As you can see, this is a very rough draft. What I hope is having this proposal polished as soon as possible, so that we can focus on what is really important: replacing fair use images with free ones. -- ReyBrujo 18:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
This dovetails nicely with the replaceability guidelines I've been drafting. I will link to it from there.
But we could use a better name ... I was thinking of starting such a project and calling it "Image replacement" since the primary goal would be securing replacements for our replaceable fair-use images. Daniel Case 07:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I have added a list of steps to create a formal flow of data through the WikiProject. Basically, an announcement board is used to, well, announce a request. This is to prevent clashes with other members, and to have a certain "timeline" to process older requests and articles without free images first. Once a request is "approved" (it has been agreed the image is necessary and someone becomes the "contact" for that image), a subpage for the company is created following a certain template if it still does not exist, and a subpage for the request. In the request subpage all the conversation between the parts is logged with date and time (ideally the mailing should be posted there too, but it is possible to keep that information between both parties and only post what had been agreed, much like the abuse reports). Finally, once the petition is finished (successfully or not) the petition itself is "closed" with a set of templates similar to ((afd top)) and ((afd bottom)) to remark it is innactive. If the contact was successful, the image/s obtained should be displayed in a gallery at the bottom of the petition page and in a gallery inside the company's page. This way, it should be possible to offer them a page where they can check the images they had freed, the contact information (in case they need to update that), and the name of the users who had worked with them in the past.
Well, that is at least my thought. Anyone can add some more ideas, polish the flow, or optimize it? -- ReyBrujo 21:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
It might be interesting to, at some place within this project, have someone explain in detail not only the difference between fair use and free images (it really is sometimes clear as mud on some of the pages), but also to put flat out why this is such a deal. Specifically, if Wikipedia has ever been sued for copyright infringement over the use of images. And if Wikipedia hasn't, then examples of other sites being sued would be helpful. Never mind my personal view on the topic (I feel things are unnecessarily strict as it is), if people encounter a new - or even experienced - wiki-editor asking "why should be go through all this extra effort?", then to pass on a link to a Wikiproject Free Images page explaining how in November 2004 Wikipedia had to pay the Joe Blow Publicity Company $10,000 in a court settlement over infringement (just an example I made up) it might make it a stronger case. I hope I'm making sense. 23skidoo 22:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals is considering a new Barnstar to be given to people who make great combined contributions to Wikipedia articles and the Commons free-use image collection. Please come by and state your views. Thanks, Johntex\talk 15:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Are there plans to move this out of userspace anytime soon? I think it would be a great project.--Pharos 06:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I've just discovered this project has already been formally proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#WikiProject Free images. Everyone interested please sign up now. And, by the way, I think "WikiProject Free images" is a fine name.--Pharos 00:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations on the start of what I hope will be a very successful and popular project! Jkelly 00:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I am a volunteer editor at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [Discuss importance of conservation topics] Specifically, we'd like to be able to show a photograph of X for our readers. We have very strict copyright standards though, and, as a "free content" resource, cannot use images by permission only or that anyone else wouldn't be free to use. So far, the only image we have is [some lame picture]. [Wikipedia article URL] I would be very helpful, if you own a photograph of X, to make it available under a "free content" license like the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license, so that anyone could use it, so long as it was attributed to you and any changes to it also could not be restrictively copyrighted. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
This is an extremely silly comment, which is not really about the aim of the WikiProject: any objection about modifying the list of participants to have an alphabetically sorted list? I always find the list of participants (sorted by date of joining) pretty silly, because it is not important when you did join, but instead that you did join, and makes everyone "equal". As a trivia item, that is why I am member of WikiProject Albums and WikiProject Dragonlance, but not WikiProject Spam (although I fully support it with my own dump analysis). -- ReyBrujo 01:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I know this project is mainly dealing with images of living persons right now, but how I'd like to see a generic letter that we could send to request GFDL release of book covers, DVD covers, screenshots, etc. This kind of thing would be most likely to be successful if sent to the rights owners of works with few contractual strings. An author and illustrator of a novel would be simpler to convince than a whole list of people who get gross points from the screening of TV episodes. Is this too far-fetched, or does it sound reasonable? --GunnarRene 18:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Reflecting above, I thought it would be a good idea to brainstorm on the different ways to use free images in articles on copyrighted works. If we had some guidelines, creativity in this manner could be a little more, uh, organized. So far, I've got (1) image of something that inspired the work, (2) image of something that was inspired by the work, (3) portrait of author or artist, (4) diagram explaining logic of the work, (5) image that depicts production of the work and (6) image that depicts use of the work. And for the separate issue of images for the mainpage FA box, there is also the possibility of generic icons representing the field of endeavor. Any other ideas?--Pharos 23:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
This could possibly be merged, or at least expanded to include, Wikipedia:Free image resources. (See also my related suggestion at Template talk:Article resources)
Further up the page was a thread about boilerplate letters, so in case you missed it I'll point towards Wikipedia:Example requests for permission. Hope that helps. :) --Quiddity 05:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello. There's a related project on Wikpedia called WikiProject Illustration that seeks to improve the presence of Wikipedia's images. We would appreciate it if you put a link to us on your page -- it seems like these two projects have a lot in common. Thanks! MithrandirMageT 00:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
