Grants:IEG/Wiki needs pictures

Many Wikipedia articles have no images, or they won't have some available on commons once they will have been written. Imagine you have a camera (or a recorder, current devices have many functions) and you want to photograph something near you that fill those holes on Wikipedia, or you want to organize a trip or a competition for doing that. Where do you start?

Volunteers report these deficiencies using template like Image requested that fill categories like Wikipedia requested photographs. However it's quite unfriendly and inefficient to scroll those lists searching a possible entity to be photographed, even if in some case there is a well structured subcategories tree. Moreover every Wikipedia edition has its own tagging system for the same problem. That means n-uplications of the effort, both for who mantains these alerts, both for who searchs. There is also some minor confusion between the "lack of images" and the more general "lack of media".

New very general and streamline tools are available but they rely on archive such as wikidata that are occasionally incomplete and still require some time to be fully operational. All these tools can't be used with new lists of targets before they are created as articles or wikidata items.

A way to better arrange the "local edition" lists is to use coordinates to find which entities is near the place you are. There have been attempts to use this approach like the three links in the top-right box in this page. But at the moment some seem to be broken and other works only without recursion. There is also a tool called geophotoreq, that generate lists of article using coordinates. Moreover exisits wikishootme, [version 2, when this grant was proposed] that use a position, or an article, or a Wikidata element to show a list and little map with Wikidata entities without images near you.

This idea goes further: imagine a single map where all the alerts coming from all language edition are displayed together; that is wiki-needs-pictures.

• This interface will be linked with other tools so to spread from the local to the meta level the knowledge and the interaction of new tools if available. This way all users, even the ones that don't master English very well, can have a progressive access to new level of tools. It is a convergence environment, design to be very flexible and open. This environment will hopefully help to rethink local templates and categories system in a more integrated prspective on the medium-long term. More importantly, this convergence between local users and meta infrastructures should speed up the removal of bugs, duplicates, false positive and false negatives on environmnt such as wikidata. In the future obsolete tools or infrastructure will be dismissed whitout loss of competences or information because new ones will be already available and known.

• In addition to that, thanks to item properties and category labels, the display will help you to select of all possible subclasses of items such as train stations, buildings, natural areas or artworks in a very handy way (specific icons).

• Finally, future items as part of school project, scavenger hunts or competition, interactions with local archives can be inserted on the map before creating stub articles or wikidata items.

No lists but just a map. You can use it giving your position or navigating it through zoom buttons or by pressing aggregated POIs. It shows data from every Wikipedia edition, edited by users, in a single view. You can choose which type of entities to look using the filters. There will be an info button full of useful links to understand the aim of the project and how to properly contribute (i.e. how to upload to commons and make pins disappear).

The system that fetch the data from Wikipedia it'll be easy expandable to accept also other projects like Wikivoyage or non human suggestions. For example it'll serve the list of all articles with coordinates without images both on article, both on others Wikipedia editions via langlinks, both on Wikidata.

The tool will also expose API that will returns a lists for a selected query, in order to make possible the reuse of collected data without forcing the use of its frontend.

• Friendly UI also for non wikimedia or experts users: you don't need to be an expert wikipedian or to know how coordinates works.
• Easy and fast to use: you only need to open the tool to find where to start to take photos.
• Filters by type: you can visualize just the kind of entities you're looking for.
• Flexible database: data comes both from centralized repository (like Wikidata), distributed ones (like WP editions), custom ones (like public events, wiki-trip, etc.)
• API exposition: you can build other kind of tools upon this one, asking e.g. for all the train stations images missing on wikimedia world.

• Simplify the way both expert and casual users can find which are the photographs that Wikipedia needs.
  • Increase the number of photo uploaded to Commons/Wikipedia.
  • Reduce the number of articles without images.
  • Improve the quality of coordinates.

• Decrease the effort of maintaining dozens of overlapping categories.
  • Reduce the time spent by users doing duplication.

• Make the community thinking about how to centralize this alert process (i.e. using Wikidata)

Our starting point is the demo already presented and the objective of the activity is to expand it as follows.

• At the moment (September 2015) the demo shows about 30K different points of interest from enwiki, itwiki, frwiki, cawiki, svwiki. We plan to extend the data coverage to all the Wikipedia editions that have a system to tag the lack of image, and the same for some Wikivoyage.
• Testing larger, not human tagged dataset, like all the articles with coordinates without images (using also Wikidata).

• Use Wikimedia Maps as tile service.
• A stable autoupdate system for data import.
• Many more type of pins and filters.
• Add the possibility to filter by XXwiki.
• Link the FIST tool inside popups.
• Optimize the code in order to be used with very large datasets (100K+ entries).
• Finish touch to the UI.
• Expose API REST.
• Some features coming from community feedback during time.

• A technical documentation about how the software works, published on github along with the rest of the code.
• An informative documentation into the tool, reachable i.e. clicking the info button, explaining the aim of the project, why wikimedia needs pictures and how to join taking a photo, upload it to Commons and use it on Wikipedia articles.

