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I propose a one month experiment where no self-nominations are allowed. Some have previously suggested this rule, and it could improve our candidates, but I think we should do a trial first. Is anyone interested in this? How about May? --99of9 (talk) 09:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it could be an interesting experiment, although I could be a little concerned about friends nominating friends pictures. Do I understand correctly if the purpose of such an experiment should be to get more diversity in the FPs and get images from more creators - especially, the silent, yet highly qualified non-selfpromotive contributors? --Slaunger (talk) 09:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Friends nominating a friend's image is fine if they genuinely think it's worthy. I would hope it would be unsolicited. I think it has a few possible benefits: more searching out of the silent ones, less rose-eyed/hopeful inferior nominations, possibly more collaborative investment of effort (e.g. improving an image before submitting), more warm glows when someone else picks out your work... --99of9 (talk) 10:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I Support the idea, especially the thought about helping each other and finding the silent ones. It might be a venue for recruiting more users as well, thus hopefully increasing standards. --Slaunger (talk) 10:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Neutral more of the same for the usual suspects is what we'll get, theres no need to restrict self-noms to get people nominating others images Gnangarra15:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Neutral agree with Gnangarra. There is no reason people will suddenly go about and look for previously unknown contributors. They could have been doing this all along. I seldomly see one of my own images nominated by someone else, so I occasionally self nominate if I think an image turned out really good (usually with a fairly high success rate (knocks on wood ;-) )). And where would you start looking in any case? The only option I see is QI (where self-nomination is explicitly wanted). As much as aggressive self-promotion and bulk-nomination annoys me, What is the point of uploading great images if you do it secretly ;-). --Dschwen (talk) 15:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment Learning where to start looking is one of the things we DO need to learn IMO, since the role of this part of the project is to (find and) feature the best pictures Commons has. I have some ideas about where we might look, but I'm no expert, I think that would be part of the experiment. --99of9 (talk) 02:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Neutral - As the others. Self-nomination has worked as a powerful stimulus for the previous generation of creators (I included). As with Dschwen, very seldom someone nominated one of my pictures here though I have 60+ FPs. I'm not really sure how things are now, as I do not follow FPC closely. I do not oppose the experiment, only think that the results won't probably be as expected. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Question Since you see the outcome as obvious, can you please state your expectations? Are you predicting that there will be hardly any nominations? --99of9 (talk) 02:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Would remove the interest I have with FPC (and to contributing to Commons, up to a certain limit). I think we're killing a fly with a bazooka. --S23678 (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
To answer your question, absolutly not, I would even be very glad if it happened (it haven't, yet). But, I think your proposition is highly impractical. For example, if I have an absolutly amazing image uploaded on commons, according to this new rule, I will have 2 possibilities : 1. Do some lobying for someone else to nominate my image, which becomes some sort of indirect self nomination and makes your rule almost useless or 2. Hope that some FPC active user will see my file which is a 1 chance in 6,237,659 as of now. If I do get nominated, lucky me! But if I don't which is likely to happen doesn't it goes against the goal of FP, which is to identify the best pictures of Commons? That's why I think that Mbz1's proposition goes in a better direction as for how to improve the quality of the nominations. --S23678 (talk) 16:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Neutral or Oppose. Restricting self nomination will only increase abuse of relationship. eg: Someone nominates your images and you nominates his images. I believe that the problem cannot be easily solved. Usually people want their images to be nominated, not because they are good images, but because they are their images, of course, only "good images" should pass the nomination, but still it introduces a bias in the fact that you will find labeled images by a restricted list of author: those who proposed the images. The problem is that we cannot select images without relying on the ego of the photographer/proposant. Honestly, I'd prefer having images that enters or not enters in a fixed list of defect (blurry / jpeg_artifacts / bad_colors etc.), that can be used on the long run rather that having a nomination process focused on supposedly extracting the 'best images'. Esby (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose First, I must admit that I support the overall idea behind this proposition. I concur with the original intent and, for now, I myself have only nominated pictures of others here. Apart from the fact that my photos are not as good as the average nominees here, this is mainly because I'm doing a lot of maintenance, like categorization, and I sometimes come across astonishing images. However, not everyone likes maintenance work and I don't want the no-self-nomination rule to be enforced for all the reasons that have been given above.
As a side note: I have always wondered why self-nominators were allowed to vote for their own pictures. I guess this has been hotly discussed many times in the past but I'm still wondering. Preventing a self-nominator to vote for their picture could be a slight incentive to nominate pictures of others. That said, to be fair, and to avoid any clique-effect, we might then have to go further and forbid anyone to vote for their own picture. — Xavier, 22:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. If this was implimented, or if uploader votes were disregarded for self-noms, but not others, you'd just end up with people messaging each other asking them to nominate on their behalf. Hell, it'd arguably be a WORSE situation, because it'd effectively result in canvassing for a vote - since the nominator pretty much always supports. It's just not workable. Oppose. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Monitor Calibrator available to be shipped to you on request
User Marcela has made a colorimetric monitor calibration device (eye-one display 2 by X-Rite) available to all interested parties. The device has so far been used to calibrate screens of Wikimedia users in Germany in the Nürnberg/Fürth region, and will travel via Helsinki to Stockholm and the international Photo-Workshop in Nyköping. After that it will travel to Senegal, Africa. Its further route is yet to be determined. If you are interested in calibrating your screen you may request the device to be sent to you. Software for Windows computers is packaged with the calibration device. Linux computers can be calibrated using Argyll CMS (see write-up here [1]) --Dschwen (talk) 21:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Please direct requests to Marcela. He will figure out a schedule. I'll monitor his talk page and try to help translating the discussion there. --Dschwen (talk) 15:08, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Proposal to restrict self nomination to one image per week
Support. I think anybody who nominates more than 52 images a year must be a pretty self-absorbed person in any case... --Dschwen (talk) 17:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Support Better proposition. Maybe the frequency could be higher a bit, since I usually do mass uploads every 4-6 months, which mean I am more inclined at nominating more images in a short time frame. Since the goal is to avoid ridiculous mass nominations like right now with ComputerHotline, I think even just 1 nomination per day would reach the desired goal --S23678 (talk) 17:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment I support the general idea. I think S23678 is right though that a maximum of one per day would be sufficient to remove many of the annoying mass nominations we have today. Also, with only one per week I would be concerned how it would impact some of the most highly skilled users, who can have periods where they manage to promote several images per week. I think that if the period should be as long as for a week, it should somehow be allowed nominate more pictures as long as what you nominate is actually being promoted. I think that would be too complicated to manage though, so I would prefer the softer max one per day nomination as an easier-to-remember rule. --Slaunger (talk) 22:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, you can always average. If someone complains about 5 Nominations in one week you can point out your last Nomination was two months ago. Do we need to spell this all out in Wiki-legalize? No faith in common sense left ;-) ? --Dschwen (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Support But might I say that this is trying to solve a whole different problem to the one that my suggested experiment was aiming at. I was not targeting anyone in particular, but instead the current insular culture. --99of9 (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Why stifle our success? Surely commons wants as many (criteria meeting) featured pictures as possible. There is not a good reason to place an upper bound on the maximum number of featured pictures per person per year. I don't come close to 52 nominations per year, but I could easily if I started submitting plants, fungi, birds, minerals, mammals and everything else as well as landscapes. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - We don't need the extra bureaucracy; who will enforce the rule? Also, per Noodle snacks: many users, like myself, nominate in clusters. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I very often submit multiple nominations at a single time. I don't have all the time in the world to span them out over multiple periods just because one or two users is causing a problem. I'd rather vote to censor one user rather than everyone. -- Ram-Man02:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Too infrequent for anyone who's in a productive patch, would cause far more problems than the one it solves. All this would do is form little cliques where they post around on each others talk pages or message each other offline to get their images nominated, and cause frustration for anyone not in these cliques. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
You and Muhammad and Ram-man seem to take this proposal very literally. I suggested above to put common sense before wikilegalize and allow broad averaging. That way it would not matter if you upload in patches rather than equally distributed. And as i said above, I know not a single contributor that has a yield that would exceed the limits in this proposal. It only cuts off people that must be severely overestimating their talents... --Dschwen (talk) 23:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't know. I had about 27 successful nominations last year, counting the two large sets as one each (if you count number of promoted images, the number's 43, though you'll have to decide which is relevant). I don't know how many unsuccessful nominations I had, though I do tend to have a fairly high success rate. However, I also left Wikipedia completely in October (I have only recently come back), and my scanner broke in June. It wouldn't surprise me if I had exceeded this proposal for months on end during my most productive period. I have access to a lot of libraries, and books with high quality engravings are surprisingly cheap in used book stores - I have a Dickens volume, which almost everything in would likely be highly useful, which I only paid about five quid for. If you're good at preparation. Now, I don't doubt there are people causing problems, but I don't see this as a good solution. When I've just finished a twenty-hour preparation project, I want to nominate NOW, not wait out a clock.
All that said, one a day is, I think, the de facto rule; presuming this won't cause problems for sets,[*] I can support a one-a-day limit. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
[*] FOOTNOTE TO ABOVE: Sets are things like Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Set_Candidate_-_Henry_Holiday's_Illustrations_to_Lewis_Carroll's_"The_Hunting_of_the_Snark". Noone wants to see one image from the same novel, by the same artist, nominated once a day for over a week, and, if anyone was foolish enough to try, half of them would fail because the voters got bored. However, I think we can all agree that having all the first-edition's illustrations for a major work of children's literature is much better than having only some, especially for Wikisources, and we don't want to provide perverse incentives towards variety when completeness is better. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Best to be explicit, though. If we do put in a one-a-day rule, knowing the issue, and incorporating it into the rule saves a lot of headaches later. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia was down for several hours yesterday. Should we:
Ignore this, and close the FPCs/delisting candidates [does anyone check these?] as normal.
Allow one day extra, only if nearly passing.
Allow one day extra, only if quorum is not reached, but image would otherwise pass.
Allow one day extra for all images.
Ignore the outage, but allow nominators of images who are nearly passing/not quite at a quorum to request more reviews on this talk page, just for now.
After all the great snow pictures in your recent winter, I'm now expecting some great volcano sunsets from all you Europeans. After all, if you can't fly a plane, you might as well be taking photographs. --99of9 (talk) 07:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
LOL. Well, from where I was (mainland jutland, Denmark), there was absolutely nothing to see. The cloud passed over while it was overcast (or was that the coud, I could not see any difference?) If it had not been in the news, I would never have known it was there. It was also overcast at the time of sunset. Dissapointing, really. --Slaunger (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
User Lawboy has started harassing my nominations in FPC, QIC and VIC after his/her photos taken in North Korea were opposed by me. I tried to explain to him/her that such opposes were not personal and that he should practise more and learn from these forums, but the message was erased. Now, things are becoming annoying because most edits made by this user in the last two days are systematic attacks against my photos/nominations. Before making a formal request for blocking, I'm asking for advice of the community (yes, I'm aware that Lawboy25 is most probably a socketpuppet of someone else due to his knowledge of the nomination processes). -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
In fairness to Lawboy – and I can't speculate upon his motives or intentions – all his FPC votes, both in support and opposition of the image at hand, seem to provide valid rationales. Also, on at least a few of the FPC candidates he opposed, others raised similar concerns. Now, it is true that he seems to have learned the ropes rather quickly, but overall I don't think any action, administrative or otherwise, is necessary. –Juliancolton | Talk23:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
While reviewing my uploads over the past year, I came across this failed FPC nom. Subjectively, it seems as if there would've been consensus to feature the edited version, but it was apparently closed as failed due to a) insufficient votes in general, and b) ambiguity about which version people supported. (Specifically, the original image was at 3 support, 1 oppose when I uploaded a retouched version to address the opposer's concerns. After that, the opposer and one other user indicated support for the edited version, but no further votes were cast.)
Please note that I'm not arguing about the closure, which I think was indeed correct under a reasonable reading of the FPC rules. However, I'm wondering what I should do with the image — just renominate and see what happens? What's the recommended procedure for renominating an image, anyway? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:16, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
It's a pitty
that after so much work done to prepare galleries for POTY 2009, it is probably not going to happen.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Our fault. If we wanted the thing to happen we should have organized the event ourselves or, at least, have been involved with the organization. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:43, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi! You may have seen the site notice about the MotD revamp. It was agreed that it'd be necessary to keep translation on one page.
I've just finished the rough mock-up of how that would look. This isn't finished: I need to clean up the MotD display, and add in the code that'll hide MotD when the dates are in the past. I also need to try to get a few more efficiency savings - PotD is one of the most complex bits of coding in use on Commons, and it's actually been pretty near breaking down for a while, due to inefficient coding. I've tightened up some bits, but I do need to stress-test this before it can be considered done.
However, have a look at Template:New_Potd/2010-05. Is this a format you'd be happy to work with when putting in FPs and providing caption translations?
Also, note that there's no reason we couldn't have PotD-only and MotD-only pages in addition to this. But translators shouldn't have to jump around pages, so this would be the "main" one. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
The link in the site notice bar (on top of each page) links to #Careless reviews: Proposals. But there is no easy to understand description about what's going on and what to do. Such a thing is needed if you put a link in the site notice - not everybody has followed this discussion here. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 18:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Haha, you're very funny Jebulon. I have no idea if you were even trying to be funny! Anyway, I've added a little intro box at the link destination. --99of9 (talk) 14:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for adding. Although this is not enough in my opinion - that's a waste of time if every commons user has to take half an hour of reading just to cast a vote. There should be an introduction and summary of discussion in a length that the user is not required to go through a long discussion. Well, no vote from me. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 16:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Automated FPC analysis
Hi, as I have indicated above, I'm currently working on datamining our pool of past FPC nominations. This should provide interesting insights. I'm trying to automate the votecounting as much as possible. Currently 75% of my automatically counted results match the manually counted summary lines (if detected), 9% show a discrepancy (where in some cases the error turned out to be in the manual count), for the remaining 16% I have not yet added patterns to detect the manual summary (or it simply does not exist). Nominations showing discrepancies can also be nominations with alternatives which are not always counted in a consistent way. There is no point in making the code 100% accurate, so at one point I might me asking for help with a manual review. I'll put up a webinterface for this. Stay tuned. --Dschwen (talk) 19:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Engravings and Lithographs
FPC is how the community states what it finds important, and by which it restricts access to PotD, and the attendant translation services and exposure, which tends to get the image put into quite a number of Wikipedias.
