Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008

Third Annual Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year

(Preparation) · (Translations) · (Discussion) · Organising committee · (Issues / Help)

Introduction & dates · Voting · Round 1: Galleries · Round 2: Finalists · Results · Download

Please add your comments about the 2008 Picture of the Year to this page. Also check out the Picture of the Year pages for 2006 and 2007 to see how everything went. J.smith (talk) 02:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Why hasn't the project started?

Why? The main page says that it will start around October 2008.. Sai (talk) 06:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, we're discussing stuff at Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Preparation. Patrícia ^msg 07:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, there is an discussion, but not about the timing!? HBR (talk) 12:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Problems with SVG-Images

Currently i found two of my SVG-Images inside the "non graphic media"-category. But the renderer from wikipedia (librsvg) isn't able to display them correctly (PNG vs SVG). Is it somehow possible to display the pre-renderer versions (created with inkscape), while voting for the svg-files?

PS: I changed the file extension, but i dont know if it's good or bad, because the svg-images are the "featured" ones. ([1]) --Niabot (talk) 10:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I saw that you will vote for the SVG-Images. But currently they look a bit odd, because the renderer makes some ugly mistakes:

SVG rendered with librsvg

PNG exported with Inscape

Any idea how this problem (also in other SVG-Images) could be solved? --Niabot (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Alas, the problem comes from the blur effect. Librsvg have troubles to convert it. It depends on the size of the object to blur : a small object with a small blur effect will not be displayed ; to see it you have to increase the rate. A large object may appear even with a small rate. Sémhur (talk) 19:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to make a note on the voting page, that exported PNG-Versions are available (and that librsvg sucks ;-)? --Niabot (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Date

So is this competition going to start soon? It's past 20 January. ...Aurora... (talk) 12:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Same question... --Sailko (talk) 09:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We're doing what we can. We're having trouble getting the voting set up. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Just curious... --Sailko (talk) 23:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Just wondering... ...Aurora... (talk) 12:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

What is this and why doesn't it work?

In the french section, on the "Voter" page, I am told that Javascript is not activated on my browser (which is false) and that I must go to this page: http://stable.ts.wikimedia.org/poty/vote?action=token&wiki=<WIKI>&username=<UTILISATEUR> replacing, in my case, wiki by fr.wikipedia.org and utilisateur by Lewis82.

But it doesn't work.

Therefore I have two questions: am I obliged to do this to have access to the vote, and what is it?

Anyways, the english section doesn't even mention it so I guess it's not that important.

--lewis82 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Honestly? I wouldn't worry about it until such time as voting starts. There's a good chance we may have to use a low-tech means of voting this year. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Are all the FPs in the contest ?

I thought all the 2008 FPs were in the contest, but this one is not. Sémhur (talk) 12:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! We did try very hard to get it right, but, in the end, you're sorting several hundred images, and I think that one fell into a crack. I'll add it now. If we missed any others, well, we didn't mean to, and we're sorry. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I have no other FP this year, I think. Sémhur (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Voting eligibility

Any user's voting eligibility can be verified by using this tool. Just an FYI! Pbroks13 (talk) 02:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks for letting us know! Pruneau^talk 08:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

What was the rational of setting the voting eligibility as minimum of 200 edits? I think this excludes users who mainly uses media of Commons outside Wikimedia projects such as citizen journalists and activists, whom we want to weigh in their opinions. --Shuhari (talk) 16:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Is anyone checking this - I spotted a couple of ineligible votes? Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Pbroks13 and myself have been doing quite a bit of checking, as have a couple of other users, but more help would certainly be appreciated! Pruneau^talk 10:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hum - rather a lot of work to do I think :( Worth a mention st the VP/admin boards? I'll do a few while I have time. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW I got part way through this one who is not eligible but ran out of time. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Apologies

Hello all. I would like to apologize for the fact that I have not been able to help with the organization. I am glad that the community was able to get the competition running anyway (it certainly is a sign of a healthy community if the absense of one member can be taken care of) and I would like to thank the organizers for their work. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Why modifying the voting system?

The voting system has been modified. Now, not only one cannot see how many supports a picture has but it is not possible to correct mistakes or change our own votes. I tried to press the 'support' button in some picture and my vote was registered immediately. I don't think this is an improvement over the last version. Please revert the change, this way it will be boring, like last year's -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's great to have a button to Support quickly, but we definitely really need a link to the vote page as well. The way it is right now has several issues:

• Voters can't cancel their vote if they made a mistake.
• It's more difficult to check the votes, and therefore more annoying for the committee and less transparent for everyone.
• Voters can't check whether their vote has been counted, leading to multiple votes like this.

