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=== "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration" ===
=== "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration" ===
The vast majority of academic research about [[Wikimedia projects]] continues to focus on Wikipedia and (in recent years) Wikidata. Publications about sister projects such as [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wiktionary&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wiktionary], [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wikinews&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wikinews] or [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wikibooks&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wikibooks] exist, but are rare. A paper titled "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration"<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1145/3555766| volume = 6| issue = CSCW2| pages = 346–1–346:35| last1 = Yu| first1 = Yihan| last2 = McDonald| first2 = David W.| title = Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration| journal = Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction| date = 2022-11-11| url = https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555766}}</ref> is one of the very first social science publications to examine [[Wikimedia Commons]] (albeit still in tandem with Wikipedia). Besides summarizing the role of Commons of hosting images and other media used on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, the authors also call attention to its significance as a project in itself as "the world’s largest online repository of free multimedia files for anyone to contribute and use. To date, there are more than 10.5 million volunteers and over 77 million media files on Commons."
The vast majority of academic research about [[Wikimedia projects]] continues to focus on Wikipedia and (in recent years) Wikidata. Publications about sister projects such as [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wiktionary&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wiktionary], [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wikinews&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wikinews] or [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+past+issues&fulltext=Search&prefix=Research%3ANewsletter%2F20&search=wikibooks&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1 Wikibooks] exist, but are rare. A paper titled "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration"<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1145/3555766| volume = 6| issue = CSCW2| pages = 346–1–346:35| last1 = Yu| first1 = Yihan| last2 = McDonald| first2 = David W.| title = Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration| journal = Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction| date = 2022-11-11| url = https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555766}}</ref> is one of the very first social science publications to examine [[Wikimedia Commons]] (albeit still in tandem with Wikipedia). That's despite Commons being, as the authors highlight, "the world’s largest online repository of free multimedia files for anyone to contribute and use. To date, there are more than 10.5 million volunteers and over 77 million media files on Commons."


The term "stitching" in the paper's title refers to an existing concept from the field of CSCW ([[Computer-supported cooperative work]]). The authors define it as follows:
The term "stitching" in the paper's title refers to an existing concept from the field of CSCW ([[Computer-supported cooperative work]]). The authors define it as follows:
{{tqb|Stitching is a framework that has been used to help describe and characterize cross-platform work to build organizations and also build awareness of topical content. There are three processes of stitching, ''production'', ''curation'' and ''dynamic integration'' that enable resources to be distributed and utilized across different technical platforms and social networks.}}
{{tqb|Stitching is a framework that has been used to help describe and characterize cross-platform work to build organizations and also build awareness of topical content. There are three processes of stitching, ''production'', ''curation'' and ''dynamic integration'' that enable resources to be distributed and utilized across different technical platforms and social networks.}}
The paper examines in detail how these three cross-platform processes work in case of (English) Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, based an interview study with 32 Wikimedians working on both projects - from newcomers (<1k edits) to "highly active editors" - five of which self-identified as women. Among many other examples of such Commons-Wikipedia stitching, they describe e.g. the cropping or retouching Commons images to make them more suitable for use on Wikipedia use, or aligning Commons categories with Wikipedia article names. (These are in contrast with activities that focus on only one of the projects - such as text editing on Wikipedia, and image uploading, image annotating, metadata tagging and categorizing on Commons. Regarding the latter, the authors observe "a large group of Commons focused editors who categorize images. Categories is 'the primary way to organize and find files on Commons'", quoting one of the interviewees.)
The paper examines in detail how these three cross-platform processes work in case of (English) Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, considering the role of Commons of hosting images and other media used on Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects). It is based an interview study with 32 Wikimedians working on both projects - from newcomers (<1k edits) to "highly active editors" - five of which self-identified as women. Among many other examples of such Commons-Wikipedia stitching, they describe e.g. the cropping or retouching Commons images to make them more suitable for use on Wikipedia use, or aligning Commons categories with Wikipedia article names. (These contrast with activities that focus on only one of the projects - such as text editing on Wikipedia, and image uploading, image annotating, metadata tagging and categorizing on Commons. Regarding the latter, the authors observe "a large group of Commons focused editors who categorize images. Categories is 'the primary way to organize and find files on Commons'", quoting one of the interviewees.)