I've nominated two in the last two days, on vastly different subjects and in vastly different styles. One got a single, nonsensical oppose, and no other votes, the other has gone 24 hours without even a single vote.
This isn't about me wanting praise. This is about me wanting to make sure that public domain works get out there where people can use them, which having them in obscure corners of the commons doesn't help with. If FPC wasn't connected to the necessary exposure which allows images to be sent out to be used, I wouldn't bother with it. But I do all the work for Commons I do out of a desire to send Public Domain works, which are hidden to most people out of lack of access, out into the world. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
From personal experience I know that putting images into fitting articles on en.wp disseminates them automatically to other Wikipedias sooner or later. Sometimes I explicitly add them to the german or french articles (languages I can somewhat understand). Not getting feedback on your work sucks, but as you said it, the community states what it finds important. Can we influence that? How? --Dschwen (talk) 19:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
First of all I think that you do a very important work for commons and the wikipedias. First of all it is important that people know what your work actually consists of, so that they know what they are actually voting for. When you vote for a photo you can rate the composition, the technical realisation and sometimes maybe also a message or an emotion a photo has. With scans and restoration it is a bit more difficult because you can't really vote according to those criterias. I am sure it is also not easy to actually make a scan which actually looks like the original - so there is the technical realisation. But how can we judge if you have done it well or not? I think a main point should be comparing originals with the restoration. Some time ago I wrote somewhere that we should set up some rules of how to judge restorations. I think this would help a lot because then people would know how they can actually judge your work. What do you think? --AngMoKio (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd love to do it, but it might be wise if I do it in concert with someone who doesn't know restorations, so I know what to explain. Would you be willing? I suppose one issue is that, with a restoration, there is a certain amount that has to be taken on trust, since - for example - the Psalm 23 image I uploaded is a variant of the Baxter process. I doubt that many people are going to go "Oh, of course, the Baxter process! That explains everything!" - so I have to ask you to trust that I'm getting it right. That's not quite so often true with photographs, so I suppose one part of it would have to be to encourage voters to ask the restorer to explain any aspect of their work they do not understand.
I would have thought that if you use a named restoration process, it would help to put the name on the image summary (even if I wouldn't understand what you meant). --99of9 (talk) 12:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, that's the lithographic technique which Kronheim, who is probably the Psalm image's creator, uses. I'm waiting on the final confirmation this sis Kronheim (there's a small chance it's Evans.) There are no named restoration processes. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
However, that might mean that restorations will need a few extra days, or a "preview" period for questions. Thoughts? Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
(unindent) "One got a single, nonsensical oppose, and no other votes, the other has gone 24 hours without even a single vote" - does it maybe just show that in the photographic age, many/most people consider such items to be of little importance? Also I object to my oppose vote on the one being termed 'nonsensical'; however good the quality of the reproduction, I still find the picture and its subject to be too uninteresting to consider it worthy of featuring. Another separate point is that, just as I suspect many failed to vote on the recent series of bullfight photos out of principle on the distasteful subject matter, I suspect some at least may also find religious content a topic they would not wish to vote on. - MPF (talk) 15:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
An opinion: First I think that AC's work is very important, only because through his work, I have in a few months discovered a lot of things i'll never know without him. I'm happy to improve here my cultural level. But Dear Adam, you are a specialist, and every specialists have the same behavior : I've seen that they allways are amazed how it's difficult to share a passion ! They work very hard, by using difficult technics, are very careful of details, and after days and nights, shows at least theyre masterpieces like the Holy Graal. And the comment is "Lack of Wow", and its an injustice. But life is unjust, you know ? I think that not every restoration work is a FP, but I think that Alves rule N°2 is relevant here : if you are not interessed by the subject, or the technical work, don't vote. I have ethical questions about restorations in general, and I think that a work art must be shown here in its original state too(in the file description page only, maybe), both with his restored state. Then it could be easier for the reviewer to have an idea (as said above by AngMoKio. Furthermore, IMO, a scan of an old 2 dimensions artwork maybe a FP because of his subject (historical, rare, special and so on...) and/or because the treatment (processing) of this subject : quality of the "original" image (searching good and publishable images is a hard work), quality of the restoration. But it's harder for the reviewer too, and not so easy than for photographs. It needs a particular attention and good will, and more neutrality maybe.
Remember that "FPC" means "featured PICTURES candidates", and not only "featured PHOTOGRAPHS candidates". I think that Adam is right, when he "explains", in his nominations, how and why his picture can/must be featured. Let's have an open ad free spirit, that's what I ever try to do, and it's refreshing !
I don't know if this opinion is really useful for the global reflexion, but that's what I think, and please note that it is very hard to write such things in a foreign language ! So be lenient, thank you. I said.--Jebulon (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed, and will be archived soon.
Careless reviews
In my opinion the FPC bar is getting dangerously low. This may seem nice and popular, especially for the newcomers and for those interested in acumulating FP's, but is ruining the project. The forum will loose credibility and good participants (both creators and reviewers) will abandon the boat for lack of interest. This is mainly due to careless assessments, as the most exigent reviewers have apparentely gone and those staying seem a bit absent. Some users support everything, or almost everything, and the good habit of scrutinizing carefully the pictures is lost. I'm loosing the interest myself and my own attempts to go against the flood seem ridiculous and aren't probably welcome. Thoughts? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I've been thinking the same for a while now. Maybe it is just a phase that will pass, maybe we need to do something about it. I don't know. --Dschwen (talk) 14:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
We should vote more often and act according to the rules Alves wrote. I also lost the interest in FP a bit. But if we don't start we lose the credibility completely - the standing of com:fpc is already no too good in the wikipedias. --AngMoKio (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
This is the reason why I don't participate in the Com:FP project. I can be strict, but I'm usually the only opposer and it kind of makes me feel like I've pushed too hard. I don't understand the rules around here. Two nominations can share the same issues yet one can get promoted. ZooFari15:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
We should all give it another try and vote more often. We used to have better times here and we should try to get there again. The more we are the better. I understand that beeing the only opposer all the time makes you the "bad guy" - so let's work together on this. --AngMoKio (talk) 16:12, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I must admit: I'm not the best opposer! But we need "Bad Guys" like Dschwen for example (please don't take it personal, I hope you know what I mean... ), who keeps the bar high in his votes and that is good so! And as AngMo say, the more we are the better it is! bg mathiasK16:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
That's one reason, why I stopped voting in FPC - it's tuff to be "bad" when after all your votes you just end up with insults from the nominators. The nominators shouldn't be the photographers. The other reason is obviously the lowering bar, IMO very ordinary photos shouldn't get the status as they do nowadays. —kallerna™09:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I think there's a benefit to having many competing opinions on what's most important. But that means nothing if we don't get to hear those opinions. So long as the rules Alves sets out are followed, I see no downside. I would encourage people to consider the medium/historic value, of course, but then, I do work in scans of historical media, so I would, wouldn't I? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment, I agree, but I fear that being harsher when reviewing pictures will only help to drive away contributors, which would again reduce the number of nominated pictures. Reducing the number of pictures nominated does not improve the quality of the promoted pictures at all; rather, it creates a smaller pool from which the promoted pictures are drawn. There have been efforts in the past to reduce the number of pictures that are nominated and I think that is one of the causes of the current problems. When the number of nominated pictures falls, the quality of the promoted pictures also decreases because you ideally want to promote as many pictures as before, but with fewer candidates, the 10 best pictures are on an average of lower quality than the 10 best pictures of a great number of candidates would be. I don't believe that the previous efforts to reduce the number of nominated pictures only got rid of the lowest quality pictures, rather, it made Commons FPC less attractive in general which reduced both the number of high-quality candidates and low-quality candidates. Another reason for the previously mentioned phenomenon is the decrease in activity at Wikipedia, which affects Commons equally much since Commons is primarily the image host of Wikipedia in most people's eyes. --Aqwis (talk) 16:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
But in general, I agree: a couple of years ago, the CCTV picture would be "laughed out of" FPC and thrown straight into QI. Not so these days. --Aqwis (talk) 16:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Funny you should mention it ... the image was a test of sorts. I know damn well it's not an interesting image and not the best technically. I wanted to see what kind of votes I would get. It seems like the system is working, the image will not get promoted (though your fixation on poor focus completely baffles me). But I've seen images that were worse IMO get promoted. Maybe because it was me ? Would I get the same treatment if I was a newb on here ? Questions, questions ... --ianaré (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Support the rules, the intention, anything that can raise the bar (even though I may have somehow taken advantage of the current lower expectations lately). I don't have much time for reviewing (neither here nor at QI/VI), but maybe I should come here and review more often. I don't give a damn about "being the bad guy", and apparently that helps. --Eusebius (talk) 16:32, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I have had some very negative reactions when I opposed. My impression is that it is mostly a club for mutual admiration. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 16:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Can you put something in there about people flooding ? Annoying to see some people post 5-6 different pictures of a similar thing in a single day. IOW decide yourself the best before you submit, or ask in QC or image critiques. --ianaré (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I have a proposition: why don't we increase the number of supports needed for an FP? This would reduce the need of «bad guys». Personally, I find difficult to oppose an FP. There is always a part of subjectivity in the assessment of a picture (appart from technical aspects) and since I'm still a very amateur photograph, I don't like to oppose to something that may have a high value. Also, I think «bad guys» are more the ones who don't give an appropritate justification to their oppostion. I noticed that unfortunate quarrels often arise in these circumstances. This is the kind of thing that drive away some of us. --Cephas (talk) 17:26, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Although I've not been active on FCP for some time, I'm checking from time to time the nominations, and I do feel what Alvesgaspar has reported is true. Many good reasons have been cited. In my opinion, some solutions could help :
Newbee votes : A "welcome to FPC" message could be placed on the talk page of new voters, with the big "do's and don't".
Difficulty to oppose : Technical opposes are usually easy to do, since they can be proven. But as soon as we get into the value, or composition, opposing becomes way more difficult, especially for the "no wow" pictures, since the usage of "no wow" has a bad press. How many times I opposed a picture where the real reason for my oppose was because of a lack of wow, but still the only thing I could cite was secondary reasons. I have to admit that the "wow" factor is my main criteria I use when judging a picture :
When the FPC has no apparent "wow", I'm trying to find how this "no wow" is counter-balanced by other qualities (which means that I start my evaluation on a negative tone, and I'm looking if there's enough positive to switch my vote).
When the FPC has plenty of "wow", I'm looking if anything else could prevent this picture from FPC standard, mainly quality (which means I start my evaluation on a positive tone, then I'm looking for any negative side which could switch my vote).
I think that removing the negative tone surrounding the use of "no wow" would allow more flexibility to the voters, and allow them to clearly speak their minds. Maybe some more politically correct/less childish synonym could be found instead.
