Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 4

message: Three times now, User:Halibutt has reverted attempts to change his messages containing the deleted support template to a simple support. This morning when I changed them I left a message on his talk page here explaning why they must be changed, but he didn't acknowledge my message at all, he simply changed them back, and has done so again since then. I can't think of a way to explain things to him any clearer than I already have done, so I'm asking you all what should be done? This is the first time I've been involved in a situation like this, so before I start doing things I shouldn't I'd appreciate some advice or assistance. Thanks. Raven4x4x 10:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is interesting. He did it twice on the Sheep nomination, I had no idea he had kept doing it elsewhere. As I'm sure you've seen, there are also messages on his talk page from Enochlau, Fir002, ulayiti, and others regarding the support template. Apparently, he re-added it and had it deleted again. If it bothers him that much, he could just use Fir0002's template page, or make his own.PiccoloNamek 11:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Halibutt is a well established and experienced editor, although I don't think he's expressed much interest in FPC before the 16th October. He also recreated the  and delete templates on the 16th and has been using it since. You may be looking at an example of WP:POINT. -- Solipsist 12:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted on the talk pages of most (if not all) users who revert-warred on my comments, it's not a matter of my comments in dire need of fixing, but with the template. Apparently someone who unilaterally deleted the template forgot to use the <noinclude> and <includeonly> tags so that the template is not repeated where it should be not. Halibutt 14:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Halibutt and the support template 

message: In thinking about how to prevent sheep voting, I remembered Flcelloguy's riddles page, where you submit your answer by clicking to add a new section to an unseen page. This would have other benefits besides the most obvious. 
The nominator wouldn't do anything different. The only change would be to add a link to click on "Vote here", which would link to creating a new section on a subpage of the nomination page. Besides reducing the size of WP:FPC, this would also make tallying votes easier, by requiring that a person place their vote as the title of the subheading (and change it if they change their mind). Then, it would even be possible to have a bot tally the votes and remove the losing candidates. 
One problem with this would be that we couldn't see others comments before voting. This would be remedied by allowing comments and discussion to remain visible, while hiding the final vote tally.
Can anyone think of any other positive/negatives for this change? Please add to the list below. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-30 01:01
*Positives:
*#Allow user to vote without bias (unless he cheats and skips ahead to see the tally).
*#Reduce file size and load on WP:FPC
*#Make tallying easier by just counting number in Table of Contents.
*#Allow bots to tally for us and make other previously unavailable changes.
*Negatives
*#
*#
*#
Comments
*Do you really think sheep voting is that much of a problem that it needs solving? I confess I can see good and bad in it, though neither are for functional (ie, would improve WP) reasons. I'd quite like voting blind for the suspense in waiting to see whether I was with the majority or not ("wow! I'm the only one who voted against? I must be weird...") But I quite like voting after seeing the comments too, because sometimes I'm directed to look for something I might otherwise have missed. --bodnotbod 17:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible change to layout

message: Kurando-san warning!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower has no signed date. --Kurando-san 02:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower]] 

message: Kurando-san warning!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower has no signed date. --Kurando-san 02:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower]] 

message: Kurando-san warning!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower has no signed date. --Kurando-san 02:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mahdi follower]] 

message: If you look down the botton of the november arcive, you'll notice a problem with the formatting of the Fort Griswold header. I have no idea what is wrong here: as far as I can tell the header on the sub-page is exactly the same as any other that I've checked. Could someone please help here? Raven4x4x 07:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Apperently fixed by User:Cryptic on the 10 November 2005. -- Solipsist 12:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates/November-2005|November Archive]] problem with [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Fort Griswold|Fort Griswold]] 

