Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 23

Translations

I'd like to propose that any FP nom that has non-English writing on it be translated before it is nominated. Considering all the WMF projects, I don't think that should be too difficult. If it's a dead language that few people speak, I don't think it would be a big deal if we let that slide, but otherwise, I think it would be good practice. I think this should be added to the criteria. wadester16 16:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

• Well, only if the writing is important to the evaluation. It certainly couldn't hurt as a general rule, but I think there are plenty of cases where non-English writing is incidental to the scene. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Yea, that's essentially what I mean. Images like this, this, this, and this (to name a few) probably should have had the text translated as part of the nom (and included on the image page). Since most older Asian art has text on the art itself, it would be helpful if it were all translated. Though I'm not saying that signs and whatnot in cityscapes need translation. wadester16 00:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Agree. I have commented on this before on a variety of noms. Commons can promote FPs in whatever language it wants as a multilingual project, but images used on en:wiki should have English translations. Sometimes the image page isn't even in English, which I think is a definite no-no. --jjron (talk) 13:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Do it, though it doesn't really fit anywhere. The more I think about it, the more appropriate a separate criterion for image description pages appears. I have ideas for a criteria overhaul, if anyone wants to hear them. MER-C 12:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Shoot. Images pages and (incomplete) captions are one of my pet peeves, and—I think—one of the bigger issues here. wadester16 13:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

As, I believe, is sloppy article usage - for example jamming an image into a section where it doesn't belong, or replacing an existing image with their own without so much as changing or fixing the caption (I could go on). However, too many reviewers never venture beyond the image itself... --jjron (talk) 13:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. Images are only as useful as they are descriptive, and if a caption and description are necessary to fully appreciate and understand the image, then it's incomplete without them. We should really expect nothing less than a detailed, complete description of anything not self evident in the image. There would certainly be a case for an iamge not being FP-worthy until it is corrected. In that sense, it is like a FAC in that caption/description flawed can easily be amended, unlike flawed photos. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreement here too. Captions did come up a year ago or thereabouts and the criteria were (eventually) amended with a footnote. However there was opposition at the time from some regulars & I'm not sure there's universal appetite for toughening the requirements. --mikaul^talk 20:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I personally think that Caption discussion you refer to went off on the wrong tangent though. It ended up toughening up the FPC page captions, with a few voters being overly officious there for a while, but didn't really do anything about image page descriptions or article captions, which is where it REALLY matters (FPC being just a temporary process). --jjron (talk) 08:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There were two big discussions IIRC, here and here, in response to calls for PotD-ready captions. A key argument IMO was that captions for any purpose should be drawn from a decent image page description. What actually came of that was the writing-up of a caption how-to in the criteria with a footnote about optional IDP expansion. The longer-term effect of that criteria re-write has been a marked improvement in FPC captioning, which is great, but no real improvement to the (optional) IDP description. The question this begs is: why not? You need to write a caption for FPC, so why not write it on the IDP and copy it over? I'd agree with MER-C; the criteria for captions should become description page requirements. These have been "optional but desirable" until now, and I can see translations occupying a similar status there in their stead. --mikaul^talk 10:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I would tend to say that I disagree with you that FPC captions have become significantly better. For a short while some people were writing semi-articles, for the most part that has (IMO fortunately) largely faded, but we conversely we still get quite a few caption of say <5 words. That may be acceptable for an image caption, but I don't think it's acceptable for the image description page. I do however agree with the concept of the caption requirements being a bit strengthened and applied to image pages (though I honestly don't think people will maintain the momentum in applying it (and not that it matters anyway - see below)). --jjron (talk) 07:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, captions were pretty much optional at one point and now, at least, you always get some kind of context, even if it isn't any more than is in the nomination. The point is that even captions don't get written into the image page description and they ought to. Transposing all that valuable contextual information, in effect, the very thing which led to it being promoted and demonstrated its value, should reside with the image file, not be archived off as an irrelevance. Momentum has nothing to do with it, it needs to be procedural requirement. Some regulars, I hasten to add, already do this, ie what appears at the top of the nom page is already written up as a description on the image page. Other regulars and most newbies don't. It's easy, causes minimal extra work etc – it just isn't currently part of the set procedure of putting a nom together. --mikaul^talk 09:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

When I close noms, I typically try to update the image page if it is lacking ([1], [2], [3], [4]). I'm probably the only one that does that though... wadester16 09:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Next time a da Vinci sketch arises, do we hold off on featuring the thing until somebody translates fifteenth century Italian handwritten in mirror writing? I hope not!

The examples raised above are mostly instances in which writing is a very minor element. We already provide translations on the ones where text is a significant factor. See the example at right for how this proposal could become a problem. Let's stick with common sense. Durova²⁸⁸ 21:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• 
  From the Russo-Japanese War: the Tsar has a nightmare of his wounded forces returning from battle. Translation available at the hosting page.
• 
  A 1783 depiction of the Montgolfier Brothers' first manned balloon flight: translating the period French was the easy part. Try converting those ancien regime engineering units into anything modern.

• Oppose - signatures by an artist in another language would not translate, especially Japanese and Chinese prints. The signature is a signature based on a complex style and interplay of various words and images. It is a picture in itself. Many other words in foreign languages follow the same model for effect. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That's not at all what I mean. It would be ludicrous to require that. wadester16 06:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is yet another attempt to artificially raise the bar for material of other cultures and restorations. Please stop this nonsense. GerardM (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree to a common-sense standard, and that is essentially what I'm asking for, but the four I give as examples above really should have translations, even if they are mundane, if not for the curiosity of any given viewer that doesn't speak that language. I believe in a common-sense situation, these really should have been translated during the nom period. A suspension for translation really isn't a big deal; this is not an "artificial bar raising": it adds to the knowledge of the encyclopedia and the respectability of the project. I also don't know how one could argue that any writing in another language is "a very minor element", if one doesn't speak the language well enough to make that call. wadester16 22:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

We already have a common sense standard. Durova²⁸⁸ 23:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

If we were at a common-sense standard right now, then those four examples would haves translations. I mean, when in doubt, a translation is good, obviously, no? wadester16 04:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, but these aren't like SVGs where you can easily modify writing. I assume, Wade, that you wish translation embedded in the image? ZooFari 04:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

No, no, I suggest only that we have the translation, when applicable, like the examples I give above (with original text) on the image page, so that it is decipherable by all. Not sure why this is starting such a ruckus; seems so obvious that a translation of whatever is given more than beneficial, even if debatable; the jist can still give the English reader a good idea of the meaning of the text. In all cases, more information (that is accurate, as is so with a translation, which is notably easy since we have 250+ WPs), is always better. To all others: do try to argue that. wadester16 06:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Translating by manipulating a restoration is not necessary though. I think it is a good idea, and should be fundamental, to have a translation in the description page. The description page is not my favorite at the moment, but if we are going to put stuff on our main page that we don't know what it reads, than I suppose it would be below EV standards. ZooFari 03:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

These are George Washington's handwritten notes for his first State of the Union address. Transcribe them and translate them into the second language of your choice.

A nice idea in theory. Doesn't necessarily work in practice. There are issues of legibility and readability with historic material. The problem happens more frequently with manuscripts, but can also occur on any image that gets water damaged or sufficiently faded. See this blog post about ongoing work[5] which GerardM, a native Dutch speaker, cannot fully decipher. Or this, which a Moroccan scholar wanted to alter because it was written in a nonstandard dialect more than two centuries ago. To get an idea what you're asking, here's an exercise. At right is a copy of George Washington's original handwritten speech notes for his first State of the Union address. Transcribe them and translate them into the second language of your choice (I'll take German, Spanish, or French or find a reader if you prefer another language). This isn't exactly the same version as appeared in the newspapers, so I'll know if you're cheating. ;) Durova²⁹² 04:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It is a nice idea, it just doesn't lend itself to being a hard fast rule. The best compromise as far as criteria is concerned has already been reached, IMO; the footnote to criterion #7 reads Although not an FPC requirement, the image description can be extended to provide further context and subject details, which may be useful when featuring the image on the Main Page. That's about as far as it needs to go. At the same time, there's often no reason not to translate, or at least state The script is the signature of the painter. If it can't be translated for whatever reason, a note to say so is all that's needed to complete the image description. I wouldn't expect items like the Studies of Embryos to provide anything beyond the resolution sufficient for those who can read mirrored renaissance Italian to do so. Common sense says: those with too many rules need more common sense :-) --mikaul^talk 07:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, looks tough Durova but it is comprehendible. Can translate to Spanish with my eyes closed ;-) ZooFari 04:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

In practice it is also a nice idea; with 250+ language WPs, excuses are typically minimal for any translation; anybody that is fluent in English and a second language can translate that which is offered, considering that I can roughly translate what I read into Spanish at an intermediate reader's level (hardly what would be expected from an FP translation); asking for the translation of File:Washington - State of the Union.djvu is nothing but POINTYy, though it's far from impossible. To point out, that is not an FP and probably never will be (also to point out, when I click on the image, I get a bunch of text gobbledegook, and not an image, which takes away from EV <irony>). Ijazah3.jpg is already translated (one must be prudent in pointing out the age of a FP nom), so I'm not sure why that was used in the counter argument. There are no FPs that are strictly text, save for some instruments of surrender, some (untranslated) Japanese Calligraphy, a newspaper article (French), an (untranslated, and taken completely on good faith of its contents) surgical document (Arabic or Farsi), the United States Constitution, crown king of Prussiz (already in English), Robert William Thomson (already in English), Reward for John Wilkes Booth, United State Declaration of Indpependence, and some typesetting examples (totaling two not in English). I really see aboslutley no reaon not to expect FPC noms to be translated for us if it's reasonable, since EV really has to do with anything in the image, including text, and its ability to meld with the FPC community (are foreign languages accepted in great numbers in FACs? Doubtful). Even if the text is mundane, it is still notable: there's really no good reason not to expect translations, period. What stops an FPC nominator from getting a translation other than a dead language or laziness? If they choose not to do so, the so be it; it really comes down to the more information the better. Please try to argue that. Otherwise, if it makes sense to do so, ask for a translation; it's that simple. wadester16 06:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Wade, I missed your reply before posting above. I don't think anyone would disagree with that , but how do you add ifs and buts to the criteria? It's good to say translations are important, I guess, but it's also rather nonsensical to add a rule that says "it depends". --mikaul^talk 07:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a problem to simply say something along the lines of: "If possible and appropriate, please ensure that any relevant Non-English language text is translated in English, so that that reviewers have a complete understanding of the image". It doesn't need ifs and buts in the criteria. It would then be up to the intelligence of each reviewer as to whether they feel that the translation is necessary and of sufficient quality in the specific instance. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, ok I see that it needs a mention, I just don't see a whole criterion. The specifics of each image, as you say, would dictate the need to source a translation. I guess the key thing is that people are prompted to consider improving EV, assuming it's a relatively trivial undertaking. --mikaul^talk 10:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Yea, pretty much what Diliff said, erring on the side of offering the translation if there is a grey area. Like I said, even if it ends up being mundane, it still offers more information to the viewer, and doesn't leave them wondering about what they're looking at.

• Oppose per the Da Vinci' sketch.--Caspian blue 04:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

An image I've been trying to get translated for years.

