Jump to content

Commons talk:Featured picture candidates

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to Commons:Featured picture candidates.
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26
candidate list

2024 WLM - problems with fake photos

[edit]

I passed some photos of 2024 WLM winners, but i think there are even more fakes around, so i wish Jury would let checking by other users before Official nom, since i has similar on Serbian this year (local even allow it) WLM Organizer should remove photo if brake the rules. In this case, Thailand is very strange. --Mile (talk) 15:48, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the hint, Mile! I completely agree with your notice that at least File:วัดช้างรอบ6.jpg is very problematic. The foliage of the trees at the right shows a weird square pattern; the clouds at the top show strong posterization; and the building itself looks at the same time unsharp and oversharpened. So even without deciding whether this is a fake image or not, we can clearly state that even if the photo was authentic, it was heavily damaged in post-processing. That’s a pity, and this image should certainly not have been praised as #3 of the winners from Thailand. The winner #1 File:วัดมหาธาตุ สุโขทัย1.jpg is a clear photomontage, too (see this discussion), and I fear looking at the other winners will reveal more montages … Of course photomontages are not necessarily bad – they even can be real art –, but: (1) they should be clearly declared as such; (2) the montage should be done well and with taste (IMHO sloppy montages are an insult to the viewer); (3) the montage should follow a clear intention which could be not achieved easily without a montage; (4) only in special cases montages are appropriate for Wiki Loves Monuments which has a clear documentary orientation. – Aristeas (talk) 09:55, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aristeas : and yet nobody will move. I cant find Template:Photomontage, so we must make one ? I didnt saw that on IQ, but woho. I was looking conditions for one concurse, i thought i Bookmarked it but cant find. In any case, the main was you should show RAW ! Not just jpeg, they asked for RAW. I still dont know if is possible to make RAW, edit .jpeg in PC and go back to camera and make some minor edit...but still cant be rewriten in RAW, just same jpeg. Anyway, sun there is double size. Good to know. Why to lose time, draw it. Put some AI into and throw it to WLM, etc. Who care for IQ, FP, just win the National. --Mile (talk) 18:38, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no template for Photomontages, we usually just add one of the categories or subcategories of Category:Digitally manipulated photographs or Category:Photomontages to the photo. Feel free to use any of those. Technically, it is not against the rules of Commons to upload manipulated photos, but of course we prefer that the alteration is declared. Not declaring is seen as an attempt of deception at QIC and FPC, and we've had many many discussions about that on those projects. Unfortunately, most "Wiki loves..." are to some extent organized outside Commons, often with judges who are not at all aware of the FPC and QIC rules. In Swedish WLM, most judges are from museums or organisations only affiliated with Commons, and not photographers at all, which really shows in the photos that win... I guess it's the same in many other countries. Commons is hosting these events, but it's up to the individual countries to decide the rules. All we can do is to add the categories to the photos and hope that will sway the judges some way. Please remember that about half of the world sees this AI as a miraculous thing, since this allows anyone to make "nice photos", and they see us photographers as the luddites who don't "appreciate the great gift of AI" <sarcasm>. --Cart (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • BTW I would be happy to look at the RAW file of File:Tanguar haor, Bangladesh 01.jpg, which have been promoted as FP very enthusiastically, and was also a Picture of the year finalist. Just to chek if everything is originally here. Christian Ferrer (talk) 06:50, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's natural to have doubts about anything that seems unusual, but as you know, reality can often be stranger than fiction. Back in 2017, while traveling in Tanguar Haor, I was on a boat capturing the men in silhouette light when by chance some birds flew into the frame. Whenever I shared this photo on my social media pages, people often assumed it was a montage or some sort of manipulation, much like you're doing now. To clear things up, I'm sharing the original files with you. Please have a look and let's settle this, as it's honestly a bit embarrassing for me. At the time, I was new to photography and used to shoot in JPEG to save space and also my editing skill was very poor. I have also included the photo taken just after the shot in question to help provide context. The files are downloadable, so feel free to inspect them thoroughly. Google Drive Link Abdulmominbd (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aristeas, Carti mentioned FP and QI, but skiped VI. Because of that. I know we have to have some tolerance and i think VI is that space, but should be mentioned all montage. Some time ago, we had Taj Mahal on VI, i said that pic cant be VI, simply not so eye catching, i think i put (or said) other nomination (more nice colors). I find it. After it, i saw news, magazines with that picture i suggest. Tourist would rather see that Taj. --Mile (talk) 12:31, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

With some 1500 FPs being added to the galleries each year, it's a lot of work to keep the galleries working and accessible. Sometimes changes need to be done to keep the now 19,634 FPs in order. The FPCBot has also been acting up lately, due to old code and people doing "their own thing" (please don't!) in the galleries. Aristeas is currently hard at work to fix the FPCBot as much as possible.

