Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

RfC: Requiring photo credits in footnotes for copyrighted images

Proposal

WP:CREDITS is replaced with the following:

"For images which are not in the public domain, attribution in a form such as "Photograph by <Name linked to attribution URL (if any)>, license: CC-BY-SA" should be given in a footnote to the image caption."

Explanation

As the above discussions (with few participants) indicate, it is far from clear that our practice to provide author attribution only on image description pages, and not in the article, complies with the requirements of Creative Commons licensing. Specifically, the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence states:

"4.a ... You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute. ... c. If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must ... keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author ... ; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, ... The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors."

We comply with the last part by treating image credits just as non-prominently as text credits: both are hidden on a separate page (article history or image page, respectively). But I don't think that our practice not to display image credits in the article is "reasonable" as required by the license. It's evident why we can't reasonably provide in-article attribution for text – it would make the article unreadable or extremely long. But in contrast to text, images are discrete works that normally have one or few authors, and there are relatively few images in each article. It is therefore reasonably practicable to provide footnoted attributions for images, and as such I believe we are required to.

Legalities aside, we have a practical interest in being more proactive in providing attribution for images: This could motivate many more professional or semiprofessional photographers to make their images available under a free license. This is well explained in the following e-mail (reproduced with permission) by a photographer, with whom I have been in contact about securing the free licensing of an image:

I have a problem with how Wikipedia handles attribution. Specially, Wikipedia itself doesn't give the required attribution when the photos are used across the site -- and, consequently, other sites that republish content from Wikipedia frequently don't as well.
To pick just one more-or-less random example, here's the Wikipedia page for Tom Hiddleston: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston. There's a photo of him on this page. Where's the attribution? it's nowhere on the page.
If you click through you'll go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Hiddleston_(Avengers_Red_Carpet).jpg where photographer Sachyn Mital has selected a Creative Commons option that states, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author." But the photo's usage on Wikipedia -- as demonstrated on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston -- doesn't do this. While the page includes a great deal of information about the subject -- his birthday, where he went to school, etc. -- it doesn't include the photo attribution.
Very often the result is that when other sites use photos from Wikipedia they often say something like "photo credit: Wikipedia." But that's not right. Wikipedia didn't take the photo, a photographer did. (In this case, Sachyn Mital.)
So here's the question: Why doesn't the usage of the photo in Wikipedia on pages like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston say something like: "Photo license CC BY-SA 3.0. Required Attribution: Sachyn Mital"
If it did this, it would be more likely that sites that use content from Wikipedia might include the correct attribution. As it is now, Wikipedia obscures, rather than supports, and the required attribution.
I don't mean to be a jerk. I like the idea of having my photos widely distributed for others to see. I just wish Wikipedia would assist photographers who are willing to provide their content for free, but would like attribution for their work.

My proposal is to react to these legitimate concerns by asking editors to provide in-article attribution, in a footnote (probably in a separate "credits" group apart from references) for copyrighted images. We might consider options to make this less intrusive – e.g., to apply this form of attribution only to images that were not uploaded by the rights holders themselves (but, e.g., imported from Flickr), or only by request of the rights holder. But that would probably conflict with the clause requiring equal treatment of all credits at the end of the part of the license quoted above.

I know that this would mean a lot of work to implement if we mean to do it for all of our zillion images, but I am optimistic that bot automation could be used in most cases. Perhaps this could even be solved at the software level, with MediaWiki extracting licensing information from image pages and displaying it below the article. How best to implement this for existing articles would need a more thorough and technical discussion later. – This discussion is notified to the community via the RfC tag and WP:CENT, to WP:VPP and to the talk pages of the images, MOS and copyright Wikiprojects. Sandstein 10:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Support as proposer. Sandstein 10:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Just out of curiousity, what made you change your mind since Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 76#Attribution of images? Anomie ⚔ 13:26, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose The goal is laudable but the proposed text is too prescriptive. Credit in the caption would be better where this is feasible, as discussed above. Warden (talk) 10:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not in principle opposed to that form of attribution either. I see this RfC as principally about whether we should provide in-article photo credits, in whatever form. Sandstein 11:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Nothing has changed since Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 76#Attribution of images, or for that matter since Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 25#Photograph attribution in image captions, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 17#Requiring photo credits, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive AZ#Image attribution under CC-Attrib license, and various other discussions including several further up on this page. And should this proposal fail, as it should, I am going to add this to WP:PEREN. Anomie⚔ 13:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting, I see that I was against this in 2011! At least this has changed - because I now read the CC licensing terms in detail. I think the previous discussions are old enough, and had so few contributors, that we should discuss this on the merits rather than just making references to old discussions. Consensus can change, and I see no substantial consensus in favor of the status quo. Sandstein 13:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  My view on the matter is the same as it was in 2011, so I hereby include my comments then by reference. Sure, consensus can change, but this seems less a matter of "consensus might have changed" than "people who have read only the no-legal-value CC-BY-SA-3.0 'Deed' and not the legalcode keep raising the same invalid issue over and over". Just like the person you quoted in your proposal: that quote is from the deed and does not appear in the actual license.
  
  Would you mind clarifying what you see in the CC legalcode that made you change your mind? Anomie ⚔ 14:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  The text I reproduced and analyzed above is from the legal code, i.e., the actual legally binding license. Could you explain why you think we can ignore that license's requirement to " provide, reasonable to the medium ... the name of the Original Author"? Sandstein 14:26, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  I was referring to the text you quoted from an email you had with a photographer; I missed your analysis above that (sorry!). Your analysis depends on the definition of what is "reasonable to the medium" for a hypertext encyclopedia. I maintain, as has been established in many past discussions, that hyperlinking to a page with detailed information on the image (including source, attribution, and licensing summary which itself hyperlinks to the full text of the license) is entirely reasonable, just as hyperlinking to the revision history is entirely reasonable for attributing text contributions. Anomie ⚔ 14:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  Well, I disagree. The average reader does not expect that clicking on an image on a website has any effect, much less that of providing licensing information. As far as I know, only Wikipedia does this. Rather, readers expect to find any attribution in a byline below the image (as is common journalistic practice) or in a footnote (as in academic texts). For the practical purpose of fulfilling the attribution requirement with respect to the average reader, our way of attribution is therefore not “implemented in [a] reasonable manner” as required by the license. Sandstein 15:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  That's a lot of assumptions about a "typical reader" you're making there. I think readers probably do expect clicking on an image to do something. Consider Facebook, for example, where it shows a lightbox with a larger version, comments, and some other metadata supplied by the poster. And consider that readers familiar with another of the world's global top 5 websites will expect exactly what we do. Anomie ⚔ 10:40, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
  Yes, these are valid arguments in favor of our current practice. Thanks. Sandstein 21:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Question: There are hundreds of GNU and Creative Commons licensed images that do not have captions -- they are used as decorative icons in numerous navigation boxes and messages boxes (for example, the CC licensed icon File:Dialog-information on.svg is used in the {{rfc}} header at the top of this discussion). How do you propose to deal with these icons? What should I do, if for example in the future, I wanted to create a navigation box with articles related to Tom Hiddleston and used File:Tom Hiddleston (Avengers Red Carpet).jpg as the navbox's image? Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:13, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a solution for purely decorative small images, such as in stub tags, but these are not (I submit) a practical problem with respect to attribution. Larger photographs are, and these should be attributed, whether in navboxes or elsewhere. Sandstein 20:30, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Purely from the prospective of the license, I see no reason why this aardvark image is any less of a problem than this one - both single-author images, the first used in {{mammal-stub}}, the second in the infobox of Aardvark. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:01, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Image description page is sufficient for attribution. --Jayron32 18:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

In light of the discussion above, why do you think so? Sandstein 20:30, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment I'm fairly sympathetic to the goals of this proposal, largely as when photos are taken from Wikipedia articles they're almost always credited to 'Wikipedia' rather than whoever created the image. However, I'm not sure whether adding a visible credit somewhere (my preferred option would be very small text at the bottom of the text in thumbnail views) would actually work, and this would add a fair bit of 'clutter' to articles, so I'm going to sit on the fence. Nick-D (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose - This makes changing the image collection more difficult; it makes adding an image to an article a job newcomers can't do; and any failure would mean a breach in the license - as the new image's author information would not be "at least as prominent". It may make sense to have it written in a footer (or even in a header, possibly) where to find the image author information. What I think is a problem is the fact that many pages, such as every FA, have images in the top right corner that aren't PD and don't have that level of attribution (File:Cscr-featured.svg is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, which requires attribution). What may make sense is to have this information appear near the mouse cursor when you hover over the image (unless WP:POPUPS interferes!), in a similar manner to the way that a ink target appears when you hover over the text. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:21, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

