Commons talk:Photo challenge/Archives/2018

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November Results

Graves and Cemeteries: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Waverley Cemetery, NSW, Australia during the night with Milky Way in the sky Romantiker cemetery Maria Enzersdorf lit by many candles on All Saint's Day 2017 Panorama de la Colline des Croix, à Šiauliai en Lituanie
Author Antongorlin Granada Pierre André Leclercq
Score 15 11 10

Congratulations to Antongorlin, Granada and Pierre André Leclercq. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)


Cables and Wires: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Tahtali cableway in Turkey Woodpeckers on telephone pole and cables. Huron County, Ontario, Canada
Author Maasaak GabrielleMerk Magnolia677
Score 15 11 9

Congratulations to Maasaak, GabrielleMerk and Magnolia677. -- Jarekt (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

February themes

I guess it was already proposed to do Closed or closing commercial activities in February, which is fine. How about the second challenge? The following proposals had a lot of votes

Also I just proposed Spring. Maybe if enough people supports it we can do it this spring? --Jarekt (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

My favorite for the second theme for February is Archeology.. i think. :o) But i'm ok with all. (I voted for spring. :o) ) Fauvirt (talk) 17:43, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

December results

Theatre Buildings: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title WienOperaFotoThalerTamas Theatro del Lago in Frutillar at Lake Llanquihue with the volcano Osorno. Burgtheater Luftaufnahme
Author Thaler Tamas Ermell Anna Saini
Score 23 18 12

Congratulations to Thaler Tamas, Ermell and Anna Saini. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)


Traditional Professions: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Fisherman on Danube Tannery workers in Morocco (Fez), in their tough task of dyeing
the skins that will turn into beautiful pieces of leather. The
environment is unhealthy and the smell unbearable.		 Worker in tannery, Srinagar, India
Author Janusz Recław Fbrandao.1963 Pdobrovsky
Score 30 18 12

Congratulations to Janusz Recław, Fbrandao.1963 and Pdobrovsky. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:07, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

January results

Trash and waste management: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Trycicle transport in Shanghai Fruit crates ready to be disposed of - Caserta, Italy Cows feeding of the refuse of a vegetable market
in Chittagong (Bangladesh)
Author Ermell Aleco86 Xopolino
Score 43 20 17
Blue: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Summit photo Zugspitze, Germany Blue facade of a house in Tokyo Karneval, Italien, Venedig
Author CatalpaSpirit Ermell Anna Saini
Score 22 18 12

Congratulations to Ermell, Aleco86, Xopolino, CatalpaSpirit, and Anna Saini. -- Colin (talk) 18:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Retrospective

I'd like to thank everyone who supported the archaeology theme. We've got a really good haul from it, much more good entries than I'd have thought. It seems you can predict the outcomes of challenges much better than I can. That's shown by how I was hoping for a lot of christmas tree recycling pictures in Trash and waste management, but we barely got any. – b_jonas 19:50, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I am also sometimes surprised at the direction the challenge participants took and quality and variety of the photographs. Some challenges I love few dozen photographs an can not decide on top 3 others I do not like almost any and still have hard time picking 3 top entries. It is always interesting. --Jarekt (talk) 03:06, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Challenge proposal

Hi, everyone. Sorry for the short notice, but I would like to propose a theme for the next challenge in March if possible. the global campaign Whose Knowledge? is preparting a global challenge on which everyone is invited to add pictures of women anf improve the quality and number of pictures of female biographies in the many languages.

The challenge is called "Whose Knowledge?/VisibleWikiWomen" and there is an ongoing sharing of it in social media and wikis. It seems like a perfect challenge to happen in the month of March on which we celebrate the feminism and join forces to reduce our gender gap. I wonder if there is still time for a quick promotion of this challenge here.

