Grants talk:IEG/Wiki needs pictures

What articles have relevant geographic location?

You might want to give further thought to what articles have relevant geographic location in terms of gathering photos. For example, it isn't much use for taking photos to have the geographic location of a demolished building. Conversely, there are people for whom we are much more likely to be able to get a photo if we know what city they live in. - Jmabel (talk) 15:52, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure! I want to face your first suggestion (the example of a demolished building) using a granular filter system in order to remove or to not show as default some irrelevant entities. Instead, I think the second problem has to be tackled without using coordinates and so POI's pin. People is a good example, but also food or anything else have a connection with a generic geographic location, like a city, a region or a nation. For solve this it came rapidly to my mind the concept of layer in OSM. So we can have the layer of entities with a specific position (with coords), the food layer where a region is the littlest unit in the map and so on. Surely I will deal primarily with the first point, while I would see the second as an extra. --AlessioMela (talk) 19:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

We discussed about food in the first brainstormings. There are ways to extract this geographic information present in local wikis (for example category: food from X, or some templates). Wikidata is far from being complete. For example in d:Q3748114 nothing says this product it is typical from Lombardy. But in it:Formaggella di Scalve we have the category "Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali della Lombardia" and the field of the navbox "regione=". This is valuable information in case I don't have any picture yet and I want to show on the map what is missing for visitors of the area. We could import this information on the tool, even if it is not on data. I am sure that within two ro three years wikidata will be more complete, but this tool exists to get more picture in the meantime, why waste this potential? Sometimes it even shows more dircetly what there is still to do or what is urgent to do, and that can be of great help for wikidata.--Alexmar983 (talk) 20:48, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Wiki ShootMe!

Looks very interesting! Quite similar to Magnus Manske's Wiki ShootMe! – maybe you could join forces? --El Grafo (talk) 17:14, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't know it, thanks! Yes it's similar. My idea differs in the fact that it starts from the map instead of a search form. It seems that Wiki ShootMe! uses only wikidata as dataset to know if a picture is needed. That could be the junction point to transform the actual distributed system in a centralized one. The limbo in which we actually are is given by the fact that on wikidata are missing images that already we have. --AlessioMela (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

(conflcit) that looks nice. Maybe I saw that once but I forgot, I am sure there are other tools. that's the point we don't want to overlap, we want to reduce overlapping if possible.

We are aware that the final goal are Wikidata items (and their properties), we knew that since the beginning, but we know that they are far from being "complete", many informations are missing. We need a cross/transwiki effort before importing item from wikidata.update: I tried the tool last night, the first two items I selected from the map inserting a random Italian town were, in fact, false positives. We still have to help wikidata and its lack of information more than it can help us on this field. in other fields Wikidata it is 100% great, but for the images we have to wait a little bit.

In this framework, one thing we tried to do was in fact to show how the local cat systems are obsolete hoping to converge them with one single "transwiki" (multilingual if possible) system... we wanted to spread this awareness. Everything started in August when I tried with other users on itWiki to replace the local "missing images" cat system with something else but a lot of users tried to save it showing subtle reasons to keep something that was clearly not working at his 100% potential... but the "ugly truth" is that it's a dinosaur costing a lot of maintenance for a limited result... and the itWiki system was, nevertheless, less dispersive than other systems on other wikis. So I said, let's start converging these cat systems among different language editions, let's show that they are limited and often obsolete, proving to people that we need to go further at the same time offering a system that is flexible to every possible scenario.

Starting from a multiplatform situation was more complicated than from wikidata, as it would have been more logical, but we could for example import the information both from wikidata AND form the local wikis showing immediately if there are discrepancies. This way all the relevant information will be generalized and if a local wiki is ready, it can remove the cat system without losing any information... the tool is like catalyst for the set up of a global perspective. For example a wiki may prefer a bot system syncronized with wikidata that insert those "take a picture" templates, or they can keep an indipendent cat system for all missing images including pictures, but thanks to the overlap (or the lack of overlap) we can show if there are discrepancies. And whichever type of syncronization wikidata-local cat we improve, this would be useful for small wikis that just can't afford exensive cat infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of articles. And even if the users of a local wiki don't want to use a global tool, we can still insert their information in a global workflow.--Alexmar983 (talk) 20:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

WikiShootMe shows a map centered on you. Just go to https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikishootme, press "Find items without images", and scroll down a bit to see the map. Syced (talk) 01:49, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2015

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2015 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 2 2015 begins on 20 October 2015, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Marti (WMF) (talk) 05:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Mapillary

