Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 10

What to do for articles since the implementation of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES?

The discussions (seen here and here) that resulted in the implementation of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES have left some editors wondering what should be done lead image-wise for "articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations." Should we use a single image of one person? Should we use two or three images that showcase a single person, with each image representing a different type of person? Should we use a single image that naturally (meaning without photo manipulation) shows two people (as currently seen at the Human article) or a group of people (like the Thai people and Balinese people articles currently do)? Should we use two or three images that show a group of people, with each image representing different types of people? Should we not have a lead image? The Jews article currently goes with an artistic, religious painting. Recent examples that center on what is to be done in these cases can be seen at Talk:African Americans#Reverted recently added lead image (a permalink here), Talk:Man/sandbox, Talk:Woman/sandbox, Talk:Woman#Should the current lead image be replaced with this one? (a permalink here) and Talk:Man#Should the current lead image be replaced with this one? (a permalink here). These discussions need further input. Keep in mind, though, that the discussions that resulted in the implementation of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES were mainly about "race"/ethnicity rather than gender. This is why, at the sandbox for the Woman article, I stated, "I think it's time for that debate to be revisited in the case of the Girl, Woman, Boy and Man articles anyway, since the discussions were mainly about ethnicity instead of gender."

Thoughts? Pinging all of the editors (the ones still active and ones who haven't been indefinitely blocked) who were involved with the discussions that resulted in the implementation of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES:

Pinging collapsed

Cordless Larry, Meters,SMcCandlish, Hebel (Gerard vonHebel), Maunus, Moxy, 23 editor, Alessandro57 (Alex2006),TaivoLinguist (Taivo), Gunkarta, Iryna Harpy, Anonimu, Borsoka, Bus stop, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Antidiskriminator, Enos733, Fakirbakir, Frietjes, Kwamikagami (kwami), Coolabahapple, TU-nor, Nihil novi, Norden1990, WilliamThweatt, GRuban, Sturmgewehr88, Al Ameer son, Pldx1, LjL, Vanjagenije, Andrew Davidson (Andrew D.), Davey2010, Khirurg (formerly Athenean), Softlavender, No such user, SilkTork, RGloucester, Feminist (formerly SSTflyer), My very best wishes, James Allison (formerly Torritorri), Hammersoft, Kaldari, Samotny Wędrowiec, Carrite, Chris troutman, Cobblet, Meatsgains, Off-shell, Staberinde, Debresser, Dr.K., Aircorn, Doug Weller, Arjayay, Cara777, Wee Curry Monster, Katangais, Laszlo Panaflex, David Eppstein, Masem, Savvyjack23, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Dmcq, Marchjuly, Drmies, Bloodofox, FunkMonk, Paine Ellsworth, PeterTheFourth, EvergreenFir, TransporterMan, RexxS, Graeme Bartlett, Mandruss, Jayron32, Carlotm, Snow Rise, Montanabw, Sunrise and S Marshall. I'll also alert Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups to this discussion.

Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd question the implicit premise of this paragraph. Why is there a need for a lead image at all? Large and heterogeneous groups of people are not a topic that lends itself easily to illustration. If it doesn't, then why try to illustrate it? Just because of the readers' alleged horror vacui at not seeing a colourful spot at the top right corner of the page? Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Fut.Perf., "question the implicit premise of this paragraph"? Huh? See above, where I also asked, "Should we not have a lead image?" At the Woman article, I am more so for no lead image. At Talk:African Americans#Reverted recently added lead image, I am for no lead image. I've started a discussion on this per what I stated above. Just look at all of the discussion at Talk:Woman. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

We should do exactly nothing regarding any "general rule". In many (most?) cases it works just as well without any image in the infobox. In some cases, local consensus has come up with lede images that work fine. In some "ethnic group X" articles, I have fighted against using national flags as lede image, and in a few cases, there have been discussions and even tendencies towards edit war, but nothing more than local discussions can handle. I see absolutely no need for a new round of general discussion on the MOS level. --T*U (talk) 08:27, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I also feel that we don't need to implement some rule on this, but, apparently, certain editors are not grasping the part of MOS:LEADIMAGE that says, "Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic." The same issues that come with a composite image or similar apply to a single image of one person or a group of people, except worse, because instead of the lead image showcasing a variety of different types of people within that group, a single lead image would only be showing one person or would otherwise be limited (such as a group of people who all look similar or very similar). We see this going on right now at Talk:Woman. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

To quote Rhododendrites from here and here, "There is consensus that we should not have galleries for articles about subjects that represent very large populations. [...] Now then, how exactly are these issues resolved by replacing a gallery with a single image? [...] Choosing images to represent groups of people involves matters that aren't a consideration when choosing images to represent groups of objects. That's not to say that people wouldn't fight over which painting should be chosen, of course, but that the impact/implications of that choice are different. Our readers are not themselves houses, and shaping preconceived notions our readers have about board games matters less (IMO anyway) than shaping preconceived notions our readers have about groups of people. The point is, we had a long discussion about galleries which found that choosing just a few representatives from a group of people is insufficient for the reasons I copy/pasted above. All of those reasons apply to an even greater degree to attempts to represent groups of people with a single image." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:03, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn: Even if I mostly agree with what you (and Rhododendrites) say about single pictures vs. galleries, I fail to see that there is any need whatsoever for a centralised discussion about this.

On another note: In case you wonder why the response has been almost non-existent, I think you will find the reason here: If the number of detected to-be-pinged users exceeds 50, no notifications will be delivered. I did not get a ping, but came here by coincidence. --T*U (talk) 10:00, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

TU-nor, maybe you will have an educated opinion for what to do with the Talk:African Americans RfC.  I feel that it is also a waste of editors' time.  I don't think we should have an RfC deciding whether to have an image for an article if we don't even have proposed images that many editors like. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:41, 21 June 2019‎ (UTC)

Be mindful of WP:Canvass. Above, I mentioned that discussion is going on at the African Americans talk page, but I did not point one editor (who I think might vote differently than the ones who have voted there thus far) to the RfC there. And, of course, you don't feel that an RfC is needed. You want an image on these types of articles. Or rather the articles you are interested in that just happen to be these types of articles. Many of us feel that no matter the choice of images, no single image should be used as a lead image for these types of articles.

TU-nor, we disagree on the centralized discussion aspect. This issue is going on at more than one article, and I think it's a good thing to have editors who weighed in on the two previous discussions weigh in on this as well. Rhododendrites's comments are indicative of that. After all, it's the decision that resulted from those previous two discussions that has led editors to look to a single lead image for these types of articles. The composite matter was considered an issue by the vast majority of editors in those discussions. Like Rhododendrites stated, how can a single image resolve those issues or not also be a problem? I don't think that most editors who voted in the previous two RfCs considered the "so now we go with a single image" development. And a central discussion seeks to get their views on that. I forgot about the ping limit. Since you didn't get pinged, then I suppose Future Perfect at Sunrise didn't get pinged either. I'll give this next style a go (which I picked up from someone and used at Talk:Sexlessness) and see what happens: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Just to let you know that the second attempt to ping us has failed. Like TU-nor, I've only just stumbled on this more than timely revisiting as a result of your post at WT:ETHNIC. I agree with you: one image solutions are not where the RFCs initiated a couple of years ago were going. They were definitely well grounded in the use of any images as being WP:POV and breaches of WP:NOR. I continue to be of the conviction that dealing with variants on the human animal as subject matter, not species of animals identifiable by their appearance, the use of such images in the infobox is antithetical to the arguments originally presented, and that the articles you have brought up should not use any image in the infobox. They are simplistic and biased at best. There is no one moment in history or time that can represent an ethnicity, and the brunt of arguments presented was that such use of images as essentially decorative is contrary to an encyclopaedic resource, and is not a decision for whichever editors happen to be working on the relevant article at any one time to make. The Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't use an image to depict humans or ethnic groups for good reason: the concept is known. Iryna Harpy (talk) 07:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I believe that lead images are useful to help people, particularly our younger readers get a quick understanding of the article. Galleries in info boxes are pretty useless, as the individuals will be too small. Even for a topic such as African Americans there should be an image. The person pictured should be indisputably a member of the group, and be representative. Hopefully people can agree on the talk page. But rather than pushing a modern photo, some historic photo could be used to avoid politics. But lead images are not essential, merely useful. However, for a featured article I would expect there to be one. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:06, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Images at ethnic groups are dangerous and unnecessary. Sure, an image at Giraffe can be helpful for people who have never seen one, but we're talking about people here. If you are reading Wikipedia, you know exactly what a person looks like. Using "a historical image" can lead to prejudices toward modern people. How many times has a Native American been asked if they have a war bonnet at home in the closet for special occasions? Tons. Using a historical image in the lead is a form of racial profiling since it leads readers to expect to see a Stone Age hunter when they are looking at a corporate lawyer. It is simply unnecessary, heavily discriminatory, and patriarchal. --Taivo (talk) 00:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

100% with Taivo here. These were the same arguments as were used originally. A small child knows what a person is, so how are 'younger readers' going to be edified by an image in the infobox (and how are you going to guarantee that the person in the image being used is, in fact, a bone fide member of the group unless they are notables: a subject already discussed at length previously). Are we compelled to resurrect every argument addressed over months of discussion again? No one has ever objected to the use of an image within the body of an article where it meets with MOS:PERTINENCE, but editors selecting instructive images on behalf of readers is not only antithetical to WP:COMMONSENSE, it's plain arrogant and superior. Bottom line: no other serious encyclopaedias illustrate broad concepts applicable to human beings in such a manner, so why do Wikipedia contributors think it's their editorial duty to do so? Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:48, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

The purpose of images at articles on groupings of humans is to illustrate the pride in identity that results in the existence of that group. Thus at the "African Americans" article this image conveys people enjoying commonality of identity. The appearances of the people depicted may be similar but that is not the primary point of the image, rather the primary point being illustrated is black pride, and that makes the image very appropriate for that article. Bus stop (talk) 02:01, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Many of the Maya and Miao, for example, have distinctive dress. The Miao are even named after their dress (Black Miao, Flowery Miao, etc.). In such cases, IMO a photo showing people in traditional dress may be appropriate (e.g. Maasai people). Or they may have distinctive houses (e.g., Tata Somba), spend much of their time herding specific animals in a specific environment, etc., that would would lend itself to a picture. But what of people who no longer use distinctive dress much, who have no specific economy or who span a range of architectural styles? There's nothing much distinctive between the Spanish, French, Dutch and Germans these days -- unless we're going to show the Dutch in wooden shoes and a Spaniard in a bull fight. If the essence of a nation can be captured in a photograph or two, something that the people would actually identify with, then a photo may be worthwhile, otherwise IMO it's just ornamental filler. — kwami (talk) 03:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami and GRuban: How are such images anything other than of WP:OR, WP:POV value in the infobox. Again, reminding editors that there is more than enough room in the body of an article for pertinent images. Wooden clogs, floral clothing and other superficial trappings do not define an ethnic group. I understand that all of these types of depictions are put forth in genuine good faith, but I have to reiterate that an encyclopaedic resource does not push stereotypical, simplistic imagery as if it were a definition, and that depicting the 'pride' of a community is also a WP:PPOV abstraction that has no place in the quick glance facts and figures that MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE describes. 'Pride' can also be construed as bigotry, oversimplification, etc. The intent of editors and any facts that images impart are not necessarily even vaguely related. KISS principle for infoboxes; editors are welcome to fight each other stupid over images pertaining to the body of any given article including those dealing with ethnic groups. Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't know how they'd be OR. POV perhaps. But I don't see how a POV of "this is a typical X" when it is typical would be any more POV than the a lead that summarizes our selection of facets of the people. An image of national dress is no more POV than a statement of where they live or which language they speak, since those won't be entirely true either, not unless we engage in so much weasel wording that the article becomes unreadable. — kwami (talk) 07:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

OR in terms of being called 'typical' unless you could find RS describing the image as an accurate picture of a 'typical' whatever-the-ethnicity (and I mean multiple RS which isn't dated or put out by the government's tourist bureau glamming up and promoting a multi-million dollar industry). As regards national dress, how does that define an ethnic group? When it comes to most ethnic groups from Europe, for example, there are multiple selections for regional costumes. These costumes, themselves, changed dramatically over the centuries and are certainly no longer worn down the street as part of everyday dress. Ethnicity itself is a well massaged concept which took root in the 19th century, and traits have been added and substituted copiously. Most nation-states are treated as ethnic groups, yet are subdivided into various ethnic groups who don't even speak the same languages. 'National' costumes are representative of whom? Do Spaniards wear Flamenco costumes? Does that make Spaniards Andalusians, and is that a reasonable representation for a reader, or is it a fabrication (like a "Russian" cossack, or a "Ukrainian" wearing archaic regional clothing from within Western Ukraine which was under Polish rule for hundreds of years). Sorry, but reaching for a single image doesn't cut the mustard any more than images of 'typical' representatives of a given ethnic group as being short and swarthy when there are as many tall blonds who make up the population as these 'typical' representatives. As I've already stated, the infobox is not the place for such oversimplification. Iryna Harpy (talk) 10:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Iryna Harpy—a photograph of a group of people gathered together to reflect on the commonalities that tie that group together can illustrate the subject of an article on that group of people. We see that here. You are saying "depicting the 'pride' of a community is also a WP:PPOV abstraction that has no place in the quick glance facts and figures that MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE describes. 'Pride' can also be construed as bigotry, oversimplification, etc." An image can depict group cohesiveness. Such images are not always available but when they are we certainly should consider using them. Bus stop (talk) 11:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@Bus stop: No one is disputing the use of pertinent images within the body of an article. As regards such an image being used in the infobox of our article on African Americans, where are the RS discussing the group as a cohesive unit who enjoy sharing their commonality? Are African Americans a cohesive socio-economical, political, notional, practical, et al. group? Can you please provide citations for this? Given that - per the article - there are 45,789,188 African Americans, that certainly sound like a seriously difficult assertion to back up with RS to me! You see, I can recognise the use for reliably sourced demographic material from the census as being exactly what readers are looking for at a glance. I can't see how this person named 'Jack Hadley' taking other people on a tour in a museum in Georgia (are they all actually African American, not visiting French Moroccans, or Afro-Brazilians?) is representative of what is a very, very diverse group of people. There is a discourse to be had about the commonality in the history of African Americans, but we have dedicated articles for this. You are conflating an aspect of being African American - albeit a significant and terrible one - with being a contemporary African American. That is both OR and PPOV. Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:46, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Iryna Harpy—there can be a kaleidoscopic number of manifestations of members of a group contemplating a shared identity deriving from a shared history. This is just one. The purpose for the congregation depicted in that image seems to be the contemplation of the shared identity that is the subject of the article "African Americans". I think it is an appropriate image to illustrate that article. Bus stop (talk) 12:12, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Notifications of the participants in previous discussions

@Cordless Larry, Meters, SMcCandlish, Hebel, Maunus, Moxy, 23 editor, and Alessandro57: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @TaivoLinguist, Gunkarta, Iryna Harpy, Anonimu, Borsoka, Bus stop, and Antidiskriminator: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Enos733, Fakirbakir, Frietjes, Kwamikagami, Coolabahapple, Nihil novi, Norden1990, and WilliamThweatt: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @GRuban, Sturmgewehr88, Al Ameer son, Pldx1, LjL, Vanjagenije, Andrew Davidson, and Davey2010: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Khirurg, Softlavender, No such user, SilkTork, RGloucester, Feminist, My very best wishes, and James Allison: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Hammersoft, Kaldari, Samotny Wędrowiec, Carrite, Cobblet, Meatsgains, Off-shell, and Staberinde: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Debresser, Dr.K., Aircorn, Doug Weller, Arjayay, Cara777, Wee Curry Monster, and Katangais: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Laszlo Panaflex, David Eppstein, Aircorn, Masem, Savvyjack23, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Dmcq, and Marchjuly: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Drmies, Bloodofox, FunkMonk, Paine Ellsworth, PeterTheFourth, EvergreenFir, Dmcq, and EvergreenFir: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @TransporterMan, RexxS, Graeme Bartlett, Mandruss, Jayron32, Carlotm, Snow Rise, and Montanabw: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC) @Sunrise and S Marshall: Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Cordless Larry, Meters, SMcCandlish, Hebel, Maunus, Moxy, 23 editor, Alessandro57, TaivoLinguist, Gunkarta, Iryna Harpy, Anonimu, Borsoka, Bus stop, Antidiskriminator, Enos733, Fakirbakir, Frietjes, Kwamikagami, Coolabahapple, Nihil novi, Norden1990, WilliamThweatt, GRuban, Sturmgewehr88, Al Ameer son, Pldx1, LjL, Vanjagenije, Andrew Davidson, Davey2010, Khirurg, Softlavender, No such user, SilkTork, RGloucester, Feminist, My very best wishes, James Allison, Hammersoft, and Kaldari: I was requested (at my talk) to notify editors mentioned above about this discussion since the previous ping may not have worked. Sorry about any duplicates. Johnuniq (talk) 23:49, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
• @Samotny Wędrowiec, Carrite, Cobblet, Meatsgains, Off-shell, Staberinde, Debresser, Dr.K., Aircorn, Doug Weller, Arjayay, Cara777, Wee Curry Monster, Katangais, Laszlo Panaflex, David Eppstein, Masem, Savvyjack23, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Dmcq, Marchjuly, Drmies, Bloodofox, FunkMonk, Paine Ellsworth, PeterTheFourth, EvergreenFir, TransporterMan, RexxS, Graeme Bartlett, Mandruss, Jayron32, Carlotm, Snow Rise, Montanabw, Sunrise, and S Marshall: I was requested (at my talk) to notify editors mentioned above about this discussion since the previous ping may not have worked. Sorry about any duplicates. Johnuniq (talk) 23:50, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I believe there is value in a composite image showing a representative sampling. "There's nothing much distinctive between the Spanish, French, Dutch and Germans these days" is, unfortunately, a European-centric view, which assumes that Europeans are the standard, and not distinctive, and everyone knows what a European looks like. Its bad enough that we mostly write about Europeans, we definitely shouldn't write assuming our readers are mainly Europeans. There is noticeable value in showing that the Spanish, and the French, and the Dutch, and the Germans, all look noticeably different from people from South Africa, or Singapore, or Kuwait, or Japan. --GRuban (talk) 03:53, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

The RfC prompt presents a complication to me in answering, insofar as I am not sure if I am meant to be addressing this issue from a standpoint of the advisability of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES (the principle of which I did not entirely agree with, prior to it becoming enshrined in style guidance) or if I am meant to be answering the question of whether it applies here. So I'll address both questions independently:

• To begin with, I know that there was some disagreement regarding the closes of the previous discussions that resulted in the principle being added to the style manual, but I won't address that here, especially insofar as its been years. I'll presume that the closers got the analysis of consensus correct, though I can't recall if that was my perspective at the time. But if we are re-examining the question de novo, so to speak, I will say that I don't think the appropriate outcome was reached in the previous case. Just because an area is prone to POV, edit-warring, and original research does not mean that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and prohibit elements that could enhance the educational value of our content. In the case of articles about ethnic groups, where one of the most clearly lead-relevant categories of image (those of people) is excluded, I feel like the cart has very much been put before the horse. I just see no reason why such galleries (or for that matter, singular images) could not be evaluated under a WP:V/WP:DUE analysis, same as any controversial issue.