Multi nominations : It's hard for a voter to oppose all the nominations (if they are under FP standard) from 1 nominator when 10 similar images are nominated at the same time. It often ends where it's best image from the bunch, still being sub-standard, will get promoted because of it's status as "better than the others. I think some kind of official or proposed limitation on the number of nominations per day could resolve this problem. --S23678 (talk) 17:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Good points, especially regarding the Multi nominations. I mostly try to ignore multi nominations out of fear that an oppose might trigger knee jerk supports (the image is not all that bad). I'd like to add that I see a similar issue with edits. Those often get an overly big amount of supports. My guess is the voters think they have to reward that some action has been taken by the nominator to address some concerns. Often enough I find edits only address some of the concerns and would simply fail if they had been nominated directly. --Dschwen (talk) 03:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support For me a picture should be of value, if possible be a quality image. FPC scares me and I do not go there very often because I'm afraid of not being very competent. The rules seem fair and I support this valuable project. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I'm amazed how people are supporting my personal opposing rules. It wasn't my intention to include them in the guidelines! Anyway that is a nice pretext to have a fruitful discussion about FPC and try to raise the overall quality of the reviews... and of the promoted images. In the good old days (2 or 3 years ago...), the monthly number of promoted pictures was about 30. Now it is much more than that, and I believe we should come back to the old number. Yes, the overall technical quality improved a lot in the last years as a result of technology. But not the 'wow factor' which is still dependent mainly on composition and originality. The bottom line is we should be more strict on technical issues (which are objective) and keep the requirement that pictures should, in some way, amaze and surprise the reviewer (the subjective factor). I will, once more, propose a raise in the number of support votes necessary for promotion if I believe the proposal will be accepted this time. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
What was the reason for the rejection of the "increase support" proposition ? It seems to me such an easy solution for our difficulty. --Cephas (talk) 18:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Support (1) I support Alvesgaspar's 'guidelines', and I would also support the increase, from 5 to 7, of support votes requested for candidate pictures to become featured... with an exception for engravings, etc, for which the number of 5 supports might remain unchanged. I myself mostly refrain from supporting/opposing images of engravings and similar objects, this because I do not feel competent in that domain. (2) Multi-nominations: couldn't they be discouraged with the help of a template, inviting the nominator to choose between one of his shots and withdraw the other(s)? (3) I'd also like to draw the attention to the naggingly unresolved status of the candidate picture volitans Manado-e edit.jpg Pterois volitans, the fish. It is an edited/improved version of an existing FP. It seems clear that the nominator intended to gain support for the replacement of the 'old' version. One of the more experienced users (admins?) should take action here (remove and replace, as suggested by Jafeluf)… --Cayambe (talk) 21:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what we're voting on here... but I tend to agree with Alves' thoughts. I find both supports and opposes are often inconsistent and have no rhyme or reason. My only suggestion would be to revamp the process and close FPCs by consensus rather than vote-count. That way, experienced and credentialed users can read through the discussions and determine which votes are most reasonable, and weaker arguments are given less consideration. –Juliancolton | Talk21:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I understand your point, but it sounds risky. I have never experienced it, but I think conflicts can happen quite easily on FP, and an "experienced" user closing a nom while rejecting several votes may easily trigger one. Besides, it makes it even more difficult for the closing user to reject the candidate (because of the possible opposition with the reviewers), so I think we're missing one of the subgoals. --Eusebius (talk) 22:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Good points Alves. I also see multi-nominations, as indicated by S23678, Cayambe and Dschwen (unsigned comment above), as well as careless nominations a key issue. It is simply too easy to dump as many nominations one wishes into the candidates list (same as at QI), which leads to a lower carefull-reviews/candidates ratio. One can stand by high standards but who will have time to carefully review 70 images per week! (see current Q). How about a fair-play guideline to not nominate more than x per week? --Elekhh (talk) 21:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment I see that we are getting into a process that has already been done. I have some comments from the reading of all these discussions. The purpose of FPs in Commons should be clearly stated. It is obvious that different visions of FPs underlie the opinions expressed. Endless discussions results from different starting points. Are FPs only to highlight some of the finest strictly speaking, or should it take into account some categories? I think a number of categories should be done for engravings or other non-photographic medias as they have to be judge on very different critrias compare to usual pictures. Also, I think Commons should not be used/consider/seen as a way to promote our personal work (through FPs). Other means exists for this (Flickr, personal website, etc.). I understand Wikimedia projects as communal works for the benefit of all with no objective of personal satisfactions (other than doing something helpfull for others). I say this because some contributors seem to be quit passionate about having their pictures promoted and some frustration originate from this. I understand it, but is this appropriate in a wikimedia project? Strict application of this view will drive away some, but it is important for a project to stay close to its «raison d'être». (I'm probably very idealistic, but its my opinion.) --Cephas (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
@Cephas -- I believe the two components are compatible: one offers his/her high quality images to Commons and receives recognition and ephemeral glory. In my opinion this ego-feeding part is necessary and has contributed a lot for the present FP show-case. This is particularlu obvious for two or three particular contributors, now retired (no longer a challenge?), who have raised the exigency of some particular kinds of photos to almost professional level. Of course, old engraving and other works of art should be assessed using different criteria. But not under softer promotion rules. As I have shown more than once, the success rate of those nominations is significantly higher than average. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 09:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment I came back to watch the nominations page some days ago after a long time, and I was surprised by the low quality of both the nominations and the reviews. So far I agree with all that has been said, the opposing rules look good and some other proposals seem good too. Something easy to implement quickly is a guideline about multi-nominations and I think we should go ahead with it if, as it seems, many of us agree. But let's don't forget about other actions we'll have to take, since the former is just a portion of the bigger problem. I'm in favor of applying the opposing rules to the guidelines and, even if I don't really see the effect of increasing the number of needed votes, I won't oppose either. Some good ideas are arising, let's hope they help with this issue. A good starting point might be to just start applying what we said and vote thoroughly. - Keta (talk) 22:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Many support votes are completely without any reasons why the image is especially good. Maybe the instructions should also require support votes to have valid reason. Currently only oppose votes require reasons ("civic virtue demands that at least when opposing a candidate (which has been carefully selected for nomination by someone) a valid reason is given for doing so"). Even if currently oppose votes without reasons are counted, that makes it a little easier to support than to oppose. If all votes require reason I think reviews would be less careless. /90.229.128.7422:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Support This is a good idea. Maybe not as a requirement, but it would be a good practice to follow. I think we should encourage it in the guidelines. - Keta (talk) 08:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Info - You will find in these two graphs simple statistics of the FP nominations from 2004 to 2010. Notice how the percentage of promotions increased in 2009 and 2010. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Interesting graphs, but please keep in mind, that the percentage of promoted pictures is not necessarily strongly correlated to the quality of the pictures. For example the influx of new users can lead to an increase of bad quality nominations, which would lower the quality of promoted pictures even if their percentage remained constant. --Dschwen (talk) 14:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
But I agree with you, of course! My interpretation of the numbers is that the exigency bar dropped because of the influx of new reviewers and the departure of the old. In general, the overall quality of the promoted images has also dropped imo. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:46, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Yay, put it in the guidelines but in my opinion it won't change anything. Lately there are experienced reviewers needed • Richard • [®] • 08:32, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Although it's getting very hard for my own pictures and writing as the Advocatus Diaboli: why not multiply ones vote with his number of FPs? (yes, Richard then makes the decision by his vote ;-) --Berthold Werner (talk) 09:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Some experienced people and a few troll voters have left, presumably resulting in a lowered standard. People voting more seriously is a better proposition than rising the required ratio for promotion - otherwise the opinions of a minority are given undue weight. Noodle snacks (talk) 07:33, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Neutral too much emphasis is placed in the reviews on photographic quality & not enough on the value of the photographic in terms of science, interest, education or a million other reasons. FieldMarine (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Engravings and Lithographs
FPC is how the community states what it finds important, and by which it restricts access to PotD, and the attendant translation services and exposure, which tends to get the image put into quite a number of Wikipedias.
I've nominated two in the last two days, on vastly different subjects and in vastly different styles. One got a single, nonsensical oppose, and no other votes, the other has gone 24 hours without even a single vote.
This isn't about me wanting praise. This is about me wanting to make sure that public domain works get out there where people can use them, which having them in obscure corners of the commons doesn't help with. If FPC wasn't connected to the necessary exposure which allows images to be sent out to be used, I wouldn't bother with it. But I do all the work for Commons I do out of a desire to send Public Domain works, which are hidden to most people out of lack of access, out into the world. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
From personal experience I know that putting images into fitting articles on en.wp disseminates them automatically to other Wikipedias sooner or later. Sometimes I explicitly add them to the german or french articles (languages I can somewhat understand). Not getting feedback on your work sucks, but as you said it, the community states what it finds important. Can we influence that? How? --Dschwen (talk) 19:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
First of all I think that you do a very important work for commons and the wikipedias. First of all it is important that people know what your work actually consists of, so that they know what they are actually voting for. When you vote for a photo you can rate the composition, the technical realisation and sometimes maybe also a message or an emotion a photo has. With scans and restoration it is a bit more difficult because you can't really vote according to those criterias. I am sure it is also not easy to actually make a scan which actually looks like the original - so there is the technical realisation. But how can we judge if you have done it well or not? I think a main point should be comparing originals with the restoration. Some time ago I wrote somewhere that we should set up some rules of how to judge restorations. I think this would help a lot because then people would know how they can actually judge your work. What do you think? --AngMoKio (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd love to do it, but it might be wise if I do it in concert with someone who doesn't know restorations, so I know what to explain. Would you be willing? I suppose one issue is that, with a restoration, there is a certain amount that has to be taken on trust, since - for example - the Psalm 23 image I uploaded is a variant of the Baxter process. I doubt that many people are going to go "Oh, of course, the Baxter process! That explains everything!" - so I have to ask you to trust that I'm getting it right. That's not quite so often true with photographs, so I suppose one part of it would have to be to encourage voters to ask the restorer to explain any aspect of their work they do not understand.
I would have thought that if you use a named restoration process, it would help to put the name on the image summary (even if I wouldn't understand what you meant). --99of9 (talk) 12:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, that's the lithographic technique which Kronheim, who is probably the Psalm image's creator, uses. I'm waiting on the final confirmation this sis Kronheim (there's a small chance it's Evans.) There are no named restoration processes. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
However, that might mean that restorations will need a few extra days, or a "preview" period for questions. Thoughts? Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
(unindent) "One got a single, nonsensical oppose, and no other votes, the other has gone 24 hours without even a single vote" - does it maybe just show that in the photographic age, many/most people consider such items to be of little importance? Also I object to my oppose vote on the one being termed 'nonsensical'; however good the quality of the reproduction, I still find the picture and its subject to be too uninteresting to consider it worthy of featuring. Another separate point is that, just as I suspect many failed to vote on the recent series of bullfight photos out of principle on the distasteful subject matter, I suspect some at least may also find religious content a topic they would not wish to vote on. - MPF (talk) 15:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
An opinion: First I think that AC's work is very important, only because through his work, I have in a few months discovered a lot of things i'll never know without him. I'm happy to improve here my cultural level. But Dear Adam, you are a specialist, and every specialists have the same behavior : I've seen that they allways are amazed how it's difficult to share a passion ! They work very hard, by using difficult technics, are very careful of details, and after days and nights, shows at least theyre masterpieces like the Holy Graal. And the comment is "Lack of Wow", and its an injustice. But life is unjust, you know ? I think that not every restoration work is a FP, but I think that Alves rule N°2 is relevant here : if you are not interessed by the subject, or the technical work, don't vote. I have ethical questions about restorations in general, and I think that a work art must be shown here in its original state too(in the file description page only, maybe), both with his restored state. Then it could be easier for the reviewer to have an idea (as said above by AngMoKio. Furthermore, IMO, a scan of an old 2 dimensions artwork maybe a FP because of his subject (historical, rare, special and so on...) and/or because the treatment (processing) of this subject : quality of the "original" image (searching good and publishable images is a hard work), quality of the restoration. But it's harder for the reviewer too, and not so easy than for photographs. It needs a particular attention and good will, and more neutrality maybe.
Remember that "FPC" means "featured PICTURES candidates", and not only "featured PHOTOGRAPHS candidates". I think that Adam is right, when he "explains", in his nominations, how and why his picture can/must be featured. Let's have an open ad free spirit, that's what I ever try to do, and it's refreshing !
I don't know if this opinion is really useful for the global reflexion, but that's what I think, and please note that it is very hard to write such things in a foreign language ! So be lenient, thank you. I said.--Jebulon (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Careless reviews: Proposals
Welcome to the discussion of new rules for Featured Pictures
If you have arrived here from the site notice, welcome, please take some time to read, comment on, and support/oppose the options below for reform of the Featured Pictures promotions process. This has come about from the consensus in the section above that some reform to tighten the restrictions is needed.
Thanks for the support, which I didn’t expect to be so expressive. But I wasn’t really proposing anything … yet. Below you will find four groups of proposals addressing various issues raised in the discussion. Please limit your comments to one line or so. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:44, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
*This vote will fail.... again.... sadly : Having the option to Oppose one idea but to support another will lead to nothing conclusive (3 options = 1 Support and 2 Oppose = Status Quo). Only Support votes should be used for group A and C. --S23678 (talk) 12:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC) Seems not to be as bad as I expected. Still people should limit their votes to supports only where there's multiple choices (imagine a political election where people could either support, oppose or be neutral towards all the candidates...!) --S23678 (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I think the reason it will work is that the multiple options are on a scale that can gradually be compressed as the extreme options fail. --99of9 (talk) 14:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Group A (# votes)
Three alternatives for the minimum number of support votes necessary for promotion: 5 (as is now), 7 and 9 votes. In all cases a minimum ratio #support/#oppose of 2/1 is implied.
Option 0 (5 support votes) >> rejected
As is now. A FP candidate is promoted with 5 or more support votes and a minimum ratio support/oppose of 2:1.
Support - I've rarely seen quorum matter, except in images that probably should've been promoted, but got nominated on a major holiday. Changing percentage would be better. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Now is a good time to raise the requirements. Perhaps we will see quorum matter more often, that's not a bad thing! 10 days is enough to span any holiday, and personally I'm just as likely to be here on a holiday as not. --99of9 (talk) 07:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Support nothing like raising the bar, but lets run it for a trial period and review the results to ensure there isnt a significant unintended negative impact. Gnangarra14:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment on the Polish language Wikipedia 8 support votes need, but nomination review time is 21 days. For more support votes possible need more time. It is wrong way --George Chernilevskytalk09:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I don't think review time should be increased: usually a really good image gathers all the needed support, or even more, in the first days of the nomination. -- MJJR (talk) 20:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, I suspect we don't have enough active users for such a high limit to be practical at certain times of the year, e.g. christmas, easter, middle of the summer, ESPECIALLY when re-nominating a picture is very looked down upon. --Aqwis (talk) 11:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected, 2 support, 11 oppose. I'm going to call consensus against this one, so we can concentrate on the likely successful options. --99of9 (talk) 03:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Option 3: 5 support votes, but 80% supports needed >> rejected
Info the only change this proposal makes is to change the outcome of one single case from featured to not featured, namely the case where 5 people support and 2 people oppose. Everything else stays exactly as it currently is. --Dschwen (talk) 21:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
It also affects everything where more than 5 people vote. The only time I've ever seen quorum matter was around holidays or slow periods, when fewer people are voting. If we really want to up the bar, we should raise the percentage, which would apply to all nominations, no matter how discussed. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Try this: Go to Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Log/May_2010. Search for "=> Featured", and compare the ones with 5-6 supports with those with 7 or more. Then compare those with 66-79% with 80% or higher support. I see very little difference in quality between the 5-6 and the 7 or more, that isn't better explained by the 66% vs. 80%. Hence, I think this is better than increasing to 7 supports. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, that is a pretty crass change. One oppose is now worth four supports, that doubles the oppose impact. I am intrigued. But I am also afraid that careless reviews in the other direction can now kill off legitimate candidates too easy. Btw. I am currently programming an FPC archive parser to collect some statistics on the frequency and margins of promotions etc. This is a lot of work, as the voting format changed over time and our reviews in general do not follow a rigid structure. The results won't be 100% accurate, but I am confident that I can approach sufficient accuracy. --Dschwen (talk) 01:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. I await your results. I agree that it makes a major change, but if the intent is to increase quality, such a change would do it. Could go with 75% if you think 80% is too much? [sorry, DNS server crashed fr half an hour i the middle of this, and I've lost my train of thought. I had typed something else, but...} Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Out of the 16 2009 POTY finalists, 4 would have failed to ever become featured by this criterion, but none failed to achieve 7 supports. So, I think this option makes a vote too susceptible to minority votes, and does not accord with popular opinion. --99of9 (talk) 14:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
I’m addressing three different proposals here, made during the discussion above: the ethical obligation of justifying the support votes; the inclusion of my opposing rules (or similar) into the guidelines; and the creation of a ‘welcome template’ containing some instructions on the review process, to be put into the newbies’ talk pages.
Vote justification >> undecided
Should the guidelines state the convenience of justifying both the opposing and supporting votes?
