Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 17

Specifics or generalities?

There are currently four satellite pictures of hurricanes up for nom. I haven't voted for any of them yet because I've been rolling over in my mind how encyclopedic each of them is. While none of them are on the main page for hurricanes, tropical cyclone, none of them would be out of place there. The thing is, the picture of Hurricane Ophelia is perfectly encyclopedic of, well, Hurricane Ophelia, which has a substantial article all to itself. Same goes for Hurricanes Rita, Wilma, and Erin. Now technical issues, such as those with the Wilma pic, aside, do we want to treat each hurricane as its own subject, in the same way we treat individual moons? Each hurricane of the past is a historical, non-repeatable, event. I'd like to hear other thoughts on the subject; the pics themselves haven't had many comments. Matt Deres (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you're asking. I'm a relative newbie to this stuff so I don't really know what you're referring to about the moons. As far as EV goes, I think a nice satellite image of a hurricane has plenty of EV, and adds even more value to the article about the individual hurricane. That being said... if you've seen one hurricane you've seen them all. As far as AV, photos of hurricanes are not particularly valuable unless they have some sort of unusual symmetry or even asymmetry. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 20:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone commented on one of them something to the point that to a large extent hurricanes are very much like sunsets or rainbows. Is every sunset unique? Sure. Is every rainbow unique? Sure. Do we see beautiful pictures of rainbows, sunsets, and hurricanes? Sure. But do we need an FP of all of them? Not really.

Show us something that makes this one stand out from all the others and that's when it may become an FP. A hurricane is just a weather event that gets a name attached to it. The other bugbear I have with all these, plus I believe all current FPs of these storms, is that they are all of that same SE corner of the US. It makes it look like this is the only place on Earth that gets tropical storms, which is obviously not true. I think the fact that they are generating so little response probably reflects how people are feeling about them - meh. --jjron (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that was me that made the comment about sunsets and hurricanes. And I agree, there is little response to those nominations which shows how people feel about them. If a hurricane does't cause a lot of damage, or set some kind of wind speed record, or something of that nature... then its just another hurricane. And I agree, we need more storms from other parts of the world. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That's the kind of thing I had been rolling about in my mind, but the other side of the argument is that not every sunset has an article about it and not every rainbow has an article about it, but all these hurricanes have substantial articles. Remember, they're not being judged on their EV to the hurricane article, but to their own individual articles. That's why I specifically compared them to the FPs of moons we have; they're all, well, they're all just cold chunks of rock, but we felt it permissible to have FPs for several of them because they're all notable enough to have their own article. Do we treat hurricanes like moons or do we treat them like sunsets? Matt Deres (talk) 11:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point, but a lot of moons are irregular or otherwise distinctive, something you don't get with a lot of hurricanes. In other words, different moons are discrete concepts, while different hurricanes are sort of variations on a theme, the way sunsets are. I'm not dismissing hurricane featured pictures, and I agree that each hurricane article (when possible) should have a picture of its hurricane. I just think that the more differentiable the various members of a category are (moons=highly differentiable, hurricanes=not so much) should be a factor of how many featured pictures we have of each one. Dr. eXtreme 12:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we can agree these images are valuable and encyclopaedic, but since FPs are shown in order of promotion, it's probably best to avoid promoting too many similar images at the same time, in any case. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

When we have a bunch of similar images close together, I usually space them out a bit (e.g., the glut of Illustrated London News pics). howcheng {chat} 06:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, since the issue of moons has come up, you may like to read my similar opinions on them in this nom from last year - Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Dione. (I see we differed a bit on our opinions there Matt :-).) I also must say that I don't think it's exactly analogous to moons - a moon is a solid, ongoing entity; a hurricane, like a sunset or rainbow, is just a temporary weather event (albeit one that may have more impact on humans than your typical sunset/rainbow, and that probably lasts a bit longer). So while I don't really think we necessarily need FPs of all moons, I can appreciate an argument for them far more than for these weather events. --jjron (talk) 05:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Nominations limit?

Speaking of Hurricane photos, shouldn't there be some sort of limit on the number of photos a person should be able to nominate concerning the same subject matter? Just as an example, I'm sure I could go out and find a 20 Hubble Photos that would pass the FP criteria. But nominating them all at once is off-putting and people would be sick of looking at nebulae after the first few. The hurricane pics are nice, but do we really need to see four of them all at once? I think there should be a limit of two photos of the same subject per week. But I highly doubt such a rule could be enforced and is not in the good-faith spirit of Wikipedia. I'm just sayin'...... --ErgoSum88 (talk) 21:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that up. I had been going through my head trying to find a polite variation of "enough with the hurricanes already." Also, nominating too many photos of one subject at once is counterproductive, in my opinion; one starts to lump them all together under "yet another hurricane picture" instead of considering the merits of each. I have no doubt that most of those pics would pass the FP process, but only if they were about two weeks apart each. Dr. Extreme (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably a good case for lumping them into a featured set. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Re having a limit, it's a good point, but as you say hard to enforce. And where do you draw the lines? Two photos of the same subject - well are all birds part of the same subject, or would it two photos of the same species? Or would you make it two photos of all animals as the limit? Who's deciding and who's policing it? I mean, really, commonsense should prevail in most cases, but that's perhaps unfortunately optimistic. For example, if I have a nice bird photo and look at the FP page to see three birds already on there, well I wait for a week or so before nominating. Why anyone would nominate four photos of the same subject all at once I'm not sure; I often take noms like that to be saying "I can't decide which of these is the best, so I'm putting them up for you to decide." But as Extreme says, doing this often becomes counter-productive. Re the concept of 'featured sets', well that's a dilemma all to itself, as seen here. --jjron (talk) 12:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying about the multiple nominations being a weeding-out process, but shouldn't that be done over at Picture Peer Review? Perhaps we don't need a hard and fast rule about nominations, just a simple warning or guideline about nominating too many photos would deter some of these multi-noms. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 00:04, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, for sure, that's one thing that can be done at PPR. To be honest, I don't think the nominators usually think 'choose which one you like' when they do this on FPC, that's just how I personally feel when someone does multiple noms all at once. As I said, surely it should be commonsense not to do so. Sure you can put the warnings in, but having criteria that state a minimum image size doesn't stop people nominating 400x300px images, so putting in warnings on this wouldn't give people the ability to see the obvious either. --jjron (talk) 06:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to draw the line there. We don't limit ourselves to 1 oil painting, after all. It's a weak idea to nominate a bunch of really similar pictures all within the same week. Yet remember that Hurricanehink has written 20 featured articles and tons of featured lists. What needed here is a good articulation of what distinguishes one hurricane photograph from another in terms of captioning and featured picture criteria. It could make sense to promote several, but only if the voters understood why each image carries unique encyclopedic value. Durova^Charge! 07:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

That may be the case, but I'm willing to bet that Hurricanehink didn't nominate half-a-dozen of those articles in the same week. That's really what this discussion is about. The multiple FPs of ostensibly the same thing is a bit of a different issue. --jjron (talk) 06:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

commons:Help:Scanning

Just something I was asked to put together, that might be useful here as well. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Delist/Replace option

I believe we should have Delist/Replace option available for the situation as we're having now with this nomination. Big Ben is one of the most photographed places in the world. I've just done a search on flickr for "big ben london clock tower" and I found 2574 images. In few days, or few weeks, or few months User:Diliff or somebody else might and probably will upload a better, higher resolution image of Big Ben. That's why IMO Delist/Replace option should be available for the voters to see the both pictures the existing one and the nominated one side by side and be able to compare them at the same time.Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 13:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• The thing is, Mbz1, I believe it should be that a replacement is confirmed before the old one is delisted. The reason for this is that the previous one very likely did not instantly fall below the standards we expect from FPs when another one was selected to be FP. I completely agree that we don't need two almost identical photos as FP, but both would likely satisfy the FP criteria. Once we have identified a replacement, only then should we delist the previous one, because the main reason we'd be delisting it is not because it is below-par, but because a better one has been chosen to be FP. Otherwise, nobody would support the delisting of an image that does satisfy the criteria. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• I only said that IMO delist and replace should be going at the very same time. Then we might avoid all the confusion we're having now. If we had such an option, then the delist of existing FP and the promotion of a new one would have happened at the very same moment, or if more voters like the existing FP better, it would have stayed.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• I still think it should wait until a new FP has been confirmed. Otherwise you'd have an even more confusing situation where you'd be voting for one on the proviso that another separate nomination passed. It really is better to wait. It is just basic logic: If Replacement passes, delist original. If replacement fails, do nothing. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• • And as for someone uploading a better, higher resolution image of Big Ben. Yes, thats entirely possible, but very unlikely at this stage. The existing and proposed FP images are stitched panoramas with a total of seven 13 megapixel images taken with a reasonably expensive 200mm lens. Sure, someone with a 300-500mm beast of a lens might take 20 segments and stitch them for a higher resolution image, but do you really think they're going to bother? ;-) I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I'm just being realistic. This image's resolution is about as good as could be reasonably expected of a contribution to Wikipedia. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• I hope you noticed that I said "User:Diliff or somebody else might and probably will upload a better, higher resolution image of Big Ben." As a matter of fact this happened already. You did upload an image that you believe is better than the existing one.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• I was referring to the resolution only when I said I didn't think it would be likely. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Diliff here. I believe we've already been through this. I recall trying a delist/replace nomination once and being slammed for not doing them in two different steps. On the other hand, both photos weren't by the same photographer, so that may be a somewhat different situation. Still, Diliff's logic is far more sensible. howcheng {chat} 17:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• Maybe I've missed something. Diliff says "It is just basic logic: If Replacement passes, delist original. If replacement fails, do nothing." OK, I agree with that, but that's essentially what Mbz is proposing surely, but what's being argued against. The problem is, and I think what Mbz is pointing out, that the reality is more like "If Replacement passes, do nothing". In other words under the current system, the original won't be delisted automatically, is unlikely to be put up for delist, and if it is, may well 'fail' the delist, i.e., be kept. Under her Delist/Replace proposal, you wouldn't have two nominations going on at once as Diliff suggests, it would be a single nomination - the outcome would be either Keep the original, or delist the original to be replaced with the new one. One, and presumably the best one, would unquestionably remain FP. It seems to me that her original proposal has been misinterpreted, and if I'm reading it correctly, I think it's a good idea. --jjron (talk) 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • What has confused things slightly is that Mbz1 (in the Big Ben nomination), by withholding her support until she got her way, requested that I firstly delist the existing FP and then see whether the replacement would pass, so thats why I was a bit argumentative towards her suggestion and I didn't read it as carefully as I should have. And I agree with you actually, in this situation, where an almost identical picture is nominated with the intention of replacing an existing FP, I don't see why it can't be done in one step, but it wouldn't apply to all situations, as Howcheng mentioned. If the pictures are significantly different, it would be best to determine separately if there was only room for the one FP. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Ah, OK, I hadn't fully read the discussion in the Big Ben nom, but from what I'd seen of it I thought that may have had an impact. Yes, I see your point here also. It makes sense to delist/replace for almost identical shots, but it's hard to draw a line. If one pano of London is featured, and another comes up, should it go up in a normal new nom or a delist/replace; although ostensibly of the same thing, they could be quite different photos. There's lots of other examples of course. It does seem silly to have two very similar shots of Big Ben featured, but how often would photos of such similar things come along? And it's not like there's not precedents (from memory I think there's three FPs of Hoverflies for example, in about a 200 word article, but people don't seem to think that's an issue); as raised in a couple of discussions above, the 'encyclopaedic value' criteria seems to be of little importance to most voters, so in that context multiple images really don't matter I suppose. When you do get highly similar images, perhaps it comes down to someone taking the initiative to start the delist if the new one goes through, but who should do so? I wouldn't like to dump that job on the closer as well; ideally it probably should be the nominator of the duplicate. The delist/replace idea is good, but probably hard to apply in practice. I suppose more realistically they'll just all stay featured in most cases. --jjron (talk) 10:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Sometimes I think its better to let nature take its course than to create policies for every possibly scenario. That said, I don't mind someone nominating one of my images to be delisted if they have a fair and reasonable reason for doing so. Then it is up to the community to debate and decide. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
• I completely disagree with the proposal. Each image should be judged on its own merits, period. If two images, nearly identical, are both FPs for a little while, until one is nominated, deliberated, and actually passes a delist vote on its own merits (or lack thereof), the Wiki world will not end. No fiery implosion or universal paradox threatens existence. Yes, this means that I think Diliff's "replacement" Big Ben should be judged on it's own merits according to the criteria -- which do not (as of my last reading of them) include a proviso that new images can't be substantially similar to old FPs. So Diliff's new Big Ben should pass or fail completely independent of any consideration of his previous FP of the same subject. Assuming it passes and becomes an FP, then, if it seems the old FP of Big Ben no longer satisfactorily meets the FP criteria, it should be nominated for a delist. -- Moondigger (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • One other comment related to the "Aesthetically pleasing vs Encyclopedic" discussion above, which seems to have petered out. I don't understand what's happened in the past year or two since I was a much more active participant here. It was understood (and agreed upon back then) that pictures could be encyclopedic and valuable to an article without being FPs -- that what separated FPs from useful, encyclopedic non-FPs was outstanding aesthetics and/or historical importance. The point here is that all images used in articles here should be "encyclopedic," and if they aren't encyclopedic, they shouldn't be in the article at all. It's perfectly okay for images to be encyclopedic and valuable to a given article or three, but fail to be passed as FPs because of a lack of outstanding aesthetics or historical value. That's as it should be, IMO. -- Moondigger (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Agree with your last point, that all images on Wikipedia should be encyclopaedic, but I think it was always generally agreed upon that FPs have to be outstanding for one reason or another, whether they be of outstanding aesthetics and quality or outstanding significance (whereby aesthetics would be less important), or ideally both. I think theres probably room for both, just as long as we continue to sort the wheat from the chaff. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• When I offered Delist/Replace option, I only meant to let the voters to see the both images at the very same time and to compare them at the very same time. I meant it is almost like seeing original and alternative that we have now in the nomination process. It looks to me that what is going on now with Big Ben nomination is already implementation of my delist/replace proposal. Voters see current FP and nominated image at the same time, at the same place and discuss both of them together. IMO it is the best prove that I am right. If I did not oppose the image, or even if I did, but Diliff let it go, most voters would have missed the fact that Wikipedia has the same FP already. The nominated picture would have probably passed. The current FP of the better quality would have probably not get delisted and then we either would have two the same FP or we would have the latest one (the one that just passed) to get delisted. To me it is like going around in endless circles.Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Pass or Fail?

