Commons talk:Featured picture candidates/Archive 17

FPC Policy Decision Makers?

Curious about the outcome here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#Banned_users Not only do I question the legitimacy of some of those participating but the closure by someone that rarely participated in FPC prior to this seems odd. Am I missing something? Saffron Blaze (talk) 03:11, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Let's not re-open that wound. Yes, the discussion started getting attention from editors who never participate at FP, which rather reinforced the point about the unwelcome attention any PFC created by banned users would tend to attract. So I support it's closure. -- Colin (talk) 07:06, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

New requirement: naming the category

Hi, For a long time, I think about proposing this. Asking the nominator to name in which category the file should be added. That would help reviewers, and might avoid senseless nominations if the nominator has to look through current FPs. Opinions? Regards, Yann (talk) 21:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Support Good idea. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:46, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
•  Oppose bad idea. The main, I think there isn't a problem for our "old photographers", but for newcomer? Too complicated. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 06:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, the idea is to educate newbies. ;oD And this new rule would not prevent anyone for fixing that for someone else who forgot it. Regards, Yann (talk) 09:20, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
    • We needn't a new rule, we need only the work for adding the cat. That's all :-) --Alchemist-hp (talk) 11:11, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
  • As a matter of fact, I don't think we need to make it easier for newbies to nominate; they already give us enough bad nominations. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
•  Support as earlier. But it should be automated at Template:FPCnom by some code experts. Jee 08:25, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
  •  Support per Jee --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 06:15, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• "As a matter of fact, I don't think we need to make it easier for newbies to nominate; they already give us enough bad nominations." While it may be true that a lot of FPX nominations come from newbies, far too many poor nominations come from regulars. But all of us were newbies once, so let's not put barriers in the way of the next person wanting to offer fantastic free photos and join this forum. Making nomination more complex (without extra help with the nomination tools) will only lead to every candidate having lots of requests/opposes from reviewers simply over missing/wrong categories. Which would be a distraction. Looking through current FPs might help but probably more important is to look through images in the photograph's own Commons category (at some suitable level in the tree) using the "Good pictures" tool to find existing QI/FP images. Comparing with QI is very helpful in realising "actually, this one isn't as special as I thought". -- Colin (talk) 07:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

  Of course, I wouldn't make it a requirement or a valid reason to oppose, just something which is strongly recommended. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:19, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Neutral Maybe an optional line like for the used in in VIC (|usedin=<!-- List of links to usages on Wikimedia project content pages (optional) -->) in the nomination page could be a solution:

Category =<!-- A link to the relevant existing Featured pictures gallery (optional) -->
-- Christian Ferrer 18:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with Christian Ferrer: Add it to the template, but make it optional (or something like highly recommended), at least for now. If over time it turns out to be a problem for newbies or people who don't speak English: Keep it optional. If it turns out not to be a problem at all, we can still make it a requirement later. --El Grafo (talk) 12:29, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
• I added a category parameter in the template. Hopefuly, I didn't break anything. ;oP I added

'''Recommended:''' Please add a category from the list at [[COM:FP]]. in Commons:Featured picture candidates#Adding a new nomination. Yann (talk) 13:54, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

FPX because "with these opposes it is unlikely to gain any supports"

I know that this is a rather minor point, but over the last time I have seen a few FPXs that look a bit strange to me. In my understanding, an image should be FPXed if and only if it is absolutely obvious that it will not gain a consensus to promote because of severe flaws that go beyond matters of taste. Such factors might be a massive lack of sharpness, extreme overprocessing or other obvious deviations from the image guidelines. However, I do not think that a FPX should be used to prematurely close a nomination that is clearly not going well. Just because an image doesn't get support doesn't mean that it strictly violates the guidelines and therefore imho "with these opposes it is unlikely to gain any supports" is not a legitimate reason to FPX. I think we should keep in mind that FPX is a pretty extreme measure and we are all photographers of different skill and knowledge and being FPXed without any practical need is unnecessarily harsh on those who are trying to contribute good images. I'm not looking to pick a fight here (the topic is not that important), but I would like to urge restrained use of the FPX tool to clear-cut cases. I'll ping Daniel Case since he made some of the recent FPXs, perhaps you would like to weigh in or explain your point of view. --DXR (talk) 05:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I should have phrased that differently; and {{FPX contested}} is always available. But I see your point. Perhaps we should establish a minimum time the nomination has been active before the hook can come out? Daniel Case (talk) 15:32, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Minimum time would defeats the purpose of FPX, which is that a nomination is so unlikely to succeed we shouldn't even wait for it to fail under the 5 days rule. -- KTC (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:17, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The FPX in 2015 are not only a "bit strange", they were rude, pointy, disruptive, and detrimental, and one of the three factors why I ignored FPC recently. The examples I recall were pushing policy points about socks, a FPX against a regular with hundreds of QI+FP, and a FPX against a scan of a 50 years old photo. –Be..anyone (talk) 20:50, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Panoramas

Hello, as you know, since some time I make a layout work on FP galleries, until then I had no problems, but this gives me some issues regarding this gallery. Due to the particular size that can have panoramas the FPCBot brings the newly promoted pictures in this form.
The images were placed by the FPCBot one after another in this form:
[[Image:Wellington City Night.jpg|thumb|627px|left|Central Wellington, New Zealand]]
Unfortunately for storing by country I had to change the formatting, it is the current page. The form I used is:
<gallery widths="270px">File:Gornji Orahovac, Bosnia y Herzegovina, 2014-04-14, DD 10-13 PAN.jpg|Gornji Orahovac</gallery>
My problem is that the FPCBot continues to bring the images in the old form. This is not really compatible with the new page. I would like the FPCBot be amended for that it bring the newly promoted images in the unsorted section, as in the other FP galleries. I asked the operator Daniel78 on his talk page but he did not answer me. Commons is based on volunteerism so I did not dare stressed because maybe he did not have time. Can anyone help me?
Otherwise I will return to the old form, it will be a shame because the utility of a gallery that can be classified images and the new form is easier to find a specific panoramas. -- Christian Ferrer 14:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Unless someone wants to take over FPCBot and make the changes, it's unlikely to happen as Daniel isn't really active anymore. -- KTC (talk) 10:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi there, I am indeed not very active on commons or FPC currently. Does not mean I will completely abandon the bot though - but I can't guarantee I will always be around to fix things or answer questions. But if anyone want to help out I can take a look at patches for it (would even be happy to). /Daniel78 (talk) 16:24, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

File:Croatia Opatija Women with dove BW 2014-10-10 10-35-13.jpg

Could someone please edit the result box, it should be sorted to places/in croatia. Thanks. --Berthold Werner (talk) 09:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Done I guess FPCBot will place the image Places/Unsorted, after that manually you can move the image to places/in croatia. Regards. --Laitche (talk) 09:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Invalid voting by the user

User:LuisArmandoRasteletti is voting support for all closed nominations and all current nominations, What do you all think about that? --Laitche (talk) 11:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I crossed them out and wrote on his talk page. Not sure what's going on there. — Julian H.^✈ 15:20, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

(To clarify: I only crossed out the invalid votes, not the valid supports. Even though those don't appear to be helping either, since he, as mentioned, literally supported everything. — Julian H.^✈ 17:31, 25 April 2015 (UTC))

@Julian Herzog: Thanks. --Laitche (talk) 16:00, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, he is continuing to vote for everything support now. --Laitche (talk) 17:43, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
• Does someone have a good idea to stop him? --Laitche (talk) 18:00, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
• Notification: Now the minimum bar of FP is practically at least 6 supports... --Laitche (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I have reported this issue to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. Since every single FPC has been supported since User:LuisArmandoRasteletti created his own nomination, including closed ones, it is clear that no judgement is occurring. I would support striking-out all of the votes. What do others think? Retaining them will result in incorrect promotions and in images that should be removed/withdrawn early hanging around for longer. -- Colin (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I think his vote is not a judgement, he is just carrying out simple work. For this reason I agree with Colin. --Laitche (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree too. Yann (talk) 19:25, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

::Don't agree. And how about an explanation for this user? Has someone already tried it? --Alchemist-hp (talk) 20:09, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Alchemist-hp, why don't you take the trouble to (a) look on his user talk page and realise the answer to your question is yes and (b) attempt to retrieve an explanation yourself, instead of lecturing everyone else. I would be very interested to hear what possible explanation there is for voting for every single candidate, sometimes twice. FPC is not a game. -- Colin (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry. My mistake. --Alchemist-hp (talk) 20:22, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Question I don't understand how we can cross out the votes of a registered user whatever his intentions seem to be. Is there anything in our rules supporting such action? Please explain. Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe this is not the answer to your question but there is an exception for everything. --Laitche (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Otherwise we have to write millions of pages of detail rules. --Laitche (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• What is this obsession on Commons for rules? When people do shit things, they say "there is no rule says I can't do this". When people want to fix things, others say "there is no rule you can". I guess nobody considered that someone might log on to Commons and vote support for all fifty candidates and so didn't bother to gain prior-consensus and write some rule saying "If you do that, we might strike out your votes". Do you think that's likely to happen frequently? In all your years on Commons FPC has anyone done that? Why not let's waste the next week having a big discussion/vote on what the threshold of stupidity/disruption is? Is it forty-straight votes in support, or thirty? Come on. God gave you brain, rather than a circuit board. Let's discuss, make a decision, and hope nothing like this ever happens again. -- Colin (talk) 21:08, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• In a more general way, it is not the first time there is massive support or almost systematics "easy" support from one user. Maybe that should be fixed a rule to limit the number of support votes at 2 by user by days. -- Christian Ferrer 21:24, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't want that. Sometimes people spend an evening or weekend going through the FPC list and legitimately support many images over an hour or so. I agree that some people offer a lot of support votes when making a nomination, but I've never seen it done on this scale. It is hard to legislate against someone determined to game the system in a clever way, but this isn't clever -- just disruptive. Alvesgaspar, if I spent this weekend opposing all fifty nominations at FPC, for no apparent reason, do you think you'd be asking about rules if my oppose was the reason your candidate failed? I think I'd be blocked already and you'd all think Colin had lost the plot. Similarly, and less obviously, if I had an FPC currently, that was only likely to succeed because of someone playing games, then I'd be unhappy about achieving promotion unethically. We're here to decide the best images on Commons, not to fret over rules or permit such disruption to influence the FP list. -- Colin (talk) 21:48, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
    • First of all I don’t appreciate your patronizing tone. Second, my long years in Commons have taught me that people usually shout when they are not sure of their own reasons. Third, let us look rationally at what is really happening here and try to answer to some simple questions: i) did this incident cause any visible damage or seriously disrupted the normal functioning of FPC? ii) are stupid or unjustified votes already not allowed in FPC? iii) how many of these votes from a single user are necessary for someone to come here and try to strike them out through a ad-hoc poll? Yes, nature gave me a brain so that I can think with my own head and not be intimidated by this kind of arguments. The bottom line is: there is no way we can eliminated those votes without going against our guidelines and seriously disrupting FPC. Is that really what you want to try? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes, going against our guidelines, in other words that is called an exception. --Laitche (talk) 22:25, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The way of fixing for this incident is just like an emergency evacuation a necessity so please understand Alvesgaspar. --Laitche (talk) 23:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC) --Laitche (talk) 13:01, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• Regarding the block, I'm neutral and even a bit favorable but I'm not very favorable to remove votes of this user, and when he will be unblocked : will he have the right to vote? will he have to justifies his new votes? to whom? if he will learn not to vote for closed nominations thus will he have the right for to vote favorably for all other? I understand that these votes can be disturbing, but arbitrary decisions even if they are good stay still arbitrary when made for an alone user and therefore unjust by definition. Behavior can be found disturbing, a vote no, or he have the right to vote or not, as for all of us. If you think it has skewed the results, rather than go here then go to the page and vote accordingly. -- Christian Ferrer 05:22, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Alvesgaspar, I am looking rationally at what happened. We have over fifty invalid votes that have skewed those nominations towards promotion. Your "How many votes from a single user" question is exactly the question I ridiculed above as an example of how broken decision-making can be on Commons. It seems like folk have forgotten this is a wiki. Rather than agonise over "what if X happens" hypotheticals, why don't we just concentrate on what we have before us: over fifty invalid votes. You ask about rules, well, scroll to the bottom of the FPC header section and you will find: "Happy judging… and remember... all rules can be broken.". Have a read of Ignore all rules, which is a core principle of all our wikis. This is a community who are able to make ad hoc decisions, and because this is a wiki, we should be able to do so quickly and informally. These votes can be eliminated without "going against" any guideline -- there is no "all votes are sacrosanct, even those cast by users who get blocked for disrupting the forum" guideline -- all it needs is community consensus. For what it is worth, if I had a candidate up right now, I'd withdraw it in protest. There's no joy in achieving a gold star because someone decided to play silly games over the weekend (and has got blocked for it). -- Colin (talk) 07:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

A single mass supporter could never affect the vote if all the opposer actually opposed. Unfortunately it's a common practice to support the images you like and not to vote when you don't like. --Donninigeorgia (talk) 07:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Comment - Let me say again: those fifty votes are not invalid; they were made by a registered user with more than 50 edits. If they were invalid any editor could strike them. Why shouldn't we opem an exception to the rules and strike them? Because that would subvert our system, by opening a dangerous precedent. As Donninigeorgia just wrote above, those votes are really irrelevant. A final point: stating that I'm an interested party, as you did here is unfair and inelegant. This kind of ad hominem insinuations disrupt more than 50 blind votes. Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

He was continuing to vote for support everything like a carrying out simple work and he was voting for all closed nominations so his vote is not a judgement, that means practically his vote is not a vote. That period, since he nominated his nomination till he was blocked, the featuring rule had been broken by him so we would like to fix the wrong period. --Laitche (talk) 09:04, 27 April 2015 (UTC) --Laitche (talk) 21:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Alvesgaspar, you misinterpret Donninigeorgia, who writes that those votes can affect the result because few editors actually bother to oppose -- relying instead on popularity making the image pass the 7-vote threshold. Let me put it another way, if a user posted their nomination to the candidate list and at the same time unilaterally and without consultation with the community, reduced the guideline required number of supports to 6, while also receiving support from another editor who would gain from this, how would you respond? I fail to see why you are campaigning at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems for this user to be unblocked or insisting his actions are not disruptive. You seem to have a fixed mind that a registered user with more than 50 edits can piss all over FPC and we should do nothing about it. Let me repeat my question: what would you do if I opposed all 50 nominations, including your own. I don't think, for a moment, you'd support me. -- Colin (talk) 09:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

There are several images near the end of their FPC listing that stand to be promoted solely because this user has tipped the support ratio in favour of promotion. And undoubtedly several others with longer to go that are likely to benefit from this blind support of everything. This is not "irrelevant" but is in fact permitting the forum to be disrupted by one user (who is now blocked). There are no rules on this that need exceptions, nor is scaremongering about precedents helpful (the "slipperly slope" is Commons favourite logical fallacy). We can restore FPC to a fair promotion, by striking these silly votes, or we can be partners to this disruption because it serves our ends, or we can withdraw our candidates in protest at a rotten vote. -- Colin (talk) 09:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with the concern raised by Laitche and the wise comment by Abd on the user's talk page. The block is not just for random voting; instead the refusal to respond even in his talk page, still continuing what he was doing. Jee 11:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Jkadavoor (Jee). Adding a comment pointing to possible voting abuse is the normal way to handle something like this. The user, however, was not warned to not vote, and was blocked clearly for failure to respond to requests and warnings, not exactly for voting. When unblocked, the user obviously should proceed with caution. I caution Colin for incivility in the comment above. The user was not "pissing all over FPC." He was possibly adding some systematic bias toward approval, that's all. Perhaps he believes they are all wonderful photos. Only if there is some fixed rule about the number of votes, rather than a guideline, would this be a real problem. I.e, the issue here may come from a trust placed in fixed rules, when normal wiki procedure is that closers have discretion.

