Commons talk:Picture of the day/Archive 1

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Translation Templates

Hi, I inserted some working links in the German translations of the picture titles. But it would be great to insert somewhere, preferably in the templates, a notice how to make the links work (e.g. for German links with [[w:de:Seitenname|Seitenname]]). --wpopp 11:04, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Picture per day

It's about time we switched to a YEAR-MONTH-DAY system for picture of the day. See Commons:Picture of the day/new for a working example. ed g2s • talk 02:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Looks good! Let's switch to that format-- but having the captions in other languages accessible is a plus, can we have the new format with that capability back? Cheers, -- Infrogmation 02:18, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Great, but yes, let's have back the multilingual captions. --wpopp 10:28, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The multilingual captions are a real pain to implement, in that if someone want to come along and add a new language they'd have to add it to every day of every month (which is a very very slow process). As it is at the moment, each month can be displayed by using {{Template:Potd/2004-11|width=300|lang=en}}, and each month can be duplicated using a simple copy-paste-replace. The ideal system would be to have a template for each day of the month that had a list of all the languages next to it, but the current version of mediawiki only supports 5 instances of one template per page. This bug has been fixed, but won't be implemented until version 1.4, (the way I did it for the current Day X system was to create such a template on the test wikipedia, and do subst's). Perhaps a compromise in the meantime would be to have a set of 5 or 6 langauges, so each language can choose relevant languages to go with it e.g. {{Template:Potd/2004-11|width=300|lang1=en|lang2=de|lang3=fr|lang4=....}} ed g2s • talk 13:21, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
See Commons talk:Picture of the day/new for a detailed breakdown. ed g2s • talk 14:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Interlanguage glitch?

Hm. I've just tried editing some of the image descriptions in other languages, but the links seem to all take me to the en: caption. -- Infrogmation 20:06, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

German links?

Hi, I just wanted to link the German 'Tiger' to the appropriate page. Then I realized that the link is already there, but not represented in the caption. What's wrong? --wpopp 08:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image change 3 December

For those who wonder, the flaming cocktail image was apparently a copyright problem and was removed. I put the telephone image as a quick replacement. -- Infrogmation 17:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK - but, on my screen, it is Deutschen Bank again - ? -vh. Nico-dk 17:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I havn't been able to figure out why it's doing that-- perhaps because the template for day 3 was briefly empty? Any help? -- Infrogmation 18:18, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The proper picture of the day seems to display in some other languages I've checked (eg es), but not in others (en, de). Hm. -- Infrogmation 19:38, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Okay... when the copyright problem was discovered, someone manually overwrote the potd template with the Deutches Bank photo. Should be okay now. -- Infrogmation 03:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

2004-12-26

I removed the christmas tree as tehre has been no support at all to nominate it, with 1 votes for and 5 against currently. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 16:02, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I see you removed it without putting anything else there. The captions still say Christmas tree. If nothing else is put there in the next day or so, I will put the tree image back, as being better than nothing. Certainly, it does not seem to be featured picture material, but we don't have enough of those to fill the picture of the days yet. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 20:50, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Or does anyone have suggestions for a better image to use for 26 December? -- Infrogmation 20:55, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
OK, since nothing else has been put there, I'm putting the tree back. -- Infrogmation 06:19, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I removed it again Infrogmation :) I've found a better one on sxc.hu, I find the whole thing better this way ... villy 09:42, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That looks good. Much better. -- Infrogmation 20:30, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me there's going to be more Pictures of the day than Featured pictures, so it might be better to choose the featured pictures from the pictures of the day pile instead of the other way around. Mtcv 09:14, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The featured pictures vote is a charade if people can just put pictures here anyway which drastically fail to gather any support at all. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:36, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

When we'll have at least 365 Featured Pictures, we could then reorganize The PoD system. If you stop voting at FP candidates or proposing new images, we'll never hit the 365 pictures line. villy 12:39, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Potd text on image page

I'd like to add a text "This image was picture of the day on 2004-xx-xx." on the pages of images that were potd. This way, we won't pick an image that already has been potd once a second time. What shall I do? Plain text, template, maybe template + category? Mtcv 09:14, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Like this: Image:Lysichiton americanus0.jpg Mtcv 09:20, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

problem ...

i really can`t understand how to include the POTD in WikiBooks Romania ... ? ( ro.WikiBooks.org )

i mean, that line of code must i put, and what modifications are necesarry, so that it should work ? ro:Utilizator:D.evil 12:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Although commons allows sharing of images, it doesn't allow sharing of templates. The short answer is: you can't. ed g2s • talk 16:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh my god...

I am living in the wrong month - just changed 03.05.2005... restoring it now. --Avatar 17:49, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

wikipedia

Can the Picture of the day be shown in wikipeia?--Happy ga 20:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Languages

How about the day before a picture becomes the POTD, any red-link languages should default to English (or another language), It would surely be better than having a red link on the main page for them -- Joolz 4 July 2005 12:56 (UTC)

Selection process

Greetings there, could someone please tell me how the pictures of the day are chosen? Is there a commitee or how does this work? regards... Gryffindor 12:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, this page doesn't say. How are POTDs chosen? pfctdayelise 00:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at Commons:Featured_picture_candidates, /PER9000 12:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
There it says: "These are the candidates for becoming featured pictures. Please note that this is not the same thing as the picture of the day." ! So, how are the POTD selected? --ALE! ¿…? 08:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Html?

Would it be possible to add the Potd template to html pages (blogs, etc.)? It would make an awesome wiki-ad. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Same opinion! RSS/ATOM would be great, too. --D135-1r43 16:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

GIF Not Working

The animated GIF of the protein state transition on the front page as picture of the day is not working properly when it is shrunk with the MediaWiki auto-image shrinking software. The second frame of the animation is coming up as corrupt for me. David Newton 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

ImageMagick doesn't know how to scale animated GIFs. Since that's what MediaWiki uses to scale images, we can't scale animated GIFs. Someone should have dealt with that problem yesterday; it's a moot point now. User:dbenbenn 01:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
works for me NP. --Paddy 01:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Good Candidate for RSS Feed

I stumbled upon this page, as it always happens, kinda by accident. But when you do find a page such as this one, it's exactly the type of page example which you'd really like to be able to keep track of individually. Of course, I can always add it to my watch list, but since it is possible to generate a RSS feed for some pages (link in the toolbox), I'd be really interested in such a feature for this one. I'm searching in the various forums on how to go about doing this, but so far no luck. If anyone has any idea, leave me a message or better yet, email-me. Stéphane Thibault 01:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC) Bla

Well, I found an external link, which I guess is an OK temporary workaround : http://jeays.net/wikipedia/picture.xml
Stéphane Thibault 05:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
That's the POTD of en.wikipedia.org. I think the Commomms' POTD should have an official feed as this would spread the idea of free content much better than a simple box on the Commons' frontpage. --D135-1r43 09:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This code that generates an RSS feed for the enwiki POTD, should not be difficult to adopt: en:User:Skagedal/Fafafa --Tgr 19:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Bug me at mailto:somewiktadmin@gmail.com. I've created a "Word of the day" RSS feed for en.wiktionary on toolserver, and would like to make it a bit more generic. My proof-of-concept WOTD feed for Wiktionary is at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss.php so it should be quite trivial to extend that to commons' POTD. --Connel MacKenzie 05:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Links to images further down page don't work

Does anyone else find that these links don't work? ie you click on "25", you should "jump" down the page to the POTD for the 25th of the current month. But I don't jump at all. :``( I had a look at the source, but it looks a bit oogly for me to just wander in and change. I'm using Fx 1.0.7. Anyone else? pfctdayelise 12:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I just figured out that these links work when you view a month by itself, but when you're viewing the current month transcluded into this page, they don't work. How annoying and strange. pfctdayelise 15:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
The problem was caused by the ==This month== section at the top. I've removed it, which makes the links work. User:dbenbenn 20:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Lucy the cat

Can you consider Lucy the cat for picture of the day?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lucy_the_cat —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Josh Dunkelman (talk • contribs) at 05:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You may submit your request at Commons:Featured_picture_candidates Cary "Bastique" Bass parler voir 09:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

POTD duplication

Image:View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, uncompressed UMN source.png is set to be picture of the day again, on April 9. It was POTD on July 31, 2005. Please, someone, change it to a new picture! User:dbenbenn 17:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

An image

Monogram

How nominate

How can i nominate a picture of the day? I looked all over, but not found an answer. --GeorgHH 13:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Just go and find the next blank POTD and add it. No nomination process. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Simply click the change picture link on a blank space. However, please use Featured Pictures that have yet to be POTD first. And tag any picture you use as POTD. Snowwayout 04:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

February 14, 2007 St Valentine

Pyrrhososma nymphula

I would like to propose an image for St Valentine. 1 - I do not know how to make also far in time. 2 - For a date probably extremely requested, how to have the consensus? Here the picture: --Luc Viatour 13:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. See Template:Potd/2007-02-14 and Template:Potd/2007-02-14 (en). If someone wants another picture at that date, we'll discuss that later. --Boivie 22:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thank you --Luc Viatour 22:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Procedure for selecting picture of the day

It seems to me that the procedure we have here is rather flawed, or at least is possibly being misued. Featured pictures are chosen by consensus, and are typically of high quality; but the picture of the day can, it seems, be chosen by anyone with no quality-check at all. The instructions say that the picture of the day "should be chosen" from the featured pictures. But several recent pictures of the day, including today's (Image:Kinshasa Matadi.jpg), do not bear the featured picture tag and have so far as I can see never gone through any quality-assurance procedure. Perhaps I've missed it?

