Getting the picture – an interview with the Graphic lab

WikiProject news

News in brief

• WikiProject Bhutan is looking for more editors to help expand and improve Bhutan-related articles.
• The Guild of Copyeditors September Backlog Drive is only 200 articles away from eliminating all copyedit tags from 2008. Help wipe out these old copyedit requests and earn a barnstar along the way.
• Valued pictures is looking for help reviewing nominated images.

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

This week we met up with five wikigraphists—members of of the Wikipedia Graphics Lab. We chatted with JovianEye, Begoon, Fallschirmjäger, Gringer and Orionist.

Unlike a conventional WikiProject, the Lab does not work with articles – only images, grouped into three "workshops": one for illustrations, one for photographs and one for maps. When the project started in 2006, requests were all grouped in one area, as the Graphics lab. Since then, the three separate workshops have been created, focusing people with relevant skills on the specific area they can work on rather than having to look through all requests. However, this sometimes means keeping watch on three different pages, each with a lower level of activity, as well as the sister project on Wikimedia Commons.

The project is in need of more people requesting improvements to photographs. However, there is a backlog at SVG creation requests, and a shortage of skilled editors in this field. With only a few regulars, notably veteran requester Chris, the Lab is only scratching the surface of the 7 million files on Commons alone. The addition of the 'Top 4' feature at the start of this year, a set of images requiring vectorisation at the top of the page that are changed every 48 hours, has helped in encouraging progress and getting through more files.

The project would also like to encourage beginners to become Wikigraphists by learning to use simple freeware applications, GIMP and Inkscape. Simple tasks such as cropping can be learned by just about anyone. They can try their hand at removing borders or captions of some of 80,000+ images donated to Wikimedia Commons by the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives).

Jovianeye made his first request at the illustration workshop in January this year, and describes himself as having a ‘basic skill level’. He has since also made contributions to the Photography workshop. For him, the main problem that the project has faced was when Fred the Oyster, a professional graphist who volunteered almost every day, was blocked indefinitely. Fred's contributions to Wikimedia Commons can be found here. Jovianeye was influenced to join the project because the requests at the Graphic lab did not need a long-term commitment and because they could “be handled by anybody with a beginner skill level.” Without a background in graphics, it's “merely an interest”; he grins and says that “even the word hobby is too strong!” Since joining the Graphic lab he has been inspired to learn the basics of open source vector graphics editor Inkscape.

Begoon became active about three months ago. He does a large number of SVG conversions for WikiProject Scouting, which, he says, can often be interesting because they have a huge number of images, in various conditions, from all around the world and different time periods. He enjoys learning about places and times as an offshoot from taking on these requests. Begoon is a programmer and web designer, so deals with graphics on a daily basis. He is more skilled in the programming aspect [of web designing] but being independent, has to do graphics work. The requests in the lab are often challenges that help him to develop new skills and techniques, while learning how others approach a task. He thinks it is a “good way to hone his skills”. The project suits his free time pattern, too, "because you can take on as many, or as few, requests as time permits”.

Fallschirmjäger started work in the project back in April 2008 (see the archives), although editing images is his main area of contribution since he joined in 2006. He works mainly in the Photography section of the lab, but often helps out around the Illustration and Map workshops. He has worked on many files in both Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. For him, the main problem is a lack of skilled editors, particularly in the Map Workshop. Although Fallschirmjäger did try to write articles when he first joined, he soon found that it wasn’t really for him, and turned instead to image editing, although he still contributes occasionally in writing and minor text-related edits. He has used Photoshop and other multimedia software for some time, and has also recently completed a degree relating to the field.

