This is anecdotal evidence of course but I see photos I uploaded on Commons being used by external reusers almost on a daily basis (I mean every day I see a new photo used somewhere). May be this is all done by AI, but I would rather guess that there is significant human traffic on Commons outside of Wikimedia universe.
Best Yaroslav On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 12:12 PM Tomasz Ganicz via Wikimedia-l < [email protected]> wrote: > Do we know anything about readership of Commons and Wikidata as such? I > guess most human traffic on Commons and Wikidata comes from Wikipedias. > Then the huge part of the trafic are various kinds of machine mass data > harvesters. > > For Wikidata and Commons the vast majority of "readership" is indirect. > So, If one imagines a world without Wikipedia but with Wikidata/Commons - > there will be a huge problem with the financial sustainability of these > projects. For sure the model of financing should have been completely > different. > > Number of human devoted editors of Wikidata is roughly around 250 people, > so, from this POV this project is of the size of one medium-size Wikipedia. > There are 3 times more Wikimedia Foundation employees than Wikidata devoted > editors. Or - if compared with other mainy data/technology driven open > source projects it would be much smaller in terms of human > users/contributors than mastodon.org or nextcloud. > > For Commons without Wikipedias - there might be a hope to reshape it into > the largest stock of well curated pictures available under free licences, > but the issue is that Commons is a mess in terms of quality and > searchability of its content. To become an independent. self sustainable > project it should very deeply reshape its readership experience which is > terrible in comparison with other freely available stocks of pictures. > > > > > wt., 1 wrz 2026 o 15:21 Felipe Schenone via Wikimedia-l < > [email protected]> napisał(a): > >> Hi Christophe, thanks for keeping this important talk alive. >> >> Wikipedia is declining, but Wikidata and Commons are growing. I now think >> the future of the movement lies in those two projects. >> To move forward and go far, we shouldn't row against the current or force >> the engine. We should keep ourselves light, raise sails, and catch the wind. >> I, for one, have already shifted my focus to those projects. >> >> Also, Wikidata and Commons have a few *major* technical advantages: >> - Less wikitext, more structured content, which allows for simpler, >> better interfaces. >> - One wiki, many languages. No million templates to rebuild, forked >> modules to sync, diverse configs to juggle, scattered gadgets to >> criss-cross, etc. (Thanks to Produnto that might get better at Wikipedia >> soon, though. Fingers crossed.) >> >> Kind regards, >> >> On Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 3:28 PM Samuel Klein via Wikimedia-l < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Christophe -- Thanks for the full writeup! Fantastic and much needed. >>> I've been following the individual threads and agree with the note that we >>> should be sourcing, protecting, and investing in editors. (who themselves >>> care about readership, the mission, and how the projects will benefit >>> future and current society). >>> >>> Detailed proposals like this with partial implementations are the way; >>> we need to test out many more of them to find the most promising next >>> threads. Which also may not be the same in every community. >>> >>> Hotly, S >>> >>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 12:24 PM Christophe Henner via Wikimedia-l < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi everyone, >>>> >>>> Starting a new thread. I know Sunday evening can be long and >>>> uneventful, so I decided to come bearing the gift of a follow-up to my >>>> January essay: >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Schiste/what-now-2-data-strikes-back >>>> >>>> I tried to make it shorter... and failed. But this time I crafted a >>>> tl;dr, which I'll share here in parts. >>>> >>>> tl;dr: the situation is worse than what you think, we need to close >>>> ranks and make choices and act fast. >>>> >>>> In January I shared a projection taking into account internet growth >>>> against our own trends, and where it was probably leading us. With a >>>> "conclusion" that we would probably lose half of our traffic in 3 to 5 >>>> years. >>>> >>>> Good news, I was wrong. >>>> >>>> Bad news, it will most probably be sooner than that: depending on the >>>> assumptions, between 2.3 and 4.4 years. And this doesn't include the worst >>>> case scenario with a steep decline acceleration. >>>> >>>> Back in January I also shared my concern that the readership decline >>>> would hit editorship with a lag, and hard. Well, you've guessed it, here it >>>> comes. The lag is around one month on casual contributors and eight months >>>> on