Commons talk:Quality images candidates/Archive 8

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Megapixel requirements

There is significant disagreement regarding evaluations at 2MP, and I think it might be time to take a vote about keeping or raising the standard or rewording it to match what is happening. We should have some discussion before we put anything to a vote though. There are side issues like if we raise the requirement, do any images get grandfathered? But first, some review of the existing rules:

From Commons:Image guidelines:

1. "Images should have at least 2 real megapixels of information"
2. "Images should not be downsampled"
3. "it is important that our best pictures have as high a resolution as possible"

Images should be neither upsampled nor downsampled and they should be as high resolution as possible. So a photographer must use the highest resolution that he is capable of producing. This does not mean they must produce as high a resolution as possible among all photographers. If you have a 12MP camera, you don't have to produce 24MP images just because that's what others are doing. That interpretation would result in automatic rejection of the vast majority of nominations. The vagueness of this requirement may also allow for lower resolutions due to cropping.

From Commons:Quality images candidates:

1. "Bitmapped images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF) should normally have at least 2 megapixels; reviewers may demand more for subjects that can be photographed easily."

The QI rules apply more directly and more specifically. There are two cases: easily photographed subjects and everything else. Everything else should be 2MP as the requirement. They can optionally be higher (at least), but it's not a requirement. When reviewers do not evaluate at 2MP in these cases, they are not following the requirements and IMO they have no grounds to object on these terms. With that in mind, if we want them to do so, the policy needs to be changed to reflect that. Of course if the image is easily taken, then all bets are off and the evaluation is entirely up to the reviewer. If there should be any debate about resolution, it should be whether or not the subject is easily taken or if there is an exceptional reason to require more than 2MP, but I've never witnessed such discussions.

I've noticed a lot of frustration among other nominators who submit photos that meet the 2MP requirement but get rejected anyway. This needs to be fixed.

I see a few possible options (not all are mutually exclusive):

1. Keep the existing rules and actually enforce them.
2. Raise the MP threshold.
3. Eliminate the exception.
4. Change the resolution requirement to be entirely under the reviewers' discretion.

I would summarize the current status as this:

Images are required to have 2MP minimum, but reviewers may require more.

And at minimum we should change the current rule to match reality. -- Ram-Man 16:15, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you're slightly confused as to what the rules require. The rules require that photos be at least 2 megapixels. The reviewers should then review the actual full-size image, be it 2MP or 20MP. If you only view a 2MP thumbnail of a 20MP image, you can only say that thumbnail is QI. For instance there was a lovely photo I saw while reviewing for WLM Ukraine - I don't have the link on me, but it was a very pretty picture of a castle at sunset. Very nice at 2MP. Unfortunately when you zoomed in to full size it became clear that there was no fine detail - this photo therefore did not get my vote in the final rounds.

We are here to review the images people nominate, not the downsampled versions which have a better chance of passing. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:26, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

By this logic if you view a 5248x3936 20MP at 100%, that's 17 inches wide on a 300dpi physical print and far wider on even the highest resolution monitors. That means unless you have an extraordinary evaluation setup, you are either viewing a downsampled image or a cropped image. Almost nobody has the ability to view the actual image at 20MP. I'm not sure how you can claim that a thumbnail is a different image but a crop is not? If you view at 100% on a 100dpi LCD, then that's a different image than 100% on a 300dpi physical print. The Depth of Field is different for one thing (unless you properly adjust for viewing distance). I'm one of the few people who specifies my evaluation criteria explicitly: 2MP @ 100dpi from 18 inch viewing distance. You can't avoid the fact that even at 100% on a monitor, it is still being sampled at a certain pixel depth and viewed at a completely arbitrary viewing distance. Upsampling and downsampling for evaluation is unavoidable. -- Ram-Man 16:48, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

There are certain things that can be evaluated from a thumbnail - white balance, brightness/contrast, composition - and some which cannot - chromatic aberrations, sharpness/blur. The way I review an image is to open the full size version, check the general stuff while it's fitted to the window, then zoom in to 100% for a closer look if everything at the wider scale is in order. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

