Wikivoyage talk:How to add an image Voyage Tips and guide

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So, one thing that's probably important to note is the relationship between thumbnails and print versions of the guide. What happens with those? What's the best procedure for making images printable? --(WT-en) Evan 14:50, 9 Aug 2004 (EDT)

This is something I thought about when standing in the rain and waiting for the bus. It would be great, if we could have the high resolution images instead of thumbnails when the "Printable version" link is selected. We could still use the width and height parameters in the <img> tag to set the size of the image on screen, but in print I think most browsers will use the full resolution of the image, even though the height and width parameters have been used to scale it down on the screen. -- (WT-en) Trsqr 11:10, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

Is it possible to include images from external servers by a <img src="http.."> tag? Currently i work on a template for automatic map inclusion (for german wikivoyage), it seems not to work, i guess the substitution of the parameters in '{{{}}}' works only in wikilink syntax like '[link]'etc.?! (WT-en) FlorianKonnertz 11:38, 7 Aug 2005 (EDT)

No, it's not possible. (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:48, 7 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Is it possible to share images between different language editions of Wikivoyage, and how is it done? It would be much easier to just have (say) Image:en:whatever.png instead of manually copying them. (WT-en) JSt 10:16, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

No, it's not possible. It's been discussed before though [1] [2] and will hopefully be implemented soon. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:03, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

It's now possible; see Shared:Main Page. --(WT-en) Evan 11:17, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

Is there any easy way to move image from en: to shared, so it can be reused in language version? --(WT-en) JanSlupski 14:43, 6 April 2006 (EDT)

As far as I can tell, no. It'd be pretty handy, though. --(WT-en) Evan 18:19, 6 April 2006 (EDT)

I keep getting errors when trying to upload some images. It says "The file you uploaded seems to be empty." I know the file is there, and I'm able to upload other images from the same folder. I have this problem with multiple images. Somebody please help. (WT-en) Tennreb 10:41, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

There seems to be a hard upper limit to the size of the files you can upload — I've gotten this when uploading file over a couple of megs. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:48, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

Yeah, it was set to 2Mb for PHP. I've reset it trepidatiously to 8Mb so even folks with super-fancy cameras can upload their original files. I'm wondering, though: doesn't that seem awfully large? --(WT-en) Evan 11:16, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

Not if you actually want to print out the image. (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:33, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

I uploaded a photo to wiki shared, and added it to an aticle, but the image just wont show. The article is Wairoa. I intend to add more photos for alot of towns around Hawkes Bay, but id really like them to work. Im very new at this and still in the bumbling around stage. Thanks, (WT-en) Mesipisian

You need to copy the filename very carefully: upper and lower case matter. Take a look above to see how it works. (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:41, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

I don't think it was the filename, but probably a cache issue. Looking at the history the filename was probably the issue at first, but he still couldn't see it even after he had the right filename. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 10:05, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

I have had the same problem whenever I have uploaded a newer version of an image. It has taken ~15 minutes, before all the thumbnails have worked. I have just thought that maybe it takes a while until the thumbnails are created. The "See the high resolution image" link has always worked though. -- (WT-en) Trsqr 11:06, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

The HELP says: to define the PIX size. BUT which size? The horizontal or vertical pixel size??

Sorry! Confused :-) (WT-en) TerryKing 13:25, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Horizontal. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald ^Talk 20:53, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Yep... if you put 250px, then it will automatically adjust the horizontal:

[[Image:example.jpg|thumb|250px|Description of image]]

Clearer? – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 22:11, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Am I correct that .svg images will not display? (WT-en) OldPine 15:28, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Correct. →wts:WtTech:Render_SVG_images_as_PNG_images --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 00:45, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub:

Since a few days images are no longer shown in WT articles on my PC, just the caption and nothing more. Clicking on the link does not bring up the image either. This is also the case in WT de and nl (the only ones I checked). It cannot be my browser set-up, because in Wikipedia and in Wikivoyage and in other Wikis the problem does not occur. Just WT. Has anyone else got this problem? (WT-en) Dezwitser 03:27, 6 December 2007 (EST)

I used to have the exact same problem - images everywhere else but not at Wikivoyage. It was quite some time ago, but I'm pretty sure I had to change my firewall settings. Good luck! -- (WT-en) Fastestdogever 09:30, 6 December 2007 (EST)

Thanks. The firewall was not the problem, but your hint gave me an idea. It was the NoScript add-on. Why WT of all wikis needs scripts to display images is beyond me - must be the commercial nature of this otherwise excellent site! (WT-en) Dezwitser 20:41, 6 December 2007 (EST)

Swept in from the pub:

Hi, my photography skills have always been scarey! I am looking for some photos for San Francisco and I've already looked at wikimedia commons and on the image resource page here [3]. Does anyone know of any other copyright compatible sites where I could get more photos. And if this is a real pub...I'll have an apple-martini please as well! :) Thanks (WT-en) Asterix 13:57, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

On Flickr... you can search for compatible pics fairly easily there... go to Advanced search, type in san francisco, and at the bottom make sure to check all 3 of the boxes in the Creative Commons section (otherwise they may not be compatible). Or search for other specific things like "Golden Gate Bridge" or whatever. Good luck! – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 18:25, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

Yes, that's much better - thanks (WT-en) Asterix 15:45, 29 July 2008 (EDT)

There is no definition on how to include panorama pictures (those which are very wide). I've seen pictures with a horizontal scroll bar but cannot find them right now. I tried to find markup by looking up references to panorama images but without success. I uploaded Malta_Three_Cities_from_Upper_Barakka_Gardens.jpg and would like to include it but need help with the markup. (WT-en) hscholz 22:59 12 Aug 2008 (EST)

Swept in from the Pub:

I am new to Wikivoyage and to wiki in general. I have looked high and low (and in between) on Wikivoyage and on Shared and on Google and I cannot find anywhere a step by step, user-friendly plain English guide for how to get one of my photos which is already on Shared into an article. If I overlooked it, I apologize in advance. I have figured out that I can copy the script for a photo already in an article, replace the photo's name with the name of my photo and then paste that revised script somplace in the Article. This method works but it is not exactly elegant. thanks. 71.130.152.15 18:27, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

Project:How to add an image is a good place to look, but it's really quite simple, just copy this: [[Image:filename of image|thumb|description of image]] and insert the image name from Shared and the description for the image. And then use that page I linked to figure out further details, like figuring out which side of the page you want it on, how big you want to image to be, etc. (WT-en) PerryPlanet 20:36, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

[[Image:Mediawiki-edittoolbar-001.jpg|thumb]]

If you want elegant, you will need to create a user and log in. Once you have done that, click on preferences in the top right, select the editing tab and enable Show edit toolbar (JavaScript). This will give you a toolbar that simplify a couple of functions, one of them being the ability to add an image. Unfortunately our version does not cater for the additional image options. Example on the right. --(WT-en) Nick 02:21, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

• I'm having problems adding two particular photos to a wikivoyage page. I've used the correct format, but instead of the thumbnail appearing, only the title of the photo, and it's description appear. I've tried re-saving these photos, I haven't had any problems before. [[Image:Monet_House.JPG|thumb|250px|Monet's House, Giverny]] "(WT-en) Spircle 16:57, 13 October 2008 (EDT)"
  • (WT-en) Spircle, I'm sorry to hear you are having troubles. The text "Image:Monet_House.JPG" appears in red. That means the image file isn't present. You should upload the image itself to Wikivoyage:Shared at http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:Upload. See Project:How to add an image and wts:How to upload files. Also, thank you for signing your message. For future reference, the conventional way to do this is to type four tildes (~~~~) at the end, not the beginning, of your note. I'm looking forward to seeing your image! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:06, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

