Wikipedia:WikiProject Image Monitoring Group/June 2008 image cleanup project/beginner

This page is intended for beginners to Wikipedia or in dealing with images. Topics such as how-to upload, how to provide a good source, licensing an image (using templates), what "free" means, how to request permission for a free license and an introduction to Commons. If you are familiar with all these topics, you may wish to move on to the intermediate topics.

How-to upload
You must have a free, registered account. IPs are not allowed to upload. After creating an account, make sure you are logged in and go to Upload and select the appropriate statement. All of these go to the same page, but have different information and licenses to select from. If the license you want to apply is not on that page, you can either add it manually (see below) or go back and select a different link. Freely licensed images (including images with permission) should be uploaded to Commons (see below). Fair use images must never be uploaded to Commons.

Read all the information on the page. This information is provided to answer common questions related to uploading that specific kind of image. Click "Browse" and select the file on your computer (images must be uploaded from your computer, please notice that this does not make it your "own work" because you saved it on your computer). Provide a better filename (if needed). Fill out the summary information to include a good source and non-free content rationale, if required. Select the license from the dropdown box, or provide it manually in the summary box (see below). It is highly recommended that you select to "Watch this page" and not select "Ignore any warnings".

Wikipedia can easily handle images up to 20 megabytes. We want large, useful and free images. Fair use images should have the largest dimension of 300 pixels in one direction, unless there is a good reason not to. Resize the image before you upload it.

There is no "preview" like in articles, but you can change things later if you see a mistake.

Click on "Upload" and wait. Once your file has uploaded, you will get a "successful" message. Click on the link to the image to view it. You may now use it on any other page. If you wish to change any information on the image description page, you must click "edit" (like any other page) while viewing the image. You cannot change the information by uploading a new version of the file. IPs can edit image description pages, like any other page.

Uploading a new version of an image
This only works when the old file format and new file format are the same. If you are changing the file format, you cannot use this method, you must upload the image as a "new" image. (File format refers to the file extension, .jpg, .gif, .png, .svg are examples.)
 * This may be an intermediate topic?

There are times when you may want to upload a newer or modified version of the same file. The easiest way is to click on "Upload a new version of this file" while viewing the image description page. Select the file on your computer (the filename does not have to be the same as the filename you are uploading to). Do not modify the "Destination filename". Under "Summary", explain why you are uploading a new version. The information you provide here will not overwrite anything on the image description page, but it will appear under "Comment" under the "File history" section on the image description page. An example would be "Cropped watermark" or "rotated image" or "corrected white balance". Ignore the "Licensing" drop down box (remember, you can't edit the image description page by uploading a new version). You should check "Ignore any warnings", otherwise you will get a warning that the destination filename already exists and get an option to save or enter a new filename. We know we are uploading over a new file, so we can ignore this warning. Click "Upload" and wait. Once the successful message appears, you should check the image description page and update it if needed.

Providing great source information
Our image use policy states: 'Always specify on the description page where the image came from (the source) and information on how this could'' be verified. Examples include scanning a paper copy, or a URL, or a name/alias and method of contact for the photographer.''' For screenshots this means what the image is a screenshot of (the more detail the better). Do not put credits in images themselves.

Providing good sourcing information is important for several reasons: First, it verifies who the copyright owner is. Second, it validates the license tag applied to the image. Last, it can provide even more information to someone wanting to know more information about an image or topic.

If the image is your own work (and entirely your own work, see below), you should explicitly state that it is your own work and you are licensing it under license. Just using a free license tag is not sufficient. You should also describe the image, perhaps even including links to articles on Wikipedia that may help describe more about it. You should not link to your own website where the image may be found but under a different license, as this will cause confusion. If your website states it is under the same (or similar free) license, a link would be acceptable. See Image:Richard Roby - Colorado.jpg for an example of the basic information to provide.
 * Own work

If the information is from a non-web format (ie, book, something you scanned, not your own photograph), then you should provide complete information on how the image could be found by someone who knows nothing about the image. Do not make the assumption someone will understand your abbreviation(s) or shorthand notes. Providing information of what the image is about on the image description page is helpful for editors to find the image and learn about the image. An example of an image from a non-web source: Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 06b.jpg.
 * Non-web source

Images from a web source should include links to a HTML source page, not directly to the image. Links should look like http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=55880 and not http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/webphoto/web_080301-N-5487R-006.jpg The latter, although the image does exist on a Navy server, may have restrictions or other information provided that make it non-free. Plus, HTML pages typically give more information about the image than just a picture. In this case, we also learn: U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) members from several west coast units served as the Navy's Fleet Honorees for the race. From left, they include EOD2 Christopher Eicas, EOD2 John Christmas, EOD1 Adam Coleman, EOD1 Daniel Hatfield and EOD Donavan Trost. U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Andrea Ross just be linking to the HTML page. This expands possible usage on Wikipedia and folks searching for information or a picture to help find it. An example image of this type of sourcing is: Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg. This image shows why it's bad to link to just the image directly and why providing as much sourcing information as possible is a good thing: Image:Apollo 15 flag, rover, LM, Irwin.jpg. The image source can be found easily by using the ID and a quick search at a link provided which gives: http://nix.larc.nasa.gov/info;jsessionid=1xxeonnhbu4mp?id=AS15-88-11866&orgid=8
 * Web source