Is anyone interested on helping to start this challenge on Commons? Please, let us be quick in order to do it on time! :) —Teles «Talk to me ˱C L @ S˲» 03:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Teles, March photo challenges started on March 1, we are now almost half way through March, so we are already about a month late. Also this is a photo challenge any only photographs taken by the uploaders are eligible, so the rules would be a bit different from Whose Knowledge?/VisibleWikiWomen. We could do last-minute 3rd March/April photo challenge featuring notable women (in Wikipedia sense), but I wonder if we should be more specific somehow. We usually only judge images based on their quality and not on how useful the image is across Wikimedia projects, and I am afraid we will end up with a lot of photographs of Katherine Maher at conferences. That is kind of unusual request, as we usually first propose new challenges at Commons talk:Photo challenge/themes. I would support this proposal, but would want to hear from more people. Pinging some people that occasionally contribute to Photo Challenge pages: @Colin, Alexmar983, MichaelMaggs, Fauvirt, B jonas, El Grafo, P199, and Ibex73: . -Jarekt (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I am currently not active here, because of other wikiactivities including WikiGap and Art+Feminism and so on... so I have nothing against the theme as my current involvements "prove", but the timing is not good. For the next year we can do it on time for sure, i can support a proposal... for this year please don't rely on me. I am really too busy to follow or refine or support any challenge. In general, however, we are flexible here and we wanted to introduce a third challenge at one point so maybe it's time to test it.--Alexmar983 (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I am very supportive of adding the VisibleWikiWomen challenge to the current calendar for March 2018. If even a few additional people add a few pictures, it will have been worth it. Many of us have photos of notable women we haven't uploaded yet; this would be an impetus to do so, even at this late date, almost half way through the month. Can we also make it a recurring event every year during the month of March to honor Women's History Month? --Rosiestep (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi Teles and Rosiestep. I'm not sure Photo Challenge is the best choice for your wiki campaign. The Photo Challenge was set up to encourage photographers on Commons to take pictures and be encouraged to try new themes they might not have considered before. It was also designed to be much more welcoming to newbies and to those who don't have the very best equipment that FP/QI often require. It isn't aimed at people who upload other people's photos or upload historical photos or for drawings. Looking at your own uploads, I don't see an indication that you'd be likely to submit suitable entries.
In terms of contemporary photography of notable people, my own experience is limited to one individual, Peter Tatchell. He was enthusiastic about getting a good photo for Wikipedia, but in the end it took several months for his diary to be free at a weekend where I could meet and photograph him. If one goes to an event where notable people are attending, there is a potential for a photo opportunity, but often this may require a telephoto lens and a good camera to achieve a satisfactory result. And whether such events align with the photo challenge month?
I do appreciate there is a lack of female biographies on Wikipedia, though I suspect this correlates with the proportion of people-considered-notable by the publications that Wikipedia must cite to determine notability. Notability also has a huge bias towards sports, entertainment and politics. Is an engineer or a doctor really a lesser person than a minor politician or a player in some football team? From my own use of Wikipedia, I have not found that contemporary notable females are lacking in photos in comparison to contemporary notable males.
We have run a photo challenge to correspond with a Wiki campaign: Wiki Loves Pride 2014. But it wasn't successful, with only 7 contributors and 15 voters. When next year it was asked to be repeated, I argued that there are many aspects of humanity we might want to focus on, so didn't see a strong case for repeating just one.
Commons does not just exist to illustrate Wikipedia articles, and biographical articles are only one kind of article where a photo of women might appear. Given that notability appears to have an inherent gender bias (in addition to many other biases), I'd much prefer if Commons ran a challenge that sought to improve our collection of photos of women (and other under-represented groups) in better way that conforming to existing societal bias. A challenge simply titled "women" is probably too loose in scope, but there are many possibilities. The contemporary politicians, sports stars, singers and actors already are well represented photographically in my experience. -- Colin (talk) 21:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
We already had this example of Wiki Loves Pride in the past and it cannot prove anything per se, it is a quite limited example. The output here mostly rely on the social media campaign and the organization. People already have images, it's 2018 and there are camera everywhere in our pockets. So if someone has a strong social media apparatus, synergy is possible, and if the challenge is additional that does not even remove some upload from other challenges. Babies can grow in different ways, sometimes they have to risk and take more steps in the world. We can have this similar discussion again in 2019, 2020, 2021 or start to take some risks, which well is not even a risk... no more than any other challenges we had. We had one about inside-outside view of electric equipment and tools, and one about minerals... they were difficult and with limited output but that's precisely why we did them. And I was there on the first line, putting message on all project talks, I took responsibility for them. For "Multilingualism" to get nice images I wrote to some bilingual wikimedia chapters too... So you see, this baby did so many steps in the past and proved it is also fine this way.
In any case, I cannot help this time but if someone really wants to try and organize and promote something like that, I don't see the problem, no more than other past challenging theme. We have 24 per year, and some of them are more challenging in some way. In any case, it is in the end quite late and you are probably on your own... but we should probably try next year with more calm. if you leave a proposal now, we can see better how to make it. Plus, it is time we really start to organize synergies too. (Asian months, WLE...), IMHO.--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
@Jarekt: Re “We usually only judge images based on their quality and not on how useful the image is across Wikimedia projects”, I don't think that's true. I participate on Commons because I care about the documentation role of photos on Commons with good descriptions, even on Commons in itself, which is broader than just hosting images for other Wikimedia projects). I believe I consider that role in the photo challenges too.
As for the original proposal, throw it among the suggested themes with a note and I'll think about it later. I'm also confused by how the original poster asks for a challenge in March.
@Colin: “Notability also has a huge bias towards sports, entertainment and politics. Is an engineer or a doctor really a lesser person than a minor politician or a player in some football team?” No, but having a photo of a sportsman or an entertainer or politician is more important than having a photo of an engineer or writer. I see sportsman and actors and singers and politicians in television, and the photos here and in Wikipedia articles help me recognize them when I see them. But for most writers or engineers, I never see their face, and I don't need to know what they look like to value their contributions. Obviously you shouldn't take this to an extreme, the photo of a writer still has some value for us, but I don't see a problem with the bias here. Also, “A challenge simply titled ‘women’ is probably too loose in scope” is a bit strange to hear after such challenges as “vacations”, “spring”, “blue”, but I too would prefer more specific challenges than those.
– b_jonas 12:48, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I see a recurrent issue here in these comments and in previous discussion. Despite the limited monthly activitites, this is a crucial "part" of commons and many people come here for suggestions. Plurality is good and of course create many different scenarios, that we average out with as many feedbacks and supports as possible. When few people discuss, they put their "vision" as global even if it is not counterbalanced, strong assertion are produced that are not 100% proven by facts if you scroll the archive (no surpirse, it is a big archive by now). We had generic titles (which I didn't totally like myself), we had very challenging themes... we had all of these ad more, with pros and cons. That's why I am generally tolerant and I try to stick to practical and not "ideological" problem. The key problem IMHO is a good qualified communication for a high-value outptut, that has to be provided, and we are late for this year based on my experience, but not for the next one (where I hope I can help).--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:26, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Fundamentally a photo challenge has to appeal to a reasonable number of photographers so they go out and take some photos (or at least, have already taken some they haven't for some reason uploaded yet). And also to generate images of good enough quality and interest that reviewers enjoy rating the results. This is what we're trying to achieve by setting themes. Wide or narrow scope is always a balancing act. IMO a scope that arbitrarily includes 50% of the world's population is a little wide but that's just a feeling, whereas running a challenge that requests "notable women" is probably too narrow at short notice, and may struggle to achieve either photo change requirement (thus getting a low number of voters and photographers).
I also think photo challenge should honour Commons neutrality while also attempting to counter some bias/shortcomings in our repository. There's often some very dodgy statistics/facts used by campaign groups. As I note above, I don't see any evidence that of the contemporary (living) notable people wikipedia records with a biographical article, women have fewer photographs than men. From the previous example, Pride events are relatively well covered on Commons, whereas many other civil activism/celebration events have little or nothing.
In reply to b_jonas, I find your argument a bit circular -- that because you see someone's fact on TV we should have a photo of them on Wikipedia (though there are TV programs that include writers, engineers, scientists). Being able to picture a person is important. Many important people are not recognised as "notable" because their profession lacks celebrity. Take science. The scientist widely recognised as having saved more lives than any other in the 20th century, millions of lives, is Maurice Hilleman. Commons has exactly one black and white photo of him. John Snow, the father of modern epidemiology, a field that has also saved millions of lives, and more specifically who recognised what spread cholera, has (ignoring duplicates) one photo and one painting on Commons. These are people at the very peak of notability in their profession and still struggle to get an image. There's far far more to wikipedia than biographical articles, and there is far far more to Commons than conforming to the bias of notability. -- Colin (talk) 15:31, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
@Colin: I don't think my argument is circular, but maybe I didn't explain it well. The point is that for sportsmen and some types of entertainers, it is essential in what they're doing to see them in TV. For certain actors like Harrison Ford, the main way it is intended for people to interact with him is to recognize his face in movies they watch. If you read the Wikipedia article for such an actor, having a photo of his face is important, because it makes you remember more easily that indeed, you have seen that actor in certain movies listed in the article. Similarly for sportsmen in certain sports, such as the gymnast Berki Krisztián, the main way you interact with him is to see him perform on the olympics, and you will recognize him from his face. But for a scientist who works in the background and doesn't do public appearances, the way you interact with them is read about how he made the world better and appreciate that. Even for a mathematician like Jiří Matoušek, who I did meet in conferences, since he is deceased, the best ways to interact with him now is to recognize just how many well-written textbooks he's participated in writing, or to learn about his original results, for which I no longer need to know what his face looks like.
And yes, it does get complicated, sometimes the difference isn't so clear cut. You want people to recognize Bujtor István not only from his characteristic face in TV films he played in, but from his characteristic voice in all the films he's voice acted in, so ideally you'd want not only a photo, but also a sound sample on Commons (although in practice it will be impossible to find a good sound recording of him that can be distributed freely under a Commons-compatible license). A gymnast on the pommel horse performs one at a time without competing gymnasts sharing screen time with him, the camera can record him from close enough, and his face and head isn't covered by helmet or cap or water, so he is more visible than sportsmen in some other sports where some of those aren't true. But I still think a bias like this isn't bad.
On the other hand, I can't deny the practical side either. We will get more good photos of famous people who do a lot of public appearances in person, simply because it's easier to meet such people and make a photo of them. We will get more good photos of an easy to photograph monument like Hősök tere than of technically challenging topics like the interior of a washing machine. This will happen regardless of who or what we need more photos of. I concede that this does cause a bias that we can try to counteract by posing some difficult challenge topics.
On a different topic. What you say about the goal of the photo challenge is true. But I'd like to add that I find it important for the photo challenge to introduce new contributors to Commons. If a challenge gets someone to upload a photo that isn't worth much in itself, but later the same contributor will get familiar with Commons and realize what area he can make really valuable contributions in, and he will become a regular, then I think the challenge was worth. That said, I find it hard to judge which challenge topics are the best for this goal.
– b_jonas 19:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
b_jonas, we're getting a little off-topic. I do get your point that for a performer then their visual appearance is a key part of their profession, which it isn't for a mathematician or scientist. However, as humans "what someone looks like" is an attribute we like to share in a trusting environment. Indeed it is such an important characteristic, that denying sharing it, as many do in online forums such as Commons, is a crucial aspect of privacy and limiting social clues - age, gender, ethnicity, religion even, all come out with a photo. When we see the eyes, we like to think we are reading aspects of personality - wisdom, kindness, strength, gentleness.
Wrt targeting a challenge at missing areas of Commons. Yes this can sometimes work, but it can also expose that we are lacking photos in this area because it is just plain hard, or difficult to motivate or get permission or take good photos. Challenges with themes like "blue" can generate photos that fill gaps without even trying: serendipity seems to work here. -- Colin (talk) 10:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I am one of the people submitting very infrequently to these challenges. This is one topic that would appeal to me. For this year I would be happy to go through my backlog of not uploaded pictures of poets and put up some of the women poets. For the upcoming years I can imagine a more focused approach to make it more challenging - parallel to some edit-a-thons, we could ask for women in science, women in arts, women at work (they do not need to be notable themselves, these pictures could be used to illustrate articles about professions, we have many gaps there! It would be important to remind everyone of privacy rights in this case, however), women in sports and so on. I think we could use the existing channels of communication around gender gap to promote these challenges and through them get some more women to contribute pictures, perhaps for the first time. --Kritzolina (talk) 08:57, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I think the main thing I'm concerned about is the combination of notability and gender restriction. Take sport for example. As soon as you require notable sports figures, in the UK and US at least, you've already restricted things down enormously to men, with few exceptions like Olympics or tennis. Politicians still has a huge male bias. With notable singers or actors, there's perhaps little difference and I certainly don't think we have a lack of photographs of female singers/actors vs male. If anything, photographs of beautiful women in various professions outnumber men for obvious reasons. A "women in science" challenge is IMO much more likely to counter gender bias and produce a good variety of photos than "famous women" would. -- Colin (talk) 10:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Colin, I am sorry to say that I find your view on notability to be extremly biased. I would really love to do the women in sports and women in politics now, just to prove you wrong! --Kritzolina (talk) 14:33, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Kritzolina, There's a difference between biased and wrong. I may be biased to a view of these things from the UK, and in other countries there may be more equality. I don't think I'm wrong but willing to find different.
Today's UK sport news from The Guardian
  • Cheltenham Festival 2018: Gold Cup day (horse racing) - As far as I can see, all the jockeys are men.
  • Six Nations 2018 (rugby) - All the players/teams in the news are men.
  • Champions League (soccer football) - All the players are men.
  • Winter Paralympics - There's equality here.
  • NFL (American football) - All the players are men.
  • England cricket team - All the players are men.
  • Motorsport - All the drivers are men.
  • Snooker - All the players are men.
  • Darts - All the players are men.
Now, if you look hard, you see articles like How can women’s sport become equal to men’s?. There are women's teams for many of these sports, but they just don't get the coverage and their players are typically not notable to any degree. Compare Men's Six Nations Rugby on TV with Women's Six Nations Rugby on TV. Major channels vs minor channels or online-only. The newspaper articles are about the men and the male teams. -- Colin (talk) 15:16, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
For politics, "Since 1918 the total number of female MPs Britain has had is 455, less than the number of male MPs who sit in the Commons today."[1]. The proportion of female candidates (and thus MPs) is increasing.[2] My point is these "notable" professions have an inherent bias. Many of the professions where women outnumber men tend to be less notable. Funny that. So my argument is that using "notability" as a selector for images just ensures we totally conform to the existing bias in society. If we are aiming for more photos of women, they why add that handicap and why emphasis a bias that merits people playing a game on a grass pitch as more important in society than people trying to find the cure for cancers in a laboratory or checking up on the welfare of vulnerable children. -- Colin (talk) 15:34, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe we can title the challenge "Portraits of influential women", so the emphasis is on a face closeups and not from-behind shots of random women on the street. In the explanation we can specify that person has to be named and be either some public figure or someone known in her field. For example scientists, politicians, sportspeople, celebrities, artists, writers, etc. We would not link it directly to Wikipedia notability criteria. It would be March-April contest. --Jarekt (talk) 15:48, 16 March 2018 (UTC) Example gallery could be:

--Jarekt (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Jarekt, I think this is a very good suggestion. This would also leave us a chance to get pictures for articles like en:Maggie Steffens, en:Bachendri Pal or en:Mesila Doda. --Kritzolina (talk) 16:32, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
That would be a nice outcome if some of the images were the first images for people for whom we already have articles, but that would not be one of the challenge constraints. --Jarekt (talk) 17:04, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
this is one way to go, let's not overthink the framewor too much. These challenges change the type and output of the themes quite frequently. Do you remember when we had "primary colors", than rejected "pink", than accepted "blue" and now "pink" is back again as a proposal? IMHO. as long as it gives useful results (good quality image that are missing for a topic statistically are in almost every challenge), and expert organizers give support to perform it smoothly, and some of the frequent users are willing to take part and new uploaders are involved, as long as it pleases a part of the commons community, it's fine. We have many different themes and they mix such aspects differently. If you tune with expertise the idea, there is usually nothing too wrong with the single piece, especially if all the other pieces are various enough and finally counterbalances it in the final mosaic.
Besides the details, that I'm sure Jarekt can handle, I think that we should probably add this type of challenge as a third one in parallel, when this synergy occurs. Nothing too scheduled, it is just that this way nobody can criticize for any perceived unbalance or preferential treatment. People just need our know-how for similar initiatives and it's wiki to share it. I don't see what is the real advantage if they do in any case on another page here and we compete for the infobox in the home page. This is the same for any competition proposed "bottom-up" by local chapter or user group.--Alexmar983 (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

