Besides the 100K milestone, the project also received an honorary
mention at this year's Prix Ars Electronica. Please help with the
distribution and translation of the press release at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/100K
The online copy also includes various media examples.
NB: The Commons now has more than half as many files as the English
Wikipedia and more than any other project. Soon it will be the single
largest repository of files in the Wikimedia world.
See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:First_steps for
information on getting started to use the Commons.
All best,
Erik
100,000th file uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, a free media repository
Free images, sounds, and videos can be used by anyone for any purpose
St. Petersburg, Florida, United States
May 24, 2005
The Wikimedia Foundation announced today that the 100,000th file had
been uploaded to its online repository of free images, sounds, and
videos, the Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/). These
files have been chosen or created by 5,259 registered users from more
than 12 different languages gathered in a single lively community. The
young project received additional encouragement and recognition on
Monday in the form of an honorary mention at the 2005 Prix Ars
Electronica awards.
The Wikimedia Commons, launched on September 7 2004, is a unique free
and open media archive (including images, sounds, and video), using the
same "wiki" technology that has made Wikipedia, a community-written
encyclopedia, the second most popular reference website on the web
(Hitwise.com report, April 2005). Wikis are websites that anyone can
edit, allowing for rapid growth and constant peer review of all
contributions. All files uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons are available
royalty-free for any purpose. Most files require attribution of the
creator, and some are under copyleft licenses, meaning that derivative
works also have to be made available for free re-use. Both Wikipedia and
the Wikimedia Commons are operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
The 100,000th file was an illustration drawn by a French Wikipedia user
named Stephane Tsacas. He manages the computer network of the Curie
Institute, a research center on biology and physics in Paris. "I
recently did some searches in the French Wikipedia and discovered some
incomplete information in a few articles in the field I know, computer
science. I then decided to register and do the modifications myself."
The file Stephane Tsacas uploaded is a diagram of the experimental
dataflow computer architecture. It is used in the detailed French
article http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_Dataflow. As soon as a
file is uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, it is instantly available for
use on all Wikimedia projects without needing to be uploaded to the
local project. This feature is encouraging the Wikimedia projects to
move towards a multimedia approach rather than the simple text-based
approach they relied on in the past.
"Wikimedia Commons is of critical importance for all the Wikimedia
projects, and beyond that, it is critically important for the entire
free culture movement," said Jimmy Wales, president of the Wikimedia
Foundation. Since the inception of the project in September 2004,
thousands of Wikimedia contributors have joined to make their multimedia
available to the larger community. As such, the Commons is one of the
most diverse collections of files imaginable. It includes many
independent collections of free content:
* 7,733 pronunciation files in various languages, notably Dutch
(5,926), German (499), Farsi (464), and Italian (249). These voice
recordings made by editors of the project are mostly used in Wiktionary,
a wiki-based dictionary and thesaurus.
* Reproductions of 10,000 public domain paintings from ancient to
modern times, donated by Directmedia Publishing, a German publishing
company. This includes the works of artists like Leonardo da Vinci,
Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Hieronymus Bosch, and many
others. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Yorck_Project.
* Hundreds of public domain recordings of classical music by
composers like Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky. See
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Classical_music.
* A growing collection of videos of historical speeches, excerpts
from public domain films such as Charlie Chaplin's "The Bond", and
scientific videos such as bacterial broths being deposited into a Petri
dish or the Space Shuttle Columbia going through the sound barrier. See
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Video.
Besides these collections, it is the work of individuals which defines
the Wikimedia Commons -- like Wikinews user "Belizian", who took photos
during civil unrest in the small Central American nation of Belize in
January 2005 for the Wikinews article on the subject
(http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Unrest_in_Belize), or Wikibooks author
Robert Engelhardt, who has added photos of various beekeeping tools to
his growing reference work on the topic
(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping). From lovingly drawn subway
maps to print quality photos of insects, from physics diagrams to photos
of exotic locations, the members of the Wikimedia Commons cover
virtually all areas of human interest with great attention to detail.
Like Wikimedia's other projects, the Wikimedia Commons is open for
everyone to edit, to enrich it with new content, to help in the
categorization of existing media, and to remove problematic materials.
Given the proven successes of the wiki model, it may soon become the
largest repository of free media on the web.
Additional information
For questions and interviews, please contact:
In English only:
Jimmy Wales, Chair, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation
Phone: (+1)-727-644-3565
Email: jwales(a)wikimedia.org (mailto:jwales@wikimedia.org)
Angela Beesley, Executive Secretary, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation
Phone: (+44)-208-816-7308
Email: angela(a)wikimedia.org (mailto:angela@wikimedia.org)
In English or French:
Florence Devouard, Vice President, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation:
Email: anthere(a)wikimedia.org (mailto:anthere@wikimedia.org)
Prix Ars Electronica
The Prix Ars Electronica is a yearly prize in the field of electronic
and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It
has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), one of
the world's major centers for art and technology.