As pointed out by mattbuck, the page does say this: "Carefully review the image. Open it in full resolution, and check if the quality criteria are met." (emphasis added). Of course this is completely arbitrary and inconsistent (see my comment above), but the rules do seem to indicate that all images should be evaluated at 100%. I don't know how I missed that. Of course, one cannot actually evaluate focus, depth of field, composition, and macro (large scale) distortions at 100% regardless of the rules because the crop changes those, so the requirement is contradictory. I suggest we fix that too. -- Ram-Man 17:25, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

If we do not resolve this, we are going to get an increasing number of spite votes. I already get enough flak for being "too harsh", and yet I'm actually loose to moderate on a number of issues (CA, tilting, perspective, and resolution to name a few). Imagine if I'm force to evaluate everything at 100% how harsh I would be. The thing is, some people probably want that. -- Ram-Man 17:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

If a photo isn't good enough for QI we shouldn't protect it by only viewing a smaller version. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

What is "good enough"?-- Ram-Man 17:56, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

What I do is first review the full-size image. If it seems like it might not be sharp enough, I view it at 2 MP and it ought to be tack-sharp; if I see any unsharpness it gets declined. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:28, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Back to blue

I do not understand this edit. Is CR now obsolete? Or is overruling of this kind now consensus? -- Smial (talk) 21:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of taste. I move to CR whenever there is an obvious debate that won't be easily resolved. I also do it if additional space is needed (e.g. to work out issues with an image or to answer questions). In the case you mentioned, it appears that there is a simple request for the photographer to make edits to the original to solve some issue. If they are resolved, there is no reason to take it to CR, because it will be promoted on the spot. If not, someone will move it to CR eventually. Since QI has effectively become the place for photography critiques on the commons, there is often a lot of this discussion that does not really need consensual review. -- Ram-Man 21:50, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

But if no one reworks the image and no one sends it to CR, the image will remain unassesed and my vote is gone. This is not the approach that is known to me and which I think is common. -- Smial (talk) 21:54, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

So, someone else marks it as {{Not done}} and rejects rather than move to CR? This seems a remote possibility because you did say "Good quality. Very nice view.", and I doubt anyone would ignore that. But your concern is valid I think. It seems to me there is a very simple way to fix this. We need something besides "Nomination", "Discuss", "Promotion", and "Decline". Something like, "/Reviewing" to mean "Under Review". This way in the instructions, anyone wanting to change "Reviewing" to something else better be extra careful not to miss any votes, and it can be moved to "Discuss" if needed. I wonder if the QICBot still works if it sees new templates. -- Ram-Man 03:22, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I see no need for an additional process. If anyone disagrees with an evaluation, the image is sent into consensual review. Kadellar should have done it this way, rather than cancel my judgment. Why another process? Keep it simple. -- Smial (talk) 13:52, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

It was just a suggestion. I have no real issue with your suggestion either: There is no harm taking something to CR "too fast". -- Ram-Man 02:51, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I feel like CR is for things that legitimately need discussion. If someone promotes but someone else notices a problem that is easily fixed, then there's no need to expand the already sizable CR backlog. Also, in general: I suggest that whenever someone challenges a "Promote" or "Decline" review, regardless of whether they pull it back into the unassessed state or send it to CR, they add a  Support or  Oppose to the first reviewer's comment to avoid confusion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Re-Nomination allowed?

Just a question of a newbie: Is it allowed to re-nominate a picture after it was declined or withdrawn, given that the reasons for the decline have been fixed in the meanwhile? --Code (talk) 16:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you can. Poco² 16:56, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

What do you do with a completely meaningless comments?

English: Football games under the lights are a particular challenge for photographers. This is not least be recognized that there are few football photos on commons and but a few that were made under floodlights. I have found several photos to candidacy and usually came meaningful comments. Today, however, I was completely demotivated because User: Lmbuga has deselected at once with completely nonsensical comments four photos. I want to emphasize that Lmbuga makes good photos, but always belittle this nice weather and I will by no means its performance. A fair-weather photographer who has not uploaded a photo is not a sport, or even football photo, believes football games under the lights to judge? Not that I'm taken by me, but at least I can look back on more than 35 years of experience as a semi-professional sports photographer. I also know that I no longer have the right equipment to take pictures today because me this is just too expensive for asking here is my pictures for free available for everyone. But this time I even had with my Canon 50D the 2.8 / 400 mm lens of Wikimedia Austria in use, the (at least 1/640 sec) at an appropriately high ISO number (800-1600) accordingly enables a faster shutter speed. And there is at once the quality of the photos is no longer sufficient?

