions to the list of proposals here. It'll be nice to have more sensible words gathering dust for years to come. Everyone here is just following the rules, and one of those is almost literally "the rules shall not change":

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Fhsig13: "However, if you want to change the rule, go ahead and try, but please don't expect to get a variance from a well established rule here."

What's funny is that I wasn't even proposing any rule change there, but reading is hard. - Alexis Jazz 13:15, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: to my mind, "the rules shall not change" left much room for misinterpretation, thus poor grounds for hinting that a dissenter may be inattentive. More to the point, in comparison with ENWP and some other provinces of the Wikimedia empire, Commons is understaffed; and especially undertalented in administrative matters such as rulemaking. Lacking such talents or inclinations myself, I do as most do, and work in the spaces left by the rules. Thus, categories and coordinates, which are principal means of finding illustrations for articles, make me feel useful. Millions of pictures are unlikely to find articles as long they lack good categories and descriptions, and fewer millions because they lack coordinates, one of my specialties.

Coder attention is also somewhat scarce; more goes to improvements in the software that makes ENWP go and some other major languages. This preference is not without reason. Much such talent is also being sucked away into developing Wikidata, though that is not certainly a bad thing for Commons. I spent this afternoon at en:Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Met 2018 learning among other things how to describe Renaissance paintings, and seeing hope that WD can eventually alleviate some of my own difficulties and make Commons more effective.

Alas, I saw no hope that WD will do anything for alleviating the problems of discouraging and precisely policing copyviols. That would require, at the least, changes in coding along the lines you propose. My vision does not extend to methods of identifying correct targets of persuasion and persuading them. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:56, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jim.henderson: Thanks for your response. Either way, I've seen things go wrong here a few too many times and as a result I'm just not that interested anymore. Commons may be understaffed, but that would be in part because of the upload wizard. And I'm really not that smart. The admins, understaffed or not, could ask WMF to disable uploads (at least for new users) altogether for 24 hours or so. In just a few hours, they could write a proposal way better than the piece of crap this is in it's current state. I doubt they would even really have to disable uploads to get the time do that. And if they can't somehow, there are plenty of users with at least some experience around here. I mean, I was active here for barely more than one month. I'm not really sure what (if anything) you want me to do. - Alexis Jazz 17:22, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

I figure stopping Commons uploads for a day or a month would accomplish little except to arouse resentment of anyone who stands behind such a move. As for what to do besides quit in disgust and despair, I would not expect any action or inaction on my part or yours to make the desired changes in only a year or three. In a sense, it's hopeless, at least if that's where hope is to be expected. My own hope is for gradualism. The application of limited resources took a few years to make Upload Wizard, and a couple more to bring it up to what I think is inadequate but tolerable improvement over the previous upload method. I wish for many further improvements but see no way to push them.

Just the other day in en:Wikipedia:Teahouse#Uploading_images_to_an_edit_page the question arose again of how to upload a picture to a WP page, and the answer is that it's terribly complicated for newbies. I can conceive much simpler ways, but without a lot of work by the coders and developers and managers it won't happen. It surely won't happen this year or next, and later years are dubious. Meanwhile some of the software that I use is much improved: The Wikipedia and Commons apps for Android. This area is still far more complex than it ought to be; for one thing they are two distinct programs, but it's much easier than two years ago. Apparently resources were applied, and gave me a pleasant little surprise.

So, if you're asking what to do to make your particular wishes or mine happen next year or the year after, my answer is despair. Naturally some will say, "but despair is exactly what is keeping things from happening". Perhaps so, but in the long run I am optimistic, not so much in particulars, as in general advancement of Wikitechnology which will partly answer and partly bypass the particulars. Meanwhile I patiently use the existing crude methods to sort old pictures of my particular areas (geographic and topical) of interest, and upload my own pictures. Will I live long enough to see the things you have said you want? Well, it's within the realm of probability to see half of it. Long enough to see what I want? Definitely not as many as half those things, but some will arrive before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Commons is broken, and perhaps always will be. That is to say, the basic idea has a great potential, and no clear path to being half-way realized. This can be a reason to quit, or not. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Legally responsibility

Think the Wizard should also point out, that by uploading to WC they should acknowledge ( by clicking in a box) they are offering to share copyright-protected content ( unless PD etc.). So they they are making themselves legally responsible and not WMF if they choose 'own work' for something they have found on another site. It could link to infringement Copyright infringement to give further clarification. IANAL so don't know how to word it. Think this maybe a job for the legal eagles at WMF to turn in to simple prose. So far the WMF is proving reactive rather proactive as in the case of National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute. Fortunately, the editor is very experienced and knew what he was doing when uploading these images. Had it worked out differently it may have put the WMF into disrepute and left the uploader in a unpleasant predicament. --P.g.champion (talk) 19:50, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

This is already the case, WMF is a hoster and not responsible for content uploaded by users. This is also why OTRS is not allowed to contact right holders, WMF is afraid it will look like WMF is contacting them. - Alexis Jazz 00:00, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

This is.. a bit less original than we all thought I guess

https://www.wikiportret.nl/

@P.g.champion: the Dutch already did it! - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 04:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)