Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images

Fixing images below the default size

This used to be deprecated in the MOS, and it certainly should be (sorry, can't provide a link - I'd be grateful if anyone can). I don't want to re-open the vexed issue of fixing at higher than the default 220px, which we currently deprecate, but like many people I routinely do this, at least for main images in the lead. The case against smaller-than-default images seems much simpler - is there ever a good reason for doing this, for images with a typical aspect ratio? I can't think of one, and have for years removed all examples of "120px" etc that I see, & I don't remember anyone ever complaining. There is an exception needed for images eg 10 times taller than they are wide, but I think the existing text covers that fine. However it gives the clear impression that too small images are fine with the MOS.

Proposals

• A) At the moment we say: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding."

I propose changing this to "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger or smaller fixed size..." (new text in bold). Any objections?

• B) I'd also like to add something specifying that this applies to multiple images, which seem (unfortunately in my view) to be fashionable at the moment. So at the end of the list of bullet points, I'd like to add:

"* Multiple image templates should not be be over-used, and each image should appear at at least the default image size."

Please comment on these below, specifying A & B. Thanks Johnbod (talk) 21:57, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

• Fixed image sizes should be avoided in general, but there are cases where they're appropriate, such as in tables. Exceptions should be exceptional, though, and I think they are covered by the "as a general rule" wording—so, basically, I agree with what you've presented. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
• I've seen fixed images done on infobox images all the time. I agree that outside tables (which infoboxes technically are) fixing the size should be avoided. --MASEM (t) 22:43, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

  Images in infoboxes count as lead section images, which have always been permitted to be larger - up to 300px wide. As regards images in actual tables, see Rolling stock of the Bluebell Railway#Steam locomotives, where the images are 200px wide, including the upright ones - which makes some table rows excessively tall; compare List of Great Central Railway locomotives and rolling stock#Mainline steam locomotives (175px) or Rolling stock of the Kent & East Sussex Railway (heritage) (150px). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:53, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Can we get away from the usual issue of whether fixed sizes are good, bad, or downright evil, to address the question of whether this page should continue to use language that implies that images fixed small are better than images fixed large? I agree table images are another exception. Johnbod (talk) 03:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. I would oppose both as instruction creep, especially the multiple-image template suggestion, not because I like small images (the opposite is true), but because these decisions should be left to the people writing the page, not imposed centrally. Editors forget that the MoS is just a guideline, and go around trying to force it on articles in which they otherwise have no involvement. Every additional rule creates another weapon. This makes the MoS strongly disliked (e.g. see the recent discussions about creating a central style board), which is unfortunate because it's a very helpful document for style advice. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

As my comment above. Johnbod (talk) 03:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. This discussion has caused me to discover relative sizing (|upright=) which I didn't know about before but seems preferable to absolute sizing in almost all cases. I had thought that gif animations and bitmap images smaller than the default size needed absolute sizes to allow the animation to work and prevent being resized to larger than the resolution of the image, respectively, but if that was ever true it doesn't seem to be any more. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to use |upright= within {{multiple image}}, and there are probably other cases where absolute sizing is still important, so I wouldn't want to see a blanket prohibition. On the other hand, the same reasons that larger-than-default absolute sizes are bad make smaller-than-default sizes bad as well, so expanding the recommendation about fixed sizes to include smaller-than-default ones seems harmless. If we're going to make this change, it would be simpler to say simply that "as a general rule images should not be used with fixed sizes". The part about whether the size is larger or smaller than the default is a red herring and should be left out; why is using a fixed size equal to the default any better of an idea than the other two cases?—David Eppstein (talk) 00:38, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with Mr Epstein—the wording should be more like "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger or smaller fixed size..." (I think that addresses SV's concerns about instruction creep as well) Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:45, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I have used smaller-than-default-size images on occasions, when the infobox equates or exceeds in length the text on the left. I figure that a smaller image facing that long infobox will be less offensive to the anti-sandwitching purists who believe that no images should ever face a sacrosanct infobox. The only other solution is to place the image below the infobox, and out of view --Lubiesque (talk) 12:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - "a larger or smaller fixed size" reduces to "a fixed size", and conciseness is always good. Larger or smaller than what? I'd support "a fixed size" first, the longer version second. In any case, all guidance should discourage fixed sizes except where there is very good reason to use them, as they defeat the user preference (which is more than an aesthetic preference). I just recently learned that even infobox images can specify a proportional size by coding File: syntax for |image= and omitting |image_size=, as here. I think that's generally a Good Thing, not that it warrants an implementation crusade. No opinion as to the multiple images question. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:33, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - Nobody anywhere in this discussion above seems to think that, except for certain exceptions, flouting reader's preferences and setting image sizes to a fixed, specified size in pixels (rather than using relative sizing) is a good idea (despite this reversion). I also agree that the minimum change necessary would be to substitute

As a general rule, images should not be set to a fixed size. If an exception to this general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding.

for the current advice. BushelCandle (talk) 20:59, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

This change would also brings our advice into line with our advice at Wikipedia:Image use policy#Displayed image size:

Except with very good reason, do not use px (e.g. thumbɭ300px), which forces a fixed image width. In most cases upright=scaling factor should be used, thereby respecting the user's base preference (which may have been selected for that user's particular devices).

BushelCandle (talk) 05:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Despite the one oppose and zero supports, discussion here seems to have stabilized on something like BushelCandel's wording (which I support). But two bold attempts to actually change the MOS have been reverted by Sandstein with an edit summary that we need to wait for consensus first. What is there to wait for? This discussion (and the subproposal within it to make essentially this change) has been going for over six months. Do we need to start a new RfC just so we can record a clean set of opinions, since this wording is different than what we started this section with? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:31, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Sorry if I've been a bother, I just don't see an obvious consensus at a glance, and no formal closure of the discussion. I don't have an opinion on the issue myself and won't revert again, but perhaps a formal assessment of consensus would be helpful.  Sandstein  09:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: I prefer that the explicit statement that we generally should not bypass the 220px default remain in the guideline; this per what is argued at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 5#Setting an image size or using default. So I oppose the change. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:01, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

So, if I've understood you correctly, would you prefer lengthier; something more on the lines of:

As a general rule, images should not be changed from their default size to a fixed size.
If an exception to this general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the default (currently 220px) is done by placing a parameter in the image coding.
Except with very good reason, do not use px (e.g. thumbɭ300px), which forces a fixed image size. In most cases where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed, upright=scaling factor should be used, thereby respecting the user's base preference (which may have been selected for that user's particular devices by an adjustment in their preferences).

? BushelCandle (talk) 23:10, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Not quite; I'm stating that 220px is still the default size, unless I've missed something, and that we should be clear that editors should generally not bypass that size. Why not mention 220px as the default size in the "general rule" sentence? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Because it is incorrect for editors to assume that all readers keep their default size set at 220px. That assumption leads to behavior like setting size=300px when "larger than default" is the intended meaning, which is also incorrect, and may in some cases actually result in a smaller-than-default image size. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Spot on, David.

It's surprising how many otherwise erudite, sensitive and knowledgeable editors are still unaware of your explanation and the "upright" solution... BushelCandle (talk) 23:55, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

But the section also states the following: "If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding." and "Lead images should usually be no wider than 'upright=1.35' (displays at 300px based on the default thumbnail width of 220px, but may appear larger or smaller based on settings in preferences)." 220px is still listed as/considered the default. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

For the same reason it would probably be more accurate to change "currently 220px" in your suggestion above to "currently 220px for most users". Another way of saying it is that 220px is not really a global default image size; what it is, is the default value for each user's individual default image size. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps less confusingly, the initial value of the user default size preference. Two definitions of "default" are being used. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I would agree to that then. And, BushelCandle, I was already aware of the upright aspect. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure you were aware, Flyer22. Although it's very obvious from your contribution history that you are erudite, sensitive and knowledgeable in your editing, it's equally plain from the edit history of this page that you're the bee's knees when it comes to matters concerning images. BushelCandle (talk) 00:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Amended proposal (1)

At the moment we say: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding."

I propose changing this to

As a general rule, images should not be changed from their default size to a fixed size.
If an exception to this general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the initial default (currently 220px for most users) is done by placing a parameter in the image coding.
Except with very good reason, do not use px (e.g. thumbɭ300px), which forces a fixed image size. In most cases where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed, upright=scaling factor should be used, thereby respecting the user's base preference (which may have been selected for that user's particular devices by an adjustment in their preferences).

Any objections? BushelCandle (talk) 00:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

The first sentence could be simplified even more with (I think) the same intent: "As a general rule, images should not be changed from their default size." —David Eppstein (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

the initial default (currently 220px for most users) - No, the initial default is 220px for all users, unless I'm missing something. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"If an exception to this general rule is warranted, a fixed size may be specified using nnnpx in the image coding." ―Mandruss ☎ 01:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Every user has a default user size, set in that user's preferences. It is a "default" because it can be overridden by the size specified in an individual article. For most users, the default image size is 220px; this is the default default image size, or as you call it the initial default image size. Some users have changed that preference and have a default image size that differs from the default default image size. It is incorrect to write as if there is a single global default image size: the global default is not for the image size in articles, it is for the user's default image size. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:11, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"In most cases, the default image size should be used. For registered users, this default size is specified in their user preferences, with an initial value of 220px. For unregistered users, the default size is 220px. Where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed, upright=scaling factor should normally be coded, thereby respecting the user's base preference. For example, upright=1.2 specifies 20% larger than the default size. A scaling factor of 0.75 (75% of the default size) is commonly used for tall images and may be abbreviated by omitting the scaling factor, as upright. Where absolutely necessary, a fixed size may be specified using nnnpx in the image coding, e.g. 300px. A px value should not be used except with very good reason." ―Mandruss ☎ 01:15, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

That looks better to me: same policy, with a more accurate description of what it means. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:00, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Optional, albeit not strictly related: "If you are a registered editor and work a lot with image layout, consider leaving your default size preference set to 220px, as this is the default size for a majority of readers." ―Mandruss ☎ 02:25, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

This discussion has been helpful. In view of the issues raised, I withdraw my first amended proposal and put forward an alternative below. BushelCandle (talk) 04:32, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Amended proposal (2)

At the moment we still write: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding."

I now propose changing this to

In most cases, the default image size should be used.
(For registered users, this default width is specified in their Preferences, with an initial value of 220px. For unregistered users, the default width is 220px. If you are a registered editor and work a lot with image layout, consider leaving your default thumbnail preference set to 220px, as this is the default width for a majority of readers.)
Where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed, |upright=scaling factor should normally be coded, thereby respecting the user's base preference. For example, |upright=1.3 specifies 30% larger than the default size. A scaling factor of 0.75 (75% of the default size) is commonly used for tall images and may be abbreviated by omitting the scaling factor, as |upright=. Where absolutely necessary, a fixed size may be specified using nnnpx in the image coding, for example 20px.
A px value, which forces a fixed image size, should not be used except with very good reason.

Any objections? BushelCandle (talk) 04:32, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks good to me, although I wonder why you're linking to meta's Help:Preferences instead of Help:Preferences. The latter mentions the preference we're talking about, and it has a hatnote link to the meta page "for full details". ―Mandruss ☎ 19:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Since only yourself and User:EEng have so far commented on this sub-section, I hope you won't find it too great a breach of normal discussion page etiquette that I have now made minor changes to take account of better internal linking and also changed "size" to "width" in some occurrences above.

With regard to User:EEng's magnificently superior proposals (and your equally perceptive comments) I do fear that sometimes the ideal can sometimes (at least temporarily) be the mortal enemy of the merely plausible (lowest denominator proposal). Sometimes it may be that we can make a huge leap forward; alas, sometimes if proposals are too radical and all-encompassing, then discussion grinds to a halt in a welter of fine detail. I'm anxious that, after many months, we do take concrete and immediate steps to improve our current advice. That's why, with no disrespect intended, I'll leave my alternative proposal (2) tabled in the hope it is not opposed. (If alternative proposal (2) does go through to implementation, there is nothing stopping us trying to improve the text on the page even further afterwards if we can subsequently agree a consensual version of alternative proposal (2a)...) BushelCandle (talk) 20:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

with no respect intended - None taken. ;) ―Mandruss ☎ 20:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Whoops! BushelCandle (talk) 21:41, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Bushel, a super-double-extra negative would have been clearer e.g. "Without no disrespect not unintended". EEng 21:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm happy to take 2 before 2A, but my concern remains its discouragement of use of upright. I actually think that's the only difference between them -- everything else in 2A is just a reorganization of the material already on MOS (with maybe one or two things imported from WP:Image_use_policy#Displayed_image_size. So no matter what, we have to deal with the "discouragement" issue, so let's do that first. Below I asked you to clarify what you're supporting -- is it about discouragement? EEng 21:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Very strong objections to this. Hardly anyone uses the "upright" parameter, and it is too late to change that. We should be encouraging people to set their own parameters, which most don't, which interacts bizarrely with the "upright" lot. There aren't enough people left in this discussion to create a convincing consensus either. Johnbod (talk) 08:19, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

A lot of people don't add inline citations supporting the text they add - but that does not stop us trying to ensure that our Manual of Style gives clear advice on both why and how to implement inline citations, does it? If people do use the old-fashioned and tyrannical 'fixed px width' image syntax to (unwittingly?) flout and over-ride logged in user's preferences, that doesn't mean we need to stop urging others to behave in a better and more knowledgeable way, does it? We're an educative project, aren't we? BushelCandle (talk) 03:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Amended proposal (2A)

I think that "In most cases, the default image size should be used... Where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed..." is too discouraging re use of upright, which really should be used much more often than it is currently -- most editors don't know about it -- to match image size to the situation, taking into account aspect ratio, the image's level of detail, desire to match size of nearby images, etc.

Use cases for a variety of upright values

Upright=0.5 (very tall, skinny img with large text labels) Upright=1.2 for legibility of (at least) arrow labels A, H, T, making them about the same size as caption font Upright=1.0 (just your average everyday image) Upright=1.2 for legibility Upright=0.5 (simple img looks fine shown small  – could be even smaller but better to match image appearing just above) Upright=1.2 for legibility Upright=1.35 (beautiful, highly detailed lead image)

Therefore, BushelCandle, would you object to substituting the following? Here I've pulled in the entire section for an integrated presentation. (I hope this isn't biting off too much at once.)

Size

See also: Image use policy on displayed image size

• Image sizes are manipulated via changes to their widths‍—‌after which software automatically adjusts height to maintain aspect ratio. (In most cases, references to an image's "size" really mean its width.)
• Each user has a "base" image width. For unregistered users ("IPs"), this is always 220 pixels. For registered users, the base width is initially 220px (when the user account is created) but this can be changed via user preferences.
• Where a smaller or larger image is appropriate, use |upright=scaling factor, which expands or contracts the image by a factor relative to the user's base width.
  • For example:
    • upright=1.3 might be used for an image with fine detail (e.g. a map or diagram) to render it "30% larger than this user generally wants".
    • upright=0.60 might be used for an image with little detail (e.g. a simple drawing or flag) which can be adequately displayed "40% smaller than this user generally wants".
  • "Landscape" images (short and wide) often call for upright greater than 1; "portrait" images (tall and narrow) may look best with upright less than 1.
  • Images should be large enough to reveal important detail without overwhelming surrounding article text.
    • Images in which a small region is relevant (but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image) may need to be larger than normal, but upright=1.8 should usually be the largest value for images floated beside text.
    • If a larger value is used (e.g. for panoramas), then use center or none at the same time, so that the image stands alone. Or use {{wide image}} or {{tall image}} to present a large image in a scrollable box.
    • Lead images should usually use upright=1.35 at most.
  • Images within an article, especially those vertically proximate to one another, may be more appealing if presented at the same width.
• Where absolutely necessary, a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 20px) may be specified. This should be done only with very good reason because it ignores the user's base width preference. The resulting image should usually be no more than 400px wide and 500px tall, for comfortable display on the smallest devices "in common use" (though this may still cause viewing difficulties on some unusual displays); lead images should be no more than 300px wide.

Notes

Note I omitted the bit about upright defaulting to 0.75, which I think is an unnecessary and confusing geekish detail. EEng 18:47, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Common size for a tall image (upright=0.75)

---

Original caption:
Cavendish, Vermont, 20 years after Gage's accident. (a) Region of the accident site; (t) Gage's lodgings; (h) Harlow's home and surgery

Upright=1.2

---

Original caption:
Cavendish, Vermont, 20 years after Gage's accident. (a) Region of the accident site; (t) Gage's lodgings; (h) Harlow's home and surgery

I knew I was going to have to say this eventually. Wikipedia articles are not magazine articles, where the image you see is all you can get. We call them "thumbnails", and I consider them exactly that: graphical links to images that happen to be miniature copies of the target images. In many cases, the thumbnail is large enough and there is no need to click-thru, but that should not be a goal in my opinion. The fact that an enormous number of editors fail to get this doesn't weigh a lot with me. Thus, I have zero problem with the gentle discouragement of |upright= as written above. If the reader wants to see the detail (and many do not), they should find their left mouse button and press it. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

And I knew I'd have to say this eventually. The notion that in-article images should be "thumbnails", to conserve screen real estate, is an anachronism appropriate to the much smaller screens of 20 years ago, on which adequately-size images could easily crowd out too much of the text. (Of course, nowadays we have a new breed of very small mobile screens as well, but on these Wikimedia usually presents the images alone anyway, so the question of "crowding the text" is still irrelevant.)

I agree that in many (even most, as you say) cases the thumbnail is large enough so that there's no need for clickthrough, because the user has presumably set his default width preference to whatever size works for him for typical images (headshots, close/medium views of objects or locales) given his device, eyesight, typical viewing conditions, or whatever. But where we can reasonably predict that a particular image's level of detail needs to be presented at a bigger size than "this user typically wants", why shouldn't no-need-for-clickthrough be our goal? It's this relative sizing that makes upright so much better than fixed px sizing. Why should we set things up so that most readers will have to click back and forth between image and article as they follow the text?

And surely images with the classic "portrait" aspect ratio should use an appropriate upright setting, without which they come out grossly oversized -- somewhat too wide, and way too tall. I actually think this is the most common use case for upright, and since this use reduces image size I'd think you'd be all for it.