Great project to fill the gap of pictures in wikipedia entries! Would be great if there could be some integration with Mapillary since it already has a map with millions of crowd-sourced photos but there's no integration as in wiki needs pictures map. Although Mapillary is commonly used by OSM contributors, but it would be awesome if Mapillary's publicly available photos can be used in relevant Wikipedia entries too. -- Csyogi (talk) 06:41, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your idea! I know well mapillary project and could be another database for suggesting the use of photos already taken. I've to understand if there is an API to match our coords with its. If yes I'll try to implement also this suggestion. --AlessioMela (talk) 13:33, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

do we also have something like flinfo as with flickr to speed up the use for the entries with missing pictures?--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:29, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Some musings

Since this proposal overlaps a lot with some of my tools, I feel I should throw some random thoughts around. Some of these I thought about adding to my own tools, but never had the time, so I'd be happy if someone takes care of those :-) I am aware this exceeds your proposal, but it might not hurt to think of these issues during design.

• It is true that the combined Wikipedias hold more images than Wikidata, but Wikidata already has more items with images than articles on any single Wikipedia, except English, and numbers are growing fast. Combined with the issues of automatically finding an "image of the topic" in wikitext (as opposed to images of a book an author wrote, instead of the author, or maps, or navibox icons etc.), Wikidata seems like the only sensible choice for a data source. Screening Wikipedias and marking them as "has image" automatically will just leave many articles/items without image, because of false positives.
• As image-less candidates are stored in a database, candidate images from Commons or appropriate third-party sites (Flickr comes to mind) could be added/updated by a bot, and then presented as an option. This would eliminate search times currently slowing FIST, and allow to "search" many different sites. For the purpose of adding more images to articles (and Commons), this could be as important as getting people to take pictures.
• Locations are a good place to start, but why stop there?
  • Species are easily tracked through Wikidata, and there should be plenty of third-party sites that could offer free images. Latin species names make it easy to match candidate images.
  • People. Cutting lists by occupation/location/place of work etc. would allow for private or (semi-)public archives to be checked. For living people, Maybe events with lists of attending people could be used by ambitious Wiki photographers to fill a few blanks.
  • Objects, maybe cut by region/era, might be nice to have on a museum visit? Maybe with a specialized quick search ("do we need an image of X?"), or auto-generated lists ("Roman coins").
• "Party mode", suggesting a list of articles/items needing photos that "cluster", and could be taken by a group in a session. 50 buildings in village X, or think of the WikiCheese project. Also perfect for teachers who need to fill a day with a fun group project! Lists could be auto-generated from your data.
• Don't forget about the multitude of other "image types", such as coat of arms, logo, commemorative plaque etc. as well as audio and video recordings.
• You can suggest Wikidata images for articles on a Wikipedia that appear to have no image. Example for German Wikipedia.

Oh, and your demo appears to be not working ATM :-( --Magnus Manske (talk) 09:35, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

@Magnus Manske: thank you for exposing here the ideas he had collected over time on the images! First of all try this link (it works only with http, my fault; I'll remove ASAP this limit).

So as you can see the demo is strictly map dependent. This is why the proposal is written around location entities. I'm glad to collect any useful idea about images so I/we can improve our tools. Because of the creation of a database over info about images I like the idea to use the tool also to generate the lists that you suggest. --AlessioMela (talk) 14:02, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

the strategy is to warm up the tool while rethinking/decluttering from false positives the infrastructures on some platforms, we are aware that wikidata is growing fast. Let's say since it's growing in any case, we decided to focus on a different "phase 1". We believe in an integrated infrastructure, we just wanted to avoid the creation of something indipendently from the current platforms. Tha n of course our future phase 2 will be "wikidata-centric".

the "other images" issue is a typical "problem" of the local infrastructures. Some of them focus on pictures, some them on a vague lack of media, although most of the time these media are only images. For example itWiki has a template to show missing pictures and another field in another template to show a generic lack of media. But it is an exception. What a confusion, right? Why we care to get lost in this quicksand? because the only way a global interface tool can work is to speed up the reset of this scenario. Local wikis have to rethink their image-related "tools"/"templates" in a global perspective. A global tool will never enters the hearts of the users unless it proves that it can overlap to the local infrastrucutres without any loss. For example some local wikis have maps or cats of the users. thre you can ask these users to find a picture near where they live. That's valuable, right? Idas were often good, they never reached critical mass. And sometimes they died because of the up-down pressure of new tools. We wanted to encourage a little bit of bottom-up initiave.

