Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-06-30/Gallery

Wikimedia Commons publishes 50 million media files including many photos of famous parks and natural features. Wikipedia editors sometimes forget to update our articles as new photos arrive at Commons. Annually since 2013, the Wiki Loves Earth campaign has invited people around the world to share images showing the natural environment. The 2019 campaign is at Commons:Wiki Loves Earth 2019 is scheduled to run in May and June. Early statistics report that in the campaign, 8,000 people from 36 countries uploaded 80,000 images. Of those images, 4,000 are currently inserted into Wikipedia article as illustrations. Anyone may browse this year's image uploads at Commons:Category:Wiki Loves Earth 2019.

The Wikimedia community invites anyone who enjoys images of nature to browse available images in Wikimedia Commons and insert favorites into Wikipedia articles. Alternatively, browse Wikipedia articles in Category:Parks and Category:Protected areas to identify articles which could use better illustration, then search Wikimedia Commons for an appropriate illustration. In general, Wikipedia editors are more familiar with the text and prose of Wikipedia articles and are less aware of available illustrations in Wikimedia Commons' complementary media repository. Likewise, many people with talent to create photos and who share them in Wikimedia Commons are themselves unable to match them to the relevant Wikipedia articles or categories where those photos could be illustrations.

In May 2019 The Signpost reported that The North Face, an international chain clothing store, paid their marketers to remove nature photos which Wikipedia volunteer editors had used as illustrations in Wikipedia articles. They then inserted their own photos of people wearing their branded clothes showcasing their logo, but with the natural environment as a secondary aspect of the illustrations. As listed "In the media", this month yet more third-party mainstream journalism has covered The North Face's ad campaign and their undisclosed paid editing.

Below is a list of Wikipedia articles which North Face edited and available photos from Wikimedia Commons which are not currently being used as illustrations in these Wikipedia articles. The North Face conspired to prevent Wikipedia readers from viewing these photos, passing all these over to surreptitiously direct attention to their own advertising. Wikipedia has a community editorial process. For these and other places anyone can chose to change the illustrations. This is supposed to happen in the spirit of editorial collaboration among article editors, photographers, and people with good intent to showcase the best available media that we have available in the free and open global media commons. Please consider these photos, visit Commons to see yet more photos, and change images in the Wikipedia editorial process as you like.