Commons talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 13

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

2:1 majority for approval

Can we have a look at increasing the 2:1 majority needed for an image to be approved for featured status? 2:1 just seems a bit too low. I think a minimum of 4:1 should be employed, to ensure that only the most worthy images are upgraded to this special status. What do others think?Fotoriety (talk) 02:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

2:1 seems about right to me. There's no-one in charge to weigh up the support/oppose reasons like they have at WP Featured Articles (where even one convincing oppose can sink an article). There seems to be a very wide variation in people's individual thresholds for what makes an FP. Having 4:1 would make it even more of a lottery, it would give revenge votes even more power, and we'd end up with FPs that were merely the wildly popular rather than a good variation of subjects. This is the wrong way of going about raising the bar. The current level is set by the community. If you think it too low (and many do, and say so from time to time) then the community as a whole has to raise their threshold. There are always flaws one can find in any picture, giving even more weight to opposes just tilts the bias towards those who like to find fault and disenfranchises a lot of folk who supported an image. Colin (talk) 09:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
2:1 is also full OK to me too. Only perhaps more than 7 supports for an image. For my opinion 10 supports. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 11:19, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose votes, in essence, already have twice the import of a support vote. In fact often just one oppose can deter others from even engaging on an image. However requiring 10 supports does raise the bar a bit without making it impossible (at currrent participation levels). I would not oppose Alchemist's suggestion. Saffron Blaze (talk) 13:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I think there was a similar discussion recently here (started by King of Hearts) but unable to find now here or in archives. -- JKadavoor Jee 13:14, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Found at Commons talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 12#Change minimum vote requirement to net votes (the link Archive 12 is missing on top; fixed) -- JKadavoor Jee 13:36, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
That earlier discussion had a mix of opinions, with some wanting even fewer votes to count. Looking at the archives, I think the threshold of 7 is about right. It is hard to be sure, of course, that images with 7,8,9 votes wouldn't have got more if the threshold had been 10 (as folk may not bother to add support once a picture has made it past 7) but most failures get few votes or sunk by early opposes. Does anyone know the discussion that came up with the current threshold of 7? Colin (talk) 15:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I express the same anxiety as I expressed there: it is difficult to get more support for fancy-less subjects even though they may very valuable. More than 2:1 is also very hard to achieve unless you have no enemies here. :) -- JKadavoor Jee 15:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Could we please try to stop endless discussions about the change of our Constitution almost every week ? Please let live our rules as they are, at least some months. My opinion.--Jebulon (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, "TRUE WORDS"! --Alchemist-hp (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that relative "newcomers" don't know about the extensive discussions about the rule sets. --Dschwen (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess a 4:1 majority doesn't have any traction anyway and it appears the current level is supported by most involved in this discussion. I just thought i would give it a go and see if it led anywhere. However, still with relation to voting, i do believe at least when people vote either for or against an image they should at least state the reason/s for their vote. I don't believe people should be allowed to simply stick a support or oppose template without an explanation. Doesn't this just open the door for revenge-based voting?Fotoriety (talk) 22:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The instructions already say "Explain your reasoning, especially when opposing a candidate (which has been carefully selected by the author/nominator)". An oppose without a reason would probably be challenged for the person to give an explanation. Voting patterns follow human nature, whether motivated by revenge or the effects of existing supports and opposes. One can give a valid reason for oppose but still be motivated by the desire to find fault rather than be fair. The opposite is also true. Colin (talk) 23:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I totally agree about the motivations. Back to explaining ones vote: i rarely see explanations for ones support or oppose vote. Wiki needs to be stricter about this.Fotoriety (talk) 00:38, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Fotoriety, please read the previous discussions available as twelve archive pages; it is difficult to retype everything again and again when the same topic is reopened. It also helps us to understand the project more. Don't take it at an offence; I read them several times. -- JKadavoor Jee 03:54, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
No offence taken.Fotoriety (talk) 04:14, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

No need to change nothing, as it is, a lot of images get promoted or not promoted at random anyway, as there is really no quality control over what really is a featurable image, depending much on defective voting criteria. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 17:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Double negation is potentially confusing. Apart from your seemingly grimm assessment of FPC, do you think a simple shift in majority would be a way to fix your perceived brokenness of FPC? --Dschwen (talk) 17:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Dschwen, my double negation was colloquial, sarcastic ;o). I think that whatever ratio would really not change much, except perhaps make it harder to promote good images. In my opinion, as it is, excluding bad faith votes, from the photographic point of view, including a general knowledge and idea of the reach of photography as a medium, FPC, as much as I like as a possibility, is simply flawed. Images are voted down over simplistic, nonsense variables that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the images as encyclopedic images. Much like Mark Twain said about education: “Education that consists in learning things and not the meaning of them is feeding upon the husks and not the corn.” ~Mark Twain;Italic text People here, in my humble opinion, buy the wrapping of the products and not the nutritional content. That is, they miss the entire value of images by focusing on imagined defects. And on the other side, a lot of sterile good looking images are promoted. One of the things that I perceive is a strong tendency to judge images from a perspective of image manipulation and ideas of how the image should look like. Still, I like the project and I will continue to contribute images, regardless... --Tomascastelazo (talk) 18:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, it is easy to dismiss the project based on how it fails to be exactly what you would like it to be. FPC is featuring a certain kind of images and what these images are is determined by the participating crowd. I don't necessarily think there is an absolute gold standard of what these featured pictures should be. Quality in an image is a multidimensional parameter. Everybody weighs the components slightly differently. For the sake of all our mental health we should try to accept on how the weights come out in the FPC process. It is pointless to argue with the voters on FPC on how they should set their priorities. Then we might as well make you king of FPC and solemnly in charge of choosing candidates. The process is fairly open, and we either have to accept what we get, or close FPC. Of course we can set guidelines, but only so much. And as it turns out technical guidelines are rather easy to set. Guidelines on what makes an image look non-sterile or the reach of photography as a medium fill books. I guess the only thing that would satisfy you would be a panel of expert jurors made up from professional photographers. Fair enough, but that would be a different FPC, and one we are unlikely to get. Accept FPC for what it is and don't hold it to unrealistic idealistic standards. --Dschwen (talk) 21:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Schwen, lol! Don´t get me wrong... FPC is what it is... with all its defects and virtues... and I participate regardless... and no, I don´t dismiss the project, for I keep on participating... and no, I don´t want to be appointed nothing! I just like to take pictures! Considering the reach of Wikipedia and FPC, its potential, the exposure it gives, etc., etc., have you wondered why there is really such poor participation, if you think about the number of photographers out there??? My opinions are based on experience and a proven track record, and my opinion is that the potential of this forum is diminished by the resistance by the community to grow and to improve at the individual level with regards to what constitutes a good image in different levels, technical, contextual and encyclopedic value, etc. But one thing I tell you about myself, if I do not know anything about the subject, I keep my mouth shut, and if the subject interests me, I document myself on the subject so I have a decent platform of analysis and then vote. I approach the process from the subject context and not from gimmicks that technology offers. I feed upon the corn, not the husks. An no, I am not perfect, and yes, I do make mistakes... --Tomascastelazo (talk) 22:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Tomas, you are still holding on to the judgmental view of right review metrics and wrong review metrics. I'm the last person that likes a relativistic "there is no right or wrong" approach, but there is certainly a personal freedom on how you distribute the weights. You may or may not like it. If people want to put a strong emphasis on technical quality in FPC then that is what an FP will look like. No point in lamenting about it but certainly keep trying yo convince people that there is more to photography than dustspots and megapixels. I would just do it less... ...crass, if you want to be heard. I'm sure there is some frustration in your tone, but throwing phrases like simplistic nonsense won't help building your case. --Dschwen (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Dschwen, yes, you are right that I hold to a view of review metrics, that include not only technical aspects, but also photographic aspects and encyclopedic aspects, etc. And yes, FPC is what it is, and I take it as that. And if people are turned off by the manner in which I point things out, sometimes out of frustration, so be it. Open minds don´t mind. Like the old saying goes, "good pitching will always stop good hitting and viceversa." --Tomascastelazo (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I can see some good points in Tomas' words; but we can't expect a (technical) subject review here (even though it is a bit disappointing). I made some requests at Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects earlier, requesting their participation here; but get no response. Here the participants (contributors and reviewers) have only generic knowledge in other subjects out of their domains; so we can only expect a "layman's point of view" in most cases. Further, I think the approach "if I do not know anything about the subject, I keep my mouth shut, and if the subject interests me, I document myself on the subject so I have a decent platform of analysis and then vote." will not helps; it only decrease the number of opinions and votes, reducing the chances of promotion of a rare and valuable subject. Instead, some home works like reading the linked pages and viewing other images in the relevant categories will help to improve our general knowledge (and a good tonic to fight against Dementia) too. -- JKadavoor Jee 06:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I disagree on the need for specialist knowledge of image subject FP at commons is more about the photograph, the people here are photographers the image composition, lighting, focus etc is the whats being reviewed not the specific subject thats referred to as EV and COM:IG doesnt have any requirment for that. Gnangarra 10:17, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Partially disagree. Mere knowledge in photography may be enough to review a photo taken in ideal conditions. The reality is very different. But the reality is very different. I noticed many reviewers from western countries complaint about harsh lights in photos taken in Asia or Africa. But light here is very harsh even at 8.00 AM. Knowledge about the natural habitat of a subject is also very important. Just notice this current nomination. This species is arboreal and nocturnal. So the photo was taken at 23.01 in its natural habitat. So this photo may good enough considering it's habit and behavior. Our attempt to find the correct binomial name of this species is another story. Do you think featuring this picture as just a "tree frog" is useful? But I don’t demand “specialist knowledge” from every reviewers; a little care to read the file description and some Google searches may be enough. JKadavoor Jee 16:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I disagree that Commons FP has no requirement for EV (where I mean educational value, not encyclopaedic value per Wikipedia). Our project scope is educational media content. Our FP guidelines (both the "summary" at the top of this page, and the "complete" guidelines) mention "Value" or "Valuable" as a criterion. Surely in an educational media repository, the "value" of an image comes from a combination of educational value, photographic skill and technical achievement. Perhaps our guidelines could be clearer on this point and certainly I find both pages to be a rambling mess with the "complete guidelines" focussing on rather obvious technical aspects and not enough on what makes a picture special. Many of our pictures, some animals as an example, aren't that special from a photographic/artistic pov but capture well the detail of the subject so are highly valuable. We care about accurate naming, geolocation, and try to take into account difficult subjects when judging - none of which would matter if it were only about the arrangement of coloured pixels. Colin (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, a featurable image must 1) have the highest quality that the circumstances allow. An illustrative picture of so so quality of an extraordinary event is better than a great picture of an ordinary event. 2) be illustrative of an object, place, process or event, etc. That is, it has to tell a story. The problem that I see is that in FPC images are very often voted down because they are evaluated from the wrong premises, giving much weight to post production or irrelevant variables, and many times from ignorance of the subject matter and the medium itself. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 15:44, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

From my experience, this is a photography club to some extent. People don't really know how to evaluate non-photographic artworks, so they get less responses in total, and I suspect that situation is only going to have gotten worse since I, Durova, and various other people left a couple years ago, as there's a likelihood the expertise has been lost.

So a little caution should be exericsed: You don't want to end up with a situation where valuable images get excluded, simply because not enough people feel comfortable commenting.

Now, obviously, having a large number of expert photographers is, in almost all other cases, a really good thing, but do remember that means that expertise and ability to vote is focused on one area. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Oscar Wilde - The Duchess of Padua.jpg

Think I could beg some more eyes on this? I know that black and white images, particularly in obscurer types of art, are a little hard to evaluate, but I'd rather not see this die simply because of lack of eyes. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Featured sound candidates

One of my last projects before I left last time, died because I, well, left. Now that MOTD (my project before that, as it happens - about 90% of the code for that's my work, based on a heavy debugging of POTD, which was horrible.) has apparently succeeded, it's probably time to revive it, and possibly add media.

I suspect that we're not going to suddenly get lots of new people to a page, so what I propose is that we spend a month getting the criteria and process sorted, then have a major launch, with banner and so on.

I suspect that it may be best to try for a simplified process, on the level of quality images, until such time as we have sufficient participation. If we're going to try to put a full FP-level process in place, I think we'll need to piggyback on a popular page, like how MOTD was linked to POTD for a couple years. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Or, how about: same 2/3 threshold as FPC, but no 7-vote minimum, only that at least one person other than the nominator has supported. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:32, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
That would make sense. Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Something like the QI project ?--Jebulon (talk) 10:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
That is what Adam is proposing. However, I would prefer it be more formal than QIC, but less so than FPC. So for example, each file gets its own subpage, has to run for nine or however many days people decide it should be, but doesn't have the seven-vote requirement. After all, if we're calling them "featured sounds" they ought to be carefully selected. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 10:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I would be glad if there was more peer review of media (though I'm not offering). One of the occasional problems we've had with MOTD is that stuff gets put in that hasn't been reviewed, and in a couple of cases has even been a near-blatant copyvio. If this succeeds, I hope it will become a prerequisite for MOTD listing... but that will need a rate of at least one successful nomination per day. --99of9 (talk) 11:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Thinking about this, I've made a proposal below. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Sets

I suspect noone has nominated a set of images since I last did... oh, probably 3, 4 years ago. Restorations are much, much more prone to creating sets than photography. Anyway, since I still need to fix up the description pages - and that's going to take at least a couple hours, and thanks to lots of uploader tool issues, it's not happening today.

And I'm a little incoherent when really tired, so forgive me.

So, I have a 10-item set of illustrations to Tennyson, Category:The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred_Lord_Tennyson_-_Final_restorations. An older version of one of them (I redid it to make it consistent with the other 9) is already a Featured picture. Since they're from the same book, same artist, and same restoration, I propose to nominate them as a set.

Fundamentally, would nominating them as a set be a problem? Also, does anyone see any issues with one or more of them that'd preclude it from FP, and thus make a set nomination impossible? Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

No problem to have set nominations for me. Yann (talk) 08:27, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Sets are welcome, of course.--Jebulon (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, here we are, then: Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set nomination: The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Don't expect things on this scale too often; the key here is that I didn't stop doing restorations just because I left commons.
If anyone's interested, there's a LOT of stuff on http://adamcuerden.deviantart.com/gallery/ that can probably be moved over here (only the stuff labelled with a CC license, please: the rest is my original artwork, and I'd rather decide whether to release it myself. As for the CC-license....
Well, what I propose is this: I want to request attribution for all my works. I likely have a legal right to this, because I live in Britain, where the bar of originality is very low. However, for simple restorations, I'm willing to waive this, and for moderate-difficulty ones, simply use language that simply notes this as a request. However, some of the restorations took up to about 30 hours, with substantial recreation of missing pieces. For those, I'm not really willing to negotiate a full release unless I'm given damn good reasons. Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:48, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Criteria for selecting version?