the core, and we're now at almost a 4% yearly decrease on the most >>>> engaged contributors, and between -5% and -11% on the least engaged, under >>>> 25 edits a month. >>>> >>>> So, where does that leave us? Readership decline has crossed -15% year >>>> on year. The decline rate has got worse in 28 months out of the last 30. >>>> Editorship decline is worsening month over month. >>>> >>>> And because bad news travels in groups: edit numbers are increasing. >>>> Good news? Nope. It means the work not done by the people who moved on is >>>> being picked up by the most engaged people in our communities. Which is the >>>> recipe for more burnout and more people leaving, creating a very dangerous >>>> loop. One would say we already started it. >>>> >>>> Of course we can wait a few more months to see the data confirm the >>>> trends. Sadly, I'm pretty confident, again, it will. >>>> >>>> All that being said, the question is what we can do. A few things are >>>> solely in the hands of the Foundation, and I hope they'll act. But a lot of >>>> things are in the hands of everyone else. >>>> >>>> First, the situation itself. We need to create a shared sense of where >>>> we're standing. That's what I'm trying to do with these emails. But more >>>> often than not I read people saying "it doesn't matter that we lose >>>> readers". Maybe they're right. I think not. But unless we build consent >>>> around the situation, everything after that is going to be tough, slow and >>>> depleting much needed energy. Because we are lacking any mechanism to >>>> create consent, we're scattered around and stretched thin just trying to >>>> have discussions. Which leads me to... >>>> >>>> Second, we need a "place" to build consent. Following a meeting two >>>> months ago, I've been working on formalising a "campaign" to test new ways >>>> of building that shared picture: Next 25. >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Next_25 there is a proposal, a few >>>> examples and some data already on the Meta page. >>>> >>>> The talk pages are there to collaborate and discuss, and the idea is to >>>> move away from approve/neutral/oppose and build something richer. In the >>>> next few days I'll try to push discussions on some topics to start building >>>> that muscle. >>>> >>>> So, without further ado, three asks: >>>> 1. Come and discuss the essay, and share it. We need our local >>>> communities to see where we actually stand. >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Schiste/what-now-2-data-strikes-back >>>> 2. Please discuss and challenge this proposal: >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Next_25/A_proposal_to_frame_Next_25 >>>> Maybe it's the wrong idea, but we need to find a way to discuss better and >>>> build shared understanding. >>>> 3. If you are trying things, building tools, share them there: >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Next_25/Tools_and_experiments >>>> >>>> And more generally, we need to value and celebrate innovation and >>>> exploration. >>>> >>>> In the essay I share some ideas, some bolder (it's the last part if you >>>> want to skip to it) but there are hundreds more. We need better ways to >>>> share them, showcase them and test them. >>>> >>>> We can't continue working in such siloed ways. We need to band >>>> together, and we need to make quick, clear choices about what we stop >>>> doing, because we can't fight every fight. Otherwise the -4% will turn to >>>> -15% very fast, and by then we'll be fighting so many fires that our time >>>> and energy won't go into building for tomorrow. >>>> >>>> That is not the path we're on today. But! It still can be. >>>> >>>> PS: Last time people reached saying I should have shared ideas and >>>> opinions more, now that I did I of course expect people to reach out and >>>> say that I shouldn't have shared ideas and opinions :D >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Christophe >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], >>>> guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >>>> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>>> Public archives at >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/IE5XHTHWRVIEDR6QIHTVWGE3ZBNQPOEZ/ >>>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 >>> 4266 <+1%20617-529-4266> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines >>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> Public archives at >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/XADHCB3RWOF5CN546FDHGD763YDPUKMZ/ >>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines >> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/QB33IXCGOUP2TCHNH7S6WVBN3D22WOCN/ >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > > > -- > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/JVQ4LEEW3GHKN5F5H3KJGNSUENLI4AGF/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
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