Gringer discovered the Graphic lab about a month or so before February 2009, although he admits he had been patching up a few images since January 2007, for instance File:Real grounds 1000.svg. He likes the split of the Graphic lab into different workshops, even though this is occasionally ignored by requesters who notice that particular categories have better turnaround times. More requesters are needed, he says; as each requester has a particular area of interest, and he feels that the project is not seeing a representative sample of graphics that need fixing. Gringer found that cleaning up images was something he could usually do quickly. He says he's very much a “hobby wikigraphist”, but tries to create his own images for presentations he makes. He often uses sources such as Wikimedia Commons and openclipart which give him practice with Inkscape.

Orionist took his first request in May. He first worked on photographs, but is now concentrating on illustrations, because there’s more need for his skills and the photography workshop is very well covered by editors. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons have been an invaluable resource for his work, where he could get images that were not available on any stock photography website. He is still an active editor on Wikipedia, but finds that images require much less time than article editing, with his busy daily schedule.

Fallschirmjäger wants to expand into the other two workshops. Currently, he works with bitmap images—his main area of expertise—but he would also like to help out with vector images. He thinks that a set of advice or tutorials would be a worthwhile undertaking to try to get more people involved in the project. He thinks other projects aren’t always too concerned by images in articles within their scope, yet they can add a lot of value to the text. He wants to see more activity in the project and more involvement with other editors and projects. One of Gringer’s goals is to try to find some free, up-to-date database of country/administrative region borders and an accompanying script, so people can generate SVG maps of any region in a few different projections. He has noticed there are a lot of variations in sources used for maps that in some cases have automatically dried up. When Orionist completes a request, he takes a look at its article and Wikimedia Commons category to see if there are any related images that need to be edited in the same way. Thus, some requests have evolved into personal projects.

Jovianeye feels the Map Workshop needs more volunteers, to prevent requests from becoming stale. Both the Illustration and Photography workshops are doing well, he feels, however the participation of more Vector graphists is needed at times. The project does have highly skilled professional graphists, but they are not always on hand to deal with requests. Begoon tries to extend his involvement in the Graphic lab from Vector images to photographs as well, since he wants to gain expertise in a wide range of image editing skills. He agrees with Jovianeye that the Map Workshop needs more help and intends to explore the skill-set involved in Map editing soon. Fallschirmjäger also thinks the Map Workshop needs assistance. More work is done in the other two workshops because even the hardest of requests generally take no longer than a few hours. Working on maps requires a certain amount of research to ensure that the map’s labels and boundaries are correctly detailed. This is largely why there is a backlog of requests and a lack of willing volunteers. Gringer notes that it would be nice if librsvg had better SVG support, which is an issue with Wikimedia Commons, not the Graphic lab. Then volunteers wouldn’t have to spend so much time debugging SVG files so they look nice on Wikipedia. Fonts, he says, are “a frequent problem—Arial is pretty much the only one that works.” He says advocacy could help the project, both for more requests and for more wikigraphists. Orionist says more people need to be made aware of the lab’s existence. He points out that he has been on Wikipedia for four years but only recently found out about the lab. He suggests featuring it more prominently in help pages, running an ad on Wikipedia, or posting messages on talk pages of articles with retouched images ("This image has been retouched/made in the graphics lab!" or a similar phrase).

Each of the guys has altered many images while members of the project: Jovianeye has altered at least 50 images in the Illustration Workshop and at least 10 at the Photography Workshop. However, just like an edit count, this number can be meaningless. Certain requests require a great deal of effort and can easily be equivalent to doing 10 simple requests! Begoon's image edit count is somewhere between 150 and 200. Fallschirmjäger says he has made edits to hundreds, if not thousands of files. He also adds that since requests range from a simple crop or rotation to full-blown image manipulation and creation, the time spent to get each right can vary significantly.

Gringer says: “Requests are fulfilled in my own spare time, and I don't get paid for it. If I think something will take too long to do, then I won't do it, so anything you can do to make that process easier for me (e.g. finding good source images) can increase the chance of a successful conversion.”

Next week we'll inventory Wikipedia's rolling stock. Until then, board the next coach headed toward the archive.

