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Structured Data on Commons Newsletter, July 19, 2017

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons?

The millions of files on Wikimedia Commons are described with a lot of information or (meta)data. With the project Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons, this data is structured more, and is made machine-readable. This will make it easier to view, search (also multilingually), edit, organize and re-use the files on Commons.

In early 2017, the Sloan Foundation funded this project (see documentation). Development takes place in 2017–2020. It involves staff from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) and many volunteers. To achieve this, Wikibase support is added to Wikimedia Commons. Wikibase is the technology that is also used for Wikidata.

Recent developments: groundwork

• A new and crucial technical step (federation) now makes it possible to reference data from one Wikibase website in another. Because of this, it will be possible to use Wikidata's items and properties to describe media files on Commons.
• Another important piece of groundwork is under development: so-called Multi-Content Revisions. This feature allows structured data to be stored alongside wiki text, so that one wiki page can contain several types of content.

Team updates

• Amanda Bittaker was hired as Program Manager for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. Amanda will take care of the overall management of the project.
• Sandra Fauconnier (known as Spinster in her volunteer capacity) is the new Community Liaison. She will support the collaboration between the communities (Commons, Wikidata, GLAM) and the product development teams at the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland.
• We have open positions for a UX designer and a Product Manager!

Talking with communities and allies

• Long-term feedback from GLAMs. Besides the Wikimedia community, many external cultural and knowledge institutions (GLAMs - Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) are interested in Structured Data on Commons and are willing to provide feedback on the long-term plans for the project. Alex Stinson, GLAM strategist at the Wikimedia Foundation, is currently in contact with Europeana, DPLA, the Smithsonian and the National Archives of the United States. Alex is also looking for other GLAM institutions who might be able to advise on the long term. If you know of an institution or partner that may be appropriate for consultation, do get in touch with Alex.
• Jonathan Morgan, design researcher, is starting to work on two projects:
  • Researching batch upload workflows by interviewing GLAM institutions
  • Researching the enrichment, organization and improvement tasks on already uploaded media files by engaging with active Commons contributors. This research follows up on existing research by Wikimedia Deutschland on heavy Commons users.

What comes next?

• The Structured Data on Commons team meets in the week after Wikimania to lay the groundwork for the next steps. This includes new backend development and design work, for better and more clear integration of the structured data in pages on Wikimedia Commons.
• The project's information pages on Wikimedia Commons will receive a long overdue update in the upcoming months. The team will also work on more and better communication channels. Feedback, wishes and tips are welcome at the project's general talk page.

Get involved

• Join us at Wikimania! We are present at the hackathon, and there will be a session on Saturday, August 12: Structured Commons: what changes are coming?
• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Stay tuned for requests for input, discussion and participation as soon as the info portal is refreshed (see above). These will also be announced via this newsletter.

Many greetings from SandraF (WMF) (talk), Community Liaison for this project! 13:55, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Structured Commons newsletter, October 25, 2017

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Rama published an article about Structured Commons in Arbido, a Swiss online magazine for archivists, librarians and documentalists: original in French, illustrated and the article translated in English.
• We now have a dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• Join the community focus group!
• Translation. Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• The documentation and info pages about Structured Data on Commons have received a thorough update, in order to get them ready for all the upcoming work. Obsolete pages were archived. There are undoubtedly still a lot of omissions and bits that are unclear. You can help by editing boldly, and by leaving feedback and tips on the talk pages.
• We have started to list tools, gadgets and bots that might be affected by Structured Commons in order to prepare for a smooth transition to the new situation. You can help by adding alerts about/to specific tools and developers on the dedicated tools page. You can also create Phabricator tasks to help keep track of this. Volunteers and developers interested in helping out with this process are extremely welcome - please sign up!
• Help write the next Structured Commons newsletter.