Can we at the very least instigate a formal requirement that all pictures of the day must be featured images? --MichaelMaggs 10:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I 100% agree. There is this guy who doesn't stop flooding the POTD with Brazil-related pics. Despite a first message, he continued so I decided to replace most of these pictures (with non-featured but "acceptable" various pictures). A vote is definitely needed to ensure quality because the POTD is used in several Wikipedias (:fr for example). Dake 13:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
If it is not a FP, it should at least be a Quality Image. --Digon3 21:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
There are not enough FP or QI at the moment. If any of you want to volunteer to monitor POTD to stop people 'flooding' it with similar or bad quality images, just go ahead and so. But another procedure is not necessary... if you like POTD, be bold! Adopt it and look after it, help it improve! pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, then I'll be bold :) Dake 18:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Mooncake (6th October) English Translation

The English translation is clearly not English. I would change it but I'm not sure what language that is - I think it's Norwegian. Can anyone confirm, and if so, make the necessary changes? --Bwmodular 10:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Nomination process

There should be a process with the pictures subject to verification by the community. October 11's picture was self-nominated, not featured, and apparently a copyright violation, yet it passed through without anyone noticing. Paul C 09:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. See heading above Procedure for selecting picture of the day. This is potentially damaging to the reputation of the enire project as it's so visible.--MichaelMaggs 12:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. I think one of the reasons for this is the fact that some of the POTD pages in other languages have different "rules", not specifiyng that the picture should be a featured picture. This happened with the portuguese page and i already changed the text to correspond to the english version. I think all pages in other languages should be reviewd and have the same text. The other problem is the lack of verification of the selected pictures. Maybe there should be a designated group of users that can check that process everyday. Lusitana 10:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Another problem: the text is not clear enough on how someone can propose a POTD (we can see it already here in the discussion page...). A step-by-step description would help. Lusitana 11:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that if we must have a non-featured picture as POTD, it should at least be a quality image. If it is not it would be deleted. --Digon3 21:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


The process for nomination is disarmingly simple: 1. find the next blank day. 2. Insert your chosen image (and preferably at least one caption).
If anyone cares about the POTD, just "adopt" it and look over it. Revert stuff that does not represent the Commons well. I am loath to create yet another procedure. If you care, then be bold, and look after it. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

2007

I've added a page for 01/2007 and added the year 2007 to the English language page. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass demandez 02:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Template

I propose we make a template for people that submit non-featured images for POTD to put on their talk page. It might help decrease the amount of non-featured images for POTD. It should go something like this, tell me what you think and what I can do to make a template. Another idea is that we could add Quality Images for POTD's as well as FP's

  • Please do not submit non-featured images as Picture of the Day like you did with (Image name here). If you want to submit a image for Picture of the Day please choose a Featured Picture from the most recently featured which has not previously been Picture of the day. Thank-you. --Digon3 14:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
We don't pass enough FP for this to be viable. We should pass about 15 a fortnight, on average, before we even think about this. Please take some statistics and show me we do this first, because I'm pretty sure we don't. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
What's a fortnight? is that some funky Australian unit of measurement? Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass demandez 19:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
UK actually. Try wiktionary:fortnight 15 images in 14 days is actually cutting it rather close. I'd suggest not imposing the restriction till we have at least 10 a week... ++Lar: t/c 20:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
You don't even have fortnights?? geez... :)
Actually I looked at Commons:Featured pictures/chronological and we are doing very close to the right number of FPs, especially if we throw in some QIs as well, and if (as Digon says) there are past FPs that still haven't been featured. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the template. In my opinion, even if there are not enough featured pictures to use as picture of the day, i think its always better to use 1 or 2 that where already used, to accept others with no quality warranty. Lusitana 20:35, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The template could be collected to the central template repository Commons:Message templates. I would rather not reuse pics but that's just me. ++Lar: t/c 20:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

 Comment Another idea is that we could add Quality Images for POTD's as well as FP's so we don't run out as fast. --Digon3 01:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I really like the egalitarian "anyone can add anything whenever they want", virtually no requirements style of (current) POTD. So I think we should turn POTD pro, and then create an "alternative POTD" process (or maybe picture of the night? :)) which doesn't appear on the main page, doesn't accept FPs or QIs, but otherwise is exactly the same as the current POTD. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Poll: POTD only FPs and QIs

Moved to /Poll

--pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Image Size for FP and QI

I have started a discussion article on what should be the size requirements for images being promoted to COM:QI and COM:FP. The discussion is Commons talk:Discussion on Image size please participate, from this discusion a proposal for specific requirements can be developed. As the criteria affect the images use on this project please participate in the discussion Gnangarra 07:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Just so you know...

I have written a small tool that makes the POTD available in sizes and formats convenient for use as a wallpaper, or on other websites: [1]. That page provides "stable" URLs for different versions of the image, as well as meta info in various formats. For example, you could use this with active-desktop / webdesktp: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/potd/potd.php/commons/1280x1024.html -- Duesentrieb(?!) 01:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's incredibly cool. I totally didn't know this existed until just now! pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of pages

Do we really need potd pages for each month and each language? that is a lot of pages. I think it is enough to have one page for the current month for each language (Commons:Picture of the day and translations) and automatic pages for the next two or three month for each language for translation purposes. /82.212.68.183 22:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It is still much less pages than actual translations; without them, translations can't come in easily (and using a personal sandbox is not a good solution as it creates errors, due to confusion of language codes). Look at the categories in which they are listed; really, this is not a lot of pages and they are properly ordered!
Note also that the current month only was not enough; we need to anticipate the future, so that images are described long before they are imported to each wiki; but images are imported about 15 days before the start of the month, so the current month is too late!).
This is manageable, and this is really not a lot of pages, and they are easily maintanable by a bot, as they only invoke templates whose only change is the language code, year and month number).
Anyway, these pages are not absolutely required (those that prefer using sandbox can continue to use them, provided they are correct). If one is missing, it uses a default language, but users will still need to implement a sandbox page to show these months, so in terms of edits on the server, it is basically the same (and even less, given that we avoid many sandbox edits from various users for the same language).
The process is then much faster and easier like this. Remember that good translators are most often not experts of the Wiki templates syntax (and to figure out how to properly add a missing translation, you really needed to be an expert to understand how the current set of templates really work together, and this created lots of opportunities to break things, so many translators afraid by this complexity did not perform the job!). The recent suppression of the link to add language support has dramatically decreased the number of available translations. Now translations are coming back again.
This was done because many languages could no longer be maintained since too long. Verdy p 02:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

POTD for April Fool's day

A picture hasn't yet been chosen for April 1st. Any good ideas? --MichaelMaggs 17:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone good at screensavers?

I'd love to have a 2006 POTD screensaver. Then a 2007, add-on, a 2008, ... --Connel MacKenzie 06:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Add Photo Credit

I see that there is no photo credit under the image when it's put for POTD. Please add the author and if there is an edtor, the editor's name under the image so we can know who created the image. Let's pay more respect to the creators. ;-)--Arad 23:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I like the current approach. All the credit that is needed is on the image description page. Please don't add credits until there is some consensus to do so whole-scale. Having random photos credited while others are not is silly. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Potd/2007-02-24 - SXC image

Image:Metro Athen Marousi.jpg is scheduled to be a POTD. It was nominated as a FP in 2005. Since then we have changed our understanding about whether or not SXC images are actually free (see Commons:Stock.xchng images). So I think we shouldn't make it a POTD, since it's quite likely it will get deleted in the future. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 04:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

March cock-up

Due to some bad logic on the Potd/Month page (for the backwards compatibility of YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY-MM-dD systems), the first 9 days of March have been set up using the old system (no leading zeroes on days) breaking all the POTD templates. I've moved all the images and the translations for the 1st and fixed the code on the month page, but the translations for the other eight days need to be moved to the leading zeroes standard (Template:Potd/2007-03-2 (en) -> Template:Potd/2007-03-02 (en) etc.). Do a couple if you have some spare time. ed g2s • talk 01:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing captation

I tried an tried to change the Italian captation of todays picture of the day (March 03), from "Grande Arche de la Fraternité nel distretto La Défense, Parigi, Francia. " to "Grande Arche de la Fraternité nel distretto de La Défense, Parigi, Francia." I am tired of triyng, if someone wants to change, that's more correct, otherwise forgot it --Sailko 09:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

PNG photos on the main page

Today's picture of the day is a PNG photo with a JPEG version. I created the JPEG version because PNG thumbnails are absurdly huge - on the main page today, over 200K. Could someone please pity the poor modem user and arrange for a thumbnail of the JPEG version, Image:Snow_crystals_2b.jpg, to appear on the main page, while still linking to the full quality PNG version? Thanks. Dcoetzee 02:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

RSS feed

I'm happy to announce an RSS feed for the POTD. There are also stable links to the current POTD at [2]. For more information about the POTD tool, see m:User:Duesentrieb/POTD. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 20:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

omgz!! this calls for a press release! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
YES WHEN THIS BEDCOME A STANDARD FOR WIKIMEDIA FOR WOTD AND WIKIQUOTES QUOTE OF THE DAY QOTD???

