Currently the Picture of the day includes photo credits for the original author of the work and often users who have edited the work. Various examples of this practice are available here. The Picture of the day appears most notably on the Main Page.

The purpose of this Requests for comment is to determine whether this practice is acceptable and/or accepted. Previous discussions about this subject:

• Talk:Main Page/Archive 144#Removing photo credit for the Today's featured picture
• Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Archive1#Please: let's discuss refraining from crediting names
• Talk:Main Page/Archive 105#Photo credit for picture of the day

The goal of this RFC is to gain a clear picture of the consensus for this practice. 02:31, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Many of our featured articles are largely the work of one or two contributors, but it has never been suggested that we put those users' names on the Main Page. Every image used in every article goes without an attached photo credit. The file description page is the place where we put information about the contributors of our images, just as the page history is the place where we put information about the contributors of our text. The one exception on the English Wikipedia to our standard practices is the Picture of the day. We should stop this practice for the sake of reducing the appearances of content ownership and for consistency with our standard practices elsewhere.

Users who endorse this summary

• MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Johnuniq (talk) 04:10, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed. The credit is on the image page for those who know to click on the image, so there is no question of clarity of authorship. User A1 (talk) 15:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed. If someone wants to know the authorship and contributorship of an image or article they can look at the credits and history. Sorry Durova, your name in lights is not the purpose of POTD. Fences&Windows 16:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree per above - credits are by convention included in the file page, not articles Mamyles (talk) 19:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur.  Sandstein  20:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Fully agree. Picture contributors are highly valued here, but this is not the appropriate way to show recognition of this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree 100%. --Dschwen 23:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Yup. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• The newspaper style photo-credit on the mainpage is an oddity. It appears nowhere else in Wikipedia. APL (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• The POTD should be treated like every other image on the site and every other feature on the main page. Mr.Z-man 01:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree completely. There is no reason for us to show the author of 1 particular photo on our main page. Kaldari (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree, entirely. Further comments in the next few days. Cenarium (talk) 18:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. People contribute to Wikipedia, and, most pertinently here, our content featured on the Main Page, in a variety of ways and there's no reason those who contribute to one area should be given more recognition than others (even if there is, in fact, only one person responsible for taking a photograph). -- tariqabjotu 18:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed. Images are not fundamentally different to other content, and should not be treated differently. When the creator of an image is sufficiently notable to have their own article, we can just link it in the blurb. Author credits are unnecessary, inconsistent and counterproductive. Modest Genius ^talk 12:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. If there is a reason to mention the creator of the image (notable artist/photographer) that's fine to include - it should be treated like any image anywhere else in Wikipedia. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:48, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

• In earlier discussions, some people have said they would be happy to credit FA authors on the main page if it could be done fairly and uniformly; the problem is just that we can't. This is easier to do for pictures. There is also a big difference between using a thumbnail of a picture to illustrate an article and featuring it in relative isolation on our main page. If nothing else, the captions on the main page are generally much longer, and so displaying credit is less obtrusive. I don't see a driving need for consistency here. --Avenue (talk) 00:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a pretty hollow concession to say that we "would be happy to" credit other content if we could, but we can't. APL (talk) 14:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • My main point there was that MZMcBride was incorrect when he said "it has never been suggested that we put those users' names [FA authors] on the Main Page". It has been suggested (e.g. by Papa Lima Whiskey in the discussion below, and by others previously), but it has not been accepted, for good reason. My comment was also intended as part of an explanation for the inconsistency, not as a "concession", because I don't think there is anything here to concede. We should credit content creators appropriately where we can. Saying we don't do it for FAs, so we shouldn't do it for FPs, is a fallacy similar to "two wrongs make a right" (unless you can show the reasons for not crediting FA authors also apply to FPs, which I don't think has been done). --Avenue (talk) 03:32, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose diametrically. The attribution of credit is a central feature of the licensing of this project. It is the best way to guarantee that the product is free in distribution. Crediting the significant author of images is particularly easy, and is often done elsewhere. The crediting of the significant author of an image should spread throughout mainspace. I note that when making a PDF of an article, the authors are hard-listed in the document. This is the direction we should take, of clearer attribution. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The author listing is a requirement of the GFDL. Are you suggesting we should watermark pictures? User A1 (talk) 09:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are certainly better options: EXIF data, for example. --Avenue (talk) 13:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New thumbnails have a link to their image description page in the comment field btw. Although not all software supports that (non-EXIF) field equally well, it at least is a first step. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A1, I am suggesting that a minimum caption of every image should be the attribution to the significant author. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thats pretty serious, almost no images (the FP being the only exception I am aware of) on wiki have a caption attribution. Also EXF is not supported by GIF or svg AFAIK. The exif article also suggests PNG is not supported, though I think custom chunks are supported by some software. At any rate, embedded metadata support is strongly dependant upon what software you use. User A1 (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is serious. I'd never thought about this issue before, but now that I am thinking, professional publications explicitly attribute others' photography. At FA stage, articles are reaching "professional" standard. I support an easy, low tech, "Photograph by blah" or similar, perhaps in small italics at the end of the caption. I don't support watermarking, or embedded information that would be unnoticed by the casual re-user of the material. Ideally, this idea of professional attribution of images will trickle down to much of the good quality content. Wikipedia is lacking in the amount of good illustration, and anything to encourage the supply reusable illustrations is to be encouraged. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Our photographs are blatantly misused as it is. On the day the image is POTD, it receives maximum attention and so we should take this chance to let the general public know who the creator is, in case they want to use the picture. Sad to say, most people have nod idea about the different licensing terms or how to get in touch with the creator. The credit solves this problem. Sometimes I have problems understanding wikipedia. Photographers are giving so much away when contributing images (Each image can usually sell at a minimum price of $100). The credit is a win-win situation allowing wikipedia to have a stream of good images and providing some bit of publicity to photographers/museums who have released the media. --Muhammad(talk) 13:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Crediting the photographer does not help educate people about the free licenses. --Dschwen 15:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of course it does. It stimulates a question in the reader's mind "why do they bother doing that?" "Isn't the material in Wikipedia freely available to do with whatever I want"? "Is there fine print"? "Is attribution necessary"? Conversely, when we don't credit, we are saying that crediting/attributing is not necessary. How can we then complain when the reader takes the image and uses it without credit? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • And please don't even start trying to put a monetary value to the volunteer contributions here. You'll just shoot yourself in the foot when you take a look at the work hours many article writers put into the project. --Dschwen 15:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • • Quite : WP:NOT : "resource for conducting business". User A1 (talk) 09:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm definitely not suggesting that Wikipedia should be a resource for conducting business, but the licensing that we use for images allows it and indeed cannot stop it - only restrict it. Put it this way:
          1. There is a demand for commercial use of our images outside of the bounds of CC-BY-SA.
          2. Authors of the images on Wikipedia retain copyright to their images (unless released as Public Domain).
          3. Interested parties can contact the author to negotiate commercial use of the image.
        • Because of this, there is nothing to stop authors from asking for monetary compensation in exchange for waiving the terms of the license. Of course, we shouldn't encourage commercialisation, but we can't deny that it's allowed by design. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I have nothing against users having posts on their talk page or via "send email to user" button. I don't think we should be sticking credits on every image, or image caption; particularly on the front page :/. I like the implicit reason for contribution being content generation and improvement, rather than attribution. I think we agree on this, perhaps? User A1 (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as written. Reasons detailed below, principally having to do with intellectual property theft of our best photographers' work and the problem of contributor attrition. If a new system were implemented to address that dilemma then would be willing to support. Durova⁴¹² 18:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur 100% 50%. 0% [old "concur 100%" reasoning follows] Nobody owns anything on WP therefore information about image contributors (as anything else) is irrelevent except to other Wikipedians. We don't "sign" DYK, FA's, etc, so we shouldn't "sign" POTD's. The only thing we sign are talkpage posts. BTW, I have ignored the previous discussions because we need to consider such things on their own merits and demerits not on what other people may or may not have said in the past --Jubilee♫clipman 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're wrong when you say that 'nobody owns anything on WP'. Authors of images retain the copyright to the images, and they still own them. When they release the images with a free license like CC, it doesn't mean they relinquish copyright of the original, it only means they allow re-use. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • We edit conflicted just as I was about to say something to that effect. Therefore: David Roberts is correctly credited in today's picture; Durova is not. If that editor had actually created the lithograph, then she would get credit as the actual artist --Jubilee♫clipman 21:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, crediting Durova isn't necessarily 'incorrect', but I'm glad you acknowledge the authorship/ownership of images, because it's an important point to clarify. There does seem to be the assumption (which you made in your first post) that everything on Wikipedia is free of ownership. It's simply not true. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • But Durove doesn't own that lithograph and David Roberts died in 1864, therefore: "This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of no more than the life of the author plus 100 years." When a Wikipedian has actually created a work of art that becomes a Picture of the Day, then of course they get credit. That's not what this debate is about though, AFAIK --Jubilee♫clipman 21:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • MZMcBride was not talking specifically about crediting authorship vs crediting ownership though, so I'm not sure that you're right that crediting Wikipedian-created images would be retained under their proposal. They were talking about removing any form of credit regardless of the image in question. And yes, in the case of the current POTD, the original author is no longer the copyright owner, but most recent photographs (the bulk of the POTDs) still have ownership. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • So, unequivocally Durova should not be credited for this present POTD because she did little more than this: "Restored version of File:Karnacs.jpg. Rotated and croppped. Dirt and other artifacts removed. Histogram adjusted and colors balanced." Excellent work, certainly, but exactly analogous to the kind of work we do every day on the text at WP, surely. Why credit that user and not those that create or rework text in WP articles? --Jubilee♫clipman 21:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Diliff is right, you're interpretting this incorrectly. The issue at hand is any credit at all, not just restoration or edit credit. You seem to support explicitly crediting lithographers, engravers, artists, and photographers on the Main Page, which is not what this section supports. upstateNYer 23:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • The proposal in this section is ambiguous, IMO. Have changed by percentage vote accordingly... --Jubilee♫clipman 00:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • I forgot I had voted here when I made my second counter-statement, Have moved this to comments, therefore --Jubilee♫clipman 23:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. If this proposal were to be implemented, it would result in the removal of all credit for all images, including famous artists and photographers, which would eliminate crucial context that is necessary in some cases. The POTD also may be a work by a famous creator that's not the subject of any article, such as File:Da Vinci Studies of Embryos Luc Viatour.jpg, which is used in Study (art). Because it is patently unfair to only omit credit for run-of-the-mill Wikipedians, I have changed my view from neutral to oppose. howcheng {chat} 07:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In those cases wouldn't the artist be properly mentioned in the caption? Surely POTD doesn't depend on hiding vital information off to the side in a small font? APL (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, there's the basic unfairness of identifying notable artists/photographers, but completely ignoring Wikipedians. howcheng {chat} 03:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Isn't that the entire premise of notability? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, notability is about who and what we believe is worth writing an article on. It is not about who we should credit when featuring their images, which is a completely separate issue. --Avenue (talk) 07:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • You mean that it's "unfair" to mention Leonardo Da Vinci on the main page because he's more notable than your average Joe? APL (talk) 03:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

        • Fairness is part of the issue, but giving credit is more about honesty and professionalism to me, especially since many of our featured pictures are not primarily created by Wikipedians. --Avenue (talk) 17:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

