Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 6

message: Question 1: What's the policy on using publicity/promotional photos?  I have a large number of promo photos for punk bands that I'm more than willing to scan in.  The photos were made to be reproduced everywhere, and none were distributed with any kind of copyright info or license, so is it really a problem to use them in the wikipedia?  (I think it would be fine, but best to check).
:I'm no expert at this sort of stuff, but I'll try to answer your questions. tb
:Since they're publicity photos, and intended to be published in as many places as possible, they're probably okay. (But don't quote me on that.) Make sure you mention on the image description page that they're publicity photos, so they're not used as public domain or GFDL pics.
Question 2: What about photos that are unattributed?  I have a number of photos (originals) that aren't attributed, and I have no idea who took them.  Would it be acceptable to use them or not?  (I think not...)
:Probably not. If someone else took them, especially (but not only) if they were taken to make money, we'd have to assume they don't want them on the net, looking as though they're public domain.
Question 3: Is there some kind of official wikipedia page on fair use for images?
:There's Image use policy, but I suppose you know that. If they turn on full text searching try to look for "fair use" in the Wikipedia namespace. BTW if you post stuff like this at the Village Pump, it'll probably get seen by more people. tb 05:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Three questions

message: I'm still very new here and apologize if the answer to this question is somewhere else. I understand issues about copyright, size and content concerning photos but my question is very basic: when should a photo be used? I was reading PowerPC and though maybe I could add an original photo of a PowerPC 601 chip (one of the first designs). The photo would be useful in showing the reader how to identify one of them. So, is a photo desired here? Is wikipedia looking to add photos or avoid them? Thanks for reading and in advance for replies. BTW, wikipedia is an incredible project.
bb47 2004-01-21 2207 UTC
:As far as I'm aware photos/other pics are always welcome (within reason). Personally I think it's great when wikipedia gets its own pictures (i.e. not borrowed from another site). So go for it! As people always say "disk space is cheap". tb 05:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: When to use photos?

message: This page states that images should be less than 250 pixels. Yet, Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates often receive the complaint that the resolution is too small. Should we rewrite the section about the picture size to say that the picture should be less than 200kb, and thumbnailed in the article? My first submitted pictures were pretty small, because i tried to follow the guidelines, and did not know the thumb|Text options. Now i generally submit larger pictures around 100kb, and thumbnail them. -- Chris 73 | Talk 02:08, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Review Size Requirements

message: I think there really ought to be some image-use policy regarding the addition of unnecessary text to images, for purposes such as to claim authorship.
A specific example is those images uploaded by User:Flyingbird, for example :Image:Gibraltar en.jpg (or :Image:Harissa.jpg).
Of course we should be grateful to Flyingbird for the effort involved in producing a number of useful images.  I do not want to diminish his/her contribution.
However, there are many other contributors who also devote a great deal of effort, in writing good prose.  Consider what would happen if one of them were to sign the text of an article.  The signature would be pretty swiftly removed by others as being inappropriate (even if it was in a small font).  The edit history already shows who contributed what, and there is no need for it in the article space.
There is no fundamental reason why people contributing images rather than text are worthy of a greater level of recognition.  The only real reason why these signed images remain on Wikipedia is not that there is general consensus that authorship should be recognised in this way, but that it is not readily possible to remove the signature cleanly.
This is contrary to the spirit of the GFDL.  As with the GPL, which has a strong emphasis on the availability of source code, the GFDL defines the concept of a Transparent copy of a document which must be provided, and specifically excludes anything which "has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification" from being classed as Transparent.  In this case, what is effectively the Transparent copy in the spirit of the GFDL (namely, the unedited image) is being deliberately withheld, even if the letter of the GFDL is being obeyed.
This is not merely some pedantic little niggle.  The freedom to copy and make arbitary modifications is an essential basis for Wikipedia, and we cannot afford to see it eroded at the edges.
I therefore suggest an image policy along the following lines:
* Editing of images such as to add text which does not need to be part of the image itself is strongly discouraged.  This includes not only stamps of authorship etc but also captions.  (Even the word "Wikipedia" is unhelpful because it should be possible to incorporate the image in another GFDL-ed work.)
* If someone uploads an image edited in this way, then it is fair game for others to replace it with a modified version which has the text blanked out.
I argue the above from an eventualist approach:
* In the short term, of course, it could lead to messy images with areas blanked out, and possibly discouraging some users from contributing photos.
* But I believe that in the long term, it is ultimately good for the community if everyone respects the spirit of the GFDL.  If the policy becomes well-established, people will not edit images to add unnecessary text in the first place, because they know that it will only be messily edited out later.  If any image contributors are lost because they are unwilling to contribute images without strings attached, then that is a shame, but there will be plenty more contributors to replace them (particularly as ownership of digital cameras continues to increase).
Comments, anyone?
--Trainspotter 15:59, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Addition of unncessary text to images - credit / copyright tags

message: Is there a policy on uploading image source files?  --Smack 00:27, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done it in the past for SVG images (rasterised to PNG for display, obviously).  I think it should be encouraged, generally; but there is the 2-megabyte file size limit and high-quality 5-megapixel JPEGs from my digital camera are typically about 3 megabytes :(  --Robert Merkel 01:35, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image source files 

message: This policy needs updating to deal with our new image markup to reexamine the question "at what size should images be uploaded", rather than what size they should be displayed.  My view is that it would be desirable for people to upload images at large, print-quality sizes; the only problem that this poses is that if images are very large, downloading and viewing them at their native resolution gets very inconvenient for bandwidth-constricted and software-constricted users (ah, pity those without high-bandwidth connections...).
I wonder whether an enhancement to MediaWiki that scales images to a suitable "screen" size on the image description page, and has a "view/download at full resolution" button, and then a policy that images are to be uploaded at full size, is the best option? --Robert Merkel 01:35, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Feature requests to Sourceforge, please - see wikipedia:feature requests. Martin 21:58, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Policy updates in light of new MediaWiki features

message: I think that adding a photo to an article or biography is beneficial, but isn't eight (8) of them in Madonna (entertainer) a bit over the top? Jill
:Longer articles can support more images. In the Madonna article, the images are numerous but widely spaced. I don't see an aesthetic problem with it. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:30, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to see the counterexample - Tiger Temple has "only" six photos, but needs much more text to make the article look less crowded. andy 20:42, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I have implemented this for Tiger Temple.  I would like to add it as a policy.  Does anyone have any comments or objections before I do so?  — Chameleon My page/My talk 12:13, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Excessive numbers of photos in articles