Funny that there is no reference above to the actual policy. It's on the FPC page. Voting policy is at [1]. There is no restriction on how many supports one may make, nor any restriction on what could be called "frivolous support." The idea that there is something wrong with approving everything seems not to ever have been established by consensus. The user was not violating any policy.

Then decision policy is at [2]. I have never before seen bot decision, so I was surprised. FPC appears to be a pure vote with an automatic result. However, there is a bypass: "there is a manual review stage between the bot has counted the votes and before they are finally closed by the bot, this manual review can be done by any user that are familiar with the voting rules."

The "universal support" could be said to lower the threshold from seven to six votes, if this user continues the behavior and nothing else is changed. Of course, the threshold could be increased (permanently or temporarily), or others, if they believe the user is improperly supporting undeserving images, may vote in opposition. I would suggest that the rule be changed from at least X votes in support to "at least Y total supports after oppose votes have been subtracted." I don't think the fix here is to prohibit any qualified user from voting. --Abd (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Just to nitpick on "The user was not violating any policy.": He did vote on a whole bunch of nominations that were long closed (those had to be removed). I think that counts as violating policy. It also demonstrates a relatively obvious lack of interest in what he was voting on. — Julian H.^✈ 18:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

And to re-iterate the point that Colin was making, it isn't necessary to find a policy that he was violating to demonstrate that he was being disruptive. We don't have a policy for every possible disruption but that doesn't mean we can't identify the disruption. We all have brains and are capable of using them. ;-) Yes, maybe he did find every single image worth supportive, but that only goes to show that he wasn't being sufficiently discerning, given that many nominations are patently below standards. There has to be a middle ground between prescribing detailed criteria that reduce us to mere automaton bureaucrats, and giving everyone completely free reign to vote however they like without any need to justify their voting patterns. That middle ground requires using good judgement and demonstrating the ability to discern good from bad images. Diliff (talk) 18:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Abd may prefer the euphemism of "possibly adding some systematic bias toward approval" which reminds me of a certain UK politician who " 'over firmly' denied having a second job". But this a deflection from the issue. As noted by Julian, this user not only voted on closed nominations but also voted twice on some nominations. A look through this user's contributions will unearth another time in 2010 when 100% support was coincidental with a nomination. I am truly tired of all this "rule for this" "no rule for that" nonsense that kicks any action into the long grass and is fundamentally anti-wiki. There is no rule says I can't post the letter "R" again and again and again on everyone's talk page, but doing so would certainly piss everyone off. There's no rule says I can't decide to support or oppose nominations based on the day of the week or the initial letter of the nominators user name. But doing so would rightly be regarded as Colin playing games. His so-called "voting" is invalid and playing games. It isn't uncommon for some users to be over-supportive when nomination, but few are as naively crude about it as this. If Abd wants to play silly games on this talk page, I'm off. Unwatching. -- Colin (talk) 20:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

It's not a euphemism. It's the actual effect. Voting on closed nominations was disruptive, in a sense, but harmless. He wasn't warned for that. Nor for voting twice. He was only requested to stop voting for every nomination, and then warned for doing that without discussion, and blocked for same. It's an error to make him the topic here. The issue worth discussing is if any steps should be taken to prevent what could be considered "frivolous votes." My opinion is that any effort to do this could cause more harm than good. There are possible changes in how voting is evaluated that would minimize the harm from this, but it is not clear that this problem is large enough to be worth the effort. Voting for every nomination is not contrary to policy. Stupid voting is not contrary to policy. There are no warnings about dumb votes in the instructions. No expertise is required to vote, etc. --Abd (talk) 17:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Comment Thank you, @Abd: for coming here and try to understand what has really happened. You are right, the user did not violate any policy and, according to the present guidelines, his votes are perfectly valid. Another fact that people failed to mention here is that this kind of situation is not new, as many other editors often come here and blindly support a lot of pictures in a row without seriously assessing them. Many times we have tried to find a scheme to oblige people to justify their oppose and support votes, but a consensus was never reached on that matter. However it should be stressed that this kind of isolated episodes can hardly be considered more serious than a nuisance, as their effect is easily corrected by the other reviewers. Considering that the intentions of all those editors are malicious and eliminate their votes via some ad-hoc process, as is being tried here, is a gross violation of the AGF principle and a dangerous precedent that may subvert the FPC system. This is not a minor decision, as the proponents of the measure are implying. Now, we are considering as non-valid the support votes of a registered user, just because a couple of editors considered them suspect. What will come next? I say again, this time more emphatically: it is this very proposal, as well as the aggressive way it is being conducted, that is disruptive to FPC, not the fifty support votes of User:LuisArmandoRasteletti. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:25, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, his votes are completely valid, and that's the problem, if invalid striking-out all of the votes, that's it. But we can't. That's why we are having a discussion here. So your assertion is out of focus from this discussion and this incident, in my opinion. --Laitche (talk) 06:40, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Question Do I understand correctly that a Commoner made a nomination then proceeded to support 50 previously nominated images? Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I think nobody knows his intentions because he has never responded to any attention and any warning, please see his talk page. --Laitche (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it (and I'm not absolutely certain of every detail so please correct me if I'm wrong), he did. Not only did he support ~50 nominated images, but he supported every nomination without exception and without any additional comments to support the vote. These support votes included those that were already expired but still on the page, he on one occasion double voted, and continued to support new nominations even after being asked politely/warned not to support everything blindly. He showed, IMO, that he was not applying any discrimination whatsoever in his voting patterns and was not heeding warnings nor responding to those who contacted him, but as Laitche says, we can only infer intentions as there was no response from him. Diliff (talk) 22:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

That's correct. --Laitche (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Any reasonable person would interpret that behavior as either blatantly currying favour or being so stupid as not to recognize it would be interpreted as such. In either case the behavior should not be tolerated and the nomination and the votes set aside. The case is sufficiently extreme, and instances like it sufficiently rare, that such a summary judgment would be an appropriate course of action. Creating a policy is certainly not warranted for the same reasons. Saffron Blaze (talk) 03:58, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

And yet there are some arguing here that since we have no rule against it, he did absolutely nothing wrong... And that's the problem, as Laitche says. If we can't agree that the voting patterns were unconstructive - the equivalent of vandalism - then something is wrong here. If identical text was applied to every article visited by the user on Wikipedia and refused to respond or stop, he'd have been blocked for vandalism. What's so different about this? Diliff (talk) 10:25, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I think we need a precedent(like this). If we have a precedent, when exactly the same thing occurred, and if we have no rule against it, we can say We already have a precedent.. For this reason I think we should set a precedent through this opportunity. That’s why I’m saying We would like to fix the wrong period. Means striking-out all of the votes, because his votes are not regarded as a vote. In my opinion. --Laitche (talk) 11:51, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course we need a consensus to set a precedent for this incident. --Laitche (talk) 12:29, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Comment Is it really worth the time and energy to have an endless discussion about this? The only case I could find where this user's vote might actually make a difference is Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Red Fuji southern wind clear morning.jpg/2. If this should really turn out to be a recurring problem in the future, we can still think about counter-measures then. For now, just throw in a bunch of opposes (if necessary) and be done with it. --El Grafo (talk) 13:26, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I think the 'endless discussion' is because there is a fundamental disagreement about the philosophy what is considered reasonable voting behaviour, not just the event itself. Yes, we could place opposite votes to nullify his votes, but rather than add false opposes to 'solve the problem', why not accept that in extreme circumstances, the simplest way to fix it is simply striking out the votes? Seems to me to be a much better solution since it removes the problem vote rather than neutralises it with a counter-vote that would unnecessarily misrepresents the nomination. The only reason we're still debating this is because there are those who feel it is vitally important that we consider his votes to be legitimate because there's no rule to say they're not... Silly thinking like this should be debated, because it tends to keep recurring if left unchecked. It might not be exactly the same situation next time, but if there's a precedent that we can never strike a vote out no matter how silly and indiscriminate it is, it could have a much larger effect on how FPC is run. Just my opinion anyway. Diliff (talk) 17:25, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

If one wants to care about the effect of his votes, it must be that they would improperly cause a not-good-enough image to be tagged as a Featured Picture. So to oppose would not be a "false vote." It would be a real vote, and one came to make that vote by seeing that a user made a series of votes considered frivolous.

I see nobody arguing above that it is "vitally important to consider his votes legitimate," nor that the reason for this is that there is no rule preventing it. This is the fact: unless the votes are removed, they will be counted by the bot. To remove votes on a basis of the judgment of the voter's motives or behavior opens an enormous can of worms, and could create fear to vote, claims of bias, etc.

Consensus here is that because a concern was raised, and the user continued to vote as he was, without addressing the concerns, he was properly blocked. But he was blocked for not responding to concerns, not exactly for voting.

Part of his behavior was some level of actual illegitimate voting, i.e., voting in a closed discussion. Or perhaps a double vote. Probably simply in error, out of a rush of some kind. He was not actually warned for that, so he was not blocked for that. When some have written here that "he did nothing wrong," they were not referring to those votes, but to the bulk, what was first raised here, and the real issue to consider.

It's been expressed that there is nothing here that is a serious enough problem to worry about how to fix it. The possibility, nevertheless, has been raised that there may be indiscriminate voting and that this may damage the results. That possibility has always existed and there have always been indiscriminate votes. Voting systems are designed to not be particularly sensitive to the vote of one voter. *If* there is a problem, then look at improving the voting system (there are possible ways). Attempting to disable or sanction or disqualify users based on perceptions of motive are doomed to create nothing but disruption, and for obvious reasons. I'd suggest taking that part off the table.

Keep it simple. --Abd (talk) 19:01, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The point of voting on FPC is to judge the image, and give your opinion of it, not to try to game the nomination so it goes a particular way. A vote cast just to reverse the effect of one brainless support is not a vote that judges the image at all. Also, I don't think it's ever been argued that it is only about whether the votes affected the result of the nomination. It's about whether they were disruptive and counterproductive votes, regardless of whether they actually affected the outcome. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the voting system, it's just that it assumes the maturity to judge the images fairly and judiciously. When it's clear that one individual isn't showing those qualities, it isn't the voting system's fault, it's the individual's fault. Therefore we should strike the votes out if he refuses to respond or change his behaviour, not change the voting system to account for the occasional idiot. That's 'keeping it simple'. Diliff (talk)

I agree with Diliff. A human is not a machine so I think we can’t solve this issue by a system therefore we need an accumulation of actions although so far we never have any actions to this issue and I think that’s the problem. That’s why I proposed a precedent. But that word 'precedent' is sort of a metaphor. I couldn’t find an appropriate word to I wanted to say. --Laitche (talk) 21:40, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

But even now I can't find more appropriate word than precedent. --Laitche (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