        • • • My one-sentence contribution there was obviously not intended to address the entire issue, Just Howcheng's objection that mentioning a famous artist's name in the description of an image that is primarily notable because it was created by that artist, is somehow unfair to someone who creates a high-quality, but non-notable image. (...of a notable subject. Like a nectarine.) APL (talk) 00:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • That's fine; you are welcome to discuss that with Howcheng, and I see you are both discussing that further below. I am just pointing out that I think fairness is not the main issue here. Let's not lose sight of why the credits are there to begin with. --Avenue (talk) 01:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • (Incidentally, mentioning Leonardo in the caption, but not Joe Wikipedian would be consistent with the WP Manual of Style's comments on image credits. [1] ) APL (talk) 03:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • True for captions, but this is standalone use of the image, not in an article. See Carcharoth's view below. Jujutacular ^T · C 06:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes, this is an vital distinction, and as far as I'm aware, none of the people opposing these credits have addressed it. --Avenue (talk) 07:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Perhaps Leonardo is a bad example because most of his works are notable by themselves. Let's look at Carol M. Highsmith instead. Under your view, what would you do with Template:POTD/2010-03-25? Would you include the credit line because she's a notable photographer, or would you work her name into the caption somehow, even though she really has zero relationship to Randy's Donuts? howcheng {chat} 15:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • I would not include the credit line for anyone. If it is notable and important to the readers' understanding of the image who made it, then obviously that would be mentioned in the caption/description, just like any other piece of information that is important to the readers' understanding of the image. I said this in response to your claim that removing credit lines would " would eliminate crucial context". I was trying to point out that if the image creator is "crucial context" then it is probably already being mentioned in the caption. That's not a credit, that's an explanation. I'm all in favor of continuing to include relevant explanations of why an encyclopedic image is encyclopedic. APL (talk) 00:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then my question is, why do you oppose giving credit to the creator when we feature their picture? In your endorsing rationale, you cite the inconsistency with other parts of Wikipedia, but others (starting with Carcharoth) have since argued that the inconsistency is appropriate given that POTD is effectively a standalone presentation of the image. If you don't find that argument convincing, can you please explain why? --Avenue (talk) 02:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I missed your last post under Carcharoth's view below. I'll respond there. --Avenue (talk) 02:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of those perennial proposals. Previous discussions did not just trail off into nothingness. Nothing came of those proposals because each time, there was no consensus to remove the credits. While I'm perfectly aware that consensus can change, this doesn't seem like a case where it will. Are there are any new arguments for removal? Otherwise we're just wasting energy spinning our wheels and creating ill will in the process.

To clarify my own position: I don't particularly care either way, credit or no credit. I would simply like to stop having to do this over and over again. Our energies are better spent writing more Featured Articles or working on more Featured Pictures instead of worrying about credit envy or whatever. howcheng {chat} 03:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed my mind. The more I think about it, the more unfair it seems that this proposal would force Wikipedian image creators to be ignored, but still give proper credit to notable creators. howcheng {chat} 06:55, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary

• howcheng {chat} 20:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Muhammad(talk) 23:20, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• reluctantly... --Jubilee♫clipman 23:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC) unequivocally: "we're just wasting energy spinning our wheels and creating ill will in the process" --Jubilee♫clipman 16:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Avenue (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• With reservations. It's mainly the photographers who need this, since their work is most at risk of intellectual property theft. If an alternative mechanism existed at WP to protect their rights and reduce attrition we could probably form consensus to remove image credit from POTD. Durova⁴¹² 18:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

• Sometimes people can create a lot of smoke and noise to make the appearance of "no consensus" in order to keep the status quo. New arguments for removing the photo credits are not what's needed here, I don't think. What's needed is a stronger case for making such a giant exception to our standard practices. We just don't do "inline" credits around here, whether for images, text, or anything else. If there's a sufficient reason for such a glaring inconsistency, I'd be interested in what that is. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Additionally, I don't think you can pass a motion against future change. Whichever way you look at it, that would be against the underlying policy and thus void. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• With respect, I must say that the above comment by Howcheng seems remarkably unconstructive. If you believe the photo credits are appropriate then I would expect to see a detailed argument to support this. But if your main argument is just that "nothing came of previous proposals" then this is not convincing at all to me. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I mean is that we keep having the same discussion over and over again, and nothing has ever come of it. Since POTD has always had the credit since its inception, you would need consensus to remove it. Frankly, I'm sick of it. There are people who like it and people who don't, and in the end everyone just has to agree to disagree. howcheng {chat} 03:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I just see it as an issue of basic respect. Featured articles may have been largely contributed to by just a couple of editors, but this is fairly rare. However, images are almost exclusively created by a single individual. I'm not suggesting that there's a particularly strong reason why credits should be given other than respect. I'm just saying that there's no good reason why it shouldn't be given either. What harm does it do? I don't see why we need to pretend that every bit of content on Wikipedia has evolved from a hive mind. Why not give credit where credit is due? Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Also, the Content Policy linked to in MZMcBride's view refers specifically to articles from what I can see. It bundles all content in together, but really it means articles. Media (sound, video, images) are rarely the result of collaboration. Sure, there are examples, but they're rare. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The credits should stay, noting Howcheng's comments above also. The method for crediting authors of printed works and authors of photographic/image works are quite different in the laws of most western societies. You can easily find an article or op/ed in any given newspaper or online news source (for example) that does not credit a single writer or any writer, however if an image accompanies that article, it will undoubtedly be credited (or at least say that it is a "File photo" of the publication). Even at Wikipedia/Commons, if someone is to use an image outside the project, the licenses that we use require attribution to the original photographer/creator and any subsequent editor. Those are the requirements of the license. However, the license for printed works on Wikipedia only require that Wikipedia be attributed the credit. This is the black and white difference between written work and image work on the project. WP:OWN aside, this is just how it works. While they use the same licenses, the attribution requirements are different. I'm not saying that we are required to credit the image authors on the Main Page, however; I know that the license doesn't require that because the information should be on the image page. I am, however, saying that it is the common practice of users of photographs everywhere to clearly credit the author of the image. I see no good reason to stray from the accepted practice of so many organizations.

Users who endorse this summary

• upstateNYer 21:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree 100% with you. One minor point, as I mentioned above, WP:OWN refers to articles, not images anyhow. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Avenue (talk) 22:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Muhammad(talk) 23:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• NVO (talk) 10:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Jujutacular ^T · C 23:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• --GerardM (talk) 13:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• filceolaire (talk) 15:38, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

• Are we saying that authors (i.e. painters, photographers, etc) should not not credited, or uploaders and modifiers (i.e. the Wikipedian involved in getting the image to Commons and sorting out sizing, cropping, colour dynamics, etc), or both? If the first or last, then the above makes sense; if the second, the above is irrelevent, IMO --Jubilee♫clipman 21:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it's a painting, then the painter gets credit. If someone restored the file, then that person gets credit for restoring too. With current photographs though, the author and uploader are more than likely one in the same. What we currently do is practical and common sensical. I'm suggesting we stick with the status quo. upstateNYer 21:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the uploader/restorer and the work's actual creator are one and the same person, then that person gets credited anyway in "Artist:". I'm pretty sure MZMcBride means to drop the "Restoration:" bit and leave the other alone --Jubilee♫clipman 22:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's not how I'm interpreting his comments. I believe the goal is to remove any reference to the owner or producer of an image. On a side note, a restoration deserves credit as well. They can take many hours when done correctly, longer than some of our FAs, I would be so bold to say. upstateNYer 22:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • On the other hand, I don't think every edit to an image should necessarily require credit. Some common sense is needed. --Avenue (talk) 23:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Indeed. And I think Howcheng does a fine job of using those skills. upstateNYer 23:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• UpstateNYer, Are you advocating this style of image credits on all WP images? Or just the main-page image? APL (talk) 01:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Main Page; that's what this entire discussion is about. upstateNYer 21:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I come to the same conclusion as MZMcBride, but disagree with some of the reasoning.

Images are different from articles, in terms of how they are used and misused off Wikipedia. Within the site, it is useful to have an ethic of no content ownership (or if you prefer, collective ownership). But in a practical sense, image contributors have a form of ownership that is relevant off site; images from Wikipedia art frequently assumed to be simply free for any use, and awareness of attribution and copyleft requirements is not widespread. Relatedly, image contributors often have the opportunity to benefit financially when others want to use their images and they are aware the license requirements and would rather pay than meet them. Placing credit information one click deep, rather than right on the page with each image, contributes to the widespread confusion about how to properly use images found on Wikipedia. Furthermore, many images (and especially many featured pictures) were not created specifically for Wikipedia and some image contributors are actively trying to make money through their photography; how images are credited on Wikipedia can thus be relevant to the decision whether or not to contribute to Wikipedia images created for other purposes.

(Yes, text contributions get misused too, but in different ways and at different scales, and as far as I know almost always without a financial dimension for the authors.)

Nevertheless, these issues are not limited to featured pictures, and there are no compelling reasons to treat featured picture credits on the main page differently from both other featured content and images (including featured images) presented elsewhere. All images should be treated the same with regard to credit, and as long as standard practice is not to include in-article credits, the same should apply to featured pictures on the main page. (As Howcheng has pointed out in previous discussions, in-article credits do happen sometimes, but they are not common and do not appear to be widely supported by editors.)

Users who endorse this summary

• --ragesoss (talk) 21:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• "standard practice is not to include in-article credits, the same should apply to featured pictures on the main page". Indeed --Jubilee♫clipman 23:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

• As someone who does get the occasional request to allow 'restriction-free' re-use of my images for a fee, I don't think that credit on the main page has any bearing on it. If someone wants to pay for commercial use, they'll generally do it as a result of finding the image in an article. So I don't think that credit on the main page has any significant effect on use or misuse of images. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 22:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was my thinking as well, which is why I wrote "how images are credited on Wikipedia" without singling out the main page. I imagine most of the time people who are willing to pay for images come looking specifically for images to suit their purpose, rather than happening to find a suitable image on the main page.--ragesoss (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• This argument seems to me to depend on the premise that it's better to be consistently wrong than sometimes right. Personally I'm not comfortable with our consensus to never credit image creators alongside their image where it is used in articles, at least for external CC-BY images. It may be okay legally (at least in the US), but it feels wrong to me. So I would support a change in practice, but not in the direction Ragesoss wants. --Avenue (talk) 22:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rather, the premise is that if it's right not to credit images, then the main page should be treated the same way as articles. If we think images should be credited in-line, then yes, we should change things the other way and put credits in articles. It's better to be consistently right, obviously, so whatever we think is right, we should be consistent about it.--ragesoss (talk) 23:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, I take your point. Then your argument seems to rest on the equivalence of in-article use and featuring an image on the main page. If they are not equivalent, then there is no need for consistency. I think featuring an image prominently on the main page as one of our best images is not equivalent to showing a a thumbnail of the image within an article, and we should be more careful about giving proper credit on the main page. --Avenue (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Withdrawn - this is far more complex than I thought when I wrote the summary below --Jubilee♫clipman 02:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We need to distinguish carefully between the original artist/photographer/etc and the secondary uploader/restorer/etc in POTD. No one would question "Artist: Leonardo da Vinci " if Mona Lisa became picture of the day. But I would be the first to complain if it went on to say "Restoration: Iain McIntyre" if I happened to be the one to use PhotoShop to touch up the image up and thus ensure it became POTD. What the heck relevance would I have to that image beyond minor touch up of an electronic version of it? I propose we just drop the Restoration, ...credit etc fields. If a Wikipedian actually creates a POTD as here, for example, then of course they should get credited as "Photo:Hans Hillewaert" or whatever. No "credit", just fact: Hans Hillewaert took the photo that he uploaded as File:Windmills D1-D4 (Thornton Bank).jpg. Many FAs are indeed only at that level because of the work of one or two editors. Hats off to them but we don't credit them except in the sweeps, AFAIK. The fact that an image is not edited in WP directly is irrelevant: the work done here in editing articles is exactly analogous to that done in external applications to edit images. Therefore, credit the creator of the original but no one else. Where the original creator is unknown or a collective, that information is supplied instead.