message: I understand that some people feel quite strongly about getting rid of the 2 day commenting period, but I am quite disturbed at the recent spate of unilateral instruction changes, e.g. . Can't we all discuss things first here before going off on your own tangent? Enochlau 15:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that we are discussing possible changes and Raven4x4x just made his/her first comment makes me think that change is a bit hasty. What's the point of a "comments" period if they are allowed to vote? Wouldn't it be more efficient to get rid of it all together (if nothing else it would reduce the archive bot's work) Broken S 20:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Is there any part of that edit that does not accurately describe the current state of things? If so, edit it (that's still how we do things on Wikipedia, isn't it?), and please tell me what part of it is "unilateral". I think it leaves plenty of space for both "sides" of the discussion. I was trying to find whatever common ground exists at the moment – something the previous version didn't do very well (I'd call it "unilateral"). — David Remahl 20:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Writing policy on Wikipedia is often simply a question of documenting current practice. In the long run this tends to produce more stable policy than dictating something which is clearly not being followed and may be difficult to follow. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed (with Haukurth), however the changes don't just describe the state of things today. David wrote, for example, "As on any other page, editing other users' comments (especially to remove votes) is considered severely bad form." Whether or not that opinion is best, that certainly isn't today's state of the page. People often strike votes when they are made too early. I'm not disagreeing with the change per se but the fact that it was made while discussion was still active (it seems to me that we are getting somewhere- whether it's removing the section, switching to peer review or doing nothing). I also find your comment that "previous reverter [Me] has not motivated his/her revert" unusual since I think my comments (above) show my opnion on the subject. Broken S 22:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Re your last sentence, the diff that Enochlau points to is old. We've already discussed the misunderstanding about either of us not explaining it on both our talk pages. Now, I stand by that editing other users' comments is a practically universal taboo on Wikipedia. The "remove ad hominem attacks" guideline allows single words or possibly a sentence to be edited out, but that is fairly controversial (as the guideline page says). Not even bad, bad faith votes on AfD are deleted, stricken or edited. The taboo even extends to editing one's own comments (which is why strike-outs are used). Why should FPC deviate on this point? The reason it _does_ in practice is because of the previous wording which endorsed it. — David Remahl 22:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But in most cases (note user has no extensively viewed histories of FPCs) people just strike out the vote and then unstrike it for them later. The votes aren't being "removed" or deleted wholesale (which certainly is a taboo). I don't think that the WP:NPA or WP:RPA policies are particularly relevant here. These changes are certainly non-malicious. The reason that other policies may be controversial because exactly what a "personal attack" is, is vague.  The reason editing your comments is discouraged is because it can confuse talk pages and make it look like you always believed something when in fact you didn't. Broken S 22:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I still don't think it is acceptable for anyone (whether part of a minority or a majority) to ban someone from expressing a particular opinion on a project page. I think we have at least established that there is no consensus in favor of that practice. Just to clarify, I didn't mean to make a direct comparison between FPC and RPA; just to emphasize that editing comments is controversial even in the most extreme cases. Another example is that many people discourage and avoid fixing trivial typos in other people's comments, to avoid misunderstandings (I think that is unnecessarily cautious.) — David Remahl 23:12, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unilateral changes 

message: While everyone is actually looking at this page, might I recommend a change I have been thinking about recently. Calling the page "Featured picture candidates" seems to restrictive. It seems to exclude diagrams and animations (which are images but not necessarily pictures). Then I thought why not change the name to be even more inclusive. I propose, "Featured file candidates" or maybe "Featured media candidates". More and more we are getting sound and video files and I think we should accommodate them here.  The only reason I could see to oppose this is that people would want other forms of media on a seperate page (Featured sound candidates, Featured video candidates). That might be best, but I'd reccomend starting them here and moving them over if we get enough nominations. Thoughts? Broken S 22:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Great idea! I like "Featured media candidates" the best. "File" is too ambiguous / vague. I think you're right in that a split along media-type lines is premature. — David Remahl 23:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  It sounds like a good idea, but you might want to contact people active in the sound department and see whether they're happy about it. And I like "media" more, "file" could be anything. Enochlau 08:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page rename