decision time

I was trying to judge amount of support or opposition to Teles proposal, but possibly the simplest way would be to just vote. So the title of the challenge would be "Portraits of influential women", the uploaders will need to provide the name of the subject, who should be either some public figure or someone known in her field. For example scientists, politicians, sportspeople, celebrities, artists, writers, etc. It would be March-April contest and we will use gallery above. --Jarekt (talk) 04:19, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

  •  Support I like the idea of challenges somehow tied to the season, anniversaries, or specific month. We also have so many biographical articles without photographs, that any effort to fill some of those holes is valuable. Finally I agree that we do have a big gender gap in coverage, so anything to help with that is also important. --Jarekt (talk) 04:19, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  •  Support --Kritzolina (talk) 08:10, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  •  Comment When I saw "portraits of influential people" I thought perhaps we had an idea I could back. But from the expansion of that title, it seems we are back with the cult of celebrity and filling holes in Wikipedia, thus conforming to Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Jarekt, the article you link to on "public figure" is a rather specific legal term in the US. The Cambridge dictionary defines the term as "a famous person who is often written about in newspapers and magazines or is often on television or the radio". I had hoped that "influential people" might include a teacher, headteacher, minister or other religious leader, GP, consultant (medical), social worker, youth group leader, etc. These all have public facing jobs and who end up influencing hundreds, thousands potentially, of lives as part of doing their job. They generally don't get written about in publications unless they do something extraordinary (good or bad). For Wikipedia, notability also requires sustained coverage in sources, rather than one event. I won't oppose, just hoped we could do better. Commons is not Wikipedia. -- Colin (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Colin, I see where you are going. I focused more on internationally and nationally known women, you focused more on regionally and locally known. I do not have a problem with that, I just would like pictures of named women who are in some sort of leadership or influential positions. I backed off from the Wikipedia notability criteria, which was convenient because people understand it, but that means we need to define our own threshold. So maybe "Portraits of influential women, well known in their fields", and skip examples. I did not realized term public figure is US legalese, and I am fine with dropping it. --Jarekt (talk) 03:07, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I really don't mind what you run -- we can give our views but ultimately there's no right or wrong and someone has to make a decision. That's what I learned when I was more active here ... that making a decision was more important than trying to come up with a theme that pleases everyone. As for the criteria for "influential", well this is just a Photo Challenge and last time I checked there wasn't a £1000 prize :-) so I think if someone thinks the person is influential, then perhaps that's enough. And perhaps the "well known in their fields" really isn't necessary. It might be interesting to see what people think of as "influential". Btw, "public figure" isn't really US legalese, but the Wikipedia article only seems to define the US legal term, so linking to the article wasn't as useful as it could be, and perhaps it shows some people bring very specific meaning to that phrase which wasn't intentional. -- Colin (talk) 10:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
A description is given to explain how the uploader consider a certain person influential or important. Based on such information and the expertise/view of the voters, such claimed influence or relevance is evaluated. Such different perspectives are averaged out by the various people who vote. It is not so different than evaluating the best image of a mineral. Were the majority of voters and uploaders expert of mineralogy? Not really, yet nobody would say such challenge was too critical to do, or that the result was underperforming, or the proclaimed finalists weren't those we were expecting. it's something similar here, with a somehow intended specific target but with a potentially genric title. We mostly give a gallery and suggest to follow that direction. You are always free to give a different interpretation of course, a little bit at your own risk and... the system works. In the end, if commons has nice images, long-term uploaders are motivated, new users come here and some of the files are useful, bingo.--Alexmar983 (talk) 01:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

✓ Done, see Commons:Photo challenge. @Teles and Rosiestep: Please help spread the word. --Jarekt (talk) 12:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I inform WikiDonne, for example. Thank you.--Alexmar983 (talk) 18:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
We are in, thank you ;-). --Camelia (talk) 19:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
And I did my first two, tomorrow evening I will go to a poetry reading where I hope to get some more good shots of female poets --Kritzolina (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Some people will miss it because it's below the two other challenges and they're used to new challenges appearing monthly. Also, it seems I'm not the only one who isn't used to the rule that “Photographs must be newly uploaded to Commons during the challenge submission period”: File:Waltraud Klasnic 1993.jpg and File:Esino Lario - Wikimania 2016 10.jpg had been uploaded earlier. No matter, Jarekt's procedure will reject those. – b_jonas 01:35, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
That rule was around from the begging. Few years back many challenges also had a rule that the image has to be taken during the challenge duration. But nobody lobbied for that constrain since. --Jarekt (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
i though that the files had to be uploaded during the period... "taken" is very rigid requirement. Also, it's against our interest, IMHO. I don't see any problem with the third challenge appearing at the middle of the month. It does not change a lot for less regular users, and even regular uploaders show up sometimes at different moment of the month. Also, they will have a lot of days in April if they see it on April, 1st. In any case, additional challenges are proposed as a plus, so their possible strong promotion campaign is part of their "package" and it should counterbalance possible gaps. These people can provide it, me too... you just make some fuzz on social platforms and it's almost ok. This is similar to other complex challenges, probably (that I have also promoted more than simpler ones over the years). For example, thsi time I have almost arranged a photo session at a scientific conference in two weeks.--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:18, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Great to see this moving forward, thanks all! Seeeko (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks everyone that commented here, embraced the idea, and could come up with a decision about it so quickly! Sorry for I haven't been actively responding to the comments. I am unusually busy these days. I am really happy to see that the challenge was accepted and will definitely spread the word! Hopefully, everything is going to work fine and maybe we could think about similar themes related with women, gender and equality that could be set to run every March. Just an idea, but I am already happy with the efforts you had to make the current challenge real.—Teles «Talk to me ˱C L @ S˲» 22:11, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