I'm looking at Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Nørre Vorupør Coast 2012-11-18.jpg. The original had 11/4/0 and the alt had 10/1/0, but the closer chose to feature the alt, which I'm a bit perplexed by. When I looked at the rules, it seems extremely vague: "Two different versions of the same picture cannot both be featured, but only the one with the higher number of votes." What is "higher number of votes" supposed to mean? Higher number of supports? Higher number of net supports (support - oppose)? Higher number of total votes? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:13, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I had the same observation. I would not say I was perplexed, but I did wonder how to select which version to promote in the particular case. I think the selection done in the case is OK, as there are no clear rules. But I would propose that in the future, selection is done as follows
When more than one version in an FPC fulfills the criteria for promotion, the one should be selected, which has gained the largest net score calculated as
no of support votes - 2 * number of oppose votes.
For the particular case that would be a score of 11 - 2 * 4 = 3 for the original and 10 - 2 * 1 = 8 for the alternative, so the alternative would be promoted. --Slaunger (talk) 14:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
In general, I am very much in favor of using net supports rather than supports for gauging the collective opinion (and in fact made a proposal a few months ago to change the 7 minimum support rule to 5 net support, which failed to pass). However, we have to be careful with using net supports here, because of the risk of strategic voting to promote one version over another. We may end up with neither version getting featured because of people opposing a version they like less than the other one (but still would have supported if it were the only one offered). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry for the confusion, and yes, I thought of a version which had a stronger consensus. It's the most logical conclusion imo, I have no idea what sense the rule with the "higher number of votes" shall have. If only the number of votes is being counted, an FPC clearly reached 2/3 consensus on one of the versions could get archived as failed only because there was a version with a higher number of votes in general, but with less than 2/3 consensus. However, feel free to rework the closure; Inow see that it's currently a promotion rule indeed. - A.Savin 18:41, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Regarding this particular closure, I think we should just come up with a well-defined general rule first, and then apply it to this one if necessary. In my opinion there are three viable options: supports only, net supports (supports - opposes), or weighted net supports (supports - 2*opposes). Now, using weighted net supports has the instant advantage of promotion being guaranteed by a positive value (assuming the threshold of 7 supports has been reached). However, I am worried that strategic voting to emphasize a preferred version (i.e. by opposing the less preferred version) may end up actually sinking the entire nomination, especially if the preferences are close to evenly split. Then again, this might actually be a good thing if a clearly superior alt is presented in the last two days or so, and diligent people can quickly switch their votes over without having to rely on the other lazy people. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
King of Hearts, please don't characterise reviewers as "diligent" or "lazy". We are all volunteers here - any time we give is a donation. Wrt any promotions, the consensus of reviewers should be judged by applying common sense and reading the reviews, not the application of arbitrary rules. I do sense you are trying to invent some perfect mathematical voting scheme, immune from abuse or neglect, that is guaranteed to churn out featured images everyone agrees are justified. I don't see why you should be "perplexed" since it is clear the alt was a clear winner. Your mistake is to concentrate only on the numbers (though they are clear too imo).
Read the reviews: The sole oppose the alt got was not opposing the crop but was identical to the oppose that the original got (so both opposes cancel each other out when comparing each side). The original got an oppose from JKadavoor Jee that transformed into a Neutral on the Alt. The original got a clear oppose from Benh in favour of a support on the alt. Many supporters commented on the alt being better. Rjcastillo requested less sky in the original and noted the improvement in the alt. King of Hearts mentioned the original didn't follow the rule-of-thirds (though said it didn't bother him "much") but didn't comment at all on the alt, which does follow the rule-of-thirds. In the case of reviewers who commented prior to the alt's presence, then they could be chased-up but ultimately the safest option in the absense of an update is to assume their view of the alt matches the prevailing view of the alt. In other worse, their support of the original and lack of comment on the alt should not count against the alt unless the prevailing view of the alt is also that it is worse. But a support of the original made when the alt was present would be a clear preference for the original. It is complicated! The closer needs to use their brain, not a calculator.
So my point is that I sincerely hope those closing nominations read the reviews otherwise we might as well just put " " and "-" buttons on the image page and not bother writing anything.
My suggestion is that when an alt is offered, then the FP criteria text should simply state that in cases where both images pass the minimum voting criteria, the closer should judge the consensus of reviewers. Where the closer feels that consensus is not clear (e.g., they want to chase up reviewers of the original to see how they feel about the alt) then again, that should be a decision for the closer (which they can state on the review page).
I suggest that reviewers only oppose a version (original/alt) if they would oppose that when it was a stand-alone nomination. Therefore, if the crop is flawed enough to oppose then they can do so. In order to show a preference for one crop, they could refrain from voting on the other, or make their vote neutral.
If a particular nomination gets completely messed up with conflicting opinions, then there is no harm in just withdrawing/ending the nomination and the nominator can re-nominate their prefered version to be judged alone. Colin (talk) 09:41, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
You suggestion sounds good. How about let's change the rule to this: "Two different versions of the same picture cannot both be featured, but only the one with higher level of support, as determined by the closer. Whenever the closer is not sure which version to feature, he/she should attempt to contact the voters to clarify their opinions if not clear from the nomination page." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:51, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
1. -- A.Savin 10:08, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support. W00T! Are we actually going to use our brain, and not count beans ? Anyway, I agree with the proposed new text. It is by the way quite seldom that more than one version makes it over the bar. In the particular case, all early voters were by the way contacted on their individual talk pages asking them to state their opinion about the alternative. --Slaunger (talk) 10:12, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support too, or prohibit the " alternative version" system and prefer a withdraw followed by a new nomination of a cropped/improved/other version. But please notice that the "confirmed" result featuring the alt version in this case is wrong, we have a "neutral" vote, by Jkadavoor.--Jebulon (talk) 13:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
I worry a bit that "higher level of support" could still be interpreted as just counting support votes, and would like to see the word "consensus" in there somewhere. Colin (talk) 10:22, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Changed. I modified the wording slightly to put "consensus" in there. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Set nominations

I promised White Cat I'd whip up a template for set nominations, after FPCbot absolutely failed to handle my last big one.

I realise set nominations aren't that common, but if anyone wants to try it out, please feel free, and leave feedback here.

Thanks! Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Backlog of historical (and other) FPs in need of sorting

Earlier today there were 58 historical FPs in Commons:Featured pictures/Historical#Unsorted in need of manual sorting by year in the gallery. I just sorted ten of them, so now we are down to 48. Assistance from fellow editors would be appreciated . For the historically interested it is instructive to see how the charater of the images change over time. There are other galleries under COM:FP in need of sorting/caption as well, for editors with other fields of interest Clin. --Slaunger (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done. Unsorted = 0 now. Could somebody check please, if any mistake ?--Jebulon (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 Awesome! , Jebulon! It would take a long time to check that there are no mistakes, but I do not see any apparent errors. It is interesting to have them all lined up by year now. So we have no historic FP from the 1990s, and only a single one from the 1980s. It could be a nice challenge to find some from these decades. --Slaunger (talk) 20:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Entrance Hall of Mr Chas. Green's house, Savannah Ga, now occupied as Head Quarters by Gen Sherman.jpg

Think I could beg a little more eyes on this? It's rather under-participated. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Alright, let's look at the easiest option. What if we ran a trial of allowing sounds on FPC for 3 months, and then see if we're getting sufficient interest at the end of it to spin off?

  • Sounds can be judged using the Commons:Featured sound criteria (with that being open to editing),
  • I don't think anyone's attempted criteria for video; however, English Wikipedia's FPC allows video, but its en:WP:Featured picture criteria just uses the picture criteria, noting that video can have a smaller resolution. As such, we probably don't need any.
  • While I can see there being issues with expertise, I also suspect that they aren't much worse than the expertise issues for judging some of the rarer types of art we get on here.
  • It might be good to reduce the number of supports to 5, since people are hesitant to vote on things they aren't as familiar with.
  • At the end of the three month period, we can see how many nominations there are, review what's passed, and have a vote on how to move on.
  • Finally, all nominations should have a note, right at the top, explaining that they're part of a trial run, and linking to the appropriate criteria to judge them against.

I propose we spend one week discussing this proposal before we start voting on it, to firm up the proposal. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we should introduce this to FPC just for the purpose of spinning it off; it should stand by itself. It should suffice IMO to have a banner advertising it at the top of the FPC candidate list (replacing the current banner about the GFDL-1.2 ban). Also, I would make the number of supports just "at least one other than the nominator," because we don't know how much participation there will be. If we later decide to revise the criteria, we can always come up with some delisting procedure to delist sounds/videos that got through when they shouldn't have. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The 5 would be if it was on here. If we don't put it on a hugely active page, I agree that being more lenient about number of votes is better. Adam Cuerden (talk) 08:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I think this is a good proposal. We need some objective criteria on quality to help reviewers (sound and image quality, length, size, etc.). Yann (talk) 09:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
It's hard to say anything about length, honestly, because, frankly, it'd depend on what was being recorded. A few seconds of a bird call might be enough, for instance, but a few seconds of music wouldn't be. Other than that, what do you think of Commons:Featured sound criteria? Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:45, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
First of all, welcome back, Adam, I am very happy to see you back as a contributor!
I think your proposal with a set of test nominations over a trial period is a very good suggestion. It will give an oppurtunity to see if the project "can fly", and to refine guidelines, the process, etc. Wrt to the number of votes needed for promotion, I guess 5 is fine - but another approach could be to establish how many are needed based on the activity in the trial period.
I had a look at the criteria. I think they look fine. I was wondering if item 1 is really needed, as I guess a recording could not be hosted on Commons unless the license is OK? Is there a special reason to emphasize public domain in item 1? I was also wondering if the caption requirement 3 is needed? Could that not be extracted from the file page when inserted on the portal? My concern is language barriers in preparing the caption (a barrier, which is occasionally experienced by non-English speakers at EN:FPC for instance). --Slaunger (talk) 08:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Those are good points. Instead of criteria 1, why not replace it with an explanation that, just because a piece of music is out of copyright does not mean the recording is, and both must be freely licensed or public domain? That's probably the most common mistake made about sound copyright. As for the caption: The problem is that one can tell what a picture is by glancing at it. One cannot do that with a sound file, so we'd at least need enough description to identify it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
The sound criteria look good. We need video images criteria. Also what the minimum size for a featured video? Do we require HD if it is a recent video? Yann (talk) 08:25, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I honestly know nothing about video; I suspect that I can only handle running a sound project, at least as far as criteria is concerned. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Note: I have converted Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Mikhail Glinka's Barcarole in G major, from Four Musical Essays (1847).ogg into an FSC and promoted it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

  •  Support 'Featured content', or a trial that demonstrates to the chicken littles that the Internet will not actually explode, is an obvious good idea that will improve the project. Keeping things separate serves no purpose. Further, there should be less 'guidelines', the whole 'how to think -- the guide for beginners who are new to thinking' condescending bullshit. The point is to choose the best and showcase it. Dead Poet's Society comes to mind, where the 'what is poetry' introduction is the first thing to be torn out of the book. Featured content depends on the content, not arbitrary rules for robots. Process prompts poets to PUKE. Penyulap ☏ 10:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Voting

So, who supports the idea of a 3-month trial of Featured sounds on her, per the above? This poll will run two weeks.

Premature FPC closures by User:Beria

Today I noticed a bunch of recent FPC's which have been closed by User:Beria despite the fact that they were started less than 5 days ago:

Albeit most of the candidatures had a more or less obvious interim result with 10 or more supports and no oppose, so that a different result rather than promotion was not very likely anyway, I'm not really sure if that was a right approach, even in spite of the large amounts of FP candidatures (far more than 50 at the same moment). So, don't get me wrong, I appreciate if someone actively helps to keep the FPC up to date. But even the speedy promotion rule (Commons:Featured picture candidates, General rules, nr. 8) says that at least 5 days have to pass. This deadline makes sense, because it provides the chance for other voters, who are (maybe) not every single day active on FPC, to state their opinion or even to show some flaws which previous voters did not notice before. So, I think it's not only a rule, but it's also common sense that FPC's should not be promoted *extremely* speedy. So, even although one of the candidatures listed above is of mine, I'm not really happy with the current result. Any opinions, how we should handle it? --A.Savin 14:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the need to be reviewed for at least 5 days in order to capture all views. Mine only got three and a bit days. Can they be put back up again to serve a couple more days? I would do it but don't know the procedure. Colin (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
I've put the candidatures back to COM:FPC/CL and removed the assessment templates for now. I refrained from reverting something in FP galeries or on nominators' user talk pages, in hope that the result will not change. --A.Savin 17:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Set nominations: How to delineate

At the moment, Template:Assessments requires Set nominations to begin with Set: - for example, Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set:Nameofset

Per a discussion with とある白い猫, I'd like to suggest we instead use Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Nameofset - this has several advantages:

  • It prevents ambiguity: Whereas some people might use "Set:Nameofset", others might use "Set: Nameofset". This means Assessments has to check for both, or risk hard-to-identify errors when they use the assessments template.
  • For very complicated coding reasons,[1] it's trivial to (for example) have Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Category:CategoryName link the page to a category, but all but impossible for Set:Category:CategoryName. Also, two colons is just ugly.
  • It distinguishes sets clearly from other nomination types.
  1. ↑ For the record, the en:Help:Parser functions that allow strings to be manipulated are turned off on Wikipedia, and, as Set: isn't a filespace indicator, there's no Magic words that will remove it from Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set:Nameofset However, for Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Nameofset {{SUBPAGENAME}} can automatically pull out everything after the last /.

Anyway, I'll give this a week; if noone objects by then (or if consensus is in the favour of this) it shouldn't take long to switch it over. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

  • I think it is a very good idea have sets on a dedicated subpage, and I would actually suggest a Scheme like Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/CategoryName as a Category: can always be concatenated with CategoryName, and CategoryName could be helpful as a title wo the category link. Anyway leaving any namesspaces out of the subpage name gives much more flexibility. I think we have good experience with that from COM:VIC as well. Another variation could also be Commons:Featured picture candidate sets/CategoryName as I see no reason why sets should not be hierarchically on the same level as pictures. --Slaunger (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2012 (UTC
Well, the problem is that, for example, in Valued images, you can link to (taking a random example from the VIC page) " (exterior)" - which would be a good way to delineate a set of exterior images of said winery. But If you try to put up a set candidate at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Domaine Carneros Winery (exterior) we can't link it to Category:Domaine Carneros Winery, for the reasons in the footnote. That said... We actually CAN get Category:Domaine Carneros Winery out of Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Domaine Carneros Winery/Exterior using #titleparts (See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:ParserFunctions ).
[Digression] #titleparts would also be good for renominations. Just renominate as Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Foo.jpg/2 and we could still link the filename.
[End Digression] Well, okay, so it's completely doable. My one worry is something like Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Set:Burning_of_McPhersonville, where it's a coherent set, but maybe not a good category, but even there, you could just put it at "/Set/South Carolina in the American Civil War/William Waud illustration of the Burning of McPhersonville". Or something shorter - you may have noticed I favour a lot of description. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
I am probably missing something entirely trivial, but why can't you do, e.g., [[:Category:{{SUBPAGENAME}}|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] to convert a /CategoryName subpage into a link to a category or whatever? May I am not understanding entirely what you are trying to do... --Slaunger (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Because more than one set can (theoretically) come from a single category, sort of like VI allows images for smaller scopes than would be reasonable to divide categories up into. But #titleparts allows disambiguation, so... Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I understand - it i to avoid ambiguity. But why does the subpage have to correspond to a specific category? Can it not just be some suitable title (it just have to be unique), and then the category could be a field in the nomination template? Isn't that more keep-it-simple and easier to understand (not that I object to other approaches, just trying to understand the system you are envisioning)? --Slaunger (talk) 23:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
I suppose it doesn't have to, it's just there's been a push to standardise Commons nomination pages to something, and where a relevant category exists, that's about the only thing I can think of using for sets. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:11, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

On the digression above

I've added in renomination handling to normal nominations. See, for example, Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Ijazah3.jpg/2, which required no more effort to set up than it would had it not gotten the last vote to its nomination a half hour too late three years ago. =) I'll check through Assessments for anything that needs a quick #titleparts thrown on it, but that very useful parserfunction works very well for this sort of thing. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

A problem with sets handling

Please see this and this page versions. I had to correct them manually to achieve a proper display. It should be automated. Tomer T (talk) 10:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's a FPCbot bug. We're working on it; the previous discussion about changing the format to Set/ just needs to be implemented, and then I need to teach myself Python, and/or get someone else to code the fix. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy Christmas

A Christmas card of Everest

Have a great holiday everyone!

Colin (talk) 11:05, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Colin, have a nice Xmas !--Jebulon (talk) 11:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, and to everybody: Feliz Navidad y lo mejor para el 2013! Poco a poco (talk) 13:23, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

If no objections arise, I'm going to presume this accepted, and start setting up for a Jan 1 start. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:21, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Fine for me. Yann (talk) 07:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
For me too. Have a nice Christmas everybody !--Jebulon (talk) 11:21, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Not enough votes - re-nomination allowed?

My FP candidate Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Limbecker-Platz-Ausgang-Berliner-Platz-Hoch-2012.jpg got not enough votes to become featured. It's a pity because I like to photo and think it is a very good one. There were no real opposing votes (5 support, 1 neutral, 0 oppose). My questions:

  • Is re-nomination allowed?
  • Is it a completely new process or do the existing votes count?

Thanks! --Tuxyso (talk) 18:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

  •  Info -- Nothing in the guidelines prevents a re-nomination. But I would wait some time - at least a couple of months - before doing it. From my experience, re-nominating now might work the another way around. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I think mid-January would be fine. Everyone knows participation goes way down over the holidays. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:05, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
By the way, I recently simplified the renomination process. Just add /2 after the Filename, e.g. Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Foo.jpg/2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Cuerden (talk • contribs) 09:34, 30 December 2012‎ (UTC)
The previous votes do not count. Supporters from the first nomination may vote again of course (and nothing in the guidelines prevents canvassing notifying them). --A.Savin 19:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Meet our Users

I am proposing to retire Commons:Meet our photographers and Commons:Meet our illustrators and make a unified Commons:Meet our Users instead. See the proposal at the Village pump. --Slaunger (talk) 11:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

After reflecting on some of the feedback I have gotten. I have redacted my proposal. --Slaunger (talk) 23:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Shells

Hi,

I propose to put the photos of shells with the photos of fossil & bones. What do you think ? --Citron (talk) 10:33, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, d'autant plus que ce sera le cas (fusion "Ossements, Coquillages et Fossiles") pour le choix des catégories dans le concours "Image de l'Année 2012".--Jebulon (talk) 13:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Tiens, j'avais même pas vu ! Faudrait même une sous catégorie, comme Commons:Featured_pictures/Objects/Rocks_and_Minerals.--Citron (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Good idea, to put together the "hard parts" and "remainings" of animals (Bones, shells, fossils). Fossils should be included, for it is not always possible to divide in "living (=extant) animals" and "fossils", see e.g. Category:Fossils of extant Gastropoda. But IMO the "bones, shells, fossils - Category" should not be placed in "Objects" but in "Animals" (and plant fossils in "Plants"). --Llez (talk) 08:43, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Why not, but including human skulls ? --Citron (talk) 11:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to modify delisting procedure

Let's face it: People just don't look at the delisting section as much as the nominations section, so it doesn't make sense to impose the same activity requirements of regular nominations to delisting candidates. There are two main reasons why we have a limit of nine days for regular nominations: 1) to avoid cluttering up the page; and 2) because if a picture doesn't get seven supports, it's probably boring and lacks "wow" factor. But these two factors do not apply to delisting candidates. For cluttering, well, the delisting section barely has any candidates at all. Regarding "wow factor," sure, an FPC with 20 supports that makes everyone go "wow, this is beautiful" is more deserving than an FPC with one with 5. But why is a delisting candidate that makes people people go "wow, how did this get promoted in the first place?" ("negative wow," if you will) any less deserving to get delisted than a 1 MP image that makes people go "OK, whatever, someone else can go ahead and vote to delist, I'm too lazy to." This kind of mentality also occurs in regular FPC, but the difference is whether this "laziness" indicates lack of enthusiasm about an FPC (which reflects negatively on the candidate) or a lack of enthusiasm about a delisting candidate (seriously, how can you even be enthusiastic about delisting a picture?).

