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international

What is the current policy (recommendations) for making images usable for other Wikipedias ? Leaving out descriptions, lettering, captions etc that would help immensely other Wikipedias use them.
Is it at all possible to have editable images apart from SVG (which we don't support yet) ?
See Wikipedia:Embassy for in a way successful story of sharing an image between international Wikipedias.
Kpjas 07:30 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

it's a good idea to avoid text in an image if possible. If text is essential, keep a source version without the text, as someone from another language site might want to make their own version -- see for example Image:Europeanunion-med.png -- Tarquin 07:55 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Transparency

Are there any examples of two images overlayed with CSS, perhaps a photo covered with labels, as suggested in the policy?

If that's possible, (i don't know much CSS), would it be alright to use a GIF for the overlay, as IE5 doesn't support PNG transparency. Thanks Tristanb 03:26 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

IE5 supports transparency in indexed PNGs in exactly the same way as in GIFs (which only comes in indexed flavour anyway), so I don't see the problem. branko

Oh, didn't know it supported transparency for 8-bit PNGs. I assumed if it couldn't do one, it couldn't do the other. Anyway, I read somewhere that it's not possible to do an overlay like that with wikipedia. I'll wait til SVG is mainstream :-D. tb 09:45, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is there a standard for transparency for diagrams? For instance, I make electronics diagrams for some pages, and I think I will start making the white PNG backgrounds transparent. This is not terribly necessary, but it seems in keeping with what transparency was designed for (they will show up with yellow backgrounds on meta pages, etc.) is this bad or good? Why don't TeX equations have transparent (white) backgrounds? - Omegatron

Size issues

Why so small? I have a diagram that I made that's 362px wide, and there's really no way to shrink it without either rendering the text labels illegible or having them take over the whole image. I don't think it's too big from a page-layout perspective, even for a 640-px-wide screen. And don't even bring up the size issue; it's 4.53 KB. -Smack 02:28 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You can have images wider than 300 px in articles - just center them and don't have text flow around them. --mav 05:31 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Linking to http://burnallgifs.org/#software for the request to convert .gifs to .pngs may be useful. People need to be warned against using .mngs though.

I disagree with the recommended thumbnail sizes, 150 or 200 seems unnecessarily small. Even if that's the only available size, a graphics editor can upsize to, say, 300 pixels, with trivial loss of quality. I find 300 pixels the ideal width (with 750 pixels width for any bigger version) for a landscape format pic, and 250 pixels width (with 500 pixels width for any larger version) for a portrait format pic. They allow text to flow down the side of the image even on an 800 by 600 screen. (I do not think we should make our pic sizes suit a 640 by 480 screen). Am I allowed to change the advice accordingly?

Note: the 500 and 750 values are chosen so that the reader does not have scroll his screen much, I find having to scroll a lot to view all of a pic is irritating.
Adrian Pingstone 14:06 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've been going towards 300px in practice too, although I noticed at poppy mallow that a 300px image makes the taxobox too wide, I'll probably replace with a smaller image. I've been doing large images between 600-750px, poorer images don't always do well with the 750px size. Stan 14:18 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Additional idea: if you're going to make a smaller one for the taxobox, instead of calling it "Image:Poppy_mallow.small.jpg" or "Image:Poppy_mallow.thmb.jpg" or something like that, make three versions: the full size, a small size in case it's ever wanted in an article body, and a "Image:Poppy_mallow.taxo.jpg" or something like that, sized for the taxobox. I wouldn't want to see the taxobox-sized and full-sized versions being the only options. -- John Owens 23:27 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Some people browse the web from mobile devices with limited screen resolutions. Some people are still stuck with 640x480 or 800x600 screens. Some people browse the web with non-maximised windows. The current recommendation for floating images is 150->250... I suppose I could live with increasing that to 200->300, but it might be quite controversial. Wait a bit before updating it.
For non-floating images, I'd recommend 450->600. Larger than 600 will pagewiden on an 800x600 screen, which is bad. Martin 14:42 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
And some people don't have web browsing capabilities at all! How can we cater to them?
There's going to be a cut-off line somewhere, no matter what.
We cater to people without internet access or web browsing capabilities by licensing our content under the GFDL, so a friend can give them a CD with a TomeRaider download on it, for example, or print off a copy. What, that was a rhetorical question? ;-)
If an image is too large it completely screws up the layout for people with small browser windows. If an image is too small... it's not actually a major problem, especially when we provide a link to a larger version anyway. Hence, I'd rather bias in the direction of too small rather than too big... Martin
I was going to add an unrelated suggestion (v.i.), but even before I came to the Talk: page here, I looked at the Wikipedia: page, saw rule of thumb #4, and thought, "I'm going to add a suggestion that the range be upped to 300." Now I see Adrian beat me to it, but I'll certainly throw in my support. -- John Owens 23:27 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