After all, that is a precedent... --Laitche (talk) 22:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Comment As already mentioned here, no real damage was made by the blind votes of LuisArmandoRasteletti, either than a slightly larger probability of a single picture being promoted. Also, this kind of incident is sufficiently rare so that it does not justify the creation of a specific (and complex) rule to deal with it. Finally our system is resilient enough to easily accommodate such incidents with no relevant impact on the outcomes. If that is the case, why continue some editors insisting on removing the votes of LuisArmandoRasteletti? A clue was given by Laitche above, who explicitly stated that the goal was to create a precedent. Well, that is precisely what we should not do! Today we are dealing with the benign case of many unjustified support votes. Tomorrow we may be faced with a bunch of unjustified opposes. Next week, perhaps we will have someone invoking stupid or technically incorrect reasons for his vote (as a matter of fact, this is happening all the time!). I won’t probably need to go any further to make people understand to what kind of difficult situations such an innocent ad-hoc decision may lead in the future. A box of Pandora indeed! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:05, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Alvesgaspar: I guess probably you are misunderstanding my opinion. --Laitche (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Alves, as I and others already pointed out though, this is not about whether damage to any individual nomination was done, it's about what the most appropriate response should be, both in terms of keeping the nominations as a true reflection of the sentiment, and in terms of maintaining proper order. I don't really think anyone wants to create a specific rule to stop it happening again. I know Colin has been raging against the very idea of it, and so have I. As Laitche says, I think you've misunderstood him too, because I don't think that's what he wanted either. I believe (if I understand correctly), what he has suggested is that if there is a precedent for striking out the votes, we won't need a specific rule written down, we'll merely need to reference a previous occasion (this one) to justify striking out votes if it happens again. It's a bit like the way case law works in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. Instead of having a specific law for each and every specific scenario, a previous case can be referred to in which a judge has ruled on something similar. I haven't seen any good reasons why striking the votes out is not the most appropriate response to this. Yes, we could leave the votes standing, but that would not reflect the true sentiment of the nomination. We could also oppose vote to counter the support votes as Abd suggested, but this would also not reflect the true sentiment of the nomination. The only way IMO to reflect the true genuine sentiment of the nomination is to remove the vote that was made without sufficient consideration. Why is that conclusion so difficult to reach for you? Why does the 'but there's no rule that says he couldn't do it' outweigh the goal of keeping the nomination uncontaminated by what we all agree are votes that are completely and utterly unconsidered? Diliff (talk) 21:11, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Diliff: And still, you didn't even mention the really important point of my comment - as if you hadn't read it -, which is precisely the danger of creating a precedent! Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I guess I didn't mention it because it relies on a premise that I don't agree with, and argued against it in my response above. I just don't see the danger of creating a precedent if it's a justifiable and appropriate action. I say again, why is striking out his votes not the most appropriate response? Diliff (talk) 21:28, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

• How can't you understand? Suppose that some user comes tomorrow and support all nominations but one? Will you invoke the precedent to remove the votes? What if he supports just 90%? Or if he opposes 89%? Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:58, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

So I mentioned above that we need an accumulation of actions to each case without any actions we can’t solve this issue forever, in my opinion. --Laitche (talk) 22:09, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

• That's a completely different scenario. We're talking about a precedent for someone who votes all opposes or all supports and refuses to respond to anyone. Someone who shows that they are capable of voting with discrimination will not fall foul of this 'precedent'. Diliff (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Alvesgaspar, you are trying to go to ignoratio elenchi. --Laitche (talk) 23:46, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

• +1 with Alvesgaspar, and what for the future votes of this user, if the next time he do only 5 or 6 stupid votes, will be these votes accepted? or is he banned? and from an other user, these stupid votes are accepted provided they are not too many? I consider as impoliteness dumbest yet, can we remove the next vote I will judge stupid? What photo was promoted because of its votes, if there is one have you opposed on it? -- Christian Ferrer 05:03, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
• +1 with Alvesgaspar. I think it isn't forbidden to be (perhaps) stupid and give (perhaps) stupid votes and who can decide what is a stupid vote? Who like to be here the photographer God with his absolute opinion? Please end this discussion or I lose my respect for many here on Commons! --Alchemist-hp (talk) 06:07, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@Alchemist-hp: I agree with ending this discussion. --Laitche (talk) 10:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, I would like to continue this discussion a little more but for the other members... I agree with ending. --Laitche (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

My only response to that is if we cannot be reasonable and decide what is a stupid series of votes then we have serious problems here. The ridiculous thing is that we have already agreed it was a series of stupid votes. Nobody has honestly disputed the idea that he was voting indiscriminately. Also, let's not forget that Abd blocked this user for failing to respond to requests to stop, so even he identified that there was a problem with the votes or it wouldn't have needed blocking. Did he play God? At some point, someone has to actually be proactive and do something to stop disruptive behaviour and if you call that playing God, so be it. Diliff (talk) 10:35, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Comment We should not discuss about a hypothetical question(including "What will happen in the future.", etc) because that fear of leading the discussion to ignoratio elenchi. Of course we have uncountable cases and problems in the future. And that is exactly why we need a precedent. So we should focus on only this incident and as Diliff says "Someone who votes all opposes or all supports and refuses to respond to anyone." now. --Laitche (talk) 07:06, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Diliff’s line is also a hypothesis so I’ve struck out that part. That was my mistake. We can not set a precedent to a hypothesis. Setting a precedent is limited to the only things which have already done. --Laitche (talk) 09:56, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

• One of two things is happening: either people do not really understand what’s going on; or pretend not understanding. Both possibilities are disturbing. I give up explaining any further before, as Alchemist said, I lose the respect for the editors. Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:23, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

• So even if there's a chance that people don't understand 'what's going on', you're going to lose respect for them anyway? I assure you I'm not pretending to not understand anything. I just happen to believe in what I'm arguing. If disagreeing with someone is enough to make you lose respect for that person even if they're simply trying to explain their point of view and trying to understand yours, I find that quite sad. Diliff (talk) 10:35, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

• Now the discussion is here, I think we should make a proposal of rule: Any user who has a disturbing behavior by his votes, comments or editions in the FPC page and who have been blocked by an administrator because of this disturbing behavior may have its comments or votes deleted striked out on all active nominations of the page FPC if the community deems necessary. And for who is not favorable for this rule, yes ok... but don't ask for to delete votes. -- Christian Ferrer 11:21, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Your English is a bit confusing for me, but nobody has suggested we delete the votes, only strike them out. But a large part of the discussion was about the fact that we don't need more rules, we just need more common sense about how to deal with issues like this. Diliff (talk) 13:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

  Sorry for my English by delete I mean strike them out, for me it was the same result. And the discussion would not have been so large if there were such a rule. It is a small flaw in the system that would be so easy to fix with such a rule. You don't need more rules? in what a good rule is so bad? just on principle? as you want but you can discuss long.-- Christian Ferrer 16:44, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

  It is even possible that embittered users expect that such arbitrary decisions to tackle the comunity FPC, such a rule could put us away from all ambiguity : the same rule for all. Why anyone would want anything other than that? I really don't understand why this aversion for the rules...-- Christian Ferrer 16:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

• Honestly if this kind of rule, written with better English than mine of course, would allow the community to strike out this kind of stupid votes without large and long discussions, I really don't understand why you don't want this rule, it's the ingrown common sense... -- Christian Ferrer 17:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
• I add just a little thing, this is the reason for existing of rules : avoid seeking consensus in interminable discussions that are as likely to conflict. That's what I call common sense. EOD -- Christian Ferrer 18:11, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
• Update. Luis is back and he's supporting every single nomination again. Strangely enough he's skipped a few nominations (an accident?) but every single vote is a support, as per the problem we had last time. Where do we go from here? Diliff (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• I would advise to ignore him and apply the universal rule: "don't feed the troll" -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Alvesgaspar, but how? his votes are completely valid so we can't ignore him and that's the problem. --Laitche (talk) 08:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Again?... I think doing nothing is more danger, seems Alvesgaspar doesn't agree with setting a precedent but that's not an absolute and can be broken anytime and less strict than rules, in my opinion. --Laitche (talk) 01:02, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• I blocked him again, and left him a message. He voted on almost all nominations again in less than 2 minutes [3]. I don't think he understood what FPs is about. Regards, Yann (talk) 08:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Let me put it this way. Unless we agree the rational, common-sense and one-off action of striking out all of this person's votes, then I expect every person who voiced an opinion about "against the rules" or "we need rules" to ensure they vote on every single one of these 40 new nominations that have been harmed today [all to those lurking quietly without supporting striking, I mean you too]. If you believe these edits are harmless or precious, then make sure they are by overwhelming the review with sensible ones. It seems to me that petty lawyering is more important to some than the outcome -- which is to recognise the finest images on commons through careful review. I want my featured pictures to gain that star because enough of my peers genuinely believe it does, and not because someone is playing games with the system. If you believe in that to, then act. It isn't my responsibility to sort out the problems you make by failing to deal sensibly and swiftly with this -- you are going to turn your words into action. If instead your first response is to fill this talk page with more words than 40 reviews would require, then you lose my respect certainly. -- Colin (talk) 10:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• I complete agree with Alvesgaspar. First of all, judging the votes of anyone, their quantity or quality would be a nightmare. Who is qualified to do that? At best what can be done is to strike out out-of-time votes, other than that it is foolish to set up a rule to qualify "legitimate" votes. I would first suggest that people learn how to evaluate photography before they attempt to censor anyone´s opinion, which is what rules around here to begin with. If someone wants to support every single nomination, or oppose it, so be it. Part of life. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 18:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Set nominations...

I thought as per this previous discussion that we had decided what the criteria for sets would be and that we were ready to accept set nominations again. However, I wanted to nominate a set today and I couldn't find any instructions on how it should be constructed. I see from previous set nominations that there was once a process with different functionality that would process it as a set, but it seems we no longer have this? Should I use the regular image nomination form and then reconstruct it with a gallery? That would work but is it the best way of handling it? Your thoughts? I'll wait until I have feedback before submitting the set nomination. Diliff (talk) 15:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Diliff: , this have been deleted from the FPC page, if you nominate a set I think you should use it and maybe we should add this to the FPC page too, however the issue stay for the POTY election, one image of the set as candidate, all the images of the set as candidates, or set as candidate.

Set nominations ONLY

All set nomination pages should begin "Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/", e.g. "Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/My Nomination".

-- Christian Ferrer 15:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors

Hello everyone, in this gallery there currently has about 320 pictures, I'd create this sub gallery : Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors/Religious buildings that contain only the interior pictures of religious buildings, a subject that is also very popular with our talented photographers.
So we get these two galleries:

• Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors/Religious buildings : with about 210 images and only for religious buildings interiors
• Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors : with about 110 images for all other interiors

The current navigational template would become:

Commons FP galleries

I have not yet found a satisfactory icon for this new gallery to put in the navigational template, so if I create this new gallery I would ask to the Graphic Lab some tries for a new icon.
Before creating this new gallery I'll wait a while your informed opinions, good day.
-- Christian Ferrer 15:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• Good idea. What about one of these crosses as an icon for the category? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Religious buildings do extend beyond Christianity though (although admittedly, the vast majority of current religious building FPs are Christian). It would probably be more inclusive to find a symbol that covers other religions, but I'm not sure how you'd do it - this wouldn't make a very good icon... Diliff (talk) 19:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
    • There's certainly room for improvement there, but I think it is possible to include elements that appear in buildings of various religions (arcs, narrow windows, ...) somehow similar to this: — Julian H.^✈ 19:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
    • (ec) A cross would be one-sided. How about using an icon of an arch or a dome? Aren't arches or domes very common in religious interiors independent of the religion? -- Slaunger (talk) 19:34, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Arches can be good idea but domes are much for the exteriors IMO, Julian idea is not bad too. -- Christian Ferrer 19:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• I thought to ask a graphist to work from something like this since columns and pillars are present in buildings of all religions. -- Christian Ferrer 19:43, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Pillars and arches is a good idea, I think. How about the reference Christian gives, but simplified to simply an arch suspended by two pillars? Julians proposal is good too, but maybe looks a bit too much like "a detail of an exterior"? -- Slaunger (talk) 20:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Photo challenge/2015 - May - Panoramas

A little advert here for the Commons:Photo challenge. I'm sure many of those who create images for FP would benefit from joining in. This month has a challenge that surely fits with the sort of image many here like to take: Panoramas. Photos must be new to Commons and uploaded during May, but may have been taken earlier.

Pinging Poco a poco, ArildV, XRay, Christopher Crouzet, Diliff, Llez, Tuxyso, Slaunger, Code, Jacek Halicki, Ximonic, .. any others? -- Colin (talk) 10:32, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• DXR also. Can't think of any others off the top of my head but I'm sure there are some. Diliff (talk) 10:34, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the ping! Any chance to make it May-June? I'll spend a good chunk of June in Norway and a bit in Sweden, but right now I am fairly busy... --DXR (talk) 11:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Böhringer takes beautiful panoramas of landscapes. --Tuxyso (talk) 10:51, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
      • And Benh. -- Colin (talk) 11:41, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
        • Thanks. Not sure how it works but will give it a short look. - Benh (talk) 10:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

To be clearer, I don't expect the rules to be bent to my holiday plans, but this is a theme that can benefit from more time, imo. I don't have any publishable panos on file right now and for such a broad challenge topic users are somewhat disadvantaged if they upload good panos straightaway. But of course I also understand if the rules are fixed. --DXR (talk) 11:41, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

We'll see how the challenge goes. Sometimes if a challenge doesn't attract many contributions, it is extended, and this happens more if the challenge is restricted to newly-taken images (which this one hasn't been). But if there are too many entries (e.g. well over 100), it can be tiresome to review for voting. Why do you think there is a disadvantage to uploading straightaway. If anything, those uploaded earlier will be ordered first in the voting page, which probably has a small advantage. Btw, requests/changes should probably be discussed on the Photo Challenge talk page. -- Colin (talk) 12:34, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, fair enough. You are right, it should depend on the participation rate. Let's see how it goes. BTW: I meant uploading straightaway after capturing the image over the course of the year (that is, not building up a large stock of great, but unpublished images), not over the course of the challenge. But I get the motivation for allowing older images to be entered and you are right that this is not a good forum for such discussions. --DXR (talk) 16:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping Colin, I didn't know about the theme chosen in the Challenge for May, but the last weekend I uploaded for the first time this year a bunch of pictures (taken with a WMAT camera during Christmas) and there are a bunch of panos among them (Sorry DXR :) ). I added some of them, you can almost call it flooding :) No limit of nominations per user, right?. I still have some material that will upload in the next weeks, also some panos. So, it was a lucky strike, since I have no camera yet and therefore participating in the Challenge is hardly possible to me. Poco² 16:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