Beyond that, and more generally, I still have the same opinion I did back during the original discussion: there's no reason this shouldn't be handled as a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS matter in which the editors working on a given article decide if a gallery would be appropriate for the lead and which images are appropriate for inclusion. The pragmatic argument that was advanced by some in the more recent of the previous discussion, that there had been too much zealous discussion/debate surrounding certain articles and that it would save project resources to have a static standard of dis-inclusion of this element, does not begin to hold water for me under our community principles and processes: editors can wish to spend as much or as little time discussing particular editorial concerns as they like, and so long as they are non-disruptive in their approach and ultimately accept consensus, I see no reason why we should be protecting editors from themselves in terms of time commitments, particularly where this is used as discussion for foreclosing the possibility of inclusion of a type of content. Again this seems to be an inversion of priorities. All factors considered, this wording continues to strike me much as it did back during the original discussion: well-intentioned but thoroughly ill-advised rule WP:CREEP.

• However, while I do not believe the style guidance is well advised, it clearly was adopted under the closure summaries of the previous two discussions. So it is official guidance. Having that status, and looking at the current wording of how those closes were rendered into MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, there is is a separate question of whether that wording seems to capture the use of single images in the same context for which galleries are disallowed--and whether I think the editors who supported the consensus position in those discussions were indicating support for the ban to include such single images. As to that question, I have to say yes. In other words, while I disagree that the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES language is advisable, so long as it is official style guidance, I believe single images used for the same purpose are covered under it, implicitly if not explicitly. I think all of the participants of the original discussion probably would have voted in more or less the same manner if the original discussion had expressly inquired about singular images in addition galleries and that this is to some extent captured in the arguments of some there.

In summary, if this is not to be a review of the underlying advisability of the guidance, then I think that style language should be view to implicitly cover singular images. However, insofar as WP:consensus can change, and those discussions are now well over three and half years old, and clearly opinions are still divided on whether or not leads in such articles should include representative images, and the previous closures were close matters, there's no reason why the issue can't be revisited by the editorial community. But that would require starting over with a new RfC with prompts contributed by the advocates for the different positions, since this RfC arguably asks after the second issue of the two I've addressed above (or at least, is ambiguous to this point). But it's entirely possible that with the benefit of a few years of living with this style language, the contemporary community would be for returning this call to the editors of particular articles as a matter of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS flexibility. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping, this is an interesting topic. I was opposed to the removal of images of people at the time, but I accept the consensus, and I accept that the use of images of people, either single or montage, can be problematic in representing ethnicity, which is not the same as race, which groups people according to physical characteristics. Ethnicity is more closely related to shared values, such as religion and nationality, though it is not synonymous with those either. I am a white British person. I speak English and live in England. Most people call me English. However, I was born in Wales as were my parents. My mother's parents came from Ireland and Cornwall. My father's parents came from Portugal. On forms there is often a box to tick for Ethnicity. I don't find that the ethnicities offered quite match me. Irish is offered, and White British is offered, but if I tick either one of those I am denying my Portuguese heritage. I tick Other and put down Celtic. And that comforts me, as all those nations are Celtic nations, and I more readily identify with the history and spirit of Celticism. I feel proud to be Celtic. Part of my user name reflects that: the Tork element is a variant spelling of Torc. But while I identity as Celtic, I am not identifying as an Ancient Celt with Isatis tinctoria on my face (yes, what is Isatis tinctoria? Well it's the Wikipedia name for woad - I think I'll start a discussion to change that back to the common name!). I am a modern Celt. What represents that? Is it a visual representation of a person or group of people? No, I don't think so. A love for art, poetry, music, nature, and the spiritual within nature, and the shared history of the Celtic people is what I feel. A Celtic knot would do fine for me. And I suspect there will be similar such images which would work for other ethnicities, such as a shamrock for the Irish, and a rose for the English. However, as with selecting images of people, the core argument would still hold that assumptions or original research are not appropriate, that the images should be chosen through diligent research, and supported by reliable sources. SilkTork (talk) 11:53, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
• My opinion is simple: we don't need any image. There is no single representative person that accurately represents any ethnic group on a visual sense. --Jayron32 14:25, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• "There is no single representative person that accurately represents any ethnic group on a visual sense." That is true. But the cohesiveness of groups can be suggested in an image such as this. A grouping of humanity largely exists because of shared history. (I am getting the term "shared history" from the above post by SilkTork.) It is not unusual for people to convene for the purpose of deriving satisfaction from their shared history. Images are sometimes capable of depicting the satisfaction derivable from group membership. Bus stop (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• I am having a hard time understanding the rationale behind excluding single lead images for these articles but not others. For the reasons described here, should we also not have an image for Woman, Human body, Breast, Nursing, and Professor, if there is no single representative person for these subjects? How is that different than the lead images for Apple, House, Table? Similar to what User:Snow Rise stated, just because an area is subject to edit-warring doesn't mean it is best to exclude lead images. It does make sense to me, however, to choose a style which excludes galleries representing groups of people. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• In my opinion we don't need to add to rulecruft, and can leave this to the discretion of editors, including the option to not have a lead image at all. Debresser (talk) 16:51, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• That is the best approach—we are not required to have an image, but we are permitted to have an image. Bus stop (talk) 17:04, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. Not everyone is a visual person, but for those who are, images really help them grasp the topic. We certainly don't need a rule about it. Removing rules is usually a very good thing.—S Marshall T/C 20:26, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• I don't really have much to add beyond what I said at the Man/Woman articles (which Flyer22 quoted above). There is consensus regarding use of galleries for ethnic groups or "similarly large human populations". "Men" and "Women" are "large human populations", and reducing a gallery of images to a single one exacerbates, rather than resolves, the problems highlighted in the RfC. The argument otherwise seems quite untenable. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:09, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the RfCs about galleries came out of discussions about galleries of portraits of famous people; I think there's a lot of nuance in that discussion which resulted in excluding any galleries for groups of people. My question is how is using a single lead image for groups of people different from using a lead image for anything else, as I discussed above? Is the only reason to exclude images for these articles to avoid edit-warring?  Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Those composites and/or galleries usually included only non-famous people or mostly non-famous people. Occasionally, famous people were included. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:24, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Just as User:Bus stop stated below, I do not think this is correct. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I saw a number of the articles that used composites. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

And regardless, the issues with composites or single images aren't resolved by using images of non-famous people. Also, "notable" and "famous" are not the same thing. A composite may include a notable person who the vast majority of people do not recognize. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:44, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

The initial RfC that led to MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES was about galleries of famous people.  Discussing semantics is boring. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:55, 27 June 2019‎ (UTC)

The second RfC, which I initiated, was not just about notables (famous people or otherwise). And reading all of both discussions shows that editors were not just concerned about notables in the composites. This latest discussion shows the same thing. If you think that editors who voted against composites/galleries in those discussions were only against composites/galleries of notables, you are mistaken. One can surely ping them all again so that they can make that clear to you. But it would best if you just stop arguing the "but if notables weren't included" point. Discussing semantics is boring only to those who don't care about accuracy. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:06, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Flyer22 and their strawmannishness. Not interested in more boring arguments under threat of tantrum. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:43, 28 June 2019‎ (UTC)

And yet, in addition to mischaracterizing things that I state and you being the actual one to throw tantrums (insisting that whatever article needs a different lead picture or at least one lead picture after consensus has stated otherwise and that we must discuss more because that consensus did not include you), you keep trying to argue me on everything. You very well know that I would rather not engage with you. But you are always just so desperate to argue with me and get the last word, like now. "Not interested in more boring arguments under threat of tantrum," you say. Well, let's see if you come back for a reply. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)  

This is an obvious setup so that if I respond Flyer can make it look like I needed to get the last word, and if I don't respond Flyer can create unchallenged false narratives.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:08, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• As a reader (not an editor), if I wanted to look up an ethnic group, I’d like to know what they look like. What’s so bad about putting an image in the infobox if we put plenty of images in the body? And if it’s “stereotyping”, then why have a description at all in the article? I feel like we should just throw an image in the infobox and if someone doesn’t like that one then we can have a RfC and !vote for a different one. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 05:40, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't think this is correct, Flyer22 Reborn. As I remember most supposed representatives of an ethnicity had articles, that is to say they were "notable". Bus stop (talk) 13:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Since you moved your comment back out of thread order, I will go ahead and make it explicitly clear that my first responses to Kolya Butternut on notables are also responses to you. I certainly was not going to repeat myself in two different spots because one response is out of thread order. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:13, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

No big deal. I just chose to move my post to where I originally put it. Peace. Bus stop (talk) 12:37, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose as creeping increase of regulation that is contrary to the work of the encyclopedia. The Ethnic Galleries RFC was closed with this decision:

there is consensus to remove portrait galleries from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups. The main reasons given for this decision are that, lacking objective criteria, it is original research to determine who should be featured in the gallery, that this selection process generates a lot of unnecessary conflict, and that a few individuals are not an adequate visual representation of a large group of people.

Essentially this rationale stems from the mismatch between the infobox label, say Greeks, and the ethnic gallery. The community found that Wikipedia saying that person X or a gallery of Greek people is representative of Greeks as a category to be a problem. It's a very different thing to caption an image in the lead with a much more specific label that is relevant to, but not necessarily representative the group in question. In that case, there's no question of "objective criteria" to represent the group, "adequacy" to represent everyone, or unnecessary conflict. In fact, the only controversy at African Americans is Flyer22 Reborn's proposal that there shouldn't be any image at all.

As editors, I think we should be wary of any blanket restriction that requires less information be made available about major social topics, and extending this rule would be an pretty big step in that direction.--Carwil (talk) 17:35, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Carwil, that's not a controversy. We can see above and at that talk page that it seems that most a number of people would prefer no image at all in cases like these. Why that's the case is what has already been stated above by editors. Rhododendrites sums it up well. A single image is not at all better. In fact, it's worse. My opinion on that won't change. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2019 (UTC) I struck "most" since not enough people from the previous RfCs weighed in here and since "most" only applies to the African Americans RfC thus far. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

And since this page is on my watchlist, there is no need to ping me to it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

• I would love to get more involved with this discussion and read the points given here in greater depth, more closely to what I had done last time, but sadly I do not have as much free time on my hands these days. It is a very interesting discussion though, one that needs to be had. For now I will simply say that I do not think there can be a single image that accurately represents the diverse nature of each and every ethnic group. Paintings related to these people's history, or symbols related to their cultural heritage, would be better options as images near the top of ethnicity articles because they are simply important cultural objects - not aiming to accurately represent (for example) the appearance of each group. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 00:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• "For now I will simply say that I do not think there can be a single image that accurately represents the diverse nature of each and every ethnic group." What do you mean by the "diverse nature of each and every ethnic group"? Are you only referring to physical appearance? Obviously one image cannot represent the appearances of every member of an ethnic group. But an image at a Black History Museum represents African Americans. We have such an image here. Bus stop (talk) 17:23, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Question: Number of images in a gallery's row?

Greetings and felicitations. I thought I ran across something stating that the number of images in a gallery's row should not be limited, but I cannot find it again. I.e., galleries should be allowed to wrap to the browser window's width. Do I recall incorrectly, or am I just missing it in my search? —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:15, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't remember seeing anything like that, but not fixing the number is imo best practice. An optimist would believe that the fact that the option has been coded means there must be some valid use for it.... Johnbod (talk) 13:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Templates with images within the lead

MOS:LEADIMAGE does not appear to mention that navigation templates often contain images and are often placed in the lead section of an article. If the same rules apply then that should be mentioned. If different rules apply then MOS:LEADIMAGE should point to those policies/guidelines. Hyacinth (talk) 00:30, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

It says "It is common for an article's lead or infobox ...", infoboxes being by far the most common template type in leads. Other templates, used over many articles, should imo only be at the top of the article if there are no other images to use, and rarely comply with MOS:LEADIMAGE. Template creators often shove their creations in at the top, but most should be moved well down the page. Johnbod (talk) 04:21, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

RfC on images at Talk:Minneapolis

An editor has started three RfC's at Talk:Minneapolis regarding the removal of three images. These RfC's appear to be a difference in interpreting the outcome of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 8#WP:PERTINENCE section. The input of others would be appreciated. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 17:21, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

"Sandwiching" between an image and an infobox should be allowed

The current text says "How­ever, a­void sand­wich­ing text be­tween... an im­age and in­fo­box, nav­i­ga­tion tem­plate". But as pointed out during a past discussion (which I can't find), it is impossible to know when an image actually sandwiches text between itself and an infobox, since it depends entirely on individual screen resolutions, custom thumbnail size, text size, etc. Yet we have people running around enforcing this as a "rule", by moving pictures far away form infoboxes, just because it looks a certain way on their individual screens, using this guideline as justification. I think this guideline regarding infoboxes should be removed, as it is WP:instruction creep that doesn't really serve much of a useful purpose. Is it really that damaging that an image is placed on the left of an infobox? Plenty of FAs have this with no problems. FunkMonk (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I do think the current statement is too simplistic, but at the same time thoughtless layout can be a problem so something should be said. I've always interpreted "sandwiching" as meaning a too-narrow squeeze, not just any time two images are opposite each other. When two images are (or are likely to be, depending on platform and screen size) opposite each other, my practice has been to limit the total of their two widths to the upright=1.8 figure which the guideline gives as "largest value for images floated beside text". I take an infobox or other box as upright=1 for these purposes unless there's an image inside it forcing it bigger. Whether it's worth trying to modify the guideline to say something like that, I don't know. EEng 19:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

All sandwiching is harmful, given that the majority of readers now use mobile devices, including phones. Infoboxes are actually worse as one element in the sandwiching, because their size is less easily modified. There's no need to sandwich text; centrally placed images or packed galleries can be used to allow images to be near the relevant text without sandwiching. I see no reason to change the current guidelines. The pity is that they are so often ignored. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

What are you talking about? In mobile view images, boxes, and other floating material stand alone without text on either side. EEng 21:54, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree when using my phone (not in mobile view mode) sandwich of text is extremely bad at times....just imagine how it would look at File:Example of tech sandwich Syrian Civil War.png if we jam an image on the left. Seems like we need a better policy on bloated infoboxes.--Moxy 🍁 22:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why aren't you using mobile view on a mobile device? But I agree about bloated infoboxes. EEng 22:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Too many elements missing in mobile view and even worse with our app. In mobile view you get no nav templates, many charts are omitted if there is even one html error, no portals, no categories, no links to talk pages in many cases, no way to use our tools, no alt text and the watch list is a joke. Example of what is seen with 2 images on the same rows. File:Mobile view text sandwich Washington State.png--Moxy 🍁 22:24, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Personally I use desktop view on my phone as well, just because it's familiar, and the squeeze doesn't bother me because I understand it's a choice I've made to see it that way. But most of our readers on mobile devices are using mobile view (for better or for worse) so we're still back at the original point: issues seen in desktop view seen on a mobile device don't really accrue to our readers. EEng 22:34, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Still same problem in desktop File:Washington (state) text sandwich.png..... breaking up (fragmentation) of sentences is a big accessibility concern for those with disabilities.. so we should minimize when posible MOS:ACCIM.--Moxy 🍁 22:42, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

That's on a laptop/desktop, or phone? EEng 22:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Default settings. ...laptop on my 62inch TV. View Syrian Civil War it's info box has the same sandwich affect as 2 images....just all sandwich to one side instead of the middle....what do you see?-Moxy 🍁 23:07, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

In Syrian CW I see the first line of text as The Syrian Civil War (Arabic: الحرب الأهلية السورية‎, al-ḥarb al- (and there the line ends); no surprise since the infobox is grossly overstuffed and overwide. But back on Washington, I'm concerned about what your settings must be; at 16:9 the first line is The state is typically thought of as politically divided by the Cascade Mountains,,whereas your screenshot shows only the first six words. EEng 23:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thats the point we have no clue what peoples settings are or browser or screens they are using ... so best play it safe for all so it does not happen to anyone.--Moxy 🍁 00:43, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

But your settings seem inappropriate to your device, which presumably has the same 16:9 a.r. as mine. EEng 00:47, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

But those examples show over-bloated infoboxes, not examples of sandwiching between infobox and image. It is very rare that infoboxes are that wide. And yeah, at least the Wikipedia app does not show infoboxes next to text. FunkMonk (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how the sandwich with an infobox is any different...sandwich of text is the problem anywhere File:CanadaScreenShot.png.--Moxy 🍁 00:43, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

That is a very extreme case, though, I don't know what your screen settings are, but its either a very small screen or very large text/images default size. The point is that not all screens would even show an image next to the infobox, but way below it, as was demonstrated in the old discussion I can't find. Therefore, what one viewer sees is not the same as what everyone else sees, and he may change something that is perfectly fine to most others. FunkMonk (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

That's sort of what I was trying to say. EEng 21:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

"Most images should be right justified on pages" again

Ɱ, regarding this and this, what are you talking about? What "consistency with below"? That the section also states "Mul­ti­ple im­ages can be stag­gered right and left." does not at all equate to "In longer articles with more images, staggering images left and right, using |left is often preferred." Staggering images is usually a stylistic matter. Images being right-adjusted is the default. And as you know, this has been extensively discussed before. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Coming back years later, and then adding in your preference without further discussion? That is not a good move. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

