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Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates

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Commons

Are pictures on the Commons eligible for nomination here? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 16:32, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it is a problem if the picture comes from the Commons, but it should be used in an article on the English Wiki. If it is a good picture its would be easy to find an article to put it in if necessary. -- Solipsist 17:49, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Seems natural that they would be. Agree with Solipsist. — David Remahl 08:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Harsh comments

I'm a little concerned by some of the harsh, negative comments that get posted here from time to time (there's quite a few around at the moment). Unlike Featured Articles, photographs and images are rarely collaborative works and usually can't be edited or updated to address any criticism.

Its important to be able to explain your reasons for an oppose, but bear in mind that you might be hurting somebody's feelings and quite possibly discouraging them from contributing to Wikipedia. I'm aware of at least one occasion when my own comments (which I didn't think were particularly negative) helped to drive a good contributor away. -- Solipsist 08:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Picture size

I've noticed that a lot of people oppose pictures that just because they don't like it's resolution. Why upload a 1024 by 2048px picture, when we probably won't even use the full thing in the pedia anyway? Wouldn't a 640x480 work just as well? I think pictures should be voted on by composition, color and merit of subject, unless its size is lower than qhat's typically used in wikipedia. So, can anyone explain the rationale behind this? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 12:40, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

In the future, resolutions of displays are bound to increase. Also, Wikipedia may be printed in the (near) future, and then a 640×480 image is hardly usable at a reasonable size. Please see and discuss my thoughts on the subject at User:Chmod007/Alternate version proposal. — David Remahl 13:18, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There is an argument to say that until those things happen, 640x480 is good enough. Smaller featured pictures can always be delisted once printed Wiki's begin to appear. The primary focus should still be on encouraging good pictures for the online Wikipedia. -- Solipsist 15:52, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You say that images larger than 640x480 aren't used. By this I assume you mean embedded in the page as thumbnails, but reading an article on the Wikipedia isn't just reading the text and looking at the thumbnails, if there is a detailed diagram or photograph I will want to click on that and view it "full size", in which cas the 1024px version is very much "in use" on the wikipedia. Even if we accepted the argument that 640x480 is "good enough" for now, if we did ever want a printed wiki it would be much harder to get high-res versions in the future than it is now, while the authors are still lurking around. I would also consider Wikipedia to be a useful resource should I ever need a decent resolution image relevant to a subject, promoting 640x480 to FPs is hardly sending out the right message of the quality of Wikipedia's content. ed g2s • talk 02:07, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree — we should be encouraging the identification of the best possible quality content, not just what works well enough for a thumbnail. — Matt 19:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Calendars, vertical -vs- side-by-side

Recently there have been two edits to place the calendars side-by-side. I reverted the initial change back to the vertically stacked presentation with the comment that it is easier to compute the 14-day offset when you just have to scan down two rows of calendar instead of noting the day of the week, and using the other calendar in either a one week or two week offset on that day of the week. There has not been a reason given to use the side-by-side alternative other than "that looks better". I propose that we use the vertical orientation for its functional aspects, unless someone justifies the alternative with more reason than I've seen so far. Comments? - [[User:Bevo|Bevo]] 15:53, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to matter much either way to me, but I would have thought it should be the preference of whoever is currently doing the archiving. I guess the problem with the vertical alignment is that it leaves an ungly space on the left of the page - perhaps this could be filled with the current pic of the day. -- Solipsist 21:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sure, if someone could figure out how to force them to be vertically stacked, and left-aligned that would be even better. - [[User:Bevo|Bevo]] 22:04, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ah right, I didn't realise it was being used for that purpose, I made one of the edits to the side-by-side representation, indeed for esthetical purposes. What about putting the calanders vertically next to the TOC? I will give it a go, just revert it if you don't like it. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 08:47, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Geyser sequence

Discussion regarding the desirability or otherwise of groups of pictures as Featured Pictures, in particular regarding Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates#Geyser_exploding

