Wikimedia CH/Grant apply/WikiCommons Gallery Showcase by WikiPortraits

Infodata

Name of the project: WikiCommons Gallery Showcase by WikiPortraits
Amount requested: 10,000-17,500 CHF
Type of grantee: Individual
Name of the contact: Jennifer 8. Lee
Contact: jennywikiportraits.org

The problem and the context

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Wikimedia Commons is a vast repository of freely licensed media, but it lacks an easy-to-use and visually appealing way for users — both institutions and individuals — to showcase their best works.

Photographers and organizations across other sites, such as Flickr, Pinterest, or 500px are able to create compelling, eye-catching galleries. While it is possible to create such galleries on Commons (Evan-Amos has an excellent gallery of his photographs), the process to create such galleries takes time and technical knowledge (HTML, CSS). This creates a barrier to entry for photographers and institutions to be able to showcase their work as they might on other sites. This can be particularly challenging for photographers who need to showcase their work externally, such as to share their portfolios for work opportunities or to obtain press credentials for events. It can also be hard for GLAM institutions who need appealing displays to advocate internally for more resources for Wikimedia-related projects.

What is your solution to this problem (please explain the context and the solution)?

Our solution is to create a website that serves as an alternative frontend for Wikimedia Commons galleries.

At the 2024 Wikimedia Hackathon, WikiPortraits contributors brainstormed and created a demo called "Commons Gallery", which allows users on the Wikimedia Commons to create curated galleries of their favorite or featured photo and showcase them through an alternative frontend. A simple proof-of-concept can be seen at commons.gallery/u/Kevin_Payravi/U.S._Historic_Sites, which renders the gallery found at commons:User:Kevin_Payravi/CommonsGallery/U.S._Historic_Sites. The images are shown at a large resolution in a simple UI. Hovering over each photo shows a caption, and clicking on a photo takes the user to the Commons file page if they want more details.

This simple demo served as a proof-of-concept. With this grant, we'd like to continue development to make this tool production-ready for the broader Wikimedia community.

Project goals

Our goals with this project:

Give photographers and institutions an easier way to showcase their works for professional and personal use.
Improve the discoverability of high-quality media hosted on Commons.
Raise the visibility of Wikimedia Commons as a resource and place for photographers to contribute and showcase their work.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

Successfully launching the Commons Portfolio tool to a broader user base beyond its initial development stage.
Tracking user engagement with the tool (e.g., number of galleries created, views, and shares across social media).
Gathering feedback from photographers and community members to refine and improve the tool.

Do you have any goals or metrics around participation or content?

Encourage at least 35 photographers and institutions to create and share portfolios and collections within the first nine months post-launch.
Measure an increase in traffic and visibility to high-quality Wikimedia Commons content through portfolio views and external shares.

Project plan

Activities

This grant will fund software developers to create an alternative front end with the following features:

Gallery customizations

Layout choices: Implement various layout styles.
Themes: Let users select background colors or apply different themes (light, dark, etc.).
Further customizations: Provide options to further customize the UI, such as adjusingt image sizes, borders, padding, and the appearance of captions.

Gallery image sources

Custom user galleries: Allow users to set up their own galleries in their userspace, as can be seen in the demo.
Standard Commons galleries: Allow users to view any Wikimedia Commons gallery page (e.g. commons:Commons:Tree) through the alternative frontend.
Category galleries: Allow users to view any Wikimedia Commons category through the alternative frontend.
Project galleries: Allow users to set up project pages (e.g. Wiki Loves Monuments galleries) to view through the alternative frontend. This might live under a specific Project namespace page on Commons.

Filtering and sorting options

Content Filters: Provide filtering options based on image properties:
- By license type: Filter images by their licensing (e.g. CC BY-SA, public domain).
- By date: Sort or filter images by date range (e.g. latest first).
- By quality designators: Filter images by Commons quality qualifies such as featured, quality, etc.

Homepage

Create a rich homepage that introduces the tool and features portfolios from a variety of users.