Therefore, I propose to change the delisting rules to:

  1. The voting period will be 14 days. There is no rule for early closure (if inappropriate delisting nominations become a frequent problem, we can always discuss reintroducing it later).
  2. At least 5 votes to delist, with 2/1 majority (as usual). While the 7-vote requirement on an FPC is there to set a "wow" factor threshold, here all we need is to see that there are enough people to form a consensus and provide enough eyes to make sure we didn't miss anything.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. I support. I suppose the supermajority is useful, as we want the delisting to be a little conservative when the person nominating the image frames the debate. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Fine with me, as well Poco a poco (talk) 20:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Not so much for delisting: Old FPs are part of Commons history, it should stay for the record. --PierreSelim (talk) 00:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Quite so! But after so many battles lost on this issue, commom sense tells me we should give up... Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I think, even with that philosophy, there'd need to be a delist procedure to handle cases like "exact same painting, but now we have it at 10x resolution", or "the image doesn't depict what it was said to during the nomination" (for example, what was thought to be a particular painting turns out to be a copy by a (long-dead, so out of copyright) art student . Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
@Pierre Selim: "former FP" does not disappear as FP, there is a special tag for them (not very different), users may know the picture was distinguished. Actually I think that this special tag contributes in the creation of the "history of Commons". "History" needs "evolution". If there is no evolution, there is no history. Philosophical, eh ?--Jebulon (talk) 11:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Since the disagreement seems to be meta-opposition to delisting itself, rather than an objection to this change in procedure, could we move forward with it? It's been a week since the last comment... -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:50, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

  • why not have a "reconfirmation of FP status", with the nomination included within the normal list and a simple majority to retain rather than separating it out where they dont get the same level of views with templates {{Retain}}/{{R}}/{{Keep}} and {{Delist}}/{{Dl}}/{{Oppose}} for voting. It could also be added to promoting nomination so that the full history is together for review, multiple delists would then readily available Gnangarra 11:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Missing pics from Picture of the year

I did a couple of spot checks on pics had have found two missing from the pic of the year competition.

That was after only clicking on a few pictures. So I wonder if there are loads of missing images. Or am I confused about the pic entry rules?

Colin (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The second one is featured in en-wp. I've just added the assessments template. --A.Savin 18:33, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. But I guess there are others? Colin (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I either wonder why FPC closers from en-wp do not bother. But that should be rather asked on the en-wp FPC talk page. Concerning the dragonfly I can only hope that this was a solitary mistake by the POTY organizers. --A.Savin 18:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for advice

I'd like some advice from the more experienced people here. I contribute a lot to Commons, but have never had any training in photography. Many of my shots may be ok, but I'm not sure what any serious photographer would think of them. Having recently been to Vietnam, I've come back with a good photo library and will upload the relevant stuff over time. I was wondering whether somebody who knows the process here could have a look at this photo (careful - it's not for the faint-hearted; read the alt text first) and tell me whether it's worth nominating it here. Schwede66 20:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Schwede66,
Maybe the FPC page is not the good one for a beginning. My advice is to made some tries at the COM:QIC page. You will find there a lot of very good contributors, able to give good technical advices. There is no limits for nominations (five a day is generally considerated as good). After some time spend there, I'm sure you will have a relevant opinion about your own images. Good luck and have fun !--Jebulon (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
See also Commons:Photography critiques. That's certainly an interesting subject! It might do well on "wow" factor. The depth of focus is really narrow -- I wish more of the subject was in focus. However I see from the Exif that the light was low so there wasn't much option wrt aperture without a tripod. The strong shaddows are a little distracting. But I like the arrangement of the heads and the other meats, and the table at an angle. Is there a Wikipedia article it could go in? I'm jealous of your wee camera -- Santa can't have got my letter to him this year. Colin (talk) 08:28, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the feedback - much appreciated. I'll follow up on the links. I've added the photo to Vietnamese cuisine; dog meat would have been the other candidate. Yes, it was getting dark at the time. I've got a friend who recently treated himself to an RX100 and as my pocket camera was giving up and as I expected Vietnam to be a good place for taking photos, we did some duty free shopping on the way over. Schwede66 17:24, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, Vietnam is a good place for taking pictures ! I was there some years ago, but... without camera. Anyway, I think you made a good purchase, and I'm maybe more lucky than Colin with my letter to the "Père Noël"... Let's wait... He's a bit late this year.--Jebulon (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

problem with rule interpretation

Hello,

may s.o. with much FP experience look at this please Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Köcherbaumwald-01.jpg Thanks --Wladyslaw (talk) 14:53, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the rules are fuzzy. The candidate fulfilled the prequisites for doing a fifth day promotion, where it says they are promoted. However, it does not happen instantly, but only after the bot does it run. So, there is in principle a vaccum of fuzziness from the time the five days have elapsed and the time the bot has run (a maximum of 12 hours). I do not recall any conflicts over this anyway. Stepping back from the rules a bit, I doubt very much that the outcome of the vote would have changed if the late-on-the fifth-day-but-way-before-regular-voting-period-ends-oppose was counted or not. I consider it very unlikely that the photo would have received so many oppose votes over the next 5 days, that it could have been ended in a decline. So, maybe not worth spending resources on. I would just move on. --Slaunger (talk) 21:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
First: I have noticed that my arguments will be actually read. There are some examples where candidates received several pros consecutively and after my contra the image was not elected or at least abut upon a discussion about the lacking points.
Second: it is beside the point if my contra would turn the resulut of this candidature. It's important to define the rules in a way that there will not be uncertainty for the future. So I invite to talk about a solution to make a clear statement how this point will be handled from now. --Wladyslaw (talk) 06:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree that there is an ambiguity here. I feel that it should be resolved in favor of having a hard 5-day deadline, as I don't think it is fair to penalize nominators due to the bot being slow. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:12, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
That is ok for me, this should be written in the rules. --Wladyslaw (talk) 08:13, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
As I mentioned in the discussion in the nomination page, I, of course, think the same as King of Hearts. Tomer T (talk) 08:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I think that the question was very relevant. Furthermore every vote is important, and there is a difference (even small) between an unanimous promotion, and a promotion with opposition(s). Anyway, I agree with the solution suggested by King of Hearts. To write it in the rules will be an improvement.--Jebulon (talk) 12:14, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
And I'm always against speedy promotions; there is no need of a hurry to promote pictures without proper reviews. Many serious reviewers visit the nomination page once in a week and many pictures pass before it. Giving more time will allow the early reviewers to reconsider their opinion if a later reviewer find a vital mistake. -- JKadavoor Jee 05:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
But this is an artificial extension of the vote. If we go by the approach that the fifth-day treshold isn't determined by the vote's start 5 days, but by the time that the bot edits the vote's page as earlier as the five days passed, then we just penalize the nominators due to the bot being slow, as King of Hearts said. Being in favor of a longer time for speedy promotions, or against speedy promotions at all, is one thing, but the issue raised is just about being more specific on the timing, which is another thing. Having said that, I think the speedy promotion rule has much reason. Tomer T (talk) 08:11, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

A related topic: The bot doesn't just do a straight-up check on the fifth day. To the bot, if at least five days have passed and the nomination has at least ten unanimous supports, it promotes, even if at the five-day point, the threshold of ten has not been reached. Is everyone OK with this, or should this be changed? (I think it's no big deal that this is happening, but the rules should be updated to reflect reality.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

This is fine for me. Obviously it should be mentioned. Yann (talk) 08:49, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
idem. --Jebulon (talk) 11:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Changed wording. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:41, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you.--Jebulon (talk) 20:21, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

If we're going to limit nominations to 2, we need speedy promotions. If we eliminate them, nominations should be increased to three or four. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

File:Amsterdam RAI METS 2011 (011).JPG

I followed the instructions, but my suggestion is "red" in the list. Did I something wrong? Assume I missed a step. Which? --Stunteltje (talk) 15:31, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Deleted recently promoted FP

Just FYI this recently promoted image File:3 2009 -officielt-digitalt-foto Pernille-Klemp.jpg that was subsequently nominated on enwiki FPC has been deleted as a copyvio. The original nomination is here. I think there may have been some other recent images here that were from the same source, so perhaps worth checking those too. --jjron (talk) 02:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

After careful review, it does appear to be a copyvio. However, I think the way in which it was done is inappropriate. Having FP status should, in my opinion, disqualify it from being speedy deleted. (What I mean is, we're not actually giving them any more leeway, but the only reason speedy exists is because we don't have the time to give every deletion candidate a proper review. However, FP's are more important than the lot and should get a DR before deletion.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
That's a bit silly, isn't it? Copyvios are copyvios and should be deleted on the spot. FP or any other quality label, is a Commons thing and has nothing to do with (international) copyright legislation.  B.p. 08:32, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
"Copyvios are copyvios" - that's precisely the kind of thinking we want to avoid, ideally for all images, but since we don't have the time and energy for that, at least for FPs. The fact of the matter is, we don't know for a fact that something is a copyvio without careful review, so the benefits of a careful review at DR outweight the costs of having a probable copyvio stay for 1 week. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello,
I have just noticed that two versions of the same file become Featured Pictures:

--Myrabella (talk) 09:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the FP status from the newly featured image. If anyone feels that is the version that should be featured, they can open a D&R. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Count of FP

Hi there.

Just a question:
Does each picture of a "Featured Set" count as one FP in the number of FP by user, or does a special count exist ?
A set of mine was recently featured, and every picture of it is tagged by the FP label, that's the reason of my question.
It would be fair, because a "featured set" can only exist if made with "featurable pictures", but I'm not sure about the rule in this case.
Subsequently: what shall we do next year in the POTY contest with the featured sets ? --Jebulon (talk) 00:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. --Jebulon (talk) 00:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Does it actually matter? ;-) But anyways, I'll provide my intuition if you want it. Let's say I took 8 similar photos and successfully nominated them for FPC. I feel I should get "credit" for more than 1 FP, but not 8. Perhaps you could count a featured set of n pictures as √n (rounded up) ordinary FPs. So a set of 2-4 would count as 2, 5-9 would count as 3, etc. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:07, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Omg, now we need math degrees to measure our virtual penises?! --Dschwen (talk) 03:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe, one day, when you get older, you will know that it is not a question of size...--Jebulon (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, ask a silly question, get a silly answer! :P -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if the question was silly (I think no), but for sure, your answer is...--Jebulon (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I didn't think it was entirely silly, just the issue of counting them. If I got a featured set, I would just display them on my featured gallery without worrying about how many of them they should count as. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Though on a more serious note, a set of, say, 20 pictures might be a lot for POTY, since they would presumably all go in the same category and thus clog it up, making it more likely for people to skip past other good pictures in the same category. A featured set isn't quite just a bunch of related featured pictures; the individual pictures do not necessarily need to be featurable in their own right. Of course there needs to be good technical quality in all the pictures in a featured set, but if the set depicts several stages in a process, each individual image need not have "wow" factor or even make sense to a viewer out of context. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Honestly, I think we should do what we did in POTY a few years ago: Have the first round be done by category, with the number of finalists from the category being set proportionate to the number of images in the category. This also gives you a series of winners for each category, which assures all content types get celebrated. And assures that something from a crowded category doesn't lose its chance due to that alone. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the images should not be counted as parts of a Featured Set, and not as single Featured Pictures. Maybe we could create a Template:Featured Set for these images:
Featured set This image is a member of a featured set on Wikimedia Commons. We think it is part of one of the finest image sets on Commons; see the nomination. If you have an image set of similar quality that can be published under a suitable copyright license, be sure to upload it, tag it, and nominate it. Wikimedia Commons
/Ö 10:40, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
In this case I think all images could have been FPs on their own. So it is not really a problem to count all of them in the FP count. But I don't think that is always true. (For example Image:Lewis Carroll - Henry Holiday - Hunting of the Snark - Plate 4.jpg is not very special by itself.) /Ö 10:49, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
When I support a set of pictures, I support the combination of all images, which combined result all together is worth FP. I wouldn't probably support the images if they are presented one by one.
Furthermore, according to the policies only 2 candidates can be presented to FP at the same time. So, if the result after 9 days is, for example, 3 3 = 6 FPs, then something is not really aligned with the policy.
A way to fix it would be creating a page with all images embedded and including a similar template to the one proposed by Ö. That's my opinion. Poco a poco (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
1 to Poco a poco. A "set" is a set, not some single images. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 00:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
If I might ask, what is the point of this discussion? While I agree that linking a set together would be a good idea we should do, I honestly can't see how it matters how someone chooses to count their featured pictures. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
As for POTY, well, frankly, non-photographic works of the sort that make up all sets I'm aware of never do well there anyway, but leaving that aside: I don't think we should exclude set images from POTY, but if we said sets can only be considered as a group at POTY and a set did become a finalist, what would we actually do then? And if we only showed one image from the set, well, who chooses it, and having large portions of some FPs left off the competition page seems to somewhat ruin the intended celebration of all FPs. So I'd probably keep on as we have been at POTY. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The simplest solution for all our problems: a set can only be nominated when we have only one "glued together" image (not the single images!). That's all. The "glued together" image can included all the single images as an other version. Similar to this image. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 11:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Agree with you, that is actually what I was visioning Poco a poco (talk) 12:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, what about a series of, say, four paintings by a famous artist, who intended that they be considered a set? You wouldn't display them "glued together," but they clearly are meant to be considered a set. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
That can be nominated in singular nominations. Or can you accept a nomination of a set of 3-10 images (or more) for diferent photos of an element samples like Bismuth or other things? --Alchemist-hp (talk) 19:06, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, I'm happy to note that, reading this discussion, my question was not so silly...--Jebulon (talk) 20:06, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Again, sorry if my response could be misinterpreted as such, of course the general issue you are referring to is worth a discussion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  • The FP label were added by me while browsing through them, not by George while promoting them. He placed the label only in the nomination page which surprised me a bit (Not George's fault; there may not be a guideline for that). The link to the nomination page was broken and I fixed it too. We need a label (Featured Set or Featured Picture) to distinguish them from the gallery. I've no simple answer to the question Jeb raised. JKadavoor Jee 08:22, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment -- I was never very confortable with the idea of a FP set made of separate pictures. If it is important to keep those pictures together (e.g. in an article) why not make a poster out of them, for example like the ones here, insert links to the high resolution versions of the pictures and consider each of them as a member of the FP set? But while a better solution is not agreed on, I dont think that the pictures of a FP should be considered as individual FP. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment I agree with Alves for a great part. I think the Ö 's template suggestion is very good, I suggest we adopt it. About posters, I have to say that I've made a poster of this four evangelists, in order to have a homogenous adjustments process for all the pictures...--Jebulon (talk) 12:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:12-07-12-wikimania-wdc-by-RalfR-010.jpg

As a current example of (probably) some particularly careless FPC reviews, I hereby request some critical users to have a look at this one... --A.Savin 11:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

careless review is not a nice statement. This is one of the best image of subways we have, and it deserves to be FP, despite some technical imperfections. I think too much importance is given to minor technical issues, and not enough about educational value. This is what makes FPC a super QI contest, as said Alvesgaspar above. To be more precise, the composition, the exposure, and the white balance are very good. On another hand, I am surprised about the votes on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Thurston Lava Tube, Big Island.jpg, where the white balance IS wrong. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:20, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
The technical issues there are certainly not minor. Sadly, it's not the first time that looking at the FPC votes of an image I get the feeling that some well-established QIC/FPC protagonists here have a VERY fat bonus for their own nominations, leading to the fact that dozens of images get featured which would never have got it if the author was a newbie. --A.Savin 13:20, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
That is a problem of the system. People become friends in a while, and it is difficult to oppose a friend's work even if it is low quality. We become silent in such cases or even support neglecting the minor issues. Occasionally some groups of similar minded people form, and they support each other (most bad case). We can't avoid the Flickr effect (support for support, oppose for oppose) here too. :( (Just a self critisism mostly about my reviewing style.) JKadavoor Jee 14:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
So what? Tell what do you think of this nomination, or ignore this thread. --A.Savin 18:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
The decision whether to participate or ignore a thread is entirely my own business; please no commands. The tone of the words ignore this thread is more like a command from an admin, which reminds me the era of Ottoman Empire. Answer to your question: The place to say opinion about a nomination is not this. But IMHO, that looks better than the very next nomination. JKadavoor Jee 05:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh well, I just wonder which argument you would have thought out if there wasn't a nomination by me at the same time... --A.Savin 08:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
For me, I don't think of FPC in terms of absolutes, but rather on a sliding scale. For example, I generally expect a reasonable balance between quality and "wow" factor in order to support a candidate, but given especially high quality (e.g. a 100 MP panorama) I let "wow" slide a tiny bit, while given especially high "wow" I let quality slide just a little, based on how much "wow" there is. Long story made short, I would support an image with excellent quality and excellent "wow" factor, truly exceptional quality and good "wow" factor, or good quality and truly exceptional "wow" factor, but not merely good quality and good "wow" factor which is better relegated to QIC. For this, I'd say "wow" factor is a bit better than excellent while quality is a bit short of excellent, so overall I think it is good enough for FPC. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