Common misconceptions about "own work"
Labeling something as your own work means you took the image with your own camera, not under any other contract or legal obligations, or created the image of your own ideas on your own computer (ie, creating it in an image program). Often, users wrongly believe that because the image is on their computer (even if they got it from somewhere else, like a website) means they own it. An image that you don't pay for, does not mean it's free. An image you alter in some fashion (crop), does not mean it's free and/or yours. Taking credit (claiming ownership) of an image that isn't your is considered a "copyright violation". It would be the same as altering a DVD movie in a trivial way (copying to another DVD) and claiming it is now your work. It is against the law and you could be punished for such actions. There are more complicated cases (such as freedom of panorama) we will cover later. But for now, just go with the rule: I created it with my own camera/software and did not get it from anywhere, the work is therefore mine.

License tags
Wikipedia takes copyright law very seriously. Image description pages are tagged with the license and the source of the image. This makes it as easy as possible for readers, Wikipedians, and creators of derivative works to know what they can and can't do with the images in our encyclopedia.

To insert a license template on a page, use this format:. For example,. This is called a template tag, and has two "brackets" on either side of the template page name, and doesn't include the "Template:" prefix. also works, but "Template:" is not necessary. To add a license to an image, click on "edit this page" at the top of the page while viewing the image description page, and then add it. Typically it goes at the bottom of all information on the page, but the location does not matter.

What does Free mean?
Yes, Wikipedia is for education. Yes, Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. The Wikimedia Foundation (who is the organization that oversees Wikipedia and sister projects) said we can not use images "for Wikipedia", "for non-commercial use" or "for education use only". We are building a free encyclopedia for anyone to use. That anyone includes you, your neighbor, someone in Africa, Mars, NBC, Wall Street, GM, ESPN, LA Times, your website, and more. This means commercial users as well. We want the information to be free. This includes the images along side the article text.

Just because you didn't pay for something, like an image off a website, does not mean it's free. In order for us to use it, it must have a free license. You must assume everything is copyrighted, unless there is a statement that the image is under another license.

Requesting a license
To use copyrighted material on Wikipedia, it is not enough that we have permission to use it on Wikipedia alone. That's because Wikipedia itself states all its material may be used by anyone, for any purpose. So we have to be sure all material is in fact licensed for that purpose, whoever provided it.

To do this, we must often email or contact the copyright holders and ask them to allow us to use it under the GFDL or a GFDL-compatible license, which would be compatible with how we want to use it. See Copyrights for more.

The main legal thing that is important to explain to potential contributors: they would be agreeing that their picture (or text) can be used freely by Wikipedia AND its downstream users, and that such use might include commercial use, for which the contributor is not entitled to royalties or compensation. Wikimedia itself is a non-profit organization, and any money raised from the re-use of Wikimedia content would go to furthering our aims—buying new servers to keep the websites running efficiently, producing print runs, making Wikipedia available on CD/DVD for schools and developing countries. However, not all of those who re-use our content are so high-minded.

This means that a contributor's work might appear in print or digital versions of this encyclopedia that are sold in stores. It might appear in WikiReaders, or other specialized subsets of the full text—teacher curriculum packets, publicity brochures, other uses we haven't thought of yet. It will certainly be used by other websites that legally copy our content.

About half the people we ask say yes, especially if it's explained that the license terms mean it is more widely appreciated and that we do not want to use all their material, but just one image or item. See Example requests for permission for more.

Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a freely licensed media file repository (similar to stock photography archives) targeted at other Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Commons is targeted at media files such as photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text and video clips. Wikimedia Commons does not contain text articles like encyclopedia articles, textbooks, news, word definitions and such. Each of these other kinds of content have their own projects. Files uploaded to the Commons can be used on pages of all Wikimedia projects without the need to upload them separately there. Thus a media file only needs to be kept once in a central place. This also means that files uploaded to the Commons have to be useful for some Wikimedia project. Media files that are not useful for any Wikimedia project are beyond the scope of Wikimedia Commons.

In theory, all free images at Wikipedia should exist on Commons. In fact, other language Wikipedias, such as Spanish do not have any local file upload and require all images to be put on Commons (yes, this means they don't have fair use). When you attempt to upload a file there, they just redirect you to Commons.

If an image is free, please consider putting it on Commons. This will save work later. You will have to create another free account there, until single-user login is enabled for users (be sure to user the same name (including capitols) and e-mail address to ease account merging later).

More information

 * Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia
 * Media copyright questions (ask questions or for help there)
 * New contributors' help page (more help)