Commons talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 22

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SPAM

I understand a number of users have received SPAM from User:FossickPictures. The email offers to act as an agent in pursuing legal claims against commercial users of your photographs. The sender of the email claims to have "published lots of photos no Wikipedia under CC licences", though the account sending the email has no contributions or uploads. SPAM is not permitted under the Terms of Use, so I have issued the user with a warning and raised concern at AN/U.

Needless to say, you should exercise caution responding to unsolicited emails, especially where a financial transaction may be involved. Anyone considering making use of such a legal agent facility should first compare with other options in the market, and be aware of any restrictions this imposes on what you can do with your work. -- Colin (talk) 12:49, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

 Comment I didn't receive any mail, but the account should be blocked indef. Obviously not here to contribute to Wikimedia Commons. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:53, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Cleaning up FP gallery /Places and a new gallery, Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Agriculture

Since there has been talk about converting Commons:Featured pictures/Places to a strictly administrative FP category and move the photos to a new space called /Places/Other, I took a look at it to see if it needed cleaning up. And yes, it did/does. It was/is full of files that was also in another Gallery and it has a lot of photos that are better off in other galleries. Starting the cleanup, I saw that many photo were of subjects related to agriculture, there were also a good deal of these photos misplaced into the /Natural gallery. So now we have a new FP category for crop fields, vineyards, farms, rice paddies, etc.: Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Agriculture. I might have missed some photos somewhere, so if you know you have FPs related to agriculture, please check them out. Christian Ferrer, I hope I got all the coding right on the Commons:Featured pictures, list page, could you please check it out just to be sure. The cleanup of /Places will continue. --Cart (talk) 05:15, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. I think however File:Javier shows part of the grape harvest in his Lysekil vineyard 1 - cropped.jpg is a detailed view and is better placed in Food and drink. --A.Savin 07:37, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Ok, if you think so. I was going by that it was taken during harvest. --Cart (talk) 09:38, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that is a good idea, I'll keep it in mind as I sort through /Places and see what is left. --Cart (talk) 11:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

FP categories

Colin has suggested I start a discussion (but see above) to change FP guidelines. I suggest we add a requirement that nominators specify the most specific category available. So Animals/Birds would not not enough. You must specify the family. Most current noms are OK, but for instance, Places should specify the country (and add a new country if necessary) (Pudelek). Sports should specify the sub-category (in this case Individual sports) (Granada). Places/Architecture/Religious buildings (Llez), ( Cmao20) and Places/Architecture/Towers (Poco2) should specify country. See also Objects (Moroder), (Gzzz). Objects/Vehicles/Water transport should have been in sports. (Don). Historical should specify period (KennyOMG) Charles (talk) 10:00, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

FYI, the "(but see above)" refers to Charles's suggestion that reviewers be asked to check the categories. It follows that this can't be done unless the nominator helps by using a link to the FP page and an anchor to the relevant section on the page. We should be comparing a stork photo with other storks, a rose with other roses, etc. Simply saying "Birds" isn't specific enough to be helpful: I can see it is a bird. It has been suggested that it isn't easy for nominators to work out what page/group to use. For example with Places, do I pick a country or Interiors. Perhaps we can write more helpful guidance. Does the country really matter for reviewing -- though it certainly helps the admins to insert the photo into the right place. I think we should request nominators be as specific as possible. Reviewers have always been helpful in tweaking/improving such links, though this discussion was brought about by one nominator failing to provide a correct or functional link for any of their 15 FPC nominations. -- Colin (talk) 10:14, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
To ilustrate the difficulties a Newbie might face, I am currently struggling to work out how to choose the correct category for Family : Scarabaeidae. Charles (talk) 11:51, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
To clarify, Colin anyone can sort the FPs into the right categories, not just admins. A lot of the users who help sorting all the promoted files are not admins. Having sorted so many /Places/Natural, I would gladly welcome more specific destinations for the files. It can be a bit of detective work to go back through the normal categories, if only the name of a mountain, village, river, etc. is in the file name or description. For some countries even the county/state/region/district should also be added. I would also encourage users to sort their own FP into the right categories both in the galleries and in the FP categories. Some users do so, others not. I usually sort a bunch of those I come across in the same gallery/category when I get a new promoted photo, like this. --Cart (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Is the subsection relevant for the bot? AFAIK, the FPCbot always puts the recently promoted FP's to the "unsorted", so it actually doesn't matter if I write "Places/Interiors" or "Places/Interiors#Russia" on the top of a nomination, and anyone who wishes to help sorting the pictures to relevant sections simply may have a look at file description + categories to find the right country/state/region. --A.Savin 13:29, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
After promotion, it's the same for the bot, but while nominated, as Charles explains, it helps the reviewers to compare immediately with the previous similar FPs, because the link is accurate. Sometimes also for animals it is necessary to find on Wikipedia which family it belongs to, before sorting the picture manually. If it was done earlier by the nominator, it would help the users doing this maintenance. Then I support the proposal -- Basile Morin (talk) 13:47, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
  • A.Savin, the Bot can only follow the /'s in a gallery address. Anything after the # is for the voters to find and compare with other photos and for the user who sorts the gallery and/or perhaps adds FP categories to it. It is helpful to have it there in the nom since not all files have good descriptions or are completely categorized. --Cart (talk) 15:33, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I wish there was a word for "someone performing an administrative action on the FP nominations and winners" and the official title of "admin" on Commons. The categories were discussed a bit in May, and if they are going to be insisted upon in a nomination (as they are, from time to time), then it is fair to try to address any complaint that it is unclear/confusing what category to pick. However, I don't buy the complaint that category confusion is the reason why User:Fischer.H can't be bothered to get it right 15 times in a row. The fix here shows that it is the anchor syntax that was wrong. I don't know if there is a way we can add a button to each section that generates the appropriate wikilink to itself? There is a difference between "may confuse a newbie" and "can't be bothered to get it right even after 15 attempts and help from others". Still, there will always be people who can't be bothered, so if we can make it easier/simpler then that helps everyone. -- Colin (talk) 13:33, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Just to give my two cents, it seems sensible that, when nominating an image of a landscape or architecture, we should specify the country in the category name. I shall make sure to do that in my future nominations. The same, I guess, goes for 'birds' and other wildlife categories. I shall also go through the unsorted religious buildings photos and put them in the correct categories, as I have done a couple of times before. Cmao20 (talk) 14:26, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

We have:

I think we should clear out the Places and the Places/Architecture pages so they only contain links to the sub-pages rather than contain images themselves. -- Colin (talk) 14:40, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

If we clear out those, there need to be created Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Other (or possibly 'Mixed') and Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture/Other since I recall some queries here about where to put borderline files or files with mixed subjects. People have 'opposed' on nominations because the subject didn't fit into one single FP category (silly but true), so there have to be some sort of "slush categories" too. Up until now Places and Architecture have filled such needs. --Cart (talk) 15:42, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
I think "Other" better indicates that the photo doesn't appear in the specific sub-categories, whereas "mixed" might suggest "both". -- Colin (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, "Other" is in line with the rest of the FP galleries. I only brought up "Mixed" since it has been used in the same capacity in the QI galleries, but since those galleries are no longer functioning, I guess that description is also obsolete. --Cart (talk) 18:18, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Feels like there is a consensus to tweak the guidelines. How is that best done?
The guidelines currently say
Recommended: Please add a category from the list at COM:FP.
Can I suggest this is changed to:
Categories: Please add a category from the list at COM:FP. Please use the most specific category, for example Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Arthropods#Order_:_Coleoptera_(Beetles)#Family_:_Scarabaeidae (Scarab Beetles) Charles (talk) 09:24, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Or just "Use the most..." (removing the redundant "please" of the second sentence). It makes sense to me -- Basile Morin (talk) 09:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
  •  Info Charles that is not the correct code, you don't use more than one # when you go to subsections on a page, and you go directly to the "last" subsection. Like this: Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Arthropods#Family : Scarabaeidae (Scarab Beetles). With two or more #, the link doesn't work. Please test these links:
Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Arthropods#Order : Coleoptera (Beetles)#Family : Scarabaeidae (Scarab Beetles)
and
Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Arthropods#Family : Scarabaeidae (Scarab Beetles)
Also the underscores in 'Family_:_Scarabaeidae' are redundant', the wiki-code is done with spaces: 'Family : Scarabaeidae'. You just copy the heading. --Cart (talk) 09:45, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Now here a little problem, in a current nom (Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Koala in Zoo Duisburg.jpg), we don't have a Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Mammals#Familia : Phascolarctidae FP yet, so the best link to look at other (in this case non-existent) FPs would be to Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Mammals#Order : Diprotodontia (Diprotodonts). Now how do we deal with cases like this in the best way if we re-write the guidelines? --Cart (talk) 10:16, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the category guidelines. I said above that I didn't know how to do it! The underscores come from copying the URL. As for the koala issue: surely the nominator creates the family before doing the nomination. A similar issue occurs every week - I have to create new categories for new animal families/genus/species/subspecies. Charles (talk) 12:12, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
I don't think many nominators would create a subsection/family in the FP gallery before the nomination, that is usually done after the nom has been successful so that the subsection isn't empty. But then again, most nominators don't sort their FPs in the FP galleries at all and the photos are left in the 'Unsorted'. --Cart (talk) 12:30, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
As far I know, and unless there have been a change since, but the BOT don't move the images to specific setions (either existing or not) in the galleries, but always to the "unsorted section"s. Christian Ferrer (talk) 12:54, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's correct, that was clarified a bit futher up in this discussion. The link to a subsection is purely to make it easier for voters to compare with other FPs of that species/whatever and to make it easier for the person who sorts the FPs into the gallery to find the right subsection. --Cart (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about demanding more precise categories for the FPCs. It is really helpful if it works and all, but if experienced users (like Charles for example) can't make heads or tails of it, why should we expect less experienced users and newbies to make this right. I guess that it will only lead to more nagging on FPC about formalities when we should be focusing on the pictures. We can try to make the FP categorization as good as we can and hope others will follow our example, but not write it into the guidelines. Thoughts? --Cart (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

That's not about "nagging" anyone, just making things easier for the reviewers. If someone fails, just fix the mistake and that's done. One more line in the rules. And well, if the family doesn't exist yet, let the nominators free to add it, before (better) or after. Easy -- Basile Morin (talk) 14:28, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
As soon as something is written in the rules or guidelines, people are more inclined to quote it and try to enforce it on other users, so let's be careful about what we write there. I'm all for rules and guidelines that make things easier for a majority, I'm just wondering if it will be so with this proposal, now that some problems have popped up. Not to mention that it might be raising the threshold for newbies at FPC, they have a hard time as it is. This needs to be discussed carefully before any new text is added. --Cart (talk) 16:55, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Agree we should be lenient with newbies and if the topic does not exist. With WLM UK, you can view a map of the UK and locate your listed building, then click a button to upload a photo of that building with all the category and IDs filled in. It would be nice if FP listings and sub-headings had a button on them to "Create Featured Picture Nomination" that automatically inserted the correct category. But I think we should still request it in the guidelines. I can think of some flower photos or duck photos where the subject is beautiful but we already have plenty FPs of that type of flower or duck, so we should really do better than just "Animals" or "Plants" to narrow down the group. Another suggestion is to use the {{Anchor}} template to create additional IDs, because people forget to stick "Family : " in front of their reference link. -- Colin (talk) 10:25, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't think the {{Anchor}} is a good thing to introduce in the galleries. Not many people know how they are used and the galleries should be easy to maintain for all users, even if very few actually sort their photo in the galleries. --Cart (talk) 10:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

It's probably worth dividing up some of the categories more. Having a bunch of galleries means you cn't auto-sort even if you want to. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:45, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Moving promoted FPs into the right sections

@Laitche, Hockei, Frank Schulenburg, JJ Harrison, Tomer T, Villy Fink Isaksen, Poco a poco, Chme82, Famberhorst, Axel Tschentscher, and Ermell:

Please remember that we should move promoted FPs we have nominated into the appropriate galleries. I’ve just pinging those with images in the unsorted section of Commons:Featured pictures/Animals/Birds/Passeriformes Charles (talk) 14:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

✓ Done --Villy Fink Isaksen (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
✓ Done Chme82 (talk) 18:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
✓ Done --Axel (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
✓ Done --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 02:20, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
✓ Done --Laitche (talk) 05:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Set nominations broken?

I recently made this set nomination: Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Soissons Cathedral Nave - which was successful, but now that it's passed it seems to have displayed all sorts of errors:

  • The 'Featured Picture' template is displayed on the nomination page rather than the image pages themselves, and doesn't link to the nomination.
  • The pictures themselves are lacking the gold FP star.
  • The thumbnails of the pictures are missing from the recently-promoted images gallery at Commons:Featured_pictures, with the plain text 'Featured picture candidates/Set/Soissons Cathedral Nave' in their place.

I've not seen this fault before, so I guess I'm asking, is this a known fault with set nominations, and what do I need to do to fix it?

All best, Cmao20 (talk) 15:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Nothing is broken, it's just that the FPCBot isn't designed to/can't handle set noms so it has to be done manually. Even when we tried to fix up the Bot a few months earlier, the savvy programmer could not make it work for set noms. I'll fix it for you and you can trace my edits after that. --Cart (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Fixed You can check out my most recent contributions and see what I did. Nothing is done at Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/current month since that page is later used for setting up the POTY, that only gets the text but the rest is with images. --Cart (talk) 15:29, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, that seems simple-ish. Will follow those steps in future. Cmao20 (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
W.carter, I manually fixes the entry in chronological when I copy them over to e.g. Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/2019-B each month. -- KTC (talk) 20:50, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Ok KTC thanks, I didn't know about that part. Do you want us to enter all the photos if we sort out a set nom, or do you prefer if we keep hands off that page so we don't mess it up with the numbers and all? --Cart (talk) 20:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
@W.carter: , the note on Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/current month says pick one image from the set and add a note like " - a set of X files", which is what I've been doing for several years now. No one have raised any issues with that to date. -- KTC (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Well, if it works we can follow your lead. :-) --Cart (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

FP gallery/category "/Places" is now a main category

So, I'm finally done with fixing Commons:Featured pictures/Places. It is now just a main FP category and all the files have been sorted into one new: Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Settlements and one "semi new": Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Other. /Places was so large, so it needed to be cut in two. Per suggestion one of them is 'Settlements' (or 'Human settlements') for any file that can't be sorted into /Natural or /Cityscapes; so just about any photo including a building where people are living. The /Other takes care of the rest such as airports, parks, beaches, cemeteries, roads, etc. I kept the tipi icon for the "new" /Other since I think it still works. Of course, lines are sometimes a bit blurry (like where do you put the White House) and I hope I got most of it right. Please move files into the proper gallery if you think something is misplaced. I've updated the Template:Commons FP galleries and hopefully got the Commons:Featured pictures, list right (it might be sorted in another hierarchy now...). When I have time I'll get to work with making the Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture into a top FP category. --Cart (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I think it would help to document some of your rationale in the text on each of these pages. That information would be used not only by people placing the images into place, but also when making nominations. For example, to state that "other" should only be used if one of the .... pages is not more appropriate. Are you thinking "Natural" should not include significant man-made features? -- Colin (talk) 18:06, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
So far Natural has only been used for more or less all-natural photos. Not my idea, people have just read it that way and nominated photos accordingly. I just took care of the Places situation. I'll get on adding some description in a while, I'm a bit tired right now, thanks for letting me know. --Cart (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Before splitting it, how do we want to divide Non-photographic media? It's such a catch-all... Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:20, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