What you call "party mode" is somthing I've though about while preparing didactic activities. I suppose that the best way to deal with a bunch of smartphone-equipped teens is to show them something to shoot at. Teachers can create local list to upload, for example. but also WLM iniiatives are a waste. You go to take a picture of the castle X, but you arrive at th train station of X which is also missing. We should create another iniative, with prices just to fill these gaps.

I've never though of Species, we don't have areal info on wikidata and also in local wikis there are maps. But some archive have georeference data. If you find a way to insert the information on wikidata (at least the country), than it is really interesting. Again it is a matter of priority.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:56, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

This could be part of a photo scavenger hunt and turning into a game. I support the idea of a map. It would be much easier for me to follow than a list with street addresses. Geraldshields11 (talk) 20:31, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Integrate with Android App's mapy nearby

Hi, i think this is a good idea, and I would think that ideally we shoud offer this as a production-level api - something like "for a given location, get nearby coordinates of articles in either given or all languages". That said, i also think that we should work towards integrating it with the mobile app - given that Android app beta already includes the maps in the nearby screen, it would be great to turn readers into contributors. Aditionally there could always be a labs-based tool that uses above api to draw article icons on a map --Yurik (WMF) (talk) 01:56, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

IEG interview

Hello AlessioMela, Alexmar983 and Ilario,

I've been trying to get a hold of AlessioMela to set up an interview next week, but have had difficulty making contact. May I ask one of you to email me at mjohnsonwikimedia.org with an email address I can use to coordinate a meeting?

Thank you!

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:49, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): I've sent to you an email on 10 nov, do you received it? Anyway, how about the one with Ilario and Alessandro in copy? Thanks! --AlessioMela (talk) 17:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Wiki needs pictures

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weak alignment 10=strong alignment
(A) Impact potential Does it fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities? Does it have potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	8.2
(B) Innovation and learning Does it take an Innovative approach to solving a key problem? Is the potential impact greater than the risks? Can we measure success?	7.7
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in 6 months? How realistic/efficient is the budget? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.8
(D) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support? Does it support diversity?	8.3
Comments from the committee: This proposal fits with our increasing need to illustrate Wikipedia with pictures (next step: multimedia!) Can the numbers that generate the needed pictures be used as a baseline to measure impact? This seems very similar to Magnus' current tools. What are the innovations? WikiShoot is a great starting point, and anything that goes in similar directions should definitely learn from it and move it forward rather than starting from scratch. The two applicants seem to have the needed experience for the project. This appears to target community insiders first and foremost. Could it be loaded into a wikigame that expands its target audience to include mobile users? This will appeal to Wiki Loves Monuments participants. Very helpful for events like Wiki Loves X It’s a good idea to use coordinates as a way of discovering needed images.

Ok here are some answers to you comments.

• multimedial step is also a goal. One of the problem is that some local templates focus on general lack of media, whilst other ones on more specific needs for pictures. Creating a convergence environment is one way to naturally speed up the necessary update of perspective at a local level.
• the numbers that generate the needed pictures can be used as a baseline to measure impact. Of couse part of the impact is to speed up the removal of bugs or old templates, but this also a necessary activity that has to be done.
• We have many advanced tools on wiki platforms for images and they're great. We also have local "tools" and, as we described in our grant, they are still active sometimes. We know they all have advantages or disadvantages in different proportions. For example, the lack of a certain language can be a problem. the point is: on wiki platform there is always more than one way to achieve a goal and do things "right". Some are better of course, we agree and we want them to be present as an option. Our tool is not in competion with them, we want here to create a flexible platform that help users converge whatever is the original tools or templates they have learned to use. So they can use more, learn more or maybe realize that what they were using so far is obsolete and share idea how it can be updated. For example take the coordinates of wikishootme. I've organized some wiki-classes in schools or libraries and I've realized that some people, even wikimedians, have no idea how to get coordinates from a map. Imagine that clicking on the map you can open wikishootme directly at those coordinates (or something vry similar to that). That's to show how to use it better, it's part of the idea. Or the "Unvisited App": it's great to organize a trip and we want it to be available as an option starting from our map. At the same time, wikidata properties or local category help to select subclasses of possible "target" adapting the selection to the taste of the user (transportation, buildings, artworks...), that maybe other tools don't have.
• The tool's target is to be flexible and open. we want it to upload as many type of data as possibl. A WLM list, for example. Or a list for a wikigame. Imagine I am working with a class of teens and we agree to write some articles about the area they're living. Lesson 1 or 2 would be to find some images. Now, if those articles are not existing yet, how can I show on a map the need to take a picture? What wikidata item provide me with this information? And if a public institution want to cooperate with us, imagine they have a list of items they need pictures in exchange of some of their contents... how can we start to look for them in an easy way without creating hundreds of empty wikidata items or stub articles with templates? If we are flexible we can always work at different levels, that's the point. And everyone simply visiting the area or more able with advanced tools can help us.--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:59, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Round 2 2015 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, 2,500 €

Comments regarding this decision:
We appreciate that this proven team will consolidate multiple photo-request systems into a timely, mobile-friendly app. Looking forward to seeing how you’ll build on the work of existing tools, innovating via the GPS capabilities of mobile devices.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Questions? Contact us.