For the 2017 discussion about this involving you, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 9#Right-justified images. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Just clarification of Multiple images can be staggered right and left. which is hopelessly vague, and literally directly contradicts the earlier MOS statement Most images should be right justified on pages. Others expressed further clarification there, only sandwiching pedants were opposed. But whatever, I'm not attached to it, and don't want to argue further. ɱ (talk) 03:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Ɱ, the "Multiple images can be staggered right and left." piece is enough leeway without overly endorsing staggering or stating that it's something that should be done. Your latest wording was not a clarification. It was you stating that staggering "is often preferred" in longer articles. By whom? Certainly not by me. As the previous discussion shows, we should keep staggering to a minimum, and not just in short articles. Since the text already states "Most images should be right justified on pages", the "Multiple images can be staggered right and left" text is simply reiterating that right-justified is not always the case. It's not a contradiction. The section then explains how staggering can be a problem. What is vague is "an exception" to the default, because neither you nor anyone else has noted when an image must be staggered left. Sure, if sandwiching can be avoided, we'd want to stagger it left instead of having it extend into the References section. But we can also just remove the image unless removing it is detrimental to the article. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree to disagree then, but I think most people would agree that the two statements are contradictory, not supplementing each other in a clear way. It's a weak point of the MOS that has led people to irrationally insist on right-only in articles only because that's the way the MOS says to, which is irritating. ɱ (talk) 04:17, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

• Staggering left and right used to be the preferred and recommended style, back in the days when nearly everyone had a screen of similar size and shape. People used to be made to do it at FAC, and I used to do it as a matter of course. But that has all changed now. But there are still times left-aligned images are better, especially to keep portraits facing into the page (covered somewhere else in the policy forest). The current statements seem rather sloppy and contradictory, & it would be good to sort that. I can't say I see many disputes over it these days though. Johnbod (talk) 04:39, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ɱ, we have different definitions of what contradictory is. I point to the statement that "most people are right-handed" as an example. The word most is there for a reason. It doesn't mean "all." Similarly, "most images should be right justified on pages" uses most for a reason and does not mean "always." So, of course, it's going to be the case that multiple images can be staggered right and left. As for "irrationally insist on right-only in articles"? What is irrational about it? There are solid reasons for it. We already have enough people insisting on staggering "just because." And by "just because", I mean because they personally prefer it or because some WP:GA or WP:FA article uses that style. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

We could change the "Mul­ti­ple im­ages can be stag­gered right and left." text to "Although mul­ti­ple im­ages can be stag­gered right and left when a left-aligned position is warranted [...]." If we do, it would definitely help to give an example of when a left-aligned image is preferable to a right-aligned image. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:55, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Renaming of page sections

Not sure whats going on but can all read over MOS:BROKENSECTIONLINKS the edits broke every shortcut and link from other MOS pages and templates. Need much more care before mass change in section titles.--Moxy 🍁 00:24, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

The above post by Moxy was originally made in the section "Most images should be right justified on pages" again, but, based of its content and edits made by EEng, myself, as well as Moxy,I believe it warrants its own section and so have moved it.—The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 01:19, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• I have no problem if there is a change for clarity. Just needs to be in its entirety ...as in all in coming redirects and links changed or anchored. I would do this to help but I see they have changed a few times. So perhaps a talk (like this) so we can establish what change and implemented it.--Moxy 🍁 02:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

  I forgot myself and changed two section headings without remembering to add anchors/spans to keep incoming links all working. Now I've put the headings back, because the changes I'd made weren't important and they messed things up and I'm too lazy to insert the anchors and spans. There's nothing left to discuss. EEng 02:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Bold edits and multiple reverts

As per WP:PGBOLD new edits are welcomed....but once reverted a talk should take place or at the very least join ongoing talks. To quote our policy ....editors of policy and guideline pages are strongly encouraged to follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards."--Moxy 🍁 02:42, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Moxy. Regarding this, I clearly prefer the long-standing "most images should be right justified on pages" wording. EEng's "In most articles, most or all images are on the right side of the page" wording is simply telling readers that most images are like that, rather than stating that they should be like that. And I disagree with the removal of "should" per previous discussions. Most images being right-adjusted can easily change via editors going around and having most images placed on the left. What we want editors to know is that images should typically be right-adjusted unless there is a good reason to place them on the left side. But again, what are those good reasons? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:43, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

And, Moxy, do you have any opinion on the right-adjusted matter? See the latest discussion about it above, and the following previous discussion about it: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 9#Right-justified images. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:47, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

And I know that EEng doesn't prefer it, but I sense an RfC coming on, especially if the back and forth reverting continues. Might as well survey more editors on the "right justified" matter. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:55, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

3 small points, Original wording better! - image placement back and forth may sandwich text for some and not others? - And does Wikipedia:EISL still happen is some form or another? --Moxy 🍁 06:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• Whatever. Look, I've made one final change [1] to which it's hard to imagine anyone objecting (though, of course, the unimaginable happens every day on WP). You guys can waste your time arguing about should. EEng 15:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Guidance on "cartoonish" graphics

Myself and some others have raised some concerns over at social distancing over the use of a series of "cartoonish" graphics for medical advice. You are welcome to join that discussion, and please make comments specific to that situation there to keep discussion centralized. For here, I was wondering if the MoS gives any guidance about, for instance, which types of fonts are most ideal for a graphic illustration. And, if not, should such guidance be added? I'm not envisioning a strict policy banning comic sans so much as more of a "if you have the choice, don't use comic sans" kinda thing. Sdkb (talk) 05:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Size

The guideline said: "Except with very good reason, a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 17px) may be specified." WP:THUMBSIZE says: "Except with very good reason, do not use [fixed width in pixels]." This contradiction was I believe unintentional, but since the previous wording is more in line with the other guideline, I've restored it until a new wording, if desired, can be agreed. DrKay (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I have changed to "Except with very good reason,[clarification needed] a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 17px) should not be specified." - no doubt that "not" had been removed at some point. There have been any numbers of undiscussed fiddles to this wording over the years, and the community's view is not very clear - the use of both fixed pixels and "upright" settings have been in decline for some years, it seems to me. DrKay's new wording of "absolutely necessary" clearly tightened the criterion considerably, in an unhelpfully vague way, as his own "clarify" tag showed. Johnbod (talk) 15:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

To this I've added the few cases where fixed pixels are generally allowed, please review if there's issues with that. --Masem (t) 16:01, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - there are in fact many other cases where fixed pix are more accepted, for example lead images and those with odd shapes. Johnbod (talk) 16:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

360-degree panoramas

Frary Dining Hall
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

Do we have any standards or templates for displaying 360-degree photographs? I'm trying to do so at Prometheus (Orozco), but linking to the WMF labs page, roughly copying here, is the best I could find. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Template:Panorama?--Moxy 🍁 23:05, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

No, that template is for conventional panoramas, not 360-degree panoramas akin to Google Streetview, which is what I'm talking about. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: See right. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:06, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@King of Hearts: Thanks for the link! That template doesn't seem super well-developed, so I might change it. In the article, I currently use The Frary Dining Hall refectory in 2018 (View as a 360° panorama. I think the plain link is good, since the panoviewer is still a WMF site and I think we generally try to use plain links for WMF content (though I'm not sure if that's codified anywhere). I don't know what the best language to use for the image might be (360° panorama? 360° surround photography? photosphere?); the term itself isn't super well-defined yet. Any thoughts on the best term to use? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

There is almost no reason to ever link to WMF Labs in article space, so I wouldn't be surprised if MoS is silent on whether such links should appear as internal or external. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@King of Hearts: I'll add that standard if I find a spot for it if that's alright. Regarding the term, our article calls it VR photography; do you have any thoughts about what might be clearest? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:04, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

You should probably propose it on the talk page to get a consensus first; as someone active in style and naming, I am acutely aware of the many wars that have been fought over the tiniest of details. Personally, I think "VR" is more commonly used for videos and "360" is more commonly used for photos. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:07, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb, King of Hearts, and Moxy: I just came across one of these at Palm Springs International Airport. My concern is about the source image. Typically images are stored on the Commons, but I'm not sure where these images are stored. Are they on the Pannellum website? Are the images free of copyright? Should this be considered an external link? Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:29, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

(IAR commenting in archive) @Magnolia677: That image is another one of mine If you click on the enlarge button in the caption, it'll take you to the file on Commons, but that button definitely isn't noticeable enough. Toolforge is affiliated with the WMF but I think it is technically off-site; there's a wishlist item that sought to get it improved, but it seems 90+ votes isn't enough to get the WMF to actually take it up. For now, I think the future-facing thing to do is to continue to upload 360-degree photos to Commons (you can take them with the photosphere feature on Google Camera) and add them to articles with the expectation that the rendering tool will eventually be improved. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:38, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Thanks for the info. What a great tool! I tried it on my photo at Hoohoo, West Virginia and it loaded perfectly, but you definitely need to use it on a true 360 photo. Cheers! Magnolia677 (talk) 10:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Propose moving MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES from subsection Images for the lead

Looking at the most recent RfC here, it appears that the decision was that there would be no ethnic galleries in articles, not just leads. The location of the NOETHNICGALLERIES guidance in the Images for the lead subsection implies that it only applies to the lead. I found this confusing. The RFCs came in stages, and one had a contested closing, making this hard to research.

Maybe move to the Pertinence and encyclopedic nature subsection higher up. LaTeeDa (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Or, maybe the RfC only applies to leads, although it says articles. S_Marshall, you closed the RfC referenced above, appreciate if you could clarify. LaTeeDa (talk) 20:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Strictly speaking it applies to infoboxes. We can understand "infoboxes" and "leads" as interchangeable in this context.—S Marshall T/C 00:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. These ethnic galleries are a cancer, they grow and grow. For example, Eurasian (mixed ancestry).

Proposal withdrawn.LaTeeDa (talk) 10:37, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

LaTeeDa and S Marshall, like I stated with this edit, "It's also still question as to whether this guideline applies to lower in the article; maybe [we] should move it out of this lead section." In the followup RfC, I did ask editors about this matter; it was one of the things I felt needed clarification. Although not enough editors in the RfC explicitly stated that they felt MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES applied to galleries lower in the article, it seemed that most editors were for the guideline extending to the same thing happening lower in the article. This is because, to repeat, it doesn't make sense to state that it is any more of a problem to have ethnicity galleries or similar in the lead than lower in the article. I noted that the same concerns would still be taking place in the article, except now it would concern the lower part of the article instead of the lead. As for how things are today? A number of editors cite MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES when removing ethnicity galleries from lower in the article. And as seen in the ANI discussion I linked to in the guideline, Sandstein stated of S Marshall's close, "In my view, you also correctly put forth the view that this would also apply to galleries further down the page, if these galleries had, like a lead image, no purpose other than 'here's what a bunch of x-people look like'." So, to me, it is probably best that MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES be moved out of the lead section in the guideline. I'm sure that if we surveyed the editors who voted, the ones who were for MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES will clarify that they feel it extends to lower in the article as well.

Please don't ping me if you respond to this. I'll see replies eventually. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• You could always boldly make some changes to the guideline and see if they're reverted?—S Marshall T/C 22:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Changed the guideline, per suggestion above. LaTeeDa (talk) 15:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

That's my understanding of how this has been applied. I'll point out that some of the confusion over the scope is likely a result of the first (Nov 2015) RFC being reworded. For two or three weeks there was a discrepancy between the header and the actual RFC wording scope: one referred to articles and one referred to infoboxes. Meters (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Meters, this is the November 2015 RfC. The header states "Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups" and the part of the closure states "The result of this RfC is that there is consensus to remove portrait galleries from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups." So what do you mean by "For two or three weeks there was a discrepancy between the header and the actual RFC wording scope"? And what rewording?

For the record, regarding LaTeeDa's bold edit, I felt it was best that I not make that change since not enough editors had specified supporting MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES extending to lower in the article and since I was heavily involved in the January 2016 RfC (and started that RfC). Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 16:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

From the discussion above, it is clear that the 2016 RfC did not reach consensus about whether MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES should apply lower in the article, although there are other reasons for moving MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES out of Images for the Lead. If the 2016 RfC scope applies only to infoboxes/leads, contrary to the RfC proposal statement, shouldn't the closing statement be amended to clearly qualify the scope? As is, with the proposal statement referring to 'articles', this creates confusion. With the link in MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to this RfC, the RfC has a high profile. This has a practical effect now, where editors who might disagree with my edit moving MOS:NOETHINCGALLERIES from the Images for the Lead section will read the 2016 RfC proposal and closing statement, and assume RfC support for my edit which did not exist. LaTeeDa (talk) 09:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Now I see what Meters meant. By "the 2016 RfC", are you referring the 2016 RfC I started? I ask because the November 2015 RfC also closed in 2016. Or do you mean the November 2015 RfC and the wording that was added to the guideline when you state "RfC proposal statement"? As for "If the 2016 RfC scope applies only to infoboxes/leads, contrary to the RfC proposal statement", the heading in the RfC I started is "Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members" because it is that wording that was added by the closer after the November 2015 RfC. As seen in the RfC I started, I specifically asked about the "or similarly large human populations" wording, although also querying "whether the guideline should only focus on lead images." It closed with the conclusion that "there is a rough consensus in favour of the proposal as written." The OR part was eventually removed. So although not enough editors commented on whether the guideline should only focus on lead images, more than enough supported broad interpretation. After that, we cleared up that we shouldn't be too broad, but it's still the case that no one was supporting applying MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES only to lead images. No, we shouldn't mess with the archived wording of either closure. I obviously understand why you are asking about your bold edit; again, this (and because I started an RfC on/was heavily involved in this matter) is why I did not make that edit. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Because of this discussion, I just thought about the fact that when one reads MOS:LEADIMAGE, they will no longer have advice about collages in the lead with regard to ethnicity and "similarly large human populations." So given the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES discussions -- that they mainly focused on the lead -- we should add something to the MOS:LEADIMAGE section pointing to the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES section above it. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I gave it a shot here. Followup edit here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

"Looking forward into the text"

"It is often preferable to place images of people so that they "look" toward the text." But why is this? A lot of hq images get replaced in infoboxes just because they faced the opposite way, why is this a rule, it does not seem objective. Lochglasgowstrathyre (talk) 23:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to use coats of arms created by Heralder for all relevant pages

I am not sure if this is the correct or best place to generate discussion on this particular proposal. If anyone feels that there is a better talk page for this, feel free to inform me. Anyway, here is my proposal:

Multiple pages relating to Spain especially the government institutions as well as geography-related ones including autonomous communities, provinces, comarcas, cities, and towns either use the older coats of arms based on styles used by official government websites and publications and the newer coats of arms created by Heralder. For the different versions of the coat of arms of Spain, this is the former and this is the version created by Heralder. For the sake of uniform consistency in manual of style across Wikipedia, I would like to propose we use Heralder's coats of arms for all the relevant articles due to their superior graphics quality.

StellarHalo (talk) 03:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Are more recent images favored for biographical subjects?

I was under the impression from various conversations that for biographical subjects, there is a preference for the infobox image to be a more recent image of the subject. Putting aside politicians who may have an "official" photo from their time in office, for entertainers, business people, and the like:

1. If there are multiple images available that are all equal in quality, should the most recent image be used?
2. Does it matter if the subject's public appearance has changed substantially over time?
3. If recency is not a factor, is it just a matter of what editors like best? Are there objective factors to be weighed?

Just some thoughts. Cheers! BD2412 T 23:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I feel like the lead image should illustrate how the subject is best known. For instance, Jane Fonda's image is pretty recent, which I feel makes sense because she is still very much in the public eye. Kim Novak's image is from 1962, near the height of her fame, which I feel makes sense because she is no longer in the public eye. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:04, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

That is a reasonable construction, probably more so for movie star types. BD2412 T 00:57, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

• For someone whose career is at its peak, or still on the rise, more recent is better. For an older person, perhaps retired, or an actor now doing character parts, one from their peak years is probably best. Johnbod (talk) 01:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
• I found this old BLP discussion: Prime career images vs. recent images of actors. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:02, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
  • @Johnbod and Kolya Butternut: What about people in other fields - scientists, professors, writers, etc? BD2412 T 03:47, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
    • Whereas movie stars are typically most known for their captured appearances in films, people who are notable for written works may not be known for their appearance at a particular time, so perhaps the most recent image would be most appropriate. Although, an author might be best known at the time their books were published (and the context of their life at the time may be educational). Professors are always giving public talks, so their most recent image will likely work. Is there a particular article where this came up? Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, essentially the same principle applies. Johnbod (talk) 12:32, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
      • It has come up with Hillary Clinton several times in the past, although the standard for politicians appears to use an official photo from the time when they were in their highest office attained (in her case presidential nominee)–the thought has been rolling around in my mind for a while. BD2412 T 05:45, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

BD2412, in cases where the older image is better, I will state that "newer is not always better." We should use the best image for the subject. Of course, what is the best image is often subjective. But when it comes to the most recent image not showing the public figure well (such as being blurry or only showing the side of the person's face), we should use the older image if it's of better quality. The older image would need to misrepresent the subject in some way for me to consider going with a blurry image or an image only showing the side of the person's face. Even then, an argument could be made for "no image"...although the blurry image or "side of the face" image would likely be used as "better than nothing." Also, the newer image may, for example, show the subject with a hair color they don't usually have and only briefly had (like for a certain role). If that's the case, I think it's best to go with an image of how the subject normally looks (their normal hair color).

Please don't ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

And, yes, age obviously plays a factor. If the subject looks substantially older now, using an image of them looking substantially younger will be argued as not ideal. Exceptions to this include when the only image is the younger-looking option, or when the younger-looking option is better than going with the older-looking option because of some quality issue, or if the person has died. Editors will often use an image of the person at the height of their career if the person is deceased. And the height of their career tends to be when they were younger. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:57, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Let me see if I can't isolate a few rules of thumb out of the above:

1. Where multiple images of an article subject are available, the primary image for the page should be the best available image.
2. Higher quality images (better focus, lighting, positioning of the subject) are preferable to lower quality images.
3. Images where the subject is facing more towards the front are generally preferable to images where the subject is facing more towards the side.
4. Where the subject is most famous for public activities during a certain time period, as with actors and politicians, images from that time period of their most significant work are preferable.
5. For subjects not famous for public activities, such as scientists, authors, businesspeople, and others known more by their work than by their appearance, more recent images are preferable to older images.