It has rather good and easy to understand subsections now, but it's such a huge gallery. I actually wonder (very wild suggestion) if it wouldn't be best to simply spread it over two or three gallery pages instead like:
  • /Non-photographic media - Part 1 (or simply I) containing Animals–Interiors
  • /Non-photographic media - Part 2 (or simply II) containing Landscapes–Patterns
  • /Non-photographic media - Part 3 (or simply III) containing Portraits, drawings and lithographies–Others
Such sectioning has worked for encyclopedias for centuries so it could work here as well. Just one idea. --Cart (talk) 18:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
I'd prefer one where, at least in principle, one can sort it into the right place with no further action needed at the nomination stage. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Do you have some general idea about what that might be? A nucleus we could perhaps work from and develop further. --Cart (talk) 08:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Let's get the low-hanging fruit first:
  • Combine "Literature" and "Magazines and Newspapers" into "Literature, magazines and newspapers", and spin it off.
  • Spin off "Religion", the biggest category.
  • Spin off "Portraits", keeping the divisions if desires. Possibly add "Caricatures". One could also add "Children" "Duos" and "Groups" if there's a good name for the result "Depictions of people"?
  • Re-distribute "Still life" into other categories. It appears to not be understood, as only two items in it qualify as still lifes.
  • Astronomy is a science, so it and Science can spin off together. Alternatively, there's not that good of reasons to separate it from the photographic Astronomy category.
  • "Music and opera" and "Theatre" can be combined, I'd say, adding the subject "Film", and including all the relevant bits from "Posters". At that point, "Posters" can probably be renamed "Advertisements", with the one or two things that aren't either film/theatre/music or an advertisement being spun off.
  • Historical events might be a useful folder for a number of questionably organised images, e.g. File:John_Reynolds_death_2.jpg, File:Napoleon III after Death - Illustrated London News Jan 25 1873-2.PNG, File:StrasbourgSiege.png, and File:Official_Program_Woman_Suffrage_Procession_-_March_3,_1913.jpg, which are currently in three different categories. All these can reasonably be added to the extant Commons:Featured pictures/Historical
  • "Animals" is probably big enough for its own group. It could also be added to the photographic archives in a pinch.
  • At this point, we may be able to reasonably move much of the remaining categories to divisions of "Other". I don't see much problem dividing it up a lot, given as we have a lot more divisions for photos, y'know?- Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Good ideas and points. There are more ways of sorting non-photographic than photos since you can do it by medium/technique, subject depicted, use of and so on. That suggestion would make 'Non-photographic media' a main category without images, just like 'Places' is now. So there would be no 'spin off', it's more like a total splitting and reorganizing. Let's see if any other ideas are added to this before anything is done. --Cart (talk) 09:01, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Well, it's been a week. Shall we? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:34, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm fixing the last things on the '/Architecture' galleries, I'll get on this as soon as I'm finished there. Please be just a little bit patient. --Cart (talk) 17:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

FP gallery/category "/Places/Architecture" is now a main category

Trudging along with sorting and fixing the FP galleries/categories, the Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture is now just a main category with no pictures. A new gallery containing those file has been created: Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture/Exteriors. I went with that name instead of the usual rather boring "Other" since it was also in line with other galleries that contains "Exteriors" and "Interiors". After going through the files in that gallery and sorting out those better suited in other galleries, it isn't that big so we don't need to branch off any new sub-galleries yet. In a few years we might consider '/Architecture/Arenas' and '/Architecture/Transportation' (for both exteriors and interiors from those subjects), but that's still in the future. The only thing I was contemplating was a sub-gallery for '/Architecture/Exteriors/Germany' since we have so many avid German exterior architecture photographers. :-) Not quite sure that should be done though. Corresponding codes and templates fix, hopefully in the right way. Please let me know if I messed something up. --Cart (talk) 17:11, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me, Cart, thank you! Poco2 09:43, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
  •  Info On second thought... I remembered how many transport-related structures I had come across, spread all over the galleries. So there is now the brand new Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture/Transport for all your airports, metro stations, train station, etc. I've gone through all the galleries I could think of and gathered them there. If you want it tweaked in any further way, or if I've messed something up, please let me know or see if you can fix it yourself. I think this concludes the fixing of place related galleries for a while. I'll just catch my breath and then get on to the non-photographic gallery. --Cart (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
    Thanks. But I wonder what to do with images that fit into more than one category? Do we need a rule on which categories have higher priority? --A.Savin 02:51, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
  • So far we've always managed to find one element in a image that seems to fit best for one reason or another. I think we can continue to let common sense, file name and consensus (people usually suggest other categories if they think one is wrong) guide us. --Cart (talk) 03:06, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Diversity among the featured pictures of religious buildings

Today there are two main categories hosting FPs of religious buildings: 1) Religious buildings and 2) Interiors/Religious buildings. Since the beginning of 2019, 84 pictures have been placed in these categories by the FPCbot, 88% Christian buildings, and only 12% non-Christian buildings.

Religious buildings promoted in 2019
Christian Islamic Hindu or Buddhist Other or former religious buildings
Religious buildings ● church ● church ● church ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● church ● cathedral ● basilica ● monastery ● church ● chapel ● basilica ● church ● church ● nunnery ● church ● (former cathedral later mosque) (1) ● sanctuary ● stupa ● temple ● shrine ● shrine ● temple ● temple ● temple ● citadel
Interiors/Religious buildings ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● church ● church ● cathedral ● church ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● cathedral ● chapel ● cathedral ● cathedral ● cathedral ● basilica ● church ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● church ● church ● basilica ● church ● church ● church ● abbey ● church ● abbey ● church ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● church ● cathedral ● church ● cathedral ● church ● church ● cathedral ● church ● basilica ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● church ● cathedral ● cathedral ● mosque - -
Representation of the religion in FP 88 %
73 or 74 (1) images out of 84 		3 %
2 or 3 (1) images out of 84 		8 %
7 images out of 84 		1 %
1 image out of 84
Representation of the religion in the world (source) 31.8 % 24.4 % 21.7 % 22.0 %
(including 5.7% folk religions and 15.4% irreligion here assimilated to former religious buildings)

This year is not an exception. The disparity is also very obvious among all the pictures promoted since 2005. There are really few mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist stupas, synagogues, shamanic shrine, etc. compared to the number of churches and cathedrals.

  • 73 FPCs of Christian buildings in 260 days, that's exactly 2 FPs of Christian buildings every week (promoted only, this is without counting the revoked ones also nominated and requesting votes and attention).
  • On the opposite, 11 pictures of other religious buildings in 260 days, is equivalent to only 4 FPs of other religion every trimester.
  • Considering the Pictures of the Day are all chosen from the FP pool, it is very logic that Wikimedia displays on its main page a Christian building rather than a non-Christian one, even if other religions are clearly in majority over the planet, representing about 68.1% (including irreligion as some FPs like Pyramids or Parthenon are also included in the "religious" categories). This disproportionate distribution tend to make Wikimedia a Christian repository and Wikipedia in various languages Christian encyclopedias instead of neutral / polyreligious ones.
  • Idem for all the articles where these images can be chosen to illustrate a particular and neutral subject, between one FP of a Jain temple and seven FPs of churches, statistically it is very probable that one of the seven churches gets displayed (example, article Ceiling). Due to the recognized label, an FP has more chance than another one to be chosen and kept for a specific page. Many versions of wikipedia in various languages get their FPs directly from Commons, thus an unbalanced distribution in the quota of nominated / promoted religious materials can be a real problem for the spirit and open-mindedness -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:48, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
These are interesting statistics. Thanks for putting them together. I'm not surprised that there's disproportionate representation of Christian buildings, though a little surprised by just how stark the difference has been. It's tempting to shrug it off by saying most Commons users and most of the photography equipment good enough to make it through FPC are in parts of the world where most religious buildings are Christian. But we can do more to encourage photography of those other spots (WLM seems good for this, use some monthly photo challenges, encourage regulars to seek them out, etc.) and to keep this in mind when looking for things to nominate. Also, there are a lot of other religious buildings in Europe/America that we're clearly not documenting as well.
I am not among the FPC folks who nominate religious buildings, but it seems like there are many (church ceilings stood out to me when I first got started at FPC for how strangely common they were/are) -- curious to hear the reasons. Something about the difference in aesthetics? Accessibility? — Rhododendrites talk |  03:38, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Just to elaborate on the last bit about aesthetics: what I mean is that, for example, not only has the Catholic Church for centuries thrown massive amounts of money and influence at the creation of big, expensive, art-filled places of worship, but Christian churches in general have different kinds of things to photograph. The religious art you'd see in a mosque wouldn't (typically) include depictions of figures so people who are particularly passionate about the elaborate scenes painted on church ceilings or in stained glass wouldn't find that. That said, mosques do spectacular things with color, pattern, and other forms of decoration. This is what I mean by affected by aesthetic differences (there's a lot of art history we could get into, I suppose). — Rhododendrites talk |  14:22, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Examples of aesthetics in mosque 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, synagogue, temple 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. No problem of elegance, beauty or harmony in my view. The only trouble in my opinion is these non-Christian buildings are almost never nominated / promoted in FPC. There seems to be several free pictures downloadable in Pixabay, however. For now I mostly nominate my own works, where architecture is not particularly predominant, but yes this unbalanced distribution is really something I'd like to see changed here in the future. Thanks, Rhododendrites, for your inputs -- Basile Morin (talk) 03:37, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • "This disproportionate distribution tend to make Wikimedia a Christian repository" (→ sentence made by made by Basile Morin), I strongly disagree that this can be the conclusion of those statistics, or at least that this can be said in this way. The explanation can be with the means available to participate (access to the internet, to education in general) or with the means available to take pictures of great quality (good camera, computers, good software, ect...), or the lacks of popularity and interest for the Wikimedia projects in some countries, ect... But to say "Wikimedia a Christian repository" is entirely wrong. I'm sorry to not to take photos of the buildings the least represented in the above statistics, but I'm the last one of my family who is in good health and I have a number of responsibilities towards my family members and with my physical job. I absolutly have not the time to travel to go taking those lacking images, and since 2 or 3 years I even lacks time to take photo near my home, or I'm too tired after my duties. To contribute with my computer from home becoming the main thing that I can currently do. Being part of this project, I find it rather unpleasant that one can say "Wikimedia a Christian repository" (→ sentence made by made by Basile Morin) because it does not correspond at all with my commitment and I think with that of most people here. It's at best guilt, at worst insulting, and in all case awkward. Maybe the representation of the subjects that are illustrated is a very relevant topic, but IMO this sectarianization is not the right way to fix the problem, if ever there is one. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:35, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Oh la la. What a disaster. Well, Christian Ferrer, you know we don't need to agree on everything. This is more an essay than a court judgment, do not worry. If it's not the consequence, maybe it's the cause? And the statistics presented above would then be the result.  Question Is this assumption better / more acceptable for you that way? -- Basile Morin (talk) 06:14, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • There is an difference between statistical observation and making a complaint about diversity. We've had this before wrt sexuality (not enough naked gay men on the front page, apparently) and it reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of Commons and FPC. Commons relies on donated images from users or others who make their images free or have become free due to age. So we are not under full control of what images Commons receives. Our user-base is very very much concentrated in the rich west, in countries with a Christian tradition. For example, although there are a mere handful of mosques in the UK with elaborate exteriors worth photographing, many such mosques have plain interiors. Presumably the focus is on Allah rather than showing off one's wealth. There are about 50,000 churches in the UK and less than 2,000 mosques and 150 Hindu temples. Many of those churches were built at at time when the rich people in the UK (or the royalty) liked to show off their wealth by giving towards elaborate buildings. And this comes to FPC, which is geared towards selecting the finest images on Commons, and that is infinitely easier if the subject itself has plenty wow. So, FPC does not have diversity as its mission. The project that could claim to have that as a mission is Commons:Valued image candidates and the project that suggests new topics for our photographers to photograph is Commons:Photo challenge. Basile, you link mainly to mosques in the middle-east, and we have a lack of users there. Some of our lucky and wealthy Commoners have visited those areas, but most of us won't. It is great you are photographing buildings from an under-represented part of the world and religions but to suggest we should do something about this under-representation or arrange some quota to rebalance this is unfair and wrongheaded. Instead, let's just celebrate that we have some amazing photos of amazing buildings, and focus on the pictures as pictures. -- Colin (talk) 08:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Colin is making a comparison between this discussion and a previous one regarding sexual diversity. You made a comparison between cars or bikes and cameras in this post, so you do understand the concept of comparison/parable (similés) and how it works. --Cart (talk) 11:22, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • thanks for clarification. English is not my mother tongue, some acronyms like "wrt" are not immediately clear when I meet them for the first time. Somehow I took this "wrt" for a misspelled "wat" (see article Wat on Wikipedia, wat = temple). Thus the sentence "We've had this before wrt sexuality" really sounds like "Wat sexuality" in my first interpretation (with regards to the context of course). The main "Wat sexuality" I know displaying naked gay men or naked gay women is the wonderful Khajuraho temple in India. But for the front page, we've only got this FP. The image linked above would work with a better resolution. This picture from Pixabay is in the public domain, and so great, it should be uploaded here. With little more sharpening, perhaps it will have its chance on FPC. Gorgeous wow. And no need to travel that far, just with a clever research on Google we can improve this repository. Enjoy more diversity :-) Basile Morin (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the responses above, I guess I take this whole thread as a kind of challenge more than chiding. It's highlighting a specific instance of lack of diversity, which is a worthwhile exercise. That doesn't mean FPC or its participants are wrong or bad or culturally insensitive, doesn't mean that images of Christian buildings aren't valuable, and doesn't mean that everyone should focus on this. It just means we could use more pictures of mosques, temples, etc., so if you're traveling somewhere or have one near you that may make for a nice picture, take a look! I disagree with Basile that "The only trouble in my opinion is these non-Christian buildings are almost never nominated / promoted", since there are real logistical/cultural/technical constraints in play, as pointed out above, but I do think that for some of us it's useful to keep in mind. — Rhododendrites talk |  14:10, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

While I agree that Commons FP kind of lack diversity, I would not go as far to say it is or tends to be "a Christian repository". The fact is, that big parts of the most active Commoners are indeed from Europe and North America. One single city in Germany seems to have collected much more FPs than any country in Africa, just for example. Or, as you perhaps know, there are countries with not a single one FP, although there certainly are FP-worthy motives too. So yes, given all that it is inevitable that a majority of religious buildings' FP's are church/chapel pictures. For my part, I would love to see FP more diverse across countries and religions, but not sure if Commons community can do really much about it. Yes, travelling and taking photos is cool, but that will be only a small part of Commons' contents anyway. An excellent occasion to gain new contributors are WLM/WLE, and thanks to that I'm sure we already have improved our cultural diversity compared to what we had ~10 years ago. The important part, however, is up to local WMF chapters and communities -- they should make efforts to gain new contributors, to encourage people taking good quality pictures, to make it possible to borrow professional equipment for those who are willing to learn but cannot afford to buy it themselves. It's not self-evident: not all WMF chapters value the benefits of good photography, many don't care, even though they have the possibilities, unfortunately. --A.Savin 18:30, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I found Basile's point well taken. Your points are well taken, too: I feel like some excellent Nepali and Indian contributors have been making nominations that feature or include Hindu or Buddhist temples and other shrines. But I think Rhododendrites has it right: Seeking diversity is something to keep in the back of your mind and never an impediment to taking a great photo of a church that inspires you. I'd like to see more great photos of any motif. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:45, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

And so ... finally... "/Non-photographic media" is now a main category

Adam Cuerden and everybody. The huge Commons:Featured pictures/Non-photographic media is now divided into more manageable sub-galleries. All the nice new galleries are listed here. I've divided and sorted best I can for now, but feel free to check it out, move misplaced files, move or rename sub-sections and so on. If you are not confident in doing this, please just ask me and I'll help you. And as usual, let me know if I messed up something or fix it if you know how. Cheers, --Cart (talk) 12:12, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Again thank you for that kind of hard work that both values the FPs and makes Commons what it is. - Benh (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you so much! Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Two featured pictures of one subject

It appears Commons has two featured pictures of the same painting: File:Edvard Munch - Madonna (1894-1895).jpg and File:Edvard Munch - Madonna - Google Art Project.jpg. Is it okay? 4nn1l2 (talk) 02:39, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

No, it is meaningless. The older version should be delisted a.s.a.p., as its technical quality is considerably lower. The recent nomination actually should have been a "delist + replace" proposal, but probably Peulle didn't know about an old version already being an FP. --A.Savin 02:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Started removal nomination. --A.Savin 14:23, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

FPCBot

@KTC: Hi KTC, can you kick the FPCBot again, please. It's on the fritz again wrt removing fifth-day closed noms, [1] [2]. I'm posting here so the rest of the gang knows what's up. --Cart (talk) 14:19, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Wcarter, Won't work unless the regex matches on the page. Look carefully there are 2 pipes right after neutral=0, the bot interprets it as featured=Not Defined. Just remove the extra pipe and you are done. -- Eatcha (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah! Many thanks Eatcha for spotting the bug. I didn't notice it, now fixed. So both Poco a poco and Ikan Kekek who closed the noms happened to make the same unfortunate typo. Mystery solved. --Cart (talk) 07:34, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Sorry. I'm not sure how that happened. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:05, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Oops, ok, will me more careful in the future --Poco a poco (talk) 22:17, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, I was away for work for a few days. Glad this has been sorted. -- KTC (talk) 22:34, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

deletion of FPC page?