• 
  This image was created using Hugin which is used for the stitching of panoramic images together into one big image, correction of perspective and various other things.
• 
  An image created by Blender which is used for the creation and editing of 3D images.

2010-09-13

"Magnificent" warthog not so cute, says featured picture judge

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Dabomb87 and Tony1

New administrator

The Signpost congratulates BigDom (nom) on his promotion to adminship. Hailing from Lancashire, UK, he has experience in copyright and fair use; the various deletion processes for articles, templates, categories and files; new-page patrolling; and speedy-deletion tags. He is a long-standing member of WikiProject Football.

Featured articles

Eighteen articles were promoted to featured status:

• Trafford Park (nom), the world's first industrial estate, and still the largest in Europe. This former deer park became one of the most important engineering complexes in Britain. (nominated by Parrot of Doom and Malleus Fatuorum).
• Mesopropithecus (nom), an extinct lemur from Madagascar (Visionholder).
• USS Massachusetts (BB-2) (nom), the second "real" American battleship (Yoenit).
• SMS Westfalen (nom), one of Germany's first dreadnought battleships (Parsecboy).
• Ian Meckiff (nom), a retired Australian cricketer from the 1950s and 1960s (YellowMonkey).
• Armero tragedy (nom), the second-deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, in 1985, which caught nearby towns in Colombia unaware, despite warnings to the government some three months before (ceranthor).
• Shield nickel (nom), the first actual "nickel" (five-cent coin), struck from the same copper-nickel alloy used today. The design had a troubled 17-year life before its replacement (Wehwalt).
• Fridtjof Nansen (nom), described by nominator Brianboulton as "one of the most significant European figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sportsman, scientist, explorer, diplomat, statesman, Nobel laureate – a giant of his times, a story well worth the telling." (Choice of the week, picture at right)
• Pig-faced women (nom). We leave readers to ponder this excerpt: "Once shaved, the drunken bear would be fitted with padded artificial breasts, and dressed in women's clothing and a wig" (iridescent) (picture at right).
• The Author's Farce (nom), the first theatrical success of English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding, in 1730 (NocturneNoir).
• Saxaul Sparrow (nom), a small bird from Central Asia (Innotata).
• Ambrose Rookwood (nom), somewhat showy individual, one of the conspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Nominator Parrot of Doom says the story deserves telling "if only to highlight how naive he was to have thought that it could ever have worked."
• Rivadavia class battleship (nom), two ships which were constantly entangled in drama before they were even put into service, but were quickly forgotten and made obsolete. (Ed).
• Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná (nom), a Brazilian statesman of the early 19th century (Lecen).
• Suillus brevipes (nom), a slimey yet edible mushroom (Sasata).
• Battle of Gonzales (nom). Readers might at first be puzzled that "one side took time out from firing their weapons to eat watermelon. The other side were under orders not to fight and went home", according to nominator Karanacs' teaser.
• Wood Siding railway station (nom), another in the Buckinghamshire collection of railway articles by (Iridescent).
• Kent, Ohio (nom), a small city in the US (JonRidinger).

Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Hamiltonstone to select the best of the week:

“

What a challenge! This week presented a great distillation of biological scholarship (Mesopropithecus and Suillus brevipes); an infobox that is comprehensively researched and almost as long as the article itself (USS Massachusetts (BB-2)); gripping accounts of a great conflict at sea (SMS Westfalen) and an amusingly inconsequential one on land (Battle of Gonzales). Some beautiful illustrations (Saxaul Sparrow, Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná); there's drama and sporting yarn (Ian Meckiff). It is good to see high-quality coverage of major topics that might not otherwise be well-known (Armero tragedy, a deadly volcanic eruption and Colombia's worst natural disaster). The surprisingly little text on the Kent State shootings in Kent, Ohio is an excellent example of ruthlessly applying summary style whilst ensuring comprehensive coverage of a geographical location. My three finalists were all great: one comparatively well-known (Fridtjof Nansen), one comparatively obscure (Trafford Park), and one probably almost unknown in the Anglophone world, (Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná). In the end, while I laud the fabulous work casting light on those lesser-known stories, I chose the gripping telling and excellent illustration of Nansen's remarkable life. Plus he has a smouldering sexy look in the lead photo.