These are valid objections. In light of these, and other comments on this page, I conclude that my initial proposal probably isn't very workable, but that we should find a way to fully automate the display of appropriate attribution information for images. Several interesting suggestions have been made, but as a non-technical person it's difficult for me to say which one is best. Sandstein 21:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose As I understand it, if we credit the photos prominently, then we must credit the text authors "in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors". This proposal to credit the photographers prominently, but still bury the text authors appears to me to be a violation of the license. Either we credit both photographers and authors prominently, or we credit both photographers and authors non-prominently. Promoting photographers over authors is not acceptable. (I'm sure that we can give dozens of examples of single-author pages for which it would be trivial to show that one person wrote everything, e.g., here, and it would be equally easy to find examples of multi-author images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't find that objection convincing. The license requires attribution as appropriate to the medium - and attributing text contributions inline for articles with hundreds of revisions is obviously infeasible. This allows us to attribute different types of contribution differently. We already do so (one history page for text vs. many image information pages). Sandstein 21:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
- "Appropriate to the medium" means the collection under 1(b), not text vs. images. The CC-BY-SA license does not distinguish between different media included in the creation of a collection, it merely requires that we give at least equal prominence to CC-BY-SA contributors as we do to the next most prominent contributor. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Partial support. I would support making such a change voluntary, so that if one editor wished to credit the creator, then it would stay in the article. I credited Steve Ball's donations in Discipline Global Mobile and Guitar Craft, but was told to remove the caption-credit, as being nonstandard. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think that would create potential legal issues - if someone adds a credited image to a mammal stub, wouldn't that make the non-credited File:Aardvark2 (PSF).png at the bottom a copyvio? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:28, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Question. Is there a possible technical solution to port through the attribution so that browsers (at least) would see the creator's name? Abductive (reasoning) 13:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Support strongly in principle (I've long been concerned that we don't abide by the requirements of CC licences), but ambivalent about how best to resolve this, not least for icons etc. Perhaps a modification or extension to the (MediaWiki) software, that auto-generates a list of credited contributors in a footer? I'll raise this at the Hackathon in Amsterdam in May. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
The PDF version generates a list of "Article Sources and Contributors" and "Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors", which might be a good place to start. FallingGravity (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Not required by the licenses, and as WhatamIdoing says, we have absolutely no good reason to promote photographers over writers. What's more, it would wreak havoc on pages with tons of images that don't have captions currently — especially when they're derivative works of other images. Most of the images at National Register of Historic Places listings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are copyrighted, for example; imagine how much of a mess would result if we had to add little captions to most of them. Moreover, people would be confused by our non-attribution of other images; if you're a casual reader, you're not going to understand why the third, fifth, and sixth images have author attribution, while the first, second, and fourth images have none. Nyttend (talk) 19:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Why show the image creators have more prominent credit than the authors of the text? Edgepedia (talk) 20:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Because the two types of contributions are technically different: It is infeasible to provide on-page attribution for text, but feasible (albeit not trivial) for images. Sandstein 21:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Support concept, but not by adding a byline directly to the caption, but by making a small modification to the software. Currently, when I hover my mouse over those the square icons in the bottom right-hand corner of images, the text says "Enlarge". Since I think the main objective of this link is to provide proper attribution, so why don't we just change this text to "Licensing"? That way it would encourage those wishing to re-use the image to follow the link and provide proper licensing. FallingGravity (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
- This ↑ - regardless of the outcome here, this is a good idea. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 07:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
  - No need for a software change. Just (get consensus to) edit MediaWiki:thumbnail-more. Anomie⚔ 11:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
    - That is a good idea, and I support it. It's not ideal in that it does not provide on-page attribution, but anyone who wants to reuse an image will at least mouseover. So as not to split the discussion, can we discuss this here in principle? I'd propose a short and generic mouseover text, such as: "Copyright notice: Click for author and licensing information. Search for "WP:REUSE" for information on reusing images." I suppose anything dynamic would need software support. Sandstein 21:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
- Question: How does mouseover work on mobile devices & tablets? In audio browsers? On printed pages? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
  - Not to invalidate the rest of your comment, but mouseover works best in audio browsers (not that they would care about image licensing). ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:21, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
    - Most audio browser users operate a keyboard, not a mouse, and yes, some of the do care about image licensing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:28, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
      - Yes, screenreaders read the text. What would normally only be seen with a mouseover on a regular browser is read aloud by screenreaders, that's why alt text is so vital. But this is a derail from the topic. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
- What about adding some small text to the link making it clear that the attribution is there too? Since generally it does both - it give image credits and a larger version of the image - might as well indicate both are there. -— Isarra ༆ 00:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Support the idea of given a more pronounced credit. FallingGravity's idea is interesting. Something small, but obvious would be proper. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per Whatamidoing, though I would be interested in exploring a mouseover option as a possible middle ground. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
At least partial oppose If you upload an image directly to Wikipedia or to Commons, then you would normally expect the image to be used by Wikipedia and that you would therefore be attributed in the way people normally are attributed on Wikipedia. I don't think that we need to do anything extra with those images. Also, you have to click on a link to see attribution for the text (called "View history", placed next to "New section" at the top of the page), so I'm not sure why images would be different. Some images have been copied from other places, for example from Flickr. I'm not sure what attribution requirements you would have for those images. You have to attribute the author in the manner chosen by the author, but Flickr photographers usually don't indicate how they wish to be attributed. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Ugly clutter. I also have concerns that if this were implemented, we'd have people spamming junk images all over the place just to "get their name out there". Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:24, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose as explained in more detail above by others: (1) no good reason for different regime of attribution for image as opposed to text contributors; (2) visual clutter; (3) all the images already on Wikipedia/Commons have been uploaded with an understanding and agreement with the current form of attribution. --ELEKHH^T 03:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Support - I would suggest that the credit goes at the bottom of the article with a footnote link at the end of the image caption not unlike a reference link. This is less intrusive than having the whole credit by every image while still providing credit on the page to those interested. I would support the mouse-over alt text credit also so long as it didn't affect the screen readers (i.e. it should still read out the caption first and then credits if necessary) from an accessibility point of view. Cabe 6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 08:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment Note that it is in the nature of the CC-BY-SA license that images can have multiple, sometimes a long list of contributors, just as articles. This is often the case for maps which are regularly updated (example). Providing full attribution either in the caption, or in an another way (mouseover, list at bottom of article) becomes just as problematic as with attribution of prose contributors. --ELEKHH^T 09:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Support. We should attribute. We should do it to the letter or a little beyond. Presenting an image without attribution presented visually alongside is not sufficient attribution. If the reader needs to search for attribution, it is not provided well enough. Hover-text is not sufficient. Attribution provided on clicking is not sufficient. There must at least be an explicit visual cue to click for attribution.
I would not exclude public domain. Even if in the public domain, we should attribute if possible, and to an unknown artist if not possible.
Every image should be captioned. Otherwise, the image is there for decoration, and we should not be using images for decoration.
I would prefer that the minimal caption, including basic attribution, be in a text box rendered onto the image as displayed, just below the image-proper. For every image. The basic attribution isn't complete attribution. If the author list is long, the basic attribution must provide the means to access the long list. However, artwork usually has a single most important author.
If we don't do it right, we are in no position to complain when others don't respect our re-use conditions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. If Wikimedia's legal department figures its ok to soley attribute an author on a image's own page, and not in an article, then there's no problem. When people download images they view these pages, so there's no excuse for them not to abide by the licences. So noting the licence and author within the article doesn't help, it just makes makes the article that more unwieldy. Furthermore, I don't think it's a good idea to put editor's names and usernames in articles - it'll just lead to needless and unending spamming and squabbling.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 12:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Support the principle, not so sure about the proposed execution. Commons images shouldn't need this, that should be part of the Commons agreement, but fair-use images definitely need some kind of attribution. The proposal for the execution to be like a text reference seems like the right idea to me - that limits the clutter, it limits spam, etc (and would be fair game with Commons licensing as well). Not entirely sure if the exact license needs listing: I don't personally think it does. I really don't agree with the argument that the photographers are less important than writers and thus should have no in-page attribution whatsoever: they certainly should have some attribution. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Articles should not be cluttered with attributions completely meaningless to readers, nor should editors be expected to include this material in articles. There is no actual problem with the current system besides a few photographers demanding their names be everywhere their images go, which were added with the understanding of the current system and attribution is only on the description page. Reywas92^Talk 22:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Does this benefit the reader? No, it only serves to muddy the content. I understand the desire to give credit where credit is due, but I don't see why we'd give greater credit to photographers than article authors (insert joke about a picture being worth a thousand words here). EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, the file page should be a sufficient space to include copyright, uploader, and other image about the files. If we are to support this proposal, why not credit all image creators, not just copyright images.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment Most images used are of a free license. If attribution is required (think CC license) then we should give it in some form. I would support a collapsible CSS box (shut by default) that can be expanded to reveal the attribution information. But it's still a burden. Thegreatgrabber (talk)^contribs 05:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Support At least for images under CC or some other license that requires attribution, I think this is a good idea. Not sure what to do about decorative images, but even if it is decided that the CC license doesn't require more attribution than we currently have, I don't think it is a bad idea. For images in the article that are prominently featured, I see no reason not to give an attribution at the bottom of the page, it wouldn't get in the way too much I would imagine, and as others have stated, it would likely give us an easier time getting ahold of freely licensed images. Zell Faze (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, although I would support some sort of attribution text when hovering over the image (like some other sites do). Kaldari (talk) 07:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Support with FallingGravity's suggested modification, which is a more elegant method for accomplishing the same effect. It also shows a greater diligence and deference on our part to the file creator, which appears to be the photographer's primary concern. Encyclopedias have image credits at the back of the tome, not inline. I'd also be interested in a template that pulled the article's linked file license info into the references. czar · · 23:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

*Oppose unnecessary clutter on the face of the article. I would warrant that if the link to the file page is demonstrably insufficient from a legal point of view, since it appears to be considered valid/adequate on other websites, I could envisage the credit being in the form of alt text. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 09:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)revised. see below

- Alt text is explicitly to provide an alternative to the image, for people who cannot see it for reasons of blindness or technical limitations. It absolutely must not be used for hiding image attributions, nor other content, from view. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
- See my oppose below: we would be violating the CC-BY-SA attribution requirements to text contributors if we give image copyright holders greater prominence. I believe alt text would qualify as this. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Neutral If this is a legal issue, the the question should be mostly technical: are we abiding by CC'c (and whatever else) copyright requirements or not? What does WMF's legal team say about it? - Nabla (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Support in theory. The question is how best to carry this out? If anyone were to click on the image, the reader should automatically see the file information. I can understand the argument that this isn't often always sufficient, as seen by some 3rd party reliably sources using images from Wikipedia and not properly attributing to the actual creator of the image. The question is how can this be done without impose additional efforts on our editing community? Perhaps leaving automatically created notes at the bottom of the article, perhaps something within the reflist template, or elsewhere such as the bottom of the webpage as the article is displayed.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, unnecessary clutter, the file page is sufficient. Also per Od Nyttend's and Starblind's concerns. Cavarrone (talk) 07:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Support, This seems like a technical problem. Replace the little zoom graphic in the regular thumbnailer with "CREDIT". Mouseover will show you the author (as read from the Template:Information author field), and clicking will take you to the image's page. -- ke4roh (talk) 11:59, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, the practive of giving attribution in a separate image description page is certainly "reasonable", no need to clutter captions for no reason. ❤ Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 14:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Strong oppose. With respect to 4(a), Wikipedia satisfies the requirement by including a URL to the CC-BY-SA license text at the bottom of every page. With respect to 4(c), given editors' textual contributions are also licensed under CC-BY-SA, and Wikipedia is a "collection" (see 1(b)), we cannot give greater prominence to image contributors' attributions than our text contributors' attributions, (see 4(c), sentence immediately following 4(c)(iv)) which at present are both exactly one click away in every article. I do not think we should have the full attribution list for both text and images included in every article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Addendum Noting that this issue has been argued a couple of times above, I want to clarify that at no point does the text of the CC-BY-SA license anticipate a difference between types of contributions for the purposes of attribution. It requires that the attribution for the licensed content be given no less prominence than the attribution given to any other content incorporated into the derivative work. Thus as we keep the list of contributors one click away from the article, we must keep the photo credit one click away from the article. It makes no difference whether we're talking about the text portion, which may have hundreds of contributors, or a photo inserted into the article, which may have one contributor. But assuming Sandstein is correct, that we can give greater prominence to a photo attribution, it does not follow that we must. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose There are serious problems with small images, as other editors have pointed out, and it would add significantly to the burden of bureaucracy when editing pages. I would support a technical solution along the same lines, if one is feasible that would address the small image issue. Ray^Talk 17:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
- Do you have an opinion regarding whether in-article image credits are even possible given the attribution requirements for other contributors to articles? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:32, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose - per Stefan2, Whatamidoing and Nyttend.--ukexpat (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Having the author listed when you click on the image is enough. Listing the plastic surgeon and the clinic which he works out of for each of these images for example is something I do not think is a good idea. [1]Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:08, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Support and oppose (is that suppose then?): I support the principle of adding attribution to non-free images used under fair use. For CC images, I think that attribution on the click-through page (current status quo) or adding attribution automatically (somehow...) to the bottom of the article are better options than the proposal. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 14:59, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per Nathan Johnson. It's too much clutter, and could potentially turn into a battleground for photographers seeking their image credits over another. But attribution as part of the caption for NFU images is acceptable, as these are usually exceptional in nature. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 08:16, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Strong Support Some of the opposition is based upon the different treatment of text. But text is different, as explained by Sandstein, it isn't feasible to credit every text contributor, it is feasible to credit every image contributor. Others oppose because we get a lot of images with our existing rules. Yes, but how many do we miss? I've had some good success begging for images, but I've been turned down. I could make a much stronger case if I could point out that they would receive an attribution on the article.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:27, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
- You can't make a promise like that anyway. Wikipedia's legal obligations to textual contributors requires them to receive attribution of equal or greater prominence to all other contributors to a work. It's not a matter of convenience or inconvenience, nor is it a matter of text vs. images (none of the CC licenses contemplate such a difference). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. The place for attribution of the image is on the image page, not each article. Cleaner, neater, and allows better attribution. The proposal would only make sense if we were linking directly to the image, like this. Apteva (talk) 17:21, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. If this were an actual legal requirement, I expect the Foundation to have done something about it by now. Given that images can be derivative and have multiple authors, I see no compelling reason to give attribution for them in a manner different than that used for text. I also think that the concerns about inviting spam by this new rule are not be trifled with given (for example) the use of Commons to publish tons of self-made crap ranging from exhibitionist penis images to racist cartoons. 5.12.68.204 (talk) 10:11, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Favor giving photo credit very strongly. I am surprised there is opposition. The photos are licensed, not donated, and the licensing arrangement says very clearly: "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." You might disagree with this stipulation, but it is key to getting photographers to license their work for others to use. GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Attribution is often considered the most basic of requirements made by a license, as it allows an author to accumulate a positive reputation that partially repays their work and prevents others from claiming fraudulently to have produced the work. It is widely regarded as a sign of decency and respect to acknowledge the creator by giving him/her credit for the work. Attribution_(copyright)

GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, reiterating support To illustrate a possible solution and the importance of the solution, I offer this page. I like the way it looks mostly like our thumbnalier and has a photo credit. I'm chagrined to see the credit to "Wikimedia" when in fact, you can find the image File:Caspar Milquetoast Christmas card.jpg is copyrighted with FUR. If we'd had an appropriate credit ~~on the photo page~~ on the article page with the image showing the original artist (or copyright holder), then the error probably would not have made it to that page. -- ke4roh (talk) 15:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Indicating (center) and so on

I don't see any guidance on how to "point out" people and things in caption wording e.g. which is these is correct?