• Oppose To the right, you'll see an image I tried to get translated for years. Though in Japanese, it uses pre-reform Japanese, which very few people can read. Perhaps I should have waited - without the possibility of the image getting featured to spur translators on - another several years? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 21:12, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That's where the common sense exception comes in. wadester16 21:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
    • But you know how these things go, Wadester. Someone who isn't familiar with the subject reads the rules, opposes, and the whole nomination gets sidetracked. One of the largest images on my system has a similar problem. This comes out at over half a gigabyte. It's a beautiful manuscript map, hard as anything to restore, and it's written in Vietnamese before they changed over to a Western alphabet. Wikipedia's most prolific contributor of content about Vietnam is unable to read it; I've sent him an excerpt of the caption. Durova²⁹⁴ 21:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
      • It looks like you're considering the exception, not the rule. In this case, you explain in the nom: "Hey, I talked to the closest thing to an expert and it didn't work out because...". The rest of us AGF and say, "Hey, good try, but since the language script is essentially dead, then that expectation is essentially unrealistic." Somebody votes against it giving that as the only reason, and the closer discounts it, and if they don't: well that's what the "Recently Closed Nominations" section is for. Question the closer and say, "Hey, what were you doing here?" Seems pretty simple and common-sensical. As I said, this proposal comes down to "when in doubt, translate if at all possible", which in most cases, is possible, considering all the categories that label speakers of respective languages. You know how easy it is to find a multilingual user either here or (more commonly) at Commons. wadester16 03:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
        • That doesn't actually address the objections. We're talking about living languages, not dead ones. Durova²⁹⁴ 04:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
          • For the most part, it does though. I'm not familiar with the history of the Vietnamese language, so when you said they moved over to a different alphabet, I just assumed that few use the old one and it was essentially (at least at this point in WP's history) a "dead" script (for our intents and purposes). That could (and may) very well be untrue; I'm not stating it is, only that it's the interpretation I came away with based on your post. If, after a reasonable time period of requesting translation from multiple users here or at Commons (have you tried the other users listed here or here?), one can't find one for reasons as such, and these are explained to the community with proof of effort, then sure, common sense would say, "Oh well, seems it can't be done at this time," and we let it go through the nom process anyway. It seems you're fighting for the exception, which I already stated is not really worthy worrying about since with proof of effort, it will be excused of the rule anyway. And yes, we're having the same conversation here. wadester16 05:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
            • In response to your edit summary, this isn't an issue I'd frame as exceptional. Historic material in many languages can be difficult to read, even for a native speaker. Different people have raised multiple examples of that. These aren't rare special cases. You haven't made a sufficiently compelling case to change current FPC wording, which hasn't been a substantial problem anyway. Durova²⁹⁴ 14:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
• Question How is this handled at the other language FPCs? Makeemlighter (talk) 01:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
  • The German, French, and Spanish Wikipedias are silent about it. English has the most developed featured picture program; the other projects primarily discuss photographic standards. (Actually the French FP page redirects to the Commons program and Spanish has less than 400 FPs). Durova²⁹⁴ 01:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Another good example are the Vinckeboons maps - where it would be impossible to translate every scrap of writing, because they're *maps*: Without the positioning information, a translation isn't very practical. There's many others. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 03:29, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, if I might go back a bit

“ Yea, that's essentially what I mean. Images like this, this, this, and this (to name a few) probably should have had the text translated as part of the nom (and included on the image page). Since most older Asian art has text on the art itself, it would be helpful if it were all translated. Though I'm not saying that signs and whatnot in cityscapes need translation. wadester16 00:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC) ”

Every. Single. One. of your examples is pre-20th century Japanese writing. Japanese had a major writing reform in the early 20th century, and only scholars of historic Japanese can now read the older text. So, the very examples that you give as things that should be translated in support of your proposal are, in fact, things that would need to be considered exceptions under it.

I think that kills this proposal. Nothing more to see here. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 03:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

So I'm not fluent in Japanese. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to translate if possible. I still don't see why there's so much opposition to this; seems like common sense to me: it adds to the encyclopedia and expands upon the knowledge of English speakers. Is this threatening to you in some way? wadester16 05:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Please do Shoemaker the courtesy of considering his objection at face value. Durova²⁹⁷ 05:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I did: I'm not fluent in Japanese or Japanese history, which explains why I wouldn't know if these were translatable. But it doesn't hurt to make the attempt to try for a translation. Not saying nobody did for any of these noms, but there's no mention of it in any of the noms. Pardon my ignorance, I wasn't aware of the switch over in many of these Asian languages, but I'm not limiting this to Asian languages. Having lived an English-speaking life, I can understand most English writing from as far back as 500 years ago. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, before three of these images were created and only 30 years after the other. I can read the entire document without issue. I would suspect that most (if not at least some) European languages are similar in that regard. I won't assume other Asian languages follow the same pattern, but I would expect the chances are that some of them would (and I don't just mean East Asian, but all of Asia, in that case). This is still about what I said in my last post above: "it adds to the encyclopedia and expands upon the knowledge of English speakers." wadester16 05:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

But you're missing the point: You'd have likely objected to those on translation grounds, right? That would've sidetracked the nomination. The nominators are not necessarily aware of the problem - an encyclopedic interest in this sort of art and a knowledge of the history of writing in the area do not necessarily go hand in hand. Given A. that not a single example has been shown of a nomination that ought to have been required to be translated but wasn't and B. However, a lot of things were brought up as clear examples of ones where translation should be required where this would be exceptionally difficult, I think we have a strong case for this proposal being shot down.

Look, I've tried to get things translated. I've put messages up on project talk pages, and gotten no response. I've tried IRC. I've tried various other places. Sometimes you get lucky. More often you do not. However, you seem to have the optimistic view that acquirign a translation is easy, and that all Wikipedians are willing to drop what they are doing in order to help, and, furthermore, that nominators will necessarily know when they're working on an exception, even though you yourself are unable to identify them.

I don't believe - and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - that you've worked on any translation work for images. I have. Please, listen to the objections of someone who has actually attempted the things you're trying to make it a requirement for everyone to do. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 07:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It can be an incredibly frustrating process, and is, frankly, made much easier if the picture is featured, as you can then pull in people more easily. Your proposal is well-meant, but puts, not just hoops in the way of nominators, but flaming hoops over a spike pit, and is likely to make a lot of nominators give up in frustration.

Not even two hours after asking this question as an experiment (at Wikiproject Japan), I got this answer. Admittedly, this is probably lucky, but I find it interesting that the user refutes my calling the text old by saying, "18th century is quite modern." Is this viewpoint that only scholars can read old Japanese correct? wadester16 08:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It is quite modern, but the number of kanji in use before the 20th century is quite a lot more. Some are easier than others, but, for instance, I have been told specifically that the Commodore Perry one would need a scholar. You'll also note that the reply did not actually translate everything, just gave you the modern English transliteration of his name. 129.215.149.97 (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Which is more information regarding the text than we had before (it's not surprising that it's the artist's name, but we couldn't guarantee it without an interpreter). Note more answers are coming in on the other three images. I have to say, in my experience, I often do encounter "Wikipedians [that] are willing to drop what they are doing in order to help". I see it all the time, and AGF that it could happen again, with the expectation that it may not. Then I'm pleasantly surprised in the end when things work out. wadester16 15:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't think it's that out of the ordinary to ask and receive help from other random Wikipedians at all. And besides, as long as you've demonstrated that you've put a reasonable effort into obtaining the translation, I doubt that anyone is going to oppose an image for that reason alone. People are probably more likely to oppose if you don't seem to feel it is at all necessary and make no attempt. Clearly text can be an important aspect of an image, particularly documents, so I really don't understand why we can't expect translations as a guideline, with reasonable exceptions when it can't be obtained. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 18:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I don't think there's a convincing case for adding it into the criteria: It seems more likely to cause problems than to help matters. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 19:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

While I think Wadester is essentially asking for the right thing, I'm not sure s/he's framed it right. What we should be asking for is a short explanation of what the text means. In the case of a few kanji, that might be a direct translation. In the case of the Da Vinci image above, that might be a short summary. If text is integral to an image, then the viewer should be given information about meaning. As per others, I oppose making this a compulsory requirement, but I definitely think it should be added as a suggestion. Mostlyharmless (talk) 01:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

F8 for featured picture candidates

I was planning to upload File:Anole-eating.jpg (a previous failed nominee) to Commons under its current name and then speedy delete it under CSD #F8 (image on Commons). However, because it's being used here with a specific name, I'm leery of deleting the local image, and I don't want to have images in both locations for a significant period of time. Is it okay to upload and delete the local copy? Nyttend (talk) 19:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Found another such image, File:Peacock Closeup.jpg. Unlike the anole, the peacock was once featured. Nyttend (talk) 20:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem; you can move both to Commons and delete locally. A handful of featured pictures are hosted locally because they comply with US copyright law but not with Commons hosting policy, but those instances are rare. Thank you for checking. Durova²⁸⁸ 21:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done Reformatted information and categorized as well. wadester16 22:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Something of interest to us

[6] and associated thread. MER-C 12:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Delist noms

Hi. All of the current delist noms have been open for quite some time. If anyone has time, please take a look at them and vote so that we can clear them out. Thanks. Makeemlighter (talk) 08:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Goings-on

It looks like the new FP promotions haven't been listed? Durova²⁹⁸ 00:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Unless you're talking about a different set of promotions, I presume you were looking while I was in the middle of doing the promotions. It's not an instantaneous process. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 03:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Closures

For probably obvious reasons, there's two I can't do. Can someone get them? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 184 FCs served} 06:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Still two I shouldn't really close, but I do propose to close Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Clavulinopsis_corallinorosacea.jpg on the 14th, as the timescale is getting ridiculous. Indeed, if no-one minds, if I merely voted (but did not nominate or otherwise have anything to do with the image), and 14 days have passed since the nomination, I intend to close FPCs. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 188 FCs served} 09:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Reviews

We got rather a large amount of nominations a couple days ago, and several nominations made just before then ended up a bit neglected.

May I encourage everyone to have a look around the middle of the page, and vote on the under-reviewed ones there?

Thanks,

Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 187 FCs served} 19:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Credit for FPs

Please be a bit careful with this: the recent collaboration between Durova and GerardM, Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Gulf_of_Aqaba, was credited in the FP galleries to Durova alone [7], and furthermore, Gerard was never notified. Knowing Durova, she'd be much more concerned about her protégés gaining credit than her herself. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 188 FCs served} 10:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, and yes. That conomination (and many others) are shared restoration efforts. Another editor is learning the techniques and does as much as he can while I coach and address the toughest parts. They absolutely love it when the nomination passes; it's a big encouragement when they get credit. Durova²⁹⁸ 15:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
• Copied from my talk page: (@Shoemaker's Holiday) Stupid mistake. Doing multiple closings (as you know) inevitably leads to a minor error or misread. Thanks for the catch. wadester16 21:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Shoemaker, would you consider writing up an FPC closer's checklist? You're really good at this; it might help the others. Durova²⁹⁹ 19:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I believe we already have one, no? wadester16 19:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
      • It's not quite complete. Durova²⁹⁹ 19:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Well, I'd say it is complete, just not very easy-to-use. I could write up a note about how I do multiple noms - I've come up with a way of doing it that works well, and is fairly efficient. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 20:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

To put it simply: First, I close all the not-promoted images, and move them off into the recent closures and the archive, and put up any pages with {{FPC}} on them for deletion. Then I open all the pages of the ones I'm going to promote in tabs. While setting up the {{FPCresult}} template, I have a word processor open, and note down the file name of the one promoted, the subject (basically, a title for the nomination), a note of what the subject is if it's not clear - e.g. "Bird" if the nomination is of an obscure species), and the name of the person who made the image (also any editors (and possibly the nominator, if different, though that isn't so important)) I like to grab the wiki-formatted user names off the pages while I'm promoting. It saves time later. Each of these goes on the same line, in that order. Setting up this list takes a while, but it makes the rest really easy.

Now I open up the Announcements, goings on, Featured pictures, and featured pictures thumbs in tabs. This can be quickly done from the instructions from closing

For the Announcements and goings-on pages, I start with announcements, I pate in my list, delete everything after the nomination title, add the square brackets, the colon before File: (easily done by copy-pasting in and then ) and a | between the filename and the description, and I'm done there. Copy paste this into Goings-on, and add the date. (I often then go over and paste this list into Featured picture thumbs at this time: Remove the brackets and the colon before File:, and add a couple wikilinks to the image description, and you're done with thumbs.) As I finish with a tab, I close it.

Next, I go to the list I have, and arrange it into subject categories, using the categories WP:FP. Increment the count at the top of WP:FP. Open the first subject category, paste in the images (adding the - is it 150px? - formatting with copy-paste from the old ones.) delete the older images to make three. Next, go into the sub-cats, and add in the images. I have all the information I need in the lists, so this is just a matter of adding appropriate formatting.

Repeat for all other subject categories.

Finally, if I'm doing a real lot, I'll rearrange my notes again, this time by nominator, and give credit to each nominator. I have the name of {{PromotedFPC}} memorised, which helps.

Finally, I close all tabs, go to WP:FPC, and open up the image pages for each image I promoted in tabs. If there's any nominations where I promoted an alternative version - usually not - I open the page for original as well. I do the replacing of the original with the alternatives first, using the list of places where the image is used at the bottom of the image page, and the file name of the alternative gets copy-pasted in to replace. I then close the tab for those not promoted images after dealing with any {{FPC}} templates.