Featured Pictures only

We currently have a backlog of about 200 unused Featured Pictures. So from July, no more QI images. At least, not until the backlog is reduced somewhat. Regards, Ben Aveling 10:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that is a good idea. We are getting so many new FPs that the backlog will probably not be reduced. So it should be safe to completely stop using the Quality images as picture of the day. Unused featured pictures can also be found using the catscan tool, here. I have been using that for a while and found many good FPs, but I also noticed that some older images are of lower quality and should not be PotD. /82.212.68.183 09:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, anything that isn't good enough to be POTD is a candidate for delisting. Ben Aveling 11:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fine. Has any effort yet been made to ensure the translated pages get updated as well? The lack of correspondence between the English and non-English pages caused problems a year or so ago when non-English users were posting non-QI pictures which was OK in the local language but not OK according to the rules in English. --MichaelMaggs 21:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh but there are a lot of them. (See Template:Lang-Potd) Is anyone able to spam all 52 of their talk pages for us? Regards, Ben Aveling 22:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I started looking through the instructions to see what languages have correct instructions. This table shows what I found. /Ö 18:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

language last update instructions
Alemannisch 20070108 Links only to Featured Pics, possibly up to date.
العربية 20070731 Translation request in English
aragonés 20070711 Looks up to date.
asturianu 20070617 Translation request in English
閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gú 20070715 Links to both FP and QI, so probably not updated.
беларуская 20070417 Links only to FP, possibly up to date.
brezhoneg 20070108 Links only to FP, possibly up to date.
български 20070108 Links neither FP nor QI, no idea what the instructions says.
català 20070617 Translation request in English
čeština 20070108 Links to FP and QI, probably not up to date.
Cymraeg 20070903 Translation request in English
dansk 20070612 Correct instructions.
Deutsch 20070701 Looks up to date
eesti 20070219 Links only FP, so possibly up to date.
Ελληνικά 20070903 Translation request in English.
English 20070901 Correct instructions
español 20070613 looks up to date
Esperanto 20070613 looks up to date
euskara 20070829 Links only to FP, probably up to date
فارسی 20070903 translation request in English
français 20070613 Correct instructions
Gaeilge
galego
ગુજરાતી
한국어
italiano
עברית
қазақша
Latina
lietuvių
Lëtzebuergesch
magyar
Nederlands
norsk bokmål
norsk nynorsk
日本語
Kapampangan
polski
português
română
русский
slovenčina
slovenščina
shqip
српски / srpski
suomi
svenska 20070611 Correct instructions
ไทย
Türkçe
українська
Tiếng Việt
Winaray
粵語
文言
中文（简体）
中文（繁體）

picture of July 20

The image for July 20 (Image:Polychaeta anatomy en.svg) is an English version of the picture for May 22 (Image:Polychaeta anatomy nl.svg). Is it OK to change the image even if it already has some translations? /82.212.68.183 11:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

US-Military

Today (27. June) there is an image of a "F18 taking off the USS Harry Truman" POD. On 6. June it was a "C-17 Globemaster III aircraft fly over the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia". Next month we will have "An RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 is launched from USS Lake Erie (CG 70)". Last month there was "F-15D from Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida releasing flares".

To me there are two problems with this: Firstly, in all this time there was not a single image of another country's forces POD. I know, this is a problem of licensing - but it is also a problem of the Neutral Point of View. Secondly - and more important to me - this is too much imagery of the (US-)military for an international project that aims to support international understanding and learning (not the public relations department of the pentagon).

These images, as brilliant as they may be from a photographers point of view, are made and published to advertise the military. I don't want to go into a political discussion here; just wanted to articulate my discomfort. --Tsui 00:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is something I had never thought about, I must admit...
the POTD process is administered by volunteers. You're welcome to get involved by choosing new FPs to be POTD, and/or by voting on FP candidates.
I think as long as other countries don't have such a rule as the US (works of federal departments are PD), the US will be over-represented in such pictures. If only other countries could be motivated to introduce similar rules to "balance the scales"! --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

POTD Languages

How are the languages of POTD selected? Who does the translation? What would it take to add captions in other languages? Is there a page that explains all this? Thanks. --Fjmustak

I believe I've figured it out. All you have to do is to edit the template in a "red" language, and it will be added.--Fjmustak 02:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes! :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Links in descriptions

When I add image descriptions for POTD I try to link to galleries or categories. When the images are displayed on the main page, the links will lead people to more interesting images here at Commons. Sometimes I have put a link to a Wikipedia article to explain what the image actually is. Those links will lead people away from Commons, so I don't want to to that too often. I noticed that the descriptions for some languages almost only links to Wikipedia articles. Are there any reasons to do that? /90.229.135.239 21:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's never been discussed. Maybe some people put links to what they think is most valuable. Linking to Commons is good IMO. :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the Day: August 16 2007

The caption for today's picture should be changed from "a" to "an". Just proper grammer. :) GrooveDog 03:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the day August 24, 2007

Does PD-art apply in Portugal? If it doesn't, this work of art will remain under copyright till 2013 as the artist died in 1942. See pt:Jorge Colaço Valentinian (talk) 09:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Same deal applies for image:Egas Moniz na Estacao S. Bento.png by the same artist. Valentinian (talk) 09:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
A better place to discuss licensing of image is probably Commons talk:Licensing. If you think the image has to be deleted you can make a deletion request. /Ö 12:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the Day: September 14 2007

I don't think a picture of a burning child is a suitable picture of the day. It ends up on the frontpages of all the Wikipedia's that use the PotD and I'm sure a large section of our readers do not wish to be confronted with such horrible images. Putting a horrible image on an article concerning a horrible subject is a different matter, readers who go to such a page more or less know what to expect. But the frontpage is visited by people of all ages and all strengths of stomach and we should keep that in mind. On the Dutch Wikipedia we replaced the picture for September 14 with another. --62.131.180.58 23:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC) (Maarten1963 on the Dutch and English Wikipedia)

Any user can choose pictures of the day. If a user have good reasons, she can also change already selected pictures. But that has to be done some days before the image is used, so that there is time to translate the description (and to discuss the choice if there are objections). I think you have a good point, the image was probably not a very good choice for the main pages here at Commons either. I would not have disagreed if you had replaced the Commons PotD too. /Ö 12:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you, Ö. While it was a legitimate FP it was not a fantastic choice as POTD. Anyone who spots similar choices like this should change them. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Notification of photographer

Hi, I think it'd be nice to notify the author of a PotD that his/her image has been selected, something similar to what is being done when a picture is featured or gets QI status, as a notification in the talk page. It happened to me once to have the (good) surprise of seeing that the PotD was mine, but I could very easily have missed it. --Nattfodd 11:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

A bad idea: image of an active politician as "picture of the day"

In my opinion it is a very bad idea, to use an image of an active politician as "picture of the day" like it was done today (october 27, 2007) with the Image:Lula - foto oficial05012007 edit.jpg of Pres. Lula of Brasil. This smells of partisanship resp. endorsement on behalf of Commons/Wikimedia. -- Túrelio 09:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion above, #Picture of the Day: September 14 2007. Pictures are chosen from a pool of acceptable images (currently only FP), and are not vetted or approved beyond that. At any time anyone is welcome to browse the upcoming pictures and change any they think are inappropriate. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. As of today I didn't take interest in the procedure of choosing the POTD, and even now I do not understand it really. Pictures are chosen - who does this and is there no policy for that? I mean here on Commons we have policies for the smallest things, and the POTD is anything but unimportant. For example, if I wanted to change the image for November 20 (Template:Potd/2007-11#20), what would I have to do? -- Túrelio 15:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Anybody can choose a POTD for a day in the future that doesn't have one yet. POTD has remarkably few rules around it. If you want to change an image, click the link that says "change image" (i.e. edit Template:Potd/2007-11-20). I think it would be polite to check who put it in the first place and let them know that you are changing it and why. Also empty the current caption translations. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Lilium citronella - Species does not exist, this is very embarrassing

One should do a bit of research to avoid such embarrassing faults. Thats not a species, but a hybrid (Lilium davidii x Lilium amabile). Denis Barthel 22:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Descriptions

Is it possible to see only the pictures without descriptions? It just sucks to scroll down two screens to see the next picture.--193.52.24.125 21:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Instructions

Where are the instructions on how to include a picture? I can't find it on this page, and it should be prominent in some easy numbered steps. --Dori - Talk 16:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Maybe something like this:

Anyone can select a Picture of the day among the Featured pictures on Commons. Featured pictures are selected by consensus here. The following steps can be used to add a pciture:

  1. Find a suitable Featured Picture which has not already been used as Picture of the day. A list of images that may be usable for Picture of the Day is here. Try to variate the images so that there is not only animal images one week, followed by only landscapes the next.
  2. Find a day that does not already have a POTD. This can be done by looking at the POTD gallery of the next month or maybe the month after that (the current month usually has pictures for all days, and we don't need images for much more than one or two months ahead).
  3. Click on the red link named "change image". Add the image name of your selected image without the Image: prefix to that template (if the image is "Image:abc.jpg", the template should contain only "abc.jpg"). Save the template.
  4. Then add descriptions of the image in the languages you know. It is good if the descriptions includes links to image galleries at Commons, so that visitors can find more interesting images.
I have now put those instructions on their own page, and linked to that from the introductory text of COM:POTD. Please change anything that is wrong or needs imrpovement. /Ö (talk) 12:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


Widget

I created a gadget to add a POTD to Facebook, Hyves, AIM, Blogger, MySpace, Vista Sidebar etc. as gadget. Check this site:

Vdegroot (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Permissions for Image:Christmas Decoration.jpg (24 June 2008 POD)

I noticed on the description page for today's POD that "permissions will be forwarded to OTRS", which comes from this diff. Since there was no OTRS ticket number on the description page, I went looking and came up with Ticket 2007071210015454, which remains open almost a year after the initial contact. Although the content of the e-mail indicates that the author wishes to share the image under a sharealike/copyleft license, there is no mention of any specific license and no statement of release--in other words, a clear, free license was never obtained for the image.