Smith (c.) with his brothers in Paris

Smith (c) with his brothers in Paris

Smith (center) with his brothers in Paris

Or maybe no italics? I will say right off that I prefer (c) since space is at an absolute premium in captions. Then there are the more wordy situations like

Smith (2nd from r) with his brothers in Paris

Smith (2nd from r.) with his brothers in Paris

Smith (2nd r) with his brothers in Paris

Smith (2nd from right) with his brothers in Paris

Once again, I prefer shorter, though (2nd r) is perhaps a bit too compressed. Let the arguing begin! EEng (talk) 02:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I like "Smith (center)..." best, but wouldn't edit any of them if I came upon them, except perhaps to add a date or information about the significance of occasion. ke4roh (talk) 03:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Should we allow more detail in Ogg file descriptions

It was recently asserted that an article cannot be said to meet the FAC criteria (specifically #3) if it has captions that are longer than approximately one sentence, or are considered verbose. Since ogg files require more explanation than images, I suggest that we allow for a bit more detail in the description field of ogg files. I propose this additional language for the policy to be added to Succinctness:

Since an ogg file box lacks visual information regarding the content of its file, it is often desirable to include a longer description than is typically acceptable with image captions. As with image captions, care should be taken to include enough relevant information in-line so that the ogg file's relevance to the article is made explicit irrespective of the caption. As a general rule, retain the broader points relating to the file in the article, including specific points in the description field. For example, a statement such as: "'Yesterday' is one of the Beatles' best-known songs" might be more appropriate for the article body than a statement such as: "The string arrangement on 'Yesterday' utilises counterpoint, which complements McCartney's vocals by reinforcing the tonic", which might be more appropriate as the ogg description, especially if it pertains specifically to the contents of that file. This is particularly true regarding points that support the file's fair-use rationale. While there is no hard rule for how many lines of text are acceptable, the ogg description should not contain more lines than the accompanying paragraph of article text.

Any thoughts? GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

If it helps, the key idea of succinctness is not brevity per se, but the absence of wasted words. A caption might be succinct yet long. Whether you want to try to explain that to the FA Know-It-All Gang is up to you, however. EEng (talk) 20:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I made that argument, but it fell on deaf ears. That's why I think we could use a little clarification that ogg descriptions are not the same thing as image captions. GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. When I first penned these guidelines in 2004, I was certainly thinking explicitly of image captions, not of ogg file captions. I suggest rather than mentioning ogg files particularly referring to non-visual media, and things included by reference at Template:External media. The last sentence isn't necessary. Excellent example. -- ke4roh (talk) 01:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Ke4roh, I've made this edit. Does it address your above concern? GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:15, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! -- ke4roh (talk) 18:33, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

A better example needed

What is the purpose of the example depicting Burma-Shave - to demonstrate how not to do it? Captions should be factually accurate, and Burma-Shave did not introduce canned shaving cream. They sold their product - shaving gel - in jars, as Snopes makes plain:

Keep Well
To The Right
Of The Oncoming Car
Get Your Close Shaves
From The Half-Pound Jar
Burma-Shave

Our article Shaving cream credits two different companies with introducing canned shaving foam - neither of them Burma-Shave. --Pete (talk) 04:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

In article credits and User_talk:Brianmcmillen

User_talk:Brianmcmillen, whom I'm pretty sure is a professional photographer, has added many very high quality images to wikipedia with himself credited in article space, which is generally a no no. Does his work and contribution rise to the level of making an exception to that rule? - Richfife (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. [2] EEng (talk) 03:27, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Should captions require citations if they restate info in the article?

Check out Hail to the Thief. None of the image captions have citations. This was deliberate, because the captions simply restate text from the article, which is fully cited (to my knowledge). Should the captions be cited too? Popcornduff (talk) 09:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I've always thought of captions as comparable to the lead in this respect -- no cites needed to the extent the caption simply restates facts given in the main text. This is especially desirable given the extreme premium on space in a caption. If there's nothing anywhere touching on this, there ought to be. EEng (talk) 03:51, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. That was my reasoning too; I bring it up because another editor put a "citation needed" on one of the captions. I did search for some guidance on this, but couldn't find any, so maybe it should be added? Popcornduff (talk) 12:59, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I halfheartedly agree. See SA-500D. Some captions have citations where others do not, and as you say, those that don't, which contain information from the body, have citations in the body. On the other hand, I'd think it useful to include a named reference in the caption in case the text and accompanying reference gets removed from the body. -- ke4roh (talk) 15:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Somewhat past the point, but I have seen this question come up more than once. I would say there is a discrepancy between current practice and the guidelines. For example, there are plenty of FA articles that do not have citations for their captions. However, if we're looking for a guideline based answer, the only thing I have found has been at WP:WHYCITE, "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". It's also important to recognize that there are different situations. Is a citation needed if the caption repeats information from the image description (and the image source supports that description). However, sometimes this is not always the case, and I would recommend a source if the either of those things are not in place. In addition, anytime a quote appears, it's typical to provide a citation. Mkdw ^talk 19:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I always take the same approach I do to leads: If there's a potential for controversy, add the redundant cite, but if there's not, then don't. WP:V requires that material be verifiable not inline-cited at every point. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:16, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree - as for leads. But for images of art, a link to eg a museum page may be desirable if there's a lot more info there. Johnbod (talk) 02:20, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Alternative names in captions

If an article is about a subject that is known by multiple names should the captions all match the article name or should they use a mixture of the article name and the alternative name(s)? --Khajidha (talk) 19:02, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS:BIRTHNAME says use the name at the time being discussed. Captions should be the same, I reckon. -- ke4roh (talk) 11:00, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Not a person.--Khajidha (talk) 15:45, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Fire engine may offer a suitable example, then. It has mostly become standardized around the most universal of the many names. I would suggest a similar approach. -- ke4roh (talk) 16:22, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I had standardized captions on a particular page because that seemed most logical, but was reverted because it wasn't specified in MOSCAP to do that. --Khajidha (talk) 12:39, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:AGF, on both sides. "longstanding stupidity"[3] won't win any arguments, nor will "You don't understand the language..."[4]. WP:ALTNAME offers some limited guidance. There shouldn't be any guidance here because it would be the same guidance as for the rest of the article. Since Pajamas calls out "PJs" as an abbreviated alternative in two places, I don't see a problem with an occasional mention of it in captions or text. The issue there is different from Fire engine, where there are regional differences in terminology, whereas, to my understanding, there are a few synonyms and spellings for "pajamas," but it is generally universally understood, and commonly abbreviated PJs. -- ke4roh (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

"PJs", like "jammies", is a colloquialism; it shouldn't be used in WP's own voice, for the exact same reason that we don't use "telly" and "fridge". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:19, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely. Instead of fridge we should say masturbate. E Eng 23:20, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Eliptical main clauses and full stops

I think the guidance needs changing to include the possibility of elliptical sentences (or more precisely in grammar: elliptical main clauses). What I mean by this is that because the text in the caption explains the image we write "Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel.", rather than stating the obvious "This is a painting of Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." The "This is a painting of" is not usually stated, but is implied in captions, so in such cases as an implied full sentence, editors ought not to remove a full stop under the argument that what is present it is not a full sentence. -- PBS (talk) 12:42, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Gracious, the things people spend their time worrying about. By your reasoning every caption is a sentence. E Eng 13:08, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

One of the main reasons I started this guideline was to steer authors away from that sort of vapid caption and photo. It's better to use an engaging photo with an engaging caption. ke4roh (talk) 13:36, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

For the pipe, this isn't just any pipe. From the information in the image description (thankfully the description contains some useful context), one can construct this caption: "The Sioux, like many native Americans, created ornate stone pipes from catlinite for ceremonial use." Depending on the context and purpose of the image, the caption may emphasize one thing or another. Likewise, with the other image, the description contains more context to make a richer explanation: "Trump drew large crowds during his campaign; nearly 17,000 people attended this rally in a Cincinnati arena a month before the election." ke4roh (talk) 14:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm totally with you. I'm afraid, though, that any effort to help editors write better captions will have to go on hold until our team of rabbis rules on the elliptical sentences question. E Eng 16:20, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I was hoping to avoid a conversation on The Treachery of Images

. It is also nothing to do with the the length or the detail in the caption. To give a concert example where an implicit sentence starting "This is a picture of" has had the full stop removed:

[This is a picture of the] gate on the north side [that was] assaulted by the 1st Légère who were led by sous-lieutenant Legros (diff)

A few month later the same editor also interpreted the current wording to add a full stop to this caption in the same article:

Left, Marshal Michel Ney, who exercised tactical control of the greater part of the French forces for most of the battle. Right William, Prince of Orange, commander of the Anglo-allied I Corps.(diff)

-- PBS (talk) 20:43, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, in the first case I do think there should be no dot at the end. In the second, I believe there should be one. Paging Tony1, SMcCandlish. E Eng 20:57, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Seriously? They're all hideous! It's not about a period or lack thereof. Consider that some readers will first scan through the pictures and read captions on those that catch their eyes. How does the caption engage the reader? If it just says "This is a widget," it isn't very engaging (unless it's the first picture of the "widget" article and it's a particularly nondescript or popular sort of that widget). WHY is this picture worthy of inclusion? What does it tell about the article? What should I read more about? That is the point of this guidance. -- ke4roh (talk) 21:04, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I agree they're hideous. I was only talking about the dot. Remember, what makes a good article has nothing to do with what will inform the reader and make him want to read more, but rather MOS compliance. Haven't you learned that yet? E Eng 21:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Joking aside, there's a hidden and important grain of truth here: It is emphatically not WP's job to entice the reader; we leave it up to the reader what they're interested in, to what extent, and why. This is part of WP:NOT#NEWS policy, but is also inherent in WP:ENC, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and various other consensuses, e.g. the decision to eliminate the spoiler template, the decision to no longer say it's sometimes okay to use pull quotes, the nature of WP:AT and MOS:HEADING as (in part) anti-"headlinese" rules, etc., etc. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:14, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

It is emphatically not WP's job to entice the reader – It may not be the job, but some of us go the extra mile. No joking. E Eng 04:07, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I have to oppose such a "permit the dot" change, broadly speaking. "The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci" style (as opposed to either "The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.", or "This is a photo of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.") is consistent with our sentence-case-but-no-terminal-punctuation of:

Headings
Table headers (and cell data, except where it forms a complete sentence)
List items (unless they form complete sentences)
Entries in infoboxes, navboxes, and other such templates
Probably several other things

It's not a style everyone prefers in every such situation (e.g., when I write off-WP, I prefer title case for article titles, headings, and table headers; and lower-case and semicolons in lists). But it is consistent and stable within WP. If we change caption treatment, this is apt to inspire attempts to change the others.

Because it's a debatable linguistics-nerd matter, I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP, and will probably just lead to increased disputation over trivia, as people are going to disagree in high Dunning–Kruger effect style about whether a particular case "really" qualifies or not, and name-call at people who don't "see the truth".

There isn't even anything at Elliptical clause (which just redirects to Ellipsis (linguistics)) suggesting that highly elided constructions are widely accepted to still be sentences (though this is true for some well-documented cases of "understood" subjects and even verbs or both, e.g. answering just "No!" to a question, telling someone "Go home." with no stated subject, or saying "Me, too." with no explicit verb. These have one thing in common: an immediately prior sentence or other context-deliverer that provided the elided details, and this does not apply to captions, which may be the first or even only thing some visually-oriented skimmers will read (or even general readers who are coming to page solely to visually verify something, like whether the name in their head really is that of a particular actor). At any rate, the article is almost entirely unsourced, and doesn't cover "Is this or is this not a sentence?" questions. So we don't even have anything to which to refer people to settle an argument about such a matter with regards to a caption they want to editwar about. Ergo, I urge no change in caption style here: do not provide a new bit of trivia about which to editwar!