Support, as long as nobody starts removing supports because they feel that the reason for support has been inadequately explained. --Aqwis (talk) 11:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Only opposes should need justification. Up to a certain point, all supports should read something like : Good quality, good composition, wow --S23678 (talk) 13:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Potential language issues, but should be taken as a strong recommendation. Plus machine translation is getting better. P.S.: I see a strong need to justify supports, looking at some votes currently on the page. --Dschwen (talk) 13:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I sometimes support without a reason. Those are the pictures that should so obviously be featured that there was no question in my mind. I'm lazy enough to want to continue this practise! --99of9 (talk) 13:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Often too busy otherwise to justify, in particular so when the support appears obvious to me and, abvove all, when others already have given justifications that I agree with. --Cayambe (talk) 14:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Question what is a justification ? Please definite it. Who will have the right to decide if my justification is relevant enough ? And why ?--Jebulon (talk) 16:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Giving a justification for a Support vote shouldn't be mandatory.(Justification for an Oppose vote should be mandatory.) --MattiPaavola (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Info -- But nobody is proposing the explanation to be mandatory! We just want to insert a recomendation into the rules. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
OK, it seems that I have misinterpreted the exact proposal then. Anyway, I think the current guidelines are ok regarding the justification: "...at least when opposing a candidate (which has been carefully selected for nomination by someone) a valid reason is given..." --MattiPaavola (talk) 17:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose if not mandatory, what's the point ? Furthermore, I don't feel a support needs justification. --ianaré (talk) 17:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose If we can objectively justify the rejection of a nom by some technical flaws, it is much harder to rationally justify the "wow factor" wich often trigger the support of a reviewer. A picture can be technically perfect without being FPable. --Cephas (talk) 23:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment If we can not think of any reasons that a file should be featured, should it be featured? And it is really just the nominator or first supporter that needs to give a reason. Other supporters can still be lazy if they want to and just say "Agree with <previous supporter>", like some oppose votes already do. /Ö16:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I always try to justify my vote. I think this is the best way to say the photographer what he can do better the next time and tell why I oppose. Or just to say what I like at the picture and why it is, for me, good enough to support. --mathiasK16:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I'm strongly against mandatory comments - per language reasons. Not everyone here is able to express oneself with all necessary subtlety in non-native language. --Miaow Miaow (talk) 00:45, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I gcoinne. Ceapaim go mbéadh orainn rialaithe nua a chum chun sonrú cad is ea trácht "bailí" nó "dóthanach". (I think we would then have to come up with rules to specify what is a "valid" or "sufficient" vote.) Stifle (talk) 08:29, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Support A justification and some comments are always better, of course. But don't make it mandatory for the support votes. A recommendation can suffice, as Alvesgaspar proposes. -- MJJR (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, sorry, but they are just too subjective - and can be interpreted in a million different ways. We should also avoid instruction creep. --Aqwis (talk) 11:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose good essay point but shouldnt be a rules otherwise we'll get Oppose#2 which explains nothing Gnangarra11:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Good to be advertised (especially on newbe messages), but too subjective to be implemented in the guidelines. --S23678 (talk) 13:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I don't see them as unbreakable rules, but rather as good remainders of how to make a negative review, and somehow they also help to alleviate the sense of "bad guy" some people might feel about others. - Keta (talk) 14:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose The rules are already long enough, and these are basically one person's version of common sense. Leave as an essay. --99of9 (talk) 00:40, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected 3 support, 11 oppose, 2 neutral. I'm going to call consensus on this one so discussion can concentrate on active options. --99of9 (talk) 03:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Welcome template >> approved
Should a ‘welcome template’ be created containing some instructions on the review process, to be put into the newbies’ talk pages?
Info @Jebulon. This was a joke, of course. Aside that we should try to keep the level of the assessments consistently high. Which is only possible when the reviewers are familiarized with the process. That is not what is happening now, with some newcomers apparently not aware of the purpose of FPC, its guidelines and its acumulated culture. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
You probably mean a lapsus linguae (or Freudan slip)? Well, I was thinking precisely of you when I suggested that newbies need to be castigated. :-)) -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Question What is a newbie ? Am I a newbie ? If yes (why not, only three months here), I don't feel the need to be "educated" or "castigated" by nobody here... Hmm. I'm afraid, I've seen a little above that both votes must be justificated.... Please do here what you say, at first...--Jebulon (talk) 16:35, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Your approach is restrained, and you ask questions -- no need to send you to a "re-education camp" in Siberia ;-) Sadly there are some who do not follow these simple principles. --ianaré (talk) 17:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, thank you very much ! I may stay free, may I ? Wow !! But... Catch me if you can... And... What is a newbie (bis) ?--Jebulon (talk) 21:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Yes, but please don't make it too long and dreary, and only use it for new users actually starting to participate in FPC to avoid even more talk page welcome spam. fetchcomms☛21:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Approved 17 support, 0 oppose. Clear consensus support for this one. Now we just need someone to implement it. Please post a link here when you start working on a template. --99of9 (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Group C (multi-nominations)
Should the number of nominations by the same user, during a given period, be limited? Please feel free to add other options
Question Do the nominators have a credit ? If I don't nominate next week, may I have a credit for the double the week after ?--Jebulon (talk) 16:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
At work, at home, from a friends, from a lot of Internet-cafe, from a club, from a other provider connection... Anybody can made lot nominations. It is problem --George Chernilevskytalk09:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment IP nominations are a minority. I don't see many people changing from one computer to another (or just changing the IP) just to overflow the page with nominations... - Keta (talk) 09:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Option 0 (as is) >> rejected
No, there should be no explicit limit to the number of nominations.
Oppose No more spam. People should nominate the best of the best and preselect very well before stealing the time of all the poor reviewers • Richard • [®] • 13:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose self restraint is obviously not working, and this makes going over the nominations very annoying. Eliminating nomination spam would make the page more interesting for voters. --Dschwen (talk) 13:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected 13 oppose, 0 support. We have a clear consensus that the number of nominations should be limited. Closing this option so that we can concentrate on how strict the limitation is. 99of9 (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Option 1 (2 per day) << rejected
Nominations by same user should be limited to 2 per day.
Oppose No more spam. People should nominate the best of the best and preselect very well before stealing the time of all the poor reviewers • Richard • [®] • 13:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. If you can produce 2 per day of them, they are not special enough for FPC. Plain and simple. Nobody is that good. --Dschwen (talk) 20:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Want me to try? I currently have no employment, so I can put as much time as I want into this. Plus, I have a whole bunch of half-finished restorations. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
You can always pile up work. But you cannot sustain that rate. If you could that would only mean your work is mass production and thus too ordinary for FPC. --Dschwen (talk) 23:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Explicit oppose to help clarify consensus. I have indicated elsewhere that this is insufficiently restrictive in my view. --99of9 (talk) 03:38, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose No more spam. People should nominate the best of the best and preselect very well before stealing the time of all the poor reviewers • Richard • [®] • 13:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Switching since the status quo has now been ruled out, and we have plenty of options that are tighter than this that I prefer. --99of9 (talk) 03:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Why the rush to jump to an impractical, hugely restrictive scheme without trying a more reasonable one first? Do people even understand what they're voting for here? Because all the proposals below this one are batshit insane. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. If you can produce 2 per day of them, they are not special enough for FPC. Plain and simple. Nobody is that good. --Dschwen (talk) 20:28, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
That's nonsense. I bet you I can produce seven in a week if I wanted to. I have in the past. Durova has in the past. Photographers have in the past. If I nominate someone else's work because I think it's really good, does that mean I should be forbidden from nominating one of my own for twn days, like your preferred selection? Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Say you travel somewhere for a couple of weeks, not having an internet connection or Photoshop/RAW converter, and while you're there, you create say, 5 FP-worthy pictures. With some of the most restrictive schemes, you wouldn't be able to get all of them promoted for months! You shouldn't only consider one type of situation. --Aqwis (talk) 09:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
As Dschwen has produced multiple FPs on one day before, I'd assume he means the long term rate, not the short term one. Noodle snacks (talk) 08:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, because leaping straight from no restrictions whatsoever to 1 or 2 every 10 days, unless you nominate horrible things, in which case it could be as high as 1 a day anyway (FPX's only take a day to clear, you know) is such a sensible way of moving forwards, and does not at all violate common sense, which says to try the less restrictive option before jumping to hugely restrictive. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I don't see much progress with this. Per day limit doesn't do much. Per week limit of 7 is far too high. --Elekhh (talk) 06:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Neutral as the discussion moved along, I think that the best compromise is 5 active nominations, where active means open to recieve votes. Gnangarra10:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Support But are we forbidding edits here? This should be clarified. Also, who will enforce this rules? A bot? --Eusebius (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
it would be nominations only, making alternative edit to another nomination wouldnt be an issue. As for enforcement surely any editor could note and then a passing admin could close, maybe delete the nomination page but, I think we can trust most editors to self regulate Gnangarra13:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. I know some people think they need more. But I have yet to see that. Empirical evidence shows me that one active nomination is enough. --Dschwen (talk) 13:32, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I am convinced by Adam's promotion stats that 1 active is too slow. I think 2 would still be acceptable. Perhaps once a nomination has over 7 support votes, it could be considered to have passed muster for these purposes, and another nomination allowed. --99of9 (talk) 23:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose That's WAY too slow - productive, high-quality producers would be hamstrung to one every *10 days*. Meanwhile, the spammers would be FPX'd or Rule of fifth day'd, and so get to nominate far more often. If anything, this would increase the amount of low quality stuff compared to high-quality, by disproportionately restricting those that should be nominating things. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I really don't see why this would be too restrictive. Taking good picture takes time (either in preparing, or postprocessing it). I'm fine with that. - Benh (talk) 21:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd leave FPC if this passed. I refuse to put up with paternalistic meddling that punishes the creators of high-quality content more than the spammers. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah. Sorry, but moral outrage against foolish attempts at paternalism engaged in with utter stupidity isn't something I'm going to give up on because of some stupid essay that tries to cast moral outrage in a bad light. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:44, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Hm, well, at least you read it (although it does not cast moral outrage in a bad light). Try to keep your cool, dude. --Dschwen (talk) 03:02, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Looking to stats, it seems to be frequent that 2 FPs by one author were promoted in one week, and this shall not be restricted. I got convinced that one per week would be too restrictive. --Elekhh (talk) 07:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support no problem with this. I've no problem to wait and, don't ask me why, I think this could really increase the quality of FPC. Or better, I hope so... --mathiasK17:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
By killing any productive periods dead through the knowledge it'd be weeks before that third one you're working on could be nominated, and by allowing the spammers to nominate more often than successful nominators? Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Too restrictive & I also find Adam Cuerden's argument (above)interesting that this would restrict good photographers more than the spammers.Keibr (talk) 19:14, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected, 9 support, 13 opposes
Option 4 (2 active nominations) >> approved
Two active nominations -- editor can't nominate a third image until one of the previous one has passed the discussion period or been closed.