I've brought this up at User talk:Bryan in the hopes that we can get some permissions for this great picture, but for the meantime I was wondering if it might not be a good idea to substitute another image? --jonny-mt 04:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Including POTD on other Wiki Main Pages

HI, How do we include the POTD template on the main page of other wiki, e.g. we have local version of POTD on gu.wiki, if I want to use the commons POTD, how do I do that?--Dsvyas (talk) 09:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

POD Language customization?

Is there any way to customize what language templates you see in the POD? With 60+ templates attached to each picture it becomes difficult to actually see the pictures ;) It might be that if you were to see only the languages that you can actually translate to/from would make make it easier to spot missing templates, Maybe there is something I checked in "my preferences" and did not find anything, just the main language. Thanks. JuanPDP (talk)

You can edit your user css (Special:Mypage/monobook.css, if you are using the monobook skin). By adding the following code, you will see only English (en), French (fr), and Swedish (sv) descriptions:
.page-Commons_Picture_of_the_day li.description { display: none; }
li.description.en, li.description.fr, li.description.sv { display: list-item; }
You can select which languages to display by changing or adding more language codes (li.description.en). This code will only change the display on Commons:Picture of the day, not POTD pages for other languages, or POTD templates for other months. /Ö 11:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! --JuanPDP (talk) 03:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

01 vs. 1

In the December PODT page, days with a one-digit number are written without the "0" (as instead is done in the other pages). Could anyone, maybe a bot, fix them? --Gusme (talk) 14:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone used the earlier naming scheme for December 1. The templates just had to be moved to the new names with zeros. /Ö 15:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Mild POV description

Today's featured picture is described as "a beautiful little town" in English, "une jolie ville" in French, and "predivan mali gradić" in Serbian. I don't find this type of flattery either necessary or appropriate. None of the other descriptions I can understand (all but Japanese and Hungarian) use flattering adjectives. Could we remove the pointless adjectives in those three descriptions and let the image speak for itself?

Peter Isotalo 12:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Updating Language Template

Hi everyone, One of my pictures is up for POTD on the eight of December. Peolple keep translating the capture in different languages, but the translation are not being duplicated to the template. Does anybody know how to fix this? Kind regards, Massimo --Massimo Catarinella (talk) 14:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I think this edit fixed it. /Ö 19:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much for fixing the problem. --Massimo Catarinella (talk) 21:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


Eastern Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

Shouldn't it be: St. James's Park instead of St James's Park, London, England? Maybe the red link would turn blue then. Galoubet (talk) 07:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Potd: february 02

File:Pair of scrub wrens444.jpg is currently selected to be Potd for 2009-02-02. But this is not a featured picture, so its is not eligible to be Potd. --Rotkraut (talk) 16:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

PotD 2009-02-06

Terji Skibenas? As happy I am seeing a member of one of my favourite bands on the Wikimedia Commons Main Page (!), as embarassing it might be for an ancyclopedia writing the topic of the picture wrong. The guy is called Skibenæs! So if an admin sees this, maybe they might want to change it, though the day is on quite a few hours.. ;)
Don't believe me? I've just looked it up for you: http://www.tyr.net/site/terji.htm
• Lirion (Λιριων, Лирион, ليريون) wtf? • 15:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Archive Download

Is there any possible way to download an archive of all the "Pictures of the Day" either year by year, or as a whole? I would love to be able to do this so as to have both the repository at my finger tips and make my bumptop really sleek :). Cheers Michaelbogardus (talk) 23:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Changing of planned Potd?

Is it possible to change already planned picture of the day? The File:Fly Agaric mushroom 04.jpg was already selected as a picture of the day for June 12, 2009. I nominated its cropped version for a featured picture. If the nomination succeed, will be possible to change the selected picture for this day? No change in description would be necessary. Miraceti (talk) 09:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Correct English description

The English description of File:Anime Girl.svg needs to be corrected. "Drawing of a revealing figure Sythatia" is not ideal English and is somewhat ambiguous. Is Sythatia a specific type of stock character/body type/model in manga or is it merely the name given to the model by the artist? Someone please clarify this.

Peter Isotalo 10:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Typo in today's description

In the last sentence, pls could this correction be made: "women" → "woman". The Voice of Hassocks (talk) 12:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Smallpox as POTD

Yes I knew it. This community is a sick one. Denis Barthel (talk) 10:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

  • Well, while I wouldn't say that it reflects on the community as a whole, I do think that for a picture that appears in large size on the main page, welcoming all users, the smallpox picture is far too graphic. -- JovanCormac 12:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Ugh. I'll say. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 16:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally I am more disgusted of all the pictures of weapons (mostly airplanes) that are displayed as "picture of the day" on the main page regularly. Smallpox have been a reality for a long time and the picture shows that reality. The pictures by military photographers are very aesthetic - and they hide the reality the depicted weapons are made for. --Tsui (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Picture of the Day image caption: File:1580 Zelandicarum v Deventer.jpg

The caption for today's Picture of the day, File:1580 Zelandicarum v Deventer.jpg is wrong. The printed Latin impressum clearly reads: "Auctore D. Iacobo A Daventria". This is claimed to be translatable as: "the author is Ortelius naar v Deventer". Now, apart from the fact that "naar v" doesn't even mean anything, "Iacobus a Daventria" is obviously Jacob van Deventer, not Ortelius. Can somebody please fix this? --Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:55, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Plus, it's "Zeeland" in English, not "Zeland". Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
✓ Done Fixed. Yann (talk) 10:11, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Commemoration of Belarusian pilots

The background for writing this is the following:

On August 30 at the Radom Air Show a Belarusian Su-27UBM crashed, killing both pilots who apparently left themselves no time to eject after manoeuvring to avoid hitting nearby civilian buildings. After a talk with JovanCormac he/we came to a conclusion that it would be a good idea to commemorate the two pilots for their sacrifice (this was my idea) by granting them a place at POTD (this was his idea).

Story continues: In the above-mentioned category you will find a set of photos of the aircraft at the very same Air Show (two days before the accident and literally minutes before it). JovanCormac says that none of them really deserve FP status (I believe him as I'm no expert in the field; any contrary opinions will be welcome :) ), however, due to the circumstances he suggested that I discuss it here. The question is: would it be possible to grant an exemption from the FP-necessary condition and commemorate the pilots in a POTD on the 30th day of this month (or any other month)? We - JC and me - believe that even though there are no potential FPs of the plane there (but maybe?), quite a few deserve QI. Would QI be enough providing these special circumstances? Airwolf (talk) 11:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I fully support Airwolf in this endeavor. If no objections are voiced I suggest we just go ahead and set up one of the relevant pictures from the air show for use as POTD on September 30th. -- JovanCormac 20:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I support the idea. I see no reason why the occasional exception can't be made for potd, as long as the images are vetted first. Maedin\talk 19:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Change of POTDs for October?

We've seen this a lot on POTD, but what's planned for October really goes too far IMO: Four butterfly macros in the first 11 days, coming in two blocks of two images on consecutive days!

I'd have changed it already, but there's always the problem of disappointing the authors whose work was scheduled to be a POTD and then gets pushed back.

What can we do?

My suggestion in respect to what was discussed above (and to which nobody objected). Put the airplane as POTD for Sept 30 and push the church one day down to Oct 1. The first butterfly will then be moved to the first free day. The author could be disappointed, true, but it's not that the picture is getting removed or something. It will still spend one full day on the main page. Airwolf (talk) 12:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable, which airplane picture should we choose? My guess is that File:Su-27UBM Crash 1.JPG would probably be the best. -- JovanCormac 07:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I thought the minimum for the Radom crash would be that the picture was at least a quality image? To be frank, I don't think that image would qualify. Maedin\talk 07:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
My idea was the same. You know, ignoring the FP rule is one thing, but if we put a photo on the main page it should be up to some standards. My candidate was File:Su-27UBM Radom 2009 c.JPG. Airwolf (talk) 08:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Ok, let's do it... -- JovanCormac 09:10, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I have set up the airplane picture to be used on September 30th, and moved the church to October 1st, but I couldn't figure out how to change the descriptions, which still say "Church..." and "Butterfly...", respectively. It's terrible how awfully hard it is to do some things on Commons. Please fix the descriptions, if you know how! -- JovanCormac 09:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I think I've got it. It's: Template:Potd/2009-09-30 (en), Template:Potd/2009-09-30 (de) and so on. Airwolf (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it was good to use the airplane image so soon. It takes some time for users to write descriptions in different languages. Only ten days is not enough. If you need to replace the image for September 30 it is better to use an image that is already scheduled and has descriptions in many languages. If it is really necessary to change the image, uou also have to move all the templates with descriptions for different languages. /Ö 10:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
We will, that's what we are doing right now. And if you could fill in these in the languages you know, we would greatly appreciate it. Airwolf (talk) 10:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Christ, who changed Sep 30th back to the church image??? I'm going to freak out ... -- JovanCormac 10:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

POTD for September 24

Any specific reason why today's POTD is not a Featured Picture, but rather a 852×510, grainy, overcropped photo? Did Hermann Zapf (the person mentioned in the image's text) die or something? -- JovanCormac 07:18, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Tidy now?

