Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 14

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Unauthorised use of a recently featured picture

This isn't strictly relevent to FPC, but as it involves a recent FP and others have previously expressed interest...

User:Noclip recently informed me that Apple has used my Colosseum image in a video demonstration for the "Time Machine" (actual quicktime video here of their new OS). I have not released this image anywhere else other than Wikipedia (istockphoto rejected it for having potentially copyrighted content - the bilboard advertising a gallery, I think). Given that they have not met the terms of the licence (attribution and providing a copy of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 licence), surely I have grounds to take legal action for unauthorised use of the image? Presumably for a not unsubstantial amount considering the significance and potential audience of the video. Any thoughts? Is there anywhere else that may be a more appropriate place to discuss this? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow that is pretty stunning. Congrats, I guess. I guess if I were you I would look into lawyers? Debivort 08:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if the Apple culprit is an active FPC participant, or just a lurker ... Debivort 09:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Shifty eyes... Jumping cheese 09:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, but it's clear that Apple did not meet the terms of license after watching the video. I agree with Debivort. If you really want to peruse the matter further, I would suggest contacting a lawyer to discuss possible remedies. Or you can wait for free legal advice from the lawyers on Wikipedia. ;) Jumping cheese 09:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, its not that I'm desperate to bleed them for whatever I can get, although I do think it is fair that they compensate for any profit they make from the image. What I find curious is that they could have used any high quality but completely free image (of which there are many), but instead they chose mine which had very specific terms of use that they evidently ignored. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Crikey. That was a bit silly of them. You might want to email/phone the Foundation about that one and see if they feel like helping you out, since you're sure Apple got the image from Wikipedia/Commons. Definitely some kudos in it for you though, even if you did find out about it through the wrong channels. I certainly think you should expect some recompense... it's not like they can't afford to pay for images to use in their ad campaigns, or as you said, take the time to use an actual free one, rather than ignoring the Commons licence. The irony of it is that I just watched that video in Apple's new Safari-for-Windows... --YFB ¿ 12:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ya, enforce it. For gods sake you are putting grade A material out there for free and you only ask that you get attribution and that derivative works hold the same license. It is the least they can do. I don't think the foundation will help you with this matter though, as it is your copyright. ^(H) 13:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

User:BD2412 is an intellectual property lawyer. You may want to consult him for advice. howcheng {chat} 15:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

At least contact Apple and see what they say. If they stick their lawyers on you, you know they are running scared. On the other hand, they may have a good explanation (ie. where they got it from), and point you to someone reusing Commons images and selling them to people like Apple. On a side-note, I see that they cropped your image - which I think improves it - they've cut out the kebab van in the lower right background! :-) If Apple are very apologetic, extract some free pics from them. Carcharoth 16:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know what the legal situation would be as far as re-selling of images, but with a company like Apple who obviously are going to have legal eagles aplenty, it's not in the least bit unreasonable to expect them to make sure they don't violate licensing terms in their ads. Quite obviously they'll be "apologetic" but since they're happily making money off Diliff's work without so much as a credit line, if I was him I'd expect to extract a little more than free pics and a stock apology. What do you mean "free pics" anyway? --YFB ¿ 16:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow! I can't believe they would be so brazen as to display an easily recognized photo multiple times in such a high profile presentation. I don't have much legal advice to give you, but I strongly encourage you to take some action. This happens all too often without anyone noticing. Recently I was on vacation 300+ miles away from home and stumbled upon a much more obscure image being used without attribution/authorization by a small alternative weekly publication. I hope that my bringing attention to it at least discourages them from being cheap/lazy and just stealing pictures from Wikipedia in the future. Cacophony 16:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I can only repeat what's above. Certainly they should know better. Trebor 21:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have a similar situation involving a half dozen of my climate change images, a well-known magazine, and a lack of GFDL compliance. In that case though, they did provide an acknowledgment to me but there is no reference to the GFDL as required. Dragons flight 20:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess the ultimate confimation of being a great artist is when someone tries to steel your work :( - Just make sure in the settlement you ask for the new: mac pro 8-core G5, 16GBs of ram, 3TB Hard drive. and Apature pro as well. I would talk to a lawyer before talking to Apple, the lawyer would know how to procede. Best of luck. -Fcb981 22:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, seconded. If you haven't already done so, get legal advice before you contact Apple, to avoid prejudicing your case or whatever the term is. --YFB ¿ 23:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Creative Commons recommends this group for Australians. You can contact an apparently similar-oriented London group here.--Pharos 00:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the advice, guys... I'm not very au fait with legal process, but if I'm going to take legal action against a US-based company, I'm assuming I would have to do it with a US-based lawyer in the US, in which case London based lawyers may not be the best people to speak to... Or as someone based in the UK, could the action be taken against them in the UK? I suppose I'm going to have to submit to a crash-course in Law to sort this out! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

You have a three year time limit to pursue legal recourse.[1] I guess you can take a class... ;) Jumping cheese 14:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I am a U.S. lawyer, based in Philadelphia. email me at dbrennan@dilworthlaw.com Spikebrennan 19:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm a little late in this conversation, but I really hope that you do take legal action ... if nothing else, it will help protect this sort of license from being abused in the future. I love Apple, but there's no excuse for this type of behavior. As a sidenote, I was in the Vatican a few weeks ago, and I thought I saw this picture on a postcard. Took a pic of it so I could check when I got home, but it was a false alarm :o) tiZom_(2¢) 17:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Another count of unauthorised usage...

Hi everyone,
I just came across a violation of one of my own FP's - [2]. They even had the nerve to post a copyright notice of their own on it! They don't look particularly big, but I'm pretty annoyed. Any suggestions as to what course of action to take? --Fir0002 23:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, we might need to make it a class action: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] although obviously the nasa ones would be a different case... --Fir0002 23:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh man ... nasty letter time? Diliff - how has your Apple pursuit gone? Debivort 00:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for Diliff to get back in touch with me. Diliff-- contact me. Fir0002, you can email me too if you like. Spikebrennan 17:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Am I mistaken, or have they all been uploaded by the user sephirotyang? If so, perhaps the issue becomes one of how can a Web 2.0 website prevent its users from uploading images they shouldn't? We see it happen often enough here. Perhaps the first and most sensible course of action is to contact the site, inform them of what has happened, and request them to be removed. They can then also deal with this rogue user, who incidentally may not even realise he's doing anything wrong. (BTW they've watermarked them, but I don't think they've put a copyright on them). --jjron 09:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

They have a contact email where it says you can report copyvios: ben at educatedearth dot net. MER-C 12:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as before, contact them, and see what they do. If they co-operate and apologise, fine. If not, its time for the letter. Most people will apologise and either credit you, or take the photo down. Getting credit and attribution would be good advertising for Wikipedia. Carcharoth 12:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Considering their header image includes a copyvio image from Star Trek, I can't think that they're too particularly concerned about copyrights. howcheng {chat} 07:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Reopening Sarrus linkage

this nomination ultimately resulted in the original uploader uploading an alternate version that addressed many of the concerns that had caused voters to oppose. I would suggest re-opening the nomination with the alternate image (by the time it was uploaded, it was near the bottom of the queue and people may have missed it.) Spikebrennan 17:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Can a nomination be reopened after it was closed? I think a better method would be to nominate the new version and mention the previous nomination. Jumping cheese 09:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree - renominate if you feel it deserves it and think it really is a significant improvement, with a link to the prior nom. From my experience things really seem to struggle on renominations though. --jjron 09:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Closing long-term suspended nominations

We have a whole bunch of nominations that are cluttering the bottom of the WP:FPC page for months without resolution in sight. I think we should change the procedure on how to deal with them. A free license is a criterion that trumps all others, and it's the nominator's obligation to establish that the picture has a free license. If s/he can't do that within the seven day period we should consider the nomination failed with the provision that it can be renominated once the license status is clarified. ~ trialsanderrors 18:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

How about we say that nominations can be suspended, pending clarification of license issues or whatever, for at most 1 week. Debivort 18:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A week is fine for comments, but not if you need to contact authors etc as well: this can take much more than a week, as we have seen. Not much point in giving it any time-limit if it's going to be unrealistically short and leave no time for a consensus to form once it's resolved. I agree that a reasonable limit should be in place (and that some candidates have been around for an unreasonably long time) but the max period in the suspension zone should be nearer a month than a week. Of course, this sort of thing should really be sorted out before an image is nominated in the first place, so the allowance would only apply to issues raised in the course of the nom which appear to be easily-resolved. mikaul^talk 23:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Trailsanderrors' suggestion original. I know re-noms often don't do too well, but if you simply renominate something and say "previous nomination closed because of copyright concerns which are now resolved" I don't think having been nominated before will hurt nominations at all. Enuja 04:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the only reason I can see why we might keep them open/suspended/on the FPC page is that it might get the attention other editors who would want to help resolve the licensing issue. Empirically it looks like this rarely ever happens. So it really come down to an interaction between nominator and closer. I can see two cases: 1. The nomination ends with a clear "conditional support" consensus, in which case the closer can simply change the "fail" to a "pass" once an acceptable license is provided; and 2. the nomination was sidetracked by the licensing issue, in which case a renomination might be inevitable anyway. Neither case benefits from an indefinite suspension of the discussion. ~ trialsanderrors 19:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

We could also make a sub-page for suspended nominations, and provide only a link to that page from the main page. Would place the burden on nominators to keep things fresh on that page. Debivort 22:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. The biggest issue with removing suspended noms is the loss of accumulated comments, notably so with the "conditional support" example, which this would avoid. There should probably still be a time limit, following which the nominee should be notified of the candidate's pending removal, as it's likely to be something of a backwater page. mikaul^talk 23:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

OK if someone wants to create a separate page it has my support. I would close them as "not promoted – can be reopened if the licensing status changes." ~ trialsanderrors 19:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

All right - what do you all think of Wikipedia:Suspended_featured_picture_candidates? If we like it, all that is required is removing that section from WP:FPC and update the link in Template:FPCQuickLinks. Debivort 03:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm ok wth it, as long as they disappear from the main page. Let's check back in three months if anything happened to those nominations. ~ trialsanderrors 06:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the suspended page idea, though slighty worried they may be forgotten about --Childzy ₪ Talk 07:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The suspended page addresses the problem well. The nominator can update the entry to say whether anything is still going forward, and I agree after two or three months of inactivity the nomination can be closed. If a closer doesn't get round to the page for a month or two, it won't really matter. ~ Veledan • T 23:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not like the idea of the suspended noms being on their own page. With them out of the way, they're out of sight and out of mind and I think even less will happen with them. What I'd prefer to see is no suspended noms; if the copyright hasn't been worked out by the 7 day limit, then the nom should fail. Others, like the Haast eagle picture, seem to have been suspended partly because people stopped paying attention to other folks' comments, so moving to another page only exacerbates the issue. An example like the Haast eagle could be given a wee bit of leeway while the artist is contacted and then closed if that doesn't resolve things. If need be, any pic can be re-nominated with a link to the old comments. Matt Deres 13:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

POTD credits

FPC regulars may be interested in this discussion: Talk:Main Page#Photo credit for picture of the day. howcheng {chat} 07:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone think it's worth resurrecting the bot?

Some people may remember that before my year-long wikibreak I created a macro that performed FP closures. Not an automatic bot, it was interactive and presented the user with a dozen menu-driven choices for which section of WP:FP etc to place the image in, whether it was created or just uploaded by the nominator, and let the closer enter one or more user IDs who could receive collateral credit messages on their talk page (for example, if they had edited the promoted version). It then did all the promotion work automatically, creating the image insertions and captions, updating the FP counts and notice pages, and leaving appropriate template messages on the talk pages of those involved. It would invisibly obtain a 'lock' on the FP candidate page (by adding a comment) as soon as the closer specified which nomination they wanted to work on so that even if two people were using it to close noms simultaneously, there could be no conflicts.

The format of the FP pages has changed since then, so it would need updating.. Anyone want me to do that? I remember at the time I used to perform 10-15 closures per day but the volume is lower now. Also, it would require the user to install Python if they were using Windows as I found that the pywikipediabot framework wouldn't compile using py2exe for Windows and I've no desire to reinvent that particular wheel.

Is it worth updating it? Procedures have probably changed and I don't know how long it takes to perform an FP promotion now. When I created the bot, it used to take 15 minutes for an experienced closer to perform a promotion manually, and about 3 minutes to complete a non-promoted closure. That was a long time when there 15 or so to do per day, and backlogs were common, which they aren't now. How long does it take now? And would the current closers want to use it? If so speak up, otherwise I'll let it rest in peace :-) ~ Veledan • T 21:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've closed only a few noms, and it was unpleasantly cumbersome. So, if you feel up for it, I think many of us would appreciate your bot's assistance quite a lot, in fact there was an earlier discussion on this very page about making a new bot!Debivort 01:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll look through the diffs of recent closers to see how much updating would be needed ~ Veledan • T 10:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This should make things a bit easier. MER-C 11:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Just For Fun: FPC Scavenger Hunt

In the interest of attracting FPC nominations that depict a wide variety of subjects (including those that don't get nominated often enough), and also in the interest of having fun, I hereby establish the FPC Scavenger Hunt.

Until someone has a better idea, here's how it works:

(1) A person (for now, let's call this person the "Hunt Master") declares an image subject matter. I would say that the subject matter should be very broad: for example, "Barry Bonds" or "Honeybee" are too narrow a subject matter; "Baseball" or "Insects" would be a bit better; "Sports or Games" or "Animals" would be best of all.

(2) Anyone who cares to participate in the FPC Scavenger Hunt nominates one or more images for FPC status that have some rational relation to the current image subject matter. One person might nominate a scan of a historic baseball card; another a photograph of a historic deck of cards; another a self-made panorama of a notable stadium in Australia; another a scan of a Renaissance-era painting depicting tennis. Each such nomination should note, somewhere in the nomination, that it is a scavenger hunt entry.