While much of this will come as no surprise to Wikimedians familiar with both projects, the paper's second research question provides food for though to both the involved volunteer communities and the Wikimedia Foundation (or other actors interested in designing better collaboration features in this areas). Here, the authors identify five "barriers that inhibit effective stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons", and propose some "design implications" that could mitigate them:
While much of this will come as no surprise to Wikimedians familiar with both projects, the paper's second research question provides food for though to both the involved volunteer communities and the Wikimedia Foundation (or other actors interested in designing better collaboration features in this areas). Here, the authors identify five "barriers that inhibit effective stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons", and propose some "design implications" that could mitigate them:
Line 35: Line 35:
hard to engage in discussions held in other networks to understand their goals and practices [...] Though Commons curators produce images with an intent to support Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia editors rely on the images to illustrate articles, the communication channels between micro-networks and across the platforms are hard to find.}}
hard to engage in discussions held in other networks to understand their goals and practices [...] Though Commons curators produce images with an intent to support Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia editors rely on the images to illustrate articles, the communication channels between micro-networks and across the platforms are hard to find.}}


The authors (perhaps wisely) don't propose concrete solutions for this issue, but rather list a few "[p]rior studies in CSCW/HCI [ [[human-computer interaction]]] [that] investigated similar situations in which stakeholders of a design problem were distributed", and suggest that "WMF could explore these approaches to engage editors distributed across platforms in a [[participatory design]] process to address their communication needs."
The authors (perhaps wisely) don't propose concrete solutions for this issue, but rather list a few "[p]rior studies in CSCW/HCI <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[human-computer interaction]]] [that] investigated similar situations in which stakeholders of a design problem were distributed", and suggest that "WMF could explore these approaches to engage editors distributed across platforms in a [[participatory design]] process to address their communication needs."




===="Barrier 2: Differing Perspectives"====
===="Barrier 2: Differing Perspectives"====
[[File:Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-200; B-HNL@HKG.jpg|thumb|Out of over 22,000 images of a Boeing 777 on Commons, Wikipedians have selected this one as the current lead illustration for the article [[Boeing 777]]]]
Here, the paper discusses tensions arising from the differing self-perception of each project - Wikipedia as "reference" work vs. Wikimedia Commons as "collection". This manifests e.g. in the question of whether Commons should primarily be seen as a media repository in itself, or as infrastructure for other Wikimedia projects. Specifically, the authors note debates on whether it should aim to host more images of a subject that could conceivable be needed to illustrate pages on other projects - the paper opens with the example of a Wikipedia editor looking to illustrate the article on the [[Boeing 777]] airplace and getting overwhelmed with the search result on Common: "22,572 images for Boeing 777 with 5,686 categories and multiple pages created by different curators who work to sort images." (As a counterargument illustrating "the difficulties of judging the
Here, the paper discusses tensions arising from the differing self-perception of each project - Wikipedia as "reference" work vs. Wikimedia Commons as "collection". This manifests e.g. in the question of whether Commons should primarily be seen as a media repository in itself, or as infrastructure for other Wikimedia projects. Specifically, the authors note debates on whether it should aim to host more images of a subject that could conceivable be needed to illustrate pages on other projects - the paper opens with the example of a Wikipedia editor looking to illustrate the article on the [[Boeing 777]] airplane and getting overwhelmed with the search results on Common: "22,572 images for Boeing 777 with 5,686 categories and multiple pages created by different curators who work to sort images." (As a counterargument illustrating "the difficulties of judging the
utility of Commons resources as a function of their use in other WMF platforms", another interviewee mentioned the example of a particular Boeing 777 becoming notable after an accident: "And suddenly, that photograph of that aeroplane we were hosting on Commons appeared in newspapers and all over the place, because it was the only freely available photograph they could find of that exact aircraft.")
utility of Commons resources as a function of their use in other WMF platforms", another interviewee mentioned the example of a particular Boeing 777 becoming notable after an accident: "And suddenly, that photograph of that aeroplane we were hosting on Commons appeared in newspapers and all over the place, because it was the only freely available photograph they could find of that exact aircraft.")