Okay. Nearly done. At the image description page for the promoted nominations, I check that it appears:

1. On Wikipedia:Featured pictures
2. On the page of an appropriate subcategory of same.
3. On a subpage of Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs

I then note down the name of the nominations page from that list, and copy it, edit the page, and apply the {{FP}} template, using the name of the nomination page I just copied to paste in. Save, then close tabs.

Finally, I put the closed nomiantions into the archive and recently closed section, and relax, satisfied with a job well done. This actually isn't so bad - I can do a quite large number of nominations in a quarter to half an hour with this technique. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 21:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

You know, looking this over... Can't one of the twinkle or other script creators make a way of automating this a bit? Choose category from a list (with an updatable master list somewhere, so new ones can be added as needed), type in the description, and the description with article links and credit, type in the nominator name, push a button, and maybe a few other choices, and have the script do it all? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 21:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

A new barnstar

Since photographers have had a dedicated barnstar for many years, I thought it was time to make a new one for those who restore pictures. Therefore, I hereby introduce you :

		The Historical Barnstar
		The Historical Barnstar may be awarded to those who have a long history of improving Wikipedia by finding and/or restoring historical files (illustrations, photographs, documents, sounds,...)

Of course, Durova and Shoe already have their own ;) Feel free to edit or give it to those that deserve it. Ksempac (talk) 18:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Db-fpcfail

New template for tagging the pages of images which fail FPC, but are hosted on commons. I think that this will cause much less panic in any new users noticing them: it explains that only the tags are going to get deleted. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 188 FCs served} 02:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I've also updated the closing procedure. Mainly notes to closers, but I also changed the order slightly, suggesting that we not move FPCs to the archive and recently closed nominations until everything else is done. That way, if someone stops half-way through promoting an image, it's a whole lot easier to tell. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 188 FCs served} 02:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't get the point of the fpcfail template. Once {{FPC}} is removed, there's nothing on the WP end anyway (the page still "exists" but only in its form from Commons, making it an exact duplicate of the Commons version). Why does removing the template and leaving it at that not suffice? As for the changes in directions, I usually move them to the Recently closed section immediately so that nobody adds any more comments (i.e. it's a "discussion is definitely now closed" move). One should know not to start closing if they don't have time. And if they run out of time by surprise, the noms are still closed for discussion, so the user can come back and finish later, no harm no foul. This may be necessary if we had the problem of newbies persistently closing noms incorrectly or something, but considering how hard it is to get a closer, I don't really think it's necessary. Just my 2¢ on the issue. wadester16 19:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You've always been supposed to delete the blank page. If you haven't been, that's a lot of housekeeping you've been neglecting. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 07:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

You have been doing it as well: File:Joined moths.JPG. The template is now on Commons and we have a useless page on Wikipedia. We are going to have to start doing something; I personally don't like FPCold. I would go back to the archives and do some fixes but I'm not an administrator. Maybe your tag is good after all. ZooFari 16:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed that: That one shouldn't have been deleted, of course: I failed to remove the C to make it the {{FP}} template. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 20:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This isn't what lead to the revived use of the {{FPCold}} template is it? --jjron (talk) 14:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Bleh, you're right; I didn't realize I was supposed to be doing that. Over the next few days I'll go back and do it myself on the ones I closed. On that note, with the Commons Assessment template, why do you we need a WP template? When these were started, images were being uploaded to WP, not Commons. And I still don't see any glaring reason to keep {{FPC}}, either, though feel free to give me reasons if anyone has some. Why not just stick with the Commons tag and forget about our tags here? wadester16 17:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should add that the current {{FeaturedPicture}} template can stay, so it can include the star (only), which can't be transcluded from Commons. wadester16 17:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about the star. I do agree that we do not need {{FPC}}, but I think it makes it much easier for newbies. ZooFari 17:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Back on the subject: The new template is only a more friendly version of the formerly-suggested deletion template for failed FPCs (with {{FPC}}) hosted on commons. When I first saw a failed FPC of mine nominated for deletion, I thought the image was getting deleted. Remembering that has always made me careful to explain exatly what's being deleted when removing {{FPC}} from a failed nomination. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 20:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

As for FPC: Well, it can occasionally make it a little easier when I'm setting up the {{FP}} templates to give the image the star and categories. Instead of having to remember the nomination name, it's there in the FPC template. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 20:33, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

That's why I think the image name (i.e. File:Example.jpg) should be the nomination subheading. The nominator can still name the nomination (but not the address) anything they wish. Then there's no question what the title is when someone (many regulars, actually) doesn't use {{FPC}} (that makes you have to go back and forth between the image page and the nom page way too many times). wadester16 20:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Until it turns out that an alternative passes, so you get File:Another Image.jpg promoted under Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Image.jpg Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 06:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

True, though I find that easier because usually an alt is name File:Original image name edit.jpg, which you can usually just expect. I just hate going back and forth so many times when it's a title someone makes up. wadester16 13:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

You do realise there's a list of places that the image is used at the bottom of the image description page? You can get the nom from that just before clicking edit. [It's also useful because, while you're doing that, you can check it's in FP thumbs, an appropriate FP subpage, etc) Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 22:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

{{FPC}} should be nuked. I had that problem of repeatedly being asked whether the image was going to be deleted. It got so annoying that I decided to put it in the big box at the top of my talk page (and it worked). And who looks at image pages anyway? (Apart from us and image copyright enforcers, that is) Is there enough support here for me to take it to TFD? MER-C 03:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind. The only time it might be actually useful is in the rare cases where an image is hosted on en-wiki, so the nomination is likely to show up in the watchlist of the person who uploaded it. But almost everything we do now is hosted on commons. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 03:51, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd support that action MER-C. Many regulars don't use it anyway, at least not consistently, and for that matter many noobs also don't use it. I'm guessing that the reason it was originally created was to notify people looking at the image that it was up at FPC so they could vote, but what's the odds of that happening in reality? I'm sure it has, but I'm unaware of it, and often the people it would attract would be those with no clue about criteria anyway or who would give knee-jerk 'votes'. Re SMH's point about the uploader, I suspect most polite nominators would notify the creator/uploader on their talkpage anyway, but perhaps we could replace the line about adding the FPC tag with a line about notifying the creator/uploader. Get rid of it! --jjron (talk) 06:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete, just more work for everyone. Noodle snacks (talk) 07:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:FPC. I also killed the mention of it in the nomination procedure, so we shouldn't be seeing it any more. MER-C 08:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've killed the instruction to use it here as well. --jjron (talk) 15:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Chaga hut.jpg

I'd like to get more people's opinions on this closure. Yes, it was a close call and I'm not going to go against consensus on it, so I have absolutely no problem getting more eyes (and opinions) on it to see if I erred in my closure and we shouldn't promote the image. Some discussion has already taken place on my talk page, but I'd rather have it more out in the open as it was controversial. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 14:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Having read the discussion on Jauerback's talkpage and the linked discussions I'd disagree with most of the comments (and this post seems a bit odd to make just 18 mins after 'voting'). I thought the recent 'discussion' largely came about through users questioning the closer using their 'discretion', which actually makes this all a bit surreal. To put it in other terms I believe used on a number of occasions in that discussion, if Jauerback wanted to vote he should have just done so (note that these were not really my sentiments, but were what largely lead to the kerfuffle, and for the most part what seems to have removed our previous 'main' closer from the game). Discussion on this nom outside the actual 'votes' were largely in terms of it not meeting the criteria, so I don't see much grounds to say the "overall consensus" was to promote either. I don't really care tbh - as I suggested at the nom I like the image but didn't really think it was FP quality on technical grounds - but I don't think this is consistent with other closings. --jjron (talk) 14:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

As a rule, I don't promote 3.5S because it doesn't meet the criteria (see here). That said, it's not a huge deal IMO if this user, who nicely came over here at the request of another, promoted it having no experience doing so. I disagree with Shoemaker's assessment that these were "pretty clear promotes" though, but again, it doesn't really matter now. I chuckled at Jauerback's comment: "admittedly, this was harder than I thought it would be," because he is soooo right. wadester16 17:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

For my comment, I have to personally apologise: that nomination was confusing, I wasn't feeling that well, and I miscounted 4.5 instead of 3.5. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 189 FCs served} 20:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Nbd. wadester16 21:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm neither for nor against the promotion of this picture. I just thought it was curious that it was promoted without (in my eyes) a quorum or, really, consensus. Regardless of what happens with this picture, I think this is just more evidence that we need to act on the discussions and proposals we had earlier this summer. We need clear guidelines on minimum number of supports, length of voting period, and the closer's role (I think that's it). Perhaps one of the more-experienced contributors (cough MER-C cough) can take the lead and start implementing things. Makeemlighter (talk) 02:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, coughs and all. wadester16 13:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

This picture shouldn't be promoted on this nom. I'm pretty sure it will be a shoe-in with another nom (only on the non-edited picture), because the picture has definite value, but long discussions tends to scare away voters. So delist the picture for now, renominate in a month. We shouldn't make exceptions to an already contested procedure. Note that this is in no way an attack on Jauerback, who followed the BOLD spirit of Wikipedia Ksempac (talk) 07:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's my mistake, really - I gave Jauerback the bad information - so perhaps this is of weaker force than it might be, but I don't really like the idea of getting too bogged down on the technicalities. In the end, this probably would have passed had the original been shown from the start, and the problems with shooting in the jungle explained. It had no strong opposition to the one that passed, so it may be better to just say "Oops, will be more careful", and leave it, to prevent hassle to Muhammed. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 11:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In that situation, doesn't it make sense to nominate for delist straight away? Get any objections out in the open, or just as likely, affirm the near-consensus. We should use the facility more in questionable promotions, avoids loads of pointless speculation. --mikaul^talk 11:57, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as what course of action to take with this particular image at this point, I don't have an opinion. However, I don't accept Shoemaker's taking of "the blame". As I said earlier, I took his assessment into account, but in the end, it was I who made the decision to promote it. Anyway, I hope to get more involved in FPCs in the future and maybe eventually submit an image of own - once I take one that doesn't suck. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 11:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• I happened upon this image recently and was definitely surprised to see it had been promoted. Worth a run through the delist process to see what folks think. Staxringold _talk^contribs 18:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Support for own images?

Hello,

is it possible to support my own images at the english wikipedia for FP? I ask because it isn't possible in the German wikipedia. Best regards, --Alchemist-hp (talk) 13:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course; you can vote in any nomination regardless of its source. If you nominate an image, you are already supporting it as well. wadester16 13:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Though in practise closers give less weight to the nominator Noodle snacks (talk) 04:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

As I'm doing the vast majority of closes at present, I can say that's not strictly true: In some circumstances, I might move a nom back to the top of the page for more discussion - particularly if a problem is pointed out right at the end of a nomination that the voters seemed ignorant of - but otherwise, I pretty much go by strict vote counting, with the option to vote instead of closing. This is because I don't think a closer should have more weight than any other voter, and it's highly problematic to have one person be able to override five. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 11:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Suspended nom move

For the record I've moved the suspended noms below the delist section for reasons given in my edit summary. If you disagree for some valid reason, revert it and my matching change to FPCQuickLinks. --jjron (talk) 14:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve pano EV

I was just as surprised as the uploader to see this nom shot down for distortion issues when it was clearly the cyclindrical projection causing the issue. It's not as if reviewers didn't know, in fact it was cited as a reason to oppose. There are two problems here: first, that the image was clearly pre-judged as a thumbnail, as even at 1000px high the distortion is no longer a factor. Second, that pano images aren't displayed with viewing instructions. The first is crucial to the proper assessment of FPCs in general, the second a more specific issue with EV of panos.
As I wrote during the Arkansas nom, merely pointing out that a pic is stitched isn't enough to explain to a viewer why the rectilinear building he saw on holiday appears curved in the encyclopedia. It's obvious to a few but not to many, that certain projections produce distorted thumbnail views, ie the image must be viewed in a particular way to properly appreciate it. It's not just buildings; describing this recently promoted image as "360º pano" isn't enough to explain to most viewers that the tarn is on the walkers' right as they ascend to the peak. Pointing out the need to horizontally scroll it (at least) or use a pano viewer (ideally) isn't just a courtesy, it reveals immense encyclopedic value.
This isn't a blanket observation; we need to be more careful how we present these images on an individual basis. Half the issue is describing any multi-part image as a "pano".. there are a good number of different kinds some of which produce specific viewing requirements that impact on EV if images are taken at face value, ie viewed at thumbnail size without qualification. This is always the case with real-world viewing, ie within articles, and we ought to ensure that "pano"-style featured pictures (at a minimum) appear described as "a cyclindrical projection of..." rather than assume that everyone instinctively knows that the Château de Fontainebleau isn't flanked by curved terraces built around a W-shaped driveway with leaning towers at each end. --mikaul^talk 21:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I took issue with the Arkansas capitol because there wasn't the need (in my view) for the equirectangular projection. The {{pano360}} template is worth using where applicable. I think projection and field of view should probably be mentioned somewhere. Noodle snacks (talk) 00:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