I'm a little confused at exactly what point a nominated image is defined as having "passed." Is it based on the number of supports, or the strengths of the reasons given, or a combination of both? How many support/oppose votes must an image have before it passes/fails? I've tried to find the answer somewhere but it seems I'm not looking hard enough or it isn't stated anywhere. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 14:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• It is a good question, ErgoSum88. At Commons we have a clear set of rulls:
  A candidate will become a featured picture in compliance with following conditions:
  Appropriate license (of course)
  At least 5 supporting votes
  Ratio of supporting/opposing votes at least 2/1 (a two-thirds majority).
  I believe we might be better off,if we had the same clear rulls at English Wikipedia. I know that some of mine current FPs would not have passed these rulls (and I am very much ready to delist these ones), yet I believe these rulls are good. We would have less FP, so what?I also never understood what is the difference between "oppose", "strong oppose" and "weak oppose". Does closer counts the stong oppose as 1.5 of oppose and weak oppose .5 of oppose--Mbz1 (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• There is also an agreed set of criteria in WP:FPC, only I can't find it any more :((. As far as I remember a picture is promoted when the support/oppose rate is at least 2/1 (as in Commons) and there is a minimum of 4 expressed support votes ("opinions"?). A strong support or oppose counts 2 votes, a weak support or oppose counts 1/2 votes. However, the closer has a much broader freedom to interpret the reviewing process than in Commons. That explains why there have been some cases where those rules were not strictly followed. Like Mbz1, I have also fought for a more rational and clear set of procedures, with no success -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Correction: Support is counted +1, weak support is +.5, oppose is -2, weak oppose is -1. If there are min. 4 supports, and the sum of all votes is ≥0, then the consensus is support. (In fact, this equals 2/3 majority.) There's no numerical difference between a normal and strong vote, just a personal statement... --Janke | Talk 17:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I've always understood that a strong support or oppose should also be backed up by a strong justification for that vote, too... Otherwise people will be have the potential use it as a way of getting more than their fair share of weight. That said, I trust that the closer will use their good judgment to determine whether the votes are reasonable or not. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I think I'm more confused than before I asked the question. Seems kinda complicated... but I basically see how it works. I'm sure other people will chime in on this subject, but thanks for all the speedy replies! --ErgoSum88 (talk) 20:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Three different (and experienced) users with three different interpretations on the way the votes should be counted. I wonder which one is actually used by the present closer... By the way, is there still any written text which explain those critera? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• To quote from the main FPC page (3rd paragraph from the top) "...if an image is listed here for about seven days with four or more opinions in support...and the consensus is in its favor, it can be added to the Wikipedia:Featured pictures list." It used to also say "Consensus in Featured picture candidates is generally regarded to be a two-third majority in support", but that bit was removed late last year. MER-C, being the current usual closer, is pretty clear that he doesn't just 'count votes' though. Thus all the analyses above aren't really correct. For example I believe he makes no distinction between 'weak', normal, or 'strong' votes - these would all be considered opinions either for or against. (I don't want to put words in his mouth though, so if I get any of this wrong, please correct me). Possibly the best place to see the way he considers the 'votes' (opinions) is the edits he made to the FPC header between last August and November - see here. --jjron (talk) 12:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out, it would seem, according to the changes he made, that he values the actual opinions more than the votes themselves. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 22:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed votestacking

See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Mario1987. I've struck or reverted all comments on pending debates by these users. Can we have a couple of people trawl through the archives (start at about last October) to find cases where the sockpuppetry affected the outcome of the debate. Thanks. MER-C 01:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Ban proposed. MER-C 01:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've gone through right back to last August. Couldn't see a lot of impact from the accounts involved beyond that already identified, but there were two where the outcome was possibly affected:

• Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/USS Arizona sinking - oppose by Mario1987 contributing to close failure of nom, although he only voted once.
• Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lower Consolation Lake - supports by both Mario1987 and Angelono2008 potentially gave a false positive and may have helped sway some later voters to support.

I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do with these (leave them as is, renominate, ??). --jjron (talk) 16:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not fussed if the burning warship is renominated. As for the Banff one, I probably would have promoted it anyway as the concerns about enc value were addressed. MER-C 10:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I opposed the warship anyway, so I wouldn't renominate myself. As far as I'm concerned its non-promotion is still legit, but was just trying to identify anything with a possible bias as fairly as I could. And I had similar thoughts about Banff. --jjron (talk) 11:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a fairly prolific painter who we're lucky enough to have a great deal of his work in high-quality reproductions.

However, this does mean his page has one of the more justified uses of massive galleries. I do not think this is a problem, and would probably be a little bit upset if it was trimmed down, as it would make the page a lot less useful. However, it does lead to questions about whether such a page is sufficient usage for FPC. What does everyone think? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If the images could compensate in the quality department for the gallery-only usage I could see myself supporting them. But it seems that we have deviating concepts of high-quality reproductions. Anything noisy, unsharp, and below at least 5MP is not a high-quality reproduction, just a decent-quality reproduction at best. --Dschwen 16:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I still like the work, though =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually I've had my eyes on Bouguereau for a while with Wikipedia:WikiProject Textile Arts in mind. A number of his paintings depict women at work in various textile arts. Very encyclopedic in an ethnohistorical context. Durova^Charge! 00:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it more dependent on the original print quality than pixel count? I mean a decent 2MP scan of an original watercolour will always beat the pants off a clean, sharp, 5MP scan of the same work halftoned in a cheap book. I have other misgivings about paintings, partly to do with repro quality prior to scanning, but mainly that the quality of the artwork should be the primary consideration; artist notability is probably alongside that in EV terms and repro quality, jpeg image size, etc are minor issues in comparison. --mikaul^talk 16:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Duh! Of course it is not just about pixel count, and I didn't think I had to spell out that I'm not talking about repros of paintings halftoned in a cheap book. But if we are judging the quality of the artwork (geez it is bad enough that amateurs are playing photography experts ;-), now we are supposed to be art critcs as well?) we might as well feature everything from the walls of the Met, Louvre, Guggenheim, etc. Is it that what you want? What's the point of FPs then anyways, it would mutate to a pretty Wikipedia-unspecific collection of PD images from other sites. I'd rather have it expemlify the content-creating powers of Wikipedia contributors. --Dschwen 16:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no upper limit to the number of images we can feature. It would be fantastic to have 10,000 featured pictures. The Wikipedians who contribute their own quality photography do us a wonderful service (although my favorite activity is to take some of those old PD images from other sites and restore them). Durova^Charge! 19:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Strawman argument! I never mentioned any limit. --Dschwen 19:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You imply that there should be one, in much the same way that I implied that we all had to be art critcs...
I would also prefer to see more user-generated content on the main page, but I am also aware that this is a very community-oriented desire. The whole featured content circus may be a big deal to us, but for most main page visitors it's Quality Free Content which matters, irrespective of who produced it, and PD images are an important part of that. The majority of our featured artworks are the product of considerable effort, whether photographing/scanning originals or painstaking restoration of PD stuff, on the part of a small number number of dedicated contributors. Perhaps you meant to imply that we should be striving to make our featured content uniquely available here, and maybe you might then concede that carefully-presented reproductions of the world's greatest artworks probably are worthy of a main page appearance, but I'd hate to put words into your mouth ;o) --mikaul^talk 11:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

My main message is was about a healthy ratio of Wikipedian-created content vs. found content. I absolutely respect the efforts of people like durova who put quite a bit of work into restoring old images, and some of those should be featured. But if you go through the current and recent nominations you'll see a lot of.. ..ok let's stay civil here ;-).. ..items which most certainly have no or next to no work put into them. --Dschwen 12:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, don't knock engravings - it may not take a lot of work to scan them, but what you don't see is all the time spent reading through Victorian newspapers in order to find them in the first place. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a note

I've made a couple minor changes to WP:Featured picture criteria, to whit:

• Clarified that historical and similar images that advocate a historically-important agenda or point of view aren't covered by the "Images must be neutral" clause. I can see why the clause was added, but, for instance, This poster has an outright racist agenda, but has been featured because it's excellent for showing a period of strong historical racism in politics. Is this lovely historical map (already featured) "uncontroversial in [its] neutrality and factual accuracy"? as that guideline for maps requires? You take my point, I'm sure - that there are common-sense exceptions to the "neutrality" rule, and we ought to recognise that, if we're going to tell new people here that they MUST follow these criteria.

• I also added a link to commons:Help:Scanning, because it's probably useful. Remove it if you like. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds wonderful. I've been wondering, should we update the featured picture criteria to reflect voting norms? The ambiguous wording regarding historical pictures threw me for a loop when I made my first nominations and I've watched a few other people come along and make the same mistake. Sure, we'll sometimes waive the size and quality requirements a little bit, but usually not by much. And for an image to get real leeway it really needs to be important and unique, with no realistic chance of getting a better version. Obvious halftoning and .jpg artifacting almost never meets voter approval. The current written standards say we'll be flexible, but not by how much. Comments? Durova^Charge! 20:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, if the original is in bad shape, and it's unlikely that any comparable documents in better shape exist? That's fine. However, if the reproduction of the original is poor, that's not good enough: We could get a better reproduction. For instance, all manuscriðpts of Beowulf ae in poor shape. A high quality reproduction of one would, nonetheless, probably pass here. However, if the reproduction was only 300px by 500px, and you couldn't read the text? That's not good enough. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much. All the controllable variables should be controlled. Durova^Charge! 20:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've posted two new sections over at Wikipedia_talk:Featured picture criteria, one on historic image exceptions and one on the neutrality criteria (which I just want to remove). Please participate there if you have any opinions on either of these issues. - Enuja (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Criteria I wish we had

There's a criteria at Commons FP, which states :"A bad picture of a very difficult subject is a better picture than a good picture of an ordinary subject. A good picture of a difficult subject is an extraordinary photograph" IMO this criteria would have been even more appropriate for English Wikipedia FP.--Mbz1 (talk) 21:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

If it was my encyclopedia, I'd set up a page specifically for extraordinarly interesting, encyclopedic images which, for one reason or another, aren't suitable FP candidates. I'd have that sentence you quoted as the only criterion and without a doubt, it would be a page full of your images. Please don't stop your contributions just because we don't have a suitable vehicle for appreciating them. --mikaul^talk 13:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

We will have shortly at commons:COM:VIC --Dschwen 13:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I realise Commons is all about images and consequently we should expect them to have more "levels of appreciation", shall we say, but doesn't the initiation of COM:VIC there makes it more appropriate that we have something like a mix of that and COM:QIC here? I'm tired of referring people to WP:PPR, knowing that their image(s) aren't going to be seconded there, despite being good, encyclopedic material. I really want to encourage these sort of contributions for WP but if all we can do to gratify them is farm them off to Commons, we're steering our image-makers in the wrong direction, IMO. --mikaul^talk 09:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A picture is better than no picture, an article is better than no article (as long as it is verifiable) and so on... But most people seems to think differently here. That's why I'm pissed off of Wikipedia. Ericd (talk) 01:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but a featured picture or article should surely be that which is judged to be amongst the best available. Why strive for or promote mediocrity when better is both achievable and desirable? Mfield (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is not a problem of Wikipedia, it's an attitude problem. Sure, the FPC comments aren't always warm and fuzzy, for the most part they are pretty blunt. But please see what FPC means, it is supposed to be a selection of the best pictures (according to the FP criteria). Rejection does not mean that the contribution is not appreciated at all, or even that it should be removed. There are shades of gray as far as appreciation goes. --Dschwen 02:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• It is not about the FPC comments being warm and fuzzy. It is rather about these comments not being stupid, when an opposer, or a one, who writes a comment has no slightest idea of the subject, never seen it in a real live and never seen even a picture of it, but provides his/her "expert" opinion on the image.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok my comment is not very relevant here. I don't mean that FP should promote mediocrity. Its a general comment about Wikipedia. What I see here is a lot of deletion of pictures and articles made by bots. For instance these pictures were deleted File:Zapata poster.jpg, File:Paris 1900 Refractor.jpg.. The second was a rare document and I would probably not have an opportunity to scan it again. Both qualify for fair use in my opinion. At the time they were uploaded was no tag for copyright status no fair use rationale, I spent a lot of time making enforcing some good practices about copyrights and was most of the time considered as a facist for trying to promote good practices. Ericd (talk) 10:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• Why don't we have something like valuable images for wikipedia, with greater emphasis on encyclopedic value than quality? Muhammad(talk) 11:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• Cannot agree with you more,Muhammad. After all it is encyclopedia and not a high quality photos contest.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Evaluating reproductions of paintings, etc

I realise it has just been promoted, but this FP, in my opinion, wasn't properly evaluated against the original. Forgive me, Durova and Jaakobou, for singling this one out, but it is a classic example of over-enthusiastic "tweaking" which, for certain works, is unrepresentative and inaccurate.
Even as large thumbnails you can see the restoration and enhancement of this work has actually been quite destructive, adding contrast where there was none, altering colours and sharpening to the point of degradation. I can see why this would seem like a good idea, and the FP version looks bright and colourful where the original is has very muted colours – but it's seems quite clear to me that this is much closer to the way the original actually is.

• 
  Original version
• 
  Featured version
• 
  Border removed

On the one hand, trawling around, we often find poorly-adjusted scans which just need running through Photoshop to pull out some detail. On the other, surprisingly few artworks will respond well to digital enhancement, often because they have no white-point or black-point, and ascribing these to such works will completely alter their appearance. I've seen at least three noms of paintings recently with suspiciously bright whites and blocked-up blacks. Especially when the source is a museum or similar, we should trust and use that source for verification purposes. Look at these two side by side @ 100% and you can see that the texture of the silk is gone, the creases in it cloned out, subtle tonal detail lost in LCE and/or sharpening tweaks, and so on. Seriously, a little further and you would have to call it a derivative work.

With all the recent talk over at the criteria page about image "accuracy", I think it's time we started properly evaluating our FPCs against original works and reliable/first-generation reproductions wherever practical, before we put forward inaccurate material to promote the encyclopedia. Sorry, but this is exactly the sort of thing which costs us credibility. --mikaul^talk 12:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree. I guess I should have voted on this one instead of just skipping it, but there were already so many support votes that it just didn't matter, and I found that rather frustrating. --Dschwen 23:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely too. That degree of deviation from the original in an encylopedic depiction of anything is inexcusable if you ask me. I feel somewhat the same about third parties adjusting the color balances of images with no idea what the original scene looked like to the photographer. In addition I think this image should be nominated for immediate delisting. Mfield (talk) 00:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realise that wasn't the original, unaltered version. Perhaps we should have a vote to switch to the original? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother, this will do. I'm quite surprised the original wasn't presented for consideration. Any objections? (If there aren't any by Easter then it gets replaced). MER-C 08:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The original has its issues: the black border, which has to be cropped out for FP, seems to mask some non-recitilinear framing; the lighting isn't briliant, so the top left is over-exposed and the bottom is under. I can't see any serious retouching is needed though. The main issues stem from it being a photograph rather than a scan & I think it would be worth correcting it as such. If I have time I'll post up a version later. --mikaul^talk 12:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is non-recitilinear framing. That thing it made from cloth, most likely hand woven, and thus not perfectly rectangular. I would not crop it, and I would not distort it. --Dschwen 12:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I hear your concerns, especially bearing in mind the reason I pulled it up originally. We need to lose the border if it's going to be featured, so all of this is based on that premise.
The cropped version above is rotated, rather than distorted, although it did need a tiny keystone correction. As it's a photograph, the probability is that the keystoning fix I made – purely to avoid a wedge-shaped white "fill" along two sides and totally consistent with a not-squared-up camera – was photographer error, not weaver error. The "true" edges are missing in the original and whereas they're clearly not ruler-straight, every element in the artwork is really closely proportioned, so I'd argue that the original must be pretty "square". The other fix is also photographic: I've corrected the falloff of light top left/bottom right. I've been as non-invasive as possible, within those parameters. --mikaul^talk 13:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that removing the border is "necessary", and the wrinkles follow the waviness of the red border, indicating that we do have the "true" edges of the cloth. I could see making the black transparent, though. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Forget about transprancy. After taking a closer look I have to agree with mikaul that at least in part we are not seeing the real edge, although in some regions it looks like it (or at least like a very close crop). My guess is that the cloth was somehow suspended by its edges. In any case I would rather have a tiny black border than cut away anymore pixels than necessary. --Dschwen 18:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So I guess it's the original then? Going twice... MER-C 07:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And gone. Replaced with the original. MER-C 08:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Closing discussion early?