I suggest keeping the Support button, but adding a "view votes" link. Pruneau^talk 16:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• I tried to find out who did the modification but couldn't. I guess it wasn't done by anyone in the commitee. Anyway, it should be reverted, it's not a good practise to change the rules while the voting is running. Any idea how to revert it? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the modifications were made by User:Kalan. I've pinged him. Pruneau^talk 09:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think the new system is quite good, and should encourage more participation since it's much less time-consuming. There's now a "You have already voted for this image" indication. Eug (talk) 09:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
• So if this system is going to be retained, the instructions have to be updated too (no more "Vote" link anymore) Badseed ^talk 03:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• *cough* *cough* :)

  I would like to note that the system has not been modified. The fields and buttons you see basically do the same thing: they edit the corresponding page on your behalf, substituting your signature, markup and edit comments as needed.

  The change has been discussed with Adam Cuerden over IRC. I understand the harm non-public discussions on important issues do, but I am convinced that it is not the case. A simplification of the interface was needed as soon as possible, otherwise the voting would be far less active than it is (hope you agree that eliminating routine actions encourages users to vote more; in other words, reverting would bring various disadvantages and no benefits).

  As a result of my recent edit, the “Votes list” link is displayed just below the image. Everything else is unchanged (except two new translations, thanks Badseed and Ahonc).

  — Kalan ? 10:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the explanations and the improvement. Yes, this is an important matter that should be discussed and decided BEFORE the voting, not during it. Discussing it over IRC with other user is clearly not enough. Two important issues here: the running results were hidden (please see previous discussions on the 'secrecy' of the results in previous contests) and it was not obvious to most how to change one own's votes. If I may, I would like to suggest a futher improvement: that a list of running results (per category) is made public at leat once a day. It would be even better if that list were permanently updated, but I supposed that would not be possible with the present low-tech system -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

  I just noticed the very ugly way of voting after it started (I thought that the same system as last year’s will be used), and I decided to make a radical improvement right then. The votes were not hidden, they were just pushed one more click away (thumbnail → “Links” → the page) :) Of course, it was a disadvantage, and thanks for pointing on that. Summary tables would be good, but I would like to not rush and implement calculations and edit-checking more accurately by the end of the voting (if nobody else is on it, of course). — Kalan ? 15:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

  Thanks for the improvements! A few of us have been checking votes manually, but it's very time-consuming. Are you saying that you will be able to check the votes (removing duplicates and votes from ineligible users) automatically? Pruneau^talk 16:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

  That would be extremely helpful. Maybe we could get a bot to check each voter's eligibility? Pbroks13 (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Missing Candidates?

• [2] and [3] 18.190.28.225 21:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe those images are featured on En.wiki not on Commons. Abigor talk 21:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Nomination process ?

Can I nominate an image in Wikimedia ? The nominee are already fixed ? Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 07:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The nominees for this year are already fixed: they are all the images which were promoted to featured picture status on Commons in 2008. You can nominate any image for featured status at Commons:Featured Pictures; if your picture is promoted, it will automatically enter next year's Picture of the Year contest. Pruneau^talk 10:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Where and how to check the count?

Where can we check the vote count of the Round1 before announcing the finalists? Here? in Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008/Finalists? or somewhere else?--miya (talk) 01:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest working on the counts at Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting for want of anywhere better. I see that some votes have been struck out on the basis that the voter was not eligible, but I don't know if that has been done systematically for all pictures. That needs to be done before we can announce the results. If someone can do that by script, it would save a huge amount of work. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

In case there could be no script -

1. Count the vote number of each file roughly (listing in gallery's talk page or some where) and find top files (the number of awards + a little more)
2. List the top files (in Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting?).
3. Check the eligibility of the would-be-awarded files' votes.
4. If their votes would not get smaller than the next ones after the check, we don't practically have to check any more votes. If some of their votes get smaller than the next ones, we have to check the next one's vote, too, in order to know which to award.