No, there's no limit of nominations per user. But from a tactical POV, it's probably a good idea to enter just a few good ones in order to avoid being your own competition ;-) --El Grafo (talk) 16:39, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't sure whether the more the better or just a very narrow selection is welcome. I can remove a couple, thanks. Poco² 19:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Poco a poco: That was just a general thought, I've not seen your entries yet … --El Grafo (talk) 20:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@El Grafo: Too late :) I removed a couple, but there is still a bit of everything there Poco² 20:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Poco, the challenge encourages to "choose just your best and most varied images" and I generally recommend submitting no more than a handful (however you interpret that word). Unlike QI/FPC, where all images can get votes and reviews, reviewers at FC have only three votes that count towards the winning totals, and perhaps well over 100 images to review. If one submits many entries of similar quality then any votes one gets are likely to be spread thinly, making each less likely to pick up any award. Plus it isn't really fair on other entrants to see their one or two entries swamped. And if there are lots of entries overall, the reviewers get tired and end up being expected to choose which of your pictures are best, when you could have done that for them. Variety is the key to making the task of reviewing a joyful one. So I encourage you to trim a bit further. If it turns out the challenge is low on entries, you could add some back later. -- Colin (talk) 11:55, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks for noting about this! Lately I've been in hurry with my studies and some work stuff but I will try to keep this challenge in mind. I've recently done a new Norway trip and have quite many potential panoramas to make among other pictures + older ones still on the way. Of course, for me the most important thing is that people will have a good use for the pictures I give to Commons and in that sense I promise to continue, no matter if there was a challenge or not. Anyway, will see... I hope people are active for this. :) Keep up! --Ximonic (talk) 20:59, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
• In my opinion it should not be extended. It is very easy to find subject matter for this theme and I expect the page to fill up quickly. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

SOS: Uncategorized images

The images which become FP are getting not categorized for Category:Featured pictures by country. Who did it was @Thierry Caro: , but the user stopped doing that. I suggest request to the nominators that when finished the voting period, if the image becomes FP, categorize it with [[Category:Featured pictures by (name of country)]]. 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 16:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I added a few. BTW I created Category:Featured pictures of people of the United States. Some of these were in Category:Featured pictures of people, some in Category:Featured pictures of the United States, and some in both. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:00, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Added. 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 17:58, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

  Gallery of Interiors of Religious buildings

Hi, this gallery was created, you can use it for your next candidate images if relevant. The navigational template was also amended. I have not yet transfered all corresponding images from this gallery, I will do it gradually. -- Christian Ferrer 05:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Christian Ferrer, for your continued efforts to maintain our galleries of FPs. Nice job! -- Slaunger (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Møns Klint beech trees in gorge 2015-04-01-4864.jpg

The last Slaunger promoted nomination reminds me to create a ludic gallery for the most supported nominations, more than 20 or 25 support and classified by numbers of supports... -- Christian Ferrer 08:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

After seeing your comment I was curious and I checked some of my FPs from this year and 25 is really good. I only found 2 with more votes (this one 26-0 and this one 26-3). On the other side I wonder how does Commons benefit about this ranking. It could rather bring some people to the idea of "asking" for support for certain nominations. Poco² 08:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

(ec):Hmmm... I am really happy for all the support that nomination got, but I am not sure I can see the value in manually mantaining a gallery of the most supported FPCs. This 'popularity contest' would for me be quite redundant with POTY, which serves to highlight the most popular FPs as judged by a wider audience of Wikimedia project users. I am concerned that such a gallery will not be maintained or be incomplete. A simpler proposal, if we want to have a bit of a friendly popularity contest (cf. the sortable table in Featured pictures by creator) would be to add logic in the {{FPC-results-reviewed}} template. In that template there are already fields telling exactly how many support/oppose/neutral votes a closed nomination received. And that can be used to add the nomination sub pages to one or more hidden maintenance category, such as Promoted Featured Picture Candidates by number of supports with a sort key identical to the number of support votes. In that manner it would only require changing one template and create a couple of maintenence categories to have this kind of ranking more readily available and be done automatically. It could be interesting to have a look at the correlation between the number of supports and the POTY ranking as a feedback to our review criteria. -- Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

It's indeed quite playful and fun, and establishes a ranking that puts very good pictures in value by another process than the picture of the year can be interesting for to see what have the most success here, because all FP, nor even the success, are not equal. I see nothing bad to highlight the best success of our best FP. Of course far to me the idea to influence the process in the wrong way, it's just a gallery, not any assessments, and I'm not sure a simple and alone gallery can have the power to influence the process in the wrong way. It's just a playful and fun gallery for our very best success... -- Christian Ferrer 09:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I get the objective of a fun internal competition on this, and I am also not concerned about the fishing for votes. But what do you think about my proposal to implement this with hidden categories instead which rely on the data we already have in {{FPC-results-reviewed}}. In that manner, the overview will be created automatically and without human maintenence efforts, at least as long back as we have used that template (since August 2009). -- Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes of course your idea of an automatic way is very good, I like it very much. In more to highlight the very best, this can be a very interesting statistic tool. Different and maybe much interesting than the POTY, or at least well complementary IMO. -- Christian Ferrer 09:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of this idea, and here's why: I like the fact that, after about 10 support votes, additional support is really not changing anything any more, and is purely a non-political sign of appreciation of a great picture. Everyone can relax because the nomination isn't chasing any metric any more. Those nominations are sort of nice islands of tranquility in an otherwise relatively harsh environment here. I'm not sure if this is complete esoteric nonsense, but that's my opinion until someone changes it. :) — Julian H.^✈ 11:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, perhaps we should rather count the time that a nomination put for to have 7 or 10 supports... :). The very very good images 1, 2, 3, have always more of 15, 20 supports and however are not necessarily in the POTY final. The ranking would have the advantage of bringing out the real success and to show the true finest in the finest. I don't see nothing wrong to say that this image had more supports than this one, it is the reality, no? A QI is not a FP...and it is a fact that all FPs have not of the same standing, why not highlight the very best? -- Christian Ferrer 12:17, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm also not a fan of this idea. How about the following case: 25x support or 25x support + 1x oppose within our first 5 days rule ... The second one can earn more supports after the five day rule!? And how about a statistic about our FPC visitors, when is the chance to meet the greatest number of visitors? We have times with o lot of visitors and times with fewest visitors??? The idea is nice, but what do we get out of this? --Alchemist-hp (talk) 12:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes indeed, you're right. It's very hard (impossible) to make a thing like that with the rules of the 5 days, I did not think to that...-- Christian Ferrer 12:43, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I think an FP-image is an FP-image, is an FP-image. It doesn't matter whether 7x supports or 25x supports or more. To get a lot of support is curious, nice and interesting, but not more :-) --Alchemist-hp (talk) 12:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I would also be opposed to any sort of measure that focuses on images with many support votes. As has been said above, it would be easily gameable, and in any event there is little connection between large numbers of votes and either photographic quality or usefulness of the image. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Counting 'most used' Featured Pictures?

• How about some other challenges: which image are inside in the most articles in all Wikipedias (Commons counter)? Which image are used in the most websides outside Wikipedia (Google counter)? etc. etc. ... ??? --Alchemist-hp (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The idea of adding some 'challenges' along those lines sounds promising. Use of an image outside Commons - whether on the other Wikimedia sites or not - is a useful metric of 'quality' or 'value' in the sense of contributing most effectively to our open content aims. So far as I am aware, nobody is measuring these sorts of metric at the moment, gaming would be difficult, and if people were encouraged to add images to the Wikimedia projects that would be a positive effect. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

A caveat about uses, is how they are used. For instance, in Wikimedia projects, I believe only main space uses should be considered, and usages via template transclusions should not be considered. For instance File:Batus barbicornis MHNT femelle.jpg by Archaeodontosaurus is used on 26086(!!!) main space wikimedia project pages. But if we start to look at the details, it is because it is included in a stub template on the Vietnamese Wikipedia, where it has been transcluded on more than 26000(!) pages as a very tiny image. The FP is 'only' in use in 'normal size' on 25 regular main space pages (non-transcluded). Using glamorous it is actually not possible for me to see what the most varied FP use is, where a deliberate choice has been made to add a photo on a page. The top most hits are due to inclusions in navigation templates, etc. I think it will not be easy to find a meaningful metric for, although the idea is interesting. -- Slaunger (talk) 17:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a false good idea. I look at the utilization of images of the PHOEBUS project because I have to communicate on this subject several times a year. I avoid looking for my own name because I'm sure it's going distort my judgment. That there was an emulation is a good thing; but there was a competition is not good. In VI we try to work in this direction. The mutual assistance, dialogue, to be able to making an ethic. I believe in the value of the Sample If you do good work others will see it and follow it.--Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Confirming an alternative nomination for others nomination

From this nomination, I would like to confirm an alternative nomination for others nomination is counted as alternative nominator's nomination or not. I think under King's interpretation of the rules, an alternative nomination is not counted. If so, it's OK for me, no problem for now. When someone nominate lots of alternatives (like over ten nominations), maybe we need new rule but now I don't want to discuss about that I'd just like to confirm that it is counted or not. --Laitche (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Alt always need original nominators approval to avoid conflicts. So it is better to count only original norms for that rule as KoH suggested. (There is already some strong disagreement from people like Jebulon about not counting alt noms; so better not bringing that dispute again. ) Jee 02:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, I think this matter is confirmed (Alternative is not counted as nomination.). Thank you. --Laitche (talk) 03:17, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

  Gallery of Passeriformes (Passerines)

Hello all, to alleviate the very big FP gallery of birds, I created this new gallery for Passerines birds with curently 135 images. It stay more than 370 images in the former gallery of birds. The navigational template have been amended accordingly. Nice day. -- Christian Ferrer 05:04, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Nomination logs

As far as I remember, every nomination was archived in logs including withdrawn, declined by FPX. When was that changed? --Laitche (talk) 10:06, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

It is a tough job and we need more volunteers. Me and A.Savin are tired and no more interested in it. It will be nice if the most active people here can spare some time for the maintenance too. Jee 11:01, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Simply, why don't we make a rule like "Every nomination must be archived in logs including withdrawn, declined by FPX." like that? and only archiving withdrawn and declined by FPX is easy, just moving one line to logs... --Laitche (talk) 11:19, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

The log file will be very big and difficult to open and save near the end of the month as it will contain 250+ pages at that time. The bot had failed to process earlier; so we manually handled it (using a temporary log). Fortunately that problem was resolved. But still there is a lot of bugs in that bot and somebody need to maintain it as Danial has not enough time for it now as he commented somewhere. (If you're talking specifically about Yann's edits, I've no comments as I don't care the maintenance job nowadays.) Jee 12:06, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I mean the problem is there is no rule about logs or no procedure about withdrawn nomination in this page (not involved Yann's edits) . --Laitche (talk) 12:21, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I just made an edit there; please check and correct/revert if required. Jee 13:29, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) --Laitche (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Pixel peeping

Our Featured Picture reviewing guidelines are pretty terrible, should anyone care to read them. And the so-called complete guidelines are worse. A mix of rules, advice and educational material. They are in need of a complete rewrite and considerably shortening. However, the biggest problem is the contradiction between the stern rule against downsizing (which is often ignored) and the faults to be found only when pixel-peeping.

The worst offender seems to be "Images should not have distracting amount of noise when viewed in full size." This might have seemed fine in the day when 5MP DSLRs cost $1000 but now we routinely see images uploaded with 24 and 36MP dimensions (and this year will now doubt see some 42 and 50MP out-of-camera images). Considering that a 5MP image prints just fine at A4 page size, the additional resolution of these is therefore a bonus that allows for cropping, or detailed investigations with zoom-viewer software, etc, etc. Few of our images will be printed as posters that actually require 36MP resolution.

I think that issues such as noise/CA/sharpness should be considered at a more reasonable resolution than expecting a 24/36+MP out-of-camera image to have perfection at 100%. Many images do look great at this magnification when taken in ideal conditions. But most experienced photographers know that the 100% view exposes flaws in an otherwise just great image and they do not actually matter. Not every reviewer at FP has this understanding, many are still learning how to review, and when exposed to Flickr downsized photos, some expect everything to look perfect at 100%. Our guidelines should therefore help steer reviewers away from taking a flawed approach to review, and to learn to look at the image rather than the pixels.

For judging minor flaws in a non-stitched images, it seems a 6MP resolution is appropriate (this is 50% reduction of a 24MP image). For stitched images, a 50% downsizing is perhaps a better choice than a fixed MP.

For simplicity we can combine these into one anti-pixel-peeping rule:

When reviewing an image for noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects, do so at no higher than 6MP or 50% reduction (whichever is larger).

This does not stop reviewers from giving advice on how to take sharper pictures, remove noise, CA and moire, etc.

Comments (not votes please)? -- Colin (talk) 08:06, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your reasoning and also with the chosen values. I think for stitched images, it would make sense to give a pixel size for the shortest edge of the frame, for example of about 2k pixels - but 50% might also work (the two are actually equivalent if 24MP frames are stitched horizontally). In very wide and narrow panoramas, this would encourage a size at which the image always has reasonable vertical resolution.

Additionally, however, I'm also not sure if the "no downsampling" rule is useful in all cases. In action shots or other scenarios with limited sharpness expectations and a lot of noise potential, raw processing software is often more successful at downsampling with simultaneous noise reduction and sharpening than a browser would be. And there is such a thing as useless resolution, if the image simply doesn't have the resolution that the sensor captures. This is becoming more frequent with 50 MP cameras on the market today and more to come. I think making this less of an absolute rule and more dependent on the situation would represent the actual voting practice that we see today. — Julian H.^✈ 09:14, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that sometimes a modest amount of downsampling can be appropriate for images that are high noise for unavoidable reasons, or images that have been stretched by perspective correction or stitching software. It's a controversial issue, though, with polarised views on this (never downsize vs take what you are given and be happy about it). So I'd like to leave any amendment to that guideline for another day.

