Commons talk:WMF support for Commons

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to Commons:WMF support for Commons.
Archives: 1, 2

Video tool is broken (and what that says)

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When this project first kicked off, I highlighted the urgent need to improve video conversion as part of the upload process. Plenty of others agreed, making it one of the top-ranked issues in the technical needs survey. According to @Sannita (WMF), it was considered but ultimately deemed not a priority. The conversion tool is now completely broken, effectively halting video uploading to the project entirely.

To Sannita (and more importantly to managers like @MMiller (WMF) setting priorities) — If you'd like us to stop complaining about the lack of collaboration in this project, it doesn't matter how many times you ask us what our priorities are if you don't then allocate resources toward those priorities. Chicocvenancio should not be the sole, volunteer, unpaid point of contact for something like this. What support are you willing to offer, on what timeline, to get basic video conversion for Commons working? Sdkb talk 20:58, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a stopgap could be to have the tool keep updated a public list of pending uploads. Then the most needed tasks could be handled by those who (for example) could manage a chunked upload. This intermediate goal might be easier for WMF to appropriate development funds for than the overall video processing pipeline. Arlo James Barnes 22:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think its a dangerous path to require WMF to automatically be the fallback maintainer to any volunteer made tool that becomes sufficiently popular. WMF didn't make it and thus had no say in how maintainable the chosen solution was, they shouldn't automatically be forced to maintain it. Long term i think video conversion should be integrated into mediawiki. The current situation is nore the result of weird historical politics and misunderstandings than reasonable technical requirements. Bawolff (talk) 02:48, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think it's far more likely for the WMF to develop their own tools/software than to take on volunteer-made tools. Granted, that's unlikely to happen in the short term, but, well, that's why we raised this many months ago, before it became an issue needing short-term resolution. Sdkb talk 03:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree. 1) Why would it be "dangerous"? 2) video2commons is not "any" volunteer-made tool but a highly useful widely used important one. 3) Using volunteer-made tools is the best approach as it saves developer time and money both of which are needed for allocation to any of the giant amount of work that could be done instead such as solving code issues and implementing Community Wishlist proposals. 4) The right approach considering your concerns would most likely to develop something completely from scratch but to improve that tool and maybe redevelop parts of it. 5) I'd agree that it would be best if this was integrated into MediaWiki itself and I think using that tool or the code from it would be the easiest, fastest way to get there and the tool is likely more robust than a newly developed one which isn't unlikely to get the same bugs and issues already solved here.
Also agree with Sdkb. Why is it too much too ask of an organization with many millions of dollars and a potential audience of a few thousand potential volunteer developers to potential banners and campaigns to provide just basic technical development for key tools and MediaWiki? Last time I checked, interactive visualizations are broken on Wikipedia, WMCommons pages are not indexed, WMF is spending money who knows what exactly, various useful things are just hidden on mobile, and Wikipedia tables still can't be viewed on mobile. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Why would it be dangerous" because it is a "however much water comes at you, you HAVE to drink it" situation. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:29, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I don't understand. Maybe you mean to say that there could be further problems also requiring time to solve which I don't see why and/or why that would be a problem / why there would be a better alternative. That's just speculation so please just simply be clearer, thanks. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not speculation, it's clear to see for anyone with some experience in this space. There are hundreds of such tools in dozens of languages. It just doesn't scale. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to what I wrote being speculation because I didn't understand what you meant. I don't know why people just don't state things clearly, you still haven't and I don't know what your concern is. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:24, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that videocuttool now can convert and upload videos. Ainali (talk) 12:35, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ainali: One has to download first if the videos are on the Internet.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ainali: I downloaded the MP4 from https://archive.org/details/dixiana-4-k but it threw an error, see phab:T366619.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:23, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Annual plan 2024-2025 discussions regarding Wikimedia Commons

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These are some relevant conversations regarding Wikimedia Commons and the 2024-2025 annual plan that might be of interest to followers of this page:

Thanks. - Fuzheado (talk) 17:38, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania 2024

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Are there people from the team at the Wikimania? I would be interested to have some small meetup with other users and the development team on the project. GPSLeo (talk) 18:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GPSLeo Yes, CParle (WMF) and I will be there from the Structured Content team. We're definitely up for a meeting, and I guess we can save up a place for a meetup or just hang out at a coffee break. Just to be sure, are you on Telegram? You can find me at @Sannita, it's gonna be easier for me to keep contact with you once there. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 09:25, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the rooms for meetups are already all blocked by other groups but we should be able to find some place. Maybe we can look for a time and then see how many people are interested. Yes, I can contact you on Telegram. GPSLeo (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maintainer of cross-wiki upload tool

