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As the above discussions (with few participants) indicate, it is far from clear that our practice to provide author attribution only on image description pages, and not in the article, complies with the requirements of Creative Commons licensing. Specifically, the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence states:
We comply with the last part by treating image credits just as non-prominently as text credits: both are hidden on a separate page (article history or image page, respectively). But I don't think that our practice not to display image credits in the article is "reasonable" as required by the license. It's evident why we can't reasonably provide in-article attribution for text – it would make the article unreadable or extremely long. But in contrast to text, images are discrete works that normally have one or few authors, and there are relatively few images in each article. It is therefore reasonably practicable to provide footnoted attributions for images, and as such I believe we are required to.
Legalities aside, we have a practical interest in being more proactive in providing attribution for images: This could motivate many more professional or semiprofessional photographers to make their images available under a free license. This is well explained in the following e-mail (reproduced with permission) by a photographer, with whom I have been in contact about securing the free licensing of an image:
I have a problem with how Wikipedia handles attribution. Specially, Wikipedia itself doesn't give the required attribution when the photos are used across the site -- and, consequently, other sites that republish content from Wikipedia frequently don't as well.
To pick just one more-or-less random example, here's the Wikipedia page for Tom Hiddleston: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston. There's a photo of him on this page. Where's the attribution? it's nowhere on the page.
If you click through you'll go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Hiddleston_(Avengers_Red_Carpet).jpg where photographer Sachyn Mital has selected a Creative Commons option that states, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author." But the photo's usage on Wikipedia -- as demonstrated on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston -- doesn't do this. While the page includes a great deal of information about the subject -- his birthday, where he went to school, etc. -- it doesn't include the photo attribution.
Very often the result is that when other sites use photos from Wikipedia they often say something like "photo credit: Wikipedia." But that's not right. Wikipedia didn't take the photo, a photographer did. (In this case, Sachyn Mital.)
So here's the question: Why doesn't the usage of the photo in Wikipedia on pages like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston say something like: "Photo license CC BY-SA 3.0. Required Attribution: Sachyn Mital"
If it did this, it would be more likely that sites that use content from Wikipedia might include the correct attribution. As it is now, Wikipedia obscures, rather than supports, and the required attribution.
I don't mean to be a jerk. I like the idea of having my photos widely distributed for others to see. I just wish Wikipedia would assist photographers who are willing to provide their content for free, but would like attribution for their work.
My proposal is to react to these legitimate concerns by asking editors to provide in-article attribution, in a footnote (probably in a separate "credits" group apart from references) for copyrighted images. We might consider options to make this less intrusive – e.g., to apply this form of attribution only to images that were not uploaded by the rights holders themselves (but, e.g., imported from Flickr), or only by request of the rights holder. But that would probably conflict with the clause requiring equal treatment of all credits at the end of the part of the license quoted above.
I know that this would mean a lot of work to implement if we mean to do it for all of our zillion images, but I am optimistic that bot automation could be used in most cases. Perhaps this could even be solved at the software level, with MediaWiki extracting licensing information from image pages and displaying it below the article. How best to implement this for existing articles would need a more thorough and technical discussion later. – This discussion is notified to the community via the RfC tag and WP:CENT, to WP:VPP and to the talk pages of the images, MOS and copyright Wikiprojects. Sandstein 10:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I would not exclude public domain. Even if in the public domain, we should attribute if possible, and to an unknown artist if not possible.
Every image should be captioned. Otherwise, the image is there for decoration, and we should not be using images for decoration.
I would prefer that the minimal caption, including basic attribution, be in a text box rendered onto the image as displayed, just below the image-proper. For every image. The basic attribution isn't complete attribution. If the author list is long, the basic attribution must provide the means to access the long list. However, artwork usually has a single most important author.
If we don't do it right, we are in no position to complain when others don't respect our re-use conditions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
*Oppose unnecessary clutter on the face of the article. I would warrant that if the link to the file page is demonstrably insufficient from a legal point of view, since it appears to be considered valid/adequate on other websites, I could envisage the credit being in the form of
alt text. --
Ohconfucius
ping / poke
09:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)revised. see below
Favor giving photo credit very strongly. I am surprised there is opposition. The photos are licensed, not donated, and the licensing arrangement says very clearly: "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." You might disagree with this stipulation, but it is key to getting photographers to license their work for others to use. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 18:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Attribution is often considered the most basic of requirements made by a license, as it allows an author to accumulate a positive reputation that partially repays their work and prevents others from claiming fraudulently to have produced the work. It is widely regarded as a sign of decency and respect to acknowledge the creator by giving him/her credit for the work. Attribution_(copyright)
GeorgeLouis ( talk) 18:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't see any guidance on how to "point out" people and things in caption wording e.g. which is these is correct?
Or maybe no italics? I will say right off that I prefer (c) since space is at an absolute premium in captions. Then there are the more wordy situations like
Once again, I prefer shorter, though (2nd r) is perhaps a bit too compressed. Let the arguing begin! EEng ( talk) 02:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
It was recently asserted that an article cannot be said to meet the FAC criteria (specifically #3) if it has captions that are longer than approximately one sentence, or are considered verbose. Since ogg files require more explanation than images, I suggest that we allow for a bit more detail in the description field of ogg files. I propose this additional language for the policy to be added to Succinctness:
Since an ogg file box lacks visual information regarding the content of its file, it is often desirable to include a longer description than is typically acceptable with image captions. As with image captions, care should be taken to include enough relevant information in-line so that the ogg file's relevance to the article is made explicit irrespective of the caption. As a general rule, retain the broader points relating to the file in the article, including specific points in the description field. For example, a statement such as: "'Yesterday' is one of the Beatles' best-known songs" might be more appropriate for the article body than a statement such as: "The string arrangement on 'Yesterday' utilises counterpoint, which complements McCartney's vocals by reinforcing the tonic", which might be more appropriate as the ogg description, especially if it pertains specifically to the contents of that file. This is particularly true regarding points that support the file's fair-use rationale. While there is no hard rule for how many lines of text are acceptable, the ogg description should not contain more lines than the accompanying paragraph of article text.