I was wondering if it would be worth, if there was a complete and utter Support consensus (even if there's a few Opposes) [or vice versa], to be able to close the discussion early before seven days. They do it successfully at RFA, and it may be worth doing it here. It's a bit like a variant WP:SNOW idea, that there's no chance of it not becoming featured. microchip08 ^{Find my secret page!} Talk to me! I feel lonely! 19:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There can be more complications here - edits often appear in the last few days as it is. I don't think it does any harm to have obviously good pictures up for a few more days. Anyway, I visit WP:FPC as often as not to see the pretty pictures - I don't want the best ones to go quicker :-) TSP (talk) 21:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Early closures do happen early on occasions, such as a withdrawn nom. Clearly through noms (either way) are often closed a day or so early, especially if things are busy. Other than that, I see no need to rush things through quicker. As TSP says, complications can arise, and it does no harm for a nom to sit around for a couple of days at the end of the cycle getting no further opinions. Could you proffer a reason why closing early may be of advantage? --jjron (talk) 06:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

My 2C, if there's not a snowball's chance that something will pass (i.e. overwhelming oppose votes, fails all criteria) then an early close doesn't seem inappropriate. If something is very likely to pass, on the other hand, there's no harm in waiting. Mostlyharmless (talk) 07:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that WP:SNOW can be deceptively hard to identify on the FPC page. Sometimes a picture will get 5 or 6 supports in a row and look strongly unanimous, and then a more discerning editor will point out some flaws and the nom will fall apart over the course of the last few days. B/c of the 2:1 rule of thumb, a few opposes can sink what seemed to be a clear candidate. For this reason at least, it is important to keep a nom up for at least the alotted time. Even more than that, though, I would say that snowballs simply do not come up often enough to merit a break from the procedure and be made an exception of. Lots of pics have mixed reviews, and most simply don't generate enough interest/votes to become snowball candidates (for me, a snowball pass would have to be 10 or 12-0). Just my take --Malachirality (talk) 07:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Corrected, meant to write not pass above. For FPC absolutely; applying WP:SNOW to likely passes is inappropriate, but for very clear fails, it would streamline things. Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

And for clearly fails (what you're terming the snowballs) you can always vote Speedy close - if no one objects within about a day it can be closed early. See here for a recent discussion on that point. --jjron (talk) 08:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Slow decision making is good. Ericd (talk) 18:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Antelope Island State Park Map

I don't understand why this is not closed already. The author has emphatically withdrawn his nomination and asked for the deletion of the picture. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It will be after the deletion discussion has finished. Why the rush? Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 17:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Because the nomination was withdrawn by the author, it has nothing to do with the deletion discussion. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree, there is no point in leaving it on the page. --Dschwen 17:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I suspended it once I saw the deletion request. I don't know that I've ever seen someone withdraw a nom before that was probably going to be promoted - not sure of the protocol there; it strikes me as kind of like a one-man delist, which wouldn't be accepted. I don't care if someone wants to close it though. --jjron (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither did I. It's rather self-defeating - withdrawing an image when it's about to get featured then complaining about it. The little voice in the back of my head tells me I should feature it but I'm not sure. MER-C 09:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably because there's another little voice saying bugger him for being so rude and bad tempered ;-). My inclination was actually to feature it, and then when you put the FP template on his talkpage leave him a note that he can put it up for an immediate delist if that is his wish. --jjron (talk) 03:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

My proposal

Nominations that started before Monday, 22 April 2024, at 1:29 pm UTC are older than 7 days and are due to be closed.

I added the above template to the "Decision Time" section so that it is easier for people to know if the seven days are up or not, in order to move to the correct section and/or close. I was reverted by MER-C, so I am opening this up for discussion instead of editwarring / giving up. I thought it was a good idea. Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 17:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

In practice, noms get closed when I feel like closing them, not because of some hard rigid deadline. That's why I did away with hard deadlines some ten months ago. Nobody objected. If WP:AFD and WP:FAC don't need one, neither do we. MER-C 10:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

So should we get rid of anything that says "7 days"? Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 15:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Uhm.. ..no. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. --Dschwen 18:08, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Things say "...about seven days...", not "...seven days...". The seven days is still a guideline for how long the nominations are up there so it should stay, but it's not some automated process that they get closed the second the seven days ticks over. I'm pretty ambivalent re the clock itself, I personally wouldn't care if it was there as long as it was just being used as an indicator. --jjron (talk) 03:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The presence of the clock implies such a process and/or that noms have to be closed after exactly seven days. MER-C 09:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

See, I thought it implied the other way - noms cannot be closed until after seven days. Anyway, thanks for the response. Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 10:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Merc in regards to it being about 7 days and not 7 days exactly and that makes this unecessary however I can't help but take some issue with the statement "In practice, noms get closed when I feel like closing them, not because of some hard rigid deadline", A) this isn't you're page so you're not the only one to make decisions here although in this case being bold was a smart move, and B) you are not the only one who closes noms, other people do as well (although admittedly I haven't in a long time). I hope I am just misinterpreating you're comments above and if I am please let me know and I'll strike this. Cat-five - talk 02:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I know I don't own this place, but experience suggests that if I disappear for a few days (usually due to laziness) then nothing of any substance happens (hence my observation). MER-C 09:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's because you do such a good job of it we just leave it up to you... ;-) --jjron (talk) 15:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok thanks for clarifying, I was afraid there for a second that we had another Raul on our hands (i.e. a featured [insert category here] dictator who wields absolute power. Cat-five - talk 01:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Köhler's medizinal-plantzen

Book still hasn't arrived (It's supposed to be here before early April, but I don't have an exact date). When it does, what should I do? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Read it :-). --jjron (talk) 14:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Elena85/Joan97 Shenanigans

OK, so User:Elena85, who is a redirect to User:Joan97, she of the multiple hurricane noms, is up to it again (the fact she's using multiple names to begin with is a worry).

Her list of offences grows:

1. Nominating six photos of basically the same thing in about 3 days (OK, we can overlook that one; no rule against that, as she so nicely points out here...).
2. Wiping three of those noms off the FPC page at a whim (well, novice mistake...).
3. Deleting all the opposing votes from a different nom (hang on, this is getting a bit more serious...).
4. Giving phoney reasons (i.e., which articles it was in - which was none) on at least one nom (well not seeming too trustworthy...).
5. Faking votes on her current nom; see the page history. Then ask yourself why in this revision User:Moonlight567 and User:DeltaDawn76 have come along and supported without ever editing the page, and when the only one that has edited the page is User:Joan97.

Obviously this nom will be closed as not promoted, but a user ban is in order. Who's good at pursuing these things? --jjron (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Elena85 was renamed to User:Joan97 (see also Wikipedia:Changing username/Archive41#Elena85 → Joan97). The reason given is valid, but I have never seen someone change username and use that to vote twice. MER-C 03:22, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Except she didn't actually use her own renamed username to vote the second and third time, she stole the identities of two other users (I assume they're legit, I haven't checked their histories though). It's just that the Sinebot autosigned them as Joan97. --jjron (talk) 03:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Busted. All three users are the same person. At least they're honest, but then again the comment "2 of my other names" implies that there are more. (What happened with the rename was that she nominated the picture with her original username. When she got renamed, all edits were reattributed to the new name automatically, but existing signatures were not. Then she voted again with the new signature.) MER-C 06:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets case. MER-C 12:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Valued images on Commons

A new project called Valued Images (VI) is in its maturing state on Commons. Rather than focusing on technical detail as Quality Images on Commons (QI) and the wow of Featured Pictures on Commons (FP), this projects attempts to focus very much on the value of the image for online display on Wikimedia projects and not so much on high technical requirements. This includes, of course, encyclopedically valuable images for use on the Wikipedias. Currently, the guidelines for the project are being stabilized/refined and test reviews are ongoing to stress test the concept. Do pass by if you would like to learn more about the project, comment on the guildelines, help bring the project to life or make a test nomination. The purpose of the project is many-fold.

1. It is supposed to encourage contributors to widen out the topics of images on Commons.
2. Images taken with a modern built-in mobile camera is sufficient if the subject is right.
3. It is hoped that the valued images can make it easier for Wikimedia project editors to find valuable images of relevant topics on Commons.
4. Often QI and FP on Commons is being critized by Wikipedians for focusing to little on the enc. value of an image putting easthetics and technical excellence on a pedestal. VI is an attempt to bridge the value gap. -- Slaunger (talk) 00:12, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll whack a mention of this in my piece for next week's Signpost. It might also warrant a separate article later on, but I'm not thinking that far ahead. MER-C 02:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate if you mention it;-) I read what you have now. Just to be precise, VI is not exclusively about enc valuable images. It is about images of value for all WMF projects. This includes, of course, enc. valuable images but it may also be images valuable for, e.g., Wikinews, Wikiversity or Wikispecies. Thus, I'd really appreciate it if you would adjust the formulation accordingly, just to avoid confusion. And, BTW, the link to commons:COM:VI is dead. That page does not exist yet, because we do not have any yet, we are only test reviewing. Please link to commons:COM:VIC instead. Thanks. -- Slaunger (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Dang. I was just putting the finishing touches on a similar (but entirely independent) proposal for here - it was even going to be called either Valued Images or Valuable Images, although I'd almost settled on Valued Pictures. Does anyone still want me to post it? --jjron (talk) 03:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Dang? No, on the contrary. That means you do not have to spend a lot of time setting up a project, which belong more naturally on Commons. Valued images do not speak any language. It is much more fun to join efforts and collaborate. And there is still time to influence the project at Commons. Bring on your ideas and let us see what you have at commons:COM:VIC. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Hey, en-wiki has its own FPC, why not its own VP too? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 04:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
    • It has its own FPC for a reason, the criteria are different. I don't think creating a competing similar proposal is really helpful. I fear it'll just divide the attention and workforce. --Dschwen 04:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
      • OTOH if our FP criteria are different, our QI/VI criteria will be too. I always envisaged it to be a "high-EV but ok-tech-quality" award, where Commons QI was only ever about a way of recognising not-quite-FP quality. I never liked the COM:QI layout or procedure, and whereas the new COM:VI is more project-oriented, it's more of the same in that respect and I would be interested to see jj's proposal. --mikaul^talk 12:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
        • And I'm not argueing that having several editions of FPC is a good thing! I suppose it just grew that way. With three quality assessment projects (FP/QI/VI) we'll have to ask ourselves if we really need the spread of FPC over several projects. Just think about it. --Dschwen 15:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree with Dschwen and think we should join our efforts around this project. Please notice that this is a typical Commons attribution, as the valuable images will be useful in all kinds of projects and wikis. I don't agree that Valued Images is "more of the same", the voting process is quite different from QIC. Please take a longer look. Anyway, there is still time to make adjustments. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• I am glad to see some response on this. That users are interested. Whereas I somewhat see a point in having both WP:FP and COM:FP, I think it could be different for VP/VI. It is stated that probably WP:VP criteria would be different than COM:VI criteria. I would like to challenge that view. As I see it WP:VP critera would be a subset of COM:VI. The scope of COM:VI is wider than encyclopedic value, but in reality most of COM:VI will be centered around images relating to encyclopedic value - at least as the WMF projects are now. I suggest to study the proposed guideline at commons:COM:VIC and consider if they do not embrace what would be WP:VP too? And if not, challenge the guideline. You are welcome. There is still time to adjust them. It is not set in stone. I think it would be a pity to make such a project both at WP and Commons. For me the natural place for such a project is Commons.

Some dislike the current proposed VI process as being too close to QI. I challenge that point of view too. As I envision the flow of VICs can be considerable, the process has to be light-weight, otherwise there will not be the required review resources available. Making a lenghty consensual review process/vote as at FP is IMHO too inefficient. -- Slaunger (talk) 17:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• I think its a great idea for commons, but I would prefer if we had something like this for wikipedia too, so jjron let's see what you have. Muhammad(talk) 15:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

  What would the advantages be at having something similar here? As a non-WP:FPC regular I have to ask, because I do not see any reason for setting up a parallel system? Why not join efforts instead? -- Slaunger (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• BTW, the discussion page for the Valued images project at Commons is here: commons:Commons talk:Valued images candidates.

I've been mulling the same idea jjron mentioned up-thread for a little while now. There are lots of pictures that are perfectly encyclopedic and deserve to get recognition for it, but just don't have the technical or artistic calibre to quite be FPs (IMO, of course). Our recent nom for a diagram of arm bones comes to mind; perfectly encyclopedic, but with no 'wow' factor at all. My proposal was to call them Good Images to be congruent with the Good Article process we currently have, but the process really would not be congruent at all, so maybe VP is better anyway :). C'mon Jjron, let's see what you've got; I basically got as far as "Jeez, I really should do up a proposal and see what the FPC crowd thinks..." Matt Deres (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

May I ask again, what the benefits would be of having a dedicated "VP" project on WP as compared to joining in on commons:COM:VIC, and possibly influence that project now since that project is not set in stone? The resources spend on a possible WP:VP project will most likely not be of much benefit for all the other Wikipedias. For me this seems unfortunate as Commons is the primary media repository (disregarding fair-use media) used among all WMF projects. As a non-WP:FPC regular I may be missing an obvious point. Please enlighten me. -- Slaunger (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Because they would recognize different things. The Commons VIs are "images of great diversity and of general use". I love that we have Commons, but that statement summarizes one of the drawbacks to the Commons project - it has no direction. My thought is that an EN:VI would be images that have a high encyclopedic value, but which fail to meet the visual appeal that we look for in FPs. They're not (necessarily) failed FPs, they're pictures for which an FP is unlikely, unavailable, or impossible. Many of the diagrams we've voted on recently would fall into that kind of category I think. During the voting here, you sometimes see comments about how such-and-such is the "best available image". Well, that doesn't mean it has to be an FP (IMO); the FPs should be the best of the best and no excuses. Some of those "best available" shots might also be appropriate for VI. Matt Deres (talk) 20:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I share your view on what an FP is. Here I have tried to describe Commons VIs in a nutshell as: "images of great diversity and of general use". Although there are many more nuances in Commons VI (see detailed description), exactly why is that characterization not something to strive for in a Gedanken WP:VI project as well (just trying to understand)?

Concerning your opinion that the Commons project has no direction, I do not understand what gives you that impression? As I see it the Commons VIC project helps to give a clear direction, as it is very much focused on the needs of the Wikimedia project editors, who look for valued media on Commons.