I have already uploaded the image file to Wikivoyage shared, I can view it when I look at my contributions, but linking it to a wikivoyage site won't work. I've re-saved and re-uploaded it a couple of times, but this hasn't worked. The photo was a digital image taken in 2001, I can't see anything unusual about the format that the file is in. Also, what is bugging me is that the files appear correctly in the gallery of recent images. Any suggestions would be welcome. (WT-en) Spircle 09:25, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Might the problem be related to this problem? (WT-en) Tarr3n 07:24, 15 October 2008 (EDT)

The wiki is case sensitive, try [[Image:Monet_House.jpg|thumb|250px|Monet's House, Giverny]] rather than [[Image:Monet_House.JPG|thumb|250px|Monet's House, Giverny]], note the lowercase jpg. You image displays on the right next to this comment. --(WT-en) Nick 08:26, 15 October 2008 (EDT)

Eureka!!! It worked! Many thanks(WT-en) Spircle 08:34, 15 October 2008 (EDT)

Glad to be of help. You might want to add a license tag to Image:Monet_-_The_Waterlily_Pond_sm.jpg to avoid it being deleted. Photos of paintings may violate copyright, but in this case I think copyright has already expired (70+ years since his death) so it should be in the public domain. Adding {{PD}} to the image description page should do it. --(WT-en) Nick 09:15, 15 October 2008 (EDT)

I wonder why this article is not in Help: namespace. Any special reasons for that? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:23, 3 March 2009 (EST)

I get the impression that we for some reason decided to eschew the help namespace, and keep all help & policy articles together in the Wikivoyage namespace. There are only three articles currently in the Help namespace [4] and all three are redirects to Wikivoyage namespace articles. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:35, 3 March 2009 (EST)

I see now. I meant that this article should be probably placed into Project:Namespace index#Help!, but I'm not sure now. Actually, the whole "Help!" section there seem bit out the system, if considered against other sections in the list. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:32, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Am I right that shared:Image_policy guides what images should/not be uploaded, while this article guides how upload images should be inserted into (invoked from; referred from) article text?

If so, how can we emphasize that in article names and in their first paragraph?

As for me, it always takes an extra minute or two to find which info belongs where. My vote for making things easier. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:26, 3 March 2009 (EST)

moved from pub:

I just noticed something strange about the images on some pages. Sometimes they straddle the right margin, obscuring the advertisements in the margin. Can anyone shed some light on that subject? (WT-en) Jonathan 784 23:44, 7 February 2009 (EST)

...like on Wikipedia? --(WT-en) Una Smith 12:10, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

No, wikivoyage is unaffiliated with the Wikimedia foundation, but since all the images have been re-licensed under Creative Commons you can upload them here if you want. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 12:27, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

That's a drag, especially since Wikivoyage Share seems at present unable to recognize my user name. I did finally find on Wikivoyage where it says I cannot use Commons images directly. But it appears Wikipedia does not use them directly either. --(WT-en) Una Smith 17:24, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

Every WT subsite uses its own separate user database, so if you haven't specifically registered an account on Shared in addition to your account here on :en, that might be the problem. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 17:42, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, we're old fashioned, or just technically impaired, or whatever :) it runs on a separate server, so creating a new account or using OpenID is necessary. All is not lost though, just go the OpenID login page and type in; http://www.en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/User:Una_Smith, and you'll be logged in with your wikivoyage account. Go to the preferences, and ask it to remember your log-in, and you won't have to think about it ever again. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 17:49, 24 September 2009 (EDT)

It is a long-established practice to always align images on the right side, for reasons including ease of skimming for listings, and because having a combination of right and left-aligned images breaks the text up in unpredictable ways depending on the browser and settings one uses. However, this practice has not been clearly enshrined in policy so far, except for an 3-year-old orphaned and forgotten page at Project:Images in articles which was never merged here. As stated on this current page, there is only an indirect hint that things should go on the right, since it expresses a clear preference for thumbs which automatically go on the right. However, the issue continues to spark contention from a few users, including recent discussions at Bali, Kingston-upon-Hull, and Epcot. I think it's time to tighten up our policy, so we don't continue to waste time discussing this here and there. I come down firmly on the side of convention here, as I have seen too many instances where left-aligned images cause format and skimmability problems, like the example at right. (WT-en) Texugo 22:39, 8 March 2010 (EST)

I agree—our established practice makes sense for the reasons Texugo makes. Left-aligned images make it harder to skim articles by running down the left side of the page for headers and names. They also break up text in unpredictable ways given the different display resolutions and screen sizes used by different Wikivoyageers. One could argue that the same goes for right-aligned images, but the point is that throwing left-aligned images into the mix just makes the formatting issues all the more unpredictable and messy. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 00:19, 9 March 2010 (EST)

I am fairly ambivalent on this one. The ease of skimming argument carrries no ice with me, but I can see why right and left aligning might cause more browser display problems than just right aligning everything. So if I had to side 51% one way it would be in favour of right aligned only.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:33, 9 March 2010 (EST)

As I said on Talk:Walt Disney World/Epcot: "It's a basic principle of graphic design -- don't cluster all your non-text elements in the same place. With the photo on the right, it's shoved up against the infobox and the stave church photo. All-right text looks amateurish and boring; it's always a good idea to provide some variety in placement of elements." (WT-en) LtPowers 08:04, 9 March 2010 (EST)

Hi all, I have had comments and complaints by a number of users that they didnt know that they could click on an image to get a larger version. This is particularly relevant with maps, where there is usualy a dense amount of information, barely legible at the default display size. Has anyone else had this problem? I am considering adding a "Click to expand" note to the captions of my maps. I know that the little paired rectangle icon is supposed to suggest this but it is clear that a significant number of users don't recognise the hint, and it may be necessary to resort to less subtle methods. Cheers, • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 03:35, 12 January 2011 (EST)

I don't like cluttering the captions more; clicking to make an image bigger is a basic feature on many web sites and I'm having trouble with the idea that any more than a fraction of our readers struggle with the concept. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:28, 12 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with (WT-en) LtPowers. I'd hate to clutter things up with a text message repeated thousands of times across the site in every image. It should be common sense to at least try clicking on the image. (WT-en) Texugo 11:47, 12 January 2011 (EST)

I was only considering the note on map captions. Maps are frequently too small to be directly useful at thumbnail resolution, and are often very important information sources. Other illustrations on the other hand, are mostly decorative, so if the user doesnt know how to expand them, little utility is lost. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 03:46, 14 January 2011 (EST)

I agree that it is inherently undesirable to add the clutter of text messages, however there remains the problem that common sense is not that common, and that I have been told on several occasions that users have not realised that they can click on images for a larger version. Unless this is an idiosyncracy restricted to people visiting Cape Town, which seems unlikely, I would guess that there are a large number of users throughout the world, who are missing useful information because it is not obvious that it exists. The question then becomes, do we write these users off as not worthy of help, or do we look into some way of making the fact of the clickable image obvious to a wider range of people. Having some idea of the frequency of the problem would be useful, hence my query. I will go over to Wikipedia and make enquiries. Who knows, they may have some useful information. I wont make any changes at this stage. Cheers • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 03:46, 14 January 2011 (EST)

The easy solution would be a change from the corporate overlords, but that's unlikely, so it might possibly make sense to start using a template for map thumbnails, something that would lend itself nicely to mass updates. That would be a lot of work, so let's see what you find at Wikipedia before giving it any serious consideration. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:26, 14 January 2011 (EST)

I don't think everyone agrees with me on this, but I hold that maps should be readable without having to click through—if the thumbnail has to be big, let it be big. This isn't so much because people won't know to click through (although that is a valid reason too), but rather that it makes printing our guides so much more simple, especially for travelers in internet cafes, with limited software and clunky printing procedures at their disposal. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 11:43, 14 January 2011 (EST)

Agree with Peter, maps are absolutely crucial for the travel guide and I think should be readable from the get-go. Sure they can be clicked on to enlarge, but this should only make it easier, it shouldn't be mandatory to read it I think. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 20:24, 14 January 2011 (EST)

I think it would be nice, but realistically there is too much information on our maps to make them readable without clicking on them. The Chicago/Loop map is difficult to read from the page, but it was great to use to get around when printed out on its own. Can we have all of that information on the map and somehow make it easy to navigate without printing the map separately?