I cleaned up all the potd templates:

We should probably have a bot running around to keep it tidy. Multichill (talk) 18:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

POTD for September 30

Again, why is the POTD not a featured picture? This is the second strange POTD after Metal movable text.jpg a couple of days ago. Is there anyone checking the entries? --Yerpo (talk) 07:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Today's picture, contrary to the other one, has been discussed. Here. Above. Airwolf (talk) 07:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed the discusion. --Yerpo (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

POTD's for October 10 and 11

I don't think it's a good idea too have a picture of a butterfly two days in a row. However, 2009-10-10 and 2009-10-11 both show a butterfly, and both almost in the same way. Couldn't one of these two be replaced, or change place with another (not-butterfly) picture? Afhaalchinees (talk) 09:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to do it, it's a good idea. Airwolf (talk) 09:28, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I already took a look at it, but I saw that all the subpages - for example Template:Potd/2009-10-10 (bs) - also had the date in the title. Isn't it possible to change the name of the page and all its subpages in a more simple way? Afhaalchinees (talk) 17:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

POTD for October 5

I'm seriously disappointed to have seen this photo on the front page when I came to Wikimedia Commons just now. To give context: I've contributed significant images for use in scientific wikipedia articles in the past, eg. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DNA_chemical_structure.svg A coworker had just centrifuged some blood in lab, I saw it and thought "Wow, that's cool, I don't remember seeing a photo of blood separated by centrifugation like this, I wonder if Wikipedia/Wikimedia has a free version yet" so I open this website to check. I know this is a loaded word, but my first thought on seeing this was: "Porn?! What. The. F---." A sexual objectification of women, almost certainly heavily photoshopped, and not something I consider "safe for work".

This incident is a strong disincentive for me to contribute in the future. I don't know what the process is for deciding POTD's is, but I think you need to seriously reconsider it. -- Madeleine (talk) 21:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe I do understand your concerns. However, please take the following into consideration:
  1. Choosing POTDs is by far the freest (most free?) process here, on Commons, i.e. closest to the true wikispirit. Anybody can choose a POTD for any day, and even when one is chosen, anyone can substitute it with a different one, no questions asked. The general rule is that only FPs qualify, but as you may see above, this does not always need to be observed if mitigating factors occur.
  2. Commons is neutral, like Wikipedia. On the other hand, many disturbing images have already been selected as POTDs (e.g. File:Child with Smallpox Bangladesh.jpg or File:Buchenwald Slave Laborers Liberation.jpg), and those were NSFW, too. However, they carry a huge educational value (EV).
  3. Thus, we come to the point were we discuss the EV of Michele Merkin's almost certainly heavily photoshopped "porn" picture. You will surely notice that the photo can be used in a number of articles, and the one about Merkin herself is definitely not the most important one. Those would be: [glamour photography], [nudity], [topless], [photomodelling] and quite a few about different techniques (whose names I can hardly imagine) in photography and about advertising. Moreover, I'm inclined to think that sooner or later we will have articles about objectification of women into which this picture might fit perfectly.
Sorry for my rough and potentially erroneous English. Regards, Airwolf (talk) 21:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikimedia Commons should reconsider the process by which images appear on the front page. "Today's featured article" on Wikipedia are handled by the featured article director; while this person picks a lot of them out without nomination, there's also a venue for nominations and discussion. This discussion is important: providing a forum for discussion for each nomination is critical to assessing whether the article is appropriate and useful material to go onto the front page. At present I don't see that this sort of forum exists for POTD and so people are unlikely to reverse someone else's nomination.
Personally I'd rather have a single person handle the ultimate choice than the present state, which seems to be "anyone can put anything up, nobody discusses it and nobody's accountable". As an author of an FA page (Genetics) that eventually showed up on the main page I think that system worked perfectly well. I don't see having rules and discussion as contradictory with being "free"—anarchy is not freedom, freedom requires some rules to protect things from being abused and getting out of hand. The front page is what many, many people see when they come to use Wikimedia commons. Images which (for example) make female contributors feel excluded and/or objectified should have some level of discussion before appearing there! (Looking at the featured-picture discussion for this image is pretty disheartening, too. Ugh.) -- Madeleine (talk) 22:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
It is never easy to think what might be disheartening for someone. Elie Wiesel himself might for example oppose any display of the picture which shows him in such a horrible state, and so might other Jews, Poles, Russians et cetera, et cetera, who survived the horrors prepared by the Germans. David Irving, whom I personally consider a nut, might say that this is propaganda. On the other hand I doubt that Ms Merkin would oppose to her picture being displayed here. I'm afraid there is a fallacy in your argumentation. I understand that you feel somewhat offended by the photo. OK, I see why, I sympathize with you. But it is simply impossible to predict what picture will offend who. Any - and I mean literally any - picture is potentially offensive, disturbing or disheartening (a spider as POTD for somebody with arachnophobia, for example or a 9/11 firefighter for someone who lost their relative in WTC).
On the other hand, I fully agree with you that a change needs to be introduced into the POTD procedure. Whatever changes are introduced, though, I seriously doubt that these pictures would be kept away from the main page. They would have to be cut at the stage of FPC. Once they become FPs, they have the right to become POTDs, that's what POTD is about after all. But feel free to discuss or propose such changes. As long as they seem reasonable, I will support them. Airwolf (talk) 22:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
PS: Regarding this image in particular (1) You're comparing a pornographic image to Holocaust concentration camp victims? (2) Arguably relevant to other subjects in addition to being pornographic is not a feature. "Oh look, this picture can represent both anorexia AND pornography! We can use it in both articles so it must be twice as good!" There's plenty of nudity photos and glamour photos that aren't pornographic and represent those topics without the added load of appearing to promote a sexist environment.
If you think it's hard to predict a significant number women would find this picture upsetting, you are in sore need of "sensitivity training". Asking your girlfriend what she thinks does not count. -- Madeleine (talk) 23:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
PPS I apologize for the personal attack. I'm feeling pretty angered by your treatment of my concerns. Madeleine (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry about that Madeleine. We'll try to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. Thanks for sharing your concerns. Kaldari (talk) 23:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I donät think that this is a problem with the selection of Featured pictures. Featured Pictures are selected for being very good/interesting/educational/... images, not for being suitable as POTD to be displayed on the Main page. It is necessary for POTDs to be featured, but it is not necessary for all FPs to be chosen for POTD. The Main page is a page that is supposed to be an entrance to Common so I think it is goo to try to avoid pictures that are disturbing to many people.
I am not sure that any big changes of the rules are necessary. The problem could be fixed by more people looking in advance at the next months POTD and changing images that are not suitable as soon as possible. Anyone can do that if there is a good reason. And from earlier comments on this page I think many users agree that avoiding disturbing images on the main page is a good reason. Changing images should be done as early as possible, so that there is time to discuss if there is disagreement of what is good reasons. It is a bit late to change the image at the end of the day when the image is already displayed at the main page. /Ö 00:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Comment This system needs to change. Wikimedia is a major image resource used by lots of people in a professional or quasi-professional capacity. I would not care to direct my adviser or fellow students to this site for images if this sort of thing is going to appear on the main page. RayAYang (talk) 01:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


I'm late to this discussion, which seems to have been unfolding very quickly, so I'll simply present my viewpoints:

  1. The POTD selection process is problematic, and I have been complaining about (and trying to change) it for quite a while now. What worries me most is not the kind of pictures that make POTD, but a certain imbalance in subjects, too many showing arthropods (= "bugs"), which isn't very appealing to many people.
  2. With respect, Madeleine, but in my opinion calling File:Michele Merkin 1.jpg pornography is way over the top (and almost certainly at least as insulting to her as you find the image to be). While by the strictest definition of pornography I've ever seen (the one used on Wikipedia), any depiction of sexual subject matter may indeed be considered to be pornography, surely cultural aspects have to be taken into consideration as well. Would you label File:La nascita di Venere (Botticelli).jpg, File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Wave (1896).jpg or File:Francesco Hayez 008.jpg (all of which are poised to appear on the main page some day) "pornography"? If you would, I'd be surprised, and you would be pretty much alone, since most people consider those paintings to be art rather than porn, even though the second one is more explicit than the Michele Merkin photo. Similarly, if the non-explicit glamour photo that was seen on the front page yesterday is pornography, then you will probably have a hard time leaving your house without seeing "pornography" - and while that may not be to everyone's liking, it shows that most people don't find semi-nude, non-explicit images so offensive after all. I remember Americans complaining about the Pioneer plaque, saying it was "pornography being sent into space". Alas, we cannot (and indeed should not) cater to everyone.
  3. Having a single person who is responsible for POTD selection is a terrible idea. I'm not talking about abuse of any kind. A single person choosing means a single person bringing his or her personal bias to the POTD process. I really hope I don't ever have to see this happen.
  4. Should we be taking all minority views into account (and - there can be no doubt about it - equating a glamour ad with pornography is a minority view), it would indeed become quite hard to find any pictures suitable for POTD. For example, this picture of a fighter jet (POTD for Sep 27th) might be considered "war propaganda", the aforementioned smallpox picture will be "disgusting" for some. And, of course, your Wikipedia article on Genetics, which I have read and find excellent, is nothing short of "blasphemy" for a growing number of people. How do we deal with this? It's very simple: We don't. Commons, like Wikipedia, isn't censored, nor is it biased (at least it shouldn't be). Any picture on Commons can - in principle - become POTD, provided it is of sufficient quality, which is determined through community voting. And all of the pictures mentioned in this thread have passed the vote.
  5. Last but not least: The "girlfriend" remark above is way out of line, and it's a pity that had to become part of this discussion.