You have some thoughts about whether a valued image/picture are for those, which could not become VI or whether an FP can also be a VI. This is something that has been discussed thoroughly at Commons, and here the current consensus is that an FP can also be a VI. To put the two clasifications of pictures/images in perspective, the following two Commons FPs have been used as an example:

A Commons FP, but according to current opinion not a Commons VI

A Commons FP and proposed to be a Commons VI

Both images have great wow, and perhaps the first one is the most beautiful image (subjective though). However, from a value point of view the second image is superior because the person in the image adds a sense of scale. Since the scope for both images is Antelope Canyon, and there can only be one VI for each scope, this means the first image cannot be VI. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You write that the two projects "recognize different things". Could you elaborate a little bit with what you mean by that by bringing on some specific examples? If you consider the test nominations at commons:COM:VIC so far I would say that each and every one of the reviews so far has considered "value" in a manner which fits well with what is conceived encyclopedic value here at WP. Do the conclusions in any of the test reviews differ from what you would conclude from a purely enc. value point of view? -- Slaunger (talk) 13:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think perhaps we're talking at cross purposes here. As I understand it, COM:VI are actually a cut above the level of FP. Is that correct - at least in the sense that there is only one VI per scope, while you might have several FPs? That's kind of the opposite of what I'm going for here in EN; we could technically have any number of FPs on a subject, but in practice usually only have one, if only because after the second image gets promoted, someone usually nominates the old one for delisting. What I think EN needs is more like a cut below the level of FP, pictures that are still well-made and encyclopedic, but which don't have the scope or the visual pizazz of what we look for in FPs.

My comment about Commons lacking direction was not meant to be derogatory (I understand you're not accusing me of that, I just want to make it explicit), it's just my impression that Commons exists as a repository of images of a certain license - like a stack of photos in a box that can sometimes be difficult to dig through. Still very valuable, though. _{I'll reply further later today; real-life is once again creeping up on my on-line time} Matt Deres (talk) 10:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Matt. Pheew, for a moment I thought we had entirely different visions with a VI/VP project. After reading your comment, I am more inclined to think that it is more of a perceived than a real difference in opinions and views. Let me first comment on your understanding that COM:VI is a cut above the level of FP. This is not at all the intention. I'd rather say it is an entirely different cut. The example I gave above showed that not every FP is a VI, as there can only be one VI for each scope, and in the example both FPs concerned the same scope (Antelope Canyon). Maybe the example was a little bit too exotic for what is typical for a VI. Let me give some cpunter examples. See this VI for instance. For sure, the technical quality is not at all sufficient to make it FP on either COM or WP. Nevertheless it is considered (so far) to be the most valuable image within its scope, which is Drinking water. Some more examples of test VIs, which are not (and never will be) FPs are this photo of Acanthochondria cornuta, the only available image of Copepods, and this one within the scope of Apartheid.

The reason why I would like to see only one VI per scope is to motivate contributors into spreading out in their topics. For instance, I think the subject of "critters on flowers" is a subject which is very well covered in many variants, but there are so many other subjects/articles which could be improved by better (or just some) illustrations. My real aim is to motivate and encourage such contributions. As I see it you have the exact same objective? For example, I just come from the dentist, where I had a crown installed. As I sat there I thought, dang, why did I not bring my camera? I could have made some cool macro photos of my new crown while being there, which could have increased the photographic value of the images used to illustrate that article. Unfortunately I forgot. What I'd really like to see with COM:VI is that users make photos of "targets of oppertunity", which they meet in their everyday life, and which they would normally not think would have value, because, e.g., it is not beautiful (and thus) FP worthy.

Concerning your view on Commons, I will not spend much more energy on that but only comment that I sometimes see a tendency to frown upon Commons complaining about lack of organization of media and just being a placeholder for media. I agree that much could be better, one way is IMO with a VI project, another one is that users take more care in properly describing and categorizing their uploads, another is that more users volunteer to help keep Commons organized.

Finally, I am looking forward to the last part of your reply ;-) -- Slaunger (talk) 11:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've had a chance to look a little further on the pages your provided and what you've written above and I've obviously misunderstood both the premise and function on the COM:VI project. Please consider my earlier comments in light of that :). I agree now that the project probably doesn't need to have duplicate versions on other WPs. The (separate) issue that's become clear to me in this discussion is that I'm not alone in thinking that EN needs another level of recognition for images... and that VI is not the thing we're looking for. Your talk of VI acted as a catalyst and I think a few of the comments (and not just by me) here took the name at face value and applied it to what we already saw a need for. As far as VI goes, I think it's a good direction and I'll try to get over to COM once in a while to see how it's going. First though, I want to get my thoughts together on what's needed here. If and when that happens, I'll start my own post and not hijack one of yours, okay?  ;-) Matt Deres (talk) 20:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I feel that now at least we have a Common(s) view of what COM:VI is about. That is great! And I am happy to hear that you see some kind of direction in what we (the Commoner) are doing ;-). Now, perhaps, i should just give you a break and let you assemble your thoughts and ideas? I do not want to overrun you with a project, if it does not fit Wikipedias needs at least fairly well. There is one question though, which I come back to again and again, and which confuses me: Why is it so important to set up a VI-like project on WP and not consider joining a Commons project provided we can agree on the scope and policies behind the project? Time to see some new people? -- Slaunger (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Because the thing that I think we need here on EN is not the same kind of thing as VI is/will be. As I said, I need to figure out what I really think before committing those opinions to electrons, but in very basic terms, I think we need some kind of recognition for images that are encyclopedic (though perhaps in a more specific or limited way than FPs) and with less stringent standards on the technical and "eye candy" sides. The image that highlights my thoughts on that is this one. It's a very good image and I'm glad we have and it does exactly what it needs to, but I don't think it's a proper FP; I don't know if an FP of this is even possible (IMO of course, it has been voted in). I don't consider a valid FP because it has no "wow" factor and really doesn't offer much in the way of detail, but I still want a way of recognizing the work that went into making that image, which was considerable. Right now, there's a strong community push that FPs should display the "entire" subject if possible. I agree that that's a valid point, but feel very strongly that images that display more specific parts of subject are every bit as valuable, depending on what they're displaying. This image would never pass FP because it displays too little of the bridge, but look at the level of detail present - that's valuable information that you'd never see on an image that showed the entire bridge. Those are the kinds of things I'd like to see recognized. Further, I could see allowing multiple... whatever you want to call it... images for any given topic, which is quite different from what VI does, correct? Matt Deres (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Your example with the arm diagram is IMO a very good example of a VI candidate. Concerning the COM:VI constarin of only one VI per scope/topic/of its kind I sense that you have the impression that this equivalent to max one VI per Wikipedia article? That is not the case. For the Golden gate bridge for example, this bridge is so extremely well known that more narrow scopes having to do with details of the Golden Gate Bridge is likely to be considered of suffient value for Wikimedia projects to warrant a VI within that scope. We have actually already considered a historic photo dealing with the construction of the Manhattan Bridge as being a VI. This is a narrow down subject of "Manhattan Bridge". I suggest you try to test nominate the two images you have in mind at COM:VIC to see what happens. Maybe that will help you in better defining what WP needs and how that relates to what is provided by COM:VI. I can also test nominate the images for you. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

comment re: Matt Deres above: Exactly, that's got to be the most important issue. WP:FPC has an important primary purpose: to promote content via the main page. You could argue that it has no other purpose. We do need to get back on track in that respect. I always envisaged WP:VI to run in parallel with WP:FPC, either diverting less-than-stunning images there, or (even) becoming integrated into the FPC process. I've tried, I promise, to see how the commons beta-version would work for en: and I can't for the life of me see how this would create less work than a dedicated en: variant. I don't, however, see any point in having both. For me, it's either entirely encyclopedia-centric or it has no (enc) value, so I guess I'm holding out for an en: solution. --mikaul^talk 00:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• What is the most valuabale image anyway?It might be relatively easy to decide what is the most valuable image of a certain bee, or a frog, or a building , but what about atmospheric optics phenomenon for example? IMO it is all, but impossible to decide what is the most valuable image of a sunset mirage, for example. They all are equally valuable, and they all are unique, and they all are one-of-a-kind. The same applies to most atmospheric optics phenomenon images.I wish we had something as FP for unexpected (as I call them) images. Let's say somebody wants to learn about a bee. Would he go to a bee article or to FP? Surely he would go to a bee article. On the other hand most people never heard about fogbows, for example. One would never go to a fogbow article simply because one does not know such an article exists.If we had FP of unexpected images with fogbow image featured, one could become interested in the image, go to an article and learn something new. Isn't it what encyclopedia is about - to learn something new? Mikaul, may I please ask you, if you remember the comment you made for this nomination? You said:
  "Great image, huge enc value – why does it have to be FP to be appreciated? It clearly lacks a deal of technical finesse to be an obvious candidate."
  May I please explain why IMO it should have been FP to be appreciated? Simply because that very, very few of Wikipedia readers ever heard about crepuscular rays and that's why they will not go to the article to appreciate the image. (BTW it is not a very good example because three other crepuscular rays images are FP and hopefully Wikipedia readers would go the article and appreciate the image, but I hope my example helps to understand what I mean) IMO your comment,Mikaul, applies to any image. Why an image should be FP to be appreciated? Thank you all.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• I do recall that comment and the point I was making is very pertinent to this discussion. Let's be clear: a WP featured picture has to be one of the very best images we have. Technically, this means it satisfies all of the FP criteria. If an image is outstanding in every respect, it gets promoted – more to the point, it becomes a promotional image for the encyclopedia. If an image is outstanding in some respects but not in others (per your crepuscular rays nom, high in enc value and low in tech quality) there is currently no way of recognising that fact, nor is that value used in any organised way to promote either itself or the encyclopedia. This has to change (a) because the promotional value of many current FPs is doubtful, lacking impact, even though they may have very high enc value and high tech value, and (b) we need to recognise and encourage more images like these without having to promote them to FP. There has been nowhere near enough discussion of this conundrum here at WP:FPC, and it's currently very difficult to see how a review procedure designed to bridge the gap between COM:FPs and COM:QIs is going to work here in that respect. By their very nature, every current WP:FP would automatically qualify as a COM:VI, so there's no distinction with which to review them, nor can we use it in its current form to address these concerns. --mikaul^talk 10:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• I do not see a fundamental difference between assing the most valuable image of a bee or a sunset mirage. There are tons of images of bees and quite a few of sunset mirages also. A review coming to the conclusion that a particular image is the most valuable within the scope of nomination is inherently link to the group of reveiwers, who has assessed the image. A different set of reviewers can come to a different conclusion. There is nothing absolute about the value as it will always be biased by the individual reviewers preferences, knowledge, (unconscious) like/dislike of the nominator and the nominators reputation. Therefore, one should keep two things in mind:

  1. Do not put too much mental energy in exactly which image is the most valued. Whatever image is promoted will for sure have value for Wikimedia project editors looking for valuable media content, although it may not be the most valuable in the exact context the editor is looking for. Anyway a Wikimedia project editor is not forced to use the promoted VI content.
  2. In the Commons proposal we will most likely have what is called a Most Valued Review, where the current VI status of an image can be questioned in a comparison review with a competing candidate. This provides a means for doing things right if a wrong judgement has been done i a VI review due to, for example, a lack of availability of reviewers knowledgeable within the scope of the nomination.

  I have tried to emphasize this point in the commons:COM:VIC guidelines by adding the statement:

  An image is often valuable for many users even if it cannot be promoted to VI. Value depends on the user. A domain specialist may find very high value in non-VI domain-specific images. This merely reflects different points-of-views and not an error in judgement. VI promotions are subjective, thus the name Valued Image (by the Commoners). A promotion to VI reflects a recommendation for use in Wikimedia projects by the Commons community, nothing else.

  Having said that one also has to realize that being a VI reviewer will usually require a larger effort per review, as the reviewer (ideally) shall actively look for competing media within the same scope and also consider the relevance of the candidate image within the nominated scope. That is why I find it crucial to have a large group of available reviewers with many different professional backgorunds interested in the project. This issue is also one of the main reasons why I oppose having two parallel projects. It is crucial to aggregate the review resources in a single project, and for me he natural place to do this is on Commons, which also hosts the media. It is best for the benefit of all Wikimedia projects. WP can also benefit, from e.g., knowledgeable domain specialists from other Wikipedias, helping to identify and assess valuable images. Having a similar project at several placed just leads to redundancy, inconsistency, and lower process quality. IMO the prevailing "Home Sweet Home"-philosophy has to be abandoned on this point. -- Slaunger (talk) 07:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry about dropping that comment about my VP proposal 5 minutes before going away – but that’s why I didn’t add any further details. I have detailed my proposal below as it stood before this discussion. I realise having read this that some may feel a VP project on Wikipedia is unnecessary or a duplication of Commons, and some may think I’m heading down the wrong path. I still feel after reading the comments above that it’s significantly different from the process on Commons and may still be worthwhile. See my separate section below Valued Pictures Proposal. --jjron (talk) 09:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

(indent reset) Some criticism has been raised about the COM:VI guidelines being overwhelming and a general turn-off and we have been given the advise here to re-organize it along the lines of WP:WIAFP. I think these are sensible observations and good advise and it has now been dramatically re-organized along those lines (some minor details still remain). See commons:COM:VI and commons:COM:VIC for further details. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

"archive" link is re-linked

Whassup with that? I looked through the page history but can't seem to see where it went awry. Did something go wrong with the archive page name? Matt Deres (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC) D'oh! That should read "red"-linked, of course, RED-linked. As in, I can't access the archive. Or spell! Matt Deres (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The archives rotate monthly. MER-C 08:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I could have sworn that the link used to bring up a page with all the previous nominations. Not just for the month, but with links to other archives to the other months as well. Apparently I've been drinking too much again! Matt Deres (talk) 13:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean - it still brings up the links to the other archives when I go to the page. It wasn't just a temporary problem was it? --jjron (talk) 08:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it was not bringing up anything at all - it was a true red link. I'm not familiar with all the intricacies of archiving, but it looked like the archive page had been moved to the, er, archive of the archives, rather than just copy-pasting the parts that need to get flushed out. Matt Deres (talk) 18:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Closing (delist) nominations

I just found two recent half-assed delist closings (both by the same person, who I won't name) which I had to complete. If you are going to close delist nominations, or any nomination for that matter, make sure you follow the instructions, don't leave any steps out and don't leave a mess someone else (probably me) has to clean up. I advise against using any script for closing for the time being as they currently do leave a mess on the FPC/archive page.

Alternatively, you can leave it to someone who knows how to do it. :) MER-C 10:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Commons image in Wikipedia

See FPC nom for caption.

I would like to nominate (or someone else can) an image that is in a Wikipedia article that is a Commons image. When I get to the step of editing the page to add the FPC blurb, it says the page does not exist, because it is in commons. What do I do? Does transclude just mean put it in squiggly braces? --Blechnic (talk) 19:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding the FPC template is, in reality, an optional step. (transclusion) Yes. You're good to go. (P.S. is that a parser bug?) MER-C 09:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is. MER-C 09:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Nominated on FPC Page. Muhammad(talk) 13:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Valued Pictures Proposal

OK, this is the proposal I came up with prior to the above discussion Valued images on Commons; before that notice I had no idea that a VI process was underway on Commons, and I realise that some may feel this proposal is entirely unnecessary or heading in the wrong direction.

I will save any opinions about the Commons process and various image projects, as this is not the place to debate them, but needless to say I think we can use a separate project here.