{{pano360}} – that's the one with the link to a viewer, right? I think that sort of link is what's needed in a caption, rather than the image description page. Templates like {{Hugin}} and {{Autostitch}} that allow you to pipe a qualification (see the Fontainebleau description, for example) are better for the image page. FoV is always useful and comprehensible, but citing projection details is possibly too esoteric to properly explain why an image looks the way it does as a thumbnail. -edit- looks like {{Autostitch}} has "Stitched images may differ from reality" as part of the template, not piped. Not sure that's a good idea for all multi-part images, but it's the right idea. --mikaul^talk 02:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Stitched images may differ from reality is a trivial remark, every image differs from reality. Stitched or not stitched, all are a projection onto a 2D plane. For small angle the Rectilinear projection (what cameras do automatically) gives natural results, at larger angles and depending on the subject other projections may perform better. --Dschwen 03:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Well the ASC was a rather depressing little episode. :-(. I told Noodle Snacks that the chosen projection gave the most natural result, but apparently my word doesn't count for anything. Rectilinear is out of the question, the proportions look flat out wrong. Out of the two demo images he presented one gave a 403 error, and on the other one you can barely make out the capitol and the wings are hidden by bushes and trees. There is no room to select a further vantage point. The MERC comment was completely off, basically a panorama blanket oppose. I find it odd that a non obvious distortion as in a landscape panorama bothers no one, but an obvious distortion is met with these reactions. It should be the opposite. The lack of votes was discouraging too. Not what I'd have expected from such a high resolution high quality image :-(. --Dschwen 03:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you should do a rectilinear stitch just for argument's sake, but to say that such a distortion is unnatural is ridiculous. Just sitting here in my room and can see obvious curvatures in the edges of the room. Our eyes do the same distortion to fit the wide FOV, if anything it's rectilinear that's unnatural at this FOV. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

It is high quality and high resolution. There are literally hundreds of photos with a rectilinear projection that get the whole building in that look fine: http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&um=1&q=arkansas%20state%20capitol&ndsp=21&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi. I think that for architecture straight lines should be straight wherever possible. I'd really like to see the rectilinear version. Noodle snacks (talk) 04:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

• Squeeze* Sorry, but the linked google images result is pretty much useless. What are you trying to tell me with this? That I should not have taken a picture of the entire building, but rather a shot of just the entrance? That I should have taken a chainsaw to cut down some trees to reproduce the perspective of an historic etching? That I should have rented a helicopter? --Dschwen 13:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that generally speaking, architectural shots should be rectilinear if possible. There are plenty of situations where it's not realistic though. This would have been impossible to stitch as rectilinear without massive distortion, for example. I'm with you in that the ASC image seems like it could have handled rectilinear projection, but as Dschwen said, he tried and decided it wasn't going to work. I can sympathise with him, because it's pretty common for people to tell me what I should have done or not done with a photo, and I've usually had pretty good reasons for doing what I did! One thing that might have helped to make the rectilinear projection work is to move the 'centre-point' of the stitch away from the centre of the building and toward the right side of it. This would in turn distort the size the left side slightly but it would give the illusion that you were looking more straight-on. It might be worth trying though, to see if it works. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You see curvature in your room? Are you sure you're not sitting in an igloo? I'd find that a bit disturbing if my eyes played tricks on me like that... --Dschwen 13:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to do this all day, but my peripheral vision is just not good enough (plus I'm wearing glasses). I was working on the assumption that our eyes indeed project rectilinear but that we do not perceive distortion as our brain maps it to a 3D image internally. But I may be off. Only think I can do is compare the viewing experience of the panoramic with my recollection of the scene. And that is what I based my decision for the projection on. --Dschwen 19:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced we experience curved peripheral vision either. I suspect that if we do experience straight lines looking curved at the edge of our vision, it's more to do with the fact that our retina/cone of view is roughly circular and any line that goes beyond those boundaries will be interpreted by the brain to trace the boundary edge. A wall edge at the periphery of my vision starts to take on a slight curve if I concentrate on it but I think it's that optical illusion. Certainly, we should normally see with a rectilinear perspective. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 21:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for closer options:

I think a good principle is that the closer should not have more votes than any other person. As such, I propose the following rules for closers:

• The closer may choose to vote to support or oppose the image instead of closing, passing on responsibility for the decision to another closer.
• Where there is a 2:1 ratio of supports to opposes, the closer may choose whether to close as promoted or not promoted.
• The closer may relist the nomination at the top of the list (noting they have done so on the nomination), and is particularly encouraged to if problems are pointed out late in a nomination's run. At his or her discretion, he may contact the voters and (using neutral wording) ask them to look at the issue in question.
• The closer may suspend or fail the nomination for copyright issues, depending whether the status of the copyright is merely uncertain, or almost certainly in violation.
• Otherwise, nominations are closed using strict vote-counting.

I think these rules give the closer latitude for discretion, for instance, relisting a nomination to make sure a problem is known about and rejected by the voters, but do not allow a closer's opinion to overrule the opinion of the majority. This should substantially reduce wikidrama, as the process is transparent and fully spelled out. At the moment, we face a situation where the closer has the right to overrule unanimous support (and has in the past), and close the nomination as not promoted. Some basic guidelines saying what the closer can and cannot do will prevent these issues. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 12:30, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

We spent hundreds of man-hours discussing this issue and nothing has come of it because every time someone suggests implementing one of the quite clear cut suggestions a small posse seems to come along and shoots them down. Some of this reflects what seemed general consensus points from that discussion, some doesn't (for example outright 'vote-counting' was clearly unpopular with most regulars). FWIW I don't really have a problem with a closer closing noms that they've been involved in that have a clear consensus (without reverting to vote-counting, let's say as a rule of thumb >90% support/oppose and assuming there's no reason for an auto-fail such as copyright), or to an extent where the closing decision goes against the closer's own 'vote', but other than that I think anyone involved should stay out of the closing. Also not really a fan of the relisting business - I'd usually prefer a closure and a renomination if issues have been resolved. Though I do understand your point if problems come up late and there seems to be consensus support, that's what the further input section is meant to be for, but that seems to have fallen into complete disuse. --jjron (talk) 13:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, of course the closer should have no more votes than anyone else - that should be a given. But it seems a bit dangerous to allow the 'closer' to decide to vote at the last minute instead of do the actual closing. If one of the prospective closers had an opinion and wanted to vote, they should really do so during the nomination, rather than when it is due to be closed. That way it won't smell fishy. And I'm not sure why a 2:1 support to oppose ratio would be necessary to close a nom as 'not promoted'. Generally speaking, less than that ratio of supports leads to 'no consensus', which is for all intents and purposes the same thing as 'not promoted'. The only difference is that the former tends to be used to describe a contentious nomination with no real conclusion reached, but the result is the same: 'not promoted'. I think we've already established, rightly or wrongly, that a strict ratio is to be used only as a guide and not a rule. It was already discussed at some length and vote-counting simply had too many exceptions to the rule to be considered a practical way of dealing with closures. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion it's a bit optimistic to think that closers won't have an opinion, it's more an issue that they follow consensus rather than follow their own opinion when closing. If they feel so strongly that they decide they want to vote rather than close, then surely that's their prerogative. I do agree with the point about dropping in a last minute vote though, that was one of my concerns with how that Chaga hut nom ended up. Perhaps time for the 7 + 2 period. --jjron (talk) 14:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of these suggestions is to try and come up with a list of suggestions that, while giving ample recourse to deal with problematic noiominations, doesn't result in the situation we've had a few times, where one or two people say X (usually EV) is a problem, several people chime in and say that it isn't, and the closer overrules the majority to say X is a problem after all, when, had he only the vote he would have gotten as a non-closer, the nom would've passed. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 15:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with overruling a majority? Whenever the majority turns out to have missed a crucial point it should always be overruled. Why should a closer not simply interpret consensus? Closing, as with any consensus decision, relies heavily on AGF which should not be a problem here; furthermore, it doesn't have to be the last word. With that in mind, what makes vote counting a superior mechanism? It encourages a whole raft of evil tendencies: canvassing, socks and filibustering are much harder to detect and worst of all, it reduces FPC to a Commons-style system where reasoning is irrelevant and consensus impossible to judge. In short, why should FPC be any different to the rest of WIkipedia? In all good faith, I'd suggest you read WP:WHATISCONSENSUS because whatever FPC is, it will always follow that protocol. --mikaul^talk 20:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

oh meant to say the idea about moving noms back up the page is a good one for much the same bunch of reasons. I'd say it should only apply to noms with strong interest in them and apply equally regardless of likely pass/fail status. Any mechanism for deflecting tough decisions away from closers is always going to be welcome, I think. mikaul^talk 22:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone is allowed to close. Are we really saying that we trust the judgement of any random, self-selected person over all other people involved with voting? I'm sorry, but that's patently stupid. A random person who chooses to close instead of voting should not have more power than someone who chooses vice-versa. This isn't all being done by Raul and Sandy, it's anyone who wants to do it. Why should one random person who thinks it shouldn't be promoted have the power to overrule seven who think it should? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 192 FCs served} 09:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I would AGF on the part of anyone closing. Besides, even with rules, nothing is stopping someone from coming in and closing a nomination against consensus. Makeemlighter (talk) 15:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Blond moment. Commons already runs a bot :( ZooFari 17:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, anyone can close because anyone can edit. Basic principles again, whether you think them stupid or not. In practice, no-one wades into density functional theory without a good understanding of it and if they do they just get reverted by established editors. Similarly, closing an FPC doesn't exactly appeal to random passers-by; in theory, any established reviewer can pitch in and do the work, but in practice, these days, they need balls of steel more than anything... and it doesn't need to be like that. Reading between the lines, I'd guess you'd rather have an elected Director of FPC; one person vested with the "power" to overrule consensus and impose final decisions, rather than a "random person" making provisional closures. The director idea already failed to attract any support, probably because its unnecessary while closing decisions are open to scrutiny/objection and can be overturned. It's precisely because decisions are not final that more editors can be encouraged to be bold and not feel discouraged from closing. I'd much rather see more reviewers chip in and call time on 7-day-old noms by performing the simple transclusion to the recently closed section. No "power" is implied by this action and the more reviewers involved the better. Whatever the result appears to be at this point, it's doesn't get to be final until everyone's had a chance to review the decision, after which the administrative stuff can happen as normal. --mikaul^talk 01:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

110% support everything said by mikaul. Well stated. wadester16 04:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but no: If anyone complains about a closure, what actually happens is people complain about pointless Wikidrama, ignoring any merit to the complaints, and, to my knowledge, these discussions have never once resulted in the result being changed. If it ever had, he might have some sort of case, as it is, Mikaul is pretty much claiming that everyone shouting "shut up!" to anyone who complains is review. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 22:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Apart from avoiding the point of what I wrote, that's a pretty weak argument considering there have only been two complaints since the "Recently closed" section was started. One of them was about closing procedure which, had the 7 day rule been observed, wouldn't have been an issue in the first place; the other one might well have been reversed and still could be, if there was agreement about delisting as the best solution. Again, if you'd care to read what I wrote, actual promotions happening after initial closing would allow problems like that to be resolved first (pretty much in line with MER-C's proposal up the page) so that neither result-changing nor delisting would ever be necessary. If you'd care to explain what everyone shouting "shut up!" to anyone who complains is review means I'll have a go at answering that, too. But please, no more tiresome straw man arguments. --mikaul^talk 01:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Not true in fact. I've brought up two others that I can think of since the 'recently closed' section came in, a normal nom and a delist, both of which were overturned (by the original closer, FWIW). --jjron (talk) 08:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

QED. I see no drama in either of those objections and the claim that objections "never" change results is even more iffy than my ability to count ducks. --mikaul^talk 10:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me if I don't find you pointing out that I, MYSELF, AM WILLING TO LISTEN TO PEOPLE to assure me that all the other closers, who do not follow the rules set out above, will be just as willing to solve problems. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 195 FCs served} 13:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure they will. --mikaul^talk 21:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Still agree 110%. Good examples. Things seem to be running fine. wadester16 04:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

2/3 support should never be considered consensus IMO (unless the opposes have no reason whatsoever). Greater than 2/3 should be the minimum threshold, and vote-counting should be discouraged in general. Kaldari (talk) 19:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

And it wouldn't be: Under my proposals, the closer gets to choose, hence tipping the balance above or below if you include the nominator's decision. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 22:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, you seem to want to have a completely gamable system where closers can do whatever the hell they want, and any proposal to even limit them to sensible rules for when and how to go about overturning consensus is anathema. But if that's how you want it, I suppose that's how you want it. Mwahaha. A god am I!