Regards, JovanCormac 06:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Jovan, I immediately apologized for that remark. It's a pity you had to take a potshot at me for owning up to that.
Fair enough. The matter is resolved as far as I'm concerned. -- JovanCormac 10:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
It is trivialization of my viewpoint to compare this modern image with images of obvious artistic value and/or historic significance. This image has no artistic value or historic significance. It is part of a genre of images that involve extensive manipulation to unrealistically exaggerate sexually attractive features of a woman, promoting her as a sexual object. One definition of "pornography" would be something "intended to stimulate sexual feelings" (eg. pornographic stories); this image is clearly intended to do that. While that is arguably valuable in some "meta" sense of "illustrating how promotional material for women is heavily sexualized", there is absolutely no evidence that would lead me to believe that this is why it ended up on the main page.
It is my opinion (and that of many others) that advertising images (like the one in question) have significant value because they illustrate precisely how advertising is done, similarly to how a picture like File:Alaskadeathtrap.jpg illustrates the way propaganda (which is really just another word for advertising) was done in past times. No one would seriously object to this image being shown on Commons, or even on the main page, because it's obvious what it is: A document showing the way media was used during WWII. Just the same, the Michele Merkin photo is a document of how media is being used today. Ms. Merkin is a model, posing for glamor shots is what she does. In fact, one could argue that the image is the best possible representation of Michele Merkin, since it shows not only her, but her at work. The objectification of women and the distortion of reality in advertising has been discussed over and over again by politicians, pundits and intellectuals, and continues to be a topic that comes up in all kinds of publications, both popular and scientific. Everyone who takes the Merkin photo to be an accurate representation of women or even reality might as well think that Japanese people look like rats. (Compare also File:SkodaSuperbII.jpg and its FPC discussion.) -- JovanCormac 10:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Again I will also point out that there are plenty of examples of "glamour" manipulated photography that are not so heavily sexualized and this sexualization, unnecessary to the illustration of that genre, should be viewed as problematic with respect to placement of the image on the front page.
While I am not going to argue with whether it should have been promoted as a featured picture, some of the comments on on the featured article review indicate to me that this community needs to examine itself a little more closely on how it treats women. [3] Your comment was one of those I found "disheartening". "A technically perfect photo and an excellent female specimen of Homo sapiens. The key features of the anatomy are clearly visible, giving the picture significant educational value." (My version of this would be: "a heavily manipulated and sexualized photo of an attractive and nonrepresentative outlier of Homo sapiens. The key features of the anatomy are sadly obscured, and the photo has little educational value beyond being an illustration of how women are sexualized in the media.") -- Madeleine (talk) 09:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned, we don't "treat women" on Commons at all, nor do we treat men, children, people, politics or religion. We deal with pictures here, and pictures only. When evaluating a picture, what matters to me is license, quality and value. There are enough POV discussions going on on Wikipedia already (try the talk page of any article on religion), which is one of the reasons I'm not as active there anymore as I used to be. We never decide anything here over the heads of the community. Current policy is that every Featured Picture can (and likely will) become POTD, so the way to prevent a picture from being on the main page is to oppose it becoming Featured, not appeal to the "conscience" of the community. Because the way I see it, the POTD has nothing to do with conscience whatsoever, only with quality and value, attributes which are decided on FPC and VIC. And while I realize not everyone agrees with that, the photo in question was deemed to have both attributes, by a qualified majority of 2:1. -- JovanCormac 10:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
It's not worth my time to continue discussing this. I'm just going to point out two quotes from you, because I suspect they will amuse other readers. (Also, please don't interrupt this post.):
  • "A technically perfect photo and an excellent female specimen of Homo sapiens. The key features of the anatomy are clearly visible, giving the picture significant educational value. The phylum Arthropoda is more prominent in the Featured Picture library than the phylum Chordata, and far more than the genus Homo. I welcome any opportunity to add something to the small stack of Featured human pictures." (from [4])
  • Everyone who takes the Merkin photo to be an accurate representation of women or even reality might as well think that Japanese people look like rats. (from above)
Madeleine (talk) 13:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to address the following issue. First of all, there have been numerous POTDs before which may be frightful, disturbing or discouraging to other viewers and users, such as:

The abovementioned concentration camp photo. I'm sure my late grandmother would be perfectly happy to see a million of "porn" pictures of Michele Merkin instead of having a single glance at the horrors she just barely evaded and that would likely have killed her. This is also my answer to the question about comparing these two images.
File:Child with Smallpox Bangladesh.jpg. My personal opinion: disgusting.
File:Apis mellifera flying.jpg and File:Wasp colony.jpg. I've got en:melissophobia and it's actually difficult for me to look at these pics; and there are people with far more acute symptoms, especially children.
File:Anime Girl.svg. Needless to explain in the context of this discussion, I think.
File:WTC-Fireman requests 10 more colleagesa.jpg. Might bring back the most horrible memories.
File:Homeless man, Tokyo, 2008.jpg. Likely to provoke negative sentiments towards homeless people.
File:North American B-25 Mitchell Góraszka 2007.jpg and File:F-22 Raptor edit1.jpg. Military propaganda.
File:Geological time spiral.png. It would hurt my feelings if I were a radical creationist.
File:Motor cycle stunt2 amk.jpg. Could provoke extreme, unnecessary risk.
the article en:Depictions of Muhammad will also shed some light on the subject.

In this context, do we really want to make sure that we avoid anything which might evoke any type of bad feelings? Sorry, but while the idea itself is noble, going so far will result in nothing but censorship. And bestowing such responsibility on a single person... My country had to live with this disgusting phenomenon for 45 long and very dark years, other countries still do. And just for this single reason I would feel obliged to counter any attempts of censorship here, at Wikimedia projects which are supposed to be free by definition. There would be no problem if we could reach a decision about what is and what is not disturbing. But there is simply no way. Directly referring to Madeleine's previous entry: I see no reason why Jovan's sensitivity should be regarded as less sensitive than my sensitivity, of Russians - less than that of Spaniards, of muslims - less than that of protestants, etc. We've got hundreds of nations and religions, thousands of cultures and billions of people. And while, I repeat, I agree that we need a change in POTD-selection procedures, I dread the thought of a single person simply being in charge. That is exactly what I wanted to prove by the examples above. A single person is not and will never be able to take into consideration the feelings of as many people as we have visiting Commons, which is after all an international project which again brings us to the topic of cultural differences and the like. I hope you see all the potential dangers here. Airwolf (talk) 13:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Point well made, Airwolf. What worries me most about this discussion (which is far from being the first one Commons has seen concerning potentially offensive material) is the way that a valid issue raised about a semi-nude photo being possibly offensive quickly turned into a string of accusations and insulting generalizations, most prominently "some of the comments on on the featured article review indicate to me that this community needs to examine itself a little more closely on how it treats women" (see above). What I'm saying is this: Why did this discussion have to start with "how dare you place pornography on the main page?" rather than with "a photo of a semi-nude woman on the main page could be offensive to some people because of concerns about the objectification of women. how about we change the POTD process in the following way: ..."? -- JovanCormac 15:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Obviously some of you have no concept of sexual objectification and its impact on how women are treated in society. That doesn't give you an excuse, however, to pretend that Madeleine's objections are beyond the pale. True, the Merkin image isn't a Playboy centerfold, but I don't think it would be too out of place there. The image is obviously an idealized (and heavily airbrushed) version of the female body, produced for sexual gratification rather than educational value. This isn't about censoring sex, it's about not objectifying women in a context that is supposed to be appealing to people of all different backgrounds, genders, ages, etc. In case you're not aware, we live in a culture where women are raped on a daily basis; this makes some women uncomfortable with images that reinforce the idea that women's bodies are meant solely for the consumption and pleasure of others. It's not about the image being "explicit" or "disturbing", the image is simply offensive and inappropriate. This is not a rare or unreasonable viewpoint, no matter how prevalent such images may be in advertising. Stop being so defensive for a second, and consider that other people may have different experiences in life than you and may have different viewpoints that are just as valid as yours. Maybe Madeleine's comments were exaggerated, but the responses have been downright offensive and disingenuous, IMO. Let's try to be a little more mature and open-minded about this. Kaldari (talk) 15:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, I did read what was written. However, I see no point in responding to outright, uncamouflaged insults. My participation in the discussion is over. Airwolf (talk) 16:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Airwolf, this thread is getting ridiculous. The last remarks could have come from a usenet discussion about abortion or creationism. I'm out. -- JovanCormac 18:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi, extending apologies for joining late; wasn't aware of any complaints until now. I happen to be a female Commons administrator who supported this featured picture nomination. I am also one of the contributors to the featured portal about feminism at English Wikipedia; I restored 12 of the 32 historic images used there.[5] It is very important to feature a range of quality media about women. Michele Merkin was the first celebrity to relicense high quality portraits for use at WMF. Since then we've gotten a trickle of similar donations such as Mark Harmon's headshot, which earned the photographer a story in the Sunday New York Times. Of course the basic idea extends well beyond celebrity portraiture: many useful images are under proprietary license. Think of the benefits if the European Space Agency released part of its material under copyleft, or if National Geographic did. This portrait has spent over two years at the glamour photography article where it receives over 30,000 page views per month.[6] Ms. Merkin selected the poses and the license. I've used this particular photograph in a conference presentation as an example of a very smart and forward-thinking individual. Durova (talk) 18:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I empathize with arguments that this picture might have legitimate reasons for being on the front page, but these are arguments being made after the fact. Perhaps such a conclusion would be reached in a discussion (although I'm highly suspicious of the voting motivations from some contributors) but the fact is that is not how it happened.
The issue I'm making here is that the community needs to consider the excluding/discouraging effect seeing this image has on potential contributors. It had this effect on me. If we're going to argue about the importance of encouraging contribution of valuable images to copyleft, we can look at my record too! My DNA molecular structure image has been in use on the en:DNA and en:Genetics pages since its creation two and a half years ago (when it was replacing a previous DNA image of mine) - these pages receive a traffic of 200-300,000 hits per month and 60-70,000 hits per month (depending on if school is in season). Certainly there is significant damage caused to copyleft if contributors like me are feeling alienated by the project.
In addition to providing some forum for discussing the choice of POTD's before they go up, you also should consider providing context in the image caption for why the image was chosen. This is also something Wikipedia does, and would obviously help a lot in a case like this: where (in the absence of other information) the apparent motive for posting the image is upsetting. (Again, note that all defense of this POTD choice has been post-hoc and I do not believe such noble reasoning is actually why the image ended up there.) -- Madeleine (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Durova: I wasn't aware that there was a catastrophic shortage of glamorshots on Commons. Obviously rectifying this shortage is far more important than attracting and retaining contributors like Madeleine, who only want to fill up Commons with diagrams of DNA and other useless cruft. Kaldari (talk) 18:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Madeleine: I presented at the conference two years ago and expressed pretty much this view during its Commons FP candidacy. There wasn't any particular reason to argue in favor of the normal run on the main page, since nobody challenged that until it actually ran. Kaldari: hyperbole is unhelpful. Let's keep this a serious and respectful discussion. Durova (talk) 19:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Durova, are you saying you don't think that the current system for POTD could be (or needs to be) improved? -- Madeleine (talk) 19:12, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
One powerful way to improve things is through contributions. Most of my effort goes into contribution as opposed to gatekeeping. Occasionally, yes, an event motivates me to a compensatory featured picture drive. At en:wiki there's a featured picture of a circumcision that I contributed after a deletion debate over a breast appreciation userbox. Frankly, I'd be just as welcoming of the opportunity to feature a seminude portrait of a male celebrity--so long as the technical standards are sufficient. Would you like to write letters and request material? Balance is good. :) Durova (talk) 19:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Ironically, I agree with Durova on this point. I personally doubt changing the process of POTD would actually do much good as long as the same people are running it (and they refuse to appreciate criticism). I think one thing that would help would be more people reviewing and participating in POTD. Right now it's a pain in the ass to try to review all the upcoming POTD pictures, so I'm working on a page to make reviewing them easy. Maybe more eyes will help the situation. Kaldari (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Durova: No, I'm afraid this promotes the fallacy of "equality" implying "equal treatment" when it calls for "equal consideration". Trying to address the problem with sexualized pictures of men is not equally considerate of women. (An extreme example would be "banning birth control and subsidizing Viagra" for all people regardless of sex—equal treatment, but not equal consideration.) While some exceptions exist (always true in biology), in general women do not respond in the same way to visual sexual images as men do.
There are further reasons for desiring some level of explicit consensus to be achieved before images go on the front page—POTD can be used as a form of advertising. My husband is Lead Software Engineer at OLPC, and so I noticed the XO image coming up on Oct 24. I'm glad it does not appear to have been nominated by an employee, but it could have been. Wikipedia already suffers from people trying to use it as "free advertising"; as Wikimedia becomes more widely used there we have every reason to believe that it will suffer from the same problem.
While you could suggest I simply take up the task of reviewing future POTDs myself, creating a forum for nominating, discussing & voting for POTD is a better way to get participation and achieve consensus. As I understand it, "consensus" is the ideal wiki decision process; what exists now is a chaotic set of unilateral decisions made by contributors who could have questionable motivations. While nominations can currently be removed by another, it's highly unlikely some other contributor will make the unilateral decision to do so. Kaldari: yes, something like this is what I'm hoping will get done, some place that makes it easy for others to review and contribute opinions regarding upcoming nominated pics. -- Madeleine (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