Presentations / Press / Events

Audience at Structured Commons design discussion, Wikimania 2017

• Structured Data on Commons was presented at Wikimania 2017 in Montréal for a packed room. First design sketches for search functionality were discussed during a breakout session. Read the Etherpad reports of the presentation and the breakout session.
• Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, answered questions on Quora. One of her answers, mentioning Structured Data on Commons, was republished on Huffington Post.
• Sandra Fauconnier, Amanda Bittaker and Ramsey Isler from the Structured Commons team will be at WikidataCon. Sandra presents Structured Commons there (with a focus on fruitful collaboration between the Wikidata and Commons communities). If you attend the conference, don't hesitate to say hi and have a chat with us! (phabricator task T176858)

Team updates

The Structured Commons team at Wikimania 2017

Two new people have been hired for the Structured Data on Commons team. We are now complete! :-)

• Ramsey Isler is the new Product Manager of the Multimedia team.
• Pamela Drouin was hired as User Interface Designer. She works at the Multimedia team as well, and her work will focus on the Structured Commons project.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!

Research

Design research is ongoing.

• Jonathan Morgan and Niharika Ved have held interviews with various GLAM staff about their batch upload workflows and will finish and report on these in this quarter. (phabricator task T159495)
• At this moment, there is also an online survey for GLAM staff, Wikimedians in Residence, and GLAM volunteers who upload media collections to Wikimedia Commons. The results will be used to understand how we can improve this experience. (phabricator task T175188)
• Upcoming: interviews with Wikimedia volunteers who curate media on Commons (including tool developers), talking about activities and workflows. (phabricator task T175185)

Development

In Autumn 2017, the Structured Commons development team works on the following major tasks (see also the quarterly goals for the team):

• Getting Multi-Content Revisions sufficiently ready, so that the Multimedia and Search Platform teams can start using it to test and prototype things.
• Determine metrics and metrics baseline for Commons (phabricator task T174519).
• The multimedia team at WMF is gaining expertise in Wikibase, and unblocking further development for Structured Commons, by completing the MediaInfo extension for Wikibase.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! It takes place on Tuesday 21 November, 18.00 UTC.

Warmly, your community liaison, SandraF (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 14:26, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Structured Commons newsletter, December 13, 2017

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• There was a IRC Office Hour about Structured Commons on November 21. You can read the log here.
• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat

Things to do / input and feedback requests

A multi-licensed image on Wikimedia Commons, with a custom {{EthnologyItemMHNT}} Information template. Do you also know media files on Commons that will be interesting or challenging to model with structured data? Add them to the Interesting Commons files page.

• NEW: Participate in a survey that helps us prioritize which tools are important for the Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata communities. The survey runs until December 22. Here's some background.
• NEW: Help the team decide on better names for 'captions' and 'descriptions'. You can provide input until January 3, 2018.
• NEW: Help collect interesting Commons files, to prepare for the data modelling challenges ahead! Continuous input is welcome.
• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to translate messages and information about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.

Presentations / Press / Events

Presentation about Structured Commons and Wikidata, at WikimediaCon in Berlin.

• Sandra presented the plans for Structured Commons during WikidataCon in Berlin, on October 29. The presentation focused on collaboration between the Wikidata and Commons communities. You can see the full video here.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!

Research

• Research findings from interviews and surveys of GLAM project participants are being published to the research page. Check back over the next few weeks as additional details (notes, quotes, charts, blog posts, and slide decks) will be added to or linked from that page.

Development

• The Structured Commons team has written and submitted a report about the first nine months of work on the project to its funders, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 53-page report, published on November 1, is available on Wikimedia Commons.
• The team has started working on designs for changes to the upload wizard (T182019).
• We started preliminary work to prototype changes for file info pages.
• Work on the MediaInfo extension is ongoing (T176012).
• The team is continuing its work on baseline metrics on Commons, in order to be able to measure the effectiveness of structured data on Commons. (T174519)
• Upcoming: in the first half of 2018, the first prototypes and design sketches for file pages, the UploadWizard, and for search will be published for discussion and feedback!

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! It takes place on Tuesday, February 13, 18.00 UTC in wikimedia-office ^webchat.