I hope there will be some checking script by the end of Round 2. At least auto-vote's sign would include useful URLs such as - "Username [SUL accounts・Global contribs time&date]" placing the comment behind the sign. --miya (talk) 16:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)16:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Flaw in suffrage requirements

Hi everyone, it has come up that users only register on Commons to vote for POTY and don't have an SUL account attached, e.g. User:Carotte30011997. This user has done nothing on Commons but vote for POTY 2008 candidates. This has generated more than 200 edits, which means he is technically eligible to vote, only his first 200 votes are invalid (but can now be repeated, as he is now eligible). IMHO we shouldn't count edits von POTY pages, because those don't really contribute to Commons and the 200 edit minimum refers to, in my understanding, productive edits. Any objections? Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

As this is not an SUL account I think that in order to vote the user must have registered on Commons by 1st Jan 2009, which is not the case here. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 23:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure is says somewhere that there must be 200 edits before voting. I've struck a lot of that user's votes.--Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

About checking

As there is no checking script, let't go without completing a thorough checking: instead, how about -

(1)Make a ineligible-voters list somewhere (such as Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting/voting register or Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting/voting register/ineligible?) and check about those users' votes.

(2)At least check all the duplicates and red-linked users in would-be-final files.

(3)making one more "honorable mentions" in every category to retrieve might-be-final files.

Sorry, I striked this one. This may be confusing.--miya (talk) 01:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(4) Not to announce the 1st, 2nd, 3d in each category now, but just announce the finalists for now and go on to Round 2.(We can check the votes in no hurry　and announce the 1st, 2nd, 3d in each category in the middle or the end of Round 2)

I rather suggest to end checking Round 1 votes by 7 Feb.23:59. It would be impossible to finish checking all the votes by that time, but anyway, I believe all hopeful files are in the would-be-final range. (Sorry for my awful English!)--miya (talk) 05:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I created Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting/Voting register, on your suggestion. Now I put in it only Jklamo's list, but now every one can edit it. --sNappy 20:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I added some more.--miya (talk) 01:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It is good idea to set up deadline, but 7 Feb (March you mean) 23:59 is just too soon. Maybe even all categories may not be counted in that time. One more week or at least all weekend and a few days will be better. What about to start final on 12 March and end checking votes on 10 March 23:59? --Jklamo (talk) 02:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The second round?

When

The second round of voting is when? --Luc Viatour (talk) 12:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That's what I'd like to know, too! --141.82.28.133 14:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the first round's been over for a month now, I'd like to be able to vote for the second round soon. Can we get some kind of an estimate for when it will be ready from the people running this? Joe N (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I check this page every few days. It makes me depressed. I understand that there must have been some sort of glitch in the system, not just people not bothering to do anything. What is happening anyway? If there is a logistical problem with Round 2, then perhaps it could be decided that the picture with the most votes from round 1 is the overall winner.Reguiieee (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Separate the comments and the votes

Let's separate the comments and the votes in the votelist pages - it will make it easier to check the votes.--miya (talk) 05:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Signature template for Round 2

I made a voting-signiture template: Template:2008POTY/Vote. --miya (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

{{2008POTY/Vote|Your_account}}

Put one's username for {{{1}}}.

Voting eligibility for Round 2

To make the vote check easier with signiture template, I suggest to make a little change in voting eligibility such as below.--miya (talk) 05:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Voting is open for all Wikimedians who were registered making his/her first edit before 1 January 2009 and with at least 200 edits on any Wikimedia project (at time of votingby the end of February 2009 ( = before 1 January/Feburary/March 2009). You must have all those edits on a single account. Even if you have multiple eligible accounts, you can only vote once.

fix me

• At least 200 edits on any Wikimedia project before "when"?--miya (talk) 07:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally "before the whole competition started" otherwise those whose votes we cleaned out will have made themselves eligible to vote in the next round which would seem rather odd? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean "before 12 Feburary 2009"? That may be reasonable.--miya (talk) 01:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I moved my comment on 00:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC) to Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting#Voting eligibility for Round 2.--miya (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ready?

Hello. I think we can start Round 2 now.

The finalists have been selected . As the 4th and the 5th honorable mentions in Category "Plants and Fungi" had the same number of votes, I made both of them OK. I greatly thank people who did vote checking ( especially to Mattia Luigi Nappi and Jklamo!)

Next thing to do is to decide when to start and till when. How about from 2009-04-19(today) till 2009-04-28 (Tuesday) if we are to open Round 2 for 10 days?--miya (talk) 15:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The finalists have been selected! Vote in the 2008 Commons Picture of the Year competition.
The final voting round to select the 2008 Picture of the Year is open now. Voting closes 23:59 UTC 30 April (Thursday).

