User:Adam Cuerden/10wikicommonsdays

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This is a pilot to figure out the rules for doing #100wikidays on Commons, starting with a 10-day trial of restorations, primarily of or by notable women.

Rules: Image must be of a size where it could be featured, and restored as well as I can do.

Day	Date	Image	Subject	En FP?	Com FP?
1	30-06-2016		Ethel Reed, world-famous graphic artist
2	01-07-2016		Charles Follen McKim by Frances Benjamin Johnston
3	02-07-2016		Alice Paul
4	03-07-2016		Elsie Leslie by Zaida Ben-Yusuf
5	04-07-2016		Mary Lou Williams
6	05-07-2016		Barbara McClintock
7	06-07-2016		Alice C. Evans
7a	07-07-2016		Sally Ride (not quite difficult enough to push the day count up, but kept me from failing)
8	08-07-2016		Betty Friedan
9	09-07-2016		Margaret D. Foster
10-1	10-07-2016		Brigid Balfour
10-2	10-07-2016		Rosalind Venetia Pitt-Rivers
10-3	10-07-2016		Janet Niven

#10wikicommonsdays: Analysis

First of all, this does not fit comfortably around your life. I had 6-10 hours a day working on this some restorations. 10 days is probably about right, at least how I was doing it. For a photography wikicommonsdays, it may be more practical to go 30 or 100, but do a ten day trial first.

Secondly, images can throw curveballs at you. I'd make sure to have a number of fallback restorations already researched, otherwise you could hit the situation I ran into on day 9, where I didn't have anything simple, it was patently obvious that what I was working on wasn't going to get finished that day at all, and I ended up firstly trying three other restorations from my list - and realising they weren't going to be done in time either - and then finally finding something semi-practical, but having to go with a "good enough until day 11" restoration for it, that, unlike the others, were not ready for featured picture candidates at the end of the work. I'm going to have to catch that one up. And finish the three partial restorations from that day.

Thirdly, though, this was actually a good experience. Several of the images replaced terrible images (looking at en-wiki). Compare:

DAY 1: ETHEL REED.

Old image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EthelReed.JPG

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ethel_Reed_(ca._1895)_by_Frances_Benjamin_Johnston.jpg

I think the new one has far, far more personality.

DAY 2: CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM by FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON

I honestly thought I'd end up with a lot more images of men by female photographers; my initial list was very Johnston-heavy, and also included several other photographs of men by major female photographers. As it happened, this is the only male face to make the list, as on Day 3 I decided to do something stupid and do a ridiculously major restoration... and I never quite came back down from there. Anyway, I still want to do a Doris Ulmann image, and a Dorothea Lange image of the Japanese internment, and the like, but they'll wait, and I'm glad how things worked out.

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/d/d4/20160701224817%21Charles_Follen_McKim_by_Frances_Benjamin_Johnston.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Follen_McKim_by_Frances_Benjamin_Johnston.jpg

This is a common situation with files from the Library of Congress (LoC): The old image is a scaled-down JPEG (which the LoC offers for easy download) of a older, crappy scan of the image. It's much improved by both the better scan, and the restoration.

DAY 3: ALICE PAUL

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/5e/20160702144921%21Alice_Paul_%281915%29_by_Harris_%26_Ewing.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_Paul_(1915)_by_Harris_%26_Ewing.jpg

I can see why the crop was done, but it's undocumented, and from a scaled-down copy of the image. The image is by Harris & Ewing (fun fact: Ewing's a woman. Have a photo of her up for consideration for future restoration), and they're good enough and famous enough photographers that I don't think we should just be cropping out bits of one of their best photographs. A really good image, and I'm quite happy with this one.

This was arguably where #10wikicommonsdays went a bit crazy: This image was far larger and far more damaged than I should have countenanced when under a strict time limit, and it wasn't the only one.

DAY 4: ELSIE LESLIE BY ZAIDA BEN-YUSUF

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/b/b6/20160703230908%21Elsie_Leslie_%281899%29_by_Zaida_Ben-Yusuf.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elsie_Leslie_(1899)_by_Zaida_Ben-Yusuf.jpg

Another example of an LoC image uploaded from a scaled-down JPEG. Zaida Ben-Yusuf was one of the leading photographers of the fin-de-siècle period, and there's a lot more by her worth doing.

DAY 5: MARY LOU WILLIAMS

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/b/b7/20160704165505%21Mary_Lou_Williams_%28Gottlieb_09231%29.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Lou_Williams_(Gottlieb_09231).jpg

Another scaled-down-and-cropped image.The levels are really off on this one too; some tweaks and it's much improved. This was a last minute substitution for a half-finished Alice C. Evans I had been working on for six hours. We'll come back to her.

DAY 6: BARBARA McCLINTOCK

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/1/14/20160705225856%21Barbara_McClintock_%281902-1992%29_shown_in_her_laboratory_in_1947.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Barbara_McClintock_(1902-1992)_shown_in_her_laboratory_in_1947.jpg

This was not one of the big improvements, but I'm pretty happy with the result, given, y'know, Nobel Prize winning scientist?

DAY 7: ALICE CATHERINE EVANS

Told you we'd come back to her. Another 6 hours on the image, and it was done. I'd apologise, but I spent 12 hours restoring this one (I think, I didn't have a timer running)

Old image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_Catherine_Evans_circa_1910s.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_C._Evans,_National_Photo_Company_portrait,_circa_1915.jpg

The old image is rather weird. It's a Library of Congress image... by way of Sears. The department store. I don't get it either. Anyway! Most notable fix is in the lower right, where I had to do some very careful restoration. Annoyingly, this one is doing TERRIBLE at en-wiki's featured pictures ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Alice_C._Evans ) and I really don't know why.

DAY 8: BETTY FRIEDAN

Old image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/f/fd/20160708222843%21Betty_Friedan_1960.jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Betty_Friedan_1960.jpg

I'm not quite sure why this one was scaled down in the old image - but only slightly. In any case, a good restoration, probably going to lose out on Featured pictures due to the pose. The levels was probably the most important part of this restoration: it made the skin look natural.

DAY 9: MARGARET D. FOSTER

Old image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_D._Foster_(1895-1970)_(4405670925).jpg

New image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_D._Foster,_in_Lab,_4_October_1919.jpg

The old image not only has her facing away from the camera, it's also so grainy that what of her face is visible is just a white blob. Even with the image not being quite done being restored, the new image is miles and miles better. And I can easily finish the new one's restoration.

Oh, I also improved her article to actually include her accomplishments. That's probably a good thing too.

DAY 10: BRIGID BALFOUR, ROSALIND VENETIA PITT-RIVERS, and JANET NIVEN

These aren't big restorations, so I'll just link the final ones. Some small improvements to get a few important relatively-contemporary scientists just that bit better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brigid_M._Balfour_(1914-1994)_-_Restoration.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

I'm quite happy with the results.

The Return! Round 2 of 10 Wikicommons days!

Day	Date	Image	Subject	En FP?	Com FP?
2-01	17-07-2016		Petya Dubarova
2-01a	18-08-2016	en:File:Gertrude Käsebier by Adolf de Meyer.jpg	Gertrude Käsebier Whoops. Not able to be uploaded on Commons until 2017...
2-02	19-07-2016	???	???
2-03	20-07-2016	???	???
2-04	21-07-2016	???	???
2-05	22-07-2016	???	???
2-06	23-07-2016	???	???
2-07	24-07-2016	???	???
2-08	25-07-2016	???	???
2-09	26-07-2016	???	???
2-10	27-07-2016	???	???