Votes
Support I think one every 10 days is slightly too constrictive for some of you. I've seen a few of you with multiple outstanding noms at once, so lets give you a little more leeway. --99of9 (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Neutral while I proposed only 1 active nom I could can see reason for having upto 5...where as option 2 allows for upto 13 active nominations(7 during the week plus 6 more before the first nomination period closes) and 2 per day allows for 20 active nominations, I dont think anyone has achieved 13 active nominations forget about them actually returning 13 FPs one ed has 12 current noms atm, swap to neutral as per dschwen Gnangarra14:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment If you think a range of 1-5 active is acceptable, I don't understand why you would retain support for 1 active but go neutral on 2 active. Also see my comment to DSchwen. --99of9 (talk) 23:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
The discussion has moved along since that, one or two really isnt any different as Dschwen said supporting every alternative isnt going to achieve a productve resolution, so I changed to neutral which is still my position with this option Gnangarra13:13, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it has moved on, but it has moved on so that your position is now completely inconsistent. You are now supporting 1 or 5 active noms, but neutral on 2 active noms. That only makes sense if you are trying to polarize the result. If you want something to not support, it will help consensus if you choose the option that is furthest from your ideal. --99of9 (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for removing your support on 1 active nom. That makes your opinion more easily understandable. 99of9 (talk) 12:45, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I'm just going to oppose this to avoid option creep, which will make it unnecessarily hard to determine consensus. This is the natural heat death of many proposals. --Dschwen (talk) 14:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Please don't oppose for this reason alone, that will certainly make it harder to determine consensus. I understand the issue you are worried about, but we have more chance of change if we have a bunch of passed options than a bunch of failed options. Also, I think this is actually the best rate :). --99of9 (talk) 23:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose That's still WAY too slow - productive, high-quality producers would be hamstrung, andm as said, above, would be hamstrung more than the low-quality spammers, since we close worthless nominations far sooner than meritorious ones. If anything, both these last two proposals wouyld increase the problem, by preventing high-quality producers from nominating much, while only lightly restricting the low-quality ones. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Number 3 and number 4 are so stupidly unworkable that they'll kill off FPC anyway. I'm no going to engage in tacticcal voting one day after a vote opens, when there's still a chance of talking people around. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Neutral could be acceptable as a compromise and worst case scenario, still much better than current practice. --Elekhh (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Support After second thought I think this could be still OK, gives more flexibility, while probably sufficiently restrictive to make nominations more thoughtfull. Furthermore, defining the period of measure as "active nominations" (rather than a week) has the advantage that is easier to verify/reinforce. --Elekhh (talk) 07:07, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Per 99of9 and Matti. This rule may also help regulating types of nom proposed (i.e. zillions of insects vs few of people). --Cephas (talk) 23:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
weak oppose, seems too restrictive for productive contributors at peak, while letting FPXed noms off easy. Better than the current situation though. --Avenue (talk) 13:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
A reasonable compromise would be the 1/day proposal. This is a very extreme move, from no limit to just under 1/week. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I don't know if it is too late, but certainly my opinion is valid at any time, even if the "vote" does not count. I personally have nominated 3 or 4 photos at a time. They are always high quality photos, but as is sometimes the case they do not always get approved. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I've had 3 successful simultaneous noms at the same time. I often work in bursts, and this type of proposal only hurts people like myself who are working on rather tight schedules and can't be bothered to space them out. Any reasonable policy should differentiate between those who are typically successful and those who are not. I also hope to never see any discussion -- Ram-Man17:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment, this would get rid of users who spam several pictures at once while still ensuring that users who do produce more than one FP-worthy picture will be able to nominate their pictures without having to wait too long. --Aqwis (talk) 22:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment this s pretty much identical to the "7 per week, 2 per day" above, only that's a little less restrictive as to having to rigidly space. I Support it, though. I don't know any major producer who doesn't do more-or-less this anyway. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose One per day is 365 per year that doesn't do much to stop spamming. Period should be measured per week or "on the list" period. --Elekhh (talk) 07:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
People tend to get things in batches. A photoggrapher goes on holiday, comes back with lots of images. A restorer has a productive week, etc. Remember this is a maximum rate; as FPs tend to come in batches for any one nominator, we need to keep the maximum rate fairly high, while presuming it may not be taken advantage of for months at a time. Anyone truly taking advantage of this to spam FPC every day for a year should be dealt with personally; we shouldn't tailor the rules to try to block every exceptional case. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Shouldn't unduly restrict even the more productive folk, and should at least slow down the influx of spam (which is worth doing, even if there's still the same volume). --Avenue (talk) 13:02, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I would consider supporting this option if a maximum number of active noms were also imposed (e.g. 3). -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
I suggest that we discuss such a limit afterwards - adding another proposal would make it even harder to arrive at a conclusion, and modifying this proposal would be dishonest to those who have already voted. If you feel that it is necessary to have a separate proposal for this, feel free to add one yourself. (I'd support it.) --Aqwis (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose as is. This option completely waters down the original proposal to the point where we might as well do nothing. Nobody can produce 1 featured picture a day (if you show me someone that just means that a) his/her work is grossly overrated, b) he nominates substandard candidates, or c) the standards are too low. )--Dschwen (talk) 16:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Why bother, he does not acknowledge my points either. This is no basis for a fruitful discussion. I already said that these rules should be taken as average rates, not strict per day/week requirements. I see no problems with holiday batches, or with holidays (gee why even bother with details like this, how many holidays are there that could severely impact a 10day nomination?). And my point about the unrealistic premise of these imaginary super-contributors still stands. Batches: maybe, sustained output: no way. --Dschwen (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - I would prefer Option 4, but I also support this one since it is anyway better than the status quo. The major benefit is that this forces the submitter to think and select the best picture from his set of candidates. --MattiPaavola (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose one per day is 10 active nominations, from the stats that doesnt address 0 promotions from 8 nominations, 2 from 12 or even the 1 from 6 Gnangarra13:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Option 6 (5 active nominations, no more than 1 nomination per day) >> rejected
Votes
Support Compromise proposal: If we must go by active nominations, let's put it at a number that does not punish those that have successful nominations unduly. We can then test the scheme, and see if this really is a good idea, like some think, or a bad idea, as I suspect, and adjust the number of active nominations accordingly, without jumping directly from no rules, to untested limitation schemes. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support When I proposed options 3(1 active nom) I said that I'd support upto 3-5 nominations so this is a good compromise , though I'd think that maybe 5 active/2 per day would address concerns on resticting our more prolific contributors(base on Adams activite stats[4]) while still hindering the spam nominations Gnangarra04:22, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment I still don't understand why you're only neutral on option 4 (2 active) while supporting option 3 (1 active) and 6 (5 active)... --99of9 (talk) 09:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I would prefer Option 4, but I also support this one since it is anyway better than the status quo. The major benefit is that this forces the submitter to at least think a little bit and select the best picture from his set of candidates (intra day). --MattiPaavola (talk) 08:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose -- Way too much, we need a fresh paradigm in FPC. In my opinion only the best pictures of a certain kind and or of a certain author should be nominated. It is ridiculous to nominate all galaxy pictures or all old engraving of some series or all bugs of some author just because they share the same quality and have a fair chance of promotion. The FP seal acknowledges 'la crème de la crème' (the cream of the cream), it is not just a stamp of superior quality (like QI). -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, shit. I guess I may as well not bother to go through and prepare my collection of engravings, because they'll all be voted down as you don't want to feaature any more Doré, or any more of anything. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Should I also quit contributing with new species of animals and plants or better depictions of existing species? I don't think so. It wouldn't be too hard for me to gather (or re-shoot) a few dozens of hoverfly pictures and nominate them all, don't running a serious risk of being FPXed. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Restricting the amount that can be nominated at one time isnt going to change the subject matter, every photo uploaded from the Hubble telescope is a probable FP. Where we end up with 50 FP on the Orion Galaxy then maybe its time to look at the images questioning whether they are actually FP. Gnangarra11:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, absolutely 100% per Alvesgaspar. If someone is only contributing for FPC he is doing it for the wrong reasons anyways. --Dschwen (talk) 15:46, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
The community says what they think is valuable through FPC. Permanently blocking out entire types of user contributions and specialties because of neophilia is a bad thing. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Not so, the community says what is the best Commons has to offer through FPC. In principle every single picture uploaded to Commons is potentialyy valuable, otherwise it should be deleted. There are other forms of value recognition besides FP, VI and QI. Internal (Wikipedia) and external use is probably the most important. Concerning the alleged blocking of old engravings, I though it was clear by now that such kind of nominations has a much better success rate in FPC than average. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected, 4 support, 4 opposes
Option 7 (1 nomination every 2 days) >> rejected
Votes
Support Compromise proposal: Since FPX takes about 2 days to go through, and the rule of the fifth day 5, this scheme should have approximately the same throttling effect on the genuine spammers, without causing people nominating good material to have to wait longer than spammers to nominate again. This is a bit slower than I'd prefer in more productive periods, but not so slow that it would feel unduly burdensome. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I think this is an acceptable rate. Even the best contributors will manage with this restriction. I'd still prefer to be a little more constrictive to limit the review work and ensure that nominators really prioritize, but I'd be happy with this outcome. --99of9 (talk) 03:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, we haven't tried anything of this sort on commons yet: starting off with a significant, but not too major change let's us get some idea of what will happen. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose this is the same as 5 active over any 10 day period but it doesnt strike the balance thats been requested. Gnangarra04:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, It's not so bad with option 6, but I have to admit: I'm still a bit worried about what effect FPX and Rule of the 5th day have on rates. Maybe a weekly limit (with withdraws getting you one back) and a daily limit to keep you from nominating too many similar images at once - which is what people mean by spamming, isn't it? ...I don't know. There's probably a huge number of ways to do this. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
what I mean by active nomiations is -- if its open to voting then its active. So yeah a spamming nominator could work the system to keep posting a lot of nominations but there still only be 5 active at anyone time. The only alternative to stopping spam nominations are punitive actions like 10 failed no nomination for 30days, dont think that punative will promote involvement or encourage editors to consider the guidelines. What does suprise me is that even though we are discussing putting restrictons on everybody those that are the worst and most frequent offenders havent taken any self regulation action with current nominations, which indicates to me that tough restrictions are unfortunately necessary Gnangarra13:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I would prefer Option 4, but I also support this one since it is anyway better than the status quo. The major benefit is that this forces the submitter to at least think a little bit and select the best picture from his set of candidates (intra day). --MattiPaavola (talk) 08:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support This seems the best balance - Productive photographers are not too restricted but it limits the activities of the spammer - I think option 4 is reasonable but 7 is the best - Keibr (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Rejected, 5 support, 5 opposes
Group D (Implementation details and schedule)
Test period
It is proposed that the changes from Groups A (number/percentage of supports) and C (rate of nomination) last one month to start, after which we will hold a discussion to decide whether to make them permanent.
Support test period for both groups. For group A if after the test period consensus is for a reduction in the minimum number occurs any that would have passed at the new rate are also promoted. Gnangarra05:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I don't think a test period for the new rules is needed since the decision will be made by voting and the outcome can be predicted beforehand based on the historical vote counts. Any voting after the test period would be biased on the success of voters' own candidates during the test. (Of course any technical bot changes can be tested beforehand with a couple of test nominations if the bot developer so decides, but that shouldn't affect the official nominations' FP status once the new rules go live. Furthermore, any mistakes made by modified bots can be fixed manually afterwards as always.) --MattiPaavola (talk) 08:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Support -- It is most reasonable to first have a test period as proposed, before engaging upon making such changes. -- Cirt (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Schedule
When do the new FP rules go active? It may or may not be important for some people how the new rules affect the POTY 2010 nominees or the monthly or yearly statistics. I suggest we start the discussion on this in parallel with the other things already now to avoid any last minute debates. (--MattiPaavola (talk) 11:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC))
2010-07-01
All the FP candidates nominated 2010-07-01 00:00 (UTC) or after will follow the new rules. (The candidates still "active" at that time will continue to follow the old rules until the end of their nomination period.)
Support I think this a good compromise since it is not too far away, but still keeps at least the statistics within each half year mutually comparative (Is that English? :-)). --MattiPaavola (talk) 11:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Depends. we never actually set a closing date on the discussion. I don't think we need worry too much about PotY. If candidates from the first half win over those promoted in the second half, well, then, they were better. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I don't really see the need for formal votes on this. If we've decided on a change, we change it. But hey, just to prevent delay tactics, I might as well vote. --99of9 (talk) 03:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose -- Give this some time before it formally goes into effect. No significant harm will come to the project from proceeding carefully and cautiously in implementing changes. -- Cirt (talk) 18:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
All the FP candidates nominated 2011-01-01 00:00 (UTC) or after will follow the new rules. (The candidates still "active" at that time will continue to follow the old rules until the end of their nomination period.)
The new rules should take place as soon as we have made the decision about their content and any necessary bot changes have been implemented. (The candidates still "active" at that time will continue to follow the old rules until the end of their nomination period.) The exact date and possible consequences to monthly or yearly statistics are not important.
Oppose There's no need for this: Conversation has already been shut down, closing down options that have had only 3 days up. Let's make sure that don't happen again. Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Another proposal
I'd propose that the Value component (scientific value, educational value, and usefulness on wikipedias) of judging should be raised to far greater importance. At the moment, too much of the judging is done on photographic quality alone, neglecting that FPC isn't a photographic competition but a way of flagging high value photos to use on wikipedias. Many will already be familiar with the comments I (and one or two others) have posted (e.g. here) about too many low value zoo and garden pics, and not enough high value documented natural objects, being voted in. - MPF (talk) 12:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I object to this. The proposal is starting out flawed. to use on wikipedias is plain wrong. We Have a lot more projects in the family. Value judging should be done at the projects (otherwise there would be no justification for en:fpc's existence anymore). --Dschwen (talk) 13:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
too complex what value do we give to en over de usefulness 2:1 or en over id 30:1 what about wikinews, wikisource how do we value an image on them. maybe we could consider a free kick +1 support to those geocoded within the subjects natural range, but really if a zoo, or a garden offer the best, safest situation for providing an image then why discourage it. Likewise I photographed endangered species both in its natural location under cultivation, while i recognise advantages in natural settings the disease risks to populations are far greater where as cultivated plants means I can make a greater selection of images over an extended period of time without increasing risks to the plants survival. Gnangarra13:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment While it is true that Commons is not aimed only at Wikipedia, MPF raises a good concern, one I've been feeling for a while now. I know it's my point of view, but I'm against (in general) zoo and garden pictures as featured. I'd love animal and plant-related FP's to be photographs worthy of appearing on the cover of National Geographic or so and we should encourage efforts in that way. It's relatively easy to take pictures in an enclosed space and they mostly lack the level of uniqueness and interest required for FP's. Of course, this does not mean that I'm going to oppose all nominations taken at zoos, there might be instances where the picture does have a special interest. But as I said, the efforts should go in encouraging wildlife-pictures. - Keta (talk) 15:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Question As a specialist of iris and rosa cultivars, as scientist in a zoo laboratory, trying to save species, very active on WP, may I understand that my photographical job (very documented, and very useful for amateurs around the world) could never be promoted as FP because of a copy-paste comment yet another etc ? Why a wildlife picture must be particularly encouraged, if not because of dogmatic (and non- (anti-?) scientific) arguments ? Is it valuable for minerals too ? (could be hilarious in FPC page)--Jebulon (talk) 16:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Yes, I think you got my point. Never did I say, though, that such photos are useless for Wikimedia projects, I'm aware of their value. - Keta (talk) 22:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I very much agree with Jebulon and consider the exigency that all living things should be shot in their wild natural environment too restrictive (not to say fundamentalist). Yes, that should be done whenever possible but it is overly exagerated to make it a requirement. Also, pictures have other important components rather than their strict educational and scientific value. I would like to feel free to support the portrait of a zoo monkey or a rose cultivar in a garden when I consider the pictures to be exceptionally beautiful or representative of the kind. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Of course, I will support exceptional zoo-pictures too. It's just that for me the bar is way higher in that kind of images. Not higher in the technical sense, but in relevance/importance/uniqueness... - Keta (talk) 22:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
StrongOppose, this is why I left FPC on enwp. It should be made clear that Commons purpose is NOT "Wikipedia's image host". --Aqwis (talk) 19:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
One of the stated aims of Commons is to provide educational material for many uses including the language wikis. I think that User MPF's proposal is entirely consistent with this mission statement. Snowmanradio (talk) 15:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Commons does, however, have an educational scope, and some not-too-restrictive emphasis that educational = good wouldn't hurt. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment @ Aqwis : Maybe "Commons" purpose is not "WP's image host". But in fact, IT IS. Not only, but for "basic" users, yes, good or bad, it is... --Jebulon (talk) 21:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment As per Alvesgaspar. Though I think that it should be strongly recommended to tell in the description if a specimen is from a zoo and which one. --Cephas (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
More generally, I'd suggest that a good description be a minimum requirement for FP candidates. For pictures of animals, such a description would note whether the picture was taken in the wild or in a zoo. --Aqwis (talk) 09:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
More than that: the image description should give the location of a wild animal or the name of the zoo for a captive animal. The date the photograph was taken should also be provided, if it is available. Snowmanradio (talk) 14:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I am surprised how many FPCs have inadequate documentation. Looking through some old FPs, I have noticed that sometimes the image description of an animal does not have the location on commons, but the author has added the location to the caption on the wiki. Adequate image documentation makes the difference between a nice picture and an informative scientific illustration. Interestingly, the criteria on the documentation of animals for a valued image are more stringent that for a FP. Snowmanradio (talk) 14:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment just to add, as per others above, I'm not proposing a ban on zoo / garden pics for FPC, but that they should be subjected to a much higher bar, and that good documented wild origin pics should be considered supportable when matters of opinion like "bad composition" make them less perfect as photographic art (e.g. here, which is a very difficult photo to obtain) - MPF (talk) 18:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
I think that sometimes the lay persons "Wow" factor is not triggered by some excellent or even brilliant photographs of "small brown animals" or camouflaged animals. Snowmanradio (talk) 18:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose A good image is a good image. Besides, in practice zoo pictures do have a higher standard - as soon as it's obvious the image was taken at a zoo (from the image only, not the description), most people get turned off and oppose. Conversely, if the image shows the natural environment in a pleasing way more people are likely to support. --ianaré (talk) 21:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Our project, the commons, is more than a kind of additional harddisk for wikipedia-pictures, and it is used in many areas, for instance to illustrate books, newspapers, websites and Google-maps... But there is still a difference to other interesting photo-sites: Our focus should someway rest on scientific documentation, not on effects, strange views, someway interesting people, peculiar looking scenes, and FP leads a little bit in this direction. Sometimes "no Wow"-voters seem to expect some of the subjects and effects they know from other photo competitions. So MPF is someway right although I have no problems with pictures of zoos, gardens and museums. It's a kind of studio of nature and arts and a possibility to arrange perfect documentations. --Mbdortmund (talk) 13:09, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I have no problems with photographs of zoo animals, except when they are not described properly. For example an adequate image description for a bind in Taronga Zoo would be; "A zyx bird in Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia", but it would be misleading as; "A xyz bird in Sydney, Australia". Snowmanradio (talk) 13:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Support too much emphasis is placed in the reviews on photographic quality & not enough on the value of the photographic in terms of science, interest, education or a million other reasons. FieldMarine (talk) 02:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
just did a quick run through of the current nominations, one editor has 12 active nominations 2 likely to be FP, 4 are too soon to tell, 6 unlikely make it, at best 50% hit rate. Another ed has 8 noms all are unlike to return any FP's though one is still very new, the next done the list in current noms has 6 though only one appears likely but has yet to reach 5 supports. A fourth editor has 4 nominations that also appear to be unlikely FP yet again one is still fairly new. Of the 30 nominations looked at 3 likely FP 6 unknown and 21 are unlikely. Given these figures and even considering the small sample size a restriction on the number of active nominations would encourage editors to close discussions early by withdrawing the nominations that just arent going to succeed so as to enable them to nominate something else which might, at very least this would keep the nominations fresh and thus encouraging editors revisit the page more often. Gnangarra14:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I had withdrawing nomination that are not likely to go anywhere in mind when voting for the limitation on number of active nominations proposal above. So I pretty much agree with your conclusions here. --Dschwen (talk) 15:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
And what if I have one that looks to be successful? I'm hamstrung for ten full days. Meanwhile, people who nominate things with no chance of passing will be FPX'd or Rule of the 5th day'd, and be able to nominate far more often. As such, the proposal's insane. The spam problem is mainly caused by too many nominations in a single day - let's deal with that, before we jump to something which would hurt our best and most productive high-quality content producers more than the spammers. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Taking you as an example of our best and most productive high-quality content producers and using the selection of FPs you list on your userpage as a sample, I see 56 FPs between July 2007 and August 2009 (roughly 750 days). That corresponds to one nomination every 13 days. So, what's the problem? --Dschwen (talk) 21:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
... Not sure. That corresponds to one promotion every 13 days, Even that AC's productions are always valuables...--Jebulon (talk) 21:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
There are also far more active periods within those times. You are confusing an average with a maximum rate. The proposal isn't setting an average, it's setting a hard limit on rate, which even not being active for a month beforehand wouldn't change. There were a couple periods of 3-6 months where I wasn't contributing to Commons att all - and yet you'd evidently say that it's fine, because in your theoretical world, I'm fine making a list to nominate things when I'm not there. Further, that's a selection - I don't list the vast majority of my nominations of works by other people, for instance - that section of my user page hasn't been updated in years, and I've trimmed out a big chunk of my early work. Which is another problem: I'm hardly likely to nominate someone else's work, if I know that doing so will prevent me from nominating anything I work on for a week and a half.