Users who endorse this summary

• --Jubilee♫clipman 22:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• On the contrary, CC-BY-SA allows any person that makes an edit to such a licensed image then claim credit for the edited version. Anyone that uses that image must them credit both the photographer and the editor. Not saying we are obligated to do it, I'm just saying I think the licensing rules make sense and we should follow them too. upstateNYer 22:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even if you claim copyright, that doesn't necessarily mean you will have any rights in reality. I doubt any court system around the world will grant you any rights at all for cropping two black borders from an image for instance. For any substantial claim you will have to add in originality in some way. The rights of the copyright then "aggregate" among the contributors of an image and you can see such aggregation as a 0-100% system. So the original has 100% copyright by the creator. A simple derivative is copyright of the derivative maker, but might have like 90% rights by the author of the original image and 10% of the rights by the maker of the derivative. An elaborate restoration might have 55% of the rights with the original author and 45% by the restorer. All such judgements can only be made by a court however, further complicated by fair use and a load of other exceptions. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Looking at this from a different angle (one I understand far better than the legal status of visual art and it usages, I must confess), is this like a piece of music that was then arranged by other person? Pictures at an Exhibition, for example, was written for piano by Modest Mussorgsky and most famously orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. When Ravel's orchestration is performed, both men get credited, though Ravel will get shoved in brackets, if credited at all outside the program notes: "Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel) - Pictures at an Exhibition". Same for recordings: see here, here and the Amazon search here. Are picture editors analogous to orchestrators, then? OTOH, orchestrators and arrangers often get no credit at all... --Jubilee♫clipman 00:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Correct, in music you have copyright on performances and on composing. See also Royalties. In music this "percentage" is usually defined by the royalty organizations, instead of in court. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hm, I see. Looks like this is far more complex than I realised, then. Simply crediting the creator of the original artwork it's necessarily enough, we may need to credit those that create binary versions etc of that image also. More thought... --Jubilee♫clipman 12:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I say some stuff about the division of "rights" above, but I should probably have said "the value and the power of the granted rights is relative". That is a more accurate description. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see a parallel here with WP:PLAGIARISM. We are fully within our legal rights to incorporate public domain texts into our articles without attribution, but this is not accepted practice - certainly not for featured content. One argument against plagiarism is that it does not give appropriate credit. We may be within our legal rights to present images without crediting the primary creator alongside the image, but I believe it is inappropriate, at least when we are featuring the image on the main page.

Users who endorse this summary

• Avenue (talk) 23:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Carcharoth (talk) 02:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• We do credit images, it's just one click deep. What makes the main page different?--ragesoss (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I meant showing the credit on the main page too. I have modified my statement to make this clearer. -- Avenue (talk) 23:24, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the other hand, why should we need to click to show that information? These kind of arguments of "it's only that much effort" never work out, because the response is always, "right, it's only that much effort, so why make it even that much effort?" upstateNYer 23:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm all for technical solutions that make it easier to reveal and keep track of image credits. It just doesn't make sense to me inject image creators so front and center in that one place, when the whole rest of the site doesn't work that way.--ragesoss (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Continuing the plagiarism analogy, I think this corresponds to whether noting the public domain source in the edit summary is sufficient credit to avoid plagiarism. It is only a click or two away, too, but our plagiarism guideline says this is not enough. -- Avenue (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Indeed Avenue. Also, I'm all for technical changes that will show the author in a tooltip when you hover the thumbnail for instance (and such things are on wanted list for Mediawiki actually), but since we don't have that now, where is the harm in allowing such information in a few select cases ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Huh. Interesting suggestion. We can control the tooltip right now, no? Something to consider.... --MZMcBride (talk) 01:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I think I'm still confused by the word "creator". Leonardo da Vinci created the Mona Lisa, no one else, AFAIK... Editors are not creators. Or do you mean the "creator" of the specific electronic version we use on WP? They are still credited for legal reasons on the Commons page as pointed out --Jubilee♫clipman 23:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Da Vinci is the creator of the Mona Lisa, but User:Fir0002 (to pick on a retired editor) is also the creator (and uploader and editor) of File:Hoverflies mating midair.jpg. See how they are the same? Both Da Vinci and Fir0002 would get explicit credit on the main page when their images show up as a POTD. upstateNYer 23:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. Blurpeace is the uploader of the present version of File:Mona Lisa.jpg used in Leonardo da Vinci. If that picture is ever featured, would the text read: "Painter:Leonardo da Vinci, Image credits:Blurpeace"? If so, why? I am making a distinction between the creator of the original work of art and every other person that contributed to the present version of the image we have in WP. Do you see my point? --Jubilee♫clipman 23:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • If all the uploader has done is find the image online and upload it here, that was a useful contribution, but I don't see a great need to credit them on the main page. It might be better to credit the online source. If the uploader instead photographed the original artwork, that could be different. Likewise simple image edits don't need credit, IMO, but full-blown restorations do. There are lots of grey areas here, and perhaps they should be tightened up. --Avenue (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I do now, I didn't realize you were being so technical. We've never done that and I don't expect we ever would. The uploader of an independently created artwork doesn't get any credit. Common sense: if someone helped make an FP what it is, they deserve credit. upstateNYer 00:21, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think I'm begining to see the problem here. We haven't defined who exactly is credited under what circumstances, we just do it ad hoc. "...simple image edits don't need credit, IMO, but full-blown restorations do" shows just how grey this all is. Where is the cut-off point? See my analogy with composers vs orchestrators, also (above, in my View section) --Jubilee♫clipman 00:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • One reason is that's not always quantifiable. It's not possible to say that Durova's work on some image resulted in a 75% improvement in picture quality and that she didn't reach the minimum 90% (or whatever) that would be required to get a restoration credit. howcheng {chat} 03:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually, it can never be quantifiable unless there is a contract or court order or some other tangible legal document that sets out the percentages. I can't see Diliff/David Iliff (ironically) being bothered with all that palava --Jubilee♫clipman 04:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jubileeclipman: There is a small paragraph of text that accompanies the featured picture on the Main Page. For something like the Mona Lisa, it would surely begin something like "Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda or La Joconde) is a 16th-century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel in Florence by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance." (text from our article) If the painter / creator is notable, they'll be mentioned in the text that accompanies the photo. The "photo credit" line should be removed entirely. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Notable creators get a shout-out, but if you're not famous, then too bad? I would prefer consistency. If [Wikipedian] is not to be recognized, then [famous photographer/artist] shouldn't be either. howcheng {chat} 03:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually a very good point that MZMcBride makes, though: the creator will get credit in the text if they are notable and non-notables don't really need to be mentioned unless there is a copyright issue. We don't mention people just because we can or feel obliged to: we mention the for a specific reason. That's the way it's done in articles. Anyway, even unlinked names can be placed in the text if there is no article. I think the problem is in linking to Wikipedian's userpages rather then to articles the more I think about it --Jubilee♫clipman 03:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please spell out your concerns about such linking? Why is it a problem in this context? What about an external link to a flickr user's page, if that's who we got it from? -- Avenue (talk) 13:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We wouldn't link to Bill Jackson's personal website from the main page, would we? We'd link to his WP article. I know userspace isn't personal or official webspace and in fact belongs to the community, but it is generally largely edited by that single user and therefore sort of an "unofficial website". Maybe I'm on a weird tangent here? Tell me, if so! --Jubilee♫clipman 14:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it would be better to credit him with a link to his article, because that not only identifies him, but provides much more information, including a way to contact him (the link to his official website at the end). But why should the lack of similar information about pseudonymous Wikipedians or Flickr users stop us from crediting them as best we can? I'm not suggesting we insert userpage links in the body of the caption itself; that would be wrong. But I don't see anything wrong with userpage links or external links in the credit note, if that's the best ID we have. --Avenue (talk) 15:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what if the creator isn't notable and isn't a Wikipedian (i.e. historical work that is notable for the subject depicted)? Examples: Template:POTD/2010-04-05, Template:POTD/2010-04-06, Template:POTD/2009-03-22. Jujutacular ^T · C 00:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In those cases, the original creator should still be mentioned. As someone who has read a bit about the history of photography, I do actually recognise one of the names there as a fairly well-known (to those who know the history) photographic studio (the two printers less so) - it increases the context of the photos and makes them more "genuine" to me when reading about the photographs. A bit like when you see a picture displayed in an art gallery or in a display of historical photographs (which is largely what the restoration 'stream' of PoTD is). To take the specific examples: Harris & Ewing get 25 mentions in Wikipedia text, the two printers nothing. But it is part of the provenance of the pictures and would be displayed in the caption information for a gallery displaying these prints or restorations, which is the level of professional presentation that I think Wikipedia sections such as PoTD can and should aim to achieve (and already does achieve). For more on Harris and Ewing, see these two articles: [2], [3]. There is even information out there on the lithography companies. For W. J. Morgan and Company see two mentions here - the company still exists today, see here (however, the artist for that work isn't given anywhere I can see). A. S. Seer's is more obscure, but was clearly a printer active at 26 Union Square, New York, in the late 19th century, but that artwork is signed by a "Vic Arnold" and should be credited to him anyway (breaking off here for new comment). Carcharoth (talk) 02:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I do think such source information (no matter how dry and boring it seems) should be included in an encyclopedic presentation of a media file when published as a standalone display, along with restoration details. Clearly this mustn't overwhelm the presentation of the picture, but in any art gallery or photographic gallery display, you will have these details provided, in smaller print, and sometimes only in the catalogue, but still provided. It is all part of letting the reader know the history of how the image was created and how it got from where it was created to the screen they are viewing it on, and what changes took place in the intervening period (quite a story for some very old artworks and maps). Sometimes this is covered in the blurb, sometimes in the credit line, sometimes on the image page (there is an argument that just saying "restored" in the credit line would be enough, but that is a separate argument). Getting the balance right between the three is what a skillful PoTD blurb writer will do, and the balance has mostly been correct so far, as far as I can tell. In general, images that make it to PoTD will have a well-established provenance - for historical artworks, even if the actual artist is anonymous the publication history will be known. Carcharoth (talk) 02:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a shortsighted approach. We WANT to provide credit, there is value in that to our readers and contributors. The reasons not to do it in other cases are clear (technical difficulties, makes pages less readable (stylistic), or cannot credit all contributors within reason). But that shouldn't mean we cannot provide credit in other cases. We credit people who shot a world press Pulitzer Prize photo (Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) for instance. Here we have one creator and at times one person who did a lot to make the image much more enjoyable for the readers/viewers. I would favor to provide credit for FA actually, but there are no usable boundaries due to the way articles are written. It would lead to more debate on who to credit, than on which articles to feature. For POTD such discussions would hardly be possible. Where is the problem we are trying to solve ?