well, you might suggest to do a similar one about man... because

It isn't clear to me how this kind of overt bias can be acceptable within project guidelines? It is clear that individual editors have ideological biases, but the project fundamental has always been that "WP:NOTE" means that Wikipedia has the duty of accurately reproducing real-world biases. Any attempt to "counter" real-world biases on the project is clearly detrimental to the project's credibility. Wikipedia already has the reputation of having been subverted by US American "politically correct" ideologies, all the more should those representing the project be very clear that they reject all sexist bias of this type and endorse the fundamental project aim of accurately reproducing any real-world bias there may be. The alternative is that Wikimedia becomes a project for "improving" the world in keeping with select ideologies as opposed to merely documenting the world. I know this sounds petty, or to some ears even... "incorrect"? But it's important. You cannot be a Wikipedian and have ideological biases (of the type "there is an X gap, and there shouldn't be one, so we have to make it disappear") at the same time. --Dbachmann (talk) 09:39, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

We don't have enough good quality photo of food production, so I always support a challenge in that direction once a year. Does this make me biased? I do like food, now that i think about it. Now is it just me... because I don't see the difference between "food", "women", "keyholes", "color pink" or whatever in these proposals... And if you want to know how politically uncorrect I am you can read what I wrote when someone was afraid of having "a Christmas challenge" or "still too many crosses" in a challenge about religious symbols. This is just a way to get nice pictures that are needed. You can do one about men that are relevant in their fields too in few months... it is no big deal. These women have articles and they require good images, we apply a synergy, like we do in a good fraction of our challenges, based on what works in that month. I will use it for example as a way to get nice images of women scientists next week. We will also take pictures men attending such scientific conference but we will upload the "female" ones here. Now to me it sounds "pratical", not "biased". Also, this is an additional challenge, not a scheduled one.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

February results

Archaeology: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Archaeoligic find near Ebing Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Ägypten. Detail of the Ishtar Gate, eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon,
now in the Pergamonmuseum - Berlin (Germany)
Author Ermell Kora27 Rosapicci
Score 19 18 10
Closed businesses: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title A closed hotel in Palermo - Italy The building where used to be a slaughterhouse, Varnsdorf, Czech republic Closed shops in abandoned building in Avenida dos Aliados - Porto (Portugal)
Author Rosapicci Mirek256 Rosapicci
Score 19 16 8

Congratulations to Ermell, Kora27, Mirek256 and Rosapicci. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:24, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Spring photos on the Wikimedia Blog

Hey folks! I'm planning to use some of the spring photos being submitted now for the March contest in a post on the Wikimedia Blog. I'm aiming for Friday. The post will explain what Commons is, why it's important, who y'all are, and how people can join in. If you've been holding off on uploading your content, please jump in now! Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

In this "social media" times, it seems that we do get better feedback and coverage when we jump on a current topic. I can see that more over the years. My experience: If you tweet or ping the content here and there, try to get the usernames also on other platforms and ping them. The ones with the best images are expert photographers usually, it is quite easy to find their accounts.--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Hey Alexmar983, thanks for the feedback! We don't post Creative Commons-licensed content on social media without explicit permission. (Here's more on this, and see the ninth bullet point in our best practices.) What I'm going to do is put the images in a blog post, to which I'm hoping to drive people from social media for the explicit uploading instructions. It may work, and it may not. We'll see. :-) Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
This is live! Please let me know if you have any feedback. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Ed Erhart (WMF), The blog entry is great. Photo challenge often brings new users to Commons, and advertising it might bring some more. --Jarekt (talk) 17:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The core question is if we can do something similar once in awhile also for other challenge. Maybe we should ping Ed Erhart (WMF) when the monthly plan is scheduled. This would be good for the season-themed or Zeitgeist-themed competitions.--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:12, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

@Alexmar983: Sorry for the delay. The answer is yes, particularly if someone here is interested in writing it! Off the top off my here, there's two ways of doing it. One is the route I took above—attempting to bring new users into the fold. The other is taking the results of the content and publishing them on the blog with a small amount of explanatory text. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

April & May Challenges

Four proposals with 6 votes are:

I would like to propose Renewable energy + Video: verbs for April and Aircraft + Architectural Iron for May. Any other ideas? --Jarekt (talk) 12:00, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Renewable energy is somewhat similar to Trash and waste management, so I'd prefer if they were spaced farther apart. I'm also not sure which of these topics are easy challenges. – b_jonas 15:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Ok so lets do Aircraft + Video: verbs for April and Renewable energy + Architectural Iron for May. In the days of cell phones videos should not be too hard. It also should not be too hard to photograph an airplane. T take a good photo of airplane might be much harder, as it might help for you to be in air as well. --Jarekt (talk) 01:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Video: verbs is quite difficult (because it's unusual), it should be coupled with the simplest one. Maybe Architectural Iron is simpler than Aircraft (but the second one in the end is no big deal). For the month of May/June, It would be possible to find something that overlap with Wiki Loves Earth as a synergy (like a detail of something that can be found in natural parks ans sites) or something totally different, so it's complementary.--Alexmar983 (talk) 08:43, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Aircraft should be easy. I missed the parade in 2017, but this August I will go, with my camera, and try to make decent photos. – b_jonas 15:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Portraits of influential women: Are photographs of Reiterer, Wagenknecht, Krone-Schmalz screenshots? Please check. If so, not allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arkdjfurep (talk • contribs) 18:29, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I think those three aren't screenshots, but feel free to ask the uploaders directly if you have doubts. – b_jonas 15:09, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for asking, i was an accredited journalist for the ORF debates with Claudia Reiterer and took the picture by myself. As far as i know, @Superbass: also takes pictures during photocalls at German tv stations. --Ailura (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
That's right, I am accredited at the WDR's Studios for photocalls after certain TV-Shows. I never do screenshots. --Superbass (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

March Results

Tunnels and Underpasses: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Metro Tunnel In TongXinLing Station, Shenzhen, China Walking trail at Lago di Lucendro near the Gotthard Pass, Switzerland University of Naples "Federico II", Italy.
Author Sparktour GabrielleMerk Mark11000
Score 14 11 9