Seriously, the suggestion listed would be enough to get me to boycott FP, and campaign for POTD to accept QI again - because FP would have ruined itself. This is STUPID. You're trying to solve a problem by favouring the sources of the problem over the active contributors, since the sources of the problem would be allowed a far higher rate.
Do you seriously think that driving off active contributors with petty bureaucracy, while increasing the rate at which nominators of really bad stuff can nominate things compared to them will help matters? I'd say that's a good way to increase the amount of utter crap getting promoted. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Look, if it's still a problem, we can always increase the restrictiveness above the first step. But we're unregulated now. Trying something liek "1/day" or "7 /week (max 2/day)" would let us know if they solved the problems. We don't need to jump straight to super-restrictive, particularly s the super-restrictive is only super-restrictive to the good contributors: the really crap nominators are going to get FPX'd, and can go right back to nominating within two days. Anyone with worthwhile content will need to wait out the 10 days. That's just stupid. You want people with good decision making skills to be encouraged, not to be put under more restrictions than the useless people. . Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
7wk/2per day would see editors having 13 active nominations which is ineffective, look at the stats above 1 per day would see 10active nominations the only people who sustain such volumes are the ones that are of greatest concern. 4 or 5 active nominations should be enough even for the most prolific contributors, I suspect that a 1 or 2 limit would discourage the problematic nominators more. Gnangarra01:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
No, a maximum of 7 a week means they could never have more than 10 active, since they last 10 days. 7 a week is 1 a day on average, the 2/day is just to prevent someone front loading 7 at once. One or two would discourage problematic nominators and perfextly good ones. I will leave FPC if this passes.Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Tell me, you are aware I was gone 5 months from all Wikimedia projects over an outrage on en-wiki, and still have never done anything there but object to a one-sided reporting of the Jimbo events... 7 months after I left. I'm perfectly capable of going through with this. Given you've vandalised my work recently, I do wish you'd stay the hell away from me. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Please don't start with the name calling again. And just a friendly hint, I would not bring up vandalizing if I were you... --Dschwen (talk) 03:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC) Oh, right, a fitting quote: F*** you, Jimbo. I'm off, and not returning here. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC). How did that work out for you? --Dschwen (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah. I didn't return until Jimbo lost all his founder powers. So it worked out pretty well: The problem I left over was completely and fully resolved, allowing me to come back. Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Let's get back to the stats. We only need to find out what was the highest number of promotions per week from one author. That could be considered as a reasonable guide. I agree the rules should not hurt the bests. --Elekhh (talk) 07:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Looking to Adam's FP history, there are a large number of instances of 2FPs within a week, and I found one single occasion of 5FPs in one week. This makes me agree that 1 per week is too restrictive. --Elekhh (talk) 07:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Maybe we should have discussed this before starting the poll. I think that one single active nomination is way too restrictive and would support a larger number (2 or 3?). But we shouldn't take Adam's case as typical or use it as a model. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 07:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Agree, it is not a typical case, is rather a unique one, and the 5FP example was probably a single occurance extreme, however 2 FP is more usual (happens in English Wiki as well). Thus 2 per week would probably not be restrictive in 99+% of the cases, and the time delay for the 1% would be low. --Elekhh (talk) 08:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
It is beyond my comprehension, why even if a contributor has a productive week he should nominate all his creations for FPC. This defies the whole purpose of featured pictures. I find it rather pretentious to claim that each work is among common's best works. I thought the whole point of this discussion was to improve the overall quality of featured pictures on commons. What you guys are doing now is looking for an easy way out that allows for the status quo to continue. --Dschwen (talk) 13:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Pretentious? It's a simple fact that some of our photographers are better than others and are able to create quality pictures much more frequently. We don't "improve" the quality of the FPs on Commons by not allowing those photographers to nominate all their work that is of FP quality. --Aqwis (talk) 14:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
By "quality pictures" I naturally mean pictures that are of FP quality. Surely an FP-quality picture is an FP-quality picture no matter who created it and how often the creator creates FP-quality pictures? One photographer may create one picture that is worthy of becoming an FP per month. Then there may be another photographer who creates six such pictures each month. To think that some of Commons' photographers aren't that good compared to other is naive. --Aqwis (talk) 17:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, you still haven't commented on the situation where a user spends a few weeks away from Commons, takes a number of FP-worthy photos, and once he gets back has to wait for months to get all the pictures promoted, all while continuing to produce FP-worthy pictures. --Aqwis (talk) 17:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Sigh, I have commented on that multiple times now. The limit should be applied as a rate average. How is that still unclear? If your last nom is 3 weeks in the past a larger amount of candidates should be allowed. Just take time since last nom/10 for a very simple calculation. More elaborate schemes may require assistance by a toolserver tool, just like voting eligibility checks currently do. --Dschwen (talk) 22:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
How on earth is that meant to be meaningful? And would that even stop the supposed spamming, since a user who had beengone two months could nominate 7 pictures at once under your proposal? Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, our spammers do not wait two months. Are you saying you do not see a problem and therefore do not want to take any action? --Dschwen (talk) 01:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
"Our spammers do not wait two months"? Are you suggesting that the spammers are malicious? Most of them are regular users who contribute to Commons and are just inexperienced with FPC. --Aqwis (talk) 07:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
What do you MEAN they don't wait two months? Do you see the same people "spamming" every time? No. It's always different people. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that the spammers are malicious? No, what gives you that impression? I'd rather go with Hanlon. --Dschwen (talk) 19:12, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
You want bad nominators to nominate less, without stopping the good nominators, right? Would it be too bureacratic to have a flexible limit? Example: "For each period of 10 days you get to nominate one file, plus one file for each successful nomination you've had the last year." Nah, maybe too complicated? --boivie (talk) 12:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
What ever the solution its got to be simple, because for many en isnt a first language the more complex less people will undertsnad and the greater the disputes. Gnangarra13:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I
Some examples of what I think are valid periods with lots of nominations
Early January, 2009
(Note: The paired days tend to be very early and very late in the day)
This sequence featured mostly nominations of other people's work, and over half were featured, with one more very nearly featured, save for some very strict rules application.
These are not me digging particularly deeply, it was just me glancing at my FPs, and guessing at which were parts of sequences. These were the first two places I looked.
Restorers, or even NASA-junkies, have the potential to find or fix many fantastic images very quickly, unlike photographers who generally take at least a little longer to produce wonderful things. Perhaps it should not be "2 active nominations", but instead "2 active first-authored nominations". Nominating the creation of another artist would not count against your own quota (even if you touched it up). Discuss. --99of9 (talk) 07:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I personally would like to see more original high quality photos from Commons contributors, rather than "look what I found on teh interwebs"-nominations. FPC should point out what makes commons special. And in my opinion those are original free works and restorations (yes, that's right, I'm saying that), stuff that you cannot find just anywhere on the web. The proposal partially subverts that idea (with respect to NASA-junkies and Flickr-Pic-nominators for example). --Dschwen (talk) 15:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
If it matters to this discussion, I do the scanning of most of what I do as well. Someone will get to Library of Congress stuff if I don't, but one has ones doubt about, for example, The Sunday at Home volume from 1880 I recently took an image from ever reaching Wikipedia if I don't bring it here.
How does it come out in your scanner? I'd use my camera (if necessary stitch and rectify by software), that gives you good control over the lighting. --Dschwen (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Group A (# votes)
(option with best result is starred)
opt 0 (5): 8/9/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 1 (7): 25/4/1 (closed Approved)
opt 2 (9): 2/11/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 3 (80%): 1/6/0 (closed Rejected)
Group B (rules & etc)
Vote justification: 12/11/0 (closed: Undecided)
Opposing rules: 3/11/2 (closed: Rejected)
Welcome template: 17/0/0 (closed: Approved)
Group C (# noms)
(option with best result is starred)
opt 0 (as is): 0/13/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 1 (2 per day): 3/9/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 2 (2 day/7 week): 6/11/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 3 (1 active nom): 9/13/1 (closed Rejected)
opt 4 (2 active noms): 15/4/3 (closed Approved)
opt 5 (1 per day): 7/11/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 6 (5act.nom, 1/day):4/4/0 (closed Rejected)
opt 7 (1 per 2 days): 5/5/0 (closed Rejected)
Comment -- We have clear results for the # of votes needed and the introduction of a welcome template. But a better consensus has still to be reached on the maximum number of nominations. May I suggest that we only use Support votes on Group C and that we may only vote on a single option ? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd object to that: SOme of us feel very strongly that a couple choices are very bad for FPC. Adam Cuerden (talk)
On a continuum scale like Group C, it's quite important to measure the opposes as well as the supports, because this way the best compromise is found. Personally I vote support for anything I'm comfortable with, not just my favourite option. That way we are likely to see an agreement on something. The good thing about option 4 at the moment is that the oppose/neutral votes are split between those favoring more/less restrictiveness. --99of9 (talk) 00:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
opposed because oppose is significant in deciding consensus we need to ensiue that most people are ok with the resultant restriction because some are deciding their further contributions to FP & Commons if we dont come up with the solution they want. Gnangarra06:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment -- what I'm seeing here is that an "active nomination" approach has the most support even if the number of nominations is still in question. Looking at the stats from Adam he show 2 group nominations one of 7 and one of 5. In the rough stats I did a couple of days ago on the current page theres a probable 2 from 12 and 1 from 6 promotions. what it looks like to me is that 6 active nominations would be sufficent to address everyones concerns. To deter the spam nomination all we need is to limit how many can be posted at once again we look at Adams stats he only posted 2 on the same day. From all of this I suggest we end the mass voting sections and consider 6 active nominations with a 2 per day limit. Gnangarra06:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment My judgment of the current consensus is that it's nowhere near as liberal as this suggestion. If you want to try your luck, put it on the list and see how it goes in the next few days. I don't think it is fair to scrap all the comments and votes and suddenly only have one option. Perhaps if two emerge as contenders, we should have a runoff, but that's for later to decide. --99of9 (talk) 06:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Info - Results update as of 0000, 30 May. I intend to close this discussion tomorrow (after one week), as changes have been minimal -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment With a few newish options on the table, I'd prefer to leave it open longer (and close as options become clearly unwinnable), even though I share your view that opinions are not shifting significantly. --99of9 (talk) 03:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
More than one week has passed since the poll was started. People had the opportunity to express their opinions and propose new solutions, and the activity has almost stopped. Here is my interpretation of the results (see tables above):
Minimum number of votes for promotion
Option 1 (7 votes) is a clear winner, with 20 supports and only 4 opposes.
Vote justification
A technical draw, with 12 support and 11 oppose votes. However, some voters misunderstood the proposal, which referred to the convenience of justifying the voting, not the obligation. My opinion is that the guidelines should refer to the convenience of always justifying the votes.
Opposing rules
The possibility of making my ‘Opposing rules’ part of the guidelines was rejected by a large majority (however, it wasn’t my intention to propose such thing).