Users on slow connections, or with little monitors from 1999, can set their preference as appropriate to factor those considerations in. EEng 19:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

In my view, the anachronism is the magazine mind-set, which fails to exploit the cool new hyperlink feature the Internet gave us, the ability to click on what we want more information about (or, in this case, a better look at). And the freedom of choice not to do so. Why shouldn't no-need-for-clickthrough be our goal? Because that consumes screen real estate whether the reader cares about the detail of that image or not. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Like I said, if "Users on slow connections, or with little monitors from 1999, can set their preference as appropriate to factor those considerations in" -- as can users who don't care about details of images, and want to conserve real estate. EEng 20:05, 24 January 2016 (UTC) [Later P.S.: The way you have it, the reader has to click through whether he cares about real estate or not. I don't see it as obvious that real estate conservation necessarily should have the highest priority. 22:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)]

I didn't say anything about not caring about the details of images in general. I said, for any given image, many readers don't care about the detail of that image. They should be given the choice per image, not site-wide. And let's not forget that the large majority of readers are not registered and don't have preferences, and that will forever be the case. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, we can only do what we think will best serve a hypothetical average reader. Can you explain what you're illustrating by including the image above (using upright=0.75)? I've added the same image at upright=1.2, plus the caption that goes with the image in the article. To me, you're making my point -- why even bother having a caption when it refers to features that are completely illegible to the reader (i.e. at upright=0.75)? EEng 20:55, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The average reader is the unregistered reader, and that's not hypothetical. I wasn't aware of the original caption for that image (it wasn't in your collapsed content above), and I agree that one should be larger. I also think that's a rare case, and it's reasonably included under the language in Proposal 2, "Where a smaller or larger size than the default is justifiably needed, |upright=scaling factor should normally be coded...". It's justifiably needed. What I'm seeing far more of is thumbnails that are oversized for no other reason than to save the reader a click-thru. And many times it's not even that, the editor just thought it looked better a little larger. Over all I still think Proposal 2 works better than 2A. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I just don't get it. I go to a lot of trouble to select appropriate images and put them next to the relevant text, so that the reader can refer to the image while reading. The reader shouldn't have to click through to understand what the image is showing him, then click back and forth, and if real estate is a problem than we should miniaturize headings and get rid of the left-side toolbar that takes up 1/6 of a typical screen but is almost never used by the casual reader. And what's wrong with editors adjusting image size to make the page to look better? EEng 21:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that it's not just "old" monitors and slow connections. The mobile device screen is not the same resolution as a typical monitor now-days. There's a reason that pixel-perfect resolutions are nearly eliminated from modern web development. The same purpose should be done here. That said, while pixel sizing should be avoided, there are times where percentage-of-page-width can be appropriate for spanning images - ones that are not running in prose. Most of the examples we're talking about aren't being tailored to be running alongside prose, so there's no need to really play with the size. But if we're talking about a section-spanning header, or something similar that is beyond prose, then that might be a reason to use "width=50%" or the like. I would make a distinction between prose and non-prose running images. --MASEM (t) 01:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think our current wiki-markup allows percentage of page width as one of its image sizing options. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Masem! I'm afraid I have no idea what you're saying here, because I don't know what you mean by "pixel-perfect resolutions" and "prose and non-prose running images", "tailored to be running alongside prose", "section-spanning header", "beyond prose"... what do those things mean? EEng 04:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

"Pixel-perfect" are layouts that are designed to fit into a specifically sized browser window or the like, heavily relying on "px" specifications in the CSS or equivalent markup, instead of using relative widths. Prose-running are those that are go along standard paragraphs of text, while non-prose-running are those going against other types of content, such as a table, list, or similar organization. --MASEM (t) 04:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Upright=1 – too big!

Upright=1 – much is illegible, rendering caption puzzling

---

Original caption:
Phrenologists contended that destruction of the mental "organs" of Veneration and Benevolence caused Gage's behavioral changes. Harlow may have believed that the "Organ of Comparison" was damaged as well.

Upright=0.4 – right size

Upright=1.4 – now legible

---

Original caption:
Phrenologists contended that destruction of the mental "organs" of Veneration and Benevolence caused Gage's behavioral changes. Harlow may have believed that the "Organ of Comparison" was damaged as well.

OK, so when you say, "Most of the examples we're talking about aren't being tailored to be running alongside prose, so there's no need to really play with the size", you're saying that images that are floated next to prose usually shouldn't have their sizes adjusted? If that's what you're saying, I don't see why.

At right I've shown two images at upright=1. Wouldn't you agree that one should be much smaller, and the other at least somewhat larger? EEng 06:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

There are reasons to play with prose-running image sizes, I agree there. The Phrenology is a good case because the text on the image is specifically the subject of discussion so it does need to be legible, so adjustment via relative widths and/or upright is fine (ideally a method respecting the user's thumbnail size selection). I'm not sure on shrinking the image too small, however, as then you could be pressing even a short phrase caption into a tight vertical configuration. Upright=0.4 is rather small already and I'm using the default thumb size.

What we should be careful about doing is trying to play with image sizes to make the page "look good". Images have to be legible, yes, and images that are more portrait than landscape do not need to be presented at the same width as regular landscape images. But I would argue that unless you have a good reason to change the display size, it should be left alone, letting the software manage them in a smart way. While we should aim to make the layout visually interesting for articles, and making sure the images presented are useful, we should not be trying to make a visually impressive layout as there are far too many device combinations to try to work towards. Various browsers, and the Mediawiki software is smart enough to make appropriate decisions on how to scale images, so we shouldn't try to second guess that unless we have a good reason to (like legibility). --MASEM (t) 16:32, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm still puzzled by what you're saying. "unless you have a good reason to change the display size, it should be left alone, letting the software manage them in a smart way... Various browsers, and the Mediawiki software is smart enough to make appropriate decisions on how to scale images" -- huh? In what way does "software manage" the images or their size? How do browsers and Mediawiki "make appropriate decisions on how to scale images"? What are you talking about? Images are displayed at the user-selected width, possibly modified by upright; if there's no upright then they're all the same, all the one user-selected width, perdiod. What's all this "software management" you're talking about??? EEng 16:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

From what I thought I have read on the MediaWiki software and just spot-checked, that it does alter image sizes when it knows it is browser on a mobile device or using the mobile web page version so that images will fit more comfortably into the smaller screen, potentially overriding any user preference that may have been set. If anything, this is more a reason to stay to upright and relative width sizes, which stay respected by these adjustments, and those I'm not arguing against. I am arguing that we should be excessively playing with image sizes for simple look/aesthetics reasons as that is something out of our control. --MASEM (t) 17:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

As someone who is very prone to whoopsies herself, I assume you meant to write "we should not be excessively playing with image sizes for simple look/aesthetics reasons as that is something out of our control", yes? BushelCandle (talk) 21:37, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

My apologies -- it never occurred to me you were talking about mobile. And I agree we shouldn't be excessively playing with image sizes, but what constitutes "excess" may be a tricky question. As the ancient Greeks proverb goes, "Practice moderation, but not to excess!"

Very strong objections to this (again). Hardly anyone uses the "upright" parameter, and it is too late to change that. We should be encouraging people to set their own parameters, which most don't, which interacts bizarrely with the "upright" lot. There aren't enough people left in this discussion to create a convincing consensus either. Johnbod (talk) 08:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

!voting on 2A/2B

• Support in broad principle. BushelCandle (talk) 20:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Wait... what is it you're supporting in broad principle? EEng 21:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

From this edit [1] I gather you're supporting 2A. EEng 21:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Re the editsum in that edit, WP:BOLD doesn't mean implement content that is currently under discussion, clearly contested, and lacking consensus. I call foul, and I object to it as written because it so clearly demonstrates the magazine mind-set. It doesn't even consider the possibility of clicking thru. But I'll leave it with you guys, good luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I think you're right to call foul, and I expected to be instantly reverted again. However, I genuinely think that the version is 7 steps forward (and, perhaps, 2 steps backwards). Surely you can build on that version though, and tweak it to add the whole reason they're called 'thumbnails' and also tweak the wording to provide powerful ammunition against those edit warriors who might otherwise regard it as a licence to have images sized extraordinarily? BushelCandle (talk) 02:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

While I decided to !vote Yes in the RfC (hey it's only one !vote among many), I've experienced a minor crisis of confidence here, and I'm no longer feeling confident enough to go any deeper into this. First, it occurs to me that the "thumbnail" term and concept could be holdovers, historical artifacts, from 14 years ago and before. This could go to the word "anachronism" used in recent discussion. Further, I lack any experience in important areas such as mobile. I'm not jumping the fence, but I'm far closer to it and I would prefer to abstain from this point. I'm good at writing, but it looks like there's enough talent in that area already present. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:19, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support in that I think this is an improvement. It's less ambiguous and addresses the most common misinterpretations of the size guidelines. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support the recent bold changes, which I think are a significant improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support (obviously). EEng 01:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Attention, esteemed fellow editors! I've made some changes here [2] -- mostly slight, but some to emphasize the dangers of too-large images. I guess we could call this 2B (or not). EEng 05:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Still doesn't alleviate my concern. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose, per my comment in the #Discussion of "sizing discouragement" section below. That is where my "oppose" vote is. Look there for other votes or almost-votes. Someone (I'm guessing it was EEng before I look to see who) unnecessarily split material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Hardly anyone uses the "upright" parameter, and it is too late to change that. We should be encouraging people to set their own parameters, which most don't, which interacts bizarrely with the "upright" lot. There aren't enough people left in this discussion to create a convincing consensus either. Johnbod (talk) 08:21, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose whatever this is about, as it's no longer clear. Not sure what Johnbod means about no one using the upright parameter, because it's used all the time. Please stop making bold changes to the guideline. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:08, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Isn't the upright= thing kind of a hack? I mean, it's a parameter that defaults to shrinking the image down to, what is it, 70% of the default? It's a bit odd to advocate for what's basically hacking the code. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:12, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden, If you code |upright alone, it's the same as |upright0.75, which is a stupid, confusing "feature" having to do with its original use with portait-aspect (i.e. "upright") images. But no one does that in real life, and it has nothing to do with its usefulness for resizing images in general.

Upright's superiority over fixed-width sizing e.g. 275px is that upright enlarges or shrinks relative to the user's preference-set "base" width. As someone pointed out, 275px is presumably intended to enlarge the image, but if the user has set his base width to (say) 300px because of bad eyesight, then 275px will actually make it smaller for that user. If you code, instead, upright=1.25, then every user gets this image 25% than his "regular" images. EEng 02:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

That may be, but it's still a hack. The solution is probably a MediaWiki code issue: Get a property similar to upright added without the bizarre default, and it'd be far more supportable, because while you're using something otherwise than it was intended, there's always a chance of "improvements" breaking your usage completely. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 06:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

You don't seem to be clear on what hack really means in this context.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support in broad principle. If wording needs to be tweaked "just so" later, it can be, but continuing to squabble over minor details is dragging this out. The fact that upright isn't used much is because we're not advising that it be used and telling people how to do it. The cause–effect argument on that point above is backwards. The "it's a hack" argument is also invalid, for reasons others have already explained. Even if it were true, the fact that a problem might happen some day is insufficient to derail dealing with a real one now. The MW develoepers are actually pretty careful about not breaking things, so the concern is overblown. And again, it's not a hack. A parameter that takes a whole or fractional integer value (regardless what its default is) isn't in "hack mode" when you use it one way and "normal" mode in an other. Software doesn't work that way; it operates on whatever values it was engineered to support. And we have a policy to comply with here. Something has to be done; this is the best proposal so far; if it's not perfect, it will be fixed later.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:19, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of "sizing discouragement"

• Comment: How does this or this current wording prevent the type of image disaster I mentioned before? I don't see that this new wording will help in that regard. What I see is that when an editor blows an image up to an unreasonable size, I and/or others will no longer be able to point to this image guideline and state that such blowing up shouldn't be done. The "As a general rule" and "In most cases, the default image size should be used" type of wordings helped for quite sometime in keeping unreasonable image size under control. So I still support generally advising against making an image bigger than Wikipedia's default image size, and oppose the removal of that aspect. And since, in that discussion, Masem agreed with me reverting back to the longstanding wording, I have to ask his opinion on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  • The image disaster you list is sized absolutely rather than relatively, above the recommended 400px maximum, and interacts badly with two-column mode; it would probably not be characterizable as a disaster when set alongside normally flowed text (especially in the default right-side position). And it's a good example of an image for which larger-than-default sizing is helpful, in that the people in the image are so small as to be unrecognizable at the default size. In short, if you are trying to set a precedent of "no big images, ever", you picked a poor hill to stand on. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with having images that size to view the actors, especially when the actors are identifiable by the wikilinks in the caption and/or by a person clicking on the image. There are very few cases where I would agree that a Wikipedia image should be that size. And we don't use that size in the cast sections of our film articles; anyone is free to ask at WP:Film if they have doubts about that. I'm with Mandruss that "Wikipedia articles are not magazine articles, where the image you see is all you can get. We call them 'thumbnails', and I consider them exactly that: graphical links to images that happen to be miniature copies of the target images. In many cases, the thumbnail is large enough and there is no need to click-thru, but that should not be a goal in my opinion. [...]. If the reader wants to see the detail (and many do not), they should find their left mouse button and press it." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:28, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

And, Masem, thanks for weighing in. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:34, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You and Mandruss have a very parochial view of how to read Wikipedia. Left mouse button? What's that? The computer I'm using this on has no mouse (one clicks on the trackpad), and has no concept of left and right for its clicks. And I'm sure there are still people reading articles in hardcopy, for which finding some way to convince the viewer to show a larger image isn't even possible. An image should be sized to be informative, not to get out of the way. If you want tiny tiny thumbnails, set a smaller default, don't force your preferences on all readers. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that we're trying to balance 100s of possible computer/monitor/aspect ratio/layout preferences in addition to the issues with non-free if the images all fall into that. There is no "one size fits all" solution, particularly when we know most visitors to wikipedia are not registered users and thus using our selected default. For that reason, anything that sets a fixed size can be potentially harmful to these unknown configurations, while non-sized, percent-width, or upright= set images work across all platforms even if this means the image might be smaller for a specific configuration. While we provide WP for offline reading, it is by design an online encyclopedia so features that offline readers can't use, we're not to ignore the usefulness of those features (such as links that can be followed to larger images). We're not going to be able to readily satisfy every possible situation, and there's always IAR for unique cases, but we are looking to best serve the greatest common denominator here. --MASEM (t) 06:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I completely agree with all that. What I'm complaining about is the Procrustian attitude (not from you) that we cannot allow any positively-worded description of ways to resize images because all images must be exactly the same size, and that the only way to see an image at an informative size is to go view it on a separate page, separated from its context. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I find your reasoning impossible to follow. The only thing more one-size-fits-all than 220px (sometimes modified by upright) is 220px (period, never modified). I think we're all agreed that absolute px sizing is almost always a bad idea, and the text says so. Can you take a look at the examples at right and give your thoughts to my question about them (above [3])? EEng 06:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

No, not a very parochial view of how to read Wikipedia; just a more practical view when it comes to unnecessarily increasing image size or adding huge images in ways that are detrimental to an article. The new wording makes those of us who have to deal with such bad image formatting unable to sufficiently combat such bad image formatting. Like I stated above, "The 'As a general rule' and 'In most cases, the default image size should be used' type of wordings helped for quite sometime in keeping unreasonable image size under control." I can only see this new wording undermining that. So as you probably guessed, I feel that this needs a WP:RfC, given that the previous wording has been standard for so long and that I know many editors who still cite it. For example, there are surely some editors at the WP:GA or WP:FA pages who would be interested in weighing in on this matter. As for the mouse aspect Mandruss mentioned, it clearly should not be taken as literally as you took it. Yes, I know, I know, you were making a point about the existence of different ways to view Wikipedia. But I don't have a mouse either (I have a touchpad), and that doesn't stop me from clicking on the image if I want a better view of it. It seems that you and others are trying to appeal to all readers; that's not always possible, and Wikipedia commonly gives priority to the majority rather than the minority. For the minority, it commonly has alternative options. You argue, "If you want tiny tiny thumbnails, set a smaller default, don't force your preferences on all readers.", but similar has been stated about our editors who do not want to view offensive images; we have them view them anyway, and only let them know after the fact that they can change their image settings so that they don't see the offensive images. Those editors feel that the offensive images are forced on them. I'm not stating that I prefer tiny images; like Mandruss noted, "In many cases, the thumbnail is large enough and there is no need to click-thru." I'm stating that there usually is not a good reason to bypass that default size or to have a huge image in the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to discuss your reference to "those of us who have to deal with such bad image formatting". You don't have to deal with the image formatting of images project-wide, nor it is clear that this actually is "bad image formatting". The normal Wikipedia approach would be to leave these questions to the editors working on each article. When do we diverge from that approach and make a rule in MOS?

Well, it's long been an axiom of mine that something should be added to MOS when editor time has, and continues to be, spent litigating the same issue over and over on numerous articles, either

• (a) with generally the same result (so we might as well just memorialize that result, and save all the future arguing), or
• (b) with different results in different cases, but with reason to believe the differences are arbitrary, and not worth all the arguing -- a final decision on one arbitrary choice, though an intrusion on the general principle that decisions on each article should be made on the Talk page of that article, is worth making in light of the large amount of editor time saved.

Please supply some evidence that either or both of those conditions applies to image sizing. Otherwise, your talk of being "unable to sufficiently combat such bad image formatting" sounds more like you're "unable to convince editors working on various articles that my opinions about image sizing are the right ones", and you want something in MOS that favors your opinion. EEng 08:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

EEng, could you not cut in between discussion like this? Doing so makes for confused and disorganized reading. I disagree with your entire "08:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)" post, and I've been clear about why. The "As a general rule" wording worked fine for this guideline, just like it works fine for the WP:Lead guideline despite editors who continue to try to get that guideline changed in the same disorganized fashion that you have changed this one. I'm not going to point to more examples like the aforementioned one since you apparently don't see that image size as a problem for a cast section. Unnecessary, bloated images are problems, including when it comes to WP:SANDWICHING matters. I'm not stating any of this out of personal preference; I'm stating it because I have seen it be an issue for years (keep in mind that I have been with this site since 2007), with many editors fighting over image size. Once we point editors to the "As a general rule" wording, the dispute usually settles down. Well, no more, since you and BushelCandle took it upon yourselves to change a longstanding guideline that worked well the way it was. Certain editors here simply don't like rules and don't know how to adhere to them. They have a "rules are meant to be broken" attitude, or they evoke WP:Ignore all rules for everything. They want our guidelines and even our policies to be loose with everything so that they can do what they want; I'm the exact opposite of that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm specifically addressing this particular one of your posts, so this is the right place, and the indenting makes it clear there's a branch in the thread. Other than that, I'll just note that you've done nothing that claim there's a "longstanding problem", without giving any evidence (I too have need here since 2007, BTW.) What you call editors fighting over image size (in bold, for some reason) may very well just be editors discussing image size and (I'm guessing) not always coming to the conclusion you prefer. Thus your desire for a rule that supports your preference.

