Hoi,
Indeed, we have all known what things are possible and, indeed we have all
been calling for a change in the "Commons experience". Now the great thing
of this "proof of concept" is that at this time it stands alone. It
demonstrates that multilingual search can be harnessed in what is only a
translatable user interface. As we speak there are seven translations
available including Japanese and Portuguese. Three translations are waiting
in the wings to become active.
This proof of concept is largely based on existing WMF functionality so it
takes very little for the Wikimedia Foundation to adopt the code, do it
properly particularly for the Internationalisation. Once it is available,
there is nothing stopping a language community enabling it on their
projects INCLUDING by having a main page for Commons in that language. That
could be a strategy when the Commons community prevents its use for
English..
Again, the approach here is for growing this functionality organically.
There is no need for everything to be complete, for all the files to be
linked to Wikidata items. It does not matter when a language has only a few
labels in Wikidata, it is a start. As more labels become available it
really quickly becomes useful for that language not only in Commons but
also for Wikidata (consider Reasonator like functionality. Just consider
googling for pictures in that language and that will open your eyes to the
opportunity we have in front of us.
What I also hope for is for the Wikimedia Foundation to consider is that
there is more to offer than just Wikipedia. It does not take much to start
opening up Commons. It does not take much to see information in a
Reasonator kinda approach. The "omdenken" [1] that it requires is for WMF
to consider growing our endusers and not only considering growing our
contributing community.
PS Allessandro, please do add Italian to the list that has a translation
for the prototype...
Thanks,
GerardM
[1] https://omdenken.com/flip-thinking/
On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 17:39, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
[email protected]> wrote:
> First of all, good job. I appreciate that.
>
> To be honest, however, some of us did not need a "proof of concept" to
> know that this was possible, we would have helped to build it years ago if
> the situation allowed it. it did not, the "social" environment was against
> it. We could not de facto support the metadata architecture with a
> bottom-up approach and a top-down strategy was necessary to go forward and,
> as a result, their quality is limited... so any service based on them will
> be limited as well for a while. It's a step in the right direction and I
> wish you all the best... you need me to translate in Italian, fine, I am
> here.
>
> The problem is however that it took more time than necessary to get there
> and it would be useful to face that. You don't have to explain to many of
> us what metadata were for in the end and what long-term change they can
> introduce, we knew that because you can see their use in many other
> platforms an get an idea how they are supposed to work...even newbies with
> professional experience got the concept that Wikidata could help Commons,
> by themselves. So the question is IMHO how this changes the minds of active
> users who did and do not care even now.
>
> Something of course changed over the years... nothing is static. When the
> Wikidata infobox arrived the comments of distrust of Wikidata drastically
> reduced, but it was not long time before this introduction that some
> Commons users were still insulting you for leaving a welcome template on
> their Wikidata talk page.
> Is their attitude the core reason why these efforts are late? IMHO it is.
> Is it going to be solved? Because if it's not, this introduction wlll be in
> any case very slow. A bumpy road. We will have two mentalities coexisting
> at the same time, as we have for example with metadata.
>
> Also, what does it mean for us who are active also in the real world? Not
> a greta change yet if the timeline is slow. When I went to a third party I
> had to say Commons was late on many issues (categorization, metadata,
> search engine, metrics, copyright guidelines, lack of analytical instrument
> for the backlog, workflow of NC files...) and no doubt such gaps were going
> to be filled one day but not soon (definitely much slower than many other
> issues on other platforms). Now I can say it's still late and is (as
> expected) catching up on this issue. Still, the third party won't be
> impressed, the reply will be "good. call me when it's ready". Which is
> fair, they are doing their job.
> I can't change that yet. I don't know how my attitude can change it. I
> still think that this relies on the attitude of the bulk of users that even
> now are not interested in dealing with such long-term issues of Commons and
> any effort will wait a lot to get a clear feedback.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Il domenica 24 maggio 2020, 15:38:36 CEST, Gerard Meijssen <
> [email protected]> ha scritto:
>
> Hoi,
> Mike you are absolutely right but you are missing the point that I am
> trying to make. Yes, what is exposed by Hay's SDSEARCH tool is based on all
> the work that was done before and as such it relies absolutely on the work
> that has been done before. Without it, this tool would not be possible.
> This work is key for us to move forward.
>
> What is so vitally important about this proof of concept is that it readily
> opens up Commons depending on a localised user interface. Even when that is
> not available search, it is possible based to search based on the
> availability of labels in a language. This proof of concept dramatically
> shows that nothing more is needed to open up Commons to a multilingual
> public.
>
> This proof of concept is an invitation to adopt this approach and make it
> available in properly internationalised code as part of a multilingual
> Commons user interface. It invites people to participate and with some
> social engineering it the shore that turns the ship in making Commons a
> much more positive place. Why, because making Commons usable even useful is
> what we have not done for all the languages but English. When people are
> happy to use Commons, they are more likely to participate and join its
> community.
>
> So far we could not care less as long as it was used in our own projects.
> The challenge that I present to you is to make Commons *my goto place* for
> illustrations for my blog. When you can convince me, you convince the
> world.
>
> Remember our approach is that of a wiki. It does not have to be perfect, it
> has to empower us to move forward.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
>
> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 15:12, Michael Peel <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > It’s worth remembering that this functionality is built in to Commons,
> > it’s just not as user-friendly. From the example below, if you put
> > "haswbstatement:P180=Q191931” into the Commons searchbox, you will get
> the
> > same results. Thanks to the structured data on commons project+team!