Hi, as I'm not active on FPC, are FPC pages deleted, when the candidature is withdrawn by the nominator? (it's about Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:2017.07.22.-01-Leutershausen an der Bergstraße--Oberrheinische Tiefebene.jpg) --Túrelio (talk) 08:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@Túrelio: No, I've never heard of that. When an FPC is withdrawn it is removed from the Commons:Featured picture candidates/candidate list and archived in the Commons:Featured picture candidates/Log. The archiving is usually done by FPCBot 24 hours after it is withdrawn. Some users are not so savvy about this so they just remove their FPC page from the list without archiving it. Usually someone notice this and put the page in the archive, like I did when when Hockei just pulled that nom from the list. The FPC pages are supposed to be in the archive as references in case someone gets the idea of renominating a withdrawn or failed nom later. These pages should also remain in case someone in the discussion should apply for adminship. These pages contains discussions and input from several users, and I don't think that just one part in that discussion can ask for the page to be deleted. The only option, to my knowledge, is for Hockei to make a request to change the visibility of their post(s) on that page. --Cart (talk) 10:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I ask for deletion because of the discussion that I don't like to see in the internet longer. Look at the history. --Hockei (talk) 11:34, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I understand that, and you and your opponent in the discussion can ask an admin to change the visibility of your edits, that means that the page remains but your edits are made invisible to the internet and everyone but admins. There are comments about the photo by other users on the page, and you can't just remove those too in a deletion of the page. --Cart (talk) 12:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't think there is anything that trawls the historic versions of our discussions and would surface it on "the internet". Google won't find it. Your deleted comments are only in the history, should someone deliberately go looking there. Our rules for admins forcibly deleting old revisions do not, AFAIK, allow them to remove stuff that someone merely regrets saying. -- Colin (talk) 12:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Admins only act according to rules and guidelines the wiki-community has hammered out over time. Don't blame individuals for this. Also, if you had just ignored this, the whole thing would have been archived and forgotten like another boring squabble between users. With your deletion request, you made sure everyone reading these talk pages wanted to know what you had written. --Cart (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Cos they had nothing better to do than to spun out it here. --Hockei (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Deletion requests are automatically posted on other pages than this, it's not just on the page where you put the notice. The admin in question wasn't totally sure about the proper action so they asked; that is what responsible admins do. --Cart (talk) 14:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Hockei, rather than making personal attacks against admins, here are the policies: Commons:Deletion policy and Commons:Revision deletion. If we deleted stuff that folk wrote in anger and regretted, half of AN/U would consist of broken threads of conversations. See also Streisand effect. --Colin (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Is the use of FP categories (i.e. galleries) outdated?

Is there really any point of continuing to use the FP categories (i.e. galleries) anymore? People mostly don't really look at them when they add one to their nom and mistakes happen all the time, voters vote on photos regardless if the FP category is wrong or not and hardly none of the nominators bother with sorting their photos into the right section once the nom is successful. Are the FP galleries going down the same route as the QI galleries, and if so do we really need them? The FP categories/galleries are supposed to be a bit like a Flagship store for Commons, to showcase what we got here, but if people at FPC aren't interested in maintaining them, why bother. --Cart (talk) 13:55, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

FP categories (I mean the real categories such as "Featured pictures of Odonata") have nearly the same purpose + are more usable, so they might replace the galleries completely. But at the moment, I don't see such possibility, because the structure is different. If we just delete the galleries, we would delete useful information and that's not what we want to do. --A.Savin 14:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
I think the question is a bit confusing as you link to galleries, not categories. Perhaps we should rename the FP candidate term/link to say "Gallery" instead of category. I certainly use the galleries when reviewing, and nominating, and hope others do too. I don't think it would be easy at all to compare our existing high standards without them. We'd end up with lots more noms where folk supported and then, somewhat late, someone points out that there are better existing ones. I've never once used an FP category and consider all such N+M category constructs to be a huge waste of human effort -- every single one of them can be generated by the database.
Is there a general issue with not enough folk doing maintenance at FPC? -- Colin (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
I use the term "FP category" for the galleries simply because that is the term used in the noms: [[Commons:Featured pictures/<add the category here>]]. Normal categories for FPs are a different thing and not so problematic since people can link those to their own user space and that is very popular. But a rename in the nom template might be in order.
Yes, there is a serious lack of people taking part in the maintenance and "behind the scenes" work with FPs. It is very popular to nominate pictures, but never popluar to do the 'boring' drudge work in closing, sorting and fixing. The only thing really working, is the POTD since that is a way you can elevate your own photos to a new status. Working with other people's stuff (or for Commons and its community) is less popular. This is my n-th post about such issues. --Cart (talk) 14:38, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
If you want to see all FP of Scotland, the easiest way by far is to click on Category:Featured pictures of Scotland. I don't understand how it may be "generated by the database" instead; even the FastCCI gadget has been dead for months now. --A.Savin 15:09, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

PoTD discussion

As this is connected to the FPC, I'm just putting here a link on a discussion on limiting the same people to nominate heaps of their own photos as Pictures of the Day each month. --Podzemnik (talk) 03:30, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

There is voting going on about a suggestion now, please have a look and say what you think. --Cart (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Third delisting

I really think the image File:African penguins.jpg is far below FP standards (even them as of 10 years ago) and really deserves a delist. Then I realized there already have been two(!) delisting discussions, the first resulting in a clear "keep" and the second earning 100% delist votes – but too few of them. How could I start a third independent delisting nomination without damaging the previous discussions, technically? --Kreuzschnabel 19:36, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Kreuz: technically, you do it by adding a slash + number, the same way you do it with normal second nominations. The first two delist noms were differentiated with the use of "Image:" vs "File:", so you could go with inserting "African penguins.jpg/2" in the 'creation box', but since this is the third delist nom calling it "African penguins.jpg/3" might be a better option. You can use the one you prefer, either will produce a new nom page without interfering with the previous two. --Cart (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I tried to but now there is no link provided to the nomination page. --Kreuzschnabel 22:40, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Kreuz: There usually isn't such a link on delist noms (take a look at some other delist noms), but I'll add one for you since you think it's missing and would like one. --Cart (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks – I thought I’d have done something wrong. Since this is the 3rd delisting of this image, there might be some irritation :) --Kreuzschnabel 06:58, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(how) should this be archived?

File:The Cannery Seafood of the Pacific by Don Ramey Logan.tif was deleted while it was running for FPC (no idea why, reason given by Túrelio was simply "1"). That let the delinker bot remove it from the candidate list, leaving the nomination unclosed and unarchived. How would this normally be handled? --El Grafo (talk) 10:50, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

El Grafo: The system doesn't care if an image has been deleted, it's all about the page and the nom. This should be closed and archived to the log just like any other nom. I'll take care of it for you. WPPilot has a history of just removing noms from the list if he gets 'opposes' as well as deleting photos in the process, he sometimes also forgets to log in for these maneuvers. This is far from the first of his noms where I've had to deal with the aftermath, information about proper FPC procedure has never stuck on him. --Cart (talk) 11:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Fixed done and done. --Cart (talk) 12:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, Cart! --El Grafo (talk) 09:14, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

POTD

Something may have gone wrong with the 'pinging' so FYI I'm posting here. Please check out Charles' closing of the discussion at Commons talk:Picture of the day#New guidelines and see if you want to tweak the wording of the new guideline. --Cart (talk) 10:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Question copied from a nomination

  • This question doesn't belong on someone's nomination, so I copy this to the FPC talk page and we'll see if this can be sorted out. --Cart (talk) 10:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Boothsift Four, before you can use this account for voting, these multiple accounts needs to be sorted out by an admin or a checkuser. We have no way of knowing who actually runs the accounts Boothsift, Boothsift Three and Boothsift Four. What happened to "Boothsift Two" or did the second one have another name?" Technically all these accounts could be considered as socks if they are run by the same person and not declared on all the different user pages. You should start with adding "I also have the following accounts: xxx, xxx due to a forgotten password" on the three (four?) user pages/accounts you have created then ask for help about how to proceed at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. --Cart (talk) 10:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Seven Pandas: My browser did save my password and it was also saved on Google Drive and on my phone. However, as I was forced to change the password by the Wikimedia Foundation, I changed it and did not save it nor update my previous documents. I suppose I was in a rush--Boothsift Four (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

New FP galleries - Bones, shells and fossils split into two

Thanks to the great work done by Llez with so many beautiful photos of shells, the old FP gallery Bones, shells and fossils had grown so large it is now split into two galleries:

Please use these galleries from now on. And please let me know if you find any bugs in these new galleries so I can fix them. --Cart (talk) 14:07, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for feedback regarding Enwiki's FPC process

For those of you active both here and on the English Wikipedia, I've written an essay of sorts on the future of its separate FPC process. Feedback appreciated (this is not an active proposal at this time). en:User:Rhododendrites/Reconsidering FPC on the English Wikipedia. — Rhododendrites talk |  16:30, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Where do you want feedback and comments to be posted? The talk page seems like a good place, so you might want to activate it and write a note about that. Or if you have any other preferences. Without a clear page for discussions you might end up with the same issues being vented on three different talk pager + the essay page. We have that problem here from time to time. --Cart (talk) 16:37, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. Started to do just that but didn't get to it. — Rhododendrites talk |  16:50, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Note: This has been posted in multiple locations. To avoid parallel/redundant discussions, I'd like to encourage people to consolidate comments on the essay's talk page. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:48, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Would you welcome non-substantive copy editing of your essay? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Nevermind; I saw only one small thing and edited it. Very well-written essay. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Galleries and Categories

After the cleanup of all the galleries and fixing new ones, it was time to fix some of the old nomenclature on pages. When the FP project started, the so called "FP categories" and normal categories were more or less the same, but as the number of FPs grew and the categorization system has become more elaborate, the "FP categories" as in photos displayed on the Commons:Featured pictures pages (like Commons:Featured pictures/Natural phenomena) have more and more become know as "Galleries" to not confuse them with the normal category system where FP categories are these: Category:Featured pictures.

To further reduce the confusion about what is what I have made these three edits: [3] [4] [5] so that the galleries are now officially called 'Galleries' too. Hopefully this will make it easier for newbies at FPC when creating nominations and in general increase clarity in discussions. --Cart (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's been bugging me just a tiny little bit for quite a while now. --El Grafo (talk) 14:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Some "Skip to" links at the top of the page not working

Incident Fixed

All but two of them are working for me tonight. The ones that aren't working are "Current candidates" and "Current delisting candidates", and oddly, those links are showing up bolded, whereas the others, which work, are not. For the record, I'm using Firefox 73.0.1 in Windows 8.1. Are the rest of you having the same problems? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, same problem with Windows 10 -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
It looks like I can't add a new nomination to the table of contents, either! How do I do it? I don't seem to be able to edit the list of FP noms. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I figured out a workaround: Create the new nomination as normal, then copy the contents of that page just above the most recent nom on the page by editing that nom. It worked! -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Ikan KekekBasile Morin . Result of this edit. -- Eatcha (talk · contribs) 05:47, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Eatcha -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:59, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ikan Kekek: , No, it didn't work. That was my nom !! Hopefully fixed, now. Here's the link -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:56, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, it looked to me like it had worked. I don't understand how that other nom that Eatcha cites caused the problem, and I don't know how it was fixed, but thank you! -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:17, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ikan Kekek: , the line == Featured picture candidates == was accidentally deleted by User:PROPOLI87 when adding this new nomination into the list. I added your new page in the list, deleted the content in my nom, and restored the missing line after Eatcha spotted the issue. Now I collapse the discussion -- Basile Morin (talk) 06:40, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Real-Time-Results

-- Eatcha (talk) 10:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I know it's kinda hard to eagerly wait for POTY results, that's why I created Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Real-Time-Results. The page is updated automatically every 10 minutes. You can click on the top row to sort the results. Available only for round one of the competition, round 2 has fewer candidates and it's easy to check the result manually. Enjoy! -- Eatcha (talk) 08:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Eatcha: Great! Thank you for that, --Podzemnik (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Topaz Denoise AI alert

At the suggestion of User:Wilfredor after he improved a recent FPC, I have acquired the Topaz Suite. Like it or not, this type of Artifical Intelligence (AI) post-processing is here to stay and I dare say many of you already use it. It is so much better than Photoshop (CS6). I used it on my two current big cat images - rare shots, but not ones that would have had a chance at FP until now. Focus-stacking (I use Helicon Soft software) has already changed how we judge macro shots and I guess the same will happen to all images. I've only tried Denoise AI on animal shots and it seems to work best on my best shots. Reviews say it works for landscapes etc. I've got the Sharpen AI software too but I'm less keen. I didn't use it on the cat photos - the Denoise AI software has sharpening built in and I use the Auto setting. I've uploaded a new version of one favourite FP image re-processed with Denoise AI and Sharpen AI as it was quite blurry. I used the 'Sharpen' setting - the 'Stabilize' and 'Focus' setting weren't as good. 'Stabilize' works for a flying bird shot, but does introduce sharpening artefacts. Being lazy, I tried Denoise AI on 'finished' jpgs - i.e. some of my current FPs. No luck, the results cannot compare with reprocessing from RAW. The Gigapixel AI programme works brilliantly on small resolution archive photos Charles (talk) 10:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Incredible improvement! Thanks for the link. Nevertheless, there seems to be a small problem of light with this last upload (of 3 birds), as if the picture had integrated a color profile or something, since the image is a bit darker on Photoshop than on Commons. But the sharpness, and the level of significant detail, wow, huge gain! -- Basile Morin (talk) 11:06, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Looks like another good tool for processing images as long as it is used for pixel-to-pixel editing and not for upscaling images as per Wilfredor's attempt with the boats. But with noisy photos, like the 3 birds, the image tends to come out a bit plastic-looking/computer-generated. Also agree with Basile about the light on that one. --Cart (talk) 11:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I gave DeNoise AI a try, and it works well with pictures displaying a main subject isolated from its background. Otherwise the texture of the environment loses details. With noisy archive images, it quickly generates artifacts unfortunately, sometimes by inventing unreal lines. Once these errors are corrected with another software, the appearance is modern, but that's a lot of work for a small aesthetic improvement in my opinion. I'm very impressed by the results Charles obtained with his birds, but I have to say the software did not bring such giant results with my own images. Probably because I shoot in low ISO in general. Still a nice tool to consider for post-treatment, since the render is clean -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

  • First, Charles, please respect COM:OVERWRITE which does not permit significant changes to overwrite an already featured image. Please can you revert your overwrite and upload the AI version with an appropriate filename. You may then wish to do a delist&replace nomination. But let's be honest here, the second image is not actually a reprocessed version of the first. It has a different source RAW file and was taken 5 seconds earlier and at 1/640 sec rather than 1/664 sec, and the birds have moved slightly, and the framing/crop is totally different. You've uploaded the second file with ProPhotoRGB colourspace, which must not be used with JPGs and isn't suitable for web sharing. It is fine for intermediate 16-bit TIFF files, but not JPGs. Please upload with sRGB colourspace reprocessed from raw. The images are not comparable, and I suspect the original version raw file was out of focus or blurred because an ISO 200 image should be sharp. I too am concerned that this AI introduces artefacts. Some of the letters in Wilfredor's examples look like sharp writing but not in any human alphabet. How can we tell that feather scales or grass blades are real if the software invents texture where it thinks there should be some, and invents smoothness where it thinks there should not. -- Colin (talk) 15:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks Colin, I took several shots of the birds so I guess I reworked a different one, though not on purpose. I'll sort it. Charles (talk) 16:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • (Edit conflict) I agree with you Colin about altering existing FPs. Also, the result with the Topaz is not always sucessful. Like I told Charles on my talk page regarding his edits on one of my jellyfish photos: "While the jelly may be slightly sharper, it also "sharpened" all the tiny debris floating in the water and that version looks like the image is riddled with dead pixels. Not an appealing sight. The jelly was sharpened, but the photo suffered and I'm not going to approve that." The AI may result in these unwanted things. --Cart (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Presentation of photos in info Box

We have a dilemma that the artistic demands of a great photo - space for the subject to breath, rule of thirds etc., often a landscape layout - conflict with the needs of a close crop, often portrait, in a Wikipedia article info box. Most websites (even my own) have the capability to crop for thumbnails without messing up the photo. Can someone write that bit of software for Wikipedia. Where should we ask for it anyone? Charles (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

This exists as w:Template:CSS image crop. Not sure if there are conflicts when used in an infobox, but I've seen it used a couple times in articles. — Rhododendrites talk |  22:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I tried it, but couldn't get it to work. Charles (talk) 09:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
here you will find examples --Wilfredor (talk) 14:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Wilfredo. Not an info box example unfortunately. I tried adding
Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) female 3.jpg

. It's a good crop now but the the placement isn't right and I cannot sort it. Help please! Charles (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  • There are a few basic things: You have two "||" between 3.jpg and bSize. Introducing extra bars in code can be fatal. In this code Location is spelled 'center' not 'centre', not sure if it allows for different spellings. The default size for images in infoboxes is often 220px, wanting a 240px size might confuse the box-code. After that it's a bit of trial and error to select how large a photo you want to crop from (|bSize=) and the crop dimensions. You have to play around with those parameters. This was the closest I could make it:
{{CSS image crop|Image=Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) female 3.jpg|bSize=260|cWidth=220|cHeight=140|oTop=30|oLeft=32|Location=center}}
I've added it to the box. Hopefully it will work with other 'Appearance' settings than mine. --Cart (talk) 19:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
This is really a Wikipedia discussion. Remember also that not all WMF projects support templates that are on en:wp. As I said on the Wikipedia version of this discussion, the template is a CSS client-side hack and not really a solution. -- Colin (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry for trying to help someone out this once on a sister project. I thought there might be other user curious about how to add their FPs in a similar fashion to en:wp. I hope it didn't cause too much disruption of all our important work here. --Cart (talk) 19:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Brilliant Cart, many thanks. As you'll see from En:Wiki FPC, a user is quite reasonably asking for a crop. I'm sure that many contributors to Commons FP who add images to articles (like me) would like to know that there is a fix, albeit as Colin says, a client-side bodge. Charles (talk) 20:06, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Oldest Candidates First

Hi,

how about:

  1. reordering candidates to display the oldests first,
  2. move the lo(ooooo)ng rules to another sub page. Most of us don't even look at them yet we have to pass over them... This would be replaced by only the necessary for creating new candidates (and delist), and a link to the rules with an accompanying warning for first time users,

Benefit I see:

  1. Make it harder to miss candidates, especially the ones close to their "due date"
  2. Save bandwidth
  3. Better navigation.