POTY and FPC considerations

  • For three or four times I’ve written here about the exaggerated percentage of promotions, the need to raise the height of the FPC bar and the quality of the reviewing process. This time I will only show this little table, copied from the POTY discussion page, and won’t make any suggestions. Just a general remark: please remember that the FP star is not a quality stamp (like the QI seal) that was adjusted to a higher level of quality. Much more than that, it should identify and acknowledge exceptional pictures among the many excellent images that we now evaluate every day. In other words, the very best we have to offer or, if you like the snobish touch, la crême de la crème. Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
    • On the other hand, I was surprised to see the low numbers of voters for POTY some years ago. For exemple, just consider the results of POTY 2007. The winner had beeen elected with 84 votes(!) only. POTY 2012 winner will gather more than 350 votes. This increase also shows the quite good success of Wimedia Commons through time IMO. --Myrabella (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I can see some old players are nominating very similar pictures of existing FP of them and sometimes from the same bench of pictures taken in the same hour. FP should be (IMO) exceptional in every aspects and should be (IMO) a collection of very different type of works from various places of the world. I would like to compromise on quality if one is from an underrepresented area of place or subject. I don't like high quality FPs from the same old players again and again with their boringly repeated subjects and ideas. Further, I would like to encourage new comers here. JKadavoor Jee 12:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I share Jkadavoor's concern about the old players going on nominating the same kind of pictures over and over again (though it also applies to me...). However it is not their fault if those boring and repetitive pictures are promoted... I also agree that new themes, regions, etc, should be encouraged. But such encouragment should be done without compromising quality. Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with Alvesgaspar and his considerations. I think Jebulon and me were the ones who opened up this discussion again. For me as a relative newbie on COM-FP it is hard to understand (and sometimes a bit frustrating) why those photos are featured which look VERY similiar to each other whereas other photos (especially own nominations) which are somehow special or very good from a photographic standpoint are ignored or critized due to minor issues. Let me take an example from the current POY contest:
This impression might be very subjective but I think the votes / reviews on FPC have less in common with the general opinion / "wow factor" of the overall WP community.
At the moment I see no possibility to change the vote behaviour here. It is a democratic process and the votes / assesments should be all respected (also for photos which are very similiar and IMHO uninteresting as FP)
One idea (probably already discussed earlier) could be to open the FPC process for all Wikimedia projects and not to restrict them to Commons's contributors. --Tuxyso (talk) 17:20, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
There are two issues here.
  1. Wow factor vs other considerations -- finding a balance. I think POTY generally only considers wow and those artistic merits one can see in a small reproduction. How many POTY viewers look at 100%? Perhaps they (reasonably) consider all the entries must have met some threshold for quality so that doesn't need to be a factor. They are different venues for judgement and I think it ok that different values are expressed in different venues. Whether FPC has the balance right is a good question and it does vary from person to person. There are some here who will oppose over pixel-peeping issues like CA, over-sharpening or any degree of noise -- which frankly just pisses off folk who donate full size images compared to some Flickr upload at 3MP that gets a load of WOW votes. There is a bias towards realistic lighting vs artistic lighting (not sure if that's the right term) which counts against some HDR-style pictures -- but those are the very kind to do well at POTY and WLM. I think that bias is appropriate to Commons: we are not Flickr and this isn't an art gallery. Some pictures do terribly at POTY such as poster reproductions and the museum specimens of creatures but they have a value to the project and aren't easy to take well.
  2. Same old same old There are some people here who are very good at a niche. It might be birds, butterflies, shells, fungi. There's a tendency on Commons (and Wikipedia) to value the "species identification" qualities of such images over any artistic merit. There are few pictures of birds, for example, that could be called works of art, and yet they are valuable to the project, can be very hard to take, require expensive equipment, and demand talent too. There is a fatigue element here, especially when it is the same nominator/creator. I'm not sure if that is fair but it does seem to affect voting. I would like to see more interesting pictures of birds/etc where their is either behaviour on display and/or there is strong artistic composition, even if these are at the expense of species identification qualities.
I don't understand your last point about opening up the process. Anyone from any Wikimedia project can participate here and images aren't restricted to those created by Commons users. Colin (talk) 18:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Probably I've misunderstood the sentence "Editors whose accounts have at least 10 days and 50 edits can vote". I thought that 50 edits on Commons are necessary for voting eligibility.
I agree with you that Commons is not Flickr and I also agree that the technical quality of a photo is important. Probably a problem is an equal weighting of dimensions of merit of a photo: IMHO: 80% quality, 20% wow, it should better 50:50. If you look into sociological studies on Wikipedia one finding is that the contributors are very uniform: male, between 20-40 with a great affinity to technology and IT. This selection bias is probably one part of the explanation why technical merits dominate artistic mertis. As long as the "typical contributor" can be described that way, the weighting will not change.
A constructive idea for a modification of the voting process could be to differentiate between technical quality (which can also include Wow) and artistic quality (like light, composition and artistic Wow). --Tuxyso (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
You are right about voting rights (though anyone can comment). Perhaps edits on Wikipedia could count? I think that rule is designed to prevent drive-by trolling or sock puppets and I see no reason to bar someone new to Commons who is in good standing on a Wikipedia. The artistic aspect is for me the difference between a picture of an animal in a spotter's guide, or building/artefact in a tourist guidebook (largely functional) and one in a coffee-table book. For some subjects, the former dominate and the latter are rare but would be very nice to have more of. The problem is where the wow has come from excessive manipulation or even artificially composed images (like fake sky taken from another shot, or crudely cut out white backgrounds). The WLM competition had a lot of manipulated images that make nice computer wallpaper but aren't very educational, which is Commons' purpose. In addition to population bias, we also have bias through our own skills (or lack of) as photographers and also various "bars" are set based on what we tend to get. Those biases can change, slowly. Colin (talk) 21:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Please no expansion of potential voters by accounts which are only active at wikipedia etc., as this would just produce more meatpuppetry on FPC imo. Actually, the eligibility to vote on FPC should become even more restrictive than it is, but that's a separate story (and probably an utopia, I know...). --A.Savin 22:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I prefer the normative power of the better argument to any kind of elitist thinking which destroys the idea of WP in the end. --Tuxyso (talk) 23:01, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
My two cents:
  • -Since almost 3 years I'm here, this discussion (or similar) comes here two times a year, and nothing changes, because it is simply impossible to be more precise in the rules. (Please have a look to archived pages...)
  • -The currents shells by Llez, and the current butterflies by Archaeodontosaurus (to be clear) where not nominated by the authors, but by other users... It is important to notice this at the moment.
  • -I think it is not a good way to vote "contra" because of the subject. Votes are for pictures, and only for pictures. (For instance, I strongly disagree with the lot of "telescope pictures", or US army pictures, or "Google robots", or all "official" or "institutionnal" pictures not made by "commoners" but in this case, I've decided only to comment, not to vote.)
  • -IMO, FP star is not a "super QI" tag, but something other. "Technically better than QI" is not a mandatory, if the image is "exceptional" in any way. But the meaning of the word "exceptional" depends of you. Yes it includes the famous "wow", but only among other factors.
  • -"Commons" is " Commons", and Wikipedias are Wikipedias. There is no FP in the french WP (fortunately, IMO). please don't forget there is no official link. I never (or rarely) go to enWP, and don't know what happens there. "Commons" is international, that's what I love here. As for me comparisons are irrelevant.
  • -POTY has nothing to do with FP, except that the POTY pictures are selected among FP. In FPC, we discuss, we explain, we contest, agree and disagree. In POTY, there is only a "thumb up, I like". @Tuxyso: I have a picture of mine as finalist, and I think this one is really far to be my "best of the year" among "my" FP... That is so.
  • -Everybody is free to think that any picture (with a good license etc...) is "featurable", and can nominate it. And you know what ? If you disagree for relevant reasons (in your point of view), then, oppose ! There is nothing else to do. One man (or woman, of course ! We have not enough women here), one vote, that's all.
  • -Maybe we could never forget than a support vote is an important act, not only a "clic".
  • -Sorry for this too long message and thanks for reading.--Jebulon (talk) 10:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't know how this thread ended up as a discussion about the works of Archaeo and Llez who are best friends of me and many other players here. Their (including Bp's) works are very good and worth to feature, but what is the meaning in featuring all of them? I know Archaeo is not nominating any of his works at FPC; but nowadays his works are nominated by more than one people at a time (not his fault). Once when it is questioned I expressed that I will not wonder if I see more than ten pictures of him as nomination at a time. Yes; their works are great, and we have to encourage such contributions. But I don't think there is a need to label them all as FPs. Otherwise, we may think about batch-processing them as you told about NASA/institutional pictures earlier. BTW, a negative comment is almost like an oppose except without voting. JKadavoor Jee 11:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • IMHO the problem lies not on the contributors but on the reviewers. For newbies the kind of reviews of some users are very deterrent and demotivating (I've experienced it myself and thought about stopping my activity at all): VERY special opinions how a good photo should look like. Those reviews are nearly always contra and do seldom contain any constructive or motivating statement. Assesments are not deliberative but solely focus on ONE single quality factor of a photo (focus, DoF, sharpness, ...) which is taken for a justification for a contra vote. The focussing on one quality factor (combined with their "reputation" in the community regarding their very very very good contribs) possibly leads to one-sided nominations and one-sided reviews. I would suggest a quality standard for reviews at least for contra votes on QI / FP :) --Tuxyso (talk) 13:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment -- I'm perfectly aware that the problem (if there is a problem) lies on the reviewing process not on the contributions. But FPC is open to everybody and it is near to impossible to overcome the "like it" prevailing culture. The way I see it is that the default sate of a nomination when entering FPC is "not promoted". Thus the process should not consist in justifying not promoting the picture but in finding strong reasons for changing the original status. For those new to these discussion, please check these old rules of mine. Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:11, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Time to change?

Is this the time to make an amendment at Commons:Featured_picture_candidates#Featured_picture_candidate_policy General rules 11 "Only two active nominations by the same user (that is, nominations under review and not yet closed) are allowed. The main purpose of this measure is to contribute to a better average quality of nominations, by driving nominators/creators to choose carefully the pictures presented to the forum." to "Only two active nominations by the same nominators or of the same creators (that is, nominations under review and not yet closed) are allowed. The main purpose of this measure is to contribute to a better average quality of nominations, by driving nominators/creators to choose carefully the pictures presented to the forum." I know rules are helpless when people are madly driven by blind patriotic spirit. JKadavoor Jee 05:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Yes; I mean every creators including institutions (eg: Nasa/Esa/Eso/Hubble/UsArmy/UsAirForce/Navy/any part of Us Government) and non-wikimedians (eg: travelwayoflife). And if somebody who don't like me or my work nominates two bad pictures of mine, I can "withdraw" it immediately (yes; nominator or creator (even if they are not the nominator) can withdraw their work at any moment). By ""patriotic spirit", I didn't mean to hurt anybody, but firmly point to a point (see the voting pattern in some current nominations) which is against the unified spirit of COMMONS. BTW, I didn't expect this proposal become success, because many people prefer to "oppose" anything from me without reading more that is why I didn't vote here. Anybody who has a more neutral point of view than me can represent this proposal if needed. JKadavoor Jee 13:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose strongly. If i nominate a picture of somebody else than me, I sacrify one of my two allowed nominations. That's enough for a sacrifice. Therefore, I want to remain FREE in my choice. I think the present rule is sufficient. If somebody who don't like me or my work nominates two bad pictures of mine (ok, hard to find, I know lol), I could not nominate any other picture by myself ? No question. I do "chose carefully" my nominations. I think the mention of "patriotic spirit" or "people are madly driven by blind" could be felt as rather insulting (to me), and I don't know if there is an english word for that, but in french we say that it is a(n unacceptable) "procès d'intention"... Dear Jee, sometimes, maybe, you are going to far, my friend...--Jebulon (talk) 10:51, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Is it me who gone beyond? JKadavoor Jee 13:46, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
    • ?? Are you sure you really understood this message ?--Jebulon (talk) 17:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
      • I don't know; but this is what Google Translator delivered to me: "salvation, I hope you appreciate my efforts to live the label VI! Me anyway, I grow! And the aspect of "restoration" is fun too. I would recommend you go to turn on the FP page, it is going nasty things, one of your pictures is the starting point. It would also require you to go on the talk page of the FP, this led to a discussion which indirectly you should take, I think. Obviously nothing personal against you. Basically some (as with Alvesgaspar firebrand) say: "The butterflies Archaeo and shells llez, y 'too tired y'en I vote against." And must renew the FP, and we promoted too etc etc, in short, that debate knows, but it would fit a little. good for you - Jebulon." And all I see is a bench of people from the Wikimedia France deployed on the nomination to defend. JKadavoor Jee 04:46, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
        • 1)Beware of Google translator, this translation is wrong, just don't forget that the author was NOT aware of the nomination and of the following debate. Was it fair to let him ignore it ?. 2)If you "don't know", remain silent. 3)Do you really think "a bench to defend" is necessary ? 3)Do you really think that "if necessary", I've used the user talk page instead of a private mail ? This time, EoD for real, I'm tired.--Jebulon (talk) 12:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I can't see a problem. What is with our other problem: "a set of images"? Please clear this problem at first! --Alchemist-hp (talk) 19:07, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
    I agree that a "set" is not very well-defined. I think maybe if we diversified with featured sounds, videos, etc., we could also have a featured sets label, and keep it separate from regular FPC. Right now, each individual image in a set doesn't really have to satisfy all the FPC criteria, and there's often a lot of confusion when a set is nominated for FPC. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:41, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
  •  Question May I ask you a tricky question? (Please don’t blame on me; you forced me to do so. @Archaeo: This question is quite imaginary; all characters here are quite unreal. I'm sure it is not happened so far.) I can’t nominate more than two of my works (fortunately I've not many) at a time according to the existing rule. Why I should suffer alone since most of you've many friends who are willing to nominate as many works of you for your sake? My proposal is to fix a "security hole" in the existing policy, actually triggered by the initial concern by Jeb (about institutional contributions). And I’m happy to give the credit; have no plan to make a cheap "credit war" like this. JKadavoor Jee 04:58, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Licence Question

I was browsing some beautiful photographs by User:Muhammad Mahdi Karim and landed on his featured photographs page. I did not see all images in the category but all the images I saw were under GFDL 1.2. I am not aware of the historic rules for Featured Pictures but the current rules prohibit images under GFDL 1.2 from being featured. What is the policy for photographs that were previously featured under this licence? -- Nossob (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Nothing. It was hard enough to change the requirements. There is too big of a lobby for pseudo-free licenses to change that rule retroactively. --Dschwen (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm of the view that they were nominated and reviewed in good faith under the previous criteria and so we should not apply the rule retroactively. Same goes for if/when Commons bans such licences for new uploads. Commons depends on volunteer effort and so negating past efforts (taking, uploading, nominating, reviewing) is not helpful. Colin (talk) 21:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Nothing to do for previous FPs unless a better candidate come. Then that can be treated as any other generic case. JKadavoor Jee 06:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. -- Nossob (talk) 20:50, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Nordic cooperation

There are a huge number of very high quality photographs currently being uploaded by User:Fæ from the Nordic Cooperation that all have appropriate CC licences. See Category:Images from norden.org uploaded by Fæ. Folk may prefer to search the source website, for example this search for nature. I'm quite sure there are featured pictures among these. I wonder, however, before nominating any, whether it is worth making contact with the photographers. That might help if there are any fixes needed or larger sizes requested, etc. Colin (talk) 21:22, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Delisting reform

Right now, delisting candidates are stuck at the bottom of the FPC page and few people look at them unless prodded to do so. Therefore I propose the following two changes:

  1. Run delisting candidates in the same place as regular nominations. The rules stay the same, the only thing that changes is the location. The nominator should make it clear that this is a delisting nomination so that people don't accidentally vote "support" or "oppose."
  2. Allow "delist & replace" nominations in the specific case where the current FP and the proposed replacement were derived from the same source. For modern digital camera photos, this means the exact same RAW file or unedited image. For historical images, this means the same scan. For diagrams, this means that the proposed replacement is an edit (as long as its not a whole-scale revamp) of the current FP.

My rationale for the first is, of course, to give delisting nominations more exposure. For the second, I think we've seen enough silliness with the recent nomination to change the featured version of Diliff's FP. What if (perhaps by a tiny margin) one succeeds and the other fails? Then we end up either having two nearly identical FPs, or delisting a perfectly fine FP. A combined D&R will ensure this does not happen. Note that I am not proposing to allow D&R as liberally as en.FP, and for good reason. Over there, EV is king (think of FPs there are com.FP VI if you will), so it makes sense to replace an old image with a new, better image with the exact same EV, while here we can have two perfectly fine FPs with no problem.