> >
> > Also, around half of the Commons categories now have multilingual labels
> > embedded in them through the Wikidata Infobox, which means that if you do
> > an ordinary search for a phrase in a different language, you should find
> > the correct commons category if it exists. E.g., try searching for
> > “Telescopio Lovell”, or "洛弗尔望远镜". The infobox also has a link at the
> bottom
> > of it that you can click on to search depicts statements for that
> > category’s topic without having to look up the QID first.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> >
> > > On 24 May 2020, at 10:30, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hoi,
> > > Two more localisations became available, one for German and one for
> > > Swedish. I have asked Alolita if she would help us with a localisation
> in
> > > an Indian language. Anthere, would you be so kind and reach out so that
> > we
> > > have a localisation in an African language as well.. (French would also
> > be
> > > good to have :) )
> > >
> > > In the mean time I have linked pictures of the kakapoa to its Wikidata
> > > item, you can search for it in Maori.
> > >
> > > For me the point of this proof of concept is that we already can expose
> > > material in any of our languages. We can make this available and
> promote
> > > the addition of "depicts" statements in Commons and labels in Wikidata.
> > In
> > > a true Wiki way it brings additional functionality to any and all of
> our
> > > users.. It will improve over time.
> > >
> > > When we are to know the extend of its usefulness, we need continuous
> > > statistics (we have them for Reasonator as well, just as an example).
> > > Thanks,
> > > GerardM
> > >
> > > On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 07:33, Gerard Meijssen <
> [email protected]
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hoi,
> > >> Florence I totally agree that proper internatonalisation, localisation
> > is
> > >> key. What is key for me is that this already provides an easy and
> > obvious
> > >> search function for mediafiles that have a link to a Wikidata item.
> > Just to
> > >> stress the point, this is a wiki, we do not need a fully functional
> > search
> > >> engine (for all the Commons files); that is what we aspire to that is
> > what
> > >> we work towards.. That will take years. But with a proper search
> tool, a
> > >> tool that makes it EASY to use Commons, it may fool me into using
> > Commons
> > >> for my blog.
> > >>
> > >> To show you that it works, I just looked for "baisikeli
> > >> <https://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/baisikeli#Swahili>" and made a
> > screenshot
> > >> [1]. The screenshot is with other files showing the evolution of this
> > tool
> > >> in a Commons category [2]
> > >>
> > >> Important to notice is that the tool DOES invite you to localise the
> > >> labels to French, Swahili et al for best results!!
> > >>
> > >> A minor observation, there are all kinds of things that could change
> in
> > >> the user interface. Key is that this is a prototype. It is showing us
> > how
> > >> we can make Commons work for us.
> > >> Thanks,
> > >> GerardM
> > >>
> > >> [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Appelmoes3.png
> > >> [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hay%27s_SDSEARCH
> > >>
> > >> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 01:21, Florence Devouard <[email protected]>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>> Le 24/05/2020 à 00:23, Erik Moeller a écrit :
> > >>>> On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 10:10 AM Gerard Meijssen
> > >>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Hay Kranen created a proof of concept where Commons is searched for
> > >>>>> pictures that (per standard) use a "depicts" statement.
> > >>>> This is a beautiful proof of concept; thank you for sharing it,
> > >>>> Gerard, and thank you, Hay, for developing it. It really illustrates
> > >>>> the power and importance of the Structured Data efforts.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> To pick a different example, imagine that you want to illustrate an
> > >>>> article about the importance of wheelchair accessibility at your
> > >>>> university. You might try a major search engine like Google Images.
> > >>>> Try replacing the word "wheelchair" with translations in other
> > >>>> languages. Note how the result sets are different, and how you may
> get
> > >>>> a much smaller set of results in languages with a smaller Internet
> > >>>> presence.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> https://www.google.com/search?q=wheelchair&tbm=isch (English)
> > >>>> https://www.google.com/search?q=kitimaguru&tbm=isch (Swahili, far
> > less
> > >>>> relevant and smaller set)
> > >>>>
> > >>>> In contrast, the use of Wikidata items means that, as long as a
> label
> > >>>> exists for a given language, you can search in _any_ language and
> get
> > >>>> the same images:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> https://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/sdsearch/#q=haswbstatement:P180=Q191931
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The fact that the UI of this tool is currently English is an
> > >>>> implementation detail; even with Hay's implementation, you can type
> in
> > >>>> "kitimaguru" and get the same results as in English.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Sorry Erik, but I do not follow you here...
> > >>>
> > >>> For some reasons, it is true for "kitimaguru", but if I search for
> > >>> "lamp" (EN) versus "lampe" (FR), or "key" (English) versus "clé"
> > >>> (French), I really do not get the same results at all and of course,
> it
> > >>> does not proposes me the same Qs.
> > >>>
> > >>> I love that functionality, do not get me wrong, I am delighted to see
> > it.
> > >>>
> > >>> But except for English speakers (and now Dutch speakers it seems), it
> > >>> can not be used.
> > >>>
> > >>> So wonderful proof of concept. But please... let's have all languages
> > >>> here !
> > >>>
> > >>> Florence
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> It would be wonderful to see this functionality developed further,
> and
> > >>>> to ultimately make this kind of search functionality central to the
> > >>>> user experience for Wikimedia Commons, so that speakers of any
> > >>>> language are given _meaningful_ access to freely reusable media.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Warmly,
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Erik
> > >>>>
> > >>>> _______________________________________________
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