Any thoughts? GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 18:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
What is the purpose of the example depicting Burma-Shave - to demonstrate how not to do it? Captions should be factually accurate, and Burma-Shave did not introduce canned shaving cream. They sold their product - shaving gel - in jars, as Snopes makes plain:
Keep Well
To The Right
Of The Oncoming Car
Get Your Close Shaves
From The Half-Pound Jar
Burma-Shave
Our article Shaving cream credits two different companies with introducing canned shaving foam - neither of them Burma-Shave. -- Pete ( talk) 04:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
User_talk:Brianmcmillen, whom I'm pretty sure is a professional photographer, has added many very high quality images to wikipedia with himself credited in article space, which is generally a no no. Does his work and contribution rise to the level of making an exception to that rule? - Richfife ( talk) 16:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
Check out Hail to the Thief. None of the image captions have citations. This was deliberate, because the captions simply restate text from the article, which is fully cited (to my knowledge). Should the captions be cited too? Popcornduff ( talk) 09:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". It's also important to recognize that there are different situations. Is a citation needed if the caption repeats information from the image description (and the image source supports that description). However, sometimes this is not always the case, and I would recommend a source if the either of those things are not in place. In addition, anytime a quote appears, it's typical to provide a citation. Mkdw talk 19:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
If an article is about a subject that is known by multiple names should the captions all match the article name or should they use a mixture of the article name and the alternative name(s)? -- Khajidha ( talk) 19:02, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I think the guidance needs changing to include the possibility of elliptical sentences (or more precisely in grammar: elliptical main clauses). What I mean by this is that because the text in the caption explains the image we write "Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel.", rather than stating the obvious "This is a painting of Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." The "This is a painting of" is not usually stated, but is implied in captions, so in such cases as an implied full sentence, editors ought not to remove a full stop under the argument that what is present it is not a full sentence. -- PBS ( talk) 12:42, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Well, in the first case I do think there should be no dot at the end. In the second, I believe there should be one. Paging Tony1, SMcCandlish. E Eng 20:57, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
It is emphatically not WP's job to entice the reader– It may not be the job, but some of us go the extra mile. No joking. E Eng 04:07, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Because it's a debatable linguistics-nerd matter, I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP, and will probably just lead to increased disputation over trivia, as people are going to disagree in high Dunning–Kruger effect style about whether a particular case "really" qualifies or not, and name-call at people who don't "see the truth".
There isn't even anything at Elliptical clause (which just redirects to Ellipsis (linguistics)) suggesting that highly elided constructions are widely accepted to still be sentences (though this is true for some well-documented cases of "understood" subjects and even verbs or both, e.g. answering just "No!" to a question, telling someone "Go home." with no stated subject, or saying "Me, too." with no explicit verb. These have one thing in common: an immediately prior sentence or other context-deliverer that provided the elided details, and this does not apply to captions, which may be the first or even only thing some visually-oriented skimmers will read (or even general readers who are coming to page solely to visually verify something, like whether the name in their head really is that of a particular actor). At any rate, the article is almost entirely unsourced, and doesn't cover "Is this or is this not a sentence?" questions. So we don't even have anything to which to refer people to settle an argument about such a matter with regards to a caption they want to editwar about. Ergo, I urge no change in caption style here: do not provide a new bit of trivia about which to editwar!
On the side matters: I lean toward ke4roh's view on informative versus "well, duh" image captions, though there are circumstances in which we do want very short, "generic" captions that are about the class of thing depicted not the specific instance. Also agree that the two-part "Left, Marshal Michel Ney, ..." example should use terminal punctuation (though a version without it, and with a semicolon between the parts, should not be verboten). The "Left," construction is a compression of "On the left is ..." (with an explicit verb), which would be a perfectly reasonable caption style. "This is a picture of ..." would not be reasonable; it would be a "pedantically brow-beat the reader as if brain-damaged" redundancy, and would be ruled WP:POINT disruption if someone started going around changing captions to read this way. So the two kinds of caption compression being compared are not actually analogous.@ User:SMcCandlish you wrote "I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP I am suggesting the opposite, remove the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences,". That does away with any need to explain what an Eliptical main clause is. -- PBS ( talk) 15:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
O'Reilly speakingisn't a sentence. I'm shocked at you. Here's a fragment + sentence that I think are just fine:
Dr. J. M. Harlow, who attended Gage after his accident and obtained his skull for study after his death. Shown here in later life, Harlow's interest in phrenology prepared him to accept that Gage's injury had changed his behavior.
William of Normandy overthrew the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, bringing a new style of governmentaesthetic. E Eng 04:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Sous-lieutenant Legros led the 1st Légère's assault on this north-side gate.(I haven't the foggiest idea of what went on at Waterloo, so maybe that doesn't quite make sense, but you get the idea.) E Eng 14:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Whether a sentence can be "rewritten to be far stronger" is not the issue. The issue is whether an elliptical main clause, should have its full stop stripped, given that most captions are elliptical main clauses because we do not want editors to include the obvious eg "This is a picture of.." Your four points are:
All of these I have already answered. However here they on again. (1 & 2) this change that striped a full stop from an elliptical main clause (sentence). Also the first example I gave in this section "[This is a painting of] Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." which under the current guidance would suggest that the full stop should be removed, and that I think should remain. (3 & 4) Fix it by removing the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences," (less creep not more) -- PBS ( talk) 12:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that quite a few people add photos that name non-notable (no page in their name) people in the captions, this looks like WP:SOAPBOX. Is there any policy or guideline or RFC that deals with this? I could find nothing in the MOS or the archive of this talk page. Thanks for your help. Domdeparis ( talk) 09:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Does MoS have nothing to say on this topic? My own feeling is that a featured article, for example, should at least be consistent in the use of articles in captions: "The location of...", "An 18th-century fragment...", and not "Egyptian bust...". Do others agree that a hypothetical high-quality article should at least be consistent in this regard? Cleopatra is a good example of a highly developed article with inconsistent article use in its captions. (I notice this in the first place because I find article-less captions bothersome; we don't lack for space, and there is no reason to change the "feel" of the writing—I can't find a word to describe it—just because the writing is in a caption.) Outriggr ( talk) 04:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Need opinions on a specific form, "Sheriff Israel visits a victim". Period or no? It has subject, verb, and object, which would seem to make it a complete sentence. On the other hand I'm fairly sure I've seen the period omitted far more often than included for this form. For examples in a high-vis article, see some of the captions at Stephen Hawking. Note that this form is distinct from "Sheriff Israel visiting a victim". ― Mandruss ☎ 04:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm moving on; please ping me if you respond; thanks. ― Mandruss ☎ 19:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The section on Succinctness currently reads:
More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; sometimes increasing the width of the image brings better visual balance
Should we not give the opposite advice, that changing the width of an image to make the caption look balanced is pointless (and counterproductive)? which I believe is because:
I've just come across an editor that was rescaling images to make the caption look better as a matter of course, with somehow questionable results, and we agreed that the caption's length should be ignored, when considering any rescaling of images (see discussion). -- Deeday-UK ( talk) 10:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I need some input on the changes I made to image captions in FC Barcelona. I'm not sure if the following captions should end with a period (simple present is underlined): "Barcelona line up against Hamburger SV before the 1960–61 European Cup semi-final."; "Players jostle in Barcelona's 2–6 win against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in a 2009 El Clásico."; "Barcelona players parade La Liga trophy around the Camp Nou in May 2006 after defeating Espanyol in their last home game of the season."; "One of the Camp Nou stands displays Barcelona's motto, "Més que un club", meaning 'More than a club'." SLBedit ( talk) 03:33, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
alt
parameter, which is used only about 0.0001% as frequently here as it should be. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
07:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)I recently added credit to illustrations by Seedfeeder in 3 articles here, here, and here. All 3 were reverted with references to MOS:CREDITS. Presumably, the reverts were done because the editor only read the first sentence that says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article."
I reverted the reverts with references to the 3rd sentence that read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography may be appropriate". The addition was deleted again with the explanation "Seems more distracting than helpful in this context".