  • It was the series of four photos that was featured, not one by itself. Please take care when doing your administrative bit-fiddling. Pcb21| Pete 10:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Bit-fiddling? I assure you this was the actual Featured Picture listed in the FP archives.
      • The series was featured as a series originally. I don't who changed that, or why they, or why it was not considered a bad edit and reverted, but clearly it didn't stay like that. Perhaps someone came up with a petty rule that series could not be featured. Pcb21| Pete
    • A series of images is difficult to judge and impossible to feature, that is, if they are all actual seperate images.
      • Why?
        • Featured pictures are selected for the Picture of the Day. Whilst technically it might be possible to modify the POTD template to show a collection of images, it is really designed to just handle one. You can see examples of combined sequences in the Pelican nomination below and the recent Mark_48_Torpedo_testing. Incidentally this picture's sequence would probably look better on the Geyser pages as a single horizontal composite of Nos. 2, 3 & 4 or 1, 3 & 4, although for a featured picture, I might prefer this one on its own. -- Solipsist 16:45, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
          • And where is POTD used? A few users' talk pages. A classic example of the tail wagging the dog. Pcb21| Pete 16:56, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • As you can see below, series can be nominated but they need to be combined into a single image.
      • Why?
    • Should you comment be taken as a support or oppose vote, or none at all? -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 15:56, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
      • In my biased opinion, the series is quite good, but clearly no single picture in the series is special on its own. Pcb21| Pete 16:22, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • If you would like to discuss the refeaturing of pics or the applicabillity of a series for featured pic candidates, lets do that on the talk page. this page is for voting. also, please sign comments with a ~~~~.Cavebear42 18:41, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Discussion now moved. -- Solipsist 19:26, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 
Geyser exploding sequence

Just to help things along, here is a version of the sequence aranged vertically. I skipped the first photo, because I think it detracts from the impact of the final two more exciting frames. I've also corrected the rotation and cropped off the distracting guy on the right. I tried a horizontal row too which ended up a bit of a wide panorama, but whether vertical or horizontal was better - there wasn't much in it. -- Solipsist 20:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It "helps things along" in the sense that you ignore my point completely and assume that your way - "one pic to rule them all" is right. Yet your own subsequent debate about whether horizontal or vertical display is better, proves that it is better to keep them separate so that our downstream users can make their own decisions freely, depending what screen res they are designing for etc etc.
On a separate matter, I don't like dropping the first pic because it gives a misleading impression of what a geyser is like.
Oh, and Cavebear42, thanks for the tip, but signed more comments than you've had hot dinners (so to speak) :). Pcb21| Pete 23:25, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually no, I don't usually like sequences and generally prefer a single frame that captures the moment - in this case it would be No 3. Otherwise, I'm left feeling that it should be a video clip. However, you are welcome to continue to persuade everyone that we should consider a group of individual images. -- Solipsist 00:43, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Funnily I do have a video clip from the same day. Even if it was very high quality, in the correct open format etc, I expect it would still fail the featured picture process... some pedant would point out it is not a picture. Pcb21| Pete 12:14, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, if it would be possible to directly illustrate the article it would be eligible, as much as the animated GIF's we currently have in the Featured Picture archive, Wikipedia:Assume good faith. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 09:56, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

I get the impression that people approach FPC in different ways and I thought it might be useful to have some discussion to clarify or even change the purpose of Wikipedia:Featured Pictures.

In genereal, I believe WP:FP and WP:FPC are intended as a mirror of Wikipedia:Featured articles and WP:FAC which aim to raise the bar on writing authorative, interesting and complete articles. So I guess the main point for Featured Pictures should be to get more good, illustrative and freely usuable pictures into Wikipedia.

I can see four general directions for Featured Pictures

  1. Congratulate editors - Highlight great picture contributions from Wiki editors. If a user as taken a great photograph, or drawn an excellent diagram we should shout it to the hills.
  2. Illustrate articles - Encourage editors to find and make great pictures for all articles on Wikipedia. The most important thing is how a picture contributes to the article.
  3. Superb gallery - Create a gallery of some of the best free pictures that are available.
  4. Get on the main page - The POTD should be included on the main page along side 'Today's Featured Article'. This needs good images, but might also include unusual or intriguing images that make you want to click through to an article.

Of course, these ideas can overlap and we might want to emphasise a combination of directions. But there are some significant implications. For example, if we really want 4) Get on the main page, its important to include more pictures to avoid repetition (WP:FA has never repeated an article on the main page). If we really want 3) Superb gallery, we might want to be more exclusive. If we are aiming for 2) Illustrate articles, considerations such as a picture's size a suitability for printing becomes more important. And whilst a sunset might look attractive, if it only illustrates a fairly minor ___location page should we care, compared to an illustration on a more important page, say a drawing of a dinosaur. Finally of course on 1) we should favour pictures created by Wikipedians, although locating and importing the best images can be rewarded too.