Congratulations to Sparktour, GabrielleMerk and Mark11000. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


Spring: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title A bird yearns for spring ( Rhineland Palatinate,Germany ) Schneeglöckchen in Hohndorf im Erzgebirge. Sachsen. Apple orchard in Canton Thurgau, Switzerland
Author AK-Bino Kora27 GabrielleMerk
Score 19 18 14

Congratulations to AK-Bino, Kora27 and GabrielleMerk. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:25, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

April results

Portraits of influential women: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title ATLANTIS Andrea Berg in Chemnitz im Februar 2014.
Author Superbass Rwetendorf Kora27
Score 18 18 10

Congratulations to Superbass, Rwetendorf and Kora27. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)


Aircraft: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Heissluftballon und Mond am Himmel über Speyer Acrobatics demonsration under a hot air balloon in Thouars, France Flugschau 2013 in St. Petersburg, Russland.
Author Kmtextor PCouton Kora27
Score 20 18 11

Congratulations to Kmtextor, PCouton and Kora27. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Swapping pictures before the deadline?

I was wondering if it's acceptable to swap submissions before the end-of-the-month deadline. I don't see any rule against it or any reason not to, I just wanted to make sure I can freely change my mind along the month. --Trougnouf (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

It is fine. --Jarekt (talk) 02:52, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

July themes could be

  1. "Street Performers" (it is good for August or September too)
  2. "Telephones"
  3. "Balconies" (and balcony flowers and plants)

what do you think? (we have a lot of time, I just thought I'd start thinking. ;o) ) Fauvirt (talk) 09:48, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think balconies would be too similar to architectural iron. I'd rather keep street performers for August or September but that's just because I will be in a better place for it then. Telephones is fine with me. I would like to do Earth Science too (goes well with the Wiki Loves Earth contest which not all countries get to participate in). --Trougnouf (talk) 13:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
👍 Like Fauvirt (talk) 19:24, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
I would like to squeeze in "Concert_photography" this summer, as I think it is summery activity. Other suggestions sound fine to me too. --Jarekt (talk) 02:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

So, based on the above, what do you think:

July: Concert photography & Telephones or Earth Science
August: Street Performers & Castles, Fortresses and Strongholds

?

 Support--Jarekt (talk) 11:45, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

June then school

I'd like to propose Schools for September or (preferably) October since that's when school (usually?) starts after the summer break (currently there's a lot of stress from exams and soon students won't be going to school).

As far as June which is still undiscussed I have no opinion so my randomized vote is "On the move". --Trougnouf (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

School, I think should be in September as that is a month often associated with it. "On the move" sounds good to me for June, Other 5 votes themes include:

Maybe the second one for June could be some "indoor" theme like Games or Measurements. --Jarekt (talk) 01:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Let's ask User:Achim Raschka, if he thinks doing the games now would be a good idea this month - he runs a project on games on de.WP. Achim, now or later, what do you think? --Kritzolina (talk) 06:26, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
@Kritzolina: I think it does not matter - especially when it comes to traditional games they are played year-round. In this case I really would love to see more than just chess, backgammon and checkers ... -- Achim Raschka (talk) 12:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
@Achim Raschka: The challenge is on and there are some nice ones from games I did not know about already uploaded. --Kritzolina (talk) 20:03, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

May Results

Videos: verbs: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Ernten von Heu in Sachsen. Flag of La Concha boat race in San Sebastian 2012 Turning around
Author Kora27 Ermell AK-Bino
Score 7 6 6

Congratulations to Kora27, Ermell and AK-Bino. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)


Renewable energy: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Windmill at Geltinger Birk, Germany Renewable energy in around Lisberg Castle Windmills in the salt pans of Mothia - Sicily (Italy)
Author Matthias Süßen Ermell Rosapicci
Score 18 7 6

Congratulations to Matthias Süßen, Ermell and Rosapicci. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:28, 10 July 2018 (UTC)


Architectural iron: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Avant de sortir du palais Güell, retournez-vous et admirez l'ombre de l'escalier ! The underside of the Triana Bridge (Puente de Isabell II) at night, Seville, Spain Iron loops in breakwater stones, Narooma, NSW, Australia
Author Philmip Kmtextor DonPolo14
Score 11 8 7

Congratulations to Philmip, Kmtextor and DonPolo14. -- Jarekt (talk) 01:47, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Rigging votes

May challenge had an interesting case where user MarcoC80, either created 3 sockpuppets to vote for his challenge entries or asked 3 friends editing from the same location to do so. See Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/Frankbag12345. The 3 new accounts uploaded around 50 useless images each to go around 50 edit requirement for voting. All 4 accounts were blocked and votes were disqualified. If you see other suspicious votes, please report them here. --Jarekt (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Very sad to see this and well done for spotting it. We had a sock-to-vote-for-myself problem on Feature Pictures with one user earlier this year. It isn't like there's a prize for either forum, so it is a pretty lame thing to do. -- Colin (talk) 19:17, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

August Challenge

What themes should we pick for August? I would vote for "Street Performers" and "Castles, Fortresses and Strongholds" which were already proposed for August. Any other ideas? By the way, I will be traveling with uncertain web access next 2-3 weeks and will not be able to process last month Challenge. User:Colin agreed to step in and help. --Jarekt (talk) 20:28, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

👍 Like Fauvirt (talk) 12:24, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I've closed the existing challenges and will prepare the new ones and new voting pages later today. -- Colin (talk) 07:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

June results

Traditional games: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Chess 1 Royal game of Ur, Mesopotamia, 2600-2400 BC People playing Xiangqi on the street of Beijing
Author Star61 Ibex73 Vaido Otsar
Score 16 15 13
On the move: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Theresa Schmidberger after a successful run in trickski,
Fischlham 2017		 Garden snail moving down the Vennbahn in disputed territory Lucy in the sky
Author Isiwal Trougnouf Sally V
Score 18 16 14

Congratulations to Isiwal, Trougnouf, Sally V, Star61, Ibex73 and Vaido Otsar. -- Colin (talk) 21:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Five votes rule

Do the  Oppose count as -1 in the theme proposals? I assumed so but it's not specified and these votes would be quite useless otherwise but it looks like we've picked +5-1's. --Trougnouf (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Trougnouf, I do not think we have "five votes rule" or any other "official" rule for choosing next month challenge. The "de facto" procedure was that potential challenges are always discussed ahead of time at this forum and that in majority of cases the potential challenges are chosen from proposals at Commons talk:Photo challenge/themes with the most votes. I agree that "oppose" votes should be counted as "-1" in determining number of votes per theme. --Jarekt (talk) 18:41, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Voting eligibility

