Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical)/Annotate

Instead of starting off with something that looks like a poll, may I suggest that you just try it out as Jarekt had suggested? I.e. install as a gadget, enabled initially only in "File" namespace. Then see how it goes. If it goes well, switch it on for anybody in "File" namespace. Depending on user experiences, consider switching it on in other namespaces, and ultimately consider switching on the inline-display of notes. Note that the gadget can be configured extensively.

Once you guys have some working experience with it, make improvement suggestions. Then convince me (or some other Javascript-savvy person) to implement them :-). A note on technical improvements: anything that involves changing the syntax of file links ([[File:Example.jpg|...]]) is off limits. Local annotations for non-local files may be possible, but would be quite some work. Grouping of notes into layers and the ability to choose which layers to display is not going to come for a while as it's more work than I have time and would also affect the user interface quite a bit.

Lupo 08:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, we wanted to get consensus before doing anything. The proposal itself is to implement it only on the file namespace, and just add the info icon on other namespaces (see below). If you think that it's a change you are allowed to do yourself, I suggest you do so (I know you're an admin, but there might be resistance, so...). Or ask some other admins. Anyways, it looks like the File syntax need not be changed as you have integrated templates which can configure locally. Grouping could be developed later (I'm willing to help...I'll be free after a month) ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

As I argued at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#ImageAnnotator_gadget_on_Wikipedia, the objections to implementing the gadget in the encyclopedia are about:

• policy – in particular the risk of letting in bad stuff such as BLP libels and EL spam through the back door, because annotation edits don't show up in watchlists.
• quality – annotations that might make sense in commons could be useless or even counter-productive in the encyclopedia.

If this is not the right time to consider technical solutions to these potential issues, fair enough. But then the whole debate should move into the policy arena. "Just try it out" on en.wikipedia is not a smart approach. Surely we can be just a bit more strategic than that? - Pointillist (talk) 22:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Annotations DO show up on recentchanges. commons:Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Monitoring_edits see here. They're tagged, too. Also, if they show up in RC, they can probably be watched. The annotations are added to the description page, see diff.

Anyways, for now, annotations are going to be enabled for users who explicitly specify it in their monobook. They could also be limited to rollbackers+ instead of autoconfirmed+ to restrict editing (for now atleast...)ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 02:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

About your quality point, annotations are disabled by default anyways (meaning that you will only see an icon depicting that the image has annotations, without showing the annotations themselves.) If you want to show annotations explicitly on a page/add them on your own, you have to use some templates like Template:ImageAnnotations,TemplateInlineImageAnnotations, TemplateImageNoteColors, TemplateImageNoteControl, &c.

• I do have the feeling that there is some confusion here.
  1. If ImageAnnotator is installed as a gadget, users do not have to do anything in their monobook.js. They just switch on the gadget for them, in Special:Preferences.

     I meant that it should be behind the scenes (not in prefs page). But making it a gadget is OK by me ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

  2. If ImageAnnotator is activated only in "File" namespace, the discussion about "being hidden by default" is moot. It will *show* notes on file description pages, but nowhere else.

     Does that mean that the annotations can't be explicitly shown via Template:ImageAnnotations?ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

     Well, if the site-wide configuration forbids inline-display of notes, they cannot be switched on through these templates. The site-wide config can never be overwritten in ways that would make it more permissive. I judged that to be too prone to vandalism. But if the site-wide config does allow inline-display, you can use these templates to restrict it more in individual cases. Lupo 18:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

  3. Edits made through the gadget are normal edits to the file description page. There is no difference to other edits.
• I do think "just try it out" is in fact the only way to get this thing started here. If made available as a gadget, it's an opt-in thing for those interested. Potential improvements become much clearer when you actually can use the tool, and see what issues do come up in practice. Lupo 10:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry everyone, in commons, edits to annotations do show up on my watchlist (I missed this because editing an annotation does not automatically add that page to your watchlist).

On the wider point, I still feel that before enabling annotations on wikipedia there should be at the very least a pre-announcement to non-technical members of the community, so that they can raise any concerns before the decision is made. As Lupo commented in the January 2010 discussion, this is really beyond the scope of VPT. BTW as far as I can see the content of annotations is indexed by Google (e.g. search for "Verlag Amsler & Ruthardt" site:wikimedia.org and you'll see Jarekt's three annotated vivat ribbons), so hiding BLP libels in annotations is at least theoretically a risk. - Pointillist (talk) 12:08, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

A little side note here: I spell out text found in images using notes 'in order for it to be indexed by Google and Wikipedia search engines. That is one of the ways to use them (see the use guidelines. --Jarekt (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

@Pointillist: I do understand your concerns. But I fear if we try to settle all policy issues before even using it, we're in for another "sighted revision" debacle. If it's just made available as a gadget, only people interested in it will use it. If it's used, concrete problems will surface, and we can have a much more focussed discussion about how it should be used, configured, and improved. At the Commons, we started out with a very permissive configuration, but we later had to restrict editing to autoconfirmed users. We could do it in a similar way here: start as a gadget, in File namespace only (so no inline-display in articles at first), restricted to autoconfirmed users. Once we see how that works, it'll be much easier to decide where to go with it: widen its use, restrict it even more, or remove it again altogether. A decision to give it a try is not irreversible: if the problems are judged too severe, the gadget can just be removed again; and a bot could remove all already added annotations.