Most people who have issues with knowing to click the map are simply computer illiterate. It's a very basic thing for anyone used to the internet, and for those people that don't know, I don't think it is Wikivoyage's job to teach them how to use the internet. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 22:32, 14 January 2011 (EST)

Within our realm, we could possibly make the caption itself clickable for a larger image. The software/browser usually make it more obvious when text can be clicked.. --(WT-en) inas 22:37, 14 January 2011 (EST)

Regarding a few comments above about the "obviousness" of clicking on an image for a larger version, having sat through a number of usability sessions for various web sites in the past few years I can guarantee you that there is a very, very large percentage of the population (likely > 50%) that regular users of this site would consider "computer illiterate". Wikivoyage's usability is not the greatest, so if there are some easy ways to make things simpler and more obvious then I think we should consider them. Peter's suggestion of standardizing on larger thumbnails for maps sounds good to me, and if there is an easy way to update map thumbnail captions to improve usability then it is probably also worth considering. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 23:06, 14 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with ChubbyWimbus that there can be too much information on a map to be readable at any reasonable thumbnail size, and with Peter that maps are critical information sources. However I disagree that it is not Wikivoyage's job to teach people how to use Wikivoyage. Ryan's figures for proportion of "computer illiterate" indicate that this may be a bigger problem than even I expected, so I am in favour of something that will make the site significantly more user-freindly, even if it looks a little clunky. Inas' suggestion of making the caption a link to the full size map looks promising as relatively un-clunky, so I am going to experiment on my scratchpad. The disadvantage is that it takes a little effort, which becomes a lot of effort when spread over hundreds of maps. The advantage is you can send people directly to the highest resolution version. So far, have not found anything useful on Wikipedia. and there have been no responses to my question at the Village Pump (miscellaneous). • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 06:06, 15 January 2011 (EST)

This is the result of my experiments. It works, but does anyone know of a simpler syntax that will do the same? • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 07:37, 15 January 2011 (EST)

We should not be linking directly to the high-res version of images, as it obscures the attribution information that is on the image description page. (WT-en) LtPowers 10:15, 15 January 2011 (EST)

The original "click on image" link still gets you to the image description page. The "click on caption" link just takes you directly to the highest resolution available. No attribution information is lost, all that changes is that there is an easy, fairly obvious route to a bigger picture. This has to my mind two advantages to compensate for the extra work involved.

1. The "internet illiterates" or possibly more PC "internet procedurally challenged" have a better chance of discovering that there is a bigger picture, and
2. The rest of us clever buggers can get to the biggest picture one click sooner, and at the speed that WT has been downloading to me today, that is not an insignificant gain.

Are you concerned about the possibility of a person ignorant of the image description page, clicking on the caption link and copying the picture, then using it without attribution? • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 10:55, 15 January 2011 (EST)

To an extent, but we also implicitly guarantee content creators that their attribution (required under CC-BY) will be readily accessible from wherever we display the image. (On Wikipedia, they've interpreted that to mean one click. Here, it's two due to the unfortunate technical issue of not being able to show the image page from shared without an extra click.) That's not the case if we display the full-size image without first passing through the image description page. (WT-en) LtPowers 15:57, 15 January 2011 (EST)

OK, that is fair comment. It does not appear to be possible to get directly to the image description page from the high resolution image. I wonder why the full resolution image is not on the image description page. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 01:07, 16 January 2011 (EST)

I do like this idea of linking to the image through the caption - I'm not so crazy about increasing the size of the image on the page, mainly because if there are internet illiterates still out there, there are also dial-up users (dun-dun-DUUNNN!!!). (WT-en) PerryPlanet ^Talk 18:55, 15 January 2011 (EST)

Also fair comment. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 01:07, 16 January 2011 (EST)

Note that while estimates are that 10% of internet users are still on dial-up in the US (and the US lags behind many English-speaking countries), if there's a significant advantage to using larger thumbnails for the other 90% then it's important not lessen usability for that 90%. In the past 2-4 years it seems that most companies have begun optimizing for the broadband use-case with the assumption that most people who are still on dial-up are either not very active online or else have accepted a degraded online experience. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:16, 16 January 2011 (EST)

This may be so, but what do people use when travelling? WT should work for the person who is away from home and needs the information immediately. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:40, 16 January 2011 (EST)

When I've hit Wikivoyage from random internet cafes in little towns it hasn't bothered me that pages take a while to load, and the text was readable while images loaded. Perhaps others have had different experiences though. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:54, 16 January 2011 (EST)

With slow connections, it's actually slower if you have to click through (twice!) to get to the full sized image, which you then will usually need to download the image to the hard drive to print it from a dedicated image viewing program. And sometimes that type of functionality is restricted! When you are on the go in an obscure part of the world, I think the ability to quickly print out the map itself is often the most important thing of all. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:42, 16 January 2011 (EST)

That makes sense. Following that logic would use a full width map in the article, or at least a width that is enough to clearly read the printed map. That brings up the question of paper width. I would guess that most of the world prints on A4 as default. Letter and folio are pretty close, so a compromise is viable. Question then becomes, what is the best display width in pixels for the screen, because a) it must print full width, allowing for margins, and b) it must display preferably no more than the width available on the screen, and there doesn't seem to be anything even remotely approaching a standard screen width anymore. Are there any suggestions for an optimum maximum pixel width for the thumbnail? Or is there some other way this should be handled? Of course this also bypasses the attribution and licensing information, but presumably that is OK in this case.

Another approach, or an aspect of this problem, is to make a style policy for a minimum detail size on a map as a percntage of width, so that when printed on A4 with standard margin the detail is adequately legible, perhaps that printed text should never be less than 8 or 9 points. (with my eyes I struggle a bit at 8 points, but I think most people can read it OK). If the map can not be done at this resolution, it should be split (with slight overlaps) until it can all fit in and print legibly on A4. Obviously this style would only be obligatory for star articles. Any usable map is better than none. In some cases then an overall map showing the layout of the detail maps may be necessary. It all gets a bit complicated, but should be workable • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:04, 17 January 2011 (EST)

Second example using default size thumbnail is linked to image description page on shared at http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Image:Partridge_Point_reef_map.png. Code [[Image:Partridge_Point_reef_map.png|thumb|[[Shared:Image:Partridge_Point_reef_map.png|'''Map of the reef at the dive sites at Partridge Point''']]]]

This gives required attribution and licensing information directly, and another click will take you to the full resolution image: This is also less work as the file address is already available and does not have to be looked up. Would it be possible for one of us to write up a template that works like the ones below the edit window to automate the process, or is this something that IB would have to do?

I am going to run a few examples on some of the dive site articles and ask some friends to test the procedure • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:07, 16 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with LtPowers that license information should be presented along with the image. Linking directly to the image file circumvents the license information, which I think is not the way to go. I also think, if the problem should be solved, it should be done with a more technical solution than just adding a link, as this looks a bit clumsy. And would be a time consuming work to add this to all maps. By enlarging the maps, clicking wouldn't be necessary at all anymore, which would solve the problem without any special tricks. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 03:02, 16 January 2011 (EST)

Responses to Globe-trotter:

I will accept the objection to direct links to the high resolution image on grounds of bypassing the license information (it is also more labour intensive). The second example (above) avoids this problem.

Enlarging the maps would also be fairly labour intensive, though less so than modifying the captions to links.