Welcome template
Approved by unanimity. Now, we need to decide what kind of information the template should contain.
Maximum number of nominations
It is clear that no one wants the continuation of the present satus quo (no limit of nominations). The option with the best results is opt4 (2 active nominations), with 15 support and 4 oppose votes. This is also the option with less oppose votes and the only one having more support than oppose votes. The obvious choice.
To do
Now, we have to reflect these decisions into the guidelines (an easy task, I believe) and implement them. No need for a long wait, in my opinion. I would suggest the new rules to apply to all nominations as soon as the guidelines are adjusted (a couple of days?). -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment not so sure about the decision on option 4 compared to option 6 both have the position of measuring "active nominations" but option four was proposed on 24th and had 7 days of voting compared to option 6 which started on 28th and had just 3 days but at the end of the discussion. when there was very little activity. I think we should open a discussion/vote on how many whether its 2 or 5 active nominations, besides this point I agree with your conclusions. We should try to impliment them for nominations after 2 June if theres no discention on the summary Gnangarra10:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment And this was how a "discussion" becomes "a poll", how "a poll" becomes "a vote", and how "a vote" becomes "decisions"... Not sure it was clear for everybody when this "debate" started... End of the democratic game...--Jebulon (talk) 15:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment To valid all of this, it needs, as make/do everywhere all constitutional lawers, a general recapitulation, a complete project, and a new general "vote" concerning the whole new rules. But now, the legislative work is far from its end, IMO. Thanks.--Jebulon (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, few of us are lawyers or have more than rudimentary knowledge on legal administrative procedures. Fortunately this is a place where we can and should use quick, informal and much more effective ways of discussing and deciding our simple issues ([5]). After all, we are all here for fun, aren't we? Hypotetically, if someone wanted to obstruct the implementation of the new decisions, calling for a formal procedure would be a smart way of achieving it... -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:17, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
"Procedure" must be saved as a protection of weak persons... I don't want to obstruct anything here, I just try to...be "bold", as you show me it's asked in the EnWp (but in "Commons" too, I'm sure, even it's no "formal". --Jebulon (talk) 23:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Don't you think it's a bit early to close? Some of the options have only been up two days. What's the rush?
I've said before and I'll say it again: 2 active nominations is a huge mistake that allows people who have really bad nominations to nominate again more quickly than those with good nominations. How is that fair? How does that help matters? Won't that just increase the number of low-quality nominations compared to the good, as ones that get rejected quickly open their nominator up to nominating again?
Yes, this has been discussed to death! I think we got your point by now, you know? People just voted their preferred option, despite your comments all over this talk page. If the voted solution doesn't work, we are free to change the rules later on, but please stop making this look like the end of it just because your option doesn't convince us, or the most voted option doesn't convince you. - Keta (talk) 09:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Poll
You understand that with the two active nominations proposal, people who have a nomination rejected by FPX or Rule of the fifth day, can nominate faster, possibly much faster, than producers of high-quality content. You wish for it to be implemented anyway.
Oppose. Horrible idea. That's grossly unfair to people that produce high-quality content, and for a proposal created to slow down spammers to allow the spammers to continue to spam, only hamstringing the people with good nominations, is ridiculous. Further, it gives a strong disincentive to nominating other people's work. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I understand your concern, but I believe it can be corrected in several ways. (a) Change "active" to "one week". This would solve the disfunctionality you mention above, and would even slightly relax the limit (2 noms per 7 instead of 10 days) or (b) exclude from the rule nominations of pictures by others (including restorations). Maybe such sub-options should be discussed in detail, as suggested by Gnangarra above as well. --Elekhh (talk) 00:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Support I think it will be fine as is. It's simple and easy to police. If anyone tries to game the system and gets really annoying we can always "punish" them by supporting their FPX ;-). Of course truly great contributors can use the rule of the 5th day promotion to their advantage. --99of9 (talk) 01:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I'm with you Adam. The more I think about it, the limit should not be based on activity but rather on time. Make it 2 per week and I'll gladly support. I did vote for the 2 active, but mainly because it's better than 1 active. --ianaré (talk) 05:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment -- (1) I don't understand the purpose of this poll, please explain; (2) The idea that vicious spammers could take advantage of the rules (to make a point?) is ridiculous. The final purpose of a FP nomination is promotion and nobody likes his pictures to be quickly rejected. Also, remember that nominations can be withdrawn by the nominator at any time. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Below are the changes to the FPC guidelines I intend to make, following the conclusions of the last poll. Differences to the present version are flagged in italic. I'm asking for the users' contributions to improve the new text. Please notice that this is not a poll. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 09:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
Voting
[...]
The votes cast not only serve as a way to determine whether a picture will become featured or not, but also as valuable feedback for everyone involved in the creation, nomination and reviewing, giving those persons insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the picture. For this reason, civic virtue demands that, at least when opposing a candidate (which has been carefully selected for nomination by someone), a valid reason is given for doing so.
Unreasonable reasons for opposing are:
- No reason given at all (obviously);
- "I don't like it" or other empty assessments;
- "You can do better" or other reasons criticizing the author/nominator rather than the image
Ideally, reasons are given in English as it is by far the most widely understood language on Commons, but of course, any language may be used to state a reason. Therefore, language problems are not an excuse for failure to do so.
[...]
Featured picture candidate policy
General rules
[...]
10. Only two active nominations by the same user (that is, nominations under review and not yet closed) are allowed. The main purpose of this measure is to contribute to a better average quality of nominations, by driving nominators/creators to choose carefully the pictures presented to the forum.
11. A different version of the same picture is not considered a new nomination and should be added as a new subsection, inserted after the original version.
[...]
Featuring and delisting rules.
A candidate will become a featured picture in compliance with following conditions:
- Appropriate license (of course);
- At least 7 supporting votes.
- Ratio of supporting/opposing votes at least 2/1 (a two-thirds majority); same for delist/keep votes
[...]
Comment My understanding of alternatives was that they aren't limited to different versions of the same picture, but instead are alternative versions of the exact same subject (since we never feature 2). Therefore I would change the word "picture" to "subject". --99of9 (talk) 12:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
I disagree because this opens the door to multiple nominations (e.g. several pictures of the same dragonfly or building or person), subverting the spirit of the new agreed rules. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment For the period of 1 month there should be an information box ontop of the nominations with a link to the proposal (like fpx but in a different color) to make the change of the rules very clear. Not everybody was following the proposal. It's absolute necessary to prevent confusions and to be fair. • Richard • [®] • 20:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
P.S. When will the rules be changed ?
A little more of patience, Richard. We are still waiting for some feedback. Yes, I can imagine you have a couple of bombs (exactly 2) waiting for being nominated under the new rules! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 15:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment my understanding was posting an editted version to an on going discussion wasnt considered an active nomination even if its under consideration. Gnangarra14:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't think I'll be bothering under the new rules. I said I thought they'd damage FPC, I see no need to participate in it while it's broken and systemically unfair (people who have their noms rejected get to nom again faster? What the hell?). Further, it's going to get a lot less cooperative, because anyone who nominates other Commons users' works is shooting themselves in the foot, unable to nominate their own.
I don't like what FPC's going to become, and, once these rules come in, I see no reason to continue contributing to it until it gets fixed again. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Info -- No significant action in this section during the last days, besides the general statement by Adam Cuerden. I'm interpreting this silence as a tacit agreement and intend to implement the modified guidelines tommorrow morning (UTC time). Only the nominations made after the change will be affected by the new rules. If a user has two or more active nominations in the FPC page at the moment the changes are made, no further nominations are to be allowed at that time. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose at least three people(myself included) have question the closing in regards to the Number of active nominations and requested a separate discussion to determine the number since your planning to go ahead with this I'll put up a proposal to clarify the number. Gnangarra23:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I do not honestly understand your objections. Yes, we all know that you don't agree with Option 4, but the fact is it was a very clear winner in the poll. I can't believe you are trying to start everything over again... Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not trying to start everything over again, I objected to original closurer based on the discussion having moved forward to a compromise on the particular point of how many active nominations all other points closed are undisputed even the basis of active nomination is undisputed. There are other editors who have opposed the closure of option 4 I just happen to be the first one to read your post saying interpreting this silence as a tacit agreement in fact there are responses and opposition so there is no tacit agreement. Gnangarra01:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment Adam, you're welcome to do as you see fit to make your point. However my suggestion would be to nominate according to the new rate, and also maintain a list of unduly hampered unnominated amazing pictures. If you can stack up a long list as well as getting FP after FP, it may convince some of us that you are being unfairly throttled. You never know, people may even nominate for you. Regarding the opposite problem, FPX-spammers, IMO this is unlikely to happen for any sustained period. --99of9 (talk) 03:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Info -- Leaving for a wiki break. Please someone take care of the new rules' implementation when it is considered that a fair chance has been given to the recent poll. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Poll on # of active nominations
There is concensus for FP nominations to be restricted based on the number of activet nominations. Active nominations were defined in my original proposal as being those that are current open for voting, this doesnt include proposing an alternative edit of another nomination. The original suggestion was for 1 active nomination, which was quickly follow with an alternative option of 2 active nominations both these options were open for the full term of the process with 2 active being the favourable outcome. Late in the discussion an alternative compromise proposal of 5 active nominations with a 2 per limit was put forward to address concern raised that limiting it to just 2 nomination would discourage/prevent nominations of other peoples works and lead to a disproportionate number of nomination from the group this was proposal trying to address, that being the high volume(spam) nominations.
note I made the original proposal of 1 active nomination, was neutral to 2 active nomination as i saw no difference between these two options. When the alternative 5 active with 2 per day proposal was put forward. I changed to oppose on both 1 & 2 active nominations as I saw this as a fair compromise between the current situation and the restrictive proposal I put forward. When the proposals were closed I commented on the disproportionate time give to consider the alternative to the orignals proposals and believe that this compromise wasnt given reasonable time to be discussed.
Consensus is about building a result that a fair majority can accept to do this middle ground proposals that occur late in a discussion should be give due consideration as that of the original proposals. Recognising the active nomination restriction has consensus I propose that we discuss, vote if you wish to decide on the final number that restriction will take for simplicity we'll limit it to the original alternative, and the compromise options. Gnangarra00:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Support I was one of the ones who said the original closure was a little premature given the late-breaking options. However I agree with Alvesgaspar that the consensus was becoming reasonably clear anyway. Although I wouldn't have closed quite that early, I definitely don't want to reopen (especially after this long). This has gone on long enough to hear from everybody who wants to be involved. --99of9 (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Support Please don't discuss this to death. Let's give the new rules a try. If we spot can always go back to the drawing board later. --Dschwen (talk) 01:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - 2 is way too few, discussion of other alternatives was shut down. Further, the implementation votes show no support for changes before the 1st of July, so what's the rush? Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Support -- Sorry but I will not vote again or discuss again the same subjects. As 99of9 I believe that the consensus is pretty clear and that this has gone long enough to give a fair chance to all options. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 07:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Support Come on Adam, how can you say that you couldn't discuss other options? I can see your "concerns" all over this page. I have to agree with Dschwen - Keta (talk) 08:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
totally tongue in check summary So what this is saying is that noone has supported the 2 active nominations, where as there is unopposed support for 5 active nomination(2 per day) and that 9/1 saying they dont want to part take in the discussion. Given that editors expressed that they dont want to take part in further discussion we can presume they have no issue with the final out come of the discussion whatever the result. Demonstrating that you can read results however you like, its just a question of timing to suit your POV. From this one can also presume 2 active nominations but that's not clear either as its suposition on the opinion of those withdrawing from further discussion. People arent looking to build consensus, they arent trying to build an acceptable solution theyre just voting, they have been since the vote section was made and once you get to a vote poeple dont build consensus they dont discuss they just vote. I'll close this discussion based on the voting in two days. Gnangarra13:29, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Rubbish! People have decided and don't want to be bothered again and again by the minority who does not (and will never) agree with the democratic outcome. Lycaon (talk) 13:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I read somewhere that we arent a democracy,<shrugs> either way please dont modify my comment by all means dispute it, oppose it, even climb the parliament building in your local city if you must. Surely I'm able to express my opinion and draw my own conclusions or was there a vote on that elsewhere? Gnangarra16:36, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Lycaon. Count my support for 3 as an oppose to 2. I did not want to dignify this with casting a vote. The voting is over. Please deal with it. Tongue in or out of cheek, this is bad style. --Dschwen (talk) 14:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment -- Well, maybe we should launch another poll to better determine the consensus of this last one. And if someone doesn't agree with the outcome we still have the possibility of starting a new one... And so on ad infinitum. Sorry, couldn't resist also joking. Serious now, tomorrow it will be a fine day to implement the new guidelines and put a banner at the begining of the FPC page to warn for the changes. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
There were no votes for the option to implement ASAP. It should not be added before July 1st at the earliest, because that's what the poll said. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello, there's comming up a lot of flickr pictures that have no chance to get FPs. Shouldnt we make a rule, that only pictures of wikipedians can be nominated? --Berthold Werner (talk) 09:42, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
FPC rules have changed. According to the new guidelines, a picture is promoted with 7 or more supporting votes (and a 2/1 ratio #supports/#opposes) and the number of active nominations per user is limited to 2.
Reverted: There is no consensus for implementation until at least July 1st. This process has been constantly getting shoved ahead, with closures after only a couple days, and other shut-downs of discussion. You're now going directly against te vote set up to determine implementation time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not going to start an edit war on this but the dilatory tricks you are using to delay the inevitable are not nice and go against the general consensus. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Uhm, the vote where you close and mark the option you oppose as rejected while supporting and leaving open the option you prefer? Sorry, but you are not being any better than the behavior you criticize here. --Dschwen (talk) 16:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment -- I'm becoming tired of fighting against successive manoeuvers, made by a very small minority of users, with the only apparent purpose of postponing the inevitable changes. This is quite close to plain harassement and it is difficult for me to assume good faith. Better quit now and leave the ground to others. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
You closed things that had only been running for three days. Is it any wonder that people are worried this is being entered into with undue haste? Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok, let's all quit arguing and move on. I suggest that we go ahead with the July 1 proposal. This gives those people and bots closing the votes excessive time to prepare, and a simple date to work with. Adam, please cease disputing the procedures. Procedures are never ideal, but it is hardly undue haste when even after reopening for another 5 days, the other option only gained one extra support vote. Please accept that the majority want this change, and are eager to press ahead. I understand that you have reservations, and we can consider another change later if you can bring evidence that the new system is not working. --99of9 (talk) 03:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
As I said above, I'm not going to do anything about it, but it is strange how the will of a single user can prevail over the opinion of the majority. Can anybody explain to me what is the rationale for waiting two weeks (other than being 'politically correct')? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is closed, and will be archived soon.