But maybe you want at QI only have good weather photos that anyone can do with the right equipment and there are hundreds of thousands of commons?

If the pictures are taken down with meaningless comments, the motivation to me is in any case lost to upload good football photos on commons. So I do not for the future, no matter what I upload to commons. I would have expected at least more respect for photos, not anyone can do or make. I did this just once rid of them. Thank you for your attention.

--Steindy (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Deutsch: Fußballspiele unter Flutlicht sind eine besondere Herausforderung für Fotografen. Das ist nicht zuletzt daran erkennbar, dass es nur wenige Fußballfotos auf commons gibt und davon nur einige, die bei Flutlicht gemacht wurden. Ich habe verschiedene Fotos zur Kandidatur gestellt und meist kamen auch sinnvolle Kommentare. Heute wurde ich jedoch völlig demotiviert, da User:Lmbuga auf einmal mit völlig sinnfreien Kommentaren vier Fotos abgewählt hat. Ich will ausdrücklich betonen, dass Lmbuga gute Fotos macht, diese allerdings stets bei schönem Wetter und ich will dessen Leistungen keineswegs schmälern. Ein Schönwetterfotograf, der noch nie ein Sportfoto, oder gar Fußballfoto hochgeladen hat, glaubt Fußballspiele unter Flutlicht beurteilen zu können? Nicht dass ich von mir eingenommen bin, aber immerhin kann ich auf eine mehr als 35-jährige Erfahrung als semi-professioneller Sportfotograf verweisen. Ich weiß auch, dass ich heute nicht mehr die optimale Ausrüstung zum Fotografieren habe, weil mir diese einfach zu teuer dafür ist, hier meine Bilder kostenlos für jedermann zur Verfügung zu stellen. Diesmal hatte ich mit meiner Canon 50D aber sogar das 2,8/400 mm Objektiv von Wikimedia Österreich im Einsatz, das entsprechend kurze Verschlusszeiten (zumindest 1/640 sec) bei entsprechend hoher ISO-Zahl (800–1600) ermöglicht. Und da soll auf einmal die Qualität der Fotos nicht mehr ausreichend sein?

Aber vielleicht will man bei QI nur Schönwetterfotos haben, die jeder mit der entsprechenden Ausrüstung machen kann und die es zu Hunderttausenden auf commons gibt?

Wenn mit sinnfreien Kommentaren Fotos nieder gemacht werden, geht mir jedenfalls die Motivation verloren, gute Fußballfotos auf commons hochzuladen. Es ist mir also für die Zukunft egal was ich auf commons hochlade. Ich hätte mir zumindest mehr Respekt bei Fotos erwartet, die nicht jeder machen kann oder macht. Ich wollte dies einfach einmal los werden. Vielen Dank für die Aufmerksamkeit.