Commons seems to like rules so it appears some legislation against pixel peeping is now required. My hope is that if we see fewer such pixel-peeping opposes, that reviews will shift from this kind of "easy picking" technical fault finding approach to one where people actually review the picture and not the pixels. Then perhaps there will be less pressure on nominators to downsize so heavily. An HDTV 1920 × 1080 is 2MP and a 4KTV 3840 × 2160 is 8MP. So there's continual movement in our media for higher resolution images and we need to encourage people to upload them.-- Colin (talk) 09:44, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I dont believe that common sense and personal judgement can be replaced (or rather regulated) by a single rule.

I always take into account the size when I review. But FP is not only about wow.

Some images have strong wow and I find it easier to overlook technical defects. Some pictures are taken under difficult conditions that cannot be avoided (it is simply impossible to use a tripod and ISO 100 for indoor sports).

Other images have less wow but, for example, high EV and then the size, level of detail and sharpness (even in larger sizes than 6 mp) can then be part of the assessment criteria. One aspect of the FP is that it should be one of our finest images. I find it in most cases hard to see (unless there is a high wow) that a 6 MP landscape, panorama or church interiors is among our finest work.

I think that the proposed rule would limit my opportunities to continue with thoughtful reviews. That said, I strongly agree with that we should urge reviewers to consider the size.--ArildV (talk) 10:26, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

ArildV I fully agree with your considered approach to reviewing outlined above. And I do wish that accepted norms (e.g. against pixel peeping) or common sense didn't have to be legislated for (ultimately an impossible task). But we have at times a combination of beginner ignorance and stubbornness that can lead to a response "There is no rule says I can't ....". So here we are.

The 6mp/50% guidance is only for reviewing minor defects. I am not proposing we review in image in-total at 6MP. Certainly we need to balance image size, technical issues, circumstances and wow. And I agree that for many situations a 6MP is totally underwhelming and not our finest work. But for others (a 6MP butterfly or bird or concert) it would be absolutely fine. I'd certainly like our guidelines to describe this more considered approach to image size than our minimum 2MP threshold does at present. However, the issue I want to address with this minor change is just that of how to review pixel-level defects. Currently, those who do not apply such an approach will support a 6MP downsized image yet would reject the same image if uploaded at 36MP. That clearly is harmful to the project.

Also, the guidelines are just that: guidelines. And like the "rule of thirds", they are helpful to beginners and new reviewers, but experienced people know when they can be broken or bent. So I'd hope that no guideline would prevent a well-argued support/oppose.

So can you consider that the proposed text does not limit your opportunity to take size into account when reviewing: my intention is in fact the opposite -- to provide a tool where people can take size into account when judging noise and such pixel defects. -- Colin (talk) 11:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

For example, we can appreciate that Diliff can create a 60MP cathedral image that looks sharp at 100% and that counts towards the wow and technical excellence on show. Another person's 36MP out-of-camera image will struggle to look as sharp and detailed, and that has less wow on the technical level. However, the 36MP should not be opposed just because at 100% it doesn't look as crisp and noise-free as Diliff's downsized stitched images. It may still be an absolutely fine image and among our finest work. Looking at it at 9MP (50%) is a better way to judge its noise/CA/sharpness. -- Colin (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it is a good point Colin is raising about judging for CA, noise, and sharpness at a baseline and practically relevant resolution. For images less than the chosen baseline resolution, they shall be scrutinized in full resolution for CA, noise and sharpness. If larger than the baseline resolution, a template, a tool or the mediawiki software shall make it possible to provide a version of the full resolution properly resized/downsampled to the baseline resolution. Regarding downsampling, I think it is correct that moderate downsampling may be relevant at times, but downsampling below the baseline resolution should be strongly discouraged as then you need to upsample again to display on, e.g., an 8 Mpixel monitor, and that is less optimal than first downsampling, even if there is visible noise or it is not super sharp at the pixel level.

For the baseline resolution, I think it is reasonable to consider state-of-the art display on a monitor and reprints crisp on an A4-sized prinout. Colin mentioned above that 5 Mpixel is enough for A4 and a 4K TV is 3840x2160 pixels or 8 Mpixels. The latter is the toughest baseline, so I would propose to use 8 Mpixels or 2160 pixels on shortest side as the baseline resolution for review of technical defects. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:21, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

But Slaunger, it has also been pointed out that some FP candidates rely on full resolution (50-100 megapixels, for example) for wow, and at that baseline resolution, you wouldn't appreciate the image at its best and may be inclined to oppose instead of support. I don't think this rule is a suitable replacement for common sense judging. It's also quite patronising for those who can be objective in their judgements and understand perfectly well the relationship between resolution and quality and what should be expected of cameras in different photographic styles. This is just another facet of that age-old problem that Wikipedia (and Commons) have: Balancing high technical quality with inclusivity. Sometimes more of one is at the expense of the other. Also, every additional rule and procedure that we impose on FP brings it one step closer to a robotic production line "if x, then y" process with less and less room for subjective opinion. I know this rule aims to rationalise and conform judging, but I fear people may still nitpick images at full resolution even if they're not supposed to (I can't see how we can enforce it really), and people may end up simply not mentioning their reasoning to avoid being questioned about it. In any case, we can't force people to explain their votes or even strike them out in extreme situations, as has been demonstrated in recent discussions. I feel that forcing people to conform using rules is a futile effort. It might be frustrating and it might not feel like an efficient way of managing the issue, but continually discussing and educating people who seem to be judging images unfairly is probably the only way forward IMO. Diliff (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Diliff Note I am not stating you should not review and appreciate a nomination in full resolution, but that for judging CA, sharpness and noise a baseline resolution is sufficient. But I also understand what you say about patronizing and making rules, that it tends not to work. Perhaps a nudging approach is better, where a recommended baseline resolution pic is made easily available for evaluating CA, noise and resolution, but it is not required to evaluate according to that, as it really depends on the kind of nomination you have? -- Slaunger (talk) 22:02, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that nudging is a better approach, and I'm not saying the baseline shouldn't be written down somewhere for those whose only argument consists of "But where is the rule that says that?", but yes I think it's best that we don't require it too rigidly because many of us can and do judge fairly, I think. We also have to take into consideration that while pixel peeping is a problem, we all put different emphasis on technical quality. We can't insist that anyone judges an image to our own satisfaction. We should have guidelines so that people with unrealistic expectations don't oppose every nomination that isn't 100 megapixels or razor sharp and free of any noise, artifact or whatever the case may be. But I don't see how we can enforce strict, specific rules. As I said, we can't force anyone to justify their votes, so I don't see how we can really impose rules on how to judge an image either. Diliff (talk) 22:26, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah we should have better guidelines. For one, I think the phrasing "amount of noise when viewed in full size" should probably be changed to something like "when viewed at a reasonable resolution", allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions for what is appropriate for the image. It should probably be expressly mentioned on the Commons:Image guidelines, that a sufficiently high resolution can sometimes overcome issues of noise and sharpness, and that higher resolution digital sensors may have more noise but are usually preferable to lower resolution ones. For example, a 3x3 group of slightly noisy pixels in a 150 megapixel image can convey much more information than a single noise-free pixel in a 17 megapixel image of the same scene that is the mean of those 3x3 pixels. As for nudging... it is good if done right, but people are notoriously stubborn on the internet and the more you try to convince them of things, the more they get defensive. Dllu (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the nudging, and a link to a downsampled version for comparison is not a bad idea. Also, I think we should call out people who oppose on technical grounds when they complain about sharpness unfairly, and emphasize that what we care about is "true resolution" (i.e. how many actual 100% sharp pixels worth of information does this contain?) rather than resolution or sharpness alone. This should ideally be done by someone other than the nominator, as they may be too modest to challenge the opposers. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:38, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

The guideline proposed is just a guideline, and only for judging pixel level flaws, not for judging pixel level wow (which Diliff's images would still gain at full 100% view). So I don't think it is correct to think this will be "patronising" to those who those who are able to avoid pixel peeping already and use their own methods. For example, we have the 2MP guideline and nobody complains this is patronising when in fact many people regularly oppose images for being too small when they are well above that (though that doesn't stop some nominators insisting their 2MP landscape is acceptable!). Certainly I think we all agree the "amount of noise when viewed in full size" phrase should be dropped as no experienced reviewer thinks that's a healthy approach. How about:

When reviewing a large image for noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects, remember that that flaws visible at 100% magnification are not likely to be important to the overall technical quality of the image when viewed or printed at typical sizes. One approach is to check for such flaws at no higher than 8MP or 50% reduction (whichever is larger). Images that are already downsized or cropped to smaller resolutions deserve closer scrutiny. Some photographic scenes are inherently higher noise or lower sharpness than others (for example, low light concert or long-distance wildlife photography compared with a studio photograph).

I know we can't "enforce" rules, but at least this sort of advice gives us somewhere to point at when we spot pixel peeping. For new reviewers, who make the mistake of complaining about a little noise in a 24MP image, we can ask them to reconsider the level of noise when downsized to 8MP say.

Slaunger, I don't think it is generally possible to use MediaWiki to downsize all images to any dimensions we want. I investigated this a while back and found that the thumbnailing software has a limit on its internal memory that stopped it being useful for generating large thumbnails. I'll look again. It might be possible to use this for downsizing 24/36MP images to 8MP, but not for creating the 50% downsize of a huge stitched panorama. It's a shame. One suggestion might be that uploaders consider uploading a "for review" resolution version and then reverting it. Then they can link by URL to that version.

And King of Hearts notes "true resolution". I agree that sometimes a stitched image or very noisy image may be offered at a larger resolution than it really has captured, and may actually benefit from a bit of downsizing. There's not a lot of point in forcing people to download a blurry noisy 100MP image when a sharp 60MP image would be better appreciated. -- Colin (talk) 09:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• Too bad that common sense can't be enforced by simply setting up new rules. But I guess you're right, Colin et al --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 11:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Happy to see the rules/guidelines changed to better reflect what is important rather than imposing any new rules. Frankly, I think the original problem of the bloated reviewing guidelines and complete guidelines should be addressed and this educational and other changes made at that time. Saffron Blaze (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

• I tried to play the game and I had rewiew this image at 50% of the full resolution but I was forced to download it and downscale it myself. However I'm not against this idea. It's a pity that the "Other resolutions" section do not work with percentage more than predefined sizes, maybe more predefined sizes could help. Colin, your idea of a "for review" resolution may be an issue for the images coming from Flickr or/and if the nominator is not the uploader, and the uloader not more active on Commons. The idea to rework the image guideline is also not bad. -- Christian Ferrer 11:31, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  • In addition to the rescaling problems (which may not be easily solvable as someone mentioned), as I said above, it isn't fair to judge images at below their maximum resolution because some images need full resolution for their ability to wow. Some images may look 'the best' at lower resolution, some images need maximum resolution to be at their best. If you don't judge them at their best, how can you judge the image fairly? There is no 'one size fits all' approach to this, we just need to make an effort to be intelligent reviewers instead of trying to mandate specific rules or processes on how to judge. Diliff (talk) 11:45, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Diliff, how many times to I have to repeat that we are not asking anyone to "judge images at below their maximum resolution". This is solely about judging whether pixel-level flaws such as noise, CA or sharpness are at a level for which an oppose is justified. There's absolutely no reason why someone can't still find wow in an image that has amazing resolution, or is wonderfully sharp and distortion/noise-free at 100% view, such as yours. We have guidelines for a reason, Diliff, and you might feel intelligent and experienced enough to not require them, but that doesn't stop them being useful for others. It seems many people here like having guidelines. Currently our guidelines state that images should be noise-free at 100%, which is something nobody in this discussion agrees with. -- Colin (talk) 11:56, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
    • The proposal is "When reviewing a large image for noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects," and "One approach is to check for such flaws at no higher than 8MP or 50% reduction (whichever is larger)". The proposal is absolutely not saying "When reviewing large images for wow, first downsize to 8MP so that all of Diliff's skill and effort is for naught." -- Colin (talk) 12:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Colin, you might not be asking anyone to judge images below their maximum resolution but it didn't seem clear that Christian understood was doing in his 'game' above (he didn't say what he was reviewing in detail but he gave no mention of specifics so I took it to mean a general review), and I'm not convinced that others have necessarily understood what you're proposing either, but I suppose I could be wrong. Also, note that I'm not replying to you, I'm replying to Christian. The fact that you understand the reasons for it doesn't mean that he does. Diliff (talk) 13:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
        • David, but you weren't correcting Christian on any misunderstanding of the proposal (he's French, and I'd hope any French translation would make it as clear as the English text is should you take care read it carefully). And if you did think his comment was unclear then why don't you ask him rather than (yet again!!) take the least helpful interpretation of what someone said. All you did was repeat your complaint about reviewing downsized images. A complaint which is nothing to do with the proposal. And I can understand why people might now be misunderstanding the proposal when people like yourself keep complaining about how unfair it is to review (generally) below maximum resolution. Can we please not have another "you said" / "I said" / "he thought" argument and concentrate on the proposal. Which I suggest you read again. Now, if you think the proposal is unclear, can you suggest how to make it clear, rather than rant about something that has never actually been proposed. -- Colin (talk) 14:36, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
          • I never said I was correcting the proposal, I was discussing what he had said. My response was not to the proposal, it was to him. I'm sorry if you think it's a "he said" argument. I'd rather you stay out of it to be honest - this had nothing to do with you and you're making it much more wordy than it would have otherwise been if you'd not got involved. And please don't compress a thread that you weren't involved in. I'm not saying I think the proposal itself was particularly unclear, I'm saying that I thought Christian may have misunderstood it. I could be wrong about that, but if so, I'll take confirmation from him, not you. You can be a bit of a bully sometimes. Just let the discussion flow instead of trying to control and suppress it. This thread had nothing to do with you. Diliff (talk) 14:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
            • If you want to have a private discussion with Christian, go to his talk page. This is my proposal, so comments like "as I said above, it isn't fair to judge images at below their maximum resolution" which nobody, not even Christian, has suggested anyone does, are just plain unhelpful. For crying out loud, Diliff, if you think someone may have misunderstood something, why don't you ask them? -- Colin (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
              • This may be your proposal, but it is our discussion and you can't dictate to me what I can and can't say in it. I don't want to have a private discussion with Christian, I'm happy to discuss things with just about anyone with you at this point. To use your turn of phrase Colin, "give it a rest". You've blown this way out of proportion. If I'd known you were going to react like this, I may well have phrased it differently, but I honestly don't think I've said anything so outrageous to justify your outbursts. Diliff (talk) 15:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
• @Diliff: I want to precise, that I don't want to rewiew all candidates with a downsampling and it is beyond question that I bothers me to downssample an image witch is very good at full resolution. The subject is just that it is a pity to miss very good pictures for defects that can easily disappear with a reasonable downsampling. Reject images with minor defaults as these pictures have a high resolution is maybe not a good idea. Indeed an image with a very big resolution can have defects and its defects disappear or become acceptable with a downsampling, of course it requires that the downscaled resolution stay reasonably, to go from 70mpx to 3mpx is not reasonably. I took for exemple this image, currently candidate with more than 73mpx, (a big relution!), however at full resolution the sky is not acceptable for a FP IMO. But I listened Colin and I downscaled the image at 50%, that's give an image with 36mpx, witch is widely a featurable resolution. However even with the dowsampling I always see the defects in the sky so I opposed. But if they had disappeared it would have been a shame to miss an image with potential. Yours images are a good exemple too, as for most of them they are downsampled and the result is just fantastic, so when the resolution allow it why not a downsampling for to see the real potential of the image? -- Christian Ferrer 18:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for confirming, Christian. I only asked because I wanted to make sure that people were aware of what exactly we would downsample to review, and what we should not downsample to review. As you can see, Colin has now made it pretty clear that it is not about only reviewing the image at one resolution, it is only about a baseline resolution where we should look for unacceptable problems (noise, sharpness etc). I still see the process as awkward because you would have to view the image twice, once at the 'baseline' and once at full resolution. But as Colin says, we can make it available to reviewers and encourage it as a way of being fair about image faults. I can't see myself using it because as I've said, I feel that I'm realistic about what we should expect from different photographic styles. Others may not have that experience and knowledge so it would be good, I suppose, to use the baseline as an educational tool. Diliff (talk) 18:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Exactly we agree Diliff, it is an educational tool that wanted to offer Colin, thank you to him. And its view about potential quality of an image, that the lighting and composition are more importants than 100% perfect pixels is also very interresting and goes in the same direction. In summary it's a shame to leave aside images with a big and good visual impact only because they have minor defects. -- Christian Ferrer 18:38, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Back to the actual proposal