”

Two featured articles were delisted:

• Silverpit crater (nom) (sourcing and lack of updating)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (nom) (sourcing and copyright)

Featured lists

Six lists were promoted:

• Lady Gaga discography (nom). As of August 2010, Lady Gaga has sold more than 51 million singles and 15 million albums worldwide (nominated by Chasewc91)
• Kesha discography (nom). Kesha's song "Tik Tok" topped music charts in 11 countries (L-l-CLK-l-l)
• Joan Gamper Trophy (nom) an annual Catalonian friendly football competition held in August. FC Barcelona has won 34 of the 45 competitions thus far (Sandman888 and Djln).
• List of Commando raids on the Atlantic wall (nom) conducted mostly by the armed forces of Britain and the Commonwealth. The largest raid involved 10,500 men (Jim Sweeney) (Choice of the week; picture at right).
• Plymouth Argyle F.C. Player of the Year (nom), voted for annually by the association football club's supporters. Carl Fletcher is the most recent recipient (Argyle 4 Life).
• List of Seattle Mariners first-round draft picks (nom). Of the 40 players selected in the first round by the Mariners, 16 have been pitchers, the most of any position (Courcelles).

Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator and reviewer Sandman888 for their choice of the best (disregarding their own, of course):

“

"I picked List of Commando raids on the Atlantic wall as my choice of the week. Not only does it tell an interesting story of World War II and how the British Commandos had a string of operations in France and Norway, but its gallery of live shots enhances the visual appeal.

”

One featured list was delisted:

• List of birds of Cuba (nom: referencing and lead section)

Featured pictures

Nineteen images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":

• Maggie Roswell (nom). Maggie Roswell is an American film and television actress and voice artist, best known for her voice work on the Fox network's animated television series The Simpsons (created by Tommy Collier of Empire).
• Les dernières cartouches (1873) (nom), one of the most famous paintings depicting the Franco–Prussian war; iconic in France (created by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville).
• Qianlong in ceremonial armour (nom), ink and colour on silk depicting Qianlong Emperor of China in ceremonial armour on horseback, 1739 or 1758 (created by Giuseppe Castiglione). (picture below)
• Siberian War: Blagoveshchensk (nom). Nominator Adam Cuerden said, "a fine illustration of a largely forgotten aspect of the Russian Revolution: the attempt to stop it. I also like seeing Japanese work of this period, [probably] period where their art is most affected by Western styles." He noted the dynamism of the slightly off-kilter angles, and its bright, luxuriant colours (created by Shobido & Co, Tokyo).
• Lycoperdon pyriforme (nom), a common saprobic species of fungus that grows on decomposing wood (created by Sasata).
• Rubber-tree seeds (nom), seeds of one of the few of more than 12,000 latex-yielding plant species that is suitable for commercial use (created by Luis Fernández García).
• General Colley just before he was killed (nom), an engraving based on on-the-spot reporting of the Boer War by the Illustrated London News, published in 1881 (created by Melton Prior, restored by Adam Cuerden).
• Round up on the Cimarron, Colorado 1898 (nom), an extremely high-resolution photochrom of a round-up, scanned from the original in the Library of Congress and restored by Adam Cuerden (created by Detroit Photographic Co).
• Ngorongoro Panorama (nom). The crater, the animals, safari vehicles and terrain, in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania, East Africa (created by Muhammad Mahdi Karim).
• Ego Likeness (nom), a publicity shot of an American darkwave/industrial rock band, created by Kyle Cassidy who according to nominator J Milburn would "love for me to nominate it here. If you're interested to know what they sound like (and it may not be to everyone's taste) they have a a load of videos on YouTube".
• Intricate aerial naval exercise (nom), a spectacular aerial shot of an intricate naval manoeuvre (created by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Miguel Angel Contreras of the US Navy).
• Holbein's The Ambassadors (nom), which holds an important place in the history of portrait painting (created by Hans Holbein the Younger).
• Warthog in East Africa (nom), A wild Warthog in Tarangire National Park; reviewer Muhammad said, "I have never seen one this close" (created by Ikiwaner).
• The Arnolfini Portrait (nom). This famous portrait is much debated and discussed by art historians (created by Jan van Eyck).
• Hawaii: satellite image (nom), a quality demonstration of the macro climate patterns of the archipelago (created by NASA).
• Women in Gondi village, India (nom), Gondi people in the Umari district of India (created by Yann). (picture below)
• Nefertiti bust (nom), a bust of Nefertiti, notable for exemplifying the understanding Ancient Egyptians had regarding realistic facial proportions (created by Xenon77).
• Christy Mathewson, (nom). Christy Mathewson, photographed in 1910 while he was with the New York Giants, was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.
• Samurai with sword (nom), of a Japanese samurai with sword, ca. 1860, was praised by reviewers for its rarity and encyclopedica value (created by Felice Beato).