--Steindy (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

---

Dear Steindy, everyone here in this forum is an expert in his own field and everyone deserves to be awarded as a hero because he makes all the Wikipedia projects to a better place. But that does not mean, that every photo is a Quality Image when it was taken in a special place, under special light circumstances or by reason of a sophisticated equipment. Not all my photos are QI although I am the only regular contributor to Sabah and although I spend all my time and money to go there several times a year. I am uploading much more photos to WikiCommons than you will find in QIC. Some of them come with personal memories to a very difficult light situation or to the difficulty to get to a place which is usually not open to foreigners. However, this does not mean, that the image guidelines are no more valid for me. It is great that you can enrich Wikipedia with your photos of football profis and football events - but don't be sad when a lot of the images do not pass the image guidelines. Cheers, an keep on with your contributions to WikiCommons. --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 20:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm really disappointed (remaining politicaly correct) by this topic, his title, and the personal attack against User:Lmbuga. No matter how difficult are pictures to be taken, all assessment and comment are free, if they are polite. This is the case. It is now almost impossible to decline a nomination, or to discuss a promotion, without to be, directly or not, intimidate or ridicule. Nobody accepts oppose votes, and feel insulted, opinions are no more free. Maybe User:Steindy is vexed, but his reaction is unacceptable to me. I prefer not to comment his numerous football pictures, but I have an opinion. Anyway, Lmbuga is free to express what he thinks. And decline or discuss is NOT disrespectful for any picture. This topic IS disrespectful for the reviewer. The comment IS NOT meaningless, it is just a comment. An answer to the question of the title: remain silent, accept votes, wait for other opinions. And if the frame stays red, come on, go further, forget, don't ask for votes in QIC, VIC, or FPC pages, or leave the "Commons" project. Thank you for attention.--Jebulon (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• Question: What do you do with a completely meaningless comments?. Answer: assume good faith and, if we really don't understand the comments, ask politely the author to clarify. Recently I was also the target of some rude and displaced ad hominem attacks because I dared to oppose a nomination where the main subject (a face of a football player) was out of focus (I am still waiting for an apology). Some time ago I started a thread here with the title "What about the fun"? When QIC is about to become a wild competitive ground for the number of promotions (if it is not already), there is no longer place for teaching, learning and enjoying - by far, the most relevant component of this forum. In my opinion this is the really important discussion we need to have here. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• PS - A different and alarming subproduct of the competitive motivations is the degradation of the evaluation standards. Here is a single but paradigmatic example, which would be rejected at first sight a couple of months ago (but is about to be promoted): [1] -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Dear Jebulon! My thread has nothing to do with personal attacks and nothing intimidating. A personal attack was what Lmbuga had written. It takes a good deal of self-confidence (not to say audacity) to, disqualify a colleague, on the one encounters by chance, by setting your own photos in this way. Is also behind the Acount Steindy a person who is committed and experienced enough, contribute in the best way to commons. And no one takes Lmbuga, you, or anyone else a stone from the crown when other users make good photos.

But I have already stated several times that there are some alliances that give each other awards themselves. After I already could benefit your votes I can only tell you that even you should be more careful with your votes. It is also striking other colleagues as you photos of your reviewing User:Moroder [2], [3]. You are looking for to make bad after mosquitoes around the photos. Recapping does not seems to be your thing [4]. Obviously, all the other colleagues are ghostriders. Regards --Steindy (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• Dear colleagues, big thanks for the thoughtful, careful and rigorous rewiewers, they know who they are, for the others we do not have time to take care of people who cry because of the votes. You wanted to draw the attention, you will have mine now. And to draw too much the attention on these images can be double-edged, see my votes on the QIC page. -- ChristianFerrer 10:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
• @ All: If you have not noticed it: it is helpful that you work in certain areas at least once, and thus has experience before you formed an opinion on such work. The fair-weather Photography resting objects happens to be something other than sports events under floodlights. While you can shoot objects at rest in good weather at ISO 50, require fast sport under floodlight ISO 1600 and more. That there will be reflections of light under the lights and sweaty bodies, is more than normal and that is to see at ISO 1600 noise is also normal. Then, when supplied by a user at a sports photo "unbalanced picture" as the reason for his oppse, then the fun is over.

If I want to do a search and I can also at almost every photo find something to criticize this. It also has no personal sense of achievement when he makes other images bad. Other good pictures also reduce not the own work. But I think that the point is not in QI to demotivate others, but rather to give and inspire these tips. But this is a matter of personal adjustment.

If you want to apply for no understanding, you just need to say that you want to have in QI no sports photography under these conditions. Then you will no longer sports photographers bother with such „crap“. You have to look sportphotos on commons with a magnifying glass anyway! Regards --Steindy (talk) 14:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree. Qi should not be a rigid section, do not apply the same rule under the same conditions. There are areas of the world where the weather is terrible half of the year, adds to this situation trying to photograph fast-moving animal. I have noted with great concern that some users begin implementing increasingly rigid rules applying excess QI rules, the rules are a guideline but every photographer has the right to follow them to adapt his discretion and conditions. This is worrying because it discourages skilled in the art, and additionally end up sick these users, where they end up seeing errors, where actually they are not. --The Photographer (talk) 15:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

+1. And I would like to add that User:Lmbuga's many reviews are in areas where s/he has zero experience. This clubbed with his/her language problems make those reviews as a very discouraging attack against the contributor than the work. (When I see a very rude language like poor, poor, poor, etc. in a single comment, I usually check the user's page to find his/her language capabilities. But here we expect many new comers; I'm sure they will never come back if faced such an attack in the first place.) Jee 16:15, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