Cheers,

Benh (talk) 18:53, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes I could even create my own page embedding it, plus the forms to create a nom. Thanks. No one seems to care about reordering... I guess I'll give up :) Not that I participate this much anyways. - Benh (talk) 10:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I prefer to see the fresh photos first. If you're checking the list day-to-day, it would be uncomfortable to see the oldest pictures on the top and scrolling down to see the newest ones. — Draceane talkcontrib. 19:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

File:White-lined tanager (Tachyphonus rufus) female.jpg

Any ideas on why my nomination was removed? Charles (talk) 09:31, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Looks like the Bot ignored that you wanted to strike your {{withdraw}}. You had spelled the first part of the <s></s> with a capital letter S, some code is caps-sensitive or the new Bot didn't register striking the template. Anyway, now fixed and nom reinstated. Perhaps Eatcha can take a look at this too. --Cart (talk) 09:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
    If it's really due to strike tags in UPPERCASE, it's a minor problem and will fix this with other changes in future. If the bot still removes it, I will look into. // Eatcha (talk) 10:00, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

More good news regarding FPCBot and Galleries

Our good code writing wizard Eatcha has been and is working on the FPCBot so that it will do a bit more of the post-closing work with FPCs. Yay! You no longer have to close 'Withdrawn', {{FPD}} or {{FPX}}. The Bot will just move them to the Log anyway.

As you may have noticed, the Bot is now helpful in copying the gallery to the closing template. Those of you closing FPCs will only have to count, confirm and sign.

The biggest, and also most work-saving, change is that the Bot will now park the featured image directly in the right subsection on the gallery page if possible. This means you have to be extra careful and thorough when you add the gallery to a nomination. Go to the actual page and copy the heading to the nom so you get the spelling right. If the sub-section doesn't exist, write it on the nom anyway to make it easier for you (or whoever is doing the sorting) to create the new gallery subsection. The Bot will place such files in the 'Unsorted' section. Examples:

  • [[Commons:Featured pictures/Objects#Lamps]] or [[Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Other#France]] are sorted directly to those sections because they exist.
  • [[Commons:Featured pictures/Sports]] will go to 'Unsorted' on that Gallery page for human creation of the section and sorting
  • [[Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Agriculture#Andorra]] doesn't exist yet and it will go to 'Unsorted' on that Gallery page for human sorting
  • [[Commons:Featured pictures/Plants#Family Arecaceae]] is spelled the wrong way and it will go to 'Unsorted' on that Gallery page for human correction of the spelling and sorting
  • Sets will still have to be handled by a human since they are more complex.

As always with changes like this, bugs can occur so it's worth keeping an eye on things and tell me or Eatcha if something is wrong. --Cart (talk) 14:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate that! -- Eatcha (talk · contribs) 14:31, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks Eatcha and Cart :) --A.Savin 14:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I've been copying this link to close FP nominations (with the one change that I use the "If the file is marked 'Featured'" format with "featured=no" for unsuccessful candidates). Should I change anything other than using "gallery" instead of "category"? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Ikan, thank you so much for reminding me of the info in that section! There are so many places to change the info and the manual closing info had slipped my mind. I will update it on the FPC page but I can't alter the archive. Only the name 'category' is replaced with 'gallery', that is all that is changed. But the gallery will be filled in by the Bot, so in reality you only need to change the beginning "FPC-results-ready-for-review" to "FPC-results-reviewed" and replace the Bot signature with yours. --Cart (talk) 21:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oh, that's great! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you both! Eatcha is our FPC wizard. --Podzemnik (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Eatcha! A suggestion for future improvement of the FPCBot: placing the template {{Assessments|featured=1}} after {{Location|01.23456789|01.23456789}}, and not before -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Agree, that would be nice. Not sure how to write the code though since not all FPs have the location template (or have 'location estimated', 'location withheld', etc. or might have the location template placed within some other template) and some have other templates after the {{Information}} template. Such things have to be considered as well. --Cart (talk) 12:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
<< New suggestions related to the following bugs/issues/faetures will not be considered if not added by March 5 , this should speed up the discussion and save time. >>
Should I replace {{FPC-results-ready-for-review}} with {{FPC-results-unreviewed}} ? Same for the de-list one ?
If the location template exist I can make the bot add the FP template after it, on the following newline. A list of location templates used will be appreciated.
Is anyone interested in categorization like here ?
And if I want to fix the set problem, what should be the standard closing procedure ? I know I have to make the bot place the promotion template on all the files, but what about the template that is posted on nominator's talk-page or in some cases where uploader is not nominator the nominators talk-page. Of course I should not add all images of the set at Commons:Featured_pictures,_list, but only one. Maybe I should pick the first image as a main image and do the same stuff with it as the bot currently does with a single image + tag all the images inside gallery tags ?
Candidate Identification improvements, if any.

Pinging related users, to speed up the discussion :: ASavinBasile MorinPodzemnikFPCBotIkan KekekWcarterWilfredor Eatcha (talk · contribs) 08:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Eatcha, the system does not accept more than five 'pings' per post so I don't think everyone got this message. I didn't get a 'ping'. --Cart (talk) 08:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
That's a good idea. That way, it's easy to remember that all we have to do is delete "un" from "unreviewed" and change the sig. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:14, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, good idea. Concerning the location templates, I think the main one is {{Location}} (default with UploadWizards). Then a few users sometimes add {{Object location}} here. Perhaps very rarely one of those: {{Globe location}}, {{Location-Panorama}}, {{Location map notice}}, {{Location possible}}, {{Location required}}, {{GPS EXIF}}, {{Location withheld}}, {{Location estimated}}, {{Location rounded}}? -- Basile Morin (talk) 08:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Eatcha, yes that new review template would be nice, I'd say go for it.
You have a list of location templates here: Category:Geocoding templates. On some files, more than one location template is used.
The categorization you mention doesn't work here since so many users have their own, sometimes rather complicated systems of categorizing FPs (just take a look at FPs by Ermell, XRay or Poco) not to mention all the versions of spelling their category(ies): "Featured p/Pictures of/by" and sometimes even "Featured i/Images of/by" and so on.
For sets you are definitely thinking right. Put the template on all files and if possible let the bot sort all of them in the indicated gallery section. Use only the first image on Commons:Featured_pictures,_list, chronological (with the usual note about the number of files in the set, you might want to talk to KTC about this) but let the message on nominator's and uploader's talk page be about the whole set as it is today, otherwise we might hear complains about why only one file was promoted. Best to keep things as non-confusing as possible.
Thanks again for all your work! You are a gem. --Cart (talk) 08:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Usage of various location templates
  1. 13_019_937 {{Location}}
  2. 3_476_468 {{Object location}}
  3. 30_609 {{Location estimated}}
  4. 14_463 {{Location possible}}
  5. 580 {{Location map notice}}
  6. 386 {{Globe location}}
  7. 273 {{Location withheld}}
  8. 70 {{Location-Panorama}}
  9. 51 {{Location rounded}}
  10. 38 {{GPS EXIF}}
  11. 22 {{Location required}}
    I think the bot should support {{Location}} and {{Object location}}, considering that Commons:Structured data is capable of taking over the location templates. No need to support templates with little usage, which would just clutter up the code. -- Eatcha (talk · contribs) 09:38, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Eatcha, thanks for the stats. Yes, I think just those two will be fine. Numbers 3,4,5 and some of the others are just tack-on templates that doesn't interact/merge with the {{information}} template so it doesn't matter that much if the assessment comes before them. --Cart (talk) 09:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Food section

After an idea from Frank, a new section has been made for all scattered food-related images that doesn't quite go under finished food or products. Check it out: Commons:Featured pictures/Food and drink#Food manufacturing and cooking. --Cart (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Cart. This is a great improvement! --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 02:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Great idea, but some of the images I'm seeing in that gallery don't really fit the title. For example, steins of beer are not being manufactured or cooked but are finished products being carried by the server, and strictly speaking, raw chickens hanging up are not manufacturing or cooking, either. I think the beer plain doesn't belong, but for the raw chickens and the like, I think we should reconsider the name. I can't come up with an alternative right now on very little sleep, but let's think about it. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Fixed I took the name from the Commons category Manufacture of food, the corresponding article on en-wiki is Food processing and in common language we often just call it "making food", so a lot to choose from. The beer and the chickens are move to 'drinks' and 'food'. Some bloopers are bound to happen when you sort galleries. Btw, anyone with a little time on their hands and a good sense of order, is always welcome to sort the galleries if need be. --Cart (talk) 13:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Religious buildings

After a request from Cmao20 and Charlesjsharp to make Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors/Religious buildings more manageable, I tested some options. Sub-sections for the countries was the original idea, but it didn't really de-clutter the page or make it easier to find photos. When you assess an FPC you want existing FPs of the same kind of subject to compare with, no matter where they are taken. In the initial discussion, three similar photos were from three countries. Making some sorting after religion wouldn't solve much either. Another suggestion was to sort out the cloisters, but that made sorting hard because of cloister chapels and churches.

Looking at the gallery page it was clear to see what really cluttered it up and made finding photos difficult: All ceiling photos. No surprise there. These were the group easiest to single out to make for better viewing of the gallery. So now we have the brand new Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors/Religious buildings/Ceilings. This "calmed things down" since you only have to set your mind to one alignment to scan the pages. Take a look at both galleries and see for yourself. Yes, some sets were broken, but it is not so common for a ceiling to be nominated in a set, so no problem sorting those files manually.

During this sorting, a lot of misplaces stained glass windows turned up, so now that section is overflowing. I will get on it and branch off the 'Architectural elements' from Commons:Featured pictures/Objects and see what can be done about all those windows. Perhaps best to make country subsection to keep sets together. --Cart (talk) 23:54, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work you've been doing! --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 02:31, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! --XRay talk 07:14, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Good work, much more sensible than my city idea. Are those clever 360 deg panoramas of the complete interior separated out? Charles (talk) 08:01, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Not yet, I needed to sleep too. ;-) But I'm on it and will continue after some food. --Cart (talk) 08:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok Charles, done. I also had to extract Paris and London because of all Diliff's photos. Who says you can't have both. :-) So here you are:
In all of this sorting I am extremely grateful to people like Diliff, Poco a poco, Podzemnik, Basile Morin and some other, who often have the good sense to include a clear location in file titles. Thank You! After this, I have developed an allergy to "clever" and obscure file titles. --Cart (talk) 09:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Good stuff, Cart. Charles (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Objects vs Architectural elements

Like I promised above, the 'Objects' gallery is now less cluttered after branching off and rearranging the Architectural elements. We have a brand new gallery: Commons:Featured pictures/Objects/Architectural elements. It includes some new sections for stray images like 'Walls' and 'Floors' that were a bit scattered. The 'Stained glass' is divided in singles and sets, that seemed to be enough. Take a look, it may inspire you to do something new. I apologize for the inconvenience of adjusting to all these new galleries, but at the rate we are producing FPs it is inevitable that the old galleries will become cramped. Keep up the good work! --Cart (talk) 13:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

But aren't ceilings architectural elements too? --A.Savin 16:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Good point, thanks, it's hard to think of everything on these jobs. I'm grateful for people helping me to fill in the gaps. I had done the churchReligious buildings ceilings in their own gallery and that kind of blocked me from thinking about other ceilings. I'll go hunting for those. :-) --Cart (talk) 16:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
So maybe it's better to have a gallery for all ceilings, not only church? --A.Savin 18:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
The gallery is for 'Religious buildings', not churches (I wrote hastily, I'm getting tired from all the sorting) now corrected. Those are far more than ceilings in secular buildings, so I think it's fine to keep them in their own gallery, more so since that gallery corresponds with Religious buildings–Interiours. I have fixed the section on Architectural elements for secular ceilings. Some of the sorting was difficult and I may have missed some. If you spot anything wrong, please feel free to correct it. I need a break from sorting now. --Cart (talk) 18:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Stay at home

I was thinking we could do something to stimulate staying home. I say this because I know it is a huge temptation to go out and take photos of monuments without people. --Wilfredor (talk) 21:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

If anyone of us knows about a landmark in his/her city, which is otherwise difficult to capture because of crowds, he/she is of course encouraged to go and take a picture of it -- with precaution and Common sense it should not be a problem, provided that the current laws (lockdown etc.) of this region and/or country is not violated. We need good Free content at any time, and we can only encourage people to do something in this direction (for example to take pictures for WLM/WLE), but we cannot discourage contribution of content. --A.Savin 01:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Surely we need photos of a hospital full of covid-19 patients, it would be very important for some article, however, as a responsible community we should do something to prevent the spread of the virus --Wilfredor (talk) 12:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Unlike you, I didn't mean anything about "a hospital full of covid-19 patients", though of course, anyone of us who happens to be working in such a place and knows well how to act safely, is very welcome to take relevant pictures there too, and to upload them (Personality rights should be respected though). --A.Savin 12:36, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
+1 --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 02:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
It was this spirit that led to this month's photo challenges FYI — Rhododendrites talk |  03:14, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Very good initiative --Wilfredor (talk) 12:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

First version

I was thinking that it would be very useful to ask for a requirement so that the images always have a first version uploaded without any correction of noise, dust spots, sharpness filter or alteration of colors. Dynamic range, automatic lens distortion correction and chromatic aberration correction would be acceptable. In this way, we could observe the evolution of noise, sharpness and color alteration corrections, in order to identify bad practices, or improvements that could be made on these images in the future. --Wilfredor (talk) 15:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I think, it isn't a good idea. I'm taking photographs in RAW format only and do not publish photographs without development. May be there are adjustments later. Sorry. --XRay talk 15:24, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's why I made an exception to edits that should be made on the raw.--Wilfredor (talk) 17:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I think, our focusing almost exclusively on technical issues of photography instead of adequately considering other aspects like composition, emotions evoked, etc. is much more of a problem. We've developed a large vocabulary around technicalities, but we have much less of a shared language with regard to the vision and aesthetics of images. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 15:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I understand your point of view, perhaps the balance between both things without falling to extremes. I see very beautiful images with excellent compositions but with a destructive noise treatment, for example --Wilfredor (talk) 17:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I get your point as well. I'd just like us to achieve a better balance, when judging a picture. Craft is important, but vision no less. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Oppose as a requirement. I remember such a suggestion for RAW files, that was clearly refused after consensus. Imagine a small, invisible dust spot on my image, and then I would be bound to upload two versions just to show I have well deleted it? Sorry, this is ridiculous. Also many photographers take voluntarily underexposed pictures. Such a requirement would double the memory space required. I don't think this is a good idea, however, it could be very educative to upload just a few samples of such improvements, for teaching. Showing what we can do, how to process an image, etc. -- Basile Morin (talk) 00:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Strong oppose. I always shoot in 'neutral' mode and turn off in-camera noise reduction, so uploading unprocessed images would be a nonsense. RAW files should always be available for scrutiny (or out-of-camera), as required by all major photo competitions and should be a requirement for POTY. And you suggest 'exception to edits that should be made on the raw'. You can alter colours in RAW through white balance Charlesjsharp (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