(3) The nominator of the first nominated scavenger hunt entry that is duly promoted, and that relates to the then-current subject matter, is the winner of that round. The winner then enjoys the adulation of a grateful FPC community, and becomes the Hunt Master (replacing his/her predecessor) and gets to pick the next subject matter. The Hunt Master is not eligible to succeed himself/herself.

(4) If a suitable time period passes without any topical FPC nomination being promoted, or if the then-current Hunt Master fails to declare a new subject matter, then the first person who declares himself/herself the Hunt Master by making a post to that effect in Talk:FPC achieves that status.

The first person who posts a response to this and who expresses interest in being the Master (and who thereby declares the first subject matter) has the honor of being the first Master. Any suggestions for a first topic? (Some illustrative examples: Sports and games; postage stamps; crime; painted portraits; religious art; antiquities). (4) The (3) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spikebrennan (talk • contribs) 04:06, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Haha great idea! My suggestion for a first topic is: MAGIC. Debivort 05:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the Hunt. "MAGIC" it is, then, Master Debivort. (I had nominated this image back in July, but the image wasn't regarded as a sufficiently high-quality image. I'll see what else can be found-- maybe a circus or promotional poster, maybe an animation of a trick, maybe an engraving from a medieval mystical text...) Spikebrennan 10:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Great idea! Only caveat, we should probably try to avoid a rash of paintings being nominated... since the Yorck project gave Commons 10K high-res classical images it would be easy to find pics there to match many categories. My first instinct was to nominate two of my favourite paintings ever, Circe Invidiosa and Magic Circle by Waterhouse. But I'll resist, although that said I'll try to create and upload new versions anyway as I see now the ones already on Commons are extremely poor—you can't see the spirits in the smoke at all in the Magic Circle—and I have very good quality full size reproductions to hand, just no scanner big enough. ~ Veledan • T 17:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's a big original, you can get good repro from a half-decent digital camera and a couple of lights. Let me know if you're keen enough and need any advice setting it up. mikaul^talk 07:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Whereas I instead nominated my favourite Aerogel picture - science is magic in itself, sometimes =) Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Engravings

I've said this in reply to Veledan in an image discussion, but we should probably discuss it here.

Should we up the bar on engravings? If so, to what point?

Firstly, engravings should not be exempt from being the best possible scan. That means we should be able to make every line, except in very rare cases where the sheer size of the engraving prevents this being very practical. In cases where this isn't true, the image should be rejected out of hand: The engraving still exists; a better copy could be made, hence it's not the best possible image.

However, engravings are not inherently reproducible, as a modern photograph is. So, we ought to try and estimate what other illustrations there are of an event. A non-iconic engraving of, say, a Victorian production of The Taming of the Shrew, or of a not-otherwise-notable colliery explosion used to, say, illustrate Mine explosion (sadly, those seemed to have happened and been illustrated in the Illustrated London News at a rate of about one a year in the Victorian period) should be held to a higher standard than more important events with few illustrations.

Of course, engravings should not be privileged above other forms of art: if paintings and photographs of similar quality exist for a subject, the bar for the engraving goes back upwards.

I just don't want my enjoyment of Victorian research to have the perverse effect of meaning that most Victorian events are ineligible for ever getting an FP, because the only possible illustrations of them are being rejected without good cause. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I will put some thoughts here for the sake of discussion, but I'm not really arguing anything in particular. I have actually opposed relatively few of what have mostly been your engraving noms, but neither have I supported. They are a rather hard thing to judge for mine. I mean the quality may be 'good', and some more than others have had good encyclopaedic value, but on the other hand, if I reduced a photograph to straight black and white (I mean just black and white, not grayscale), then there goes most concerns with things like noise, blur, etc. But would a photograph treated that way get promoted - highly unlikely. So it's hard to compare these things.

Now I have regularly seen photos opposed in the past with sometimes offensive comments about them being 'boring', or somewhat less offensive comments about them having 'no wow factor'. Now to be entirely honest, not a single one of the nominated engravings that I've seen in the last couple of months has had a 'wow factor' for me. I have not opposed any for that reason (in fact I don't think I've ever opposed anything for that), but have not noticed anyone else opposing for that reason either. I wonder why?

What I have noticed is that with only very few exceptions these noms are attracting very few votes - either support or oppose. Now that could be saying a few things. Perhaps it means that people don't know how to judge them (as I've mentioned above). Perhaps it means people aren't even bothering to look at them, which would then beg the question about their 'wow factor'. Perhaps it means something else.

I'd like to know your thoughts on the lack of votes issue, as it hasn't seemed to deter you nominating them. Would also like to hear other people's thoughts on the general engravings issue. --jjron 08:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Not enough original photos

There seems to be a trend towards more and more historical or otherwise third party photos, and very few by Wikipedians. And those few originals rarely seem to get promoted. This is a bit disappointing. Anyone think we should do something about this? Stevage 04:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Um... the two possible ways of increasing the proportion of FPC candidates that are original photos are: (1) nominate more original photos, and (2) nominate fewer historical/third party photos. I'm all for (1), and against (2). Spikebrennan 16:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Spike, while true, your suggestion doesn't really get to the heart of why original noms have been dying off, or how we can fix it. This to me boils down to - 1) relax the criteria for original photos, 2) accept that there will be fewer of them, or 3) make a specific appeal for original images. I'd favor the latter and could certainly help if I wasn't in the midst of writing my thesis. Debivort 17:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

What about adding something along the lines of the Commons' Quality Images programme, to celebrate good, useful original photos that aren't quite FP? Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well that's not a surprise. The current trend about FPC is to bash every picture on technical grounds. A lot of voters will oppose anything that has not the clean look of a picture with a digital reflex. I have a medium format picture of a steam locomotive under pressure with smoke and vapor (You know it's the kind of subject you can meet everyday at the corner of your street) that is ultra-sharp but show some grain texture at full res. I don't even try to upload and submit this picture I already know what will be the comment "its a bit noisy and not that sharp at full rez" no matter if this will be unoticeable printed on full magazine page. I will also not try to get featured with this one Media:Col de Braus-small.jpg there is grain like ping-pong balls (no surprise I deliberately under-exposed to avoid motion blur), however I think its the most interesting image on the road article. As the trend is to favor large images it seems that if you don't have a Canon 5D you're dead.

Another problem is that voters ask for some very conventional pictures. I have made an attempt at at FPC with this one Media:Mole Antonelliana - Color Small.jpg that is razor sharp and free of grain. Well, people want a "Normal view" Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mole Antonelliana. You'd better leave your creativity outside of Wikipedia. They even removed the picture from the article. Please look at the photography that is now on the Mole Antonelliana page. Well, it looks normal...

Well I prefer to stop here...

Aside of this there was a lot of interesting photographies that were de-featured. You you look to the archive youll see that most of them were defeatured because they were to small or had JPEG artifacts. Nobody had the idea to contact the uploader to ask for a larger version or less compressed... There's the underliyng idea that newer technology will bring better images.

Ok at this point you may think that I'm anal retentive, I have infatuated ego and I believe any grainy and poorly focused Shot I have made is a masterpiece of art. Well seriously, look at Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Plants well digital pictures sharp and grainless. But how many pictures with a flower right in the middle ?

Again I prefer to stop here...

What else ? Even outside FPC its not very rewarding to upload a picture on Wikipedia. I recently noticed that there was no picture on the Carla Bley article, thus I uploaded this one. I have no better picture probably not a masterpiece but not a bad picture. Not a portrait, black and white a bit grainy (however I'm still expecting to see what kind of result the guys shooting flowers in brigth sun would get when they shot handheld a 1/8s). And yes, Carla Bley is in the background, however it is very representative of how she is on stage often closing her eyes with her head up. I was stupidly expecting that someone will wrote "Hi Eric thanks for illustrating the Carla Bley article". See on Talk:Carla Bley what I get as a comment. Excuse be but my answer was a bit disruptive.

Well I thing I'm a bit masochistic in uploading original pictures on Wikipedia. Do you think buying Canon 5D and shooting flowers in full auto mode will a be good cure ? Ericd 19:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

well said Ericd. people's taste is different. I don't care about how people are judging photos. its often more than ridiculous... re images the wiki isn't much different than ordinary photo community sites. personal annotation re high resolution photos: as long as the (on wiki, no matter what language) available license allows a commercial use I'll never ever provide a high res photo. don't like to do the work while others make profit out of it. just my 2c. --Michl 07:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Michl I forgot this requiring high res is the best way to have no photography uploaded by a pro or the semi-pro. Ericd 11:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Michl "wiki isn't much different than ordinary photo community sites" I can't help thinking to a famous photo community were when you post a sunset photography when you'll get a 4 for aesthetic you inevitably get a note between 3.5 and 4.5 for originality lol ! ~~

To be fair, that photo - while very illustrative - was rather misplaced in an infobox confining it to 220 px. I've rearranged the page a little bit, so the photo can shine, and put a crop of it in the infobox. I did trim it a little bit on the left, but that was just to allow the main parts of the image to be a bit bigger. Adam Cuerden ^talk 07:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

There's at least one more option: Have separate pages for original and non-original content. Then it would be clear how few original images are being submitted, and would perhaps encourage people to submit more. Whereas currently, you're effectively trying to compete against a massive collection of third party images. Stevage 04:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It's significant that the proportion of user-originated Commons FPs is higher, where there's no need to suit the criteria and constraints demanded by the encyclopedia. WP:FPs aren't great images first and foremost, they're great encyclopedic images. Unless you just happen to get lucky, shooting specifically for that criterion is very difficult; it's more like assignment photography and anyone prepared to spend the time, money and effort required to produce not only enc images, but FP-qualty enc images, probably should be doing it for a living, if they're not already. Which is where Michl's comment comes in, along with the copyright issues associated with it. I think we do alright here, when you consider all that. Lowering the bar just to get more user-FPs is an entirely self-defeating exercise. mikaul^talk 08:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"Have separate pages for original and non-original content": No, that would annoy the closer(s?). MER-C 11:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Really? How so? I'm not convinced. Why is it more work to close on two different pages than on one? How much more work? Are you sure it isn't worth it? Sounds like an excuse to me. Stevage 13:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

We just need more decent featured picture candidacies, period. I don't particularly care what they are, whether they're original pictures, historical engravings or stuff scraped off COM:FPC. I feel a little underemployed. MER-C 11:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

lol - you know that really is an open invitation.... :) --Fir0002 11:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking to nominate this one Media:Clash 21051980 12 800.jpg after removing a few dust spots. Do you think it will lower the level of FP ? Ericd 12:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You'll probably get complaints about size, so I'd either upload a slightly bigger version, (1000px on at least one side) or just pre-empt the complaints with a good justification for why the size should be ignored. It's a very good image otherwise, so go for it. Adam Cuerden ^talk 12:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a larger version. It is not one of my picture. But why nobody nominates this kind of pictures ? Ericd 14:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Mick I've its not the first time that I read that the problem is how high the bar should be. The question IMO is there only one bar ? I agree that Wikipedia is not an art gallery and some of the recent trend in fine art photography will have very few encyclopedic value (although a more representative Lomography would be welcome for the Lomography article.

For instance let's see the Tomato article :

We have Fir0002 FP. Technically perfect, and I know its difficult to make that kind of image. Should Fir0002 be featured for this. Of course ! And one the best reason to feature this kind of pics is that I find so boring to make such an image myself that I will do this only for money.

On the other hand what are we looking at : a tomato, a round and red tomato... a very normal tomato... a standard tomato... just the kind of tomato we find at the local grocery store in any developed country.

So why is this picture featured ? Encyclopedic value ? Bullshit ! Information value is near zero, it is just the tomato we have seen thousand times. So why is it featured ? Because the work of Fir0002 and aesthetic value of the picture is recognized.

On the other hand we have Media:Raf Tomatoes.jpg. A pretty picture, everyone who knows how to use a camera and a certain sense of composition could get that kind of shot at the marketplace. However it has more information content it show that there is different kind of tomatoes. I doubt this picture will be nominated on FPC and if it was I doubt it will turn on the voters. On the other hand if feature such picture it will be in no way an insult to good photography.

But also have this picture Media:Heirloom tomatoes.jpg, a very interesting picture that shows that there is also yellow and brown tomatoes. But well... I don't want to hurt the photographer.

So what ?

My current reflexion is not especially about the FP or the PPC or the FP criteria. Is more generally about the average level of photography in Wikipedia. Since a long time I have a confuse feeling that something doesn't work but know I begin to see clearly. What kind of relation has the average level of Wikipedia photograph with the FP ?

IMO FP should be useful to Wikipedia. If the purpose is only to be a club for a small elite photographers as long as I have a FP, I'am happy to be a member of the club and we close the discussion. FP should IMO help rise the level the of photography of Wikipedia. And as it is yet it just fail IMO. I'm not sure rising the level of FP will rise the average level of photography in Wikipedia nor that lowering it will lower the average level.

Just to illustrate the current level have a look Broadway (New York City) how many people carrying a camera have walked this avenue in one year ?

Ericd 14:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying Eric, but I guess I see things from a more long-term perspective, and I see WP:FP as almost a separate thing to the body of images that make up the encyclopedia. Just like the way the rest of the encyclopedia evolves, there's a need to weed out older, weaker material as and when better stuff becomes available. It's usually circumstantial: as/when new shots come up, or when you get to an article and think to yourself, "whoa,I've seen/have got/can get a much better shot than that" and you upload it. Just like the encyclopedia, no-one really writes an article with the express purpose it becoming a Featured Article; the bar is way high for that to be a common aim, and rightly so. But it doesn't stop people making a big effort to get it as good as they possibly can.