As a solution to such issues, the authors (somewhat vaguely) suggest "a process similar to Wikipedia’s notability voting. The process would enable editors from both platforms to figure out whether an image warrants significance in any contexts collaboratively, rather than relying on judgement of editors from one platform or the other."
As a solution to such issues, the authors (somewhat vaguely) suggest "a process similar to Wikipedia’s notability voting. The process would enable editors from both platforms to figure out whether an image warrants significance in any contexts collaboratively, rather than relying on judgement of editors from one platform or the other."



===="Barrier 3: Multilingual Resources"====
===="Barrier 3: Multilingual Resources"====
The authors note that Commons is multilingual in theory (with many documentation pages, templates etc. being translatable and available in multiple language), but in practice mostly "produced and curated by English speakers". In particular, they call out the limitations of the search function:
The authors note that Commons is multilingual in theory (with many documentation pages, templates etc. being translatable and available in multiple language), but in practice mostly "produced and curated by English speakers". In particular, they call out the limitations of the search function:
{{tqb|One problem is that the search engine of Commons is key-word based and is not capable of searching 'in the middle of all the languages.' [...] This issue severely impacted participants from other language editions of Wikipedia who have limited or no English proficiency. They would find 'so little of Wikimedia Commons' was available for them to search and use in their own language. [...] This barrier is not just a one-way street, it impacts English-speaking contributors as well. It is difficult for English speakers to find materials about non-English speaking countries because most of the related content was produced and curated in the language spoken in the respective country [...]}}
{{tqb|One problem is that the search engine of Commons is key-word based and is not capable of searching 'in the middle of all the languages.' [...] This issue severely impacted participants from other language editions of Wikipedia who have limited or no English proficiency. They would find 'so little of Wikimedia Commons' was available for them to search and use in their own language. [...] This barrier is not just a one-way street, it impacts English-speaking contributors as well. It is difficult for English speakers to find materials about non-English speaking countries because most of the related content was produced and curated in the language spoken in the respective country [...]}}
The paper remarks that the WMF-led "Structured Data on Commons" project (launched in 2017 with a ([[c:Commons:Structured data/Sloan Grant|a $3 million grant]] from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation) aims to improve this by incorporating multilingual information from Wikidata, but that it has "made little progress on Commons because many contributors simply did not know about it or did not care", or "preferred their 'own' [category-based] system over a new structure designed by the foundation". (Here it is worth noting that the study's interviews took place from April 2020 to January 2021, i.e. shortly before the default search interface was switched to "[[c:Commons:Structured data/Media search|Commons:Structured data/Media search]]" which is supposed to eventually integrate such structured information. However, as of this time - August 2023 - it [[mw:Help:MediaSearch#Caveats|retains the same limitations]] of text-based search.)
The paper remarks that the WMF-led "Structured Data on Commons" project (launched in 2017 with a ([[c:Commons:Structured data/Sloan Grant|a $3 million grant]] from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation) aims to improve this by incorporating multilingual information from Wikidata, but that it has "made little progress on Commons because many contributors simply did not know about it or did not care", or "preferred their 'own' [category-based] system over a new structure designed by the foundation". (Here it is worth noting that the study's interviews took place from April 2020 to January 2021, i.e. shortly before the default search interface was switched to "[[c:Commons:Structured data/Media search|Media search]]" which is supposed to eventually integrate such structured information. However, as of this time - August 2023 - it [[mw:Help:MediaSearch#Caveats|retains the same limitations]] of text-based search.)
As a possible way out of this conundrum, the authors suggest that
As a possible way out of this conundrum, the authors suggest that
{{tqb|"One potential solution is for the foundation to investigate ways to incorporate Commons existing categories into the Structured Data Project"}}
{{tqb|"One potential solution is for the foundation to investigate ways to incorporate Commons existing categories into the Structured Data Project"}}
Line 55: Line 57:
This issue mainly refers to the problem that vandals can overwrite an image on Commons to affect articles on Wikipedia, which is difficult to detect for Wikipedia editors using their existing monitoring processes. And on the other side, "Though Wikimedia Commons can track and detect when an image is overwritten, it is hard to evaluate the legitimacy of the overwrite because the context of reuse is unknown."
This issue mainly refers to the problem that vandals can overwrite an image on Commons to affect articles on Wikipedia, which is difficult to detect for Wikipedia editors using their existing monitoring processes. And on the other side, "Though Wikimedia Commons can track and detect when an image is overwritten, it is hard to evaluate the legitimacy of the overwrite because the context of reuse is unknown."