• Well, I disagree. A rose is rose is a rose, exactly as a QI is a QUI is a QI. At QIC we don’t acknowledge the value of an image - for that we have VIC -, we evaluate the quality of pictures according to a set of more or less objective guidelines concerning focus, sharpness, distortion, color, composition, etc. Occasionally old black and white photographs are nominated here and fail because they lack image quality. That is normal and fully respects, in my opinion, the spirit of the guidelines. Furthermore the prevailing culture here is to ignore the specific constraints associated with a particular shot or theme. For example, if a picture is noisy or out of focus because of bad lighting conditions, that should not usually be taken into account. The same principle applies to the difficulty of the shot (e.g. macrophotography or sports) or to the relatively poorer quality of the camera. Let me give a personal example: when I was in Chicago some years ago, during winter, the weather was terrible for Photography as normally is at that time of the year. Although I took some hundreds pictures, only a few of them were promoted. Should I complain with the argument that the normal weather in Chicago is poor and that I won’t probably go back to the city? Certainly not. Most will agree that such argument would be displaced and, if taken to the limit, would erode significantly the standards of QI. A second example: as a macro photographer I know that there are some species of insects very difficult to photograph because they are small and restless. Should we lower the exigency in those cases? I also believe not. The bottom line is: the QI seal inserted in a Commons’ picture only concerns the quality of the image, as measured by a set of agreed guidelines, not its value. Two final notes concerning the reviewers: i) any editor can evaluate a QIC nomination; ii) all votes and comments have the same value and should be respected; iii) comments should only address the quality of the image under evaluation, never the authors, the reviewers or their work. This is well established principle in Wikimedia that all newcommers should respect. Alvesgaspar (talk) 17:22, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Dear old fellow Alvesgaspar, I follow you at 100%.--Jebulon (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
    • If I came from a developed country would probably support your comment. However, this problem also applies to the cost of a camera. D800E with a good lens, for example, may be hardly noise problem. Without wishing to create controversy, not easy step into the shoes of others. My comments are sincere and I really would listen that this section is good photographs, rather than good cameras. I would love to hear some suggestions I departe of you and your vast experience. Thank you --The Photographer (talk) 23:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Come on, The Photographer ! I use the same camera (Sony a550) since 5 years, with only one multi purpose cheap lens, and I use mostly a free software (GIMP).--Jebulon (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Come on, Wilfredo! Your present camera is an excellent one, better than the Nikon D80 I used up to about two years ago. And much, much better than the bridge-type Konica Minolta I used in 2006 and 2007, with which fifteen featured pictures were shot. What my experience tells me is that hard work, some photographic knowledge and a little talent (by this order) are much more important than expensive gear. Your experience in São Paulo is similar to mine in Chicago. The difference is that you had there a better camera than me... Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Cheers guys, thanks for responding. I was not talking just about me or my camera, this is not a personal matter. I was referring to the problem that most quality images are from developed countries. The problem is much more complex and I do not want to deviate much about it. My concern is that this section insite to photographers, make good photo shots and not to buy expensive cameras. The rules are applied consistently camera or lens you have. Right now (just like scenario), I could take a picture with a sports iso 2500 on a D200, then take exactly the same picture, with the same ISO, but with a Nikon D610 (both with a similar lens), the the photographer will snap securely d200 rejected for having a lot of noise. However, the photograph of the d610 (low noise for being full frame) also apply a reduction in your photo to 2mpx, which reduces the size of your image and grain noise (loss of information and malpractice). What am I trying to say ?, We are not only insitando to buy an expensive camera, we are also encouraging to be a bad photograph and apply malpractices as downsize to force the rule of noise that I think no sense. --The Photographer (talk) 10:24, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The same applies to sharpness and CA. ManySome of e.g. Moroders images taken with the 36 MPix D800 have been sent to CR because of slight softness at 100% view. The same lens used at a 12 Mpix-Camera would produce visually sharper images and would also show less CA or at least easier to fix CA. So the photographer has the choice to contribute full resolution images with full image information, which would be perfect for making derivative versions, or to upload drastically scaled down images to fulfill QI requirements. No, not QI requirements, but the interpretation of this requirements by some of the regulars here. -- Smial (talk) 11:05, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Smial: -- I took half an hour to go over all nominations of November 2014, and most of October, and couldn't find a single example of a Moroder's image declined or sent to CR because of noise softness at 100%. Could you please make a list? Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:35, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I did not write about noise this time. -- Smial (talk) 13:43, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• Whatever reason, @Smial: ! Please clarify where are the many Moroder's images sent recently to CR. Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• • Alves: I disagree with some points; but agree with a few. First, a cultivated rose which is mostly common and easily available is very different form an endangered pure species. So we expect high standard for the cultivated one. In people photography, we can't expect good lights in night games or indoor games. Flash usually don't allow in games as it disturb the players. People are restless; so we can't use slow shutter or bigger F number. That's why we admire pictures like this and this. I can see people trying to differentiate quality and value which is not true. Value is an essential parameter in assessing quality; otherwise we need no need humans to assess it where people can code some bots to do it.

