Structured Data on Commons/Newsletter/2017-12-13

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.