How often do contributors look at their work and think, "wow, this is so good I'll nominate it!" – speaking for myself, that's hardly ever. I've never put any of mine up for FP (yet...) just because they're either too small or not super-enc or whatever. Of course WP:FP looks elitist – it is! – but it only favours individual editors if they happen to turn out top quality shots on a regular basis. Individual images are what count: we actively promote an elite group of images, not photographers!

Really, the only way you raise the level of wikipedia photography is to encourage and inspire others to contribute more and better work. The best way to do that is promoting the FP and Quality Image process at Commons, as a direct incentive to have your work "featured" if it is technically/aesthetically sound. Stuff uploaded there can then be considered here for encyclopedic value afterwards. You don't achieve higher quality by lowering the bar anywhere – how on earth will that increase standards? WP:FP (and WP:FA, and just about anything on the main page) serves to promote the encyclopedia, period. It's not a reservoir of images (that's what Commons is for) and it absolutely must demonstrate only the very best that we have on offer. mikaul^talk 16:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Well Mick we raised several question that are worth to be developped. However I have to go to Spain for a few days. Thus I will stop this discussion for a few days. I'm still not sure there is one standard were the bar could be raised or lowered. Some discussions on FPC give me the same feeling that a group of classical music critics reviewing an album of the MC5. I'm still not conviced that any photography could be evaluated by the same standards. I know why there so much FP of airplaines, it's because the US Air Force is gently feeding us with ton of free pictures.... But sticking on pictures by Wikipedians, why so much photography or animals plants fruits or flowers and so few people photography ? I agree there may be some problem with people photography. I agree also that every or animals plants fruits or flowers that has a article should have a photo. But currently there's 3 FP of people by Wikipedians. I'm not satisfied by the arguments that the only talented photographer in Wikipedia are those that shot animals, plants, flower or panorama, I suspect there is some systemic bias in the FP process or that we are stuck in some kind of Groupthink. The worse is that every time I think to a subject that has no FP I find some picture that could be worth a FPC nomination for instance I was thinking to car accidents see media:Japanese car accident.jpg. I stop here I must go to sleep. Ericd 20:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, because food, insects, some larger animals, and flowers are relatively easy to photograph, given a sufficiently good camera, and, since we have articles on them, undoubtably encyclopædic. However, people are relatively hard to photograph when not posed, since they will move around. And posed photos are boring. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, Adam. Insects, flowers and food very easy to photograpg even with point and shot cameras. How many dragonflies , bees and flies we should feature? Yes, they are sharp, yes they are different kind. So what? They all look alike. I wonder while most voters look only at image quality, but never look at image value. In my opinion encyclopedia viewers and readers cannot care less about quality, they do care about seeing more different and interesting images at the main page. In my opinion Wikipedia:Featured picture criteria should be changed and number 5th criteria should become number first.--Mbz1 00:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

I cannot agree with you,Ericd with your assement of tomato. You say: "So why is this picture featured ? Encyclopedic value ? Bullshit ! Information value is near zero, it is just the tomato we have seen thousand times.", You are right and because you are right this picture never ever should have been featured. It has no encyclopedic value. Wikipedia:Featured picture criteria states: "It illustrates the subject in a compelling way, making the viewer want to know more". How this picture would make anybody want to know more about tomatos. I'll be ashamed even to nominate something like this.--Mbz1 01:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

Huh, how are food and insects "relatively easy to photograph"? Food is hard, because you have to physically build the scene, arranging things in a nice way. I tried, I sucked. Macro photography isn't particularly easy either, as the DOF is so small. We should be encouraging more high quality photos of insects and food, not discouraging it. I would be delighted with an FP of each of 1000 different insects, not annoyed that there were too many insect FPs or something. Stevage 01:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Weel, this is compared to other subjects: While they have to be artistically arranged, and preparation has to be made, if you do the preparations right and the camera is good enough, you can probably get the photo in time. Also, there doesn't seem to be that much worry in FP as to the exact angle the insect is photographed from, as most angles seem equally informative to non-entomologist eyes. However, it can be very hard to get to an appropriate location to photograph a building without other buildings getting in the way, and larger animals often have the problem of either having to take photographs in zoos (often artificial environments) or having to deal with their natural isolation - most non-domestic animals will actively avoid humans, whereas many insects will allow a human relatively close. Meanwhile, humans have that horrible tendency to look like idiots when photographed candidly.

I'm not saying that food and insects are easy, but there are additional considerations with other images that make them somewhat more difficult, adding much more luck or need of cooperation from the subjects into the mix. Adam Cuerden ^talk 10:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually I find that humans have a tendency to look like idiots when photographed posed too. At least humans are looking like idiots in their natural state when photographed candidly! As for difficulty in photographing buildings, some buildings are probably just destined never to have a FP quality image taken of them due to physical constraints. If the only view you have of a building is looking up at a sharp angle from just in front of it, it will always be too distorted to be particularly encyclopaedic, unless all you want to see is a particular feature of it. If you're crafty with your distortion correction you can fix it though (a case in point is a mosaic of the Trevi Fountain in Rome which was heavily distortion corrected - too bad the lighting was quite awful that day). Anyway, it is inevitable that some subjects will be far easier to produce an FP standard image of, but thats life. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

To take a slightly different tack, I'll just make a couple of comments, make of them what you will. FPC voters can be pretty rough and ready with their comments on photos. I feel this discourages a lot of people from nominating their own images, fearing not just that they may fail to be promoted, but that they may have scorn heaped upon them in the process. Now, having nominated both my own images and other peoples images, I can say from a personal perspective that you have a lot more invested, and take comments far more personally, when it's your own image. To be honest, for this reason I only oppose a 'by Wikipedian' photo/image, and especially a self-nom, when I find it to be really quite poor. On the other hand I'm not that fussed about opposing 'third party' images (oh gee, another NASA or US Army picture). What can we do about that? It sounds a bit soppy, but perhaps voters could take note of nominations and try to be nicer in general. You don't have to support, but you can be considerate. And to think that not that long ago the argument came up that self-noms should be banned.

What also annoys me (as some have alluded to above) is the continual carping about size. Yes Diliff has set a very high standard for panos and architectural photos, but I don't think other such images should be opposed (as they regularly are) because they're not as big and detailed as his. If it's a reasonably sized photo I see no problem, provided it covers the other criteria. On the flip side of this is the continual sniping mainly directed at Fir0002 for uploading downsampled images at 'only' 1600px. I see no problem with this (in fact I prefer it - I don't want to be downloading 10MB images), and he has justified this countless times. So why is it continually brought up, and why do other contributors feel the need to upload images at twice the resolution and absurd file sizes, only to find themselves opposed for minor noise, or slight unsharpness, or some other minutae? The irony of course here is that the non-Wikipedian 'historic' images are specifically exempted from this size criteria, and seemingly several other criteria. Any wonder there's a undersupply of original photos and people willing to put them up.

Now, just one final thought that I've mentioned before (and everyone's welcome to disagree again). I personally think Wikipedia FP should be only - and I do mean only - for images that have been created and contributed by Wikipedians. This is not NASA FP, or the Louvre FP, or the US Army FP, or Flickr FP, or... Now I'm not saying these other images aren't often hugely valuable to Wikipedia, but they're not exclusive to Wikipedia. If FP was only for images created by Wikipedians, then I think we'd see a very different story. --jjron 09:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• Good points Jjron (and stop making little changes here and there, every time I think you're done editing, you make another change and I get an edit conflict!!!), but panos are very easy to make high res as long as they're not excessively downsampled (I often reduce width or height to half of the original and still have plenty of res to play with). I have to say I don't agree at all with Mbz1. Not everyone has seen a tomato a thousand times. Not everyone has seen a pristine tomato. In fact, its possible that nobody has ever seen a tomato not cut up in a sandwich! We shouldn't make assumptions about what is mundane and uninteresting and what is not. People wouldn't be reading the article on tomatoes if they thought tomatoes were boring. The fact is, if the photo is of high technical standard and illustrates the article well, it should be a candidate for FP. I also agree with Stevage in that food and insects are not at all easy to photograph well from my experience too. People will naturally photograph the things that they have available to them. If its exclusively food and insects, so be it - so much the better. I'm rather limited in that regard, living in London where the food is crap and expensive, and the bugs don't survive long in the concrete jungle! ;-) I do have access to quite pretty architecture and cityscapes, however, and from time to time I contribute such images to wiki. I don't think anyone should be chastised for contributing images of what could be considered boring subjects, as long as they make an effort to present the subject well. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me put it this way, Diliff: If you coul find the one, who's never seen "pristine tomato", surely that one has never seen the Internet either and I'm afraid fir0002 image will not be any help to him.I'm not sure I understood what you meant under "In fact, its possible that nobody has ever seen a tomato not cut up in a sandwich!", but that's OK. It is probably my English just not good enough to understand your thought.
Jjron, I cannot agree with you that only Wikipedians pictures could be featured. FP pictures are not for Wikipedians, they are for readers and viewers of Wikipedia and I believe we should remember about them.--Mbz1 14:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

Yes, you're right about FPs being for readers, couldn't agree more. "Exclusive shots" is a non-starter, as most licenses are free or non-exclusive anyway. However the tomato issue cuts to the core of the enc issue. It's like a systemic bias thing: the fact that you "know" tomatoes and you assume the rest of the world does too, is 100% irrelevant. You simply can't assume that anything is "too common" to be worthy of illustration. An encyclopedia attempts to illustrate everything, no matter how mundane, and aims to do so as descriptively as possible. That's the hard part.

In some respects I'd agree with you, the more interesting a shot of a mundane subject the better. So a variety of tomatoes is more enc than one on its own. But a technically outstanding photo makes for more interesting viewing, lifting it out of the mundane, and beats the technically-poor-but-interesting candidate every time, mainly because it's more descriptive. This is why the more "creative" or abstract shots always get rejected, and why shots like the tomato are so hard to achieve. The housebrick that someone nominated recently was case in point. In fact I thought it was a wp:point nomination, making the same point that you are, ie, it was shot of a common brick. You couldn't fault it technically, so why wasn't it promoted? Not because it was boring or mundane, but because it wasn't descriptive enough (you could only see one side, as I recall) I have to say, I support that decision as I support the criteria behind it and the contributors who provide illustrations that fit them. mikaul^talk 18:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Mbz1 I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the actual issue posed by Stevage, i.e., what can be done about the lack of original photos. As best I can tell your only contributions to the discussion here are to argue, to go on and on again about your own personal bugbears, and to take swipes at most of the people that actually do make original contributions. Or perhaps you think it's not an issue at all. --jjron 09:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree with you more jjron! I'm personally very proud of the English Encyclopedia's FP's and the standard we keep here. I mean it was either last week or maybe the week before I had a look at the FPC pages in other languages. And our FP collection IMO is by far the best. IMO we're doing pretty much everything right at the moment (excluding engraving noms! :) - we're picking out high enc and high quality images and that shouldn't change. To use a loose analogy - do you think Featured Articles should become filled with poorly written articles on obscure and "rare" aspects of Southern Swaziland? With regards to my tomato FP and boredom, Wikipedia is not an amusement park with exciting rollercoaster rides. It's an encyclopaedia. Sure wow factor is terrific and desirable, but if an image has high technical quality and high illustrative quality it's an FP in my mind. And I would also like to point out that taking images on a white background is by no means a simple task. And neither is macro photography. It is all too easy to criticize FP as being too full of a particular contributor's forte (insects, buildings etc) but it is much harder to go out there and take the shots. For example I think it would be terrific if Mdf decided to nominate more of his excellent bird shots and the FP galleries started filling with these. As far as I'm concerned, if there are "too many insect FP's by Fir0002" it's only because everyone else isn't pulling their weight in other categories! Our primary goal needs to be in finding those pictures which compliment what is written in the article (by giving a neutral and typical visual as to what the article is writing about) and have good image quality. --Fir0002 10:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Also agree with you Fir0002. I can only think of about a dozen or half dozen members here who have consistently uploaded FP quality images. That means that in the english speaking world of perhaps a billion and a half people (OK, including India - at least 400 million excluding India), this is all we've got to show for it. Obviously talented photographers are quite loathe to give for free what they usually earn their crust on, and that reduces the available talent pool significantly, but surely there are plenty more potential contributors out there who could give all of us a run for our money. I'd be delighted to see it happen. Until it happens though, I think its counterproductive to single out contributors that have found their 'niche' on FPC. ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, jjron, if you are really interested in my opinion, here it is: I strongly believe that minor quality problems should not prevent the picture to become FP, I strongly believe that Encyclopedic value of the picture should prevail over everything else , when the picture is voted for, I strongly believe that people, who have no idea of the subject and never seen it in a real life (and never even seen pictures of this before) should not oppose the pictures because they have no idea what they are talking about, like, for example happend with my Mercury transit picture, or with my fogbow picture. I strongly believe that, when Diliff told me that, if I'm to take an image of an alien in an alien ship, but it would not be perfect, he would oppose it, he was dead wrong. I strongly believe that Wikipedia readers and viewers do not care about image quality nearly as much as ones, who votes here. I could give you few proves of that. For example, my Greenland icebergs picture, that got "sadly opposd" here is now all over the Internet. Few days ago I was contacted by a magazine editor to ask permission to use one of my pictures. The picture they asked for was a digital picture of my old film picture(I have no scanner, so I just take a picture of a picture).Of course the quality of this picture was very bad, so I offered the editor of the magazine to send him the negative. He was more than surprised, he e-mailed back to me that quality is just fine for publishing the image. I even cannot imagine what opposes I'd get, if I were silly enough to nominate the picture to become FP. Few of my pictures were nominated not by me, but by somebody else. Of course they got opposed here, but to me it is one more prove that readers care much more about interesting pictures with interesting subject than about quality. Let's take one more example from my pictures - insects in amber. Once again an interesting image got opposed. I do not have a macro lens, I believe fir0002 does. I have amber with insects while fir0002 does not. Maybe fir0002 could have taken better picture, but he does not have that amber. So what to do? Should not I take picture of insect in amber at all? Should not I nominate the picture on FP? Remeber that a picture could always get delisted, if a better one for the subject will became available later. I believe that samples I provided about my pictures could apply to many original nominated pictures, and I believe that many people (like me, for example) are relucant to go throug the process ever again after their pictures got unfairly(in my opinion) opposed. If it were not the case, I'm sure we would have had many more original images.--Mbz1 13:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

