Grants:TPS/Kelvinsong/LGM: Creating textbook-grade SVG illustrations for Wikipedia/Report

Event name

LIBRE GRAPHICS MEETING 2015 BEYOND THE FIRST DECADE

Participant connections

I attended the first two days of the four-day LGM 15 conference. It was held in a small auditorium in the University of Toronto, there was approx. 30–50 people, many giving 20 min talks throughout the conference. I lodged some longstanding bugs and other comments with the Inkscape vector team, and I also met several type designers who have helped with the launch of the Noctilucenta font. I also handed out Wikimedia pins to other participants at the event. I gave my own talk which was at the beginning of the conference about SVG on Commons and Wikipedia. Some of the comments from the audience included the barrier to contribution, bugs on Wikimedia servers, RSVG updates, slow pace of raw-SVG deployment on-Wiki, and a possible relation to the “CC-list” project.

Outcome

The outcome, I suppose was giving my talk about SVG on Commons/Wikipedia. The talk was recorded, but LGM hasn’t posted the video I guess. I discussed:

Past/Current (dismal) state of Wikipedia graphics
Structure of Wikimedia projects and Commons’ relation to Wikipedia
- Some info about Commons community
SVG usage and capability
- Examples of some of my drawings
Tools for creating SVGs
Technical problems with SVGs
Uploading media to Commons
Integration of graphics into Wikipedia articles
Strengths of SVG format
Commons as a source (not just a host) of SVG art
- Commons culture
- Lack of coordination with Wikipedia

Important comments from the audience
- RSVG bugs on Commons may be due to Mediawiki running on an outdated version of RSVG
- Concerns about the high barrier to entry for creating visual media of any kind
- Copyright concerns with texture-tracing and reference images used in vector illustration
- “Why doesn’t Wikipedia just serve SVG code instead of laundering it through PNG?”
- Does this fit with the CC-list project (that talk came right after mine)?

Finances

I took a plane there and back, and stayed for two nights at the Hotel Méridien in Toronto. There was also meal costs and taxi fare from the airport to the city and back

Airport parking—$48.00

Hotel—$458.20

Airfare—$425.44/2 = $212.72

Taxi—$136.00

Meals—78.78/2 = $39.39

Total: $894.31

Note that this is $127.81 over the grant amount, mostly because my dad booked a hotel that was more expensive than I thought he did (he came with me which is why some of the expenses are divided by 2). LGM will hopefully cover the airfare costs, which would bring the total down to $681.59. In the small chance that it doesn’t, I’ll be happy to cover the difference.

Amount left over

$84.91, if LGM covers the airfare

Anything else

I have a copy of my slides, as an enormous SVG (obviously) but it won’t upload? It keeps giving “the file may be corrupt or have the wrong file extension” even though it opens fine in firefox, which I used to give the presentation