Ok, let's get back to the actual proposal, which is all about "noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects" rather than what resolution one should do overall judging of the image for composition, lighting, subject, and wow, etc. I think we agree that a short-to-medium term goal is to shorten and simplify our guidelines. Doing so will take time, and the Common Guidelines are shared with QI who, from what I can see, are only concerned with pixel peeping. So it may be FP needs its own set of guidelines that reflect the focus of this forum. So in the meantime, I'd like to add the following text to the FP guideline text:

Don't pixel-peep. When reviewing a large image for noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects, remember that flaws only visible at 100% magnification are not likely to be important to the overall technical quality of the image when viewed or printed at typical sizes. One approach is to check for such flaws at no higher than 8MP or 50% reduction (whichever is larger). Images that are already downsized or cropped to smaller resolutions deserve closer scrutiny. Some photographic scenes and situations are inherently higher noise or lower sharpness than others.

To those who don't like rules, remember this is just a guideline not a policy and I've written it in the form of advice rather than regulations. @ArildV, Slaunger, King of Hearts, Martin Falbisoner, Christian Ferrer, and Saffron Blaze: . I know some would prefer a wholesale rewrite instead, but I think that could take quite some time to write and get any agreement on. In the meantime, is there anything in the above proposed text that is objectionable? This is a wiki after all, so we can edit and edit again if required: nothing is set in stone. -- Colin (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Nothing objectionable for me. It's sufficiently vague and suggestive to avoid being a one-size-fits-all mandate approach, which was one of the things I was concerned with. Diliff (talk) 18:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I like the text, but I am concerned about the lead Don't pixel peep as sometimes it is a real pleasure to pixel peep to dig into the details. How about Image prevails over pixel instead? -- Slaunger (talk) 18:43, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Fine with me. Maybe Don't always pixel peep is better :) You can also add this kind of sentence: "But remember, even if the technical quality of an image is very important, a picture is primarily a visual object. And the visual impact of an image, as well as the emotion it gives you, are sometimes fundamental. The visually very successful pictures should not be dismissed too quickly only because they have minor defects. It's what we call the Wow factor". -- Christian Ferrer 18:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

At least in English speaking forums, "pixel-peeping" is an entirely derogatory term for someone who fusses and complains about issues that only manifest themselves at 100% pixel size. So I'd be reluctant to give up on that well-known term and replace with something less catchy. Christian, on your latter point, the Complete Guidelines already say "Given sufficient “wow factor” and mitigating circumstances, a featured picture is permitted to fall short on technical quality." -- Colin (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I know but a bigger development of text in this direction would maybe not be a bad thing, to insist more on the visual impact end goes in your direction. -- Christian Ferrer 19:10, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm anxious about expanding into more areas than necessary for this immediate issue. There are other (non-pixel-peeping) technical quality issues such as exposure, lighting, crop, etc, that can be compensated for with "wow". Most of our current guidelines are in fact beginner lessons to teach the nominator to take better photos, rather than consensus guideline on how to review an image for Featured Picture. I'd just like to get the pixel-peeping issue out of the way before then looking at a radical reform. -- Colin (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

•  Support -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:51, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support sounds reasonably vague and explicitly instructive at the same time. Absolutely fine with me. --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 06:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest a different text:

Consider the size of the image when reviewing images quality. We encourage users to upload and nominate high-resolution images. Remember that small technical flaws or defects are more visible in a high-resolution image. Downsizing may hide such flaws, but also remove valuable details from the image. When reviewing a large image for noise, CA, sharpness and other small defects, remember that flaws only visible at 100% magnification are not likely to be important to the overall technical quality of the image when viewed or printed at typical sizes. One approach when reviewing a large images is to check for such flaws at a smaller size. Some photographic scenes and situations are inherently higher noise or lower sharpness than others.

(I am not a native English speaker and the text could certainly be improved)

I don't think we need to use a derogatory term like "pixel-peeping". I think that the guidelines should focus on explaining (in an educational way) why you should consider the size and the problem of comparing high-resolution images with low resolution. --ArildV (talk) 10:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not clear what you think is to be gained by dropping a widely known term. It is a bit like us deciding not to use the term "chromatic aberration" and inventing our own "coloured edge-lines" term that is vague. Just because it is derogatory? Well, that's the point. There is no upside to pixel peeping, like their no upside to being bigoted, say. It harms the project. The whole point is to define what over-concern with pixel-level flaws is. Sorry, but I think your proposed alternative is wordier, and vague to the point of offering no practical advice to new reviewers. It also comments on the pro/con of downsizing which I think is a separate issue and complex enough to have its own guidance (aimed more at nominators than reviewers). I think it is useful to give some guidance as to how much smaller (if at all) it is reasonable to examine such flaws. That way, reviewers can say "Wonderful composition and no significant technical flaws when viewed at 8MP" (with a link if they like).

One problem with Commons is that it rarely operates as a wiki. We get bogged down in discussion and it is too easy to offer as many permutations of text as there are comments. ArildV, do you actually have a significant problem with the proposed text: can you live with it? If so, then we can put it in and move on. It isn't permanent. A wiki works by people perfecting through editing rather than through endless talk page discussion. We seem to agree on the fundamentals so I'm keen to move onto the more important task of planning a wholesale replacement of the guidance. And I hope that can be created like a Wiki should be rather than writing 10,000 words of talk page for every sentence of guideline. -- Colin (talk) 11:50, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

If you have the choice between an educational description and the use of a derogatory term. Why not choice an educational description? The fact that you can use a term does not necessarily mean that it is the best or most efficient choice. The comparison with chromatic aberration is of course not correct, chromatic aberration is not a derogatory term.

My goal was and is to do something more than just give us somewhere to point at when we spot pixel peeping. I think that is not only more helpful but also more efficient to have a better explanation. If you throw a derogatory term to someone, chances are that the user just goes into defence mode. And I do think the pro/con of downsizing is relevant (why downsizing is not the solution).

I will not spend much time to comment on your second paragraph. I think the rhetoric is kind of cheap and I can ask exact same questions to you (Colin, do you actually have a significant problem with my proposed text: can you live with it?) and say the same thing to you (A wiki works by people perfecting through editing rather than through endless talk page discussion) and point out that I have only written two short posts above.

You have presented a proposal, I have presented a proposal. None of us need to discuss it more, we can trust the other users' judgment. Our respective views are known.

--ArildV (talk) 12:44, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, we'll see if anyone else has a view. But I must stress this is a dysfunctional approach to editing on a wiki. The word "wiki" means "quick". We have written over 6,000 words on a proposal that originally intended to add one sentence of just 25 words, none of which anyone has any strong fundamental objection to (just different preferences of approach). We now have second proposal of 90 words and a third of 119 (the latter of which doesn't even contain the specific guidance I was proposing in the first place). One wonders why our guidelines/complete-guidelines fossilised many years ago? I have experience writing guidelines for Wikipedia and it really is best just to get something half-decent onto the page where people can see it in-place and see how they can live with it. Then edit it over time should better text be offered. My fear is we next see another proposal of 200 words additionally containing someone else's pet peeve and this process never ends. -- Colin (talk) 14:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Just to answer your question (do you have a significant problem with the proposed text): yes. My main purpose in this proposal was to establish a rule-of-thumb for judging these minor defects. Like any rule-of-thumb, experienced reviewers will operate without it (or use it or similar technique instinctively without being told). Merely suggesting "a smaller size" is not specific enough to help a newcomer (who may wonder if we mean 2MP, which is the minimum threshold, or screen-resolution or even the thumbnail offered in the FPC page). -- Colin (talk) 19:25, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

• Suggestions are just suggestions, wait a few day to see if there is no relevant oppositions, add your sentence to the guideline, and feel free to take or not account the suggestions. It will always be time later to make changes if the words are not suitable. -- Christian Ferrer 17:06, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Image viewing tool for FP

Here's a conversation I had with Dschwen a year ago. I'm re-posting here to see if anything new can come of it. -- Colin (talk) 11:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid the MediaWiki thumbnailer is still broken for very large images. But the 8MP image should be practical with the current software. However, I don't know enough about MediaWiki API or Javascript to code this as a template or similar so that you only need to specify the megapixels or percentage reduction, rather than having to get your calculator out and enter the pixel height by hand. -- Colin (talk) 11:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Remember mediawiki is no longer a community project, priority things are in the background. Things change when WMF want to change, according to their interests (as the media viewer). Btw, are you already opened a phabricator bug? --The Photographer (talk) 12:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I just tried registering on phabricator but get an error about cookies. I'll try again later. I think that technically, it isn't a bug in the software. There is a configuration setting that limits the amount of memory/buffer the thumbnailer can use. If the value is increased, there may be issues with cached thumbnails (I know, a 24MP image isn't really a "thumbnail" but that's what the software's main purpose is -- the little images on Wikipedia). -- Colin (talk) 12:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes I underestand the problem --The Photographer (talk) 16:33, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Cutoff for panoramas

When categorizing FPs, we treat panoramas as special due to technical limitations of displaying each image; we dump all wide images into Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Panoramas while using regular categories for images with normal aspect ratios. My question is, how wide is wide enough to be considered a panorama? I've seen 1:2 images on either side of the divide (and even greater ratios - how is File:Île de la Cité shortly before sunrise, West View 140320 1.jpg not a panorama?), so we should really come up with a rule for what is a panorama for the purposes of categorization. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, resolution is no matter about this, I think aspect ratio is wider than 2:1 and angle is wider than 180°. --Laitche (talk) 10:36, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I thought a long time for this. Laitche give a reasonable definition, because if we start to include all assembled images we must include all Dillif's interiors church. Personaly I would not use this category, or at least I will place all the images in a second category too. Because a cityscape is a cityscape, and your recently promoted image, King of Hearts, has also clearly, more in my opinion, his place here, in the gallery for cityscape. It is more logical for who search a FP of cityscape to search in this gallery rather than in panoramas gallery. IMO all images in the panorama gallery should be also placed in a second relevant gallery. Panorama is maybe useful but not enough for to define an image. -- Christian Ferrer 17:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

If I would venture a guess, perhaps panoramas only exist as a category for legacy reasons. Back when ordinary categories were used, panoramas would be extremely tiny because you would be trying to fit a round peg into a square hole (where "round" here is actually "extremely wide"). Now that we use packed categories, this may no longer be necessary, since panoramas could stretch to fit the screen. I have a radical proposal: Abolish the panorama category entirely and move everything to the standard categories. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:19, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Laitche, but I don't think it should have to be 180 degrees. For one thing, we don't always know what the angle of view is so it's an unrealistic requirement, and secondly, I think many genuine panoramas are not as wide as that. I think it's more about the aspect ratio than about the angle of view. A skyline photo from the distance such as this one would not be 180 degrees wide but what else would you call it other than a panorama? Diliff (talk) 10:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I felt near things as Diliff but if a photo which aspect ratio is 2:1 and angle is 150°, is that panorama? so I chose 180°. --Laitche (talk) 11:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say that yes, 150° is a panorama. Perhaps 90° is even a panorama if the aspect ratio is more than 2:1. The problem is that there is no actual clear definition of panorama. Even dictionaries describe a panorama as "a wide view", but wide views can be accomplished either by being a long way back, or by being close with a wide angle of view. The perspective is very different, but both are 'wide views'. So I think the only way to define it is with an aspect ratio. Diliff (talk) 12:12, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