I am thinking that the word may in the 3rd sentence should be replaced with the word is to read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography is appropriate" with the same exception for infoboxes as currently exists. Seedfeeder Fan ( talk) 23:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Is there a requirement to have a citation for a photo caption? I don’t think just the original Commons file description is enough, as that can be wrong, and there is no editorial control on what a photographer uses as a description. So, do photo captions need the same level of validation as main article text? If not, why not? There was an incident regarding someone giving an animal on Wiki a fake nickname in the lead without providing a source... That info remained on Wikipedia for years, and was propagated into newspapers and even books. I see no reason that this could not happen due to an erroneous photo caption as well. 192.91.173.36 ( talk) 16:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Hmmm, good question. Doesn't seem that it is. Let's start with this:
Thoughts? Let's develop this here among ourselves, then when it's as good as we can get it we'll advertise for wider participation. E Eng 19:17, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
drawn from the images's file description pageand added
If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption. I'm not sure. Most images live on Commons, and I don't know what it means for citations to be "warranted" over there -- they rarely do anything like that. Remember, our job in MOS is to distill current berst practice here on the English Wikipedia, and in practice I don't think your "If citations are warranted..." addition is anything anyone does. E Eng 20:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Currently, the media viewer does not render formulas in <math>...</math>
mode (click on the attached example to see how it behaves). So, I'd like to add a note (probably in the "Other special situations" subsection) to the effect that if it's reasonable to write a formula in wiki markup, then it should be preferred over <math>...</math>
for image captions, but exceptions can be made for ones that don't work well otherwise. Would anyone object to this, or have any alternate suggestions? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
01:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
I've noticed on several professional wrestling pages, under the 'Championships and accomplishments' section, there are often multiple pictures of a wrestler with various championship belts they have won during their career, and captions are often joined together with a series of ellipses. The first picture caption will start "[Wrestler] is a former heavyweight champion...", the second picture caption will continue "... and this champion...", and the third picture caption will conclude "...and also this champion." (See Jon Moxley for example). This strikes me as an odd way of writing captions and does not contribute any substantial information regarding the photos, aside from merely identifying which championship is in the given picture. I have re-written some captions before to be more informative (i.e. [Wrestler] held [championship] on four different occasions during his career.) and, more often than not, they stay unchanged. Some editors, though, seem to either outright revert any changes, or add the "..." back into the captions. Should the ellipses be used in that sort of fashion for captions, spanning multiple pictures? HidyHoTim ( talk) 02:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
How should one format dates/years in captions? There is as yet no guideline that I can see. Yet there are several ways to do it. Leaving complete sentences out of the mix (as those are easy and fairly self-explanatory) one can choose, for example, for a photo of Steve Jobs beside the first Macintosh:
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh in 1984"
or
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh (1984)"
or
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh, 1984"
If it were up to me alone, I would favor the first two, with a slight preference for the first variant. But lately I see a lot of the latter – and to me, at least, it doesn't look nearly as encyclopedic as the other variants. It would be nice for our style guidelines not to be silent on the matter.
Is there any consensus on how these dates should be handled? Thanks!
1980fast ( talk) 05:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Every so often I run into images whose captions are centered (in older cases with the deprecated <center>...</center>
, or with {{
center}}
or something related). This has always struck me as a Bad Thing, and I generally remove it whenever I see it. I thought it might be worth adding a short note to the subpage here about that. As just a first idea, maybe something along the lines of: "Image captions should not be centered without a situation-specific reason." Thoughts? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
14:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
For the past few days I have had a discussion with User:पाटलिपुत्र regarding the image captions in the article on Ashurbanipal, which I worked on and got to GA level a few months ago. The main issue present here is that I believe पाटलिपुत्र's work on the images and captions in this article was excessive and unnecessary and since neither me nor पाटलिपुत्र is budging on the issue I feel like it is appropriate to attempt to get broader consensus for what the captions should look like.
This is what the article, as edited by पाटलिपुत्र, looked like prior to me changing things around again. The images are of wildly different sizes, many of the captions are long (several being six lines or longer) and (I would argue) contain excessive and unnecessary detail. For instance, the caption of the image in the section on Ashurbanipal's family, there to illustrate him and his wife depicted dining, goes into detail on every other thing in the mural. I argued that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions states that captions should be "succinct" but पाटलिपुत्र argued back that they believed their captions were succinct (as the word does not necessarily mean "brief"). Granted, their latest versions of the captions (reverted by me) are considerably better in this respect, I still believe some detail in them was excessive and not relevant to the context the images were used.
The other issue is that पाटलिपुत्र wants to use citations in the image captions, arguing that Wikipedia:Citing sources says "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". I argued that "as appropriate" could be considered a matter of opinion here, but that regardless of what the rule/guideline says, image captions are very rarely cited in the articles themselves. I pointed to the TFA:s over the last four days and how none of them had any citations in their image captions, even when the captions were long and contained information not immediately apparent from the image themselves. I also argued that citations and detailed info might be more appropriate for the commons page of the image rather than the article itself and that using citations in the captions to the degree that पाटलिपुत्र wants is actually detrimental to the article as it makes it stand out from every single other article in this respect. The image depicting Ashurbanipal dining had four citations alone for its captions in पाटलिपुत्र's original version (and two in their latest version).
This page states that "More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; instead, further information can be provided in the article body. And remember that readers wanting full detail can click through to the image description page" so perhaps others can weigh in on how much detail is appropriate in image captions and when they need to be cited (and if it is, as पाटलिपुत्र appears to interpret it, in every case, why is this never enforced during the GA or FA process?). Ichthyovenator ( talk) 12:46, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
@ Johnbod: @ Ichthyovenator: I note there is a previous discussion from 2018 ( Do captions need a reference?), to which participated User:EEng, User:Ke4roh, User:Gronk Oz User:Domdeparis and User:Rp2006, and in which the consensus seems to have been that: "If the caption recites something which is in the article text, and sourced there, then no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated in the caption only should carry a source". I agree with this statement, but it seems the discussion faltered at some point, and the draft proposal was finally not translated into policy. Could now be the right time to do so? Wikipedia:Citing sources already has: "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article", but a confirmation and possibly a bit more precision on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions would be welcome. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Summarizing the discussion linked in the OP (and reading between the lines a little), there were three rough versions of proposed text (which probably needs to end of in WP:V, not MOS):
To the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, drawn from the images's file description page. Further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
A caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows does not need to be sourced; further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated only in the caption should carry a source. If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption.
Version 2's stuff about citations are warranted on the image description page
seems to me a nonstarter, because most images are at Commons, and Commons doesn't use cites. I think V0's provisions should be easy for everyone to get behind. V1 goes further, and expresses what I think is considered good practice, but I'm not sure everyone will be comfortable enshrining it explicitly. It does seem like an issue that ought to be resolved.
E
Eng
22:54, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article ( Wikipedia:Citing sources). No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, or when the caption simply recites something stated and sourced in article text. But anything which is stated only in the caption should be referenced. A description or attribution of the image resulting from specialized knowledge should also be sourced.
When I see videos in mainspace, they sometimes include a note of how long they are in the caption. I'd like to see what the community thinks of this practice, and how best to format the note if it is included. You may !vote from the list below with a combination of a number and a letter, and feel free to add additional options.