Maybe Manishearth's suggestion is good, too: set it up, but initially don't add it to Special:Gadgets, so that interested people really would have to add an importScript in their monobook.js or vector.js or other user script to enable it. That'd restrict the circle of initial users a little bit more.

As for concrete BLP and other content issues: I honestly don't see any difference to normal file descriptions. These also are transcluded from the Commons, just like annotations. So if a normal file description contains inappropriate stuff, we have exactly the same problem. (Except that it's only visible on the file description page, but that's exactly why the gadget provides configuration settings for not displaying (some or all) annotations inline.) Lupo 11:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Lupo. - Pointillist (talk) 12:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Lupo's question on main page

I've moved this from the proposal page as it kinda gets in the way. Its better to discuss the proposal here and receive consensus there

What's "hidden by default" supposed to mean? The gadget either displays notes, or just icons indicating the presence of notes, or it doesn't display anything, depending on its configuration. But there's no functionality to interactively switch on or off note display. Lupo 08:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This means that the annotations will be hidden even on mouseover. An editor should be able to turn them on. But I see that commons:Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Local annotations already takes care of that. All is left to do is to add this to the config:

var ImageAnnotator_no_images = [(All namespaces except File:)]; //We don't want annotations to be shown anywhere
var ImageAnnotator_no_thumbs = [(All namespaces except File:)];   //Especially thumbs                
var ImageAnnotator_icon_thumbs = [(All namespaces except File:)]; //Just show an icon   
//I know that this belongs on monobook.js, but it could be added to the main thing.

ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Nope, that's a per-user configuration. Users can switch off in their user config note display in certain namespaces. But there is no way to then interactively enable them.

To configure the gadget to work only in the "File" namespace, you'd of course only load it there, or set ImageAnnotatorConfig.viewingEnabled() to return true only in the "File" namespace.

Lupo 12:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

As long as the effect is the same, it's fine. Also, inlineImageUsesIndicator() will need to be changed. Thats pretty much about it then (Forget about grouping now....) Do you think that you are allowed to make the changes? You could currently disable them for all users except those who opt in by adding a line of code to monobook. We'll see how it work's on WP, and we'll report back with comments/suggestions. Later it can be enabled for all users including IP's. Thx. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference: Site-wide configurations always go into ImageAnnotatorConfig.js, where they cannot be changed/invalidated by users. Just placing variables here or there could be overwritten by a user in his or her user JS.

Yes, I think I could do it. There's a reason for being an admin... but not right now; don't have the time. In a couple of days, maybe. Lupo 12:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC) (P.S.: there's no need to notify me with that talkback template. I use watchlists.)

Thanks for the heads-up. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 15:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Experimental evaluation installation

I have installed ImageAnnotator for evaluation purposes. See Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator for how to enable it, and how it is configured. If anything doesn't seem right, leave a note here, or at Help talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator, or on my talk page. Lupo 11:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried it and it works. I will try to do some testing and create some Wikipedia-only examples. --Jarekt (talk) 18:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Step by step procedure for incorporating ImageAnnotations from Commons into Wikipedia?

Hello all. I've created an annotated diagram on spectroscopy and uploaded it to the Commons. I would like the annotations to show up in the corresponding article, and have tried various combinations of subst:/ImageAnnotations/File:/Image:/thumb in the article and the diagram with no success. Can someone give me a quick run-down of how to:

• Make image annotations (in Commons) to automatically show up in thumbnails over at Wikipedia?
• Enable zoom-in for details concurrently with image annotations above?
• Default the caption to show that there are annotations that can be mouse-overed?

Jon C (talk) 20:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Currently not possible. The English Wikipedia has only an experimental setup so that people could evaluate it and make more focused improvement suggestions, but it appears nobody really cared. If it was installed, it could be configured to do item 1 from your list. Items 2 and 3 are not offered by the gadget in its current form. Lupo 21:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: if you switch on this experimental installation for yourself (see Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator for how to do this), you could see the annotations from the Commons on the local file page at File:Spectroscopy_overview.svg. But inline display in the article is not switched on for this evaluation installation. Lupo 22:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Lupo. I'll put my voice in supporting such a feature. I'm interested in doing a set of scientific illustrations for Commons/wikipedia, and the annotation feature would be highly useful in linking to additional concepts or clarification images. In the meantime, I'll just add a little note to get readers navigating to the image page.

PS, it seems the discussion is on the details of the implementation -- but isn't anything better than nothing? Jon C (talk) 04:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't put in a note. Unless you direct people to the Commons file page, they won't see the annotations. The annotations at the local file page are visible only for people who explicitly switch on (for them, and themselves only) this evaluation installation. Lupo 07:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

There isn't a better alternative, when one is interested in getting a info-rich, cross-linked diagram (see the Commons page of the graphic; the captions are usually long enough as it is). I'll put ImageAnnotations on my watchlist, and here's to hoping that it'll get out o its experimental phase. Jon C (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)