message: User:Gmaxwell raises some good issues about not necessarily wanting people to edit the photos he contributes. In the past we have seen some excellent examples on how collaborative editing and suggestions for other editors have improved nominations greatly, especially with diagrams (. Collaboration is the cornerstone of Wikipedia and in general all the copyleft licenses we use here freely allow anyone to modify any photo or diagram that has been contributed.
However, one of the fundamental differences between Featured Pictures and Featured Articles is that editors tend to have more personal investment in the pictures they contribute. As Gmaxwell says, if you've gone to great lengths to make sure that your photo is just right, you don't necessarily want people to muck around with it. I've also seen several counter examples where third party editing of a photo has annoyed an editor so much that they have tried to delete every picture they've ever added and abandoned editing ever again.
In general I think we should encourage collaborative editing, but perhaps it would also be a good idea to design a small "please don't muck with my illustrations" template that the original picture contributor could add to a nomination or to their user page. Or perhaps a "suggest it, but let me make the alterations" tag. -- Solipsist 09:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Some good thoughts above, but I wanted to point out that  I love collaborative editing, which is one of the reasons that I'm a huge advocate of SVGs. What I can't stand are people that do drive-bys and without putting any real work into it, come by and *insist* someone change the whitepoint or lightness/darkness of an image when they are not willing or able to colaborate on the content beyond trivial changes. It's not that I mind people making changes to my work (it's GFDL, in any case) but rather I mind people making it worse. In an article, the process is very colaborative so there is less room to have pride in ownership and shame in failure, but the same is often not true with illustrations. I think we just need to understand what is a pure matter of taste, and try to leave the bulk of the decisions related to taste to the people who did the bulk of the work.  A lot of photographers are worried about people modifying their images, but I think that the biggest part of their concerns is the same as mine. None of this is much of an issue when we are mostly talking about images people have found and uploaded,  because people simply haven't spent as much time working on them alone. Another thing that we could do to help is to get people to collaborate more from the start on photographs. For example, for the media on Bassoon I talked to the author of most of the text on exactly what she thought it needed before the camera (and microphones) even came out of their cases. Not only would I feel a little less concerned by driveby alterations, there should be less need to make them since I started out with external input. --Gmaxwell 12:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry not to paraphrase your sentiments correctly. But the basic point remains that I am aware of some people who have been upset by having a picture they took modified. I'm totally open as to whether a 'please don't touch' tag is a good idea. Whilst it might help prevent some people getting upset, it is also negative in helping to foster a sense of ownership which is arguably unhelpful. -- Solipsist 16:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it could contribute to misconceptions about the GFDL. The existence of the tag would lead some people to believe that there is some sort of NoDerivs variant of the GFDL. It's obviously a problem if the quality of the media degrades, but the solution isn't to prevent editing but to make it easy, ala the wiki model. — David Remahl 18:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I too wouldn't support a don't edit this tag, it creates the wrong impression. Rather we should just make an effort in the community to discourage people from insisting over some minor question of taste when the people who did 99.9% of the work disagree. It's important we can insist on points of usefulness, style, and consistency and make those corrections where needed. But that shouldn't be a free pass to demand a photographer modify his image to look slightly better on your broken monitor when it makes it look worse on his calibrated sRGB device, or demand an audio person highpass out the LF rumble that drives your incorrectly configured tiny speakers into producing IMD, when the creator(s) of the content believe it to be better with the low end intact. --Gmaxwell 21:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: People shouldn't submit files/content if they don't want people to edit it. If a change is made that makes it worse then it won't be used. Broken S 20:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is an oversimplification which I believe to be incorrect. Some changes are easy to measure in an objective manner, I believe that for these changes you are correct in that we will not use an altered version which reduces the quality. However, some changes are highly subjective, simply a matter of taste, and are trivia which we would not even bother making recommendations over in our style guide. For these matters the decision on if the modified version is used depends on what collection of editors happens to be around... The original version is at an inherent disadvantage because we like to see 'collaboration' (even when it takes the form of trivial mucking with something that's already pretty good) and since there is little to no objective argument that can be made against the changes the original contributors end up looking whiny and overprotective if they object.  To prevent the feelings being hurt of people who do all the work to create such content by people who just want to feel important by exerting influence over the finished product, but whom don't create any themselves, we should avoid arguing over such maters of trivia and taste when there is no objective criteria to support the argument, instead deferring to the judgment of the people who did the actual work.  This doesn't require a "don't edit notice", but only a culture which is aware of the feelings who put in large amounts of work, and an intolerance for people who only come around to 'lay their thumbprint', as the Germans call it, over trivial matters rather than working to actually improve our content. I don't think this is special for media either, but it's more of an issue because there are more subjective issues and there is usually less collaboration. --Gmaxwell 21:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture editing 