I didn't list out all the large options to keep the list short, but if you want to !vote e.g. Option 2C large, feel free to do so. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 21:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Examples and syntax
|
---|
Option A large: (4:07) <small>(4:07)</small> <small>(4:07 min)</small> <small>(4:07 {{abbr|min|minutes}})</small> <small>(4 min 7 s)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})</small> <small>(4 minutes 7 seconds)</small> <small>(4 min 7 sec)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|sec|seconds}})</small> <small>(4 m 7 s)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|m|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})</small> |
{{
abbr}}
, that linking should only be done on first occurrence (just as, for example, we only use {{
circa}}
for the first appearance in the page of "c.". That is to say, all the "different" options that differ only by use of {{abbr}}
or not are really the same option just used at different places in the page. And a side point is that
MOS:ABBR would want these with a period/point: min., sec., m., or s., unless per
MOS:NUM we have proof that they are standardized as unit symbols without them. Even in British/Commonwealth English style guides, points are dropped only from abbreviations that are contractions like Dr, not from truncations like Prof., thus: min., sec. regardless of
MOS:ENGVAR. I would add that m. is distinct from m, so a version of J with periods would be viable. Given that last point, both H and J could then be permissible, with H being normally preferred, but J usable in infoboxes, tight tables, and other situations of constrained horizontal space. Cf.
WP:CREEP and
WP:MOSBLOAT: don't rule out options without a good reason. PS: The heading is a bit misleading in that this could also apply to audio. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
11:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
<small>...</small>
tags would violate
MOS:SMALL (accessibility) if used within already-reduced text. ―
Mandruss
☎
12:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Senator Wales gave one of the longest filibusters on record (40 min 7 s), it's not very clear that the parenthetical refers to the length of the video, rather than the length of the filibuster, whereas it would be clearer if the timestamp were reduced size.
<small>...</small>
makes text 85% of its original size, and so using it on a caption pushes that caption under the 85% guideline of
MOS:SMALL. —
Goszei (
talk)
18:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
... of the incident (4 min).
Since @
Izno:'s comments it would also seem that this discussion (or RFC) would be better suited at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates
Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing Captions as it is specifically related to that area. The project should operate in accordance to policies and guidelines and we do have projects for a reason. Would that not be the more accurate place as?
Otr500 (
talk)
20:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
For the purposes of WP:CAPFRAG, is a caption like the following considered a complete sentence, requiring a period?
Biden speaks at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner in 2018
It has a subject and a verb, but its meaning changes when you put it in a caption. ― Mandruss ☎ 08:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
In the paragraph labeled Short caption, one of the examples given is:
Jackson performs in 1988
This is actually a complete sentence in need of a period, and therefore more appropriate for the next paragraph. I will accordingly be changing it to:
Jackson performing in 1988
1980fast ( talk) 04:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
How should one deal with captions such as "John Smith (left) and Jane Doe" in {{ multiple image}} (or a similar template), if mobile devices display the images in vertical, rather than horizontal succession? Toccata quarta ( talk) 18:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
SCHolar44 and I have a disagreement about including the text "(click to enlarge)" in an image caption on Localities on the Trans-Australian Railway.
Previous discussion: User talk:Mitch Ames#"Click to enlarge" note for a map with tiny lettering
Other editors are invited to comment. Is "Click to enlarge" appropriate in the caption, or does
WP:CAPWORD apply - ... "click for larger view") is not appropriate.
?
Mitch Ames (
talk)
01:42, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
At Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Captions/Archive_2#Centered_captions there's a suggestion and support for the idea that we say not to center captions. Is there really nothing about that in the MOS? I sort of recall that there was. Dicklyon ( talk) 21:22, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Keith-264: you reverted my removal of centering here, citing consistency within a small cluster of articles around a topic. This seems odd to me. We don't usually support idiosyncratic styles around a topic cluster. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Try not to set yourself up as judge and jury. Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 16:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics or centering, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text.While this obviously included centering (or centring if you prefer) because "that would [not] apply ... in the main text", it is even more obvious that this is not getting through, that instead the example (of italics) is being taken as a one-item list of the only thing to not do, and that is an error, and a too-common one. If there is a consensus, contrariwise, that captions should be centered, then the MoS section should say so. We should not leave this open to continual re-re-re-dispute, however. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Recently there has been an effort to add this particular caption to the infoboxes of almost all United States Senators and United States Cabinet members. This seems unnecessary per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Captions#Infoboxes_and_leading_images - it doesn't seem particularly relevant to the reader whether an image is "official" or not, and many of the portraits are from within the last few years so the date seems like unnecessary bloat. Wondering if there are any further thoughts on this. Connormah ( talk) 15:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Cosby in 2010example in the guideline. I could take or leave the "Official portrait, YYYY" format. It seems to be an acceptable application of WP:CAPLENGTH, though. ― Tartan357 Talk 02:03, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Some1, I've never understood this, and fought it successfully when I did an FL. Why can't a fragment end with a period? Sentence fragments in written prose end with periods all the time, and it's not the period that means "here was a complete sentence". Drmies ( talk) 01:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely sentence fragments, which should not end with a period or full stop.If this is because of my recent edit on BTS [11], feel free to revert, I won't mind. Some1 ( talk) 01:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Collage footer style. {{u|
Sdkb}}
talk
23:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I just noticed that MOS:CAPOBVIOUS says in part: It is usually unnecessary to state what kind of image is being shown. A map of the world showing NATO member countries can be captioned simply "NATO members" rather than "Map of NATO members".
I've found the opposite is true, both for accessibility and for clarity. For example, someone who can't see or can only see poorly or who - like me - is using a screen reader to listen to an article while doing the dishes - won't know if this is a picture of NATO representatives or a map of NATO countries. Many folks in that situation might want to take further measures to view the image if it is actually of interest, but they need to know the contents in order to decide whether or not to do that. Another example (explicitly endorsed by the next recommendation in that part of the MOS) is that I usually add "painting of" to images of artwork depicting real pre-photography events, to clarify that it is not a photograph and thus might not be historically accurate, and include the year of painting which is often much later than the event. Sometimes it's hard to tell from a thumbnail image what medium it's produced in.
I propose removing this line from the MOS, at the very least, if not replacing it with something like:
-- Beland ( talk) 14:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
When a caption contains metadata ("(pictured in 2016)", "(left/center/right)", etc.), is the text within the parentheses (or even including the parentheses) italicized? I couldn't find a specific guideline on the topic and found it to be used inconsistently between articles. IceWelder [ ✉] 12:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Glerod Castle (seen here in 1954) was rebuilt somewhat different after a 1962 fire.
None of the above. The text should be presented spɹɐʍʞɔɐq puɐ uʍop ǝpᴉsdn so that the reader definitely won't miss it. Alternatively, let's not have a rule and let people do what they want. I believe that is current situation. Herostratus ( talk) 23:27, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Template:Infobox person says to include the photographer of an infobox photo. Template talk:Infobox person#Image credit to photographer suggests to change that. PrimeHunter ( talk) 02:21, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
As the above discussions (with few participants) indicate, it is far from clear that our practice to provide author attribution only on image description pages, and not in the article, complies with the requirements of Creative Commons licensing. Specifically, the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence states:
We comply with the last part by treating image credits just as non-prominently as text credits: both are hidden on a separate page (article history or image page, respectively). But I don't think that our practice not to display image credits in the article is "reasonable" as required by the license. It's evident why we can't reasonably provide in-article attribution for text – it would make the article unreadable or extremely long. But in contrast to text, images are discrete works that normally have one or few authors, and there are relatively few images in each article. It is therefore reasonably practicable to provide footnoted attributions for images, and as such I believe we are required to.
