User:Tim Pierce/Photo Cleanup Drive

Photo Cleanup Drive 2010
Wikipedia is littered with old image requests -- over 110,000 as of April 2010. Some of these requests are years old. Some have been fulfilled but are still marked as needing a photo. You can help by going through old photo requests and updating them to make sure they're still valid.

Update stale photo requests
The goal of this phase is to eliminate bogus requests: to identify all articles which have appropriate photos but which are still flagged as "needing photos", and removing the unnecessary requests.


 * Start with Category:Articles which may no longer need images. Articles in this category have a photo request template, but have at least one image on the main article page, so it's possible that the photo request can be removed.
 * If an article has a photo which clearly illustrates the subject of the article, go to the talk page and remove any reqphoto templates (or "needs-photo" template parameters or equivalent).
 * What if the article has a photo, but it's not a picture of the article's main subject? Use your own judgment:
 * Does it seem like the photos that are there enhance the article significantly? For an article about an artist or an architect, images of their work may be even more appropriate than an image of the person.
 * Could a better image even be obtained? There may not exist any contemporary image to illustrate an article about a lesser-known medieval saint or a 9th century Turkish caliph.  Images of related subjects may have to suffice in some cases.
 * Check the article talk page for any discussion of images. Someone may have explained what kind of image they want.  If so, you can help make this explicit by adding the of= parameter to the reqphoto template.
 * Consider adding an infobox to the article main page. An infobox without an image makes it clearer that the article still needs an image that illustrates its subject.

Contributing new photographs
Even more helpful is to add appropriate photographs to Wikipedia. Here are some ways you can find appropriate free photographs:
 * Search Wikimedia Commons for photos. Not all photos on Commons are already linked to Wikipedia articles.
 * Search Flickr for freely reusable photos.
 * To find photos that can be freely reused on Wikipedia, make sure that both "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content" and "Find content to use commercially" are checked.
 * If you find a really good photo but it's not licensed appropriately, consider leaving a comment for the photographer and asking them to relicense the photo. Many photographers are happy to cooperate on a case-by-case basis.

Are you a photographer? Consider uploading your own photos! Visit Category:Wikipedia requested photographs and find the subcategory for the place where you live or work: there may be hundreds of opportunities for you to help fill those missing images.

Spread the word!
Let other editors know about the Photo Cleanup Drive!

Use this edit summary when editing articles for the photo cleanup drive:

Photo request cleanup for the WP Photo Cleanup Drive. You can help!