I don't want to beg for allowances for poor quality tools. It is a limitation of people living in such situations; I can live with it. Personally I don't care any more FP/QI/VI stars and no more part of the MOP gallery. It is only because I already grown up and learnt to live involved in many other area of interests. But from my experience, I believe these projects are goof for newcomers; they can learn a lot from here, including from opposing comments. That's why I try to make some third party nominations when I find some new people somewhere. But many times, I'm disappointed to see they are treated badly to make sure they never come back. As a result, this places end-up as the "heaven" some regulars. Is it good for Commons? I don't think so. Jee 04:10, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree your comment about newcomers. While I appreciate the appearance of new users, I am almost every time unhappy about their lack of willingness to enhance their photos. Being new to the forum does not produce a reason to get photos promoted which clearly don't comply with the simplest rules of the image guide. Moreover, a lot of the newcomers are absolutely not responsive to review comments like "please remove the magenta CA" or whatsoever. I also noticed, that the author of a photo is not properly notified, when his photos got nominated by someone else and the photo gets a call for enhancement. That's very disappointing for a reviewer. Cheers, --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you overestimate what people know about photography. Most people don't even know what is "Chromatic aberration" (not to mention the CA abbreviation), and even less how to correct it. It is so easy nowadays to take a picture of average quality, that most people don't bother to learn anything about photography. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I know that. I just do not follow JKadavoor's opinion, that newcomers are scared away intentionally. I also had a hard time when I came here and I had to reconsider my whole postprocessing workflow before the amount of declined photos dropped. I also can see, that recent newcomers as Livio and Halavar enhanced their skills despite a lot of declines. So in my opinion, this forum still fullfills his purpose. However, it won't serve the wish of a fast satisfaction :) --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 20:37, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I understand what your point. I too not against all opposing votes. But there is a difference between well explained comments (DOF, CA, Noise, etc.) and abstract comments (poor/terrible quality, snap shot, etc.). The later constitutes as a personal attack which not only unhelpful to the photographer, it forces them to leave. If the poor photographer make an attempt to get a better answer, it will be moved to CR, and there are some "experts" waiting to add as may oppose votes as much as possible to "kill" those nominations photographers. Jee 02:43, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

• Maybe that examiners should be required for to rewiew only one image of the same author every day. This could limit a bit conflicts. -- ChristianFerrer 18:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

So after I already spent my review vote for a user and he is uploading afterwards a photo with issues, I am silenced and can just do nothing but hoping, that someone else is taking notice of the issues? I think, that would be the moment, when I just upload my daily nominations and don't care anymore, what is happening in the forum. I also do not understand why I am rising conflicts by contributing with a lot of reviews. Are there any complaints about me? Am I that fallable? --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 18:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

No, I was not at all thinking to you, I said that because it seems there was a Rewiew War between Lmbuga and Steindy. -- ChristianFerrer 18:34, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I guessed so. Just wanted to point out, where the limitations of such a decisions are. It is IMO not the appropriate way to resolve the current issue. --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 21:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