Challenges open for voting - Voting is open to all registered contributors who have held accounts for at least 10 days and made 50 edits, and also to new Commons contributors who have entered the challenge with a picture. Some users don't care about these rules. User Happylittle7 for example votes without being eligible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Njfjhvnb (talk • contribs) 18:35, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

The final vote count only counts eligible votes. The software processing the votes actually flags all non-eligible ones, and after manual verification they are removed. If you look at past voting pages you can often see removed votes based on those rules. --Jarekt (talk) 02:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

July Results

Concert photography: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Singer - Tambours du Bronx.jpg Zapato 3 - La Ultima Cruzada Tour 2012. Merida, Venezuela. The Rolling Stones
Author Roumpf Davevzla Les Zg
Score 24 12 11

Congratulations to Roumpf, Davevzla and Les Zg. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


Telephones: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Phone of George Clemenceau during World War I Telephone booth in the land. Alarm phone on the_platform of_a
suburban train station, France
Author Ibex73 Roumpf Ibex73
Score 19 18 15

Congratulations to Ibex73, Roumpf and Ibex73. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

September challenge

For September challenge I was thinking about:

The first one was set for September for a while. Anybody has better idea? --Jarekt (talk) 02:23, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

My one concern about schools as a theme is the potential for taking photographs of other people's children without parental consent. However, if the images generally avoid focusing on the children, this should not be a problem. BD2412 T 02:36, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
User:BD2412, Commons:Photographs of identifiable people does not have anything special about children. I think for them the same rules apply as for adults, so in most countries pictures outside would be OK. --Jarekt (talk) 11:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
  •  Support. I don't think children pictures would be an issue so long as they are legal in their respective jurisdiction. I personally think of schools as pretty higher education buildings so they didn't cross my mind but this doesn't seem disturbing to me in the slightest. I also don't see the need to restrict emotions to humans only but I support either way. --Trougnouf (talk) 08:31, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
The idea of restricting the photographs to people, come from the fact that it is easy to take whole bunch of photos of kittens or puppies and than assign emotions to them. It is harder to photograph people. --Jarekt (talk) 11:10, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
Full grown cats even, you make a good point. :) --Trougnouf (talk) 11:17, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't know how useful they are for documentary purposes, but we got some good artistic pictures for the Emotions challenge already. Lots of submissions, and only six pictures with a non-human animal so far (and on two of the six, a human is the one with the emotion), thanks to a good set of examples to suggest humans only. – b_jonas 01:13, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

October topics

What challenges do we want for October? If you want “Pink”, then you need to find much better example images. But I don't recommend it, because we've done “Blue” in 2018-01.

Also, what month do you think is best to do the Insects challenge? Insects are much harder to photograph in cold weather. Is there a spring or autumn month that likely works on both hemispheres? – b_jonas 10:46, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

How I see, it is not "just" pink... It's Category:Breast cancer awareness... not? Fauvirt (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I am fine with pink, but I would not limit it to "Breast cancer awareness". The other proposal that has the most votes (7) is Balconies. May be we should do that one, as the second. --Jarekt (talk) 02:45, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Ah, ok. :o) + Support Fauvirt (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Update

I was hoping to create the voting pages for this month and award the winners of last month. But I've had some PC problems tonight and haven't managed to run the programs that do this. Should be able to do it tomorrow. -- Colin (talk) 21:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

August Results

Castles and fortifications: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Jagdschloß Moritzburg bei Dresden, Saxony, Germany Bodiam Castle from 1385, East Sussex, England Wilhelmsturm in Dillenburg, Germany
Author Staubi59 Elno78 Otto Domes
Score 11 10 9
Street Performers: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Street performer in Berlin, Germany Fire Dancing performer,
Medieval Festival of Itri
(Italy)		 NAT's (street performer), performing rope act to
earn hard money to feed her family,
on the occasion of rathyatra festival in Ahmedabad,
Gujarat, India.
Author Travelamāns Fiorenzo Fiorenza Jadavkiran
Score 14 14 12

Congratulations to Staubi59, Elno78, Otto Domes, Travelamāns, Fiorenzo Fiorenza and Jadavkiran. -- Colin (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

November themes

It is end of the month again and it is time to pick next month challenges. There are few possibilities:

I think we should do "bones" since it is Halloween time in many parts of the world. Anybody has an opinion about the second one? Pinging recent contributors to Commons talk:Photo challenge/themes: @B jonas, Sixflashphoto, Atomicdragon136, and Levin Holtkamp: . --Jarekt (talk) 16:48, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

  • I agree with Bones, as for the second I'm 50/50. I think town halls would be a good choice but I feel it would be better without winter being a factor so I would vote for units of measures. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 17:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Bones is probably a good choice for the easy theme. Then people will post fossil photos, and that will at least stir up the statemate about the "Earth Science" theme, where some people are trying to break it apart to multiple topics, but we don't know how to properly edit the discussion page and what to do with the existing votes. It's a mess really, it'd be better to start new headings and point to them from "Earth science".
By the way, should I try to break "Trees and forests" to two headings, "Forests" and "Lonely trees" as El Grafo proposes, keeping the original heading as well?
Also, I'm wondering how we can schedule certain themes. "Combustion engines" and "Electric motors" should be scheduled apart. We can pretty much do either of them now. They don't clash with Commons:Photo challenge/2016 - December - Home appliances, because despite my hopes, we didn't get any pictures actually showing electric motors back then. I still don't know what the best month for "Insects" is that is fair for people from both hemispheres.
– b_jonas 19:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
I think we should retire "Earth science" and keep the sub themes. I am OK with breaking up "Trees and forests", but we can also just keep it as is and than constraint the challenge to either one or the other and than propose the one we did not do. As for "Insect" it should be probably spring or fall so both hemispheres can participate. --Jarekt (talk) 11:50, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
What do you mean by “retire” exactly? I don't think you should delete the section (yet), it'll still be useful for reference even while the narrower topics are there. At most, you move the example images out from it. – b_jonas 18:03, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Towns hall has my vote, but I'm strongly biased with the Wiki loves Heritage contest participation --Trougnouf (talk) 09:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
In retrospect, I should have included decorative objects carved from bone or horn in the example images of the Bones theme, to widen the scope a bit. Too late now. – b_jonas 22:01, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