Recently there was a misunderstanding about the links on the gallery pages, and that led us to wonder if the links are hard to follow for others too and perhaps it's time for a change.

For more than 10 years, the links to different galleries have been represented by images with a linked text caption. This is a very stylish and nice way of creating shortcuts to other galleries, but even these link templates are becoming more cluttered as more FPs are produced. More countries, taxonomy orders and families, etc. are getting their own pages just to keep the individual pages at a manageable size.

So, I'm wondering if it's time to change the layout of these templates and make them more compact and perhaps easier to understand. Below are two examples of what the templates looks like today (under a roll-up button to save space here):

Passeriformes

Galleries containing featured pictures of Passeriformes (Passerines):

And here are two examples of what they could look like if we use just icons and links instead:

Places Natural - (only collapsible here on this page to save space, on the gallery page it would be displayed in full)
Birds - (only collapsible here on this page to save space, on the gallery page it would be displayed in full)

What do you think? Should we keep the old system or is it time to move on to a more compact style. --Cart (talk) 11:33, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you very much for your initiative, Cart, and for your nice design of the new layout! IMHO your draft is already very clear, clean and elegant. I am fine both with the traditional layout and with your new proposal, but the new layout has the advantage to be much more compact and simpler – this makes it much easier to add new entries in the future. In addition it helps to avoid misunderstandings. Sometimes people want to add new FPs right to the overview of the gallery pages instead of the appropriate section; this can be avoided if we use just silhouettes and flags in the overview. And even our friend User:FPCBot has made similar errors in the past! (If anybody is interested in the details, I can explain them, but I do not want to waste your time by describing them here.) Therefore it would also be safer and avoid possible errors and mistakes if we would switch to the new layout. Therefore I plead for the new layout. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 09:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Thank you very much, Cart, for your thoughtful proposal and for all your hard work! I fully support switching to the more compact layout. In this case, less is truly more. The simplified structure reduces visual clutter, improves navigability, and minimizes the potential for confusion. It also makes the system more scalable as the number of galleries continues to grow. The new design is an elegant and smart solution to a practical problem. Well done! Best regards, -- Radomianin (talk) 10:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The proposed change for birds makes finding the right link much harder for those who are not experts on the subject. I rarely propose birds pictures on FPC, but I would be confused. Well, may be the non-experts should let others propose FPCs on a given subject. Yann (talk) 15:13, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yann, you raise a valid point about the birds. Let me have a think about it, I have some other ideas. Do you think the flags would be preferable to the images we use now? --Cart (talk) 15:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, flags are an easy way to represent a country, and better than an random image of that country. There may be images representing a country, but it is quite a cliché (Statue of Liberty for USA, Eiffel Tower for France, etc.). Yann (talk) 15:35, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I was unsure in the beginning, but the more I read, the more I am convinced that this proposal with flags and bird icons is the best way we can do the gallery design for FPC. --Kritzolina (talk) 05:16, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We are not bound to just one style, we can use the flags for countries, silhouette icons for easy subjects like towers, buildings, airplanes, weather, etc. but keep small photos for birds animals and plants with difficult latin names. Preferably the photos should be chosen with care, and cropped and smaller versions can be created so that all the photos have uniform dimensions and don't drag down opening the page. I think generic icons should be kept only for the general links like 'Birds' so that no one can mistake it for linking to a specific family/genus/species. It's a bit more work, but it might be worth it. Here is an approximate example of how the birds template could look:

Birds ver. II - (only collapsible here on this page to save space, on the gallery page it will be displayed in full)