• I also think that the images currently rewiewed should not be cited or invoked here. If you're not happy with a vote there is CR. If you want to discuss about quality criteria in general ok. But to question the currents rewiews have big chances to make conflits. And now User: Lmbuga is blocked, and as I already said in the adm. noticeboard I'm not happy with that. The situation has degenerated and it should have been stopped at the beginning of this discussion open by Steindy. He have not to cry about the current votes here. Final point. Here he can discuss about general quality criteria, but no more. It's the same for all of us. -- ChristianFerrer 18:31, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

• Reviews often frustrate nominators and result in emotional outbursts. As long as they are not personal attacks or result in spite votes (unchecked declines or promotes), they are mostly harmless. However, both Lmbuga and Steindy engaged in one or both of these activities and the only real way to solve it was to get them blocked because it escalated and they refused to stop. If someone is giving fake/inappropriate/incomplete votes, we do the following:
  1. Let it go to CR where it will be fairly sorted out.
  2. If it becomes a habit, they are asked to stop on their talk page.
  3. If that fails, we let the administrators determine if a block is appropriate. If they agree, we revert their inappropriate edits and move on. Speedily close any images that shouldn't have gone to CR otherwise.

If there are personal attacks, we skip the first step, but in any case no additional policy is required because we have all the polices we need to solve these issues. -- Ram-Man 03:49, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Does a "withdrawn" nomination entitle to nominate more?

Assuming that a user (e.g. Jacek) has nominated 5 pictures and after a review withdraws one of them, is he allowed to nominate another one for the same day? Poco² 15:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC) PD: By the way, and in the case somebody cares, I can confirm my worries, my motivation to take more pictures for Commons is really low after I know that I'll not be able to nominate them to QI until middle of 2016.

In my personal opinion: Five is five and if someone dont carefully chooses the right ones, he still has the next nomination opportunity the day after. --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 20:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC) @Poco a poco: I understand your feelings; as I am postprocessing 15-20 photos every day, with nearly 10.000 photos in the working queue, my attic of possible nominations is getting bigger every day.

I don't understand... Is the QI seal a mandatory ? Is it impossible to feed "Commons" without nominating in QIC page ? Just chose more carefuly, and if you are severe for yourselves, you will get the right to be severe for others...--Jebulon (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

No, it isn't mandatory but it is a motivation and a confirmation that the uploaded work is of good quality. Poco² 22:16, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, feeding Commons is my primary intention (see section above). But as per Diego, it is an add-on for the better ones. --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

What an unexpected and consensual answer...😉--Jebulon (talk) 23:43, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

If a photo is withdrawn it should not be allowed to nominate a replacement the same day. This would make it possible to nominate as many more images until five per day are promoted. -- Smial (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I agree with you that we it can be misused Poco² 22:16, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, next time there will be no replacement.--XRay ^talk 05:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it depends when it was withdrawn. After review, no replacement; before review, go right ahead. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree.--Jebulon (talk) 22:58, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Your motivation to take pictures is low because you cannot nominate for QI parts of them in the next months? I thought, our common motivation is actually to share free knowledge to Commons, Wikipedia, etc.? Especially to contribute good photos of subjects that are not (yet) well represented here, in order to see it someday being used in WP articles, or elsewhere on web, or even in printed media? Surprise, surprise... Or not? :)) --A.Savin 20:28, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Why personal attacks? Of course and absolutely understandable, success at QIC can be a strong motivation to upload more images. Though it's not my cup of tea, I can accept it. People have different motivation to contribute to commons, all are acceptable given we get more and better images. -- Smial (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course. 10000 QI + 500 FP adorning own user page = self purpose. Ironic comment on this practice = personal attack. Yeah, that's why I love this project... --A.Savin 22:31, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Irony is never a good idea in a multilangual project. The risc it will be misunderstood is somewhat higher than in a discussion between native speakers. Thanks for the fish, bye. -- Smial (talk) 22:47, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I think A.Savin's opinion is not irony, but simply the truth, alas. And my own user page is well adornated enough, thank you all for your support votes.--Jebulon (talk) 22:58, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

That comment is pure irony, and actually disrespectful in my eyes. I had better refrain from answering that. Poco² 21:56, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

So, I'm glad you know what I mean. Btw, interesting: [5] + [6] --A.Savin 15:04, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Alex, you lost me. And I don't see the point with those 2 links. I've helped the movement in different areas and projects for many years and will continue to do so. Poco² 21:41, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI (in german)

