User:Ɱ/Sharing your images on Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Images like these...
...make Wikipedia stellar!

Five reasons why:

  1. Wikipedia is the single most accessed resource in the world, and photographs represent a place far better than paragraphs will, especially to the casual reader. You or your organization will have more of an impact through well-tailored illustrations.
  2. The subjects you photograph are likely ones you are proud of, or take interest in. We do too! Help us build a free resource to show off the place or places you depict.
  3. The only downside of not licensing is that free resources like Wikipedia would have no access to your content. It's true that companies and websites will use your work no matter what you do. Wikipedia is a rare exception, and it's why we ask to use images here.
  4. You would be allowing Wikipedia to continue to be published and printed globally, allowing offline access to lower-income communities with limited internet or computer access.
  5. You'll be supporting a part of the global free culture movement, an initiative for freely collecting and sharing knowledge for the benefit of humanity.

The optimal license[edit]

CC BY-SAdocumentation

The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license is the most-used free culture license, as well as the most-used Creative Commons license. I recommend CC BY-SA as it is the best option to preserve your copyright hold while still allowing for its use on Wikimedia projects. Anyone reusing your work needs to follow along and use the BY-SA license themselves, which corporations and advertisers will not opt to do.

How to license for us[edit]

For a single image or a small set:

  • Forward me a copy of what you would like to upload.
  • Then, all you have to do is email permissions-commons@wikimedia.org with your name, the attached image(s), and the license you wish to use. Let me know when you've sent it and I can handle the upload process!

For larger or multiple sets:

  • Place your images on Flickr, in a Facebook album, or even a Google Drive album, and I can help from there.