POTY

I only learnt about this year's competition today. Shame that the organizers don't take the trouble to post messages on FPC, QIC and VIC. No wonder there are so few vote(r)s. Charlesjsharp (talk) 15:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Formerly there was propaganda at the head of all wikis and when entering the commons, I think that this type of propaganda is being limited, perhaps this could be one of the reasons. --Wilfredor (talk) 15:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I mentioned this on the POTY page, too, but I don't see why hundreds of voters is so few. The frontrunner (as far as I can tell) has just about 500. There are only a couple people managing the whole competition, and they got it displayed on the main page, and a giant banner on wikipedia. Yes, it would be nice to also have at this venue, too, but like with anything else Wikipedia/Commons, the only reason it's not here is because you (the abstract sense of "you") didn't post it here. :) — Rhododendrites talk |  16:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
What is the abstract sense of "me"?. Sorry but im not follow --Wilfredor (talk) 16:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Ah, sorry. I just mean that, on Wikipedia/Commons, "if you want something done in a specific way, you usually have to do it yourself" because we're all volunteers. — Rhododendrites talk |  17:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh ok, I was thinking of something artistic. Thanks for explain that, --Wilfredor (talk) 17:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@Charlesjsharp: Just a note about organizers: the key person behind POTY has retired [6] [7]. If he didn't do this year's round, there would be no POTY at all. --Podzemnik (talk) 20:08, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

dllu and strip photography on Medium

Very interesting interview of dllu on Medium, where he shares more details on how he achieved his excellent strip photos (here, here and here for newcomers). I was about to email him myself on that so this saves him retelling the story. - Benh (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Thank you for sharing this interview, for me this type of photography was always an enigma, I did not know it was so complicated. I sincerely hope to see more works like that here, however, the author seems to have retired --Wilfredor (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, this requires investment and some coding + image processing skills on top as far as I can tell. I'm only reluctant I wouldn't want investing 2K€ on the hardware only to find myself unable to make something out of it. Fortunately, dllu provides all (?) the code needed (but still out of reach for most to use it I believe). - Benh (talk) 16:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
It seems to be too complicated, perhaps we will never see that type of art again, it is a great loss that he has left the commons. I think we did not have enough capacity to understand everything behind these wonderful photos --Wilfredor (talk) 16:22, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Very cool. I looked into this when I saw dllu's FPC noms. Still don't really feel like I understand it. It's the sort of thing that would make for a great demo/skillshare at a Commons-related conference. :) — Rhododendrites talk |  19:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for posting this Benh! I have a backlog of line scan photos (as well as regular photos) from the past two years that I haven't had the time to properly process yet. I found a bunch of bugs in my code so it would take days of work to overhaul it. And I've been too busy/unmotivated to do anything these days. Anyway, here are some selected unprocessed pictures (grainy and distorted)
I also bought a turntable and a bright LED light to do some rollout photography: https://pics.dllu.net/file/dllu-pics/pot.jpg (how it's made).
dllu (t,c) 20:54, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
dllu Impressive the beauty of those lines, simply artistic. I've been looking at your c++ code too, I think you have a born talent. Please think about the possibility of making a presentation at the next Wikimania. I know that this matter of quarantine has demotivated us all, I try to put artificial lights in order not to fall into depression, please, we hope to see future works of yours. --Wilfredor (talk) 21:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm also trying rollout photography. I'm only taking a more accessible approach and use a python program which extracts a slice on each frame of an HD video and concatenate them to generate the result. But, unless the table is very (very) slow, this severely limits the resolution and quality (which is why I have been looking at your pipeline). Maybe when cameras can shoot 4k at hundreds of FPS we'll have more of that on Commons. - Benh (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

If you want the bot to close sets, please add namespace

Please ensure that you add namespace (File: for files) in set nominations. Example edit. Eatcha (talk) 15:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive behavior

I feel there is disruptive, deceptive or slanderous behavior in this nomination by the user Basile Morin, please, I would like to ask other users who have English as their native language to tell me if I am misinterpreting this. These kinds of comments tire me mentally, especially frustrating me for all the effort and dedication I put into my nominations. I really want to learn from the negative votes but when someone blatantly tells me that I am lying this makes me feel very unmotivated with the project, I would like, please, to help me clarify this situation. If I am wrong, I apologize. Thank you very much in advance --Wilfredor (talk) 15:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

  • ❌ Nonsense. Someone inventing persecution and trying to weaken my review. With this nomination of last month, are all these reviewers disruptive, too? Because they don"t support a nomination with upscaled image? In that case it's very clear that the files are upsized. This version has real pixels, not those in the candidature. Just zoom at 1600% on Photoshop, and it's crystal clear, because they're well delimited and easy to spot. Calling my behavior "slanderous" and unable to bring a valid source with enough pixels? Ridiculous.
  • For the record, this is a complaint from a user who requests our "first versions", here and there. But who did not upload any original before I start doing it. And now there's an upload, but it's upsized. -- Basile Morin (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Wilfredor, it seems like if you could provide a link to the source material at the same resolution, that would resolve Basile's concern. For me, I don't really care much if it's upscaled, as long as that's not the only reason for the delist/replace (since it is basically the same image). It seems like some other folks object on principle, which I can understand, but meh. (For the record, it's not something I choose to do, and I'm yet to use this Gigapixel software people have been talking about). The restoration part of the image seems like an improvement, and there are a few bits that are easier to see in the larger version (e.g. the lines on Einstein's forehead)... — Rhododendrites talk |  16:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Thanks for your feeback. The source has always been in the image description in the section source as usual! (source). Im not using Gigapixel or any software to change the size/sharpening/denoise. I think I deserve an apology --Wilfredor (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Pardon my ignorance, but how do you actually get to the full resolution version on that website? :) I am stuck in this image viewer interface with no option to actually get to the file itself. — Rhododendrites talk |  17:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Lol The source given above shows a picture 3178 pixels large (7 Mpx in total), not the double! So, if that's not a proof it's upscaled :-) I don't care Wilfredor's apologies, but that's not regular. @Rhododendrites: increase the width of the original to 4749 pixels on Photoshop, and you get exactly the one that seems bigger. It may appear larger, but it's not. I feel like we should not cheat with the amount of useful information in FP. Some people may believe a larger version is (or was) available online, and lose their time by looking for it. I also disagree "there are a few bits that are easier to see in the larger version", this is an illusion, or you can do so for any picture by zooming on your screen. However you're right I'm still waiting for a link to the source material at the same resolution :-) -- Basile Morin (talk) 17:52, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Current FP upscaled using Photoshop (left), my Proposal without any upscaling/sharpening/denoise or any filter (right)
@Rhododendrites: I make several screenshoots and later unify them in one image. --Wilfredor (talk) 18:07, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Basile, where are you seeing the resolution for this file? I'm having trouble finding it, technically. Looking at the source, the image seems actually broken into several panels, so it makes some sense to me that Wilfredor put together screenshots. It also seems possible that, even if the source is one size, the display on Wilfredor's screen could've been set to be a little larger (or perhaps the panels together are larger than the original source or some other range of explanations that seem IMO plausible enough to assume good faith). But that's irrelevant to the actual nomination, of course, and people can support or oppose on the basis of whether they think it's an improvement. :) — Rhododendrites talk |  21:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

My answer next section -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't shoot the messenger 🕊️👊

  1. The pixels of the file in the nomination are not real. The source offers 3178 pixels large (7 Mpx in total). There's a maximum in zooming we can't exceed, that is called "100%". And 100% don't bring 15 Mpx, but less than half. In FP we request real pixels per COM:I#Quality and featured photographic images.
  2. My vote is not appreciated by the nominator? Go ahead. It is justified by a honest, accurate, and constructive review.
  3. The claim "just a download from the source" is false. See how many different versions have been uploaded in the history, none in sepia, and none is even the original converted grey. They are all post-processed (and upsampled). Wrong methods, wrong speech.
  4. "Disruptive behavior"? Instead of rotting others and embarrassing all the group, adopt transparent techniques. In communication too. There will be less discussions and more consensus. Greetings -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Statistics

Do we have any statistics about our FPs? Like how many FPs we promoted in certain years? --Podzemnik (talk) 08:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

IMO the easiest way to get the FP number/year, is to look at COM:POTY for each year. Number of Round 1 candidates = number of FP promoted during this year. For 2019 there were 1,258. --A.Savin 13:10, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@A.Savin: Thanks. I've digged into it a bit and created User:Podzemnik/FPstats with updated graph. --Podzemnik (talk) 22:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Podzemnik Could be nice to see votes count for each FP and year, and see all the pictures and candidates who failed to pass the candidacy by a small margin --Wilfredor (talk) 22:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
All-time traffic stats also make for pretty interesting viewing. You can also use the tool to study one of your own pictures to see the effects of FPC, POTD, and POTY. Put in your FP category into massviews, and find out what your most popular FPs are. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, last month (on some weekend when I was stuck inside and didn't feel like being productive :) ) I used the POTY list to pull out a count per person. Here were the top 10 from 2019: Podzemnik (83), Poco (67), Adam (57), Basile (57), Llez (52), Charles (48), Ermell (43), Hockei (39), Moroder (30), Diliff (26), A.Savin (25). Perhaps not a good idea to keep a running total (we probably don't need that layer of competition), but it's interesting to see once in a while. — Rhododendrites talk |  15:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

FPC Bot

The bot that moves promotions into the designated gallery is not working. See this one Charlesjsharp (talk) 21:51, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Uploading and editing third party image

Do we have any policy on the ethics of uploading a third party's image and making changes to it for an FP nomination? I do not think that should be the role of Commons. Please see recent nom of yellow bug. Charlesjsharp (talk) 10:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

We could perform a derivated work and nominate it because the license allows it --Wilfredor (talk) 12:23, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with it. Some of our finest images, such as File:Polarlicht 2.jpg (POTY 2006 winner), came about this way. The original had horrible WB and noise, but was a great composition that could be saved without too much effort; in that case why not spend the effort? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
You may like the improvements to File:Polarlicht 2.jpg (so do I), but the photographer may not and we might change the artistic intent, even by undertaking a crop or removing intentional grain. ̴̴Arbitrary third party edits could also encourage photographers to release images with more restrictive licences, exactly the opposite of Wiki's objectives. Another question - would an oppose vote against a third party edit be an acceptable oppose reason? Charlesjsharp (talk) 17:19, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
People can oppose for any reason, or no reason at all. At FPC we don't have any fixed rules, only what people are willing to follow. So if 1/6 of voters will blanket oppose all images of a particular form, then that raises the promotion bar to 80% among voters who take a more nuanced approach. If that proportion increases to 1/3 of voters + 1, then it becomes a de facto prohibition at FPC even if it's not formally written in the rules. (When's the last time you saw a 5 MP cityscape get promoted?)
"Arbitrary third party edits could also encourage photographers to release images with more restrictive licences, exactly the opposite of Wiki's objectives" - this argument feels like the argument of those who wanted to keep GFDL-1.2. "Yes, you can technically print it on a postcard, but only if you print out 6 pages of text to go alongside it." Here: "Yes, you can technically modify it, but it is discouraged." No, the point of a wiki is to encourage sharing and adapting works, so long as COM:OVERWRITE is abided by. If we're losing the works of people who did not genuinely consent to unlimited modification, then I don't view that as a huge loss. We should celebrate works which are truly free, and when they are truly free we should take advantage of those freedoms. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Anyone can modify and reupload any of our images for any purpose, as long as the terms of the license are followed (and we don't allow files where modification isn't permitted). I think we want to respect photographers whenever possible, but the ultimate goal is high quality images. So we certainly wouldn't want to overwrite someone's upload with our own edits, and it's good practice to see if the photographer would make the edits themselves (assuming they're a Commons user and active), but as a last resort uploading a separate image and providing attribution seems like a [potential] good thing. — Rhododendrites talk |  17:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Sure, you could tell just I preffer the original version because ... --Wilfredor (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
COM:OVERWRITE is also very relevant, where someone uploads a new revision rather than a separate file. A significant change should also be documented in the author field per CC licence terms. -- Colin (talk) 19:43, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Colin, COM:OVERWRITE tells me everyone I want to know. Thread can finish now. Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Something didn't work properly

In my nomination, something didn't work properly. Maybe is about that Set before the file name while the filling out the form or because I used a form to nominate 6 files. Is the first time I do it, can someone fix this please on the candidates list? Thank you --Camelia (talk) 20:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixed --Cart (talk) 21:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
@W.carter: Thank you, but is not quite what I needed. I also important to have 6 distinct pictures as candidates, and not a block as is now. I didn't fill out 6 forms, one for any of the 6 pictures, but a single form, adding the 6 photos inside the wikitext. --Camelia (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Camelia: You made set nomination and this is what they look like on FPC. If you want to nominate the photos seperately, you will have to withdraw this nomination and start over using normal single photo nominations. However, you can't nominate all six photos as individual nominations at once since you are only allowed to have two active nominations. So you have to nominate the photos by and by as the nomination periods end. Please read the instructions on COM:FPC more carefully. If you want to withdraw, you do that by placing the {{Withdraw}} template on the nom and sign. --Cart (talk) 21:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Ok, here is explained that Set, sorry. Thank you, I made some midnight confusion, as I started to see how to candidate an image as the Picture of the day (and Featured Picture is the first step) :-D. --Camelia (talk) 22:02, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi @King of Hearts, Charlesjsharp, Tomer T, Rhododendrites, Persia, and Phoebe: I see from the comments, that choosing a set (for me was basically, less one, a set of portraits, but I was wrong) instead of 6 individual nominations was not a great idea. I can do it now, interrupting the previous process or wait for the natural end of the term? Thank you for the response --Camelia (talk) 14:31, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
You can use {{Withdraw}}. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Anyone wishes to do the categories

I hereby inform that in future I will not do the categorization (i.e. sorting in categories such as "Featured pictures of Scotland", "Featured pictures of churches" etc.) of recently promoted FP's, because I have no desire to do this anymore.

That means, I will still categorize my own pictures + occasionally do it for some others, yet no longer gaplessly monitoring the recent promotions in order to add categories. The last run I did on 20 May.