The 2005 honorary mentions can be viewed at:
http://www.aec.at/en/prix/honorary2005.asp
I'm pleased to announce that I have finished uploading 10,424 public
domain paintings to the Wikimedia Commons. They are from the DVD "10,000
Meisterwerke der Malerei" (10,000 masterpieces of painting) by "The
Yorck Project" and were donated to the public by Directmedia Publishing
GmbH (of German Wikipedia DVD fame). Directmedia put the collection
itself under the GFDL so there are no lingering copyright concerns.
See the translated original announcement at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:10%2C000_paintings_from_Directmed…
Besides the paintings themselves, as permitted and encouraged by
Directmedia, I have added the metadata from the DVD, which includes
basic data about the individual artists as well as the paintings (much
of it is in German, I've made an attempt to automatically translate
date-related abbreviations). I have also tried to translate the German
style data into English categories.
Credit goes to Tim 'Avatar' Bartel for providing the metadata as a MySQL
dump, as well as the Commons community that was always there to help
when I needed them. Special thanks to Arnomane for creating
[[Template:Information]] and suggesting its usage here. Thanks also to
everyone who provided constructive feedback during and after the process.
You can view all the paintings at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Yorck_Project
Or individual categories, e.g.:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Baroque_paintingshttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Post-Impressionist_paintingshttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cubist_paintingshttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Classicist_paintings
Or individual artists, e.g.:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Christian_Gottlieb_Schickhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:El_Grecohttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Peter_Paul_Rubens
Note that the "next 200" link on the main Yorck Project category didn't
work until a few minutes ago. The bug that caused this to happen should
now be fixed. However, some individual artist categories with more than
200 images will still have this problem (caused by a second
category-related bug), and it will probably take a few weeks to sort
this out. Meanwhile, there's a workaround:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:The_Yorck_Project&f…
This will show all the images from the Yorck Project starting with
filenames that begin with "Leonardo" (the filename is always of the form
"Firstname Lastname Number"). This way, you can view all the images by
any particular artist, no matter how many.
While all the images are high resolution, the quality of reproduction is
not always the best. Some images have visible compression artifacts at
full resolution, and others are too dark or too bright, for example. (In
fairness, even in these cases, many of the repros you will find on the
web are of still lower quality.) Bdk has started a list of images that
should be replaced with better reproductions:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:10%2C000_paintings_from_Directmed…
I hope you enjoy these works of art, and will help to add the best ones
to the relevant Wikipedia articles. It may make sense to translate the
gist of this announcement into other languages for this reason.
All best,
Erik
> > More precisely it would be best to wait on the 25th...
> > because there will be an announcement about
> > wikicommons on that date. This announcement is not yet
> > public but will be made public on the 25th.
I've merged Villy's announcement with the press release from the
Commons at http://grants.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Commons_May_2005
for anyone with access to the grants wiki to edit. On Monday, when the
announcement can be made public, this can be moved back to the
Commons. Since the announcement is quite short compared to the press
release, it may still be useful for people to continue translating the
press release and then to merge the announcement with it on Monday.
Angela.
Perfect :-)
Since you are around, I am confident you can see of
all this. Right now, the release is hosted on the
grantwiki but you naturally have it in your own mails
;-)
Ant
--- Jean-Christophe Chazalette
<jean-christophe.chazalette(a)laposte.net> wrote:
> Excellent. May 25th being my birthday, I'll take the
> annoucement as a
> conjunction of stars.
> villy ~~ JC
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anthere" <anthere9(a)yahoo.com>
> To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List"
> <commons-l(a)wikimedia.org>;
> <foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 9:14 AM
> Subject: [Commons-l] STOP Translations needed:
> Wikimedia Commons reaches
> 100, 000 uploads
>
>
> | It would be best to wait a few days before sending
> | this press release.
> |
> | More precisely it would be best to wait on the
> 25th...
> | because there will be an announcement about
> | wikicommons on that date. This announcement is not
> yet
> | public but will be made public on the 25th.
> |
> | Aurevilly has already written an announcement for
> it,
> | in english.
> |
> | It might be useful to see if both releases could
> not
> | be merged in one... I suggest the parties involved
> in
> | the commons press release discuss this before any
> | publishing of this one.