Thank you for offering an opinion. I think that many people would agree with at least some of your points. For example your point about images being harshly treated discouraging you from nominating in future is similar to my first point, and addresses the issue that has been raised. I actually think some of your images have been very good and highly valuable to Wikipedia, but have usually been opposed on technical reasons. You are right that most users don't care about image quality as much as voters here do, but that's a large part of the aim of FP - that hopefully the voters here do subject the pictures to far closer scrutiny than a regular user would in order to pick out the very best on a number of criteria. It's not a perfect process, but it does have some merit. The current consensus criteria are basically high encyclopaedic value (your key concern) and high quality on technical grounds. A one person crusade by you to remove the technical concerns criteria is unlikely to work, just as me conducting a one person crusade to only promote Wikipedian created images is unlikely to work. I think what has got you offside with a lot of others here has been ignoring these consensus rules in favour of your own version of them, as well trying to decide for everyone else what is and isn't encyclopaedic. Targetting certain other users doesn't help either. Remember that despite his huge number of FPs, your primary target Fir0002 has probably had more photos fail in the FPC ring than most of us have ever even uploaded to Wikipedia (I think there were two of his last week alone that were nominated by other users that were roundly rejected). I say kudos to him for continuing to contribute despite this, and despite being regularly targetted by other users for his successes (you are not the first to do so). I'd encourage you to continue to contribute your pictures to Wikipedia and to nominate here when you think one meets the criteria. And try not to take it too personally if they don't get promoted (I know from my own experience that can be easier said than done). But you've said yourself several times on your nominations that you're more interested in getting the subject depicted noticed publicly than getting the photo to be an FP anyway. So good luck. --jjron 16:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

As I was reading this discussion earlier, I assumed that the reason I disagreed with you on FPC candicates, Mbz1, was that you and I must have a different idea of what FPC is for. But I agree with you that FPC is for the readers of the encyclopedia, not the the takers or nominators of images. To me, because it is for the readers, FPC should be restriced to the very best images, so that when readers browse through WP:FP every single image is breathtaking in its own unique way. You say above "Should not I take picture of insect in amber at all?" my answer is OF COURSE you should take a picture of an insect in amber, and you should upload it to the encyclopedia. Image:Ant_in_amber_close_up.jpg makes a huge contribution to the article amber. But just because an image is useful for the encylopedia does not mean that it should be a featured picture. Featured pictures should be a very small fraction of the total images in the encyclopedia. Every image used in the encyclopedia should contribute to the article it is used in, but only those images that contribute enormously to the article and are technically better than most of the rest of the images on the encyclopedia should be featured pictures. Enuja (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi,Jjron. I'm bacicly agree with almost everything you said except that I'm targeting anybody for his/her successes. Please believe me I do not targeting anybody for their successes. I do not target a photographer, I target a picture. I supported fir0002 picture of a fly few days ago and I would support his picture of the same mating flies, if it gets nominated.Yet I believe that, if in my opinion a picture has no encyclopedic value,I could share my opinion with others without fearing PA for doing this. After all it is my own opinion, which counts only for one vote and evrybody else could disagree with it, yet after recent PA on me for my votes I'm afraid to vote.
Enuja, I kind of believe that my Mercury transit, my fogbow, my insects in amber did contribut to the articles enormously. Some of my pictures are the only pictures in important articles. In my opinion(and please notice it is only my opinion), some or all of them should have been featured, without looking at quality problems under microscope. I know you and most others are disagree with me and I respect your opinion, while still having my own. Some pictures that I'm taking have the quality as best as they could be with such subjects. For example, here's the story about my very first nomination. I nominated the image of sunset mirage and of course got opposed by everybody. Then I chalanged the voters to find a better image of the subject anywhere on the NET. Pengo excepted my offer and in few days came up with the better image taken by the same camera. He missed that the image was taken not only by the same camera, but by the same photographer, and because I was the one, who took both pictures, I just knew which one was better. The one that Pengo found could have a little bit better quality, but the mirage was not nearly as complex and interesting as the one that was nominated.Pengo's find probably would have been funny, if it was not so sad.I'd like to add that in my opinion, if we're voting for the pictures of common insects, common flowers, common food items, common buildings, yes the quality of the image should get a priority, but if we are voting for more or less rare shots available in only one editions, the value of the image should be much more important than an image quality. I just got to flickr and looked up images of mating flies (please notice not any flies, but mating flies). Here's the result of my search. I found 2,089 photos. Then I looked up for insect in amber. I found 107 photos. I looked up for Colosseum ("Coliseum"), Rome and I found 1,195 photos. Then I looked up for images of icebergs at Cape York and I did not find any image at all. I believe these search results speak for themselfs. --Mbz1 17:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

Yes your vote is only one opinion, but it still has to be made under the set of criteria for evaluating FPC candidates to become a valid vote. But I'm glad you linked that Flickr search (although it was keyword biased - I put in hoverflies mating and got only 39 and put in "iceberg" and got 24,704) because I found no fewer than two bastards had stolen my photo [14] [15] and claimed it as their own. This has really shaken my faith in how my images get used! :( I wonder how many others have been stolen...

My vote is made under the set of criteria from Wikipedia:Featured picture criteria. I could tell you what criterias I'm using for my vote:
"It illustrates the subject in a compelling way, making the viewer want to know more".
"A featured picture is not always required to be aesthetically pleasing; it might be shocking, impressive, or just highly informative."
"An image's encyclopedic value is given priority over its artistic value."
.I hope that we all agree that the nominated image should have strong encyclopedic value and I hope that I'm allowed to have my own opinion about the encyclopedic value of the image.
Btw, If you wanted to look for any icebergs (not only Cape York), I'd say you at least should have included words "icbergs, glaciers and helicoctper" because the picture I'm talking about really is the picture of many icebergs braking off many glaciers and that's why it is important picture in my opinion. I'm glad my search helped you to find out that somebody stealing your pictures.--Mbz1 23:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

I wasn't going to say anything, have just been following the discussion. I would note though that this comment: "And our FP collection IMO is by far the best. IMO we're doing pretty much everything right at the moment" demonstrates the appalling holier-than-thou attitude that does much to deter new users and contributors around WP:FP. I know after dealing with this area twice, I would never nominate any picture, my own or someone else's. Just my two cents, take it as you will. (Note: My comment was not meant as an attack or jab at Fir, but simply to demonstrate how one individual, outside of FP, perceived things here.) IvoShandor 04:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia NC License

Well if you looked up in the previous section you'll see that again I've found people claiming that my images are theirs. This is extremely discouraging ... and well shocking for altruistic photographers. I think this is as good a time as any to see what interest there is from FPC regulars to introduce a stricter NC license for photos uploaded to wikipedia. After we get a little interest here we can take it over to the powers that be. --Fir0002 22:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd happily support additional license options. I might still license under GFDL, but as far as I am concerned, the more options the better. Debivort 22:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

NC is not going to happen. It has been discussed numerous times (on the mailinglists at least). check this out :-). --Dschwen 22:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

If somebody wants to steal somebody picture, the change in licence will not prevent them from doing this. Please notice publishing other people pictures under your name is not supported by Wikipedia licence, but I believe there always would be somebody, who will do it no matter what licence the image has.--Mbz1 23:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Mbz1

You can dual license under GFDL and cc-by-(sa)-nc. The GFDL requires a copy of the license to be published with the photo (see the image Dschwen links to). Commons licensing policy allows this arrangement as "[y]ou can offer as many licenses for a file as you want as long as at least one of them meets the criteria for free licenses above. For example, files under a "non-commercial" license are OK only if they are at the same time also released under a free license that allows commercial use.". That's probably as close as you can get to true non-com. MER-C 09:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Then again, you'll still have this problem. MER-C 09:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

There is also the problem that not all commons admins understand that policy. On more than one occasion images dual licensed GFDL/CC-BY-NC have been deleted as non-commercial by admins who didn't understand their own policies. 76.225.157.167 09:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I feel quite strongly that Wikipedia should give contributors the option to only allow usage for non com (educational etc) purposes - it is after all an encyclopedia and not a stock site (as I've said elsewhere). No one would care if Wikimedia used them - that's a pretty lame excuse to retain commercial licenses if you ask me. I think the best way will be to contact a few contributors who I think the same on this issue and then take it somewhere - but where? --Fir0002 12:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree, I even got in trouble on commons because I specified my attribution had to be 50% of the picture. Anyway, GFDL is pretty good as an NC license, Fir. I mean, if someone wants to print an educational book then they stick the three page license in the begining and thats fine but for advertising, the license is huge. It would be tough for and advertising firm to hide the entire license on valuable magazine space. I doubt that the wikimedia foundation would suddenly split from their policy of total GFDL compatablity. As to what those people on flickr are doing... they are simpily whores. I find it hard to shake a feeling of hate for people who steel donations. That said, I'm not sure how much a NC license would discourage them. Hell, they break GFDL why no CC -by- NC. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 00:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Flickr Image Abuse

Attention everyone!!
Well I've got some rather disturbing news - acting on finding the abuse of my hoverflies image I searched from my crepuscular ray sunset image (which if you remember got misused not long ago) and sure enough I got [16] on the first page of the search. Turns out this guy has been mass uploading [17] WP:FP's. I would like to urge everyone to try a few searches on flickr to check for image abuse and report it [18]. I'd appreciate info from anyone regarding abuse of my images too. I'm off to do some more searches... --Fir0002 06:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

How do you contact flickr users? I'd start with assuming good faith, at least he doesn't claim he shot the pics (credits to WPI, whatever that means). My guess is this guy is just not clear about the licensing terms. Well there is a german saying: If you can read you have a clear advantage... ;-) --Dschwen 07:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone with a flickr account can send messages using the link below the user's profile. He does seem to attempt to credit Wikipedia, unlike many others, so I'm certainly willing to believe he'll respond to a simple message. I could send him one, but I'm not confident in my ability to strike the right balance between polite and firm. I'm sure many of you out there can do a better job than I would. Raven4x4x 08:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• Sigh.. its a sad fact of the matter that anything good that we upload to Wiki is fodder for theft. I can't keep up with it either. Every now and then a friend sends me a message to tell me they've spotted a photo of mine elsewhere. Given that there is no simple way to search for examples where the original filename has been replaced, it is virtually impossible to catch except by chance. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This type of thing happens constantly on the Internet, it's mostly harmless but has the potential to be a serious violation of author rights, especially when users here so, altruistically, as Fir put it, donate their images under the guise that they will only be reused a certain way. Let's face it, if you license an image under GFDL it is highly unlikely that it will be reused commercially because of the license requirements, but outright theft is always going to be a problem. In the case of a Flickr user, I doubt they aim to make any profit off it (though possible I suppose), our major concerns should be focused on when high profile images are used by companies and other commercial or governmental enterprises to make a profit or further an agenda without proper attribution and/or licensing. This, in my opinion, is a much bigger concern when compared to the illegal use of an image by some random copyright violator on Flickr who is probably just showing his images to some friends and lying about where he has been and what he has seen. My two cents. IvoShandor 08:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Even major companies do use these images without concern for licencing requirements. My images have been used by event organisers here in London, Apple Inc, the University of London, and numerous other smaller companies, and thats just in the last 6 months. Obviously if I had only uploaded them to stock photography libraries then they would be far better protected, but thats not the point, I suppose. Perhaps I need to be extremely clear in the image description just what the terms of the licence are. When I first started contributing to Wikipedia, my commercial interests were limited, but as I have started to make some money on the side, I have become slightly more millitant about my photos being used for profit without my permission. Of course I will still gladly contribute them for non-profit but this is seemingly at odds with Wiki policy... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Seriously-- they're violating your license by using your image without crediting you. (I am changing law firms at the moment but I will send you updated contact information after I move so that if you want me to take action on your behalf, I can do so.) Spikebrennan 16:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Diliff: That's the big issue, I agree. No amount of licensing will deter or even stop outright theft (I think someone brought this up). If someone is willing to violate copyright (commercial or not) there is little that can be done to stop them if you don't know about it. IvoShandor 17:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It would probably also help if WP and Commons were clearer about what image use policy was, maybe in the licensing template because I think a lot of people see "free" and assume there is no copyright.IvoShandor 17:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Abuse List (please add)

[19] - seems to have one of Aka's lightning shots as well; probably worth going through his collection —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fir0002 (talk • contribs) 06:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC) [20] --Fir0002 06:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC) [21] --Fir0002 06:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The same image, this time on youtube: [22] Mgiganteus1 16:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

OMG TheHill88 stole your pic!! She's probably the most famous Aussie on Youtube. At least you'd have the advantage of living in the same country as her so you can track her down. And she's kinda hot too. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Diliff, did you let your younger brother hack your account... This is the most exited I've heard you. you were down right subdued when Apple stole your Colosseum "pic" : ). And I thought you were too classy for Youtube, I dont feel so guilty for surfing it anymore. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 02:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I totally empathize with how much this sucks, but I suppose your best bet may be learning how to properly send out a DMCA notice. That people are stealing your photographs has nothing to do with the license you released it under; even if you had said "All rights reserved" the photograph would be stolen just the same. So keep up the good work in contributing to the body of available Free content, and deal harshly with those who would steal. --Cyde Weys 00:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