September results

Emotions: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 2
image
Title Euphoria with excitement Tears of joy after winning the Climbing World Championships a childs disgust
Author Basile Morin Simon04 Masse.media
Score 15 11 11

Congratulations to Basile Morin, Simon04 and Masse.media. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:53, 8 November 2018 (UTC)


Schools: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Classroom with children in a primary school in Laos Nursery school children in Kyoto Kids rehearsing for school festival, Cusco Peru
Author Basile Morin MichaelMaggs Konalouisa
Score 34 12 9

Congratulations to Basile Morin, MichaelMaggs and Konalouisa. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:27, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

December themes

Any suggestion for themes in December? --Jarekt (talk) 04:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

How about doing on of the themes that are related to activities in the house? Stationary comes to mind or cakes and pastry (which could get a lot of christmas cookies, though). Another option would be the religious symbols - high potential of many entries around nativity scenes and stars however. --Kritzolina (talk) 07:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Ok, Some indoor themes that were proposed included:
I like the idea of Pastry_and_cake as it might be easier with upcoming holidays. As for second theme
come to mind. I would vote for the weather challenge as winter seasons in northern hemisphere and warm season in southern hemisphere are more likely to result in extreme weather. Town halls is also good but we might get better photos in warmer seasons. Any other votes or suggestions? Pinging recent contributors to Commons talk:Photo challenge/themes: @B jonas, Sixflashphoto, Awesooome92, and Cquoi: . --Jarekt (talk) 19:08, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I think it's time for either "combustion engines" (5 support including proposer), or "electric motors", or them combined, because "household appliances" was long enough. For "pastry and cake", you may want to wait for January so that photographers don't have just one drunken week between Christmas and the deadline. The rest of the themes are fine too, most of them already have my support. The question is, which one of these is an easy theme, and which one is a hard theme? I find it a bit hard to predict. – b_jonas 19:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Not sure about this "just one drunken week" thing - at least in my part of the world December is partly dedicated to creating Christmas sweets before Christmas, so people could combine their normal activities with taking pictures of the baking process or take clicks of cookies and fresh out of the oven. So I think for some this would be a really easy theme. And then of course there are the many contributors who do not celebrate Christmas at all and would not be influenced by the season ... --Kritzolina (talk) 09:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Jarekt posted the cakes and pastries and extreme whether challenges now. That's good, everyone likes cake! I managed to edit in some better sample images for cakes and pastries in the last minute, but I totally forgot about File:Kerala Flood 2018 - Angamaly- IMG 20180818 084452.jpg, which would have been a good sample image for the other theme. – b_jonas 11:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for adding those example images, and I added a few more. I also agree that we should do engines soon, and maybe indeed we should combine them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarekt (talk • contribs) 04:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC)‎ (UTC)

October Results

Pink: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Glass sphere in front of a pink tree Pig in the French Alps Pink bookshelf
Author Tetzemann Ibex73 Sally V
Score 14 13 12

Congratulations to Tetzemann, Ibex73 and Sally V. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:24, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


Balconies: Entries • Votes • Scores
Rank 1 2 3
image
Title Balconies, Podolsk, Russia Celebration X Reflection cruise ship balconies. Balconies of a cruise ship in
Author DILIN Gillfoto Kyriondaniel
Score 16 14 12

Congratulations to DILIN, Gillfoto and Kyriondaniel. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:28, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Themes options table for 2018

Themes options for 2018
Month themes themes are not decided in which months
and have 5 or more pro-votes
January "Trash and waste management" "Blue"

"Doors and Doorways"
"Earth Science"
"Eye Care"
"Fishing and Aquaculture"
"High-dynamic-range imaging"
"Long exposure photography"

"Obelisks"
"Prison buildings"
"Town halls (city halls)"

February "Closed or closing commercial activities" "Archeology"
March "Tunnels and Underpasses" "Spring" and
"Portrait of influential women" (2-months)
April "Aircraft" Portraits of influential women and
"Videos: verbs" (2-months)
May "Renewable Energy" "Videos: verbs" and
"Architectural Iron"
June "On the move" "Traditional Games"
July "Concert photography" "Telephones"
August "Street Performers" "Castles, Fortresses and Strongholds"
September "Schools (primary, secondary school and higher education)" "Emotions"
October "Pink" and "Pink october" in reference to "Category:Breast cancer awareness" "Balconies"
November "Bones" "Measurements and unit of measures"
December
     → based on discussions
     → optional

January themes

Any suggestion for themes in January? Some possibilities:

I would vote for combining Electric_Motors and Combustion_engines as suggested last month and maybe blades or bathrooms. --Jarekt (talk) 20:31, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

My gut feeling is that motors and blades might attract the same type of person to contribute, so I would vote vor bathrooms to give some diversity. But no strong feelings for that. --Kritzolina (talk) 07:09, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
I have no additional comments. – b_jonas 23:15, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

✓ Done Thank you everybody. --Jarekt (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Random remark. After all the ossuaries in Commons:Photo_challenge/2018 - November - Bones, the sets in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom seems somewhat cheap. Kali's altar has way too few skulls. – b_jonas 16:58, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

February themes

What themes should we do in February? Some possibilities:

I would vote for Rotational_symmetry and Lakes. Any good reasons for other themes? --Jarekt (talk) 20:31, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Lakes as well :) --Trougnouf (talk) 15:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Don't do eye care and blades in the same month. Don't do fishing and harvesting in the same month. And we voted for harvest in general, not the restricted version. – b_jonas 00:54, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
Harvesting we should do in the fall. Fishing and probably some others when it gets warmer. Are Lakes Ok this time of year or should we stick with indoor photography like Blades? --Jarekt (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
I don't see why not, worst case scenario they are frozen and that's pretty too
    • --Trougnouf (talk) 13:24, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
    Also don't forget that there are users for whom it is summer now ... having an outdoor theme that works well for summer and winter perhaps is a good idea. --Kritzolina (talk) 14:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
    Jarekt created Commons:Photo challenge/2019 - February - Rotational symmetry and Commons:Photo challenge/2019 - February - Lakes. – b_jonas 18:27, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

    There seems to be a typo and I don't seem to be able to fix it. The heading for the section (in bold) says "Lakes, *mores* and ponds" but below it says "Lakes, *meres* and ponds", which make much more sense. Compo (talk) 10:29, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

    {{Edit request}} Yes, there is a typo: "Lakes, Mores, and Ponds" should be "Lakes, Meres, and Ponds" — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2601:189:C380:9026:31AF:E1B:60C9:2FA5 (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

    ✓ Done --jdx Re: 11:52, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
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