There are also practical difficulties associated with 4) Get on the main page. It might not be possible to get enough real estate on the main page to fit in a Feature Picture. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to raise visibility by adding the {{POTD}} to some other Wikipedia community pages, possibly the neglected Wikipedia:Goings-on or Wikipedia:Community_Portal itself.

I think there is a natural tendancy to drift towards (3) simply because when presented with an amazing image its hard not to say 'support', but note that now we have WikiCommons it also has a Featured Pictures section that will probably have to go in the pure gallery direction. -- Solipsist 10:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for that extensive overview, you raise some excellent points in all and I agree with your line of reasoning. I think our main focus should be (2), we should focus on getting images that actually illustrate articles well, but the accompanying article should be fairly decent as well, we could consider only nominating images illustrating non-stub articles. I am a bit in doubt over the "by a wikipedia" issue, I do like the idea of user made images better, but in the long run it is not going to matter whether the best images in the Wikipedia were shot by (at that time) Wikipedians, it matter whether they are free images. At the current rate we do not have to repeat any POTD's, but I think POTD on the Main page is not something we should strive for. I think our current Main layout is excellent, and I don't see how a large POTD template would fit in it, maybe with a small thumb, but that would defeat the purpose. The only thing I feel we should get more strict at is image size, ideally every Featured Article ready for print would be accompanied by an illustrative print quality FP. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 10:16, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Stock Xchng license problems

I was recently alerted to a licensing problem with photos from http://www.sxc.hu. There are many restrictions under the "DOWNLOADS" section: http://www.sxc.hu/info.phtml?f=terms , e.g. "Selling and redistribution of these photos (individually, or as a whole) without written permission is prohibited". This would mean SXC images are not public ___domain as I was lead to believe (Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources#General_collections). This affects a recently promoted FP: Image:Flaming_cocktails.jpg, which was quickly (perhaps too quickly) deleted from the commons as a result. IANAL but the user page for the author of this image ([1]) says "you can take my images for any work, you don't have to ask for permission ... use it ...". Does this place it under some sort of dual-license, one of which is PD ("for any work")? ed g2s • talk 16:59, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Public Domain" is not a particular licence; it is, in fact, the absence of one.
The author/creator is owner of the rights to the image, and as such he can license however he chooses; in this case, he seems to have released the image under a BSD-like licence (analogous to CC-BY, but obviously not actually that).
The site can prattle on as much as it wants about one needing written authorisation, but they cannot countermand the author.
IMO, the image should, indeed, not have been deleted.
However, we should of course make sure that any images which we have taken from SXC have been done so properly.
James F. (talk) 16:32, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Jdforrester. If the author gives free permission to all, then the stock xchng license is overridden. -- Chris 73 Talk 23:41, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

Image:Orion.jpg, which is a featured image, is copyrighted by its owner and I don't think it's eligible for release under the GFDL. I placed the image on Wikipedia:Copyright problems, but as it's featured I thought I had better mention it here as well. It appears that the NASA public ___domain thing was misunderstood, as it only applies to images created by NASA, and not all image which appear on NASA websites. Worldtraveller 17:08, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Supporting and opposing

Currently, under this heading, the text reads Each objection should provide a specific rationale that can be addressed. Is this really intended? Unlike with featured article candidates, where prose can be improved, things reworded, etc etc, objections against featured image candidates are often not actionable. An objection like 'The photo is just not very exciting' is perfectly reasonable, despite not being something that can be addressed. Worldtraveller 16:36, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are numerous oppositions that can be fixed, such as "image is too small, not sharp enough, overexposed, pixelated, etc". It's better to know for sure that an opposition is only the result of the image not being "interesting enough" than to not know that an opposition was the result of something fixable. -- BRIAN0918  16:40, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree there are lots of objections that are fixable - I was just concerned the wording was a bit similar to on WP:FAC, where the convention is that an objection that's not actionable is not regarded as a valid objection. I've adjusted the wording slightly, hope it's OK. Worldtraveller 17:22, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Even if it's "awkward angle" or "bad lighting", neither of which can really be fixed, they both indicate a real objection rather than a matter of taste (well, sort of) but they also give the nominator some idea what to try for in future submissions. It also softens the blow for those artists with delicate egos... --Andrew 04:48, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
I think Worldtraveller's rewording works quite well. I guess the idea was to avoid simple 'object' votes without giving a reason.
A harder problem is to try and ensure that 'object' votes are worded in a way that they don't discourage the original photographer/artist/nominator too much. The real point of the FP section is to encourage more good pictures to be uploaded for articles. Several times, I've seen overly harsh critism drive contributors away, such that it would have been better if they had not had an image FPC nominated in the first place. -- Solipsist 08:42, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Suitable licenses for FPs