DMCA is a law of the United States, so it doesn't really apply to an Australian (like Fir0002) complaining about the conduct of another Australian. But I would assume that Australian copyright law is in broad terms similar to U.S. law. My general suggestion when you're dealing with an infringer who is an individual (as opposed to, say, a corporation) is to send the infringer an email that explains who you are, explains that you are the photographer and that you uploaded the photo under a license that requires that use of the photo be attributed, and requests them to comply or remove the photo. This is not legal advice. Spikebrennan 15:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Nom removed even though it wasn't adminned

The nom of the engraving of the Kingston Fire is no longer in the queue, even though that nom doesn't seem to have been adminned. Should it be brought back in, or adminned as is? Spikebrennan 16:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• Probably a mistake. MER-C was closing noms [23] and probably missed this one. thegreen J Are you green? 20:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I closed it. MER-C 03:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Featured pictures

Hello everyone, what are your thoughts on a 'WikiProject Featured pictures'? I have designed a project page for fun, see here. It sounds like a good idea to me; it could be similar in some respects to WikiProject Good articles where we have a greater coordination of featured picture candidates and so forth. If feedback is positive, I might just move it to mainspace (I don't think there would be any need to make a proposal) and we'll take it from there. Thoughts? -- Chris B • talk • contribs 18:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a really good idea to me. In fact, I think it is part of a larger and pressing need to better guide and organize the pictures on wikipedia. In so many articles people have uploaded and put into articles pictures that may be of their pet hamster or rabbit. There are many people that attempt to keep these pictures in the articles for an ego trip or a tribute to "fluffy" or whatever. This may fall under wiki project photography (which seems to be inactive) but we should really make an effort to stardardize the pictures of given subjects... Flowers would be an example. Having a "photo info box" so to speak, would be awesome . Maybe with an overall shot, a shot of the flower, of the stalk, of the leaves, all in a standard format. I'd personally like to see animal shots of that animal in the wild and relegate cage shots to related sections of the articles. Actually, I have sort of an ambition to create photo field guides for flowers, insects, fish, whatever... where people could browse through a catagory like snakes based on color, marking patters, etc. I think this would benefit the encyclopedia for a lot of people. I may be alone in wanting to see improvement for the general level of pictures and if so let me know : ). Id like to hear others ideas... -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 00:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Does this mean that I'll have some slaves to carry out the closing procedure for me? On a more serious note, will this project line up the main page POTDs? And will we have a scout group sifting through here and commons for feature worthy pictures? MER-C 09:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Featured sounds needs some attention, too. I suppose the proposed project could help with that as well. MER-C 09:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The project's scope is up to the community really. The obvious one is maintaining Featured picture candidates, although closing noms and sorting PODs would be perfect too. I don't think many people are aware that anyone can close a nom; I only learnt that recently! Featured sounds maintenance and coordination is also an idea worth considering. -- Chris B • talk • contribs 13:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the scope needs to be broader if it's not to fizzle out due to lack of interest, but (further to Fcb's comment above) I'd concentrate on images, at least at the outset. I like the project idea a lot, but the currently listed areas of interest are basically a formalised version of activities already undertaken at FPC. It would catalyze activity better if it focussed on selecting the best (ie most FP-like) of the pool of WP images and raising them a level, maybe to category-related galleries, or simply "best of" themed galleries, in which prospective FPs might be "farmed". This is how I would expect "scout groups" to be most effective, searching out the best in to galleries and providing editors in general with a more centralised resource of quality images. I realise there's a lot of crossover with Commons but as a specifically enc-oriented activity I reckon it has real potential. mikaul^talk 14:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Infusing project photography with more life seems like a better idea than to start a new project. Above on this page you can read people upset with the technical specifications and critical feedback for featured pictures, and I think that's because FP is about the best we've got as a supportive community for photographers. Guess what: FP is not a supportive community for photographers, and I can't image a wikiproject FP being supportive, either. Nothing that's trying to identify the very best of anything is every going to be supportive. What photographers need is advice in a context other than "does it meet x criteria" and instead in a context of "what would work best for the article?" and "what equipment do you have?" Enuja (talk) 20:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this new WikiProject is entirely unnecessary. I would much rather see more energy invested in the existing WikiProject Photography. It is disappointing to see a proposed WP with a much more polished page than an existing one with a much larger scope. Rather than a project focusing on giving out awards for pictures, why not focus on improving ALL photos on Wikipedia? Cacophony 22:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, people. I am starting a revival effort for WP:PH. If you are interested in helping please sign up in the new participants list on the page. I need to go to sleep now and tomorrow is my b-day. Could someone please archive the talk page and maybe come up with ideas for a recruitment template. Then maybe we can start spreading the word at FPC and the photo matching service and FP as well. People can suggest ideas at the talk page. help would be greatly appreciated. =) -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 03:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've made a small start on the page, by way of offsetting a complete lack of effort in the coming weeks, as I'll be on a long-ish wikibreak. Happy birthday, Fcb :o) mikaul^talk 07:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It's good to hear people's views. I think I agree with reinstating WikiProject Photography, and possibly even widening its scope. I hadn't realised the project was in such poor shape. Maintaining all of Wikipedia's images as opposed to just FPs is the more logical of idea. I'll gladly help revolutionize the project's pages too. (and happy birthday Fcb981!) -- Chris B • talk • contribs 08:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Something to keep us busy for a little while

I had a little free time, with the borked Twinkle putting an end to my usual vandalism patrol, so I decided to check out how many nominations never made it to the front page. So what I did was compared Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/ with everything in the archives and this was what I got:

So what needs to be done?

• Bad titles (e.g. Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates\Tarantula) should be corrected
• Delisting noms moved so that they have the prefix delist (e.g. Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/delist/example)
• Make sure anything already closed is listed in the archives.
• List anything that hasn't been closed, after completing the nomination (if incomplete).

I'd say this would be a worthy task for a FPC bot. MER-C 12:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• I could do some of this manually. Why don't we strike the lines when we finish? NauticaShades 16:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Commons FP Promotion

I made the this template to notifiy commons-only users when their pictures have been promoted on Wikipedia. A good idea? NauticaShades 16:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

probably should say has been promoted on the English Wikipedia or something so they know without having to check the links but other than that I like it. Cat-five - talk 23:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

FPC 'No Consensus'

First of all I want to say thanks to MER-C for the great work he's doing closing the FPCs. A couple of questions that I thought worth bringing to general discussion though, the first one here.

While most candidates are either closed as Promoted or Not Promoted, the odd candidate is getting closed as No consensus. Refer to "Kasa de la Muntanya", Barcelona and Diet Coke and Mentos Geyser as two recent examples.

Now let me first say I didn't vote on either of these, so have no vested interest either way. Going on the votes I feel that the Diet Coke one should have been promoted, the other one probably not. But that's not really the issue.

My question is this. To me No consensus is a no-man's-land closure. I personally feel the image should be either promoted or not; if it's really unclear then perhaps it could go back up for renomination to hopefully get a clear call. How do others feel about this? Any opinions any which way? --jjron 08:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There are some noms that are too close to call (I'd say the range is about 60%-70% in favour for this to happen). As such, its a note to the nominator to try again later, as in a few months time. MER-C 09:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't realise you left a note to renominate later. I wonder, does this ever happen? And if perhaps we would get a more immediate response by renominating immediately with a note that no consensus was reached in last week's nom and a link to the no consensus nom? People could of course then vote again on the renom even if they voted the first time - some may even reconsider and change their vote. Of course you could end up a week later with the same result, but lengthy discussions over some issues that deter some voters would probably be cut on the renom, and some people that didn't vote the first time would probably come in to try to settle things. I just feel a bit cheated by the 'no consensus' candidates, as effectively it's really a 'not promoted' anyway. --jjron 09:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

{{ifdc}}

What do you guys think about having an equivalent of the {{ifdc}} template for FPC nominations to put in the caption area? NauticaShades 15:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly not in my opinion. {{Ifdc}} is already a hideous template and one too many. A theoretical {{ifdc}} for FP candidates would simply disrupt readers from the topic in hand. Plus, it would be another self-reference. I've probably been a bit blunt there, but that's just my opinion; others may disagree. :) -- Chris B • talk • contribs 15:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I was aware of the self-reference issue, which was why I was creating a discussion about it. NauticaShades 15:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Chris B - I think traffic to the FPC page is high enough. Debivort 15:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Arguments to avoid in FPC discussions

I wrote a little section on FPC at Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in feature discussions. Have I missed anything? MER-C 13:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Substitution nominations

This page needs a section for nominations that are designed to replace an ageing FP with one of superior quality. At the moment, we're (a) diverting people's energy by having separate motions for approving the new and demoting the old, and the current mechanism also leads (b) some discussions to stall on the basis of concerns along the lines of "but then if that other one doesn't get promoted/demoted, what are (*in the world*) we going to do?"

That's not helpful. So, yeah, we need that new section to be there. Straight substitution. One. For the other.

Separa 03:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Today's Mainpage FP

So does anyone know why today's mainpage FP Gibraltar Barbary Macaque shows no File links to its FPC nom or the archives? It evidently was nominated here, but until I went hunting for the nom (which I can't remember ever seeing) I was thinking it was a fake. --jjron 07:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

No. Looks fine to me. MER-C 09:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If you click on the the word identified in ...members of the community have identified it... it takes you to the nom, just like all other FPs. -- Chris B • talk 11:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I was looking in the file links at the bottom, but they're there now. Hmmm, strange. Don't know what was going on yesterday. BTW thanks for the info re 'identified', I'd never realised that took you to the nom (that could have saved me some time :-)). --jjron 09:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering

Can someone point out where it says a user must be registered for their "vote" to count? Isn't it inappropriate to strike another's comment, even if they are an anon? IvoShandor 07:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

From the header: "Note however that anonymous votes are generally disregarded". I am more than happy to pretend they don't exist, but the comments may be relevant to the discussion. MER-C 09:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The one I saw wasn't but I was just curious, thanks, not sure how I missed that! IvoShandor 09:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Two-lined gum treehopper02.jpg

Something appears to be wrong with this promotion. Not only the promoted picture had only 3 support votes (and 2 oppose) but also it stayed in the FPC page for less than 6 days - Alvesgaspar 14:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply here. MER-C 05:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

My own insight from back when I was closing noms. As per various discussions and developing tradition the way a nom with multiple version is closed basically goes like this. All the supports regardless of the version preference are counted (also if someone for example votes: Oppose Original, Support Edit 1 it is counted as a support) and then all the opposes regardless of version (unless a vote is specified in favour of an edit). Then using the following values: Weak Support = 0.5, Support = 1, Weak Oppose = -1, Oppose = -2, add all the votes together and if it's greater than 0 (it's got a 2/3 supermajority) it's a promotion (of course there are other factors which can come in play based on the closer's discretion). Then it's just a matter of finding which version was most popular (this is where you take into account the opposes in votes such as "Oppose Original. Support Edit 1"). So in summary treehopper nom was closed correctly --Fir0002 06:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Pythagorean theorem

I don't think it is fair to remove this nomination so early, considering that the alternate version only appeared on the 4th of July and the consensus is not clear yet. Only 1 vote ocurred after the new version was proposed! - Alvesgaspar 14:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

And it was an oppose. The discussion looked like it had become stale. You might be able to renom again after a couple of months (that's what no consensus means). MER-C 05:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry but your explanation doesn’t make sense. The new nomination was closed less than 4 days after it was made (!) and 1.5 days after the last (and only) vote. The original nomination was closed a little more than 6 days after it was made, with 6 support “opinions” and 3 oppose (not counting the last). How can you say that the discussion has become stale and immediately infer that no consensus is possible? A quick look at the FPC pages (new and old) will suffice to conclude that this is not the normal procedure here! In Fir’s nomination above the discussion was closed, and a picture promoted, less than 6 days after it was made, after an absolute minimum for promotion (4/2) was reached. Is this significant? Maybe not, but like Cesar’s wife, it is not enough for the closing procedure to be serious, it has also to look serious. No need to tell what is the right thing to do now. - Alvesgaspar 08:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I run things a lot differently here than what goes over at commons, mainly due to smaller quorum and WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY. This usually means that supports and opposes tend to apply to all images, with preference for the one stated (unless otherwise indicated). I model this on articles for deletion (don't read the process page, that does not reflect what happens in practice). We don't usually give extra time because an image is edited.