• +1 I rather agree, of more the BOT fail to sort the images in the unsorted section so I would stop to use this category to close the nominations, I already ask for help, but the BOT operator is too busy. -- Christian Ferrer 05:17, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
• If the whole point of the panoramas section was because they don't fit nicely in with the packed gallery of other images, then any threshold should be based solely on the shape of the image. The angle of view is utterly irrelevant. While 2:1 is a common definition, it probably isn't elongated enough to be causing a problem in galleries. Perhaps 3:1? However, I think we should abolish the separate category. If panorama-format images don't fit into the gallery, then list them as a separate group at the end of the section (e.g. Country) they are in. -- Colin (talk) 12:04, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposal

I think it's time for an official proposal. The Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Panoramas category was useful because images with too wide of an aspect ratio would not look good when forced into a standard-sized gallery. This problem has been solved ever since the introduction of packed galleries: now images can expand as much or as little as they need to to fit the page. In light of this, Places/Panoramas is an archaic category that should be removed, with the current featured pictures inside it moved to the appropriate categories. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:52, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

•  Support -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:52, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support A very good idea your majesty. :) --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 06:55, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Comment I'm not convinced packed galleries solves the problem. It can lead to awkward sizing of adjacent images. It may still be necessary to hand-format panoramas but I think this should be done in the subject-relevant category rather than categorising based on the shape of the frame. -- Colin (talk) 07:08, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support The most important is that the images are in subject-relevant category. After that, "packed", "packed-hover", or "packed-hover" heights=200px galleries, have all advantages and disadvantage, especially for this kind of image, however disadvantage are not so serious, such images not so many, and it will still be possible to arrange and format sections if necessary. It is also the great advantage of galleries with respect to categories, the possibility of formatting and presentation. -- Christian Ferrer 11:22, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Sounds reasonable. — Julian H.^✈ 14:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Poco² 18:29, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Support Daniel Case (talk) 02:47, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Oppose I agree with Colin's first two phrases. I've seen in recent photo contests that even in packed galleries standard and panoramic images do not mix well. And panoramic images are more than just the aspect ratio, argument supported by the panoramic categories on standard commons. -- KlausFoehl (talk) 12:22, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

  Indeed, vertical images next to panoramas do not look good. But that can be addressed by careful arrangement of the images in each gallery. --King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

•  Support From Panoramas to Cityscapes, Natural Places or other categories. 😄 ArionEstar 😜 (talk) 00:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Oppose a lot more work goes into both the taking and processing of panoramic images, they require/receive far more scrutiny in FPC than a single shot image so I think they deserve to be displayed in a separate gallery. Gnangarra 06:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

  Gnangarra you are confusing panorama with multi-stitched images. Few of Diliff's current photos are panoramas yet most of them stand up to serious scrutiny and have a wealth of detail. On the other hand, plenty landscape panoramas of 24/36MP are no more detailed than a standard portrait from a modern camera. The work that went into taking/processing an image is irrelevant to the FP category -- mostly this is unknown and under-appreciated. It seems to me the only reason we have a panorama category is because such images weren't presented nicely when mixed along with standard landscape aspect ratios. That's a problem of presentation, not categorisation. -- Colin (talk) 07:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

  Indeed. In fact, under this new proposal panoramas will inevitably be given more visual weight because all images in a row must have the same height. Not saying that's necessarily a good thing - in fact, it is a problem if it makes portrait orientation photos too small, but that can be addressed with a rule of thumb like "don't place a vertical image next to a panorama." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:49, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

  @Gnangarra: I agree with Colin you are confusing panorama-like format whitch can be cropped single shots (exemple) with multi-stitched images whitch can have all formats (square-like format exemple). -- Christian Ferrer 08:55, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

  I not confusing the difference between a cropped image, and a panoramic, I m saying that panoramic images shouldbe in category of their because they are substancially different in the work involved, anyone can take an image remove a third to make it look wide where as actually taking multiple images and stitching them together requires more work an dlevel of skill if FP considers the two the same thing then the problem lies in FP not the category. IMHO works of this unique skill do deserve to be displayed separately just like animations or drawings Gnangarra 13:38, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

  I agree with you, they do take a different skill set (some would say a greater skill set) and should have their own category. On another subject though, that article has some really terrible quality contemporary panoramas. It's a bit embarrassing really. I think we can do a much better job of showing what panoramic photography is capable of. Diliff (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

  @Gnangarra: you are confusing the format with the one popular technique for generating high-resolution panoramic images. The word panoramic merely means a wide view (literally all-around-view). Image stitching is a popular method for generating panoramas but is also widely used to generate an image of higher resolution that would otherwise be possible with current affordable camera technology. For example File:Elizabeth Tower 2014-09-21 205MP.jpg is a 205MP photograph of Big Ben with a very small angle-of-view that certainly isn't panoramic yet required the same techniques and effort as many FP panoramas. Focus stacking is another skill that can create fantastic images yet we do not separate out those images. Generating stitched photographs is no longer a "unique skill" but no more rare or specialised than macro photography or bird photography, and we should equally celebrate those who have talents in those areas. Diliff's cathedral photographs take the skill to a higher level still, combining exposure-bracketing with multi-image stitching to generate high-resolution HDR. Featured Pictures celebrate our finest work and guide those using our site towards high-quality images. If you want to praise the photographer, do so at the FPC or on his or her talk page. We have other images that required a large investment in time, or experience or great skill to create so I disapprove of singling out just one particular technique for praise. Let's leave the FP categories for still photographs to focus on the subject rather than the photographer or their techniques. By all means create some other page on Commons where you celebrate stitched images. -- Colin (talk) 10:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

  I don't think he implied he wanted to praise any particular photographer (it was Christian Ferrer who mentioned me, not him), he just said that panoramic photography is a style that requires a different skill set. And given that it also has a different aspect ratio, it certainly makes sense to put them in a gallery/category that allows them to be viewed in a manner suitable for that aspect ratio. Just as insect macro photography and telephoto bird photography are both 'pictures of animals', they are clearly a different category of photography. Panoramics can in theory be created without stitching, but it's rare that you could generate that kind of aspect ratio and still have the resolution and detail necessary for a FP. So in practice, they are all mostly stitched images. But panoramics are a subset of stitched images, because as you say, some stitched images are not of panoramic aspect ratio. I wouldn't argue that all stitched images should have their own category, just those that have a 2:1 aspect ratio or greater. Some stitching is merely a means to an end (high resolution) rather than a desire to get a wide angle of view. Diliff (talk) 10:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

  Diliff, read what Gnangarra said. If you replace the words "panoramic" with "stitched" then what he says is correct. But if you don't then it is just plain wrong. Then read what King of Hearts said in his proposal. KoH is talking about images with a wide aspect ratio that are awkward to display in a gallery. This is nothing to do with techniques or scrutiny or effort involved in creation. So can we get back to the proposal rather than this complete distraction about image techniques. We don't group images at FP by photographic technique. We don't have a macro category, a high-speed flash category, a stitched image category, a long-exposure category. If someone wants to group our FPs by photographic technique, then by all means create some other pages for that. But I'd like the category of Bridges, say, to include bridges no matter what aspect ratio and no matter how many exposures or frames were used to create it. That's really all that matters. -- Colin (talk) 11:11, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

  Points taken. But in practice, FP level panoramic photography is stitched, because it if you have to use a wide angle lens and crop it to get an equivalent wide angle of view, you will lose so much resolution that it's unlikely to pass. Yes, there may well be exceptions to that rule, but you can usually assume that panoramas will be stitched. And I agree, we don't group images by technique, but we do group by subject, many of which can only realistically be captured with a specific technique. Birds can't easily be captured with a wide angle lens, insects can't easily be captured with a telephoto lens (mainly due to minimum focus distance), and panoramas can't easily be captured without stitching, so many of these categories are just as easily identified by technique as by subject. If the problem is simply that we need to display the images better in galleries then that should be pretty easy to solve. But here's an interesting question.. why do we only give our FPs one category/gallery? Why couldn't a panorama of a bridge be a bridge FP and a panorama FP? Diliff (talk) 11:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

  In any case, pictures can of course be in two galleries. -- Christian Ferrer 05:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

  They can still be in sparate galleries with different attributes accoding to the proposal (read Christian Ferrer's support comment). For each country in the subject categories you should have both a packed gallery for the photos with normal aspect ratios followed by another gallery, formatted such that it better displays the wide panoramics. -- Slaunger (talk) 05:14, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

•  Info As I had warned several time, I went back to the old form of gallery because as I said several time the BOT don't work with the new form, now you have the old gallery form before I reworked it, of course I added all the recent promoted images since I touched it. This is now a totaly unuseful gallery as if you search an image, you must read 250 or 300 description. It is now exactly like a category with the disadvantages of to not have the fastCCI tool and take longer than a category to display on the screen. For who want to use this gallery for his candidate, well as you want but if nothing is done regarding the formating, virtually nobody will find your picture in this gallery as there is too much image without classification. It is totally obsolete in this form IMO. -- Christian Ferrer 11:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Comment I think there is enough support to move ahead with this proposal, while taking into account the concerns expressed. I'm on vacation next week but when I get back (hopefully with lots of good pictures ) I can work on recategorizing our panorama FPs. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:08, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
•  Comment I already strated to copy (not to move) the panoramas to relevant galleries. Now I think Slaunger was right for to create separate galleries, but not for all panoramas IMO. Explication : the most common display resolution is 1366*768, so no images size should not exceed 1100px wide IMO. Exemple here, or further down the same page, where I created a section with "heights=140px". The purpose is to not have an horizontal scrollbar for 1366*768 screens. "heights=150px" is for this specific image and if some images need "heights=120px" or only "heights=180px", no problems, we will create specific sections for this ones too. -- Christian Ferrer 10:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion on formatting

• I think whatever the outcome, I would copy the images from the panorama gallery to other relevant galleries, and I think I will use "packed-hover" instead of "packed-hover" heights=200px. Exemple by adding the German FP from natural and panorama:

Natural places in Germany

Potsdam Park Rapeseed field near Bavenhausen The pier of the seaside resort Prerow in Nordvorpommern Lindenstumpf, Bavaria Horse in Baden-Wutenberg Grüttpark, Lörrach Baden-Wutenberg The Spring path at the island of Mainau, Baden-Wutenberg Tree in Kiental Drainage ditch, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia Nature reserve “Am Enteborn”, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia Schonach, Black Forest 140823 Märchendom Saalfelder Feengrotten

Of course all suggestions are good to take. -- Christian Ferrer 05:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

@Slaunger: I prefer the one, for severals reasons. We can sort the images in the order they are promoted. My main point, it give a more homogeneous appearance, maybe more compact, by having all the same height, this is visualy more pleasant IMO. Admixing formats show the big diversity of our finest images. I'm now not very favorable to block the image size to 200px because some screen, including laptops and tablets may have small screen. -- Christian Ferrer 09:56, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I would rather separate in two galleries, one with height 200 px for less than 2:1 aspect ratio images, and one with height of 140 px for the larger than 2:1 aspect ratio images, like this

Natural places in Germany - split in two sub galleries with different heights

Potsdam Park Rapeseed field near Bavenhausen The pier of the seaside resort Prerow in Nordvorpommern Lindenstumpf, Bavaria Horse in Baden-Wutenberg Grüttpark, Lörrach Baden-Wutenberg The Spring path at the island of Mainau, Baden-Wutenberg Tree in Kiental Drainage ditch, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia Nature reserve “Am Enteborn”, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia Schonach, Black Forest 140823 Märchendom Saalfelder Feengrotten

-- Slaunger (talk) 06:05, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Clearing chronological galley every month

The chronological gallery need to be cleared by moving contents to parent gallery when one month is over. Hope one or two volunteers will take care of it. Jee 05:32, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

This is something that can and ought to be done by a bot. -- KTC (talk) 14:58, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Then, please. :) Jee 15:45, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Awareness of color space data in files

Background

Recently, Colin was kind enough to tell me that I had no embedded color space metadata in a recent FPC nomination and in another file I had uploaded. To be frank, I had only little technical knowledge on the topic of the RGB color space, and I was not convinced it was important. However, after re-reading a chapter about color management in "The Digital Negative" by Jeff Schewe and threads such as User talk:Diliff#color space and User talk:Benh#color space I am beginning to understand what the consequences are from not having a properly defined color space in the Exif image metadata and an embedded color profile. Looking through my own workflow, I found with the help of Colin and Bawolff that a script I was using to mitigate a mediawiki metadata viewer bug stripped off the embedded color profile data in the process. During the weekend I have now inspected my recent uploads using the excellent Jeffrey Freidl's Exif (Image Metadata) Viewer. I found that 40 files among those 4 FPs(!) had no embedded color profile data. The consequence of that is that applications reading the file for display or print may be in doubt how to convert the jpg data into color information giving an ambiguity in how the data in the files shall be represented. So what I would see on a properly color calibrated montor could have a completely different appearance on another calibrated monitor if another browser or application was used to read and interprete the jpg!

I have now corrected my script (again with the help from Bawolff) and updated the 40 images such that they have proper embedded colour profile metadata. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Three out of ten FPC nominations have color space issues!

Out of curiosity I then checked all 62 images against the Exif viewer, which were currently nominated at FPC last night and to my surprise I found that for 18 nominated pictures (about 30%) different kinds of color space errors or warnings were reported by the viewer.

12 nominations had no defined color space nor an embedded color profile. This means that any web browser or application reading these files have to guess how to map the data into colors. Thats bad!. The most usual for web use is to guess these files should use an sRGB color profile with a gamma of 2.2. But if another color profile such as the Adobe RGB color space (suitable for prints) or the large gamut ProPhoto RGB color space is used you would see a completely different picture. Today there may not be a large risk of actual ambiguity as 'sRGB' is a de facto default in most web applications, but as wide-gamut monitors become more prevalent we may see a drift towards wider color spaces than sRGB for web usage in the future. So the ambiguity rises.