If people think the name "Lise Broer" is on the Main Page too often, they should just say that, instead of beating around the bush. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:07, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary

• —TheDJ (talk • contribs)

Comments

• First, I presume you endorse your own view? Second, the problem seems to be that certain editors (Lise Broer is indeed one) seem to being given ownership of material they may or may not actually own or may or may not actually claim ownership of. I would not under any circumstances favour credit being given to editors that raised an article to FA except during the process itself, because that is contrary to the collaborative nature of WP --Jubilee♫clipman 01:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • But they do. Lise Broer has a pretty strong case for copyrights on her works (even when she usually relinquishes those rights or does not speak of them). Also, there is a reason why those kinds of edits are usually uploaded separately from the originals, we recognize the value of both versions by asking people to upload a separate version if they do heavy editing of an image. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indeed. Copyrights aside, people who do major image editing certainly deserve credit whether they work on historic or contemporary images. We also don't do a good job of spelling out how images ought to be credited; in Durova's case, for example, on some of the restorations that got printed without credit, no one but a Wikimedian would have been likely to know just from looking at the image page what a reasonable credit line would look like. I've been meaning to create a "how to use this image" template with suggested HTML and print credit lines for my pictures, and see if that makes a difference in downstream use.--ragesoss (talk) 12:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1. The project should *not* be crediting some contributors more than others. FA and FP are equivalent projects in every way except for that little credit line. The reason this issue comes up time and again is because current practice is badly wrong, and the photo credit needs to be removed.
2. It was decided long ago that Wikipedia would stay ads-free. It's inconsistent with this that photographers can use Wikipedia as a vehicle for negotiating commercial licensing deals for their pictures. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary

• Amen to that. Thanks for the clear words. --Dschwen 01:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• On (1), FAC and FPC are quite different beasts in my experience. The credit line is one of the smaller differences between them. On (2), I'd be happy to see some restrictions enforced on what advertising people can put in image descriptions and their user-space. I don't see the main page image credit as a big contributor to that problem. --Avenue (talk) 02:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't see that FA and FP are remotely similar. Yes, they both feature content, but the content itself is very different in nature. If the main problem you have with credit in photos is the ability for photographers to negotiate commercial licensing from it, then are you suggesting that really what you want is all images to be released to the public domain so that they lose the ability to do so? As it stands, Creative Commons licensing requires contains restrictions that can only be waived by the owner. As long as there is an owner, that owner will need to be contacted. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 06:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The owner is stated on the image description page. Some of your arguments sound as if somebody is trying to remove all credits of the photographers entirely. We are just talking about the main page. --Dschwen 12:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with you, but PLW's arguments sound like he is suggesting that it would be beneficial to remove all credits entirely, since to do anything less would be "crediting some contributors more than others". Certainly he didn't specify and was as usual a bit vague, but his argument (in part 2) centred on photographers benefitting from commercial licensing deals. It's already been established (IMO) that the credit line on the main page has very little effect on the ability of the photographer to profit anyway, since commercial demand is more likely to come from use in articles, not POTD. If he takes issue with the fact that there is commercial demand for use of images outside of the domain of CC-BY-SA, and that some photographers take advantage of it, it seems to follow that he'd prefer that we didn't use a license that allows it in the first place since he sees it as 'inconsistent with Wikipedia'. Maybe I've misinterpreted, but since he was not specific, I've had to fill in some blanks myself. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Nonsense. This discussion is about POTD, not about image description pages. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • David, i admire you as a contributor who pretty much always keeps his cool and manages to assume good faith. This is a bit of an outlier to the usual pattern. Of course this discussion is about POTD mainpage credit, and it takes quite some contortions to arrive at your conclusion. How is it unclear that crediting some contributors more than others refers to images receiving credit directly on the mainpage and articles getting credit only after two clicks (mainpage->article->history). Removal of direct crediting would make this one click, still less than what articles get. --Dschwen 13:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Then I apologise for misinterpreting, but I don't think I've lost my cool or assumed bad faith, I was just reading into what was being said. I still don't understand what relevance PLW's second point regarding ads and commercial negotiation has to do with the main page, which is why I interpreted it as being a general comment on attribution on Wikipedia. It's not as though nobody has ever deviated from the original point without being explicit about it. :-) Ðiliff «» (Talk) 13:33, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I suppose why you think that it has no relevance will forever remain your secret? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I was hoping you might elaborate why it does have relevance. But I'm not the type to keep secrets so ok, here goes. It boils down to this. You seem to be taking issue with the idea that Wikipedia could be a vehicle for commercial profit by photographers, but this doesn't just apply to the main page, it applies to any page in which a credit is applied to work. If you consider credit to the photographer an advertisement, then why are you not also opposed to credit on the image page? As I've already suggested, that is where the majority of the commercial interest is derived, not the main page. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 14:23, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • That is the point I was trying to make, too. Thanks for putting it so clearly, David. The one thing I would add is that Papa Lima Whiskey was complaining that main page credit goes against being "ads-free", but I have seen image description pages that are much more overtly commercial than the discreet credit notes being discussed here. --Avenue (talk) 14:26, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Well, that's where you're wrong. It's a legal requirement that we have to put credit somewhere, and the place we do that is in the image description. Once that legal requirement has been met, it is unnecessary to put additional credits elsewhere. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • Right, I don't think the legal requirements of CC-BY-SA are in question. Having said that, I asked (wayyyy back at the start of this thread) if you were ideologically opposed to credit, and would prefer the photos to be PD so no credit would have to be given. After all, you said that it was inconsistent with ad-free ideals for Wikipedia to provide a vehicle for photographers' commerce, but it seems that Wikipedia's policies are somewhat inconsistent too since they've chosen a license that requires prospective commercial users to contact the author to negotiate less restrictive use. As I've repeated, the crusade to have credit stripped from images on the main page will have no significant effect on commercial negotiation, so I'm afraid I still don't see the relevance of point 2. I've pointed out why I think it has no relevance (ok, perhaps minimal relevance is fairer), now it's your turn to tell me why it does. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • And that's where you provide no reliable sources or verifiable data. You're making a claim and expecting people to just believe it. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Do you actually believe that a significant proportion of commercial inquiries are derived from the main page? It's totally implausable that someone would visit the main page on any random day, notice the POTD and decide "Yes, I'd like to use/buy that photo!". No, of course not. They'd already have an idea of what they wanted in mind, visit the article/search on Commons, and then if they liked what they found they'd contact the author to request/negotiate permission. Do you really expect me to provide sources or data on this? It's just patently obvious. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 19:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • Why is that "totally implausable"? Any random person could end up at the main page, fall in love with the POTD "and decide 'Yes, I'd like to use/buy that photo!'" Not quite sure where your coming from here... --Jubilee♫clipman 19:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                        • I think you misunderstand the sort of commercial interest that photos attract. It's not members of the public that fall in love with a photo. If they did, they'd just print it and hang it on a wall. There's no need to negotiate the terms and pay for it (technically they should still respect the license terms, but I bet nobody bothers for personal use). It's businesses that want to use the images publically that don't want to have to follow the CC-BY-SA license to the letter that are prepared to pay for images, and it doesn't make sense that they'd stumble across an image on the main page that they happened to have a commercial use for. If the idea alone doesn't seem implausible, I'll give you some personal experience. Not a single one of my POTD (I've had about 100) has resulted in any commercial interest (in other words, I haven't had any contact within a few days of it appearing on the main page), but I've had dozens of requests at random points in time from businesses who want to use my photos to illustrate their websites/promotional merchandise/books etc. I don't know of any conclusion that I can reach from that other than what I've already told you: Commercial interest stems from the use of images on Commons and in articles, not the main page. I can't provide any other sources to confirm this, of course, but I'm confident that I'm right. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 19:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now you put it that way, I see where you are coming from. People don't bother with copyrights for personal use (isn't there an exception, anyway, in that case?) so it would be businesses that would be likely to want to buy images. Businesses aren't likely to browse the mainpage so, QED, no "significant proportion of commercial inquiries are derived from the main page" or are ever likely to be --Jubilee♫clipman 20:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the antecedent here should be a bit stronger, more like "businesses aren't likely to browse the mainpage and find an appropriate picture at the precise time that they need one", but I agree with the rest.. --Avenue (talk) 00:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually, Dschwen, it isn't quite as obvious as that. I just clicked Main Page then clicked David's picture only to find that it is apparently credited to MPUploadBot. Took me quite a while to figure out how to get to the actual Commons version and see who took the photograph. Still only two click from main page, true, but not quite as cut-and-dried as you were describing --Jubilee♫clipman 13:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This happens to be a fringe case, and it is quite a joke that we feature an image on the mainpage that does not have a proper description page (I assume the screw-up happend because it is an edit). The remedy is of course to add a standard image description, not putting credit on the mainpage. --Dschwen 15:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I thought that might be an outlier. Template:POTD/2010-04-25 which takes us to File:Karnacs2.jpg is perhaps more representative but even there Durova still isn't actually linked in that latter page (you have to click though further to the Commons version to get to the userpage link). But indeed yes, if the file description is properly set up then we don't necessarily need to credit anyone on the main page or anywhere else --Jubilee♫clipman 15:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Again, the point here is, if Durova wants to claim credit for the image she should do so on the image description. You seem to think that it is ok to rely on the automatically generated uploader field on image description page. That is not correct. Credit belongs in the Information template, which then avoids those little bugs you pointed out. --Dschwen 16:21, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

        • I'm not assuming anything. Just observing and trying to draw conclusions. Seems as if it is an hand, though, so I'll leave this now --Jubilee♫clipman 17:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

        • User:MPUploadBot just recently resumed operations of uploading Commons files locally to avoid having to protect the files on Commons. howcheng {chat} 16:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • So? Doesn't it copy the image description? Sounds like a license violation to me. --Dschwen 16:37, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Just a temporary bug people User_talk:X!#MPUploadBot. This was already reported over a week ago. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Exactly what Dschwen said. A non-Wikipedian trying to be conscientious about credit for that image wouldn't even be able to tell that Durova did the restoration, much less that she expects to be credited for it. The upload log is the only place her handle appears, and there's no definite relationship between who should be credited and who uploaded a file. (I'm frequently misattributed as the author of images by others that I've uploaded, as are most people who import files from Flickr and elsewhere to Commons.) But we're straying far afield now; image page shortcomings aren't especially relevant to POTD (except that, of course, we should expect featured pictures to have well-documented and clear info about credit on the image page).--ragesoss (talk) 16:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Exactly this is not about wether someone claims his rights or wants attribution, it is about wether we think it is a good idea to present that information. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Uhm what? This has spun off a bit too far. Reset please. Nobody claimed what you said DJ, this branch of the thread is just about imagepages not showing author credit and this very fact being a bug of these image pages. Nothing more, nothing less. --Dschwen 17:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • "But we're straying far afield now; image page shortcomings aren't especially relevant to POTD" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • Oh, did you maybe forget a comma after "Exactly"? Then I probably misread your comment :-) --Dschwen 20:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The fundamental difference between the featured article and the featured picture is the number of contributors. Inevitably, by the time an article is featured on the main page it has received nontrivial contributions from quite a number of people – too many people for credit on the main page to be feasible. Featured pictures on the other hand are always the work of a few people. I don't see any recent featured pictures that were the work of more than three people. If it helps, I would condone only crediting the originator of the picture (i.e. the photographer or artist - not the restorer or someone who makes a minor edit). The image credits should stay.