Does that sound right? BD2412 T 22:49, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

• Anyone? BD2412 T 21:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I think that sounds right. Number one throws me off a bit though; perhaps we could say that the primary image for the page should be the most iconic image available with the best technical quality. A portrait-like photo is usually best, unless some other context is quintessential.

I would note that using a photograph of a person when they were much younger may suggest that they have died. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:05, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I'll remind that there's also the free vs non-free angle. Obviously, living person nearly always require a free image, but we do allow very limited allows for when a person whose appearance when they were younger is notable and subject of discussion in sources, and where only non-free images are known to exist, where we allow this. This would principally be for celebrities with clear visual recognition from earlier in their careers. The core example here being "Weird Al" Yankovic pre-LASIK. When we're talking deceased people, keep in mind that while non-free can be used, if free images do exist they need to be used even if they are not as great quality as the non-free. --Masem (t) 23:18, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

So for instance, the pre-nosejob image[2] of Jennifer Grey which is in her article rules out using a better quality non-free image of her? If so that's a shame because it doesn't give a good sense of her look back then. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I would think that there has to be some sort of cutoff point where we can use a nonfree image if every nonfree image of a subject is of such poor quality as to be effectively unusable. BD2412 T 02:40, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I assume you mean "if every free image...", but yes, there are limits and allowances. If the only free images we know we have available are of such poor quality (person is tiny, person is obscured, etc.) then there would be reason to allow a non-free. But this needs to be discussed. --Masem (t) 03:27, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, good catch. BD2412 T 20:27, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, revised:

1. Where multiple images of an article subject are available, the primary image for the page should be the best free image available; if no usable free images are available than a nonfree image may be used if in accordance with image use policies for nonfree images. What constitutes the "best" image may be subjective.
2. A portrait-like photo is usually best, unless some other context is quintessential.
3. Where the subject is most famous for public activities during a certain time period, as is often the case with actors and politicians, images from that time period of their most significant work are preferable.
4. For subjects not famous for public activities, such as scientists, authors, businesspeople, and others known more by their work than by their appearance, more recent images are preferable to older images.
5. Images of higher technical quality (better focus, lighting, positioning of the subject, absence of background distractions) are generally preferable to lower quality images.
6. Images where the subject is facing more towards the front are generally preferable to images where the subject is facing more towards the side.

BD2412 T 20:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that if the subject of a photo is not facing forward then it is preferable for the subject to be facing left towards the article rather than right; does anyone know where that guidance is written? Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:42, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I missed it in this very article: It is often preferable to place images of people so that they "look" toward the text. (Do not achieve this by reversing the image, which creates a false presentation. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:04, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Just found this: Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars/Images Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:00, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

BD2412, I only agree with "Where the subject is most famous for public activities during a certain time period, as is often the case with actors and politicians, images from that time period of their most significant work are preferable." if the person is deceased. Even if a celebrity, for example, is not as famous as they were once were, editors are usually going to want to go with the most recent image unless there is solid reason not to. And unless that person is deceased, that the person was more famous during a certain time usually isn't going to get chosen over a more recent image that best represents what that person looks like now. Also, if the person is still alive, there will be more debating and edit warring over which image they think best represents the subject at the height of the career than if the person is deceased. Image matters just aren't as contentious when the subject is deceased.

And regarding "For subjects not famous for public activities, such as scientists, authors, businesspeople, and others known more by their work than by their appearance, more recent images are preferable to older images."? Again, the deceased aspect plays a factor. And so does simply going with the best avialble image. Basically, image matters are a case-by-case thing.

No need to ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:21, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I would use Milton Friedman as an example, but he actually looks pretty much the same in 2004 as he did in 1976. BD2412 T 20:45, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• 
  2004
• 
  1976

RfC: Removing every image from horse slaughter article

Opinions are needed on the following Talk:Horse slaughter#RfC: Removing every image from horse slaughter article. Mariolovr (talk) 18:01, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Image relevance

There is a discussion regarding the interpretation of MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE at Talk:Sydney Airport#Opposed image removal. Your input would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 18:19, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Lists of notable people by ethnicity and MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES

Are lists of notable people by ethnicity also included in MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES or are they exceptions? Examples of such lists are actual list articles about notable people of certain ethnicity (e.g. Lists of African Americans) and lists of notable people within articles about ethnic groups (e.g. Serbian Canadians#Notable people or Bulgarian Canadians#Notable Bulgarian Canadians). --Kliituu (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Manipulated pictures

Hi, I saw this picture there what made me think about the use of digitally altered pictures in Wikipedia. First asking there I was told to better ask here for this. The photograph used in this article has obviously excessively been digitally altered. I wonder if it is encyclopedic to use this picture and moreover to use it without marking it as manipulated. Do you have any standards concerning this aspects? In France they use a label for digitally altered photos (of models). Maybe Wikipedia could do something like this as well. --188.107.201.203 (talk) 13:29, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Image of a person in the lead with respect to WP:NPF, MOS:PERTINENCE and MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Transsexual#Lead image. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:46, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Preferred lead image time period

I've come across a few discussions (Muammar Gaddafi, Dwyane Wade, and currently Elliot Page) about whether or not it is better to switch to a more recent photo of a subject, and there is often disagreement or confusion about what we ought to be striving for. On the one hand, I think readers might expect that we always prefer a more recent photo, but on the other hand, WP:Recentism would seem to advise that we prefer a photo of the subject from whenever they were most notable. I think the latter is a somewhat more encyclopedic approach (one thought experiment: we wouldn't want all our BDP photos to be of the elderly, and I don't see why we'd want a different photo for someone when they're 90 and alive than when they're 91 and dead), but I'm open to arguments. Either way, I think we should clarify our guidance, by adding a bullet point to MOS:LEADIMAGE that could read either:

• Option 1: For biographies, all else being equal, images from the period in which the subject was most notable are preferred for the lead.
• Option 2: For biographies, all else being equal, more recent images are preferred for the lead.

What do you all think? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I think there has to be at least one other option, that additional considerations apply. In particular, BLPs and articles about Trans people (and articles that are both) may not be handled well by a principle that is blind to these factors. Newimpartial (talk) 02:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I am for neither proposal. We already disussed this: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 10#Are more recent images favored for biographical subjects?. If one wanting something like this implemented, start an RfC and advertise it. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to the prior discussion. I like the distinction that BD2412 made, which he put like this:

• Where the subject is most famous for public activities during a certain time period, as is often the case with actors and politicians, images from that time period of their most significant work are preferable.
• For subjects not famous for public activities, such as scientists, authors, businesspeople, and others known more by their work than by their appearance, more recent images are preferable to older images.

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

And given that this seems to need additional input, I'll turn this into an RfC below. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Given that the previous discussion seems to have ended without a resolution, I would welcome the opportunity for a clarification of best practices. BD2412 T 02:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That discussion shows that we should not be trying to have it so that either is generally followed. The image matter is a case-by-case thing. Newer obviously is not always better when it comes to the lead image. I will not support the WP:CREEP addition. As for the RfC, make sure that you advertise it well, like SMcCandlish advertised this one today. I'd rather not have to do that work.

That it had no resolution, BD2412, is the point. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I already notified WT:MOS and WT:Recentism, and RfCs are largely designed to advertise themselves. If there's somewhere else you want to see it, though, feel free to plop a notice there so long as it's a neutral venue. I'll add another notice to WT:WPBIO. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

WT:Recentism is an essay a supplement page that is not watched by a lot of people and is barely edited, and I don't think it truly applies in this case. Something like this needs to be well-advertised since it will affect a lot of articles. I went ahead and alerted Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons‎, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:Notability and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to the RfC. I figured that I might as well alert the WP:Notability talk page despite what our WP:Notability policy guideline actually pertains to. I would have alerted the WT:WPBIO talk page if you hadn't. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Oh, and I used your "For biography leads, do we prefer recent images or images from when the subject was most notable?" heading. And, of course, I know to keep such notifications neutral. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Request for Comment

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Option 4 by near-unanimous consent. Anyone who thinks I'm closing this too early is welcome to re-open without discussing it with me first. (non-admin closure) Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

---

Which of the following best represents how we should select lead images for biographies of living people?

1. Option 1: All else being equal, images from the period in which the subject was most notable are preferred.
2. Option 2: All else being equal, more recent images are preferred.
3. Option 3: Use Option 1 for subjects most famous for public activities during a certain time period (e.g. most actors, politicians) and Option 2 for other subjects (e.g. most scientists, authors, and businesspeople).
4. Option 4: Have no standard, and determine preference on a case-by-case basis.

{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)^{Updated 07:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC) to add "of living people".}

There are a few alternative ways to phrase "most notable" from option 1: "in their prime", "period of their most significant work", etc. If anyone feels strongly that this RfC should use different phrasing, feel free to lmk and we can change it if needed, but hopefully the general point is clear. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that if we go with Option 1, we shouldn't use the framing of "most notable" since Wikipedia generally considers notability to be either satisfied or not, rather than being a spectrum. Instead using one of those framings would be better. However, it's not necessary to change the option now, since the point is clear. Gbear605 (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

"In their prime" will almost certainly be misinterpreted to mean "when they were most handsome/pretty by everyday standards", and that's not the goal. I do like "period of their most significant work", kinda sorta. Could have problems, though. If an actor won an Academy Award in 1987 (and not since) but has still been very active and is right now starring a popular TV show ..., well you can see the dispute speeding towards you. :-). I'm not sure "All else being equal" really applies. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4. Why should we standardize something that is a case-by-case thing? Good grief. This is the very definition of WP:CREEP. By the way, since the votes will have bullet points, this RfC setup would be best without your options having bullet points. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Option 2 - It seems to be the consensus for most non-contentious articles. For instance, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Patrick Stewart all have recent pictures despite their most famous works being from the 80s and 90s. In addition, it lets pictures accurately represent the person as they are, rather than as they were. WP:RECENTISM is primarily about avoiding breaking news and not having a sudden rush of updates, rather than being about not allowing up to date coverage or forcing out dated coverage to be primary. Gbear605 (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Option 4 (1st choice) or Option 3 (2nd choice) – with caveats. As noted above, I think it's likely there will be many conflict cases, where someone was "most notable" or in "the period of their most significant work" or "in their professional prime" at year-range A according to one editor (e.g. because they won a major award), but that some period B (maybe right now) will seem to fit that criterion according to someone else (e.g. because of greatly increased productivity, or because they are today doing something high-profile and popular yet not yet award-winning). Further, I think this is missing a distinction between the lead images and images in general. For someone like Carrie Fisher, we should have an image from her original Star Wars-era breakthrough period, but also something much more recent, like from her last year or so, since she was again in major prominence. I'm not sure this RfC is really quite "ripe" and could use some rethinking and rewording. [PS: Some Keith Richards joke begs to be made here, but I'll let it pass ....]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The "all else being equal" caveats in options 1–3 are important. Choosing them doesn't mean locking ourselves out of being able to consider any other factors. I hope we're able to come to a consensus a little more definitive than option 4, which would basically be "we don't even know what we want, let alone how to actually achieve it". {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure. But when there's this much doubt about the meaning of terms and how questions should be phrased, and so on, right from the start, it often means that such an RFC will only come to a tentative conclusion and require another, clarifying RfC later. That's not "broken" or anything, but a bit inefficient. It's best to try to craft the RfC tightly to begin with. Some RfCs that are apt to have major impact go through a drafting stage in a sandbox, to make sure they're best shaped to come to a firm conclusion. So, no need to scrap this one and start over, but it's good to keep in mind for later RfCizing. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, looking at how it's gone so far, you have a fair point. I tried my best to tee it up well, but I may have fallen short here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 11:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3, reverting to option 1 when the subject dies, roughly, I think. But current scope of 3 is too broad, most actors/politicians should still be considered latest preferred. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  More recent for living people makes the most sense, as that's what you'll likely see on TV, in interviews, etc. For deceased individuals, yeah, option 1 for sure. Elvis Presley doesn't have the more recent photos just before his death, for example. -- spazure (contribs) 07:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  BTW note WP:LOWPROFILE. Notable people can become low profile later, then high profile, etc. So, we should use the latest image from when they were high profile. If an actor disappeared off the face of the earth, even if we have a picture of them in their old age, we should not use it. So, option 3, but "most recent" -> "most recent whilst high profile" ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Definitely agreed on this. Jenny Wright is a good case in point. She's almost entirely known for "pretty lady" roles in The Wall and Near Dark, but then had a long period of struggles with substance issues, which prematurely aged her rather notably, and she was out of the public eye for over 20 years. She's apparently started going to sci-fi conventions and such again, being on panels and signing autographs, but we should not use a fan-taken photo from such an event, because she would not be readily recognizable from her filmic work, and she's not done such work since 1998. It is better for her bio to remain pic-free, unless and until we have a usable picture of her from her active period, or she becomes active again and people are familiar with her as actress looking like she does now. Rick Moranis is another example; he's been near-retired for 23 years, only doing little TV-episode cameo/guest spots, voice-acting bits, a Bob & Doug TV-special, some docus, and other minor public work in the interim. (A new Honey, I ... sequel is apparently in the works, though, so he might be all over the movies and such again, now that his kids are growed up and he's getting less family-focused again.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Option 4. I think there are too many considerations for each individual case and so I am not sure how to evaluate "all else being equal" regarding how a picture is relevant to providing an adequate understanding of the article subject. Similarly, I think Option 3 would introduce more guidelines that would not be particularly helpful in making determinations on individual articles given how much interpretation would be needed just to understand the guideline itself. I also think that there may be different considerations for living vs dead biographical subjects. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 07:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4. There are just too many varying factors to consider and we should avoid WP:CREEP. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: Just for the sake of transparency, I came across this via WP:BLPN#RfC: For biography leads, do we prefer recent images or images from when the subject was most notable? I'm assuming since a link to this was added to BLPN that this is about images of living persons, right? Does it also include images for deceased persons? Are you also talking about using images already existing on Commons or otherwise released under a license that meets WP:COPY#Guidelines for images and other media files? I think these are relevant questions because the copyright status of a file plays a big part in how it may be used on Wikipedia. For example, non-free images of still living persons are pretty much never allowed per WP:NFCC#1 (WP:FREER) and even for deceased persons a freely-licensed or WP:PD image is almost always preferred over a non-free one, even when it might not show the person in their prime or might be of a lower quality. I also kind of agree with Flyer22 Frozen in that it might be better to tweak the syntax of the various options per Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example formatting since the use of bullet points in opening post are a bit confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marchjuly 07:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC) (talk • contribs) ; [Note: My apologies about the malformed signature. There was an edit conflict and I left out some tilde when trying to re-add my comment. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)]

  @Marchjuly: I think it's fairly safe to assume that option 1 is the consensus for BDPs, so yes, let's consider BLPs here. I'll update the question to add "of living people", which hopefully won't disrupt too much. Regarding the bullet points, I'm not sure what I'd replace them with, but if you or anyone else wants to improve the formatting, feel free to refactor me.

  Regarding copyright, I'm not sure I quite follow. For the sake of trying to keep this RfC simple, I think we should consider a hypothetical example in which there are plenty of freely licensed photos available of someone at all stages of their life and the core question is just which are preferable, not which are available. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The clarification is fine, but I don't think you can discuss image use without also some consideration being given to copyright matters. Even in the case of deceased persons, a freely licensed or PD image is almost always going to be preferred over a non-free one for primary identification purposes in the main infobox or at the top of the article. A non-free one only tends to be allowed when there's a consensus that a free equivalent either doesn't exist or there is no reasonable expection of ever finding or creating one. Current policy doesn't seem to be to automatically allow the use of a non-free image of someone simply because it might be better show them as they looked in their prime. This probably is one of the reasons why many BLPs do show someone as they appeared later in life because that might be the only freely licensed image that can be used. There are plenty of non-free images of actors, athletes and other living persons who show them as they might have looked when they were at the peak of their careers, but they're not going to be allowed if that can't clear the WP:FREER hurdle, and this tends to be quite hard to do for images of living persons. So, if this RFC is only about choosing between freely licensed images as you stated above and not about whether a non-free should or could be used instead, then I think that should be added to the top as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I intended for the "all else being equal" to cover that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  As a side comment to the comment, I would note that any time there's an RfC that is apt to affect a lot of BLPs, in ways that matter to WP:BLP's concerns, we tend to notify WT:BLP, even if BLPs are not the main subject of the proposal. So, it's not safe to assume that RfCs mentioned at WT:BLP are entirely BLP-specific. It's just that it's a key policy with legal implications, so if there's any potential for doubt, the BLP-watching crowd should have input into it to make sure we don't mess something up. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4. This is the sort of thing that takes human judgement, not blind rules. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. There is very little benefit to a one size fits all approach here. MOS:LEADIMAGE covers this adequately already, and there does not appear to be a widespread problem that requires this kind of WP:CREEP. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 per Crossroads. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 for someone who had a highly successful career as a whatever, and their picture was regularly in news etc, and then abandoned that and became a hermit (or whatever) and so everyone forgot about them; it makes sense to have a picture from their career no matter that we have a high quality freely licenced recent photo. For someone who was part of a highly successful band and again regularly depicted in the news etc, and then after their band broke up had a much less successful solo career so is rarely but sometimes in depicted the news etc it may make sense to use their most recent photo. As others have said, this is one case where human judgment and not fixed rules makes sense. Nil Einne (talk) 12:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Another option A bio's image should show a person as they are best known. If they are living and notable, that will (and should) be the most current (option 2) as long as it is of sufficient quality (earlier images should be used if not representative of the person). It's a different question for deceased people, and since my assumption had been that this was prompted by Diego Maradona, that needs consideration, or bios for dead people will end up being lumped in with whatever decision this tailored-for-living-people RfC decides. An image of how a deceased subject is best recognized may need more retrospective views than RDs have, for example. Kingsif (talk) 13:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I like this. It might be a way to provide guidance that gets at what we want but is much simpler, which might salve the creep objections. As with the others, I think it'd be important to have the "all else being equal" caveat, since we should be able to consider other factors as needed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• I understand why many are suggesting Option 4 to avoid creep but I see no reason that advice long the lines of Option 3 cannot be provided as a starting point for consensus building towards image selection. It doesn't have to be followed to the letter but is sound advice if there is initial debate about which image should be used. --Masem (t) 15:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 per WP:CREEP. I'm not aware of this being such a wide-scale problem that we need to have a hard rule about it. And, like SMcCandlish said above, determining when someone was in their prime could be hard to determine and could just lead to further arguments. (Note: I am not opposed to individual wikiprojects setting their own guidance on this, but a project-wide rule seems unneeded. It might make more sense to show an athlete in his prime, for example, than a scientist. But even that gets fuzzy when you consider someone like Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson.) -- Calidum 15:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 The number of variables is high, and the need for a rule is low. XOR'easter (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 Too many caveats needed to make an encompassing rule. And if we have a selection of images to choose from (not always the case in BLPs), the article can include photos from various points in the person's life; which one goes up top depends on the article and editors' judgement in that instance. Schazjmd (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 per WP:CREEP. This is clearly a solution in search of a problem. Too many exceptions and conditions causes the intended guidance to be rather useless. Editorial judgement works well enough, and if it fails we have many dispute resolution tools available. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 per WP:CREEP just like most everybody else. As for what @Calidum: said, I regularly encounter BLPs in which editors rush to stick the most recent photo in the infobox, even what it plainly paints the subject in a less than flattering light. THAT needs to stop. I question whether this will be of any help. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 02:05, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, but consider WP:PROPORTION. We should present a lead image with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news.