Additional features

Image lightbox: Add a lightbox view for users to click on an image and view it in full screen with navigation between images.
Mobile optimization: Focus on improving the gallery display and interactions for mobile users, including swipe gestures and responsive design optimizations.
Multilingual support: Provide an interface for users to choose different languages for gallery titles, descriptions, and captions, when available.

Budget

Total 10,000-17,500 CHF depending on the number of features and rallying.

Software development costs: 15,000 CHF, broken down into
- Core alternative front-end functionality for user galleries: 8,000 CHF
- Adapt alternative front-end for other user cases (Commons galleries, categories, projects): 2,000 CHF
- Additional features as described above (image lightbox, mobile optimization, multilingual support): 5,000 CHF
Community engagement and rallying: 2,500 CHF

Community engagement

The previously linked commons.gallery tool was created at the Wikimedia_Hackathon_2024, where it was presented during the closing ceromony and feedback was gathered from a number of other participants.
WikiPortraits photographers have expressed an interest in this tool, as a way to easily create portfolios showcasing their work in order to apply for press credentials.

Team

Jennifer 8. Lee (en:User:Jenny8lee): Jenny is a co-founder of WikiPortraits, a Wikimedia Foundation-supported project which has added over a thousand photos of notable or near-notable people to Wikimedia; an adviser to the Wikimedia NYC, where she served on the search committee for the first executive director, and a founder of WikiCred project, which co-sponsored WikiConference North America 2019 at MIT. She is also a documentary producer, an author, and a former New York Times reporter. She has had a Wikipedia page since 2004.

Kevin Payravi (User:SuperHamster) is a software engineer from Dallas, Texas, USA, and has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2007. He serves on the Board of Wikimedia DC and as an organizer for the Ohio Wikimedians User Group. He co-founded WikiPortraits in 2023 and has photographed numerous events for the project, including Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and the Toronto International Film Festival. Each year, he also helps organize WikiConference North America and Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States.

Nicolas Vigneron (User:VIGNERON) is a Wikimedian from Bretagne, France. He has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2004 and has given presentations and trainings around Wikimedia projects since 2009. Between 2021 and 2023, Vigneron became a Wikimedian-in-Residence twice, first at the libraries of Clermont Auvergne and then at the Museum of Brittany. He is interested in and edit primarily around culture and heritage, in partnership with institutions.

Wikimedia CH response

en:User:Jenny8lee, User:SuperHamster, User:VIGNERON, we are pleased to approve your grant request under the Innovation programme of Wikimedia CH for a total of 17,500 CHF. I will follow up shortly with an email to coordinate the payment details.

The project can begin already in 2024, with an initial payment of 10,000 CHF. The remaining balance will be provided halfway through the project, after submission of the mid-term report.

Once the project is completed, a final report will be required for inclusion in Wikimedia CH's reports and newsletters. --Ilario (talk) 08:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Updated Timeline and Budget

Budget for 17,500 CHF with Administrative Fee included below

Budget

Software development costs: 13,250 CHF, broken down into
- Core alternative front-end functionality for user galleries: 8,000 CHF
- Adapt alternative front-end for other user cases (Commons galleries, categories, projects): 2,000 CHF
- Image lightbox and some mobile optimization features: 3,250 CHF
Community engagement and rallying: 2,500 CHF
Fiscal sponsorship and administration 1,750 CHF

Not in current scope

Multilingual adaptation and more extensive mobile optimization

Timeline

November and December 2024

Design standardized structure for translating wiki markup to the Gallery view.
Develop a minimum viable version of the gallery tool, working for at least two sources (e.g. custom user galleries + categories).

January 2025

Start onboarding early users for testing and feedback.
Support for additional sources of images (e.g. Commons content pages and project pages)
Filtering options (filter by license type, date, quality designators, etc.)

February 2025

Additional customization options (custom colors, themes, layout options, image sizes, etc.)
Homepage to introduce the tool and showcase top galleries by users

March 2025

Image lightbox, for better viewing of images without leaving the page.
Polish mobile optimizations