What sort of thing do you have in mind as a "more technical solution", and in what way does converting the caption to a link look more clumsy than the caption before modification? The only change in appearance on my screen is the colour. (Unless you are advocating not using captions on maps). • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 04:58, 16 January 2011 (EST)

Turning captions into links should be able to be completely automated, and could be done with no manual labour at all. Enlarging images is so labour intensive as to be impractical, as far as I can see. There is no way you could automatically tell what is a map, or what is just a picture, and what will stuff up the layout. Speed issues for Internet access for me these days come from having to use 2G mobile data connections. You don't have to go too far off the beaten track to find one of those locations. --(WT-en) inas 18:23, 17 January 2011 (EST)

Would the automated caption to link conversion be able to distinguish between maps and other images? Or would it just convert everything? When I upload maps on shared I use the map template, does this not provide a way of distinguishing between maps and other images? I would be interested to know how the automation could be done, but suspect the answer would be beyond my understanding :-( Cheers, • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 01:43, 18 January 2011 (EST)

There are a few ways I could see to automate this. Most simply, you could scan each page for Image tags, read the image filename, and edit the caption to make it a wikilink to the filename. If there is some computer readable method of telling if something is a map or an image, then you could code that. However, if we are going to do this, we could consider replacing each Image tag with an image template. Some of the Wikipedia templates use pure html to format images, giving much greater flexibility. If we went down this path we would have to do some testing to ensure compatibility with our pages and browsers, but conceivably we could even have tooltips "click for a larger image". --(WT-en) inas 17:40, 18 January 2011 (EST)

Zing! +++Out of cheese error+++. Indistinguishable from magic. Sorry, this is beyond my technological event horizon. My brain has just collapsed into a singularity. The tooltips idea sounds useful. Cheers, • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 04:14, 19 January 2011 (EST)

I now get tooltips on the images. I take it that someone has done something. I like this as a solution and assume it now works all over Wikivoyage (but will make some checks anyway). Is there a way to put a different message on a tooltip? In some cases the image file name is not helpful. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 04:54, 28 January 2011 (EST)

On Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Visual_file_markup ) there is a description of how to use "Alternative text" option in the image markup. This does not appear to work here on Wikivoyage. (see third example: [[Image:Partridge_Point_reef_map.png|thumb|alt=Click on image to expand|[[Shared:Image:Partridge_Point_reef_map.png|'''Map of the reef at the dive sites at Partridge Point''']]]] ) • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 05:19, 28 January 2011 (EST)

Two thoughts:

1. when I recently tried first time to travel with printed-out guides having maps (it was Paris), I found it completely effortful to print a map for every district--and the only way to have them readable was to open map images in a separate tab and printing independently of the rest of the guide. This is definitely a problem making using our guides less convenient (and a bit reducing number of active readers I think).
2. AFAIK, there's an HTML tag which is active only when a piece surrounded by it is printed, and its counterpart when it is viewed from screen. We can implement a template for inserting maps which uses such a tag. I will try to find details if there's interest for it.

Sorry I didn't read the whole above discussion--please let me know if my points were addressed somewhere above, and I will. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:48, 18 January 2011 (EST)

Hi Denis, I dont think these points were addressed above: So far it has been about finding the high resolution map online, and what resolution should be default in the text. Issues of print quality are a related but different problem, so I am going to split this out into a subsection. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 04:14, 19 January 2011 (EST)

I've had a first go at updating the page/making it more understandable for new users. Feel free to shoot. I wonder if we need the information on commons vs local and all that. I would say it should go in the "how to upload"-links, mostly, to avoid confusion. I'm not sure how things are with local uploads. Do people find those images still when searching via Commons? Or else, how will they find them? JuliasTravels (talk) 11:21, 25 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

As a result of the migration to Wikimedia and the use of files on Commons some articles use the wrong images. That happens if the old file was not copied to Commons. I think many of you know that but just to be sure.

For example this edit. The text under the image says Gullfoss in July 2006 but the image shown was probably from December 2008. So you either have to copy the old image to Commons or change the text under the photo. A few days ago I removed a photo from an article about a place in China because the image showed food from Delhi (India).

It will be impossible to check all articles from A to Z to see if the images are correct. But if everyone could check if they notice an article where the photo does not look right. I also think that all articles listed on the main page should be checked. --MGA73 (talk) 14:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Now I again remember when WV just had moved to commons, when I spotted a photo of a bottle of Swedish lemonade in a Paris article instead of a famous park (both bear the name Trocadero)... Ypsilon (talk) 10:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

That was fixed in January! LtPowers (talk) 13:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

But that was only fixed by the bot if the file was moved to Commons with a new name. If the file was not moved for some reason (for example no source, no license or no permission) then the local usage has to be fixed or checked manually. --MGA73 (talk) 16:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Would it be possible to automatically generate a list of candidate images and articles that need to be reviewed? E.g. by having a script compare the images on Commons with those on WV-old? —Ruud 18:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hm... That would indeed be nice. You could perhaps catch some of the files by looking in the deletion log for deleted file pages. And perhaps Stefan could help with files from WTS. I'll ask him. --MGA73 (talk) 09:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I was not aware we had consensus to favor the default thumbnail widths. Can anyone point me to it? LtPowers (talk) 02:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

We don't. There is widespread support for a move towards that, but we ran into a roadblock because the default thumb is too small, and we had trouble getting the WMF to agree to add additional defaults, allowing us to change the, uh, default default to 270px. --Peter ^Talk 06:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Why is 250px too small? PrinceGloria (talk) 05:18, 14 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes it's big enough and sometimes it isn't. It really depends on the image and the context. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think it usually isn't. As to the why... too many images are hard to make out at that resolution ;) --Peter ^Talk 21:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)\Reply

I am shortsighted and working on a high-res small-diagonal Mac screen, and 250px works PERFECTLY for me. Of course, I would want to enlarge some of the images if I want the details, but then 270px makes no difference to me. I believe we should mostly use images that look well in small sizes as well and are informative just as they are decorative, then a small-sized thumb doesn't really make them unlegible. PrinceGloria (talk) 22:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think that's a rather unrealistic standard. I agree 270 isn't much different than 250, but only in that both are usually too small. 300 is much more realistic. LtPowers (talk) 23:04, 14 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

300px is preferable to 250px, but 250px is too often too small, I think. There's nothing I can point to about this, it's just my subjective judgement having looked at/added a lot of photos in thumbnails ranging from 180px-350px over many years. I think 270px is a sweet spot with regards to optimizing the visual content of an article with tastefully spaced illustrations. --Peter ^Talk 06:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

I want to add text at the end of the Wikivoyage:How to add an image#Including images in an article section saying approximately:

Nearly all images should use only the "thumb" tag to get a right-aligned image at the default thumbnail size. Other options are available and are described below but they should be used sparingly, only when a specific effect is really needed.

This might be somewhat controversial, so I am asking first. I have no doubt, however, that this is a correct policy. Pashley (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I believe the relevant discussion on that matter is at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Proposal to change default thumbnail size, but it is stalled because the tech request to change the default thumbnail size was denied. I believe that the current discussion concluded with some agreement that the default size is too small, and thus most times a different size ends up being specified. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:08, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I am aware of that discussion, and participated in it. I think the above text should be added whatever the outcome over there. Pashley (talk) 16:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please clarify. Is your suggestion that a pixel size should rarely be specified? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:09, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes. And the same for upright=, left, center, ... But "rarely" is not strong enough; "almost never" would be better. Pashley (talk) 21:17, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please don't conflate three separate (but liked) issues here, Ryan.