Question about API

Hi,

I'm applying for an IEG grant for a related project, improving the Upload to Commons Android app. Part of our project involves implementing a feature in our app that displays to the user a list of nearby places needing photos, and we were hoping to be able to use your Wiki Needs Pictures tool in achieving this. :)

Could I ask what the status of the API for this tool is? Is it ready for us to use yet, or if not, is there an estimate as to when it will be ready?

Many thanks!

Misaochan (talk) 06:00, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Misaochan:, that's a great related project! The API should be out as last part of this grant. Maybe until the end of June, but could be during July. Let's keep in touch. --AlessioMela (talk) 15:22, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi @AlessioMela:, thanks, will do! :) Misaochan (talk) 06:34, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hi. Great tool. I do have a few suggestions. I am sorry if these have been suggested before (I didn't read all of the discussions above).

• Labels. Could any label be used instead of the Q-number? If an item doesn't have a label in some language a label in some other language is more helpful than the q-number. Names of places are often the same or similar in many languages.
• Update times. You claim that any marker should dissapear in "the next run" after an image has been added. When is that? Could that be clarified somehow?
• Categories. The categories Airports, City, Railwaystations, Uncategorized seem arbitrary. Either use p31 (maybe to many categories) or something else. I would like to only see items where there is an article in some language. Or where any article have or doesn't have an image (either to find an image from the articles or to find items where none seem to exist and a photo trip is needed).
• Commons. Is it possible to on the same map see geotagged images from commons?
• Shortcut to add image. Unless you are familiar with WD it can be hard to know how to add an image. Could some shortcut be made directly from the map? Maybe add it to the box that shows when a pin is clicked on the map so the image can be added/previewed without going to WD?

Regards Averater (talk) 09:19, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your idea. Let's see them in details:

• I use the English label if there is and the q-number otherwise. Having a fallback language in order to have always a label would be great but is not so simple. I have to manage all the languages because it doesn't exists a way to get the "most comprehensive human-readable label" in one shoot.
• The marker will disappear after the refresh of data (once a day) if and only if the relative problem is resolved at the time of the update. Maybe I could write the tool page in meta with more details.
• So you want more filters. I also like so much filters, I'll try to test something.
• They are so many, I don't think is feasible right now. But is a great idea to find those images that already exists but are poorly categorized or misused. Maybe it will be feasible with high zoom level.
• First of all a better documentation should help a lot this process but, yes, some shortcut could be very useful.

--AlessioMela (talk) 12:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Segnalo

Ciao @AlessioMela:. Pensavo fosse utile segnalarti che nella mappa non vengono indicati alcuni centri urbani, nonostante la presenza del template nella loro pagina di discussione (a.e.: Donori, Armungia, Ballao, ecc.). Notavo anche che qualche elemento linka a pt:Categoria:!Artigos sem imagens (Silius, Gadoni, Meana Sardo...) invece che a it.wiki. Saluti e ricomplimenti per questo tool. --Discanto (talk) 23:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Ciao @Discanto: è normale trovare dei punti in Italia con riferimento alla wiki portoghese (o altre) perché a volte capita che siano loro a segnalare la mancanza. Controllo invece Donori e gli altri, perché, come dici, si dovrebbero vedere. Grazie del feedback! --AlessioMela (talk) 12:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Many sites already have pictures

I checked many sites near Budapest (Hungary) and I found many sites already have pictures. How often is this list updated? --Misibacsi (talk) 18:54, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Misibacsi: According to the Last-Modified header of https://tools.wmflabs.org/wiki-needs-pictures/data/data.csv, the file hasn't been updated since 2016-08-20 :/ – Simon04 (talk) 15:02, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

How can it be updated? Who can do it? --Misibacsi (talk) 17:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The info says "the view updated DAILY". What is wrong with the updating process? Very annoying. --Misibacsi (talk) 07:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it is a tedious and weary task, but is there ANYONE who maintains this task? --Misibacsi (talk) 06:46, 24 September 2017 (UTC)