So, should someone be interested in continuing it, they are welcome, because in fact only few editors do it for their own pictures. If there are questions, I'm willing to help. (Pinging also Thierry Caro who used to do the same job some years ago.) --A.Savin 18:47, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

A.Savin, I want to thank you for all your good work during these years when you have kept the FPs in order. It is sad to see that so many FP nominators seems to forget about work still to be done once the star is in place. The work of getting an image into the right category should fall to the nominator and not to one single user for the whole FP project. It's the same with the galleries. Although much of the work is now done by FPCBot, there is still maintenance to be done during and after the noms since nominators often overlook that part. I too would like to retire from all the gallery-work, I'd just hate to see it crumble due to neglect. --Cart (talk) 08:25, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for all your work Cart. I will continue to tidy up some animal categories (like Lepidoptera, and split up big galleries, but, as you know, it takes a long time. The bot seems to be working again. DIY categorization should be a requirement for all new FPs. Charlesjsharp (talk) 07:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you, @A.Savin and W.carter: this is the kind of work that gets taken for granted. Like the bass in a band, most people will never notice until it's suddenly missing. It's sad to see that nobody else seems to care. I'm sorry I cannot take over myself – I have to keep a healthy distance from this kind of work or it'll absorb me. --El Grafo (talk) 09:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Featured pictures are images from highly skilled photographers and illustrators

I've been reading the guidelines and trying to apply them to nominations like File:Fernando Sor.jpg, File:The Capture of the Forts at Taku.jpg, File:Golden Pheasants by John Henry Hintermeister.jpg. The way the guidelines read, FP is not designed to promote this sort of image. The guidelines refer to "photographers who choose to use open content licenses and donate their work to the Wikimedia Commons" or "highly skilled illustrators who choose to use open content licenses, using Wikimedia Commons to donate their work to the world". How should we address this anomaly? Or have I missed something? Do they belong here? I don't think so. Charlesjsharp (talk) 14:33, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Taking a picture of a painting also requires effort and dedication and I personally ask for museum permission and then I use a tripod to be able to do this work while respecting the original colors. In this case, I am not the author of the painting, however, I chose the correct angle and a developing process. the same could be applied for architectures where we are not the authors of these constructions, we are simply observers. Nature or urban photos (the latter not very numerous in the FPC) are styles in which we are entirely the authors of the composition and not a derivation of an original work such as a painting or a construction. A photo of a majestic painting does not require much effort like a photo of a majestic construction, this will be highlighted equally due to the wow factor. We could perhaps limit FPC and exclude photos of paintings or derivatives but we would be discouraging people who specialize in this type of painting, in restorations. Finally, I understand your point and I agree to a certain point, that's why there are different categories in FP because each one has its own particularity. --Wilfredor (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I was not talking about photogrpaphers who photograph paintings Wilfredor. Naturally there is skill there. I'm talking about images which are just taken off the internet and uploaded with no added value, or perhaps restoration which not covered by "photographers" or "illustrators". Charlesjsharp (talk) 16:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Charlesjsharp Oh ok, I underestand now what you are talking about. --Wilfredor (talk) 16:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
There is COM:MOR by the way, which only has one person in it. But for me the purpose of FP is to represent the best of free content available on Commons, not just to celebrate the work of community members. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
That's not in the guidelines, that's taken from COM:MOP and COM:MOI. Old PD art is perfectly compliant with the FP guidelines, but would not qualify the uploader or original artist for an entry in MOI. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I do have to point out that I spent a good three to four hours restoring your second image in that list. Also, we have a huge section about this on COM:FPC:
“ Artworks, illustrations, and historical documents

There are many different types of non-photographic media, including engravings, watercolors, paintings, etchings, and various others. Hence, it is difficult to set hard-and-fast guidelines. However, generally speaking, works can be divided into three types: Those that can be scanned, those that must be photographed, and those specifically created to illustrate a subject.

Works that must be photographed include most paintings, sculptures, works too delicate or too unique to allow them to be put on a scanner, and so on. For these, the requirements for photography, below, may be mostly followed; however, it should be noted that photographs which cut off part of the original painting are generally not considered featurable.

Works that may be scanned include most works created by processes that allow for mass distribution − for instance, illustrations published with novels. For these, it is generally accepted that a certain amount of extra manipulation is permissible to remove flaws inherent to one copy of the work, since the particular copy – of which hundreds, or even thousands of copies also exist – is not so important as the work itself.

Works created to serve a purpose include diagrams, scientific illustrations, and demonstrations of contemporary artistic styles. For these, the main requirement is that they serve their purpose well.

Provided the reproduction is of high quality, an artwork generally only needs one of the following four things to be featurable:

  • Notable in its own right: Works by major artists, or works that are otherwise notable, such as the subjects of a controversy.
  • Of high artistic merit: Works which, while not particularly well known, are nonetheless wonderful examples of their particular type or school of art.
  • Of high historic merit: [etc for more examples]
 ”

I do think some of the guidelines there haven't reflected actual practice in some time - we don't generally provide information on historical context on the nomination page like suggested, but I think those were written about 5-10 years ago. Probably by me. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes Adam Cuerden, your many restorations are top notch and perfect Wikipedia FPs. We may need COM:MOR mentioned alongside the other two for Commons. Your current nom would fail (unusually) to satisfy any of the four things to be featurable. But it’s the ‘upload and add no value’ FP nom. that I’m really questioning. What's the point of it? Charlesjsharp (talk) 18:36, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
@Charlesjsharp: Aye. I think that I got too excited about finally finding a Boxer Rebellion illustration. They're rare, and, well.... but I suppose I'm getting off-topic. I can see three possibilities: First off, if we see FPC/FP/POTD as a way of advertising a high-quality images to various-language Wikipedias, it serves a purpose to have all good images there. Secondly, it may have an educational purpose in and of itself, for instance, if we get to see a painting by an artist we didn't know, we get a little more educated here. Thirdly, it might be good for setting a benchmark. That's not so necessary with photographic works - our featured pictures of nature and architecture easily match commercially available images, and we can deservedly be proud of that, but there are subjects we're weak on at present. For example, we're very low on illustrators, and it may help us have benchmarks if we allow off-wiki uploads. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm confused by the "taken off the internet with no value added" part. We have lots of FPs that the uploader added no value to (images from Flickr, NASA, etc.). Old images of paintings likewise someone had to take a picture or scan it in order for it to exist. It does strike a chord with me in that I don't think such images should qualify for POTY... — Rhododendrites talk |  18:53, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I struggle to see the benefit to Commons of promoting third party uploads from Flickr or NASA purely for the purpose of an FP nomination. To go on another Wiki like Wikipedia, that's different. The suggestion that they be excluded from POTY does acknowledge that they are 2nd class FPs. FP and POTY should be for Commoners. Charlesjsharp (talk) 22:11, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
@Charlesjsharp: Well, what is the purpose of FPC? If it's to share good content amongst Wikimedia communities, then you're wrong, but if it's to celebrate community work, you're right. I think that defining our goal(s) is the fundamental issue we need to decide first. And, of course, there is secondary ways Wikimedianx can be useful. We used to have people negotiating release of screenshots from video games, and we might well consider that valuable enough to allow at FPC, even if we don't allow it in POTY. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
That might be a good compromise: only images with significant contributions by Commoners (i.e. natural persons who have a Wikimedia Commons account) are permitted at POTY. Of course, we'll need to define what "significant contributions" mean... -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 Support King of Hearts proposition --Wilfredor (talk) 19:41, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Black hole
  • Please lets not vote. Are we discussing what can be an FP or additional restrictions on what can be a POTY? If just the latter, this is not the correct forum to discuss that. Many who have worked hard on running POTY over the years are not FP-level photographers/illustrators, so I suspect that trying to restrict that to only celebrating our work would be rudely rejected. You need to open that question, if you want to ask it, to our curator users, not just our creative ones. Wrt FP, I think we should be reviewing the image, not the person. Commons is a media repository, not a photographic club. We only have three mechanisms for assessing the quality of our media (VP, FP, QI) and from an image-users's POV, QI significantly weakened by the Commoner-only restriction. Let's not weaken FP by making it just a club to pat ourselves on the backs. IMO the black hole image is one of the more significant scientific images in our lifetimes, and it is wonderful that we can share it freely on Commons. FP and POTY should celebrate that. -- Colin (talk) 11:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
  • For whatever it's worth, I agree with Colin. Everyone should feel free to insist that FP-level reproductions have descriptions that add value beyond the photo. If they do, it doesn't matter whether they were taken by a Commoner, Google Art Project, a photographer employed by a museum or someone on Flickr. And I doubt it's much of an issue that reproductions could be POTY. First, I don't think they'll be voted to be, but if one is, it'll be damn good, and that certainly wouldn't harm the site. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to make it very clear, the Commons:Image guidelines, which are the rules, state FPs "may or may not have been created by a Commons user" whereas QI "must have been created by a Commons user". This is the community consensus, which has not changed since 2007. -- Colin (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Colin has removed the links which were the basis of my objection. If he is entitled to do that without any debate, that's the end of it. Is he? Charlesjsharp (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
    Those links were added in 2016 without discussion and nobody else has ever, in the history of FPC, interpreted the FP guidelines the way you are now claiming. The page you say are the "guidelines" is just a collection of Featured Pictures. There has always been quite separate pages of guidelines and rules. You said "By all means, please propose a change to the guidelines" as though Andrei had to change the guideline to permit non-Commoner photographs and illustrations. This is frankly dishonest, especially now that I quote the guideline clearly saying FP images may be made by non-Commoners. You've been here long enough to know that non-Commoner images are acceptable. Are you you really claiming the rest of us have been deluded since 2007? -- Colin (talk) 22:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Charles, the links that are causing you this confusion was erroneously added during a general cleanup and fixing of the layout of that page, by a user with no FP experience. They were added in good faith, but unfortunately not correct. Not many people here go about checking every link on every page, so it has unfortunately remained. It is good that you discovered the bad linking/wording and even better that Colin has now removed the faulty links. Shit happens, we discover, clean up and move on. --Cart (talk) 09:52, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

What does mean this case of "General rules"?

"6. Nominators and authors can withdraw their nominated pictures at any time. This is done by adding the following template: {{Withdraw}} ~~~~."

If I nominate an image, can its author withdraw my nomination?!--Editor-1 (talk) 07:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they can. It only happens very rarely, and I wouldn't expect anyone to do so without good reason. It is usually because the creator themselves thinks it is not good enough, an opinion which itself is usually fatal for the nomination. -- Colin (talk) 07:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Basically, the author has the right to veto. I don't remember anybody making use of that though. It's much more common for the author to simply vote oppose if they disagree. --El Grafo (talk) 08:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I think another situation is where the image needs some work, which the creator doesn't have time for right now, so would rather nominate again later once it has been improved. Or that they have a better image which they just haven't got round to uploading yet. -- Colin (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I once voted against one of my own images, but have never 'withdrawn' another's nomination. Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:28, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

This question arose due to following on-going discuss: Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Skyline of the Central Business District of Singapore with Esplanade Bridge in the evening.jpg, the author denied my crop/alternative version just because he preferd his own photo.--Editor-1 (talk) 12:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is within the author's right to do so. We all have different ways of dealing with how our photos are treated. Sometimes we strongly object to tampering with them and sometimes we can let it slide reluctantly. On this nomination the community wanted a crop, with Basile as the strongest voice. I could live with it since it might work better in articles, although IMO the photo lost its artistic appeal for me. Also, I publish my photos under a public domain license so I'm fine with people doing new versions of them to keep on Commons. However, I didn't vote for the crop, that was the community's business. I can understand that Basile as an artist might have a stronger opinion about not cropping his images, even though he has no problem making such demands on other people's photos. --Cart (talk) 13:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Editor-1, that had the additional complication of an alternative proposed by someone other than the original nominator or creator. The rules discourage photographers adding an alternative at nomination time (because they are supposed to pick which they prefer already). We also have a convention (much discussed but I don't think in the rules) that you don't add an alternative without the nominator's permission. We had some cases where the alternative split the support vote such that none of the options passed, and it tends to push people towards opposing a perfectly good image just because they prefer the other one. It can get messy. -- Colin (talk) 14:59, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

FP Promotion bot

I don't know if anyone can help, but the FP Promotion bot does does not recognise renominations. Please see my talk page for two recent examples. Thanks, Charlesjsharp (talk) 11:16, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

It has always been like that for second noms or when a file is re-named during the nomination. That is why the parameter |com-nom= exists. The Bot can't be programmed for everything we humans are up to. The re-noms are not that common, so the small amount of work for adding the com-nom to the FPs is acceptable. As before when you've had trouble with this, I have fixed it for you on the file pages. The file pages are all that matter, the Bot message on a talk page is less important since you have the picture to guide you to the right place. --Cart (talk) 11:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much Cart. I don't remember coming across this before, but I must have done. Charlesjsharp (talk) 19:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Why does Commons:Featured picture candidates/candidate list show Charles's Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Golden monkey (Cercopithecus kandti) eating.jpg as "Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 2 Jul 2020 at 08:26:40 (UTC)". It isn't 5 days since opened. -- Colin (talk) 10:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Colin I've answered this at the nom. Take a look. --Cart (talk) 10:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspect copyvios

List

At Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Sciurus vulgaris in Aberdeenshire.jpg the authorship of the nominated image has been questioned. I think we should list all the images that are available elsewhere online to consider the case for copyright violation, prior to any DR and AN/I request for a block of User:Sonya7iv.

Feel free to edit the list above.

-- Colin (talk) 19:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Colin :As to your query here: "how this has escaped detection" that's not too hard to understand. If you, like has happened here, crop or alter a photo it's very hard to use online photo searches to identify images. You get no match on Google Image search. I have actually from time to time done such searches on Sonya7iv's photos, wise from having cleaned up after PumpkinSky and Livioandronico2013, but the searches have turned up nothing. (I checked especially after "she" did her "dumb blonde routine" on my talk page. No serious woman taking such photos would say things like that.) Also if you are able to alter the EXIF, it's even harder to find copyvios. We might need better tools to do image recognition if we are to find images that are such deliberate deceptions. --Cart (talk) 20:14, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
It is possible, once this reaches AN/I, that some of the Commons curators (vs us photographers) might be more experienced in spotting copyvio and give us some advice. -- Colin (talk) 20:18, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Cart. I'm using Google Image search to find all the ones I can, but cropping them or altering them prevents this from working. A better solution is definitely desirable. Cmao20 (talk) 20:24, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Google also has the "Similar photos" function and you can do a search by using tags like for example "osprey low water reflection", but it's very time consuming. I wrote the "delete all", because even if some of the photos are done by this user, I'm not inclined to let them keep them on Commons. I don't think that's within the Commons policy, it's just how I feel about people disrupting like this. --Cart (talk) 20:35, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
how sad... I'm going to be very paranoiac from now on. - Benh (talk) 20:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I would say, the above list is enough to nuke all her uploads. If she really were able to take high-end photos like that, she hardly would fall as deep to use stolen photos in addition to self-made ones. If Google search does not work here, many photos may be from stock agencies etc., so it is impossible to detect all. In short, agree with Cart. --A.Savin 20:38, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree too. Even if some of the images are bona fide, I don't see how we can trust that they aren't copyvios that we just can't find. The more I look the more of them I discover. Cmao20 (talk) 21:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Welp, this is quite disappointing to say the least especially when I have defended some of her FP nominations in the past. To think that someone really went through all this trouble and put in this much effort just to laugh at us behind our backs. StellarHalo (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Yep, my list of 'usual suspects' wanting to get back at us here for something, is pretty short. Just saying (well, thinking). --Cart (talk) 20:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I had tried to search some weeks ago, because I was confused by the myriad of locations and the different photographic styles, post-processing techniques and camera types. But I got nowhere. It is depressing and what was the point? We also have the issue of votes cast for and against nominations on FP and QI. And we need to notify the authors. Charlesjsharp (talk) 20:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
the different processing styles (noticeable on the sharpening levels) also confused me, but as I'm not very active, I assumed Sony was struggling with photoshop a bit and didn't look further. - Benh (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn't strike their votes, as non-photographers are allowed to vote at FPC and there is no evidence they are a sock of a banned user. At this point I think re-litigating results would be needlessly disruptive given that the voting itself was not fraudulent. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:22, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
And I also feel like an idiot as I sent him/her a mail today asking if he/she wanted to contribute images to my magazine. No reply. Charlesjsharp (talk) 21:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps one way to detect these instances is to implement an automated process that flags uploaded images that include the metadata Flickr adds to downloads (there are certainly bona-fide exceptions, but I would assume that most users uploading their own images would do so from the original file, not from Flickr). The process would be far from foolproof, as all metadata can be stripped, but would at least detect cases such as the above, where only the original EXIF metadata (and not the IPTC metadata) was stripped. Julesvernex2 (talk) 20:59, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not an expert in how Flickr works; but in fact EXIF data are very easy to substitute in Photoshop, and probably nothing else was made in this case. --A.Savin 21:09, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Commons:Abuse filter does not have the ability to look into metadata. Any such approach would require a bot, but per A.Savin I'm not sure if it's worth the investment. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:24, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Can I just note that the list of copyvios now includes Sonya7iv's very first FP, which I found under a different crop here. This adds weight to the idea that all this user's uploads are probably copyvios, instead of the idea that they started off as a genuine photographer but became tempted to win more awards with stolen pics. Cmao20 (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