The authors note that this is partly a technical issue, as cross-platforms notifications could be implemented to alert Wikipedians of such issues. However, they argue that "Even if these notifications existed, these platforms would need to collaborate on addressing the problem. In the general case, resolving barriers will require technical and social collaboration across or between platforms."
The authors note that this is partly a technical issue, as cross-platforms notifications could be implemented to alert Wikipedians of such incidents. However, they argue that "Even if these notifications existed, these platforms would need to collaborate on addressing the problem. In the general case, resolving barriers will require technical and social collaboration across or between platforms."


===="Barrier 5: Differing Policies"====
===="Barrier 5: Differing Policies"====
Here, the authors name two examples. The first one is about copyright:
Here, the paper gives two examples. The first one is about copyright:
{{tqb|One key misalignment between Commons and Wikipedia is how copyright is treated. Commons
{{tqb|One key misalignment between Commons and Wikipedia is how copyright is treated. Commons
implements a "[[c:Commons:Project_scope/Precautionary_principle|Precautionary principle]]" which states that "where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted." This delete first and discuss it later approach is in contrast to Wikipedias’ "[[Wikipedia:Assume Good Faith|Assume Good Faith]]" policy that encourages discussion first.}}
implements a "[[c:Commons:Project_scope/Precautionary_principle|Precautionary principle]]" which states that "where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted." This delete first and discuss it later approach is in contrast to Wikipedias’ "[[Wikipedia:Assume Good Faith|Assume Good Faith]]" policy that encourages discussion first.}}
(Contrary to what the authors appear to imply here, the "Assume Good Faith" policy [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith#Good_faith_and_copyright|specifically clarifies]] that "When dealing with possible copyright violations, good faith means assuming that editors ''intend'' to comply with site policy and the law. That is different from assuming they have ''actually'' complied with either. Editors have a proactive obligation to document image uploads, etc. [...]")
(Contrary to what the authors appear to imply here, the "Assume Good Faith" policy [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith#Good_faith_and_copyright|specifically clarifies]] that "When dealing with possible copyright violations, good faith means assuming that editors ''intend'' to comply with site policy and the law. That is different from assuming they have ''actually'' complied with either. Editors have a proactive obligation to document image uploads, etc. [...]")


