Talk:Reading/Multimedia/Feature ideas

We would be grateful for your comments about the new feature ideas outlined on the main page:


 * Media viewer - view images in larger size
 * File notifications - keep track of new activity for your files
 * File curation - review files more effectively
 * File feedback - rate or compare files
 * Media finder - add files to articles
 * Campaign tools - organize multimedia campaigns

Favorite ideas
Which feature idea do you find most promising? Why? How could it be improved?

(please state your favorite idea below with a bullet, explain why you picked it and sign them at the end)


 * This may be 2-5 years' out, but in terms of 'create, publish, curate, view,' in what ways are you planning for 3-D snippets of virtual worlds like OpenSim, WoW and SL (e.g. an interactive scene from a Shakespeare play), which may not exist yet that I've seen, but will probably come, in MediaViewer? -- 12:16, 18 July 2013‎ Helianth


 * In terms of 'files used,' code for this partly as a citation measurement statistic in a database as in academia. How else does Wikimedia Commons' Multimedia interface with academia, especially paper citations of academics? Building on this has merit for both notifications and possibly file feedback. -- 12:16, 18 July 2013‎ Helianth


 * In a broad way, where is image recognition (e.g. a specific flower, species or object) these days (I don't engage these questions actively), and especially in Wikimedia Commons, open source, and Creative Commons spheres, anticipating developments in MediaViewer?  -- 12:16, 18 July 2013‎ Helianth


 * Is there a way to anticipate remarkable developments here for Wikimedia Commons in this planning? It's great to lay out hypothetical technical pathways forward for Wikimedia Commons in this time of digital seismic shifting and big wave surfing :) -- 12:16, 18 July 2013‎ Helianth

Thanks so much for commenting on these first ideas! We're grateful for your feedback, which will help guide our next steps! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Media viewer
Hello Multimedia team!

After the IRC meeting hour yesterday (many thanks to the team for this moment!), I have developed ideas for the media viewer, based on user experience and feedbacks collected on French Wikipedia.

"Show images in larger, media viewer panel when you click on them" is the first feature proposed, and an expected one! Image should be displayed bigger as possible, with (of course) a responsive system. The contributive options (buttons on the mock-up) are not a priority, I think: most people just want to see the image. Image description or "see more files" link should be put forward instead.

"Option to go to next image if it is part of a category or collection" should not be an option. People really want to see more files. You can see the files on an article, or, by a direct link, all images on the category. At the end of the presentation, we should add a "contribute" link. On Wikipedia, a link "see more files related to $page_title" will provide a great satisfaction to the reader. On Commons, we may have a link like this, but related to the adjacent or parent categories.

"Include a description and credit below the image, link to file page" is a good idea, which may be magnified: on Wikipedia, add the caption (the reader have the information linked to article, the context, the answer to "why this image has been chosen"). On Wikipedia or Commons, display information about the file (for example, copyrighted file because no-FOP, or POTY). On Commons, you mustn't forget the powerful system of annotations, which increase image quality.

A very important point is how to credit authors of free licensed files: I have collected many experiences about bad (or no) crediting during wiki-trainings or with my colleagues. This must be explained on the viewer, with a link or a button "reuse this file". Clicking on this link will display a how-to, ideally on three steps: image analysis, download choices (size, format) and how to credit.

All these ideas can be more easily understood with mock-ups. If you need it, I can join some images.

This viewer feature will also require substantial changes on Commons Files pages, in order to change the very bad interface. What do you think about it ?

I have asked the French community about testing this feature. Keep in touch! Trizek (talk) 13:15, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
 * First mockup and Reuse the file mockup - Trizek (talk) 13:53, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Create and Curate
In an old Version of this page, user were asked to identify key issues regarding certain workflows. There 2 issues come to my mind: One is about uploading content: A lot of experienced user use the commons:Commons:Commonist for uploading their files. For such an important tool it's surprising that it is not WMF supported. It is currently stored on a third-party website, which could make some users think that it's not really trustworthy. Also some of the error reports (e.g. commons:Commons_talk:Commonist) could me more self-explanatory and some of the functionality (for example some kind of HotCat-system) could be improved as well. Regarding curation: One of the key tools in this area is the commons:User:CommonsDelinker. However recently it was not operating for 2 months due to some problems and now more problems have arisen. That's why User:Rillke, who is very experienced in all the technical stuff suggested WMF support for the Delinker to minimize downtime and faster bugfixing (see here). --Isderion (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Create
Special:Nearby is a good idea when there is no picture. But more and more areas are covered on Commons. E.g. it takes a lot of time to know if we need more photo of a monument in Paris. We need a tool to quickly check the quality of pictures in a category : sorting images by resolution, size, uploader ; be able to select photos and generate a list/gallery/category. Pyb (talk) 18:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

3D and videos formats
Hi, Thank you for your work in improving the multimedia part of Wikipedia. I have 2 propositions for you :

3D
Several images in Commons are created with 3D editors like Blender but only the 2D image can be uploaded to Commons. Therefore, we are loosing the opportunity to be able to make new versions of those images because we don't have the source file. I would like Commons to accept several types of 3D files, especially the Blender file type, even if the rendering of the file is not done by MediaWiki. A 2D image could be added to illustrate the 3D file.

Videos formats
Many users of video have a hard time dealing with video file formats and are not able to convert the files into the formats authorized by Commons. So, to improve the number of video files uploaded in Commons, several video formats should be allowed, even non free format, and converted on the spot in Theora or Webm with the use of Free tools like ffmpeg.

Lionel Allorge (talk) 13:58, 24 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This was also a request of mine and it is worked on. It was also one part of the IRC chat. I hope that my suggestion there (" most transcoders i worked with so far also supported some basic form of cutting (like from 00:00:09 until 00:00:30); I hope if server-side transcoding for uploads is enabled it also supports features like this") will be implemented. See also the according bug for more information. --Isderion (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Better use of space in gallery layouts
I just submitted 65451 with some suggestions of how to make better use of available space for packing images in a gallery (e.g. in category pages). Instead of the current look, they could look more like this :)

Here's an example implementation of such an approach, and its corresponding how-to post. --Waldir (talk) 13:05, 18 May 2014 (UTC)