We need to recognise that making suggestions of suspect editing is dangerous. I've done this a few times and been bitten. So we do need to be careful about witchhunts over copyvios. Charlesjsharp (talk) 21:42, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
True. And it would be a shame if this had to make us overly paranoid and trigger-happy in accusing newcomers in future. But it seems increasingly clear that this user has been engaging in copyvios since (s)he joined Commons, not that it is a later development. Cmao20 (talk) 21:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I also think that first upload inspired the user name. I don't think it's meant to be a female name but rather "Sony A7IV", the camera used for that photo. :-) --Cart (talk) 21:54, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Cart, I find it a bit funny that so many thought this user was female based on the name. I saw the camera name. Maybe it's like an optical illusion where some eyes see one thing and some another. -- Colin (talk) 07:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
So did I (not difficult for me as I'm a user of the preceding model). At first I thought it might be kind of a promotional account for the α7R IV, but after she "outed" herself, I indeed thought her name might be Sonya and the username a wordplay from the name and the camera used. ;-) --A.Savin 13:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Colin: To be fair, the community and me didn't "fix" the gender on this user until they themselves started to identify them as female. (like in aforementioned example) Be sure I kept a good look at the development of us getting another female on FPC! This was also reinforced by them giving out hugs to me but kisses to users identified as men. And who knows, it might yet have been a female pulling this prank on a mostly male community, just not a serious female photographer. But I do see that the community found it easier to accept someone with a female-sounding name as a woman. I've lost count of how many times I've had to "come out" as female! Even though my user name is derived from fictional female characters in a male environment, like Samantha Carter and Peggy Carter. I remember that even you were skeptical at first. :-) --Cart (talk) 09:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
How didn't we find it fishy that it has 200mm in the EXIF... I don't think it's worth wasting time on this anymore. Just wipe out all Sony's uploads IMO. - Benh (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
This is so disappointing! I take it, all of these photos lack Creative Commons licenses, so that we can't keep (now, undelete) any of them and change the attribution to the actual author? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
All those I looked at were totally copyrighted with no chance of getting them to Commons. --Cart (talk) 08:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Next step

A less clear question is what to do with their votes on nominations in progress. Whatever we decide, it is important that we decide quickly because the voting history on a nomination does influence future votes. (For example, if a voter sees an image with 7 supports that they think barely crosses the bar, they might not be motivated to vote.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

King of Hearts I hope you forgive me for moving your very important question to this section, now that the files are deleted and the user is blocked. Your post got kind of lost in the past discussion. If you don't like this move, please revert this edit. --Cart (talk) 22:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with KoH -- unless the user turns out to be a sockpuppet, the votes are valid, no matter if in closed or running nominations. --A.Savin 00:11, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with A.Savin. If you look at the example of LivioAndronico2013, a previous 'disgraced user' that Cart mentions above, his votes were discounted only because he was sockpuppeting and voting twice on nominations. In such instances one of his two double votes was struck out, but the other remained valid. So that sets a precedent that a user's actual votes are still considered valid even if they have since been banned from the project. Cmao20 (talk) 00:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
We are a wiki, not a common-law legal system, so please let's not go claiming precedent has any strong bearing on things. We may have done sensible things in the past or we may not, and past events may share aspects or they may not. It isn't like we have hundreds of similar examples upon which to compare. FWIW, I'm not that bothered if there are one or two "extra" FPs earned by other users because of a support by someone who broke the rules. It is more of a problem when someone supports their own images with socking extra votes, or where someone goes around opposing on images of those who dared oppose their own. I'd be sympathetic if someone felt they got a failed nomination because of a oppose vote, and wanted that revised or re-run. For our Sony friend, a quick glance at their votes shows only support votes, which is exactly the sort of thing you do here if you just want to earn gold stars. -- Colin (talk) 07:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Per A.Savin, let's keep their votes and move on. --Cart (talk) 09:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Happy with that. Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Big thanks to Julesvernex2 for spotting the copyvio. I know several folk had their suspicions and tried to find duplicates but it is a bit scary to raise the topic once you feel sure, and Julesvernex2 did so in a professional manner. Thanks to those who researched and compiled the above long list of duplicates. Thanks to 1989 for blocking Sonya7iv and nuking their uploads. And another big thanks to A.Savin for doing the tedious job of visiting all the wikis and restoring the images that were there before Sonya7iv replaced them with stolen photos. Finally, a big apology to Tony (tickspics), Ian Ireland, stephen-yang, tony rawson and Cimino Del Bufalo on Flickr, for illegally hosting your photos on Commons for a while. -- Colin (talk) 07:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I just want to second that “thank you” to all the people who have examined the photos and cleared up the mess. Thank you! --Aristeas (talk) 10:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Me too and I also want to express my deep disappointment and lack of understanding for people who waste their time like this and worse make others also waste their time. Poco a poco (talk) 10:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
And thank you Colin for putting together this checkmate. As a relative newcomer to Commons, it was important to witness firsthand how the combined efforts of a group can quickly mitigate the damage caused by an individual. This incident has reinforced the belief that dedicating personal time to Commons is a worthwhile investment. Julesvernex2 (talk) 13:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you all! --Podzemnik (talk) 20:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

FYI FPCBot

FPCBot is on the fritz again doing some strange things. Eatcha is in the case as soon he has access to the code and I'm keeping an eye on things here in the meantime. If there is something odd going on with some of your noms, please let me know. --Cart (talk) 21:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Changes are not being applied to photos

I would like to leave this clarification here, in case it happens during a nomination. If someone corrects a mistake in the photo or simply modifies it, it may take days before they can be seen.[20] (Please subscribe so that you can be attended faster) --Wilfredor (talk) 20:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Immediately after uploading a new version of a file, you cannot see the the latest version or changes made due to cache issues. This is especially true in thumbnails being used on here and elsewhere. However, when viewing the file at full-size, you can refresh the page and it should show you the latest version. At least, this works for me and I overwrite files quite often. StellarHalo (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Featured media candidates

At this point in time, Commons:Featured sound candidates is clearly not gaining traction and pretty much never receives a quorum for anything. Commons:Featured video candidates is hanging by a thread, but it is at least somewhat active. I propose to combine them into a single process called Commons:Featured media candidates, for all media on Commons which are not images. I remember we were previously having trouble getting a quorum to delist images at FPC because they were stuck in their own little section at the bottom of the page, and after merging the process with the regular one in April 2013, the problem disappeared overnight. So I think that likewise, FSC can piggyback off of the relative success of FVC and share one nomination page. Thoughts? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. We could even go one step further and turn FP into "Featured Photographs" (which it practically already is) and move non-photographic still images over there as well. I'm thinking about maps, charts, graphs, illustrations, ..., here. --El Grafo (talk) 11:50, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes it was what I did on Spanish Wikipedia with excellents results --Wilfredor (talk) 11:51, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
I support El Grafo's suggestion. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 14:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
That makes sense as well. The question is, what is a photograph? Do Commoner-produced reproductions of 2D art count? What about Commoner-produced reproductions of flat 3D objects like coins? What about Commoner-produced reproductions of fully 3D objects like sculptures? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:06, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Hello dear colleagues of the FPC pages. On a side note, you may have saw it or not, but this year the videos were not candidates at POTY. This comes from the fact that the script used to manage the POTY contest work with the FPCbot and, if I remember well but I may be wrong, specially with pages such as Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/May 2020. However last year the videos candidates have been moved to Commons:Featured video candidates, and of course with the corresponding new logs. But we, and by "we" I mean the POTY committee, have not notified the change of logs for the videos, and the POTY started without the videos, and we decided not to include the videos in the middle of the contest. I don't specially plan to be a committee member next year, and if you want that next years the videos be included in the contest, something will have to be done (fix the logs /or fix the script (complicated solution because nobody has jostled himself in recent years to make it work, excepted Zhuyifei1999 who is now retired) /or add the promoted videos manually to the relevant place when the next contest will be in preparation /or.... ). Otherwise the videos will not be included, that is up to you, no problem. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support combining sound and video, as I've suggested in the past. Oppose turning it into a catch-all for "everything other than photographs". The division should be made at [static images] vs. [non-static media]. So the latter would include audio and video as well as, for example, slide shows and animations. Anything that isn't a static image. FPC doesn't particularly struggle with non-photographic images, and our criteria here have more in common with a map, illustration, or painting than criteria for video would. — Rhododendrites talk |  20:08, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @Eatcha: Since implementing this proposal will necessitate some work on your part with respect to the bots, do you have any thoughts? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
    King of Hearts I don't support merging FVC with FSC. Commons lacks infrastructure for FSC (sounds), I regret working on FSC. FVC is doing fine. FVC has 10 actives users who are voting regularly and we have a minimum requirement of 5 support votes. The MP4 files will be supported in 2027 (all patents expired), this will result in more files getting uploaded on commons. // Eatcha (talk) 14:23, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
    Having just 12 active contributors and just needing 5 support votes means that the FV star cannot be compared with the FP star. FVC Should have the same rules as FPC. Charlesjsharp (talk) 08:52, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
    Are you saying that there should not be a way for sounds to get featured? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
    No, but just for the sake of promoting some sounds to featured sound status we should not rename a video competitions. Merging these will force the users interested in videos to review sounds. It's not that I don't want sounds to get promoted but not by forcing fvc users to review sounds. // Eatcha (talk) 15:16, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
    Nobody is forced to review anything, those interested in only videos can ignore the sound nominations. So the only worry is whether video nominations would get lost in the clutter. I don't think they will, as the FVC/FSC pages just aren't that big; the FVC and FSC nomination lists combined don't even make up half the length of the FPC list. If FSC is unpopular because people are genuinely uninterested in sounds, then my proposal won't help. But if, as I suspect, FSC is unpopular because of the bandwagon effect (i.e. what's the point of reviewing, it won't pass anyways since nobody else will come, and as a result nobody nominates either), putting it in the same place as the FVC list will signal that we do care about sounds and other people are likely to come along. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Implemented by Eatcha per clear consensus below. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think the discussion phase has died down, so I will proceed to make a formal proposal:

Going forward, there will be two processes for promoting featured content on Commons:
  1. Featured picture candidates will be for all static two-dimensional images.
  2. Featured media candidates will be for all other types of media.

@A.Savin, Agnes Monkelbaan, ArildV, Aristeas, Basile Morin, Basotxerri, Charlesjsharp, Christian Ferrer, Cmao20, and Colin: @Daniel Case, Der Wolf im Wald, DXR, Eatcha, El Grafo, Ermell, Famberhorst, Fischer.H, Frank Schulenburg, and GerifalteDelSabana: @Iifar, Ikan Kekek, Jkadavoor, Johann Jaritz, Llez, Martin Falbisoner, Michielverbeek, Milseburg, PantheraLeo1359531, and Paris 16: @Peulle, Pigsonthewing, Poco a poco, Podzemnik, Rhododendrites, Sonya7iv, T.Bednarz, The Cosmonaut, Tomer T, and Trougnouf: @Tuxyso, Uoaei1, W.carter, Wilfredor, and XRay: Your input is appreciated. Please read the discussion above for rationale and context before voting. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:37, 17 May 2020 (UTC) Note: Because there is some disagreement on the proposed scope of FPC, we can have a refining poll afterwards if this passes, with options such as: a) photographs only; b) static 2D images (as proposed); or 3) static 2D images and animations. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Third place POTY 2017
    Third place POTY 2017
  • POTY finalist 2019
    POTY finalist 2019
  • FP
    Featured pictures FP
  • FP
    Featured pictures FP
  • POTY finalist 2006
    POTY finalist 2006
  • FP
    Featured pictures FP
  • FP
    Featured pictures FP
  • POTY finalist 2008
    POTY finalist 2008
GIFs are usually very appreciated by voters, and frequently reach the first places in the POTY competitions. Moreover, they do not need any click, they're simply loaded automatically. We don't need any speaker to appreciate a GIF, and it's compatible with all the languages. The potential for illustration is huge, and thus widespread on Wikipedia. The discussion above was about merging FVC and FSC but the vote is slightly different, so it seems important to bring this particularity. -- Basile Morin (talk) 08:59, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Actually, my intention is indeed primarily to merge all the non-FPC components together; I threw in a scope just to make it a rigorous proposal. But we can definitely look into refining the scope in a subsequent survey. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 Support Then we could split between Image file formats (JPEG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, PNG, etc.) and all other media formats (WEBM, MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, PDF, etc.) Any candidature with an extension type "image" should be accepted in FPC, all others in "Featured Media Candidatures". -- Basile Morin (talk) 14:36, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment I don't approve of the lower hurdle for FV, though the page Commons:Featured video candidates makes so mention of how many votes you need. I am aware that the QI and VI stars only need one vote. Also, within the last year, the FV logo appears randomly when I click on good pictures on a category page. A programming error? It would be great if these issues should be sorted before implementing any changes. ̴̃Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:09, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @Charlesjsharp: The lower hurdle was introduced because the participation was way too low to get enough votes. Afair, it's meant as a temporary life-support measure that should be reverted as soon as the project gains a "critical mass" of participants. --El Grafo (talk) 09:33, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I understand, but I've just looked at the four latest animal featured videos. The fox is good. Good EV, perfect for video. The singing bird is very ordinary - the camera moves. The dog sled is taken with poor light. It has a caption which I assume is allowed on FV. I don't know why. The herd video is really ordinary and is speeded up. If these are representative of the quality of videos we are promoting, we run the risk of ridicule from the non-Wiki World. ̴̴Charlesjsharp (talk) 10:39, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  • MOTD is even more of a joke, being selected often with the input of just one person, without any guiding standards. Apparently Template:Motd/2020-05-15 managed to make it onto the main page without even an English caption. By streamlining featured media candidates, the hope is that it will grow to the point where we're promoting at least one media file per day, providing ample supply for MOTD. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:44, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @Charlesjsharp: I totally agree that current standards are way too low. That's at least in part because people haven't had the time to develop expertise yet. At FP, over time we have established a common vocabulary and agreed on some nice-to-haves, no-nos and deal breakers. Some of that (composition, lighting, …) has equivalents in the video world. Many other aspects (cuts, everything related to sound, …) are new to most of us. We still need to develop most of the standards there. And I'd argue that at this point in time, every well-founded oppose vote is an important step towards standards we can all agree on. So if you (or anybody else) have some time to spare, please don't hold back – vote and discuss. --El Grafo (talk) 09:04, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support --Sonya7iv (talk) 12:05, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support Me too Poco a poco (talk) 12:30, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Neutral Not sure if the idea "to make Featured sounds more popular" will really work by just placing sounds' nominations more prominently. --A.Savin 13:36, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
    The thing that prompted me to suggest this was indeed the sad state of FSC, but the possibilities are limitless: if people decided to make slide shows featurable, then they could just amend the guidelines at FMC instead of creating a new process or trying to fit it into FPC, FVC, or FSC where it doesn't really belong. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support There are two problems. One is that interest in videos and sounds is lower than at FPC. The other is that knowledge of videos and sounds is not as strong as in images.
  • The lack of interest means that in order for the processes to be successful, for at least a temporary period (and possibly indefinitely) the relative standards will be lower, both in relative quality and in voting requirements. This is already reflected in what gets promoted. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it's worth acknowledging.
  • More concerning, to me, is the lack of knowledge and, in turn, inconsistent promotion criteria. By that I mean there aren't as many people familiar with sophisticated video editing/production, and so I think people are largely trying to carry over knowledge from photography, combined with a more general critical eye. That's fine to a point, but when people give technical feedback at FPC, it's often in terms of concrete "you should've used a lower ISO" or "you've increased the 'clarity' setting too much in post-processing" or "to remove chromatic aberration, do X". Because we don't have many people familiar with high-level video editing, we don't see that sort of feedback as much, except insofar as lessons of framing, lighting, etc. carry over from photography. Beyond this, there are limitations just in compatibility. Someone trying to upload almost any common file format will be greeted with an error because we only accept ogv and webm -- formats which high-quality cameras just don't use. Video2commons is time-consuming and cumbersome (I uploaded a 2gb file a few days ago and it took almost 2 days to process). That's not an argument to allow more filetypes necessarily, but it speaks to the way Commons just isn't as friendly to people passionate about video as it is to people passionate about photography. These issues are even more significant when it comes to featured sounds. I don't think there's any strong agreement about promotion criteria apart from "the quality seems pretty good" and "I like it".
  • Combining all non-static media (whether a five-frame GIF, slideshow, animation, high-resolution video, sound effect, music, etc.) makes sense. There's already a lot of crossover. Confusingly, some of the few sounds that are being promoted are in fact videos (see Commons:Featured sounds/Music). As long as we acknowledge these issues, including that the output will not quite be to video/sound what FPC is to photography any time soon, this is sensible. — Rhododendrites talk |  16:31, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
  • To be clear, this is a support of the proposal as written. Oppose the idea of a separate process that includes all videos other than videos that have a .gif extension. — Rhododendrites talk |  03:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support While agreeing with the classification of GIFs with the rest of 2D media, as Basile Morin says. --GeXeS (talk) 06:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support ― Gerifalte Del Sabana 07:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support I'm OK with that, including moving GIFs to the new "Featured Media" section. Still think maps, illustrations, etc. should go there as well though. --El Grafo (talk) 08:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Support As long as animated GIFs, PNGs, WebPs, and SVGs remain in FPC. --pandakekok9 09:32, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment Any format restricted to 256 colours has no place being featured in 2020. Featured process should be about selecting the finest media on Commons, and GIF is a format that should have died last millennium. It likely predates most people here being born, that's how ancient it is. I agree we generally have some ability to recognise good photographs and also good photos/scans/restorations of historical artworks. We generally are weak with illustrations and the other media formats. I don't feel Commons should persist with 'featuring' content that doesn't have a good body of users generating/reviewing. It isn't an easy problem to solve. But I would be happy to never have to suffer another animated GIF at FPC. :-) --Colin (talk) 09:47, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
I would agree with you regarding GIF, if MediaWiki supports animations for APNG thumbnails... pandakekok9 12:15, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Animated GIF discussion

