For the embedding of Wikimedia Commons' resources in Wikipedia articles see Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons URL commons.wikimedia.org Commercial No Type of site Media repository Registration Optional (required for uploading files) Content license Free Owner Wikimedia Foundation Created by Wikimedia community Launched September 7 2004 Wikimedia logo mosaic

Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is an online repository of free-use images sound and other media files.1 It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

From Wikimedia Commons uploaded files can be used across all Wikimedia projects2 in all languages including Wikipedia Wikibooks Wikisource and Wikinews or downloaded for offsite use. The repository contains over ten million media files.3 Contents 1 History 2 Policies 3 Utilities 4 Quality 5 Hits 6 See also 7 References 8 External links History

The project was proposed by Erik Mller in March 20044 and launched on September 7 2004.56 A key motivation behind the setup of a central repository was the desire to reduce duplication of effort across the Wikimedia projects and languages as the same file had to be uploaded to many different wikis separately before Commons was created. Policies

Given its primary function as a supporting project for the other Wikimedia web sites the main content policy for files uploaded to Commons is that they must be potentially useful on any of the Wikimedia projects. This excludes material such as purely personal pictures and artwork in contrast to image sharing repositories like Flickr Photobucket and DeviantArt. Nevertheless large numbers of files hosted on Commons are not used directly on any Wikimedia project and likely never will be; as such the project has grown into a repository of multimedia in its own right which is frequently linked to from articles on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia websites to provide supplemental materials.

Most Wikimedia projects still allow local uploads which are not visible to other projects or languages but this option is meant to be used primarily for material which local project policies allow but which would not be permitted according to the copyright policy of Commons such as fair use content. Wikimedia Commons itself does not allow fair use or uploads under non-free licenses including licenses which restrict commercial use of materials or disallow derivative works. Licenses that are acceptable include the GNU Free Documentation License Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution/ShareAlike licenses7 other free content and free software licenses and the public domain.

The default language for Commons is English but registered users can customize their interface to use any other available user interface translations. Many content pages in particular policy pages and portals have also been translated into various languages. Files on Wikimedia Commons are categorized using MediaWiki's category system. In addition they are often collected on individual topical gallery pages. While the project was originally proposed to also contain free text files these continue to be hosted on a sister project Wikisource. Utilities

Over time additional functionality has been developed to interface Wikimedia Commons with the other Wikimedia projects. Daniel Kinzler wrote applications for finding appropriate categories for uploaded files ("CommonSense") determining the usage of files across the Wikimedia projects ("CheckUsage") locating images with missing copyright information ("UntaggedImages") and relaying information about administrative actions such as deletions to the relevant wikis ("CommonsTicker").

Specialized uploading tools and scripts such as "Commonist" have been created to simplify the process of uploading large numbers of files. In order to review free content photos uploaded to Flickr users can participate in a collaborative external review process ("FlickrLickr") which has resulted in more than 10000 uploads to Commons.8 Quality This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)

The site has three mechanisms for recognizing quality works. One is known as "Featured pictures" where works are nominated and other community members vote to accept or reject the nomination. This process began in November 2004. Another process known as "Quality images" began in June 2006 and has a simpler nomination process comparable to "Featured pictures". "Quality images" only accepts works created by Wikimedia users whereas "Featured pictures" additionally accepts nominations of works by third parties such as NASA. A third image assessment project known as "Valued images" began on June 1 2008 with the purpose of recognising "the most valued illustration of its kind" in contrast to the other two processes which assess images mainly on technical quality. The site held its inaugural "Picture of the Year" competition for "Picture of the Year 2006". All images that were made a Featured picture during 2006 were eligible and voted on by eligible Wikimedia users during two rounds of voting. The winning picture was a picture of the Aurora Borealis over snowlands taken by a member of the US Air Force. The practice has continued; to date Wikimedia Commons has completed Picture of the Year Competitions for 2006 2007 2008 and 2009. Wikimedia Commons Pictures of the Year Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006.   Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2007.   Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008.   Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2009.   Hits November 30 2006 1 million media files. October 9 2007 2 million media files. July 16 2008 3 million media files. March 4 2009 4 million media files. September 2 2009 5 million media files. January 27 2010 1 million registered users and 8 million pages. January 31 2010 6 million media files July 17 2010 7 million media files January 1 2011 8 million media files February 23 2011 9 million media files April 15 2011 10 million media files See also Wikipedia portal Creative Commons  a project providing a set of content licenses and a directory of works using them Internet Archive  an online collection of videos documents and webpages Project Gutenberg  the largest freely accessible collection of documents (including books and sheet music) Ourmedia  a community media archive Reporting of lolicon images on Wikimedia Commons References Endres Joe "Wiki websites wealth of information". International News on Fats Oils and Related Materials : INFORM. Champaign Illinois: May 2006. Vol. 17 Iss. 5; pg. 312 1 pgs. Source type: Periodical ISSN: 08978026 ProQuest document ID: 1044826021 Text Word Count 746 Document URL: Proquest URL ProQuest (subscription) retrieved August 6 2007 "Embedding Commons media in Wikimedia projects". Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Firststeps/Reuse#EmbeddingCommons'mediainWikimediaprojects. Retrieved 2007-08-07.  Statistics page on Wikimedia Commons Mller Erik (19 March 2004). "Wikipedia-l Proposal: commons.wikimedia.org". http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014885.html. Retrieved 2007-08-07.  "Main Page". Wikimedia Commons. 7 September 2004. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.phptitleMainPage&oldid50. Retrieved 2007-08-07.  "Wikimedia Commons: ber 100.000 freie Bilder Tne und Filme" (in German). Golem.de. 25 May 2005. http://www.golem.de/0505/38234.html. Retrieved 2007-08-07.  See Creative Commons licenses of which "NonCommercial" and "NoDerivs" can not be used on Wikimedia Commons. FlickrLickr image upload count External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wikimedia Commons Meta has related information at: Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons Commonist Java based tool for uploading images to Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons prototype site (currently testing Upload wizard extension) Multimedia Usability Project - aims to improve multimedia uploading on Wikimedia Commons v d eProjects of the Wikimedia Foundation Wikibooks  Wikimedia Commons  Wikinews  Wikipedia  Wikiquote  Wikisource  Wikispecies  Wikiversity  Wiktionary