• Simple statistics about tool usage like views and operative system used.
• Detailed statistics about the number of points of interest in the map, from which Wikipedia are coming, how frequent are added or removed.

• Analyze how each community face the problem and survey of all other existing image tools to better interface with them: 30 hours @ 300€
• Software development costs (including architectural part, coding and documentation): ~200 hours @ 2000€
• Write the menu guide and translate it in Italian, Spanish, German, Esperanto, French, Swedish, Dutch: 20 hours @ 200€

There will be an accessible configuration file in order to extend it to all other languages, with the help of volunteers from the community. This is also true for understanding the different ways in which the "image requested" system is deployed among Wikipedia editions that we're not able to read.

We plan to continuously monitor and ask for feedback from the community about the development of the tool and the features requested, using two spaces:

• the Github project's issue page;
• a page on meta-wiki like Wiki needs pictures.

The final part of the idea is to use the tool itself as a use case to focus the community attention about the centralization of the "requested image" actual system. We can use a space on meta-wiki for this, like Talk:Wiki needs pictures.

After the grants ends the tool will be, like now, hosted on wfm tool labs, and it'll be completly automated (so it'll autoupdate data during time). The code will be, like now, on GitHub, relased as open source. I plan also to produce as much documentation it'll be needed, so the project could be easly forked or expanded by anyone else.

As I do for the others tool and bot I've written, I plan to continue the low level maintenance as volunteer.

• I will prepare statistics regarding the tool's usage. Moreover I plan to track how many alerts are being added or removed during time.
• The interaction with language editions that are not showing a cat system such as Polish or Danish (daWiki only has da:Skabelon:Billedesavnes) is a proof of success. These platforms can basically offer a structured database to their users for "free" (it will take one hour for a en-3/4 user to translate the main labels and descriptions of the tool)

• Grantee AlessioMela. I am a computer engineering student at Politecnico di Torino in Italy. I mainly programmed free and open source software, including some tool useful for the Wikimedia movement like lists and maintgraph. Wikimedian user since march 2012, I contribute on italian projects (mainly Wikipedia and Wikisource), Commons and Wikidata.
• Grantee Alexmar983 (second-in-charge). I'm a wikimedian since 2010 and I'm active on may different platforms (both content creation and coordination activities, including real life events with the local wikimedia chapter). I know a good amount of foreign languages and I can learn the details of local wiki infrasctructure very quickly. I've often helped Alessio to improve his analytical tools and I think we are an efficient team.
• Advisor I contacted the grantees because Wikimedia CH has a similar project in place. We could reuse the project for our aim. Ilario (talk) 10:42, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Volunteer I'd like to integrate Czech Wikipedia geographic coordinates of unphotographed sights (>10000) into this map. Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 08:49, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

• Demo exposure at the Italian village pump
• commons village pump
• local category on frWiki
• Projet:iIllustrations on frWiki
• Wikiproyecto:Ilustración on esWiki
• WikiProject Images and Media on enWiki
• Wikiprojekt Fotografie on deWiki
• local cat on enWiki
• Kategorio:Artikoloj sen bildo local cat on eoWiki
• progetto:geografia on itWiki
• local cat on caWiki
• WikiProjekt Geographie on deWiki
• Projet geographie on frWiki
• local cat on nlWiki
• it-N bar on Commons
• ...

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

• The idea seems good  Support-- Biplab Anand (Talk to me) 09:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Having a proper system instead of my hackish tool collection alone is worth it! --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
• I think this would be a useful tool, and fun to use besides. Wiki DOES need pictures! Jtmorgan (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
• Really exciting way to see new contributions make their way into Wikipedia and Commons. We need more diverse ways to lower the barrier to entry like this Tfinc (talk) 23:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
•  Support What recruited me to be more active was Wiki loves Monuments. It would be a good idea for a scavenger hunt game. Geraldshields11 (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
•  Support If the tool will be able to extract articles with missing images from really various language editions (note that there are very diverse ways to tag articles with missing images and showing coordinates) as well as work well with Wikidata (hide articles that have image on WD, display items with missing images but without article links) it sounds like great idea. Jklamo (talk) 21:30, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
•  Support If this proposal concentrates on implementing an api, a labs based map, and possibly on android app-based way to take pictures and submit them (extended). --Yurik (WMF) (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
•  Support -- T.seppelt (talk) 10:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
•  Support -- Tulsi Bhagat (Talk) 10:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Very needed. I am a heavy user of WikiShootMe, which is great for things that have items in Wikidata, but this tool would allow picture requests for things that don't have a Wikidata article, for instance being just the object of a paragraph. Would the result be a webapp, or an Android app? If webapp, make sure it works well on mobile, since most people find coordinates using their phone's GPS. If Android, please launch intents to the navigation app and to https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/apps-android-commons to upload the taken picture. Thanks! Syced (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
•  Support --Epìdosis 15:36, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
•  Support Would be more than helpful. --Balabinrm (talk) 23:51, 27 June 2018 (UTC)