1. Yes the default thumbnail size is a tad on the small size - and the range of choice for user expressed preferences is too. And, yes, the technical request to change from 220px to 270px as the default thumbnail size (and increase the range available for logged on users to set as an alternative default) was refused but this does not affect
2. Setting a fixed size for a thumbnail effectively denies that user expressed preference. It effectively says "I'm a masterful editor, and I know the exact size that is appropriate for you the reader whether you've got a big desktop screen or a small netbook - I know that 263px will be exactly the right size for you whether you've got a cable broadband connection or whether you're paying through the nose for every kilobyte on a flakey connection in Chad, I knw best what will wrok foryo!"
3. Undoubtedly there will be times when some images should proportionately be larger than others - but the proper way to do that is by expressing them as ratios of the default size. Details here. The other advantage of Pashley's proposal is simplicity for new editors. --W. Frank^email_talk 22:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Without prejudice to the proposal for upright thumbnail dimensions, which sounds like a good one to me (and I'd like an explanation of what the drawback is), I am confused by the idea that thumbnails should almost never be larger than the default, and strongly disagree. It's extremely common to make the lead photo anywhere from 300-450px, and I've also found that it's quite often a very good idea to enlarge a thumbnail elsewhere in an article, too, so that viewers can see salient features in it. Neither is it extremely uncommon for me to decrease the size of a thumbnail to 175px or less because the default was making it larger than necessary and causing it to take up too much space. And finally, there's the issue of static map thumbnails, which typically (almost always?) need to be much bigger than the default setting (I made one 550px last night, and it is now barely visible in its details). Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:47, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Folks should take the time to carefully read and understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PIC#Pixel_counts_vs._upright_factors

If you want your lead image to show at a width of 300-450px for logged out readers, you'd simply express it in the range upright=1.36 to upright=2.05. LtPowers with his big screen and his thumbnail preferences set to 300px (rather than the current default of 220px) would see the image displayed as 410-620px and the poor bugger in Chad who'd dialled his preferences down to 110px would see images in the range 150-220px. Everybody happy!

Personally, I'd change the suggested text to something like "Images should usually use only the "thumb" tag to get a right-aligned image at the default thumbnail size unless there are good reasons to use different parameters. Other options are available and are described below but they should be used sparingly, only when a specific effect is really needed, such as enlarging a map to a more visible size or reducing the width of a portrait orientated image." --W. Frank^email_talk 22:58, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I still think that, regardless of whether we're using upright or pixel dimensions, we should not say that images should be enlarged sparingly. It's quite common for enlargement to be appropriate or even needed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:18, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree, Ikan Kekek.

Perhaps something like this then:

Please use thumbnails unless you have a good reason not to: "[[File:Name|thumb|alt=Alt|Caption]]" This way, the image will be right aligned, text will flow around it and the display size of the image can be enlarged if the reader clicks on the lower right corner of the thumbnail. The other details are optional, if you have a good reason to change the default, and can be placed in any order: Alt Specify the alt text for the image. This is intended for visually impaired readers. See WP:ALT for how this should typically differ from the caption. Caption Specify the image's caption. This is visible only if "frame" or "thumb" attribute is used, but may be displayed on mouseover in other cases. Size "Widthpx" or "xHeightpx" or "WidthxHeightpx" or "upright" or "upright=Factor". Scale the image to be no greater than the given width and/or height, keeping its aspect ratio. With "upright", scale a thumbnail from its default size by the given factor (default 0.75), rounding the result to the nearest multiple of 10 pixels. Size is disabled when the image is 'framed'. A factor of 1.3 is often about right for a landscape orientated lead image and 1.7 is often a good choice for maps. Location "right", "left", "center" or "none". Determine the horizontal placement of the image on the page. This defaults to "right" for thumbnails. Link Link the image to a different resource, or to nothing. Must not be set for non-public domain images unless attribution is provided in some other fashion. Type "thumb" (or "thumbnail"; either can be followed by "=filename"), "frame" (or "framed"), or "frameless". Display the image with specific formatting. frameless is a bit like "thumb", but means both the visible caption and the box around the image are left out. Another way to put it, is that this is like specifying no type at all, except that the default size is that of a thumbnail and the "upright" option also works (see Wikipedia article for details). Border "border". Put a small border around the image. Alignment "baseline", "middle", "sub", "super", "text-top", "text-bottom", "top", or "bottom". Vertically align the image with respect to adjacent text. This defaults to "middle". It does not matter whether the file is from Wikimedia Commons or hosted locally; the same syntax is used.

? --W. Frank^email_talk 23:25, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

As a travel guide we should generally have larger images than an encyclopedia IMO. The upright=factor of thumb is a good way to do it as this allows people to see the size of image they wish while still using a size greater than default. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:28, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree, Doc. Sometimes a great picture can be worth a lot of words - and the upright=factor method means that we can have pictures almost as large as we like without inconveniencing so greatly those roaming on poor connections orflouting their user preferences. --W. Frank^email_talk 23:54, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

This discussion seems to be duplicating most of what is already at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Proposal to change default thumbnail size, but to summarize where that discussion seemed to end up: there is consensus that the default thumbnail size was too small, and thus people wanted a larger default so that we could standardize on using just "thumb" as our default. While a preference is available to change the default size, the vast majority (probably 90-95%) of users are likely using the default (they either don't know of the preference or don't bother to change it), so defaulting to just "thumb" with our current tiny thumbnail size would thus present a sub-optimal experience for almost all of the site's users. As to relative image sizing, there may be support for that idea (it's good practice) but my understanding was that people wanted to first figure out the default thumbnail sizing thing so that we have an agreed-upon baseline before we start trying to apply relative sizing to all articles. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid I don't agree with the final part of your "summary", Ryan. If editors can learn how to use 300px or 50px or some other arbitrary and entirely dictatorial size, they can just as easily be educated to use the more flexible upright=1.3, etc, as more flexible replacements. Please would you answer the earlier query and outline the drawback(s) of the upright=factor method? --W. Frank^email_talk 23:46, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Frank, your proposal seems a bit complicated, and I'm not sure how Alt text works. I gather from the WP link that it has to be typed in separately from the caption, correct? Also, I'd rather omit mentioning borders for images - I don't think that's needed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Put the rare parameters in smaller or greyed out text or just use two boxes, one for the simple advice and another for the detail?

If you're blind, the alt text is ruddy important - the Doc knows that there are good reasons for showing editors how to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters by making our articles more accessible. Alt text is just what you would be saying to someone who doesn't see too well to describe an image (where necessary) if you were in the room with them. --W. Frank^email_talk 00:34, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please remember, that image size expressions are a "behind the scenes" doobry and we certainly don't have to go on a mad (and rather boring) spree eliminating fixed pixel sizes on sight, I've been doing the xl copy editing for several thousand edits now and I doubt I'll ever be 100% finished. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of small incremental improvements in our travel guides. --W. Frank^email_talk 00:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I completely agree that if we adopt upright dimensions, we should not place any emphasis on changing existing fixed pixel sizes. This is more about deciding on the best way to move forward. I hope to hear the "con" side of the argument, because while I am no expert, it seems like a logical idea to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:56, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

The "con" side of relative image sizing is that it is relative to the default thumbnail size. That means that insofar as there is still a chance of changing the default size we should do that first, otherwise if we start implementing relative sizing and then the default is changed we'll need to go back and update all relative-sized images since the "upright" parameter people used will have been based on the old default. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:21, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

That makes perfect sense. Can we gauge the chances of a change in the default size? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't think there's a chance, as we were the second/third wiki to make that request, and the previous ones were all refused. When I started adding images, I just copied previous examples, so that's at least a reason to mass change existing images (ie nice, but not required). Changing fixed pixel sizes is actually a piece of cake compared to external links, but that should be settled at script nominations. Can we set something like:

"[[File:Name|thumb|upright=1.1|alt=Alt|Caption]]", as above if we settle on a preferred upright factor of 1.1 (or 1.2 or 1.3). -- torty3 (talk) 02:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

What number of pixels do these upright factors most commonly correspond to? If there is no reasonable chance of a change in the default size of thumbnails, I hope we can agree to go ahead with upright values and simply discuss what the most reasonable default size is, as per Torty3's proposal. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hold on (this conversation moved very quickly!). The problem with relative image sizing is that everyone has a different default width. If we know that we need a map to be 500px wide to be readable, but I've set my default thumbnail width to 300px, then in order to make it show up at 500px for users using the system default, it will show up as an enormous 681px for me. LtPowers (talk) 16:02, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, "If we know that we need a map to be 500px wide to be readable", we should just set it for 500px. And if we want the lead image in an article to stand out, we might set upright=2 or some such.