As a second "misalignment", the paper calls out "the differences between Wikipedia and Commons reliance on data
As a second "misalignment", the authors calls out "the differences between Wikipedia and Commons reliance on data
sources":
sources":
{{tqb|The practice on Wikipedia is to “citing sources”, and in particular, “reliable sources” all in the service of making statements “verifiable”. Media resources on Commons do not need to satisfy all of these standards and there is no judgement as to the validity or correctness of the media artifact. From one perspective similar versions of something like a map or a deep fake image, might have high utility when contrasted with alternate versions [...] Given this generally inclusionary standard, Commons contributors sometimes produce images without including information about the sources of the data as part of the content metadata. Without this key metadata, media is then suspect under Wikipedia’s stricter policies [...]}}
{{tqb|The practice on Wikipedia is to “[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|citing sources]]”, and in particular, “[[Wikipedia:Reliable_sources|reliable sources]]” all in the service of making statements “[[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]]”. Media resources on Commons do not need to satisfy all of these standards and there is no judgement as to the validity or correctness of the media artifact. From one perspective similar versions of something like a map or a deep fake image, might have high utility when contrasted with alternate versions [...] Given this generally inclusionary standard, Commons contributors sometimes produce images without including information about the sources of the data as part of the content metadata. Without this key metadata, media is then suspect under Wikipedia’s stricter policies [...]}}
Here, the paper doesn't offer solutions, apart from the already mentioned general proposals to improve cross-platform and cross-network communications.
Here, the paper doesn't offer solutions, apart from the already mentioned general proposals to improve cross-platform and cross-network communications.


Revision as of 08:49, 29 August 2023

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A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.


"Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration"

The vast majority of academic research about Wikimedia projects continues to focus on Wikipedia and (in recent years) Wikidata. Publications about sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikinews or Wikibooks exist, but are rare. A paper titled "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration"[1] is one of the very first social science publications to examine Wikimedia Commons (albeit still in tandem with Wikipedia). That's despite Commons being, as the authors highlight, "the world’s largest online repository of free multimedia files for anyone to contribute and use. To date, there are more than 10.5 million volunteers and over 77 million media files on Commons."

The term "stitching" in the paper's title refers to an existing concept from the field of CSCW (Computer-supported cooperative work). The authors define it as follows:

Stitching is a framework that has been used to help describe and characterize cross-platform work to build organizations and also build awareness of topical content. There are three processes of stitching, production, curation and dynamic integration that enable resources to be distributed and utilized across different technical platforms and social networks.

The paper examines in detail how these three cross-platform processes work in case of (English) Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, considering the role of Commons of hosting images and other media used on Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects). It is based an interview study with 32 Wikimedians working on both projects - from newcomers (<1k edits) to "highly active editors" - five of which self-identified as women. Among many other examples of such Commons-Wikipedia stitching, they describe e.g. the cropping or retouching Commons images to make them more suitable for use on Wikipedia use, or aligning Commons categories with Wikipedia article names. (These contrast with activities that focus on only one of the projects - such as text editing on Wikipedia, and image uploading, image annotating, metadata tagging and categorizing on Commons. Regarding the latter, the authors observe "a large group of Commons focused editors who categorize images. Categories is 'the primary way to organize and find files on Commons'", quoting one of the interviewees.)

While much of this will come as no surprise to Wikimedians familiar with both projects, the paper's second research question provides food for though to both the involved volunteer communities and the Wikimedia Foundation (or other actors interested in designing better collaboration features in this areas). Here, the authors identify five "barriers that inhibit effective stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons", and propose some "design implications" that could mitigate them:

"Barrier 1: Lack of Communication Across Networks"

The paper observes the existence of

networks of photographers focused on producing images of different subjects, a network of Commons admins that handle copyright issues, a network of categorizers that work to sort pictures on Commons, and networks of Wikipedia editors who write articles in specific subject areas. These micro-networks establish their own ways of communicating and organizing their activities. However, participants argued that there was an absence of communication between these distributed micro-networks. For example, there was no formal way for Wikipedia editors and Commons curators to discuss the imagery needs of Wikipedia articles [...] Participants found it hard to engage in discussions held in other networks to understand their goals and practices [...] Though Commons curators produce images with an intent to support Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia editors rely on the images to illustrate articles, the communication channels between micro-networks and across the platforms are hard to find.

The authors (perhaps wisely) don't propose concrete solutions for this issue, but rather list a few "[p]rior studies in CSCW/HCI [human-computer interaction] [that] investigated similar situations in which stakeholders of a design problem were distributed", and suggest that "WMF could explore these approaches to engage editors distributed across platforms in a participatory design process to address their communication needs."