Very well. From now on, if I want to overrule a nom for any reason - in order to promote or fail it - I shall do so. To start: Noodle snacks has too many FPs, so all his fail. Any nom with only the nominator supporting it, though, passes, because you're all just being mean. Oh, and I shall be recruiting further closers from 4chan and any really good trolls I see on MMORPGs. =P Yeah, totally not serious, but, really, have you even thought about what you're actually advocating for? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 22:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Slightly pointy, no? :-) wadester16 22:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Only if I actually do what I suggest. =) Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 22:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Archives please

Just a reminder to closers to remember to close to the archives as well as the 'recently closed' section. There's starting to get a few not making it into the archives again, so we need to be careful. --jjron (talk) 13:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

And I'll just repeat myself...close to the archives. And if you don't know what you're doing and want to try closing, at least ask someone who does know to check your closings for you.--jjron (talk) 07:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sept 19 POTD

I had asked Wadester to schedule this picture for POTD for 19 September 2009, to mark the International Day of Quds. Incidentally, a Jewsih festival Rosh Hashanah also falls on that day and Howcheng reverted Wade's change. I don't see how this is fair though. We say Wikipedia is not censored and here we are doing just that. FWIW, the scheduled image was anti-Israeli and not anti-Jewish. I would really like to see the protest image as the POTD for Sept 19 as it will raise awareness about the International Day of Quds. Any thoughts? --Muhammad(talk) 09:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ouch that's gonna be a tough one. Ok, here are my 2 cents.

I noticed a few things :

• I don't think it's "incidental", that this protest day happens on what seems to be an important day for the Jewish community (start of their calendar year). It was probably done on purpose by the people who started the Day of Quds.

• The Quds day takes place on the last Friday of Ramadan so it is purely by coincidence that these two have fallen together. --Muhammad(talk) 13:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ooops, I should have been more careful when I read the article. Ksempac (talk) 06:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• I never heard of the International Day of Quds before, so I've some trouble assessing its notability. However, I do notice the article is rather short, and seems to indicate that the day is only beginning to get some attention outside of Iran, where it was originated. Therefore, notability is there, but I'm not sure it is very significant.
• Wikipedia is not a place to "raise awareness about X, Y or Z". Wikipedia merely reports facts, and explain political opinions/view without judging them.

Therefore, my humble opinion is that we shouldn't display the picture for this particular day. Some others, historical dates related to the wars/civil unrest in Israel will probably be more significant and would be a better day to post this picture. However is this Day of Quds has a lot more notability than what I thought (i.e show it by expanding the article), or if it gains notability in the next few years, I would consider adequate to display the picture on that day. Ksempac (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Tricky question. I agree that WP is not censored, but we also have to remember WP:NPOV as well. I think we also have to bear in mind that the photo wasn't taken on the day in question; for some things that are unlikely to be controversial (e.g. the POTD for 11th September) that isn't a problem, but it makes it harder to defend putting it on a possibly controversial day.

On the other hand, there is no reason for a picture not to be POTD just because it shows a protest against a country whose major religion has a festival on that day: we wouldn't think twice about putting a FP showing a protest against the Iraq war on the main page on Christmas or Easter day.

On balance, I think it would be best either to have a POTD completely unrelated to Rosh Hashana and the Day of Quds, or to feature two simultaneously with one related to each (I know two POTDs is unusual, but it would make a relevant POTD and perhaps promote awareness of the issues involved without taking sides). Perhaps a joint POTD with this (an existing FP which has already been a POTD). I agree the link is rather tenuous, but perhaps a better alternative could be found. Time3000 (talk) 10:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(e/c, @ Ksempac) Can't argue with that assessment. As the protest appears to have occurred in response to the start of the Gaza War, and considering the news-related tone of the FPC nomination, I'd say it'd be more appropriately scheduled for the anniversary of the bombardment of Gaza on 27th December. --mikaul^talk 10:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Muhammed, but I'm uncomfortable with the suggested date at this time: With the conflict with Rosh Hashanah, it would be needlessly upsetting and give the appearance of anti-Semitism, whereas on, say, some date between June 5 and 10 (the anniversary of the Six-Day War which led to Israel gaining Palestine), or the equivalent dates in the Hebrew or Islamic calendars, it would be more appropriate, and not give this appearance.

I'm afraid that we do need to consider the appearance this would cause. While we are not censored, you must realise that there are groups - not Jewish groups, but American Christian groups - with an extreme desire to take offense. If they heard about this running on Rosh Hashanah, with no balancing Jewish image, it would be spun into an anti-Semitic attack, form a public relations disaster for Wikipedia, and you could easily get caught up in it. I'm sorry, but I think Howcheng is right to delay. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 12:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• • I was thinking along the lines of Time3000. We could have 2 PsOTD, that way wikipedia would not face any anti-Semitic allegations --Muhammad(talk) 13:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
    • But that's only possible if we have a Jewish image. Do we, or could we gain one in time? I suppose I could try to get this Flavius Josephus image I have scanned (I've been trying to work through all the major world religions), but I face the strong disadvantage that my scanner's broken, and many of the University ones are very badly calibrated. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 193 FCs served} 13:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
• I would tend to agree with Ksempac that Wikipedia shouldn't really be raising awareness of issues like that, whether they're political, religious or anything else controversial. It sets a dangerous precedent when we go out of our way to match an image to a contentious date on the front page as it would appear by highlighting it, are giving it credence. Rather than then catering to opposing points of view for the sake of NPOV, it just makes more sense to me for us to stay out of it completely. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Though I don't entirely agree, I will probably be overruled on this one. Sadly, point taken. --Muhammad(talk) 16:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
    • What do you disagree with, though? Do you think that Wikipedia should take a stance on particular contentious issues? I'm not sure how you could argue that putting an image about a contentious issue on the front page on the same day as a contentious event doesn't lend some sort of credence to that POV. While I have a lot of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people and think that free speech is a particularly important right for a mature society, I don't believe that using an encyclopaedia as a soap box for issues is appropriate. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
    • While it was obviously a good-faith effort to give credence to this interesting date, the unintended impression that most will take from it is negative, which is unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if this made it into the national news if it happened. It's definitely unfortunate, but not worth the risk. wadester16 18:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure that 'avoiding being in the national news' is something that should really be the most important reason not to do it though. We made plenty of waves by refusing to back down over that naked girl on a 1970s music album cover, but we stuck to our principles. The same principles should be what governs our decision to keep NPOV - not simply the desire to skirt controversy.Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 19:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Meh, I guess, but considering Muhammad uses his (assumedly) real (and full) name, it would lead to him being badgered as well. Outsiders would most likely assume he was fully responsible, and it's not worth putting him through that. Otherwise, I still don't think it's worth going through unnecessary contention if we don't need to, much in the same way this list exists. Also, if that example above were (miraculously) chosen to be an FP, it would not make it to the front page. I trust Howcheng's judgment. wadester16 21:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Agree with Ksempac and Diliff that our fundamental position of remaining neutral should be held as the most important thing here and not jeopardized. We don't want to be dragged into the area that the news media seem less and less unable to avoid, that of adding opinion to the reporting of facts and compromizing their integrity as an impartial source. The potential allegations and press if someone were to make a fuss about it would create a situation we should make all pains to stay clear of. Mfield (Oi!) 21:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/An_Ideal_Husband

Three days and no votes? (Not that anything above it has any votes, but still...) Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 195 FCs served} 04:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

For that matter, FPC seems a bit dead at the moment. I think I might be a little more lax as to timing of ones with nearly enough support, since... there don't actually seem to be voters. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 195 FCs served} 04:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Monkey eating.jpg

Feedback here will be appreciated. --Muhammad(talk) 11:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Page Shuffle

OK, so I've done a bit of a reshuffle of the FPC page - see here. The Delists are getting almost zero attention so I dumped them above the Recently Closed so that people at least have to scroll past them to see the results, and thus may actually stop and vote (more logical too, as delists get closed to Recently closed as well, which involved shifting them up the page). Also moved both closing procedures to the bottom of the page (no reason they need to be anywhere else really). If you disagree, either discuss below or change it, otherwise give it a try. --jjron (talk) 14:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• Looks good. I hope this gets those delist noms a little more attention. I shifted the closing procedures too, so they'd be below the pertinent sections. I thought this fit better. Having them both at the bottom seemed kind of out-of-the-way. Feel free to revert me if you think it was better before. Makeemlighter (talk) 18:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually you shifted the closing procedures back to where they had been :). I wouldn't mind giving them a run at the bottom. The reason I put them at the bottom was, basically, why does everyone need to see them as they scroll down the page? They're really only relevant to closers, and for closers it's no issue having them down the bottom. In fact, when you think about it, it's probably somewhat odd that we have the closing procedures on permanent show on the page, yet have the FPC Criteria tucked away on a separate subpage. Hmmm... --jjron (talk) 08:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Either is fine just so long as they aren't hovering mid-page, nowhere near the things about to close - the former case, since you had to scroll past recently closed. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 197 FCs served} 10:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"Either is fine.."' - sorry, not sure what you're referring to, delists or closing instructions. Could you clarify? --jjron (talk) 14:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• Hmm...for some reason, it made sense for me to have them right below the sections. But I see your point: if the same few people are doing all the closing, we can probably just hide those things away at the bottom. I'm going to move them back for now. I actually wouldn't mind tucking them away on a subpage either, but I'll leave that to someone else to decide. Makeemlighter (talk) 19:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep them on the page, for god's sake: On Commons, I've noticed that when the instructions were ever off the page, the bad closes shot up to ridiculous levels. )And now there's a bot on commons that will do everything once the closer selects a category to promote into. Why can't we have that? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 198 FCs served} 21:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Do they have more variety of closers though who would be more inclined to make errors? And maybe our closing process is more complex, making a bot harder to set up? --jjron (talk) 14:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Personally, I'm all for simplifying the closure process as much as possible. Most of the bulk work can't be removed though, which leaves either a bot or an applet to help with the closures. Noodle snacks (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Closures

I'm going to take a day or two off. There's not too much in the pipeline, I'll check anything dealt with when I come back this weekend. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 197 FCs served} 00:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:FPdelist

Another redundant template. List for TfD? ZooFari 18:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this ever even used? Go right ahead. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 198 FCs served} 18:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't think so; the "What links here" is empty (except some pages non-FPC related). Listed for deletion here. ZooFari 18:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Image:Gawthorpe new.jpg

Just to note I haven't tagged this as an FP, because it's hosted here, but should presumably hosted on commons. I've asked Childzy to reupload it there; it'll need tagged afterwards. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 15:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I shall get round to it shortly :D --Childzy ¤ Talk 22:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Spider_internal_anatomy

I'm inclined to go ahead and promote this. The only full oppose is spurious: Just because there was mild controversy shouldn't stop an image from becoming FP. Any disagreements? If not, I'll fit it into tomorrow's promotion. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 02:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Kaldari makes a valid argument and I'm not totally convinced it's fully correctly labelled either per my comment, but I think the 'conditionals' have had their conditions met, and I don't think there's anything terribly wrong there (unless that coxal gland comes back to bite us as it were), so on the balance would tend to agree. --jjron (talk) 08:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'll promote, but shall we turn a blind eye to continued editing meant to improve it? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 10:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to make edits to it anymore. Anyone? No? Feel free to decide now, Shoe. ZooFari 13:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You have to draw a line where one person's improvement is a negative to someone else. Look at Kaldari's change of heart - the original nominator is now weak opposing due to the 'improvements' made. You can't necessarily expect to please everyone (for example, label the mouth and I'd probably Support myself, as is I'm probably neutral, but others - evidently including all those who have edited the diagram - don't think the mouth should be labelled). The problem with diagrams compared to say photos, is not only are they probably never 'perfect', while we accept that for photos, with diagrams you can keep going back and making it better, but we don't always agree on what better is. Go too far one way and we're promoting rubbish, too far the other way and we'll never promote any diagrams. --jjron (talk) 07:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and promoted. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 09:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