I'm surprised to see animated GIFs come up as an exception. Most animated GIFs out in the world these days (reddit, gifycat, etc.) are actually webms. That speaks to the negligible practical difference. In both cases, they're videos, but GIFs more often loop. In Wikipedia style terms, the difference is mainly in the length (greater/less than 5 seconds). My question is why would a 4 second moving image be subject to a different process than a 6 second moving image? If I convert a GIF to an identical webm, why should it be subject to a different process? Even if we say that starting automatically and looping are features solely of GIFs (they're not), do either of those properties make criteria for static images more applicable than criteria for video? As far as I can tell, the main argument for retaining GIFs is because people at FPC like them (and, presumably, don't want to participate in a separate process). If FPC retains animated GIFs, I'd withdraw my support for this and be in favor of folding all visual media back into FPC. FVC already struggles for participation, and if the bigger process is just going to retain the non-static formats it likes, FVC (or FMC) has little chance of success. — Rhododendrites talk |  15:09, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Image file format
  • GIF (static)
    GIF (static)
  • GIF (animated)
    GIF (animated)
WebM is an audiovisual media file format
MP3 is not an image file format
  • Contrary to WebM, GIF is an Image file format. Static GIFs are also very popular. To quote Wikipedia: GIf has come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability between applications and operating systems. As long as we accept SVGs, PNGs, TIFFs, and all sorts of Image file formats in FP, we should also take GIFs, in my view.
  • Converting a GIF into a WebM doesn't make much sense, but converting a (short) video into a GIF makes it easy to share afterwards. This format is as simple to include on any HTML page as a JPEG.
  • There are GIFs on reddit too. A GIF which is a WebM is just not a GIF: this is a video :-)
  • Concerning Wikipedia, there is a GIF above which lasts 42 seconds, and that is currently displayed on the page Fractal in English.
  • Since they are looping, there is no beginning and no end, contrary to a video. No sound, either. Like a picture, a GIF is immediately accessible, and when finished, starts again. You can stop looking at it when you want, not when the video decides for you (means is finished).
  • Traditionally, in FPC, animated GIFs have always been considered as images. There was one submitted a few days ago by Charles, the candidature was posted in FPC, not in FVC. In 2019, featured videos have exceptionally been excluded of POTY, however there is at least one GIF, sorted in the gallery Miscellaneous, among other static pictures. This is natural like that. -- Basile Morin (talk) 17:48, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Static GIFs are also very popular - right, and they should be included with the static media. Likewise, if we have a webm that has just one frame and no audio, it should be considered static. The main thing is the process/criteria used to evaluate, and thus the file extension means less than the media itself.
  • There are GIFs on reddit too. A GIF which is a WebM is just not a GIF: this is a video -- the subreddit you linked to displays webms. It's called gifs, just like /r/gifs, but displays webms (with the gifv extension, which is not a gif).
  • Since they are looping - they are traditionally looping, but not all gifs loop, not all browsers are set to display them as looping, and webms can loop, too (like in that subreddit).
  • Just to be clear, I love looping gifs, and am not proposing replacing them with Webms. The point is, they're animated and thus not static. There's nothing about them starting automatically or looping which would make them better suited to evaluation according to static media rather than non-static media. — Rhododendrites talk |  19:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
File:Johnrogershousemay2020.webp
WebP is an image format employing both lossy and lossless compression.
  • We don't have yet featured static GIFs probably because we have so few candidatures in the gallery Non-photographic FPs (all formats included). However this is totally possible with Pixel art for example. Also, we cannot exclude the works of some graphic creators like Noma Bar or Malika Favre to be presented one day, and their works with only a few plain colors are very compatible with the GIF format. Note we also don't have yet WebP or CGM FPs, although these should be accepted like JPEGs or SVGs.
  • Concerning GIFs as WebM, please show us here on Commons a GIF that would be seen as a WebM. Give a link, so that we understand what we're talking about. From the link above (on reddit) I could download the files as GIF, not as WebM. After, what the websites pretend they host is their own responsibility, and what they allow to download depends on their policy. You can also find many websites that do not allow you to download their JPEGs (for example by blocking the right button of your mouse).
  • A browser not set to display animated GIFs? You can also find browsers set to display JPEGs in 256 colors, browsers that replace adds by big grey rectangles, etc. We can't control what the viewers are doing at home, we should explore general cases.
  • This is also a complete nonsense to create a static video to nominate it in FPC 😳, then arguing it's valid because the video is not animated? No, the selection by file format is far more standard and easy. -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:35, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
  • There are an awful lot of tangents here, but I'm still not seeing any argument at all why an animation, video, etc. that happens to have a .gif extension makes more sense to evaluate apart from all of the other videos/moving images. There's just no argument other than "I like it" and bizarre technicalities (e.g. that gif is an image format -- indeed it started that way, and as the Wikipedia article says, it was modified to include multiple frames "forming a video clip"). The division of the processes isn't because we need to separate file types. It's not because one set of criteria for one filetype doesn't work with another filetype; it's because different judgments are needed for different kinds of content. Sounds, videos, animations, etc. are different from static media. It's ok to say that FPC can handle all of it, but if we're going to spin out videos, it should be all videos, not just videos that happen to be contained in certain filetypes. This will be my last post in the thread, however, because I find myself confused at why this is controversial. — Rhododendrites talk |  03:27, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Spoke too soon. :) Just wanted to add that, in case any of these concerns are because people don't want to recategorize existing FPs that, I don't think that's part of this proposal. Existing FPs that are videos/GIFs won't lose their FP status. — Rhododendrites talk |  03:52, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Current promoted Featured Sound (source WebM format). Imagine the same nomination with a static image: this would be then a "static two-dimensional image", if we don't mind the specific file format. Valid for FPC or for FMC?
    Is this PDF a static image?
    Yes, this is controversial, but for good reason. Here at the right we have a featured sound with a static image (or almost). Perhaps there are 100% static already promoted (I did not dig that much). Valid for FPC?! Indeed, it fits to the category "all static two-dimensional images" (just a WebM file, with sound), with regards to the survey above. But the question at the beginning was to merge FVC and FSC into a category called FMC (Featured Media Candidatures). Idem with PDFs and all sorts of ambiguous formats that are not specifically "image". In the context, this is an important question, yes.
  • Animated GIFs allow to show concepts quickly
  • Stereogram (animated GIF)
    Stereogram (animated GIF)
  • Stereo monochrome image anaglyphed for red (left eye) and cyan (right eye) filters. Static JPEG but 3D red cyan glasses are necessary to view this image correctly.
    Stereo monochrome image anaglyphed for red (left eye) and cyan (right eye) filters. Static JPEG but 3D red cyan glasses are necessary to view this image correctly.
  • "Anything with image is, by definition, not a sound" too :-) This is a video, an audible image, or a picture with sounds encapsulated. Nevertheless, this WebM is a FS, not a featured video. And that's why identifying and enumerating the accepted file formats in FPC is essential in my opinion. Once this will be done, all other kinds of media will be simply oriented towards the other section. -- Basile Morin (talk) 13:49, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
  • To your point on PDFs: Simply specifying that a file must contain only a single image will prevent multi-page PDFs from being nominated at FPC. And a single-page PDF is almost certainly in the wrong format for a project like Commons so it is not featurable anyways. Also, we have never featured a PDF before, so this is all theoretical anyways. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I think any image that moves should be considered as not merely an image, and therefore, I think that if things that are animated are supposed to be judged at FVC, animated GIFs probably should be considered there. Other than "because we haven't done it that way", what is the good reason not to restrict FPC to static images? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Three reasons : 1) Animated GIFs are not the same kind as videos. You don't click "start", "pause", "back", etc. You just follow the loop like an image. Google, Bing, Baidu, and probably all the web search engines classify differently videos and GIFs, while together GIFs with static images 2) We don"t know yet how FVC and FSC are going to be handled in the future with the POTY, while we know Gifs often get good grades in the pool among other images (by experience). There are many extensions like STL that could join a new FMC section, since you use your mouse pointer to manipulate these digital objects. They are not immediately accessible like JPGs or PNGs. But GIFs are among these formats "immediate for the eyes". 3) FPC means "Featured Picture Candidates" and GIF, as Wikipedia says in the first line, is a "bitmap image format". Image fits in the category "Picture" (better than video). -- Basile Morin (talk) 08:11, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Scope of FPC

Option 2 will be implemented. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As I indicated above, we will now have a discussion to refine the scope of FPC. The scope of FMC will in turn be defined as anything which does not fall within the scope of FPC. The three main options are (from narrowest to broadest):

  1. Photographs only.
  2. Static two-dimensional images only.
  3. Static two-dimensional images and animations.

I think each of them has pros and cons:

  1. Advantages: Keeps FPC more coherent; what most people are here for anyways. Disadvantages: Difficult to define. Do Commoner-taken photographs of PD art count? Do old PD photographs count? Unclear if excluding non-photographic media is desirable.
  2. Advantages: Clear, simple definition; simply a file which contains a single image that does not change over time. Disadvantages: Unclear if excluding animated GIFs is desirable.
  3. Advantages: Keeps the status quo. Disadvantages: Difficult to define. What is the difference between an animation and a video? If we separate based on filetype, why would the same content belong in different places depending on whether it's a GIF vs. a WebM file? Also, some people believe that animated GIFs are obsolete in 2020.

@El Grafo, Wilfredor, Frank Schulenburg, Christian Ferrer, Rhododendrites, Eatcha, and Charlesjsharp: @XRay, Daniel Case, Ikan Kekek, Aristeas, PantheraLeo1359531, Basotxerri, Trougnouf, Basile Morin, Sonya7iv, and Poco a poco: @A.Savin, GeXeS, GerifalteDelSabana, Pandakekok9, and Colin: Your opinions please. If you choose Option 1 or 3, please specify what exact definition you want to use (preferably as objective as possible). Feel free to add other options if they do not fit within any of the three proposed ones. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Option 2 fits best in my opinion. Computer generated imagery, complex visualizations and more will increase and be more important than now. Animations fit in Featured Media better. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Charlesjsharp (talk) 19:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    @Charlesjsharp: Can you please provide a precise definition of "photograph"? Under your desired rules, would the following be eligible: a) a photo of a 2D artwork taken by a Commoner; b) a photo of a 3D artwork taken by a Commoner; c) a scan of an old historical photo; d) medical images (ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, etc.) and other imaging techniques not traditionally considered "photography"? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    My 'option 1' would include all images taken by a Commoner, so would exclude restorations or edits of non-Commoners's work. Would include original scans, but not scans made by non-Commoners. Would include a Commoner's own photos/scans of a 2D/3D artwork, historical photo or medical image, but exclude all non-Commoner's work like Google Art Project, Nasa. No opinion on Gifs. This definition may be your Option 2, but your options do not make it clear who has created the image/scan which I see as crucial. Charlesjsharp (talk) 09:42, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    I see. And you also support Commoner-made diagrams? Either way your idea is significantly different from any of the ones proposed (which do not differentiate on the basis of creator), so I would count your !vote as being a custom Option 4. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment Based on the above discussion on animated GIFs, I was expecting Option 3 to win, but I, too, support Option 2. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I still want animated GIFs and PNGs to be included in FPC, but I will be fine with Option 2. I oppose Option 1 as it's unclear as stated with its cons, and it's too exclusive. --pandakekok9 01:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd go for Option 3 (and as for the differentiation between GIFs and WebMs - as far as I noticed, the basic difference is in the way these are handled by the browser, isn't it? At least I think that my browser plays animated GIFs in an evergoing loop, while WebMs act more like a playable, controllable embedded video), but I'd settle with Option 2, too. --GeXeS (talk) 05:45, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I think there was some confusion in the above discussion, as some websites are using the term "animated gif" to mean any looping short clip. On Commons, we mean en:GIF#Animated GIF only, which is a 25-year-old format and of curiosity value only like VHS tape. -- Colin (talk) 07:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2. Animated GIFs are simply a poor-man's movie, and IMO have no place being featured on any forum. Proper video formats exist and can be looped if required, and controlled by the page-author or user (e.g only play when clicked on or when mouse is over them). Moving image formats should be reviewed by other media forum (assuming it is viable). -- Colin (talk) 07:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2 seems the simplest and most elegant solution to me. --Aristeas (talk) 09:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1, and I do not think that "photograph" is difficult to define at all if we think about it as "photographic work":
a) a photo of a 2D artwork, whether taken by a Commoner or not: NO. The artwork is the main content, the painter the main author, the photo here is just a reproduction method. If done right so as to be a faithful reproduction of the original, it is equivalent to a scan with zero creativity involved from the photographer. This is in line with how we handle the copyright aspects of reproductions of 2D art per {{PD-Art}}. Exceptions may apply when the painting is only a part of a creative photographic composition, of course.
b) a photo of a 3D artwork, whether taken by a Commoner or not: YES. The artwork is the main content here too, but creating a 2D-representation (photo) of it requires creative decisions that make it a work on its own rather than just a reproduction. That is also in line with how we handle the copyright aspects of this.
c) a scan of an old historical photo: YES. A photographic work remains a photographic work, whether is is old or new, whether it was taken by a commoner or not, whether it was taken with a digital camera or on film.
d) ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, etc.: NO unless there is some creativity involved. There may be some borderline cases that need to be decided when we experience them; we don't have to define every edge case a-priori.
I'd like to add that I think that digital representations of 2D art (paintings, whether they've been digitized through a scanner or camera) should get their own section of "Featured Paintings". For once, we have loads of them - plenty to keep a project running. Second, the criteria these should be judged by differ considerably from any other type of media we have here. Also: No animations please, regardless of file format. --El Grafo (talk) 10:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 3 -- Basile Morin (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Taking by a Commoner with a camera (no scans, no X-Rays, no computer generated stuff) Poco a poco (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 --Basotxerri (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2. I don't see why we should exclude scans of 2D artworks from nomination process, but at the same time allow photographs of 2D artworks: the output is basically the same. And photos of 2D artworks also mean photos of frescoes, mosaics and the like -- we certainly would not make COM:FP a better place by excluding such photos. --A.Savin 01:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment 3-D images that can be manipulated by the user but don't move without being clicked should remain the purview of FPC. I'm talking about 3-D panoramas and also computer-generated images, for example, of the human skull, which are static except for each time the viewer moves them. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 3 --Wilfredor (talk) 00:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment There is currently a plurality for Option 2. In terms of the incremental changes being proposed, I see a consensus for making animations ineligible for FPC and a consensus against deprecating static non-photographic media. Hence I move to adopt Option 2 as the choice acceptable to most. Any objections? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In the interest of disclosure

Two votes were accidentally deleted here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Georges_Rochegrosse_-_Henry_F%C3%A9vrier_-_Henri_Cain_and_Louis_Payen_after_Victorien_Sardou_-_Gismonda.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=432760795 - I presume through edit conflict. I've restored them, but I'd prefer if someone else would check I haven't screwed this up. I'll poke the person who did the accidental deletion.

Better to be open about these things than give the appearance of impropriety, aye? Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:31, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

AGF, right? Always assume, absent any evidence otherwise, that this kind of edit is accidental, as this one was. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:21, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
@Ikan Kekek: I think the point of Adam's post here was not to accuse you of any impropriety, but to avoid giving off an air of impropriety himself through his action of restoring the deleted votes. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:27, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
@Ikan Kekek: Agreed; I believe I said I knew it was accidental on your talk page, but it felt wrong to name you for a good-faith edit, so I decided to just focus on what I did. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:47, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Wouldn't an edit summary have been sufficient? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Probably. Honestly, I just figured it wouldn't hurt to tell people. If I screwed this up somehow - restored some vote someone withdrew - I wouldn't have hidden my mistake. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
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