Perhaps I made an error, but I don't see any other dissent on my closing of the pythag nom. MER-C 13:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Of course you made an error, that should be quite clear by now: without a sound justification, you have closed the nomination of an obviously encyclopaedic animation, before the normal time was over, and after a new and improved version was added. This same picture is now receiving in Commons FPC, after 6 days, 13 support “opinions” and nil oppose. Indeed things are run differently in COM:FPC. First difference is that this kind of monotonous (and sterile) dialogue between two people, about the way the closing procedure is carried out (which should be an important issue, IMO), would never happen in the main talk page of COM:FPC, because many other users would join the discussion. Here, no one seems to care. Second, the closer at COM:FPC would correct his mistake, as soon as it was recognized, by putting back the offended nomination. And third, COM:FPC is a much more popular, friendly and funny place, which probably explains why WP:FPC is struggling with lack of quorum and participation. Alvesgaspar 20:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid I would not agree with you there. Firstly, if you felt the nomination required more time, why did you not move it the section below that is reserved for such images? 6-7 days is ample and sufficient time for closing an image. Secondly, a selection of alternatives, will, naturally bring about conflicting opinions. In situations where consensus, that is to say, a broad unanimity, is vague or simply nonexistent, the image is not promoted. I would not parallel the featured picture procedure on Wikimedia Commons with that of this one. Wikipedia also factors whether a picture is encyclopedic or not, amongst other things. The Commons procedure, I am certain you are well aware, turns into a pile-up voting. And, as we well know, polling is not a substitute for discussion. -- Chris B • talk 21:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear. I think not many people are participating in this discussion because most people believe the way the image was handled was reasonable. It would also be reasonable for you to improve the image and renominate it. Debivort 21:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, ack Debivort. You actually have to care about the issue in discussion to hit that edit button. IMO the closure was ok, although I can see why it annoys Alves. But instead of complaining here and giving the treatment commons as a reason, the better way would be to follow procedure here and renominate. --Dschwen 21:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Dschwen, no interest gives a pretty clear indication that no one thinks this nom was closed improperly. I think Alvesgaspar you're confusing commons with en:fpc too much. MER-C closed it quite properly and I'd like to thank him for the work he puts into the very tedious task of closing noms. Possibly he could have shifted it to the "requires more input area" but the closing was after 7 days and failed the 2/3 super majority test. --Fir0002 06:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Some people here are suggesting that the improved image should be renominated or put in the section below (by whom?). But no one has explained yet the rationale of these two particular closures in a way that anybody can understand. And, please, stop insulting my inteligence with "wikipedia-is-not-a-democracy", that is a void justification sounding like a "post-modern" rethoric argument. Any decision process, including the "wiki-consensus", should be based and justified by rational and objective criteria. I do not intend to renominate this picture. If anyone thinks it can help, please do so - Alvesgaspar 23:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• It's really better to take a long leave from this place before I loose all respect. This nomination has many similarities with my own, still it was treated quite differently and will soon be promoted (as soon as possible, I dare to say). It is important to stress, though, that I respect and admire Fir0002 for his talent and valuable contributions. What I contest is the lack of consistent criteria in WP:FPC and the pedantic attitute of pretending to ignore that need. Good bye. Alvesgaspar 20:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this still featured?

I came accross this images which appers to be featured but doersn't have the FP tag on it or a link to the discussion. I know it was selected to be featured here Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/January-2006#Incandescence, but was it delisted at a later date? --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 15:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's still featured. What happened was that someone vandalized the image description page, replacing the featured and POTD tags, and then the page got deleted for being vandalism. I restored the partial history and the tags are all back now. howcheng {chat} 16:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah got it. Complicated stuff :) Thanks for clearing it up. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 16:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous

I'm going to avoid naming nominations or names so I don't fall afoul of WP:NPA but the opposes over a couple pixels in size is getting absolutely ridiculous, to the point of being anal-retentive even. I'd suggest not eliminating but somehow toning down the size requirement/suggestion (depending on your point of view) text if nothing else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cat-five (talk • contribs) 06:39, 14 October 2007

Naming a nom wouldn't be a personal attack. Without that I don't have any idea what opposes you mean. Of all the noms on the current page, only the fox one has size issues, and that has greater problems. Debivort 07:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:FormerFeaturedPicture

I'd like to suggest making Template:FormerFeaturedPicture smaller and less dominant. For the same reason we don't use a template to mark failed FPC's, we shouldn't tag former featured pictures with a black eye forever. The idea of having the little star with a wing knocked off is clever, but unfortunate. Removing the little star icon from the template would probably solve most of the problem, and making the text shorter would help too. Comments? Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 02:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Support. --MichaelMaggs 05:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I think simply placing it in a category is sufficient for marking it and finding all of them later. The visual portions of the template to me seems of little value in itself. 1 != 2 05:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I removed the star image and trimmed the text of the template, but did not remove the template. I'd be OK with deleting it entirely, but having a small template might be good to go along with the POTD tag. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 22:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Vote templates

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates why don't use {{Support}} and {{Oppose}} templates as Commons?--Beyond silence 20:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:FPC is less about voting than consensus building. The icons give the discussion a very vote-tabulating feel and are less appropriate here. Some frequent FP contributors use them though... de Bivort 21:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed a myriad of times. Using templates for voting stifles discussion and further encourages places like XfD to degrade into simple polls. Plus, transclusion, server load, blah blah blah. -- Chris B • talk 21:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

okay. --Beyond silence 21:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Compromise: you can have voting icons if you want them, but don't inflict them on others. MER-C 03:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

lens advice (a bit off topic)

Hello All - I'm heading to Iceland in November, and want to be well equipped to photograph it. Currently I only have a 105mm Sigma macro lens - so I need a different lens for taking pictures of glaciers, fjords, aurarae etc. Variable zoom is a requirement. I have a Canon 20D. Any suggestions? de Bivort 22:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS would be a good choice, unfortunately it wont give you any more telephoto reach. The Canon 17-85mm IS would be very nice but with probably slightly less optical quality than the 24-105, the Image Stabilization is nice though. If you have the bankroll, also get the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS and 1.7 teleconverter (Giving you a 119-340mm at f/4.7. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 01:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... Based on some quick reading, I'd lean toward the 24-105, since it seems a bit more portable and I try to travel light. de Bivort 02:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that 24mm on a 20D won't give you much of a wide angle view. 38mm to be precise. I would have thought that you might want a little more than that. The 24-105mm f/4L IS is perfect on a full frame camera like my 5D though, except that it is somewhat soft (not overly so though, I'm just picky) and vignettes wide open. Its my walkaround lens when I can't/won't carry my arsenal of lenses. Its not my best lens but it is certainly my most used lens. I would recommend it but reservedly on a 1.6x crop factor camera, because of the lack of wide angle. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Diliff - Does an obvious alternative come to mind? de Bivort 09:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't shoot Canon but I've heard good things about the Canon EF-S 17-55mm lens which should suit you fine (roughly 28-85 equiv) as an always-on optic, plus it's nice and fast at fixed f2.8. I have the equivalent Nikon and find it ideal for almost everything, although I sometimes (rarely) resort to cropping when I've been out without a longer lens. Take your macro and you'll want for nothing. --mikaul^talk 15:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't personally used that lens but I've also heard good things about it. Its probably the closest lens to the 24-105mm for 1.6x crop though, only with f/2.8 and slightly less reach. Would be absolutely ideal for indoor handheld shots. Have a look at the lens reviews here. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 20:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Table of Contents moved

The TOC ended up right before the current candidates section. I don't want to screw anything up, so I won't try to fix it. NyyDave 02:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured Picture 1000

It's likely that sometime within the next few months, an image will become the one thousandth Wikipedia:Featured Picture. My guess is that the subject matter of the image will be ... a bug. Spikebrennan 05:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to have a pool, it'd better close by the end of the month. I foresee hitting the milestone in early December, it could be earlier if we churn out those pictures quicker. Just make sure it happens before I go on holiday around Christmas time. MER-C 06:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Noms with short legs

We're starting to see an awful lot of noms from candidates with very little time in the encyclopedia, a good many nominated the same day as they were uploaded. I was about to raise this on the FPC page but can't seem to find any sign of the guideline advising against nominating images which have yet to "settle in" to their respective articles. Did I imagine this, or more to the point, are we now disregarding this as a pre-condition for nominees? --mikaul^talk 17:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• You raise some good points, but keep in mind Template:FeaturedPicture encourages people to upload and nominate images, which I think is a good thing. The issues with too-soon noms would be that 1) it clogs up the FAC candidate page and 2) editors might get discouraged if the nom is not well liked, or if they get bitten. I can't say anything about issue 1, but issue 2 would be the responsibility of editors not to bite newcomers and politely explain the FP criteria. I think if an image qualifies under the criteria (adds value, technical quality, a good caption, suitable license etc.) it shouldn't have to wait for any trial period. FAC process can be a good way for wikipedians to welcome newcomers, and we may discover good photographers who would be willing to share more images! Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 18:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are two issues there: one, that newbies jump straight in and two, that old hands upload and nominate images in one fell swoop. I have no problem with the first one. Yes, they should read the criteria, maybe browse some old noms but it's never that obvious when you're new. No harm done in offering your best shot, regardless. The issue with no trial period for nominations is that the image may not survive in the article it was uploaded to and therefore not link to anything in the encyclopedia. Apart from the obvious enc problems, it has implications for suitability as PoD. Leaving it a month or so to see if its insertion will be reverted should be a necessary prerequisite for FPCs. That's to say, I thought it was a prerequisite.. --mikaul^talk 19:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I should have written "candidate images" in my original post. Sorry for the confusion. --mikaul^talk 19:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Uploading and directly nominating is BS in most cases as I've said before. This goes for newbies and old hands alike. Encyclopedic images need peer review by article authors and not only by photography nerds. --Dschwen 23:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

There's no actual guideline for this though, that I can see. I'd say at the very least this should be mentioned in the introduction to the FPC page, or maybe become a FP criterion. --mikaul^talk 01:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The guideline would be common sense. The criteria clearly state the picture has to add significantly to the article. So prove that it does! Prove it by having the picture withstand the scrutiny of the article authors, the scrutiny of the people who know the subject matter the picture is supposed to illustrate. I really don't see the need for yet another written rule here. --Dschwen 01:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest a whole new FPCriteria rule, rather elaborate the one you allude to. However it seems to me to be such a fundamental precondition that it should probably be more prominently spelled out. Looking at the FPC page intro, it could tag onto the end to target the self-nominators, who are after all the main culprits:

If you nominate an image here, please consider also uploading and nominating it at Commons, to help ensure that the pictures can be used not just in the English Wikipedia but on all other Wikimedia projects as well. If you're nominating your own work, please ensure that it has been in place at the subject article long enough to demonstrate its relevance and allow the authors of the article time to evaluate it.

--mikaul^talk 17:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Lets not be hypocritical now Dschwen. You both uploaded and nominated this picture on May 15th, 2007. And that wasn't the only time... this picture you both uploaded and nominated on April 30th, 2007. this picture you waited a full two days between upload and nomination, back in april. Or how about this one that you uploaded and nominated on the same day. I wonder, did you forget that you are much in the practice of doing this or do you feel entitled to different rules than other users. I here you say it is "BS" and that it should be self-evident. Just thought you should know, Dschwen, you lost a lot of respect from me just niow. : ( -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 00:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I know how it is to get carried away by your own pictures. So it happened to me, I know, and I reflected about it. But why are you making this about me, I certainly haven't started that. Why are you commenting on the issue but instead dig up dirt on a commentator. How is that contrbuting to a constructive discussion? And just because I did crap like this, it does not invalidate the whole point now, does it? --Dschwen 04:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I do it too, and there have been errors in some of the information once in a while. So I don't disagree with the idea that pictures shouldn't be nominated right after they are uploaded. I was just surprised to hear you come out so strongly against it when you do it. I do it because it is less work load to do it at the same time, getting the information for a caption, etc. After thinking about it though I think I'll stop my own practice of uploading and nominating in the same breath. Maybe I did over react, just try to practice what you preach... : P -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 11:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You are completely right about the practicing what I preach. It would have been sensible to adjust the tone of my initial comment to my own record in this respect. --Dschwen 12:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It is constructive discussion when it brings to light the hypocrisy of someone's policy... :-) I agree that in an ideal world, we should let an image run the gauntlet of being in an article for a while before being nominated here, but I do think that veteran contributors usually have a pretty good eye for what is going to pass and what is going to stick in an article. That's not to say we're infallible, but nine times out of ten, it won't be an issue. Besides, once an image is FP, it carries a greater clout in debates over whether it remains in an article, as long as it remains ecyclopaedic. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I totally agree there. I've posted up images to the wrong article or section before, despite being quite confident of the enc value and tech quality of the shot. A settled-in picture can only improve it's FP candidacy - what's the rush? What possible benefit to anyone comes of diving straight on in? --mikaul^talk 09:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, an FP for the POTD a bit earlier? Are we running out of not-alreday-featured images yet? I heard talk that we were on the brink of running out. Not that I have the slightest problem with re-featuring them years later. Nobody will remember or care. I suppose we all get a bit excited when we have a great photo that adds a lot to an article though. But that said, I don't think any image of mine that has been FP has been withdrawn from the article shortly after. If anything, I have problems with, as I mentioned, silly people removing good quality FPs to replace them with their own happy snaps. Anyway, most people submit their images to FPC at least partially for the glory happiness that sharing brings - don't take that joy away!  ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone give examples of images that were promoted to featured status, but then were later removed from the article after not withstanding the scrutiny of editors? Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 18:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it does happen occasionally, but I can't think of specific examples. My guess is it might happen when the article is full of images (I suppose that brings up the issue of whether the image adds significantly to the article...) and, rather than being because it is a poor image, it gets dropped to make room for some average Joe's personal photo. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Really, Jeff, you might as well ask to see a FP which has no enc value.. nominations often cite an article they appear in and, before the first comments are made, get removed from them. While this often isn't the only cited article, it confuses and weakens a nomination and benefits nobody. There's a case in point up for review right now, when a nominee hasn't properly identified a flower species. Having twice changed the ID (and therefore the relevant article) the nomination is complete mess and after four days doesn't have a single + or - vote. It's a good shot; left to settle into place a month or so, authors would both ID and place it correctly, reviewers would feel much more confident about the nom and it would probably pass. As it is, it's likely to fail, which is a both a shame for the pic and a waste of everyones' time. --mikaul^talk 09:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

But is it really a problem that a hasty nomination fails due to not proving itself first when it happens infrequently? I just don't think we should significantly reduce flexibility in nomination just to avoid a relatively rare situation. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