"Barrier 2: Differing Perspectives"

Out of over 22,000 images of a Boeing 777 on Commons, Wikipedians have selected this one as the current lead illustration for the article Boeing 777

Here, the paper discusses tensions arising from the differing self-perception of each project - Wikipedia as "reference" work vs. Wikimedia Commons as "collection". This manifests e.g. in the question of whether Commons should primarily be seen as a media repository in itself, or as infrastructure for other Wikimedia projects. Specifically, the authors note debates on whether it should aim to host more images of a subject that could conceivable be needed to illustrate pages on other projects - the paper opens with the example of a Wikipedia editor looking to illustrate the article on the Boeing 777 airplane and getting overwhelmed with the search results on Common: "22,572 images for Boeing 777 with 5,686 categories and multiple pages created by different curators who work to sort images." (As a counterargument illustrating "the difficulties of judging the utility of Commons resources as a function of their use in other WMF platforms", another interviewee mentioned the example of a particular Boeing 777 becoming notable after an accident: "And suddenly, that photograph of that aeroplane we were hosting on Commons appeared in newspapers and all over the place, because it was the only freely available photograph they could find of that exact aircraft.")

As a solution to such issues, the authors (somewhat vaguely) suggest "a process similar to Wikipedia’s notability voting. The process would enable editors from both platforms to figure out whether an image warrants significance in any contexts collaboratively, rather than relying on judgement of editors from one platform or the other."


"Barrier 3: Multilingual Resources"

The authors note that Commons is multilingual in theory (with many documentation pages, templates etc. being translatable and available in multiple language), but in practice mostly "produced and curated by English speakers". In particular, they call out the limitations of the search function:

One problem is that the search engine of Commons is key-word based and is not capable of searching 'in the middle of all the languages.' [...] This issue severely impacted participants from other language editions of Wikipedia who have limited or no English proficiency. They would find 'so little of Wikimedia Commons' was available for them to search and use in their own language. [...] This barrier is not just a one-way street, it impacts English-speaking contributors as well. It is difficult for English speakers to find materials about non-English speaking countries because most of the related content was produced and curated in the language spoken in the respective country [...]

The paper remarks that the WMF-led "Structured Data on Commons" project (launched in 2017 with a (a $3 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation) aims to improve this by incorporating multilingual information from Wikidata, but that it has "made little progress on Commons because many contributors simply did not know about it or did not care", or "preferred their 'own' [category-based] system over a new structure designed by the foundation". (Here it is worth noting that the study's interviews took place from April 2020 to January 2021, i.e. shortly before the default search interface was switched to "Media search" which is supposed to eventually integrate such structured information. However, as of this time - August 2023 - it retains the same limitations of text-based search.) As a possible way out of this conundrum, the authors suggest that

"One potential solution is for the foundation to investigate ways to incorporate Commons existing categories into the Structured Data Project"


"Barrier 4: Cross-Platform Vandalism"

This issue mainly refers to the problem that vandals can overwrite an image on Commons to affect articles on Wikipedia, which is difficult to detect for Wikipedia editors using their existing monitoring processes. And on the other side, "Though Wikimedia Commons can track and detect when an image is overwritten, it is hard to evaluate the legitimacy of the overwrite because the context of reuse is unknown."

The authors note that this is partly a technical issue, as cross-platforms notifications could be implemented to alert Wikipedians of such incidents. However, they argue that "Even if these notifications existed, these platforms would need to collaborate on addressing the problem. In the general case, resolving barriers will require technical and social collaboration across or between platforms."

"Barrier 5: Differing Policies"

Here, the paper gives two examples. The first one is about copyright:

One key misalignment between Commons and Wikipedia is how copyright is treated. Commons implements a "Precautionary principle" which states that "where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted." This delete first and discuss it later approach is in contrast to Wikipedias’ "Assume Good Faith" policy that encourages discussion first.