As for "Certain editors here simply don't like rules and don't know how to adhere to them", here are two of my favorite wikiquotes:

The flip side of "ownership" is the problem of editors who come to an article with a particular agenda, make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions of what should be, and then flit off to their next victim, without ever considering whether the page really needed the change they made, or whether the change improved the article at all ... Their editing is an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all proposition, premised on the idea that what improves one article, or one type of article, will automatically improve every other article or type of article ... Wikipedians should worry more about those who hit-and-run, and less about those who feel stewardship towards the articles they work so hard on. -- Beyond My Ken

One area the hit and run editor gets involved in is the formatting ... The quality of work has increased in some areas, which makes it harder to contribute without good knowledge in the subject matter and sources. Fiddling with the formatting seems to be a suitable alternative passtime. -- Ritchie333

EEng 05:12, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

You didn't have to cut ahead of David Eppstein's post to reply to me. And the indenting aspect does not help much, especially when one knows that Wikipedia editors have different ideas about indenting and commonly do not pay attention to the time stamps unless it's to see whose name is beside the post. As for your assumption that "What [I] call editors fighting over image size (in bold, for some reason) may very well just be editors discussing image size and ([you're] guessing) not always coming to the conclusion [I] prefer. Thus [my] desire for a rule that supports [my] preference.", you are wrong. It was fighting. And, yes, I've seen Beyond My Ken fighting over image size as well. I haven't been involved in many image size disputes. I have occasionally reverted unreasonable or unneeded image sizes (always the ones that increase image size from the 220px default since decreasing image size away from that default is usually not what editors argue over), and I have pointed them to the "As a general rule" aspect of the guideline that is currently not there. I meant exactly what I relayed above: "I'm not stating any of this out of personal preference; I'm stating it because I have seen it be an issue for years (keep in mind that I have been with this site since 2007), with many editors fighting over image size. Once we point editors to the 'As a general rule' wording, the dispute usually settles down." You are obviously free to doubt that, but the doubt is misplaced. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:37, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Third request for you to provide even a few diffs, without which doubt trumps unsupported assertion. EEng 07:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

What I've stated is common knowledge, and that includes Beyond My Ken's disputes over image sizes. Either way, refer to where I relayed above, "I'm not going to point to more examples like the aforementioned one since you apparently don't see that image size as a problem for a cast section. Unnecessary, bloated images are problems, including when it comes to WP:SANDWICHING matters." It is clear to me that nothing I state on this matter, with or without diffs, is going to change your mind or contribute to you truly understanding my viewpoint; so I will not be digging through edit histories to provide any such diffs of image disputes, especially since such image disputes are common knowledge. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

<rolls eyes>No one disputes that "unnecessary, bloated images are problems" -- the dispute is whether a rule is needed to address that problem, versus just letting editors work it out like any other content issue.

Anyway, it's not me you need make understand, but everyone else, and the diffs I request would serve that goal well. If such disputes are really so common, and their outcome so universally in your favor, it would be easy to supply two or three examples. From your lame excuses I conclude you just make shit up.

Worth noting, too, are your repeated statements to the effect that you are frequently unable to prevail on these questions until you point to this MOS provision you so mourn. What that means is that your arguments are unconvincing, not just to me but to many others as well. EEng 08:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

We clearly see things differently. And I couldn't care less that you roll your eyes; it speaks volumes about your maturity level, your inability to discuss matters without resorting to snide remarks or gestures and somehow expecting others not to do the same. Your changes to our guidelines and policies are often disputed for valid reasons, but you always think you are right and barely ever listen to others. You make changes to our guidelines and policies without consensus, as you did in this other case to this very guideline, when the statements at the very top of these pages are clear that significant changes to them should have consensus. And you think I am supposed to indulge you further? Not a chance. You stating that it's "[w]orth noting, too, are your repeated statements to the effect that you are frequently unable to prevail on these questions until you point to this MOS provision you so mourn. What that means is that your arguments are unconvincing, not just to me but to many others as well." proves that you don't listen and that you are beyond presumptuous. Sorry, but you can't bait me as easily as you bait others. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

My experience is the opposite: very very often, article layouts look bad when all images are forced to be the same size as each other. It is more natural, gives a less mechanical appearance, and is just plain more readable and informative to size images so that, for instance, text (in scientific diagrams) is readable, so that the image is wide enough to allow its caption to be fewer than 10 lines long, so that tall images are thinner than the default, etc. I do not think the MOS should dictate that all images be the same size and I think your insistance that it should is a violation of WP:CREEP. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Amen, and might I humbly suggest that the images I've added at right illustrate this very well. EEng 06:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Another example that I recently had promoted to Good Article: binary logarithm. Two images are smaller than default (and would overwhelm the article if forced to become larger), three are larger (and their text would become illegible if forced to be smaller), and one is the default size. I think that this sort of thing is much more common, at least in the articles I edit, than articles where the default size is a good fit for all images. The GA reviewer didn't catch the absolute rather than relative image sizing but I have since fixed that. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

There was no WP:CREEP aspect in my comment by arguing for the longstanding wording. And even if there had been, there would be no violation since WP:CREEP is an essay, despite the efforts of some editors to elevate it to a guideline. I will now alert the WP:GA and WP:FA pages, and some other pages, to this discussion. And I might throw a WP:RfC tag on this discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

And, for the record, the "As a general rule" wording gave editors enough leeway to change the image size if needed, just like the "As a general rule" wording at WP:Lead gives editors enough leeway to have the lead exceed four paragraphs if needed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Can I make a suggestion, Flyer22? Since, as someone said, the new text is magnificently superior to the old, with the possible exception of how much discouragement there should be on size adjustments, can you propose what text you'd like to see changed or inserted? Perhaps we can arrive at something we can all agree on, and even if not, a useful RfC outcome is way more likely if both "sides" have worked together to frame the question(s) the RfC presents to the community. EEng 07:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Your dogmatism is showing again. WP:LEADLENGTH does not say leads should be four paragraphs, even as a general rule; rather, it suggests reasonable guidelines for matching numbers of paragraphs to article lengths. We should do the same in matching image sizes to their contexts. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

David Eppstein, perhaps you missed where WP:Lead states right in the introduction, "As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate." And perhaps you missed where WP:LEADLENGTH states, "As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs." Both of those are indeed "as a general rule" wordings, and are not at odds with me stating, "just like the 'As a general rule' wording at WP:Lead gives editors enough leeway to have the lead exceed four paragraphs if needed." Nothing to do with any dogmatism you perceive on my part.

For the record here on this talk page, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this are the pages I alerted to this discussion. That should be enough for outside input. If it's not, a WP:RfC tag is next. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Flyer22, I really wish you'd taken to heart my suggestion that we first define the issue among ourselves before calling in more editors. What you've now done is post to several project-space talk pages (e.g. [4]) a notice which reads, in part:

The discussion concerns whether or not we should keep the following wording: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding."

This makes no sense, because it talks about "fixed" sizes, and there's no issue there -- the text already strongly discourages all fixed sizes. What you've done is guaranteed to cause confusion now. I'm asking you -- again -- to propose text you'd like to see added or changed in the text as it stands, so we can discuss it first and perhaps come to agreement. And if not, then at least we'll have a clear question to pose to others, not a fractured one like you have now. The text you've posted all over the place wouldn't even make sense added to the current text -- there's no sensible place to add it. EEng 07:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I've been clear that I support the "As a general rule" wording that you helped change. There is no need for me to propose wording when that is the wording I support. That wording is the wording that is in dispute, since the beginning of this discussion. It is the wording that was replaced. So I fail to see how the note I left about it "guarantee[s] to cause confusion now." The way this discussion is set up is what is apparently confusing editors (per below). The current text in the guideline should be reverted to the WP:STATUSQUO. It is obviously disputed.

On a side note: Pinging my former username does not work; I do not need to be pinged to this discussion anyway. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose all attempts to enforce image size parameters. This RfC has gotten so long and unwieldy I have no idea where to post this. I do not accept a "one-size-fits-all" set image size for Wikipedia images. To me that is irrational. Appropriate image size can and should vary based on the image itself, the caption (and its length, and whether it fits felicitously or has unsightly widows), the size of the images or other boxes/structures (like infoboxes) above or below the image, the size and amount of text adjacent to the image, the relative importance of the image, the number of other images in the article/section, and so forth. Softlavender (talk) 11:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose, per Softlavender. I oppose a central one-size-fits-all policy. Leave it up to editors on the page. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

We should probably take that up at the actual policy then. This is a guideline trying to help the editorship comply practically with the policy. It may well be that what emerges works out fine in practice, but there seem to be concerns here that the policy wording is outdated.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:28, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should the guideline maintain the "As a general rule" wording or something similar?

The following wording used to be in the guideline: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding." The guideline currently looks like this. Above on the guideline talk page, there is concern that the "As a general rule" wording is limited, and that we shouldn't assume that all readers keep their default size set at 220px; assuming such can lead people to use improper image settings. There is also concern that there are few cases where an image needs to be above the 220px setting, and that the 220px rule has kept unreasonable image sizes at bay and settled disputes over image size for years. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, or something similar. Like I argued above, I don't agree that we commonly need bigger images, and unreasonable bloated image size can be detrimental to articles, including with regard to WP:SANDWICHING issues. The 220px default usually suffices. This rule has also helped settle fights over image size. Mandruss stated, "Wikipedia articles are not magazine articles, where the image you see is all you can get. We call them 'thumbnails', and I consider them exactly that: graphical links to images that happen to be miniature copies of the target images. In many cases, the thumbnail is large enough and there is no need to click-thru, but that should not be a goal in my opinion. [...]. If the reader wants to see the detail (and many do not), they should find their left mouse button and press it." I agree with that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC) To me, this rule is similar to the WP:Lead "As a general rule" guideline about generally not exceeding four paragraphs in the lead unless needed, which has worked fine for years. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, but maybe not as strongly worded. I think it's important that we discourage changing the image size from the default, but also make an allowance for the many situations where it is actually warranted. Kaldari (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• No. The wording that disallows image sizing over 1.8 times the default is sufficient; it is false in practice and also a bad idea to force most images to be exactly the default size. The discussion above provides many good examples of images that should not be the default size, and I don't want guideline wording that encourages wikignomes to go around "fixing" non-default image sizes or imposing strict size requirements as a condition for passing GA or DYK. I would also note that this whole RfC completely misses one of the main points of the recent discussion and bold changes to this part of the MOS, which was primarily about changing from wording that was neutral about using absolute (pixel-based) vs relative (upright parameter) image sizing to wording that instead strongly discouraged absolute sizing. I am very much in favor of that change and would not want to see it lost in wankery over how strictly we should adhere to one-size-fits-all image sizing. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Yes - The issue arises largely from the different ways our minds are wired. Some of us are engineers, others artists. The same differences exist for readers, too, by the way. I'm the engineer type, but I believe this !vote gives the best balance. Agree with Eppstein as to fixed sizing, disagree as to wankery. User Eeng is on the other side of the issue. If they are an Electrical engineer, as I've always assumed, they are an unusual one in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:57, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Since you seem to think engineers are mindless robots blindly applying rigid rules, I'll take what you say as a compliment. (I don't think most engineers are like that, BTW – at least not good ones. And David Eppstein's a computer scientist himself, so maybe you've drawn the technical-nontechnical battles lines incorrectly.) EEng 04:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• No per David Eppstein gives, plus it's redundant to the text already in place, which reads:

Where absolutely necessary, a fixed width in pixels may be specified. This should be done only where absolutely necessary because it ignores the user's base width preference. The resulting image should usually be no more than 400px wide...

Give the "only where absolutely necessary" injunction, there should be very few instances of fixed sizing anyway. And in those cases, I trust my esteemed fellow editors to choose that size with wisdom and discretion, taking into account whatever unusual needs led to fixed sizing being "absolutely necessary" in the first place. Extra verbiage just to further discourage the 220-to-400–pixel case seems overanxious. EEng 04:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, or something similar, but with weaker wording dropping "absolutely necessary", and no pushing the "upright" parameters. Lead images should be exempted - imo 300px should be normal for these in most articles. I still think images fixed too small are a more common problem than images fixed too large, but few seem to share that view. Johnbod (talk) 08:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Yes – Having read the above discussion, there are good points made from both sides. It is clear that some revamp of this section's wording is needed. However, I do not agree with the updated version, mostly because it lacks conciseness by being overly complex and long-winded. The purpose of this section should be to inform editors of the default 220px user preference, the parameters available for making manual adjustments, and advice that such parameters are not typically needed except in special circumstances (listing a few examples to illustrate). The longstanding wording seemed to arrive at the point in clearer fashion. I think more discussion is needed on the proposed changes. --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. Image sizes are often the subject of dispute because certain editors want to impose very small images on articles they otherwise have no involvement in. For that reason, I think we should not make changes to this section unless there is clear consensus, and I hope we don't add anything that will make life difficult for editors who like to use larger image sizes, particularly in articles about art. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:00, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, one could argue that the section was already changed without clear consensus (diff). Nothing wrong with being bold, until it becomes obvious that consensus is in doubt. I don't suppose that changes your stance on the matter? --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

GoneIn60, it's hard to see what the consensus version was. I reverted to the version before the diff you cited, but was reverted. Changes pushed through without consensus are likely to be ignored or constantly disputed, so there's actually no point in doing this. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:51, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Probably not It kind of steamrollers over all the obvious exceptions. To name one that hasn't been mentioned: Infoboxes can sometimes, due to text or formatting, default to fairly wide boxes. A default-sized image can look terrible in those as it's far narrower than the space provided. I could support a statement that the default shouldn't be changed without reason to do so. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:18, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose; as noted above, it's redundant with the extant text. One size does not fit all, and "where absolutely necessary" his hyperbolic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion section

Flyer22 Reborn, let me ask you... Based on #RfC: Should the guideline maintain the "As a general rule" wording or something similar?, it seems like your concern about the current wording [5] is the loss of this text:

As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding.

How would you feel about incorporating it this way [6]? EEng 04:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that. Keeping this bit (the "In most cases" sentence) is also my concern. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:39, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Re the "images should not be set to a size larger" (above), I'm glad we were able to resolve your concern. You could have saved all the reverting and yelling and ANIing and RFPPing and RfCing if you'd just edited that little piece back in yourself, as I did just now, instead of reverting 200 lines of change because you don't like one line.
• Your second point is re the change (see your link above) from

In most cases, images should be right justified on pages, which is the default placement. If an exception to the general rule is warranted [etc etc] [Note: bolding added for ease of locating the two options]

to

By default, images appear against the right margin. If an exception is warranted, [etc etc]

Since this is the only concern you've expressed on that diff, I've reinstalled its other changes [7]. (And if there's something else you decide you don't like, please just edit it in place, or raise a concern here if you prefer, but don't don't mass-revert everything unless the whole edit is hopeless.)

However, I would propose that the new text above is more appropriate. Why should it be the "general rule" that images "should" be on the right "in most cases"? In practice almost all articles have all images on the right anyway, because of the default, but if editors of a given article want some, most, or all images on the left, for whatever reason, why should that be an "exception" which must be "warranted"? What's the big deal? Why does MOS care? Is, or was, there some plague of left-justified images that must be stopped before it leads to immorality, social collapse and worldwide famine?

The "should be right justified" language was inserted here [8], after the following not-very-exciting talkpage disucssion [9]

On the project page it is stated "As an example in its simplest form..." followed by example image markup that includes |right, despite that right hand placement is a default parameter ... Is this possibly an artifact from a time when images did not automatically default to the right, or am I missing something?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have made the change to the page reflecting that right it is the default, highlighting that right placement is preferred in most places, and describing how to override.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems like "right side is the default" became "right side is preferred" as someone's afterthought. Unless someone can explain why the right side is preferred, and left placement must be a "warranted exception", I think we should just say

By default, images appear against the right margin. To place them on the left margin [etc etc] [Note: bolding added for ease of locating the two options]

Thoughts?

EEng

I was clear at WP:ANI about why I objected to your and BushelCandle's edits. It's not just about me objecting to those two aspects; it's about the fact that you two are steadily changing a guideline with longstanding rules that have worked well for years, and you are doing this without WP:Consensus. I object to all such edits, really. It was also made clear in that WP:ANI thread that others feel the same way about making changes to a guideline. To you, there is no consensus version in this case, but there has been for years. While I am aware that WP:Consensus can change, there is no consensus at all for the new wording. The WP:STATUSQUO essay exists for things like this. WP:Consensus is a policy people too often ignore. And even during the aforementioned RfC, you and BushelCandle are making changes. You two have made changes that have been disputed times before; the guideline has been the way it has been for sometime because what it stated before edits by you two has been shown to work well for years. Significant changes to Wikipedia guidelines or policies often significantly impact Wikipedia. And I'm not convinced that all these latest changes are for the best. The WP:RfC is clearly needed, as others feel similarly. On a side note, would you mind moving this discussion to the RfC Discussion section since that is where the latest discussion is, and since this section you've made addresses the RfC aspect?