Users who endorse this summary

• Jujutacular ^T · C 17:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• agr (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• "I would condone only crediting the originator of the picture" --Jubilee♫clipman 23:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Except I would say "primary creator(s)" rather than "originator". This probably only matters for some diagrams etc, not most pictures. --Avenue (talk) 00:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• This is extremely close to my reasoning above but appears to come from the opposite side of the field. One slight issue with the reasoning: potentially an FA culd be the work of literally only one or two authors so should they be credited in a little box in the article on the main page if that ever happened? --Jubilee♫clipman 17:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the work was literally by so few editors that credit on the main page was feasible, I would definitely support it. Keep in mind, this is also significantly less likely on a fundamental level - articles are edited frequently. Pictures are almost never edited after reaching featured status. Jujutacular ^T · C 18:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah yes, I meant on the main page not in the article itself, obviously! It might be unlikely but it isn't impossible: articles on the most obscure of topics end up on the main page and often very few editors here are expert enough to even know where to begin editing an article like that. My point is that the credits are in the article history anyway (assuming no copy/paste or procedural deletion has taken place, in which case the article is unlikely to be featured, of course). Why double those credits in the article? By the same token, both originator and the various restorers and uploaders are (or should be) credited in the image description on the file's page in Commons (or the WP Filespace page). Why double those credits? I'm am not necessarily disagreeing with your view (obviously!), just trying to think this through more logically --Jubilee♫clipman 19:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • My comments in the previous discussion may be of relevance here Talk:Main Page/Archive 144#Removing photo credit for the Today's featured picture. While it's possible we could in some cases credit article contributors the big problem becomes how we decide who to credit and when. Any system is likely to be very messy and require several Raul654s just to work out who to credit. Crediting people for the POTD appears to work, without any messy arguments over who and when even if not everyone agrees with the practice. This isn't an argument for preserving POTD credits per se, but when you try to argue if we are going to credit POTD we should credit FA because some cases are similar ignores the realities and complexities of trying to credit FA. For those argue it isn't fair, well fairness is a fussy concept, after all some people claim POTD is missed because it's 'below the fold' (even though that depends on your resolution and I've seen some evidence suggesting a fair number of people may see it) whereas others say it get priority because it's so big. Some people feel it isn't fair that FAs of popular topics (like computer & video games, and perhaps hurricanes?) get lower priority for appearing on the main page then less popular topics. Etc. I'm not saying we should never consider fairness but I don't think it's a useful consideration in this discussion. And of note I haven't seen strong complaints from FA contributors that it's unfair POTD are credited but FA aren't. So to reinterate, there are good reasons why we can credit POTD but not FA. This doesn't mean we have to credit POTD Nil Einne (talk) 20:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I would go further: we should do more to acknowledge all photos. In the old GFDL days, most photos that weren't public domain were uploaded directly to Wikipedia by their creator so we could assume the uploader knew how we handled attribution. We now use the CC-BY-SA license which gives us access to many more image sources, especially Flickr. I question whether Wikipedia's approach of burying the attribution in the photo's metadata file upholds the attribution bargain Flickr authors believe they made when they posted their photos under CC-BY-SA ("You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"). Maybe we meet the letter of that license, but I don't think we are following its spirit. And yes, in those rare cases where we take the bulk of an article's text from a CC or PD source, we should attribute the source in the body of the article. We did so in the past with sources such as the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and Foldoc. --agr (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially with your thought that our current practice does not follow the spirit of the bargain Flickr users make when they license their photos as CC-BY-SA. We should do better.--Avenue (talk) 00:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I would add the following. There is active discussion and brainstorming about how to make media more reusable and embeddable by 3rd parties, amongst Wikipedians, the usability initiative and developers. This includes logging the author, copyright and license information in the database in a more pars-able way, embed and share widgets, and in-page magnification and viewing of this information and widgets. For a large part this discussion exists, in order to increase the visibility of the license and attribution information. We also include this information in PDF and book printouts. If it would run efficiently enough, we would have "action=credits" enabled for articles and for reuse of those articles. Many of these ideas are difficult to realize, often due to the amount of contributors to a single Wikipedia article for instance, or the complexity with which image licensing and authors are logged in the database atm, and will still take considerable more time, perhaps years. But the desire to make our licensing and attribution more visible and easier to comply with, is there none the less. Still ideally in the future, you hover an image and you can see who made it and how it is licensed. You press a button to embed or share the photo with proper attribution into something else. You have an article and you click Credits and get a proper list of all the contributors with all the necessary licensing information. It's not there yet, but what problem are we solving by removing the current practice for POTD ? The only issue reason I see remaining is people want everyone to be treated equally. I find that a poor argument to be honest. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's the worst of arguments to request that everyone be treated equally according to the policies and guidelines. We're really here, I think, to decide exactly what "equal" actually means in that context --Jubilee♫clipman 00:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose It's very rare for an FA to have been *significantly* contributed to by more than three people - which isn't much different from FPs. My understanding is that this is widely appreciated - Jubileeclipman's view above cites the same fact, for instance. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• What about contributors after the FAC, e.g. at FAR? I've recently helped rescue an FA from 2004 that was far short of current standards, whose original writer/nominator had moved on. Some of his handiwork survives, but I don't think I'd call him the article's primary creator anymore. (One of several significant contributors, yes.) I think it's often not as clear as you make out. --Avenue (talk) 10:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• That would be one of the *rare* cases included in my statement. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, I don't think it's as rare as you and others seem to believe. I know my anecdote doesn't prove anything, but I don't think the other view has been confirmed either. Anyway, the real issue isn't the true distribution of appropriate credit; it's that it's harder to judge this for FAs than for FPs, and our disagreement about FAs only supports this point. --Avenue (talk) 11:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Not hard at all. Given the time that gets spent shooting and plugging holes in FAs, coming to consensus on who the major contributors are would be trivial. And rejecting something that would be fair but is hard to do has never looked good. At the end of the day, this RfC is more about consistency between mainspace and main page, although your implicit counter-proposal is interesting. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 11:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Huh, that's not at all how I see this RfC, but it does help explain your perspective somewhat. To me, the question is more about when it is feasible and appropriate to credit material that we decide to feature prominently on our main page. Although much of this content was created by Wikipedians (including the bulk of most FAs), many FPs were not. This is an important distinction that I don't think has had enough attention in this RfC. --Avenue (talk) 12:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that was kind of answered somewhere in this thread by saying that if the creator is notable, the name usually appears wikilinked in the caption anyway, or certainly would do if we were to remove the credit line. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I believe the last post on that topic (by Carcharoth) argued that credit in some form was necessary regardless of notability, although it didn't matter whether credit was part of the caption or in a separate credit line. That makes sense to me. I think it'd be better to credit creators in a predictable location like the credit line, but I'd be happy enough as long as they get credited somewhere next to the picture. I certainly don't agree that we should refuse to credit the creators if they do not meet our notability criteria (for instance, if they are an otherwise unknown Flickr user). --Avenue (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• You're only notable if reliable sources say that you are. Otherwise, you're not a subject of Wikipedia, and figure captions do not deal with you. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 02:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• (outdent) A couple of points: (1) Some have been saying that the main page is in article space and so different from project space pages like the listings of FAs and the listings of FPs. The Main Page is clearly different from both article space and project space. It is the primary face Wikipedia presents to the world (though more traffic arrives through search engines), and acts as both a front page, and as a portal to "read" Wikipedia on a regular basis. It is also obvious that the Main Page is not an article. The main difference between the Main Page and the project space listings is that the former is for readers, while the latter is primarily for editors. Because the Main Page is a very public face, giving credit and attributions is important. I would even say that a more prominent note should be present saying that Wikipedia articles are collaboratively edited (hence no byline for them), and that you too can edit the articles. But if you say to someone "you too can edit this picture", well, they could, but if you think about why we don't actually encourage that, you will see that the pictures are effectively considered a "finished product", whereas the articles are not (and will never be, even the featured ones). That is key to the difference here between images and articles. What we do say for pictures is "if you have a better picture/restoration, please submit it". (2) There are cases where it will be undesirable to credit someone by pseudonym, particularly cases where the pseudonym (be it on Flickr or here) is offensive, but that should be common sense and shouldn't impede the general principle of crediting image work. (3) There is the case of images used in portals without credits, but portals are difficult to maintain at the best of times. I do think that image credits in portals is best practice, and that practice should eventually spread from the Main Page to the other portals, but that may be difficult. The featured content portal, at the least, should include image credits. (4) Credit should be distinguished from provenance (do read the article, it is not bad). Even when someone is not notable or has not contributed much, if they are part of the history of the image, that does need documenting, even when it is no more than a bot moving an image from here to Commons. If we don't keep adequate records, then it is difficult to prove later than an image really is what we claim it to be. But in that chain of provenance, will be those who did most of the work to find, produce, edit, document and publish, the image, and from those people, a good portal editor (be this PoTD or another portal element), website editor, external re-user, gallery curator, etc, will include some form of credit. Carcharoth (talk) 03:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a pragmatic approach here, it is indisputable that Wikipedian-photographers and those who restore pictures are largely or completely responsible for creating a picture and/or improving an image to the point where it is suitable to be featured on the main page, and removing the credit line could affect participation in that process (i.e. don't fix something if it isn't broken).

As others have said, photography and image work are different from article work. There are several stages and types of work involved: (1) Finding pictures or considering what photos are needed or what photos to take (call this "sourcing a picture", and include here the process of uploading a picture regardless of who created or scanned it, as well as those who search various sites for suitable pictures to be used); (2) Creating and/or editing and improving a picture once a source for an image and a need for an image has been identified (call this "creating a picture", and this includes scanning an existing original into digital form, as well as technical skills when using advanced cameras, and also the skills used when restoring a picture); (3) Filling in the paperwork here on Wikipedia or Commons for image attribution and source provenance (call this "documentation"); (4) Publishing and distributing an image (call this "publishing a picture", this includes adding the image to articles, as well as proposing the image for various featured processes and any uses of the image on portals such as the Main Page - which is, at the end of the day, a portal in all but name). So we have: sourcing, creation, editing, documentation, and publication (noting that sometimes sourcing comes after creation and sometimes after all the processes except publication).

The standard used elsewhere when publishing an image is to credit those who created or supplied a picture. The use of these images on the Main Page is arguably a standalone reuse of the image, albeit an internal reuse - consider what would happen if "Picture of the Day" was an external website? Certainly if these images are reused externally elsewhere, those who care about such matters would ask "who took the photo, we want to use a credit line to acknowledge this along with acknowledging that we used Wikipedia/Commons as a source for the picture". Similarly, if an article is republished elsewhere, or used to form a WP:BOOK along with articles, then, like books elsewhere, it should be trivial to generate and publish a list of illustrations and accompanying credits. In other words, where the credit appears depends on how the image is published. When an image is published as a stand-alone work, the credit would normally accompany the image. When published as part of an article, the credit is normally on the image page or (when in printed form) in a list of images and credits. Here, the PotD makes the image sufficiently like a standalone section that inline credit is justified (especially as the PotD template is published separately from the Main Page as well).

Overall then, my view on this specific issue is that to encourage correct attribution elsewhere, we should attribute images correctly when used in the form they are used in on the Main Page. i.e. Keep the credit line because the use on the Main Page is a form of publication of the image that is different from the way images are published as part of an article. The golden rule is to provide attribution and credit for an image, especially when publishing it as a stand-alone work - merely providing a link to the image page is insufficient.

Users who endorse this summary

• As proposer. Carcharoth (talk) 07:30, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Avenue (talk) 08:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Jujutacular ^T · C 22:36, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• In addition, there is a substantial difference between a featured article and a featured picture (restoration): in the latter case, the work is almost entirely done by one person rather than being a collaborative endeavor. — Coren ^(talk) 02:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Circéus (talk) 04:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Well argued. Fletcher (talk) 00:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, I think, although I'm not sure about the logic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• The fact that we credit only the picture of the day, and not the other ones that appear on the main page, supports this view of POTD as a stand-alone publication of the image. --Avenue (talk) 08:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's silly, If we credited the other images would it suddenly negate Carcharoth's argument and it would no longer make sense (to Carcharoth) to credit the Featured Picture? Surely it would strengthen his argument? APL (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It might provide a different argument for crediting the POTD, but I think it would remove one piece of evidence that featuring an image in POTD is a distinctive use. --Avenue (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Avenue commented above that no one seems to be responding to Carcharoth's opinion.

  Fair enough. I don't completely follow the logic of Carcharoth's opinion. C starts by laying out the facts that creating an image is different than creating other forms of content, and that the Featured Picture's presentation is different than its presentation within an article. I don't think anyone can argue with that.

  But are either of those conditions unique? I believe not. Many jobs go into the creation of WP. From vandalism removal, to writing prose, to copy-editing, to admin-ing, to working the Ref Desk, to operating bots, to working on the underlying software, to who knows what else. All of these tasks are different from each other, take different amounts and types of skill and effort.

  In the same vein there are other ways that things are presented to readers that are different than the norm. The FPotD is visually obvious, of course, because that's its job, but many other bits of content on even the mainpage itself that are out of their normal element. Not to mention various other templates, portals, etc that are displayed in ways different than main article text. Heck, even the puzzle logo, though that's not the best example.

  Carcharoth builds on these facts (That creating an image is different than writing prose, and that presenting an image on the main page is different than displaying it in an article) to explain what he calls a pragmatic view point that if artists are not credited, image contributions will diminish, and that image piracy will increase.

  I don't believe that either has been demonstrated. The first, that photographers and illustrators need an incentive that all others do not, I believe is a weak argument that is certainly not proved. Image contributors are not contributing their images directly to the main page, they're contributing them to relevant articles that require better illustration. When an image is uploaded its chances putting it's creator's name "up in lights" on the mainpage is already rather slim, and the uploaders know this. They know that for the entirety of the image's existence (possibly less one day) its thumbnails will not have any newspaper-style photo-credits at all. Many people seem to be taking for granted that the anomalous main-page credit is a major incentive for photographers and illustrators, but I've yet to see this convincingly argued.

