Content Partnerships Hub/Helpdesk/Content Upload

Content Partnerships Hub

Improving the Wikimedia movement’s work with content partners

Content Uploads

What this means

One of the goals of the Helpdesk is to support the Wikimedia movement to make content uploads to the Wikimedia platforms. It can be photos, books, music, text reports, pretty much any freely licensed material from partners (such as GLAM institutions) that you want to make available on the Wikimedia platforms.

This page explains how you can get practical support to successfully upload freely licensed content to the Wikimedia platforms.

For examples of past and current projects, learn more on this link.

How the Helpdesk can help

The Helpdesk can support in various ways:

By doing the actual content uploads from start to finish
By providing trainings on OpenRefine, Pattypan or other tools that are used for content uploads
By analyzing and working with the content, to see whether it can be uploaded on the platform
By providing networks and contacts to exchange skills, build capacity and share information

How to make a request

To start a new request to the Helpdesk, send an email to helpdeskwikimediase with some basic information. The Helpdesk team will take it from there, according to the usual steps!

In the request, it is great if you try to respond to a few of the questions, of which the most important are:

Does it contribute to filling gaps?
Will you learn new skills through the project?
Will it show the content partner the benefits of working with Wikimedia?

If you like, you can create a public request and send a link to the public request already in your email to the Helpdesk. The public request for Wikimedia Commons projects is made via the Commons Batch Uploading page. Follow the instructions, and then send the public request to the Helpdesk email.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much images or other material must be uploaded to get help?

It is not the quantity that matters. The Helpdesk welcomes requests of only a few dozens or many thousands of media files, if they are of use to the free knowledge movement and/or fill a gap on the platforms.

When is a project ready for upload?

When you are sure that the material is both freely licensed and useful for the Wikimedia platforms. If the content owner is involved, it's good if they also get a say – maybe they want to prioritize a particular part of the collection, maybe they can provide valuable extra information or even additional files that they also would like to see uploaded. If you want to clean up or edit the metadata yourself, make sure everyone is on board with when the final changes should be done.

When is the metadata good enough?

The following information is crucial to have before a collection can be uploaded, as it determines whether the files are free enough for the Wikimedia platforms:

When was the material created
Who is the creator
If the material is not in the Public Domain, what copyright license has it been released under

Once this information has been provided, of course, we need to know what the files contain – this to be able to put them in appropriate categories so that users can find them. If it's a photo, where was it taken and what or whom does it depict?

Keep in mind that the Wikimedia community is very helpful when it comes to describing and categorizing files. Even if all you have is a short label like "Stockholm 1950", the local volunteers will help out with the categories, down to the street/building level. Think about which Wikimedians could be helpful in the particular thematic or geographical area and invite them to improve the data!

... further questions?

Supporting material

How you can be involved

Do you want to help out with content uploads? Read more on the involvement page!