This page 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. |
The point of this policy is against having pure "gallery" articles such as Image gallery of Gandalf, Harry Potter images in the main Article space, and against the uploading of large collections of unencyclopedic images. Nobody disputes the wish of a photographer whose photos are used in many articles to administrate these potos in a photo album below his user page.
The current poll starts below at #Proposed rewording.
Occasionally Image Galleries come up for on AfD. They are usually deleted on the grounds that WP:NOT, an image gallery. I think that this is a wrong-headed position, and should be changed, at least in some cases, especially topics related to art and artists.
I hold it self evident that images are crucial for understanding works of art, and the for complex art-related topics, many images are necessary. One cannot fully understand the work of an artist, or a school of artists, or an artistic movement without seeing many images of the relevant art. I therefore believe that in order for Wikipedia to provide the best possible coverage of art topics, image galleries must be incorporated in some way into the project. Other types of topics may also need a large number of images.
There seem to be three choices available to a Wikipedia editor for presenting an image gallery, none of which seem to me to be viable.
Before I discuss the problems I see with the first two options above, let me discuss another argument often brought against image galleries. It has been argued before that galleries are not encyclopedic because other encyclopedias don't have them. This is not actually true, as many encyclopedias will have galleries of some topics like flags or historical costumes. However I will admit that most encyclopedias don't have image galleries as a major feature. I think that this falls under the rubric of "Wikipedia is not paper". The number of images in other encyclopedias has been limited because historically producing images was expensive. We don't have that problem.
Incorporating the images into an article may seem to be the best solution, however it has problems. If an article is long, like the Book of Kells, then a significant number of images can be incorporated. It is important to note however that even in that article there were several images that could not be incorporated into the article and had to be linked to like this: ( folio 8r). If an article is short or the number of images far outstrips the amount of text, then the article ends up with a large image gallery tacked onto the end, as in the article, Codex Aureus of Lorsch. I find this to be not aesthetically pleasing. It should also be mentioned that having a large number of images in an article significantly increases the download for an article. If a reader knows that they are clicking on an image gallery, then they will expect this, something they won't expect when clicking most article links.
It is often argued that Commons is the place for image galleries. I disagree. In the first place, it is my understanding that Commons was created primarily so that all Wikimedia projects could have access to images without the redundancy of uploading them to each separate project. Nowhere on Commons have I been able to find a statement to the effect that part of their mission is to host image galleries for the various Wikipedias. In addition I think that putting image galleries on Commons provides poor service for readers. We cannot assume that readers will be familiar with all of the Wikimedia projects. The most common means of informing a reader of the existence of Commons material, use of the {{Commons|article name}} template, is not particularly useful for a casual reader, they won't know what that little box in the corner means. It is true that a link to a gallery on Commons can be constructed which looks like a regular wiki link, but as this would take a hypothetical casual reader out of Wikipedia without warning, which, at the least, would cause confusion.
In addition to hiding information from readers or confusing them, another serious drawback of Commons as the host for image galleries is that it is a multi-lingual project. Any Commons editor can add a description in any language to any article on Commons. The result is articles like Commons:Louvre. This works well for the mission of Commons, but is not so good for an English language encyclopedia. This problem will increase as Commons matures. It is also relevant that descriptions on Commons are expected to be kept short, so heavily annotated image galleries might not be welcome there.
In short I believe that putting image galleries on Commons is the worst possible solution and that forcing image galleries into articles is a poor solution. I therefore propose that the relevant section of WP:NOT be amended so as to allow image galleries on topics that require a large number of images in order to be understand. Please understand that I am not proposing that every image gallery be allowed, only galleries for topics which need a large number of images in order to be understood. A gallery of images of single famous person, for example, does not lead to an increased understanding of that person, and should not be allowed. Dsmdgold 05:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Additional drawbacks of having galleries on commons is that it would force editors interested in the topic to monitor two projects. Also, since it seems to be the norm for on Commons for multiple copies of the same image to be retained, and image gallery on Commons can have a great deal of redundancy. (I had meant to make these points initially, but forgot to include them) Dsmdgold 16:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Currently the relevant part of the article states (as to what WP articles are not):
I propose we change this to:
Comments? A possible issue is that this makes some pages dependent on other articles for their encyclopedic worth, although we have this already with lists. --- Charles Stewart 22:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Support Say it with images ;) Honestly, I do think it's a good idea to loosen up a bit on the current anti-gallery policy. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Support -- Ancheta Wis 10:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
There's been no sustained objection to the idea of a change, and only support for my proposed rewording. I won't be around WP in the next couple of days: if on Monday no cogent objections to either have appeared, then I'll apply the change. --- Charles Stewart 23:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Support - DavidP 17:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Support -- Art is about images. If its encyclopaedic, its encyclopaedic. I rudely suggest that those opposed might go to the library first, and look at a few encyclopaedias of Art first, to get an idea of what the concept is about. linas 17:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the support. Change applied. --- Charles Stewart 20:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I've changed this back, not because I think that it's a bad idea per se but that there hasn't been much input on this so far. This isn't a highly visable page like WP:CSD and it may take some more time for people to trickle in. An for the love of Mike, please stop with the "support" images. - brenneman (t) (c) 23:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
As the guy who kicked off this discusion, perhaps discussing some of the few good image galleries around will help people see why I see value in image galleries. I do this with a great deal of trepidation, realizing that any gallery I mention will bring to the attention of people who feel it should be deleted.