Warmly, your community liaison, SandraF (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 16:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Spring 2018

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter and contribute to the next issue. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat
• Several Commons community members are working on ways to integrate Wikidata in Wikimedia Commons. While this is not full-fledged structured data yet, this work helps to prepare for future conversion of data, and helps to understand how Wikidata and Commons can work better together.
  • Thanks to Jarekt and other contributors, some Commons templates can now be filled via Wikidata: {{Creator}} (Phabricator) and {{Institution}} (Phabricator). Work is ongoing on the {{Artwork}} template (Phabricator).
  • Thanks to Mike Peel and others, Wikidata-powered infoboxes can now be added to Commons categories, with the template {{Wikidata Infobox}}. (Example)
  • Multichill is working on an experimental workflow to upload images to Commons via Wikidata (and using metadata from Wikidata). See a part of it here.

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Contribute to the next newsletter.

Discussions held

• Conversation about licensing and copyright modeling.
• High-level discussion on ontology for Commons.
• Review first designs for multilingual captions.
• IRC office hour, 13 February

Events

• Wikimedia Conference, Berlin, 20-22 April (+ Learning Days 18-19 April): several sessions and workshops around Structured Commons
• EuropeanaTech Conference, Rotterdam, 15-16 May: several presentations + a full workshop day on Monday 14 May about Wikidata and Structured Commons
• Wikimedia Hackathon, Barcelona, 18-20 May: Structured Commons as a focus area.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!

Research

• The research about GLAM contributions to Wikimedia Commons is concluded. A blog post on the Wikimedia blog provides a summary, and you can read the full results on meta.wikimedia.org.

Development

• Prototypes will be available for Multilingual Captions soon.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! The date for next quarter will be announced soon.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 19:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Summer 2018

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter and contribute to the next issue. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat
• Since our last newsletter, the Structured Data team has moved into designing and building prototypes for various features. The use of multilingual captions in the UploadWizard and on the file page has been researched, designed, discussed, and built out for use. Behind the scenes, back-end work on search is taking place and designs are being drawn up for the front-end. There will soon be specifications published for the use of the first Wikidata property on Commons, "Depicts," and a prototype is to be released to go along with that.

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• A workshop on what Wikidata properties Commons will need. This workshop will be open for the entire month of July 2018 at minimum.

• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Contribute to the next newsletter.

Discussions held

• In late February there was a discussion around how Commons generally sees data being modeled.

• The first discussion on copyright and licensing with Commons was held in March. This was a "high level" discussion, there will be a consultation later this summer about the deeper mapping of copyright and licensing in a structured way.
• In April there was an exercise for GLAM partners in metadata and ontology mapping.
• A discussion about the design for Multilingual Captions on the file page took place in May. You can still review the designs and leave feedback.
• There was an IRC office hour in June to discuss progress so far and future plans.

Wikimania 2018

• Three sessions about Structured Commons are officially scheduled for Wikimania 2018 - Cape Town, South Africa - July 2018.
  • Wikimedia Commons and GLAM needs around the world (Friday 20 July, 10:30 local time)
  • Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons and knowledge equity (Friday 20 July, 14:00 local time)
  • Design challenge workshop: How can multilingual structured metadata bring knowledge equity to Commons? (Friday 20 July, 14:30 local time)
• Structured Data on Commons is also a focus area during the Wikimania 2018 Hackathon. We will, among other things, do 'live' modelling of Wikidata properties for Commons - an offline spin-off of the community consultation taking place on wiki.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!
• Structured Data on Commons was presented to GLAM audiences during EuropeanaTech 2018 in Rotterdam (15 May 2018) and at the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Forum in Berlin (4 June 2018).

Research

Two research projects about Wikimedia Commons are currently ongoing, or in the process of being finished:

1. Research:Curation workflows on Wikimedia Commons—a project that seeks to understand the current workflows of Commons contributors who curate media (categorize it, delete it, link to it from other projects, etc.).
2. Research:Technical needs of external re-users of Commons media—soliciting feedback from individuals and organizations that re-use Commons content outside of Wikimedia projects, in order to understand their current painpoints and unmet needs.

Development

• Prototypes will be available for Depicts soon.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! The date for next quarter will be announced soon.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 21:07, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data Newsletter - Research link fix

Greetings,

The newsletter omitted two interwiki prefixes, breaking the links on non-meta wikis as you might see above. Here are the correct links:

1. m:Research:Curation workflows on Wikimedia Commons—a project that seeks to understand the current workflows of Commons contributors who curate media (categorize it, delete it, link to it from other projects, etc.).
2. m:Research:Technical needs of external re-users of Commons media—soliciting feedback from individuals and organizations that re-use Commons content outside of Wikimedia projects, in order to understand their current painpoints and unmet needs.