On the side matters: I lean toward ke4roh's view on informative versus "well, duh" image captions, though there are circumstances in which we do want very short, "generic" captions that are about the class of thing depicted not the specific instance. Also agree that the two-part "Left, Marshal Michel Ney, ..." example should use terminal punctuation (though a version without it, and with a semicolon between the parts, should not be verboten). The "Left," construction is a compression of "On the left is ..." (with an explicit verb), which would be a perfectly reasonable caption style. "This is a picture of ..." would not be reasonable; it would be a "pedantically brow-beat the reader as if brain-damaged" redundancy, and would be ruled WP:POINT disruption if someone started going around changing captions to read this way. So the two kinds of caption compression being compared are not actually analogous.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:14, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

So the thrust of the current guideline is that when it's clearly not a full, grammatical sentence, or not already punctuated internally, don't dot it. What's not to like? I agree with PBS that "This is a diagram of ..", etc, should be hounded out of our captions. Really annoying for readers (unless, say, there's doubt about whether it's a photograph or a schematic, and that matters in the context). Tony (talk) 09:48, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@User:SMcCandlish you wrote "I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP I am suggesting the opposite, remove the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences,". That does away with any need to explain what an Eliptical main clause is. -- PBS (talk) 15:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm still confused. Can you please give us: an example of a caption you're concerned about; whether or not you think it ought to have a dot; what bit of the guideline you think confuses or misleads on the point of there being/not being a dot; what you want changed in the guideline to remedy that. E Eng 15:44, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Yep, that's a lot of questions to answer. Demonstrate the problem is real, that the wording is the problem, and that you have a solution that would be efficacious. Most captions are not complete sentences, so I don't see how excising that observation would do anything useful. Especially given that MoS is a guideline – an advisory document for mostly amateur-writer volunteers, not a code of law for ivory-tower experts. If there's any bad advice in there, it is this: "If any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then all sentences, and any sentence fragments, in that caption should end with a period." That's just bone-headed. It should probably just be axed, or changed to something like "If any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then all of it should be written in complete sentences." And we already know that complete sentences end with a period/stop, so there's no need to redundantly say so again. The way it's presently written, it wants you to do something like this: "O'Reilly (left). Photo taken in New York in 2015. Madison Square Gardens." That's utter-shite writing style, and it would happen because "Photo taken in New York in 2015" is technically a complete (if rather journalese-style) sentence, so dots would be forced on the fragments. A saner way to write that is "O'Reilly (left), in Madison Square Gardens, New York, 2015" (not a sentence, no dot), or if you desperately want a full sentence, "O'Reilly (left) speaking [or some other verb, as appropriate] in Madison Square Gardens, New York, 2015." — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

O'Reilly speaking isn't a sentence. I'm shocked at you. Here's a fragment + sentence that I think are just fine:

Dr. J. M. Harlow, who attended Gage after his accident and obtained his skull for study after his death. Shown here in later life, Harlow's interest in phrenology prepared him to accept that Gage's injury had changed his behavior.

Anyway, this is going nowhere until PBS supplies the kind of information I outlined above. E Eng 22:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Derp! I was dead tired. At least I didn't use the cough syrup excuse. Anyway, yeah, speaking is clearly a gerund there. As for the Gage caption, there's no reason to write it like that, and we shouldn't encourage "This fragment. This is a full sentence." It's just clumsy, and encourages more clumsy. 02:00, 20 September 2017 (UTC) --Apparently posted by a still-exhausted SMcCandlish

How would you write it? E Eng 02:22, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

First, I wouldn't include that level of redundant detail; much of it is material that belongs and is already included in the main article body. While we normally don't preface names with "Dr." If we wanted to retain all of those details, this would work: "J. M. Harlow (shown here in later life) attended Gage after the his accident and obtained his skull for study after his death; his interest in phrenology prepared him to accept that Gage's injury had changed his behavior." But the whole "interest in ... prepared him to accept" construction is awkward and doesn't seem right for an encyclopedic context. Could compress it a bit more to, e.g., "J. M. Harlow (shown here in later life), who examined Gage before and after death, concluded that Gage's injury could have changed his behavior." I note that Harlow's own article mentions nothing about phrenology. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:14, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't worry, because I just wanted to see what you'd say, but your rewrite completely mangles absolutely everything. (Just one particular point: you'll have to read Barker's paper to see how we know about Harlow's interest, as a medical student and young physician in the 1840s, in phrenology – an interest he had almost certainly abandoned by the time of his 1868 paper, but which at all events he would absolutely never have mentioned, even retrospectively, in a paper for the modern, forward-looking, Massachusetts Medical Society lest he be booed off the stage.) As to the amount of detail, I subscribe to Ke4roh's captions-draw-the-reader-in William of Normandy overthrew the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, bringing a new style of government aesthetic. E Eng 04:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

See my first posting to this section in which gave an example. I think there are two good reasons for including a dot at the end apart from grammar. The first is that when a caption ends with a link to an article it makes for less editing mistakes if the caption ends "]].]]" rather than "]]]]". The second is stylistic: when a caption ends with a foot note citation they look better after a dot than nestled up against the last letter. Now for an example in the wild: "[This is a picture of the] Gate on the north side assaulted by the 1st Légère who were led by sous-lieutenant Legros." [5] -- PBS (talk) 14:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I need to insist that you explicitly spell out the four things I asked for, because I still can't tell what you're asking to be changed and how and why. And IMHO your example caption needs to be one that can't obviously be rewritten to be far stronger e.g. Sous-lieutenant Legros led the 1st Légère's assault on this north-side gate. (I haven't the foggiest idea of what went on at Waterloo, so maybe that doesn't quite make sense, but you get the idea.) E Eng 14:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Whether a sentence can be "rewritten to be far stronger" is not the issue. The issue is whether an elliptical main clause, should have its full stop stripped, given that most captions are elliptical main clauses because we do not want editors to include the obvious eg "This is a picture of.." Your four points are:

an example of a caption you're concerned about;
whether or not you think it ought to have a dot;
what bit of the guideline you think confuses or misleads on the point of there being/not being a dot;
what you want changed in the guideline to remedy that.

All of these I have already answered. However here they on again. (1 & 2) this change that striped a full stop from an elliptical main clause (sentence). Also the first example I gave in this section "[This is a painting of] Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." which under the current guidance would suggest that the full stop should be removed, and that I think should remain. (3 & 4) Fix it by removing the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences," (less creep not more) -- PBS (talk) 12:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Given that explanation, I have to oppose the proposed change, and oppose insertion of the dot in these cases, because those are not sentences by any usual understanding of that term (and certainly not by MoS's meaning), inserting the dots serves no purpose, and doing it encourages their insertion in many more places they do not belong, such as at the end of all captions, at the end of non-sentence list items, etc., etc. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:14, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I concur with SM. It's like i said at the beginning of this thread: by PBS' reasoning as I understand it, every caption can be seen as a sentence implicitly beginning with This is an image of. E Eng 18:32, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

"because those are not sentences by any usual understanding of that term", eliptical main clauses are sentence, in the usual understanding of a sentence and are a very common construct. Eliptical main clauses are not fragments of sentence they are sentences, because the contain enough implied information for the missing words to be known. "inserting the dots serves no purpose" No only does it serves the purpose of ending eliptical main clauses that are only missing the obvious parts of a sentence which captions under an image implicitly carry, it also helps with the two specific examples I gave above. "and doing it encourages their insertion in many more places they do not belong". Did you add "more" to that phrase as a deliberate rhetorical construct? As it states that dots do not belong at the end of an eliptical main clause (is that your opinion on the grammar of eliptical main clauses?). I fail to see how placing a dot at the end of an eliptical main clause "encourages their insertion in many ~~more~~ places they do not belong". One can turn that on its head and say not placing a dot at the end of an eliptical main clause "encourages their removal from places they belong" -- I think that both of those hypothesis are as unreasonable as each other, and do not support the removal or retention of a dot at the end of an eliptical main clause. Earlier you were worried about "creep", but you seem to be supporting the retention of something that is used to remove dots from the end of sentence. Removing the clause would neither support retain or deletion of dots but it would remove the dubious argument about "merely sentence fragments" while ignoring eliptical main clauses. -- PBS (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Including names of non-notable people in image captions

I have noticed that quite a few people add photos that name non-notable (no page in their name) people in the captions, this looks like WP:SOAPBOX. Is there any policy or guideline or RFC that deals with this? I could find nothing in the MOS or the archive of this talk page. Thanks for your help. Domdeparis (talk) 09:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

It might depend on how the picture is set up . Say a photograph of a notable person along with with their non-notable, but known, spouse, I don't see a problem. If the notable person is in a larger group shot but none of the others are notable, then calling the others out is not appropriate. --Masem (t) 14:45, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Masem: Ok this is more about individual photos to illustrate a subject for exmple a page on water slides (a random choice) with a photo of a guy on a water slide where it says "Charles Whatshisname riding down the water slide in Slidesville". Charles Whatshisname is not mentioned in the article and does not have a WP page. Domdeparis (talk) 16:22, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, if you a random stranger doing something, then there is zero need to name them at all and should be removed. It would fall under our general BLP privacy aspect, that we don't need to name non-notable people. --Masem (t) 16:49, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I should have looked there first. Cheers Domdeparis (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

use of articles (a/the) in captions

Does MoS have nothing to say on this topic? My own feeling is that a featured article, for example, should at least be consistent in the use of articles in captions: "The location of...", "An 18th-century fragment...", and not "Egyptian bust...". Do others agree that a hypothetical high-quality article should at least be consistent in this regard? Cleopatra is a good example of a highly developed article with inconsistent article use in its captions. (I notice this in the first place because I find article-less captions bothersome; we don't lack for space, and there is no reason to change the "feel" of the writing—I can't find a word to describe it—just because the writing is in a caption.) Outriggr (talk) 04:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll opine that the captions in Cleopatra are inconsistent in more than their use of articles and they don't deliver the additional meaning that captions can convey. I'd think articles should be mostly internally consistent in their caption styles, though it's hard to write that as a guideline because there's always an exception. Take for example, Sodium chloride. Captions there are lacking, but how much information do you need beyond what's given in the caption for the crystalline structure? I suppose it could say, "Sodium (purple) chloride (green) crystallizes into a cubical structure with a hardness of 2 mohs," but hardness probably goes better elsewhere. -- ke4roh (talk) 12:44, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

More CAPFRAG

Need opinions on a specific form, "Sheriff Israel visits a victim". Period or no? It has subject, verb, and object, which would seem to make it a complete sentence. On the other hand I'm fairly sure I've seen the period omitted far more often than included for this form. For examples in a high-vis article, see some of the captions at Stephen Hawking. Note that this form is distinct from "Sheriff Israel visiting a victim". ―Mandruss ☎ 04:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm moving on; please ping me if you respond; thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd rewrite as visiting, which sounds better anyway and avoids the issue. E Eng 22:18, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Using "visits" is journalese, and WP is not written in news style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:35, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Image/caption balance

The section on Succinctness currently reads:

More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; sometimes increasing the width of the image brings better visual balance

Should we not give the opposite advice, that changing the width of an image to make the caption look balanced is pointless (and counterproductive)? which I believe is because:

To my understanding, readers with different user preferences for image base width will see the same image scaled differently (while the caption will remain the same), therefore any image/caption balance will be lost for them. Not to mention that different browsers may render text differently (in font and size), making the length of the caption an unpredictable variable.
Once an image is scaled so that its caption looks balanced, the overall visual balance among all the images in the article will likely be compromised (some images may look unduly small, some others too big).

