[Commons-l] some statistics

Fri Jun 9 11:32:15 UTC 2006

On 09/06/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Solution A:
> Increase the number of admins, which will increase the number of deletions.

Probably not enough to have a big impact any time soon, and if we were
to increase the numbers so that it did, it would be dangerous. And
also we don't even have the interested candidates to nominate, so...

> Solution B:
> Have a bot automatically delete files in certain categories that have
> been there since X days.

Could be possible for the category that is only used by Orgullobot,
but you wouldn't want to use it for most categories as people can (and
do) tag things maliciously or mistakenly. Manual checking is required
IMO. Sad but true.

Also I don't think anyone would be too happy with a bot that had admin
powers, doesn't seem to go down well. You could have an admin run a
daily script though, I guess. Their talk page would probably be a
world of pain as redlinks jumped up in X wikis. CommonsTicker wouldn't
help except for images tagged in the last couple of weeks.

> Solution C:
> I would expect that most problematic uploads come from new users.
> Disable the creation of new users (or their ability to upload) while the
> total backlog is >X files (no pun intended). Have a messaage displayed
> prominently to put social pressure on the admins ;-)

What do you mean, social pressure? To encourage them to delete stuff?

You are right that most problematic uploads come from newbies (or
oldbies no one has caught yet - there are many of those :( ).

Yet we now have automatic welcoming of all new active accounts, and
automatic logging of those accounts (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Orgullobot/Welcome_log ). And
we can't even muster up enough people to check these - a week and
there is already a backlog. You don't even have to be an admin to do
this.

Disabling newbie uploads is one idea, or forcing them to pass some
kind of copyright test. But there would be such backlash we could
never do it, plus there's always too many exceptions, different
languages...it's a nightmare. Also someone might be new to the Commons
but well familiar with copyright issues from Wikipedia or similar.

Any more ideas?

I could be happy for Jimbo to run through these with a razor, at least
it will save the Commons from criticism were I to do the same thing :)

Brianna