If that was the only issue, no, of course it wouldn't really be a problem. The fact is there are plenty of good reasons to hold off a nomination after uploading. Most important, the enc value of an image is best evaluated by authors of the article it appears in. As Dschwen says, encyclopedic images need peer review by article authors, not (only) photographers. Related to that, the tendency to "dump" a new image on an article, just to have the "appears in" section filled in on the candidate page, is disruptive and disrespectful to those who may have worked hard to develop that article. Then there's the poorly-identified flower/insect/insert-mystery-object-here problem I pointed out in my previous post. There's also the fact that these noms would be much stronger and more convincing if they were properly settled in to their subject articles, resulting in a higher pass rate, which addresses the shortage of of new PoDs issue you mention. Related to this is the need to re-nominate, once the nom has failed for whichever of the above problems and finally settle in properly, which clogs up the FPC process. Personally (what's this, reason #6?) I really take exception to the overall carelessness, disrespect, lack of vision and downright selfishness which foregoing this guideline/requirement openly encourages. Finally, for those who simply can't wait until christmas to find out what they're gonna get, there's COM:FPC. At the very least, candidates should be encouraged to nominate there first, ideally to the QI section before the COM:FPC process, after posting up the image in the encyclopedia, which (a) should buy the WP:FPC nom a good couple of weeks grace and (b) avoids the need to migrate the resulting plethora of lovely, new, PoD-bound WP:FPs to COM:FP. And with that, m'lud, I rest my case :o) --mikaul^talk 10:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

And a persuasive case it is.. :-) I agree with much of what you say, and while I will (playing devil's advocate), suggest that the whole issue still isn't a Big Deal, that it probably is something we ought to aim for since you're right that it does firm up the candidacy when it has survived placement in the article(s). And you're also right that hasty nomination probably does, for the most part, amount to wanting to open your christmas presents early. Good things do come to those who wait. I will keep it in mind with my future nominations... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that the FPC process should be as easy as possible with as few rules as possible. While there a good points made about hasty nominations, I don't see it as that big of a problem. As far as the problem with the Leucospermum photo nomination, the Leucospermum article has had 25 edits in its entire history, so just because the picture is in that article for a few weeks dosen't mean that anyone has even seen, much less verified it. The problem with that image was discovered in the FPC process (which has a much higher level of scrutiny than a flower species page), not when it was added to the article. Cacophony 16:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I'd like as few obstacles as possible to the FPC process and can only assure you that this is the motive behind this proposal. The "no more rules" argument is a fine appeal to that end but is really only rhetorically convincing. The fact remains that the process is currently being hindered by this issue and the proposal isn't for more rules, it's an appeal to uphold a long-standing, apparently unwritten convention. I'm suggesting we actually finally add it to the FPC page, no more. --mikaul^talk 19:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

OK I haven't actually read everything above - but enough to get the general gist. But anyway just my quick opinion - although it's nice to think that article editors will be able to tell whether a photo is good enc and quality and so should have a home on an article, IMO that is a bit naive. First of all a lot of article's simply aren't anyone's pet articles and so get very little in the way of interest and/or editing so basically any image will stay there for several weeks or months. Furthermore as Diliff suggested above there are numerous cases of people replacing high quality images in an article with rubbishy ones and this going unnoticed for considerably periods of time. So IMO it's great if a photo has been in an article for a while, but it doesn't really mean much at all --Fir0002 22:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems a shame that again this appears to be complaints targeted mainly at further discouraging original contributors/self-nominators (especially when most of the people supporting this idea here are themselves original contributors/self-nominators).

There may be a number of reasons people immediately nominate after uploading. I never used to, basically for the reasons mikaul raises, but I have started to recently. The main reason I started doing so is that I forget about the images if I don’t nominate immediately (and I don’t think I’m alone here). I also do a fair bit of research and scouting of the article/s before I upload and nominate so am pretty confident that the image is correctly identified, belongs there, and is useful before it ever gets onto Wikipedia. (Although I have to agree that some other contributors may like to follow these guidelines, as there certainly are issues with the way some nominators dump their images in articles, with sloppy placement, inaccurate captions, or total misidentification; however, as others have already commented, sadly these problems often don’t get raised until the image appears on FPC, and there must be some that slip through there as well, which makes the whole argument about how long it's been in the article pretty redundant.)

Re Mick’s suggestion that images should be nominated on Commons QI and FPC first – please...give me a break! I have never, and will never be involved in this. Every time I look at commons FPC I am appalled at the lack of rigour in the voting process, with endless series of supports involving little or no analysis of the photos, and I therefore have no interest in wasting my time there. Whenever someone puts an image up on Wikipedia FPC citing its status as a Commons FP or current strong candidate, I simply regard that argument as having no value at all. I upload my images to Commons and place them into categories/articles there, but that is all; I only upload images there that I consider will be valuable for Wikipedia, so then come and place them into the relevant article here.

There are actually some reasons why quick nominations are a good idea, especially for the ‘seasoned campaigners’ who usually get it right re IDs and article use.

One of my recent nominations (that was eventually promoted) had stood the test of time for almost a year in it’s not insignificant article (at one stage it was shunted down to the gallery by some clown, along with an existing FP, but I moved them back up into the article proper months before the nomination). Upon nomination two or three FPC regulars proposed that my image was perhaps not particularly encyclopaedic anymore as it was now a year out of date, and the scene depicted may have changed over that time. So what is the incentive to wait to nominate here?

The other thing we need to be aware of is that more often than not images are voted on and ultimately end up promoted due to users that do not consider encyclopaedic value or other criteria properly (and don’t try feeding me any bull about their votes being discarded or anything, because they almost never are ignored). This is similar to the way political elections are often decided by the ‘swinging voters’ that don’t actually follow or understand politics much, if at all.

A case in point was this recent damselfly nom – a straight series of supports, then my vote that pointed out that the image was only used in the gallery of one article and thus didn’t fulfil criteria five properly, which was then followed by another support simply ignoring my comments and no reconsideration from others (hey, that’s an idea, fulfil Mick’s proposal by plonking your images in article galleries for a couple of months). Or what about this world map nom that has listed as one of its articles eye; well, no it’s not in the eye article, it’s on the creator’s userpage which he has linked to as Eye – and hey, guess what, not a single voter has noticed (so another loophole, I’ll just sit the photos on my userpage for a couple of months before nominating eh, and then list that as one of the articles with a dodgy link?). What about the noms that are promoted due to stacked voting (the current Wikepe-tan delist nom has reminded me of probably the worst example of this). Mick’s suggestion that "...the fact that these noms would be much stronger and more convincing if they were properly settled in to their subject articles, resulting in a higher pass rate" is therefore a complete fantasy, for the simple reason that most voters neither consider nor care about this stuff. And if we restrict votes to those that do, then we’ll be left about half-a-dozen voters on FPC.

My point is not to raise specific examples, but to say that a far greater concern than how long images have been on Wikipedia or in articles is the voting process itself that allows examples like those I’ve given above to occur (and occur regularly they do). I also still have a problem with how the FPC process is skewed towards non-Wikipedia originating images (e.g., the criteria exceptions granted for claimed historic images), and the way so many voters seem to automatically think ‘old = historic = support’, and ignore all criteria on quality, composition, etc. Where’s the ‘no wow factor’ or ‘good for it’s article but not FP quality’ arguments against these old photos that are so often thrown at Wikipedia original photos? They just don’t get raised.

But now I’m getting off the point of this discussion, so will leave it there. To wrap up, as I said at the start, I used to wait a good period before nominating, but don’t anymore for a plethora of reasons; Mikaul’s suggestion is maybe quite sensible, in fact even noble, but unless all the irregularities in voting can be fixed first (and that’s unlikely), as other’s have said, this quick-fire nominating is a pretty minor issue. And as I’ve pointed out above, it’s especially distasteful that the concept seems to be mainly directed at yet again discouraging original contributors, which should be what FPC is all about. --jjron 14:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it isnt. FPC is about selecting and honouring the best images in the encyclopedia. It's not about outstanding wikipedian contributions (we recognise those with barnstars) nor (licensing aside) should it exclude images based on their origin. Fixing this issue wouldn't discourage self-nom candidates any more than outside ones. I hear & respect your qualms about COM:FPC and while I appreciate the role WP:FPC plays in identifying mis-placed, un-enc and bad-ID images, this and the other systematic failings you mention are really irrelevant to the issue of untimely nomination of FPCs. As is the problem of FPs getting replaced in articles with poor-quality stuff, for that matter. Ok, there may be some bigger nuts to crack, but we need to tackle them one by one, and this, IMO, will encourage more and better WP:FPs. There's one thing that WP:FPC unquestionably is all about, and that's choosing the best encyclopedic images. The contributions to this thread are enough to convince me that people do care enough about this, and I for one will continue to appreciate demonstrable respect for host articles and mark down those candidate images which blatently use them as little more than vehicles for their own glorification. --mikaul^talk 18:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I've already addressed this issue vehicles of my own glorification in the nomination of the image. I was very wrong to put the image at the top of the article. I did it in hurry. You were right to oppose the image for this reaon. I'll try avoiding doing such mistakes in a future.BTW it was done for my own glorification. I simply like to share my images with people. I moved the image to the climate section of the same article. In my opinion it belongs there and adds encyclopedic and informational value to the article. In my opinion it is a very good image. If you or somebody else belives otherwise, please remove it. I will not post it back to the article. Thank you.
I do not think the images should be nominated on Commons first for few reasons. One is the mega pixels count. Commons require at least 2 mega pixels. I believe that some really good encyclopedic images would get lost at Commons because of this requirement. The other reason is that Commons have way too many nominations. I'm not sure they need more. In my opinion voters on Commons care much more about overall quality of an image than about its encyclopedic value. In my opinion Wikipedia FP should be much more about encyclopedic value than about quality. I also believe that it is OK to upload and nominate an image in the same day(not in my case with the fall in Yosemite. This was wrong). A nomination lasts at least a week. Isn't this enough time to rewiev an encyclopedic value of an image?--Mbz1 04:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Mila, your images are always good quality, carefully-considered shots and the encyclopedia is all the better for them. They're consistently better than the majority of images here and some of them have deservedly become featured pictures. You should bear in mind that these pictures weren't only judged to be top quality, they were considered to be unbeatable illustrations of the subject they depict. Whatever the problems we might have with the FPC process over at commons, the fact remains that here nominations have two hurdles to jump: the size criteria may be a little less strict but overall quality standards are at least as high and you have to prove the worthiness of the image in encyclopedia namespace. This, IMO, is even tougher for the accomplished photographer to get consistently right.
The purpose of this lengthy discussion is to decide whether an image being established in the encyclopedia adds to the credibility of a WP:FPC nomination. My contention is that it can greatly improve an image's proven enc value if authors and editors have been given every possible opportunity to assess, reposition, caption and even re-name images, maybe even add them to other, more relevant articles. Especially true of FAs like the Yosemite article. This has to increase your chances of FP promotion. So what if (worst case) you find your image removed from article space because it was deemed unsuitable? The chances are, this would come up at FPC and your nom would fail. A few week's grace saves yourself all this time and upset. The encyclopedia looks better, your images look better, you go into FPC more confident and reviewers can concentrate on the clear merits of your images.
The FPC review should be exactly that: a look at how the image has worked in main namespace, not how it might work, and the week it's allotted is barely enough to gather enough reviewers. It's certainly not enough to rename, re-position, re-caption and gather approving reviews, as I think you've discovered with a few of your recent nominations. If you want a higher proportion of successful FP noms, you have to get into the encyclopedia more, see where articles are visually weak, maybe even go out and shoot stuff especially for those articles. Wikipedia:Requested pictures is often a good place to start. --mikaul^talk 09:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I believe you are right about few of my nominations like with flower and with Yosemite. I should have found the right "home" before nominating them. I guess it could be a good idea to let an image to be in an article for some time before nominating. I still do not think it is a good idea to force all nominators to go to Commons first.
I'd like to talk abut other concern I have. I nominated the incredible image of an amazing star with a tail few days ago. The image is not only highly encyclopedic and informative, but simply very interesting and absolutely unique. Who cares, if there is a noise in such an image? Yet so far I've got only one "weak support". Why?--12:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbz1 (talk • contribs)

Nominating without the pictures being established in an article is putting the cart before the horse. Don't make FPC something it isn't. FPC is to identify pictures which already do contribute significantly, FPC is not a discussionforum for individual articles. --Dschwen 13:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Eastern newt FP

Voters/editors may wish to re-check out the nom for the Eastern Newt picture here. The nom was passed for an edited version of the picture, but the creator has since added a note regarding the "fix". It looks to me like his note was added after closing and so might have been missed. We may want to re-open the nom and/or switch back to the originally nominated version. Given his comments, I think the original probably should have been left "as is". Not sure if this is worth a delist/renom, etc. Matt Deres 02:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The creator says "I'll probably go back to the original file and upload an update to Commons that goes about half-way in the correction at some point." Perhaps we should put this up for delist based on his own information, and then it can be renominated if/when his own 'corrected' version is uploaded. I think it's pretty clear that the original version wasn't going to pass the nom. --jjron 14:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Could be, but I think the major issue was that people thought the colour was 'off'. I missed the nom, but if it was explained that that the colour was in fact accurate, I'd at least re-think my position. Matt Deres 00:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that now even the creator is saying the original colour was off, so it's not just that people 'thought' it. The thing is that he's also saying that the edit's colour is off, which means they're both wrong and probably shouldn't be featured. Knowing that, I'd change my vote (I did support it) and await the new version. --jjron 14:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I dunno about the colour being off. The shot was flash lit with AWB set on a Canon 10D; the likelihood of a WB problem is slim to none. The strong (almost memetic) suggestion of a problem which developed in the FPC nomination is what shifted credibility away from the original capture data towards the completely subjective idea of neutral WB in the minds of a handful of FPC reviewers - and retouchers. This is actually a fairly rare example of WP:NOR getting into an image-based contributon. Maybe it should be renominated, or maybe we should just improve the original according to some more objective criteria (have you seen the colour of these?). I'm interested in general in what we should do in the event that we need to "tweak" FPs: overwrite the FP version? Or delist/renominate, which (it seems to me) would be a promotion "done deal" in 90% of cases. I have to say, the ruddy newt looks like one of the 10%, but I'd still like to hear peoples' thoughts. --mikaul^talk 17:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