Legalities aside, we have a practical interest in being more proactive in providing attribution for images: This could motivate many more professional or semiprofessional photographers to make their images available under a free license. This is well explained in the following e-mail (reproduced with permission) by a photographer, with whom I have been in contact about securing the free licensing of an image:
I have a problem with how Wikipedia handles attribution. Specially, Wikipedia itself doesn't give the required attribution when the photos are used across the site -- and, consequently, other sites that republish content from Wikipedia frequently don't as well.
To pick just one more-or-less random example, here's the Wikipedia page for Tom Hiddleston: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston. There's a photo of him on this page. Where's the attribution? it's nowhere on the page.
If you click through you'll go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Hiddleston_(Avengers_Red_Carpet).jpg where photographer Sachyn Mital has selected a Creative Commons option that states, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author." But the photo's usage on Wikipedia -- as demonstrated on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston -- doesn't do this. While the page includes a great deal of information about the subject -- his birthday, where he went to school, etc. -- it doesn't include the photo attribution.
Very often the result is that when other sites use photos from Wikipedia they often say something like "photo credit: Wikipedia." But that's not right. Wikipedia didn't take the photo, a photographer did. (In this case, Sachyn Mital.)
So here's the question: Why doesn't the usage of the photo in Wikipedia on pages like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hiddleston say something like: "Photo license CC BY-SA 3.0. Required Attribution: Sachyn Mital"
If it did this, it would be more likely that sites that use content from Wikipedia might include the correct attribution. As it is now, Wikipedia obscures, rather than supports, and the required attribution.
I don't mean to be a jerk. I like the idea of having my photos widely distributed for others to see. I just wish Wikipedia would assist photographers who are willing to provide their content for free, but would like attribution for their work.
My proposal is to react to these legitimate concerns by asking editors to provide in-article attribution, in a footnote (probably in a separate "credits" group apart from references) for copyrighted images. We might consider options to make this less intrusive – e.g., to apply this form of attribution only to images that were not uploaded by the rights holders themselves (but, e.g., imported from Flickr), or only by request of the rights holder. But that would probably conflict with the clause requiring equal treatment of all credits at the end of the part of the license quoted above.
I know that this would mean a lot of work to implement if we mean to do it for all of our zillion images, but I am optimistic that bot automation could be used in most cases. Perhaps this could even be solved at the software level, with MediaWiki extracting licensing information from image pages and displaying it below the article. How best to implement this for existing articles would need a more thorough and technical discussion later. – This discussion is notified to the community via the RfC tag and WP:CENT, to WP:VPP and to the talk pages of the images, MOS and copyright Wikiprojects. Sandstein 10:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I would not exclude public domain. Even if in the public domain, we should attribute if possible, and to an unknown artist if not possible.
Every image should be captioned. Otherwise, the image is there for decoration, and we should not be using images for decoration.
I would prefer that the minimal caption, including basic attribution, be in a text box rendered onto the image as displayed, just below the image-proper. For every image. The basic attribution isn't complete attribution. If the author list is long, the basic attribution must provide the means to access the long list. However, artwork usually has a single most important author.
If we don't do it right, we are in no position to complain when others don't respect our re-use conditions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
*Oppose unnecessary clutter on the face of the article. I would warrant that if the link to the file page is demonstrably insufficient from a legal point of view, since it appears to be considered valid/adequate on other websites, I could envisage the credit being in the form of
alt text. --
Ohconfucius
ping / poke
09:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)revised. see below
Favor giving photo credit very strongly. I am surprised there is opposition. The photos are licensed, not donated, and the licensing arrangement says very clearly: "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." You might disagree with this stipulation, but it is key to getting photographers to license their work for others to use. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 18:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Attribution is often considered the most basic of requirements made by a license, as it allows an author to accumulate a positive reputation that partially repays their work and prevents others from claiming fraudulently to have produced the work. It is widely regarded as a sign of decency and respect to acknowledge the creator by giving him/her credit for the work. Attribution_(copyright)
GeorgeLouis ( talk) 18:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't see any guidance on how to "point out" people and things in caption wording e.g. which is these is correct?
Or maybe no italics? I will say right off that I prefer (c) since space is at an absolute premium in captions. Then there are the more wordy situations like
Once again, I prefer shorter, though (2nd r) is perhaps a bit too compressed. Let the arguing begin! EEng ( talk) 02:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
It was recently asserted that an article cannot be said to meet the FAC criteria (specifically #3) if it has captions that are longer than approximately one sentence, or are considered verbose. Since ogg files require more explanation than images, I suggest that we allow for a bit more detail in the description field of ogg files. I propose this additional language for the policy to be added to Succinctness:
Since an ogg file box lacks visual information regarding the content of its file, it is often desirable to include a longer description than is typically acceptable with image captions. As with image captions, care should be taken to include enough relevant information in-line so that the ogg file's relevance to the article is made explicit irrespective of the caption. As a general rule, retain the broader points relating to the file in the article, including specific points in the description field. For example, a statement such as: "'Yesterday' is one of the Beatles' best-known songs" might be more appropriate for the article body than a statement such as: "The string arrangement on 'Yesterday' utilises counterpoint, which complements McCartney's vocals by reinforcing the tonic", which might be more appropriate as the ogg description, especially if it pertains specifically to the contents of that file. This is particularly true regarding points that support the file's fair-use rationale. While there is no hard rule for how many lines of text are acceptable, the ogg description should not contain more lines than the accompanying paragraph of article text.
Any thoughts? GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 18:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
What is the purpose of the example depicting Burma-Shave - to demonstrate how not to do it? Captions should be factually accurate, and Burma-Shave did not introduce canned shaving cream. They sold their product - shaving gel - in jars, as Snopes makes plain:
Keep Well
To The Right
Of The Oncoming Car
Get Your Close Shaves
From The Half-Pound Jar
Burma-Shave
Our article Shaving cream credits two different companies with introducing canned shaving foam - neither of them Burma-Shave. -- Pete ( talk) 04:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
User_talk:Brianmcmillen, whom I'm pretty sure is a professional photographer, has added many very high quality images to wikipedia with himself credited in article space, which is generally a no no. Does his work and contribution rise to the level of making an exception to that rule? - Richfife ( talk) 16:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
Check out Hail to the Thief. None of the image captions have citations. This was deliberate, because the captions simply restate text from the article, which is fully cited (to my knowledge). Should the captions be cited too? Popcornduff ( talk) 09:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". It's also important to recognize that there are different situations. Is a citation needed if the caption repeats information from the image description (and the image source supports that description). However, sometimes this is not always the case, and I would recommend a source if the either of those things are not in place. In addition, anytime a quote appears, it's typical to provide a citation. Mkdw talk 19:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
If an article is about a subject that is known by multiple names should the captions all match the article name or should they use a mixture of the article name and the alternative name(s)? -- Khajidha ( talk) 19:02, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I think the guidance needs changing to include the possibility of elliptical sentences (or more precisely in grammar: elliptical main clauses). What I mean by this is that because the text in the caption explains the image we write "Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel.", rather than stating the obvious "This is a painting of Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." The "This is a painting of" is not usually stated, but is implied in captions, so in such cases as an implied full sentence, editors ought not to remove a full stop under the argument that what is present it is not a full sentence. -- PBS ( talk) 12:42, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Well, in the first case I do think there should be no dot at the end. In the second, I believe there should be one. Paging Tony1, SMcCandlish. E Eng 20:57, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
It is emphatically not WP's job to entice the reader– It may not be the job, but some of us go the extra mile. No joking. E Eng 04:07, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Because it's a debatable linguistics-nerd matter, I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP, and will probably just lead to increased disputation over trivia, as people are going to disagree in high Dunning–Kruger effect style about whether a particular case "really" qualifies or not, and name-call at people who don't "see the truth".