As for your "right-justified" arguments, how are right-justified images not the best position for images in Wikipedia articles, especially for lead images? How is putting images on the left beneficial, other than the occasional "I want to alternate images" aspect some editors indulge in. That "I want to alternate images" aspect commonly results in WP:SANDWICHING issues, not just at the hands of newbies but also at the hands of our experienced editors; some of our experienced editors are not even aware of the WP:SANDWICHING guideline. You could argue that Wikipedia is simply used to right-justified images, just like society is used to right hand-justified materials since most people are right-handed, but placing images on the left sometimes seems to create awkward-looking text, especially with regard to a small section and how that aligns with a heading, whereas I haven't seen the same for right-justified images. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The exact guideline that you just linked to gives one of the possible reasons for left-aligned images: "It is often preferable to place images of people so that they "look" toward the text. (Do not achieve this by reversing the image, which creates a false presentation e.g. by reversing the location of scars or other features.)". As for the rest of your arguments, you appear to be attempting an appeal to tradition, a logical fallacy. I think the discussion here makes clear that there is not currently a consensus for forbidding larger-than-default images, nor for forbidding left-side images, however much you might like there to be one. And EEng has already demolished the argument that the consensus once existed in the case of left-facing images, by looking at the actual discussion when that change was made. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:16, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

David Eppstein, for "left-facing" images, you mean of course "left-justified" images. EEng 04:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Er, yeah, the other left. I often have difficulty telling left from right without looking at my hands to see which one has a ring. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Your "appeal to tradition" argument is incorrect. Our definitions of consensus differ as well. If my appeal is anything, it's "If ain't broke, don't fix it." You, and others with your viewpoint, have failed to convince some of us that the longstanding rules are broken or need improvement. Those rules have been proven to work and be significantly beneficial for years. The proposals are just that -- proposals. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

In fact, the WP:SANDWICHING guideline mentions one of the issues I've seen with left-aligned images: "In a few web browsers, bulleted lists overlap with left-aligned images. It may be preferable to avoid placing a left-aligned image near lists." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a good reason for not placing left-aligned images near bulleted lists. It's a very bad reason for instituting a more general ban on such alignment. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:17, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not an argument for "instituting a more general ban on such alignment." You and EEng seem to take "As a general rule" or "In most cases" type of wording as some type of "you can't do things that way" rule. It's not, just like it's not with regard to WP:Lead. It's guidance on best practice, and that exceptions to the standard may be justified. This a guideline, not a policy. Guidelines have more leeway, and people should forgo the general rule when it is validly warranted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

As a general rule, guidelines of the form "as a general rule" are used as cudgels by editors to enforce the rules much more strictly than that wording would imply (e.g. by preventing passage of an article through GA until the rule is obeyed). And in fact you yourself have stated that you want this rule to be in place as a way to persuade other editors to fall in line with your preference for small images. So we should be very careful about including such wording, and only make such rules when the exceptions are indeed rare. In this case, I may be biased by mostly editing mathematical articles where the images are usually diagrams needing larger-than-default size to be legible, but I think the exceptions are not rare. And if you look at the discussion on whether we should keep the guidance to avoid larger-than-default images even "as a general rule", it seems clear to me that opinion is sufficiently divided (at least so far) that there is no consensus on any such general rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Nowhere did I state or imply that I want "this rule to be in place as a way to persuade other editors to fall in line with [my] preference for small images." I stated, "The new wording makes those of us who have to deal with such bad image formatting unable to sufficiently combat such bad image formatting. [...] The 'As a general rule' and 'In most cases, the default image size should be used' type of wordings helped for quite sometime in keeping unreasonable image size under control. [...] It seems that you and others are trying to appeal to all readers; that's not always possible, and Wikipedia commonly gives priority to the majority rather than the minority. For the minority, it commonly has alternative options. [...] I'm not stating that I prefer tiny images; like Mandruss noted, 'In many cases, the thumbnail is large enough and there is no need to click-thru.' I'm stating that there usually is not a good reason to bypass that default size or to have a huge image in the article. [...] The 'As a general rule' wording worked fine for this guideline, just like it works fine for the WP:Lead guideline despite editors who continue to try to get that guideline changed in the same disorganized fashion that you have changed this one. [...] I'm not stating any of this out of personal preference; I'm stating it because I have seen it be an issue for years (keep in mind that I have been with this site since 2007), with many editors fighting over image size. Once we point editors to the 'As a general rule' wording, the dispute usually settles down. [...] Certain editors here simply don't like rules and don't know how to adhere to them. They have a 'rules are meant to be broken' attitude, or they evoke WP:Ignore all rules for everything. They want our guidelines and even our policies to be loose with everything so that they can do what they want; I'm the exact opposite of that."

That is what I stated. I am not as strict with guidelines as you make me out to be, and that is clear by my recent comments on different guideline matters. Curly Turkey stated above, "Fixed image sizes should be avoided in general, but there are cases where they're appropriate, such as in tables. Exceptions should be exceptional, though, and I think they are covered by the 'as a general rule' wording—so [...]." I and others have echoed that sentiment. I have no problem at all forgoing a general rule when the forgoing is warranted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:55, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Note: I moved the "Resuming discussion" section here per what I stated above about its location. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• For the nth time, my edits are meant to improve the presentation without changing the meaning. Such an effort doesn't require excruciating prior discussion of where to indent and where to place bulletpoints. Such changes are almost impossible to discuss -- you just make a change so others can see what you mean, in loco.
• If, here or there, there's an inadvertent change of meaning, or you feel an earlier turn of the phrase should be retained, you can just undo or fix that edit.
• I do such editing in very small quanta, so it's easy to see that presentation, not substance, is being changed at each step -- each of which can be easily undone if needed. (In the case of the #Size section, material was imported from WP:Image use policy, so what you seem to think is new is actually just conformance to that policy.)
• You say,
  • "You, and others with your viewpoint, have failed to convince some of us that the longstanding rules are broken or need improvement." For the n+1th time, I'm not proposing changing the rules, just improved presentation.

• "The WP:RfC is clearly needed". No, it was completely unnecessary. If you had simply edited in your desired change, I doubt anyone would have objected. In the end I just did it for you (and would have done so sooner, except your objection was so vague I couldn't see where to insert the text).
• "And even during the aforementioned RfC, you and BushelCandle are making changes." Everyone doesn't have to stop because you've objected to one tiny bit of a large set of changes.
• "I'm not convinced that all these latest changes are for the best." I'm sure you're right: undoubtedly they're not all for the best, because I'm fallible. So undo/fix the ones that aren't for the best.

As to left-right (where I am suggesting an actual change) you ask, "how are right-justified images not the best position for images in Wikipedia articles, especially for lead images? How is putting images on the left beneficial"? I don't know, but I trust editors of individual articles to decide that for themselves. (I agree lead images should be on the right, like infoboxes are -- I'm certain some guideline somewhere says so.) As seen above, the idea that "most" images should be on the right is just something someone made up one day. MOS is grotesquely bloated, and if we don't need a rule, then we need to not have that rule.

Now I'd really like to hear what other editors think about the "most on the right issue". I've put the two options in bold above. EEng 04:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Whatever you meant, I mostly disagree with you. You don't just change presentation; you change the meaning in some cases as well. Otherwise, there would not be as much debate regarding your changes now; the debate clearly has not solely come from me. And my objecting to your changes is not just a matter of me objecting to those two aforementioned aspects; I already stated that. There is no need for us to keep repeating ourselves. Getting outside input is good in cases like this, and that's what I've done with the first RfC; from what I can see, it is absolutely needed. And I'll perhaps start one on the right-adjusted matter as well. The dispute regarding the "As a general rule" aspect should be resolved first, since it's clear by the RfC that people have different opinions on it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• For the n+5th time, if the meaning changed here or there, just WP:SOFIXIT.
• No, the debate has come solely from you. When version 2B was installed live, there were 5 supports and 4 opposes:

• you,
• someone who bizarrely claimed "no one uses upright",
• someone who (equally bizarrely) thought upright is a "hack",
• someone who said he/she couldn't even tell what we were !voting on (and expressed puzzlement at the other oppose-er's idea that no one uses upright).

You're the only person still saying, "I'm don't like it ... There are problems ... I'm opposed" -- and you've pointed only to two little phrases you dislike, both of which have been changed to suit your preference. If your only continued objections are vague I-don't-like-its, there's nothing more to discuss. Have the last word now if you wish -- I'll be busy improving the presentation of the guidelines. EEng 17:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

EEng, repeating yourself does not make you correct. As the current state of the guideline edit history shows, as the RfC shows, and as the #Should we really be encouraging a hack? discussion shows, I am not the only one stating, "I don't like it ... There are problems ... I'm opposed." And it's exactly why Ymblanter full-protected the page after my and Moxy's requests, seen here and here. Although I'm certain that the guideline needs more than three days full protection, I thank you, Ymblanter. SlimVirgin tried to return the page to the WP:STATUSQUO, with a request that we work all of this out on the talk page first, but you (EEng) and BushelCandl couldn't wait. What we had was an unstable guideline; it was being changed day in and day out on editors' whims or preferences, with absolutely no consensus. The latest changes are not simply minor changes. And I don't want to go in and make significant changes to a longstanding guideline without consensus; I want to make sure that all of the significant changes are beneficial for Wikipedia and have consensus; that is the core of my disagreement with you on this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• The RfC is only about one small phrase you disputed, and reflects not at all on the rest of the changes.
• The preference for upright has been part of WP:Image use policy since at least 2012 (the recent changes here merely reflect that) so the question "Should we really be encouraging a hack?" is a nonstarter.
• "The latest changes are not simply minor changes" -- you keep saying that, but after repeated requests you have refused to give even one example. so stop whining about process and get out of the way while others continue to improve things.

EEng 23:40, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I've yet to see a clear link to any policy that currently demands that "In most cases, images should be right justified on pages...".

Consequently unless and until ALL the users of the English Wikipedia are canvassed by a notice on every page (such as when we have fund-raising) I am vehemently opposed to such dictatorial wording that is unjustified by policy.

If this is a binary alternative, I much prefer By default, images appear against the right margin. If an exception is warranted... BushelCandle (talk) 08:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• I hope the edits over at Wikipedia:Image use policy are not related to the editwar here. -- Moxy (talk) 21:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

"Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members"

I've gone ahead and expanded this discussion to WP:RfC input, since the discussion below, this, this and the related discussion at Talk:Woman indicate that wider input is needed. My commentary below is the older commentary. The RfC concerns whether or not to expand the guideline that was formed via this discussion to cover all topics about large human populations. Some editors also wonder whether the guideline should only focus on lead images. I will alert the WP:Image use policy talk page and WP:Village pump (policy) to this discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:45, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Votes

Sandstein added the following to the page: "Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members, because selecting them is normally original research, and often contentious." It was added per the WP:Consensus formed in this discussion. But that close only concerns ethnic/"race" matters, not all topics about large human populations. This is why I stated at Talk:African Americans, "I'm not sure how the WP:Consensus from that discussion will hold up, given that we still have such galleries at the Man and Woman articles, etc., which are just as subjective, but it's the WP:Consensus for now." Sandstein's wording here at the guideline is broader than the aforementioned close. Furthermore, I don't see how the ethnic/"racial" images are normally original research; in some cases they are, but they are most often based on what WP:Reliable sources state. For example, the inclusion of Mariah Carey as African American, which resulted in a big dispute at Talk:African Americans, is based on sources; this is also made clear by this RfC at Talk:Mariah Carey.

I'll alert Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style to this matter for wider input. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

My impression from the RfC was that while the question posed was about ethnic groups, the arguments advanced were such that they applied to all large human populations (OR, contentiousness, and the question of whether a select few individuals can visually represent a large group). But if others don't see it that way, I'd have no problem with striking " or similarly large human populations" here.  Sandstein  22:02, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

A possibly useful (local) consensus was reached in this discussion at Hungarians around this issue. Basically, when individuals are specifically discussed and their relevance described, portraits complement the text. But an arbitrary gallery of individuals used simply to represent the group as a whole adds little value and invariably breeds conflict over which individuals should be included. Probably won't defuse all disputes around this issue, but this approach puts the onus on those who insist on including an image of a given person to actually develop the article to include that person's relevance. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support a broad application of this principle (i.e., Oppose removal of the guideline addition, though I'm open to some adjustments, Support removal of the infobox galleries). These "galleries of faces" are not useful and do nothing but generate strife of multiple sorts: Whether a given person qualifies, whether they're exemplary, whether a mixed-background person is having one aspect of their background overemphasized (the central issue in the Carey debate, and one that is not resolved despite suggestions above that it is), who gets to be included, whether the mix is balanced (modern and historical, arts and sciences, political and non-political, male and female, etc., etc.), how many to include, and so on. It's also lead to really excessive treatments (some of the historical versions of the article White people were pretty crazy). These infobox galleries really don't do anything useful for the reader. More often than not they simply distract, by injecting "why is that person included here?" skepticism into their reading experience. I agree with the above that inclusion of people in the text is more helpful, where the context requires a sourced justification for their inclusion. The purpose of infoboxes is to summarize the gist of articles, not to serve a back door for the insertion of OR and trivia. In the end, this is very much like flag icons, and it shares many of the same rationales against inclusion, especially PoV-pushing overemphasis and a propensity to generate frequent conflict that has little to do with making the encyclopedia better.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC) [Clarified: 15:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)]
• Support the general principle. The wording could be adjusted to more clearly reflect the idea that it is the "galleries of notables" that are inappropriate; individual images of representative (non-notable) samples from a population are ok. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Sandstein, Laszlo Panaflex, SMcCandlish and David Eppstein, my thing is: The current wording is overly broad when the consensus discussion was not that broad, no matter that Sandstein states that he interpreted it that way. The word similarly can be interpreted in different ways. I noted that "I don't see how the ethnic/'racial' images are normally original research; in some cases they are, but they are most often based on what WP:Reliable sources state." This means that I don't like the implication in the current wording that it's usually WP:OR that's the issue; that's not the usual issue. If a source exists calling the person a certain ethnicity/"race," then that's not WP:OR. The usual issue is people preferring certain celebrities/notables to other celebrities/notables and thinking that one person is more deserving of inclusion than the other, which includes feeling that one person looks more white or black, etc. than the other person. It has more to do with POV than WP:OR. And this does not only happen with notables. Stating that this gallery matter should only apply to notables will not stop the same POV-pushing from happening to no-names being included in such a gallery. Furthermore, I don't see how one can regulate this. For example, at the White people article, images of notables are still currently there, even after I left this note. If people see that one article (like White people) gets to have such images, they will feel that the other article (for example, Black people) should as well. If it's a gallery of no-names, someone will eventually add a notable person, and then someone will add another and another notable person. And I reiterate that this same type of POV-pushing has happened at the Man and Woman articles. In the case of the Woman article, see this discussion and keep scrolling down; the idea of including a trans woman is constantly at debate at that article's talk page. I don't see that these image matters will be regulated too successfully, if successfully at all, especially if it is applied to more than just ethnicity and "race." And another important aspect is that if an editor feels they are only allowed to add one lead image in cases such as these, that one lead image will become a source of contention as not being representative enough. The desire people have for lead images, for those images to be representative, and to include notables instead of no-names, will likely overrule this guideline. It will be another guideline that barely anyone follows. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

True, the original discussion was not that broad; that's why we're having another discussion now about applying the same principles more broadly. As for OR, I'm not so much worried about that (as we can generally find sources attributing membership of people in these groups) and more worried about two other issues: (1) the fact that the notable people of a group are not representative of that group, almost by definition, since they're the ones that stand out, and (2) the often-contentious issue of who to include in a space that is generally too small to list all notable members and where many editors are likely to have political reasons for pushing to include some specific people and exclude others. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The fact that the RfC wasn't as broad as what's contemplated now is why we're having the discussion – to see if there's consensus to extend it. The fact that the consensus might not extent that far isn't an argument against the proposition, it's a precondition of it. I can attest to quite a number of NOR issues being raised in debates about this stuff, though I agree NPOV is more commonly implicated. Both being implicated is significant, and even if only one of them was, it would still be reason enough to act against this misuse of infoboxes. If people think that some kind of "gallery of qualifying faces" is needed, they can use the <gallery> feature, in the main body of the article, and provide source citations at each entry in it, to forestall disputes and confusion. I entirely agree with you that limiting these infobox galleries to "notables" would not fix the issue. How would we be including non-notables anyway, if there aren't any articles about them to link to; just pasting in random faces from Commons pictures? I'm skeptical that inclusion of non-notables is a big issue, though I have not trawled every single discussion about these things, so I may have missed something. I agree that there will always be debates about images included in such articles. If they're kept out of a tight-grid infobox, and required to be sourced in the article, this greatly reduces the potential for POV, OR, and related disputes about these pictures. For example, the obvious way to deal with including a transwoman at the Woman article is to have a section for that (a short one linking to the main article on that, per WP:SUMMARY) with one or more photos that pertain, in that section. No issue of "should there be a TG woman in the infobox" ever arises in such a case. It's all a WP:COMMONSENSE matter to me: If people are fighting about some style matter that is not actually important to the encyclopedia, look for a way around it by removing what they're fighting about since it's not essential – like taking a toy away from two children who can't stop squabbling over who gets to play with it. A potential solution for an article like African Americans is to rotate who appears there. We could probably set up a script that auto-rotated them from a pool of images, though that might require a Lua module. Or just nominate a new image of the month, or whatever. For such articles, having one male and one female for representativeness purposes should work, but we don't need a PoV-pushing and OR-infested large collection of images there being included for dubious reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:34, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

(ec) There's always the possibility that guidelines are not followed. But at least in the cases covered by the RfC there was the active desire of many editors to get rid of these galleries because of the problems associated with them, so I think it's worthwile to note the principle here. That doesn't change that case-by-case dicussions may need to be had for many pages. Regarding OR, I too read the discussion as highlighting the OR problem of how to decide who to include, rather than whether certain individuals belong to the group, which is more often verifiable.  Sandstein  22:35, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Per what I stated above, I just don't see this guideline working. There are guidelines that are commonly followed, and then there are the ones commonly ignored. If this guideline were to work, I agree that it would obviously result in a lot less arguments. As for the case-by-case basis matter, that will turn into a "Since that article has a gallery for the lead, this one can too." argument. Again, see my White people article vs. Black people article example above; that aspect will become a reality if the White people article is allowed to have images. As for original research, the WP:OR policy is based on the WP:Verifiability policy; I don't interpret it as being any broader than that. Regardless, per what I stated above, I think that the wording you added needs improvement. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