Choice of the week. Muhammad Mahdi Karim, whose specialty is digital photography—especially macro photography and panoramas—is a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates. We asked him to disregard his own promotion last week in this judgement. He told The Signpost:

“

When I watched the Lion King films, Pumbaa the warthog looked quite cute; but little did I know that in reality a warthog was so hairy and intimidating. I was surprised to learn that a female can inflict mortal wounds to a lion to defend her piglets. I had recently been to the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania and I understand the difficulty of taking a picture like this one. Holding a 1.4 kg lens attached to a heavy SLR and taking a sharp, well-focused picture from the rooftop of a safari vehicle is a real feat. The sharply focused animal adds encyclopedic value by showing the typical surroundings of the animal. The slightly out-of-focus background and foreground elements also draw the reader's eyes to the magnificent beast. I have seen very few pictures of this kind, and so it is my choice of the week. [picture at top]

”

New featured picture: the Qianlong Emperor of China in ceremonial armour on horseback, 1739 or 1758. Ink and color on silk

New featured picture: women during a public meeting in a Gondi village in the Umaria district, Madhya Pradesh, India

Reader comments

2010-09-13

Tricky and Lengthy Dispute Resolution

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Ncmvocalist

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases, leaving one open.

Open case

Climate change (Week 14)

This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Innovations have been introduced for this case, including special rules of conduct that were put in place at the start. However, the handling of the case has been criticized by some participants; for example, although the evidence and workshop pages were closed for an extended period, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages (see earlier Signpost coverage).

The proposed decision, drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse, sparked a large quantity of unstructured discussion, much of it comprising concerns about the proposed decision (see earlier Signpost coverage). A number of users, including participants and arbitrator Carcharoth, made the discussion more structured, but the quantity of discussion has continued to increase significantly. Rlevse had said that arbitrators were trying to complete the proposed decision before last week but it was later made clear that he will no longer be voting on this decision. This week, arbitrators, particularly Shell Kinney, made further additions to the proposed decision and further attempts to manage the quantity of discussion.

Closed cases

Transcendental Meditation movement

Late yesterday, a request for clarification was filed in relation to the enforcement of this case - in particular, how discretionary sanctions should be enforced against editors. The filer, Littleolive oil, has also requested that the revert restriction that was imposed on her by Future Perfect at Sunrise be overturned by the Committee.

Eastern European mailing list

A request was filed two days ago to reimpose an Eastern European topic ban on Radeksz. The proposed topic ban was originally imposed at the conclusion of the case, but was lifted three months ago by the Committee. Skäpperöd, the filer, alleges that Radeksz has "returned to aggressive editing and battleground behaviour". Radeskz responded with an allegation that the filer, Skäpperöd, "regularly...resorts to attempts to have those who disagree with him banned rather than working on resolving the [content] dispute".