And per Masem, I think it would be a good idea to simply give editors ideas about what they may consider when selecting a lead image so they don't have to reinvent the wheel with every discussion. The most recent biographies might offer the best guidance. An example is David Hasselhoff, which seems to use the most recent image of him where he still looks recognizable as what most people today would remember as his appearance at the height of his fame. Compare to his current appearance. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:47, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 per WP:CREEP. There are so many different considerations behind how these images are chosen, not all of which are based on subjects' occupations. For example, there might be page-specific reasons to choose a particular image, such as which images are being used in an article's body. There might be WP:PROPORTION considerations for images depending on the balance of content from different parts of a subject's life presented in an article. Most importantly, standardization is unnecessary and would hinder the use of some great images. Some variety is healthy for the encyclopedia, I think. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 defaulting to option 1 once the subject is deceased. --Enos733 (talk) 17:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

RFC discussion

Given the current listed options, I'd probably !vote for 4 to remain with the status quo. Ideally, I think there can be guidance without making a one size fits all. If someone is still in the public but not as active as in their prime, a recent image is still preferable to allow people to readily identify the living person. If someone is not still in the public, a privately submitted photo which nobody would recognize is of little worth, other than tabloidish curiosity. For the deceased, the most representative photo of their prime would be preferred. In Wikiproject NBA, we have local guidance at WP:NBAIMAGE. I imagine other domains have similar written or de-facto practices that are relevant for them.—Bagumba (talk) 13:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

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

Post-RfC discussion

I would say that Bagumba's "Ideally, I think there can be guidance without making a one size fits all [rule]" is probably correct. If the above is pored over, one can probably extrapolate some "best practices" to propose, maybe as a couple of sentence of advice, rather than bullet-point "rules". Consider how the bulk of MoS is written, as general guidance and some considerations to keep in mind, rather than "this or else!" :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Prostitution lead image

Following a dispute over whether the current lead image at Prostitution meets the criteria of WP:LEADIMAGE, I have put together image options for a possible RfC. Do folks think an RfC would be a good idea? Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Template:Multiple image can't scale, can it?

Can I change this "templates like {{multiple images}} can perform this function automatically while respecting the user's preferences" to say the template can't respect user preferences?

At the top of Template:Multiple image it says twice that scaling images isn't possible. Three times if you count the footnote [a], where it explains the template has "no easy way to access the Wikimedia relative-sizing machinery".

Which is sad because I'd like to use scaling in {{multiple image}}, so if it is possible, how, please? In that case we would want to change the documentation over at Template:Multiple image. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell this was attempting to say multiple image can make the images match each other in height or width and it came out as if it was saying multipole image can scale to match user thumbnail preferences. I'm going to just fix it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:06, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Facing north should be preferred

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

---

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § A drawing, photograph, or video who's direction of view, e.g. due north is known is better in many cases.

Could this be added to the article? Is this the right place to make this point? Are photographs and videos discussed anywhere else by Wikipedians? I think photos, videos, animations, drawings, paintings, or virtual reality or other images in 3D or 2D, that, like most maps, face due north and are labelled accordingly are best. This way, the orientation of things in the picture is made known to the reader.I think photos should by default face due north. Astronomy images, photos or whatever, likewise should come with indication of orientation, so right ascension and declination of a single point are not enough, there needs to be some indication of which way up the image is, which is best provided by indicating which way it is to the celestial north pole. This is especially urgent with images of galaxies and planets which are frequently upside down (not necessarily in Wikipedia) if I can say that (because of how telescopes work, I think). I think astronomy images by default should have celestial north up, like most star charts. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 18:33, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

This is so ludicrous I don't know where to begin. Keep up the trolling and watch what happens to your editing privileges.

It sounds like you have zero experience with photography, architecture, and travel; I've uploaded over 500 photos to WP over the years from the six major inhabited continents plus a few islands. Most structures either cannot or should not be photographed facing due north as the default for all kinds of reasons. For example, many cities like Washington, D.C. are laid out on an east-west axis, meaning that many of their structures face east or west.

Many suspension bridges like the Golden Gate Bridge run north-south. A view of them facing directly due north fails to capture them in their full splendor because then the suspension towers are lined up with each other and it's difficult to see the graceful curve of the suspension cables between the towers. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I am not trolling. I'm sorry that you think the idea is ludicrous. You are correct that I have essentially zero experience in photography and architecture. I have only done a little bit traveling, so you are more or less right about that too. I am only saying that other things being equal, I think it's nice to know what the orientation of a scene is. I totally believe in artistic license and artistic freedom. Maybe the answer would be to have an extra photo of the Golden Gate Bridge added to the article, facing due north, perhaps hidden like certain maps are in Wikipedia, until a button in the article is clicked on, while retaining the other photos that show off the splendor of the bridge, and let you see all the parts. Readers would get the best of both worlds then, seeing the all the parts and the splendor of bridge while learning that it runs due north south, and what it looks like viewed from due south. Seeing is not only believing, to some extent it is remembering. Readers would, I expect, *remember* that it runs north south, precisely because it looks so memorably different in the due north facing photo. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The Statue of Liberty, as seen facing north

I don't understand this request at all. The only context in which is makes any sense to me is overhead photos. Since an overhead photo is similar to a map, you could perhaps argue that overhead, aerial and satellite images should be oriented so that north is up. But if you photograph the Statue of Liberty looking north, you'll only see her back. pburka (talk) 21:53, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

As well as the orientation f the subject itself, its lighting is much more important than the map orientation. In most cases for outdoor structures, a due-north camera angle will create cross-lighting with distracting shadows. Somewhat more direct lighting would usually be a better choice. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I was busy editing List of individual dogs when I saw this post, and seriously, I like this idea (a LOT!) This would make it so easy for readers to orient themselves within every single Wikipedia article! I'm just a teensy bit concerned about a place like Niagara Falls (arguably the most photographed place on the planet), where the river runs north-south, and the only way to get a north-facing photo of the falls would be to place yourself in the river right before the falls. Maybe we could fly Wiki drones above the falls with high-resolution cameras to get some north-facing shots? Just a thought, but again, I like it! Magnolia677 (talk) 23:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Washington Crossing the Delaware, viewed as if facing north

Ok, but for photographs of paintings, should we:

a) move the painting so that it can be shot from the south, or

b) photograph it in situ, but possibly at an angle so that the camera is north-facing, or

c) photograph it at an angle relative to the orientation of the painted scene, when that can be determined?

I note that (b) and (c) raise copyright concerns, as photographing a painting from any angle other than straight-on is an act of creativity, per Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp, and (a) could bring our contributors into conflict with museum guards. pburka (talk) 00:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• If I understand correctly, Arctic Gazelle is also suggesting that images have a compass which can be shown or hidden to indicate which way the person was facing when they took the picture? Of course, this would only work for images of real life; "north" may not exist in a virtual image. Is my assessment correct, User:Arctic Gazelle? Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 04:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm saying that there should be an indication that the photo faces north. I had in mind a caption or other label outside the photo stating that it is a due north facing view. Or if not, stating what the direction is. Due south facing seems like second best, but not too bad. It could be a compass inside the photo, I suppose, or one of those crosses with an arrow on the north facing arm superposed onto the ground, or drawn on the ground in real life prior to the photo being taken, but that wasn't what I was proposing. How about putting the photograph near to where the coordinates of the object are listed in the article? It could be a thumbnail. After all it's main function is to provide indication of the orientation of the object being written about.

It need not be a photo, either. Some sort of photo or drawing seems to be needed to efficiently convey to the reader the orientation of what they is looking at. For example if I read about Kasparov playing Deep Blue at chess, I want to know not only where it took place, but the orientation of the board, and hence which way Kasparov was facing during the game. I want to know which direction the runners were running when a a hundred meters record was broken. I want to know the orientation of everything that has one. A north-facing diagram, or photo, or video, allows me to glance over at a map, or globe, or imagine one, and picture what I am seeing/memorizing/pondering on the map, without the need for a mental rotation, or worse, guesswork, to get the orientation right. Regards, Arctic Gazelle (talk) 13:44, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Likewise with photos or diagrams of planets, stars, galaxies, and other objects in the sky. I want to be able to picture what I am looking at on a star chart or in the sky in real life, not just in the right place, but correctly oriented. Otherwise there is guesswork, which to me seems like a dislocation, making it less interesting and less easy to memorize. Even when the orientation does not matter, it is still nice to know what it is, when visualizing something in one's mind's eye. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 15:05, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Pburka you make a lot of interesting points. I was laughing out loud imagining the reaction of the security guards at an art gallery to one or more Wikipedians moving a picture so that it can be photographed head on while the camera is facing due north. The idea of orientation of the scene in the painting merits careful thought. But what I originally had in mind would be to treat the painting like anything else, and simply photograph it with the camera facing north. Whether one should, or could ever reasonably turn the painting to face due south before photographing it is also an interesting question. The north facing photo should show the painting with its true orientation. I am not sure whether the painted scene has an orientation separate from that of the canvas. Food for thought, indeed.

I rather like the photo of the back of the Statue of Liberty. It makes me feel like I've actually been there. But that's just personal taste, perhaps. I guess a photo that faces due north and faces downwards a bit, say thirty degrees below the horizontal would most closely replicate the normal view one has of a map on a table in front of one. So perhaps that should be a preferred angle, other things equal. There doesn't seem much in it, though. It's easy to imagine swooping down onto a map and flattening out at the last minute, to view a scene straight in front of one, or even towering above, as in the case of the Statue of Liberty. I read the article about that statue and yet I did not know that it faced north. Now I know, and will never forget, thanks to seeing that photo. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Last but not least, of course Magnolia677 made the post I like best. And I agree that going over Niagara Falls would be too high a price to pay for a photo, even one that faced due north. Magnolia677 is the first person anywhere to respond favorably to the idea of north facing photographs, as far as I know. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

This is all wrong, pics should not face North, they should face Backwards. Simples. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:51, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

South-facing photo

South-facing driver in some random bridge photo. Turn your darned car around! Magnolia677 (talk) 17:46, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

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

Policy on when to use very old photos of living people in infobox?

Hi. I noticed that the infobox for Michael Dukakis uses a very old photo of him. However, there are newer photos available -- File:Michael dukakis talks to reporters (cropped).jpg and File:Michael Dukakis color 2015.png for two. I was thinking about changing it and tried to find if there was a policy or guideline about whether we should use photos of living people from when they were really famous and influential (like how e.g. presidents who were alive for a while later such as Richard Nixon have their official portraits rather than later photos in the infobox) or much more current ones from after they leave the spotlight. What is the consensus on this sort of thing? DemonDays64 (talk) 03:04, 26 February 2021 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

If there's a option between multiple free images, there's really no policy or guideline for which one to use. The only guidance I would offer is that for someone that has a public image but has since fallen out of it, a free option that is from their period of their public image would be better than one that is newer as it ties the image better with the content of the article. Beyond that, it becomes a quality of image factor -how good is the picture, is it the typical head-on shot we prefer, etc. --Masem (t) 03:08, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

See the recent Request for Comment which is currently higher up on this page. The consensus was to "have no standard, and determine preference on a case-by-case basis." — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

This is a question on many articles, not only biographies. It's silly to think one photo can represent a broad topic, and hubris to think we are qualified to pick that one true photo for all time. It's also janky to punt by stuffing a dozen tiny images into a lead infobox in the hopes of representing every aspect. I've always favored picking a quality image and letting it stay for a half year or one or two years, then rotating in a different quality image. The idea that we are going to decide once and for all what the best image is is absurd, yet we do have to still try our best with what we have right now to make the best article we can right now. So make the best decision you can, case by case, but commit to picking something else before it has hung around too long. This let's Wikipedia exist, and be a real live encyclopedia right now, yet also evolve and aspire to be a better encyclopedia. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

There's only one top to an article. Only one picture can go on top, and it's a judgement call. I was disappointed when my Diamond Ring picture did not go to the top of Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 but it's one of those things for which there is only one winner and not much use griping. For a biography of the living, a recent picture is usually preferred, though picture quality also matters. For another article that mentions that the person had a part in whatever that other article is about, it's good when we can use a picture relevant to the time in question. One benefit of dying is, the Wikibiography top picture no longer need be recent. Rather it's better to use one that represents the person at the top of her career, if a career is what made the person notable. Quite pleasant for those in show business whose importance depends in part on youthful beauty. There, doesn't that make you eager to die? Jim.henderson (talk) 00:52, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

There's only so much of our lives we can spend worrying whether the postage stamp should be fat Elvis or thin Elvis. There is only one picture of a the top of an article, but right below that there's a whole article, with more pictures. And the odd bit of information to go with them. If a reader never gets past that first picture, and is left knowing nothing more, that's on them. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 07:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Background for line-art

Lots of diagrams are line art, often simple black-line with some having one or a few other colors for highlighting a certain detail. Is there a MOS for whether these should have transparent vs white backgrounds? Transparent allows no "white background" framing when used in contexts where the background isn't white. But a user commented that they are not visible when used with dark-themes or other places where the page background is very dark. DMacks (talk) 13:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Thinking about the immortality of the crab

Hello. Me and another editor have disagreed on the application of this MoS page. Please participate in the discussion. Opencooper (talk) 15:52, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

RfC about image galleries

There is currently an RfC about image galleries at Talk:Southern Methodist University#Image gallery of former students. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:22, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

People's images on the city's pages

Hello, please can you advise me how MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE is applied on images of people in Notable people sections on cities and municipalities? For example on Kolding#Notable_people, I think this images are straight against this sentence in the manual: "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative". Is the topic the city (page) or the people (section)? And even if they weren't against the manual, is their presence desirable? (Imho they are pretty random, they show nothing from the city itself and are already on the people's pages). I was accused of deleting them when I wanted to save space and put the section in columns. FromCzech (talk) 18:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@FromCzech: Hello. "I was accused of deleting them ..." where did it happen? Not at Kolding's page as far as I see.--Renat 19:16, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@RenatUK:In the discussion with user ArbieP and on my talk page. See Esbjerg#Notable_people as better example, where the deleted images was returned. FromCzech (talk) 04:47, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@FromCzech: when we have, for example, 40 notable people from the city of X, it is obvious that we cannot place all 40 pictures of these people in an article dedicated to the city. There are two ways to solve this - either we don't add anyone's pictures at all, or we need to decide how many pictures out of 40 will be added and why.--Renat 13:13, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Choose images of direct relevance to both the person and the city, i.e. a statue of the person in the city, a portrait of the person holding a map or architectural plan of the city, a photograph of the person next to a landmark in the city, and so on. Otherwise, the relevance is arguable at best. DrKay (talk) 14:57, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Something like statue or birth house is relevant, but otherwise it has no encyclopedic value for any city's page. FromCzech (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

May I put the case in favour of keeping the three images which Czech has now deleted? All three are notable people from the town; (I don't think that's in dispute). One (Rasmussen) is a former Prime Minister of Denmark; another, Gundersen, is a consistently successful speedway rider and Zeuthen, was an important and well published Danish mathematician. For me, the notability of these three people sings out and contributes to the status and reputation of the city as a place where diverse, effective and worthwhile people can grown up and flourish to the general benefit. These are not unknown pop singers or footballers who played two pro. games.

The first sentence of MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE is "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative". Publishing these three images helps draw the reader's attention to the section and for the reader then to read the words close by about who they were. "Oh, I see, people like that come from there." - would be a welcome reaction, thus adding to appreciation and understanding of the city. Publishing enhances their significance and relevance. To call these images decorative (i.e. simply pleasurable to perceive) and to implement the rule so harshly as to insist on deleting them seems to me to be "over the top". To answer RenatUK's point, we might trust editors generally to be sensible and to use their discretion. And we might use deletion only as a clear final resort for flagrant rule breaking. Or am I shouting in the wind here?ArbieP (talk) 18:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

As well as Esbjerg, colleagues might like to ponder what one notable people from Ulm has to say to us too: Ulm#Notable_inhabitants ArbieP (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

So draw the attention with something more relevant than faces. They are irrelevant for the page. Sometimes less is more. You just doubled up length of the section without adding any encyclopedic value.

Btw, they are notable people, but their selection is random and they will be hardly known beyond the borders of Denmark, thus for average ENG wiki user. Einstein has more than 500,000 visits/month, that Danish people not even 1,500. And there is also no need to highlight Einstein in Ulm as it is already highlighted in Ulm's leading text.