What will almost always be OR is the selection of which images are included and the resulting implication that these are the most notable. Very unlikely to find a RS that says "these are the 16 most notable Xs." So the resulting selection is necessarily OR and generally POV as well. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 00:31, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Laszlo Panaflex, I see what you mean, but I don't interpret the WP:OR policy as policing infobox images in that way, except if an editor were to state, "These images should be in the infobox because they are the most notable people according to reliable sources.", or something similar to that. Otherwise, we freely select infobox images, and, per WP:Pertinence, have more leeway with them. Of course, no source is going to state that we need to have a certain number of people in a Wikipedia infobox. In the case of people, a person generally should not be included as white, black, etc. unless a reliable source validates that inclusion. I state "generally" because there is the case of no-names, who are not likely to have sources verifying their ethnicity or "race," and some people will argue that a person is obviously white or black, etc.; I also state "generally" because stock photos have been discussed at WP:Med before, and some editors still are not sure if we should have an image of a person looking like they are suffering from a certain medical condition if they aren't; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 67#Wikipedia to promote stock health photography. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I would add that it's actually quite common to find "top 10 most-influential [whatever]" articles, and on smaller groups (Trobriand Islanders, whatever) it's pretty easy to use N grams to see who gets mentioned the most in published books. This tells us who is probably a good bet to mention in the article, including in a <gallery>, with sources that they are a member of that group and a considered a notable one. It doesn't do anything about the other problems associated with trying to stuff a grid of tiny, unsourced faces into an infobox. I didn't mention it earlier, but these things, aside from all the other issues, are just pointless noise on smaller monitors. Not everyone has a 27 inch monitor.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:22, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

And these "10 Most Influential" articles, that might be based on X-hits on google, often include negative figures (after all Hitler probably has more Google hits than Goethe) that editors usually delete from "notable galleries" because they reflect negatively on the people in the article. That's where POV comes in to override the supposed neutrality of hit counts and "10 Most Influential" articles. Rare is the gallery that includes a Stalin (as at Georgians). --Taivo (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

No doubt, but with the in-article gallery thing with sources, one can make a stronger argument for including controversial figures based on prestige and depth of source coverage, because the sources are in the article. This kind of argument gets quickly lost when arguing on the talk page about unsourced inclusions in the infobox grids.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• KeepOppose removal If you have issue with one of the images, get consensus to change that one image. Ethnic looks are diverse, one image does not do the trick. Unless you are going to devise some ethnic test for Wikipedia, like South Africa's "one drop of blood" law or Germany's "1/8 Jewish or less" law, people have the right to self identify for their ethnicity and their sexual orientation. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), your comment seems to be arguing against Sandstein's addition. If so, I think that that using "Oppose" for your comment is better than using "Keep." Also take note that I did not have a problem with the result of the aforementioned discussion (other than it seeming to assert that WP:OR is the main issue). My issues with the matter are noted above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Note that Richard Arthur Norton responded with this edit. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• I would think that the advice to avoid including any photo of a person of race/ethnicity/gender/whatever that is identifiable in these galleries should be avoided for reasons stated above (editors pushing to include a specific person of note), but I'm not sure if outright removal is needed. If you eliminate the use of notable persons, you are left with images to select from that are 1) free and 2) verified to be people that are part of that group, and then the choice should then become a matter of presentation of what are the best images of this combined set. Which while still a potential for editorial dispute will far less be a problem as when notable persons are involved. Obviously, in considering race and ethnicity, editors should strive to cover both genders and all ages with the available pictures, though there's no need to force a specific balance (50/50 male/female, 25/50/25 young/adult/senior etc) just as long as it looks good. --MASEM (t) 00:54, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support. In my experience these galleries end up being nothing more than "Look how wonderful our ethnicity is to have produced such marvellous people !!" They are breeding grounds for original research, improper synthesis, and POV pushing. --Taivo (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Taivo, what about the broadness of the current wording and other issues I addressed above? This discussion is more so about the current wording than whether or not we should have a gallery of ethnicity images as the lead image; that matter was already resolved. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

If you notice my comment is not at all restricted to galleries in the lead or the infobox. I said, "galleries [of people]" without restriction to where they occur in the article. Just because someone moved them from the top of the article to the middle or bottom doesn't negate any of my comments about them. As to whether this principle should extend beyond ethnicity articles, that matter was also addressed in the RfC when it was pointed out that "ethnicity" could not be narrowly construed since it was often impossible to distinguish between ethnicity and nationality. The very same problems with OR, SYNTH, and NPOV apply to other articles about groups of people. --Taivo (talk) 03:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

My point is that the current wording is not just for ethnicity, "race" or nationality; it's for any group of people presented as the lead image for the infobox. This means the Man and Woman articles, and other similar articles, as well. I focused on the lead image aspect because the text in the guideline is currently about that, as a result of the consensus discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment, I believe images should only be used in the infoboxes for national groups (such as Americans, French people, Australlians etc.). This way anyone, no matter what original ethnic background(s), can be included. While it may be subjective as to who may be most notable to include in infoboxes, generally a consensus as to who may be included is often times more accurate than not. It is helpful to immediately see some prominent and historic figures (founding fathers, wealthest individual, most sold record labels etc.) as their inclusions should remain aribitrary. It is at a disservice to the reader, to reach a page of a certain national group and not to be able to immediately associate someone with that group to the name of the article. Savvyjack23 (talk) 14:01, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The problem with distinguishing ethnicity articles from nationality articles is that there is often no line between them, for example, is Ukrainians an ethnicity article or a nationality article? It's impossible to really distinguish between the two and endless discussions on the Talk Page revealed this utter confusion. The RfC clearly conflated ethnicity and nationality in the discussion. And the same issues of OR, SYNTH, and NPOV are relevant to nationality articles as they are to ethnicity articles. --Taivo (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support Per Taivo and others. I´ve not participated much in these discussions myself, but read several, Americans (which dropped the gallery on it´s own before this), African Americans, Yemenite Jews, etc. There are always amazing, worthy (infamous, too) people left out and sooner or later this will be commented on again. And again. And again. And then there are the "That person would be insulted to be called that ethnicity" and "That ethnicity is insulted by being represented by that person." arguments. Gaaahhh. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:23, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I opened a thread here and suggested the elimination of the infobox gallery from Woman article. 64.62.219.165 (talk) 17:07, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support - The consensus to remove the ethnic/race/nationality based galleries should be widened to include other specific human groups e.g., Christian. Those galleries are just meant for presentation rather than educational purposes. We need to deal with it once and for all. STSC (talk) 17:55, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose This sounds like people poushing their own politically correct ideas here instead of sticking with WP:NOTCENSORED. If you have a problem then go with Wikipedia policy such as verifiability rather than because it causes trouble on Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 19:28, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Savvyjack23, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, STSC and Dmcq, liked I asked, Taivo, "what about the broadness of the current wording and other issues I addressed above? This discussion is more so about the current wording than whether or not we should have a gallery of ethnicity images as the lead image; that matter was already resolved." I added, "My point is that the current wording is not just for ethnicity, 'race' or nationality; it's for any group of people presented as the lead image for the infobox. This means the Man and Woman articles, and other similar articles, as well." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

If it is not obvious to you from what I said above I disagree with the blanket removal of such composite images from any any type article on the basis of " because selecting them is normally original research, and often contentious". Wikipedia has policies for dealing with OR and contentious is not a reason to remove anything as per WP:NOTCENSORED. Dmcq (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, Dmcq. And, STSC, sorry about pinging you above to answer more so on topic; I see that you did by noting that you support the guideline being widened. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:17, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I hope that my answer was clear. I support extending the consensus to cover any group of humans, where galleries of famous people (or fictitious people) have been created in infoboxes. They are nothing but magnets for OR, SYNTH, and POV pushing. --Taivo (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Flyer, I support broadening (from the rfc version) per the current text in the guideline: "Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support per rationales already supplied by Taivo, Laszlo Panaflex, SMcCandlish, et al. I'm not going to reiterate the copious arguments I've presented on multiple articles and the RfC as to gratuitous galleries of notables. The White people, Man and Woman articles are testimonials as to the absurdism of such galleries. Head shots of 'notables', plus partial shots of statues and other artist's interpretations with allusions to boobs are readily accepted as representative... of what? Oh, but, while WP:NOTCENSORED has been invoked in arguments, it hasn't been invoked for this form of bizarre depiction of what constitutes some of the most obviously defining physical features that differentiate the female of the species from the male of the species (uh-oh, do I hear the rumblings of 'no naughty bits' coming on?). Shall we get our grand-kiddies to draw some pictures of men and women? All I've been able to establish from the "Man" and "Woman" infoboxes is that some women wear paint on their faces, and that men tend to have their hair short. Are we assuming that readers have only been on this planet long enough to figure out that we're not deer or elephants? Broaden the scope, please. [EDIT] While I've considered salient questions posed regarding whether or not it is OR since my !vote, in broader terms POV and distracting from the content of articles still stands (as evidenced in the "Man" and "Woman" articles). The use of galleries to depict examples of self-evident subject matters is antithetical to being encyclopaedic and getting to the point of the content of such articles. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC) --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:37, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: Sandstein, per what SMcCandlish and I stated above about WP:Original research not being the main problem, do you mind either of us or someone else tweaking the wording in that respect? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish can speak for himself, of course, but that's not how I read his remarks. My own remarks about OR were limited to the question of whether individuals could be documented to belong to a group (not usually a problem); however, I agree with the proposed wording that *selection* of individuals as being the most representative ones is definitely problematic with respect to original research. Given your filibustering here, I'm skeptical that your "tweaking" is likely to match the general sense of the discussion, so maybe it would be a better idea to be specific about the wording improvement you would like to make rather than asking for license to change the wording ad libitum. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:10, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Since SMcCandlish understands what I mean more often than not and we can have long, drawn out debates together while others will categorize our commentary as WP:Too long; didn't read, I would prefer that he speak for himself. There was no filibustering on my part. And I asked the question once (my "23:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)" post above), and I indeed meant it as one of us proposing wording here at the talk page first. If people want to remove these galleries, I could not care less. But I do care about following consensus correctly and getting the wording right. I also care about not creating guidelines that people are not likely to follow. I made all of this clear above. And, indeed, people are already objecting to this guideline. SMcCandlish stated above, "I can attest to quite a number of NOR issues being raised in debates about this stuff, though I agree NPOV is more commonly implicated. Both being implicated is significant, and even if only one of them was, it would still be reason enough to act against this misuse of infoboxes." I stated above, "I don't like the implication in the current wording that it's usually WP:OR that's the issue; that's not the usual issue. If a source exists calling the person a certain ethnicity/'race,' then that's not WP:OR. The usual issue is people preferring certain celebrities/notables to other celebrities/notables and thinking that one person is more deserving of inclusion than the other, which includes feeling that one person looks more white or black, etc. than the other person. It has more to do with POV than WP:OR. And this does not only happen with notables." And that is what I mean. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

It's certainly a WP:POV issue when notables who are perceived to be notorious (i.e., Mussolini for the Italians gallery) are rejected based on the desire to only present those who are deemed to be positive, virtuous representatives of an ethnic group. As an addendum, why is Mother Teresa in the gallery of women in preference to Jiang Qing? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Iryna Harpy, I clearly agree about the POV issues. Per what I stated here and here, I just don't view the WP:OR policy as some others here do. To me, it's like stating that putting together a collage or gallery of anything is WP:OR because of editor selection. And if that's the case, we might as well get rid of collages and galleries altogether. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:54, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

To be clear on this, Flyer22, are we still talking about infoboxes (or collages/galleries placed above infoboxes and usurping the text based information and links in the infoboxes)? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was just about the matter of collages or galleries presented in infoboxes, but looking at this discussion and the one below it, I see that it's broader than that. From what I can tell, the current guideline is against any such presentation; so, yes, that's a no to "galleries placed above infoboxes and usurping the text based information and links in the infoboxes." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I definitely understood the aforementioned close to mean "no collages or galleries of people should be presented as a lead image for ethnicity/racial topics." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:11, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: I've thought on this over lunch - just don't ask me what I ate because I didn't pay attention - and it seems that it's being stretched to an unknown quantity decision. Ultimately, the "White people", "Woman", and the "Man" articles are COMMONSENSE arguments. Per WP:PERTINENCE, the galleries/collages (particularly using wikilinks to articles on notable people, works of art, etc.) detract from the content of the article rather than enhance it. A Google image search would yield a better cross-section of the subject (AKA WP:TITLE) of the article, therefore 'editorial discretion' (as has been invoked on the "Woman" article) is a non-argument for any editor du jour picking out their own selection of images peripheral to the substance of the article.

As to how far this should extend, and whether wires have been crossed regarding the intent in the heat of the interpretation/misinterpretation of where we're actually up to, doesn't really seem to have been established. I'm developing another Wikipedia-induced migraine. Let's see whether it doesn't become a little more focussed once the initial backlash has died down a bit. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:27, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

In reply to Flyer22 Reborn above, I agree with what David Eppstein wrote.  Sandstein  08:05, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Since twice requested to speak for myself on this: I don't agree that OR is less of a problem than POV when it comes to these things. It's a less frequent issue, but often a more severe one, leading to more protracted debate, so it evens out. Analogy: If I have eight broken fingers and one broken leg, I shouldn't seek treatment only for the fingers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:11, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, SMcCandlish (I keep WP:Pinging you because I'm not sure this page is on your watchlist), I am also open to the adjustments you mentioned (seen here and here) in your post above. In other words, I am open you proposing new wording, especially since you commonly work on improving policies and guidelines. Why I don't like the current wording is made explicitly clear above; I cannot agree with the interpretation of the WP:OR policy that I am seeing here, and this is because I don't see it supported anywhere in that policy. What I see when I look at that policy is a policy based on the WP:Verifiability policy. Another thing that I noted above is that the word similarly can be interpreted in different ways; I'm certain that there will be people arguing that similarly in this case does not apply as broadly as Sandstein intended, especially since the consensus discussion he linked to pertains to ethnicity/racial issues. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:18, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind if the guideline states that WP:OR can be an issue in the case of these galleries or collages (I've seen ethnicity/racial matters be a WP:OR issue via interpretation); I mind it acting like WP:OR is more commonly the issue or is the prime issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Removal with knobs on WP:IAR is supposedly a pillar of wikipedia and wikipedia is supposed to be not WP:NOTCENSORED. You'll never eliminate controversy over what material to include on wikipedia as its written by human beings and they'll always find something to fight about; however stupid. More and more rules to eliminate areas of controversy will just move the problem around. So a bunch of you with a common pet peeve got together and made a new rule and are now proceeding to run round wikipedia deleting content, chanting "we've got a consensus to do this", well to be frank, you're no better than those who'd argue ad nauseum that Mariah Carey absolutely must be in a gallery. WCM_email 00:51, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support - My earlier comments did not specify a vote, so I’ll clarify here that I support the broad wording of this policy. Where images are used to show characteristics of a group, they should be tightly circumspect and strictly sourced; galleries tend to be neither. It doesn’t seem to me to matter whether the primary problem is OR or POV; as I illustrated above, the two often go together. Bottom line, these galleries add little educational value while breeding endless and unnecessary conflict. Better to provide a tool to remove them entirely, while putting the onus on development of the page to demonstrate the notability of members of the group. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 01:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support removal for many of the same reasons given above and because I think it's going to be hard(er) to implement this kind of thing unless it's done across the board for all such infoboxes, such as the ones for religious groups like Christian, British Jews, Maronites, Antiochian Greek Christians, Mormons, etc. Such articles are subject to same problems discussed in the RfC that led to WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES and it should make no difference whether the article uses {{infobox ethnic group}}, {{infobox religious group}} or {{infobox any other type of group}} at all. I also think wording should be added which specifically refers to user-created single-file montages like File:Greatest Chrisitans.jpg being used in "Christian". Images should be incorporated into the article itself in places where they are contextually relevant. There are 72 people pictured in the infobox for "Christians" and I couldn't find a single one that was mentioned elsewhere in the article. That kind of thing seems strange to me, but it also unfortunately seems to be more of the norm when it comes to such galleries. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:54, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support broad interpretation. Other "people group" articles will be prone to identical or similar problems as pure "ethnic group" articles: inclusion criteria (person NN growing up as a citizen of nation A, becoming famous for something as a citizen of nation B and then living most of her life in retirement as a citizen of nation C, or person MM living all his life in state D, but outside what are the current borders of said state), selection criteria (OR and POV) and problems of representativeness (are famous persons of group X really typical for the group?). In addition, the borderline between the types of articles is fuzzy: Some articles are covering both ethnicity and citizenship, others are focussing on one or the other.