I think that all of these galleries have a vital impact on Wikipedia's coverage of these topics. In my mind, they must be available in some form. the only question is what form? For the reasons I have discussed above, I think Commons is a lousy choice. One further note, I don't think that every image gallery adds this kind of value (for example, Gallery of Arc de Triomphe photographs adds little.) I don't even think that every art gallery is a good idea. The above mentioned Gallery of illuminated manuscript images, as it currently exists, could be (and has been) replaced by a category. Dsmdgold 01:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Support I had previously been very for moving things to the commons and I created a few AfDs towards that end. However, I have worked on the commons and it is not something that should be shown off to the average encyclopedia user. The commons is filled with text from many languages and sometimes the title is in foreign script, etc. All of this makes it hard to make the image gallery useful. I have also seen articles so over crowded with images that could have been placed somewhere else but where integral. Take Iranian architecture now and a while ago. Simply, we do not always have the expertise to write as much as we can show. If the method of Codex Aureus of Lorsch makes users happy then we can do it... but that page is more or less an image gallery. I have no problem tightening the language. (For instance we don't need a gallery of pictures of George Bush, however we could use a chronicle of Bosch's style) I think this is better than the previous wording so will vote for this. --- Comment by User:Grenavitar
Support I wholeheartedly agree with the excellent introductory discussion set out by Dsmdgold. Galleries are entirely encyclopaedic in many instances, particularly for subjects related to the visual arts. Articles with a gallery tacked on at the end tend to look clumsy and involve a large download overhead for the casual reader. Codex Aureus of Lorsch is a good example as pointed out. Much better is William-Adolphe Bouguereau which covers the subject of the article, gives some examples of his works, with a link to a more substantial selection of annotated works in a separate gallery. Much neater, and an improvement for both the casual reader and more in depth researcher alike. Commons is not the correct place for the encyclopaedic use of images, but should be kept for the purpose it was intended - as a repository for the image and media files. I support the alternative wording proposed by Crypticfirefly. Now, off to vote on the William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery AfD ... -- Cactus.man ✍ 09:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
images that will support the article, such as the differences between abstract Leonardo Da Vinci, to Donatello. One sample of image of each artists work simply is not enough. It's like saying the Mona Lisa is all Da Vinci did. I'm annoyed that I can't paint something and have Wikipedia host it even if it's related to article for instance chinese characters, or other abstract arts or logos for which the original copyright prevents Wikipedia from hosting directly. I need galleries to better support my articles. -- Masssiveego 02:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Support, as long as the wording is carefully chosen.-- Srleffler 16:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Support, and agree with Srleffler, et. al., the wording should make it clear that the images have to have relevance and be captioned appropriately. (and what's wrong with ?) ++ Lar: t/ c 00:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Support Frankly I never understood why there was a policy against image galleries. ESPECIALLY when it comes to artists, image galleries can be absolutely necessary. We aren't limited with limited page space nor copyright, as the works of all of the revolutionaries are public domain by now, so I see no reason to continue this restriction. --
Cyde Weys
vote
talk 21:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Rossami has said something to the effect that he thinks that the proposal, despite the strong show of support it has received, needs more thinking through before it becomes policy, and that while the makeup of the vote is strongly in favour of my proposal, the total number of votes is not high given that it is a policy change.
I think that is right, and there is a risk here: I think the case made that there are galleries worthy of inclusion is solid, but one can legitimately fear what other galleries might start appearing if they are allowed and the mess on AfD if the rule for inclusion is not well formulated.