Pinging Aristeas, Radomianin, Yann, but anyone is welcome to add their thoughts. Keep in mind that the Bird page is the most complicated page, if we get that one right all the other will easily follow. --Cart (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • From a subject expert's perspective, a well-chosen, distinctive image for each bird family or genus would likely be the most helpful. As someone who regularly curates and arranges visual content across various projects, I can only speak from a practical point of view. Consistent symbols or flags tend to create a clearer visual structure and make navigation easier, especially for users who aren't deeply familiar with the subject matter. At the same time, I acknowledge that visual clarity doesn't always align with scientific depth. That's why I don't want to overstep my bounds and would rather leave the final judgment to our experienced photographers and subject matter experts.
Regarding landscape images and similar gallery categories, I must admit that representative and aesthetically pleasing photos are more suitable for our coffee table book. I look forward to hearing the thoughts of our fellow contributors. Best regards, -- Radomianin (talk) 16:38, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be consequent and use flags for the countries and silhouettes for birds etc., just as in your first proposal; that’s clear, clean and compact. When I want to find the correct gallery page, I always look at the text (or just press cmd+F and enter the first letters); I never decide on the base of a photo on which gallery page I click, not even when it comes to the Eiffel tower or Statue of Liberty. OK, that’s me, I’m a text and keyboard lover, but I also cannot imagine much advantage of photos for other people. Flags are clearly better than photos to identify a country, and regarding birds or other animals I see no advantage for photos over silhouettes, because IMHO > 90% of all people cannot identify a bird family/order etc. from a photo. Sorry, no offence, just my 50 cent. – Aristeas (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But you can just ignore my comment above, Cart, if most other people or you yourself prefer another solution. I do not want to block a consent. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, judging by the under-whelming amount of people who have commented on this so far, I'd say it's safe to assume that most user don't give a toss about how the galleries look, as long as they get their FPs and don't need to do any of the maintenance. I'll wait a full week for this, and then we'll see. --Cart (talk) 19:20, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you very much, Cart and Aristeas, for your thoughtful and well structured suggestions. I also see symbols like flags and silhouettes as a real improvement in terms of organization and gallery maintenance. As an occasional contributor, I certainly don't want to overshadow our experienced photographers - but from a graphical perspective, I really appreciate your solution and am happy to support it. Kind regards, -- Radomianin (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the first proposal (to replace with flags and silhouettes). What matters is that the gallery is concise and easily navigable - having lots of little thumbnail pictures don't really help this, it just looks cluttered. Re. are the small photos of birds necessary in order to make the right link easier to find...to put a bird picture in the right gallery you're going to have to look up the order, family, and possibly genus on the internet (probably on Wikispecies) anyway, unless you have a really good understanding of taxonomy, which only the most dedicated birders are likely to have. I don't see how the small photos are really a useful visual aid in this process. Birds that look very similar can be in very different families. Cmao20 (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File renaming

[edit]

For the sake of my blood pressure: Can people who "think" they know what they are doing, NOT rename files during nominations. It's such an unnecessary mess to clean up. Thank you. --Cart (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have to second this. Renaming a file during its nomination is complicated and risky – one has to check and to change many things. It’s always the best to check the name of a file thoroughly before nominating the it. The next best solution is just to wait until the nomination is over, then the file can be renamed (if necessary) as usual. If and only if there is a really urgent reason to rename a file right during the nomination (e.g. because the name violates Commons’ policies or contains characters with a broken encoding), please ask some experienced nomination plumber like Cart or me for assistance. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS: This also means that reviewers should please not demand the immediate renaming of a file. Voting with  Oppose or refusing a  Support vote solely to force the renaming of a file during the nomination is neither wise nor friendly. – Aristeas (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Edits by User:Aristeas-test

[edit]

Dear FPC regulars, just a short hint for your information: Don’t worry when you see that some of the common tasks which are usually carried out by FPCBot are sometimes handled by a new user, Aristeas-test. This is a legitimate alternative account of yours truly. I need it to test improvements for the FPCBot code I am currently working on. Running my development version of FPCBot requires a username and a password, and I don’t want to use my own account and password, (i) due to security concerns and (ii) in order to avoid any confusion between my personal edits and any edits made during the test runs.

I will patrol all these edits meticulously to rule out any damage. If you nevertheless notice any errors in the edits made by Aristeas-test, please tell me about them on my talk page, then I will fix them. This can also be very useful to find bugs and regressions, so thank you very much! All the best, – Aristeas (talk) 08:52, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Featured_picture_candidates&oldid=1033127743"