(And yes, I am aware that a few editors are categorically opposed to delisting in any form. I welcome you to make a proposal to deprecate delisting if that is the case, but please do not make this the entire content of your comment in this thread.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:14, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

  •  Support Agree about the inclusion of a provision for "delist & replace" nominations; it is good for easy replacing of an inferior version. I'm not happy with the current simultaneous "feature" and "delist" nominations. Reviewers are not very interested in a "delist" request; it is usually considered as a routine task of the admins (as a cleaning up job). It is good to move them upward and merge with the regular nominations. But chances that people ignore them as now. (What about the codes required for the FPCBot?) JKadavoor Jee 06:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Would any other people like to comment? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Support, except oppose D&R restrictions as described in rest of this comment I think the Delist and replace is far too limited for historical works. If the Library of Congress releases a new, better scan of an image - which they regularly do - we should be able to delist and replace, for example. I'd say anything that's clearly the same image is fine for D&R. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:01, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
  • In the end, if people think they're better, they'll succeed at the D&R, and if not, they won't. Since it's useful to have the best version featured, I'd say they should be fully up to D&R. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
  • A "Delist & replace" procedure can be a good way to solve the specific cases mentioned above. A remark however: note that in the recent nomination which ended with changing the featured version of Diliff's FP, the nominator wasn't awarethat another version of the file had been previously featured. Same scheme occured a few time ago with another FPC. As for me, I noticed those cases trying to use the newly nominated pictures in WP articles. My point is that it could be useful to have a D&R procedure, but an issue is to identify early that another version of the same work is already FP. --Myrabella (talk) 15:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The existing FPs are mentioned as "other versions" in both cases; so they can be considered as the nominator's negligence. Further, the nominators should do some homework; check the COM:Category for any existing FPs and verify that the new nomination is better than if any. JKadavoor Jee 16:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Another thing it might be a good idea to be more lenient about D&Rs of is diagrams, particularly for things like SVGs made from PNGs, and revamps which primarily improve appearance as opposed to content. I can see why we'd want to prevent our hard-working diagram creators from being delisted too readily, but... Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
  • For me is a delisting nomination only an unnecessary nonsense. A FP-status is simply a timestamp. We cannot turn back the time. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 21:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I actually agree with that. This should be solved by coding the FP category with a year number, i.e. Category:Featured pictures in 2009 . --Dschwen (talk) 00:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
      • What about re-edited versions of the same image? You think we should have two almost identical featured pictures? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:31, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
        • No, but we do not need delisting for that. This generates twice the work necessary. Just nominate the new one as a replacement for the old one. Then you only need one voting process. --Dschwen (talk) 03:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
          • So you mean only D&R is required; no simple Delists? I too not comfortable with a delist if no better image available at that time. But if "replacing one person's photo with another person's photo should be a no-no", then the situation is very difficult. I expect more maturity from our senior contributors if some body come with a better picture to replace their's. I wish many new comers will arrive and replace all of my FPs. JKadavoor Jee 04:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
          • OK, so you agree with #2, good. However, with #1, nothing is being changed other than the placement of delisting noms. As I said, if you want to get rid of delisting noms altogether then make that proposal. But for #1 we are deciding the question: Given that delisting noms are to take place, where should they occur? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
  • This proposal has been stale for weeks and I think it's gained enough support for implementation in its original form, except that for D&R new scans are allowed in addition to the ones listed. Thoughts? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I think you can proceed since no one oppose the idea. The only disagreement is about the entire delist concept (Alchemist-hp and Dschwen) which is not in the scope of this discussion. JKadavoor Jee 12:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Propose to amend guidelines re image filename

The full guidelines currently state that "Images should ... have a meaningful title and description. This should include the scientific names for minerals and taxa naming for organisms". The "title" is somewhat ambiguous: does this refer to the "Filename" or the "Title" field in the EXIF data? A JPG EXIF "Title" field is displayed by Wikimedia as "Short Title" (once you expand the metadata list) and the EXIF "Caption" field as the "Image title". We're here to build a repository of free images, and the contents of the image description page, though valuable, don't necessarily travel with the JPG to its new home. And EXIF data has a habit of being stripped off or reduced. So I'd like our FP guidelines to make it clear than the image filename should be meaningful and specific (as appropriate to the subject-type). The filename will be used by search engines to locate these files outside of Commons. The filename is what an editor types into Wikipedia. And a filename is what a reader of Wikipedia sees as a tooltip. If the image is used on another website, the filename may be the only information left.

So I suggest our short and full guidelines be amended to say that the "image filename should be meaningful and specific (as appropriate to the subject-type)". The full guideline should also encourage the use of spaces rather than hypens or other non-standard punctuation -- these are fine for dates and codes but not for words (that aren't meant to be hyphenated, of course). By "specific" we mean that "beetle" or "fly" isn't specific, and using the Latin term doens't make it any more specific!

Colin (talk) 17:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

  • @Colin: Can you refer to an official guideline for file naming, especially regarding your comment about spaces in filnames? I always try to avoid spaces in filename and use "-" instead because of the ugly URL encoding. What about umlauts like "ä" and "ö". I also try to avoid them and use "ae" instead. As far as I have understood you correctly you would prefer Rathaus Mülheim, Nordseite, 2013.jpg instead of Rathaus-Muelheim-Nordseite-2013.jpg? --Tuxyso (talk) 09:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Commons is language independent (many people here have zero literacy in English); so restricting to use English alphabets may not be appropriate. I don’t know whether we have a policy to use underscore ( _ ) instead of hyphen ( - ) in filenames; but it seems followed for years. I think it is because we have no separate field for “title”; the filename itself is served as “title” replacing “underscore” with a “space” which is more meaningful and readable than hyphen delimited words. While naming a file, a “space” is automatically converted to “underscore” too (maybe by some scripts). JKadavoor Jee 12:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much official about naming. Commons:Language policy briefly states "Files can be named in any language. The name of the file should be descriptive." The Commons:File naming proposed guideline doesn't seem to have gone anywhere and, like many Commons guideline pages, isn't well written. IMO, for names that fit in a Western European alphabet, we should use the characters that the person/subject is named with, and not drop down to ASCII. I'm less sure what to do about other alphabets that are completely unreadable to Western users. Possibly the technical solution is to have more than one filename for such files. My concern here is more about folk using filenames like we were computer nerds rather than giving an image a title with normal English rules about punctuation. We-don't-write-like-this_nor_like_this_-so-don't-do-it-in-your-filename. Use spaces (which I believe are shown as _ in the URL but spaces work too). And since FP is supposed to be the best we have, the files should have great names too. Writing "insect" and a datestamp isn't great IMO. Colin (talk) 13:12, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I think we should be careful not to overestimate the value of a very carefully crafted file name. The main purpose of the filename is really to be a unique identifier among files. That is automatically fulfilled on Commons, and it is preferable that it is also unique among file names "globally", such that if you search for that name you can find where it is used. Now, there is no way to guarantee to be globally unique, but you can make it very unlikely that anothe person has used a file name if you use a naming scheme like "what where when".jpg, like "Saxifraga oppositifolia Upernavik 2007-07-21.jpg" or "what creator.jpg" or whatever is practical for the contributor. I personally do not care if it is written in English, German (with umlauts), esperanto, or in a non-latin character set such as Japanese. If I can't understand the file name if written in a non-latin character set: Too bad. There are many, who would not be able to understand the latin-based character set as well, and we are a multilingual project. I find it is important though that the file name is not misleading. That is, it should not be called "Ronald Reagan.jpg" if the subject is really Jimmy Carter. It is also convenient if the file name is not too long, like more than 80 characters is overkill in my opinion for practical purposes when linking or referencing the image. Once you have a unique file name you can find the file page on commons using a search, and it should be there, on the file page that you get the full description of what it is, preferably localized to all the most used languages, such that a majority of visitors can find the information about the image they are looking for. Do not try to put too much into what is simply an identifier. It is not worth the effort. --Slaunger (talk) 20:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
....Also sprach Slaunger-the-Wise...--Jebulon (talk) 21:34, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. The filename is effectively the URL used on Wikipedia to refer to the image. And it is all that is left of an image once one of our reusers takes it for their website. Many websites go to a lot of effort to ensure URLs are meaningful because they get copied and because editors see them in the markup so need to be able to tell one from the other. Same goes for wikimarkup. The argument that the name is simply a database key would lead to us accepting GUIDs or sequential numbers as filenames. We should be very careful not to overestimate the value of text in the image description page as a means for finding and identifying images. It isn't strongly attached to the image. Colin (talk) 07:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Policy change: Appropriately Licensed

Further to our earlier FP guideline change on licence choice, a number of commentators stated that such restrictions should be made a policy level.

Please comment at Commons:Requests for comment/AppropriatelyLicensed. This is a proposal to amend this licence policy to disallow future uploads where the sole licence is inappropriate for the media (e.g., GFDL). In earlier discussions there were a number of comments that, while reasonable opinions, did not align with Wikimedia's mission for free content. Please read the FAQ. Thanks -- Colin (talk) 22:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Jee has had enough

Jee has retired. Please join me in persuading him to take a wikibreak and return. For those not following developments in the swamps of Commons, some of our more juvenile users think it a great bit of fun to upload pictures of Jimbo painted with a penis, and the video of such. Regardless of what one feels about Jimbo, this is far from what Commons is about and contributes to a very hostile and unwelcoming place for good people (wonder why there are so few women here?). On technical policy grounds, the pic can't, it seems, be deleted. On moral grounds this whole story is indefensible. I hope the good folk at FP help persuade Jee to stay and improve things. Colin (talk) 14:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Fully concur with all points  Keep Jee;  Delete Maliciously commissioned art even if donated with a free license. Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:22, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

How to put a set in candidates list?

I can't use {{Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Your image filename.jpg}} for this set nomination. What about set nominations? How to put it into candidates page? --Dvdgmz (talk) 08:36, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

  • i think It should work like a normal candidate. Just copy this {{Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Illustrations about the crystallisation in Naica}}, and paste it here above the last candidate. I think this should work. I've tried the preview and that looked good. --mathias K 18:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! The question was "/Set/" that I forgot, now works well. --Dvdgmz (talk) 07:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK - Jury members sought

I'm posting this request on the basis that editors here will have photographic interests and that many will be skilled photographers in their own right.

As you will probably already know, Wiki Loves Monuments (http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org) is an annual international photography contest and crowdsourcing event in which participants photograph and upload images of historic monuments to Wikimedia Commons. These images are then available for free use on Wikipedia and beyond. More details about this year's annual competition can be found at Wiki Loves Monuments 2013. The competition takes place throughout the month of September each year.

The UK part of this year's contest will focus specifically on listed buildings. This will be the first time the UK has taken part in the international competition, and we are now seeking people to join the UK jury. We need at least three jury members, more preferably five, who would be available to judge on a volunteer basis in October.

We should ideally have:

  1. A wikimedian who is a high-quality amateur photographer, preferably specializing in the built environment
  2. A professional photographer
  3. A heritage specialist.

Does anyone have personal contacts who might be suitable, or who could put us in touch with possible candidates? Please feel free to put your own name forward, if you are interested.

You can comment below, or on the WLM UK project talk page. Alternatively, you can email me privately using the 'Email this user' feature from my home page. Thanks for the help! --MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:04, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Personal and Moral Rights?

First of all, I would like to say thanks to everybody who responded here, on my talk page, and through mail to share your friendly feelings and encourage me to continue here. I think you all know that I’m not contributing new media files nowadays; because I switched my location from the biodiversity hotspot, Kadavoor temporarily due to the job of my wife. But I was still watching your nominations, reviewing them and occasionally adding them to various projects until I noticed the personal and moral issues in Commons.

