@Wikimedia and languages - @WikiCommons search, the most relevant development since @Wikidata

The Wikimedia Foundation is important for the support of languages on the Internet. The localisation of its software is done at translatewiki.net, it is done in over 300 languages.

The milestones for multilingual support are:

• the first Wikipedia in another language
• Localisation of the MediaWiki software
• Transfer of internationalisation and localistion of MediaWiki to translatewiki.net
• MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle available for external users of MediaWiki
• Support for interwiki links to Wikidata
• Special:MediaSearch, multi-lingual search for Wikimedia Commons

These milestones have been very much technology driven. For me the one reason why Wikidata became the success it is, is because it was from the start linked to every subject covered by Wikipedia and the solution was so overwhelmingly superior that nobody could reasonably object.

To make a success of this latest milestone, institutional support is needed. It is for the Wikimedia Foundation, its movement to reduce its bias for English and make room for improved language support.

My way of phrasing this as an essential objective: "All of

@WikiCommons

is available to every single person on the planet". As we adopt this as our objective, it is first and foremost about making Special:MediaSearch useful in any and all of our languages and make it available from any and all of our Wikipedias.

As we adopt this, it is essential that priority is given to multilingual search over special interests including GLAM, Open Data, SPARQL and what have you. Priority when we are to open up in multiple languages first. Special interest only gain relevance when it is made obvious how it helps it helps open up Commons in Swahili, Hindi, German or Vietnamese.

Special:MediaSearch is possible because of everything that went before.. Its functionality is part of MediaWiki and localised at translatewiki.net. The existing search engine is now linked to the labels for items in Wikidata and it was made public after Hay Kranen brought us his proof of concept. It became available warts and all and while finding منصور اعجاز  in Punjabi is huge, it is not great when you do not find cats because a user is called Kočka..

The challenge to us as an organisation, a movement are we willing to work on our existing bias, open up Commons in all the languages we are said to support and accept that our hobby horses will get attention not in the next but in a future iteration.

Thanks,

       GerardM

@WikiCommons - Sarah T. Roberts versus Sarah T. Roberts

I have a renewed interest in Commons because the first steps have been made to make it actually useful. According to Wikidata there are two distinct Sarah T. Roberts. One is an epidemiologist the other is into information & media studies.

At Commons it was a mess, the picture of Sarah was used to illustrate an info box of the other Sarah. It is not that interesting to tell you how I did what. Relevant is that I did. I did because you will will find things when there is a label for whatever in "your" language..

Given that we do not research the use of Commons or Wikidata for that matter, why should the WMF give priority to opening up Commons even further? After all, there is no data to support it..
Thanks,
      GerardM

@WikiCommons - Meanwhile in a school in India, Japan, Russia

These students in India have to do a project. The subject is Botswana. Their teacher wants them to find many pictures so he searched Wikimedia Commons among others for pictures of  Mokgweetsi Masisi, the president of Botswana. He marked the pictures that depicts Mr Masisi and now his pupils will find more pictures of him when they look for मोकेगसेसी मासी.

At the same time in Japan students have to do a project about Botswana. Their teacher is pleasantly surprised when he find so many pictures for モクウィツィ・マシシ...
Thanks,
       GerardM

@WikiCommons - meanwhile in a different universe

And again there was a discussion that it should not be this hard to find pictures in Commons. The big difference this time is that there is now a wealth of images that have been tagged for what they "depict". They are linked to Wikidata items and they have a wealth of labels in many, many languages. In essence it has always been an objective of Wikidata to share its content in any and all of the 300+ languages supported by a Wikipedia.

The ideas that floated around soon made it into a "proof of concept" and as so often it actually worked after a fashion. The first iteration was in true Wikimedia tradition English only. The proof of concept got its second language in Dutch, Hay Kranen the developer is Dutch. Now there are nine languages and we are waiting for French to be the tenth.

So what does it do. You can look for pictures in Commons, it has 61 million media files, and when you are looking for available pictures in your language, you will find it as long as Wikidata has a label in your language.  This is for instance a result in Japanese and this is the result in German.

What can you do to make it better? Add labels in your language for the things you want to find and find media files that depicts what you are looking for. When nobody translated the software in your language, you can even do that.

Why is this so relevant? Have you ever wondered how many pictures you find in one of the smaller languages using Google or Bing? Let me tell you, it is disappointing to be polite. Commons is the repository of the mediafiles that illustrate all the Wikipedias so yes, it covers "almost anything".

The Wikimedia Foundation has this big strategy for its movement to be inclusive. This is a wonderful opportunity to show how agile it is, that it understands and supports a need that has been expressed for many many years. The beauty is the the way forward has been expressed in something that already works.

ABSOLUTELY, there will be challenges in integrating this functionality where it fulfills a need.

Luckily it is not necessary for it all to be done in one go. The first step can be as little as to take the "proof of concept" an rewrite it in the preferred language of the WMF, internationalise and localise it and keep it stand alone for now. The people who know about it will use it and they will be the first to point out what more they want to be done. A priority will be to retain its KISSable nature.

The objective is to open up Commons. Open it up in any and all languages. For me it is obvious. I will gladly give it my attention in the expectation that both Wikidata and Commons actually find a public, have a purpose that is more than what we do for ourselves.
Thanks,
      GerardM