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Who is maintaining mw:Upload dialog (cross-wiki upload feature/tool), in terms of software development and product management? I would like to document it at Commons:Cross-wiki media upload tool but I couldn't find the current information. It looks like it was the Multimedia team according to mw:Reading/Multimedia years ago. whym (talk) 11:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Whym: It appears that no one is maintaining it, which is why it is left to spew mostly garbage on our doorstep.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:25, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A WMF team previously owned the feature, before the team ceased to exist. Is there no internal documentation on what happened to the feature afterwards (transferred, abandoned, etc)? I would expect such documentation to be part of an internal reorganization effort. whym (talk) 10:04, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sannita (WMF) Is this something you can help with? whym (talk) 12:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Whym I can investigate which team is working on it, but I don't know if there is one any more. I'll keep you posted. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd appreciate if you can help clarifying the situation, thanks. whym (talk) 12:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did some investigation, and it seems it is no longer owned by any team at WMF. There was a team, but due to internal reorganisation, it now focuses on different things. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I briefly mentioned the lack of ownership in the tool page. whym (talk) 09:38, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW - this is actually a pretty common occurance at WMF. As an example, who owns file rendering? Who owns file management in mediawiki (aka File & FileBackend class hierarchy, not including Swift which is SRE owned). The answer is basically nobody. Bawolff (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bawolff: File rendering actually works.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:59, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I realize many MediaWiki features for Wikimedia projects have no owners. But do teams abandon features that they own without announcement? Is that routinely done? I would expect to hear something like "we are undeploying this because we cannot support it any more" or "we will end our support but it is usually maintenance-free - we hope someone else can lend a hand when maintenance is necessary". whym (talk) 09:37, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this happens all the time. New projects take up the time, people leave the organization, reorganizations make entire teams disappear. The older projects then go into "we will fix it if it really breaks" mode. This doesn't mean completely unmaintained. Many changes are regularly needed across almost all code to keep things working and this keeps happening (horizontal work vs vertical work). Similarly the security team will look at projects if there are concerns about security). But bugfixing and new feature development tends to stall.
At that point it is essentially up to individuals (volunteer or employed by WMF) to look at something every once in a while and keep it 'alive'. I would say that about 60% to 80% of the sourcecode/projects are in this state at any point in time (and it's worse for the toolforge projects). If the project is particularly on the fringes of people's knowledge, skills or the fringes of the projects itself and it doesn't get much attention for a while, this naturally tends to result in bitrot, being stuck in the past etc. The more complex the project, the higher the likelyhood that it has to be dropped and or completely rewritten after a couple of years. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:15, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this page still difficult to find?

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See also: Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Archive 1#Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a WMF village pump?.

In the discussion linked above I proposed to an additional to the village pump navigational template, to quote myself:

"At the English-language Wikipedia there is the WMF village pump, in fact the Wikimedia Commons largely mirrors the English-language Wikipedia's village pumps (Policy village pump → Copyright ©️ village pump (as most of our policies essentially are about the enforcement of copyright laws), Technical village pump → Technical village pump → Idea lab → Idea lab, Proposals village pump → Proposals village pump, and Miscellaneous village pump → Miscellaneous village pump), except for the fact that we don't have a WMF village pump. Perhaps a WMF village pump could be used as a central hub for communicating developments and getting community feedback. "

& (and)

"Per this comment, I'd like to suggest increasing the visibility of this page. There is currently a list above the village pump which displays as:

  • Community portal
    • introduction
    • Help desk
  • Village pump
    • copyright
    • proposals
    • technical
  • Administrators' noticeboard
    • vandalism
    • user problems
    • blocks and protections

I think that it might be wise to add:

  • WMF support
    • Centralised discussion (this could be done by creating a separate page akin to the WMF village pump of Enwiki and keep this page's main page as the navigation 🧭 hub, and this talk page the talk page for the navigation hub.
    • Structured data (as this is also a WMF project).
    • WikiLegal "

So, basically I am proposing to add:

To this template, as these are all relevant community pages that deserve a wider audience.

Assuming that this page is "the central discussion avenue" for communications with the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) at the Wikimedia Commons outside of specific projects. I'm not proposing for the Foundation to start posting announcements or anything at this talk page, simply make it more visible and easy to find for other users by adding this next to the village pumps, administrators' noticeboards, and help pages. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:02, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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