I've just come across an editor that was rescaling images to make the caption look better as a matter of course, with somehow questionable results, and we agreed that the caption's length should be ignored, when considering any rescaling of images (see discussion). --Deeday-UK (talk) 10:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I suggest just deleting this advice and relying on editors' common sense. Too much micromanagement. E Eng 11:17, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd oppose that, as some people have no common sense and do absurdly long captions. Also oppose changing as suggested, as though it doesn't work the same way for different settings, it does work. The best solution is usually to move the excess into text or a note, whichever is more appropriate. Johnbod (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

That sentence was written in 2005,[6] before mobile was a thing. I believe succinctness is important, but I don't believe editors exercise much control on image size these days because the various platforms are going to do whatever they do. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:53, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I use a desk-top with a fairly wide screen, & a default pic width setting of 400px, but I still see captions that look absudly long on my screen. The mind boggles as to what they look like on a mobile. The first part of the advice is more important than ever these days. Johnbod (talk) 23:02, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

What, the "three lines" bit? But the one thing we know for sure is that readers see a variety of lines counts for the same text. Seems to me the only hope for something like this would be some kind of word count, not that I'm suggesting that either since images need the caption they need. E Eng 23:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I wish I could remember where some of the most stupid examples were. Several were solved by creating a decent-sized text para out of most of the caption. A limit expressed as word count would be fine. Johnbod (talk) 23:24, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Johnbod, nobody is proposing to remove the first bit of advice (More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting). What is flawed is the idea that tweaking the image size could bring balance to a caption; it might, on the device of the editor that does the tweaking, but most other readers will probably see something different and not necessarily balanced. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually that wasn't clear - you need to be very precise when proposing a change to wording. As you say, it might. Johnbod (talk) 23:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Need some input

I need some input on the changes I made to image captions in FC Barcelona. I'm not sure if the following captions should end with a period (simple present is underlined): "Barcelona line up against Hamburger SV before the 1960–61 European Cup semi-final."; "Players jostle in Barcelona's 2–6 win against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in a 2009 El Clásico."; "Barcelona players parade La Liga trophy around the Camp Nou in May 2006 after defeating Espanyol in their last home game of the season."; "One of the Camp Nou stands displays Barcelona's motto, "Més que un club", meaning 'More than a club'." SLBedit (talk) 03:33, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Before anyone answers you have to promise us this isn't going to descend into a free-for-all over Catalan separatism. E Eng 04:03, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't care about that (politics). Another doubt: "The Manchester United team at the start of the 1905–06 season, in which they were runners-up in the Second Division" Does this caption need a full stop? (I would say yes.) If not, why? SLBedit (talk) 04:10, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, use periods. Regarding most recent doubt, it is much better if you make it so that it does need a full stop: "The Manchester United team were runners-up in the Second Division, 1905–06, shown here at the start of the season." -- ke4roh (talk) 02:47, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ke4roh: Wouldn't it be better to use the present continuous tense (lining up, jostling, parading, displaying) in order to avoid periods? SLBedit (talk) 02:54, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

It's neither better nor worse, just different. Use a period if it forms a full sentence. There's nothing wrong or broken with that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

(I was on vacation from desktop computers.) I really wish we could get away from the vapid captions that merely state the obvious, in favor of ones more engaging to a casual reader. I have found that it's hard to create an engaging caption without making a full sentence. (It is easy to create a vapid full-sentence caption, though.) Avoiding periods, such as in the Manchester United FC caption "[This is] The Manchester United team at the start of the 1905–06 season, in which they were runners-up in the Second Division[.]" forces the reader to infer words, quite often "This is" at the beginning. But "This is" is a lame way to start a caption, whether the words are written or implied. The objective of full sentences is not rooted in the pedantic pursuit of a dot, but in a goal of inspiring deeper thought into what can and should be said to bring the picture to life in the context of the article. -- ke4roh (talk) 11:34, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: vapid captions that merely state the obvious E Eng 04:06, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: I had that sort of reaction to this one today, but didn't revert it (yet?). Some elements of it might to be okay, e.g., indicating that the point is to illustrate the variation. But maybe even that's brow-beating. This kind of material might be better for the alt parameter, which is used only about 0.0001% as frequently here as it should be. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

A countervailing view, @Ke4roh:: Captions are akin to table headers, table legends/captions, list intro sentence fragments, and other such materials, and are intended to be concise. Captions are rich when we provide interesting text rather that, as you say, state the obvious, and that has little to do with whether it's a complete sentence. Our readers (and everyone else literate in the modern world) is entirely used to "filling in the grammatical blanks" in things like captions, and are apt to find unnecessarily complete sentences (of the "This is ....") sort to be annoyingly condescending. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Why? We can do better. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

A magazine journalist's views on what makes an ideal caption in a news photo aren't going to entirely align with encyclopedic captions. News is substantially if not mostly entertainment (even more so for magazines). Like journalistic ledes and hooks (very different from WP:Leads), they are primarily an attention-getting and -holding device. He does have some good points, but more about content than style/formatting. The genres are too different for much of the style concerns to translate well. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:05, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Oddly enough, we've had very similar discussions before, e.g. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Captions/Archive_2#Eliptical_main_clauses_and_full_stops. I also care more about the content of captions than their layout, and I hope that people scanning the article via pictures that catch their eyes and the accompanying captions learn more about the subject matter than just the name of the subject of the photograph. -- ke4roh (talk) 19:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I've actually softened my "anti" position on that old thread. I would consider a caption like "Johnson in 2004. In the background is the burnt building." to be permissible, though I'd still lean toward one sentence with a semicolon. That more grammatical approach sometimes doesn't work well when the first part is long and detailed. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Image credit in caption

I recently added credit to illustrations by Seedfeeder in 3 articles here, here, and here. All 3 were reverted with references to MOS:CREDITS. Presumably, the reverts were done because the editor only read the first sentence that says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article."

I reverted the reverts with references to the 3rd sentence that read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography may be appropriate". The addition was deleted again with the explanation "Seems more distracting than helpful in this context".

I am thinking that the word may in the 3rd sentence should be replaced with the word is to read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography is appropriate" with the same exception for infoboxes as currently exists. Seedfeeder Fan (talk) 23:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

This is a good example of why always and never cause problems in the MOS. Since there is clear evidence that not everyone agrees with this position, arguing to change the manual of style so one person's preference is the default across the entire project seems very premature.

Context is vital, and we should recognize that this is an unusual case. Seedfeeder is exclusively noteworthy for his illustration work on Wikipedia. His illustrations were created specifically as illustrations for Wikipedia articles, not as free-standing artistic works. In this case, I don't see that linked attribution in the caption is providing readers with information they want, expect, or need. Compare this to the link to Gustav Klimt in Masturbation. Klimt is, as an understatement, a noteworthy artist in his own right, and knowing the name of the artist helps to contextualize it, with the link providing more context. Seedfeeder cannot claim to be independently noteworthy, and the images are intended to provide context to articles, not the other way around. The understanding on Wikipedia is that readers can click or tap on an image to find information about it. This seems sufficient in this case. Grayfell (talk) 00:15, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Though I'm not completely convinced the answer is "No in-caption credit", I'm in general agreement with Grayfell's analysis -- the ultimate answer must be worked out among editors of this group of articles. But for sure the guideline should not be changed as the OP suggests. E Eng 00:55, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with both changing the guideline, and linking to Seedfeeder in captions. Grayfell puts it well: Seedfeeder is not notable outside of Wikipedia. The point is that these images were created for Wikipedia, whereas when we link artist names in captions, we're doing it to say "this previously famous artwork is an example of the current topic, and you can learn more about the artist here". In fact the guideline is worded perfectly for this situation already, as the artist has to be independently notable and the phrase "may be appropriate" implies that it sometimes will not be. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 01:09, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Bilorv exactly. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Curved Space was right to revert, and I agree with the others above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:27, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn's right. I agree with others above. Carl Tristan Orense (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

As I'm the one who seems to have prompted this discussion I feel I ought to comment, but really my opinion is an amalgam of all the above. The only additional point I'll make is that the phrasing of the new captions was skewed (IMO, of course) in that it mentioned Seedfeeder prior to the actual content of the image itself: An illustration by Seedfeeder of a heterosexual couple having anal sex for example. This puts the focus on Seedfeeder rather than the image content. (In this particular example I also disagree with the categorization of the couple being Hetero - that's an assumption and ignores the possibility of bisexuality, but is also not relevant to this particular discussion about the MOS.) Curved Space (talk) 06:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, couples are called "heterosexual couples" if one is male and the other is female and they are in a romantic and/or sexual relationship (or simply engaging in sexual activity with each other), regardless of how they personally identify their sexual orientation. Similar goes for lesbian couples or male-male couples when called "a gay couple." Couples aren't called "bisexual couples" (not usually anyway). But I understand what you mean about bisexual erasure. Even with regard to the term "gay marriage," some have made a point of the term "same-sex marriage" being more accurate, although our Wikipedia article on that stresses not implying that same-sex couples are "other"...instead of focusing on what sexual orientation the couples might have. I've also kept sexual orientation and gender as a focus out of the aforementioned image caption. It's not needed, and it would cause people to focus on the sexual orientation aspect rather than the practice of a penis penetrating an anus. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

More here, for anyone who might have misunderstood my response to Curved Space. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I had understood the words "independently notable" in this project page to the same as the words that are used in WP:N -- "independent of the subject", and not "independent of Wikipedia". While I am sure that is what was meant when those words were written, since there is an overwhelming WP:CONSENSUS that it is also "independent of Wikipedia", I think this expanded meaning for the word "independent" should probably be clarified in the project page. Seedfeeder Fan (talk) 19:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I'd oppose this change per Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. Policy pages can't spell out the exact meaning of every word. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 22:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Do captions need a reference?

Is there a requirement to have a citation for a photo caption? I don’t think just the original Commons file description is enough, as that can be wrong, and there is no editorial control on what a photographer uses as a description. So, do photo captions need the same level of validation as main article text? If not, why not? There was an incident regarding someone giving an animal on Wiki a fake nickname in the lead without providing a source... That info remained on Wikipedia for years, and was propagated into newspapers and even books. I see no reason that this could not happen due to an erroneous photo caption as well. 192.91.173.36 (talk) 16:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

If the caption recites something which is in the article text, and sourced there, then no cite is needed in the caption. Anything stated in the caption only should carry a source. We do generally allow ourselves to rely on the file description as to who and what the image itself shows; admittedly it's a gray area that I'm surprised doesn't cause more difficulty, but for whatever reason, it doesn't. E Eng 17:14, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Cite it if it's not also cited in the article. If it's cited on the description page, cite it in the article/caption, too. If it's dubious and in the image description, find a way to verify if possible, and include the citation in both the description and the article. -- ke4roh (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the philosophy stated here - the original comment was mine, but I was not logged in - but where is this stated in the MOS? If it isn't stated, should it be? RobP (talk) 19:00, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, good question. Doesn't seem that it is. Let's start with this:

Version 1: A caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, drawn from the images's file description page, does not need to be sourced; further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.

Thoughts? Let's develop this here among ourselves, then when it's as good as we can get it we'll advertise for wider participation. E Eng 19:17, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Version 2: A caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows does not need to be sourced; further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated only in the caption should carry a source. If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption. -- ke4roh (talk) 19:38, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

So you took out drawn from the images's file description page and added If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption. I'm not sure. Most images live on Commons, and I don't know what it means for citations to be "warranted" over there -- they rarely do anything like that. Remember, our job in MOS is to distill current berst practice here on the English Wikipedia, and in practice I don't think your "If citations are warranted..." addition is anything anyone does. E Eng 20:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

We need to allow editors to use their judgement, because context can be important. For example, normally the date when the picture was taken is relatively minor, but in some situations it could have significant implications. So whether the photo's EXIF data is sufficient, or whether a Reliable Source is required, would be a judgement call.--Gronk Oz (talk) 04:13, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

That's what the uncontentious is there for. Can you help us with the two proposed versions? E Eng 04:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I read it that "uncontentious" was an inherent characteristic of the caption, rather than whether it might be contentious in a particular usage. In that case, either version looks fine to me; I expect other editors will fine-tune whatever we put in.--Gronk Oz (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

We cannot rely simply on the description of a photo or the sources stated in commons. This photo File:Famine and Genocide in Iran.jpg was used to illustrate an article on the famine in Iran during the British occupation during WWI which was turned into an antibritish genocide propaganda piece that claimed 8 million deliberately killed in a book that if taken at face value could be regarded as a RS. This photo was used to illustrate the book but in actual fact it is a picture dating from the WWII in hungary on better quality images you can see the yellow star on the clothes of one of the dead. [7]. Dom from Paris (talk) 09:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion for how to modify the proposed text (either version)? E Eng 15:05, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Formulas in captions

Currently, the media viewer does not render formulas in <math>...</math> mode (click on the attached example to see how it behaves). So, I'd like to add a note (probably in the "Other special situations" subsection) to the effect that if it's reasonable to write a formula in wiki markup, then it should be preferred over <math>...</math> for image captions, but exceptions can be made for ones that don't work well otherwise. Would anyone object to this, or have any alternate suggestions? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Proper caption structure

I've noticed on several professional wrestling pages, under the 'Championships and accomplishments' section, there are often multiple pictures of a wrestler with various championship belts they have won during their career, and captions are often joined together with a series of ellipses. The first picture caption will start "[Wrestler] is a former heavyweight champion...", the second picture caption will continue "... and this champion...", and the third picture caption will conclude "...and also this champion." (See Jon Moxley for example). This strikes me as an odd way of writing captions and does not contribute any substantial information regarding the photos, aside from merely identifying which championship is in the given picture. I have re-written some captions before to be more informative (i.e. [Wrestler] held [championship] on four different occasions during his career.) and, more often than not, they stay unchanged. Some editors, though, seem to either outright revert any changes, or add the "..." back into the captions. Should the ellipses be used in that sort of fashion for captions, spanning multiple pictures? HidyHoTim (talk) 02:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Terrible form. Editors can't assume readers will follow caption text from picture to picture if they are in separate image frames. I could see that if the {{multiple image}} format is used, but its probably better to just say "[Wrestler] is a former heavyweight champion (top), this champion (middle), and this champion (bottom)." --Masem (t) 02:13, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I would try, as you have, to find a way to do it without the ellipses. Each caption should be complete by itself. -- ke4roh (talk) 14:56, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Dates/years in captions

How should one format dates/years in captions? There is as yet no guideline that I can see. Yet there are several ways to do it. Leaving complete sentences out of the mix (as those are easy and fairly self-explanatory) one can choose, for example, for a photo of Steve Jobs beside the first Macintosh:

"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh in 1984"

or

"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh (1984)"

or

"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh, 1984"

If it were up to me alone, I would favor the first two, with a slight preference for the first variant. But lately I see a lot of the latter – and to me, at least, it doesn't look nearly as encyclopedic as the other variants. It would be nice for our style guidelines not to be silent on the matter.