I could find other arguments, but I want to wait for the opinions of the unbiased first. FromCzech (talk) 07:00, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

• It would be helpful if diffs could be supplied to the various versions being argued about - I went to the article but the history is unclear. In general, I think images of people are fine, but 40 would be too many. I'd say up to 10 for a place this size, & no, they don't all need to be statues or birthplace houses. As always, some editors have trouble understanding the difference between "decorative" and "illustrative". A close-up shot of cherry-blossom is decorative; a portrait of a famous resident (rather grim-faced) is illustrative. Johnbod (talk) 14:30, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

"Notable persons of city x list"--images

An editor is maintaining that while it is ok for images to appear in "lists of notable persons of city x" that are independent pages, the images must be deleted if the "list of notable persons of city x" is an embedded list. Please comment here. --2603:7000:2143:8500:A1FD:3B7A:A59C:BEF3 (talk) 07:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY and single images

To me, it seems obvious that the problems which led to the adoption of MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY would be even more applicable to the selection of a single image to represent a large human population. But I've seen it argued multiple times now that because this guideline (and the RfCs that led to it) were specifically about galleries, they're entirely inapplicable to the replacement of those galleries with individuals. I'm yet to actually see an argument why this is the case, but has there been discussion about this here in the past? Does the guideline need to be updated? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The closer of the PEOPLEGALLERY RfC, S Marshall, may be able to answer this. This discussion follows the close of the RfC selecting the lead image at Woman. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:52, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion I closed was specific to galleries of images of people, and did not relate to non-gallery images. If the community has ever reached a consensus about non-gallery images of people, then I'm not aware of it. I am conflicted about the RfC on the lead image of woman, and I elected not to participate because I found a lot of it difficult. If I were designing an RfC about the image that represents female humanity on en.wiki, there would be more options that show women doing things as opposed to just standing around, more headshots and full-body shots, and at least one of the options that depicts a 21st century white woman (because an all-non-white shortlist looks like the community's decision is being engineered).—S Marshall T/C 15:41, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the race selection, one out of the five new photos I found was a white woman, but it did not garner support in pre-RfC discussions. I found it extremely difficult to find good photos, but I did try to look for a variety of women and those options were all I found. One of the only portrait photographers on Flickr who I found who took normal photos of people took a lot of photos of the woman in the current lead image, and I also thought it would be less controversial to not change the "race" from the previous lead image, so it's as if the race had already been decided somewhat by chance. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@S Marshall: To be clear, you are saying that all of the arguments and all of the conflicts and all of the questions which were addressed in the RfC you closed are inapplicable to single images? Or that we must go by the letter of the proposal rather than the spirit? A poor analogy: if there were consensus "that we shouldn't have articles about internet memes" and someone said "you didn't say we shouldn't have one article about an internet meme," I would presume they would be shut down rather quickly. In this case it's even worse, because the reasons behind the initial decision are exacerbated rather than lessened by doing exactly the same thing but with one rather than two+ images. I'd be curious to hear, from S Marshall or anyone else, why -- apart from arguing that the letter of the first proposal said "multiple images" so cannot apply to "one image" -- why the various arguments wouldn't apply to one image? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Not at all. I'm merely of the view that RfCs should be interpreted narrowly -- a decision made five years ago about galleries shouldn't bind the community's hands on a decision now about a picture of an individual. I do think that many of the arguments and questions are relevant and should inform our decision, just that they aren't binding.—S Marshall T/C 17:58, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Such galleries implicitly attempt to represent all women, etc., and unduly focus on race and diversity, whereas a single image fulfills MOS:LEADIMAGE by simply representing an example of the subject. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
• Alright, well, while I still think this relies on the letter of the guideline rather than the spirit, but I don't intend to continue pursuing this as long as I'm the only one who sees it that way. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with @Rhododendrites: on this. Specifically, the broadening and application of no ethnic galleries is strange, it's a case of letter versus spirit.

When I read through the arguments in these three discussions, they indeed apply even stronger to single images versus collages.

I believe it makes sense to apply no ethnic galleries to individual images in the lead, because of the blurring of exactly what is a "single representative example", versus a "gallery / photomontage". A single image can be more than one example. (I discussed this with Kolya and others here). Here are some examples of what I'm referring to:

• Here we have some people supporting Egypt, at a soccer game.
• Here we have two examples presented side-by-side of the article's subject.
• Here we have a couple and child. If these were three separate images photoshopped together, this would be an ethnic gallery. Perhaps it stops being one if the photographer did the arrangement in real life, versus in an editor? WP:OI applies to both the photographer doing the arranging and the editor doing the arranging. ...not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments In both cases of someone doing an intentional arrangement of subjects, it illustrates an unpublished idea that all these people, put together, are a representation of the ethnic group in question.
• Here we have what appears to be an informal photo of some members of an ethnic group. Another example: [3]
• Here we have what's clearly a staged and arranged photo from 1910 of some examples of this ethnic group. I feel strongly that this is, in spirit, an ethnic gallery. More examples: [4] [5]

For example, if I tried to put File:Habibi2006prצילום חביבי - יוסי צבקר.jpg at the top of an infobox on an ethnic group, people would rightly say that this is WP:GAMING the system because even though it's technically a single image, there are multiple subjects. Just as much as if I tried to use File:Pepole_montage.jpg, just as much as if I tried to use the photomontage template with many individual photos.

We could also imagine a gallery of many different photos of the same person. Would that be just one example?

I believe it's a misreading against the spirit of noethnicgalleries to say that it literally just means "no galleries". The arguments for diversity suggest we should have no example or examples of the subject promoted as the lead image, and they apply against a real-life staged group photo just as much as an edited montage. The arguments for OR similarly apply: selecting X images to best represent an ethnic group in the lede is exactly as problematic when X is 1 versus 10.

See the close from the first linked discussion: The main reasons given for this decision are that, lacking objective criteria, it is original research to determine who should be featured in the gallery, that this selection process generates a lot of unnecessary conflict, and that a few individuals are not an adequate visual representation of a large group of people. If a few individuals are not an adequate visual representation, then one image should be considered even worse.

I believe my view here is roughly in line with what's common on such articles. I really had to pore through obscure entries on this page to find my cherry picked cases above. The common ones basically all use an abstract representation such as a flag and/or a population density map of where this ethnic group can be found. (some examples from the most populous countries: X X X X X X X X X X). Leijurv (talk) 23:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's a comment that says it better than me from the original RfC: You don't understand, Paine. Inevitably, we cannot post pictures of every woman in existence. Any selection made for this gallery will be coloured by the point-of-view of those doing the selecting, and cannot claim to represent "women" as a category. Wikipedia editors do not get to determine what the "average" woman looks like, or who should represent women as a group. Because the process of selection is so laden with individual opinion, it cannot be said to be in line with our policy on neutral point-of-view, and requires prohibited original research. It is misleading to the reader, does not educate the reader in any way, and only serves to compromise the neutrality of the encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 21:47, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe this comment is fairly representative of the arguments made in the RfC relating to NPOV and OR. I find it strange that people are taking the outcome of that RfC and applying it on Talk:Woman to say that the lead image must be a specific example of a woman and not a collage (instead of alternatives such as an abstract depiction, or perhaps no image at all, as the rest of the article has a fine selection of images). Wikipedia editors do not get to determine what the "average" woman looks like, or who should represent women as a group. It seems like reading the letter of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES has produced an outcome that's the direct opposite of the spirit: they decided to pick a single image of a woman as the lead. Leijurv (talk) 23:18, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The examples brought up earlier on this page are also good. Consider this case. It isn't technically a gallery, but it is a collection of images of people who are native to that city. The difference is, I suppose, scale. A city versus a country. For lack of a better example, see this page, there's just a procession of images. It isn't really a single "lead" image. It also doesn't feel right to describe this as "the lead image is a gallery". Would something like that be acceptable for an ethnic group? Or is it only okay if the miscellaneous images and examples start strictly after the lead / infobox, such as here or the later sections of this page. This is cited as an example of a correct usage of a gallery, but its a gallery selecting images of specific people that best represent a much larger group. The gallery at the bottom of this section is also an interesting case. When I look back at the original RfCs, they cite constant controversy and argument over two things. First who is eligible to be in the lead (i.e. who is truly a member of the group), such as the referenced argument here about if Mariah Carey counted as African American. Second, separately, which of the eligible photos should be actually used. In that case of human lifecycle, truly anyone can be used, since everyone is human. The human page is probably the only page on the whole site that can't have any issue with the first of those two issues, yet still there are massive arguments about which people should be the lead. This suggests to me that MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES has not been effective in this specific way, because people have been exploiting the loophole of "Okay, if I can't have many images, I can still have one image of several people" and no arguments are actually stopped.

I am against "partial application" / "loophole application" / "strict by-the-letter application" of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES in which pages that fall under its purview (pages about large subgroups of humanity such as ethnicities) are permitted to have a lead image displaying one or more curated examples of that ethnicity, but not permitted to have more than one image. Per WP:BURO. Either the spirit of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES should apply, and we avoid selecting representative lead example(s) of the ethnic group, or the page should be judged to be outside its jurisdiction, and there are no such restrictions. Leijurv (talk) 23:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

See my comment above, see WP:BLUDGEONING and WP:WALLOFTEXT, and also consider that part of the spirit of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIS is that lead image galleries are ugly. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: Can you share why you think that is part of the spirit of MOS:NOETHNIGALLERIES?

Comment above: whereas a single image fulfills MOS:LEADIMAGE by simply representing an example of the subject. See the many examples I gave in which one image gives far more than one example of the subject. E.g. a photo with more than one person in it. Leijurv (talk) 04:58, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I believe part of the spirit of NOETHNICGALLERIES is that galleries look cluttered, strange, are a distraction, etc. While I disagree with the point you're making about photos which include more than one person, I'm not sure what that has to do with my comment which was meant to be about an image of one person. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:07, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

When I refer to the "spirit" I am looking at the long discussions (RfCs) behind the guideline, such as by citing specific arguments, and the closing summary. I just searched for words like "ugly" / "clutter" / "distract" and while 1 or 2 people mentioned it, they are in the far minority.

While I disagree with the point you're making about photos which include more than one person Could we talk about it? For example I argued that File:Nordic Sami people Lavvu 1900-1920.jpg was for all intents and purposes an ethnic gallery even though it's just one image. Where do you think I went wrong? Leijurv (talk) 19:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

That photo is not at all like a gallery; it's one example of a band of Sami people. I'm not sure what your complaint is about having images for these articles. This is normal for an encyclopedia. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:48, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

normal for an encyclopedia I agree. My complaint is a relative one: if ethnic galleries are allowed, I have no problem with such an image, if ethnic galleries are disallowed, I consider that image to be a loophole that ought to be plugged. In my view, it's like File:Pepole_montage.jpg: doesn't use the gallery tag / photomontage template, still more than one example, and if someone tried to use it and say it wasn't an ethnic gallery, they would be exploiting a loophole (WP:GAMING).

I do agree with your view that an actual gallery/photomontage is uglier than a real-life group photo. Between the two, I would prefer the group photo for that reason. However, when I look at the arguments made in the original RfC, and the complaints of OR / NPOV, there is really no difference between 1 photo of 10 people vs 10 photos of 1 person each. It's still just as much OR to say that these ten examples are representative of this ethnic group, no matter if the selection/arrangement of people was made in real life versus in photoshop. Leijurv (talk) 20:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Only if the person doing the Photoshop is a Wikipedian. Your argument sounds a bit WP:POINTY. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:04, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

?? I am doing no such thing. Making a point by describing a hypothetical on a talk page is one thing, perfectly allowed. If I had actually edited these pages in mainspace, that would be another thing. Please look at the bottom section of the page you just linked: WP:NOTPOINTy.

Only if the person doing the Photoshop is a Wikipedian. No, I don't think that's right. Many of our photographers are wikipedians themselves, that doesn't devalue their contributions by making them OR/OI. For example Maasai people's photo was taken by a wikipedian, User:Helga76. This doesn't make the photo itself WP:OR. If the photo had been taken by a non-Wikipedian and uploaded to Flickr or something, then copied to Wikimedia, that obviously changes nothing. Would it be OR if we imagine that Helga actually went there in real life, gathered together these people, and took a group photo of them? Helga is deciding who is in the photo. Why would it become OR if Helga went there in real life, took their photos individually, and photoshopped together this image? Helga is still deciding who is in the photo. When a photo is obviously staged, such as the Sami people, we know the photographer is making such a decision, no? Leijurv (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I do feel like it's a bit stupid if that having an image of a group of many different people together is allowed, while having a collage or gallery of people aren't. I do agree galleries do look ugly, but banning them and not one photo that serves an almost identical purpose doesn't seem to make sense. — Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 20:44, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Some past discussion on this topic: [6] [7] Specifically, it's a real shame that [8] didn't have any conclusion / close. In that discussion, I see a number of editors concurring that the actual RfC underlying NOETHNICGALLERIES has editors making arguments against individual images just as much as galleries. Here's one example: looking at the current wording of how those closes were rendered into MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, there is is a separate question of whether that wording seems to capture the use of single images in the same context for which galleries are disallowed--and whether I think the editors who supported the consensus position in those discussions were indicating support for the ban to include such single images. As to that question, I have to say yes. In other words, while I disagree that the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES language is advisable, so long as it is official style guidance, I believe single images used for the same purpose are covered under it, implicitly if not explicitly. I think all of the participants of the original discussion probably would have voted in more or less the same manner if the original discussion had expressly inquired about singular images in addition galleries and that this is to some extent captured in the arguments of some there. Leijurv (talk) 08:08, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

As I said in response in that discussion, if we could not use single images in that context then by that logic we shouldn't use single images for Breast, Nursing, and Professor, or countless other articles. [9] Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:33, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I think you might be misinterpreting it? Your "by that logic" isn't quite right. The problem with ethnic groups is that they have special sensitivities and controversies. This is why collages are specifically banned for ethnic groups. Those examples you listed aren't ethnic groups, so there's no way to "by that logic" apply ethnic group arguments to them. In fact, lead image no ethnic galleries specifically says: This does not apply to articles about things such as body parts or haircuts. So the example of Breast is in the clear; it could use either one. Nursing and Professor are both jobs. The article is about the job. The article is not about the group of people who are currently doing that job. I imagine that the exception e.g. for haircuts is because it's unproblematic to show examples of a haircut. Nearly anyone could get that haircut then get a photo taken of it. There's not really as much room for argument on what "counts" or what's the "best" example of that haircut. Leijurv (talk) 05:26, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

You're discussing using the logic of the RfC guidance beyond the letter of the policy, that's why I said "by that logic" it would end up ruling out single images at those articles. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Mm, I'm not sure. I'm discussing the logic of the RfC guidance where it applies, to groups of humans. That was the scope of the RfC, so it's reasonable to interpret it as applied to that scope. Once you move to a different kind of article, I'm not so sure anymore.

Isn't it kind of evidence that I'm right about this that most ethnic groups don't have a single photo of member(s) of the group in the lead, yet many unrelated articles do have a single example photo in the lead? Leijurv (talk) 05:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Lead images for trans people

When a trans person publicly transitions, there is often debate about what to do with the "lead image" in the infobox. Typically there is no post-transition photo legally available to substitute, at least not right away, so the old pre-transition photo is kept in place. I feel this is not (as MOS:LEADIMAGE puts it) an "appropriate representation" of them: It's not who they are now. In individual cases, I've argued – and found consensus support – that pre-transition photos simply be removed from infoboxes, leaving them without a photo until a suitably licensed post-transition photo is available. (Wendy Carlos is camera shy and there simply are no post-transition photos we can use. Only one of the Wachowskis has been widely photographed since her transition. Elliot Page is a recent example that I think will soon be resolved with a new photo, but not yet.) This is implicitly supported here by MOS, saying that it's OK not to have an image. But I think it would be helpful to spell it out as a standard procedure, like changing pronouns throughout the article is spelled out by MOS:GENDERID. Note: I'm not suggesting that all pre-transition images be removed – they are history and generally should not be erased – just the special case of the "lead image", which is supposed to present living people in their current appearance. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 14:46, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

JasonAQuest, thanks for opening this discussion; it's certainly a topic we should be thinking carefully about. I think consensus may often find removing the lead option to be the best option in these sorts of scenarios, but as far as creating more generalized guidance, I see a few possible wrinkles. First, not all transitions involve a change from a more masculine to feminine appearance or vice versa; sometimes the person was already presenting in a way that signaled their upcoming transition, and sometimes their transition does not entail a significant change in their appearance. If they have not commented or appeared in public extensively immediately after their transition, figuring out if this is the case can be subjective and tricky. Second, it's not actually true that our lead image is supposed to represent people in their current appearance—I brought up that specific question to try to seek consensus at this discussion, and wasn't able to find any. This introduces possible recentism concerns that have to be weighed, although I think in many cases those concerns may be outweighed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:05, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I can point to the case of Maddy Thorson whom we had a picture of them pre-trans (they were notable prior to transition) but which the image didn't properly reflect that. However, as they were not a public individual, in contrast to Elliot Page, it makes sense that we can take out the older image without little harm to the reader. In the case of Elliot, I would agree using pre-transition images for the infobox would be wrong, but we should not avoid using pre-transition images elsewhere in the article, as long as it is fully clear when they were taken relative to the transition time. --Masem (t) 18:17, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Of course, there are trans people who don't substantially change their appearance. But for cases in which someone states "This is my name now, and this is what I look like now, because this is who I am," continuing to use an outdated infobox image should be actively discouraged, by stating that no image is better than an image that misgenders them. MOS:GENDERID pretty directly states that we respect people's current gender identity, and lead images are part of that. I think we need to make that clear. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 22:06, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Lead image for works of art

I have always interpreted "appropriate representations of the topic" from MOS:LEADIMAGE to mean the image should be the object (in case of a painting or other artwork), book cover, movie poster, title card, etc., but not an image of the author/director/composer, etc. I think this is evidenced in many thousands of articles. When I found a series of operas by Daron Hagen with an image of Hagen, I removed them. Michael Bednarek objected saying this is common in opera articles and reverted me (short discussion here). MB 02:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

MOS guidelines for a collage as the lead image / infobox image

I propose some language be added to MOS:LEADIMAGE to clarify the status of collages as a lead image / infobox image. Currently, we just have a bullet point stating that this is prohibited when the subject of the article is a group of humanity (MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES). It reads as if this is an exception to an unstated rule relating to collages. I believe we should bring the de-facto status of collages in the infobox from that unstated rule to a simple guideline in the MOS for lead images.

I see this as a bit of "catch-up" with what the community has been following for the last few years. In other words, this is already what people are doing.

(I am using "collage" as a catch-all term for a photomontage, gallery, collage, or any other way of putting many different examples into the lead image.)