My argument is that in most cases we should just use thumb; that gives what I find an acceptable size for most images. People can click on them when needed and regular users with unusual screens can set their preferences to suit. We may need better documention, such as adding something about preferences in the welcome template. Pashley (talk) 18:42, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I again disagree. People often won't know what they are not seeing if the default size is set too low or/and the specific thumbnail in question is too small. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:20, 6 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

What's holding up the adoption of upright dimensions at this point? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:54, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

A lack of consensus to do so, I assume. LtPowers (talk) 16:23, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

My understanding is that there is a consensus to implement upright dimensions AFTER we address default thumbnail sizing (per Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Proposal to change default thumbnail size). Right now we would have to add "upright=1.3" or something similar to all images to get them to be the desired size, and would have to change all images again if/when the default thumbnail size is changed. The right way to do this would be to get the default thumbnail size changed, and to then run a bot to update all images (most of which would then just need "thumb" without any size information), but so far WMF hasn't provided any clarification about changing default thumbnail size in Bugzilla: 47332. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

WMF won't change the defaults. Why is that paralyzing us here? I truly don't understand, and it just seems to me to be a weird and unproductive inertia. Are we willing to wait 5 years for the WMF to decide to take action? 10 years? The default size here can be changed by a bot that adds "upright=1.3" or whatever, can't it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

No, the default size will not be changed by WMF in the short run. It's not that they can't or don't want to change it for us: this is a small wiki. However, we are not the only wiki requesting such changes and politically, they can't allow only Wikivoyage to choose their custom sizes. But allowing all wikis to choose non-standard default sizes would have serious implications on server use and loading times for users: issues that probably require time and resources to fix. The whole thumbnails-issue is on their agenda, see [5], here and our request has been listed also here. Any changes we'll make manually (like running the bot you guys are talking about) will come with the same performance consequences and for that reason we shouldn't be surprised if WMF tech actually objects when they notice. However, small as Wikivoyage is for now (definitely in their eyes) they might not care too much, as long as large other wikis don't start doing the same. If we want to do this, I think we shouldn't make too much of a fuzz, get the bot running and see what happens. Worst that can happen is that another bot-run will have to change it all back. JuliasTravels (talk) 19:42, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

This may be an issue that we want to keep synchronized with the other language versions as well, especially when it comes to bots doing the work. I don't know if we want to decided as a whole or let each version handle it separately, but not every language version has the resources the quickly come up with their own bot should they wish to follow en: lead on the issue. Texugo (talk) 19:51, 23 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

It would be great to have agreement among all language versions of Wikivoyage. What's the most effective way to have a discussion among all the Wikivoyages? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, the meta lounge is probably the right place, but you'd want to leave a note in all the pubs of the various versions pointing to a new discussion there, as the page isn`t very active and people may not notice otherwise. Texugo (talk) 01:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Let's write the proposal in clear English first. Then, those of us who have non-English language facility can post announcements (I could try my hand at French and Italian; though I might make mistakes, when I was in practice, my facility was at a good conversational, reading, and writing level in both languages). What upright factor are we proposing to change the default to? 1.1 or 1.2, I'm guessing? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

The usual procedure is to just post a note in English on the respective pubs, asking someone to translate locally. But yeah, we still need to firm up on exactly what we are inviting comment on. Texugo (talk) 02:13, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

So what's a better default, 1.1 or 1.2? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:39, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

220 is the current default and 270 is what people agreed should be the default, so 270/220 is about 1.2. I don't want to get in the way of making this change so if there is a consensus to change then let's move forward, but I do have reservations about changing this without first getting a change to the default thumbnail size. The best case scenario is clearly that we increase the default thumbnail size to 270px and then just use "thumb" for all images, with "thumb|upright=xxx" used for exceptions, and I understand that that option is being held up because the WMF is hesitant to change image size defaults (although meta seems to be using 180px instead of 220px). Now that the discussion seems to be moving to JUST changing images to use relative image sizing, I'm not sure if the benefit for the very small minority of users who change their thumbnail preference outweighs the disadvantages of having more confusing syntax (upright=1.2 is less obvious than 300px), having to update every image on the site to consistently use relative sizing, and then having a situation where a future change to default sizes will require updating every image again. Again, if there is agreement to move forward I don't object, but I think the past consensus to use relative sizing was predicated on a change to the default thumbnail size being done first. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:09, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

There is no evidence that there will be a change in the default size of thumbnails by the WMF in the foreseeable future, correct? And in that case, since I think there's a consensus that the default thumbnail size is too small for Wikivoyage, it has to be changed locally. Do you have a better proposal for how to do that than by using upright dimensions? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:11, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Maybe I'm not understanding, but why do we need to change anything if images are already displaying in articles at the desired size? Currently most images on the site specify a width in pixels, and while that has the disadvantage of not being relative to an individual's preferences, it is easy to understand (270px vs upright=1.2), does not require that we change every single image tag on the site, and will not be affected if in the future WMF does agree to change the defaults (which from mw:Requests for comment/Standardized thumbnails sizes sounds like something that will happen eventually). We had originally discussed changing the default and then updating most images to remove the pixel parameter (thus allowing relative image sizing), but until the default changes that pixel information is already there for most images currently in use on the site so I don't think anything currently needs to change - the discussion is simply whether we should switch from absolute sizes to relative sizes. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

There are really two different issues: (1) The default size for thumbnails is too small for this site. (2) People do have different-sized screens. I actually don't see that "300px" is inherently easier for an editor to understand than "upright 1.3." And perhaps the upright dimensions could be made even easier, potentially, by setting up some kind of template for thumbnail placement and having people simply type in a number if they don't like the default (which should be set larger, but that's issue #1). Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:07, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Changing every thumbnail on the site to use upright=1.2 doesn't solve the "default thumbnails are too small" issue. It may appear to solve the problem for people who haven't set a default, but for people who have changed their default it will basically cause their preference to be inflated by a factor of 1.2. And a bot would have no easy way to distinguish between a photograph and a graphic, the latter of which should not be subject to relative thumbnail dimensions. LtPowers (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

What do you have in mind when you mention a graphic? The site logo? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I figured he meant things like route icons, tiny flags for embassy listings, and other icons we use in various ways, for which we do not want to switch to relative sizing. Texugo (talk) 19:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Maps. Anything with text. LtPowers (talk) 00:14, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

We own a huge number of photos and videos for the whole coastline of Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Sardinia, Sicily and Corsica. We want to use a large amount of our content in order (1) to enhance existing articles about the above mentioned places and (2) to create new articles for places. Furthermore, our contribution with visual content for the existing articles could enhance the available info since our photos and videos show a completely different view of the destination. I wonder which is the best and the proper way of doing it. Can I add a link to our website @ related articles or Can I upload relevant photos or videos under the proper license? --—The preceding comment was added by VasDion (talk • contribs)

@VasDion: Thanks so much for reaching out. When it comes to the guides published here, we don't include external links in a links section: a few links occur in the sidebar and link to specific venues or events are included throughout the text. If you want to upload your images, that can be done at our sister site Commons. If that seems confusing, please let me know and I'll help you upload, categorize, and share them. Part of the licensing at Commons can include attribution and there you can provide links to your site. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:03, 14 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

As Koavf said, upload your pictures to Commons, using either the Upload Wizard (easy) or the Vicuna desktop tool (fast). If you have many pictures that are very similar (with a slightly different angle for instance), just upload the best ones, and in parallel also upload all indistinctly to Flickr using the license "Creative Commons BY". Thanks a lot! :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Wherever you go, please take pictures and send them to Wikimedia Commons :-) Even if you don't have a professional camera, smartphones are pretty good these days at taking pictures.

I and Lyrk just released an app to easily to upload smartphone pictures to Commons. Install it on Android or on iOS.