For anyone worried

I got interrupted just after starting a promotion. I'm finishing it up now. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 20:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• Haha, you need twitter :P Noodle snacks (talk) 00:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

FP promotions

We have rather a lot coming up today and tomorrow. If anyone's willing to do one or two, it'd help out a lot. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 201 FCs served} 05:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Just did six - you can leave the lot to me (other than what I've participated in) if you want. I'm trying to test a new technique, so would actually like lots of promotions. --jjron (talk) 15:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If you're sure, I suppose I don't mind, just don't let it become a chore: Better to split the effort once you have got your practice in. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 201 FCs served} 15:39, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind getting some later, so don't feel like you have to close them all. Makeemlighter (talk) 23:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-promotions are easier than ever now we've officially wiped that FPC template, but anyone can grab and do them (and actually looks like the bulk in the next few days are non-promotes). Promotions are the time consuming part, and the promotion technique I'm testing is probably more efficient the more you do at once, so I'm happy if there's plenty at this stage until I'm convinced it is good. I'm not trying to take over closing all together, but just want a good testing period. Of course you've still got to make the 'hard decisions' - promote or not, use appropriate captions, and categorise in the FP galleries. --jjron (talk) 06:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow

Quite the one-man-show at the moment. Ant still the quality is on a fairly high level. --Dschwen 15:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

haha, well let me reassure you, there is a method to my madness as you'll soon see :) --Fir0002 22:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Uploading November '08 photos - the 20D 'reserves' must be almost dry? --jjron (talk) 08:49, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Farewell

I'll probably experience intense withdrawal symptoms next week, but after a long while thinking it over, I've decided to retire from Wikipedia. Quite a few reasons lead to my retirement, not least of which is a lack of time, which you can read about (if you want) on my userpage. I'd like to ask one request if possible - could someone please update my FP counts (current and total) as appropriate when/if any of my "5x5days + 5D fifth birthday grand finale" get through. All the best to everyone! --Fir0002 12:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't quite the 5D anniversary expected. Do you have flickr or something to watch? I shall update the count. Noodle snacks (talk) 13:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to see you leaving, though I applaud your ability to remove yourself from something that takes so much time from education. 10 years from now, Wikipedia will be nothing to you, but anything lost from education will be a huge burden. Good luck in your future endeavours. Maedin\^talk 16:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC) Wow, that made me sound really old! Maedin\^talk 19:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your contributions; you'll be missed. Understandable in terms of other commitments. Here's hoping this is farewell rather than goodbye. As your schedule permits it would be wonderful to see another gem from you now and then. Warmest regards, Durova³⁰⁶ 19:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow. I wasn't expecting this at all. Thanks for all the effort you've put in here. I'll miss getting to look at all the new pictures you nominate here. Good luck with everything. I hope we'll see you again here some day. Makeemlighter (talk) 23:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

What everyone else has said, really. Will miss your contributions, and if the licensing arrangements are ever changed by the bureaucracy I'll make sure to let you know. As Durova has said, I hope we get rare gems from you, but if not I'll understand. Good luck! Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a damn shame and loss to Wikipedia. Hope to see you back here sometime. FWIW I am updating your counts (and adding the images to your FP gallery) as I promote, well for the ones I'm promoting. --jjron (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, couldn't not chime in here and say, from this slightly jaded corner of the project, it feels like WIkipedia's losing its sixth pillar. Good luck Peter :-) mikaul^talk 10:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, Fir has left, now Wikipedia is doomed to fail! Because the hundreds of other high quality contributors we have are basically not even half as valuable as that single guy? --Dschwen 16:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That's right, within a week I expect the entire project will come crashing down amid inconsolable wailing and gnashing of teeth, and all thanks to a wiki-nobody who was barely here and never inspired anyone to contribute a single quality image. Sheesh, indeed. --mikaul^talk 19:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Took me 2 days to finally be able to drop a word here, i felt too sad before to manage it. I'm sad because you're leaving, and even more so because of the reasons you're leaving. Willing contributors shouldn't be driven away. I'm a tiny editor with not much value, but I've been a long time lurker and reader of wiki policies/drama, and I can understand your concerns and views of what Wikipedia should be. Best of luck for everything else. Ksempac (talk) 08:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Good luck in your future pursuits! — BRIAN0918 • 2009-09-02 17:23Z

I believe any GFDL only images uploaded now are ineligible for migration. Anyway, looking forward to the nomination flood on your return. Have fun. MER-C 13:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Recently closed nominations

I was under the impression that the purpose of having a Recently closed nominations section was so that if you objected to how a nomination was closed, you could raise the objection there and it could be acted upon without having to start the entire process over again. I don't think Pmlinediter is clear on this process. Can someone take a look at the closing discussion at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Jumping spider courtship? Thanks. Kaldari (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Have changed it to a no consensus non-promotion. Seemed the best fit, but I'd probably encourage a renomination (or just challenge it there...). --jjron (talk) 09:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a good call to me. Kaldari (talk) 16:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Impending Milestone

We hit 1000 FPs on the second last day of 2007. Within the next week I figure we'll be within about 25 of number 2000 (assuming the FP count is correct, I'm doing a check and shuffle of FP Thumbs atm so hope it corresponds), with the milestone likely before the end of the month. As best I can find, the first FPs were promoted at the start of 2004, so it took almost four years for the first 1000, and it will be less than a year and nine months to make the second 1000. Fir got number 1000, but his timing is maybe a bit unfortunate as he will be just out of the running for number 2000. What will it be...? --jjron (talk) 14:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, a synergistic approach might be to make the most of a recent institutional donation. The Swedish chapter recently uploaded 28 high resolution historic photographs from Regionarkivet. See Commons:Commons:Regionarkivet and Commons:Category:Images_from_Regionarkivet. A few of the original uncompressed files are available by request (they didn't fit within the 100MB upload limit). WMF UK decided to use the first restoration from that collection in a press release; the photograph documented excavation of a Roman ruin in Britain.[8] Last night I was rushing to complete that restoration in time for the press release; still need to do an intermediate upload and add to the relevant articles before nominating. Perhaps someone would like to time other images from this collection to coincide with the 2000 mark? Don't worry if you don't already restore stuff; any of the regulars here could learn with a little coaching. Would be glad to bring people up to speed (and possibly conominate if you need a hand with the hard parts). Durova³⁰⁸ 15:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, so my Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs review came up with 1964. The FP mainpage has the count at 1960. Anyone got time for a comprehensive review of them all, or an independent way of checking this? --jjron (talk) 14:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Flood of nominations

While I always appreciate nominations to FPC, as they are what makes this project, I do have to wonder about having so many posted simultaneously. Muhammad has posted 26 new nominations to FPC, and coming after Fir0002's nominations (with 22 currently open), that leaves 68 open candidates on the page. Fir0002 gave his unfortunate rationale, that he was leaving Wikipedia and would not be able to nominate pictures in future. I'm not quite sure what reasoning is behind Muhammad posting so many pictures however. I certainly hope Muhammad is not also considering leaving!

Again, I appreciate them, and don't mean to demean Muhammad's effort. I would like to suggest however that perhaps at least some of them could suspended for a few days, so that we can clear the backlog and get back to a normal pace, one which allows us to consider each image with sufficient reflection. I hope this doesn't sound harsh, I'd like to see what others think. Mostlyharmless (talk) 01:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I considered leaving after Fir but decided against it. The flood is for the 2000th FP. But from the looks of it, Noodle snacks will probably get it --Muhammad(talk) 03:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, what the hell, I've thrown one in too. Consider the above comments striked. Mostlyharmless (talk) 04:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you (Muhammad) probably have a greater shot at it than I do. Excluding unidentified insects I don't have tons in reserve right now, and not huge amounts of time due to university. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course a flood can end up working against you... And it does make closing a bit of a pain - that will mean about 30 are due to be closed on one day, so no complaints if it doesn't happen promptly please! BTW I checked your contributions Muhammad and you created about 20 noms in the same minute - OK so obviously you had the noms prepared, but how did you click the save button that quickly? :-) --jjron (talk) 08:35, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

All the tabs were open, I just had to move really fast :) Why don't you give it a try with a few more noms :p --Muhammad(talk) 16:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You must be a bit of a gamer to move that fast! I don't really have that much sitting around to nom, don't take a lot of the things you tend to get a few of at a time like bugs and birds and flowers, and I have more competition with the likes of Fir and NS in my neck of the woods taking that sort of thing. Besides, I don't have time to work on photos, I spend all my time closing you other guy's noms! ;P --jjron (talk) 08:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you please avoid pissing contests ? I know getting a FP is a ego-booster, but let's be a bit reasonable. Getting the 2000th FP means nothing in itself and with delisting decrementing the counter from time to time, we could get 1, 2, 3, or even more "2000th" FP. You're cluttering the page, making it hard to see for slow computers, and making it hard to vote for pictures or others to nominate anything...this will ends in several "no consensus" / "not enough votes" that will need to be renominated later on. Ksempac (talk) 08:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I dont have a very fast computer or fast internet and I am having no problems viewing the page. --Muhammad(talk) 16:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah well, do I think this nom-flooding to grab 2000 is childish? Yes! But you gotta see it from the other angle: Muhammad is just nominating, it's totally up to him and going after him here is pretty pointless. It is up to the reviewers to fairly judge his images. If they should really pass then that's fine. After all just having twentysomething highquality candidates should be rather impressive. --Dschwen 12:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

And, I had all the images sitting on my pc, and I felt too lazy to edit and upload them. The 2000 mark encouraged me to upload and nominate, so it's a good thing --Muhammad(talk) 15:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah well, this is becoming off-topic, but I'm not sure if needing that dangling FP-carrot as a motivation to upload any images is necessarily a good thing. I thought the cause of building a free encyclopedia (sum of all knowledge, yadayadayada) should be motivation enough, or am I being naive here? --Dschwen 16:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about others but speaking for myself, sure I was very excited with my first FP all the way to the tenth and qualifying to join the photographer's guild. But after that it does get a bit boring and 2000 anniversary, personal 100 FP, and such motivate me to continue to upload in large numbers. Sure, I won't stop nominating but without such targets to reach, I may just slow down. A bit of competition and egotism may be a good thing for the encyclopedia. --Muhammad(talk) 17:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

With the greatest respect, it is a bit naive to suppose we're all here for purely altruistic reasons. From the humblest edits to writing an FA, there's also the satisfaction of having your efforts seen and appreciated by one of the world's biggest web audiences, quite aside from the "belonging" aspect of community membership. The collaborative thing is another big buzz, and while that tempers a lot of egoism in article editing it's basically not present in image contribution, hence the apparent excess. I don't know about you but I don't mind admitting it's driven me away in the past. I've since come to see it as a net benefit and, if it motivates people to (eg) upload dozens of quality images within a few days, possibly one of the main motivators driving the project's continued expansion. Apologies for the cod psychoanalysis, but I think that's roughly the way it works. --mikaul^talk 20:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

No apologies necessary. Sure getting an FP is a nice bonus, and I'm always happy about a successful nomination (although en hasn't seen one in a long while :-) ). But it should not be the main motivator. If it is, then that would be very sad. One reason is that it skews the uploads to those that can be placed in high profile articles and it does not encourage careful research when adding them. Lots of pics just seem to get crammed into as many articles as possible immediately prior to nomination with the dubious mission of increasing EV of the images. This is putting the cart in front of the horse. The project would benefit as much or more from illustrating less glorious articles, articles with missing images, articles on mundane topics that will never get elected FP. --Dschwen 20:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Can't argue with that. Maybe we need a kind of article expansion bonus akin to "historical value" mitigation. I actively look for that when reviewing noms and generally only review noms with either huge & obvious stand-alone value or proven worth in the article. It's always nice to see image contributors chipping in a bit of text as well, shows an understanding of the topic and does reflect well on EV. Shooting for specific articles is always a good idea. Maybe that's where you're going wrong ;) --mikaul^talk 21:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, trying to shoot areas which wiki's coverage is lacking is a good idea. At the same time that is not how it works in practise when shooting living plants and animals. Most of the time you don't know what you are going to find before you walk out the door. Noodle snacks (talk) 04:04, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• If nobody reviews the images in the nominations, then I'm afraid we are gonna have a flooded FPC urgents template. Come on guys --Muhammad(talk) 19:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

