Commons:Creator

The Creator namespace is similar to the Template namespace in that it only contains templates, yet this namespace is reserved exclusively for {{Creator}} infoboxes. These infobox templates contain identifying information about artists and are meant to be used on their works' File namespace pages. The main intent of those templates is to provide:

• general information about author, like dates and places of birth and death, allowing unique identification
• links to Wikidata, Commons galleries, Wikipedia or Wikisource articles, allowing finding more information and further unique identification
• short description of the creator in the language of the viewer
• dates of birth, death and nationality, which are important for verifying validity of {{PD-old}} licenses.

Since 2017, Creator templates began to use data pulled from Wikidata, content of many templates was reconciled with data stored there and redundant data was removed from Commons templates. Big advantage of Wikidata is that each fact can have its own references which makes verification of the data much easier. After that change the role of Creator templates shifted from storing information about creators, to displaying such information. They also provide human-friendly template names to be used in other infoboxes.

Scope

Creator pages contain templates meant to be transcluded into files. It takes time and effort to maintain them. Therefore, pages of creators with many files or with low maintenance have priority. There is no need to spend any effort on pages which are not going to be used as templates.

Who should have a creator page

• Any known creator of works hosted on Commons who meets notability criteria for Wikidata items, Commons categories or Wikipedia articles.
• Any known historic creator whose works on Commons are in the public domain due to copyright expiration.

Ideally all files of creators with a creator page should use the {{Creator}} template, and in most cases its content should be linked to Wikidata items.

Who should not have a creator page

• People who are not, and are unlikely to ever be, creators of works hosted on Commons, for example people like Genghis Khan or various saints.
• Non-individual creators, like institutions, projects, factories, manufacturers, multi-generation photo studios, newspapers, corporations, etc. Such creators are poorly served by a template which is tailored to people.
• Wikipedia and Commons users, as well as photographers from image-hosting websites like Flickr, who do not meet notability criteria. Creator pages are biographical, and there would be no proper sources to support any of the data, other than autobiographical sources. For users, instead link to their user page in the author field.
• Creators for whom we have no information other than their name.
• Anonymous authors, except when multiple works are attributed to a specific anonymous artist, for example Master of the 1540s.

Naming

The name of the creator page should follow the most common version of the name used in English-language literature, and ideally should match the name of the corresponding category on Commons and the name of article in English Wikipedia. See Commons category naming guidelines here and here. See also English Wikipedia's article naming guidelines here and here. Frequently encountered alternative name versions, including versions in native languages, or names matching articles in other Wikipedias, should have redirects to the main creator template. If there is a need for disambiguation, then the preferred way is to use dates of birth and death, or middle names, instead of professions.

Format

All creator pages should use {{Creator}} template and no text outside of content of {{Creator}} template should be transcluded. In most cases only two fields are required: Wikidata to link it to the proper Wikidata item and Options for passing information from individual creator templates to the Lua source code at Module:Creator.

Use of Creator templates

Commons category schema of categories related to creator pages. Blue folders are hidden maintenance categories. Blue text means example text.

Creator templates are meant to be used in file namespace to describe author or creator of depicted work. Please use links to creator pages or other pages when describing depicted people or other people who are not creators.

See also

• Template:Creator
• Help:Namespace