The app was actually started by WMF then abandoned. We target travellers in particular. All open source. Syced (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Great! Installed :)

It is gratifying to see an abandoned open source project resurrected. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I just read in the news that the Wiki Loves Earth winners have been announced: http://www.dawn.com/news/1213462/

Many great pictures that might be appropriate to illustrate the relevant Wikivoyage articles :-) Syced (talk) 12:57, 18 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I know this would be a more appropriate question towards Wikimedia Commons community, but I guess many of us are to certain degree involved in both projects. Is there a way to search for images in Commons by their location? Either by coordinates, or ideally in a map interface? Some of the images are geotagged, so technically, this should be possible. Danapit (talk) 21:00, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Images which have lat/longs can be shown on a map in commons. As an example look at: commons:File:Dumbarton Municipal Buildings.JPG. In the Summary box go to the camera location line, and click on the link in "View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap". This will open an OpenStreetMap page with the selected image shown as a cross on a red square and other images with a mile or so shown by the commons symbol (hover over these to see a thumbnail). If you zoom in, you can see other pictures of the same building. AlasdairW (talk) 23:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Just FYI, Flickr has a map search function. (Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to filter for CC images) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Oh, great! Thanks a lot. Just now I found another tool, but I like the OpenStreetMap very much. Danapit (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Are you looking for a web application or an API? See http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/2628/map-of-wikimedia-commons-pictures and http://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/6240/api-to-get-wikimedia-commons-images-that-are-near-a-particular-latitude-longitude Syced (talk) 05:04, 21 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

The problem with WikiMiniAtlas (WMA) is that it is very difficult to find the place you want, because there is no search, no way to enter a latitude/longitude, and city names are not displayed. —The preceding comment was added by Syced (talk • contribs)

I am looking for a web application, which would help me searching for available source images for page banners or images illustrating WV artciles. This particularly useful when I need one for a region, rather than a city. I usually do this on a PC with high speed internet connection, so the data volume is not a problem. I find that what AlasdairW suggested is a neat solution for what I need. There are not tons of geocoded pictures, but then I can continue searching in commons geographical categories where those found pictures are.

I also tried the geocommons.kml file from GeoCommons and opened it with Google Earth. It is equally useful. Do you know how frequently are these files updated? Danapit (talk) 11:11, 21 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

I the past I have used FIST, select article or category at the top and note at the bottom to list all articles or that without images. Just attempted to use it and it appears to hang. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

FIST seems to work now again. Maybe just some hic·cup before. I must admit I have to experiment with this one a bit to make it work for me... Danapit (talk) 20:40, 21 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi, everyone. I don't know how many of you follow the Picture of the Day or the latest additions to Valued images on Commons, but I want to mention some countries that have more or less outstanding coverage of great (Featured, Quality and Valued) photographs, in many cases of places that lack any article:

First, there's Estonia. Today's Pic of the day is once again of an Estonian nature reserve. Estonia seems to have the largest volume of extraordinary Featured pictures of any country, or at least a very outsized number for a country of its small size and population. If any of you are stimulated to write more articles about Estonia's parks and nature reserves, or at least to add listings of them in the most relevant articles, there is an amazing wealth of images for you to choose from for illustrations.

Second, there's been a great project, primarily by Commons user, Jacek Halicki, to document seemingly every point of interest in every city, village and rural area of Poland. Most of the places he's documented have either no Wikivoyage article or an insufficiently detailed one. In particular, Klodzko seems to be a great place to visit, but at least we have an article for that city, whereas many of the spa towns in Silesia (ending with the word Zdroj), for example, have no article at all.

Third, there's loads of coverage of France on Commons, including quite a few small towns that might not merit a Wikivoyage article. Be that as it may, any town or area you want to write about is almost guaranteed to have some excellent coverage.

Fourth, Germany is covered pretty extensively on this guide, but there's no article for Dülmen, which seems to be full of beauty, including 16 - count 'em, 16! - Featured pictures.

Austria also has excellent coverage on Commons.

I don't see how we'll be able to use the attempts to comprehensively document cities like Toulouse and Venice, as there will never be room or call for so many images in our articles, but I haven't been able to resist adding a few of the very best images. The Toulouse article probably couldn't stand to have any more images, but the Venice article, while by no means requiring any more images, might be able to take more, if more listings are added, and I do think there are more churches and palazzi that could have listings added if anyone wants to do that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Link: c:Commons:Picture of the day Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:44, 30 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Few people know that each listing can have its own picture. That easily quadruples the number of images needed on Wikivoyage. Each museum, each monument, should have its picture in a "image=" tag. Images are then used dynamic maps and other data mashups. Syced (talk) 09:35, 4 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. While the only use I can see right now for the "image=" tag is within dynamic maps, it opens up all sorts of opportunities for future development and features, such as within a changed listing format, mobile apps, Wikidata, etc. James A ▪ talk 11:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Should we have guidance about how many images we should have in an article? I've been using a rule of thumb that images, infoboxes, maps, etc. should be spaced out in such a way that there's one (occasionally two) of them per printed page. Would it make sense to have a guideline like that on this page?

Also, there's a natural inclination to place images close to the text that refers to them. While this makes sense, there is the problem that the "See" section will get cluttered with images. Should we call out the point that it's ok to have images spread out through the article? — Ravikiran (talk) 17:18, 13 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

I think there are two fundamental guidelines: (1) The photos shouldn't go lower than the end of the text (including any route chart in the "Go next" section); (2) Galleries (worse, montages) or left or center justification shouldn't be used for the purpose of including as many photos as possible. Otherwise, it's purely a judgment call, and I don't see how it could be more concrete than this, nor do I think it should be. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Actually, IMHO photos should be more spread around the article. All too often there are a lot of photos at the top of the article and then the latter 3/4 of the article looks as colorful as a train schedule. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:43, 13 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

I agree completely. We don't want lots of white space and a bunch of images bunched together in the "See" section alone. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:54, 13 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

We have been having a discussion about the structure of region articles at Wikivoyage talk:Region article template, but a much bigger issue than the template we use is the lack of content in many region articles and the lack of sufficient images in even more. Since content is a more glaringly obvious problem when we see lots of white space, I'll focus on images in this thread. Tonight, I added images to the guides to Pennsylvania and Poconos and Endless Mountains‎‎, and added more images to the ones I previously added in the New Jersey guide. I've also recently added images to some very photogenic regions I like, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, French Riviera and Tuscany.

Don't these articles look way more inviting with images? Most companies that print guidebooks understand that the photos on their pages are big selling points. Do you particularly like any state, province or region? Use the link to Commons in the article (if there's no link, search Commons under its name and then add a link to the Commons category for the area at the end of the article). Look first for Featured pictures, then Quality images, then Valued images. See which ones are really in the region (you may get lots of irrelevant results). If the selection is not sufficiently relevant or wide, search on the names of cities or other points of interest you'd like to use photos for, and look at the photos to see which ones you like. It can take quite a while to look through a sufficient number of images, but if you know a region well, you will have an idea of what you want to look at (for example, for Tuscany, after I looked through the search results for the whole region, I searched under Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, Arezzo, San Gimignano and several other places), and it can be an enjoyable way to kill time if you have the time to spare.

So adopt a region today and make its article more inviting! Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:40, 28 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for bringing this up, Ikan. It's really awful when you in the worst case can scroll down more than times (Pgdown I think Windows user call it) and don't see a single picture. Makes me wonder if these are travel guides or instructions how to file for tax returns. Illustration of articles is something I've occasionally done for quite a while, sometime even thinking of a systematic Ypspedition to illustrate all ~200 country articles (nevertheless I figured it would take too long). I don't browse Commons for distinguished photos but just photos that illustrate the topic well and I personally like. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

I always look through Featured, Quality and Valued image results first, but if there aren't enough of those that are relevant and beautiful, I look through the larger selection of photos. Some photos that have no special classification in Commons are great! Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:14, 28 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi,

I'm working on a project to improve the categorization of pictures in the Upload to Commons Android app with Nicolas_Raoul and Niedzielski as part of the Outreachy Dec '15 program. I'm very much just starting out, so I'd love any feedback or suggestions that anyone might have.

