User:SandraF (WMF)/GLAM section for Structured Commons/Prepare 'old skool' Commons uploads for structured data

'Old skool' uploads and files are those that only use categories and templates. All files on Commons uploaded before the end of 2018 (when structured data is deployed on Commons) are 'old skool' 😊

How will translation to structured data take place?

It's still hard to predict how structured data on Commons will be modelled, and which files will be translated to structured data first. Nevertheless, there are some things that are good to know! John Willliam Waterhouse: The Crystal Ball (1902), unknown collection.

At the time of writing this page (June 2018), the data model for structured data on Commons has not yet been defined by the Commons community. Therefore, details of how 'older' Wikimedia Commons files will be translated to structured data, can't be predicted yet.

A few things are quite certain, though:

• Categories, templates in Wikitext, and structured data will coexist for a very long time. Wikitext templates and categories will remain in use for a very long time.
• The software team that updates the Commons software will not remove any existing functionalities. It is up to the Commons community to decide whether they are happy with the structured metadata in specific files and whether they then want to proceed to remove redundant templates and categories.
• Information about files that is currently stored in wikitext (categories, templates) will be translatable to structured data via at least three ways:
  1. 🤚 Manually: Commons contributors will be able to visit individual existing Commons files and add structured data to them one by one.
  2. 🤖 By bots: Certain Commons contributors will write and run bots that will look for 'old skool' Commons files with specific characteristics and will perform automated and batch translations to structured data where that's possible and relevant. It is up to the Commons community to decide whether to do this in an organized manner and it is currently difficult to predict which files will be handled first.
  3. ⚙️ With tools: It is likely that several volunteer developers will program tools that make large-scale translation of Wikitext information to structured data easier. Maybe there will be little games, like the Wikidata games, that allow human decisionmaking in automated processes that need it. It is also difficult to predict which tools will be developed, and which files they will handle first.

Tips to prepare 'old skool' uploads and to improve existing Commons files to make translation to structured data easier

There are quite a few actions that uploaders and Commons editors can take in order to make existing files easier to translate to structured data.

These are explained below based on the different components with which Commons files are described in Wikitext:

• Categories - how can you optimize and prepare the categories of Commons files, so that the information in the categories can be translated to structured data?
• Templates - how can you use and improve various Commons templates (Information, Creator, Institution, license and copyright templates, source templates...) so that information in them can be translated to structured data?

Infobox templates (templates that provide a structure for information about a file)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Infobox_templates

Frequently-used infobox templates in the GLAM field are the following. You can't go wrong with these!

Example	Template	Used for	Remarks
	{{Information}}	The 'generic' Commons infobox template	This template is automatically used with Upload Wizard and is used very frequently. However, especially for GLAM purposes it does not offer a lot of detail, and therefore more detailed infobox templates are preferred:
	{{Artwork}}	Faithful digital representations of two-dimensional works of art	Example
Example	{{Photograph}}	Digitized photographs	Example
Example	{{Art Photo}}	Photographs of (three-dimensional) works of art	Example
Example	{{Book}}	Digitized books	Example
Example	{{Map}}	Digitized maps	Example

Customized GLAM templates

Internationalization

How to check if a template is widely used?