I think this is worth discussing as a MOS issue because the consensus has changed on this issue over time. The MOS is written as if the choice is between showing one representative example of the article subject, or showing none (or something else entirely). In reality, while many articles about diverse subject matter (e.g. Plant, Animal, etc) used to have just one arbitrary example, they have moved to collages of many examples. I wrote more in depth about this shift over the last decade± here.

I want to plug this gap in the MOS so that it can be a more robust guideline for the many articles that have collages in the infobox currently, so my idea below for the specific sentence is far from set in stone and I'd love to to discuss or refine the wording.

Articles about human groups specifically would be unchanged by this proposal, and still governed by MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES of course. Therefore, I propose some language along the lines of the following be added to that bullet point in MOS:LEADIMAGE:

• In articles where the subject matter has significant visually apparent diversity, it is sometimes reasonable to have the lead image show multiple examples of the subject, to illustrate its variety better than a single example can. For example, Plant or Animal. However, per MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, using photomontages or a gallery of images of group members should be avoided in articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations. This does not apply to articles about things such as body parts or haircuts.

Thanks! Leijurv (talk) 02:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the lead image at Human, you argued that "a collage is simply better than a single person or pair of people...we have an opportunity to improve the representation of the diversity of humanity from a single pair of people to perhaps a dozen or more."[10] This seems to contradict what you're arguing for now. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:50, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the contradiction is between that and what I wrote here? Here, I am suggesting that we "fill in the gap" by explaining the guideline that MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES is an exception to. While I do, in general, think collages can help an article, I respect the consensus and collective wisdom of the community that it's a problematic huge can of worms when it comes to groups of humans (per WP:FENCE). Therefore, I am not in any way attempting to overturn MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. What I didn't change my mind about since that diff you linked is collages in general, excluding groups of humans, which is what this proposal is about. Leijurv (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

You argued in favor of a collage for the Human infobox because "there is great visually apparent variety among humans",[11] and here you're using "visually apparent diversity" as a criteria for using collages. Anyway, it is already implied that collages are permitted for infoboxes excluding humans. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:24, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I believed then, and I believe today, that galleries can make sense to illustrate articles that have "visually apparent variety". I used that phrase there, and here. "variety" is a near-synonym for "diversity" in this context. I'm unsure why you think saying that same thing twice is a contradiction? In that diff you linked, my argument included a position that the Human article did not fall under MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to begin with. This avoids the contradiction entirely. I'd love to discuss that more with you over on Talk:Human, but for this particular discussion can it be on the wording of MOS:LEADIMAGE? I listed this on Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style so I don't want to waste people's time with potential inconsistencies between what I've said here vs there.

Anyway, it is already implied that collages are permitted for infoboxes excluding humans. I agree that this is the current consensus, broadly. But what's written on this page is clunky, and doesn't summarize that consensus well at all. It simply doesn't mention galleries except for one case where they aren't allowed. The bullet point about humans is essentially "But galleries are not okay for human groups". It's missing a first half; it's an exception in search of a rule. So I'm suggesting "Galleries can make sense to illustrate diverse subject matter, but not for human groups due to consensus against ethnic galleries". But as I said above, I'm of course open to any alternate wording if you'd like to suggest some. Leijurv (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Galleries aren't just used to illustrate diverse subjects. For example, they're often used for cities because cities often aren't easily recognizable in a single image. I don't think it's necessary or helpful to try to describe all circumstances where collages/galleries may be allowed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:16, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, nearly every page on a city has a collage as the infobox image. I would say that the reason is that you can't encapsulate what the city is like from a single image, imagine trying to do that for New York City. I do think NYC is a diverse subject, by the way. But even if it weren't, this guideline isn't meant to be a "these are the ONLY cases in which you can use galleries", but rather a "galleries are commonly used in this way. (but you can't use them for ethnic groups)". I think that it's a gap in this page that it doesn't mention collages at all, except for one narrow case where they are prohibited. Maybe you have a suggestion on how to make this proposal more helpful? It might need to be broader... how would you describe what pages with infobox galleries generally have in common? I don't think the guideline needs to describe 100% of the circumstances where galleries can make sense in order to be helpful, maybe just 90%. Maybe: in order for it to make sense for cities, something like: In articles where the subject matter contains significant visually apparent diversity, it can be reasonable to have the lead image show multiple instances or views of the subject, to illustrate its variety better than a single example can. (I changed up a few words with the thought of making it apply to NYC.) Or, rewriting it from scratch: It is generally acceptable for the lead image to show many examples or angles of the subject, if those examples illustrate the variety across the subject matter better than a single example could. Leijurv (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

As I said, the issue with cities is recognizabililty, not diversity. Actually New York City is easily recognizable in a single image.[12] Anyway, see WP:BLOAT. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:29, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

?? Yes, I agree that from that single image, you could recognize New York City quite easily. Yet the NYC article has a gallery anyway. So the reason for the gallery is probably not recognizability, but rather to show to the reader what the city is like, to do it justice. There are probably many cities that you could recognize from a single well-chosen image (e.g. Paris, London), yet nearly every single article on a city has a collage. Thank you for linking BLOAT, but also see WP:NOTCREEP. With respect to the 3 listed items under #Prevention on that page: 1&2. There is an issue with misinterpretations of when galleries are acceptable. For example, Talk:Woman linked several times to Talk:Human/FAQ, despite that FAQ using outdated and incorrect examples (from 2009). That FAQ would be better if it made an argument based on MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES rather than an argument against collages in general, since clearly, today, many articles use collages and it works just fine. We can clear up this misinterpretation: By picking just one example, we leave space for showing important details of that example which would be obscured if we shrank it in order to fit multiple photos. This is why the overwhelming majority of articles covering diverse subject matters do not employ collages. What a collage gains in diversity, it loses in detail and clarity. 3. That's why I'm discussing it with you (and hopefully others) and making changes based on that. I want to judge consensus and abide by it on this issue. From my perspective it seems clear that collages have become so common that it's now reasonable to discuss them in this guideline page, and unreasonable to suggest that a collage is generally inferior to a single example for "articles covering diverse subject matters", but I want to hear other opinions too. Since this is broader than Talk:Human, I came here. Leijurv (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

If the problem is that Talk:Human FAQ is out of date, the solution is to update the FAQ. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:04, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree in this case. Talk:Human/FAQ is not a guideline, and it shouldn't be treated as one. It is being treated as one and cited on an unrelated page, in my opinion, because there is no MOS guideline on the lead image potentially being a collage. If we write something neutral and simple in MOS:LEADIMAGE about collages, it will save editors time in the future as they will know where to look, rather than having to hunt down an obscure FAQ to get the current consensus argument. For example: It is generally acceptable for the lead image to show many examples or angles of the subject, if those examples illustrate the variety across the subject matter better than a single example could. But, per NOETHNICGALLERIES, etc etc .... Since we already have on this page Strive for variety., this would naturally build off that (MOS:IRELEV). Leijurv (talk) 05:11, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The Human FAQ was cited as the reasoning for choosing an image at Woman, not as a guideline, and those articles are certainly related. I feel like we're putting the cart before the horse here. If this MOS is updated, the Human FAQ will need to be updated for consistency, but if you feel that the FAQ are currently out of date, that should be the place to start. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I just brought that up as an example of why an actual guideline could be helpful. I don't mean that literally someone said "Talk:Human/FAQ is a Wikipedia guideline saying this", I meant in the sense of that FAQ was cited as an argument in another page (the informal meaning of "guideline" not the "Wikipedia meaning"). if you feel that the FAQ are currently out of date, that should be the place to start Um? That is where I started, you were there. :) And I will return there and continue that push if this discussion here comes to a more general community consensus that collages are "generally okay". While we both agree that collages are permitted for infoboxes excluding humans, the argument made on Talk:Human/FAQ is against collages in general. By picking just one example, we leave space for showing important details of that example which would be obscured if we shrank it in order to fit multiple photos. This is why the overwhelming majority of articles covering diverse subject matters do not employ collages. What a collage gains in diversity, it loses in detail and clarity. I only want to change that if there is broader consensus. I think there is that consensus, due to the shifts since 2009 when that FAQ was written, but might as well be sure. And also, I don't even think that this proposal in the MOS would necessarily affect Human. While I've argued that NOETHNICGALLERIES probably shouldn't apply to Human, you and others disagree. Therefore, that FAQ might still make the same directional argument, just based on different points. In my ideal world, on that other RfC, they could have pointed to MOS:LEADIMAGE which clearly would have stated that collages are generally okay, but with an exception for human groups. Then there would be no ambiguity, confusion, or need to cite another article's FAQ for a general anti-collage argument. It would be clear that a collage is against consensus for that page. Leijurv (talk) 05:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello good day! i just read the Rfc here,WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES and the discussion here and now here. I want to weigh in on this matter, this can be lengthy.Definitions of Collages and Photomontages ●Photomontage: according to google(oxford languages) is A montage constructed from photographic images and The technique of constructing a photomontage. In the section Collage#Photomontage a collage made from photographs, or parts of photographs, is called photomontage. According to main article Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. In the section Photomontage#Techniques different techniques are discussed, a collage art form is one of them. ●Collage: according to google(oxford languages) is A piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric onto a backing., The art of making collages and a collection or combination of various things. Examples: This collage File:Amharapeople.jpg consist of six images. File:King Sahla Sellase colour.jpg was originally a 1845 illustration in a French magazine. A illustration is usually not a photograph. File:Lebna Dengel.png was originally a contemporary 16th century painting by Italian painter Cristofano dell'Altissimo. File:Téwodros II - 2.jpg appears in a 1998 French journal as a illustration, it's exact origin is not known. File:Ethiopia empress zauditu.jpg is a old photograph, exact date is unknown. File:Selassie.jpg is a photograph from the 1930's. File:Menelik II - 4.jpg is a photograph from the late 19th or early 20th century. In real life situation, if i assembled 2 illustrations(drawings for example), a painting and 3 photographs on a backing board i would be looking at a collage.

Hoewever i noticed(at least here on wikipedia) that there's no clear distinction between a photomontage(which is a form of collage) and a regular collage. See Collage#Photomontage. In the last sentence it says The current trend is to create pictures that combine painting, with a source(reliable or not)? theatre, illustration and graphics in a seamless photographic whole.(unsourced) Just based on that last sentence, a couple of questions arises! Is the photomontages art form no longer different from regular collages? Is the last sentence of the photomontage section correct or incorrect? Is it properly sourced? Or are the claimed current trends really a seperate art form or belonging to another art form of collages? Emphasizing the distinction between photomontages and a general collage, and updating the guideline in WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES with clear wording in what is and what's absolutely not allowed will help users in avoid unneccessary edit conflicts over collages and photomontages.

Suggestions/ideas: ●How about seeing whether there's community consensus in banning all images in lead images of large groups(regardless of whether it's a collage consisting of images originally from paintings, illustrations etc) Just ban all ethnic images in lead image. In that regard we need to beter define what and when a people group is considered large, and what about group photos for example Thai people?. ●Differentiate better in guidelines the difference between photomontagne and collage, and find community consensus in what is and what's not allowed. ● Or explore whether there's a change in the community regarding lead images, for example collages consisting of old images, with persons who already passed away or any other idea brought forward in a new discussion. Tried to keep it short xd Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 23:59, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I was speaking generally about all possible ways of showing many people in the lead image, ranging all the way from a group photo to a group painting to a collage to anything. As I said: (I am using "collage" as a catch-all term for a photomontage, gallery, collage, or any other way of putting many different examples into the lead image.) So I'll reply to the second part.

How about seeing whether there's community consensus in banning all images in lead images of large groups I could support this, for consistency with MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. That is what is under discussion in the section above in #MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY_and_single_images. I would rephrase it to specifically something like Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not have a lead image showing one or more examples of members of the group. For example, I think File:Human.png should be allowed as the lead of Human, because it isn't a real photo of people, but rather a stylized representation. However, I don't think this would succeed. There was just recently a big discussion at Talk:Woman about the lead image of Woman, and one of the options on the table was to have no image at all, and the community did not pick that option. But who knows, perhaps a broader discussion about the MOS would come to a different conclusion than the specific page Talk:Woman.

Differentiate better in guidelines the difference between photomontagne and collage, and find community consensus in what is and what's not allowed. Maybe. The differences seem slight to me, but I can't say definitively.

Or explore whether there's a change in the community regarding lead images This is certainly true. The consensus in the broader community about lead images and collages has certainly changed over time, to be more in favor of collages. I wrote up an example of that here (tldr excerpt: All of these things used to be true. It just seems that in the broader community, the consensus has moved away from arbitrary single images to represent a wide/diverse variety of subjects, and towards collages.) I think it could be worth bringing up a RfC and citing WP:CCC. That's more or less what I'm trying to do here in this section: write something in the MOS about how collages are Really Not That Bad Of An Idea for a lead image. :)

Tried to keep it short xd Yeah, I know how that goes :) Leijurv (talk) 01:52, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Photomontage in Amhara people and WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES

The RfC made it clear that by "galleries" participants intended to include photomontages or collages representing people claimed to be of X ethnicity or nationality. So this should not be allowed.[13] (t · c) buidhe 00:45, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Again in the WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES it explicitly states photomontage and galleries. The status of collage in lead images is ambigious at best and still under discussion, i have read the Rfc and and a 2019 Rfc here and a ongoing discussion here section; MOS guidelines for a collage as the lead image / infobox image and there is no consensus reached yet, since there were also particpants against including collages. You claimed a clear community consensus and expanded the defintion of montage to collage in general, which i object to, and others pointed out in discussions. [14] should be allowed until a consensus is reached, and not by your expanded definition of montage to include collage in general. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 00:59, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: For context, I pointed Dawit here from the Teahouse, here. The gist of what I said was While I personally believe that your example File:Amharapeople.jpg is no different from the lead image of Sámi people in terms of "how much of an ethnic gallery" it is, others may disagree. Sorry I can't say anything more concrete, but the community doesn't have a strong consensus on this specific edge case currently. My opinion is I think it's a loophole that the Sami page is seen as more acceptable than Amharapeople. This is/was being discussed earlier on this page in #MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY_and_single_images and #MOS_guidelines_for_a_collage_as_the_lead_image_/_infobox_image. I hope further clarity can be reached for this guideline, because I believe the current status quo is a little incoherent / unevenly applied. Leijurv (talk) 01:33, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a novel interpretation of NOETHNICGALLERIES. Similar images to this "collage" have been (correctly!) removed from other articles, for example Armenians based no NOETHNICGALLERIES. Why should Amhara people get an exception to the rule? (t · c) buidhe 01:41, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: I understand. I'm suggesting that the current status quo is a little incoherent / unevenly applied. Myself and others are trying to get more clarification, both here and in previous sections, about single images that are nevertheless group photos, showing off many examples of people supposedly belonging to the ethnic group.

To be clear, we are in agreement: I defer to the wisdom of the greater community in the NOETHNICGALLERIES RfC, so between "both are okay" and "neither are okay" I'm proposing the latter. For example, I'm suggesting that the lead image of Sámi people for all intents and purposes is a violation of NOETHNICGALLERIES. Leijurv (talk) 01:58, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

This is actually a great example of the "unevenness" that I perceive: it's so clear to everyone that a collage should be banned when the policy just prohibits photomontage or gallery of images and says nothing about collages, yet the extension to a real-life group photo, where a photographer has arranged and selected members of the ethnic group to create an illustration of the group, is not similarly prohibited. Clearly, to say that collages are also prohibited, we are already delving beyond the actual letter of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES and into the spirit behind it, which I interpret to be those RfCs and more recent discussions and clarifications. Leijurv (talk) 02:38, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The collage in question is literally a photomontage. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:41, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I interpret "photomontage" to mean the Wikipedia sense of Template:Photomontage. The collage in question certainly looks like that template, but it isn't literally. Perhaps it should be interpreted as the common usage outside of Wikipedia, Photomontage. I don't think the image in question looks like any of those on that article, because it isn't meant to be a composite. (again, to be clear, as I said earlier, between "both are okay" and "neither are okay" I'm proposing the latter I don't think that this image ought to be the lead of that article. Here I'm highlighting what I see as unevenness in letter versus spirit of the guideline.) Leijurv (talk) 02:53, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut according to you and which policy? Can you tell the difference between a collage and a montage in real life? Where is the guideline that distinguishes photomontage and collages? A combination of photographs, paint and illustrations would be considered a collage and not a photomontage. Or does every image you upload on wikipedia become applicable to photomontage? @Leijurv going beyond the actual letter and into the spirit behind it looks more like a excuse to invite freewheeling users to expand photomontage to collages in general. The actual letter should have precedent over the Wild West interpretations of some editors. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 03:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I don't think we agree on this specific point :) I think I am one of those freewheeling Wild West editors who would like to actually expand MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to include more scenarios. I believe these scenarios fall under the original spirit of the guideline and the RfCs behind it, but they've been twisted over the years since then by following the letter of the rule and not the spirit. (however, I haven't made a single edit to mainspace in favor of this, I've just been talking it over on talk pages to see if there is consensus) Leijurv (talk) 03:14, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Well there's a difference between wanting to change/expand the guideline, which i also sugessted. Very different from claiming to have community consensus and expanding photomontage to collage in general, when it's clearly not in MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. I think the community need to be asked again on this, rather than have select users expand terms for other users when there's no actual policy(what i mean by freewheeling users). Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 03:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

MOS:LOCATION with hatnotes

I'd like to open a discussion regarding the placement of images at the top of a section in relation to hatnotes (e.g. {{Main}}, {{Further}}). The instructions say to place the hatnote first, then the image file, then the text, but I often find there is a better display when the image is placed first, and then the hatnote; the hatnote appears next to the image, sharing a top corner. However, this is the opposite of what the instructions say, and I usually don't realize I'm doing it until afterward (example: this edit to Adventure game § Visual novel).

Aside from the overall layout of articles (per MOS:ORDER), what is the reason for specifying that sections that begin with images should place hatnotes first, then the image, rather than the other way around? If there isn't a specific reason against occasionally reversing the order, then I would like to suggest including circumstantial exceptions for improved display. — CJDOS, Sheridan, OR (talk) 00:08, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposed MOS update

To further clarify the kinds of images that are appropriate for lead images, I propose the addition of these two bullets after the first existing bullet in MOS:LEADIMAGE. I believe this does not deviate from common practice but will provide better guidance.