(Contrary to what the authors appear to imply here, the "Assume Good Faith" policy specifically clarifies that "When dealing with possible copyright violations, good faith means assuming that editors intend to comply with site policy and the law. That is different from assuming they have actually complied with either. Editors have a proactive obligation to document image uploads, etc. [...]")

As a second "misalignment", the authors calls out "the differences between Wikipedia and Commons reliance on data sources":

The practice on Wikipedia is to “citing sources”, and in particular, “reliable sources” all in the service of making statements “verifiable”. Media resources on Commons do not need to satisfy all of these standards and there is no judgement as to the validity or correctness of the media artifact. From one perspective similar versions of something like a map or a deep fake image, might have high utility when contrasted with alternate versions [...] Given this generally inclusionary standard, Commons contributors sometimes produce images without including information about the sources of the data as part of the content metadata. Without this key metadata, media is then suspect under Wikipedia’s stricter policies [...]

Here, the paper doesn't offer solutions, apart from the already mentioned general proposals to improve cross-platform and cross-network communications.

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Other recent publications

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions, whether reviewing or summarizing newly published research, are always welcome.

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From the abstract:

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References

  1. ^ Yu, Yihan; McDonald, David W. (2022-11-11). "Unpacking Stitching between Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: Barriers to Cross-Platform Collaboration". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 6 (CSCW2): 346–1–346:35. doi:10.1145/3555766.
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Long quotes

To insert a long inline quote like

The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
— User:Oscar Wilde
— Quotations Notes from the Underpoop

use this template (link): 

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/block quote
 | text   = The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
 | by     = Oscar Wilde
 | source = Quotations
 | ts     = Notes from the Underpoop
 | oldid  = 1234567890
}}
Side frames

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

A caption

Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link): 

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1         = Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 |caption   = A caption
 |fullwidth = no
}}

gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.

Example − Graph/Charts
Further information: Category:Graph, chart and plot templates
A caption

For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by 

{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}

in a frame, simple put the graph code in |1= 

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1=
{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}
 |caption=A caption
 |fullwidth=no
}}

to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right.

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Two-column vs full width styles

If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything.

However, every time you have a |fullwidth=no and change it to |fullwidth=yes (or vice-versa), the article will take that style from that point onwards (|fullwidth=yes → full width, |fullwidth=no → two-column). By default, omitting |fullwidth= is the same as putting |fullwidth=no and the article will have two columns after that. Again, this is perfectly fine in most cases, and you don't need to do anything.

However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article.

To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert 

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes}}

where you want the switch to happen.

To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert 

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=no}}

where you want the switch to happen.

Article series

To add a series of 'related articles' your article, use the following code

Related articles
Visual Editor

Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
1 January 2023

VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
5 August 2015

HTTPS-only rollout completed, proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
17 June 2015

VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
29 April 2015

Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
4 February 2015

More articles

Draft namespace, VisualEditor meetings
25 December 2013

Sockpuppet investigations, VisualEditor, Wikidata's birthday, and more
6 November 2013

Last call for Wiki Loves Monuments; Community–WMF tension over VisualEditor
25 September 2013

Making Wikipedia more accessible
4 September 2013

Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia
28 August 2013

The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change
31 July 2013

Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles
31 July 2013

VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series
3 July 2013

VisualEditor will "change world history"
12 June 2013

VisualEditor, elections, bots, and more
12 June 2013

The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?
25 March 2013

Visual Editor "on schedule" for July rollout
18 March 2013

Looking ahead to 2013
7 January 2013

The new Visual Editor gets a bit more visual
10 December 2012

Second Visual Editor prototype launches
25 June 2012

Visual editor demo launched, hailed as "most important change to our user experience ... ever"; but elsewhere over-hasty deployments criticised
19 December 2011

Full steam ahead on Visual Editor, the avoidance of lock-breaking and 1.18b1 release
7 November 2011

{{Signpost series
 |type=sidebar-v2
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |seriestitle=Visual Editor
 |fullwidth=no
}}

or 

{{Signpost series
 |type=sidebar-v2
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |seriestitle=Visual Editor
 |fullwidth=yes
}}

will create the sidebar on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. A partial list of valid |tag= parameters can be found at here and will decide the list of articles presented. |seriestitle= is the title that will appear below 'Related articles' in the box.