Another thing: This edit summary suggests that the text would have to cover "in or in connection with the infobox". --T*U (talk) 14:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support. I believe the arguments made at the RfC that Sandstein closed support a broad interpretation; there is no logical reason (IMO) to not apply this concept more broadly. The same discussions about what constitute an ethnicity apply to, for instance, religion as well (I just made the edit to Christian) and, of course, the potential for disagreement and bickering is the same. As for OR--it simply is not always clear what "makes" someone a Christian, but I don't wish to be for this the main point. Note that the image on Christian, for instance, contained 63 images: clearly someone went through a lot of trouble trying to be inclusive (I found a Mormon in there, but not an Old Catholic--I may have missed some, of course), but it's never going to be enough. A broad interpretation is the way to go. Drmies (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support removal of inbox galleries per above. I've always thought these were arbitrary, unhelpful, and downright strange. The sooner we get rid of these the better. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Bloodofox, we agree on something! This calls for coffee and cake. Drmies (talk) 15:38, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support per Drmies, RGloucester — ☎ 22:09, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support - In my experience, they're just an endless source of edit warring, and taking collective credit for the achievement of individuals is rather iffy. If someone wants such lists, I guess we have categories for that. Question is, what should replace them? FunkMonk (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I suspect that the questions are what they are supposed to represent; whether they enhance the understanding of the subject; whether readers need images to inform them of what "Man", "Woman", "White people" refers to. Do readers not understand such concepts? Do they need diagrams and gratuitous galleries to better inform them of what the TITLE refers to, or are infoboxes not adequate on their own, and are editors so paranoid that the reader may not understand who or what the subject of the article refers to that they need to throw images together so as their own linear reading of a concept might not be mistaken for a post-modernist reinvention? How many of these articles aren't best served by the text in any given infobox? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:04, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

"Nothing" is the easy answer. Other current solutions can be seen at Americans, Christian and Human. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:50, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

We can have some fun talk page conversations on the topic. The image for Humans is just awesome, absolutely stunning in its simplicity. The image for Americans, meh--it's a bit simple and graphic. We'll be looking for iconic images, like Ellis Island or something like that. Or we can have a gallery, haha--with Ellis Island, the Middle Passage, Beringia, Donald Trump... Drmies (talk) 15:45, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

"Nothing" may very well end up being the default for most pages. I tried a nice image of modern Ukrainians here, but another editor rather strongly objected because he never sees anyone who looks like that where he lives. So I removed it. --Taivo (talk) 16:34, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

That was a good decision and I thank you for it. Drmies (talk) 17:36, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't actually see the compulsion to add an image because there is an image parameter as being 'perfectly' (or even 'well') fulfilled simply because it is perceived to be somehow unexpected or 'different' to what may be construed as the obvious to native English language speakers as being a good solution. Unless we are catering to a different species, readers will already understand what a human is. Using an image for Muskrat is informative in as much as readers looking up a species can immediately understand what that species looks like. As a reader, I have no idea of whether the muskrat depicted is considered to be the stuff of 'pin-up gorgeous' to other muskrats; whether it is male or female; whether the colour of its coat is typical or atypical of preconceived notions of muskrats to any demographic of (human) readers in the know, but I am provided an immediate visual reference in order to establish that it is not an invertebrate, an insect, etc. As we are catering to humans over the age of 3 or 4 yo, human is a concept already familiar to said reader. (I'd also be reticent to give away too much to extraterrestrial beings planning to take over the world!) --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:45, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the Americans article first, I see that there are currently galleries lower in the article. I know that this current guideline dispute pertains to lead images, but I don't see how having such galleries lower are better than having them as a lead image; I assume that the same disputes will arise from that approach. As for what benefit such galleries can provide... Well, in the case of the African Americans article, it was commonly considered that showing the physical diversity of that community was educational. For example, there are people who look like Mariah Carey (color-wise, and hair-wise in some cases) who identify as African American. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. I read nothing in the OR and NPOV policies that applies to the selection of images to use in an article. I've never seen any image accompanied by a reliably sourced reference citation to support its inclusion in an article. The policy that applies is the image use policy, which covers the use of montages and galleries. There is nothing on the talk page of that policy that reflects any consensus to change that policy, so the careful wording of this guideline is necessary so that it does not go against the IUP. I weakly support the consensus garnered in regard to ethnic groups; however, the wider application of that consensus is as yet unwarranted and not fully supported. The selection of which images to use in an article, whether it be individual images, a gallery of images or a montage has always been by editorial evaluation for individual articles. I see no reason to tell editors that their deliberations about which images to include/exclude must now be dictated by guideline or policy. Such things should continue to be adjudged on an individual-article basis. Happy New Year! Paine  17:09, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
  • That policy dictates what kinds of images are and are not allowed on Wikipedia on formal grounds. There is no reason to assume that NPOV somehow does not apply to images, even if it says "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view" (my italics); that somehow images can be non-neutral flies in the face of common sense. OR certainly applies to images--for instance, we cannot draw conclusions in text from images, and essentially that's what those galleries do, by implying/signalling that those images somehow represent. TaivoLinguist just pointed to a discussion (Talk:Ukrainians#Photo_gallery_removed_per_Wikipedia-wide_consensus) where this is highly relevant. Drmies (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• Then please show in the OR or NPOV policy where the selection of images requires a reliably sourced reference citation. Then please show where any image on Wikipedia has been selected for use in any article, and the selection has an accompanying reference citation. I'm so sorry, but editors are misapplying those policies, which have absolutely nothing to do with the selection of images for an article. Such selections have always been within the purview of individual article editorial discussion and consensus, and that should not be changed.  Paine  18:29, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

You don't understand, Paine. Inevitably, we cannot post pictures of every woman in existence. Any selection made for this gallery will be coloured by the point-of-view of those doing the selecting, and cannot claim to represent "women" as a category. Wikipedia editors do not get to determine what the "average" woman looks like, or who should represent women as a group. Because the process of selection is so laden with individual opinion, it cannot be said to be in line with our policy on neutral point-of-view, and requires prohibited original research. It is misleading to the reader, does not educate the reader in any way, and only serves to compromise the neutrality of the encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 21:47, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I keep hearing all that about violation of original research and neutral point of view, and yet nobody seems to be able to show me in those policies precisely where the choosing of images requires reliably sourced reference citations, so bottom line is that those policies do not apply to the selection of article images. Said selection must then be up to the custodial editors of individual articles, or failing that, the image selection would be up to whatever dispute resolution process is encouraged. As an aside, we appear to be in violation of WP:MULTI, because an editor decided to open a thread on this very subject at Talk:Woman. One of these discussions should undergo a procedural close and thread merge, isn't that correct?  Paine  22:05, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

"Custodial editors"? I'm sorry, Paine Ellsworth, but I've never heard of any form of policy or guideline even inferring that any editors earn the right to 'custody' of any article in Wikipedia. I'm highly aware of WP:OWN as something that is rightly frowned upon. If I were to start working on the "Woman" article regularly for the next few months, would I become one of that elite group you would consider to be a 'custodian' of the article... or would it take longer? Six months? A year. At precisely what point did you and a couple of other editors become 'custodians' of any articles, and what other privileges does this brand of ownership afford you? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Iryna, that is explained admirably in that link of which you are highly aware under "stewardship", which is perhaps the word I should have used instead of "custodial". Custodian was meant here moreso in partnership with "janitor". One does not have to be an admin to be one of those, correct? (rhet.) Happy New Year! Paine  17:25, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - An editor choosing an image or images they believe best illustrate something is not WP:OR, or we wouldn't have images at all. PeterTheFourth (talk) 04:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
• Moderate oppose as too vague - The added wording of "similarly large human populations" is too vague and easily gamed. Specify categories if you wish to expand this further (would gender, sex, age, historical period, sexual orientation, tribes, occupations, etc. be included?). If you wish to ban all photo collages, do that instead. (PS - I am okay with the outcome of the rfc regarding ethnic groups and rather agree with it in that specific case). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 09:02, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Your proposed wording in the following section certainly goes a long way to eliminating the vagueness. --Taivo (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support broad interpretation, reasons are exactly same as with ethnic groups.--Staberinde (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support to end endless and unnecessary EW on this practice which adds virtually nothing to the encyclopedia. I also support this because it cures any possible technical defects arising out of the original RFC. There is a case which can be made under the CONLIMITED policy that decisions at wikiprojects cannot create policy or guidelines unless they specifically say that they're doing that and are adequately publicized (e.g. via the Village Pump and Centralized Discussion). That may have been done in this case, but there's no clear-and-easy way to see that it was. Since there was no clear intent in the original RFC to say that it was for the purpose of making policy, it could have merely been for the purpose of setting the standards for that wikiproject which are not binding on the rest of the encyclopedia. By also adding it here, however, that problem is solved, especially when this RFC confirms it. — TransporterMan (TALK) 19:03, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose after seeing what happened as a result of the previous RFC where articles have been degraded, with illustrations totally stripped, a local consensus for each page should determine what happens, as for many pages there is no controversy. Our aim is not to keep peace between editors, but to assist our readers. This proposal is against the purpose of Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: Could you qualify what you mean when you say that the quality has been 'degraded'. In what way have they been degraded. I'd be interested if you could pick out a couple of the articles you believe to have become less 'informative' and in what manner the reader has been deprived of information. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:06, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Compare https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Frisians&oldid=697014025 to https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Frisians&oldid=698825933. In the version with the gallery you could see at a glance that the article was about a group of people. Now you have to read the text first. You can see from the edit history that removing the gallery has been very controversial, compared to a lack of warring over any content. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:20, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Another example: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Bulgarians_in_France&oldid=687933368 versus https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Bulgarians_in_France&oldid=698964497 so now the article is illustrated by a slightly misleading coat of arms of Bulgaria, instead of people. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

"You could see at a glance that the article was about a group of people". No, you could see at a glance that the article was about specific people, not an ethnic group. Most of the images were of people who lived before the 20th century and were all men. So the article was about a bunch of long-dead men and a pretty modern woman. That's not a representative gallery of "Frisians". It's a POV pushing assertion of fame and fortune, which, by the selection of images, must have ceased before the 20th century. --Taivo (talk) 22:53, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately you pointed to two examples of what is not representative of an ethnic group, or an ethnic group in the diaspora... but representative of a mixture of 'notables' according to what a handful (sometimes less) of editors agree to be POV preferences for notables. Per WP:TITLE, these articles are about an ethnic group, or an ethnic group in the diaspora. If the TITLE were "Notable Frisians" or "Notable Bulgarians in France" there may be something to consider. That is not the case, therefore how are notables representative of an entire ethnic group, its history, and its culture? The fact that you, personally, consider them to be meaningful and edifying for the reader is WP:PPOV. Their 'notability' alone places them above and beyond the majority of the ethnic group. Decorative ≠ informative. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose any and all assertions of political correctness as a legitimate Wikipedia principle, regardless of precedent, until I see an unambiguous statement from WMF saying that Wikipedia should be politically correct. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:54, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The assertion that this has anything to do with "political correctness" is utterly absurd. It has everything to do with violating the solid Wikipedia principles of OR, SYNTH, and NPOV. Your assertion of "political correctness" itself is a violation of WP:AGF. --Taivo (talk) 21:24, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

If what you say were true, you would be making the same argument regarding the images in articles about painters, for just one example. Original research has been committed in the choice of images in Renoir. Who are we to say that that subset of his work is representative of his work? Should we remove all such images because there is widespread disagreement about which ones to include? I think not. The fact that you selectively apply your reasoning to areas involving the hot-button social issues of the day points to a desire for political correctness, whether you would use that term or not. You are misapplying WP:AGF. I am not violating AGF because I don't doubt your sincerity in this matter. One can be simultaneously sincere and wrong, and, in my opinion, you are. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:51, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The assertion is not absurd at all as the earlier RFC and the mention of discussion at African Americans very much sounds of political correctness. However we don't have to await WMF proclamations, and people here can work out how we behave, and how offended people are allowed to be. This sounds more to me like a power grab with the general overriding the specific. Imposing uniformity where there should be diversity. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:13, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Neither of your complaints (they are not reasoned arguments), address the primary issue--that these galleries are violations of OR, SYNTH, and NPOV in the way that images are selected and rejected in these galleries. Indeed, neither of your posts are anything more than "I don't like it". --Taivo (talk) 22:22, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The choices of images are not, nor have they ever been since they first began being used as illustrations of examples, original research in any way shape or form to include synthesis of published material, nor can they possibly be construed as in violation of neutral point of view. I don't see how anyone could possibly draw this conclusion if they have actually read those policies with understanding. Both OR and NPOV require the application of reliable, verifiable sources to ensure that any item in question is not original research nor non-neutral point of view. I ask you again, and I will continue to ask until someone can come up with an example, show us one image, just one image that exhibits a reference citation to a reliable source for the express purpose of the selection of that image for use in any article on this encyclopedia. If you cannot find one, then it is preposterous to continue to power push that faulty agenda as "the primary issue". Selection of images is by no means original research nor is it in violation of neutral point of view. Selection of images has always been within the purview of editorial discretion and consensus on an individual-article basis. I resent that the removal of such discretion is being jammed down editors' throats with dubious arguments and statements like Indeed, neither of your posts are anything more than "I don't like it". It's the use of questionable arguments that sounds more like IDLI to me.  Paine  10:17, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support Don't really buy the original research angle, but I do think a broad interpretation is the way to go. Many of the same problems with the ethnic articles exist within these other galleries. AIRcorn (talk) 07:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. Some editors have told some of us who oppose this proposition that we "don't understand" or we "don't get it". I'll tell you what I don't understand. We have heard it said that "a picture is worth a thousand words." So why are editors here who support this proposition trying so hard to make Wikipedia so much less interesting and informative? What is really behind this attempt to circumvent the traditional article-by-article editorial consensus where the selection of images is concerned?  Paine  11:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I also just had a thought as to how "sweeping" this general concept of taking away editorial discretions might become? We've begun by taking it away in articles about ethnic groups; this discussion is about taking it away from more general articles about groups of people; why stop there with montages? Eventually, we can remove all the scientists names from all the science templates because, according to the logic of these RfC's, the selection of those scientists for inclusion in those templates is clearly a violation of OR and NPOV, correct? To heck with the fact that the present selections of those names (as well as the selections of images in articles) is the culmination of up to 15 years of editors adding, subtracting, discussing and coming to consensus on the talk pages of those articles and templates. I do hope editors will give this idea, which removes years of work from articles, a lot more thought.  Paine  16:16, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

We don't deny the educational value of images, we don't suppress the right to choose the images and we don't censor the images chosen. The main point is the manner in which these images are used to illustrate information. Simply, to put a collection of images in a gallery to illustrate a single piece of information is unnecessary. STSC (talk) 16:36, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Except as noted above, this has been used to justify the removal of images that were informative - Japanese people for example. Its been seen as blanket justification to remove images on a number of articles; whether it is an improvement or not (mostly not). As predicted it has resulted in wikidrama on pages where there was none before. WCM_email 18:10, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

As with all changes to articles, there is a certain amount of wikidrama from the "old-timers". This is typical and is nothing unusual or unique to this change. It will subside once editors get used to the new format. To argue that as a reason for not changing the policy is simply another translation of WP:IDLI. --Taivo (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

More likely it'll subside when yet more editors leave wikipedia as they realise people who actually contribute content are less valued than those who think that enforcing petty rules is overbearingly important. I always point to Wikipedia:YOUDONTLIKEIT in response to asinine comments about WP:IDLI. Not once has anyone questioned whether articles are going to be improved or not, so far the evidence learns more to not. WCM_email 20:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The main point is the manner in which these images are used to illustrate information. Simply, to put a collection of images in a gallery to illustrate a single piece of information is unnecessary.

Very well, if that is indeed the "main point", then explain to me please what is wrong with using images that are representative examples of the subject matter in articles. That's all they are, you know, "examples". None are "more representative" than others as some here would set forth. And why would you think that the selection of representative examples of images, examples that have been discussed, deliberated and that have received consensus over up to 15 years of the existence of this project, "is unnecessary"? It's part of what sets this encyclopedia apart and makes it more attractive to our readers!  Paine  10:13, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This is a classic use of exaggeration for the purpose of making an argument. Your continued reference to images of objects or specific events in articles is irrelevant to the discussion of choosing a selection of individuals, almost always famous and positive role models, to illustrate a particular large group of people. Using your POV and using OR and SYNTH to select which 15 people are good examples to illustrate X people is a different matter from selecting which photograph of a WWI trench in France is most illustrative. And your "15 years" to build a person gallery is laughable. I've been on Wikipedia for nearly 10 years and the proliferation of photo galleries of the rich and famous is much more recent than the founding of Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 14:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This is a classic use of exaggeration for the purpose of making an argument. Your continued reference to images of objects or specific events in articles is irrelevant to the discussion of choosing a selection of individuals

Please show where I've referred to images of objects or specific events in this discussion. I have continued to speak to the selection of images of people in montages, people in galleries or individual images of people. The only departure I've made is to make the analogy of the selection of scientists' names in science templates.

almost always famous and positive role models

Odd that you think this should matter in the course of the selection of images for an article's montage. The examples chosen – yes, in some cases over several years of deliberation on the talk page – also happen to be notable subjects with their own articles to which to link.

Using your POV and using OR and SYNTH to select which 15 people are good examples to illustrate X people

Using "my" POV??? Editors use their rationales and !votes on the talk pages of articles to select which 15 or so people are EXAMPLES – not "good examples", not more representative – just representative illustrations, merely pictorial examples of the subject matter. Your "POV, OR and SYNTH" violations are actually guarded against by the use of discussion, deliberation and consensus on the individual articles' talk pages.

is a different matter from selecting which photograph of a WWI trench in France is most illustrative.

Where do you come up with this stuff. Never said that anywhere in this discussion. Your arguments are not only faulty logic, they seem to be quite irrelevant and non-descriptive of what people actually say.

And your "15 years" to build a person gallery is laughable.