Mine is a generic concern as a photographer and my commitments to my subjects. I don’t want to compromise on my moral rights (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4d) or on the personal rights (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#When_are_publicity_rights_relevant.3F) of my subjects. Luckily, none of my photographs in people categories are uploaded here; I changed the license of them in Flickr to “all rights reserved”. But I don’t like if somebody make derivative of my works (like File:Jamides_bochus_by_kadavoor.jpg if somebody replaced my finger with his penis) and publish with link back to me as the “original author”. So I decided to initiate a discussion about these topics among my friendly photographers community in Commons here and in Flickr (my contacts and groups). I would like to know the opinions and concerns of you too; so that I can decide whether it is safe to freely license my works in future or not. Till then I prefer to refrain from any further uploads here or in Flickr in a free license. See the related discussion too. JKadavoor Jee 08:47, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it is particularly useful to engage in legal arguments, particularly when none of the participants are lawyers. Typically, the threshold one must cross in order to be illegal or liable to be sued is set high so as to permit freedom of expression, or allow for the long history of mocking those in power with satirical cartoons and the like.
It is most unlikely that someone would take one of your images and make something rude and unpleasant from it. I believe it is healthier for you not to care about such possibilities. Does the baker worry that a bad person might enjoy his bread? Does the teacher worry his English-language pupil will grow up to write hateful words? You add beautiful things to the world with your images, and are happy to let people enjoy them freely. Don't let the actions of a tiny few hurt you or hurt the good people you bless with your work. Consider the bad person's actions affect their reputation, their conscience and their soul, and not yours. So don't give them a moment of your thoughts and leave that for their family, their friends and their god to deal with.
Wrt the issue with Russavia, I believe Slaunger is taking the correct approach. It's not about the pixels or about the law, but about what Russavia did, combined with the fact that he's a bureaucrat on Commons. Colin (talk) 12:15, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
@Jkadavoor: I understand all your thoughts. --Ralf Roleček 12:54, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Colin and Ralf for understanding my feelings. JKadavoor Jee 13:04, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
@Jkadavoor: I, too, understand the concerns you have raised. Although I doubt that we can solve them here at the FP project, I'm still hopeful that eventually the community will be able to come together and agree some sensible rules as part of the scope review, at Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people/Update 2013/Moral issues. I'm going to keep plugging away at that. All the best, --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Michael; here my attempt is to gather the opinions of the good photographers in this community who are part of FP/QI and VI. Further I would like to know whether other photographers have similar concerns too. I’m not much bothered about the non-photographers community who are dominating in Commons; this is an issues solely affecting us; that why I preferred this place. Later, probably on next week; I will initiate a discussion in my Flickr stream and in my active groups, so that we can conclude whether or not to contribute any further free stuffs. JKadavoor Jee 16:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Wrt butterfly porn, there's always BEANS to worry about. Some of our less enlightened admins might just do it to make a POINT. Colin (talk) 15:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
I know they are not in short of wicked ideas. JKadavoor Jee 16:34, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
I may be missing some of the context here, but I would point to section 4a) of the CC-BY-SA license Jkadavoor linked to above; the end of this section stipulates anyone using the work in a Collection or creating a derivative work must remove the attribution upon request. And section 4d) forbids creating any derivative that would damage your "honor and reputation". The downsides are 1) there is no requirement to notify you about a new derivative work (that I know of) so you would have to discover an offensive derivative work before you could request the attribution be removed and 2) adding ANY creative work to the internet carries some inherent risk people will use it in ways you don't approve. "All Rights Reserved" doesn't necessarily protect you. Look at YouTube to see the widespread ignorance and indifference to copyright among the general public. You could consider adding your own notice alongside the CC license requesting notification and elaborating your thoughts on moral and publicity rights.Fletcher6 (talk) 12:00, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Fletcher for your advice. We can forgive the ignorant; but difficult to those who pretend so. JKadavoor Jee 12:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
And I don't think all-rights-reserved is any protection against butterfly-porn derivative works. As some here keep reminding us, most folk couldn't care less about copyright and licence terms. A professional photographer working with an agency has the resources and means to address copyright issues, and potentially use copyright protection to limit any abuse potential. But you and I don't. A good licence helps the good guys do the right thing. The bad guys won't read your licence no matter what it allows or restricts. I don't think it is a good thing to close up all your work just because one guy on Commons can't behave himself. Colin (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, that quite honestly seem like a knee-jerk reaction to me. Or like hunting sparrows with cannons. I guess it is the same with weighing liberty against security. It is disappointing that it has come that far, and that you are understandably upset, but it is equally disappointing that the values of free culture and education are thrown out of the window that easily. --Dschwen (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Hardly knee jerk after the Pricasso incident. The simple fact of the matter is there are thousands of images on Commons that would be defamatory or embarrassing to the individuals depicted. These images are stored and made available without their consent. That is fundamentally wrong and not an affront at all to free culture. Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Agree with saffron. An infringement on our rights is a violation is a violation. A sponsored violation with the consensus of this community is more dangerous and I feel ashamed of being part of it. (Sorry, my friends; I hope I can be friends with you, even if I quit this community for my reasons I states already. Please forgive me if I’m not willing to compromise on my views.)
@Colin: "I don't think it is a good thing to close up all your work just because one guy on Commons can't behave himself." He is just one guy; he is the most powerful ‘crat of this community, who is responsible to protect our rights.
@Dschwen: Please don’t neglect the voice of the minors. It is not good for a democratic community. (Yes; it seems the photographers are really minors in this community, disappointingly. Nowadays Commons is dominantly driven by non-photographers whose only contributions here are running some bots to grab free contents from Flickr and other resources. I’ve no wonder if they don’t understand photographers’ rights and their commitments to their subjects. And we are paying the price for it.) JKadavoor Jee 03:06, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Citation Needed. Photographers are really the minority? That would surprise me. Besides, we need people who do categorization etc. I'm not a huge fan of mass uploads myself, but if free content is posted on Flickr, that is potentially useful for the wikimedia projects, it needs to be copied to commons to be used. Further down you argue that Flickr is not as bad as Commons, but Commons is the devil for importing Flickr stuff? Personality rights are an issue, and nobody here is denying that. The problem in my opinion is that you skewed the priorities way out of whack. You are going on a crusade here. Terms like I have to reeducate people make you sound a bit self righteous. One issue, that certainly needs to be dealt with, is not a reason to condemn everything we've been working for. This is pouring out the baby with the bathwater. This is a very disappointing discussion here. --Dschwen (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Dschwen for your interactions here. I didn’t said Flickr is better than Commons; I said rights reserved may better than free culture if Commons can’t protect our rights. I said deletion decisions are taken by staff in Flickr; which may be better and faster than the decisions by the community as in here. You and Colin agreed with it below.
"You are going on a crusade here." But do you agree that it is better than if I started a crusade outside Wikimedia projects. Till now I didn’t open my mouth against this project outside WMF projects. But don’t consider it as my weakness. I’m happy to wait if you have a plan to strengthen Wikimedia and its policies.
"This is a very disappointing discussion here." You need not disappoint for this topic being discussed here. It is discussed only inside WMF projects by me so far. But you need to be disappointed to know my several attempts to discuss and resolve this topic being rejected and ignored by the dominating community here (see my talk page). JKadavoor Jee 17:44, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I am not that familiar with the discussion opened up here, probably I need some clarifications. As far as I have understood Jkadavoor sees a problem triggered by CC licences regarding the re-use of his work in a bad context. If the abuser sticks to the CC licences the information that it is a deriviate work of your original file will be place near to image. It is completely transparant that you (as original creator) do not necessarily agree with the content but your original file was only used as basis. As Colin correctly wrote "The bad guys won't read your licence no matter what it allows or restricts."" Thus independently of the license you cannot avoid any abusive use of your digital content on the internet. --Tuxyso (talk) 07:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
In fact, a CC license offers enough protection for our rights. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4d says: "Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation." Further, [1] "That said, CC licenses do provide several mechanisms that allow licensors and authors to choose not to be associated with their works or uses with which they disagree. First, all CC licenses prohibit using the attribution requirement to suggest that the original author or licensor endorses or supports a particular use of a work. This "No Endorsement" provision protects reputation, and its violation constitutes a violation of the license and results in automatic termination. Second, licensors may waive the attribution requirement -- choose not to be identified as the author or licensor of the work -- if they wish. Third, if a work is modified or incorporated into a collection, and the original author or licensor does not like the how the work has been modified or used in the collection, CC licenses require that the person modifying the work or incorporating the work into a collection remove reference to the original author or licensor upon notice. Finally, if the selected CC license permits modifications and adaptations of the original work, then the person modifying the work must indicate that the original has been modified. This ensures that changes made to the original work -- whether or not acceptable to the original author or licensor -- are not attributed back to the licensor." Further, [2]: "Creative Commons licenses do not waive or otherwise affect rights of privacy or publicity to the extent they apply. If you have created a work or wish to use a work that might in some way implicate these rights, you may need to obtain permission from the individuals whose rights may be affected." But the Commons (majority in opinion) is rejecting such rights and hosting many, many photos of people/derivative works (as stated by Saffron above); the Pricasso incident is only one among them. JKadavoor Jee 07:49, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I think we are confusing several things here. Russavia's actions and his position within the community bring shame on us all. And there are moral issues regarding some of the images Commons hosts and our attitude towards the subjects in them. Saffron's point (if I understand it) is nothing to do with derivative works. Both of these issues make it reasonable imo for Jkadavoor to no longer wish to be part of Commons community.
But I don't understand how any of that, or the claim that the Pricasso portrait was a derivative work of a CC photo of Jimbo, says anything about free vs restricted licences for photos. You say here "Now I believe it is better to protect our copyrights; because our personal and moral rights are desperately under risk, in free culture". The internet is full of images one may have moral problems with. Nearly all of them are all-rights-reserved copyright protected. And I'd bet there's far more "adult" and dubious material on Flickr than here. Colin (talk) 08:37, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Indeed; they are (moral rights of the photographer and personal rights of the subject) different topics and rarely come together as in the case of the Jimmy Wales portrait. (Here Jimmy is the subject and original author as per the work for hire contract.) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101: A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work". If my memory is correct, that video is showcasing the original Jimmy Wales portrait several times from the beginning to end and finally attributes to it with courtesy notes. (Sorry; it is difficult for me to verify it again without further vomiting.)
Saffron’s point is regarding the other matter: personal rights of the subject where no proof of any consent. Ironically, Russavia is the leader in that case too. In fact CC demands case to case permission for every use, if an identifiable person or private property is the subject of the work.
The Pricasso incident highlighted that many people don't care how individuals feel and have only concern for free culture. Thus free culture threatens people's personality rights whereas I see little threat of personality rights negatively affecting free culture. Even in cases where it might, we have to ask ourselves... what is more important the individual's right or free culture? I think Commons should make manifest the Foundation's wishes in this regard and strongly defend people's dignity through policy. Saffron Blaze (talk) 11:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the second sentence logically follows the first, nor do I think it holds empirically. Here's my understanding (IANAL): Flickr and Commons are similar in that both host pictures taken by users and in both situations they take a hands-off approach to the legal issues surrounding those pictures (as far as I'm aware). Flickr asks you not to break the law and not to be a creep, and also asks that you classify your content safe-for-all or restricted. But it gives no guidance on the law for the very good reason that giving legal advice that turns out to be wrong will get them sued. If you take a picture that breaks someone's privacy, and upload it to Flickr or Commons, then you are legally responsible. Flickr and Commons aren't responsible for their content in that way (they'll remove it if required but you can't sue them). And if someone uses Flickr or Commons content (either for free or paying the photographer) and that usage breaks the subject's personality rights, then the reuser gets sued, not Flickr or Commons. What is different I think is that people here have forgotten who owns Commons and the WMF have given the community too much power. I strongly agree with you on Commons defending people's dignity through policy but think this must come first through a stronger statement from the WMF. They are legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would make them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have) [struck -- see below] but they can be much more specific about what they want wrt scope and moral issues. The demographics of this site's userbase do not tend towards "wisdom of the crowd". The complete opposite in fact. Colin (talk) 12:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
In re-reading the pricasso incident I would have to agree my logic was clouded by emotion. The issue resides more with COM:SCOPE than free culture. Saffron Blaze (talk) 21:06, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I will say Commons (the people who make decisions in Commons) threatens people's personality rights. Flickr and Commons are similar; but Flickr only allows (prefers) photos taken by the uploader only. (According to http://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines/: “Don’t upload anything that isn't yours. This includes other people's photos, video, and/or stuff you've copied or collected from around the Internet. Accounts that consist primarily of such collections may be deleted at any time.”) Further it deletes problematic contents (if somebody complained) by office actions; not by consensus of the community. In Commons most of the problematic contents are uploaded by third parties. And, even the original author or uploader can’t delete it; it needs the so called consensus.
The free culture looks awesome in its first look. But while considering all these side backs, we have to think ten times before deciding to promote it. In my early days, I had promoted the free culture so much; through my Flickr stream. (I’ve 1000 contacts, participated in so many groups, and an active member of EOL.) Now I have to re-educate all of them regarding all these consequences. :( JKadavoor Jee 13:27, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Community involvement in editorial issues is indeed Commons difference. Here's the problem: Crowdsourcing. The WMF has effectively let a bunch of (often anonymous) young men decide what images Commons should host. Traditional companies and publishers have a reputation to hold and one's job may depend on doing the right thing. But Commons has no reputation worth upholding and its users don't have anything to lose. That I feel is the issue; not free culture. Colin (talk) 15:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I second that. This hits the nail on the head. Tackling this issue is a major effort, and one component is increasing diversity (and gender diversity) in the community. --Dschwen (talk) 15:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Why not fire them out if you have no trust on them? JKadavoor Jee 17:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
On thinking more, the crowdsourcing problem is more than just poor demographics and consensus-decision-making leading to lowest-common-denominator outcomes. The lack of budget for Wikipedia to buy images leads to a desperation to acquire and hold onto any image no matter its provenance, its ethics (or for some, its poor licence terms). Another factor is distance: those discussing the image didn't take the photograph and don't know the subject. It is easier to vote keep! on some picture taken by an unknown Flickr user of an unknown subject in another country -- a picture you'd not feel comfortable taking, wouldn't want your daughter to be in, or wouldn't dare ask your girlfriend to pose for. Changing our demographics is hard but perhaps we can introduce some ideas from professionalism to our guidelines? The folk here at FP aspire to professional standards. While few of commons photographs are of professional technical quality, is there any reason they shouldn't be held to professional ethical standards? Colin (talk) 07:20, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes; as I said earlier. The presence of real photographers in a DR is very rare. Others don’t understand the feelings of a photographer. I never publish a photograph if I think it will make the subject to feel inferior. And I prefer to delete it, if I make a mistake and learn it later. I think most photographers have the same view. JKadavoor Jee 08:30, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
People’s rights (including photographers and their subjects) are important than anything else. I feel pity on people who decided to wait till somebody starts attacking them or their colleagues. Jimmy or Russavia is not my friend (I didn’t even know them); but I can’t keep intact while someone is bloody wounded in front of my eyes. JKadavoor Jee 11:53, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
My generic comment against free culture is a bit sarcastic. :) JKadavoor Jee 10:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Well I agree with w:Wikipedia:SARCASM that in this case it isn't helpful. You haven't quoted CC correctly. Creative commons licensing has no part to play in the rights of the subject, which their FAQ makes clear. So this isn't about CC or FAL or all-[photographer]-rights-reserved. It's nothing to do with free content at all. Colin (talk) 11:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • @Colin: Jimmy commented in a discussion that "It is absolutely untrue that the WMF is "legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would make them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have)". This is a frequent and unfortunate misunderstanding of the law. Section 230 is explicitly designed to allow for direct editorial control without undue risk. The Foundation can exercise direct editorial control without thereby becoming liable for what other people do." Further, he said: "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed." JKadavoor Jee 05:30, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Nominate again after withdraw / page already exists

I have withdrawn a nomination Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Panorama_Hafen_Cuxhaven_Alte_Liebe_2013.jpg because an issue (stitching errors) raised by User:Carschten was time-consuming to correct. Now I have corrected the erros and uploaded a new version (same file name). The problem now is that the page Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Panorama_Hafen_Cuxhaven_Alte_Liebe_2013.jpg already exists. What is the best way to re-nominate this image?
Probably the easiest way would be to simple re-activate the nomination by putting {{Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Panorama_Hafen_Cuxhaven_Alte_Liebe_2013.jpg}} to FPC list. But is it allowed? --Tuxyso (talk) 13:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It is stated in Commons:FPC: "For renominations, simply add /2 after the filename. For example, Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Foo.jpg/2". Tomer T (talk) 15:44, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the hint. I've overseen this information. --Tuxyso (talk) 16:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

SVG candidate guidelines reform

I have noticed that non-photographic media nominations often fail due to the sheer fact that not enough people voted. I personally have had a very large fraction of my nominations fail from the crickets due to that rule that says "nominations must receive at least seven votes to be considered"'. While I advocate changing that rule completely, I think a big part of that problem can be attributed to the fact that nobody knows what to look for in a SVG illustration. This leads to a lot of ad hoc or subjective voting, if any. The guidelines for nominating at the top of Commons:Featured picture candidates almost exclusively deals with photographs, and when not, only deals with scans and historical paintings. Commons:Image guidelines would be better renamed Commons:Photograph guidelines as it is only for photographs. No wonder nobody votes on SVG nominations—unlike with photos, there are no criteria to vote based on!

This is why I propose drafting a new set of guidelines that deal exclusively with SVG nominations. This is important not only to ensure the FPC process is fair, but also to encourage more non-photographic contributions. When I first came to Commons, I didn't think SVG diagrams were that welcome, and I hesitated to nominate my pictures because I assumed that Featured Picture was "only for photographs".

I will be drafting some proposals soon, but first I would like to know if there is any interest/objections to this, and whether this idea is going to die in committee or not.

—Love, Kelvinsong talk 00:15, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I think this idea is not only good, but is desperately long overdue. You are dead-on when you say nobody knows what to look for in an SVG diagram— we all "know" if a photograph looks nice or not, but no one feels qualified to comment on the technical aspects of something like an SVG file. The guidelines need to be revised exactly as you have proposed— please keep me up to date on this (just as my own first diagram proposal is about to die in nomination because it has only received four support votes and isn't likely to get any more for just this reason). I am behind you 100%. Let's revise. KDS444 (talk) 07:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree this should be done, though I don't know what such guidelines might be. darkweasel94 08:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I sympathize. I remember, many times I added a support on such works even though I didn't understand much (honestly), and encourage my colleagues to evaluate them, if possible. JKadavoor Jee 08:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I have set up a discussion page and drafted a proposal which can be found at Commons talk:SVG guidelines.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 14:35, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Quick Question: How are FP-Sets promoted?

I just noticed that there seem to be two understandings of how a FP-Set should be promoted, either by promoting the set nomination page (as the FPCBot does it) or by promoting all images of the set, as done here. I thought I remembered some information about that somewhere, but I just searched through all the rules and recent discussions and found nothing. — Julian H.✈ (talk/files) 08:29, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I'd like to add a link to the Commons:Featured media candidates page, from somewhere within this page. It's quite hard to find currently, which is probably part of the reason why it sees so little activity!

Would it be ok to add this:

Video and audio
Please see Commons:Featured media candidates for video guidelines.

perhaps underneath the "Set nominations" section? Thanks.

(Note: I wrote a Village pump post which has a number of other related links, and thoughts.) Quiddity (talk) 07:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone have input or objections? If not, I'll just boldly add that content in the next few days. Thanks! Quiddity (talk) 23:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
I've now done so, at Commons:Featured picture candidates/guidelines. Hope that helps. Quiddity (talk) 19:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments UK - call for volunteers to pre-screen entries in September

I'm unsure how many uploads we can expect to get as part of WLM in the UK over the next month, but the signs are that it could be in the tens of thousands - far too many for us to give straight to our three-person jury to review.

That means that we will need one or more levels of pre-screening, to knock out the images that are clearly not good enough to pass on to the next stage. We need to plan to do this pre-screening on a daily basis, as the competition proceeds, as there may well not be enough time to do the whole lot in October.

I'm looking for volunteers who could help online with this, either throughout September or at least for a day or two. No experience is needed, other than a reliable ability to distinguish a good photo from a poor one. Although the entries will be from the UK, anyone from anywhere can make a difference.

If you can help, please let me know on my talk page, or add your name to the pre-screening team.

Many thanks, --MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Bots/Requests/SamoaBot 4

There is an ongoing discussion about a bot that would merge multiple {{Assessments}}-like templates into single ones on file description pages; I was asked to notify this project about that, so you are invited to comment there. Thanks, --Ricordisamoa 07:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Unreal sky color

I've seen recently with great concern a large number of outstanding images. All with changes in their colors, such as blue sky as bora bora or excesive noise reduction, dramatic filters. There is a perception of mine, since these photos were taken in places and times where I was there. My concern is that this bill becomes 500px.com --The Photographer (talk) 12:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

  • 1--Jebulon (talk) 15:15, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Ha, there was a time when Flickr kitsch would receive an instant torrent of oppose votes. And that was justified. Commons images are supposed to serve educational purposes first and foremost. I'd really like to see attempts at faithful reproduction (documentary style) get rewarded here over the sexed up pictures that are so popular on the aforementioned photo portals. --Dschwen (talk) 14:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC) P.S.: just for the record, I was not talking about Poco's image (hadn't seen it yet), just making a general remark. --Dschwen (talk) 02:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
After seeing your showdown in this nomination of mine it is to me more than obvious that you are talking about that picture. I would have appreciated from the very beginning if you had talked clearly and referred to it.
Are you affirming that my pictures are "Flickr style" pictures, far from reality and just with the target to become popular with unreal colors?. As I just explained in the nomination, this picture, in terms of colors, has the usual settings I apply to all my RAWs. Maybe in this case you have the impression that it looks a bit unreal, I don't think so and most people seem to agree. The unreality feeling could come from my attempt to reduce the big contrast lightehing up the darker areas in the foreground, but this has nothing to do with the colors. So, I cannot really agree with these statements in regards to that picture. But, maybe you had other pictures in mind... Poco2 07:57, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi Poco. As for me, yes, I'm talking about that picture, not others from yours (I may support in QIC, for instance). And in general, for more and more candidates, very saturated, strongly denoised, highly contrasted and visually "agressive", due to overprocessing, which make some images looking very "kitsch" ("mauvais goût"). I agree it is obvious that this opinion is not the majority (your picture will be a FP, congrats for that !), but I think I'm free to tell here what is my feeling. I just notice this trend, accentuated by the results of some contests in "Commons" like POTY or WLM, which celebrate more and more overprocessed (IMO) pictures. And it is only an opinion. Of course, it has nothing to do with you as person !--Jebulon (talk) 08:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, Jebulon, I agree to some extend with you that in WLM we are getting this kind of pictures pretty often and some even get awarded, but I don't share yours and obviously The Photographer's opinion that the Kowloon picture has been so heavily edited in terms of colors that it looks artificial. As said, I think that that feelins comes maybe from the brigthening of areas which were in the shadow Poco2 08:26, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
See some related examples at EN (Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Gynaephora_selenitica, Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Marfino_Palace). At EN, we usually get a more through review than here; probably because reviewers there are mostly non-photographers. It is difficult to criticize a friend; but friends should be like mirrors. (I've no clear opinion on that Poco's picture though.) JKadavoor Jee 08:46, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
By the way, I agree with The Photographer with his technical opinion about this picture, but I strongly disagree with his behaviour in the FPC page. Publishing a RAW picture send by you by private email, without your agreement, is not correct, not very far from bad faith. Privacy is privacy, and he deceived your confidence. If I remember well, in en:wp it should have for consequence an indefinite block...--Jebulon (talk) 08:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes; Wikipedia:POSTEMAIL is an ArbCom suggestion at EN. JKadavoor Jee 09:16, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree that it was wrong to publish another jpg from this raw file and The Photographer should realise this mistake, apologise and request its deletion. The JPG is CC licenced, the raw file is Poco's personal private property. I also think it wrong to request the raw file to prove an image hasn't been over-processed. If we stop trusting each other then it is time to find another hobby. Please let's not escalate this by talking about blocks. The Photographer is a good contributor here and I think he has just made a mistake. I hope he accepts that and fixes things up. -- Colin (talk) 09:26, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I think Jeb and me only meant to advise him to read that page. In that nomination Poco clearly said "Done, but you don't have to change anything". He can be sent it back after processing through another mail. Hope he understand. (There may be a language problem too. Since Commons is multilingual, we are always prone to a lack of proper understanding.) JKadavoor Jee 09:39, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the Kowloon picture shows what appears to be to much "clarity" in Lightroom -- local contrast is high. The colours don't appear unnatural, though I wasn't there. But of course an unprocessed raw file looks crap. And this one appears to have been under-exposed, possibly to be double-sure the sky doesn't blow. Photographers have always made adjustments to their pictures, for example with graduated filters or polarisers and in the darkroom. And photographs aren't often what the eye sees, whether that's freezing movement with flash, blurring movement with long-exposure, capturing the night sky in great detail, or showing the scales on an insect's eye. Many space photos have completely artificial colours, for example. I agree that generally our pictures should look natural to be of highest educational use, but there is a place for altered images too provided we are honest about it. Black and white photos are an obvious example. As for over-saturated colour. Well this can be a flaw in over-processing (see my comment on Marfino Palace), but can also be a colourspace problem with the JPG (again same picture had totally inappropriate colourspace), and can also be an issue with our browsers and monitors. So beware when commenting on over bright red (for example) that it isn't actually your own computer. Sometimes, though, reality is vivid! Colin (talk) 09:26, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Note: Poco has reduced the local contrast in the latest edit. Colin (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I followed your advice, Colin, and updated a new version with a reduction of the clarity settings, although I couldn't see much difference versus the former version, I trust your assessment. As said, I will improve my equipment to be better "armed" for this kind of discussion.
Will add that I was also surprised by Wilfredo's request to get the RAW file to "assess" the changes, but that was still ok to me. The problem is that he misused that trust and went far too far uploading the file after I told him it is for his usage and putting both images at the top of the nomination page with the purpose to re-inforce his opinion. At the same time, he tried to tread down my honesty, reputation and -actually- feelings (I felt like a criminal! while I am here just to contribute and learn). A block is not appropiate, but an apology would definitely be. I also learned that will not send RAW files around, whoever asks. Poco2 11:06, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The difference between the two versions is fairly subtle. Sometimes I find it helps to process the image in Lightroom and save the JPG ready to upload. Then go away from the computer for a good while and come back. A look with fresh eyes can sometimes make one realise you've gone too far (or not far enough). Wrt raw files, I've processed raw files for others quite a few times, but always know that they don't belong to me and the CC licence on the JPG doesn't extend to the "negative". This is probably just a misunderstanding. Colin (talk) 11:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I added the template for image deletion and I ask apologies to Poco a Poco. What else should I do?, My intention was never to hurt their hearts. It is very important to know what we want to turn to this section. In a creative and artist section or section to support articles with high quality photographs and reliable to reality. --The Photographer (talk) 15:42, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
You should do...nothing else more, I guess. All is good now, thanks The Photographer. We can close the debate. Btw, I've changed my vote due to the last improvements of the picture.--Jebulon (talk) 16:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Reality