There isn't even anything at Elliptical clause (which just redirects to Ellipsis (linguistics)) suggesting that highly elided constructions are widely accepted to still be sentences (though this is true for some well-documented cases of "understood" subjects and even verbs or both, e.g. answering just "No!" to a question, telling someone "Go home." with no stated subject, or saying "Me, too." with no explicit verb. These have one thing in common: an immediately prior sentence or other context-deliverer that provided the elided details, and this does not apply to captions, which may be the first or even only thing some visually-oriented skimmers will read (or even general readers who are coming to page solely to visually verify something, like whether the name in their head really is that of a particular actor). At any rate, the article is almost entirely unsourced, and doesn't cover "Is this or is this not a sentence?" questions. So we don't even have anything to which to refer people to settle an argument about such a matter with regards to a caption they want to editwar about. Ergo, I urge no change in caption style here: do not provide a new bit of trivia about which to editwar!
On the side matters: I lean toward ke4roh's view on informative versus "well, duh" image captions, though there are circumstances in which we do want very short, "generic" captions that are about the class of thing depicted not the specific instance. Also agree that the two-part "Left, Marshal Michel Ney, ..." example should use terminal punctuation (though a version without it, and with a semicolon between the parts, should not be verboten). The "Left," construction is a compression of "On the left is ..." (with an explicit verb), which would be a perfectly reasonable caption style. "This is a picture of ..." would not be reasonable; it would be a "pedantically brow-beat the reader as if brain-damaged" redundancy, and would be ruled WP:POINT disruption if someone started going around changing captions to read this way. So the two kinds of caption compression being compared are not actually analogous.@ User:SMcCandlish you wrote "I don't think adding a line-item making an exception for partially elided "sentences" using a terminal "." will be useful. It'll be interpreted as WP:CREEP I am suggesting the opposite, remove the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences,". That does away with any need to explain what an Eliptical main clause is. -- PBS ( talk) 15:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
O'Reilly speakingisn't a sentence. I'm shocked at you. Here's a fragment + sentence that I think are just fine:
Dr. J. M. Harlow, who attended Gage after his accident and obtained his skull for study after his death. Shown here in later life, Harlow's interest in phrenology prepared him to accept that Gage's injury had changed his behavior.
William of Normandy overthrew the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, bringing a new style of governmentaesthetic. E Eng 04:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Sous-lieutenant Legros led the 1st Légère's assault on this north-side gate.(I haven't the foggiest idea of what went on at Waterloo, so maybe that doesn't quite make sense, but you get the idea.) E Eng 14:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Whether a sentence can be "rewritten to be far stronger" is not the issue. The issue is whether an elliptical main clause, should have its full stop stripped, given that most captions are elliptical main clauses because we do not want editors to include the obvious eg "This is a picture of.." Your four points are:
All of these I have already answered. However here they on again. (1 & 2) this change that striped a full stop from an elliptical main clause (sentence). Also the first example I gave in this section "[This is a painting of] Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel." which under the current guidance would suggest that the full stop should be removed, and that I think should remain. (3 & 4) Fix it by removing the bullet point that starts "Most captions are not complete sentences," (less creep not more) -- PBS ( talk) 12:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that quite a few people add photos that name non-notable (no page in their name) people in the captions, this looks like WP:SOAPBOX. Is there any policy or guideline or RFC that deals with this? I could find nothing in the MOS or the archive of this talk page. Thanks for your help. Domdeparis ( talk) 09:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Does MoS have nothing to say on this topic? My own feeling is that a featured article, for example, should at least be consistent in the use of articles in captions: "The location of...", "An 18th-century fragment...", and not "Egyptian bust...". Do others agree that a hypothetical high-quality article should at least be consistent in this regard? Cleopatra is a good example of a highly developed article with inconsistent article use in its captions. (I notice this in the first place because I find article-less captions bothersome; we don't lack for space, and there is no reason to change the "feel" of the writing—I can't find a word to describe it—just because the writing is in a caption.) Outriggr ( talk) 04:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Need opinions on a specific form, "Sheriff Israel visits a victim". Period or no? It has subject, verb, and object, which would seem to make it a complete sentence. On the other hand I'm fairly sure I've seen the period omitted far more often than included for this form. For examples in a high-vis article, see some of the captions at Stephen Hawking. Note that this form is distinct from "Sheriff Israel visiting a victim". ― Mandruss ☎ 04:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm moving on; please ping me if you respond; thanks. ― Mandruss ☎ 19:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The section on Succinctness currently reads:
More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; sometimes increasing the width of the image brings better visual balance
Should we not give the opposite advice, that changing the width of an image to make the caption look balanced is pointless (and counterproductive)? which I believe is because:
I've just come across an editor that was rescaling images to make the caption look better as a matter of course, with somehow questionable results, and we agreed that the caption's length should be ignored, when considering any rescaling of images (see discussion). -- Deeday-UK ( talk) 10:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I need some input on the changes I made to image captions in FC Barcelona. I'm not sure if the following captions should end with a period (simple present is underlined): "Barcelona line up against Hamburger SV before the 1960–61 European Cup semi-final."; "Players jostle in Barcelona's 2–6 win against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in a 2009 El Clásico."; "Barcelona players parade La Liga trophy around the Camp Nou in May 2006 after defeating Espanyol in their last home game of the season."; "One of the Camp Nou stands displays Barcelona's motto, "Més que un club", meaning 'More than a club'." SLBedit ( talk) 03:33, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
alt
parameter, which is used only about 0.0001% as frequently here as it should be. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
07:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)I recently added credit to illustrations by Seedfeeder in 3 articles here, here, and here. All 3 were reverted with references to MOS:CREDITS. Presumably, the reverts were done because the editor only read the first sentence that says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article."
I reverted the reverts with references to the 3rd sentence that read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography may be appropriate". The addition was deleted again with the explanation "Seems more distracting than helpful in this context".