• Lead images for biographies should be of the person, not something associated with the person. The image can be a photograph, painting, sketch, sculpture, or other depiction. Grave markers or other memorials showing only the person's name should be avoided. An associated image (e.g. building designed by an architect, book written by an author, etc.) should not be used as the lead image if no appropriately-licensed image of the person is available. Such an image can certainly be used elsewhere in the article, especially when the work is notable and discussed in the article.
• Lead images for works of art creative works should be of the type most commonly used as illustrations for the type of work. For example, articles on books are most commonly illustrated with an images of first-edition book covers; plays, movies, TV shows are commonly illustrated with posters and title cards. The most natural image for a painting or sculpture is an image of the object itself. If a appropriately-licensed image is not available, do not use an image of the author/artist/creator/director/etc. as, except for exceedingly famous individuals, most readers will not associate the image with the work and will not have visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page. MB 01:55, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm.

"Grave markers or other memorials showing only the person's name should be avoided, [add] unless no image of the person, or eg a work by them, is available".

No I mean follow the sentence from MOS:IMAGEQUALITY - "A biography should lead with a portrait photograph of the subject alone". MB 03:56, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Presumably you meant "An associated image (e.g. building designed by an architect, book written by an author, etc.) should not only be used as the lead image if no appropriately-licensed image of the person is available." The sentence following this is redundant.

No, same as above - only use photo of the person. MB 03:56, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

"creative works" is the proper, wider term (not "works of art"). I'd drop the last sentence entirely.

I put in creative works. I think the last sentences is important because it ties this back into the lead paragraph of the section - it is the reason not to use anything but a photo of the person. MB 03:56, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Johnbod (talk) 03:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok, oppose all then. Much too prescriptive. Johnbod (talk) 03:41, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Who is say what? WP:TALKO--Moxy- 04:27, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose the changes. An image of a person is great for a biography, but if we don't have one, the person's work is also fine. An image of a work is fine, let's say for an opera, but if we don't have one, an image of the creator is also fine. Until recently, it was even common for operas to come with a sidebar showing the same image of the composer for all his operas. Current opera articles say "Opera" above that image (example Ricciardo e Zoraide), so there should be no confusion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose the proposed changes, per Gerda Arendt and Johnbod.--Smerus (talk) 09:29, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Sketches, drawings or paintings as photograph substitutes

What is the policy on using self-made sketches / drawings / paintings of notable people or fictional characters in films / TV in their articles when there is no corresponding photo available? Jay ^(Talk) 06:37, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

It's hostile. Many of these have been deleted. Usually the quality is terrible, and/or they are derivative works from copyright images, so have issues there. Johnbod (talk) 13:11, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

OK. But policy-wise, if the copyright is proper (not derived from a photo) there is no restriction right? Jay ^(Talk)

Low-quality images of living people

An editor has been adding low-quality images of living people to various biographies and articles. There is currently a discussion at Talk:2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Washington#Low-quality image. Your input is appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:21, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Only one image in the lead?

According to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Images#Images_for_the_lead "it is common for an article's lead or infobox to carry a representative image". Is this to be interpreted as "the lead should contain not more than one image"? Is there any problem with two images as e.g. in Swimming? Question is motivated by this image removal. --KnightMove (talk) 05:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I interpret that section to be stating criteria for selection of the lead image, i.e. the image in the infobox, or for articles without an infobox, the first image normally at the top of the article ("perhaps the first thing to catch the reader's eye). There is no reason why there can't be additional images in the "lead" section. MB 18:00, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not - I have reverted that edit at Twin. Johnbod (talk) 02:16, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:List of screw drives § Images in Section Headings

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of screw drives § Images in Section Headings. — Marchjuly (talk) 08:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Appropriateness of an image

There is a content dispute regarding the appropriateness of an image at Talk:Minneapolis#Photo of restaurant kitchen. Your input would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC on Talk:Belize Defence Force#RFC on usage of image2 parameter on infobox

There is a content dispute regarding on the usage of image2 parameter on infobox in Talk:Belize Defence Force#RFC on usage of image2 parameter on infobox. Your comments would be welcome. Ckfasdf (talk) 23:44, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Images which include an advertisement for the photographer watermarked on them

(apologies for duplicating this on several talk pages that don't see a lot of traffic, because I don't know which one is most likely to get a response)

This picture has a watermark on it that advertises the photographer and his website. I didn't delete it because it IS a really great picture, but I'm asking if that watermark is an acceptable element when it's on the Venice article. Alternately, would it be permissible to crop that top 3% of the photo and use that one instead? Fred Zepelin (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

It's always permissible to crop a photo for any reason. I would just do that. MB 19:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Extracted file without watermark

@Fred Zepelin: There are several open source image manipulation programs to help remove a watermark. GIMP and IrfanView are good for photos, and Shortcut for video. When uploading, be sure to mention the other file, and credit the source. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you already did the work for me! thanks. Fred Zepelin (talk) 00:16, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

What defines a "rainbow flag"?

rainbow flag?

The article rainbow flag displays various images. Which of those are rainbow, which are flags, and which images should the article display?

Comments requested on two issues:

• Which flag in lead?

and

• Propose to delete items on list

I realize that this is an image-focused noticeboard. Feel free to comment without examining the sources and focusing on the images, but if you like, review whatever you like and comment how you like. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:30, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Images#Consideration_of_image_download_size

The section offers two separate paragraphs on GIF images.

Quote:

• GIF images with a frame size larger than 100 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) cannot currently be displayed in thumbnail form in Wikipedia articles. A thumbnail of a GIF image can be considerably larger in kilobytes than the original image file.
• Animated GIF images have a few additional restrictions. Images larger than 100 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) currently will only show the first frame of the animation in a thumbnail. When not using a GIF animation at its original frame size, consider creating an Ogg Theora movie of the animation.

The first sentences of both paragraphs seem to contradict each other in that a thumbnail either cannot be displayed versus only the first frame can be displayed.

And why would a "thumbnail of a GIF image" "be considerably larger in kilobytes than the original image file"? And if this is correct why would it matter whether the size is given in kilobytes or in another format?

Also it would be interesting to know why a "GIF animation not at its original frame size" should preferably be transformed into an "Ogg Theora movie". Is it easier to reduce the file size when creating an Ogg movie than compressing the GIF animation? Also it might be helpful to name software which could be used to create Ogg movies.

thanks, KaiKemmann (talk) 18:21, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

PS: Is it generally possible to add images to the immediate left of an infobox? Some articles contain very long infoboxes which apparently makes it impossible to place images within the introduction or next to the table of contents.

Images on the right...again

I am seeking clarification to resolve a content dispute about right-aligning images at Minneapolis.

My concern is identical to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 10#"Most images should be right justified on pages" again, which was discussed by @Flyer22 Frozen, Ɱ, and Johnbod:.

MOS:IMAGELOC states: "Most images should be on the right side of the page, which is the default placement." It also states: "Multiple images can be staggered right and left."

An easy fix would be: "When it is not possible to align all images on the right, then multiple images can be staggered right and left."

The input of others would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure if you'll ever find a full consensus, unless you want to attempt a several-option RfC. I am in the camp that I have seen many FA reviewers in - that staggering all images between the left and right sides, in general, leads to the best layout. Some people prefer most images on the right. I believe the MOS is written to accommodate both camps, though it's also sufficiently vague to lead both to be unhappy when disputes arise. ɱ (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If accessibility is a top concern of editors at the article then as per the note "A consistent left margin creates a stable anchor for tracking through lines of text making it more readable / accessible." That seen most articles do go back and forth as styling usually overtakes accessibility as long as text is not being sandwiched. Many FA articles like Canada do there best to make accessibility a priority over styling. As an Mos recommendation these things are not set in stone and many times boil down to consensus at the article level. Moxy- 19:48, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the part of MOS:IMAGELOC that says images should not be left of section heading/bullet points, etc. that should all be left aligned. The second part also says that images should be in the "most relevant section" which causes some editors to place them on the left. I am OK with images on the left that don't interfere with the next section header. The big problem I see with all of this is there is no consideration the screen width. I recently moved all the images in an article to a gallery at the end. They were all on the right, after a long infobox in a short article, and had extended down into the ref section on my display which is relatively wide. I prefer that to minimize scrolling. But this was reverted by someone who said that on a mobile device/very narrow screen, the images were all in the relevant sections, and that most readers are on mobile today. So without picking a aspect ratio or viewing device that we consider optimal, I don't see any way forward. MB 20:16, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Galleries are the worst thing for accessibility. Moxy- 20:35, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Concur. Also, if the stack of photos is longer than the article text (allowing for screen differences, then there are too many photos, and some should be removed. BilCat (talk) 21:23, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

No change to MOS, please. Minneapolis has had left/right image layout for fifteen years since it passed FA in 2007. Magnolia677's changes today were disruptive [15] and were reverted. Moxy, SandyGeorgia and others have done a good job fixing MOS:SANDWICH over time. Several images have been removed to enhance accessibility which should be our primary consideration. -SusanLesch (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Yup last thing anyone wants is the accessibility nightmare seen at New York City. Moxy- 22:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Do trans people, or LGBTQ+ people more widely, count as "similarly large human populations" for the purposes of MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY?

Title says it all here. This revert of my edit on trans woman has prompted the discussion. I would have thought the obvious answer would have been yes - many of the issues relating to the ethnic group discussion would also apply here - but willing to see the other side of the coin here if editors disagree. QueenofBithynia (talk) 21:40, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

@Dumuzid: Notifying the editor who reverted my edits for their views. QueenofBithynia (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks QueenofBythnia, and as I noted, I don't really disagree with your analysis, but I think it's a contentious enough call that it bears discussion before making the change. I understand the generalized concerns about WP:OR in such galleries, but for my money, that's a bit overblown--there will always be some level of editorial discretion involved in article design and layout. I guess I tend to agree that we should forego the gallery in favor of the individual pictures included, but I will also post this discussion at the article's talk page as well. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:51, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for that, I was just about to post this on the talk page! And I agree that it's good to get community consensus for these changes. QueenofBithynia (talk) 21:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Alerting Mathglot, Funcrunch, Crossroads, Bodney, LokiTheLiar, Kolya Butternut, NHCLS, Jorgebox4, Memories of and 2407:7000:9BC3:C800:A0DE:3C57:953C:AD42 to this. As contributors to a talk page discussion from June-September 2021 (that I was previously unaware of) regarding lead images on the article - where it seems like this guideline was brought up - I would appreciate their thoughts. QueenofBithynia (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

If the consensus guideline is no galleries for large groups of people, then trans women definitely fall under that. But I would say that the same reasons why galleries don't work - because it's just going to create endless debate over who to put in the gallery - equally (if not more) applies to the situation the page is in now, with an image of just a single person, and so I'd vote in favour of removing the lead image altogether. NHCLS (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the Trans Woman talk page, I doubt any single image or gallery will make everyone happy. I don't have a strong opinion on the question here of whether galleries of LGBTQ+ people are appropriate in general. Funcrunch (talk) 20:16, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• Remove gallery For all the reasons this does not work with other large groups of people, this photo montage does not work here. Anyone who feels otherwise should say why the normal rule does not apply here. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
• Remove gallery per Bluerasberry. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
• Remove gallery I don't particularly agree with the guidance, but it is the governing consensus, and unambiguously applies here.--Trystan (talk) 23:00, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  I would second that I don't agree with the guideline, but it's what we got. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 07:14, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

• Remove gallery per MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY Meters (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
• Remove gallery - yes, the existing community consensus clearly applies to LGBTQ groups as well. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Remove gallery we had a decade of debates over this that has somewhat ended because of our rule. Figuring out who is representative of a group is nearly impossible. Moxy- 23:33, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

image_size in an infobox

I've just came across MOS:IMGSIZE when it was mentioned in a TfD discussion and was wondering if an |image_size= parameter in an infobox (in this situation, {{Infobox television}}) should be deprecated and eventually removed in favor of |image_upright=? Gonnym (talk) 08:43, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@Gonnym, it's probably time to start thinking about a migration pathway but much more broadly. The thing is that there are a lot of templates that do not expose the upright parameters from the InfoboxImage module. (Infobox hospital, on which the current TVS/WPRS templates were based, does not support this.) This would be something good for WikiProject Infoboxes to handle project-wide. A script could also conceivably be run if done right. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

God yes, PLEASE. For years I've struggled to figure out which infoboxes accommodate upright somehow, and via what surprising syntax. EEng 23:23, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If anything is done project-wide, I recall a discussion somewhere in the past year about how image_upright is a very poor name... MB 23:34, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, upright (in the basic image syntax) was a completely stupid choice too, but I fear we're stuck with it. It's just one of those dumb things people have to get used to. EEng 01:17, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Description of upright parameter in MOS:IMGSIZE is confusing

I find MOS:IMGSIZE to be confusing. The reason is that this section treats 220px as a reference point, while also stating that we should not specify pixels directly. Using the conversion given, I gleaned the following rough guidelines for my own notes. I’m guessing some other users would find this quick-summary helpful too. If my notes are roughly correct, can something like this be included in MOS:IMGSIZE? Perhaps as a table?

• Most images: upright=1
• Lead: upright=1.35 max
• Fine detail: upright = 1.8 max
• Simple image such as flag: upright = 0.7
• Panorama: upright = 2.5

GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

MOS:SEEIMAGE

This section says to avoid referring as an image as being to the left or right and to Instead, use captions to identify images.

Is that recommending to use captions such as "Figure 1" and reference them in the article text? Or is it saying to write captions in such a way that the text never needs to remind the reader to look at the adjacent image? Lord Belbury (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I think first of all it is saying "use captions", which nowadays most editors don't need to be told. Don't just refer to an uncaptioned image. Things like "Figure 1" should be used very sparingly, mostly for scientific-type articles. Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking towards the text

Manual currently sez:

It is often preferable to place a portrait (image or representation of a person) so that they "look" toward the text....

It continues with very sensible advice not to mirror-reflect images to get this effect. But do we really want to reinforce this, IMHO, rather silly preoccupation in the MOS? I propose replacing "[i]t is often preferable" with "[s]ome prefer", acknowledging and not disparaging the preference but not stating it as a general aesthetic goal. Trovatore (talk) 18:58, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Implemented — subject of course to review by others. --Trovatore (talk) 19:49, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, & will restore the old text, pending actual consensus on this. You only waited 51 minutes I see! Imo, "is often preferable" is if anything too mild. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Preference for recent photos as lead image?

I'd always assumed there was some kind of policy inclining towards recent photographs, e.g. of living people, for the lead image. Have I just made that up? I've been looking at Sarah, Duchess of York where a pretty good 2017 image was recently replaced with a 1990 official portrait - this seems wrong to me, but is that just my personal preference? TSP (talk) 15:41, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

See this previous discussion. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:53, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Minneapolis#RfC: photo in the Cuisine section

Your input is welcome at Talk:Minneapolis#RfC: photo in the Cuisine section. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Infobox photo

There is a content dispute regarding a photo at Talk:Fargo, North Dakota#Infobox image. Your input is welcome. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:25, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose that we add this bit to MOS:LEADIMAGE or something similar (excuse my poor wording):

• In biographies of living persons, current or somewhat current images of said person are generally preferred. In biographies of deceased persons, any image is acceptable.

Again, excuse the wording, it's late. What do y'all think? Cessaune (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good rule of thumb. For example, if someone is primarily notable as a child actor and is now in their 60s, I think having a photo of them of a child as the lead image is a reasonable call. Similarly for a deceased person for that matter - rather than any image, we want one that is representative. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Duplicate image

There is a content dispute at Talk:Minneapolis#Duplicate images regarding the addition of the exact same image to both the infobox, and to the body of the article. The input of others would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

"No 3D images" demotion RfC

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:No 3D illustrations#Removing guideline status.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Should non-free images be allowed in search results?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content § Non-free images in search results (redux). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:02, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposed guideline regarding Islamic honorifics and user-generated calligraphic images

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#Islamic honorifics and user-generated calligraphic images. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:48, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Consideration of image download size

The section offers two separate paragraphs on GIF images.

Quote:

• GIF images with a frame size larger than 100 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) cannot currently be displayed in thumbnail form in Wikipedia articles. A thumbnail of a GIF image can be considerably larger in kilobytes than the original image file.
• Animated GIF images have a few additional restrictions. Images larger than 100 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) currently will only show the first frame of the animation in a thumbnail. When not using a GIF animation at its original frame size, consider creating an Ogg Theora movie of the animation.

The first sentences of both paragraphs seem to contradict each other in that a thumbnail either cannot be displayed versus only the first frame can be displayed.

And why would a "thumbnail of a GIF image" "be considerably larger in kilobytes than the original image file"? And if this is correct why would it matter whether the size is given in kilobytes or in another format?

Also it would be interesting to know why a "GIF animation not at its original frame size" should preferably be transformed into an "Ogg Theora movie". Is it easier to reduce the file size when creating an Ogg movie than compressing the GIF animation? Also it might be helpful to name software which could be used to create Ogg movies.

thanks, KaiKemmann (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

PS: Is it generally possible to add images to the immediate left of an infobox? Some articles contain very long infoboxes which apparently makes it impossible to place images within the introduction or next to the table of contents.

Hi, KaiKemmann. I can only answer your P.S. No, images to the left of the infobox would run afoul of MOS:SANDWICH and we never want to do that. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, Susan. In my view it is often desirable to place one or two images directly within the introductory section at the top of the article which seems to be prevented by a (long) infobox which is also usually placed at the top of the article. Being able to place the images to the immediate left of the infobox (not to the left of the article text) would seem to allow for both. KaiKemmann (talk) 03:15, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

"Quality."

"Use the best quality images available." This could easily be -- and indeed, is in the wild! -- construed to mean "more pixels are better, ad infinitum". Can we maybe put this into some sort of context as to what an 'ideal' resolution is considered to be? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 22:32, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

That section says nothing about pixels or resolution, and describes "quality" in inverse terms as not being "dark or blurry; showing the subject too small, hidden in clutter, or ambiguous". Belbury (talk) 12:04, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

That was obviously written a very long time ago, when many wp images had these faults. We are a good deal more fussy now, & it might well be updated to reflect this. Johnbod (talk) 12:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Commons:Image guidelines includes helpful information. TaylorKobeRift (talk) 10:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)