User:Little green rosetta/FlickrGuide
This is a simple guide on how to upload a picture that you own so it may be used on Wikipedia. Uploading a file is easy, but due to copyright issues unless you can prove you own the copyright to the photo, chances are it will be deleted sooner or later.
Our ulitmate goal is to get the file onto Wikimedia Commons, which is a sister site to Wikipedia that deals with media instead of articles. If you haven't created an account on Wikimedia Commons, do that now.
Due to licensing issues mentioned above, I've found that it is easiest to first upload your photo to Flickr where you can specify the type of license at the same time. Once you have created an account and logged in, use the upload tool to select the file from your local machine. Before you upload the file, you need to make a couple of changes to settings. First, you need to make the photo publicly visible.
Next you need to set the licensing for the picture. There are two license options that will work with Wikipedia, CC-BY and CC-BY-SA. Both of them allow anyone to use the image for pretty much any reason under the sun, so you are essentially making this photo public domain. If you don't want to do this, don't upload the photo. The SA license requires anyone that modifies your photo to require the same licensing if they decide to publish the modified photo. I usually go with CC-BY-SA license.
Now complete the upload to Flickr. When you are done, you should be able to see your photo's URL that looks something like the following:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94397514@N03/8591677263/in/photostream
We now need to download the photo you just uploaded to Flickr in order to upload it it to Wikimedia Commons. The reason we do this is the Flickr version now has the proper licensing information attached to the photo. Open the link. If you click on the photo, you should see a "View all sizes" link somewhere on the page. Click this. Click on the various size options until you find the version you want to use on Wikipedia. Click the download link to save this file to your local machine.
Now we can upload this file to Commons. After you login to Commins, use the Flickr Upload tool to start the upload process.
- Click browse and set the "local filename" to the picture you just downloaded.
- Rename the "Destination filename" to something meaningful.
- In the "Original source" field, paste the URL of the Flickr photo
- Put the name of the author in the approproiate box.
- Put the date of the photo if you have it (not required)
- Add a description of the photo
- All of the other fields are optional except for one. On the "Licensing" dropdown, select the license type used when the file was uploaded to flickr.
Click "Preview" to make sure you filled out everything correctly. Once you are satisfied, click "Upload"
If all goes well, you should then be able to use this image in Wikipedia by referencing the picture by using the following: [[File:SnowTrumpet.jpg]]