During some idle time I was thinking about a pending (=all unclosed on FPC page - suspended) nomination cap at (say) 50 = 7/day. Once the cap is reached, any new nominations go into a FIFO queue which is drawn upon when nominations are closed. Do we need one? MER-C 10:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I have thought along a similar line in the past. In my view it would only apply to open regular noms (not counting suspended or delists). You may be thinking of automating a queuing process, I was just thinking of a manual system, i.e., don't nominate if there's more than x noms already. Would probably set the cap below 50 though - anything above 30 I think starts becoming unmanageable (i.e., people just start ignoring lots of them). Have also thought that perhaps there should be a cap on individual nominators, e.g., no more than 3 active nominations from any one nominator at any one time (could be 5, could be 1, could be something else, but a limit may not hurt). --jjron (talk) 08:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Going on the last year The mean number of nominations per month is 109. Assuming 28 days per month then you have a mean of about 27 per week. The standard deviation is about 7.4 per week. So I'd say a cap of 30 is too low. A cap of 45 or so would smooth things out without clogging them up (two standard deviations). That said, there are several months of the year (holidays) when the average nomination rate is much higher. During this time period the number of reviews is usually higher too, so it evens out imo. I think a cap on the number of nominations is a bad idea, growth is a good thing. A nominator cap would help in cases like the last week or two, where the number of nominations isn't balanced with the amount of review going on. I think that 3 is too low. I've averaged 2 successful nominations per week (99 in the last 12 months) for the last year and perhaps double that in total nominations. 10 is more reasonable. Noodle snacks (talk) 09:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought, though I doubt you could make it a rule, what if everyone had to review four other images for each nomination? Assuming the votes were uniformly distributed it'd help keep the number of reviews per nomination high. Noodle snacks (talk) 09:26, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Those numbers you quote are quite high, we are certainly not lacking for nominations despite what is sometimes claimed, though getting voters can be an issue. Ten is an awful lot of leeway, but then how would it really be enforced anyway? Capping growth is not necessarily bad, the problem being as I said above not so much that there's lots of noms, but when we get so many they don't get votes (for example there's likely to be few noms going through in the next couple of days that don't get a single vote). It can also become a closing issue. I suggested something similar about having to review x images for every nom at VPC at one stage due to the low voting. It's not a bad thing, with the only problem being that it may encourage false 'positives' as nominators feel obliged to vote, but fear offending other reviewers by opposing, so instead try to drum up payback supports for their own noms by unthoughtfully supporting, knowing those nominators also have to make four votes. And what a nightmare that would be to police! It would have to be an honour system, unless it could be automated in some way. --jjron (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a fixed cap, but roughly an estimate of our ability to deal with (i.e. review, close and process) nominations. Informed participation increases => cap gets raised. 2σ based on volume over a year sampled monthly sounds good. I wouldn't go for the "for every picture you nominate, review X others" because if we get an influx of crap nominations it leads to a proportionate increase in crap reviews. And we all know what problems crap reviews cause. MER-C 08:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Massive stuff-up

I think we can scratch any serious celebrations for FP 2000 - at best it's going to be a rough approximation. I commented above about the disagreement between the official count and FP Thumbs. Now have just found six noms from early August File:Luculia gratissima.jpg, File:Can't please everyone2.jpg, File:Pied Piper2.jpg, File:Mandarin duck woodcut3.jpg, File:Midas gold2.jpg, and File:Munttoren Amsterdam.jpg that have been promoted but never entered into archives, FP galleries or FP thumbs. I'm sure the 'official count' is wrong as well - obviously this six aren't on it, but I'm quite certain there's other errors too. I'll fix these six tomorrow or sometime soon and adjust the count to match FP thumbs (unless someone comes up with something more accurate), but who knows how many more undetected stuff-ups there's been since MER-C stopped closing. I have identified some but haven't been watching that closely until the last week or so, and have seen some others identified by other people, but how many more have there been...? There's probably mistakes we'll never find now, unless someone very pedantic has time to go back through the FPC history nomination by nomination. --jjron (talk) 15:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Seddon forgot to add to the archive. I left a note on the talk page some time ago and was promised it would be fixed. I did my own image, but this too has probably not been added to the count --Muhammad(talk) 16:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your attention to this. Durova³¹⁰ 18:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I saw you had added yours (Muhammad) to the galleries (which is why I didn't include it above), but am fairly confident it's not in the count. Pretty sure none of them went thru the other bits either - new featured content, goings-on, etc, - but I won't bother with those now, will just get them into the galleries and archives. Creators/nominators probably didn't get a talkpage note either? For the record I'm going to add a closing warning to the top of the closing procedure to suggest only closing if you know what you're doing or if you are able to get an established closer to check your work. When MER-C was closing, even though he didn't close everything, he kept a check that other closings were done properly. No one's being doing that since - I don't always have the time or necessarily the inclination to check, and others are probably the same. Perhaps we can all at least try to keep an eye out if we notice an 'irregular closer' and do a quick check. --jjron (talk) 08:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Re count: current 'official count' is 1970. FP Thumbs has 1973, image links to the FP Template are 1972. I'm going to assume one FP is missing its FP tag and take the Thumbs count as being correct, and adjust the 'official count' accordingly. --jjron (talk) 09:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Bleh - do I sense people wishing I were back? The current volume is tempting me to start closing again (after the ones I've voted on drop off) - especially if people didn't create massive drama about images getting not promoted - or processing nominations if we ever get a provisional/director system going. MER-C 13:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do we somehow discuss getting a director but never seem to do so? When MER-C was the unofficial closer, mistakes like these were few if any and I support bringing him back. The few users who close nominations now, can keep an eye on the closings (as all responsible reviewers should be doing) and any inappropriately closed nom can be brought to attention. At least that way we can point a finger ;-) --Muhammad(talk) 14:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I fully support MER-C as a closer and always have. The "recently closed" section and the publicity that poor closures have recently receives means that, hopefully, all will be fine. Maedin\^talk 15:58, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

While I see the point of an oversight to the closing process, I think I'm not alone in disliking the concept of "director". It just has too many power connotations, which sits badly with the consensus nature of the decision-making. Is there no way of automating the initial closing so that the decision to promote (or not) is left open to anyone? We almost have an adage now: Anyone can close, but only the brave ever do... I really like the first part; is there no way of changing the second? Maybe what we really need is an administrator, not a director. --mikaul^talk 20:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I think what we really need is a bot. Most of this stuff wouldn't occur with automation. Noodle snacks (talk) 02:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The one at Commons is pretty unique with confirmation and all that stuff. Maybe we should get its owner and make a bot for us... ZooFari 02:32, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

MER-C was great at the closing job, and his tool minimized errors. I haven't closed in a while because I no longer have the time; closing takes way too long, but with MER-C's tool, he can do huge batches almost instantly. Too few instances of bad calls occurred to "bar" him closing; he is human like the rest of us. A bot would be nice, but I offer you good luck in finding someone who wants to take the time to code one. upstateNYer_{formerly wadester16} 14:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

How about facilitator (I said director initially because that's what the other processes call it)? Of course, running the bot/tool/whatever means an option to have a (final) say as to the outcome. Hopefully things will be sane enough so that such option would only be exercised 1 in every 500 nominations (probably limited to determining the consensus on whether a closure should stand, though I can think of various forms of abuse and other annoyances that might cause bad pics to sneak through). Most of the time, the role would be a facillatory one - processing the nominations and assisting in closure review. MER-C 10:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Something isn't right. I started scanning images from the thumbs and many, many images do not have FP templates and their description pages are located at Commons. So how is Jjron's count possible? Yes, according to my AWB, there are 1,973 in thumbs but how does the FP template link 1,972 with the fact that many images do not have description pages here? Example: File:American buffalo proof vertical edit.jpg. ZooFari 03:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

That's why I went with the count from FP Thumbs. Could also do a count from the FP galleries, but that is quite time consuming. There's probably many missing FP tags as you say, others that are gone/delisted/whatever with lingering tags, others with tags falsely applied, the FP 'sets' may also be causing problems (as I've said many times they shouldn't exist - do they count as one FP or as multiples (some sets are up to 20), and who's differentiating?); I think that count was right, though it wasn't that precise, but it's probably luck that it's that close given all the variables. --jjron (talk) 14:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

A scripted tool to assist closers would really help this process. Durova³¹¹ 15:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Flags

I was wondering if it would be possible to nominated a depiction of a flag for FP? ISD (talk) 09:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Has been tried before, but better be something special. What do you have in mind? --Dschwen 09:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I had been thinking of improving the BDSM Rights Flag to FP status. It needs cleaning up but it is free licence. ISD (talk) 10:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, ok, I don't see that happening, but knock yourself out. --Dschwen 17:48, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see it happening either. Either the illustration is exceptional, strictly in the aesthetical sense, or it has no chances at all. The political, religious, social, etc, symbolism of an illustration has (to my knowledge) never been a reason for promotion. Which is a good thing IMO. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Put more simply, featured pictures usually have to be reasonably complex. Relatively simple illustrations, such as this, are usually rejected as valuable, but too simple to stand alongside the others. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 204 FCs served} 19:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been wondering what's the deal with that flag anyways? This is like plumbers rights, yeah man, equal rights for plumbers, plumbers are human being too, just like you and me!, stop the oppression!, we want the right to plumb all we want. And I'm like what are they talking about? "dude, you got it, lay your pipe wherever you want!". --Dschwen 19:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Poking around a little, to try and help out, I suspect an image featuring the flag as part of some sort of notable event, e.g. File:LeatherPrideFlag2008.JPG, would be much, much more featurable. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 204 FCs served} 20:48, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that at some point in our history, there was a consensus that all straightforward flag images would not be permitted as FP candidates. howcheng {chat} 06:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Slebs and their promo shots

I've just heard back from a nice friendly photographer I emailed about his uncredited photo coming up at FPC. He's delighted to see a sufficiently positive response that it will likely appear on our main page at some point. It also hadn't occurred to him that this might well generate some good publicity for him, more so the more of his work becomes featured. He happens to be fairly active in screen and stage, so I could imagine this might be not only a good source of further "celebrity" FPs but a great example to other professionals of the benefits of uploading freely-licensed images here.

Here's the corollary of that: if we don't make the effort to establish authorship, as with this nom, we risk having the opposite effect, upsetting photographers and turning them against the idea of free licensing. I'd like to make it mandatory that actual authors, not license-holders, are credtited on FP image pages and FPC noms.

Photographers' standard copyright license releases very rarely release authorship and all reproduction rights unless s/he is an employee of an organisation, in which case the work for hire doctrine may sometimes apply. Work for hire agreements may also be insisted upon by commissioning parties but as this is likely to cost them more for no extra benefit, it's much less common. See this article for more info. I'm not suggesting the OTRS has it wrong re the Anderson pic, but it lessens the value of an image for me and removes the link to the real author, until of course it appears on the main page, in which case I'd direct you back to my second paragraph.