The Photographer asks creative/artistic vs reality for articles. Our guidelines for FP ask that we do "not deceive the viewer". And where an image has been tidied up by removing minor distractions for example, we are honest about it. This isn't that different to the standards for photojournalists yet they also are struggling with agreeing on "acceptable" -- see World Press Photo controversy. I don't think it helps to go all puritan about this. We are creating a repository of images for educational purpose, not (just) documenting reality. At FP we're selecting great pictures that will be gladly chosen to illustrate something, not ones that are merely factually accurate -- QI has plenty dull images. Open any educational book or magazine and you will see "eye candy", and the only time you'll see normal people rather than beautiful models is (perversely) in a medical journal or textbook. When has anyone ever seen an item of fruit suspended in a pure white glow, other than an illustration? Should we shun flash and demand portraits lit by God's sunlight? Oban on an overcast day represents reality far more than one with a blue sky, but nobody goes wow. So I think there is room for an image made to go pop or for black and white or for studio shots with controlled lighting, etc, etc. But we need to be honest with the viewer and stay tasteful (which is always and evermore subject to fashion of the time). Colin (talk) 17:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Influencing statements during voting

I'd like to propose a rule that if contributor offers an opinion about a FPC regarding out of scope or copyvio, that his /her vote be erased as well as the statement. Such comments can be misleading and affect the vote in users who may not be familiar with FPC. If any user suspects either a copyvio or out of scope, the user has the obligation to make that claim in the proper page, not in the FPC page. In the event that an image gets deleted due to a copyvio or out of scope, it automatically gets deleted from FP anyway. Evaluation criteria as it stands does not contemplate either variable, and it should not. This idea was proposed by canoe1967 and I second the idea. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

So  Support JKadavoor Jee 14:48, 16 August 2013 (UTC) Better suspend the nomination till the issue is over as in EN. (changed my mind after reading resent coments below) 11:40, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose as long as votes without any reasons given are allowed this proposal makes no sense. --Dschwen (talk) 15:12, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
    • It does. It makes the voter aware of the fact that this is not a reasonable reason to oppose, and he can then choose to vote again. If he then opposes without giving a reason, that's his decision and perfectly fine, but he might re-vote with a different approach to the situation and possibly with a different outcome. — Julian H.✈ (talk/files) 15:33, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
      • We can just add it to the FPC rules as an unhelpful reason, we don't need to remove the vote because of it. darkweasel94 15:45, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
        • I think it goes beyond just adding it as an unhelpful reason... If the editor truly believes it is out of scope or copyvio, she/he has an obligation to nominate for deletion independently of FPC. An accusation like that carries a lot of weight. In anycase, if the DR ends up in a deletion, it helps FP by weeding out possible problems. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 16:19, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I agree with Dschwen. If you want to make a rule that lists valid and invalid reasons, with invalid ones (including e.g. opposes without reason) being removed, then we can discuss it, but this proposal alone means that "terrible photo" (an extremely unhelpful reason) would be ok but "out of scope" (= I don't see the usefulness) wouldn't. That's absurd. darkweasel94 15:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment Out of scope or copyvio comments are very specific and there are proper policies and guidelines regarding these situations. By making such comments and not to channel the claim to the proper procedure is hypocritical at best, and has the potential to mislead the voto over a non issue if it is not dealt accordingly. It amounts to a false criteria or false accusation, and since the very issue has come out, we are no longer talking about a hypothetical. That way we can start working towards a culture of image evaluation that verses on technical, artistic or encyclopedic principles, which I think is the central issue here. Narrowing the criteria to as much objectivity as possible would be beneficial to the health of the project. Introducing arguments such as out of scope or copyvios as a reason to oppose, and influencing the outcome of other votes, without following with the appropriate DR nominations to me seems wrong and unfair. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 15:30, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment Image evaluation, in legitimate forums, follow evaluation criteria, and there is always the variable of the individual´s taste, but within a set of guidelines. However, here, out of scope or copyvios have policies or guidelines for deletion of images, and if someone thinks that an image incurrs in such faults, then the person should make the appropriate DR in the proper page or channel. Because of this very fact, that there exist a specific procedure, then the person is morally obligated to start such procedure, lest they just accuse the image of a violation as a pseudo reason to oppose, and influence with wrong arguments the vote. Out of scope or copyvio accusations without the proper follow up should not be reasons to oppose, and even if legitimate, have no place in FPC as a faorum that evaluates image quality. If the image in question gets deleted because the claim is legitimate, it automatically will lose FP status anyway. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 15:42, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment Evaluation criteria is like a slider that can move left or right. Composition, for example, can be good, neutral or bad, for example. Relevancy to subject matters the same. Aesthetic values or principles the same. However, an out of scope or copyvio is an accusation that has no degrees, it is locked at an extreme position of the opinion slider. So then an out of scope or copyvio accusation, because that is what it is, leaves the image on defensive mode only, and such claims have a proper and separate ways to be deal with. Besides, it is irrelevant as to the images values on the realm of aesthetics or encyclopedic value, which is the objective of FPC. The issue of out of scope or copyvio have their own forum. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment This proposal probably has to be taken in the context of Tomascastelazo's personal quarrels with other users about out of scope images. It looks half baked to me, and the wall-of-text(tm) above does not really help. --Dschwen (talk) 16:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I think we somehow able to close that issue. No need to reopen/discuss it. I think it will be nice if we include a clause to nullify oppose votes without a reason too. A support vote without any reason is generally considered as OK per the guidelines. JKadavoor Jee 02:51, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Comment Dear Dschewn, that´s a very unfair assummption, for the issue trascends personal quarrels, althought one incident made it evident to me. Discuss the merits of the issue and not what your imagination has to say about my motivations. If out of scope and copyvios have their proper venue, why bring them up here where nothing is done about it? Except, of course, to put doubt as to the feasibility of an image being promoted to FP without due to allegation without merit. As to the wall of text, I am trying to put thoughts into the issue, yet you seem to dismiss it off hand. Or what, do the discussion now have to be tweeter like? --Tomascastelazo (talk) 19:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I would suggest as discussion section. And I have discussed the (lack of) merits of the issue. It is a prime example of policy creep, that adds an intimidating and most likely ineffective clause to treat a fringe case. Ineffective, because it is an attempt at thought police. The much more common case of votes without any justification (the 99% problem) is untouched and will become the obvious loop hole for the 1% problem that this proposal is directed at. --Dschwen (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
      • I think we have to agree that this is an instrument to inform rather than an instrument to control or reglement voting. If a vote is crossed out with an explanation concerning the reason for it being crossed out (just as it is currently with people forgetting to log in), that's not thought police, it's just a stong way of informing people about the intentions and non-intentions of the FP voting process. — Julian H.✈ (talk/files) 20:11, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
        • Rule, guideline, whatever you may want to call it.... or establish a set of guidelines to vote that includes agreed upon criteria, like a photo contest more or less, that have guidelines tailored to the needs of the contest, or project in this case. Otherwise what we end up is voting on irrelevant grounds... It is not rocket science, there is a lot of material to work from. As a photographer, to me, the lack of guidelines in this forum diminishes its potential. In many cases it can be looked on as a joke. Somehow considering the reach of Commons and the absense of talent give us some food for thought. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose If anything, we should encourage people to raise any concerns they might have over copyright status or licensing, not penalise this. This forum is often the first time an image is reviewed by more than one or two people, and it would be counterproductive to limit the scope of the reviews. A better idea would be to suspend FP voting on any image for which a DR is opened, until the DR is closed. --Avenue (talk)
  •  Oppose out of scope is not clearly defined as well as "do not like" or no justification --Ralf Roleček 07:15, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I think it is stupid to support a picture under a deletion request because of an obvious copyvio, or an obvious violation of the law (no FoP in a country or so.--Jebulon (talk) 20:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose appropriately licensed, is part of the criteria for FP... in fact its a policy requirement for all images to be released under a free license so at very least if a person raises a copyright concern the FPC process should be suspended until resolved rather than just ignoring the concern. Many concerns can be resolved without going through DR, given many FP are just scrappings for other sites FPC is commonly the first instance that an image comes to the communities attention. Gnangarra 10:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose --The Photographer (talk) 12:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Improving the review experience

I wonder if we could think of ways to improve the review experience. I'd love to easily review images fullscreen as some images look uninspiring at the size in their nominations, but their qualities can be appreciated (or issues noticed) when enlarged. Fullscreen would also be a great way to form one's initial judgement rather than jump from small preview to 100% pixel-peeping. However, we'd need to be careful that the fullscreen view was good-quality -- the ZoomViewer sometimes shows quite a blurry image depending on zoom and bandwidth. A fancy review screen could also show relevant EXIF information and even a histogram. Any ideas? Is there somone on Commons/Toolserver who could implement something? Colin (talk) 09:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

FPCBot issue

It seems that the bot has some issues in editing pages at the moment. No changes have been made to it so I don't know whats going on. Just thought I should mention it here as I most likely can't help out with it during the next week. See my talk page for more info. /Daniel78 (talk) 20:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what the problem was on the wikimedia side but I have now made a change that should prevent issues in the future if mediawiki is that slow again. /Daniel78 (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The bot is having trouble again. I tried to contact the developers of pywikibot but no reply so far. But I am going to have a try at updating to the newest version of it to see if that helps. But for now I have disabled the bot to avoid it hanging in the middle of some operation. I am not sure how long this will take. /Daniel78 (talk) 09:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
I have tried to debug it and talked on irc with various relevant people - but so far I don't know what to do about this. The problem is that the bot gets a gateway 504 timeout when editing big pages like Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Log/September_2013. And for those pages it just retries and retries until it gives up. And I don't have unlimited time for investigating this. /Daniel78 (talk) 18:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
Maybe you can define the timeout yourself and increase it? Or maybe it's not in your control? Another possible solution is to split the current log page to two parts, and check if it helps. Tomer T (talk) 20:14, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
If I understood it correctly it's a timeout not on my side but on a proxy server between me and commons. #wikimedia-tech claimed that it's a server issue I can't do anything about. /Daniel78 (talk) 07:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried switching to the pywikipedia rewrite "core"? I had very similar problems with the QICbot and this seemed to have improved the situation. Big pages are still a potential failure point though! --Dschwen (talk) 21:37, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes yesterday I switched from the very ancient version I was using to core, but the problem was the same after the switch. I was also told that about a month ago there was a switch to https, this corresponds to the time when FPCBot started to get problems - although knowing that I don't know what I can do about it. /Daniel78 (talk) 07:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
You shouldn't have to do anything about that, it is pywkipedia's problem. --Dschwen (talk) 19:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Photographer help needed for Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK

Hi all. I'm posting a couple of requests here, as this page is probably on the watchlist of quite a few high quality photographers.

1. Enter photos into the Wiki Loves Monuments competition

As some editors may may know, I'm organizing the Wiki Loves Monuments competition in the UK. Although we have received over 8000 UK entries so far, the vast majority of those have probably been taken by users who are more interested in Wikipedia than in photography, and we are in real need of some high-quality entries from talented photographers - such as yourself!

If you have any nice photos of listed buildings in your portfolio, for example from a holiday in the UK, please could you look them out and submit some entries?

The website is at http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org.uk/, and the last date for submissions is midnight UK time on 30th September (next Monday). If you have images taken outside the UK, they can be entered via this page.

2. Help with pre-screening of the competition entries

To avoid overloading the three-person UK jury with 10,000 images to be judged, I'm looking to recruit around 20-30 volunteers who can help with some pre-screening to knock out entries that have no prospect of winning one of the top 10 prizes. We have an online jury tool for that purpose, and all you need to do is to click through one day's worth of entries and quickly mark those that the judges don't need to see. No complicated scoring or judging ability is needed - just the ability to separate a potential prizewinner from the obviously lower-quality entries. For consistency, there will be two people independently reviewing each image.

The work involved would be a minimum of one hour, to a maximum of 10, and would need to be done over the next two weeks.

It would be fantastic if a good number of people from Commons FP could help out. You can enter the competition as well as help with the pre-screening, as you wouldn't be asked to pre-screen your own images.

Thanks for anything you can do. Please drop me a note on my talkpage or email me if you'd like more details. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Set update

I've updated the set nominations to use "mode=packed" as part of their gallery code. This makes the widths parameter meaningless, but I left it in in case other options that would use it come up later that we might want to switch to. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:13, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Limit on delisting noms?

I asked here in March and didn't get a response, so I'll ask again. Does the two-per-nominator limit apply to delisting nominations as well? My opinion is that it shouldn't, since we don't have a problem with too many delisting noms flooding the list. Or if we are to have a limit at all, keep a separate limit of two delisting nominations per nominator in addition to the two regular nominations. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Splitting up "Non-photographic media"

This category is becoming so disorganised as to be near-useless for navigation. I think it should be divided into about 3 new categories, and some of its contents that better fit elsewhere reshuffled (such as images of scenes from history being moved to "Historical"). Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:31, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you want to post it on Commons talk:Featured pictures instead (perhaps with a link from here)? Because right now, it's rather confusing and sounds like you want to split up FPC at first glance. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Sure. Moved to there. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Trying to understand Commons FPC

I have to be honest: I've never actually been able to figure out the logic of which of my images get promoted here, and which don't. For those who don't know, I do restorations of historical images - removing dust, staining, that sort of thing. I don't generally do one-off things, like paintings, but for things like engravings, where there's hundreds of copies so specific imperfections in one probably aren't in any others; or for things where the damage limits useability, such as some old photographs, those I do.

My experience has been that I very, very rarely get  Oppose votes, and, when I do, they're generally understandable. Most of the time, I get all  Support votes, but the number I get varies a lot. Sometimes, they'll pass easily, sometimes, I'll have three to five supports, and it will, naturally, fail.

But I really cannot figure out the pattern of what fails and what succeeds.

Now, of course, I realise I'm working in a field that not many other people at Commons FPC work in. So it might well be nearly random, and based on whether enough of the people who feel capable of voting on such images happen to see it. But I'm not sure.