  As for the argument that image credits decrease image piracy, I'm similarly unimpressed, but instead of spelling out why, I'll just point out that, if it is considered an important issue, this goal would be better served by spot-lighting the image license rather than the image creator. APL (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• First, thank you for taking the time to respond to Carcharoth's points. I agree with your point that the argument that image contributors generally need a greater "incentive" than other editors is unconvincing. I don't see Carcharoth specifically making this argument, though. The closest is when C expresses concern about participation alongside his initial observation about not fixing something when it's not broken, and I read that as not referring to illustrations in general, but specifically to participation in the Featured Picture process, and in getting images up to FP standard. Perhaps C put it too strongly when saying that it's "indisputable" that participation here could be affected by removing the credit, but I think it's certainly a possibility. Anyway, even including unsuccessful nominations, this affects only a tiny proportion of the illustrations in Wikipedia, so declining participation at FP would seem unlikely to affect how well most articles are illustrated. The difference between pictures of adequate quality and FPs is also often invisible in the thumbnail views that most readers will see.

You argue that image creation is not unique, and nor is displaying an image as POTD. I do see one important way in which image work differs from most editing here. Most Wikipedia editing has a cumulative effect, and it is practical to gradually improve an article from a stub up to a featured article. Most images are not like this. Sure, edits can improve an image noticeably, but the possible improvements are very much limited by the nature of the initial image. After a point, if you want a better image, you need to create a new one from scratch. (Graphs and diagrams are sometimes an exception.) This means that one of Wikipedia's greatest greatest strengths, collaborative improvement, applies to images only in a limited way, and the initial creation of the image takes on a greater importance.

While I agree that highlighting the image's license could be useful, I read the point Carcharoth makes about encouraging correct attribution elsewhere quite differently from you. You reword this as concern over "image piracy", i.e. others not complying with the image's license. While this seems a fair representation of the concerns some people have expressed at this RfC, I'm not sure that this was C's point. I'm concerned about correct attribution for all images, not just those that have attribution as a condition of the license, and I was reading C's point through this lens. This is where the "standalone" nature of POTD becomes critical, because while we have a consensus that giving credit on the image page is enough when incorporating thumbnails within articles, this is a reason for believing that this consensus doesn't apply here. While you argue that POTD is not unique, I still don't think you have really addressed this part of C's argument, i.e. that featuring an image as POTD is a standalone reuse of the image, and so the attribution requirements are stricter. We should be setting a good example here. --Avenue (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC was started on mistaken principles by an editor who has little or no experience with featured media. Photographers do own the license on their own work, and restorations that involve significant creative input can and do acquire new copyright, although customarily, those who do restorations at WMF have donated their own contributions to the public domain. Credit and license infringement has been a significant issue at Wikipedia's featured picture program: one featured picture contributor had to seek recourse after finding their photography used in violation of license in a commercial advertisement. The public at large has little understanding of copyleft licensure; exploitation of donated work has caused some of our best contributors to consider leaving, and to actually leave.

It used to be customary to notify editors of discussions where their names appear. Please bear in mind that last year I offered to remove all my featured pictures from the main page queue if the community would convert the Picture of the Day into Media of the Day and incorporate featured sounds into the main page rotation. It is disappointing to donate so much labor, relinquish all intellectual property rights, offer to forego customary recognition, and then see the disparaging remarks that have been made here.

The volunteer base of people who contribute featured media is much smaller than the volunteer base that contributes featured articles. The growth of free media helps us all, and picture credit encourages notable contributors such as Jerry Avenaim to donate their work. For more information see this New York Times article. Let's keep the credit system as it is, and shift the discussion to adding featured sounds to Wikipedia's main page. With minor adjustments, I would renew last year's offer of voluntarily removing my work from the queue so that the effect on other contributors would be minimal.

Adding a compromise proposal

The biggest obstacle to this RfC's implementation is the lack of any community effort to identify and resolve offsite license violations at for-profit sites. Individual FP contributors have always had to deal with that alone, and that has caused editor burnout. So the people who want to eliminate contributor credit at POTD are invited to create a wikiproject to enforce offsite license compliance. If a project of that type is active and successful for three months I will withdraw all objection and endorse the proposed change for POTD. Durova⁴¹² 04:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary

• As proposer. Durova⁴¹² 01:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse, without comment on the first sentence, and rejecting the last. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed with original view; disagree with compromise proposal (even if it is exceedingly unlikely). upstateNYer 02:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Fully agreed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:40, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Circéus (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• I don't see your introductory claim supported by the wording of this RfC at all. You must have been reading a different RfC. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 02:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please correct if it is mistaken: has that editor ever participated at FPC? The reference to mistaken principles refers to copyleft ownership, where there appears to be consensus that actual ownership does exist. Durova⁴¹² 03:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The wording refers to the *appearance* of ownership, and in that I can find not flaw. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 03:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The appearance of ownership is validated where actual ownership really does exist and the work's commercial value introduces the danger of ownership rights being violated for profit. That editor found her featured picture in use on an advertisement on the London underground, completely uncredited. Most readers don't know how to red hosting page credit. So Wikipedia credits on the main page to reduce that kind of incident. Durova⁴¹² 03:35, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, the appearance of ownership is a flaw if ownership is not a central tenet of the project, and the exhibition of such ownership is damaging to the goals of the project. WP:OWN makes it quite clear what we think of ownership. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 02:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Putting your name on something is a rudimentary way to signify ownership. I think this is well-established.

  As for FPC, I don't think I've ever participated, aside from using a fair number of the images on my user page and elsewhere. I did have some very limited involvement in the "Featured sounds" process at one point, though the relevance to this RFC is lost on me. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I concur with that last. The experience or otherwise of the nom with featured media is irrelevent: he has every right to call an RfC on anything he likes. I also take objection to the phrase "mistaken principles": I believe MZMcBride's reasons for starting this RfC are based on his reading of WP Policy on OWNership. He may or may not be right in his reading but that is partly what we are here to discuss, alongside the views of many other people on the matter. I think you should strike that first sentence. The last sentence is also unuseful but I'll not say more on that --Jubilee♫clipman 03:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • These issues such as the theft of featured pictures for commercial advertising are discussed in the FPC talk archives. Experience with a process is useful when proposing changes to it--or as an alternative, research. The opening statement demonstrated no familiarity with the reasons the current status quo exists. Durova⁴¹² 04:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Featured pictures aren't captioned with credits. The Picture of the day is. There's a distinction. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:35, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Please see the compromise proposal suggested above. Durova⁴¹² 04:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Only Featured Pictures are eligible for POTD, and almost every FP becomes a POTD at some point, so it's a pretty subtle distinction really. How does that distinction help your POV? It's unhelpful to point it out without also showing the relevance to the discussion. As far as I'm concerned, the concerns regarding FPs are relevant to concerns about POTD. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 06:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • The original proposal duly notes that out of all article space, only the main page includes a credit in the caption for FPs. I thought that was pretty clear and easy to understand. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • That's not what we're talking about here at all. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 09:55, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • What are you talking about, then? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • It was about the distinction and relationship between FPs and POTDs, and how experience with FPC and of image theft is relevant. I thought it was pretty clear and easy to understand. :-P Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • According to you, the POTD credit would seem to be irrelevant to image theft. Or do you, once you've claimed that the majority of licensing request do *not* come via POTD, then claim that the majority of image theft *would* be by that route? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 12:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I never implied that the majority of image theft would come via POTD, not sure where you got that idea from. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • Then image theft is quite simply irrevant to this RFC. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                        • Not necessarily. Just because I didn't say that 'the majority of image theft would come via POTD', doesn't mean that it's irrelevant. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                          • If you think that the advertising effect is irrelevant, how can the image theft effect be relevant? Wouldn't they find your other pictures faster and steal them if your user account is hyperlinked from the main page? Uh-huh. *nods heartily* Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 02:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) The distinction comes from the use of Featured pictures anywhere else on the site. They're often used in articles, but the only instance of inline credit is with the Picture of the day. Broadly, this RFC is not about Featured pictures, it's about the Picture of the day, as that is the central sticking point. The practice of inline credits doesn't extend to other pages or areas (as far as I'm aware). --MZMcBride (talk) 12:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• We credit image creators alongside their images in the featured picture galleries as well, e.g. Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Aeronautics_and_aviation/Civilian, but do not credit FA authors in the corresponding FA list. If your proposal in this RfC succeeds, would your next move be to remove those credits too? --Avenue (talk) 13:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think one proposal should be decided on the basis of what the next proposal might be. For starters though, the FA and FP lists are in project space, which this proposal doesn't touch on. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Many websites directly link to the wiki POTD as their own POTD as well. Providing a credit line on the main page ensures that the caption being used on other websites also carries the credit as well. Also, as Durova rightly mentioned, many commercial photographers and museums are willing to donate their quality works with the hope that if and when the work appears on the main page, they would be credited and consequently get some attention. Removing the credit line jeopardizes this. I don't understand WHY andubody has problems with the credit. Photographers/Restorers have done hard work, and are donating a considerable amount of time and value to the project. A simple one line credit is IMO a win-win situation for both wiki and the contributor. --Muhammad(talk) 12:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question is why this exception is being made. Companies aren't donating their text to articles, and nobody apparently gives a damn (or tries to change it). By your reasoning, we're ripping off everybody who writes articles for Wikipedia. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 12:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't know what you're talking abour regarding companies donating their text to articles. Muhammad made no mention of that. I'd support crediting individuals who wrote articles for the main page too if it were reasonable and practical, but as has been discussed at length above, it's usually not. Crediting authors of images,however, is practical as demonstrated by the way POTD has operated for some time now. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 12:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The problem with crediting article contributors is that it's never been properly attempted. It's easy-peasy to just decide at FAC nomination who the contributors are - given how much debate goes on at FACs and how many edits go into the article, the effort involved in writing down the names of major contributors - they know who they are, and they know each other - would be trivial. That's when you'll start to see text contributions from commerce and charity, not before. Image sources aren't exactly kicking down our doors to get in, you know. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Really? And what happens if there are 7 people, do we credit all 7? If not how and what do we decide the cut off line? 5? What about when there are 6 people who each argue they should be recognised but can't agree on who to cut off but do agree it's unfair not to credit them at all because the happen to be one more then your arbitary cut off? What about when there's 6, with everyone including the person him or herself agreeing that number 6 is the least of them, but who still did more work then number 5 of a different case? What about if there are 3 who argue they are primary and 2 more who argue they were important enough to recognise but the 3 don't agree or are ambigious? What if there are 3 who did the touch up work to make an article an FA but perhaps unintentionally aren't aware of the 2 more who actual wrote most of the core article but then disappeared (so the 3 didn't encounter them)? Either way, do you mean it's important for an editor to partake in the FA process and perhaps discussions to help ensure people will recognise them and they can gain credit (since it seems likely if you ask for credit and if you do things so people will remember you, you're more likely to be recognised a contributor if you're relying primarily on people in the FA process agreeing on who to recognise.) And back to the earlier point, generally how do we deal with the problem of historic contributors who are surely less likely to be recognised & noticed then more recent ones?

Do we set up a special arbitration committee to deal with these disputes? Do we start defining the amount of text one has to contribute to be recognised? How do we easily measure this text, considering it's often significantly re-worked overtime but may still have been an important contributions and even a single edit can make such a contribution where as 200 edits can make a much smaller contribution to an article? Considering of course some people are more long winded then others (anyone who knows me knows I'm a case in point as this illustrates :-P) how do we deal with the issue of people who've contributed a fair amount of text which has been useful but it's had to be summarised, reduced and reworked by other editors whose total textual contributor would by a simple analysis seem negative but is clearly important? Do we set up a bot to help us measure this? Are you volunteering to code it? How do we handle cases when one did significant work in finding and checking references, but didn't contribute quite so much text? How about in a hot button topic, say Barack Obama where one mediating between different sides in disputes, primarily working in the talk page can make a big contributions? How much weight do we give to finding important pictures for the article? How about to touching up and improving those pictures? (Considering the contentious disputes about NFCC pictures on the main page and in general, I think it's clear how large the dispute over how important pictures are to articles.)