In this thumbnail-making integer ratio suggestion, it should clarify whether that means aspect ratio or sizing ratio. I'm pretty sure it means sizing ratio, right? And what's the better term for that? -- John Owens 11:50 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I suggest a system to use the same images from a language wikipedia (i.e. wikipedia in french, in another languages, i.e. in spanish wikipedia), easily.

I assume the above comment means that images cannot be easily shared today between different language versions of Wikipedia? Samw 03:31 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think all pictures over a certain size should automatically make a thumbnail without using the thumb option. I think this would make more sense. Maybe make thumb default and have a no thumbe option.Gbleem 05:45, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also I think we should always have a large copy somewhere. Eventually what we call high rez today will be concidered low rez.

Watching images

Why does my uploaded image not show up on my watchlist? I really would like to know if someone is modifying something regarding my image. Is there a reason for it that it is not automatically on the Watchlist? Thanks, Fantasy 09:56 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Are you referring to the image or the image description page? Martin
I think the "image description page".Fantasy
Strange - I thought it did. :-( Well, you can go and fix that yourself (Wikipedia software is open source) or beg a developer on wikipedia:village pump, I guess. It's definitely a good idea :) Martin 18:09 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
A "watch this image" box for each upload would be very nice to have. I've uploaded hundreds of my own images and have yet to put them all on my watch list. --mav
Is is at all possible to watch an image or can one just watch the image description page? In the latter case uploading a new version does not show up; what remains is to watch the upload log. - Patrick 12:49, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Privacy Rights, Publicity Rights

So, in addition to Wikipedia:Copyrights, there are other issues with images of people not called out on the image use policy page.

One is privacy rights -- the rights of a subject of a photograph to control the use of their own image. Technically, these rights are usually released or waived by a model release form, but not always. Also, public figures -- most of the people we'd have in Wikipedia anyways -- have restricted privacy rights. Privacy rights end at the subject's death.

This is only true in common law countries (though even Jamaica seems an exception). As privacy rights are connected to torts (delict) it is determined by where the text is seen, not where it is published. In many civil law countries privacy rights survived death and are heritable property. Alex756 01:17, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Another is publicity rights -- the rights of a person to control how their likeness is used to endorse a product. With some rare exceptions, it's not OK to use a public person's photograph to endorse something without their permission. Publicity rights do not end at death -- the estates of many famous dead people still manage their image. This shouldn't matter to Wikipedia too much, but it probably would matter for commercial downstream users of GFDL'd images.

There's a nice outline of these issues here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/copothr.html

Neither of these fields is as well established as copyright, and there's a patchwork of federal and state laws regarding them. But it's probably good to note them on the image policy page. -- ESP 19:34 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In the case of publicity rights, I don't think there's a problem. Sub-licensees can't use images of people to defame the subject, nor can they use them in breach of the subject's publicity rights. I don't think that dents our claim to be open content. Martin 20:47 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump.

Too big!

