Structured Data Across Wikimedia/Image Suggestions/Feedback Commons

This page collects the feedback from the Summer 2021 mass-message initiative for the image recommendation features for experienced users, which is a tool currently in development by the Structured Data Across Wikimedia team.

From your experience, what is the hardest part about adding images to articles?

 * From my experience, the hardest part about adding images to articles is the arrangement of images in a way to make articles easier to read. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 11:41, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Illustrating a wikipedia article by means of wikidata templates has the advantage of automatism, but concomitant disadvantage concerning the choice of illustration. --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I've never found it at all difficult, but the main thing I think would make it easier for others would be to be more explicitly presented with the relevant choices: e.g. thumb vs. gallery vs. including the image in the template. The fact that some methods require explicit "File:". some have it optional, and some don't allow it is ridiculous. It would be much simpler for naive users to be able to fill out some sort of form to build the appropriate wikitext. However, I think it is very important that it remain wikitext, or at least be able to be serialized into wikitext. It has been a major problem on Commons that we can't do diffs across edits that change structured data. - Jmabel (talk) 15:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * У меня проблемы возникают при обновлении изображений в статьях, когда изображение "закопано" в Викиданных. Обновление изображения в Викиданных - уже проблема. И после обновления часто появляется старое изображение вместо нового. Такое впечатление, что Викиданные не дописаны, бета-версия. В принципе как программист я против Викиданных, это лишняя надстройка. --Matsievsky (talk) 19:03, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The biggest issue that I've run into is in writing captions in other-language Wikipedias. The interaction between left-to-right languages such as English and right-to-left languages such as Arabic sometimes makes it very difficult to write captions, because when I paste in translations, the position of the cursor changes. Sometimes text is placed where I don't want it; or it might be split up around text already present in the caption.Jacqke (talk) 11:28, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Its probably easier to add images into infoboxes since no additional formatting or prefix is generally needed. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Incorporating machine-generated image suggestions into the editor workflow: concerns and potential

 * We have provided a few options for how we might incorporate machine-generated image suggestions into the editor workflow.
 * As a Commons user, you might be particularly interested in option #5, where we are exploring notifying users who have uploaded an image if the image(s) they’ve uploaded are a match to any articles on wikis in the language(s) the user speaks. What concerns do you have about these options? What excites you about these options?
 * My main concern is that the notifications will be annoying, especially for people with a large number of image uploads. Commons is an independent project from Wikipedia. People who upload images to Commons are not necessarily interested in contributing to Wikipedia, or may be uploading images specifically for work on another project like Wikisource. Any such notifications to image uploaders should be opt-in so that only those uploaders who are interested in adding images to Wikipedia will be shown them. Nosferattus (talk) 12:34, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * All I can say is that these recommendations make me even more glad that I never use the Upload Wizard. - Jmabel (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If I manage to get the owner of an image to submit it to Commons, the Wizard is functional at the moment. But if it were to start asking them to make additional choices, it might discourage them from uploading. Please keep it simple. Perhaps a link or tab to reach the recommendations after the image is uploaded? Jacqke (talk) 12:11, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option #5 might be really annoying. However, if suggestions pop up only when there are matching pages without images, then this feature could be helpful. In this case, an option to show all matching pages without images in any wiki irrespective of language might be even more helpful for me. However, his option should be opt-in only. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 21:00, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

How can we help users add appropriate captions?

 * Is this really a problem? I have rarely, if ever, seen an image with an inappropriate caption, except in an article that was almost entirely incompetently written. I will add, though, that if the system is going to suggest adding an image, then it probably needs to suggest an appropriate caption. However, keep in mind, Commons has been plagued with structured data that misses the point, and would lead to misleading captions: e.g. a photo of a city street that has a "depicts" tag for a stop sign, which is barely even visible in the image, or a "depicts" for a place, when the picture happens to have been taken there but in no meaningful way depicts the place, or for a person who is very incidentally in the photo. - Jmabel (talk) 15:46, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I would suggest a text-box that asks users to write sentence or two, addressing who, what, when, where, why and how for the image and also for its subject, as best they can. The box should also include a sentence about how addressing these points will avoid confusion and make their image useful. Jacqke (talk) 11:53, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, especially on the What, When and Where; Who needs perhaps an explanation (who is depicted / who is the artist) and Why and How only in very specific cases. So with the first four I would already be very happy. JopkeB (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Re: request for feedback on Commons
The largest problem I find with newly uploaded images is that far too many contributors do not say where the image was taken. This is vitally important information for any scientific analysis of images, particularly in biology-related topics. Adding location information needs to be made a more integral part of the upload form, and with some form of prominent reminder before completing the upload (something like "you have not completed the location information, are you sure you don't wish to?"). - MPF (talk) 10:09, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. It has to be recommended to have the location as part of the filename, and/or it should be good to have a question abiout the location during the upload process, similar to the date question. As times of creation and of upload are already generated during the ulpoad process, I name files by location and object (or sometimes for scanned images source and object). -Havang(nl) (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I totally agree that one way or another, the location should be added to each file. Filename is fine, or part of the description (indeed like date), geocoordinates or a category with the location. Not only for biology-related topics, but for all sort of topics. The category structure is for an imported part based on countries and places, so also therefor we need locations. JopkeB (talk) 15:03, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the image metadata on Commons would be better quality if adding metadata was integrated into the upload process rather than awkwardly tacked on at the end. For example, the date and license could be automatically generated from the existing form inputs. Nosferattus (talk) 12:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * There are some bots that do things like that on Commons, e.g. Commons:User:BotMultichillT. AFAIK this works nicely. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, a bot can only convert data into categories or to Wikidata if the data already exist, not if they are not in the file at all. I think that is the problem. JopkeB (talk) 03:52, 4 August 2021 (UTC)