I think, though, that the best way to combat this risk is to have a change to WP:NOT that merely expresses that certain galleries can complement Wikipedia, and leave it to another guideline to try to spell out which galleries those are. I think the wording of the proposal that is being voted on suffices for this. I welcome suggestions as to what should go into the proposed guideline. So far, I think it should outline:
Happy New Year! --- Charles Stewart 19:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
As ike9898 has commented above, and as has been mentioned in several AfD's involving galleries, aggregating many images together that individually may be justifiable according to fair use may collectively violate the law, since, in American law, in assessing whether fair use is applicable, assessment is made of the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
I don't think that this is an issue for WP:NOT, but if, as I expect, we allow some galleries onto WP, then we should make some comment about this risk on WP:COPY. I'll make a comment on the talk page there. --- Charles Stewart 16:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
There's one type of gallery that I haven't seen directly mentioned yet (but I may have missed it in the straw poll above), and that's the gallery of images created by a specific Wikipedian. Many such galleries are linked on Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Photographers (my own is at User:Slambo/Gallery), and Wikipedians who wish to declare their availability as photographers are encouraged to create such galleries of their own works on that page (see also Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography). Slambo (Speak) 14:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure where this fits in all the above discussion, so i've added it at the end... Generally, I cannot see a problem with a collection of images, aka a gallery. After all a picture is worth a 1000 words. The big problem is whether it is encyclopaedic or not. I had contemplated going around Guildford and taking photos of all the public sculptures in the borough - Would a gallery of Sculpture in Guildford be allowed/encouraged/liked/disliked/prohibited/deleted? Surely it gives a flavour of what Guildford is like. -- SGBailey 00:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I asked to have this gallery userfyed to Aaron's userspace on WP:DRV. It's a good example of the kind of quality gallery that AfDs randomly attack and kill with the current WP:NOT policy. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 05:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I've reworked part of the gallery of Socialist Realism into list format to illustrate why we don't need a policy change. Lists are an underrated format. They can already satisfy the needs this proposal attempts to address.
Here are four featured lists for comparison:
If Wikipedia had a list of Oz book illustrations, then the images and layout would be almost identical to the current list about the Oz books. Only the supporting text would change. There's no reason why Wikipedia couldn't have lists about paintings and photographs, since it already features lists about books and video games. Wikipedia featured list guidelines encourage the use of relevant images.
This solution has several advantages:
Durova 12:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's back up here a moment. You started this thread by pointing to this page which you claim to be example of a "list" format which would makes this proposal unnecessary. I examined your page, and noticed that, as it currently stands, it contains no information, not found in the original gallery. You merely moved the information around and enclosed it in a table. By doing this you did not change the nature of the article. Your page, as it currently stands, is still a gallery, the only difference is the format. This is why I have been talking about format. In my eyes, your proposal boils down to "If we change the format of a gallery and call it a list, it will be safe from AfD." I disagree with this. If I have misunderstood you, I apologize.
Now you ask "Can you show any gallery that is as informative as The Oz Books? ". Yes, William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery is, in its way, as informative as the The Oz Books. I suspect you will disagree, so let me expand. First let me say that I have feel the that the article The OZ Books is no more relevant to this discussion than the article Book of Kells. I say this because, although there is a superficial resemblance between, the that list and your proposal, they are fundamentally different things. The Oz Books is list of texts. As such the least important column is the the one with the pictures of the covers. In in a gallery the most important - the essential column would be the picture. Now why would I say that the Bouguereau gallery is as informative as The Oz Books. I believe that an article can be judged by how well it answers what I think of as the "framing question". This is the underlying question which brings a reader to an article. As I see it, the framing question for The Oz Books is "What are all of the Oz Books". The framing question for the Bouguereau gallery is "What does a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau look like?".
This leads me to the nature of "information". I did notice that in your proposal you included a column, now largely blank, for "Comments". Perhaps it has been your intent that once this column is filled in, then the "gallery" will have been converted into a "list" and only then would the article be acceptable. If this is so then this puts you into the camp with Carnildo and several others who have commented above, who see "more words" as the key to conveying information. I disagree. Although some words are necessary to provide context for an image, the image conveys more information than any amount of words. There is a quote, from whom I don't know, that "talking about music is like dancing about architecture. The same thing is true about art. You cannot explain art well in words. In order to understand art you must look at art. I mentioned above that I saw the framing question for the Bouguereau gallery as "What does a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau look like?". I see this also as the most important question that can be asked about Bouguereau or any other artist. ALL other information about the artist is secondary to this question. Information about when and where the artist lived and worked is important only as it helps explain why the artist's art looks the way it does. In the end, however, the art itself is more important. In a gallery, the images are what matter, the words are secondary.
I see that I have gone on for quite a bit here. I apologize, but as we seemed not to be understanding each other, more words were what was needed. Dsmdgold 14:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Durova that it is possible to see lists and galleries as similar kinds of page: namely collections of information, and hence one can interpret the existing rules in a manner that already covers galleries. However the point is not what interpretations we can ghive to rules, but what interpretations are given to rules: when I argued in the Socialist Realism DRV this point, almost noone took up the point, and the appeal failed.