I am thinking that the word may in the 3rd sentence should be replaced with the word is to read "If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography is appropriate" with the same exception for infoboxes as currently exists. Seedfeeder Fan ( talk) 23:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Is there a requirement to have a citation for a photo caption? I don’t think just the original Commons file description is enough, as that can be wrong, and there is no editorial control on what a photographer uses as a description. So, do photo captions need the same level of validation as main article text? If not, why not? There was an incident regarding someone giving an animal on Wiki a fake nickname in the lead without providing a source... That info remained on Wikipedia for years, and was propagated into newspapers and even books. I see no reason that this could not happen due to an erroneous photo caption as well. 192.91.173.36 ( talk) 16:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Hmmm, good question. Doesn't seem that it is. Let's start with this:
Thoughts? Let's develop this here among ourselves, then when it's as good as we can get it we'll advertise for wider participation. E Eng 19:17, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
drawn from the images's file description pageand added
If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption. I'm not sure. Most images live on Commons, and I don't know what it means for citations to be "warranted" over there -- they rarely do anything like that. Remember, our job in MOS is to distill current berst practice here on the English Wikipedia, and in practice I don't think your "If citations are warranted..." addition is anything anyone does. E Eng 20:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Currently, the media viewer does not render formulas in <math>...</math>
mode (click on the attached example to see how it behaves). So, I'd like to add a note (probably in the "Other special situations" subsection) to the effect that if it's reasonable to write a formula in wiki markup, then it should be preferred over <math>...</math>
for image captions, but exceptions can be made for ones that don't work well otherwise. Would anyone object to this, or have any alternate suggestions? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
01:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
I've noticed on several professional wrestling pages, under the 'Championships and accomplishments' section, there are often multiple pictures of a wrestler with various championship belts they have won during their career, and captions are often joined together with a series of ellipses. The first picture caption will start "[Wrestler] is a former heavyweight champion...", the second picture caption will continue "... and this champion...", and the third picture caption will conclude "...and also this champion." (See Jon Moxley for example). This strikes me as an odd way of writing captions and does not contribute any substantial information regarding the photos, aside from merely identifying which championship is in the given picture. I have re-written some captions before to be more informative (i.e. [Wrestler] held [championship] on four different occasions during his career.) and, more often than not, they stay unchanged. Some editors, though, seem to either outright revert any changes, or add the "..." back into the captions. Should the ellipses be used in that sort of fashion for captions, spanning multiple pictures? HidyHoTim ( talk) 02:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
How should one format dates/years in captions? There is as yet no guideline that I can see. Yet there are several ways to do it. Leaving complete sentences out of the mix (as those are easy and fairly self-explanatory) one can choose, for example, for a photo of Steve Jobs beside the first Macintosh:
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh in 1984"
or
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh (1984)"
or
"Steve Jobs and the Macintosh, 1984"
If it were up to me alone, I would favor the first two, with a slight preference for the first variant. But lately I see a lot of the latter – and to me, at least, it doesn't look nearly as encyclopedic as the other variants. It would be nice for our style guidelines not to be silent on the matter.
Is there any consensus on how these dates should be handled? Thanks!
1980fast ( talk) 05:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Every so often I run into images whose captions are centered (in older cases with the deprecated <center>...</center>
, or with {{
center}}
or something related). This has always struck me as a Bad Thing, and I generally remove it whenever I see it. I thought it might be worth adding a short note to the subpage here about that. As just a first idea, maybe something along the lines of: "Image captions should not be centered without a situation-specific reason." Thoughts? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
14:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
For the past few days I have had a discussion with User:पाटलिपुत्र regarding the image captions in the article on Ashurbanipal, which I worked on and got to GA level a few months ago. The main issue present here is that I believe पाटलिपुत्र's work on the images and captions in this article was excessive and unnecessary and since neither me nor पाटलिपुत्र is budging on the issue I feel like it is appropriate to attempt to get broader consensus for what the captions should look like.
This is what the article, as edited by पाटलिपुत्र, looked like prior to me changing things around again. The images are of wildly different sizes, many of the captions are long (several being six lines or longer) and (I would argue) contain excessive and unnecessary detail. For instance, the caption of the image in the section on Ashurbanipal's family, there to illustrate him and his wife depicted dining, goes into detail on every other thing in the mural. I argued that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions states that captions should be "succinct" but पाटलिपुत्र argued back that they believed their captions were succinct (as the word does not necessarily mean "brief"). Granted, their latest versions of the captions (reverted by me) are considerably better in this respect, I still believe some detail in them was excessive and not relevant to the context the images were used.
The other issue is that पाटलिपुत्र wants to use citations in the image captions, arguing that Wikipedia:Citing sources says "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article". I argued that "as appropriate" could be considered a matter of opinion here, but that regardless of what the rule/guideline says, image captions are very rarely cited in the articles themselves. I pointed to the TFA:s over the last four days and how none of them had any citations in their image captions, even when the captions were long and contained information not immediately apparent from the image themselves. I also argued that citations and detailed info might be more appropriate for the commons page of the image rather than the article itself and that using citations in the captions to the degree that पाटलिपुत्र wants is actually detrimental to the article as it makes it stand out from every single other article in this respect. The image depicting Ashurbanipal dining had four citations alone for its captions in पाटलिपुत्र's original version (and two in their latest version).
This page states that "More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; instead, further information can be provided in the article body. And remember that readers wanting full detail can click through to the image description page" so perhaps others can weigh in on how much detail is appropriate in image captions and when they need to be cited (and if it is, as पाटलिपुत्र appears to interpret it, in every case, why is this never enforced during the GA or FA process?). Ichthyovenator ( talk) 12:46, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
@ Johnbod: @ Ichthyovenator: I note there is a previous discussion from 2018 ( Do captions need a reference?), to which participated User:EEng, User:Ke4roh, User:Gronk Oz User:Domdeparis and User:Rp2006, and in which the consensus seems to have been that: "If the caption recites something which is in the article text, and sourced there, then no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated in the caption only should carry a source". I agree with this statement, but it seems the discussion faltered at some point, and the draft proposal was finally not translated into policy. Could now be the right time to do so? Wikipedia:Citing sources already has: "Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article", but a confirmation and possibly a bit more precision on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions would be welcome. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Summarizing the discussion linked in the OP (and reading between the lines a little), there were three rough versions of proposed text (which probably needs to end of in WP:V, not MOS):
To the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, drawn from the images's file description page. Further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption; but anything stated only in the caption should carry a source.
A caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows does not need to be sourced; further, to the extent a caption recites something stated and sourced in article text, no cite is needed in the caption. But anything stated only in the caption should carry a source. If citations are warranted on the image description page to establish facts about the image, those citations should be repeated in the caption.
Version 2's stuff about citations are warranted on the image description page
seems to me a nonstarter, because most images are at Commons, and Commons doesn't use cites. I think V0's provisions should be easy for everyone to get behind. V1 goes further, and expresses what I think is considered good practice, but I'm not sure everyone will be comfortable enshrining it explicitly. It does seem like an issue that ought to be resolved.
E
Eng
22:54, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Image captions should be referenced as appropriate just like any other part of the article ( Wikipedia:Citing sources). No cite is needed for a caption's uncontentious, straightforward statement of who or what an image shows, or when the caption simply recites something stated and sourced in article text. But anything which is stated only in the caption should be referenced. A description or attribution of the image resulting from specialized knowledge should also be sourced.
When I see videos in mainspace, they sometimes include a note of how long they are in the caption. I'd like to see what the community thinks of this practice, and how best to format the note if it is included. You may !vote from the list below with a combination of a number and a letter, and feel free to add additional options.