Well, dialectics isn't my strong point. This is an international and multilingual project. Less of Ms. Merkin is visible here than would be visible at many European beach resorts. Which standards of sexualization would apply? European? North American? Saudi? The problem with gatekeeping of that sort is eventually someone comes along with different standards and applies the same basic paradigm to a different dialectic. If I were to agree with you now and then oppose a hypothetical Saudi editor who claims that the sight of a woman's arms is too much, then a number of disagreeable adjectives might apply (hypocrisy? provincialism?). Have also worked on a Nazi election poster and a lynching, which are certainly important subjects that deserve coverage but somewhat more apt to give offense than this one. I really do encourage a broad range of subject matter, some of which is transgressive or counters systemic bias. Am nearly ready to upload my first Peruvian featured picture candidate. While expressing respect for your articulate concerns, my time is better spent completing that and addressing backlogged commitments. If this conclusion is not entirely satisfactory, here's hoping two factors mitigate the previous impression:

  1. Ms. Merkin was an established B-list celebrity about 30 years old at the time this was uploaded. Her career is in mainstream entertainment, not pornography, and she was already successful enough that concerns about economic exploitation are not applicable to this instance. Her license decision was ahead of her professional peers.
  2. You are not the only female Commons editor who cares about these issues. Although we don't quite reach the same conlusions, I respect your perspective and encourage you to remain and contribute. More diversity among the editor population enriches the site.

Best regards, Durova (talk) 22:12, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This slippery slope argument is getting old. How about reversing it? Is there any type of image that you would consider inappropriate to feature as Picture of the Day? Regular old pornography? A photograph of Obama eating a watermelon? Goatse.cx? Kaldari (talk) 22:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't perceive you as having respected my perspective. It appears to me that you ignored the issue (whether this image should have been on the front page) and defended a straw man argument (whether the picture should be a featured picture in the first place). You've been unconstructive regarding how to prevent female contributors from feeling excluded in the future and are arguing with me about whether my reaction is universal enough to be worthy of concern. Well, I'm sure I'm not alone. Among my friends, the reaction to yesterday's front page was "WTF". Like you, I have better things to do with my time (like helping provide compressed Wikipedias to hundreds of thousands of children in Peru [7]). -- Madeleine (talk) 22:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I apologize for having inadvertently given that impression. It's late in the day now and this has taken a lot more time than expected, so if this doesn't quite cover all bases then please be understanding. Normally featured picture promotion results in a main page appearance at POTD. If Commons makes exceptions to that I'm not aware of them, although it might happen (POTD as opposed to FPC is not an area where I'm active). In general I'm loath to make any exceptions that remove featured pictures from the queue because for instance someday we might have a featured picture of Tienanmen Square and a Chinese editor might want that removed. Mainland Chinese editors might feel equally put off by such a thing, although really I'd welcome them to provide material that's important to them just as much as I welcome you to provide material that's important to you. Regarding your conclusion, we actually differ there: I also make a high priority of countering global systemic bias. Spent several hours yesterday on the Peruvian restoration. Editors from other countries have given wonderfully positive responses when they've seen featured pictures about their own culture. Sample restorations of this sort are one of the things we use to encourage cultural institutions to digitize material and donate it to this site. If it also inspires Peruvians to edit, so much the better. Below is a gallery of 15 images about women that I've restored which could make good featured picture candidates. If there's a way to be more constructive than that, please set the standard through your own contributions. So best wishes to you and your friends; please show them this conversation too. I'll be scouring the Library of Congress website again for cultural material about Korea. Durova (talk) 22:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment I'm joining this discussion late, but I just want to emphasize the general point that Wikipedia is not censored. Period. Is Madeleine suggesting that we now need to change Wikipedia policy of blocking "sexually objectifying" images as a counter to systemic bias? Now in regards to use of this image in specific articles, WP:BLP and Wikipedia image/editorial policy more generally strongly leans against using gratuitous nude or cheesecake shots on someones bio page, even in the case of somebody like a porn star or a model where it might be related to their profession, unless a specific image had strong biographical relevance. However, that certainly does not prevent anybody from contributing a photo like this to Commons, because it might at some point be usable in context in a relevant article.