Personality rights
As an example this photograph has a personality rights warning to indicate that an end user may not be free to use the image. I think that such restrictions on image re-use should be cause for concern within FP. As FP is the show case forumn of the Commons Collection all images should be free from encumbrances that place the burden on the end user. Gnangarra01:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
The same thought would apply to nearly every picture with and identifiable person and even Art that is part of some images (de-minimis) may cause problems for reusage. This is not part of the license and should be ok. --Niabot (talk) 02:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
FPCbot error
At this FPC nomination, the FPCbot closed it early per the rule of the fifth day as having no support apart from the nominator. In reality, the nominator was neutral and it had one separate support vote. Not sure how this would be fixed but I thought I would mention it here. JujutacularT · C01:30, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I’m about to remove FPC from my watch list. My attempts to raise the standards and bring back our best creators failed. I miss Richard, Malène Thyssen, Luc Viatour, Simon Koopman, Michael Maggs, Benh and all the others that made this forum such a funny and inspiring place, with their works and opinions. I also feel deeply disappointed with the outcome of our long discussion above. Clearly the mountain gave birth to a mouse, as the strong opinion of a single user managed to prevail over the decision of an overwhelming majority. The fact that no one dared to challenge his actions only shows how fragile and indifferent our community is. The same symptom is apparent in the important discussion about pornographic content where no FPC regular, but me, has cared to participate. Maybe it is time for the old dinosaurs to quit and give the floor to others. Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I had to make a break in my sleep to revert the last actions of Adam Cuerden as they are against the consensus of the community, clearly expressed in the last discussion. Enough is enough and being soft with these trolling actions only serve to encourage them further. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
You don't get to choose which votes you accept and don't. This is a test period. You had months to get consensus to reject the idea of a test period and failed. Against the consensus of the majority? What, so the test period proposal had more supports than opposes, but majortiy - as defined by you, high and mighty arbiter of the process, says that we'll ignore it, and that saying that a proposal that was supported was supported is nonsense, cause for reversion, and worth complaints? I'm going to ask that you be blocked, or at least banned from such edits.
Long story short: There was consensus to try out the ideas. BBut those of us who thought that there were likely problems with the proposals sought and gained consensus to mitigate them by time-limiting. You have made it VERY clear that you intend to edit war to enforce only such votes you approve of the result of, and, indeed, are hijacking complaints about users being driven off FPC by... attacking one of the people you personally have driven off FPC. . Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Please calm down. Pushing the word "test" in the banner is only confusing. I don't think anybody is opposing to re-evaluate how the rules work after a reasonable amount of time. --Elekhh (talk) 10:12, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
It is a bit disingenuous to close a 3:2 vote (with one other "it's too early to vote on this") and call it "consensus". Everywhere else this would be called undecided. If those reverting are also counted in the weight of opinion, it is clear that a test period is in fact in the minority. However, I am with Elekhh - you are welcome to bring evidence on August 1 if you feel it is failing, but there's no point making a song and dance about it in the instructions now. --99of9 (talk) 10:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
its more the clash of two strong personalities thats the concern, as for the changes I think people are waiting to see where it goes, what the real impact is. As for people already lost from FP they are unlikely to return while there is an open dispute about the changes. The differences a test period permits changes to be reversed quickly(closings reviewed then restored/promoted/removed) if they only further contribute to the problems where as a re-evaluation after some undefined time period only leaves the disagreements festering in the background unresolved. If people really want to make FP a better place and extinguish the dispute then jumping on the "agree as well" band wagon isnt the way to go. Since apparently almost everybody(suspect some opponents have just left/shut up rather than be subject to the AC treatment) is so confident that changes have been a productive positive outcome then what is the problem with having a planned review of the outcome of the nominations from the first month. Gnangarra10:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
In the discussion of "pornography" above some people discussed various mechanisms of restricting or hiding submissions, which I think is a huge mistake. The FPC process is a very rare case in which censorship is allowed, even encouraged - for example, censorship of poorly composed images - but I think that this should always be left to the individual voter. This is for the same reason that you don't have a guideline, say, that a photo of a new planet or asteroid must always pass - because written policies don't have a sense of aesthetics.
But some have protested the leaving up pornographic images for 10 days here is just too troubling. I think that there are many types of images that might be troubling to keep up, and that rather than trying to draw ideological lines, we should instead leave it to the democratic process already in place. This leads me to suggest a "Snowball fail" option (named after Wikipedia's "Snowball Keep" or "Snowball Delete" for article deletion, based on the phrase, "it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell..."
I think that a fair standard might be the direct opposite of the standard to accept an image: at least 7 Oppose votes, with the ratio of Oppose to Support being at least 2:1. Also, the Snowball Fail must be acted on while this is the case - no looking back and failing something based on the History if it has since gathered more Support votes. For example, this standard would not affect any of the currently proposed photos, but the photo of the brick wall avoids it only by a single Support vote. (Which doesn't seem all that fair, as such a brick wall with its uneven bricks and rows looks very strange to American eyes, but this is a tough crowd) But I'm a stranger to this process - I don't feel qualified to rate expert photography - I'm just curious whether this idea might allow people here a fair way to express their opinions without setting a disturbing precedent. Wnt (talk) 18:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I feel you may be misunderstanding the purpose of the "censorship" being discussed. Normally censorship on Wikimedia projects refers to the end product: Articles on en, images on Commons: these are things that matter to readers and re-users of our content, and shouldn't be censored.
However, FPC is an internal process, it is not for the outside world. Hiding images which (a portion of) FPC reviewers find disturbing and would prefer not to see is nothing to do with legal restrictions (such as the swastika in Germany) but personal taste of contributors. If there are images on FPC they don't want to see, they may not contribute and so we would lose their input and possibly their images too. Bear in mind FPC does not "censor" poorly composed images, it decides that they aren't good enough to be promoted. How FPC is run is about maximising input from Commons users, not following rules like "Commons is not censored", but every type of image should be eligible as FPs should not be so restricted. If there is a technical measure we can provide which allows users to participate without having to see "shocking" images, unless they choose to do so there is no harm and a definite benefit.
That said, a snowball rule beyond what {{FPX}} provides may be useful (but snowball actions shouldn't be too formalised as that grey area is advantageous to keep).--Nilfanion (talk) 20:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
If we allow users to "shout down" images, I think that there is no benefit to hiding images by any other criterion. And there is considerable harm in establishing criteria where individual groups will then feel the need to compete for bans on their particular behalf as a matter of pride (anti-Semitic content, violent content, content promoting drug use, content offensive to Islam etc.). You'd end up adding more and more and more things, and the moment you say "no", some group stalks off furious that you don't consider them to have human feelings worth protecting like everyone else. Wnt (talk) 21:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
The technical measures being talked about are not bans, and all images would be eligible and assessed on their merits (hopefully not just Oppose I dont like porn). Encouraging the use of snowballing for images will actually reduce the chance of sexual images (or anti-Semitic or whatever) of ever getting reviewed properly. I would like to see FP-quality images, whatever it depicts, becoming an FP on its merits.
The javascript-type hack I suggested is simply a slicker method to that adopted for Commons:Quality images candidates/candidate list#File:Futanari.png (as it allows viewing on the same page whilst still hiding by default), the nomination is not hidden, but you know its a potentially shocking image before you choose to view it, which is in the same spirit as COM:SEX#Categorization: You wouldn't expect to find porn on FPC so why should it be forced upon you? My feeling is if any editor thinks an image is offensive, they should be allowed to hide the nomination using the proposed template and provide a rationale for doing so, and should not be reverted unless there is a very good reason (so any slippery slope argument isn't strictly relevant).--Nilfanion (talk) 22:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't get the point of featuring content if we're ashamed to show it to people. The FPC process should have a generally wider variety of images displayed in it than the final FP winners. Hiding an image during the proposal would seem almost to rig the vote in its favor, if only people favoring the image actually opened it to rate it; but of course those opposing it will also open it to shout it down ... so what's the point? Let's just show every candidate until it wins or loses, and accept that people might discriminate against sexual images in their voting just as they might discriminate against a high-quality shot of a recently used toilet. Just have a fair vote, no special rules, be done with it. Wnt (talk) 19:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
The idea of hiding images on the FPC page has nothing to do with whether it passes or fails. It's giving those that don't want to see it the option of not seeing it, most likely based on their current location (in front of their kids, etc). JujutacularT · C16:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Hiding of certain images is a practise that is common on most photosite, the reason is content that is not suitable for viewing in a work place. As many editors do logon from work they would be unable to participate in FP discussions if the option isnt there, Gnangarra01:56, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Two noms only
Were did this rule come out of? The new rule on voting for FPC (must have seven supports and a 2:1 ratio) is fine by me, but the rule about two active noms only gives no advantage IMO. It is an extreme annoyance for people like ComputerHotline and I, who nominate lots of things at once. Was there any discussion for this, or did it just pop out of a hole? --TheHighFinSpermWhale17:59, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Alvesgaspar pushed it through, closing down the poll just as more sensible options were proposed. See the most recent archive, and my comments above. I'm boycotting FPC for so long as the rule remains. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Because it prevents me (at least a little bit) for seeing all that tons of crap which let's me sometimes loose my whole interest for this (in the early days) nice thing here • Richard • [®] • 22:36, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
The idea is that you should not nominate lots of things at once. You should make your choice very very carefully, to ensure that you only nominate the very best. This will hopefully raise the hit rates and overall standard, and give the reviewers more time to really study the nominations by only considering the best. --99of9 (talk) 23:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm a reviewer as well as a nominator, and it's not that bad when people nominate twenty junky photos as once. All you have to do is add {{FPX}} to each one. It takes about thirty seconds if it's really obviously going to fail. --TheHighFinSpermWhale03:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree, FPX ones are pretty easy. It's the in-between ones that end up with a vote of say 5 for and 6 against that have used 11 people's time for no useful result. Once again, the idea is for the nominator to do more of the hard work of figuring out which one from a bunch is actually fantastic, and nominating that one. They may still be wrong once in a while, but at least they are forced to use more discernment. --99of9 (talk) 04:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
If you'll permit me to get a little bit personal, this is an example of a nomination where the nominator could have saved time for people by doing a little better homework. --99of9 (talk) 04:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree, but I think the number should be raised a little. Maybe to five? Also, can you nominate two delisting candidates and two featured candidates? --TheHighFinSpermWhale02:08, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think anybody mentioned delisting candidates, and they're certainly not getting spammed, so I think you can safely treat them as seperate. --99of9 (talk) 02:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
@The High Fin Sperm Whale: there was a long discussion on this issue, now archived here, and the present solution was supported by a majority of 15 users (against 4). Thus it is not 'me', 99of9 or any other user who is going to change the rules against the consensus. FPC is not a competition for getting more featured pictures and both a careful choice of the nominations and a careful review will pay in terms of the overall quality of our gallery. On the other hand, a careful review (either associated with a support or a oppse vote) can be of much educational value both for the nominator and the other reviewers. Some of our creators are highly talented photographers in variour fields, while others are giving their first steps in digital photography. Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
and the limit Fin is suggesting(5) was the developing compromise that had its discussion cut short which was the cause of much of the dispute that has since followed .... had proper discussion occured we wouldnt still be here. Gnangarra02:38, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I like this new idea that limit the active nominations per user to two. it prevents the FPC spamming and will help users to review candidates more carefully.
But it have few problems - the candidates may promoted/declined after 9 days (or '5 days' depending on votes), it's a long time! for example a user have two active nominations and they have found another image which could be a good candidate... but they can't nominate it because of this rule, and they even may forget it after 9 days! and the image (file) will lose the chance to be seen and promoted.
That's why I suggest we should make a 'FPC waiting list' - Any user who had find a good candidate but they can't nominate it because of new guidelines can add it's link to the 'FPC waiting list', then other users can nominate the image if they think it's worth the nomination. ■ MMXX talk10:24, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I know, many user have made personal FPC galleries, but they are not accessible by public. we can transclude 'FPC waiting list' into FPC main page and hide it with {{Collapse top}} template. I've added an example on top of my proposal. ■ MMXX talk16:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
It's an useful idea although I see it more as a part of "photography critiques" which has fallen asleep a bit. Maybe it could be a fresh impulse to make this section more interesting. That's just my five cent but keep on. For a successful proposal we need a well thought out statement of the whole schmear (administration, duration, preview design a.s.o). • Richard • [®] • 21:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
It crosses my mind that we had a discussion about pre-requirements/selection a longer time ago. Your sketched idea with the comments ("I think it could be a good candidate.") on the collapsing box capture this a little bit. Maybe it's a vital spark for another or maybe better strategy to prevent spam ? • Richard • [®] • 22:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
"Prevent spam"?! I don't want to make the requirements any harder and the process more complicated! the 'FPC waiting list' should merely be used by users who have exceed the two nominations limit, however it could also be useful for users who are not familiar with nomination process. ■ MMXX talk22:10, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
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Support the idea, especially the thought about helping each other and finding the silent ones. It might be a venue for recruiting more users as well, thus hopefully increasing standards. --Slaunger (talk) 10:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Neutral more of the same for the usual suspects is what we'll get, theres no need to restrict self-noms to get people nominating others images Gnangarra 15:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment Learning where to start looking is one of the things we DO need to learn IMO, since the role of this part of the project is to (find and) feature the best pictures Commons has. I have some ideas about where we might look, but I'm no expert, I think that would be part of the experiment. --99of9 (talk) 02:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Dschwen.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Question Since you see the outcome as obvious, can you please state your expectations? Are you predicting that there will be hardly any nominations? --99of9 (talk) 02:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Info -- Yes, that is what I foresee: it will kill the stimulus and strongly affect the number of nominations -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Done I deleted the nomination page. --MGA73 (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
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), who keeps the bar high in his votes and that is good so! And as AngMo say, the more we are the better it is! bg mathias K 16:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
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