This whole nomination became so absurd I didn't even want to comment on it anymore. How can someone who was not present when the picture was shot and has no expertise on the depicted animal assert a whitebalance problem and dare to upload a presumably corrected version?! Sorry, but that's worse than OR, it is Original Guesswork... --Dschwen 20:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, in all fairness, the picture certainly looks as if it had a severe red tint. But please, discuss any WB issues first before creating an edit. --Dschwen 20:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah good idea - actually take a look at the photo rather than just shoot your mouth off. The point of an edit is for discussion - how much easier is it to show the improvement than discuss it? The image clearly has a white balance problem as can be seen from the histograms. Both the blue histogram and the green green histogram show that there is very little blues and greens. But what is most telling is the red histogram which shows by the spikes that white areas are tinted with red, and that the red channel is overblown - take a look at the red channel for a better idea. I've also included a version of the red channel which has had reds desaturated by about 50% showing heaps more detail coming through. Clearly there is a problem with the reds in this image. --Fir0002 21:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see the original nom but the original looks heavily red shifted. The blown red is also telling. What is more, is that in the edit, the rocks are a realistic color. I see that it was 'flash fired' and AWB but is it possible that the flash was gelled or that the photographer attempted to bounce the flash off his (presumably red) hand or something? : / -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 22:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Fir, I see what you mean, but the red histogram doesn't show a white balance problem, it just shows that the red channel has been clipped, presumably due to the bright red spots on the beastie's back being out of the sRGB colour gamut. It's a common enough thing in nature where the aposematism is so intense that the colour quite possibly ranges outside even human perception. Interesting that the same clipping can be seen with the red on the FP of a dragonfly which appears at the aposematism article.
You often get that other effect with images with one very dominant colour, where desaturating (or further clipping) that colour reveals colours and even detail not present in the original shot. The interesting colours and details that came out in your edit were never there in the original, but that doesn't mean they should have been there. The best way of finding out what was there is by reference to the species and by listening to the guy who took the shot. BTW, Fcb, they're not rocks – apparently it was on a tree, and that's Loblolly Pine bark in the background. --mikaul^talk 23:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Well if you look at the red channel image it shows that it's not just the beastie's spots or back but the needles etc which are blown. The extra detail in the desaturation comes through from the green and blue channels. Also FWIW this is an image of a Loblolly Pine bark and as you can see it's not red at all but a neutral grey. --Fir0002 05:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The histogram shows nothing about any specific object, it just describes the red curve response to the scene in general. Lobolly pine bark is grey alright, but like any fallen pine, damage to the bark will most likely reveal the very much redder underside, which is visible even on unfelled trees. Look, I'm really not averse to a colour correction here: when you consider that AWB isn't foolproof by any means (a proper manual white balance is much more colour-faithful) and even with a flash (which I have to say, doesn't seem to have lit very much) it's quite possible that the camera freaked out a bit with all this red about. However, simply deciding the bark is neutral grey isn't the way to objective colour here. I suggest we take this to the image talk page and properly interrogate the photographer, as a fisrt step to renominating. --mikaul^talk 09:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Red Channel

File:Notophthalmus red histogram.jpg

Red Histogram

Ugh - I was talking about the red channel not the histogram just then. This does reveal plenty about specific objects - check out the pine needles and the bark etc. But whatever - I'm going to have to leave it to you guys to work out, I've allowed myself to become to distracted by this as it is. --Fir0002 00:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• I've uploaded a new edit to the FP image page. It's really not a big change from the original; about 800Kelvin cooler. Note left on the author's Commons talk page. --mikaul^talk 19:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
• The clipped reds in the histogram alone do not prove any whitebalance issue, just a dynamic range issue and the inability of the camera to fully capture the tonal range of the subject. Furthermore no edit can restore the clipped (that's lost) data. Fir, your reasoning here is simply wrong. You have no way of separating the contribution from the actual subject and the contribution due to whitebalancing in the histogram, as long as you don't have a color standard in the picture. And in the newt picture we don't. We just don't know the color of the needles or bark or the rock, there are too many uncertainties. My argument was simply to ask and trust the original photographer over flawed reasoning form histograms.--Dschwen 19:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No edit can restore data from the red channel but by utilizing the data stored in the other channels (which aren't blown) we can add a whole heap of data back into the image. But as I said above I'm going to have to leave this conversation for a while.. --Fir0002 00:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem right there: substituting green and blue channel data for lost red channel data will produce a more colour-detailed image of entirely the wrong hue. It will look a lot more balanced in terms of colour – there's a nice range of blues, green and reds – but that wouldn't be a desirable quality in a shot of a blue kite against a clear sky, for example.
But there's a more important point here: colours can "blow" if they're over-processed (which is almost always a bad thing) or they can simply lie outside of the colour gamut being used, which will produce a similarly incomplete histogram but be totally acceptable for viewing purposes. The eastern newt FP, like the dragonfly FP I cited earlier on, has colours on its body which lie outside the sRGB colour gamut. The fact that these blow the reds out in no way invalidates the colour rendering of the rest of the photograph. --mikaul^talk 18:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Huh, out of gamut color won't show up as clipping on a histogram. Color space has nothing to do with luminosity, i thought. CRT monitors, based on technical limitations, cannot display as wide a gamut of color as a CMYK print, for example, but the dynamic range of both can represent anything that a camera can produce. So I think what we are talking about is dynamic range and not color space. Anyway, the red photosites on digital cameras generally have a ~1/8 stop smaller dynamic range then either the red or green pixels, so they have a tendency to blow sooner. I don't thinks thats what we are seeing here. I probably don't need to tell you that the farther a color channel is pushed right, the more the image will take that hue. As you said, a blue kite on a blue background would have a nice big blue hump. Heres the catch, in a properly corrected image, the arcs of the histogram should come together in the highlights. The light coming off natural highlights (those caused by the sun, or a flash) should be white, producing equal output in all channels. This histogram does not look like that. To me this is an obvious case of mis bounced flash or malfunctioning AWB, regardless the image was too red. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 22:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I really don't know where you guys are getting this stuff... if a colour of whatever brightness doesn't fit into your colour space, the histogram will show you that. Prove it to yourself by switching colour space: open a colourful image in pshop, say in sRGB, make sure your histogram is visible and go Image>Mode>Convert to profile... and convert to "KODAK SWOP coated Newsprint" (or any CMYK newsprint, which gives you a very narrow gamut) See what happens to your histogram? It's clipped, because your colours are now way out of gamut. Just as a point of reference, CMYK (as used in newsprint) is hell of a lot narrower a gamut than the RGB your monitor shows you, which is (in turn) quite a bit narrower than you can see with the naked eye (Some colours, wavelengths and what have you lie outside even this visible colour space, which is why we run into predictable problems photographically) So if your lovely dragonfly pic is going into the LA Times nature section, you can kiss byebye to the red you see on your monitor.. what else.. white highlights on a blue kite will be non-spectral, ie irrelevant as far as colour is concerned, so you'll get a spike in all channels but it won't mean anything colour-balance-wise. No matter what you've read wherever, objective colour is not to be found in a histogram. It's a device-independent measure based on some kind of independent colour standard, either present in the picture or metered before the picture was taken, like a grey card or other manual white balance setting. If this is completely absent from the picture, then the only reliable reference is the eye of the guy who shot it, or similar shots of the same thing, or.. anything, except some arbitrary digital equivalence. --mikaul^talk 00:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

A non-full-color histogram in CMYK is useless. Look at all the channels and then look at the black channel. The black channel obviously has no latitude, there are plenty of areas where there is no black. Also, CMYK is a subtractive color space. It is a whole different animal than RBG. The limitations of color gamets are not with dynamic range but with tonal reproduction. hue. Anyway, thats off topic, at 255,255,255 there are obviously equal levels in the RBG spectrum, but 254,254,254 should also be a given. If you know what I'm saying. There is a cirtin amount of knowlage that can be gained about WB from the histogram. Enough, in this case for me to think that there is a WB problem. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 01:23, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• As the author, Cotinis, has posted up his comments (moved to subsection below for clarity) I guess we now move to a formal delist of the current FP version, unless there are more comments or objections. --mikaul^talk 01:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Comments from the photographer

Oh, all very interesting--sorry I had not gotten back on this until now. I like that edit2 version--it looks about right, but without the critter in hand it is very difficult to say. I think the first FP version was a little too cold on color balance, but that my original was a little too warm/red, as people have suggested based on the histograms. The whole scene is lit almost 100 percent with flash, incidentally, and the some of the freshly-exposed pine bark is reddish--it is not all a neutral gray. Likewise with the needles, they are a little bit reddish. (I usually find the Canon color balance is fine with flash without adjustment, and did not alter it here, but of course, things can go wrong.) At any rate, thanks for the compliments and the FP nomination. I've no experience with the FP process, so I'll leave it to you more experienced Wikipedians to do whatever you think is best. It is really no big deal--illustrating the article was my intent. Best wishes to all, and again, I like the edit2 version, that looks about right based on my recollections. I feel, too, that color balance in a photograph is partly an aesthetic issue, and not just a technical one. To me, the edit2 version looks the "best". Thanks again, --Cotinis 13:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry ... but wikipetan closed as delist?

Hello all - I hate to do this, but the Wikipe-tan delist nom was closed as a delist. We have a consensus that noms are only promoted when a consensus to promote is established - if no consensus appears there is no promotion. The guidelines for delist appear to parallel this: "If consensus = keep, yada yada" / "If consensus = delist, yada yada." No instructions are given in the case of no consensus - which was clearly the case with this delist nom. Why are we not keeping it listed, by default, as we would analogously do with a promotion nomination? I respect and value MER-C's closing so many noms for so long, but this one doesn't make sense to me. de Bivort 04:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The main reason for the delisting nom was the very obvious aliasing. This argument was not addressed at all by the keep side, therefore we delist it. After all, they did ask for an appraisal of the picture on whether it met the criteria (especially re: technical aspects) and they got one. Not to mention the ballot stuffing - this is what we were looking at (the last comment at that version is also relevant) before this happened. MER-C 06:03, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you think we ought to remove "Consensus in Featured picture candidates is generally regarded to be a two-third majority in support. " from the top of WP:FPC? de Bivort 06:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to. The key word here is generally, and this was an unusual case. MER-C 06:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The ballot stuffing accusation falls flat on it's ass. MER-C, if you can't judge the rationales presented then you shouldn't be evaluating these situations. An svg version of the Wikipe-tan image is on it's way, and anyone can see that "irreparable" couldn't be more wrong. -- Ned Scott 04:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ned that's quite an affront, you come here out of no where and then try teach our most respected and experienced closer his business. How would you like it if MER-C suddenly turned up on Wikiproject:Anime or whatever and started throwing his weight around with no knowledge at all of the project etiquette, procedures, precedents etc? MER-C acting appropriately (and courageously) in closing that nom. The anti-aliasing was severe and no comments had been made prior to the closing of svg versions. Indeed the delist was just swamped with voters vehemently arguing against the self referencing issues but utterly ignoring the quality failings. The time of the nom was up (in fact a day over) and thus the result was a delist. Any new version with the anti-aliasing issues will need to go through FPC again. --Fir0002 05:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

You are hardly a neutral party in all of this. You've hated that image since the first FPC. Like I've said before, MER-C made this closing based on his judgement that the image was irreparable, a scapegoat for those who felt uncomfortable with the image's FP status. Any computer user with half a brain can tell you that such an image is completely vectorable, and finding someone with the ability to do so is not hard. It's arguable that the aliasing is even an issue (which is why it was promoted in the first place), and this whole thing just seems to be an excuse to push the image under a rug. Why on earth do we have a section that blatantly gives images a grace period for editing if it wasn't acceptable to just vector it in a few days? -- Ned Scott 05:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well that's a bit like the kettle calling the pot black because you're not exactly a neutral party are you? I'm not sure exactly how you've construed that I "hate" this image but whatever. The reason why the suspended nomination area was not used in this case is that MER-C had no way of knowing whether a vector version was on it's way because no one even bothered to address the quality issues let alone suggest that a new version was coming. 8 days was plenty of time to have mentioned it and if it had been it would have been moved to the suspended nomination area. However it was closed and that's the end of it. Please stop attacking users and calm down. When you have a vector version feel free to renominate but this delist is over. --Fir0002 05:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm going back to study now and won't be commenting further (if at all) probably until tomorrow or later tonight - just so that you don't think I'm avoiding what you are saying or something --Fir0002 05:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

It will not be relisted for FPC, it will be speedy promoted as having already been granted community consensus (twice now). -- Ned Scott 05:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

And saying the suspended nom wasn't used because he didn't know is total bullshit, because he knows now, and when I moved it to that section he reverted me again. Given not only the claim, but evidence to back it up (the past vector work which was excellent), there is no reason whatsoever to re-close the discussion, except other than to give a big "fuck you" to everyone else in the discussion. -- Ned Scott 05:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Image possibly incorrectly labelled as featured status

Image:Snow Scene at Shipka Pass 1.JPG is marked as featured, but it has issues which make me suspect it was not legitimately tagged as featured:

• The nomination discussions for the image on Wikipedia and on Commons are missing.
• The image does not look like an image that should be featured - it is almost completely blown out highlight.
• The image is not used as a primary image in any article, and doesn't really depict Shipka Pass at all, only snow covered trees.

--Ozhiker 20:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

In reply:

• The original debate was Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Snow scene at Shipka Pass.
• Did you have a look at the histogram? Despite the large amounts of white, it isn't blown at all.
• I might concede this one, but it isn't sufficient for delisting alone. MER-C 02:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)