I didn't list out all the large options to keep the list short, but if you want to !vote e.g. Option 2C large, feel free to do so. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 21:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Examples and syntax
|
---|
Option A large: (4:07) <small>(4:07)</small> <small>(4:07 min)</small> <small>(4:07 {{abbr|min|minutes}})</small> <small>(4 min 7 s)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})</small> <small>(4 minutes 7 seconds)</small> <small>(4 min 7 sec)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|min|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|sec|seconds}})</small> <small>(4 m 7 s)</small> <small>(4 {{abbr|m|minutes}} 7 {{abbr|s|seconds}})</small> |
{{
abbr}}
, that linking should only be done on first occurrence (just as, for example, we only use {{
circa}}
for the first appearance in the page of "c.". That is to say, all the "different" options that differ only by use of {{abbr}}
or not are really the same option just used at different places in the page. And a side point is that
MOS:ABBR would want these with a period/point: min., sec., m., or s., unless per
MOS:NUM we have proof that they are standardized as unit symbols without them. Even in British/Commonwealth English style guides, points are dropped only from abbreviations that are contractions like Dr, not from truncations like Prof., thus: min., sec. regardless of
MOS:ENGVAR. I would add that m. is distinct from m, so a version of J with periods would be viable. Given that last point, both H and J could then be permissible, with H being normally preferred, but J usable in infoboxes, tight tables, and other situations of constrained horizontal space. Cf.
WP:CREEP and
WP:MOSBLOAT: don't rule out options without a good reason. PS: The heading is a bit misleading in that this could also apply to audio. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
11:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
<small>...</small>
tags would violate
MOS:SMALL (accessibility) if used within already-reduced text. ―
Mandruss
☎
12:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Senator Wales gave one of the longest filibusters on record (40 min 7 s), it's not very clear that the parenthetical refers to the length of the video, rather than the length of the filibuster, whereas it would be clearer if the timestamp were reduced size.
<small>...</small>
makes text 85% of its original size, and so using it on a caption pushes that caption under the 85% guideline of
MOS:SMALL. —
Goszei (
talk)
18:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
... of the incident (4 min).
Since @
Izno:'s comments it would also seem that this discussion (or RFC) would be better suited at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates
Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing Captions as it is specifically related to that area. The project should operate in accordance to policies and guidelines and we do have projects for a reason. Would that not be the more accurate place as?
Otr500 (
talk)
20:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
For the purposes of WP:CAPFRAG, is a caption like the following considered a complete sentence, requiring a period?
Biden speaks at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner in 2018
It has a subject and a verb, but its meaning changes when you put it in a caption. ― Mandruss ☎ 08:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
In the paragraph labeled Short caption, one of the examples given is:
Jackson performs in 1988
This is actually a complete sentence in need of a period, and therefore more appropriate for the next paragraph. I will accordingly be changing it to:
Jackson performing in 1988
1980fast ( talk) 04:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
How should one deal with captions such as "John Smith (left) and Jane Doe" in {{ multiple image}} (or a similar template), if mobile devices display the images in vertical, rather than horizontal succession? Toccata quarta ( talk) 18:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
SCHolar44 and I have a disagreement about including the text "(click to enlarge)" in an image caption on Localities on the Trans-Australian Railway.
Previous discussion: User talk:Mitch Ames#"Click to enlarge" note for a map with tiny lettering
Other editors are invited to comment. Is "Click to enlarge" appropriate in the caption, or does
WP:CAPWORD apply - ... "click for larger view") is not appropriate.
?
Mitch Ames (
talk)
01:42, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
At Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Captions/Archive_2#Centered_captions there's a suggestion and support for the idea that we say not to center captions. Is there really nothing about that in the MOS? I sort of recall that there was. Dicklyon ( talk) 21:22, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Keith-264: you reverted my removal of centering here, citing consistency within a small cluster of articles around a topic. This seems odd to me. We don't usually support idiosyncratic styles around a topic cluster. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Try not to set yourself up as judge and jury. Regards Keith-264 ( talk) 16:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics or centering, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text.While this obviously included centering (or centring if you prefer) because "that would [not] apply ... in the main text", it is even more obvious that this is not getting through, that instead the example (of italics) is being taken as a one-item list of the only thing to not do, and that is an error, and a too-common one. If there is a consensus, contrariwise, that captions should be centered, then the MoS section should say so. We should not leave this open to continual re-re-re-dispute, however. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Recently there has been an effort to add this particular caption to the infoboxes of almost all United States Senators and United States Cabinet members. This seems unnecessary per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Captions#Infoboxes_and_leading_images - it doesn't seem particularly relevant to the reader whether an image is "official" or not, and many of the portraits are from within the last few years so the date seems like unnecessary bloat. Wondering if there are any further thoughts on this. Connormah ( talk) 15:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Cosby in 2010example in the guideline. I could take or leave the "Official portrait, YYYY" format. It seems to be an acceptable application of WP:CAPLENGTH, though. ― Tartan357 Talk 02:03, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Some1, I've never understood this, and fought it successfully when I did an FL. Why can't a fragment end with a period? Sentence fragments in written prose end with periods all the time, and it's not the period that means "here was a complete sentence". Drmies ( talk) 01:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely sentence fragments, which should not end with a period or full stop.If this is because of my recent edit on BTS [11], feel free to revert, I won't mind. Some1 ( talk) 01:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Collage footer style. {{u|
Sdkb}}
talk
23:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I just noticed that MOS:CAPOBVIOUS says in part: It is usually unnecessary to state what kind of image is being shown. A map of the world showing NATO member countries can be captioned simply "NATO members" rather than "Map of NATO members".
I've found the opposite is true, both for accessibility and for clarity. For example, someone who can't see or can only see poorly or who - like me - is using a screen reader to listen to an article while doing the dishes - won't know if this is a picture of NATO representatives or a map of NATO countries. Many folks in that situation might want to take further measures to view the image if it is actually of interest, but they need to know the contents in order to decide whether or not to do that. Another example (explicitly endorsed by the next recommendation in that part of the MOS) is that I usually add "painting of" to images of artwork depicting real pre-photography events, to clarify that it is not a photograph and thus might not be historically accurate, and include the year of painting which is often much later than the event. Sometimes it's hard to tell from a thumbnail image what medium it's produced in.
I propose removing this line from the MOS, at the very least, if not replacing it with something like:
-- Beland ( talk) 14:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
When a caption contains metadata ("(pictured in 2016)", "(left/center/right)", etc.), is the text within the parentheses (or even including the parentheses) italicized? I couldn't find a specific guideline on the topic and found it to be used inconsistently between articles. IceWelder [ ✉] 12:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Glerod Castle (seen here in 1954) was rebuilt somewhat different after a 1962 fire.
None of the above. The text should be presented spɹɐʍʞɔɐq puɐ uʍop ǝpᴉsdn so that the reader definitely won't miss it. Alternatively, let's not have a rule and let people do what they want. I believe that is current situation. Herostratus ( talk) 23:27, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Template:Infobox person says to include the photographer of an infobox photo. Template talk:Infobox person#Image credit to photographer suggests to change that. PrimeHunter ( talk) 02:21, 25 December 2021 (UTC)