My apologies, I hope you find the corrected links helpful.

- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Fall 2018 edition

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Multilingual Captions, the first feature release for Structured Data, is coming in January of 2019
  • Be on the lookout for the beta testing announcement
  • Help using captions has been set up, if you'd like to go ahead and see the workflow
• Two IRC office hours were held since the last newsletter
  • Log for 4 October
  • Log for 1 November
• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat

Things to do / input and feedback requests

Current:

• Help determine and propose properties on Wikidata for Commons
• Review designs for structured licensing and copyright
• Join the community focus group!

Since the last newsletter:

• Review a prototype for searching structured Commons (October 2018)
• "Good coverage" for depicts tagging (Sept. 2018)
• Review and discuss mockups for displaying the new metadata section of the file page (18 September - 9 October 2018)
• Depicts statements draft requirements (14 August - 31 August 2018)
• Identify Wikidata properties that Commons will need (26 June - 14 August 2018)

Presentations / Press / Events

• Presentation by Keegan on the first features to be released for Structured Data, presented at Wikiconference North America, Columbus, Ohio, October 2018.
• Sandra presented a project update at the GLAM-Wiki conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 2018, as part of an update and panel discussion.
• Structured Data on Commons was the subject of a keynote presentation by Sandra (see slides) at the Baltic Audiovisual Archives Council conference in Tallinn, Estonia, November 2018.

Partners and allies

• The info portal on Structured Commons now includes a section on GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums).
• We are currently planning the first GLAM pilot projects that will use structured data on Wikimedia Commons. One project has already started: the Swedish Heritage Board researches and develops a prototype tool to provide improved metadata (translations, data additions...) from Wikimedia Commons back to the source institution. Read the project brief.
• The documentation for batch uploads of files to Wikimedia Commons will be improved in 2019, as part of preparing for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. To prepare, the GLAM team at the Wikimedia Foundation wants to understand better which types of documentation you already use, and how you like to learn new GLAM-Wiki skills and knowledge. Fill in a short survey to provide input!

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 17:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Captions in January

The previous message from today says captions will be released in November in the text. January is the correct month. My apologies for the potential confusion. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Structured Data - file captions coming this week (January 2019)

My apologies if this is a duplicate message for you, it is being sent to multiple lists which you may be signed up for.

Hi all, following up on last month's announcement...

Multilingual file captions will be released this week, on either Wednesday, 9 January or Thursday, 10 January 2019. Captions are a feature to add short, translatable descriptions to files. Here's some links you might want to look follow before the release, if you haven't already:

1. Read over the help page for using captions - I wrote the page on mediawiki.org because captions are available for any MediaWiki user, feel free to host/modify a copy of the page here on Commons.
2. Test out using captions on Beta Commons.
3. Leave feedback about the test on the captions test talk page, if you have anything you'd like to say prior to release.

Additionally, there will be an IRC office hour on Thursday, 10 January with the Structured Data team to talk about file captions, as well as anything else the community may be interested in. Date/time conversion, as well as a link to join, are on Meta.

Thanks for your time, I look forward to seeing those who can make it to the IRC office hour on Thursday. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Structured Data - blogs posted in Wikimedia Space

There are two separate blog entries for Structured Data on Commons posted to Wikimedia Space that are of interest:

• Working with Structured Data on Commons: A Status Report, by Lucas Werkmeister, discusses some ways that editors can work with structured data. Topics include tools that have been written or modified for structured data, in addition to future plans for tools and querying services.
• Structured Data on Commons - A Blog Series, written by me, is a five-part posting that covers the basics of the software and features that were built to make structured data happen. The series is meant to be friendly to those who may have some knowledge of Commons, but may not know much about the structured data project.

I hope these are informative and useful, comments and questions are welcome. All the blogs offer a comment feature, and you can log in with your Wikimedia account using oAuth. I look forward to seeing some posts over there. -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 23 September 2019 (UTC)