I'd like to try and help out international Wikipedias, getting them the resources they need, but, as there's rarely any comments, it's hard. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:32, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

One problem is that there are so few that do the kind of work you do, so we don't have experience in knowing what technical issues to review or what challenges you overcame. Most of us just see a technically good reproduction of some random artwork. May not appreciate it was worked on by someone here rather than just scraped from Google Art or some museum. Sometimes, those in the know, might raise a query about the colours or contrast or something, but if you've never seen the work, or know about that type of artwork, then you don't see the issues.
Another problem is the images aren't yours. I think there's a natural desire to give Commons users positive feedback on works they created or images from the world they have captured well. It is perhaps less easy to feel so obliged when the creator is long dead.
Since your work is generally very good, familiarity leads to fatigue. Many of the artworks you work on are a bit worthy rather than awesome or wow-inspiring. So I think the variation you see may be partly luck of the day and partly the degree of wow you can muster.
I don't understand why on Commons people don't often say a little bit with their nominations. I think it helps to know why the nominator is proud of it and what is special about it. And sometimes the technical challenges help people appreciate what was involved. Compare Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Pach Brothers - George Foster Peabody.jpg with en:Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/George Foster Peabody. The latter didn't get a lot of participation either, but you did explain why you think it should be featured and what work was done. With the bare nomination at commons, all someone sees is an old photo of somebody and if they look at it at 100% it doesn't look that wonderful (I do wish the software made it easier to find a position between preview and 100% as the latter is often an unfair resolution to judge).
I'm not sure of the solution (apart from the above suggestion about comments) other than that the folk who do this kind of work encourage each other and try to grow the pool of knowledgeable critics. Colin (talk) 12:20, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree for part with Colin. I make some restorations too (not as good as the resto by Adam Cuerden's, of course). Almost all my nominated restorations of old pictures or photographs have been featured, and I think it is due to the chosen subject. One of the secrets is to chose "something" or "somebody" worldwide known, or worldwide "speaking". Remember "Commons" is international, and not only anglo-american. I understand that not everybody here is interested by a portrait of a 22nd former vice-president of the US..., even if me, I am, because I love history (even if I don't know precisely who is George Foster Peabody, sorry...And he has no article in french WP). But for Hector Berlioz or Renoir, no problem, they are international. Please have a look, for examples, to my 2013 gallery. Blanquart-Evrard is not very known, but he played a very important role in history of photography, and I explained this in the nomination (and the quality of the pic was very good). In contrary, I was very surprised that "my" portrait of Maurice Garin, the winner of the very first Tour de France, did not get the star, just the during the year of the 100th Tour de France... And yes, the global quality of the assessments is going a bit lower, I'm afraid.
Shortly: chose a known person, or a very visual document, and provide some explanations (not too much) if you think it is needed. Then, after that, pray.--Jebulon (talk) 14:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Colin and let me add I feel somehow uneasy to assess your historical work due to the lack of background information and missing knowledge about restoration. Let me take your current [[File:Pach Brothers - George Foster Peabody.jpg|FPC] as an example: Looks good in thumbnail size but when I look in 100% I see strong noise and a relatively unsharp image. I can only guess that both aspects are neglectable because the image I from 1907. The central question to me regarding your work on the image is: Can you, as restorator, better work on the noise and sharpness (or is it not allowed due to preserving authenticity.) To your original question: I think that a lot of Commoners feel the same like me and do not know which quality can be expected from a (restored) historical image. And, as Colin pointed out, because you are not the creator of the image it is not clear what is your concrete work on these images. To get more votes (also contra ones) in future I would suggest you to provide much more background information about your restoration process and (also with Colin) reasons why you think that especially the nominated historical image should be an FP. --Tuxyso (talk) 06:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
There's authenticity issues if you go too far; and sharpness, in particular, would mean literally drawing a new image over the old image - which is much, much too far.
As for what I do, flipping rapidly between the largish thumbnails on the file description pages for the nominated image and File:Pach_Brothers_-_George_Foster_Peabody_-_Original_LoC_scan.tif will give you a decent idea - lots of dirt, stains, and other damage has been removed, some of it more visible at the thumbnail scale than others, it must be admitted.
In pretty much all such cases, the original is linked on the page, for comparison. It's usually a substantial work of repairing obvious damage, preparing, and getting things ready for use. Some moreso than others - have a look at just a thumbnail of the original image the Levi Morton image was cleaned up from, [3] - lots of distracting scratches.
Generally speaking, preparing these images, repairing the damage, and so on, takes between three and twenty hours of focused work. It's somewhat easier for things like the recent Puck of Pook's Hill set, where I'm scanning it myself, so can get a relatively clean image - although, even there, you get circumstances such as File:H._R._Millar_-_Rudyard_Kipling_-_Puck_of_Pook's_Hill_13.jpg where a printing error meant I had to work in a second source for the image, which was worse overall, but contained information for an otherwise small missing area, which I then had to use editing tricks to blend in. Look at the eyebrow of the lowest left-most soldier between File:H._R._Millar_-_Rudyard_Kipling_-_Puck_of_Pook's_Hill_13.jpg and File:Original Scan - H. R. Millar - Rudyard Kipling - Puck of Pook's Hill 13.tif; the source for the missing information is a poorer-print-quality reprint from 1920, File:Original_Scan_2_-_H._R._Millar_-_Rudyard_Kipling_-_Puck_of_Pook's_Hill_13.tif Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
The thing is, I was of the strong impression that Commons FPC discouraged talking about your images. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Well I'd certainly oppose anyone suggesting that. I suspect the language issues lead to people being less talkative and "let the image do the talking". This is fine if the image can stand on its own and make people go wow from just the thumbnail on the FPC page. I think your main challenge is getting people to spend time assessing your work and appreciating what went into it. There's little eye candy at times, so words may help overcome the tendency to move onto something else. Little stories like your missing patch from your print all add a bit of interest. Or tell us about the subject in a "Did you know" sort of way perhaps? I suppose it is still worth bearing in mind the language difficulties and keep the prose simple. Colin (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes; it seems language a big problem. I feel much difficulty to understand the contents of some works. Last week I struggled to understand this work; even Google failed to help me in this case. JKadavoor Jee 11:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, if I'm allowed to describe, I'll have to start doing so. And maybe adding a link to the unrestored image to the nomination somehow. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Adam, remember that reviewers (like all humans !) are lazy... That's why I create a file page with the original unrestored image, and I upload the restored file above, on the same page. Then, one have the two (or more, if steps are interesting) images on the same file page, and one can compare (and maybe appreciate) quickly. I think your way to do is much better, technically speaking, or for an encyclopedical point of view, but less efficient (the less you use the mouse, the better it is). My opinion.--Jebulon (talk) 13:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
A fair point, though it might be better to put the other image onto the nomination somehow, clearly marked as not for voting. Hm. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

FPC Bot is working?

I have noticed that messages to the nominators of promoted FP are no longer beign sent. Also, a large number of promoted pictures stayed recentely on the page a long time. Anything wrong with the bot? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi JJ, thanks for taking over that tedious task! Poco2 16:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
It was difficult than what I expected; anyway decided to finish before going to bed. :) JKadavoor Jee 16:36, 9 October 2013 (UTC) ✓ Done
Agree, thanks very much. -- Colin (talk) 17:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
1 --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 19:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
1 Thank you very much for these special deliveries you carry on! --Myrabella (talk) 08:34, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Delisting

I would much prefer a system that simply identifies an image as FP during the year it was awarded without the expectation that this designation will last forever. Thoughts? Saffron Blaze (talk) 00:25, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

  •  Oppose I highly doubt there is anything 2008 or later that needs delisting. I think we're long been at the point where image quality is far sufficient and anything more, while nice to have and useful, is primarily of interest to pixel-peepers and will not lead to a raising of the technical standards. --King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
  •  Oppose I like that the Featured picture selection process creates one single collection of great images on Commons. — Julian H.✈ (talk/files) 07:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Is FP an award or a designation that this photo is among the best on Commons? If the former, then some "2013 FP" trophy is reasonable and unremovable but I would then question why we give awards to content not generated by Commons folk. If the latter, then certainly standards can be raised. The FP standard helps those using Commons for content or pleasure to find the best images. I don't share KoH view that modern FPs are the best that anyone might wish for. There is always scope to take a significantly better picture of a given subject. The pixel-level picture quality that is subject to the technology is only one factor. Some of our content is world-class (e.g., JJ Harrison's birds imo) but much isn't so there's still room for improvement. Image quality of camera sensors may be more than sufficient for many subjects, but the kit generally used by people on Commons is below professional standards. For third-party pictures, there is certainly room for improvement. For example, many NASA pictures get FP wow but are technically crap compressed-for-web. Some pictures of artworks can be superseded by higher resolution or more accurate colours. Retina displays and 4k screens will change the way we view images on the web and what was once "HD" will only fill a portion of the screen. Tastes change over time too. Nothing stays the same. Colin (talk) 07:39, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
    I'm not saying that pixel-level quality is not important. :) It's just that in ten years I don't want for 6 MP images, perfectly fine for printing at 8 x 10, to be delisted just because everyone is carrying around 100 MB cameras. Everyone knows that there are diminishing returns for each additional MP (i.e. the difference between 2 and 4 MP is much larger than the difference between 16 and 18 MP), but in my opinion there are actually diminishing returns for percent increase in resolution as well. I think that the difference between 2 and 6 MP is larger than the difference between 12 MP and 36 MP. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:12, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Interesting thoughts although I didn't fully understand the idea of Saffron. We already have categories like Category:Featured pictures by subject and Category:Featured pictures by country under ; so I see nothing wrong in maintaining a category like Category:Featured pictures by year too. I share to explore Colin's thoughts too. FPC has several purposes; encouraging our contributors including third party uploaders is one among them. That's why we feature NASA and Flickr works. But I think our main goal is to (not neglecting the one stated earlier) highlight our "best works" to the reusers, including other WMF projects. So our existing categorization has one problem; it displays the old low quality FPs and new relatively better (again, not discriminating all old works) altogether under Category:Featured pictures by subject. It will be a problem in future, when our collection of FPs grow rapidly. Further, it is very strain-full to de-list previous FPs; everybody have a "feel" when their work being delisted. JKadavoor Jee 17:41, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't like seeing images de-listed due to sliding standards. As standards have increased over time we know see many previous picture of the year candidates being nominated for de-listing. Yes they get to keep some recognition but it essentially says you were good once now you are crap. I also think this business of having a current compendium of "best images" is bunk in practice. The notion that images won't improve anymore is baseless and bankrupt as been proven by so many similar statements. As such a one time recognition that stays for the life of the image once promoted to FP status should be sufficient. Saffron Blaze (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Well I think this is one subject we all never can agree on. I strongly disagree with the idea that losing FP means you are crap, just like images that fail to make FP aren't crap either. I don't really see what the big deal is about losing FP. Say hooray that Commons has better images, be glad for the thrill you got when it was promoted or was lucky to make the main page, and move on. Saffron, if you want a FP to be an awards system, then formulate a proposal and RFC and see if that's what the community wants. Colin (talk) 19:03, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Wasn't talking about awards, just don't see the need to remove the FP designation from an image via delisting. I brought up the idea of having FPs tied to a year as a compromise so that people could easily note that an FP in 2006 might not be as stellar technically as one produced in 2013. Not a big deal, just avoids the need to do delisting in the first place. Saffron Blaze (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Educational value

The criteria currently says:

"Value – our main goal is to feature most valuable pictures from all others. Pictures should be in some way special, so please be aware that:
almost all sunsets are aesthetically pleasing, and most such pictures are not in essence different from others,
night-shots are pretty but normally more details can be shown on pictures taken at daytime,
beautiful does not always mean valuable."

Our Welcome page (my bold):

"Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content."

The "value" is surely its use as "educational media content", rather than stock images for inspirational posters or for postcards, say. I suggest we amend the criteria to spell out what "value" is. This isn't to go as far as Wikipedia FP, where "encyclopaedic value" is a primary concern, but to make clear the long-held view that our best images have good educational value, rather than being merely pretty. Colin (talk) 11:32, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Commons is a database with free Files. Commons isn't the Database for Wikipedia or the base for education. --Ralf Roleček 11:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
This is wrong per policy. See COM:SCOPE. If you want it to be different, please go change the policy, and indeed the whole purpose behind this repository. Colin (talk) 11:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Scope is wrong and old because Commons is opened to all Homepages with Mediawiki in the world. --Ralf Roleček 12:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Just because websites can link to us with easy wiki syntax doesn't change the entire purpose of the project. Colin (talk) 13:29, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I think educational value is inevitable which is a basic requirement in Commons as stated under What is Wikimedia Commons? at Commons:Welcome. (Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language.) So it is applicable to all media here; and a FP candidate requires considerably high educational value. Just my personal preference. JKadavoor Jee 16:24, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

When we truly make an effort to enforce COM:SCOPE this might gain some traction. That aside, I have a particular dislike for en:FP so anything that makes FPC more like that is not a priority for me. The fact that commons still values "wow" is to be celebrated. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

For me COM:FP=QI Wow and it comprimise on quality for a greater wow whereas EN:FP=VI QI and it comprimise on quality for a greater value. I think this example well illustrates it. JKadavoor Jee 03:18, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Perfect formula, Jkadavoor. For me educational value is negligible on FPCs. The photographic overall "value" (Wow, light, composition, quality, ...) is the most important factor here. I do not like the term "value" because it pretends that it is something which can objectively measured which is not the case for photos. Copied from FPC page: Especially in the German Wikipedia terms like "educational value" or "encyclopedic additional benefit" are taken as justification for everything if someone does not like a photo. As I've argued there such (scientific) terms pretend an objectivity which does not exist for photos. Let us talk about excellent photos and not about any educational value which no one can measure. --Tuxyso (talk) 06:41, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
If you feel that way then we should have a discussion about whether that section belongs in the criteria. But remember Commons is not Flickr. Our "educational media content" mission should be valued in the criteria or else we just become the same as any photo community. Just because value is hard to define or subjective doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing. I do agree that this FP should not be like en or de FP where encyclopaedic value is more important than whether the picture is any good. But a picture that is all wow and no educational use is also not any good. I don't think we tend to see such pictures much on Commons FP but go have a look at Flickr or 500px to see the sort of photographic art that is certainly wow and technically great but not our aim IMO. Colin (talk) 08:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree that "some educational value" as a precondition for all uploads on Commons is reasonable. Sometimes photos which are "out of scope" are deleted. IMHO it is hard to find motives without any EV. My point is not to overestimate EV on com-FPC as it is done on de-FPC. com-FPC is an interesting plattform for photographers (and should stay that) because photographic aspects are important here. Educational value (although hard to define for photos) might be of relevance for Wikipedia. But as a photographer I am tired of those endless discussions if a night shot of a building has "encyclopedic additional benefit" or not or if a foggy aerial view of a building has a much higher EV than a well-composed photo from the ground (only two examples from the German Wikipedia) .
An important difference to Flickr and other photo communities is that quality matters much more than only Wow. On Flickr photos are often downscaled to tiny sizes and only look nice in that small size. The challenge at FPC is to produce high quality photos and nice thumbnails. --Tuxyso (talk) 09:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Colin: I don't fully disagree, but it's not true that the scope is exclusively what distinguishes Commons from other photo cummunities. Very important aspects like a complete category structure for all our content and the limitation to free licenses have little to do with scope, and they are, in my opinion, more siginificant in defining what Commons is. Apart from the fact that Commons is defined through the people contributing to it alone, and their idea of good content. I do think that scope is important, and that it shouldn't be “everything with pixels”, but it shouldn't be overly limiting either. — Julian H.✈ (talk/files) 09:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
The commons scope requirements are the bare minimum for any image here. But merely satisfying that shouldn't be the end of our appreciation of educational value. Perhaps Tuxyso you are bringing in baggage to the discussion for de-FP that isn't understandable to us. Resolution, categories and licence aren't the only things that separate us from 500px say. Boudoir underwear shots? Pretty children in a soft glowing backlight? Highly saturated landscapes with cloned-in skys? And so on. Take our size requirement for a start. That stems from our appreciation of value to the project. One can go wow with many pictures at 1024x768. So wow isn't enough. So I think we need to find a balance. Not making ev a top priority like wikipedia but not forgetting it altogether like 500px. Colin (talk) 10:36, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
@Colin: No baggage. It was only for illustrating my general problem to apply "encyclopedic / educational value" to photos. Talking about photographic aspects is much more understandable to the community here than talking about educational value of photos which is diffuse and can be taken as justification for anything. --Tuxyso (talk) 10:56, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
1 --Ralf Roleček 11:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Of course I disagree with Ralf Roletschek and Tuxyso, and I agree (for part) with Colin. "FP" is not "Technically better than QI", per COM:SCOPE. If Ralf and Tuxyso are right, then "Commons" has no purpose and is useless, as there are many other "photo contests" sites everywhere on the Net. But as for me: I'm on "Commons" and I'm proud of that.
OK, "Commons" is not only for illustrating wikipedias, but remeber: why was "Commons" created ? Who created "Commons" ? Is "Commons" a part of Wikimedia ? Is'nt Wikipedia a part of Wikimedia too ? Absolutely no link for "Commons" with the "Wikipedia movement" ? I think we should stop this bad faith quibbles.
By the way, I think FP "contests" in some Wikipedias are a bad and confusing things, and should not exist. I'm happy this does not exist in the french WP, and it is very good. And, because it does not exist in my native language WP, I am very interested by strongly reinforce the COM:SCOPE of "Commons", and I absolutely don't know what happens in the other languages wikipedias, and I don't care. I suggest everybody forget his own language WP when talking in "Commons", or assessing in "Commons". Just because we are not equal. Do what you want with pictures in your own language WP, but please don't compare with "Commons".
About "wow" factor: My own "wow" is not yours, of course. Talking about "photographic" (What does it mean ?) aspects is diffuse too, and can be taken as justification for promoting any technically good picture. So, IMO, a non-technically-perfect picture can be FP (and maybe not QI), because of the rare or unique subject shown, because of the special "value" (yes, ok, let's discuss about that under every FP candidate nomination), because of the "wow" factor, or mitigating circumstances.
But I feel "zen": this is a very old recurrent discussion, and nothing has change (even not -no offense- Ralf ) since I'm here (because it is simply impossible to change)...
Sorry for bad english.--Jebulon (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Also sorry for my bad english! Of course, the most of our files have "encyclopedic / educational value". And thats good so. But there are Files, who are (possible) vexcellent for Wikinews or Wikivoyage and unusuable fo Wikipedia. There are also files, who are only usuable for Wikiversity (educational use) but unusuable for Wikipedias. This pictures are educational value, they are produced in the education of a german highscool. But there are no FPC, no usuable in Wikipedia. "Educational use" you can´t define. I'm lecturer, every Photo i can use in education, every! --Ralf Roleček 18:16, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
We've all taken plenty pictures that are unlikely to be used on any Wikimedia project yet have educational value. Whether people are comfortable with making an explicit EV comment in their reviews or not, we all make EV judgements and they have influenced the criteria and our preference for documentary/realism over pure artist photography. We should put to rest the misconception that educational value is not an aspect for consideration at Commons FP. It isn't the dominant aspect and we have no requirement that an image is in-use our could be in-use on a Wikimedia project. People should be free to praise the EV of an image, or comment on the lack of it, without being told off -- for it is a personal subjective opinion. But we all agree that EV alone cannot rescue a poor picture: Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Pale Blue Dot.png/2. -- Colin (talk) 07:14, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Featured_picture_candidates/Archive_13&oldid=708172054"