čeština | Deutsch | English | français | हिन्दी | italiano | 日本語 | 한국어 | Bahasa Melayu | русский | +/−

Let's start the final round! Please notify Wikimedians that the final voting round to select the 2008 Picture of the Year is open now.

And let's close Round 2 at the end of the month (30th) 23:59 UTC, as suggested in Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting#Presentation of images in round 2. Thank you!--miya (talk) 16:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Result for Round 2

Hi, I listed the finalists in Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2/List according to the vote count on 2009-05-09. Please check and fix it all over.

Now I'm making caption subpages but Igave up comment subpages.

In order to internationalize Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2/List, translation of the image captions are needed (see Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Translations#Each image captions and last year's explanation, in Commons talk:Picture of the Year/2007/Results/Round 2). Thank you.--miya (talk) 23:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

IP votes

Hi, User:Lx 121 requested to consider "re: ip votes & consistency of policy" - File:Fire_breathing_2_Luc_Viatour.jpg and File:Locomotives-Roundhouse2.jpg (see User talk:Martin H.#ip votes poty and User talk:Miya#poty2009 ip votes).

1. File:Biandintz eta zaldiak - modified2.jpg -73 :1 vote by User:Mcshadypl might be eligible if confirmed - that might make "74"
2. File:Fire breathing 2 Luc Viatour.jpg -70 : 3 votes by User:Bibliomaniac15, User:VonTasha, and User:Tktktk might be eligible if confirmed - that might make "73" (tie)
3. File:Locomotives-Roundhouse2.jpg -46: 1 vote by Benjamin.L might be eligible if confirmed - that might make "47"
4. File:Crepuscular rays in ggp 2.jpg -45: all 4 IP votes have been confirmed

No.3's IP vote would not change the ranking any more.

If No.1's wouldn't be confirmed and all N.2's might be confirmed, that would make No.2 equal to No.1's vote.

What shall we do? Shall we inform them and wait one more week, maybe till next Sunday?--miya (talk) 09:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Also Hi; to be clear, my key concern was that not all IP voters seem to have been informed of the situation. i was following up with Martin_H. on a question (while updating the vote tracker page), & he informed me that he did not know if the IP voters on the voting pages he worked on had been contacted or not (he didn't contact them himself; did not know if anyone else had). that makes things complicated. with the number of IP votes still outstanding, i would expect at least one or two of them to be confirmable. sorry to dump this problem on you; but better now than later. Lx 121 (talk) 15:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I see your point - I informed all IP voters who would be eligible if logged in of the situation. In cases they wrote their account in other projects such as en or fr (ex. AndonicO), I posted a notice there, too. I asked them to confirm by 2009-05-24T12:00(UTC): I hope/wish to close all the checking then and anounce the winner.--miya (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of the IP votes have been confirmed, I updated the pages below:

• Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Voting/Voting checking/R2
• Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2/List/en

The top announcement in the Result2 page would be like this:

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008 competition is now over and the winner has been selected. In the final 712 Wikimedians voted, of which 74 voted for the winner, Horses on Bianditz mountain. With 71 votes Fire breathing takes the second place. The third place is for Steam locomotives in the roundhouse with 46 votes.

The vote count is the number on 2009-05-23T18:00(UTC) Please check it.--miya (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

NOW please make a last check of Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2. If there is not a big problem, let's include this page into POTY2008 top.--miya (talk) 04:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Now I believe we can close the contest and include [Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2|R2result page] into the POTY2008 top page to announce the winner.

I prepared Round 2 Results subpages in major languages, I hope them to be translation and/or copyedited.

The layout of the list is a little awkward, but I have no better idea. I would be happy if someone improve the list layout such as centering or width and so on. Thank you.--miya (talk) 02:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Download page

Commons:Picture of the Year/2008/Results/Round 2 says "The full archive of all images is downloadable from download.wikimedia.org." Is it necessary? If necessary, please arrange it (I don't know how to arrange the database download at all). Thank you.--miya (talk) 00:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I commented out the download explanation. If anyone can arrange the downloda page, please do it. Thanks in advance.--miya (talk) 02:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

So will we have the static archive or not? It is terribly useful for people without fast Internet access like me and to prepare Wikimedia related slideshows. --Contributions/84.15.44.154 13:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

At last

I included Result page into the POTY2008 top. Thank you.--miya (talk) 23:56, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I've been waiting a while for that. I am very pleased that POTY 2008 made it in the end. Only about 7 months to go until the next one! Reguiieee (talk) 13:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)