I keep seeing pics whose filesize is stupidly huge -- eg . Should we make a page of Wikipedia:Images to be resized? -- Tarquin 08:42, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure. How about Wikipedia:Images that need work to be a bit more generic... resizing, quality adjusting, I can think of a couple other things. -- Jake 08:47, 2003 Sep 15 (UTC)
While there certainly are some insanely huge image files, that doesn't strike me as one of them. It's a rather nice pixel size; 90k is a bit bigger byte-wise than it needs to be but not insane, and resaving it as JPEG should solve that nicely. --Brion 08:49, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)
True enough. And at 8/12 JPEG quality (by Photoshop's scale), it's 40k. How's that? -- Jake 08:55, 2003 Sep 15 (UTC)

images needing attention? Martin

Image size again

Although I personally prefer 300px for image width, I also have a 1200px screen; when I squish a browser window down to see how the "other half" :-) lives, the text flow can get pretty mangled. Is there something tricky that could be done for image markup, perhaps to switch off text flow on narrow displays? We want to encourage Wikipedia use on small devices (a portable encyclopedia!) but we don't want to compromise appearance on the desktop either, and small images simply look feeble. Stan 16:25, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump:

Animated GIFs

I have an animation program which takes images and creates an animated .gif. In some articles, there has been a great deal of argument about which images to include. Is there any objection to have an animated image which displays a different picture every X seconds? LirQ

What happens when someone goes to print the page? CGS 17:05, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC).
I think it will just show the first frame of the animation. Angela 17:10, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
That's right, the first frame of the animation. Why would we want this type of image, LirQ? Any examples of where this would actually be beneficial? - user:zanimum
Yeah... I know that. I mean what will happen to the article when it looses the animation. If the article talks about what happens in subsequent frames it won't work well when printed. I know Wikipedia is not paper, but it is sometimes vieiwed on paper, and that is a perfectly valid way of viewing the web, and we should support it. CGS 17:43, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC).
There is an example of this here: Animation. Personally, if it helps convey the information provided in the article, I think it should be added. If it is just for show (i.e. window dressing), it should be left out. Just my $.02. —Frecklefoot 17:53, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
That page is a perfect example of something I've been wondering about: Why don't those GIFs have alt text? With alt text, wouldn't printed pages be a little bit better? Paige 19:34, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Why not just show all the pictures separately, or is that too simple for you? Pete 19:08, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Such an animation would allow their to be more than one picture shown in the space where only one picture currently is. On an ever growing list of articles, pictures are being deleted because there "isnt room for them" -- although, I personally believe there is plenty of room. (im thinking primarily of photos of persons) LirQ

I would prefer to just have the images, rather than having a series of animated images, which I think would be distracting. You can also use media: links, as used on Rachel Corrie. Martin 19:52, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
If you just want to create a slideshow then definitely not. It's tacky, won't print, and not user friendly (they have to wait to see the images and can't save a single image (frame)). CGS 19:56, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC).
I still stick to my original opinion, but want to clarify. If you just want to create a slide show, say of different photos of an actor, then no, I don't think that is a good use of animated GIFs. On the other hand, if it actually aids in explaining a topic, I think it is definitely worthwhile (once again, I point to Animation). This is one vital feature we have over print tomes, we can show animation. When it helps explain a subject, it should definitely be used. If it is included solely as window dressing or to cycle through largely unrelated frames, I think they should be discouraged. Lets not make one ZT rule that inhibits the value of the pedia. —Frecklefoot 20:07, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, if we don't use an animated gif, and people complain that there are "too many pictures"; then, we wind up not showing the images at all -- and I think thats far more tacky. LirQ