Recently a few pictures which are copyrighted, but used with permission have been put forward as Featured Pictures. In terms of how they can be used outside of Wikipedia, they are no better than fair-use image. If these go through it sets a worrying precedent, in that anyone photo could be submitted, provided that we get permission from the author (which in a lot of cases they would be prepared to give: high exposure of their work, a link back to their site and not having to worry about third party use). Image galleries of "cool pictures" are ten-a-penny on the Internet, what makes this one special is that I can look through, and then use whatever I find, however I like, such is the philosophy of Wikipedia ("The Free Encylopedia"). This is a gallery of the best Wikipedia has to offer, not the best copyright photos Wikipedians like. ed g2s • talk 11:00, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your statement that copyrighted images ...are no better than fair-use image is wrong. Fair use requires specific rationale for a particular use. This rationale doesn't extend to featured picture uses. There is no violation in a case where wikipedia has unrestricted permission.
However, some permissions granted to wikipedia have certain restrictions, like a credit requirement. If one of these is a featured picture will that requirement be honored? does the copyright holder need to be credited wherever the image is used?
what makes this one special is that I can look through, and then use whatever I find, however I like. Not quite true, GFDL and CC copyrights still have restrictions, and the images are still owned by the author. You may not use however you like. Are you suggesting that only PD images be used for featured pictures?Duk 13:46, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed with Duk above. You seem to want to follow some made-up personal philosophy instead of the actual policy for Featured Pictures. I am following the policy, which states that fair use is tolerated, implying that images which actually have permission should be tolerated more. -- BRIAN0918  14:03, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Brion, I thought that fair use images were not allowed for featured picture use, because the way feature pictures are used isn't a valid fair use rationale (see the top of the project page). Duk 16:00, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well I think that is slightly the wrong emphasis. Its not really about building a gallery. I've always thought the point of Featured Pictures is to encourage people to find more good pictures for Wikipedia by highlighting particularly good contributions. As such any image with a license that is suitable for Wikipedia should be eligible for FP. The exception is FairUse images which are ruled of of FP, because they are only really FairUse in the context of their article.
Of the current nomination
  • The Snowflakes are a problem, because of their '{{copyrighted}} with permission for use on Wikipedia only' license. You would think this is fine, but following Jimbo's edict last year this is actually one of the deprecated tags (since it doesn't allow for use on downstream forks).
  • The Z Machine is {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat|...}} which is fine. The slight caveat is that the condition on the ProvidedThat... includes its 'use on encyclopedia-related articles'. You could argue that that should rule it out from FP in a similar fashion to FairUse images, but in practice just about everywhere we use FP images they lead through to the encyclopedia article.
Now somewhat irregular licenses such as {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat|...}} are a bit of a pain compared to the big three, free licenses. We could change the rules for FPC to explicitly restrict nominations to PD, GFDL and CC-by-SA, with a view to stearing all uploads to these licenses. But I would rather see changes to FPC to encourage contributions to niche areas. We are fairly heavy in tech photos, flowers and spiders, but don't have nearly enough diagrams or portraits. -- Solipsist 13:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The wording for the Z Machine copyright is just bad on my part. He said it was alright to be used in encyclopedias. As for the opposition to permitted images, as I've said before: if we were to deny featured picture status to images such as this which have the proper permission, that would wipe out the possibility of any photos which require specialized equipment, such as rapid-shutter, micro-photography, or imaging done in the non-visible parts of the spectrum. The only reason we have space images (such as from Hubble) is because we are lucky that the U.S. Government releases them into the public ___domain, when they could easily restrict them, as they have done with the Z Machine image. FPC is not for showing off the photographic skills of Wikipedians, but for showing off brilliant images. Restrictions like this are skewed in favor of photographs taken by Wikipedians with your average camera equipment (plus, nearly all PD images are only going to be such photos since specialized equipment didn't exist back then). -- BRIAN0918  13:42, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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