P.S. You may say these issues can arise in PoTD as well, but I think it's a lot less likely. The amount of work by contributors for PoTD is on far less of a continuum then it is for FAs. And similarly the number of wikipedia visibile edits & editors usually of orders of magnitude less. So the compexities arising from trying to to work out who to recognise therefore far less. And the evidence so far IMHO strongly supports that.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you've pointed out the flaw in your own argument... Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 02:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• PLW, I think your question "why this exception is being made" is answered well in the "View by Carcharoth" above. I also think your question has it backwards: to me, the real question is why we should believe our POTDs are exempt from the general rule that if you are featuring someone's work prominently within your own, you should acknowledge them prominently as well. --Avenue (talk) 11:56, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• A better compromise might be to forbid linking from the main page to user pages. Plain text only, with people wanting to contact the Wikipedians in question having to click around a bit more to find out where to go. Carcharoth (talk) 23:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• No objection to the latter suggestion by Carcharoth. Noting in passing that MZMcBride's assertions in this discussion run contrary to both the Manual of Style and actual practice. The New York Times article whose link I provided describes a featured picture which does run with a byline in article space. Wikipedia does credit that way under certain conditions. The reason for crediting more generously at POTD has to do with the tendency of license violations to happen after an image runs on the main page. Durova⁴¹² 18:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

• The Jerry Avenaim who contributed gems like File:Phil_1.jpg and File:Pinkett-Smith.jpg? The Jerry Avenaim who contributed a whole 14 (fourteen!) pictures? The Jerry Avenaim who made his last edit 15 months ago? This looks like a smoke and mirrors argument to me. I would think that it is not worth alienating thousands of tireless virtually uncredited contributors who uploaded over six million images on commons and edited over three million articles on en.wp alone, for a mere handful of thumbnail-sized images which provide no significant added encyclopedic value. I must admit though that I am surprised that it takes a photographer like myself to complain about this disproportionality. Maybe the masses of contributors just do not care about the whole credit issue, or they are not as networked as the FPC crowd. I guess the more you have to loose the more vocal you are about your point of view. --Dschwen 23:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • With regards to your last statement, to my knowledge Carcharoth hasn't created any FPs and as such, he stands to gain nothing by arguing to keep the credits. howcheng {chat} 06:38, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are right that I haven't created any featured pictures (though I would like to), but I have followed FP discussions on and off over the years, though I read more than contribute. I should probably go further and explain that my stance on image credits is informed by what I know of the history of image use and the photography industry, both here, on Commons, and elsewhere. Let's put it this way - when I see images used in books, newspapers and on websites, I actually look for information on who took the photos or created or supplied the images. And I read books about the history of photography and images. So when I see exhibitions of images (and POTD is an exhibition or images), I expect to see credit and information about the images supplied, more so than when used in a book or article (though even there, I would expect the information to be presented somewhere to the necessary standards). So I'm arguing for the readers here, if you like, who I think should have such information made available to them alongside the image. One issue that hasn't been raised, though, is of credit to commercial organisations (companies that sell products, including images). Can you imagine the howls of protest if a commercial organisation released a high-quality image under a free license (fair-use pictures don't need to be considered here), it was promoted to featured picture, and the name of that company appeared on the main page in the credit line? Maybe that has already happened? For that matter, some public domain and US government sources have commercial arms as well - do people object to that, or just to individuals? Carcharoth (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't see anything wrong with crediting a commercial organisation just as we would a non-commercial one (e.g. NASA). We should give credit where it's due. If the organisation wants to put links to its website or to an order form on the image description page, I think that's a separate issue. --Avenue (talk) 02:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's still an advertisement. The licenses allow links from the image description pages to websites of the rights owners' choosing, but the main page should be consistent with our stance on advertising. How would you feel if Marlboro contributed the images? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's not an advertisement. It is a discreet note acknowledging the creator of the image, not a banner ad exhorting readers to buy their products. I'm not sure what you mean by your Marlboro example, but if that company released one of their iconic Marlboro Man images under a free license and it became a featured image, I'd be happy for them to be acknowledged as its creator or copyright owner alongside its appearance on the main page (assuming it was created or owned by them, not an ad agency). I gather this would be repugnant to you, but I'm not sure why. --Avenue (talk) 12:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

            • The "discreet note" still counts as what's technically called an impression, and therefore would be part of advertising. What you may not have realised is that any image that Marlboro might release (note especially that this is not in any way restricted to images that relate to their brand or to smoking, it could be absolutely any topic!), if promoted to FP status (and we'd have to promote it if the quality and EV are sufficient, to keep our integrity) would then lead to thousands of impressions via a main page placement. You can say, oh, but wouldn't Howcheng put it on the "never ever" list? Even Howcheng would have to justify it, and that would be quite difficult without seeming to take a POV, which we're supposed not to do (especially with brands that are becoming extended). Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Carrying that logic to its conclusion would imply that we shouldn't feature articles about commercial enterprises on the main page, or even mention them in captions or in the news section. We're just giving them free advertising. --Avenue (talk) 15:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • Comparing apples with oranges. Notable creators can be mentioned in the image caption, and similarly, only notable commercial endeavours have articles written about them. Reliable sources would be required to document that image rights ownership is a notable fact in specific cases or, potentially, in general. If that's so, the caption is the place to mention it, not a separate credit line. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • I'll say it again: your argument applies with equal force to those situations too. According to you, they give these commercial enterprises thousands of impresssions, and we must therefore not put them on the main page. I agree with you that we can and should do these things nonetheless. This means your argument is wrong. --Avenue (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Couldn't follow you there. Try again? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • I think your argument above ran as follows: the credit note provides thousands of advertising impressions. If Marlboro contributed an FP, it would be difficult for Howcheng to avoid placing it on the main page, thus providing advertising to a large corporation, which is against our position on advertising. We should therefore not have credit notes on the main page. Is that a fair summary?
                      • My point was that any mention of a corporation on the main page (e.g. in the news section, or in a caption) also provides them with many impressions. Following your argument, such mentions provide advertising to these corporations, against our position on advertising, and so no such mentions should be made on the main page. I then pointed out that neither of us agree with this conclusion, so we should be able to agree there is something wrong with your argument. Of course, another possibility is that I have misunderstood your argument; hopefully you will point out if that's the case. --Avenue (talk) 17:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                        • Our position is that we don't raise money via advertising, not that we don't mention certain companies. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 17:40, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

          • If we were to entice Marlboro into investing in providing high quality free-for-reuse images, as judged by independent volunteers, then it would be a good thing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:06, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • It applies to any company or individual - Halliburton, BAe, Robert Mugabe, the Holy See, McDonald's, any extremist political party, activist group or religious sect, etc. The bottom line is: we agreed for moral reasons that we wouldn't let the Foundation earn money through advertising on Wikipedia, but we're leaving the back door open for companies to advertise *WITHOUT* the Foundation getting any monetary compensation for it. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

              • The main reason to be careful about accepting payment for advertising (or for editing, for that matter) is that it raises questions about editorial independence. If we're not getting paid, it's not the same issue. --Avenue (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • According to SmokeyJoe, we would be "enticing" Marlboro. That doesn't sound very editorially independent to me. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • I wouldn't have used that word. There's a big difference IMO between giving an organisation credit for contributing meaningfully to our project as any other editor might, e.g. by providing images freely, and taking their money to display advertising to our readers. If you don't see a meaningful distinction there, then you are operating from very different assumptions to me. --Avenue (talk) 16:32, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

              • So what ? An author is an author. Besides, WE decide what goes on the frontpage, not an organization. If we wouldn't want to feature an image made by Mugabe for the sole reason that it was made by Mugabe, then we don't. Attribution is one of our only copyright requirements. It should be attributed wherever it is hardly obtrusive, that is the moral thing to do. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • But that breaks WP:NPOV. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 14:44, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • No it doesn't. NPOV states that when we present material, it has to be done in a neutral manner. It doesn't say that we are required to display material that we would reject on editorial grounds. If I as the POTD coordinator choose to put the Mugabe/Marlboro image up, I make sure that the accompanying blurb is neutral. I am not forced to have that on the Main Page, just like Raul654 is not forced to put up any particular FA. howcheng {chat} 15:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Editorial decisions have to be unbiased, that's NPOV. It sounds like you're in a bad habit there already. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 16:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • So I assume that means you disagree with some of the pictures omitted from POTD? howcheng {chat} 17:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                        • :) Nice try. I have to admit I wasn't expecting this kind of peanut gallery argumentatering from you, but no: I mean exactly what I said: "It sounds like you're in a bad habit there already." I think the mental attitude you display when you say, "It doesn't say that we are required to display material that we would reject on editorial grounds.", is pretty bad. Since we're all editors here, maybe someone can give me a better definition of what they mean when they say "editorial". "Editorial" is a kind of "we are the cabal, get out of jail free" card, is it? "NPOV, but only for the lesser mortals", is it? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 18:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a flippant comment. By "editorial" I mean that as editors, we all make judgments about what is appropriate and what is not for any article or page. A simple example would be "Don't put photos of apples in the orange article." I believe that our sex-related articles have drawings instead of photos; that's an editorial decision. Articles on soccer players have lists of their goals scored while on their respective national teams, but don't highlight which ones were done by penalty kick -- again, an editorial decision by WP:FOOTBALL. Is it a violation of NPOV to do so? I would certainly say not, although some people think they should be there (such as at Talk:Landon Donovan#International Goals), and I'm sure there are people who would argue that photos of sex acts would be a more accurate representation of reality. Thus, from the FPs that were skipped for the Main Page, I made an editorial decision to skip File:Japanesesuicide.jpg based on past experience with complaints on about having dead bodies on the Main Page. I am not required to post that photo in the name of NPOV. Nor am I required to put a hypothetical Marlboro-donated photo of the Marlboro Man as POTD. In the same way, Raul654 in no way is required to have Jenna Jameson as TFA, even though it's an FA. Does that violate NPOV in your view? howcheng {chat} 23:44, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This debate isn't going anywhere and never will.