Another, more trivial issue with these (currently quite rare) celeb FPs is the fact that – no disrespect to Mr Wynter – he's not the most notable actor on WP by any stretch, and yet will presumably soon appear on the main page. Does anyone else think this is a bit... disproportionate? --mikaul^talk 22:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

When new doors open, the first people to recognize the opportunity gain the most advantage. I put Noam Cohen in touch with Jerry Avenaim for this story. Would gladly help gain attention for other celebrities and their photographers. Wouldn't it be a pleasant change of pace if they were competing for featured credit here? A lot of the photographs Wikipedians would like to use in articles are proprietary; it would be a boon to the project if more of the professional world were aware that generosity has its rewards. Durova³¹² 22:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

May I add a corollary? The aesthetics of fashion and celeb photography are a bit different from that we might be used to (standard from-the-front head shots), and I do think we'd benefit by remembering this and not being too quick to oppose for using the aesthetics of that photographic genre. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 204 FCs served} 22:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Good job Mick on tracking down the photographer. Agree with your point about crediting the author, but if we make it mandatory to do so that means a lot of anonymous images, including many historical ones coming from photo agencies, etc, would not be eligible as we would likely never be able to find their actual author. Also a valid point about the better ones we get tending to be minor celebs which is a bit of a negative, but Durova's also makes a reasonable reply that it may encourage more to follow suite. --jjron (talk) 08:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but it wasn't that hard to find him; actually took me twice as long to write the email. I hear what you're saying about anon images but I'd suggest that was highly unlikely with recently-shot promo stuff. With celeb shooters the nature of the client/photographer agreement is looser than with other PR shots; usage restrictions are usually quite relaxed and end users often get the wrong idea when it comes to donating images. We have a duty to uphold a "moral rights" principle – I know it's not a default position in the US but it is quite the norm elsewhere – to give proper attribution wherever possible. Attribution on the two noms I cited was plain wrong and one of them, albeit unlikely to be promoted, still is. There's no excuse for assuming anonymity in this kind of work, and we should point that out in FPC reviews. --mikaul^talk 09:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Basically agree for current stuff - so would you regard the 'author requirement' to be one of the allowable exceptions for historic images? Re the incorrect attributions on the current images is this not a problem far beyond FPC? Both of these claim "The permission for use of this work has been verified and archived in the Wikimedia OTRS system." with a claimed source of "photosubmission@wikimedia.org". So wouldn't there seem to be a problem at that point, where this system supposedly verifying ownership to weed out copyvios is perhaps doing a less than outstanding job? Re making it a requirement for FPC this goes back to previous discussions we've had about having good info on the image page, and that issue pretty much seems to pass most reviewers by with little concern. --jjron (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Certain sources that are verifiably public domain and recent may be anonymous. Agencies of the United States government would be an example, if the work is public domain as a result of an uncredited government employee's having made it during the course of normal work duties. Yet we're in agreement that attribution should be given whenever it can be obtained. Durova³¹⁷ 00:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

My original reply to jjron's questions seems to never have appeared, for some reason. Oh well... historical images have less chance of having an attributed author, sure, but I see the need for attribution to be the same as any image. In the past, "work for hire" (in the US) meant you never owned your images and authorship rested with your employer. In many WfH cases an image is PD anyway, either (as Durova points out) due to govt. employee status or expiry of oroginal copyright, so attribution isn't a license requirement. CC-BY licensing insists on proper attribution, meaning the likes of the Wynter nom was technically in copyvio. The way I was pushing it was that the author has a moral right to attribution, regardless of his/her employment status. I should stress that this isn't recognised in US copyright law, but the spirit of it appears to be seeping into image reuse there in practice, even in WfH situations like govt employment. The OTRS system is nowhere near transparent enough to discover how someone can possibly take the subject as author (!) and rubber-stamp a CC-BY license in approving it for Wikimedia use. So yes, I do think there's something wrong with that process and the mind boggles imagining how many similar cases there are outside of FPC noms. mikaul^talk 08:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

POTD credits

Another discussion at Talk:Main Page#Removing photo credit for the Today's featured picture has started regarding the removal of photo credits on the POTDs. Please join in. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads up. I have replied there already. Others may like to as well. --jjron (talk) 08:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Quick question regarding uploads

I recently moved my first (so far) FP over to commons, I was just wondering if in the future i should just upload images to commons and not to wikipedia? --Childzy ¤ Talk 23:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, you should. The images can be then used on other wikimedia projects (eg other language wikipedias). Noodle snacks (talk) 23:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

ALT text

Has ALT text ever been considered for PoTD and possibly FPCs? ALT text is required for all images at FA and FL, so I figure it should be brought up here. Cheers, Mm40 (talk) 11:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Leaving aside PoTD which is another project, I think ALT Text doesn't concern WP:FPC for 2 reasons :

• First, regarding the WP:FPC page itself. The purpose of WP:FPC is to find the best images in Wikipedia, besides EV, we judge composition, colors, technical merits and they may get rejected for defects of less than 100 pixels. So really, i don't see what a screen reader user could do with the WP:FPC page, even reading the comments of an image ("Support : Nice colors, good composition") will probably not be useful for him.
• Second, there is a technical reason why it's pointless to add them to each FP file page. Alt Text isn't part of the image, but part of the HTML tag which embeds the image in a webpage. Moreover, an Alt:Text is context dependent (see the Napoleon painting in WP:ALT), so a single image may have multiple Alt Text depending on what you want to illustrate. Therefore, Alt Text must be done at the article level when you embed the image. Even if you put an Alt Text in the image file page (not sure whether the wiki allows it) it wouldn't be transmitted to the articles in which the image is embedded and anyway, you would never be able to put an Alt Text which accurately describes the picture for every possible use. Ksempac (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

POTD already uses the alt attribute. As a web developer, I made sure that we follow standards on that when I took over scheduling. :) howcheng {chat} 06:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I skimmed through the recent POTD, and although there is an alt text defined, it doesn't follow WP:ALT much. WP:ALT recommend that the alternative text describes the image itself, for those who can't see it. Instead POTD's alt texts are simply a title such as "Hurricane Isabel", or "Andromeda Galaxy" which isn't very useful (The default "Andromeda_Galaxy.jpg" carrying almost the same meaning). Moreover, it's even more useless with the caption giving the same information and much more.

I admit writing a complete ALT text (such as "A picture of clouds circling a depressed center. The colors of the cloud range from white at the border and go progressively darker when they approach the center. etc.") every day might be long and difficult (requiring better English writing skills than mine), and I don't want to disrepect the awesome job you've been doing for a while at POTD. I just want to point out that POTD isn't really following WP:ALT, it simply respects the bare minimum of W3C compliance, and Mm40's question is relevant. Ksempac (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I've never written ALT text that granular in its description. To my knowledge, its purpose is to identify _what_ the image is, so that's how I've always used it. howcheng {chat} 17:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Closing

I recently closed Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Perga sp. AF 2.jpg; it's the first time I've closed a nom, so if anyone does find any problems with it please let me know. Thanks, Time3000 (talk) 09:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thought that was a bit of a brave one to start with re determining a consensus :-). However, I had a quick check when I'd seen you'd done it, and couldn't notice anything awry - so I guess we say well done. --jjron (talk) 07:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to second the thanks for taking on the role of a closer. It's appreciated. Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:31, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Rambutans

My first rambutan image went without a single vote and the second one is pretty quiet as well. Anything against the dear things :-) Comments appreciated here. --Muhammad(talk) 14:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Please Help with Image Improvement

I've revisted one of the former FP candidate and improved it (in my view). The updated image is here, however, I cannot add it to the Mount Rushmore page as it is semi-protected and I am a new user. I'd like to renominate this but cannot do so until the image is added. If this is not an improvement, please let me know.

Hi there, thanks for your contribution. I have to say it is an improvement on the original, which I've always thought to be washed out and over-exposed. The increased resolution is a bonus. Can I suggest a further edit? The saturation and levels are a *tiny* bit overdone, such that both the blues and warm tones are a bit too dark/saturated. As an editor it's important to approach existing images with an awareness that you aren't the photographer (I'm guessing) and as such have no idea what the original intensity of the blue sky was, nor how prominent the grain in the stone was, when the image was captured. No matter how much information resides in the orignal file, and neither you nor I can justify pulling that information out beyond a credible limit. To the attuned eye your edit appears slightly surreal, and this relating to a subject which is already approaching the surreal sin terms of subject matter. One last thing: dont forget to sign your posts with four tildas (~~~~) --mikaul^talk 09:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion; coming from the "artier" side of photography I aimed for what looked more appealing to my eye than the encylcopedic nature of the work. Obviously, given the project, this is a bad policy. I've uploaded an update here. I hope this addresses the concern. Let me know if there are moer changes you want to see. (Also, I knew I was bound to forget to sign a few times, I'll get into the habit soon) Cowtowner 03:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah that's better. You might want to edit the Commons description page to fix the Author (just needs the photographer's name) and Source (straightforward link to his Flickr page) and if you're not going to copy over the annotations that appeared with the original upload, list the faces (L-R) in the Description field. Another point of order: if you want to float potential FPCs in future, there's a page for that purpose, a one-stop shop for all your pre-flight needs. Good luck with it. --mikaul^talk 04:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

FP 2000 - And the winner is...

Original - A peeled and unpeeled rambutan on a white background

The officially unofficial Featured Picture 2000 is a rambutan on a white background. Congratulations to Muhammad who contributed the photo - his flood failed, but he got it anyway. Congratulations to all those in between that have built the foundations for this milestone, and thanks to everyone that has contributed their work and time to the FP project. --jjron (talk) 08:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

While I had my concerns about the "flood" and the significance of the prize, I have to say this is a fine and fitting contribution, from one of our more prolific contributors, in achieving this landmark. I applaud the protracted and significant effort that underlies it. mikaul^talk 09:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It is an arbitrary prize when all is said and done, but as you say why not celebrate all his good work, both this one and the others over the last year (or two?). Congrats Muhammad. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your kind words and for keeping up with that flood. As jjron, I too would like to thank all the picture contributors and reviewers for their hard work. --Muhammad(talk) 17:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Milhist Academy and featured pictures: help sought

Back in February, we decided to set up an Academy at Milhist. The idea is to offer online "courses" of overview and "how to" articles to help editors develop new skills. Although primarily focused on military history, the Academy is useful for any editor looking to improve their editing.

At the time, the moment the Acdemy is short of articles, which is where you can help. We are looking for people who can share their experience by writing short (four to six paragraph) essays/articles offering practical advice, tips about good working practice, and easy-to-follow instructions for newcomers to the subject. Specifically, for images we have a number of redlinks that could use creating and expanding. These currently include:

• Creating images
• Obtaining images
• Original photography
• Image quality and accuracy
• Image restoration
• Creating maps
• Obtaining images (for beginners)
• How to improve images
• Working with free content images
• Working with non-free content images
• Copyright issues discussed

You are not of course limited to working just on redlinks and any other material broadening or deepening the Academy's content would be very much appreciated. To add a bit of competitive interest, we are also running a content drive, with barnstars as a way of expressing our thanks. Thanks for your time, and hopefully, your participation,  Roger Davies ^talk 12:51, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Time3000 and Kaldari for their help so far. Is anyone able to help please?  Roger Davies ^talk 03:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

You are probably asking in the wrong location. Some how-to guides already exist. I know I remember two separate articles about dealing with free and non-free images in the Wikipedia:Signpost some time ago, for example. howcheng {chat} 18:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If you look at Wikipedia:How to improve image quality it seems to already cover some of the ground you are asking about, and links to some other relevant pages which may also be of use. You may want to modify this information or reword to make it specific for your area, but there's no point reinventing the wheel. --jjron (talk) 12:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest that this sort of thing probably would be better decoupled from the MilHist project: The information is valuable much more generally, so linking it to the project risks isolating it much more than it deserves. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 206 FCs served} 21:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I would bring this up to the Graphic Lab. We are working together to gather image-related sources and creating more tutorials outside of the lab is what we least want. ZooFari 23:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/delist/File:Nagasakibomb.jpg

I have reverted the decision here.

With respect to Wadester, far more people voted to keep than to replace: It would seem that the FP tag should be returned to the original.

Furthermore, under no circumstances should Wadester's restoration be considered featured quality: While it improves the appearance of the thumbnail, at higher resolution, and flipping between it and the original, it becomes abundantly clear that some information in the original has been changed instead of just removing dirt, scratches and other clear damage. For example, load up both images in your browser in full res, and scroll to the lower right corner. Flip back and forth between them. You'll see that white clouds suddenly gain dark holes where a small grain of dust was before, and other such problems. If you're good at positioning two images in approximately the same place, far more such problems can be found, changing the shape of the clouds in numerous places. This restoration is just too sloppy for an important historic image. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 206 FCs served} 17:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Seconded I agree, this is an important historical image and restoration should be very careful not to loose any of the original detail that isn't absolutely necessary to remove an imperfection. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 18:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• It appears that the delist discussion was incorrectly closed as replace rather than keep. Durova³²⁰ 16:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Valetta, Capital of Malta

Per the discussion, I've rotated this, and moved it up the page to give a chance to discuss the Alt. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 208 FCs served} 15:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Expired copyrights

One of our reviewers has been asserting that FP requirements require removal of expired copyright tags. Actually, all that's required is that an image not be in full copyright. Various historic featured pictures do have copyright notices. The restriction against using copyrighted images is necessary for legal reasons having to do with the scope of fair use. It would be unwise to expand this concept to insist upon removal of copyright notices because the placement of copyright notices often balances other text, or the notice itself is composed with artistic merit, or else removal of the notice may mar the main image itself. A few examples of expired copyright notices on featured pictures follow. Durova³²⁰ 20:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

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Endorse that. The copyright notification is integral to the image itself in all those cases. Mostlyharmless (talk) 01:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Durova's right. Someone needs a trout-slapping :) Kaldari (talk) 01:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)