Editors have spent many, many years in discussions, deliberations and in garnering consensus as to which examples to use as images in articles. The amount of time, whether it be 7 years, 15 years or 25 years, is irrelevant. It's been many years of editorial discretion on the talk pages of individual articles to get them where they are today, and you would have all that erased to satisfy what exactly? Is it your supreme goal to make Wikipedia look more staid and colorless like many printed encyclopedias? That's how you're coming across, TaivoLinguist!  Paine  15:44, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Your long discourse notwithstanding, you still fail to shift your argument from "But we've worked so hard" to anything of merit in addressing the fundamental POV and OR required to assemble collections of photos of the rich and famous (and almost always good role models) to illustrate your particular view of what constitutes "womanhood" or "Jewishness" or "Frenchness". The only argument that you have ever raised, despite the application of much bandwidth, is I don't like it. Your peculiar interpretation of OR has been roundly rejected. Your peculiar interpretation of POV ("group POV is OK") has also been rejected. And whether a gallery of people pictures is a day old or a decade old, it's still OR and POV. --Taivo (talk) 19:17, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not too surprised at your lack of understanding since you don't even read my posts. What is it? Are my responses tl;dr for you to actually read them and respond to them in kind? I don't shift my argument because it does not need to be shifted. You do not shift your argument from the crap about POV and OR, so I try to be specific in my responses to you by quotes of your tired and faulty logic. OR and POV have absolutely nothing to do with this particular discourse we are enjoying. You say the selection of images in people articles is OR and violates NPOV as well. I say that is well taken care of by editors on the talk pages of the individual people articles. It is you who don't like the montages and are out to get them. So the previous RfC was started by a now-blocked sockpuppet. Does anybody else wonder how many other sock puppets might be involved in that discussion, and this one as well, stacking !votes and rationales? Is anyone else concerned about that? Maybe we should open an investigation into the use of sock puppets in these RfC's?  Paine  23:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I completely understand your arguments and read every word of them. But just because you are capable of forming complete, syntactically correct sentences, and have mastered English spelling (a skill that fewer and fewer people these days can claim), doesn't make your points any more convincing or valid. You have simply not convinced a majority of editors that either your "I don't like it" or your "we've always done it that way" arguments are valid for encyclopedic content. Just because you and a couple of other editors can agree to a particular set of famous role models who shed a positive light on the topic doesn't mean that it is not OR or POV. It is really a measure of your failure to marshal a convincing argument when you turn to blaming sock puppets for your failed arguments. --Taivo (talk) 23:33, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Paine Ellsworth: Personally, I'm not concerned as to whether it was started by a sock, or whether socks have cropped up for either side of the RfC as the majority of editors involved in both RfCs are regulars (including admins). As you know, the number of !votes is immaterial: when we have such a vast number of editors involved it is the calibre of the arguments based on policy and guidelines that count. Your concerns are starting to read as 'sour grapes'. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I almost didn't include that part for the very reason you suggest. I went ahead and struck that out about the sock puppets. I'm certain, of course, that you are not one, and yet I'm not so sure about some other editors in these discussions whom I do not know. Consider it dropped.  Paine  23:45, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support broadest possible definition of "people group"; similar to the philosophy behind the well known aphorism "A language is a dialect with an army and navy", terms like "ethnicity", "race", "nationality", "cultural group", etc. are ill defined in the sense that the difference between an "ethnicity" and a "nationality" and a "race" does not have clear, bright line boundaries. It's quite clear that the only concept that works for all such groupings is "people groups", whether one is talking about French Americans, the Hmong people, Black people, Georgians, Arabs, the Sikh, or any other grouping of people, there is no compelling reason to put forth a gallery of "representative examples" of those people, and such galleries merely attract edit warring, original research, and are fairly useless in that one cannot represent the entire group with a limited subset of 9-12 members of said group. No article on any cultural classification of humanity should have a gallery of representative examples. --Jayron32 03:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. Imagery should be a pertinent part of a page's introductory section whenever possible. Not doing so degrades the general appeal of the page, turning away the more superficial or casual readership. That 9 or 12 personages don't represent the whole is quite obvious, so? It's such a commonplace to use a subset to refer to the whole, a kind of Pars pro toto. And when it comes to disagreements about a specific selection, instead of starting endless wars, wait a couple of weeks and then change it. It's a jolly feature to have an ever changing collage, where everybody respect others' choices for at least 15 days. Moreover, I suggest to temporarily block people engaging in such spurious quarrels: theirs is a futile nuisance. Where I am less convinced is the use of sets of extraordinary people. Pages about ethnic groups should emphasize in their collage the different physical aspects of that group (male, female, young, adult, old, different color nuances) or the different culturally distinct subgroups pertaining, for instance, to the dress code, or to any other visual aspect. As per the alleged suspicion of OR or POV, we have to be logically consistent and ban not only galleries but also the entire page, or, even better, the entire Wikipedia: whenever we put together a sentence we are doing an OR or POV of sort. So, let not be ridiculous. A much more important point of discussion is how we manage these ethnic pages. I am referring in particular to White people, but I suppose it relates also to other analogous pages. In times where ethnic affiliation is more of a personal, culturally driven, choice than an imposed physical tag, these pages should be reflecting more clearly how different, and often vague, has become the concept of ethnic belonging. Carlotm (talk) 11:17, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of "similarly large human populations", like men and women. But, on the other hand, I think that the explanation that such images are "original research" should be removed from the page. By that logic, any image represents an original research (for example, if we have several photos of Barak Obama, it is original research to choose one of them). The reason for removing such galleries in not the WP:OR, but the fact that those are simply useless and irrelevant. Images of notable individuals are not suitable for illustrating group identity, regardless of what kind of group identity it is (ethnic, religious, linguistic, sexual, ....). Vanjagenije (talk) 11:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
• Qualified oppose with regard to prohibiting such galleries with regard to both articles on ethnic groups and those on "other large populations". Not withstanding the rancor that has sometimes surrounded such galleries in the past, this is surely a matter for WP:Local consensus based on the sources available to the editors of the individual articles with regard to the people who are proposed for inclusion in any such gallery. That is, if sources unambigously establish WP:WEIGHT for the notion that an individual is a member of a given race or ethnicity such that we could include that detail in their biography, I see no reason why they could not be added also to any montage on an article concerning that same group--nor have I seen any compelling policy argument here for why WP:V/WP:NPOV should be overruled in the class of circumstances being discussed here. In any even, this is surely not a "one size fits all" kind of issue and I don't see this as a matter of style so much as a deeper content and sourcing issue, so establishing language to the suggested effect in MoS is only going to cause further discord when other editors inevitably point out that it conflicts with the reading of much more central compelling policies and guidelines. At the very least, this needs to be discussed in a central community discussion space (WP:CD or WP:VPP) and the changes vetted for inclusion in the relevant policy pages, not just our style guide. But I rather suspect that this is doomed to be a perpetual "no consensus" issue when approached via broad community input. But again, I'm not sure that a blanket rule is called for here in any event.

On a side note, I also can't see what the problem would be with allowing editors to choose to include only less contentious members of a given group; the purpose of these visual galleries are to represent the superficial phenotypes/physical characteristics of a given people, not to make suggestions about their collective moral character and social values (that most assuredly would be OR of a deeply problematic source). So choosing to exclude Hitler while including other famous individuals who do not introduce prejudice into the representation of a group just does not arouse any kind of neutrality concern in me; honestly, even if certain editors did make efforts to create a "best of" representation for their race, who cares, so long as they keep discussion civil, to the point, and predicated on sources which unambiguously identify certain individuals as members of a given group? Arguing that neutrality requires us to exercise editorial control in order to prevent our representation of a given people from appearing "too dignified", "too respectable" or "too noble" seems to be putting the cart before the horse. Every race has such people in abundance, so why wouldn't we allow them to be featured prominently? Indeed, the only reason we can't do the same with notorious/unsavory individuals is that they would understandably be seen as those editors working in the area of their heritage as likely to engender bias. Personally, having a bit of a background in human genetic diversity, I find ethnic pride/prejudice to be an outdated, irrational, and small-minded notion and would have no problem with including both monstrous and saintly individuals from my own immediate genetic heritage without feeling it said anything significant about me, but I don't expect everyone to feel the same (and anyway, I'd fear confirmation bias in those reading our articles who have racist notions with regard to the "evils" of certain ethnicities). But allowing people to put the "best face" on their ethnicity is not an equivalent neutrality issue, as I see it. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support ending the practice of infobox and other lead galleries for ethnic groups or similarly large human populations.
  • Infoboxes and leads briefly summarise key points from the article. Instead, these galleries are long illustrated lists of notable people, with captions that take up nearly as much room as the images, or even more (see previous French people). The indistinct and unrepresentative images fail as illustration - see the tiny icons and distant bearded men of the old Albanians.
  • It's been suggested we can leave it to local consensus, but that's exactly what's failed. Leaving it to local consensus merely leads to expansion as the only compromise available and draws editors into conflict only to deliver a degraded experience to the reader.
  • It's been suggested that that this would breach WP:IAR and WP:NOTCENSORED. The fifth pillar of Wikipedia does not require that there be no rules, and this is not about galleries of genitalia. It is a matter of WP:PERTINENCE. NebY (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• 'Support - simply lead clutter with no real value for merit for leads. -- Moxy (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion for RfC

There seems to be a fair amount of support for this so I'd like to start discussion on possible scope or rewording in the event this does get implemented. My primary opposition is that similarly large human populations is too vague and I would love to see this more clearly defined or reworded. MOS is a guideline, but a widely followed one and as such we need to make sure it is as clear as possible. Might I suggest something along the lines of

"Articles about large broad human categorizations (e.g., ethnic groups, sexes, genders, nationalities, etc.) should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members, because selecting them is normally original research, based on editors' point of view, and often is contentious."

I'm open to suggestions, but this was my stab at it. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 06:24, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

That certainly eliminates the vagueness which would allow "New York City" to be classed as a "similarly large human population". In addition to the note about OR, I think that including POV would also be appropriate. --Taivo (talk) 06:31, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I tweaked the wording a bit more. Used broad instead of large. Added POV. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 08:09, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Please note that the following discussion by User:Paine Ellsworth and User:Wee Curry Monster has nothing to do with the wording of the proposed policy and is an attempt to argue against the policy outside the discussion above. --Taivo (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. I (still) don't think the above boldface note is consistent with the talk page guideline, because my post just below has everything to do with the wording set forth by EvergreenFir. Nor should the bold note be taken seriously by anyone who reads EvergreenFir's proposal and my response. I humbly suggest that the bold note be removed by its author or redacted by someone else. I'm not sure how harmful it is, but I'm reasonably sure that it will fool no one and will not help the author's arguments. It seems highly non-neutral to me. I could be wrong.  Paine  23:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Look at what you wrote. Had you written, "I don't think that it's been proven that OR and NPOV are relevant here so they shouldn't be mentioned in the policy statement", your comment is fine. But that's not what you wrote. You wrote, "Since OR and NPOV haven't been proven your argument fails and I disagree with this whole RfC." It's not a comment to improve a policy statement, it's an argument against the whole RfC. That's why it's disruptive in this section, which is about crafting a policy statement if consensus is judged to support the RfC. --Taivo (talk) 23:51, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm – it sounds to me as if you are being a bit picky about my wording, but I'll give you that one since I'm being "picky" about EF's wording. Perhaps, then, we can go on from here with the understanding that I don't mean to be disruptive, just thorough in my opposition to the use of OR and NPOV in the wording?  Paine  00:07, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The argument that selection of images is OR and NPOV is thus far insupportable since nobody has shown even one example where the selection of an image is accompanied by a reference citation to a reliable, verifiable source. Until someone provides such an example, then we have to leave out the part about OR and NPOV, and if those are omitted, then there isn't much of an argument left to support ditching the many-years-old tradition to leave image selection up to editors and consensus on an individual-article basis.  Paine  10:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

If you want to argue about whether OR or NPOV applies to this issue, then this isn't the section to make such arguments. This section has been set up in anticipation of a consensus to broaden the definition of galleries so that it can be implemented quickly and efficiently. If you want to argue about whether to expand the definition or not, the section to make that argument is above. Please don't clutter this section with your arguments against expanding the definition. --Taivo (talk) 15:14, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Why? In a request for comment, that makes zero sense! OR and NPOV clearly doesn't apply, since you can find a reliable citation to demonstrate any individual is a member of a group. The only reason this is being pushed through that actually stands up to scrutiny is that people are concerned about the endless arguments and wikidrama that occurs on some articles. For that reason alone people are prepared to ditch the pillar of WP:IAR and make a rule that will be enforced rigidly on all articles, whether there was conflict before or not, whether removal is to the articles detriment or not. Image selection should be up to editors and consensus on an individual article basis. I realise the futility in arguing against this as so many seem hell bent on imposing it but do yourselves a favour and stop kidding yourselves that OR is involved here, it isn't. WCM_email 16:56, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Please do not hijack this section -- on the possible wording of the policy -- with comments that belong in the section above. The discussion above on whether to institute this policy is currently running about 2-1 in support. Attempting to divert this discussion on the potential wording of that policy truly smacks of "I don't like it." These comments by Paine Ellsworth and Wee Curry Monster should be moved into the section above. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:TPG do not refactor other people's comments. Both comments were about the wording and the reference to WP:OR and WP:NPOV. WCM_email 18:01, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

No, they are not about the wording, they are arguments about the main discussion and attempts to push your anti-RfC POV here. They are not attempts to improve the wording of the final policy, but attempts to push your point that you oppose the policy at its core. You need to reread WP:TPG because I have neither edited nor deleted your comments--just placed your argument in the correct place. --Taivo (talk) 18:03, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Nope, they are precisely about reference to WP:OR in the proposed wording. By moving you are editing my comments as they're no longer in context. Please stop. WCM_email 18:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Making baseless accusations at my talk page and personal attacks in edit summaries does not help your case. Please stop. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 18:57, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

My aplogies Laszlo, I got the wrong guy. WCM_email 19:13, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, Taivo, my post to which you responded so negatively was in direct response to the proposed wording, which included the (in my humble opinion) inappropriate application of the OR and NPOV policies. Whether or not those policies apply to the selection of images in articles is still up in the air, so their inclusion in the wording appears to be premature. My argument might not sit well with you, but you should remember to discuss the argument (not the arguer) in a manner consistent with policies and guidelines, such as WP:AGF and WP:TALK. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.  Paine  23:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

What disruption? Selection of images is not WP:OR, its a normal part of the consensus based approach to deciding on the images to include in an article. Since when did one editor get to decide that other people's contributions to a debate is disruptive to the point where they're allowed to put a label on like this? There should not be a reference to WP:OR, editors have a right to state their opinion on this - otherwise what is the point of an RFC?. WCM_email 22:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

You don't get it and I'm not the only editor who considers this to be a disruption. You are arguing against the policy. That's perfectly fine. But this section of the discussion is not about whether to implement the policy or not, but about the wording of the policy after the RfC above is closed with consensus. Your arguments here have nothing whatsoever to do with wording the policy and everything to do with opposing the policy. These comments from you and Paine Ellsworth where you are opposing the policy are appropriate in the above section, but not in this one. --Taivo (talk) 23:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

No you don't get it, the comments are precisely about the wording. You just don't want to hear it. WCM_email 00:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The actual policy discussion continues here. --Taivo (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm OK with this wording. I'm not sure about the POV issue, myself, but that's something to be hashed out above.  Sandstein  16:00, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment: I agree with EvergreenFir that "similarly large human populations" is too vague; I was the one to initially point out the vagueness of it above, and noted that editors will understandably interpret it differently from one another. I also agree with Paine Ellsworth (and others) that the image selections are not "normally original research"; they are sometimes original research (but only when editors are selecting people as part of a group when no WP:Reliable sources identify them as part of that group), and I've thoroughly addressed this above as well. Like I noted with my "00:54, 7 January 2016 (UTC)" post, "Per what I stated here and here, I just don't view the WP:OR policy as some others here do. To me, it's like stating that putting together a collage or gallery of anything is WP:OR because of editor selection. And if that's the case, we might as well get rid of collages and galleries altogether." In my "21:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)" post, I followed that up with: "I don't mind if the guideline states that WP:OR can be an issue in the case of these galleries or collages (I've seen ethnicity/racial matters be a WP:OR issue via interpretation); I mind it acting like WP:OR is more commonly the issue or is the prime issue." So I'd prefer the wording state "is often based on editors' point of view and may be original research, and is commonly contentious." Well, something like that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Editors also need to work out if this guideline piece is simply supposed to apply to lead images. I also noted that I don't see how "Oh, the images can't be used as the lead image...but can be used lower in the article." solves anything. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Procedural note: In response to a request at WP:AN, I have closed the RfC at Talk:Woman because this discussion will supersede it. The closing editor may want to consider comments made there. Sunrise (talk) 22:22, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment - As the "fair amount of support" can only be based on a count rather than an uninvolved evaluation of arguments (closer), this section seems very premature. It presumes an outcome that is far from certain and puts Opposers in the position of having to debate language based on a premise that they oppose. My suggestion is to collapse this and start it over if and when the RfC passes. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:28, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

If this were starting from nothing, you'd have a point, Mandruss. But the same arguments that you have made above have already been made and rejected previously and the consensus there was overwhelming. The assumption that this RfC will end as the last one did is on sound footing. If, by some miracle, this RfC ends differently, then nothing is lost by working on wording here. Indeed, Evergreen's opposition to the RfC was based on its vagueness. He's the one who initiated this section in order to clarify what he considers to be less vague wording. --Taivo (talk) 23:36, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I would have to agree with you on this point, Taivo, in that EvergreenFir's attempt to clarify the wording was assuredly made in good faith; however, since EF opened the wording for discussion, please explain how it is "disruptive" for editors to disagree with that wording in this section?  Paine  23:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

If that's all you were doing, Paine, then your comments are welcome here. But that's not what you did above--you said that since OR and NPOV haven't been proven to your satisfaction, this whole RfC needs to be rejected. If you had put a period after your first sentence above, it would be something that could reasonably be discussed in this section, although it's been proven to the satisfaction of the majority of editors here. But the conclusion of your statement above makes your previous comment inappropriate for this section. --Taivo (talk) 23:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Then let's look at it more closely. Here is EF's proposed wording:

Articles about large broad human categorizations (e.g., ethnic groups, sexes, genders, nationalities, etc.) should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members, because selecting them is normally original research, based on editors' point of view, and often is contentious.

If we remove the part about OR and NPOV, then we have:

Articles about large broad human categorizations (e.g., ethnic groups, sexes, genders, nationalities, etc.) should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members, because selecting them often is contentious.

So please explain to me why you think my response was not spot on.  Paine  00:15, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I think you hit the nail squarely on the head. Regards, WCM_email 00:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

(ec)Again, if all you had written was this, Paine, then your comment is appropriate here (although I disagree with it). It was your ending comment that was an argument against this RfC that was not appropriate. This section is about how to word the policy assuming a successful conclusion, not an argument on whether the policy should be implemented. So based on that understanding, and your comment above, then we can move on. A majority of editors here have agreed that OR and NPOV in gallery selection has been adequately demonstrated so referring to them is appropriately based on a majority view. However, even without that, once policy has been established for no galleries in "human group" articles, a justification statement isn't even necessary. "Don't use galleries on 'human group' pages" is perfectly adequate for a policy statement (I'm summarizing EF's actual wording, of course). If a person is curious about the justification for the policy, then they can research this discussion, but 99.9% of all readers won't care about why the policy exists once it does. They will simply read "no galleries on these pages" and then move on. But even though not necessary, EF's justification statement is based on the majority view of the participants in both this RfC and the previous successful one. Indeed, you can refer to Sandstein's closing comment here for verification that these galleries are the result of OR. That is the prevailing view. --Taivo (talk) 00:26, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully you will forgive me for saying this, but my last sentence addressed the second wording above that omits the OR and NPOV. All that is left is contentiousness, and what would happen if we removed everything on Wikipedia that people argue over and about? Also and again, please try to remember that this is the talk page of an MOS guideline, and is not a policy page. If this guideline is in any way altered, it should only be done very carefully so as to be in keeping with actual policy. Have a good one, Taivo, I must move on for now.  Paine  00:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I am thoroughly annoyed at how acrimonious this discussion is... I've struck the "outcome" part of my initial comment in this section if it helps any. I started this section because there's at least a moderate chance this will be added to the MOS. I'd rather head off another RfC and get the wording figured out now in the event that does happen. I frankly don't care about the OR or POV part. Keep it or leave it. It really doesn't matter in the end whether we add a reason to why these galleries are not to be included. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 08:23, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The key part of your proposed wording is the first clause, in which you describe what types of articles this policy will affect--broad categorizations of humans such as X. This statement is a revision of the statement that is already in the article at #4 here. In looking at the comments here, I don't see any opposition to that wording. In reading through the other statements, I don't see many others that include justification. The second part of your proposed wording, the justification, is also simply what is already in the article. If we exclude the opinions of the individuals who oppose the RfC as a whole, there is actually broad (not unanimous, but broad) agreement that creating a gallery is an act of OR based on POV. Indeed, this RfC has one real function--to broaden the definition of what kinds of articles this policy applies to from ethnicities and nationalities to "broad categorizations of humans". The justification for the policy is actually immaterial at this point since it's already been decided in the prior RfC and explicitly delineated in the closing statement. The prior closing statement listed original research as the justification and nothing in the comments of support here seriously challenges that view. --Taivo (talk) 09:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

No matter how many times you assert it to be true, the selection of images to illustrate an article is not WP:OR but simply standard editorial discretion. It could never be WP:OR, since selection would be based on a WP:RS. The only sustainable reason for this is the controversy over the selection of individuals on some articles has lead to some editors concluding they're more trouble than they're worth; they're entitled to do so. Suggestion this is WP:OR may be the figleaf hidden behind to justify their removal but that still does not make it true. The suggestion that this figleaf should be included in the policy wording is not logical. WCM_email 18:06, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that we are here to serve readers. Unless it can be shown that significantly more readers object to these montages than would prefer to see them, we are serving ourselves, not readers. And there is a lot of that going on lately. Many editors exhibit a strong tendency to create or imagine issues where none actually exist. Catering to the sensibilities of 5% minorities should not be an overriding principle. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a disservice to the reader to present these montages as if they were representative of these groups of people. The montages provide grounding for an essentialist viewpoint on ethnicity, sex, gender, &c., whereby certain groups of people are claimed to have a certain few innate traits that individuals within these groups cannot escape, and hence lends credence to stereotyping. Furthermore, these montages rate the worth and notability of people within these groups based on an arbitrary set of criteria, and even raise questions about whether certain people belong to these groups, which are once again presented as essentialist monoliths. Editorial discretion is one thing, but when dealing with groups of people, there are specialised concerns to deal with.