As Martin said, just put media: links to extra pictures. And I don't think "there isn't room" is a good reason to delete photos. I hope people aren't doing that. If Wikipedia needs anything, it's more pictures. I can see the possible future benefit of having "gallery" pages that are collections of photos from a group of related pages, and then provide a javascript or similar interface for flipping through them. -- Nohat 20:49, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I've never heard of anyone complaining that the 'pedia has "too many pictures." If anything, Wikipedia has a dearth of images! I don't think creating a rotating slide show of pictures is a good use of animated GIFs. As Nohat says above, a link to extra pictures is a good solution for an overabundance of images: those interested can surf to them, those not interested need not bother. I still think there are good uses for animated GIFs, but a rotating slide show isn't one of them. (Just MHO). —Frecklefoot 20:57, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Can this conversation be deleted now please? It's pretty obvious that this is a troll on the part of the original questioner. The idea that anyone has been saying "there isn't enough room" is a joke. If needed we can add a short para somewhere... "Animated GIFs are acceptable where animation is integral to the article. See animation for an example. Otherwise such animations should be discouraged as they do not transfer to paper, a probable future medium for Wikipedia." Pete 21:19, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
All those who've contributed to this discussion might enjoy looking at an animated GIF I put on Wikipedia a few months ago: Spring (device)
Adrian Pingstone 21:25, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

For the record, and in reply to Pete and Frecklefoot, there have been a few complaints that certain Wikipedia articles have too many pictures. Not common, though: most articles have a shortage. Martin 17:24, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Separation of concerns

I spun off the markup section, because I didn't want to duplicate the markup gallery (which is good!), and because this page is already pretty big! I ought to refactor all that old image copyright discussion though. Hah, some day. Martin 21:55, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Image organization

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump/March 2003 archive 4 on Tuesday, November 4th, 02003.

Hi! A question for everyone ..... does it look best, if an article has two pictures, to put them:
One on the right and one on the left - see Airbus A380
Both left - see Amber
Both right - see Avro Vulcan
I just can't decide.
Thanks -- Adrian Pingstone 09:41 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

IMO, one on the right and one on the left. The variation gives more interest to the layout -- sannse 09:45 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)
I agree. But just make sure they are not too close to each other -- otherwise they will sqeeze the text between them at lower resolution screens. --mav

Proposal for Image Use Policy regarding Corporate Logos

User:JamesDay put me up to this. I'm have no special expertise in IP law, I'm a Wikipedia newbie, etc. See Wikipedia_talk:Logos for background.

(moved to Wikipedia:Logos see below)

Whaddaya think? Dpbsmith 22:16, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've moved your proposed version to Wikipedia:Logos and invited people to chop your proposal to pieces (ducking). Actually, just to give feedback and propose changes, as is usual here...:) Thanks for being brave with the first cut of this! Jamesday 20:15, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