I must be honest, however, that I found what I have read of the Commons process to be quite complex and requiring quite a commitment from reviewers. By contrast, I think my proposal here is pretty straightforward once you get down to it – basically my intention is to get people involved with giving us good, encyclopaedic images, and being involved in a fairly straightforward process, rather than discouraging them as seems to be so often the case at FPC (and I think can be the case on Commons too). To this end I have also proposed that it runs through PPR rather than as ‘’another’’ entirely separate process. --jjron (talk) 08:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

With no further ado, my original proposal:

---

VP Proposal

In response to a number of recent concerns and suggestions (see here, here and here for some examples), I am proposing a new category of recognising useful pictures on Wikipedia. This is something similar to the Quality Images category on Commons, but in keeping with Wikipedia’s emphasis on encyclopaedic value, I propose calling this Wikipedia Valued Pictures (VP).

A Valued Picture would be defined as something along the lines of:

Valued Pictures are images that add significant value to Wikipedia articles, either by illustrating article content particularly well, or by being a hard to obtain free use image of the content being illustrated, without necessarily having the technical qualities required of a Featured Picture.

VP would not be an entirely new process. It would work through the current Picture Peer Review (PPR) page. People putting images up for peer review would also be able to have them assessed as VPs; additionally they would be able to opt out of the VP process, and simply attract comments as per the current PPR process, or only have them assessed for VP. An image that was passed as a VP would have a template added to the image page, similar to the FP template, but that I guess may be considered to have a slightly lower status. Some people may however value getting a VP as much, or in some cases more, than an FP.

I would hope this would have the effect of increasing use of PPR for marginal technical quality images (rather than FPC), increase traffic at PPR, and work as an incentive and recognition for people to contribute good images to Wikipedia that are not necessarily up to stringent FP technical standards.

VP would not affect FPC in any way, e.g., an image would not need to be a VP in order to be nominated at FPC. However, I would propose that if a VP went on to become an FP, the FP template would replace the VP template in recognition of its higher status (rather than the image being classed as both); conversely, any Delisted FP would automatically be granted VP status (except in the case of ‘delist and replace’ nominations).

How VP would work

1. Users would nominate images in the same way as they do now on PPR, with the option of opting in for PPR assessment only, VP assessment only, or both PPR and VP.
2. Images could be commented on by any user exactly as they are now on PPR.
3. Additionally certified VP Assessors could Support the image to become classified as a VP (I propose that the VP Assessment section would replace the almost unused Seconder section currently on PPR noms) .
4. If two VP Assessors supported over the course of a week the image would be classified as a VP. The image would receive the VP template and be put in a VP Gallery, and the user would get a VP promotion template on their talkpage (basically similar to what happens with FPs, but rather less complex both with deciding on a promotion and the promotion process itself) .

Note: VP would mainly be a positive process; any user can comment on the image, as happens now at PPR, but there is no such thing as an Oppose in the VP Assessment section. Either the image would get its two VP Assessor Supports or it wouldn’t. Note also that VP Assessors are permitted to nominate images at PPR for VP, but could not Support vote on their own nomination. A VP delist section would probably also be called for, basically working the same way.

VP Criteria
These would be basically watered down FP criteria. In short they would be something like:

1. The image is encyclopaedically valuable to Wikipedia and is suitably illustrating an article.
2. The image is accurate and has an appropriate caption in its article.
3. The image is of a suitable size for its purpose. (note: there would be no strict size requirements; it would be up to the VP assessors to determine if the size was ‘suitable for its purpose’)
4. The image is of acceptable technical quality, without excessive digital manipulation. (again up to the expertise of the assessors to determine ‘acceptable technical quality’, but considerably lower standards than at FPC could be accepted)
5. The image has a free license.

I'm also tossing up whether VP should only be for Wikipedian created content.

Who are the VP Assessors?
Anybody can comment at PPR, but only certain editors are certified VP Assessors. These would be people that have proven themselves through their involvement at FPC and/or PPR over a reasonable time period, say at least three months, and showed that they can make reasonable assessments of images (since all certified VP Assessors are already proven reviewers I have allowed them significant autonomy re application of VP criteria).

We would start with a significant number of already proven editors as VP Assessors. A list of foundation VP Assessors (unless they decline the offer) would be, in no particular order: MER-C, Howcheng, Fir0002, Diliff, Dschwen, Alvesgaspar, Mikaul, Janke, Matt Deres, Durova, Enuja, Thegreenj, Fcb981, Spikebrennan, Froth, Debivort, Muhammad, Cacophony, Mbz1, Raven4x4x, Jeff Dahl, Grenavitar, Hadseys, Svetovid, Bridgecross, Bewareofdog, SingCal, Darwinek, Samsara, Yummifruitbat, LiquidGhoul, Veledan, Lycaon, CillanXC, Ragesoss, Brian0918, H92110, HereToHelp, Moondigger, Vanderdecken, Pstuart84, Mangostar, Dhartung, Chris.B, Digon3, Malachirality, Adam Cuerdon, Clegs, Aqwis, Antilived, jjron.

I’ve probably omitted a dozen names that should be there, but can’t come up with everyone – apologies to anyone I’ve overlooked. Please suggest others I may have overlooked (there are some current quite regular contributors that I have not included as I don’t think they would have been around for three months yet - I’m thinking mainly Shoemaker’s Holiday, Milk’s Favorite Cookie, Guest9999, and Faithless. There’s also some old regulars that I haven’t included as I haven’t seen them around in ages. There’s also some I may have left off because although, they may vote, they rarely give substantial reasons or judgements are perhaps questionable.).

Other users wishing to become VP Assessors would either nominate themselves, or be nominated by another user on the PPR talkpage. In the spirit of VP, if they received two supports over a week from existing Assessors based on their time and input at FPC/PPR they would also gain the status of VP Assessor. Again this is intentionally quite a simple process. Certified VP Assessors would receive a Barnstar style template they could display on their userpage, and would be added to the VP Assessors List.

If people think this is a worthy project I am willing to set up the basic pages and templates to get it going over the next few weeks. Please comment below and raise any particular problems or questions, or just say if you think it’s a waste of time or whether I’m entirely on the wrong track. --jjron (talk) 08:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Comments/discussion on proposal

I oppose the idea of appointed "VP assessors", and am the first to decline the honor(?). Reason: Even the participants at FPC have been accused of forming a cabal - that would be even more strongly felt if there are appointed assessors. Wiki should be free for all! --Janke | Talk 10:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Even though you haven't asked this as a question, may I reply. I expected this complaint would come up (didn't know it would be the first terse reply though, but 'decline' accepted).

The main reason for the Certified Assessors is because there are no Oppose votes. Therefore we need assessors that we know can make reasonable decisions. If you haven't noticed, we've had two instances in the last month where users have created sockpuppets in order to vote-stuff at FPC. Pretty easy to sockpuppet vote-stuff two supports to get your images through this VP process. And ANYONE can become an assessor if they prove themselves. And assessors aren't appointed, they earn the honour. --jjron (talk) 10:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh, it appears I skimmed the (long) proposal a bit too fast... No oppose votes? Wit voting open for all, that would indeed open up VP to "invasion by the masses". But who's to prevent that sub-standard work might pass, just because two assessors happen to "like" it? I think that more than two supports would be needed. --Janke | Talk 18:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• I support the proposal to have a Valued Picture project for wikipedia. As mentioned, the commons process is a bit confusing and I find this one quite simple. Regarding the VP assessors, valued pictures will be different from FPs. To ensure that only images that fall under the criteria are promoted, we need to make sure that the assessors are legitimate, just as anonymous votes are not allowed at FPC. Since there are to be no opposes, it would be very easy for either sock-puppets or new users to mess up the procedure, hence the need for certified assessors. Muhammad(talk) 11:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Correct, or another possibility is where a few users from say WikiProject Basketweaving come along and simply pump through every image in that project. Again we've seen this attempted (at times successfully) at FPC. It'd be pretty unlikely they'd go to the effort to get 'certified' in order to do this, but easy if just anyone can vote, especially with no opposes. --jjron (talk) 13:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Long debate, summarised below