Is there any consensus on how these dates should be handled? Thanks!

1980fast (talk) 05:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I would say there's no right or wrong format as long as it is consistent within the article, outside of where exceptions have to be made. That is, if most of your captions are like "Name (Year)" but one picture is "Name at (Year SXSW)", then that's fine. If you are using more exact dates, they have to follow the mdy/dmy format the rest of the body uses. --Masem (t) 05:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

These are all fine, and consistency within the article is good. I'd also say that these sorts of captions should be used sparingly, and only for photos that are strictly nominative in purpose. It could be possible to pick a better picture that says more about the subject, or just using the same picture, write a sentence explaining why *that* image tells an important part of the story the article is meant to convey. -- ke4roh (talk) 11:32, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Centered captions

Every so often I run into images whose captions are centered (in older cases with the deprecated <center>...</center>, or with {{center}} or something related). This has always struck me as a Bad Thing, and I generally remove it whenever I see it. I thought it might be worth adding a short note to the subpage here about that. As just a first idea, maybe something along the lines of: "Image captions should not be centered without a situation-specific reason." Thoughts? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely! Any thoughts on what an acceptable reason might be? Johnbod (talk) 14:18, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Caption length and citations in captions

For the past few days I have had a discussion with User:पाटलिपुत्र regarding the image captions in the article on Ashurbanipal, which I worked on and got to GA level a few months ago. The main issue present here is that I believe पाटलिपुत्र's work on the images and captions in this article was excessive and unnecessary and since neither me nor पाटलिपुत्र is budging on the issue I feel like it is appropriate to attempt to get broader consensus for what the captions should look like.

This is what the article, as edited by पाटलिपुत्र, looked like prior to me changing things around again. The images are of wildly different sizes, many of the captions are long (several being six lines or longer) and (I would argue) contain excessive and unnecessary detail. For instance, the caption of the image in the section on Ashurbanipal's family, there to illustrate him and his wife depicted dining, goes into detail on every other thing in the mural. I argued that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions states that captions should be "succinct" but पाटलिपुत्र argued back that they believed their captions were succinct (as the word does not necessarily mean "brief"). Granted, their latest versions of the captions (reverted by me) are considerably better in this respect, I still believe some detail in them was excessive and not relevant to the context the images were used.

The other issue is that पाटलिपुत्र wants to use citations in the image captions, arguing that Wikipedia:Citing sources says "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". I argued that "as appropriate" could be considered a matter of opinion here, but that regardless of what the rule/guideline says, image captions are very rarely cited in the articles themselves. I pointed to the TFA:s over the last four days and how none of them had any citations in their image captions, even when the captions were long and contained information not immediately apparent from the image themselves. I also argued that citations and detailed info might be more appropriate for the commons page of the image rather than the article itself and that using citations in the captions to the degree that पाटलिपुत्र wants is actually detrimental to the article as it makes it stand out from every single other article in this respect. The image depicting Ashurbanipal dining had four citations alone for its captions in पाटलिपुत्र's original version (and two in their latest version).

This page states that "More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; instead, further information can be provided in the article body. And remember that readers wanting full detail can click through to the image description page" so perhaps others can weigh in on how much detail is appropriate in image captions and when they need to be cited (and if it is, as पाटलिपुत्र appears to interpret it, in every case, why is this never enforced during the GA or FA process?). Ichthyovenator (talk) 12:46, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Rather to my surprise, I actually prefer the "bad" version you link above. Imo, both versions to some extent have the wrong information, or too much in the captions, but this is not in the descriptions, but the other stuff. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Visual arts cautions against saying "Exhibited at the British Museum", "Exhibited at the Pergamon Museum", "Now exhibited at the British Museum" (all your version) because museum displays change - many of these photos were taken at the BM's recent exhibition. Are you even sure they are still on display? They have a lot of Assyrian reliefs that aren't. In the case of specific objects with a decent individual museum page, I think a citation link to that is certainly a good idea, and removes the need to give the museum accession number in the caption. In such cases it is wrong to say captions are "very rarely" cited, and you've quoted the policy support yourself. Most of the time, I don't even give the museum in the caption (some have such long names, and it is all in the image file). Here I might make an exception - can one just go to "BM"?. Btw, I think it is you who has introduced several WP:ERA-breaching "BCE"s into the captions - the article has always used "BC". There's a "center" I suspect is the wrong engvar too. I think the explanation of the details in the "garden party" relief is necessary, either in the text or in a caption. The relief is is not normally on display, but was in the exhibition, & even though I had read about it I did not spot the hanging head garden ornament until the display caption prompted me. The mixed sizes and layout in the "bad" version didn't bother me, except for a sandwich in the first section, on my settings. Several of your paragraphs are too long & should be split, which will help with this. I wonder if it is necessary to even say "BC" after the first few dates. Perhaps it is. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I explicitly called पाटलिपुत्र's version "bad"; I just wrote out the things I did not like with it/was unsure of. पाटलिपुत्र introduced several changes which I found good immediately as well, for instance, they replaced several images with better alternatives and added Ashurbanipal's name in cuneiform to the lede. "Exhibited at ..." could be removed, yes. "In such cases it is wrong to say captions are "very rarely" cited, and you've quoted the policy support yourself": yes I quoted the policy but the issue is that I have yet to see another article where the captions are cited to the same extent as पाटलिपुत्र's version. I questioned whether enforcing this policy to such an extent in a single article was worthwile since no (few?) other articles do the same. I can see where you are coming from but in my experience this kind of citing is most commonly done on Wikimedia Commons, not in the articles directly (as पाटलिपुत्र pointed out this is however just my personal experience and not something I could explicitly find in the rules/guidelines). The most similar example I can find is Cleopatra where there are quite a few long and cited captions, but also many uncited ones. For another historical figure as an example, Julius Caesar has a lot of images but only 2 cited captions. If others think the citations are worthwile to include I'll of course be on board, though.

To my knowledge I was not the one who introduced "BCE" into the captions, no. I have consistently used BC throughout my work on the Assyrian kings. Note the version of the article that was GA reviewed (it has a single "BCE" in a caption; probably because I copied this image and its caption from some other article). On the detail on the garden scene; the head is an interesting detail in the relief but my argument was whether it was necessary to bring up in a section otherwise only about Ashurbanipal's family or if the caption should just focus on the part of the image that is relevant for that section (the king and the queen). I don't know which paragraphs you consider to be too long, and that has little to do with the image captions, but you are welcome to split any long paragraphs.

What do you mean by "both versions to some extent have the wrong information"? Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I meant "the wrong information to include in captions" as in the examples I then gave. Johnbod (talk) 22:05, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, right. I was worried that you had found some factual errors in the text. Ichthyovenator (talk) 08:26, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Reviving earlier discussion on citations in captions

@Johnbod: @Ichthyovenator: I note there is a previous discussion from 2018 (Do captions need a reference?), to which participated User:EEng, User:Ke4roh, User:Gronk Oz User:Domdeparis and User:Rp2006, and in which the consensus seems to have been that: "If the caption recites something which is in the article text, and sourced there, then no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated in the caption only should carry a source". I agree with this statement, but it seems the discussion faltered at some point, and the draft proposal was finally not translated into policy. Could now be the right time to do so? Wikipedia:Citing sources already has: "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article", but a confirmation and possibly a bit more precision on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions would be welcome. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: I actually agree with you that this is would be a good amendment to the policy. I also believe that simple captions (I have included an example from one of my articles) do not need to be cited at all, even if the information (in this case for instance that this map is from 1685) is not immediately obvious from the image itself. This goes along with the thinking that Wikipedia:Citing sources says that the caption "Belshazzar's Feast (1635)" would not have to be cited for the image File:Rembrandt-Belsazar.jpg, despite the year not appearing in the image itself.

I'm going to do a 180 and say that the level of detail in some of your captions in the Ashurbanipal article probably warranted citations (though I do not think all the captions needed to be that long and detailed). I do not think all the captions needed citations but longer captions for the garden scene and perhaps the palace and garden image for instance, with citations, is probably only a good thing. I also agree that more precision Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions in regards to what to include/what not to include in a caption and when to cite and when not to cite is a very good idea. Had there been more precision this entire argument would probably have been avoided. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:26, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Summarizing the discussion linked in the OP (and reading between the lines a little), there were three rough versions of proposed text (which probably needs to end of in WP:V, not MOS):

Version 0: To the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
Version 1 (modified): No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, drawn from the images's file description page. Further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
Version 2: A caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows does not need to be sourced; further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated only in the caption should carry a source. If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption.

Version 2's stuff about citations are warranted on the image description page seems to me a nonstarter, because most images are at Commons, and Commons doesn't use cites. I think V0's provisions should be easy for everyone to get behind. V1 goes further, and expresses what I think is considered good practice, but I'm not sure everyone will be comfortable enshrining it explicitly. It does seem like an issue that ought to be resolved. E Eng 22:54, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I would support documenting this in the MoS, and I agree with EEng#s that version 1 is probably the best. The reference to "uncontentious, straightforward statement" allows for some discretion by the editor, which is important. This would be a guideline, not actually a policy, so when situations arise where it is not appropriate it does not have to be enforced blindly. --Gronk Oz (talk) 02:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. For the sake of clarity and legitimacy, we could also simply expand on the statement from Wikipedia:Citing sources, which is already in policy, with the proposal from Version 1, with a few tweaks:

Version 3: Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article (Wikipedia:Citing sources). No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, or when the caption simply recites something stated and sourced in article text. But anything which is stated only in the caption should be referenced. A description or attribution of the image resulting from specialized knowledge should also be sourced.

In this proposal, I removed the mention of the content of the file description page from Commons, which is rarely referenced and can be quite unreliable. I added the need to reference the description or attribution when it is the result of scholarly work, as when describing an archaeological artifact or an object from a museum. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 05:13, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

You're right about Commons descriptions being unsourced, but nonetheless identifications in captions are often drawn from the Commons description, without a citation being given in the caption. For example, the article Richard Nixon carries this image

with a caption asserting it's Nixon in high school. But there's no cite in the caption to support that assertion. E Eng 05:30, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

For the record, with "citations on commons" I was referring to something like the detailed image description page of this image, with clear source info and a reference that supports what the image depicts. I was specifically asked to add such info to the page of this image as part of a GA review (but not sure if there exists a policy for this). I like the "version 3" proposal by पाटलिपुत्र above but I don't think the reference to the commons page needs to be removed, it can easily be edited and sources added (though I'm not sure making that a requirement would be worthwile). Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't especially like these proposals. The most common information to be only in captions and not in text will be basic details on paintings, including portraits in biographies - subject, artist, date and museum/owner. These will normally be taken from the Commons image file, which is is not generally an RS, except in the cases of museum releases with metadata etc. At the same time it is usually correct. I don't think demanding other references for such information is a good idea - it will be generally ignored, & is likely to result in the mass removal of pictures if GA/FAC reviewers insist on it. User:Ichthyovenator, you started out wanting the removal of caption citations, and have moved to a proposal insisting on them! better just to leave imo. Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

I am not supporting some insistance on caption citations; I believe that long and detailed captions would need to be cited, and that some of the longer captions in the article which spurred this discussion might have been warranted, but I still fundamentally believe that image captions should rarely be long/detailed enough to warrant citations. If captions are short and to the point, as most of them should be, there is no need to police citations in them. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:33, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see that any of the proposed wordings actually say that. Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Then perhaps that could be clarified as well. Captions being brief and to the point would follow the "criteria" for them being succinct (depending on how one interprets that word) so I don't see how anything conflicts with that. I think "No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, or when the caption simply recites something stated and sourced in article text" from पाटलिपुत्र's proposal says what I'm thinking. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:44, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Eeng's Nixon example illustrates the point - "uncontentious" is a treacherous word. After a few years on WP, one realizes that virtually nothing is "uncontentious". Portraits from a few centuries ago have all sorts of issues over their subject, authorship and date, which, yes, should be noted in refs. But apart from the subject, if they are illustrating a biography, the date and painter may not really matter all that much, and insisting that is referenced is likely to reduce usage. Johnbod (talk) 16:10, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Video timestamps

When I see videos in mainspace, they sometimes include a note of how long they are in the caption. I'd like to see what the community thinks of this practice, and how best to format the note if it is included. You may !vote from the list below with a combination of a number and a letter, and feel free to add additional options.

