User:Ryansholin/proposal

With apologies for what surely must be a frequently used play on words...

...a proposal to remedy (one) Tragedy of the (Wikimedia) Commons:

The Problem

1. Past attempts to allow image uploads directly to the Commons from mobile Wikipedia pages resulted in a decrease in quality, decrease in usability of images (where usability = free licensing vs. likely copyright violation), and an increase in moderation labor needs from volunteer editors.
2. Past attempts to allow cross-wiki uploads resulted in similar outcomes.
3. Both efforts were scuttled as the community quite logically objected.

What follows is a set of rough ideas for potential solutions.

Assumptions

• The goal of any effort is to increase the quantity of high quality images freely available on Commons.
• Mobile uploads are a desirable indicator that Commons is reaching potential new users in their preferred form factor.

Key Questions

What kind of users should we target first?

Photographer at Mahinda College, by Hasantha Kariyawasam

Target amateur/semi-pro photographers who love making high quality images and sharing them. Find existing photographers in the community, but also reach out to local and topical photowalk organizers, photography blogs, influencers, and even magazines or conventions to seek additional new contributors.

This sort of mid-range user should have a comfort level with upload tools and potentially image metadata the average smartphone user may not, and will at times use higher quality cameras to create lasting images.

Instead of opening up submission via every Wikipedia mobile web page, use a standalone mobile site or even a native app -- building on the existing Android userbase or the product itself, as well as other past efforts -- to rotate through key campaigns and calls to action, curated by the community to fill gaps in Commons.

Of course, continue working with the community to curate a “red links list” of pages or categories that need images. Address some of the gaps through GLAM and related already-free images -- and, the standardization, migration, and generation of structured data for Commons files.

What are some ways of increasing image flow while limiting the time that Commons volunteers had to spend on moderating new images?

I’d separate the answers to this question into technical solutions and community solutions, although there’s some degree of overlap.

Technical solutions

Copypatrol logo

If bots like CopyPatrol can alert moderators to edits with long strings of text that appear to duplicate material elsewhere on the internet, maybe we can use reverse image search tools to do something similar for images on Commons.

Rather than just suggesting editors use reverse image search tools, why not either a) build a step into the uploader that runs a search for each image and encourages the user to check the results, or, more likely b) programmatically/periodically run reverse image searches on new uploads and alert the user and editors to potential issues. (An unspoken challenging question: What sort of reverse image search results programmatically indicate potential copyright violation?)

Community solutions

Partner with nonprofit news sources that publish content with appropriate licenses, extending GLAM-style relationships to them. Consider negotiating with public media to license their images, as well. NPR? PBS? BBC?

Blue Hour at Pakistan Monument by Muhammad Ashar. This image won the sixth prize in the international finale of Wiki Loves Monuments 2016.

Again, increasing the quality of original submissions by driving adoption of campaigns and contests across categories (monuments, animals, public figures of the past, etc.) a la Wiki Loves Monuments or locations, as in Wiki Loves Africa, albeit at a potentially smaller-than-a-continent scale. These campaigns could be much more lightweight than WLM, focused on a topic or place -- but they should be focused. The "everything is a red link" approach of the current Android app and other tools may be intimidating to new users ("Where do I start?") and there isn't sufficient user education to let the user know where their photo of a nearby place in need of Commons attention might end up. I’m imagining additions to the app that include a running list of categories and assignments. Maybe a periodic scavenger hunt to gamify things, naturally. (This is not an uncomplicated solution, but a lightweight version could be fun.)

How will we know if we’re on the right track?

It will be critical to measure quality as well as quantity. Some KPIs might include the number of overall uploaded images, the percentage of uploaded images that do not require any attention from editors, and the percentage that require attention but are not removed. The obvious more qualitative metric will be the satisfaction level of experienced editors.

How should we work with the Commons community to build this solution?

We will need the community to lead efforts to select categories to focus on to fill gaps, to partner with local community organizations, and of course to organize and standardize efforts using tools that we can help build.

Aside from the need to work with the Commons community explicitly on technical solutions like reverse image search -- paying special attention to the workflow of experienced editors -- we will need to energize and incentivize local users and potential users to lead local efforts.

Perhaps we could recruit Commons volunteers from other wiki projects, or from maintainers of location or topic focused wikis outside the Wikimedia projects. One example: Work with the communities maintaining localwiki.org wikis to join in, as well as local Wikipedia meetup groups.

How, if at all, would we leverage or approach the current (and former) existence of a Commons uploading solution?

Genie Lamps 007 by Vicki Nunn

There’s a certain genie-out-of-bottleness to the range of available plugins and tools for Wikimedia projects. It's probably pretty daunting for a new user, or someone interested in doing more editing. Building the best community creations into the core product is a winning solution.

I would definitely want to evaluate the existing and past solutions with participation from the community to identify more of the pain points and pitfalls of the tools, as well as the most desirable features. Ideally, we end up with a prioritized list of the features that best enable editors to maintain Commons while meeting Wikimedia’s strategic goals of increasing the quality, quantity, and usability of Commons images and other files.

How would we mitigate risk of bad content causing problems for our volunteers, given past results?

Hopefully, all of the above efforts help to increase the quality of content and reduce the risk of burdening volunteers with unwanted moderation duties. Working with the superusers in the community on workflow will help. Sheltering the pipeline of uploads in a separate space for campaigns and calls to action will help.

But, any positive results will still require new users, and new users will require user education. Framing the contests and campaigns with specific language encouraging users to create images themselves from the present world around them will help. Archive projects could be interesting as well, but challenging for licensing.

All of this depends on interest from and cooperation with the community.

What would success look like?

1. Improvements to the Android app drives adoption and helps determine the most critical features for iOS and mobile web launches.
2. A wider launch on multiple platforms leads to a sizable increase (Let’s call it 5x in the first year) in high quality submissions to Commons.
3. Volunteer editors do spend more time moderating some flawed content, especially in grayer copyright areas, but the corps of qualified editors grows as skilled new users get involved.
4. The number and quality of campaigns increases over time as well, building up as volunteers take on more of the curation and promotion duties, focusing on the topics and places they care about most.

...further notes on working with the community...

Let's imagine, for a moment, we announce the first steps for this plan at the Commons Village Pump and an active volunteer responds:

"Idiotic and destined to fail. Do not release this."

My first action would be to research the volunteer, dig into their past participation in similar conversations, track down their edits to get an understanding of where they're coming from. Are they a super-editor who takes down copyright violations in the middle of the night? Are they an active contributor, always providing images and adding metadata that requires independent research and coordination? Are they a leader in the community, driving opinion and waves of support or opposition to proposals and projects?

Crowdsurfing by Reeno

With that understanding in hand, I'd spend some time listening to the user and the community to let some grievances be aired. Yes, we've all seen efforts like this fail before. Why should it be any different this time? Well, the best we can do is learn from past failures and adjust as appropriate. If we're all in agreement that the growth of Commons is a good and necessary goal, then we have to come to some agreement on the path to do so, reaching potential users where they spend their time interacting now.

If 43% of Wikipedia (English) usage is on mobile, but only 8% of Commons usage is there, we know we have a long way to go to meet people where they are. Let's figure out how to get started together!