*I originally proposed Valued Images on Commons. Sorry if my language is a little broken, I am not a native English writer. From my posts above you are probably not very surprised that I am against setting up a WP:VP project. I have read your intial remarks that this idea of yours was formed before you became aware of COM:VI and as such I think it is fine that you bring the idea up here, as it is a sensible proposal - at least at first sight - as seen from an EN perspective and also considering that you already have a WP:FP process going here parallel to COM:FP. Your proposal clearly originates from a need to have a mechanism for promoting and recognizing useful/valued pictured of enc. value but less visually appealing than FP but perhaps sometimes as hard to get. It was very similar observations at COM:FPC, which triggered the development of my proposal at Commons. When I read the vision of WP:VP I get the impression that the objectives of the proposed WP:VP project is very similar to COM:VI. WP:VP is about images which are enc. valuable, COM:VI is about valuable images for Wikimedia projects, which is, for the test nominations so far, 90% centered around enc. value. So as I see it the goals of the projects are almost the same. Actually, in my opinion, WP:VP can be considered as a (large) subset of COM:VI. There are some differences between the two projects in the proposed processes. Some elements are quite different and some are not. For instance, the WP:VP has some requirements to the image caption. In COM:VI there are no requirements to a caption. Instead there are quite some requirements regarding the contents of the image page, which for me is more relevant. An image may be used in several different Wikipedia articles. To be of most value it is important that the image page is as descriptive as possible, properly categorized, geocoded if relevant, etc. Because when this is the case the Wikipedia article editor has optimal chances of using the image correct in the particular context of an article. So, you have a lot of good elements in the proposal, some things are envisioned differently, but if we step back from the details for a little while the two projects are really very similar with respect to what we want to acheive. Then why do I oppose the project so much? Here are my reasons. Commons is the image repository to store and look for images relevant for WP and all other Wikimedia projects. It is from Commons you look and search for material. If you want to look for promoted valued material it is most logical to do this from Commons VI. With WP:VP you would also have to look at WP:VP to get the stuff that was promoted as VI on Commons. Not very efficient. What is a valued image for, e.g., the German Wikipedia is most likely also a valued image for WP and vice versa. Thus, it is more sensible to join efforts in one single cross-project Valued Image/Picture project at the image repository as we can benefit from the synergy of (potentially) having a much wider set of available reviewers from many projects being domain experts within many different fields. It makes only little sense to spread out the available reviewing resources on two parallel projects (and once WP:VP begins other Wikipedias will likely setup similar small scale projects). If you want qualified reviews you need to centralize the reviewing resources. The VP assessor idea is a bad idea to my mind. As mentioned the cabal accusations will be there immediately, and you really need as many reviwers as possible with as diverse backgrounds as possible because reviewing for value is demanding because you actually have to know quite a lot of what you are looking at. With respect to the suckpuppet fear, I do not think concerns of suckpuppets should influence how to do things too much. At commons:COM:QIC only a single vote is required to be promoted, and I am not aware of that this very light-weight procedure has ever attarcted a swarm of suck-puppets. Suck-puppets are almost always found by checkusers quite fast, as you can smell them from far away. When you see a new user voting you are always suspicious and keep an eye on them, so do not worry about it. A few users state that they find the COM:VI guidelines confusing. I am very interested in hearing exactly what it is you find confusing? It is certainly possible that the current guideline can be improved as it has been written for the most part by me, and my English could (certainly) be better. As a final remark I urge users here to think twice about setting up a parallel project. I would really be very saddened if you decide to setup this project in the WP sandbox instead of stretching out to the WMF projects and gain momentum and synergy from a cross-project collaboration. Try to go beyond "Home Sweet Home." ;-) -- Slaunger (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Well said, I think you put the case for VI very well. Now that we have jjron's proposal to refer to (which is broadly in line with my own preferences) the actual amount of crossover is much clearer, but there are a few issues I have which I'd appreciate your thoughts on. I'm now very inclined to suggest a parallel process to COM:VI. The way I see it, a WP-based VP selection process would provide a major contribution to the wider VI project: A much broader range of nominators, ie WP editors, are likely to participate. This is crucial, as the basic ethos here is recognising high enc value, rather than stunning image fidelity, and they are surely the best-qualified judges. Regular EN: editors are much less likely to be Commons account holders than our FPC regulars, a fact which weighs heavily against the efficacy of a purely COM:VI process. I don't see how centralising the process is likely to promote images more relevant to each individual WP project; assuming it draws a high number of article-writing editors, an active VP project here is bound to be more relevant to EN: than one on Commons. The Picture peer review process we have here is sorely lacking this sort of functionality to make it worthwhile. With the express aim of being a sort of "pre-FPC" assessment it has some value, but many nominators – again, it has to be said, more often regular editors than FPC regulars – are basically bringing images there with the sort of VI/VP criteria in mind, and they're (more often than not) sent packing with no more than a "no chance of FP" comment. PPR is therefore almost ready, up and running for this sort of functionality. Packing low-enc WP:FPCs off to COM:FPC doesn't, I'd suggest, have a very high take-up rate, and I don't see A COM:VI referral being any different. Any VP-type process would have a massive body of material to assess, and the ready grassroots interest that we have a PPR goes a long way to ensuring its efficiency and overall success. In support of VI, not all projects have a FPC process as active and highly-developed as ours, and in those cases I agree that a centralised VI process could be extremely valuable. If we made our PPR process here a VP process too, it could work in tandem with the broader COM:VI project, sharing what is undoubtedly a massive workload; I'm not sure there's a PPR in the German, French, etc projects, but I can't think of a better way of sharing the load than giving them all this functionality and involving as many editors as possible in it. For these same reasons, however, I don't think the "Commons as the central repository" argument carries any real weight in this debate. COM:FPC and WP:FPC are basically different micro-communities. This is no less true of the proposed projects here, but we have always drawn strength from this division of labour and a more collaborative relationship in future can only be a good thing. Personally, I would involve myself in both, something I can't say about COM:FPC. I'm really not sure about certifying people (although one or two of us could occasionally do with some time out :o)) and need convincing that there's a real issue with sock-puppets to justify it; otherwise I'm very attracted to jj's proposal which I believe can capitalise on existing interest and stimulate a greater number of nominations overall. Far from dividing our energies, I think it would most likely multiply them by drawing a much greater number of contributors. Other stuff in brief (I'll shut up now, I promise) – I agree with your ideas about captions vs image page content; the criteria for VP and VI would have to be identical and co-ordinated; finally, I'd like to suggest that the term "suck-puppet" be formally adopted to describe those occasional FPC/VI/VP assessors who surreptitiously round up a posse of pals just to sway a nomination. Nice one ;o) --mikaultalk 23:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC) <OFF-TOPIC>I just realized that you are the creator of this image, and I would just like to say that it is a fantastic piece of work and that I am happy that you have chosen to share it with the community. I spend quite some time on stitching and I am aware that it is challenging to get such a high technical quality. </OFF-TOPIC> Are you proposing that every WMF project could run their on COM:VI parallel project in their own sandbox and feed the promoted VIs into one big pool of VIs on Commons? Even if that is not what you have in mind I think that is an interesting thought, although I cannot see right now how this could be implemented in a practical manner. Anyway, I thank you for your thoughtful comment. So, as i see you your main argument is that the idea (or hope) I have to aggregate competent reviewers on Commons for one big collaborative project is unrealistic, because it will never happen as the domain knowledgeable contributors at EN do not have a Commons account anyway. I agree with you that this is probably a fairly accurate description of the current situation, but does it have to stay that way? In reality it takes less than 60 seconds to establish an account on Commons, so I guess it is more a mental than a real barrier. And I acknowledge that there is a significant mental barrier for many users to leave home. I began on the Danish Wikipedia about two years ago, and it took a long time before I established an account on Commons. I guess, because it looked kind of complicated with a lot of stuff about licensing and procedures for uploads etc. which at first sight were not straight-forward. However, I think this could change, also by promoting a more positive attitude towards Commons here on EN. I often see comments here about Commons which ridicule the project or something like "Not good here, try Commons". If EN editors trying to promote a valued image were instead urged/encouraged to do that at Commons and participate there where all the media are (or should be), the barrier for leaving the sandbox could be lowered. Yesterday, an image of mine was promoted to both WP:FP and COM:FP and the image page is now decorated with two FP templates. What a waste of resources of very confusing indead. With parallel VI/VP processes we will just see this state of confusion and image page template spamming spread like a disease. I agree with your suck-puppet view. it is really coordinated voting in all manifestations, which we do not want. Sock-puppets, meat-puppets, national voting, etc. But this should not influence how the rules are implemented. these are two separate issues.-- Slaunger (talk) 07:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC) I didn't really want this to turn into another VI vs VP or WP vs Commons slanging match, which is why I started a new section, but oh well. I'm not sure that I'm really confused about the VI process, just overwhelmed by it. By the time I wade through all the purpose, guidelines, etc I've given up (especially thinking about it from the point-of-view of a WP user that's been told to go and nominate at Commons VI). I envisioned a VP process to be pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and non-confronting for newbies, and for the most part I think my proposal is. Although I see why you think there should just be one process for this, the apparent complexity of VI is why I can't but agree with Mikaul and say that I can see limited scope for directing users across there. There's also a general lack of interest for people to go across; you say it doesn't have to be that way, which is true, but the reality is I don't see it changing anytime soon, due to VI or anything else. Look, I've been contributing to Commons for about as long as Wiki, but have never taken part at Commons FPC or QI, and would not at VI either. Yet I'm regularly loitering around here and PPR. I could give some reasons why, but as mentioned this is neither the time or place; basically it's just not what I'm into. I think that may be a common reaction among many editors. And many Commons editors probably feel the same way about editing on WP; it's just not what they're into. Now let me pick up on a few specific points: Can anyone suggest a better way of doing the reviews than the Certified Assessors. To be honest I don't know that I'm entirely happy with that either, but it was the best I could come up with. I wanted to avoid Oppose votes largely to prevent the snarky, offputting, oppose comments we often see at FPC. Has anyone got another idea other than just saying they don't like it? Should there be opposes? Should there be say three or four or five supports instead of two to reduce risks of sockpuppetry, etc? Any other ideas? Mikaul says "the criteria for VP and VI would have to be identical and co-ordinated". I'm not sure why - FPC criteria at Commons and WP for example aren't identical. (I mean if one was feeding straight into the other that may be true, but is that what we want? Why not just be semi-compatible as the FP projects are?). As I said above I find the VI criteria and process pretty intimidating, especially for non-regulars, but think my suggested VP criteria and process are pretty straightforward (cut out all my guff and just consider what would appear on the page itself - basically the current PPR process, with the VP definition, criteria and comment on voting). And one of my purposes is to get a wider range of contributors and a less confronting forum. That's a good point re having relevant information on the image page, I should have thought of that since I sometimes complain about it at FPC. Since it must be in an article here, perhaps it'd be good to specify suitable caption and image page info for VP. As I've already mentioned above, we've ferreted out two sock-puppets (or suck-puppets :-)) in the last month alone at FPC. We've seen Wikiprojects come in and vote stack at times. There's a new nom on the FPC page from yesterday where the first Support vote is from the nominator's friend who's only got 10 edits on Wiki (nothing malicious I can see, just newbie stuff as Muhammad suggested, but one more and it would be through VP). So is the 'fear' of sock-puppets or vote stacking real? Hell, yeah! To be honest I just don't think sockpuppetry would be anywhere near such a problem at Commons - I could be wrong, as I said I don't spend much time there, but what's to gain? Again I ask, has anyone got any better ideas for overcoming this than the Certified Assessors? Hopefully some more voices can be heard. --jjron (talk) 09:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Hi jiron, thank you for your response and also for being more specific in your criticism of commons:COM:VIC. I think you are right about the "overwhelming" part of COM:VI. As it is now there are a great many details, things are not written very precise or concise. My initial proposal had an intial complexity level comparable to your proposal and over the last three-four months detail after detail has been added to adress questions, special cases and concerns. And in that process an initially fairly simple proposal has become what appears to be overwhelming for new comers. So something has to be done with that. A restructuring of the main page with minor subpages dealing with special details linked to from the text. So I think a lot of the confusion is based on an unfortunate presentation and we will work on improving that. Thank you for giving that advise. By doing things more simple I hope more will be willing to leave home more frequently. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Can I just butt in here and respond to Slaunger's earlier post as well as jjron's? I'm not clear what Slaunger means by "sandbox", but yes, the way I see it, the main pool would be at Commons, and VI tags etc would need to display the same there as here. I don't see how you will suddenly inspire a new wave of non-image-making WP editors to join Commons. It's not, IMO, going to happen easily; it'll be hard enough getting a decent number of existing project members, both here and on Commons, to venture as far as VI within their existing projects. If careful use of resources is the key, channeling those within our respective "homes" will be much more energy-efficient. WP and COM FPC projects have different criteria – a Good Thing, I'm sure everyone agrees, but their substantial crossover has always been a regrettable waste of time and resources. This is, I'm sure, why many contributors don't want two VI projects, but I hope you can see that the criteria being identical in both effectively shares the workload, rather than doubles it. "Semi-compatible" is pointless bureaucracy when the aims of both are identical. Where the main raison d'etre of FPs is to promote the respective projects, with no recommendation to use "internally", the point of VI is to encourage more, better quality contributions and their use throughout the wider WM community. This is certainly best achieved via Commons, but it will need "feeding" in a collaborative way that the FPC projects have so far signally failed to do. We have an opportunity here to form a "bridge" between the WP and COM projects which has proven very difficult to build in other ways (who knows, one day we might even crystallise FPC into a single community effort..? ok, maybe not...) In any event, inter-project collaboration, rather than exclusivity, is the best way forward for VI, and you simply won't get that without the establishment of "sister" projects like VP. You need your encyclopedia editors on board. --mikaultalk 10:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC) OK, but if we take that idea on board, then we would basically be looking at adopting the VI process here - as Slaunger points out, a lot of work has already gone into it, and I doubt they're going to be wanting to bring it back again to the level of complexity (or rather simplicity) that I'm proposing. And if we adopt the level of complexity that has evolved already on Commons, then I'm already losing interest in it, for reasons I've already stated - too complex, offputting for newbies, etc. Additionally (I think someone else said this, but it may been in the earlier discussion) I'm personally not a big fan of the layout at VI, just as any time I've looked at QI I've found it an instant turnoff. OK, that may just be a personal thing, but presumably we would be adopting that format as well. I'm kinda seeing this as dead-in-the-water already. --jjron (talk) 10:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Replies to Jjron and Mick @Mick: With sandbox I mean each specific WMF project. I agree that inter-project collaboration is the way forward. I do not agree on the conclusion you draw on the reviewers resource budget. I understand what you write about the moveability of editors. Unfortunately i cannot rule out that you may be right on the it's just not gonna happen. @Jjron: I think much of the current complexity in VI stems from the process of defining what it is all about. It has creeped from a policy-like thing to a long, detailed instruction. I think that maybe, some simplicity could be regained by stepping back and weed out some very specific details or put them somewhere else as examples of what is and what is not VI. I agree with you that I and other Commons users, who has built up COM:VI the last few months, would not be overly excited at looking into starting from scratch to incorporate the exact needs of WP. On the other hand, I can say from a personal side, that I am willing to stretch myself very much in forthcomingness/flexibilty towards the WP needs if we can merge the efforts instead of splitting up. You are not too keen about the COM:VI layout. Well, you may a good point, but again it would be very helpful if you could be more specific in stating what the unfortunate elements in the layout is. There are some known problems, and I agree much can probably be improved. the nice thing about it is that all presentation logic is implemented in templates, so the layout can be changed to a better one (whatever that is) quite easily by just tweeking those templates. Focus on COM:VI until now has been on the process more than the visual layout. It is not an excuse, just an explanation of why things are as they are. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC) It's only the criteria that matter for now, if we're to transfer WP:VPC results to Commons. The brief criteria jjron set out above aren't miles away from those at Commons:COM:VIC – as he says, they're just sketched out "in short". Procedure and VPC page layout can be as proposed, ie a rehash of WP:PPR, at least for now. Surely that's not too complex? Any collaboration would have to start now, so that the two projects are compatible. I certainly think COM:VIC could benefit from some WP input; compare the criteria layout there with that of the Featured picture criteria page: using explanatory footnotes and wikilinks to prevent "instruction creep" would make that much more readable and probably as simple as jjron's proposed criteria, once they were properly written. WP:PPR currently refers people to WP:WIAFP: instructions for VP criteria, with fewer technical and historical caveats, need only be around half the size. I'd be happy to chip in, but first we need to agree that there's mileage in this whole concept. Lets get some more input here. I don't want to hold up the Commons project any more than I want to waste time on a WP project that no-one's interested in. --mikaultalk 15:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC) I would have liked to see more varied input too. Why I say it's probably already dead is that we got one in principle oppose and one in principle support opinion from FPC regulars before this turned into a huge 4000 word COM:VI vs WP:VP debate/discussion. I can't see a lot of people wading through all that and trying to take all that on board before offering an opinion on the actual proposal. To be honest I think a VP (or VI) project belongs more naturally at WP than Commons (while a QI is maybe more natural at Commons), but I guess first in best dressed. --jjron (talk) 15:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC) From what I could make out of the 4000 word debate, I assume Slaunger wants only one VI/VP project for both EN and Commmons. Since jjron's proposal seems simpler and is wikipedia based, it will naturally gain a better momentum. I suggest jjron, that you go on with this project and that if the commons team agrees, they could redirect their commons VP page to the wikipedia VI page. Muhammad(talk) 17:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Sorry, but please forget your love for your en.wiki home turf for a second and please think about the implications. Slaungers main point is that such a project would be usefull for many wikimedia projects. Commons is the multilingual host site for the media of many wikimedia projects. EN.WP is the monolingual host site for one wikimedia project. The opposite would make sense. Incorporate jjrons suggestions into COM:VI and redirect to commons. Not the other way around! --Dschwen 20:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC) I agree that any WP:VI shouldn't form the basis of a COM:VI, but given that encyclopedicity would be a major criterion for this conception of WP:VI, shouldn't the project be tied to an encyclopedia, rather than a media repository? Are notability criteria identical across all WPs? If not there will be articles and images that have high enc in some WPs but not others, and a universal declaration of value may not make sense. de Bivort 21:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Not being fluent in English has at least one advantage: we have to go straight to what we think are the main issues sacrificing some subtleness in the process. It is obvious that the problem of choice between COM and en.WP projects is not the differences between the respective criteria but the place where it will be done. The fact is the two projects are very much alike and any relevant differences could be easily settled if there were the will to do so. We are talking here about finding and promoting those images whose relevance and value make them potentially useful for the whole wiki community. I’m convinced that Commons is the right place to do it, not only for its natural inter-wiki nature but also because it is a much friendlier place for non-English speaking users (yes, I know I said it before). If someone convinces me this is not true I’ll be glad to change my mind and elect en.WP as the ideal place to host the project. Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, this probably did get to be way too long a discussion and as it's mostly my waffle confusing matters, I've taken it upon myself to summarise the main arguments. I've left the discussion about certified assessors and "collapsed" the rest of the debate for ease of navigation (click on [show] to see it in full) If anyone wants to edit this summary for accuracy, please be my guest. --mikaul^talk 02:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Main areas of discussion and consensus, in no particular order:

Commons is the acknowledged central media repository & therefore the natural home for a Valued Images (VI) project.

• VI images would be equally relevant to all Wikimedia projects, and a Commons-based, cross-project collaboration is the best way to gain and maintain momentum for the VI process. Spreading out effort over two or more projects would waste reviewing resources.

• The existing proposal guidelines at Commons:COM:VIC are open to improvement, perhaps by incorporating suggestions from the Valued Pictures proposal above.

• The international, inter-wiki nature of Commons is a key factor in creating an inter-wiki VI project, and a more welcoming, less EN-centric forum for evaluation. (Slaunger, Dschwen, Alvesgaspar)

Having co-ordinated parallel projects is the most efficient way to review such a large body of work.

• WP VIs could be assessed using the same criteria, tagged the same way as COM VIs, and would still be accessed centrally at Commons.

• A parallel process would generate more input than one at Commons alone, as it would attract more article writers (who don't often have Commons accounts) as assessors, and multiply, rather than divide the VI effort. (mikaul)

WP-based process is more likely to be relevant to the encyclopedia it is based in. (de Bivort, mikaul, jjron)

EN Picture peer review already provides a ready vehicle for assessing VIs. (jjron, mikaul)

As it is an encyclopedia-specific project, the VI process should be independently assessed here at EN, separate from the COM process, with slightly different criteria.