Option 1: Do not include a length note.
Option 2: Include a length note whenever desired, on a case-by-case basis.
Option 3: Generally include a length note in normal circumstances.

Option A large: Example caption. (4:07)
Option A small: Example caption. (4:07)
Option B small: Example caption. (4:07 min)
Option C small: Example caption. (4:07 min)
Option D small: Example caption. (4 min 7 s)
Option E small: Example caption. (4 min 7 s)
Option F small: Example caption. (4 minutes 7 seconds)
Option G small: Example caption. (4 min 7 sec)
Option H small: Example caption. (4 min 7 sec)
Option I small: Example caption. (4 m 7 s)
Option J small: Example caption. (4 m 7 s)

I didn't list out all the large options to keep the list short, but if you want to !vote e.g. Option 2C large, feel free to do so. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Examples and syntax

Option A large: (4:07)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4:07)

Option A small: (4:07)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4:07)

Option B small: (4:07 min)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4:07 min)

Option C small: (4:07 {{abbr|min|minutes}})

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4:07 min)

Option D small: (4 min 7 s)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 min 7 s)

Option E small: (4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 min 7 s)

Option F small: (4 minutes 7 seconds)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 minutes 7 seconds)

Option G small: (4 min 7 sec)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 min 7 sec)

Option H small: (4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|sec|seconds}})

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 min 7 sec)

Option I small: (4 m 7 s)

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 m 7 s)

Option J small: (4 {{abbr|m|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})

Contra dancers at the 2019 Youth Dance Weekend in Weston, Vermont (4 m 7 s)

Survey

Option 2 Let's keep it flexible and subject to consensus. (Summoned by bot) --I dream of horses (Contribs) Please notify me after replying off my talk page. Thank you. 22:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Option 3E small If it's all done manually I wouldn't expect usage to be so consistent at first, but with templates consistency will improve and maybe some sort of automatic media metadata functionality miracles and wonders... anyways 3E small seems like the best format to converge on. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 23:05, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
D - Would prefer 1 but I don't think everyone gets #1 so IMHO D is the next best option here. –Davey2010^Talk 20:25, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
3E. It is helpful to know how long the video will be before playing it. The other options are ambiguous. Kaihsu (talk) 10:19, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb, I dream of horses, Struthious Bandersnatch, Davey2010, and Kaihsu: I have added several more options, because some of those initially presented are using inconsistent abbreviation styles ("min" but "s"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

See https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html – Kaihsu (talk) 17:55, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: It's good to have the other options but I'm sticking with 3E small because as Kaihsu points out, the disparity is due to 'm' as a unit already signifying "meters". --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 03:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

3 and H (though see below about potential use for J). We need to use a consistent abbreviation style, not mix two of them on the same line. An issue is that m and s have other meanings (e.g. m is the standard symbol for metre/meter). If we went with any version that uses {{abbr}}, that linking should only be done on first occurrence (just as, for example, we only use {{circa}} for the first appearance in the page of "c.". That is to say, all the "different" options that differ only by use of {{abbr}} or not are really the same option just used at different places in the page. And a side point is that MOS:ABBR would want these with a period/point: min., sec., m., or s., unless per MOS:NUM we have proof that they are standardized as unit symbols without them. Even in British/Commonwealth English style guides, points are dropped only from abbreviations that are contractions like Dr, not from truncations like Prof., thus: min., sec. regardless of MOS:ENGVAR. I would add that m. is distinct from m, so a version of J with periods would be viable. Given that last point, both H and J could then be permissible, with H being normally preferred, but J usable in infoboxes, tight tables, and other situations of constrained horizontal space. Cf. WP:CREEP and WP:MOSBLOAT: don't rule out options without a good reason. PS: The heading is a bit misleading in that this could also apply to audio. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, thanks for all those thoughts! Looking at MOS:POINTS, I think you're right that all of these should have periods.

Regarding replication of {{abbr}}, that would be quite tricky technically to implement. I think we might be saved from that, however, in that MOS:REPEATLINK allows for repetition of links in captions, and applying that same principle would allow for repetition of {{Abbr}}. It makes sense, since people often skim through a page and encounter videos, which is different from someone reading a paragraph where we assume they read the paragraph above.

And regarding audio, that's another good point. This RfC is already complex enough as it is, so I don't want to change it now, but I assume that whatever the result is will probably be applied to audio files as well unless anyone wants to argue that they should do something different. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Well, if we do something with a template specific for that, whether to abbr-ize it can simply be a template parameter. I don't think there's any issue with using abbr twice on widely separate media in the same page, but doing over and over and over again in a gallery or something would be really annoying. On points: I notified WT:MOSNUM about this thread, and if it is in fact conventional to use, say, "min" and "sec" (across multiple fields, or as part of some kind of intl. standard), someone there will know about that, I would think. But otherwise the default would be "min." and "sec." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
3 A large. (4:07) is already fairly common and can only become more so as the world becomes more tech-savvy. The uber-popular YouTube uses the m:ss format all over the site, although they have less need for the parens. As for "large", I need a better reason than saving a couple of millimeters of screen real estate to shrink text from the default size. ... tags would violate MOS:SMALL (accessibility) if used within already-reduced text. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Mandruss, the main appeal of making it smaller, at least to me, is that it helps indicate that the timestamp is set apart from the rest of the caption, not part of its content. E.g. for the hypothetical caption Senator Wales gave one of the longest filibusters on record (40 min 7 s), it's not very clear that the parenthetical refers to the length of the video, rather than the length of the filibuster, whereas it would be clearer if the timestamp were reduced size.

If we determine that we can't use size as a differentiator due to accessibility concerns, perhaps we could consider using color or something else. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Such an ambiguity would be very rare and might warrant an IAR exception subject to local consensus. Not significant enough to justify small for all cases (or a different color for that matter). ―Mandruss ☎ 19:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Small almost-always bad per WP:ACCESSIBILITY. Will return I suspect... --Izno (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
- "Small" here doesn't mean "smaller than the minimum required by that guideline". That said, I really don't care if it's small. I'd be in favor of 3H even if the small tag were removed from it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 - @SMcCandlish: Aren't captions already smaller than normal text? ... makes text 85% of its original size, and so using it on a caption pushes that caption under the 85% guideline of MOS:SMALL. — Goszei (talk) 18:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 - Right you are, that's something I overlooked. That rules out all "small" options within captions. Depending on the percent reduction of captions, which I don't know how to find, something between default size and "small" might work (see Template:Font size templates), but I'm not motivated to pursue that since I favor the default size. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:48, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 - Ah, I didn't notice the captions were smaller already. So, yeah, we wouldn't want small tags or templates causing <85% size. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:05, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 - @Sdkb: Please be aware that the "small" options should be off the table, per this. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:34, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Option 2, generally favouring the shorter styles. Johnbod (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
I'd actually make a completely different suggestion. Seems to me the purpose of providing the length is to give the reader an idea of the time investment he'd be signing up for if he clicks through, and precision isn't needed for that. So my suggestion is to have the guideline (which guideline?) say,
~~If the linked video is more than a two or three minutes long, consider including its duration rounded to minutes: Still from video of the incident (4 min)~~.

E Eng 16:58, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd be more amenable if much of the rest of the world took that approach. See YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, VLC media player, Windows Media Player, etc. I could go on with further investigation, and I'm not aware of any widespread precedent for your method. (Netflix uses e.g. "2h 41m" on their pages describing DVDs, but we're not talking about DVDs here, and DVDs are on their way out anyway.) I doubt you need education on the user benefits of standardization, or on the corollary user costs of everybody thinking they have an idea that's a little better than everybody else's ideas and to hell with standardization. The m:ss format is well established, and AFAICT closer to a de facto standard than any alternative. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:26, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it's helpful for short videos to have the timestamp, too. Readers may be more likely to click on them if they know it won't require much of an investment of their time. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Good point. OK, how about
Consider including the video's duration, either in seconds or rounded minutes: Still from video of the incident (72 s) or ... of the incident (4 min).

Unfortunately, per MOS we're stuck with the slightly obscure s or seconds. E Eng 13:35, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Option 2: "Include a length note whenever desired, on a case-by-case basis". I don't mind a listing of times but a move to make all articles resemble each other as a micro-management, is adding too much bureaucracy. If a note is included, fine, if someone wishes to add a note, also fine, and considering the mentioned MOS some of the suggestions are moot. Otr500 (talk) 14:50, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
After review, I think I tend toward either option 2. That said, I don't see why this is an RFC as it does not meet the requirements for it per WP:RFCBEFORE. Please ensure you have the discussion first and the RFC second, to ensure the community's time is not wasted. (I note this is not the only such comment I have had on an RFC of late....) --Izno (talk) 17:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Since @Izno:'s comments it would also seem that this discussion (or RFC) would be better suited at ~~Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates~~ Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing Captions as it is specifically related to that area. The project should operate in accordance to policies and guidelines and we do have projects for a reason. Would that not be the more accurate place as? Otr500 (talk) 20:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Note: Now I see "This WikiProject is believed to be inactive", so that answers that, unless, the assumption is not correct. Otr500 (talk) 20:28, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

CAPFRAG

For the purposes of WP:CAPFRAG, is a caption like the following considered a complete sentence, requiring a period?

Biden speaks at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner in 2018

It has a subject and a verb, but its meaning changes when you put it in a caption. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Change it to "Biden speaking" and you've avoided the question. (And I think it sounds better anyway.) E Eng 09:04, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah or maybe "Biden spoke", with the period. It pretty much goes without saying that "This here text describes what's in the picture above." So it seems unnecessary to write the caption using a specialized language structure that exists only in captions (imagine speaking or writing "Biden speaking at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner in 2018" outside of a caption context). Regardless, I wonder if something should be said about this, somewhere in the MoS about captions. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:25, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

CAPFRAG II

In the paragraph labeled Short caption, one of the examples given is:

Jackson performs in 1988

This is actually a complete sentence in need of a period, and therefore more appropriate for the next paragraph. I will accordingly be changing it to:

Jackson performing in 1988

1980fast (talk) 04:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Mobile devices and directions

How should one deal with captions such as "John Smith (left) and Jane Doe" in {{multiple image}} (or a similar template), if mobile devices display the images in vertical, rather than horizontal succession? Toccata quarta (talk) 18:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Click to enlarge

SCHolar44 and I have a disagreement about including the text "(click to enlarge)" in an image caption on Localities on the Trans-Australian Railway.