I don't think the list format is generally to be preferred: some galleries benefit from the visual content being presented in a dense format, and I think we should formulate policy in a manner that gives most flexibility to editors to find the best way of presenting content so far as we can keep maintenance functions working properly. Further commentary can supported with galleries by making captions into wikilinks: eg. William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery contains captions that are wikilinks to articles on the particular painting. Equally, some galleries may benefit from the comment-heavy list format, but I don't think the Gallery of Socialist Realism is one. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
This discusion has strayed abit. This proposal in no way depends on the value of the Socialist Realism Gallery. However, no one who voted delete in the AfD did so on the basis of the quality of the gallery, or because of the propaganda precedent it may have set. In fact on commentor said "a gallery is not appropriate even if it were an ideal gallery." (emphasis in original). This gallery was deleted because it was a gallery, not because it was a sub-par gallery. Yes each image of the Bougereau gallery could use more information. However, I, for one, am unwilling to spend my time improving articles that are always on a metaphorical chopping block. Until this policy is changed that will always be so.
Durova's comments as to the usefullness of jpgs are, of course, correct, and also irrelevent, as any "list" of images will use the same jpgs. On a larger scale you point to one of the hardest aspects of studying art. Prints, facsimiles, pictures in books and slides, all fail to transmit the information you talk about. In an even larger context, even when standing in front of a work of art in a museum, something is lost of the artists original intent, since the viscetudes of age, and lack of context can change the look and meaning of the piece. However, in every case, we do the best that we can do with what we have. As a side note, you speak of being useful to students who might want to use us as a starting point for research on art in local museums. I live in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We have no art museum. (We do have a really cool Frank Lloyd Wright building though.) Wikipedia is meant for everone on the planet, not just those who live near museums. Looking at a jpg is a pretty good alternative to not seeing the art at all.
However, rather than comparing apples to oranges, as is done by comparing The Oz Books to the William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery, lets compare pears to pears. I have created a hypothetical gallery here of a common type of miniature found in medieval manuscripts, the Evangelist Portrait. Let me first say that I am not proposing this as a prefect gallery. Its faults are many. I would say that, if I were to attempt to make this a gallery, I would introduce an additional level organization by sorting the images by period so that all of the Insular, Carolingian, Byzantine, etc., would be grouped together. For each image information is included on the manuscript where the image is found, the institution and shelfmark of the manuscript, the folio on which the image occurs, the content of the image (i.e. which evangelist it is an image of), the date of the image, and the dimensions. Not all of this information was available for each image, and I was too lazy to look it up. This is a fairly information rich gallery. For purposes of comparison, I have reformatted this information in the "list" format proposed by Durova (that is, in a table). Note that the "list" contains no information not in the "gallery". Are both of these lists? Are the both galleries? Is one a list, and one a gallery, and if so why? Is either one an acceptable article? Both? Neither? (In answering these questions, please try to ignore the specific subject matter of these galleries.)
BTW, Durova, you comment that you would have liked to include more information on the your reworking of the Socialist Realism gallery but most of the links were red. I also noticed that you placed the name of the artist in the first column. Both of these things indicate to me that we are seeing the purpose of these articles differently. I see the images as the most important thing, and thus would have put them in the first column. Also, if you had clicked on the image, rather than the artist, you would have found that most of the image pages have indormation on media and dimensions. Dsmdgold 03:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Dsmdgold earlier cited Gallery of Pompeii and Herculaneum as a gallery of obvious encyclopedic merit: in fact I think this page doesn't work well as a gallery, and would probably be markedly better in Durova's list format. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 15:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I've went ahead and moved this to 'old discussion' on the centralized discussion template (seeing as there has been no activity in almost a month). The result of the straw polls (combined) is 38 support, 14 oppose, and one neutral, which seems to indicate fairly strong support for the proposal. -- InShaneee 00:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I haven't had time to read through the whole page yet, or the policy, but I do have one quick question: is is OK to have galleries in the Wikipedia:WikiProject namespace for administrative purposes? I have recently been gathering together all the pictures realted to a certain area in order to organise them and to help decide the best way forward regarding organisation of the articles. The gallery can currently be seen at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images, along with an alphabetical list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images/List. It is not fully organised yet. Other, similar administrative galleries I have seen are Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Images, and an images subpage seems to be a common subpage of many WikiProjects. What I want to know is whether this is OK and what the best way is to organise such material and keep track of it? Carcharoth 10:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Suggest comment on Wikipedia talk:Galleries. Good luck. John Reid 05:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
This page 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. |
The point of this policy is against having pure "gallery" articles such as Image gallery of Gandalf, Harry Potter images in the main Article space, and against the uploading of large collections of unencyclopedic images. Nobody disputes the wish of a photographer whose photos are used in many articles to administrate these potos in a photo album below his user page.