3 nominations had an indicated color profile as 'sRGB' but no embedded color profile. This is a less serious error as applications, who knows about sRGB would be capable of interpreting the data correctly. But applications, which do not have a builtin hardcoded knowledge about sRGB would have a problem.

Finally, three nominations used AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB color spaces with embedded color profiles. This is good for professional printing and excahnge as these generally conserve more of the original colors captured by the camera, but most web browsers only understand the 'sRGB' color space and does not even attempt to interprete the embedded color profile metadata. Thus the simple applications, cannot render the colors as intended for those jpegs.

I would like to urge nominators to check their nominations against a good exif viewer such as Jeffrey Friedl's prior to nomination to avoid problems arising from missing color space metadata. -- Slaunger (talk) 15:39, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem with space color is maybe because "default" space color in Lightroom is Adobe RGB, it change the quality in the file itself or only the way how we are looking the image?. What is mediawiki viewer bug?. Thanks --The Photographer (talk) 23:27, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Lightroom is colour managed and can use a wide colourspace internally if your monitor supports it. But on export the default for JPG is sRGB. -- Colin (talk) 14:08, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The Photographer The mediawiki metadata viewer bug is described in Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2015/04#Error in metadata viewer? and appears to be relevant only for images exported from Lightroom 6.1. The Exif data here are OK, but encoded in a way which is not taken into account by the mediawiki software used to decode the Exif metadata. The problem in that thread was that the exiftools script given there to fix the issue also stripped the color space information and much else usefull inoformation. This has later been corrected in this discussion: User talk:Bawolff#Error in metadata viewer. -- Slaunger (talk) 15:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I corrected most of these. I discovered that Gimp in Windows can't assign a color profile out of the box, and there is no warning about that. Regards, Yann (talk) 07:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Yann. Your efforts are appreciated! -- Slaunger (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I think there are two problems. The first is "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". People look at their camera manual or the export dialog and see there is a colourspace option. They google and learn that AdobeRGB has "more colours" than sRGB (it doesn't, it has the same number of colours but arranged differently) and so assume that AdobeRGB is better. And some pro photographers write books that recommend AdobeRGB -- those guys send their work to print shops, not to the internet! So we end up with images nominated at FP with colourspaces that aren't suitable for the internet. The second problem seems to be that some non-professional image tools like Paint and Gimp seem to make it easy to lose the colourspace information.

I intend to write up some help pages about this, with some images people can use to test their browser. Unfortunately browsers are dumber than we would like and monitors less colourful than we would like. The only reliable way to ensure your image displays with the correct colours is to tag the colourspace and include a profile. But an sRGB image with the relevant colourspace tag set to sRGB is a good start. Having no tag or profile in a JPG is really like having a thermometer with no scale markings. -- Colin (talk) 14:08, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Question whether I did the right thing

Regarding the candidate image File:Pont de Chancia02 2015-05-10.jpg, with the command line

exiftool "-icc_profile<=sRGB_IEC61966-2-1_black_scaled.icc" Pont_de_Chancia02_2015-05-10.jpg

I have added a colour profile and uploaded this modified file as a new version. While this probably prevents some software from guessing a wrong gamma curve, I wonder whether this generic profile does best justice to the intensities as recorded with my camera. -- KlausFoehl (talk) 12:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Your out-of-camera JPG is in sRGB but most camera manufacturers don't embed the 4K profile in order to save space. So provided that icc profile you used is a faithful implementation of sRGB it should be ok. There's nothing Canon-specific in an sRGB JPG so no other (e.g. manufacturer's) profile will enable more colours to be seen. However, if you had recorded in raw format, then there are indeed more intense colours possible than sRGB can represent and that can be captured by your camera. But for many image subjects the range of colour intensities falls within sRGB colourspace and for 99.9% of our viewers, their monitor is incapable of even displaying the range of sRGB never mind anything wider. -- Colin (talk) 14:19, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Short version: You did the right thing! -- Slaunger (talk) 15:16, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Browser test

I plan to write some help pages on the issue of colour profiles, etc. As a start, I have prepared a page that demonstrates some issues browsers have with images using (or lacking) various colour profiles. Have a look at

• User:Colin/BrowserTest

I would appreciate some feedback (particularly from users with Mac desktop computers, since I don't have one) along with the name and version number of browser used, and whether you have a standard-gamut monitor or a wide-gamut monitor along with a wide-gamut profile installed in your OS. It would be interesting to know how many regulars at FP have wide-gamut monitors and also how many have calibrated their monitors (and how many have neither).

Btw, I asked a friend for stats on desktop/mobile usage on Wikipedia. The figures vary between language editions, and not all the necessary information is collected, but it is safe to say that between a third and a half of all Wikipedia traffic is via a mobile browser. There are no mobile browsers that do any colour management at all. The message from that is that if you want people to see your images properly, you need to upload them as sRGB and embed a colour profile. -- Colin (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

FP user profiles

Please indicate your desktop/browser situation.

• I have a Dell Ultrasharp 2711 wide-gamut monitor that has been calibrated and profiled by an x-rite i1Display Pro colorimeter using dispcalGUI (a graphical front-end to Argyll CMS). I'm using Windows 8.1 and have configured Firefox so that it correctly colour manages all images for the wide-gamut display. -- Colin (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
• The situation on a PC is not so bad. With my old 2011-Acer monitor and computer with Vista, I don't see much differences in images without a color profile, both with Chrome and FF. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:44, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

If your Acer monitor is just a standard-gamut display (most are) then the sRGB images without any profile will look very similar to the ones with a profile. If Windows doesn't have a profile installed for your monitor, it will just use sRGB anyway and so they will appear identical. If you have profiled your standard-gamut monitor with a colorimeter (or installed the manufacturer's ICC/ICM file) then you may see a very subtle difference in the images without an embedded sRGB profile, but it won't be as dramatic as if you had a wide-gamut monitor. -- Colin (talk) 10:54, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Sets and the bot

Hi, It seems the bit can't add the templates right: this should be added in File:Monnaie de Bactriane, Eucratide I, pile.jpg and File:Monnaie de Bactriane, Eucratide I, face.jpg. Consequently, the image parameter is also wrong in {{FPpromotion}} when notifying the nominator. I think it should give the first image in the set, which can be changed manually if needed. In addition, it doesn't add "subpage=Set/Gold 20-stater of Eucratides" (cf. [4]). Regards, Yann (talk) 09:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Panoramas and FPC

User:Dschwen has recently updated the broken java panorama viewer with a modern HTML5 panorama viewer based on Pannellum. I think there are still some features that need to be worked out before it will be completely usable but it's fully functioning at the moment. The template which drives the viewer is Template:Pano360 which adds a line to the image page with a link to the panorama viewer (example here). Currently, it displays a only downsampled version of the panorama (I don't know the exact resolution as it doesn't say, but when loading it says the image is 2.8mb instead of 28mb) and doesn't offer multi-resolution support (where a higher resolution image is downloaded in real time when you zoom in on an area of the panorama) so it isn't showing the panoramas at their best. As such, I'm not sure if this makes it 'ready' for us here at FPC where we need to view the image at 100% to judge its image quality, but I was wondering what the consensus would be about considering panoramas as a legitimate type of image for a featured picture. Bear in mind, the images themselves are not properly viewable as a regular flat image, because they become extremely distorted at the top and bottom of the frame. This means that the only way to view them properly is with the panorama viewer. So, what do you think? Assuming we can iron out the minor issues with the panorama viewer, can a 360x180 photosphere panorama be a featured picture? Diliff (talk) 12:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm on it. I need some prerequisites for multiresolution panos installed on tool labs. --Dschwen (talk) 17:50, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

OK thanks for the update. In the mean time, I'd appreciate some feedback from others about if and how we should introduce them for FPC once the pano viewer features are ironed out. Diliff (talk)

Absolutely! we should introduce spherical panoramas in the FPC process as there is no better way that this to document monument interiors. We will need an own category for this kind of images and we should adapt the FPC template (FPCnom/Basic) including a format "spherical" that should include the pano viewer. I can do that if there is consensus about it. Btw, Daniel, you mentioned that it would be no big deal to include aditional (detail) pictures in the spherical panorama via notes (as I did here) and visualize them later on in the viewer. Is that in the list of things to do?. How do we have to talk to regarding multiresolution panos on tool labs? Poco² 22:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Adding notes support will be possible. It needs a bit of work, but I have a rough idea how. You can subscribe to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T108210 to document community interest. But I just opened this today and don't think we have to put presure on anyone yet ;-). --Dschwen (talk) 01:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Unacceptable

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:The central oval room of dawn.jpg

I don't think reviewers should have to put up with nominators who are dishonest with reviewers, and who then say "your opinion does not interest me . . . your opinion does not give a damn? Your opinion to me is hot air, useless, empty words ... how to be more explicit?". The quality of Livioandronico2013's images has been improving, sadly his attitude has not. I hope you will join me in reminding him that this behaviour is unacceptable and may lead to a block. -- Colin (talk) 13:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Le mieux que nous pouvons faire pour résoudre le problème est d'ignorer ce genre de commentaire, commis une grave manque de respect, il procède à l'avertissement dire en premier lieu, si la preciste de comportement, de blocage. Dans ce cas, je crois que l'ignorance est suffisant. --The Photographer (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Put even the early part Colin:"The problem, LivioAndronico, is that I really don't appreciate you lying. At the time I made my comment, the image had been edited in paint.net, hence the lack of colourspace. You replied "No Colin, just photoshop". Grow up a bit and stop lying. I can see it has been reworked twice since then; I'm not blind. This isn't the first time you've been dishonest when challenged. Stop it." --LivioAndronico ^(talk) 13:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not know if it is because I am Italian or because in one year I have more featured that you in 8 .... but you have to give you calm down. Define liars or dishonest your friends not me --LivioAndronico ^(talk) 13:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Well the image history is there for anyone to judge whether your "No Colin, just photoshp" is an honest response. Anyone looking at that FP sees childish mocking animated gifs and links that (I presume, I don't care to click on them) have nothing to do with judging images. Ok, since I'm now being mocked for having fewer FP, I've had enough. No reviewer should have to put up with that. I'm asking for a block now. -- Colin (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Livio, I don't think Colin is the least bit concerned by how many features pictures you have or what nationality you are. That's a silly game to play and one you will lose if you want to compare featured pictures with me. ;-) The simple fact here is that the EXIF doesn't lie, and it says you've used Paint.net and this isn't the first time we've seen it. This is causing problems with your images (not just colour space, but I suspect other issues too). I have to agree with him, you do seem to have dismissed it and said he was wrong. How can you explain Paint.net being shown in the EXIF data if you have never used it to edit the file??? It cannot appear there by magic. Diliff (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I did not say that I've never used it I said I reworked in photoshop later, I do not understand that can create problems. You have better FP to me does not create any problem. However he insults me for this? Nice way to do...--LivioAndronico ^(talk) 14:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you did say you never used it. This is how it happened: Colin said you've been using Paint.net, you replied "No Colin, just photoshop". Unless your logic is as poor as your English, I don't see how you could argue otherwise. The word "just" in this context means "only". You said you only used Photoshop, so it follows that you could not have used any other software. Also, you said you fixed the colour space problem. According to the EXIF viewer, it still does not have a colour profile. He insulted you, I guess, because he thinks you're actually more intelligent than you're acting, and therefore are deliberately being evasive and argumentative. However, it seems there is a possibility that you're actually not sure how to use these programs if you claim to fixed the problem but in fact haven't. There's no shame in not knowing something, the problem is only when you refuse to take advice and become difficult when confronted about the problem. Diliff (talk) 14:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

From these new phrases I understand that you want to defend your friend and all my answer would be useless and wasting time.--LivioAndronico ^(talk) 14:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Unless your logic is as poor as your English It is an insult--LivioAndronico ^(talk) 14:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Your English is poor, that is simply a fact, and sometimes the truth hurts. I suspect that many of us have a lot of trouble understanding you, but generally we manage by guessing what you meant to say. Again, there is nothing wrong with not being fluent in English. My Italian is much worse. But how you take that feedback is how you should be judged. Your instinct seems to be to assume conspiracies about defending friends. That's simply not what's happening here. I just have an opinion and I've stated it. Diliff (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Diliff, I think the colourspace problem is fixed (I downloaded and checked the image with Bridge). I suspect the online exif viewer is retaining a cached version of the Commons image, since the URL is the same and MediaWiki does not update the datetime of the content when a new image is uploaded (i.e. you need to force your browser to reload the image, rather than use the cached one). LivioAndronico, I do consider Diliff a friend, but he is most certainly not afraid of disagreeing with me and pointing out if he thinks I'm wrong! -- Colin (talk) 14:49, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

True, it's saying sRGB now. Then I'll withdraw my comments about the colour space. But the point about Paint.net remains, obviously. Diliff (talk) 17:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Sure, certainly--LivioAndronico ^(talk) 14:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

And Colin is not afraid of disagreeing with me either. We're individuals with our own opinions and quite capable of having different ones. Diliff (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I think this should continue (if it must) over at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#User:Livioandronico2013. -- Colin (talk) 15:25, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• I do not know if it is because I am Italian or because in one year I have more featured that you in 8. Can't believe what I read... while I think that we also (if not mainly) contribute to prove ourselves something, I can see you take it pretty damn seriously. Competition is good, but I don't see a Nadal or Federer looking down like that on their peers (at least not as obviously as you). But haven't it crossed your mind that you get FPs because you flood FPC with nominations of yours? Just asking, not saying... - Benh (talk) 14:23, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

"because you flood FPC with nominations of yours"? Yes if you have very nominations you MUST have very promotions. Work in this way here...or not? --LivioAndronico ^(talk) 20:00, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

@Livioandronico2013: Could you stop being vindictive? All comments so far say that this is an issue with the way you face criticism. You need to address that, and quickly. Thanks, Yann (talk) 21:16, 8 August 2015 (UTC)