Article edits: [8][9][10]

Previous discussion: User talk:Mitch Ames#"Click to enlarge" note for a map with tiny lettering

Other editors are invited to comment. Is "Click to enlarge" appropriate in the caption, or does WP:CAPWORD apply - ... "click for larger view") is not appropriate.? Mitch Ames (talk) 01:42, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Anyone arguing that sentence does not apply is wikilawyering. --Izno (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Long ago I was told that it's "presumptuous" to "address the reader" by saying "click to enlarge" or "(see below)". Of course, that makes no sense since we have plenty of hatnotes telling the reader to "see also" and so on. I've also gotten static for captions reading e.g. "Smith and Jones just before the incident. Note the gun butt protruding from Smith's pocket." Some people are so prissy. E Eng 18:15, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

I think there's a difference between a) when the image at thumb size does show that text is present but its too small to make out without clicking to enlarge but it should be obvious w/ WP's thumbnail approach that clicking to enlarge will make that text legible and b) when the image at thumb size makes the text so small that it is impossible to tell immediately if it is even text, so that telling the reader to (click to enlarge) will inform them the text will be there in the large image. This example, the Trans-Australian RR image, seems a case of b) at the currrent thumb size - the text "blocks" in the thumb look like grey boxes. --Masem (t) 18:49, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The caption text "map ... showed all localities on the line at that time and the origins of their names" is a big hint that the "grey boxes" are text. Mitch Ames (talk) 22:53, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

"Click to enlarge" isn't quite like "Click to view the Wikipedia article about Manitoba: Manitoba". But it's close. If a user needs to be told they can click to enlarge, they are both extremely tech-unsavvy by 2020 standards (probably born before 1950) and almost completely new to Wikipedia. In one form or another, thumbnails have been around since the early 1990s, and have been ubiquitous for a decade or two. An image of this size is usually a link to something. This is tantamount to a CAPTIONOBVIOUS situation. (Hmmmm...this may explain why I had never seen "click to enlarge" in my seven-year editing career, until now.) ―Mandruss ☎ 08:44, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Very true, but you can imagine situations where it's not obvious to the reader that there's text to be read (or whatever) when you click. Not common, but not inconceivable. E Eng 09:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Also very true, but "click to enlarge" doesn't tell them that. It tells them they can click to enlarge. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

So you wouldn't say "click to enlarge"; you'd say "click for enlarged view of inscription" or something. And here I'll say something else that will probably set the cat among the pigeons. Once in a while I take advantage of the little-used |link= image syntax, so then when the user clicks he actually gets something not exactly the same as the thumbnail. For example, the thumb might be cropped to show a smaller, more important part of the image, and then when the user clicks he's given the full image. At right is an example. Click to enlarge. ;) E Eng 22:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Caption centering?

At Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Captions/Archive_2#Centered_captions there's a suggestion and support for the idea that we say not to center captions. Is there really nothing about that in the MOS? I sort of recall that there was. Dicklyon (talk) 21:22, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The closest we seem to have is "The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text." (at WP:CAPFRAG). This sort of implies it, but one could adjust the examples to be clearer. —Quondum 21:42, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

@Keith-264: you reverted my removal of centering here, citing consistency within a small cluster of articles around a topic. This seems odd to me. We don't usually support idiosyncratic styles around a topic cluster. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

And yet somehow centering the caption beneath a lead image/infobox image seems right. E Eng 04:44, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Somehow. I think it's what we're used to, since it's a centrally controlled style. Infobox images have centered captions, while other images (including lead images) do not. Is it OK to locally break the pattern? It looks odd to me when I see captions centered where I don't expect it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

It's not a small cluster, it's a big cluster of which the 3rd Ypres articles are a small part. You might do well to consider that your slash and burn edits to hundreds of articles is idiosyncratic as well as wrong-headed. You might also consider that US usage should not be juxtaposed with British usage. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:15, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

You might also consider that non-centred captions look crap. Keith-264 (talk) 07:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

It depends what you're used to - I think centred captions look bad and should be avoided, especially for long captions. In fact few articles have them for regular images. I agree the "group of articles" argument should be ignored. Infoboxes I can live with. Johnbod (talk) 16:14, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

No, it depends on if you have taste. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Keith-264, please modulate your tone. —Quondum 16:44, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Try not to set yourself up as judge and jury. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure thing, Kettle! Firejuggler86 (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Don't center. It's superflous and entirely subjective decorative hooey. I think we should admend MOS:CAPFRAG to say The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics or centering, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text. While this obviously included centering (or centring if you prefer) because "that would [not] apply ... in the main text", it is even more obvious that this is not getting through, that instead the example (of italics) is being taken as a one-item list of the only thing to not do, and that is an error, and a too-common one. If there is a consensus, contrariwise, that captions should be centered, then the MoS section should say so. We should not leave this open to continual re-re-re-dispute, however. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Stare Decisis. Let the person who wrote that caption decide. It's fine if they're different in different articles (or even in the same article, probably, although I suppose a case could be made for within-article uniformity). Per WP:BRD if someone un-centers a centered caption, or centers an un-centered caption, roll back, let the person take it to talk, and get a clear consensus for her micromanaging the article. If there's any question of what is the "last stable version" (or even if there is), go with what the person who wrote the caption did.

It just doesn't matter. It's just roiling the text for no end. Either way, it's not going to confuse the reader. It's not going to make it harder to read or understand for the reader. It's not going emotionally upset the reader unless the reader is a poltroon, in which case she's probably already upset about seven other things on the page already and there's a limit to how much we can cater to poltroons anyway, particularly with liklihood of success.

If we must further expand WP:CAPFRAG in the interest of preventing these kinds of arguments, just add "As to centering or not centering, do as you think best, and give previous editors the same courtesy." Herostratus (talk) 19:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

But if we can't prescribe and control every detail of everything, societal decay sets in and soon there is immorality, open homosexuality, interracial marriage, and baby murder! E Eng 01:08, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

You forgot "think of the children"... Herostratus (talk) 12:04, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

"Official portrait, YYYY"

Recently there has been an effort to add this particular caption to the infoboxes of almost all United States Senators and United States Cabinet members. This seems unnecessary per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Captions#Infoboxes_and_leading_images - it doesn't seem particularly relevant to the reader whether an image is "official" or not, and many of the portraits are from within the last few years so the date seems like unnecessary bloat. Wondering if there are any further thoughts on this. Connormah (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

What the status of an image is is generally immaterial, and should be omitted. There would normally be no need to communicate this at all. It also comes across as being officious, which we do not need. —Quondum 15:48, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree not needed. MilborneOne (talk) 16:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The year is important. The photo may be recent, but it will not be recent after some time, and, seeing as we cannot tell the future, we should date the photo so that it will be informative to future readers. (In fact, a particularly old photo may prompt the update to a newer one, but only if its age is called out.) I don't have an opinion about saying "official" or not. Usually that distinction is evident (to me) and available in the image description page. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't see any consensus on this. Was there a discussion somewhere else? Personally I think including the year is important, if a photo is from 10 years ago, it informs the reader that it's not up to date. Hydromania (talk) 09:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I concur that it's not needed, is officious, and I would add that it's a WP:NPOV problem. What else will we side with because it's "official"? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The year is important, so I support the use of captions such as the Cosby in 2010 example in the guideline. I could take or leave the "Official portrait, YYYY" format. It seems to be an acceptable application of WP:CAPLENGTH, though. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:03, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

MOS:CAPFRAG

Some1, I've never understood this, and fought it successfully when I did an FL. Why can't a fragment end with a period? Sentence fragments in written prose end with periods all the time, and it's not the period that means "here was a complete sentence". Drmies (talk) 01:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure either; I'm not the right person to ask haha. I just saw that MOS:CAPFRAG says Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely sentence fragments, which should not end with a period or full stop. If this is because of my recent edit on BTS [11], feel free to revert, I won't mind. Some1 (talk) 01:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

No, I don't want to revert you, that's not the point, but yes that's what I saw go by. I'm more interested in who wrote this up and why and on what grounds, and I am very much inclined to scrap that entire rule. Drmies (talk) 02:24, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I dug through the revision history and it seems like User:Boson added the text on 21:37, 4 September 2013 [12] and User:Northamerica1000 added the shortcut on 07:31, 26 May 2014 [13]. Some1 (talk) 02:41, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Drmies (talk) 03:31, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

It's consistent with MOS:LIST and MOS:HEADING and MOS:TABLE; we don't end sentence-fragment list items and section headings and table headers with dots either. There's nothing magically special about image captions that calls for them to suddenly be inconsistent with all other fragmentary prose. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Collage footer style

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Collage footer style. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

This discussion has archived to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 223#Collage footer style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Obviousness and accessibility

I just noticed that MOS:CAPOBVIOUS says in part: It is usually unnecessary to state what kind of image is being shown. A map of the world showing NATO member countries can be captioned simply "NATO members" rather than "Map of NATO members".

I've found the opposite is true, both for accessibility and for clarity. For example, someone who can't see or can only see poorly or who - like me - is using a screen reader to listen to an article while doing the dishes - won't know if this is a picture of NATO representatives or a map of NATO countries. Many folks in that situation might want to take further measures to view the image if it is actually of interest, but they need to know the contents in order to decide whether or not to do that. Another example (explicitly endorsed by the next recommendation in that part of the MOS) is that I usually add "painting of" to images of artwork depicting real pre-photography events, to clarify that it is not a photograph and thus might not be historically accurate, and include the year of painting which is often much later than the event. Sometimes it's hard to tell from a thumbnail image what medium it's produced in.

I propose removing this line from the MOS, at the very least, if not replacing it with something like:

For accessibility, it is helpful to mention what kind of image is being shown. For example, "World map showing NATO member countries in blue" is more helpful to low-vision readers and those using screen readers than a terse "NATO members". A good description helps those users decide if they should take further measures to view the image. Images that convey information not in the text should have alt text with a thorough description for audio-only users, which is not needed by readers. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Alternative text for images.

-- Beland (talk) 14:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I sincerely appreciate the sentiment. The ALT text provides a place for image descriptions. Both should be provided, and each should be written according to its audience. -- ke4roh (talk) 15:26, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

In practice, alt text is hardly ever provided, presumably because it's invisible to most editors. -- Beland (talk) 18:13, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I concur with Ke4roh. ALT text exists for a reason. WP being poor with regard to accessibility is a reason to be better at it, using the prescribed methods for being better at it; it's not a reason to scrap them and do something else. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:49, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Italics for "(pictured in XXXX)"

When a caption contains metadata ("(pictured in 2016)", "(left/center/right)", etc.), is the text within the parentheses (or even including the parentheses) italicized? I couldn't find a specific guideline on the topic and found it to be used inconsistently between articles. IceWelder [✉] 12:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I would italicise it, but I don't know if there's a uniform approach. As long as an article is internally consistent it may not be necessary for one. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 09:54, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

You goddam morally superior wokes are always ... Oh, wait, this isn't about wheelchairs, sorry. Actually, this has come up a few times and the answer, by default of any conclusion being drawn, seems to be what Snapple says: just be consistent within an article. Since this keeps coming up and we never get anywhere, I think it's helpful to tell editors that it keeps coming up and we never get anywhere: [14].

Actually, having gone to all that trouble I now see that your question isn't so much about what I call "stage directions" (e.g. (right) and (left)) but rather what might be called supplementary information. That I don't think should be in italics:

Glerod Castle (seen here in 1954) was rebuilt somewhat different after a 1962 fire.

E Eng 14:01, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

It is already separated from the rest of the sentence by parentheses, so I don't see what italics gains us. In the automobile project we often have captions like "Camry (Australia, 1990)" with no italics. Stepho talk 22:16, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Stepho's comment above; there's no need for double marking (i.e., parentheses plus italics), which English avoids in running text. Doremo (talk) 04:30, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

This falls short of direct instruction to or "at" the reader (e.g. ), so there is no need to italicize it the way we do with hatnotes and other cross-references. All it does here is serve as inappropriate emphasis on what amount to the most trivial part of the caption. PS: If it were italicized, yes the parens would be italicized as well. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:35, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

None of the above. The text should be presented spɹɐʍʞɔɐq puɐ uʍop ǝpᴉsdn so that the reader definitely won't miss it. Alternatively, let's not have a rule and let people do what they want. I believe that is current situation. Herostratus (talk) 23:27, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Image credit to photographer

Template:Infobox person says to include the photographer of an infobox photo. Template talk:Infobox person#Image credit to photographer suggests to change that. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:21, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

This guideline says to only include if the photographer is notable, and even then, it should only be in historical context. For example, Gage Skidmore is a valuable contributor of his ComicCon photographs to Creative Commons and many of the actors and crew in popular TV shows have photos thanks to Skidmore -- but he doesn't have that much of an established history to have his name appear in every caption. In a counter example, the 1944 photo of Marilyn Monroe by David Conover definitely should include his name since his name is well connected to how Monroe rose to stardom. Basically, the default should be to exclude, but use sound judgement as rationale to include. --Masem (t) 02:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I concur with Masem, exactly. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)