More specific feedback which was received during some community calls with Commons and Wikidata contributors has furthermore highlighted the following:
Increasing support for Wikimedia Commons
We saw lots of engagement during two dedicated sessions about Wikimedia Commons. Many people highlighted practical issues around upload tools and the need for more consistent technology support.
People spoke about the need to create a more welcoming experience for newcomers, with more intuitive tools and tutorials. “We have too much trust in people finding the trust and the support they need to be able to contribute meaningfully.”
We learned about the nuances and risks of making it easier to upload images to Wikimedia Commons given some of the recent history.
These conversations also highlighted the need for future movement conversations around what Commons should and should not do and its role within the larger Wikimedia ecosystem.
This page will cover updates related to any work that addresses the priorities highlighted above, no matter who's behind it.
Please feel free to use the talk page to start related conversations.
Updates
February 2025
Community discussions: WMF has hosted the fourth and last conversation with the Community on February 5 about impact and funding model. Also the summaries of the January and February calls were published. The purpose of these discussions is to help answer one of the key questions for the Wikimedia Foundation's 2025-2026 annual goals: "What decisions can we make with the Commons community to create a sustainable project that supports creating encyclopedic knowledge?"
UploadWizard Improvements: The team has deployed new changes to improve the way users can select the appropriate category. The team thinks exposing more clearly the category structure can also help users understand the difference between “depicts” and “category” fields in UploadWizard. The team also expects it would be easier for people to add the correct category, and so decrease in the amount of work for volunteers in fixing/creating new categories is expected.
Jio set-top boxes pilot project: There is the first data coming in from our pilot project of using Wikimedia Commons images as TV screensaver on Jio set-top boxes. The engagement rose from 42 million impressions in November 2024 (98 images used) to a record 1.17 billion impressions on 6.8 million devices in January 2025 (with only 50 unique images).
Commons Impact Metrics: A project aimed at providing a scalable, reliable data products that address the community's metrics needs, enhancing the understanding of the impact of contributions to Wikimedia Commons, particularly for GLAMs and other movement participants.
Upload Wizard Improvements: A project aimed at enhancing the user experience of the Upload Wizard, focusing on design improvements and minimizing the risk of media uploads that could lead to deletion requests.
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