The current poll starts below at #Proposed rewording.
Occasionally Image Galleries come up for on AfD. They are usually deleted on the grounds that WP:NOT, an image gallery. I think that this is a wrong-headed position, and should be changed, at least in some cases, especially topics related to art and artists.
I hold it self evident that images are crucial for understanding works of art, and the for complex art-related topics, many images are necessary. One cannot fully understand the work of an artist, or a school of artists, or an artistic movement without seeing many images of the relevant art. I therefore believe that in order for Wikipedia to provide the best possible coverage of art topics, image galleries must be incorporated in some way into the project. Other types of topics may also need a large number of images.
There seem to be three choices available to a Wikipedia editor for presenting an image gallery, none of which seem to me to be viable.
Before I discuss the problems I see with the first two options above, let me discuss another argument often brought against image galleries. It has been argued before that galleries are not encyclopedic because other encyclopedias don't have them. This is not actually true, as many encyclopedias will have galleries of some topics like flags or historical costumes. However I will admit that most encyclopedias don't have image galleries as a major feature. I think that this falls under the rubric of "Wikipedia is not paper". The number of images in other encyclopedias has been limited because historically producing images was expensive. We don't have that problem.
Incorporating the images into an article may seem to be the best solution, however it has problems. If an article is long, like the Book of Kells, then a significant number of images can be incorporated. It is important to note however that even in that article there were several images that could not be incorporated into the article and had to be linked to like this: ( folio 8r). If an article is short or the number of images far outstrips the amount of text, then the article ends up with a large image gallery tacked onto the end, as in the article, Codex Aureus of Lorsch. I find this to be not aesthetically pleasing. It should also be mentioned that having a large number of images in an article significantly increases the download for an article. If a reader knows that they are clicking on an image gallery, then they will expect this, something they won't expect when clicking most article links.
It is often argued that Commons is the place for image galleries. I disagree. In the first place, it is my understanding that Commons was created primarily so that all Wikimedia projects could have access to images without the redundancy of uploading them to each separate project. Nowhere on Commons have I been able to find a statement to the effect that part of their mission is to host image galleries for the various Wikipedias. In addition I think that putting image galleries on Commons provides poor service for readers. We cannot assume that readers will be familiar with all of the Wikimedia projects. The most common means of informing a reader of the existence of Commons material, use of the {{Commons|article name}} template, is not particularly useful for a casual reader, they won't know what that little box in the corner means. It is true that a link to a gallery on Commons can be constructed which looks like a regular wiki link, but as this would take a hypothetical casual reader out of Wikipedia without warning, which, at the least, would cause confusion.
In addition to hiding information from readers or confusing them, another serious drawback of Commons as the host for image galleries is that it is a multi-lingual project. Any Commons editor can add a description in any language to any article on Commons. The result is articles like Commons:Louvre. This works well for the mission of Commons, but is not so good for an English language encyclopedia. This problem will increase as Commons matures. It is also relevant that descriptions on Commons are expected to be kept short, so heavily annotated image galleries might not be welcome there.
In short I believe that putting image galleries on Commons is the worst possible solution and that forcing image galleries into articles is a poor solution. I therefore propose that the relevant section of WP:NOT be amended so as to allow image galleries on topics that require a large number of images in order to be understand. Please understand that I am not proposing that every image gallery be allowed, only galleries for topics which need a large number of images in order to be understood. A gallery of images of single famous person, for example, does not lead to an increased understanding of that person, and should not be allowed. Dsmdgold 05:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Additional drawbacks of having galleries on commons is that it would force editors interested in the topic to monitor two projects. Also, since it seems to be the norm for on Commons for multiple copies of the same image to be retained, and image gallery on Commons can have a great deal of redundancy. (I had meant to make these points initially, but forgot to include them) Dsmdgold 16:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Currently the relevant part of the article states (as to what WP articles are not):
I propose we change this to:
Comments? A possible issue is that this makes some pages dependent on other articles for their encyclopedic worth, although we have this already with lists. --- Charles Stewart 22:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Support Say it with images ;) Honestly, I do think it's a good idea to loosen up a bit on the current anti-gallery policy. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Support -- Ancheta Wis 10:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
There's been no sustained objection to the idea of a change, and only support for my proposed rewording. I won't be around WP in the next couple of days: if on Monday no cogent objections to either have appeared, then I'll apply the change. --- Charles Stewart 23:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Support - DavidP 17:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Support -- Art is about images. If its encyclopaedic, its encyclopaedic. I rudely suggest that those opposed might go to the library first, and look at a few encyclopaedias of Art first, to get an idea of what the concept is about. linas 17:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the support. Change applied. --- Charles Stewart 20:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I've changed this back, not because I think that it's a bad idea per se but that there hasn't been much input on this so far. This isn't a highly visable page like WP:CSD and it may take some more time for people to trickle in. An for the love of Mike, please stop with the "support" images. - brenneman (t) (c) 23:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
As the guy who kicked off this discusion, perhaps discussing some of the few good image galleries around will help people see why I see value in image galleries. I do this with a great deal of trepidation, realizing that any gallery I mention will bring to the attention of people who feel it should be deleted.