Alternatively, you can use 

{{Signpost series
 |type=inline
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |tag_name=visual editor
 |tag_pretext=the
}}

at the end of an article to create

For more Signpost coverage on the visual editor see our visual editor series.

If you think a topic would make a good series, but you don't see a tag for it, or that all the articles in a series seem 'old', ask for help at the WT:NEWSROOM. Many more tags exist, but they haven't been documented yet.

Links and such
  • News and notes:

By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}}.

← Previous "Recent research"
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Really good to see some research in this area. It deserves so much more honestly. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:15, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Minor matter, I suspect ". . . host more images of a subject that could conceivably be needed to illustrate pages on other projects . . ." might better be "than could".
Down to substance, somewhat, I sometimes hope Wikidata will help with our problems with searches, categorization, and languages in Commons. Some day, far in the future, I fear. Thus far, the cost (mainly in annoyance to old-time cat wranglers like me) of implementing Structured Data is more easily visible than the benefit. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:53, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, thanks! (the typo, not Commons - yet)
Btw, someone also started a thread on the Commons village pump about this review and paper. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:36, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent research topic. I think a major problem for the future is the new skin not putting a link to Wikimedia Commons on the left. It massively hinders discovery of the resources Wikimedia Commons has, which people should be able to find. I intend to petion more about this in future, and it's a major reason why I've switched back to the old skin.
The point about photo replacement is very good to note. This could be added to the watchlist ("on Commons, a photo on the article was overwritten with a different one").
With the problem that Wikimedia Commons has lots of photos: this is a good thing. People may be looking for something unexpected. There's a trend for major topics on Wikimedia Commons to create a curated highlights gallery of images and link wikipedia articles to this rather than the category. I'm very opposed to this, it hinders discovery of photos if people are looking for something unusual that the gallery creator wasn't expecting. It's much better to have that kind of gallery in the Wikipedia article, presenting photo highlights, and a link to the Wikimedia Commons category for people looking for something unusual. Blythwood (talk) 23:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The characteristics, or problems, identified all exist, but are perhaps not major. Commons is absolutely enormous, and the "curation" process can only work in a very patchy way. Commercial picture libraries work on the principle that you can never predict what will interest a user, so you just offer everything you have. So I think the solution proposed for "barrier 2" "The process would enable editors from both platforms to figure out whether an image warrants significance in any contexts collaboratively, rather than relying on judgement of editors from one platform or the other" is a complete non-starter. Johnbod (talk) 23:34, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • It does feel as if non-English searches get pretty short shrift on Commons. For instance "forest" gets 1,321,948 hits, but "forêt" (in French) gets 29,638. "skogen" ('the forest') in Swedish gets just 1,329, and the first batch of images are about a place with that in its name, not forest at all; whereas "skog" (forest in general, in Swedish) gets 1,459,858, and the first batch combines quite a few images of forest with people of that name. The Greek "δάσος" (forest) gets 1,335,550, but many of the first batch of images are of mangrove forests, which might seem rather a specialised result. My curiosity piqued, I tried the Indonesian for forest, "hutan" (rain forest is "hutan hujan", a good word, huh?): it returns an impressive 1,323,199 results, the first batch mixing forest resorts, forest parks, forest, and a boat named after a forest. On the other hand, "hutan hujan" on the other hand returns 13,228 results, where "rain forest" gives just 5,872. About all one can safely conclude from this brief and wholly unscientific experiment is that search is language-dependent, or to put it another way, not very reliable for anyone arriving and searching in their own language. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:10, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]


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