Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Mobile and apps/Show categories on Commons mobile website

Show categories on Commons mobile website

 
No category link here either.
  • Problem: When viewing a Commons image in a mobile browser, I can't see the image's categories. Let's say I want to see images of durians, I take my smartphone and launch a Google/etc search on the term "durian". The fifth result is a picture on Commons, I click it. The picture is OK but I am hoping for better pictures. If there was a "Durians" category link on that page, I could click it and browse all durian pictures on Commons.
  • Who would benefit: Mobile users who are viewing an image and want to see similar images.
  • Proposed solution: Show category links.
  • More comments: Please note that this is about the mobile version of the website. The Commons native Android app already has this feature.

Discussion

Hi Syced. If you click through to Commons from Google (using the "Wikimedia Commons" button), then you are able to click on the "Durians" category, in your example. So do I understand that what you're looking for is a link to the category directly from the Google Images page? Please clarify.—JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

JMatazzoni (WMF): Please let me know where on this page (see the 2 screenshots) is the link you are talking about, thanks! Syced (talk) 01:45, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Syced and JMatazzoni (WMF): The button for categories is only presented for users that are logged in AND have the Mobile beta setting enabled. I do note that most non-wikimedians have no idea how our category system works btw, so they aren't going to find other durians that way. See also: https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/10/29/george-oates-conversation/ where it is noted: "She noted how the category system used to organize and tag media files on Commons is confusing and hides—not shows—the richness of content there." —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 15:51, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks TheDJ. You are right, that Categories link shows only if you are logged in and have the beta activated (I didn't realize I had done that). Also, I'd thought there was a link directly to the category, but in fact I was looking at something else (the image happened to be the main image on the Durians category page, so there was a link directly to the category). The typical experience is that you have to click a "Categories" button and then find the relevant category and click on that. All of which is to say that Syced is totally right. I'd like to see a prominent link to the categories on the main image page as well. —JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As the TheDJ mentions, this feature is currently only available if you have the mobile beta mode turned on. The only reason it hasn't been enabled for everyone yet is that the feature still has a few bugs (see task T24660). Thus fulfilling this wish would basically mean fixing those bugs and then releasing the feature to everyone. Kaldari (talk) 17:15, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
+1 to that... this is actually a very actionable wishlist item, that could be fulfilled with enough votes. Happy to provide details of what's needed there, if necessary. Jdlrobson (talk) 22:16, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that categories are confusing and sometimes hide good pictures (for instance the durian picture that fits my needs best might be in "Monochrome photographs of Surabaya durians in 2015"). But still, it is the best navigation system we have, so we should not remove that feature. Let's not assume that non-logged-in people (=me most of the time, especially on mobile) can not fathom the "complexity" of a category page. Maybe the key to making categories more useful for everyone is to make them display the best pictures with that category and its sub-categories, rather than pictures that have not been categorized further (FastCCI could be key to implementing that technical change), but that's a whole other kettle of worms. Syced (talk) 03:37, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Voting