I think that all of these galleries have a vital impact on Wikipedia's coverage of these topics. In my mind, they must be available in some form. the only question is what form? For the reasons I have discussed above, I think Commons is a lousy choice. One further note, I don't think that every image gallery adds this kind of value (for example, Gallery of Arc de Triomphe photographs adds little.) I don't even think that every art gallery is a good idea. The above mentioned Gallery of illuminated manuscript images, as it currently exists, could be (and has been) replaced by a category. Dsmdgold 01:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Support I had previously been very for moving things to the commons and I created a few AfDs towards that end. However, I have worked on the commons and it is not something that should be shown off to the average encyclopedia user. The commons is filled with text from many languages and sometimes the title is in foreign script, etc. All of this makes it hard to make the image gallery useful. I have also seen articles so over crowded with images that could have been placed somewhere else but where integral. Take Iranian architecture now and a while ago. Simply, we do not always have the expertise to write as much as we can show. If the method of Codex Aureus of Lorsch makes users happy then we can do it... but that page is more or less an image gallery. I have no problem tightening the language. (For instance we don't need a gallery of pictures of George Bush, however we could use a chronicle of Bosch's style) I think this is better than the previous wording so will vote for this. --- Comment by User:Grenavitar
Support I wholeheartedly agree with the excellent introductory discussion set out by Dsmdgold. Galleries are entirely encyclopaedic in many instances, particularly for subjects related to the visual arts. Articles with a gallery tacked on at the end tend to look clumsy and involve a large download overhead for the casual reader. Codex Aureus of Lorsch is a good example as pointed out. Much better is William-Adolphe Bouguereau which covers the subject of the article, gives some examples of his works, with a link to a more substantial selection of annotated works in a separate gallery. Much neater, and an improvement for both the casual reader and more in depth researcher alike. Commons is not the correct place for the encyclopaedic use of images, but should be kept for the purpose it was intended - as a repository for the image and media files. I support the alternative wording proposed by Crypticfirefly. Now, off to vote on the William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery AfD ... -- Cactus.man ✍ 09:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
images that will support the article, such as the differences between abstract Leonardo Da Vinci, to Donatello. One sample of image of each artists work simply is not enough. It's like saying the Mona Lisa is all Da Vinci did. I'm annoyed that I can't paint something and have Wikipedia host it even if it's related to article for instance chinese characters, or other abstract arts or logos for which the original copyright prevents Wikipedia from hosting directly. I need galleries to better support my articles. -- Masssiveego 02:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Support, as long as the wording is carefully chosen.-- Srleffler 16:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Support, and agree with Srleffler, et. al., the wording should make it clear that the images have to have relevance and be captioned appropriately. (and what's wrong with ?) ++ Lar: t/ c 00:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Support Frankly I never understood why there was a policy against image galleries. ESPECIALLY when it comes to artists, image galleries can be absolutely necessary. We aren't limited with limited page space nor copyright, as the works of all of the revolutionaries are public domain by now, so I see no reason to continue this restriction. --
Cyde Weys
vote
talk 21:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Rossami has said something to the effect that he thinks that the proposal, despite the strong show of support it has received, needs more thinking through before it becomes policy, and that while the makeup of the vote is strongly in favour of my proposal, the total number of votes is not high given that it is a policy change.
I think that is right, and there is a risk here: I think the case made that there are galleries worthy of inclusion is solid, but one can legitimately fear what other galleries might start appearing if they are allowed and the mess on AfD if the rule for inclusion is not well formulated.