message: Discussion seems to have stalled. Here is my compromise which I feel is acceptable to all:
*Picture peer review is used for anyone who wants it
*Pictures that have been through peer review can skip the 2 day discussion period
*The "no vote" section is changed to the "voting is highly discouraged section" where votes aren't stricken but comments should be left indicating that they shouldn't be there
*Votes/Comments concerning issues that have been addressed should be ignored when it is decision time (preferably they should be notified that their comment has been addressed so they can revise their vote).
*It is recommended that people not just write "oppose" or "support" but provide explanations of why.
*No template saying "please don't mess with my pictures" should be created or used, but people may, of course, leave such a message on the nomination page 
Thoughts? Correlaries? Broken S 03:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly comments should be left below votes once concerns are dealt with, that way the closing editor knows and if the vote is solely based on concerns that have been dealt with then the closing editor can disregard the vote at his/her discretion. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 03:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that is a reasonable compromise of the position to date. We'll wait a little while, and if no one else writes here, we should perhaps drop a note to the other regulars and see what they think? Or do these changes need to be taken to a more public place, like the Village Pump or something? Enochlau 04:31, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I would like to fully endorse all of Solipsist's positions here. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 13:40, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Me to!!!11! :-). Broken's well-rounded points, with the adjustments that Solipsist suggests, are exactly what I'd like to see. — David Remahl 14:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the reminder on the bot needing changing. I had thought of it, but was waiting for concensus here before changing procedures. -- Solipsist 08:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: BrokenSegue's compromise

message: Kurando-san error!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Wailua Falls could not be parsed properly. --Kurando-san 02:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Wailua Falls]] 

message: Do you guys think that this image...Link is a FPC?. Should I nominate it?
:Pictures have to be illustrating an article to be a FPC. Also pelase sign your messsages by typing "MZMcBride (talk) 13:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Its an unusual and interesting picture, so it could be worth a try. It seems to be illustrating  Volkswagen Beetle and Jardin botanique de Montréal, but I am not sure it is the best illustration for these topics. At a guess, the car no longer goes, otherwise it might have been a good illustration for art car. -- Solipsist 11:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote for Pedro

message: Just a reminder to everyone that all votes must be placed above the "additional votes go above this line" and "br style="clear:both;"" lines. If you don't it really can break the formatting of the page, see here for an example. Raven4x4x 03:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Place all votes above this line" 

message: Kurando-san error!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lava Cascade could not be parsed properly. --Kurando-san 02:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lava Cascade]] 

message: Kurando-san error!  Subpage Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Forest Fire could not be parsed properly. --Kurando-san 02:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Forest Fire]] 

message: You'll notice here that the bot has moved the Felix the Cat nomination to the end of voting section despite it only being nominated yesterday. This is because the bot reads the very first date on the page and takes this as the nomination date, but in this case this is the date of image creation. I've got an idea on how to stop this from occuring, and I've asked AllyUnion (who maintains the bot) whether it will work, but for now I've just stuck the nomination date at the top of the page. Until I implement my idea, please make sure that the nomination date is the very first date on the page or the bot will be confused. Thanks. Raven4x4x 03:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Felix the Cat| Felix the Cat ]] and nomination dates 

message: A discussion has opened about whether the Picture of the Day should continue to include the photo credit line. Since it probably affects many editors here, please consider airing your views at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day#Please: let's discuss refraining from crediting names. -- Solipsist 07:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should POTD include a credit line 

message: There's a javascript tool I wrote, User:Zocky/Picture Popups, that makes this page much nicer to read. Zocky 04:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shameless plug 

message: I have removed the two period nomination area... some of the page still needs to be updated.  The bot has been changed to reflect this, and will only be moving nominations older than 14 days to bottom section. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any reason the two-day nomination period was removed other than the bot being down, or did I miss a discussion somewhere? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#BrokenSegue.27s_compromise (discussion higher up on the page). People didn't like it apparently. Broken S 22:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two period nomination has been removed 

message: Aren't they on the Main Page for a day?  I don't see it there anymore.. ? Drumguy8800 00:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are featured pictures shown..? 

message: A quick point of order: I see quite a few people using a template in their personal namespace to add a little pic and their Support vote.  I've had a look at the template pages and it seems most are neither substituted nor protected.  This leaves your template page a wide open target for vandals who only have to edit that one page and add a rude pic, for example, to vandalize hundreds of pages with a single edit.
Would everyone using a template please either (1) get an admin to protect the page, or (2) use the  method of adding their vote?  The second is much preferable - if you use  instead of just  it not only means that your votes won't all change if the template is altered, it removes the opportunity for mass vandalism. And it reduces the server drain.  If you make a change to your templates as they are now, every single page you have voted on has to be re-cached!
Cheers all ~ Veledan • Talk 18:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal templates for voting