This is not necessarily just a concern with the montages, either. It is also a concern with single images presented in the infobox as if these images were factual depiction of the group of people being described. If a Japanese reader goes to the page Japanese people, and sees the picture that is presently there, one of two people in kimonos, will not that person wonder why this is considered representative of the Japanese as a people in the modern era? Will this person not wonder why the people in this picture do not dress as most Japanese do on a daily basis? Will this person not wonder why the Japanese have been orientalised and essentialised as kimono-wearing people standing in front of a shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji? It is one thing to provide a picture of a person in a biography, or a picture of a place in an article describing that place, or a picture of a person in a historical article that has something to do with that person. However, it is another thing to provide images and posit them as representative of groups of people, without due consideration for the nature of these groups of people as fluid and non-concrete, as opposed to essentialised monoliths. RGloucester — ☎ 22:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

You still fail to justify guidance against these things. If you feel a better photo is needed at Japanese people, that can be addressed at Talk:Japanese people like any other content in that article. If you feel no photo would be acceptable, that can be addressed there likewise. If the consensus agrees with you, no photo will be used; if the consensus disagrees with you, you lose; either way, the system has worked as it was designed to work. There can be no one-size-fits-all in these things, and there is no need or justification for site-wide guidance against these images. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I am saying that no picture or montage can ever be appropriate for the lead image or infobox photo of an article on a group of people, and that the use of pictures in this manner should be proscribed as contrary to the essential policies and purpose of the encylopaedia. Guidance is required to ensure compliance with the policies of WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and so forth. The same reasons that apply to the image at Japanese people apply to all images of this sort on "x people" articles. RGloucester — ☎ 23:28, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Please explain why this reasoning applies only to groups of people and not to any collection of images determined solely by editorial judgment and consensus, as at Renoir. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The picture of Renoir in the infobox at Renoir is indeed a picture of the totality of Renoir. It is him, and serves a purpose to identify him as the concrete subject of the article. Any image in the infobox at a "group of people" article can never depict anything near the totality of said group, as these groups are not concrete, but fluid and ever-changing. There is not one subject to identify, but many, many subjects across history. Whilst the picture of Renoir can be said to be representative of Renoir in actual fact, an image such as the one at Japanese people can never be said to be representative of the subject that is Japanese people. RGloucester — ☎ 23:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I was not referring to the infobox photo but the choices of images of his work throughout the article. Surely you wouldn't suggest that the essential difference is that the collection of images is assembled into a single montage at the top of the article? It comes down to a matter of scrolling? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

There are two main differences. The first is that the infobox image or the lead image, if there is no infobox, serve to define the topic in a way that images in the body of the article do not. Images in the infobox are meant to provide an overview of the topic, an encapsulation of what is contained in the article. Images in the body of the article, on the other hand, serve to provide illustrations of matters discussed in the body. There is nothing wrong with including a picture done by Renoir in the body of the article whilst speaking about his painting. Such an image does not claim to be representative of Renoir's work in general, unlike it would do if it were placed at the top of the article in lieu of a picture of Renoir himself. The other difference is the that the work of Renoir is a definite topic, with clearly defined boundaries as a subject. The same cannot be said for "Japanese people", or for any other group of people. RGloucester — ☎ 23:57, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, one or two fair points in there. Now see Dog and Plant. Nine breeds arbitrarily chosen to convey the concept of "dog", 15 species arbitrarily chosen to convey the concept of "plant". I just want to be clear that you feel humans warrant special treatment in this regard. If so, why? If not, if you feel the same applies to other groups of things including dogs and plants, then the wording of the guideline needs to be changed accordingly. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that most people would agree that it is considered generally acceptable to essentialise the "dog" as a biological category, even if that essentialism is rooted in our inability to comprehend the extent of consciousness that a dog possesses. This is not generally considered acceptable when applied to humans, which is why we have things like the WP:BLP policy. RGloucester — ☎ 00:22, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't support it if limited to humans, as that smacks of political correctness, a cleansing of Wikipedia from a liberal perspective, something that I have always strongly opposed despite recent trends. (I say this as someone who self-identifies as center-left.) But don't worry, you probably won't need my support. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't even know what "political correctness" means, and I'm certainly not a liberal. Do you understand how a picture of some breeds of dog does not mislead the reader about what a dog is, but how a picture of two Japanese in kimonos outside the Meiji Shrine participating in Coming of Age Day presents a skewed picture of what a Japanese is? No? I think that the difference should be rather obvious, and it has nothing to do with "cleansing" or "political correctness". RGloucester — ☎ 00:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

To editor WCM: Thank you for your response!  Paine  19:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

EvergreenFir, I figured that you would support the removal or rewording of the "OR" piece since, in the Talk:Woman discussion, you argued that the image selection is not OR. You are okay with "OR" remaining the way it is in the guideline (as though it is the primary problem) even though image selection, even for galleries, is not usually an OR violation? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Honestly I don't think it should be there but my bigger concern is the "large group" part. I'd support the removal of the or and pov parts. Really don't think they're necessary. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I disagree about their being unnecessary. Certainly POV is the cornerstone of the problem, and arguments as to 'editorial discretion' don't wash. Just taking a look at the online Britannica for Human being demonstrates how an encyclopaedic tertiary source presents the subject matter. I'll reiterate my argument that Wikipedia is aimed at a demographic known as 'Human beings', more specifically those above the age of 3. The use of images for groups of human beings may be perceived by a handful of editors who work on the article in question to be edifying for the reader, but it is a WP:PPOV premise in the first instance. Once, per PPOV, it is established that an image gallery or individual image is somehow going to inform the reader of something they're incapable of understanding without diagrams, the choice of image/s becomes POV and breaches WP:NOR. While the images may not be OR in as much as they are reliably sourced and verifiable as being examples of that group, the process of selecting an image or images as being 'more representative' is POV. In fact, such an exercise is WP:SYNTH. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Certainly POV is the cornerstone of the problem,

I can understand why some editors think this; however, the problem is to find a way to make the selection of images NPOV. In the past and for up to 15 years, now, this has been done on the talk pages of the individual articles. It should not be dictated by policy nor guideline that NPOV violations should be handled anywhere else but on the talk pages of the articles. No policy nor guideline should be worded to countermand the many discussions and deliberations, the huge amount of consensus, that has taken place to choose which images are to be used in an article.

arguments as to 'editorial discretion' don't wash.

By "editorial discretion" is meant only that editors on each individual talk page have been and should continue to be the ones who choose what images are in any article. If a guideline or policy dictates that certain images or types of images cannot be used in articles, then it removes the traditional role of editors – it removes editorial discretion and dictates to editors more than it should. It's okay for a policy or guideline to set forth how images are selected, but it is not okay for a policy or guideline to be involved with the actual selections – that is done on the talk pages by use of editorial discretion, discussion and consensus. After that, the selections cannot possibly be deemed violations of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH or WP:NPOV. Editorial discretion on individual talk pages guards against such violations.

the process of selecting an image or images as being 'more representative' is POV.

I would agree if that is what was being done, but it is not. "More representative" is not what is being sought during the selection of images, because said selection is merely to decide which examples of the subject matter should be used. None are "more" or "less" representative – a woman is a woman, a man is a man, and a human is a human – the images chosen are merely examples representative of the subject, not more representative, just representative examples.  Paine  09:51, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Paine Ellsworth, but you've simply resurrected the argument that it's been a practice on Wikipedia for a long time, and that a BADIDEA was a good idea in the first instance. You've not presented any arguments for how it is informative for the reader (other than in the minds of editors who like the practice) and are pleading a case for it being some form of censorship of the inherent rights of editors not to be censored. We are, in fact, not discussing the right of editors to pursue bad ideas: we are discussing whether it is encyclopaedic to present image galleries providing visual cues for the readers to be able to identify what a 'Human', 'Man', 'Woman', 'Black person', 'White person', 'Purplish-orange person' is. Our readers are the same species as us and know what such concepts are. As is evidenced by this talk page, a far larger number of editors understand such galleries as being nonsensical and uninformative. The premise behind this discussion is not to protect some strange convolution on the rights of editors to make uninformative editorial decisions. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't be sorry, Iryna, just please be thorough:

you've simply resurrected the argument

I didn't "resurrect" anything. In point of fact, it is you who resurrected arguments that I've squashed before. All I did was to answer your resurrections in kind – fight fire with fire, so to speak.

a BADIDEA was a good idea in the first instance

It's never been a bad idea to discuss things like the selection of images, galleries and montages on the talk pages of individual articles, has it? How far are you willing to go with that? Is it a bad idea to discuss the notable entries in templates? or is that also OR and a violation of NPOV?

You've not presented any arguments for how it is informative for the reader

I must write in a really boring manner, because you apply this sweeping statement to me that is patently false. I have already stated a case for how it is informative for readers ("a picture is worth a thousand words"), so I resurrect it again just for you.

[you] are pleading a case for it being some form of censorship of the inherent rights of editors not to be censored.

I never used the term "censorship", although that is precisely what it is. Good call.

we are discussing whether it is encyclopaedic to present image galleries providing visual cues for the readers to be able to identify what a 'Human', 'Man', 'Woman', 'Black person', 'White person', 'Purplish-orange person' is.

No, we are really discussing whether or not it is encyclopedic to present image galleries/montages that provide visual cues for the readers of representative examples, illustrations, of the subject matter, just as it has been encyclopedic for many years.

As is evidenced by this talk page, a far larger number of editors understand such galleries as being nonsensical and uninformative. The premise behind this discussion is not to protect some strange convolution on the rights of editors to make uninformative editorial decisions.

It seems odd that this even has to be addressed. These montages are by no means nonsensical and uninformative – rather the opposite in my humble opinion. So in your estimation, the last several years has been frought with editors who have made "uninformative decisions" where the selection of images is concerned? Where do you intend to pull in the reins on that idea? I mean, there are so many areas on Wikipedia where various types of items are selected by discussions on the talk pages. Not just articles, but also navbar templates, project pages, help pages and such. Are these also instances of "uninformative editorial decisions"? And here I've always thought that whether I agreed with them or not, they represented "consensus", an idea that you and others don't seem to deem very important on Wikipedia.  Paine  23:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Would religious groups like Mormons be covered by this? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 13:59, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: Why would any religious groups be exempt from a gallery depicting 'notable/extraordinary' people who are/were adherents to that faith? There is no qualitative difference between Zoroastrians in Iran, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, Hindus, Hutterites, or any other religious groups other than their belief systems. Belief systems are not embodied by, nor informatively illustrated by 'notable individuals' unless there is an absolute founder of the religion. Even there, using a single image of the 'founder' in the infobox does not inform the reader as to the belief system or practices of the group. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:23, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm asking more if religions fall under broad human categorizations. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Apologies if you misunderstood the brunt of my response, EvergreenFir. I've only just realised that it comes across as being brusque, which was not my intent. I am saying that, yes, they would fall under broad human categories as they are not dependent on anything outside of a system of faith. Even if they exclude other (ethnic) groups due to the localisation of their origins/primary geographical context, such proscriptions are not going to be better expressed by the inclusion of galleries in the infobox. Visual cues (such as particular forms of dress codes) are better articulated by the use of images (per WP:PERTINENCE) within the body of the article. Such images only relate to obvious visual cues and cannot express what it means to be a member of such a group psychologically/spiritually. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:14, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Opinions requested

Please see discussion at Talk:Harley-Davidson XR-750#Gallery usage. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

New stuff about border on images

Hi, I recently imported some tips from Help:Visual file markup#Border help page to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Border. Well, it's not a new thing on Wikipedia. I posting it here just to inform about this addition. Cheers! --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 00:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification.

I hope you don't mind that I shortened it slightly and replaced the 'outdated fixed width in px syntax' in the Japanese flag example with relative sizing using 'upright=factor'... BushelCandle (talk) 02:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It looks good on both things. Hope this guideline will be helpful. Thanks! --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 02:48, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@BushelCandle: I only changed back disc to circle. I think this is better to describe geometrical shapes. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 15:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Should we really be encouraging a hack?

"Upright" is a property meant to be used to shrink a vertically aligned image to fit next to horizontal ones. It was never really meant for the use it's being put to: A property meant to easily shrink images is now being touted as the default way to enlarge images.

When you're using a property in ways it was never intended to be, and which go against its original intentions, there's always a chance of it breaking utterly when some well-meaning coder tweaks the code, not realising the unsupported hack use.

Before we start suggesting people use "upright", wouldn't we be better off asking for a new property, "scale=" perhaps, that has a sensible default of 1x the default width, instead of .75x the default width, and with this as a documented use? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

(As an aside, upright in its "intended" use has its own issues: With screen resolutions getting ever higher, 220px is already getting fairly small; 220*.75= 165px can easily be near-unuseable for an image with any sort of detail. A property to make horizontally-aligned images wider would probably have been better, but it's too late now.) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly why it's important that, when editors resize images, they use relative sizing (mostly using |upright=explicit scale factor — I agree the version without the explicit factor is confusing and hacky) instead of absolute sizing. Because if you personally find most images too small for your screen resolution, you can change your default image size, and still get the benefit of other editors' decisions that some images should be shown a little wider or a little narrower than others within the same article. If the images were absolutely sized, in pixels, then you wouldn't be able to affect their size by setting your preference. (Now if only I could get different preference settings for different screens...) —David Eppstein (talk) 07:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we should be encouraging a less dictatorial syntax because its advantages overwhelm the few disadvantages. Since Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia are the overwhelmingly important users of the software, I would be flabbergasted if code changes ever broke it for longer than a few minutes. I do agree that something like "scale=" with a default of 1x the user's chosen default width would be more elegant.

Incidentally, isn't it the case that 220  x  0.75=165px rounds to the nearest 10px and then becomes 170px ? BushelCandle (talk) 07:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Except it's a hack. We shouldn't be using undocumented hacks to code. That we probably also shouldn't be going very much below 1 in the relative sizing, but that's a separate issue.

"Preference" is an advanced issue. The number of readers who change it is probably minimal, and no article editor should change it if they're going to be editing layout, so the very people - advanced users - who are likely to know about it are the last people who can use it.

Honestly, it would probably be better to use pixel sizes, and change how preferences work to make them a relative scaling of all images. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a hack because it's called "upright" rather than "scale"? You like the idea of relative sizing but refuse to use it because the parameter has the wrong name? That position seems a little extreme to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:48, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: It has a confusing default, a confusing name, difficult-to-find documentation (it's not like the code links here), it's not at all supported by VisualEditor, and probably couldn't be, and the functionality should actually be given by scaling images based on the factor in the user preferences, not by having a default size in the preferences. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Changing the software to scale all images by a user preferences is (1) not achievable by local consensus (see below), and (2) worse than what we have now, because then there would be no way to make fixed-size images for the rare times that we need them, at least not without even more changes to software and image parameters. It's a non-option. You're making the perfect (how you would like the software to operate) be the enemy of the good (our ability to get relative image sizing within the current software). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure, let's expand the scope of the question until consensus becomes impossible. One has to draw a line somewhere, and converting upright to scale and eliminating the no-value form is not mutually exclusive with your suggestion. Doing the former would not make the latter impossible, or even more difficult. It would simply separate the two issues. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Converting upright to scale is not something we can achieve by reaching consensus here, because it involves the underlying Wikimedia software, and convincing the developers to make changes for us is an entirely different process with its own difficulties. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:07, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Well yeah, my first reaction when I saw this thread was that it didn't belong here, not being directly and only related to improvement of the associated project page (I still don't see anything here that belongs here). But others were going along, so I did too. The question should be taken to an appropriate venue, and, if consensus is reached, the developers can and should be expected to implement this relatively easy change. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Upright is indeed a historical artifact which causes some confusion. I'd support deprecating |upright=, with or without a value, and replacing it with |scale=. Scale should obviously default to 1x, but it should not be supported without a value.
(In situations like this, I've never understood why we have to deprecate, thereby taking years for the word to get around, more years to finish the conversion if we ever finish it at all, and untold editor effort to get that done, rather than just writing a bot to do the conversion in a day or two, then dropping support for the old parameter after six months or so—but what do I know.) ―Mandruss ☎ 07:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Beyond the issue of the valueless parameter, the name is in fact important if we wish to design for editors without a lot of experience. Upright is used for far more than tall images, and its name is misleading. Let's stop the tendency to design for experienced editors like ourselves, and make some moves in the other direction. This is one of them. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Just as a matter of brainstorming, what if there were both upright and scale parameters, upright functioning as it does now and scale applying after the fact. In this specific situation, upright should only be used to indicate that an image is more vertical than horizontal, while scale should be used to say "this image should be shown larger", all respecting the user's default thumb size to start. So for example, "upright | scale = 1.5" with the user's default at 220px would give an image at (220 * 0.75) * 1.5 = 248xp where it normally without scale be at 165px width. I recognize we're talking equivalent functions though the former, with "upright" more about working at layout, and "scale" about making important images larger. I don't know immediately if this makes a big difference in the mediawiki software but I can see the potential to use "upright" more effectively in page layout particularly on smaller screens. --MASEM (t) 23:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)