Users who endorse this summary

• --Jubilee♫clipman 02:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, that's the point I was trying to make in the first place. howcheng {chat} 04:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Per Jubileeclipman and Howcheng. Durova⁴¹² 18:16, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• Uhh, you (Jubileeclipman) have 75 edits to this page, as it stands currently. That's more than double the next highest person. It's unsurprising (and actually pretty predictable) that you're burned out on the discussion. These kind of requests for comment usually last for a few weeks. It's been about five days. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Burnt out" is putting it mildly... but I take your point! Do you take mine though? --Jubilee♫clipman 05:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do. There doesn't seem to be any consensus on this. Some people oppose credit on ideological grounds, some people support credit on ideological grounds and ideology is a difficult thing to change people's minds on. Some people seem to support the idea of credit only if it's given equally to all featured content (which isn't practical for articles, most would agree). My opinion is that we should be pragmatic about it. If it's reasonable to, credit it. If it's not, don't. In other words, continue doing exactly what we have been doing. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 13:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The result remains in favour of abandoning the credit, if anything. I'm not surprised that you as the beneficiary of the current arrangement would like to see it continued, along with Muhammad, Durova, and to a lesser extent Avenue and Jujutacular. You're involved parties a priori and you're not being "pragmatic", but rather, protecting your interests. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • So FP contributors who support continued crediting should be discounted, while those who don't clearly have only the purest of motives? How convenient for you. And although both numbers are small, I've been a significant contributor to more FAs than FPs, so why am I not arguing for FAs to be credited too? --Avenue (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Well, you kind of were, but then you somehow attributed the idea to me. No idea what your motives are. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • You seemed happy to cast aspersions on my motives, and those of others, just before. I'm glad you've seen the error of your ways. :-) --Avenue (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • More like the error of your ways, as per the above. But if this is going to turn into mudslinging, I'm not interested. As so often before, being bold and rolling up the sleeves is what's needed in order to improve the situation. Clinging to the status quo is clearly unsatisfactory. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • I'm not sure how you can fail to perceive your accusation above (that various people who disagree with you are only doing so to protect their interests) as mudslinging. I think it was appropriate to sling that bit of mud back at you. But I think we are both proving Howcheng's point. --Avenue (talk) 00:00, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been editing Wikipedia since 2004 and I have never contributed featured content as far as I am aware. It's not my thing. But I support continued attribution of FP. Furthermore, while some may be opposed to attribution on ideological grounds, our content is licensed under WP:CC-BY-SA 3.0, which says we "must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor." Our Terms of Use say text contributors agree that attribution by hyperlink, etc. suffices, but there is no such stipulation for non-text media. Indeed we get photos from other CC-BY sources, like Flickr, without the original author's knowledge, so they cannot have agreed to any stipulation. I don't think we have the option to reduce the level of attribution photo submitters have come to expect.--agr (talk) 19:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• The consequence of your reasoning would be credit inside articles as well. --Dschwen 21:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • One could argue that people, like myself, who upload their own photos to Wikipedia are aware of current attribution practice (including what we do with FPs) and have accepted that. But when we take CC-BY content from other sites, I think we have an obligation to do a better job of attribution inside articles as well, and have said so above. Those authors never limited their attribution rights under the CC-BY license and Wikipedia should be most careful in upholding open license terms.--agr (talk) 21:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • CC-BY-SA specifies that the attribution need merely be "reasonable to the medium or means". What that means is basically up to our collective interpretation. The license text also gives the same importance to the work's title as to the name of the author, so if we interpret this to mean we have to display a credit under each instance of a picture being used, we also have to place the title there, whatever it be. I prefer to view hyperlinking to an image description as "reasonable to the medium". You are of course right to point out that if the flickr CC-BY-SA user has specified anything more specific (I note that they would be free under the terms of the license to, for instance, request that their name be sung by a monkey on a unicycle whenever their picture is viewed), that instructions has to be followed. The upload bot(s) obviously can't check that this has been done, so we do in theory need to review each and every flickr transfer manually and confirm that no such special requests were present (the license is given in perpetuity so if the authors change their minds, it doesn't affect us). Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 22:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think reasonable attribution for a picture means that attribution is printed when the picture is printed, as printing a picture is a pretty obvious and reasonable thing to do. Perhaps this means that a watermark is good. Perhaps photographers, even restorers, like painters who care, should sign on the image itself. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Wikipedia already uses a different stylesheet for printing. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 06:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • <genuine question> What are you talking about? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • That information visible in the printed output can be different from the information visible onscreen. If the licensing required displaying a copyright notice in print view, this could be done without displaying the same information on-screen. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 06:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Or we could be generous in our interpretation of CC-BY and put the attribution on both the printed and on-screen versions. As a strong proponent and beneficiary of open licensing, I don't think Wikipedia should be taking the narrowest possible interpretation of our license when it comes to photos. We should follow the spirit as well as the letter of our license. And even if your reading of the CC-BY-SA fine print is correct (and it's no slam-dunk to this non-lawyer's eyes), I see no basis for retroactively narrowing our attribution policy, which I believe your proposal does.--agr (talk) 17:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • It may surprise you, but Wikipedia has no policy on attribution - attribution is wholly governed by the license texts on the one hand, and the technical implementation on the other. *This* proposal, however, is about making the main page conform to well-worn standards across article space. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • That's not quite true. Our Terms of Use lays out in detail how we deal with attribution of text. For other media it refers to the various licenses we use. In the absence of a more detailed policy on attribution of photos, I would say people who contribute or improve them would rely on our actual practice. Under CC-BY, I don't think we can ethically (if not legally) remove a form of attribution that users are accustomed to seeing, at least not for existing files and not without very clear notice to new contributors. --agr (talk) 22:07, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • It's far from true. As WP:PLAGIARISM says: "Don't make the work of others look like your own; give credit where it's due." (I admit this is only a guideline, not policy). --Avenue (talk) 23:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • "making the main page conform to well-worn standards across article space" - can we drop this point? The main page is in article space, but it is not an article. It is a portal. A face to the world. An entry point. The PoTD section is a stand-alone segment of the main page, added there by a template that is also transcluded in other locations as well. It is clear that several standards that apply across article space are not applied when the main page is considered (the protection policy being one example). Talking of applying article space standards to the main page is just a way to avoid addressing the real issues here, and even side-stepping them. Carcharoth (talk)
                    • You seem to be the one doing the side-stepping. Protection levels are nothing to do with this, and in fact are applied to the main page in a way that is consistent with other places in article space. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:12, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • My views are clearly stated elsewhere (explaining why I think PotD or indeed any any standalone republication of an image as an image (as opposed to being part of an article) should use explicit credits next to the image. You are welcome to respond to my views in the section I created, rather than continue the discussion here where you are saying that article space standards apply to the main page. I'm saying they don't, and thus your argument misses the point. Carcharoth (talk) 01:49, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We should explicitly credit and attribute the POTD, but further, we should credit and attribute all high quality images being used in a significant way, wherever published. In such cases, a link to credit and attribution, which is mandatory per WP:Copyrights, is not sufficient. The article Painting is an example this good practice.

This does not apply to easily made, easily re-makeable diagrams or ordinary photographs. For those, attribution as per any wikipedia article is sufficient. Neither does it apply to the trivial use of even significant images. The use of a photograph in Template:Painting-stub could equally use any decent painting, and so no one would expect explicit credit and attribution.

We should do this because this is what we want reusers of wikipedia material to do. We should lead by example. If Wikipedia content is used in a significant way, we want the credit and attribution (to Wikipedia) to be significant, more than fine print, more than a link. A lesser, but inseparable reason, is that appropriate credit and attribution encourages contribution.

Users who endorse this summary

• --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• This is what I was driving at in my view, which was a bit more verbose. The point about diagrams, and the other examples given are also good. Essentially, it is a case of editorial judgment to get the balance right, and a blanket "no credits anywhere" restriction is unhelpful. There are plenty of examples in this RfC alone that a spectrum of examples could be set up to demonstrate these issues to people who may not be familiar with them. Carcharoth (talk) 06:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I endorse the general spirit of this view, and in particular the emphasis on attribution for significant image use. The distinction between ordinary and high quality images seems more problematic to me, especially in getting people to agree where specific cases lie. --Avenue (talk) 14:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional support. I would go further and start an new RFC on image attribution. This problem goes way beyond POTD. As many comments above show, Wikipedia has a strong culture of collaborative work with minimal individual credit. But that culture may conflict with the copyright licenses under which we publish images. Our Terms of Use make clear how our style of attribution works for text contributions, but photos are treated differently: our Terms Of Use only references the free content license that the photo was uploaded under. Furthermore, almost all text is contributed by that text's author through the Wikipedia edit mechanism, which calls attention to the Terms of Use at the bottom every edit input page. Many photos, by contrast, are obtained from other sources such as Flickr, that use a CC-BY or WP:CC-BY-SA license, generally without the author's knowledge or consent. Here we run into a big mess. The CC licenses have two texts, a "Creative Commons Deed" and a "legal" license text, that say different things about attribution. I, as a non-lawyer would say that we have an ethical, if not legal, obligation to take the Deed seriously. It says "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor ..." Others apparently disagree. Finally I just filed a bug report on the Wikipedia mobile app, which crashes on my iPhone when I select the "View this page on regular Wikipedia" link on an image. That is the only path I can see to get to credits for an image. Even if this link worked (and it only shows up after you touch an image), I find it hard to see how it is a reasonable form of credit for images under CC-BY. Wikipanion, another, third-party Wikipedia iPhone app I have does not even offer this mechanism for credit. Instead it cites the image uploader, which is often not the image author. For all these reasons, I think the image attribution problem needs broader community attention. --agr (talk) 16:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I think that attribution on many more images, including in article space (with the caveats suggested by SmokeyJoe, although I acknowledge tightening some definitions would be trickier), would be desirable for at least ten reasons. See my extended statement below. TheGrappler (talk) 23:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that authorial attribution and statement of copyright/licensing should be encouraged on many more images, including in article space (with caveats as suggested by SmokeyJoe, although I acknowledge tightening some definitions would be tricky). There are practical, technical and moral reasons for my position, and there are historical reasons for why it is now pertinent to rethink this issue.

1. We have an ethical obligation to fulfil the terms of the "CC Deed". There is dispute and ambiguity about some of the terms in the deed. Are we truly doing our "best", if we merely attempt to perform what we consider is the minimal acceptable compliance?
2. Many images are now sourced from Flickr, Geograph and other sites, where authors expected the CC Deed to be enacted to a higher standard in terms of attribution (they weren't expecting it to be buried in a link).
3. The technique of burying licensing information on a different webpage is becoming increasingly inadequate due to the limitations of mobile browsing, a growing component of readership.
4. Even at best, the "linking" technique serves to obfuscate image rights information from the majority of users while satisfying our obligations in the minimal possible way, and at worst can be seen to be "sneaky get-out" from realizing our obligations (or creators' expectations of our obligations) openly and in full. [There are historic reasons why we originally felt obliged to do this, see Point 10, but their importance has greatly receded.]
5. Greater openness about licensing, and the restrictions and freedoms that come with it, helps fulfil our mission statement of producing a truly "free" encyclopedia (how many of our readers currently know what that means? Even many who have realized that our content does not have the usual restrictions on reuse, are under the misapprehension that images can be reused without credit.)
6. Regardless of the exact wording of the CC Deed, many images have particular ties to the creativity and talent of their originator (which is why we allow an exemption to the normal rules of "no original research" for image-makers!), and these ties are in principle acknowledgeable by in-line credits in a way that normal wikitext is not. In many cases there is a moral case for showing our appreciation by making such an acknowledgement, especially when images are sourced from other sites and the creator is not an active Wikipedian.
7. Good image attribution represents the best of professional practice (e.g. see sites like bbc.co.uk and many newspapers), the standard to which we should hold ourselves.
8. We know that for at least some professional-standard creative content producers on Wikipedia, our failure to comply with professional norms (both in the example we set when publishing content, and the failure to collectively pursue licence-breaching republishers) has been a harmful disincentive. On the other hand it is hard to see how stronger attribution for creative content would drive away either users producing "individual, creative" (generally "OR allowed") or "co-operative, synthetic" (generally "NOR") content.
9. Acknowledging image credits is not the first step on a slippery slope of "article ownership", because wikitext is not in principle capable of this kind of credit, and at any rate it is submitted under very different licensing terms.
10. Our reliance on hyperlinking to hide attributions and copyright information dates back to a time when (Fair Use aside), Wikipedia articles were expected to consist of text and pictures that were "GFDL or freer" (i.e. Public Domain in at least one jurisdiction). Attribution and licensing of articles and images was problematic at that time as that licence was more suitable for computing manuals. Published articles should theoretically have acknowledged all authors on the edit history (rather than just to "Wikipedia") - indeed, even publication on the Wikipedia site was subject to this condition, an obligation that was supposedly met by providing a link to the edit history on every article! Worse still, GFDL pictures should, if reprinted in e.g. a newspaper or newsletter, have been accompanied by the 6 page long full text of the GFDL licence... It is unsurprising that licensing on Wikipedia has had a major shake-up, with the use of CC-BY-SA 3.0 to cover article text producing a more coherent and reasonable approach, and developments in copyleft mean images are now available in a wide variety of (more pragmatic!) licenses. As the image and text licensing may now diverge significantly (especially in terms of attribution - the text may be creditable to a Wikipedia link but an image creator, especially off-site, never had to agree to the "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license" statement we have in front of our "Save page" button), and our primary motive for accepting "link attribution" is now less important (since the switch, upholding "proper" attribution on the Wikipedia site no longer raises the spectre of listing 5,000 usernames at the bottom of an article as authorial credit!), it's right for us to consider being more upfront about image attribution and copyright/licensing status in our article text. We now have a completely different set of considerations to balance, than we did in the pre-CC days when the "no attribution" rule was formed, and we should take this opportunity to review it.

Users who endorse this summary

• TheGrappler (talk) 23:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]