• Any VIC process must be primarily easy to use and the evaluating criteria simple to grasp. Having to adopt the complexity of COM:VIC would be a barrier to its success (jjron, Muhammad)

Notability criteria may not be identical across all WPs

• There will be articles and images that have high enc in some WPs but not others, challenging a universal declaration of value at COM:VI. (de Bivort, mikaul)

---

That's about it; obviously further comments are more than welcome. I'm off to bed :o) --mikaul^talk 02:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, mikaul; thanks. My opinion is that EN is the proper place for any discussions pertaining to the encyclopedic value of images. I don't work in Commons enough to comment from a real position of knowledge, but it strikes me as incongruous to rate the EV of an image on Commons when Commons is not an encyclopedia. The situation is identical with FPs: featured pics on Commons are often not appropriate for EN (and other wikipedias) and so are judged using a different process with different values. A second tier of image quality that especially hinged on EV would be even more removed from the purpose of Commons. A related, but distinct, argument is that Commons is also a website removed from the editors and users of this encyclopedia, especially the casual ones. Comments from "outsiders" (i.e. people who don't closely follow the FPC process) often provide useful perspectives on FPC. It's my opinion that many or most of those more casual editors would not follow the program over to Commons, to the detriment of the process.
I've been waffling in my thoughts and in my posts and that hasn't helped this debate in any way. Next time, I'll try doing all my waffling in my head. :-) This isn't really a poll, but for the sake of clarity I'll state that I support the notion of an EN-based valued picture process.
Finally, I'd like to apologize to Slaunger who simply tried to let us know about a potentially exciting process that was starting up on Commons and for his efforts got his thread derailed by me and other editors who had apparently been considering a similar process for a while. That was rude of me, but your enthusiasm was infectious! Matt Deres (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• Spikebrennan: I don't see any need for this or benefit from this. If an image suitably illustrates an article in Wikipedia, then it's appropriate for that image to stay in Wikipedia. If not, not. Discussion about whether an image suitably illustrates a particular article, or about which of several proposed images ought to go in an article, or similar issues, are properly discussed in the talk page of the article itself. Spikebrennan (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone would disagree with what you're saying, but that's not quite the purpose here. What we're looking for is a way of recognizing those images that contribute understanding to articles at least in part so we can recognize those people who provide/upload/help with those images. Featured Pictures have set the bar incredibly high - beyond the reach of casual amateurs - and we'd like a way of recognizing the efforts of people who do good work, but whose images lack the near-perfection required by the FP process. A lot of perfectly good pictures get nominated for FP status only to get nitpicked and slagged on for minor imperfections, hence Jjron's positivist setup above (way, way above...). Think of them as slightly smaller feathers for contributors to put in their caps. :) Matt Deres (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, FPC has rigorous standards and takes its procedures seriously for lots of reasons. I don't need to go into all of them here, but it suffices to say that if an image is a FP, then it becomes significant to the Wikipedia project in a bunch of different ways-- front page exposure, for example. My reading of the discussion above is that the point of "valued images" is pretty much just to say "atta-boy" (or atta-girl, no offense, Mila) and pat backs and congratulate the creator of the image. There are better ways of doing that-- commenting on the talk page of the image itself, or adding a congratulatory comment to the contributor's talk page. Unquestionably there are images that don't, in and of themselves, merit FP status but that are nonetheless valuable images and where the contributor deserves to be thanked for contributing them-- for example, Muhammad's Kaaba pictures. But I don't think that a "FPC-lite" process is a useful investment of time or effort. Spikebrennan (talk) 04:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

There's as much "point" in VP vs FP as there is GA vs FA. It's a second tier of recognition of quality contibutions, and is as necessary to our image content as GA has been to our articles. Recognition of outstanding contributions is a hugely important part of a project like WIkipedia. WP:FPC has been crying out for a second tier of recognition for two big reasons: first, standards are so high that some images of outstandingly high WP:ENC aren't recognised at all as they fail relatively minor (size, piddly DoF issues, whatever..) FP criteria; second (as a result of the first) our FPC assessors are under increasing pressure to lower the quality bar and promote less striking images, because there are increasing numbers of very high enc, very "average" quality submissions which we simply cannot not recognise in some way. At present, FP is the only way, and it's not working to the benefit of all. --mikaul^talk 08:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with most said above, however, all in all, I think the VP proposal is a bit too complex, and will also detract from FPC. Why not introduce (and use!) a barnstar for the purpose of encouragement - say, if an image gets a lot of support here on FPC, but not enough for FP, a little "thanks - keep up the good work" barnstar could be given to the creator (not the uploader)... --Janke | Talk 08:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• But the aim is to keep VI awards as simple and "energy-efficient" as possible, which is why a slightly-modified WP:PPR process (per jjron's proposal) would work IF it was one which provided awards fully compatible with the COM:VI process. Look at the effort already needed to field these nominations, either referring them from FPC to PPR, or either of these to COM:FPC or COM:VI, and consider that the same effort could see a qualifying image assessed against VI criteria "on the fly" and then transcluded to COM:VI. We then save COM:VI the trouble of assessing a great number of images which already inundate FPC and PPR. Am I missing something, or is this almost the same small extra effort as a barnstar award..? --mikaul^talk 12:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • One compromise idea that came to my mind is the following
    1. The WP Community goes on defining a WP:VP process based on what is needed here and what works here.
    2. The COM:VI project settles the last details and proceed along the lines laid out already.
    3. The common overall goal of both projets will be to promote images/pictures which are valuable within the scopes of the individual projects. That is, for WP:VP, images/pictures which are enc. valuable for the English Wikipedia and nothing else. And for COM:VI images/pictures which are considered valuable for Wikimedia projects. How to implement a process which acheives this goal is up to the individual project.
    4. The VI/VPs promoted by the various projects shall be easy to find on Commons for the benefit of all Wikimedia projects. However, it shall be possible to filter what you see. That is, if you are only interested in browsing WP:VPs you can do that. Likewise there shall be a possibility to browse all VI/VPs promoted from all projects if this is what you are interested in. In its simplest implementation that can be done by associating all WP:VPs with two categories: "Valued images" and "Valued Images (en)" (or "...Pictures (en)", I do not care). Similarly, all VIs promoted by the COM:VI project will be associated with two categories: "Valued images" and "Valued images (Commons)". In this manner "Valued images" will be an aggregation of all images promoted as VI by any Wikimedia project, but if you are not interested in that you can just browse "Valued Pictures (en)"
    5. To minimize confusion for Wikimedia editors looking for valued content on Commons it is desirable to share as much as possible among the projects, especially about the overall guidelines. Two core aspects of COM:VI, which I think is useful in a WP:VP project too are. 1. To have a good and descriptive image page, which is well categorized. 2. To link a VP to a scope of nomination. For WP:VP the scope could be equivalent to an article, and for more significant articles, a specific subtopic within that article. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• I can only hope others find the sort of energy you clearly have for the task. While I'm pleased you see the importance of synchronising criteria between COM:VI and WP valued image projects, I do have a feeling that it's the limelight of FP that attracts so much attention and user input. Neither COM:QI nor WP:PPR – both "secondary" venues to the FP big top – are inundated with assessors, and I'm still quite concerned that enough encyclopedia editors will engage with the project(s) to make a difference. It's probably worth proceeding as you suggest, and I'm quite inclined to go with jjron's proposal over at PPR, maybe take this discussion there, and see if a simple set of criteria can be drawn up and updated to concur with the COM:VIC ones. --mikaul^talk 23:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• I see that I am (fashionably) late to this party, but I support the idea of VP on en.wikipedia. People at commons are not actually working on an encyclopedia and IMO they have no right to decide what is encyclopedic for us. I think a benefit of having a VP rating for pictures is that they would find stronger homes in articles. Its frustrating when very good images (and sometimes FPs) are removed from articles to be replaced be some blurry snap of whatever, because someone wanted to see their picture on the web. Sort of in the vain... I think we should have some way for FPs and eventually VPs to be distinguishable in thumbnail form. That way, people reading the article could know which images to blow up and look at in full size and editors of the articles could know which images to use in a prominent position. To me, that would be the advantage of VP. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 23:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Slaunger:
  • @jjron: Don't be too frustrated about all what is written, which does not deal explicitly with details in your proposal. The more-top level discussion of the purpose use and need of such a proces is important to get settled before really dwelving into to the details of how to implement such an idea with assessors picture preview, etc.
  • @mikaul: Thank you for boiling that long discussion down, I think you managed to do that in a reasonable manner keeping an adequate balance of loyalty to the differing opinions.
  • @Matt Deres: No apologies needed. I have not felt personally attacked here at all. I have experienced a lot of opposition, but that does not surprise me when I step into a community trying to persuade users to go play somewhere else and when I try to challenge prevailing mindsets about Commons.
  • @de Bivort: You are correct that notability criteria at Commons is not identical to en. It is wider as it embraces what is considered notable by all Wikimedia projects. For example, a specific Bulgarian artist unknown in English speaking countires could be considered notable on Commons, if this person is considered a notabilty in, e.g., the bulgarian Wikipedia and some neighboring countries. But is it a problem? The way COM:VI works is that each image nomination is hooked up to a scope. First it is assessed if the scope, e.g., a particular artist is of sufficient value for Wikimedia projects to be of inteterest. If yes, it is assessed if it is the best image within that scope. Some of those scopes will by EN not be considered to be sufficiently EV to warrant an VI. For instance if that scope does not have an equivalent article or is thoroughly dealt with as part of an article. So what? Do not use it.
  • @Fcb981: You have this statement: People at commons are not actually working on an encyclopedia and IMO they have no right to decide what is encyclopedic for us. As I see it you are misunderstanding quite a few points here. Wikimedia users are almost always involved in one or more Wikimedia projects, and most often this includes one of the Wikipedias. So the generalized statement that the Commons users are not working on an encyclopedia is for me an over-simplification and a very en-centric remark. And considering that we have no right to do or not, I would like to point out that COM:VI is not deciding what is EV for en. To quote from the COM:VI guideline.

An image is often valuable for many users even if it cannot be promoted to VI. Value depends on the user. A domain specialist may find very high value in non-VI domain-specific images. This merely reflects different points-of-views and not an error in judgement. VI promotions are subjective, thus the name Valued Image (by the Commoners). A promotion to VI reflects a recommendation for use in Wikimedia projects by the Commons community, nothing else.

I certainly think that the Commons users have a right to recommend content for use.

So COM:VI clearly states that nothing is being put down your throat if you do not want it. As a Wikimedia editor it is a matter of your own judgement to assess if the image is also valued in the particular use-case in the contaxt of your project. Finally, given the volatile and somewhat subject nature of value, the COM:VI has a "Most Valued Review", which can be used to challenge the value of an image. So if you feel a wrong decision has been done in the review process you can always let the existing VI compete with a challenger you prefer in an MVR.

-- Slaunger (talk) 08:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. This Image is an excellent example of what I am talking about. It is a wikipedia FP but when someone or something on Commons moved it there, oops, thy forgot to copy our FP template and POTD template. They managed to get the image promoted at commons though. So clearly someone at commons is doing everything except looking out for the interests of wikipedia. It doesn't matter that some people that have accounts at commons also have accounts here, the commons project is very different from the wikipedia project and they have overstepped their bounds by deleting the FP template from our files. That very same thing happened to my first FP here. My point: If the people at commons were actually interested in seeing their pictures put to good use, they wouldn't be making yet another way to stick awards on their userpages, they would be on wikipedia adding the bloody images to articles and doing research. Again that brings me to my point, I don't want these people who havent lifted a finger on the encyclopedia trying to tell me which images are good and which arn't, but maybe you are fine with that sort of thing. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 14:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm frankly quite shocked by all this resentment. --Dschwen 15:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

This and this Which placed deletion tags on all of my images, may lend some justification. After two attempts to have every file I ever contributed to commons deleted, I came to the conclusions I now strongly hold. But I will stop useing this as an opportunity to bash commons and instead just leave it at me supporting VP on en.wikipedia -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 22:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• (Side note: I've reinserted the FPC tag and POTD template to the image identified by Fcb; most rude indeed. Not sure how you found that one, but if you know of any others let me know. --jjron (talk) 08:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC))
• (Side note 2: What's worse (well, OK, maybe not worse, just sillier) is the link from the Commons FP template on the image goes to a discussion that says it's NOT featured. This is not building my confidence in the processes. --jjron (talk) 08:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC))

• It was renominated a year later at commons:Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Image:Karen_Padaung_Girl_Portrait.jpg. It is just a goof up, (picture vs. pictures in the nomination sub-page name). A little more AGF towards commons please. --Dschwen 13:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• And I am shocked by the incredible bad manners! It's hard to believe how someone is trying (and apparently succeeding) to monopolize this (important) discussion to a non-existing (personal) problem. I can't resist to quote Wikipedia:What is a troll?: "Trolling is deliberate violation of the implicit rules of Internet social spaces. It necessarily involves a value judgment made by one user about the value of another's contribution". What about an apology to all good-faith and hard-working Commons users? Not everyone has the talent to "do research" here... - Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  • As I said above:"But I will stop useing this as an opportunity to bash commons and instead just leave it at me supporting VP on en.wikipedia" but at the risk of more "incredible bad manners": I'm sorry that I offended you. I appreciate your contributions here, but as I do not support the mission of commons, I cannot extend that sentiment to "all of the hard-working commons users". By your rules: Lets have a hearty round of applause for those hard-working members of myspace. They do really good work on their pages. Lets extend our gratitude to the Taliban, they worked mighty hard to implement a totalitarian theocracy. Don't ask me to praise something I am opposed to. Also, and more importantly, I was only giving reasoning for why I thought this project should stay at wikipedia and when asked to elaborate, I did so. If you look carefully at the above conversation you will see that. Instead of launching a personal attack at me and reopening a dead subject, you could have added something productive. It seems that your comment did very well to perpetuate my hi-jacking of this discussion, the very thing you claim to be opposed to... And, with that, I will mention no more on my personal feelings about commons. So, if you like, call me a troll or what have you but I feel that I have done nothing but defend my position. If that is trolling, then I am reminded of my favorite definition of Facist: Attempting to stifle opposition to a political view through use of official public policy. Regards -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 03:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
    • And I must say I'm somewhat shocked at the bizarre overreaction to Fcb's quite reasonable comments. He explained why he thought this project was better suited to Wikipedia, when questioned, further explained his position, and has now been branded a troll for it. Now, if anyone is owed an apology...
      Let me quote myself from my second paragraph at the start of this proposal:

      I will save any opinions about the Commons process and various image projects, as this is not the place to debate them, but needless to say I think we can use a separate project here.

      If anyone could be accused of hijacking the discussion it is those that first turned it into a Commons vs Wikipedia catfight (against my clearly stated wishes, not that I own the discussion of course), and that was not Fcb! What we do seem to be lacking is AGF towards those that edit mainly on Wikipedia, who have taken the very extensive comments from Commons users in a mainly positive way, while having little chance to comment on the actual proposal. I can't help but wonder if when the Commons VI project was under discussion, how they would have taken to a number of Wikipedians going over and telling them they couldn't do it because judging image value was their turf. What a pointless discussion this has become! --jjron (talk) 09:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• • • • As for your comments about who has hijacked which thread, I would like to apologize for spamming this particular thread with so much COM:VI stuff. For my part the objectives with my posts have mainly been to clarify and explain what I perceive as misconceptions and misinterpretations of what the COM:VI project is and its purpose posted in this very thread. I think such clarifications are in order in situ. And then I have written posts which had been more relevant to post in my original COM:VI post here, (which was also hijacked IMO). As for the later comments in this thread I have seen those as counter-productive from both sides. I have been very surprised to read what I perceive as an overly agressive and un-balanced attitude towards Commons users, which has then escalated. It has saddened me to witness this. As for your question about how "we" would feel if a bunch of WP:FPCs came to COM:VIC to discuss this project in a similar manner (it is still under discussion, so do go there if you feel like leaving home), I can only say that you are very welcome. I'll shut up now and I promise to leave this thread alone now. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This latter part is worse than pointless. The discussion is important. Please, everyone, stop being shocked for a moment and consider the proposal for what it is. <edit> It's probably time to draw a line under this stage of the debate and get down to brass tacks. I've listed the main options below and provided a section below that for polling. --mikaul^talk 13:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Summary of options

1. Migrate potential VI candidates from WP:FPC and WP:PPR to Commons:COM:VIC
   1. Wikipedians can optionally contibute to the process over at Commons
   2. Promoted VI images would only be browsable at Commons
2. Set up an entirely separate VIC process on EN: (WP:Valued Pictures, per proposal) possibly (but not necessarily) as part of WP:PPR, with its own WP:VP gallery page
   1. Like FPs, there would be no link between COM:VI and WP:VP
   2. Like FPs, COM:VIs and FP:VPs would potentially be assessed/promoted twice
3. Set up a compatible VPC process here and migrate promoted WP:VPs to/from COM:VI
   1. Compatible criteria would have to be agreed and syndicated between the various WPs
   2. As WP:VPs and COM:VIs would be the same, they'd be browsable without leaving the encyclopedia
4. Do nothing

These are obviously outline proposals and the practicalites hinted at are hypothetical. Option 4 isn't posited facetiously: doing nothing means ignoring the COM:VIC project, actively opposing any formal migration of WP:FPCs there, and opposing a similar process here.