Race and intelligence

A request was filed three days ago to impose a topic ban on Ferahgo the Assassin from race and intelligence related articles. The filer, Wapondaponda, alleges that Ferahgo the Assasin is acting as a proxy or sockpuppet for Captain Occam - who was topic banned from the articles. Ferahgo the Assasin denied the allegation and has alleged that her contributions to the articles have been positive, while Captain Occam alleged that Wapondaponda is "drama-mongering".

Reader comments

2010-09-13

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Jarry1250

Google Summer of Code: Sanyam Goyal

We continue a series of articles about this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with Indian student Sanyam Goyal, who describes his attempt to overhaul the JavaScript component of the "Semantic" series of extensions, along with the core product itself, the "Semantic MediaWiki" extension. The extensions aim to realise the goals of the Semantic Web, where meaning is overlaid on top of content, allowing machines to more easily interpret it, but have not yet been approved for use on Wikimedia projects. Whilst somewhat controversial, the idea of a Semantic Web is considered by some including Tim Berners-Lee to be the future of the Web.

“

I aimed to improve and extend the Javascript for Extension:Semantic MediaWiki and some of its spinoff extensions including Extension:Semantic Result Formats, Extension:Semantic Form Inputs, Extension:Semantic Drilldown and most notably Extension:Semantic Forms. This includes transferring over much of the Javascript to use the jQuery JavaScript library, which is now becoming a MediaWiki standard. In terms of what was accomplished: In the Semantic MediaWiki extension, I changed Special:Ask to use jQuery and add autocompletion to the top two input windows. Autocompletion is added to the property print-out input window using the jQuery UI autocompletion plugin. In the Semantic Forms extension, I: changed the file-upload window to use jQuery instead of the Floatbox library; no syntax change. Kept the same functionality just using the jQuery library instead. changed autocompletion to use jQuery instead of YUI. This feature is based upon the jQuery-ui autocomplete plugin. made 'Special:CreateClass' pages more dynamic; users can now add more rows dynamically. A simple JavaScript script was written to implement this functionality. added an autoGrow plugin to text-area input; this allows text-areas to grow as more and more text are added to them, never requiring scrollbars. Syntax | input type=textarea|autogrow. It is based upon the textarea-autogrow plugin of jQuery. In the Semantic Drilldown extension, I changed the 'combobox' input to use jQuery instead of ext. The feature is based upon the jQuery-ui autocomplete#combo-box plugin. In the Semantic Results Format extension, added jqPlot and jqPie results formats similar to Google Pie and Google Bar. In the Semantic Forms Inputs extension, I: changed the 'combobox' input to use jQuery instead of YUI, and added it directly in to Semantic Forms, whilst removing it from SFI. With the same syntax as |input type=combobox, it uses the jQuery-ui autocomplete#combo-box plugin created a new 'simpledatepicker' input which uses jQuery.T his feature is based upon the datepicker plugin of jQuery-ui. Syntax |input type=simpledatepicker.

”

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

• It is now impossible to commit changes to the Wikimedia/MediaWiki SVN repository without providing a description on those changes (bug #25025).
• The Wikimedia "Office IT" team, responsible for "things like fixing the printers, getting new workstations online, as well as just making sure the internet stays up", have begun to blog on the Wikimedia Techblog.
• Alolita Sharma, Features Engineering Program Manager for the Wikimedia Foundation has confirmed the transition of the remaining 689 mostly smaller wikis to the new "Vector" skin (Wikimedia techblog).
  
  Reader comments
  

If articles have been updated, you may need to refresh the single-page edition.

Explore Wikipedia history by browsing The Signpost archives.

Home

About

Archives

Newsroom

Subscribe

Suggestions