I think, though, that the best way to combat this risk is to have a change to WP:NOT that merely expresses that certain galleries can complement Wikipedia, and leave it to another guideline to try to spell out which galleries those are. I think the wording of the proposal that is being voted on suffices for this. I welcome suggestions as to what should go into the proposed guideline. So far, I think it should outline:
Happy New Year! --- Charles Stewart 19:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
As ike9898 has commented above, and as has been mentioned in several AfD's involving galleries, aggregating many images together that individually may be justifiable according to fair use may collectively violate the law, since, in American law, in assessing whether fair use is applicable, assessment is made of the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
I don't think that this is an issue for WP:NOT, but if, as I expect, we allow some galleries onto WP, then we should make some comment about this risk on WP:COPY. I'll make a comment on the talk page there. --- Charles Stewart 16:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
There's one type of gallery that I haven't seen directly mentioned yet (but I may have missed it in the straw poll above), and that's the gallery of images created by a specific Wikipedian. Many such galleries are linked on Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Photographers (my own is at User:Slambo/Gallery), and Wikipedians who wish to declare their availability as photographers are encouraged to create such galleries of their own works on that page (see also Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography). Slambo (Speak) 14:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure where this fits in all the above discussion, so i've added it at the end... Generally, I cannot see a problem with a collection of images, aka a gallery. After all a picture is worth a 1000 words. The big problem is whether it is encyclopaedic or not. I had contemplated going around Guildford and taking photos of all the public sculptures in the borough - Would a gallery of Sculpture in Guildford be allowed/encouraged/liked/disliked/prohibited/deleted? Surely it gives a flavour of what Guildford is like. -- SGBailey 00:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I asked to have this gallery userfyed to Aaron's userspace on WP:DRV. It's a good example of the kind of quality gallery that AfDs randomly attack and kill with the current WP:NOT policy. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 05:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I've reworked part of the gallery of Socialist Realism into list format to illustrate why we don't need a policy change. Lists are an underrated format. They can already satisfy the needs this proposal attempts to address.
Here are four featured lists for comparison:
If Wikipedia had a list of Oz book illustrations, then the images and layout would be almost identical to the current list about the Oz books. Only the supporting text would change. There's no reason why Wikipedia couldn't have lists about paintings and photographs, since it already features lists about books and video games. Wikipedia featured list guidelines encourage the use of relevant images.
This solution has several advantages:
Durova 12:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's back up here a moment. You started this thread by pointing to this page which you claim to be example of a "list" format which would makes this proposal unnecessary. I examined your page, and noticed that, as it currently stands, it contains no information, not found in the original gallery. You merely moved the information around and enclosed it in a table. By doing this you did not change the nature of the article. Your page, as it currently stands, is still a gallery, the only difference is the format. This is why I have been talking about format. In my eyes, your proposal boils down to "If we change the format of a gallery and call it a list, it will be safe from AfD." I disagree with this. If I have misunderstood you, I apologize.
Now you ask "Can you show any gallery that is as informative as The Oz Books? ". Yes, William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery is, in its way, as informative as the The Oz Books. I suspect you will disagree, so let me expand. First let me say that I have feel the that the article The OZ Books is no more relevant to this discussion than the article Book of Kells. I say this because, although there is a superficial resemblance between, the that list and your proposal, they are fundamentally different things. The Oz Books is list of texts. As such the least important column is the the one with the pictures of the covers. In in a gallery the most important - the essential column would be the picture. Now why would I say that the Bouguereau gallery is as informative as The Oz Books. I believe that an article can be judged by how well it answers what I think of as the "framing question". This is the underlying question which brings a reader to an article. As I see it, the framing question for The Oz Books is "What are all of the Oz Books". The framing question for the Bouguereau gallery is "What does a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau look like?".
This leads me to the nature of "information". I did notice that in your proposal you included a column, now largely blank, for "Comments". Perhaps it has been your intent that once this column is filled in, then the "gallery" will have been converted into a "list" and only then would the article be acceptable. If this is so then this puts you into the camp with Carnildo and several others who have commented above, who see "more words" as the key to conveying information. I disagree. Although some words are necessary to provide context for an image, the image conveys more information than any amount of words. There is a quote, from whom I don't know, that "talking about music is like dancing about architecture. The same thing is true about art. You cannot explain art well in words. In order to understand art you must look at art. I mentioned above that I saw the framing question for the Bouguereau gallery as "What does a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau look like?". I see this also as the most important question that can be asked about Bouguereau or any other artist. ALL other information about the artist is secondary to this question. Information about when and where the artist lived and worked is important only as it helps explain why the artist's art looks the way it does. In the end, however, the art itself is more important. In a gallery, the images are what matter, the words are secondary.
I see that I have gone on for quite a bit here. I apologize, but as we seemed not to be understanding each other, more words were what was needed. Dsmdgold 14:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Durova that it is possible to see lists and galleries as similar kinds of page: namely collections of information, and hence one can interpret the existing rules in a manner that already covers galleries. However the point is not what interpretations we can ghive to rules, but what interpretations are given to rules: when I argued in the Socialist Realism DRV this point, almost noone took up the point, and the appeal failed.