YACQ

Apologies in advance for I am sure this question has been answered before but I can't find the answer in the Wikipedia:Copyrights jungle: I have a book (published 2001) that contains photos taken around 1900. The photos were published in other books and journals around that time. Can I therefore scan copies of the photos from the modern book and upload them as public domain photos? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:33, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No answer. More questions. This question has often occurred to me as well, and not just in the context of images. (For example, H. G. Wells' interesting book Ancipations, his only nonfiction piece of futurism, is not AFAIK available on the Net (e.g. from Project Gutenberg). But Dover Publications recently reprinted it. Would it be OK for me to scan it in from the reprint?) I don't know. I suspect the question is iffy. It may explain why publishers are so fond of unnecessarily bringing spelling and grammar "into conformance with modern usage."
See Feist v. Rural and the West cases there. I think it's the Bender case there which gave an example of a work with thousands of corrections not being enough to give the new work a copyright. This is not legal advice but if it's in the public domain, go ahead and scan it and you will not be infringing copyright. Jamesday 19:51, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The partial answer is that derivative works can be copyrighted, but I'd assume that in such cases the publisher would make an explicit copyright claim on the copyright page. Does retouching or cleaning up or restoring a photograph create a derivative work?
No... BUT if it fills in completely absent data with guesses, opinion and analysis, rather than being simply restoration, that portion may be copyrightable. Remember that copyright rewards creativity, not hard work, in US law. The creative portion may be copyrighted even if the rest isn't. Again, this is not legal advice. :) Jamesday 19:51, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Another partial answer is that there is such a thing as a "collection copyright." It applies to things such as poetry anthologies. Let's suppose we have an anthology all of whose contents are older than 1900, so each individual poem is clearly in the public domain. Copying one of them, then, is OK. But if you produce a copy of the whole collection, with the same poems in the same order, it isn't. Only an expert would know where to draw the line in between.
Compilation copyrights are valid but they cover selection so only significant selecting can create one, not a collection of, say, all of the work of one author in chronological order, which is obvious and shows no selectivity at all. This is one of the issues covered in Bender, referenced above. So, take a little care if some meaningful selection has happened, but absent that, just go ahead and use the works, but not any newly created text or original photography created anew for the compilation. legal advice disclaimer goes here:) Jamesday 19:51, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
With regard to your book, then, at the very least you need to be careful about how many of them you upload. Uploading most or all of them could run you afoul of the collection copyright.
What, exactly, does the copyright page of your book say? Dpbsmith 16:23, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Hmm, ok, there is no generally applicable rule. As for my book. It is written by a Briton and originally published in Britain. I bought the American edition of the book whilst on holiday in Canada, and took it back to Britain. The main copyright notice is (C) 2001 All rights reserved., as you'd expect. In the Picture sources section in the bibliography there are the sources for all the paintings and photos printed. They say things like ' The Carnival On The Ice (C) Royal Geographical Society London' , or ' Andre's Balloon (1 January 1897) (C) Royal Geographical Society London'. Now the Royal Geographical Society existed then and it exists now but also there are things like ' Henry Grinnell 1850 (C) Author's Collection ' ... but the author was born 100 years after the painting was painted! Are more rights being asserted then allowed? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:32, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC) (p.s. thanks for your help!)
I'm way out of my depth. a) NOTHING about intellectual property is clear. Indeed, some conspiracy theorists including myself think this is deliberate. b) Laws vary from country to country. Significantly. c) What's protected in one country may not be in another. For example, Project Gutenberg Australia has available a number of works which are still under copyright in the U. S. but not in Australia. They're on the net, and there's nothing to prevent me from downloading them, but since I live in the U. S. I am infringing the copyright if I do. d) There's this "fair use" business, and it's very vague and mysterious. What it says is about text is that you can quote short passages for review. I don't know what the story is on images. Common sense says that a sufficiently small, sufficiently bad reproduction of a picture for use in an encyclopedia article is probably fair use. e) Everything about any particular question involving intellectual property seems to be debatable, and the only place debates can really get settled is in a court of law. f) You can always try contacting the Royal Geographical Society, explaining carefully what Wikipedia is, AND EXPLAINING CAREFULLY that you are talking about, say, reduced versions that would be less than 400 x 300 pixels (or whatever). In my experience, particularly in dealing with a nonprofit, there's probably about a 50% chance that you'll get a useful reply and may actually get permission. (The disadvantage of asking is what it does to your perceived range of options if they say "no.") Dpbsmith 11:00, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, those are clearly out of copyright in US law, so they are fine for use in the English Wikipedia. It's very likely that the copyright law of other countries agrees on this point, with the time when works entered the public domain being the main factor. We don't yet have the article on this but this is an entry from the List of leading legal cases in copyright law which covers this general issue: "Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation, 36 F. Supp. 2d 191, US SDNY (1999) photograph of public domain work is not original([1])". Please see how I handled this question in Image:Devonport Dockyard in 1909 plan.png and the images related to it and completely describe how it came to be and what you did, to make it easy for others to verify the status of the work. There's no need to be shy in saying where you got a public domain image from - it's your and our right to use it regardless of the proximate source. And yes, the author is claiming rights the author doesn't posess. Nothing remotely unusual in that. Part of the philosophy of the GFDL is an attempt to stop that bogus claiming of copyrights on works which are free to use. Note the caution above about compilation copyright and using most of the images in the book, though. Jamesday 19:51, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)


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