[Commons-l] some statistics

Fri Jun 9 21:11:03 UTC 2006

Magnus Manske wrote:
> Solution A:
> Increase the number of admins, which will increase the number of deletions.
>   
True, but also increases the number of controversial deletions; on a 
normal project, any time you delete something, you risk being yelled at 
by the people on that project. On Commons, you risk being yelled at by 
everybody involved with Wikimedia. That's a lot of pressure to put on 
someone, especially when they can't easily leave a "Hey, I noticed 
[image] seems to need deletion, but you're using it" message (because we 
have hundreds of languages, and nobody can hope to speak them all).
> Solution B:
> Have a bot automatically delete files in certain categories that have 
> been there since X days.
>   
The vandals will love this one: "Hey, want to really wreak havoc? Go 
start tagging images with this category. Do it to images with 
descriptions in small languages, where there's not likely to be anyone 
who can tell you're actually vandalizing, or anyone watching the image 
to know to untag it. Even better if you do it to a hundred at a time; 
they'll assume you're a good contributor, and won't eve ask you 
questions! Then, this bot will come along and delete it for you, and 
they won't be able to get it back!"
> 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). 
Mmmm, DOS opportunity from the same vandals: Tag all kinds of images, no 
matter what they are, with deletion notices, it will stop new user 
creation [or uploads by new users] until they can get it back down. 
Don't worry, even if they revert you, you'll still DOS them for a while, 
waste thier time, and by the time they've caught you and started 
reverting, you'll have another account and be doing it again!
> Have a messaage displayed prominently to put social pressure on the admins ;-)
>   
Attention, admins: Quickly, resign adminship, because no matter what 
you're doing, you're going to be blamed for the problem! Oh, and note to 
vandals: All the admins are resigning, now's the time to hit, because 
there's even less of them to stop you!
> (disclaimer: I am not an admin on commons)
>
> Magnus
Now, don't get me wrong, my responses above are comically 
over-dramatized to make the point. They're all good ideas (except that 
last one, don't blame the admins!), they're just prone to abuse, and 
with the language-barriers and lack of staff on Commons, it'd be an open 
and waiting target.

I am a Commons admin, and the thing that scares me most about Commons 
admin work is deletion: Almost everything on Commons, if deleted, cannot 
be recovered, and Commons materials are used on all Wikimedia projects. 
There are good tools, like the one that checks usage on other projects, 
and I'm glad we have them, but we still have the problem that there is a 
major language barrier, and very low participation from projects.

However, the thing that would make me feel most comfortable deleting 
would be a way of getting things back. If deleted images could be 
recovered, I'd have no problem whatsoever with deleting things in those 
categories left and right. And, it solves the problems raised above with 
the idea of deleting by bot: As long as we know we can get it back, why not?

I'm sure that the reason images aren't recoverable is an issue of space: 
We don't have the server space to store tens of thousands of images that 
were deemed unwanted. Likewise, we don't want to be holding on to copies 
of images that could get us in trouble, like copyvios. However, it would 
be incredibly useful to be able to restore an image that shouldn't have 
been deleted. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to hold on to deleted 
images for a period of time, and to then have them be automatically 
purged. Though I've never gone to a deleted page and been unable to 
restore content, I'm told that it is possible for very old deleted pages 
to be purged off entirely, so I wonder if something similar couldnt' be 
done for images.

It seems to me that an image being deleted is something you would 
probably notice right away (at least within, say, 7 days) if the image 
was really important; would it be possible to make it so that deleted 
images were kept for 7 days, an then purged after that? Even if it was 
only done on Commons (and it strikes me, it would be a feature that 
other wikis would want as well, to deal with the possibility of a 
compromised/rouge admin account) it would help tremendously, because we 
would no longer have to worry about being in hot water if we deleted 
something that was mistagged. It might produce a space problem for the 
first week, while we were all cutting through the 12,000 image backlog, 
but after that, it seems to me the space requirement of just holding on 
to things for a week wouldn't be that much. (I'm not a programmer, but 
common sense suggests moving an image from a to b doesn't really 
increase the amount of space required by the image, it just adds a log 
entry, which should be fairly cheap.)

Since we have a developer on the list, thinking about possible solutions 
<lays out a carrot under a box to trap Magnus> perhaps he could provide 
us with some more information on what would be needed to make this 
happen, and perhaps even provide the needed code to make it happen.

I'll pledge, personally, to delete at least 1,000 of the backlogged 
images if this is implemented.

Essjay

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