I don't think the list format is generally to be preferred: some galleries benefit from the visual content being presented in a dense format, and I think we should formulate policy in a manner that gives most flexibility to editors to find the best way of presenting content so far as we can keep maintenance functions working properly. Further commentary can supported with galleries by making captions into wikilinks: eg. William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery contains captions that are wikilinks to articles on the particular painting. Equally, some galleries may benefit from the comment-heavy list format, but I don't think the Gallery of Socialist Realism is one. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
This discusion has strayed abit. This proposal in no way depends on the value of the Socialist Realism Gallery. However, no one who voted delete in the AfD did so on the basis of the quality of the gallery, or because of the propaganda precedent it may have set. In fact on commentor said "a gallery is not appropriate even if it were an ideal gallery." (emphasis in original). This gallery was deleted because it was a gallery, not because it was a sub-par gallery. Yes each image of the Bougereau gallery could use more information. However, I, for one, am unwilling to spend my time improving articles that are always on a metaphorical chopping block. Until this policy is changed that will always be so.
Durova's comments as to the usefullness of jpgs are, of course, correct, and also irrelevent, as any "list" of images will use the same jpgs. On a larger scale you point to one of the hardest aspects of studying art. Prints, facsimiles, pictures in books and slides, all fail to transmit the information you talk about. In an even larger context, even when standing in front of a work of art in a museum, something is lost of the artists original intent, since the viscetudes of age, and lack of context can change the look and meaning of the piece. However, in every case, we do the best that we can do with what we have. As a side note, you speak of being useful to students who might want to use us as a starting point for research on art in local museums. I live in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We have no art museum. (We do have a really cool Frank Lloyd Wright building though.) Wikipedia is meant for everone on the planet, not just those who live near museums. Looking at a jpg is a pretty good alternative to not seeing the art at all.
However, rather than comparing apples to oranges, as is done by comparing The Oz Books to the William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery, lets compare pears to pears. I have created a hypothetical gallery here of a common type of miniature found in medieval manuscripts, the Evangelist Portrait. Let me first say that I am not proposing this as a prefect gallery. Its faults are many. I would say that, if I were to attempt to make this a gallery, I would introduce an additional level organization by sorting the images by period so that all of the Insular, Carolingian, Byzantine, etc., would be grouped together. For each image information is included on the manuscript where the image is found, the institution and shelfmark of the manuscript, the folio on which the image occurs, the content of the image (i.e. which evangelist it is an image of), the date of the image, and the dimensions. Not all of this information was available for each image, and I was too lazy to look it up. This is a fairly information rich gallery. For purposes of comparison, I have reformatted this information in the "list" format proposed by Durova (that is, in a table). Note that the "list" contains no information not in the "gallery". Are both of these lists? Are the both galleries? Is one a list, and one a gallery, and if so why? Is either one an acceptable article? Both? Neither? (In answering these questions, please try to ignore the specific subject matter of these galleries.)
BTW, Durova, you comment that you would have liked to include more information on the your reworking of the Socialist Realism gallery but most of the links were red. I also noticed that you placed the name of the artist in the first column. Both of these things indicate to me that we are seeing the purpose of these articles differently. I see the images as the most important thing, and thus would have put them in the first column. Also, if you had clicked on the image, rather than the artist, you would have found that most of the image pages have indormation on media and dimensions. Dsmdgold 03:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Dsmdgold earlier cited Gallery of Pompeii and Herculaneum as a gallery of obvious encyclopedic merit: in fact I think this page doesn't work well as a gallery, and would probably be markedly better in Durova's list format. --- Charles Stewart (talk) 15:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I've went ahead and moved this to 'old discussion' on the centralized discussion template (seeing as there has been no activity in almost a month). The result of the straw polls (combined) is 38 support, 14 oppose, and one neutral, which seems to indicate fairly strong support for the proposal. -- InShaneee 00:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I haven't had time to read through the whole page yet, or the policy, but I do have one quick question: is is OK to have galleries in the Wikipedia:WikiProject namespace for administrative purposes? I have recently been gathering together all the pictures realted to a certain area in order to organise them and to help decide the best way forward regarding organisation of the articles. The gallery can currently be seen at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images, along with an alphabetical list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images/List. It is not fully organised yet. Other, similar administrative galleries I have seen are Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Images, and an images subpage seems to be a common subpage of many WikiProjects. What I want to know is whether this is OK and what the best way is to organise such material and keep track of it? Carcharoth 10:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Suggest comment on Wikipedia talk:Galleries. Good luck. John Reid 05:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)