I also want to emphasize the inherently partisan nature of objections to so-called "sexually objectifying" images. Clearly, some schools of feminism are very against such images in general. Other points of view see such images positively or neither here nor there. I don't think one point of view on this topic should be privileged. I also reiterate the point that other have made about the inherent slippery slope created if policy were erected to mediate against "objectionable" images. And, more generally, I think Wikipedia/Wikimedia has been down this road many times – I refer all here to the debates around the Danish Muhammad cartoons, the inclusion of images of Muhammad more generally, and the controversy over the Virgin Killer cover. Inclusion of "objectifying" images that might be objectionable to some should be treated no differently. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 18:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC) Iamcuriousblue (talk) 18:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No one here is talking about policies or censorship. We're talking about editorial decisions as to what to feature on the main page. Kaldari (talk) 19:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, I do think Madeline was objecting to having such images on Commons period, even if that's not your argument. And I will grant you, POTD photos do come down to subjective popularity calls. Perhaps if more Wikipedia editors felt as you did about such images it might not have been nominated. I see that as neither here nor there, though.
But from where I'm sitting, I do think, in itself, the photo in question is a valuable contribution to Wikimedia. There is a lack of unlicensed, high-quality erotic images on Wikimedia, and for a certain narrow subset of Wikipedia articles (ones that I happen to be active on), such images are needed. I would also add that there's also an even bigger need for homoerotic images of this kind and would happily use POTD or other such Wikirewards to encourage such contributions. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

POTD's depiction of women

In the discussion about the Michele Merkin image above, it was argued that "It is very important to feature a range of quality media about women." I agree with this sentiment, and decided to see how broad our "range" actually is. I went through and reviewed all of the POTDs so far this year. Among them, we depict women 11 times. The depictions are as follows:

  • an ad for Coca-Cola
  • an ad for the opera Carmen
  • a prostitute
  • 3 photographs of women from the 3rd world in ethnic garb
  • a woman involved in a car accident
  • a Japanese geisha
  • a mother
  • an anime character wearing transparent clothing
  • a semi-nude model

Every one of these depictions reinforces stereotypical images of women. Rather than changing the process by which POTD images are selected (as suggested above), why don't you guys exercise a modicum of effort to present women in a more diverse light. There are plenty of featured pictures out there that fit the bill. (I've just POTDed a couple of them myself.) Wikimedia already has a bad enough reputation for being unwelcoming to women without you guys making it worse. Kaldari (talk) 21:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I forgot one. There's a semi-nude classical statue as well. Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec'd while composing to the thread above) If you're referring to Ase o fuku onna as a geisha, the bibliographic notes simply refer to her as a woman wiping her face. There's also a girl receiving a typhoid vaccination. A painting by Mary Cassatt is in the queue, also female factory workers. Several of my en:wiki featured picture restorations have never been nominated at Commons. Feel free to nominate any you like for featured picture consideration.
  • Joan of Arc
    Joan of Arc
  • Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, photographed by Toni Frissell
    Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, photographed by Toni Frissell
  • Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands
    Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands
  • Irene and Vernon Castle
    Irene and Vernon Castle
  • Harriet Tubman
    Harriet Tubman
  • Mary Pickford
    Mary Pickford
  • Sophie Blanchard, the first female professional aeronaut
    Sophie Blanchard, the first female professional aeronaut
  • Hélène Dutrieu, aviation pioneer
    Hélène Dutrieu, aviation pioneer
  • A World War I poster to recruit female enlistment
    A World War I poster to recruit female enlistment
  • A quilter (early color photograph from 1940)
    A quilter (early color photograph from 1940)
  • A weaver
    A weaver
  • Two milk sellers
    Two milk sellers
  • Sarah Bernhardt
    Sarah Bernhardt
  • The Virgin Mary
    The Virgin Mary
  • A Salem witch
    A Salem witch
There are probably a few others that would also be suitable, but I'm pressed for time. Durova (talk) 22:12, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Ha, I already nominated one of the pics above a few minutes before you made the post :) Thanks for providing such great photos. Regarding the typhoid vaccination shot, I didn't include children in the list. Kaldari (talk) 22:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. :) A few of the Commons crowd are tetchy about historic material so I don't nominate as often here. Nearly 80% of my en:wiki FPs aren't featured on Commons. Sometimes that has to do with differing technical standards and project orientations, but other times it's more a function of limited time and the desire to create more content. It's difficult to come by South American source material. There was one Argentine gaucho before this, so to locate a high resolution file for a Peruvian landscape was a pleasant surprise. :) Best regards, Durova (talk) 22:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as "stereotypical" images go, why are images that show nudity are in some way sexy singled out? An image of a geisha is stereotypical, but the image of a woman weaver isn't? I think there's more to some of these "objections" than mere concern over stereotypes of women. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 21:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Most women don't have size 0 waists and perfectly smooth hairless skin. If you want to show nudity that is typical rather than stereotypical, I would suggest an overweight 40-year-old, or maybe even a man for a change. (I'd like to see how well that one would fly.) Kaldari (talk) 00:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Way to both manage to miss my point completely, and speak volumes about the real nature of the objections to the image in question. My point being that an image of a Japanese woman at a loom is as much a "traditional" image as one of a geisha. So why this should be trotted out as an image that somehow challenges stereotypes is nonsensical. Now the latter objection, which essentially comes down to the relative sexual attractiveness of the model in question – to be blunt about it comes across as more than a little petty. And not a valid reason as to whether or not to feature an image on Wikimedia. And as for the images of nude men, as I've already said above, bring them on! If such an image is any good at all, its got my vote for featured picture. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 03:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that all of Durova's images above challenge stereotypes. If we really wanted to complete our tour of female stereotypes on Commons, Durova's Virgin Mary and witch trial pictures would come in handy (or the woman at the loom). Even her image of Joan of Arc is "feminized". (Joan of Arc had short-cropped hair according to contemporary accounts.) Also, to your second point, I'm not singling out the Merkin image solely because it has nudity, I'm singling it out because it is an image of a tall ultra-thin young white model in a sexually submissive pose. If that's not a stereotype (and a rather unhealthy one), I don't know what is. (I love Merkin's quote from her article: "... most girls I know don’t really eat.") The argument that the image has "educational value" as a photo of an "excellent female specimen" isn't even funny. It's just insulting. Kaldari (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I understand that you're critical of a presenting the image not simply of nudity, but of the particular body type in question. I still find your reasoning to be reactive and ideological. And your description of a woman who doesn't even appear to be close to clinically anorexic (comments about "girls I know don’t really eat" notwithstanding) to be downright inaccurate and offensive. (Clue: bashing thin, stereotypically attractive women does not equal body positivity.) So the point is, you're deeply offended by the image, you have a set of ideological justifications for this position that you seem to mistake for an position that should somehow be self-evident to others. However, there are clearly a number of people here who don't share your point of view and disagree with you on this. I simply don't think one narrow perspective on what they find "offensive" should determine Wikimedia policy, whether its "sexually objectifying" glamour photography or images of the Prophet. But, policy questions aside, POTD often comes down to a subjective vote, so if you've changed any minds in that regard, and future such images don't get up to POTD, then it is what it is. Its the elevation of this or any other "offensiveness" standard to the level of Wikimedia policy that I'm on guard against. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I think you're barking up the wrong tree on the policy issue. I would be just as opposed to enacting a policy on this issue as you are. And I'm certainly not under any illusions that my viewpoint might be shared by a significant number of other Wikipedians. Indeed, I seem to be in the extreme minority. I'm just trying to make sure that people realize there are other viewpoints out there, and encourage people to think about these issues when they're choosing pictures for POTD. Kaldari (talk) 00:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
--
Nude men! Or, Gustave Doré's illustration of Dante's Inferno. One's priorities may differ. ;)
Relative pertinence to stereotypes was not a primary consideration in either of those two Japanese uploads. For the first I was working on a featured portal drive for Wikipedia's textile arts project. Depending on one's views of third wave feminism that's either progressive or retrograde. The deciding factor was that it was a high resolution historic image of a person operating a heddle loom. The latter image was a good example of Kitagawa Utamaro's bijinga work. Since the time when Michele Merkin ran on the main page I have also restored a period political cartoon about women's suffrage, Helen Keller's portrait, opera soprano Mignon Nevada, and (gasp) a female art nude. I work with historic material, which often reflects the bias of its era. If these priorities don't quite measure up by other editors' sociopolitical yardsticks, then please bring forward your own contributions. Durova (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
My reply wasn't to slight your contributions or to criticize the selection of images we have available as featured images. I think we have room for all types of images on Commons (and even as featured images) even if they reflect sexist, racist, or whatever biases existed at the time. The issue is only a problem, in my view, regarding what we choose to showcase as our Picture of the Day, especially since these are usually selected by just a handful of people with no discussion. If we are only choosing certain kinds of images for POTD (for example, say, butterflies and sexy women) perhaps we should try to diversify, especially if we are alienating valuable contributors to the project. Kaldari (talk) 16:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Also, I find it interesting that the illustration above was nominated to be a featured picture on Commons, but was rejected. Kaldari (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Then we've come full circle in terms of whether to be inclusive or to censor. Do we not showcase what is arguably the most enduring and popular female archetype in European art history, simply because some people regard the Virgin Mary as insufficiently progressive? This conversation has been like a throwback to the bad old days of political correctness twenty years ago where everything chugged through a dialectic which was equal parts judgmental and inflexible. The usual result was that people who didn't already agree to that particular dialectic's validity quietly wandered away and stopped endeavoring to correct imbalances. As in now: I happen to be uploading a photograph of Medal of Honor recipient Henry Breault, from the day President Calvin Coolidge bestowed the award. We need more Naval featured pictures (it was my branch of service). Now I've put this gently several different ways, so let's be direct about it. The only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor was Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. I've never found an image of her that was good enough resolution to restore for featured picture candidacy. Want to change that? You search the archives and contact curators. Or get a good scan of Nadezhda Durova: she was the first female officer of the Russian army. It'd be a treat to restore the likeness of the woman who inspired my username. But if you aren't willing to step forward and help solve the problem you perceive, then you can't really expect me to take much more time out of the actual work that I'm doing. It would be counterproductive to sidetrack the most active person who's doing something positive about it. Durova (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Durova, I really don't know what you're going on about. No one has criticized you or your work in this thread or suggested that you need to do anything differently. Indeed, I actually complimented your work. Are you really so offended at the idea that POTD's representation of women is not balanced and could use a bit of diversification? I'm not proposing censoring anything or instituting any policies. And I haven't suggested anything about featured pictures at all. I'm just asking people to be thoughtful when choosing POTD. Why is that such a controversial ("reactionary", "judgemental", "inflexible", and "counter-productive") idea? Kaldari (talk) 18:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_day/Archive_1&oldid=708170642"