> |
> | Anthere
> |
> |
> | --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:
> | > The press release is almost done at:
> | >
> | >
> |
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/100K
> | >
> | > If someone wants to write a background section
> on
> | > what wikis are etc.,
> | > that might be a useful addition. Beyond that,
> please
> | > make minor fixes,
> | > and help to translate it into as many languages
> as
> | > possible. We can
> | > start sending this out on Monday. It doesn't
> need to
> | > be done in all
> | > languages simultaneously; if some need a few
> more
> | > days, that's fine.
> | >
> | > As noted in the release, the 100,000th file, by
> my
> | > count, is:
> | >
> |
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dataflowfiringnodes.png
> | >
> | > All best,
> | >
> | > Erik
> | > _______________________________________________
> | > Commons-l mailing list
> | > Commons-l(a)wikimedia.org
> | >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
> | >
> |
> | __________________________________________________
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> protection around
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> | _______________________________________________
> | Commons-l mailing list
> | Commons-l(a)wikimedia.org
> |
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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It would be best to wait a few days before sending
this press release.
More precisely it would be best to wait on the 25th...
because there will be an announcement about
wikicommons on that date. This announcement is not yet
public but will be made public on the 25th.
Aurevilly has already written an announcement for it,
in english.
It might be useful to see if both releases could not
be merged in one... I suggest the parties involved in
the commons press release discuss this before any
publishing of this one.
Anthere
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:
> The press release is almost done at:
>
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/100K
>
> If someone wants to write a background section on
> what wikis are etc.,
> that might be a useful addition. Beyond that, please
> make minor fixes,
> and help to translate it into as many languages as
> possible. We can
> start sending this out on Monday. It doesn't need to
> be done in all
> languages simultaneously; if some need a few more
> days, that's fine.
>
> As noted in the release, the 100,000th file, by my
> count, is:
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dataflowfiringnodes.png
>
> All best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
The press release is almost done at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/100K
If someone wants to write a background section on what wikis are etc.,
that might be a useful addition. Beyond that, please make minor fixes,
and help to translate it into as many languages as possible. We can
start sending this out on Monday. It doesn't need to be done in all
languages simultaneously; if some need a few more days, that's fine.
As noted in the release, the 100,000th file, by my count, is:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dataflowfiringnodes.png
All best,
Erik
Please, stop using national flags for denoting human languages. Both
entities do not match. Using flag is discriminating minorities - it is
not appropriate to discriminate someone even if this would actually
improve accessibility.
These misleading flags are that small that I often must look twice to
recognize them; and if recognized, it isn't even sure that I know what
they mean! I don't watch TV and that's probably why I'm not familiar
with all these modern flags.
Instead of flags use a cobination of language code (ISO) and the native
name:
de - Deutsch
en - English
es - Español
ja - 日本語
etc.
For reference see
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Templates_for_galleries (where
you must change the templates) and
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump . As long as
this feature is under discussion we should stay away from announcing
it; at least, for the time being we must make it as neutral as possible:
Display {{german}} as <nowiki>{{german}}</nowiki> .
It is important for me to get this issue right.
--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/ | ,__o
| _-\_<,
| (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4 AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Yorck_Project
'''de:''' Bitte teilt mir mit, ob das alles soweit OK ist; wenn ja,
folgt als nächstes der komplette Upload der 10.000.
'''en:''' Please tell me if there are any problems with the images
uploaded so far, if not, I will proceed to upload the rest.
An Karl: Alle Datumsangaben sind jetzt im ISO-Format.
Viele Grüße
Erik
I have now imported some of the artist metadata from the Directmedia
"10,000 masterpieces" DVD that was kindly donated to Wikimedia. For this
purpose, I have created a new "Creator:" metadata namespace on the
Commons. You can see all pages in this namespace at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&nam…
As you can see, I have written some conversion routines to translate
date information from German into English. Other information, however,
is primarily in German.
Note that the current bot output still sometimes produces a *de: bullet
point when it should not pass any parameter at all to the template,
i.e., when the field is blank. For this reason, I have not completed the
import, and will run the bot again after this bug is fixed. (Also, the
bot didn't have a bot flag, with so many pages, that was very annoying
on Recent Changes.)
Before I proceed, however, I ask you to take a look at the current
imported pages, and tell me about any other issues with the metadata as
it is.
What's the point of this? Simple, using this content, I can now put
{{Creator:Johann Anwander}}
on an image page, or on a gallery page, and get instant metadata
information as well as a proper category with sort key. I will add these
{{Creator:Xy}} tags to all the uploaded images. This avoids redundancy
across different pages where the same information is used, and thereby
makes updating and extracting artist metadata easier. Effectively, we
are modelling the structure of the relational database using templates
(yay, Wikidata without Wikidata ;-).
After the bot run is finished, I will upload a few example images from
the DVD, and if that is to everyone's satisfaction, we can go for the
full load.
All best,
Erik