Opinion poll

• I'm all for option 3. I think it's high time we accepted that Commons account holders are mostly wikipedia editors just like us, have common interests and aims, and do not set out to disrupt and disregard everthing that EN: does and stands for. Collaboration, especially on something so integral to the encyclopdia and essential to the organisation of Commons media, is central to the success or failure of the project. If you don't agree with option 4, I can't see how any other option but 3 could be more effective. --mikaul^talk 10:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Thanks for your persistence. I think proposal #3 makes sense and it is the only one with reasonable chances of being accepted. Of course we would still have some hard negotiations ahead before it could be implemented. Three important points to settle, which I think should be similar in both places: (i) the requirement that a picture should be part of some article (I think not); (ii) the necessity (or not) of VP assessors; the type of poll -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 - my concerns about the appropriateness of a universal declaration of EV across all WPs, (as a result of evaluating EV at the media repository rather than an encyclopedia) were only cursorily addressed. Let's host it here, use it to revitalize PPR - and it can always migrate to Commons later. de Bivort 14:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Debivort above. As with the current FP situation, there's no reason that the two could not work in a complementary fashion, where images from one are routinely put up for nom in the other. In no way do I consider the Commons folks as a group to be disruptive, it's just that they are working towards a different goal. It's similar to the situation where the Wikinews folks don't decide which stories are deserving of a WP article; we all work together, but we do different things. Matt Deres (talk) 10:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Matt, otherwise we might need to make some compromise whilst trying to make both parties satisfied. Muhammad(talk) 13:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 with a twist: Let WP:VPs be dual categorized on Commons as both "Valued Picture (en)" and "Valued Image". The latter category being an aggregation of (currently) COM:VI and WP:VP. If other Wikimedia projects later decide to set up similar projects they go in the aggregated cat too. In this manner WP editors have two possibilities for browsing for material: They can go for the WP:VP exclusive material or the combined WP:VP + COM:VI + other future similar projects images. WP:VP implementation details can be very different from COM:VI (whatever is suitable here). For the aggregated cat to have a meaning it is desirable that the overall goals of the projects are as similar as posiible. For me they have sufficiently similar objectives already with jjrons proposal. I suggest linking a WP:VPC to a scope, which will typically be a specific article on en and for larger and more significant articles, a specific sub-topic, which is of relevance. I suggest to only allow one WP:VP per scope to facilitate the creativity of creators to contribute with new topics such that more of the many significant, image-less articles can get a suitable illustration. -- Slaunger (talk) 14:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 What I said above: I think a benefit of having a VP rating for pictures is that they would find stronger homes in articles. Its frustrating when very good images (and sometimes FPs) are removed from articles to be replaced be some blurry snap of whatever, because someone wanted to see their picture on the web. Closer: feel free to disregard as trolling. ;) -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 01:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 or *Option 3I wish it worked.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• Option 2 or 3. per Slaunger --H92110 (talk) 07:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A fairly clear consensus for Option 2 (possibly with some type of cooperative effort with the Commons VI process as suggested by Slaunger). I have developed a trial version at User:Jjron/VP Trial. I have put up a discussion at PPR talk - Wikipedia_talk:Picture_peer_review#Valued_Pictures_Proposal for comments, as the proposal involved co-opting the PPR page. All welcome to drop by and comment. --jjron (talk) 17:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Issues with attribution

I originally asked this question on the Talk:Creative Commons licenses, but I'm not confident there is enough traffic there to get a good answer, so I'm cross posting it here as I know that many other contributors here are a little concerned with licensing.

As I license a number of images under the CC-BY-SA x.x license with attribution required, I thought of an interesting point. Nowhere in the license (as far as I can see) does it state exactly how the attribution or link to the actual license should occur. It seems like some people, to avoid 'spoiling' their web page or document's visuals with irrelevent text, don't actually provide attribution or the license near the image, andsometimes even on the same page as the image. In the example in question here, this person does provide attribution for the image's use on the about page of the website, but the image use occurs on every other page too, where the attribution is not given. Am I correct in expecting that the attribution should be visible very near the image itself (not on a different page or in tiny fine print at the bottom of the page? The license text appears vague, but it does say:

• Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit.

I don't want to be unreasonable about licensing my images but it does seem like the terms of the license are not followed correctly in this instance. And it sounds like the license is essentially saying "Well, if you can find an example of where other images are not attributed very prominently, then you can use that as a precedent for doing the same with your image." I'm not overly concerned about this particular use of my image, but it did raise the issue in my head where images may be used more commercially by bending the rules. Any thoughts? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's unreasonable use under the CC-BY-SA. It's a bit cheeky (an email request to use it this way would have been polite) but the wording is vague on attribution and as you say, the fact that there's scope for precedent (licence "creep") is a bit disturbing. I'd say if you were determined to avoid poorly-attributed use, switch to using GFDL alone. Otherwise it's the same old Hobson's as ever: if getting exposure is more important to you than the risk of poorly-attributed use, use a CC license. If is isn't, tune your license as finely as possible to the uses you are happy with, to discourage the creep in the first place ;o) The truth is that placing a credit close to every use would likely spoil the page layout and make your image less attractive to a user. Hobson's is a real toughie. --mikaul^talk 15:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, but I don't think its quite a Hobson's situation. Attribution is just lip service if you can bury it so deep (in the about page, who looks there?) so as to be essentially unassociated with the image entirely. You're right though, GFDL might be the only way, and that IS Hobson's.. :-) One part of me does want to make it hard for people to (mis)use my images, but I'm a sharing sort of guy. In an ideal world, I'd share my images for Wikipedia and Wikipedia's use alone, unless expressly agreed to by myself. I'm not a selfish person, but I do want to earn money where my image is used commercially, as commercial enterprises will in turn make money from my hard work. If it is just for someone's personal use, then I have no expectation of income, and I'm just glad that they enjoy the image. But to control the images when they're freely available is always going to be tricky. Where would you expect to see attribution in the context of a webpage? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this, I have a number of my images that have been used by people on blogs, both images I had released under CC and ones that people had pulled off my Flickr site, even though they are all rights reserved. I sell a fair amount of images for commercial use too and have become very wary of what I upload to Wikimedia/pedia now until such time the issue of non commercial licensing becomes addressed in a more sensible and realistic manner. It was very short sighted to allow only commerical CC licenses to be acceptable IMHO, I am certain I am far from alone in not uploading a lot of potentially useful images for fear of them being exploited by money making commerical entities without even correct attribution. Mfield (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Commercial use is about the only time I relax where attribution's concerned. It's much more important that free use is credited, because you're getting nothing else out of it but publicity. Com licensees often sweeten a deal with attribution and it's true that any form of attribution is great bonus when your image is used commercially, especially on websites which don't generally lend themselves to bylines. A link is worth a thousand words... so its definitely worth demanding as prominent a mention as practical - with a link wherever possible – when you're not getting any financial return at all. I regard wiki image page links as pretty well-placed (one click away from the image use) and generally reckon that anyone impressed enough with my work to go looking for the author shouldn't have to work any harder than that to find me; hence my reaction to the attribution on that blog. How did you uncover it, by the way? --mikaul^talk 23:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The blog owner actually left a message on my talk page to let me know out of courtesy that he was using my image as per the CC-BY-CA license, of all things. When I visited the page he linked to, I noticed that it wasn't quite attributed as I thought it should be, although I haven't said anything to him about it yet - I wanted to get a second opinion.

As for you relaxing on attribution when commercial use is concerned, I hope you mean you relax when you're being paid for the photography. 'Commercial use' of your images where they are taken directly from Wiki and used without any payment is where you should be most concerned that they are following the license to the letter, because the terms of the license are all you have to defend yourself against exploitation, really. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 23:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course :o) --mikaul^talk 00:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi - that's actually part of the reason why I wrote on your talk page, because I wanted to see what you thought about the placement as well. The about page is the page with the highest traffic for some reason. I added your user page to the blogroll as well so that it shows up on every page. If there are still problems with attribution I can always go back to the blog's original image (a bridge over a stream of water). Mithridates (talk) 02:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for not including you in the original discussion, my intention was not to single you out, just to raise an issue that had been brought to my attention by your image. ;-) I sympathise that to put attribution on or very near the image creates problems for the layout, and in your case I don't mind so much, particularly because you were honest about it. As I said, I'm just more concerned about the implications if the way you have attributed my image is copied by devious commercial users of my images. So for now, don't worry - you have an personal excemption. I just want to reserve the right to enforce more strict attribution if I feel that people are 'taking the piss', so to speak. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That's all right. I kind of suspected myself that you were more worried about what could happen later on with other people, as opposed to just me. Also now that I know what your pictures look like I'll be able to keep an eye out for any misuse too if I stumble across any. I see that on the license that "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor", so maybe writing down specific conditions (link must appear on every page where the image is shown for example) on your user page might be a good idea? Mithridates (talk) 15:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Help with completing FPC nom, please

I recently nominated a John Tenniel illustration as a featured picture candidate, but I've come to a bit of a problem. When I went to insert the FPC tag on the image page, I noticed that the file is still residing on Commons. What's the proper way to handle this? Do I just go to Commons and simply add the tag there? That's what makes sense to me, but what makes sense to me ain't always the way things get done! If I'd noticed the situation before, I would have tried to figure this bit out first, but here we are... :) Matt Deres (talk) 15:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

You can simply add the tag on the local copy here. I have done it for you on Image:Alice 05a-1116x1492.jpg. The mediawiki software will still show the image and text visible on the commons page, as well as the template you add here. Regards. Woody (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. When I went to edit the image page, it instead said something like "create page" - and gave me a completely blank page to edit. What did you do to get where it is now? Matt Deres (talk) 16:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I created the page! ;) It was a blank page, as it there is no image information saved on Wikipedia. Yet when the page is created, the commons details are also shown as the MediaWiki software looks for the imagedetails on commons. Woody (talk) 16:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the ol' do the obvious thing, eh? I thought the file needed to be transferred over somehow. Live and learn. Thanks again! Matt Deres (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

More attribution issues

FYI: should we be crediting photographers in article namespace? A proposal at Village Pump says yes. --mikaul^talk 09:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Grey Contrast Test

I'm somewhat baffled by the instructions on the grey contrast test that say "if you can discern three (or even four) of the circles, your monitor can display shadow detail correctly." If you can only see 3 of the circles, doesn't that mean, by definition, that your monitor isn't displaying colors between #000000 and #060606 correctly? Kaldari (talk) 16:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, that's what it means, in fact. However, a 060606 density is sooo black that you'd have to cover all the rest of the screen to avoid any glare which would drown it out. Usually, seeing three is quite OK - with four, many monitors wash out the highlights, instead... --Janke | Talk 00:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Observer Edit

Can we put an end to the practice of naming edits created by someone other than the original photographer "Observer Edit"? It is not only confusing, but uninformative. In my opinion, it is clearer if the editor in in question simply labels the edit "Edit X", where X is the number of the edit, and then say "by User:Y", if it is not by the original photographer. What do you think? NauticaShades 21:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree 100% Mfield (talk) 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No discussion required. If people cared to actually read the top of the page they'd already see that this process is clearly described there already, basically as Nautica suggests. --jjron (talk) 07:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Without wanting to single him out, I think the only person doing this was Capital Photographer who has been quite active here without any prior experience of the processes. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:FPC-instructions?

Can someone tell me how to access the edit histories of the instructions? It's not where I'd expect (analogous to FAC). Need to check changes for monthly updates. Tony (talk) 12:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The ones displayed at the top of the FPC page or the ones in the template itself? Check the links at the bottom of my userpage and you'll probably find what you're looking for. --jjron (talk) 08:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, will do so for next month. Tony (talk) 16:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

El Castillo closure

To me it looks like edit 3 has more support and less opposition than the promited edit 2. Or am I missing something. This should be corrected (I'd do it, but I'd rather get some feedback first). --Dschwen 23:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• It appears that that was just a naming problem. See, the file name of Version #3 is Edit 2. The one promoted is the correct one (tourists left in). You can take a look at either my talk page or gallery. I think that is what you are saying. The naming scheme is a bit crazy so take a look at the Promoted version, I think you will find MER-C is on top of things as ever. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 01:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • D'oh. Sorry about that. I should know by now that the naming scheme can under no circumstances be trusted ;-) (unlike MER-C). --Dschwen 02:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica nom closure

This may be something as trivial as the above issue with the El Castillo nomination, but I'm a bit concerned with the decision to promote a version that was very new and had some initial opposition. In fact, I'm not sure whether the nom should have been a promotion at all but I'd like some other opinions. The count I'm getting is: 5 Support/3 Weak support= 6.5 VS. 3 Oppose/3 Weak Oppose= 9. 6.5<9 -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 04:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering about this closure too. Mfield (talk) 06:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be overturned especially since the closer voted support but today I lack the bother to make it so. MER-C 10:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, I haven't closen a nomination in months, and I suppose I misinterpreted the consensus. By the way, as far as I know, an editor who has voted may still close the nomination. Anyway, I'll revert the promotion later. NauticaShades 12:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

You won't find this on a policy/guideline page but the general community considers it Not Good(TM) if you do that. If it was done at AFD, then you'll find yourself overturned fairly quickly at DRV. MER-C 13:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, but nobody ever told me this earlier, even though I have closed quite a few nominations in years past. As for the two-thirds majority rule, does this mean that the number of supports must be three times the oppose votes, or that there must be two thirds support votes to one third oppose votes? NauticaShades 20:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The latter. --Dschwen 21:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

As a guideline, but it's not just a matter of 'vote counting'. Please refer to earlier discussion Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#Pass_or_Fail.3F. --jjron (talk) 14:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What's your take on this nomination then? -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 22:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

My take? I think it's now been correctly closed. There's certainly no strong consensus. It looks like Nautica made an honest mistake which he's fixed up. Well picked up that there was a concern, but in the end no harm, no foul. --jjron (talk) 08:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was expecting this reply. I was just too lazy to write about closers discretion concerning crap votes, uncommented votes, new user votes, weak and strong votes etc. etc. ;-) --Dschwen 15:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. So was I, which is why I linked to the earlier discussion :-). --jjron (talk) 08:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Monthly update of style and policy pages: April 2008

It was a complicated month, so I hope I've captured, as simply as possible, the substantive changes. Please notify any issues on the talk page. Tony (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Candidates for delisting

I've just added four nominations of images for delisting. I think there are many more of a similar vintage that fail "modern" requirements but I'll pace the noms to give each a chance of proper scrutiny. Just wanted to give people a heads up and in case anyone wanted to comment on what I'm doing. Cheers, Pstuart84 Talk 21:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't object to the concept of nomming FPs that are obviously sub-par, but I don't like the idea of going through and just putting up for delist anything that doesn't meet 'modern' standards. A classic case would be blanket nominations of every FP that doesn't meet the current size requirements. To me that's not normally enough to qualify it for a delisting. I think it really needs to fail several criteria, or to have lost its encyclopaedic value (e.g., having been removed from all its articles). --jjron (talk) 12:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)