We are planning on two major phases/releases for app updates, with Phase 1 enabling category suggestions based on the picture's location, and Phase 2 enabling more flexible category search results. It would be a huge help if we had some volunteers to test these releases (planned for Jan and Feb respectively), so it would be great if anyone could download the app and try it out. The source code and issues are stored on GitHub

Many thanks! :)

Misaochaaan (talk) 04:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Many of us travellers take pictures in remote locations, so I think this app is highly relevant to us :-) Syced (talk) 05:09, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

I believe we should discourage from fixed image sizes unless absolutely necessary. WV is viewed on a wide range of devices in different browser windows under different settings. This is why we have user settings where users can adjust their defaults, plus they can use the browser settings to further alter that. I find that 250px is too large even for large-res screens that I usually view/edit WV on, and on smaller res (esp. tablets) it comes up as humongous.

Besides, having different-width images in an article looks awful and does not help the browser to display smooth automatic layout to enable convenient reading and easy navigation. If an image needs zooming for detail, a user can click on it (and be encouraged to do it by a caption).

Finally, left alignment should be avoided IMHO, unless all non-centre images are aligned left (not logical in English, maybe in Arabic or Hebrew). Alternating between left and right alignment is a great recipe for layout disasters when viewed on smaller screens, and never looks good even on large ones. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Yes, nearly all images should be tagged only "thumb" which gives right alignment & a default size where the default can be adjusted via a user setting. Fixed widths, widths given as a multiplier times the default, left alignment & centering should all be avoided except in very specific circumstances. Pashley (talk) 22:20, 29 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Is it really so unusual for it to be desirable to make the lede picture larger than standard thumbnail size? And please, be aware that some thumbnails are tiny whereas others are humongous. That may be unusual, but it does occur. Zooming by clicking on a picture isn't possible with a printout, by the way. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:49, 29 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

There was some momentum to change how images are sized to use relative sizing at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Sizing of images, although frustration with some of the users in that discussion have since made it a sore subject. If someone wants to reopen that discussion and try to get some momentum from Wikimedia to allow larger default thumbnails here, thus making relative image sizing more straightforward to implement, I would be fully in favor, although after the last experience it's not an effort I'm interested in leading. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:16, 30 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Any attempt to standardize this runs into the basic problem that some images -- particularly but not exclusively maps -- are simply useless at standard thumbnail widths. Powers ^(talk) 01:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

1. I find it undesirable for the lead picture to be of larger size now that we have the banner. Too much clutter and competition between the two and poor layout.
2. Most images certainly gain with increasing their size, but that is why we're interactive and you can simply CLICK to get the full scoop. Even 450px is often compromised, and yet on a tablet screen it eats up most of the width. I would say that unless it's a static map or something equally useful, we should stick to default thumbnail size
3. On default thumbnail size - I believe I get 220px now, and it's absolutely fine on the very high-res screens I usually use for editing, and borderline too large for layout (although this is the minimum res at which they are legible) on small screens. 250px is too large for me, and anything larger absolutely too large. I have no problem whatsoever with thumbs.
4. Again, different image sizes do look awful in article, especially if viewed on a smaller screen.

PrinceGloria (talk) 05:47, 30 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

"Click to enlarge" is not a solution at all. At best it's a workaround, one that doesn't work at all in print. As for different image sizes, take a look a print travel guide sometime and tell me if all the images are the same size. Powers ^(talk) 21:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

The print guides that do layout right (and not many do), stick to regular image sizes and do not spazz out between different sizes every other paragraph. We do not use the same fixed layout features they do to handle different image sizes, because we have little control over the final layout due to our inherent flexibility in displaying on almost any screen size.

Same for print - the image size is the least of my concern in our currently crude print capabilities. And Dorling Kindersley, my favourite guidebook publisher, known for lavish imagery, has the base image size even slighlty smaller than how our 225px comes out in print (yes, I do print out our guides regularly). PrinceGloria (talk) 08:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

PS. Link in point - [6]. It's either single-column width or double-column width. We don't have columns. And the single-column width is less than 200px I believe.

Talking about pixels in print is misleading, because it really depends on the dpi. Those DK guides are printed at very high dpi, allowing greater detail on smaller images. There's no way there's only 200px in those images. When printing a Wikivoyage guide, the printout is limited (even if the printer does 1200 dpi) by the thumbnail; it can't go to Commons and access the original in order to print a high-res version. It'll print the 220px thumbnail regardless of the size of the image on the physical page. Powers ^(talk) 22:36, 4 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

We have been successful in stopping video/audio spam being uploaded to WV as per Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#File_Spam. The upload page was altered and it stopped that issue completely.

Now it seems there is picture file spam, which is harder to deal with. Given that there are relatively few use cases where a new contributor needs to upload an image file to WV (as opposed to uploading a CC compliant image to Commons), can we add further restrictions as to who can do this? Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:45, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

This is a tough one. If we're going to restrict people from uploading files, our choices (and please correct me if I'm wrong about the following) are either to allow only autoconfirmed users or to allow only admins. The former is too permissive, I think - all the pirates would need to do to circumvent the restrictions is wait a few days after establishing an account before uploading - and the latter is of course too heavy-handed. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

@AndreCarrotflower: Actually, that few day cool-off period will probably remove a solid 80%+. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:16, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree that restricting to Admins would be too much. Observing the patterns of video spam, it does seem the spammers hoard up accounts for use later. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:48, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I would support restricting this to autoconfirmed users, with regret. Restricting it to admins is IMO ludicrous because there are a whole bunch of trusted users who'd be excluded. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:45, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

But how effective would that really be? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:38, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Some wikis do have their own user groups for this, although of course there's the extra overhead of requesting/adding the group. --Rschen7754 02:53, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

is it possible to make specific photos non-clickable? if so, what is the wiki code syntax necessary to do that? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 15:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

For what reason would you like this to happen? I mean, if I see a nice photo in thumbnail size, I would like to click it for getting a large size version. If that image woulde not be clickable, it would be quite difficult for an average user to view the large version. --FredTC (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Voilà: [[File:Lightmatter_chimp.jpg| link= |200px|right|Chimp, but no wimp]]

Instead of (including CC link):

And yes, there are cases where you would need that, namely for templates and such. Cheers, Ceever (talk) 16:40, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the help Ceever :) In this instance, this change was necessary so that all the links to all the full screen dynamic maps in the Hebrew Wikivoyage WOULD be clickable... while this image , right next to that link, WON'T be clickable (see example). ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 17:16, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'll also add that I decided this Full Screen icon + larger link text were a necessary change for us at the Hebrew Wikivoyage (even though we don't do that here on the English Wikivoyage) mainly because a large portion of the readers nowadays are mobile users, and the important link to the full screen feature (which is probably of more use to mobile users that are trying to retrieve this data on the go) is not very visible on the common sized smartphone. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

One problem with removing the link is that that link is what provides automatic attribution and licence information. If you disable it you have to provide those in some other way, or use images with a licence that does not require them. --LPfi (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's not just one problem, it's a major problem and risks putting us in violation of copyright. The chimp picture above, in fact, is already problematic as it is CC-by and requires attribution. We cannot have unclickable images unless they don't require attribution. Powers ^(talk) 01:54, 21 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

They also cannot be copyleft with CC-SA or similar, as you need a link to the licence. PD and CC-zero can be used without link. --LPfi (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Btw, I reckon it would be more intuitive to also have the same link for the icon as for the text. Some people will probably desperately try to click that icon. And btw, just create your own icon, shouldn't be that hard. Ceever (talk) 09:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Do we have guidelines for banners images? What is the right size for them? - Ravikiran (talk) 05:06, 1 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes, see Wikivoyage:Banner Expedition#Standards. They should have a 7:1 width to height ratio and be at least 1800 pixels wide (ideally at least 2100). —Granger (talk · contribs) 06:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! — Ravikiran (talk) 08:39, 1 November 2020 (UTC)Reply