One the one hand I like a lot your effort and would like to assist in every way I can. On the other, I would like to report a problem we have with free images in WP Films. Most images we can find are movie posters, DVD and VHS covers and they are all under Fair Use. We find them in film databases and commercial sites. Any posters needing special permits are not accepted (if discovered to be such they get tagged). Another member helping with providing fair use film related images has said recently he realizes his mistake in several cases and is reducing all his uploaded bigger poster images to below 300px. I have also seen some rare cases of huge posters presented under fair use. Well, a cleanup, hopefully bot assisted, is absolutely necessary. All fait use images should be scanned for size and edited/resized where necessary. But still, there are almost no free images available for our needs. Even a self made screenshot is not really free, as the copyright of all the film content belongs to the producing company. So we don't have any other choice. We have been lately offered the idea of finding free actors images, but for film articles this would be a problem (we already have some illustrated cast sections...) For biography articles this is a good idea, if the images are really free. But by far more often than in film images, person images get tagged for inappropriate licencing. If you know of any solution to this, please let me/us know. Hoverfish Talk 08:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems like all users of wikipedia seem to forget this but instead of serching the web for an hour for a picture of somthing why don't they just take a picture of it themselves. Its a lot of work getting some company to agree to release a promotional advertisment for say a car but verry easy for a wikipedia user to walk into their garage and take one. I know that not everyone will have access to everthing we need a pict of but we have lots of members. Tell me if its stupid but it just seems like a better idea than begging and filling out forms to get an old picture that isn't that much better anyway. tell me if I am missing somthing but I don't think that there is a problem with this idea. Effilcdar 23:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't we email all the big talent agencies like Creative Artists Agency and International Creative Management for images? I think if the right person read it, an explanation of the google rank and popularity of our web site might convince them to give us lots of images at one time. Has this been done before? - Peregrine Fisher 00:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I think a top priority for us must be the establishment of a formal press accreditation system for photographers, like at n:Wikinews:Accreditation policy. Unfortunately, Wikinews, the only project that currently has such a system, seems to favor a "no outsiders" policy on this, and will not accredit anyone who is not active at Wikinews. A great candidate for such an accreditation would be User:DavidShankBone, who has recently been making fantastic contributions from the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival through a "Wikipedia" press pass he managed to negotiate on his own. How much more would we benefit if people like DavidShankBone could get regular access to press events?--Pharos 20:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I recently created an article on the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment Program, and I have found several relavent images that I would like to include in the article; however, I'm not sure how to determine whether said images are "free" or not, and the help desk isn't helping. So, if anybody could tell me how to find out if a given image is free, I'd appreciate it. Thanks! Vsst 20:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll do that. Thanks!Vsst 01:02, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Please folks, have a look at Wikipedia:Requesting free content.--Pharos 05:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I've recently stumbled across a few excellent sites for public domain photos, most of which are works of the U.S. Government. Is there a certain rhyme or reason to the way you want them uploaded? Or is it one of those things where I should just slip 'em into articles as they're needed? Consequentially 08:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
World Economic Forum 2007 photos at Flickr under CC-BY-SA 2.0. I suggest uploading to the Commons, but this is a nice find. Over 200 photos for our picking and using. They might even rival some of the PD items we have already, as I noticed for Rania of Jordan. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 08:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The current campaign to put a 'No Free Image' graphic (left) on all biographical pages (for living people?) has been controversial, and a long discussion on the issue has resulted here: here.
Is this matter within the scope of this project? I am asking this because we are considering where we should hold a full, centralized debate. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 12:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Following on from the note (above) a centralized discussion has been started here: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. Thanks. --Kleinzach (talk) 06:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this project is a great idea but it seems to be fairly inactive at the moment and I'd like to start a discussion as to how it might be altered to increase activity. I suspect that one of the problems was that the complexity of the process dissuaded participation. I appreciate the need for documentation but I think a simpler process might yield better results. Another issue appears to have been attracting participants. I think attempting to work more closely with topic-based Wikiprojects (with this project coordinating) might cover more ground. Does anyone else have any thoughts? Apologies if something like this has already been suggested or if anyone is offended by the criticism of an outsider. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 10:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Instead of a regular holiday this year, it's my plan to buy a 7-day All Line Rover ticket and travel around Great Britain by train. Why am I telling you this? Well, I'll be taking a digital camera with me and I intend to take as many photographs as possible that can be used on Wikipedia (due to my interests these may be largely railway- and transport-related). I'm going to try and get what I can from Category:UK rail transport articles needing images, and I'm also inviting requests and suggestions.
I wonder if folks in this project have any thoughts about this question I posted at the Photography WikiProject? – Scartol • Tok 13:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This BRFA to remove the place holder images from articles might be of interest; Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AmeliorationBot 2. ~ Ameliorate! U T C @ 06:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi! I've proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Files that this project be merged with a number of other WikiProjects related to images/files on Wikipedia. All comments there from the members of this project would be much appreciated. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 23:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Given the generally favorable response to the proposal, it is now proposed that this project be redirected if there are no objections so that its purpose can be carried forward by the new project, Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media. Please join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images_and Media#Redirect proposal. Thanks. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rorschach test images. Should Rorschach test display all ten images used in the test and the common responses, or should we act on psychologists' concerns that doing so undermines the test? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Please see discussion at Template talk:Infobox person#Replace this image. Someone asked, I investigated, and links summarizing what I found are listed there. It's meant to be getting discussed here. Possibly further action (to modify the various warnings found on other pages) is also warranted at this time. Feel free to copy my comments wherever helpful. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)