Don't look at thumbnails => commons, germany. Crazy software developer. Gruss --Nightflyer (talk) 21:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I added a note to phabricator:T69525 --Steinsplitter (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the thumbnail means you're not reviewing the actual photo anyway. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

SamoaBot and Assessment template

• I have noticed that SamoaBot, operated by Ricordisamoa, has been inserting the QI template (as well as other information) inside the Assessment template. I remember well a very hard discussion we had some time ago where the consensus was to use the Assessment template only for Featured Pictures (of Commons and other wikis). I left a message in Ricordisamoa talkpage but this may be a problem. As far as I remember previous initiatives like the present one, by various users, were never reverted. Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Link to current discussion: Commons:Bots/Requests/SamoaBot 4
• As a FP maintenance volunteer, I noticed most users (including me) prefer to remove the QI tag and merge it with the FP tag (to save some file page real estate). Jee 11:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the bot only made <100 edits (supervised) for a test run, and just a few of them have been reverted. --Ricordisamoa 21:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the information. Can you please revert those changes? Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

•  Comment I read previous discussions (Template_talk:Assessments/Archive_1#Consensus_needed, [Commons:Deletion_requests/Template:Wallpaper]]) and see the main resistance is about the use of "wallpaper" parameter. I too agree it is not very relevant here. It is just a "fancy" info and not part of any assessments. I think it was "inherited" from old EN tags. Now Ricordisamoa already mentioned that there is no need for such a parameter as Lua can read file metadata directly. Moreover, using a copyrighted work as wallpaper without watermarking attribution is a copyright violation; no need to encourage it from our side. :)

But I see no need of edit war in this matter. First, start a discussion at COM:FPC (since it is part of fp) to check whether there is a consensus to remove the "wallpaper" tagging. Then ask a coder to disable the "wallpaper" part in assessment module. There is no need to remove that parameter from all the existing files.

Regarding the merging of FP/QI/VI tags: I think it is good as they all are "assessments" and making them together will make the file page more compact and attractive. My experience is also that many people here already prefer it. (I was in fp maintenance for last one year; closed several hundreds of noms. All noms I closed are in my watchlist; so I can see later edits on those files. I had closed hundreds of noms manually too when the bot is down where also I used this concept.) In my experience, any update in coding is welcome even though it slightly disturbs old users. Nowadays we are experiencing a lot of updates like attempts to make all data machine readable. So a structured approach is better than so many fragmented components which are difficult to manage. Jee 04:43, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Jkadavoor: Your opinion on this matter is certainly respectable, as any other editor's opinion. However maybe you are not fully aware of the various discussions that were held on this matter over the last years, some with dramatic results. Never a consensus was reached in those threads on the addition of any aditional tags in the Assessment template other than the FP tags of the variou wikis. We can of course return to this subject and start a fresh discussion. What is not right is to proceed altering the image files without having such discussion first. A couple of editors in the last years have done that and were eventually stopped. But never were their extensive edits reverted as they should, despite the protest of the community. This case is no different and Ricordisamoa should revert all changes made by his bot, as requested. Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• I was not in Commons on those days; but aware of the clash with "White Cat". But I don't think Ricordisamoa's contributions are comparable to it. It was discussed at Commons:Bots/Requests/SamoaBot 4 and notified at FP talk pages on that time. Moreover, our experienced contributors like EugeneZelenko, 99of9, Slaunger and Dschwen were well aware of it. Odder, the crat who gave temporary permission to that bot, always pinged me as I was the only contributor responded there in a timely manner. So it is very unfair to blame Ricordisamoa on this matter. I don't think he will make any further steps if the community don't want it. (The four crats will get pings from this comment; so they will hopefully look into this discussion before making any further decision. I'm fairly  Neutral as I don't want to impose my interests over community consensus.) Jee 02:26, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of this discussion and remember the WhiteCat situation as well. --Dschwen (talk) 04:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Adding the 'wallpaper' parameter was SamoaBot's 1st task, which is not run anymore. The 4th one only concerns the merger of various Assessments-like templates (so "as well as other information" does not apply), and I have seen nearly no opposition other than Alvesgaspar's in regard to this. --Ricordisamoa 08:26, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I support the idea of cleaning up file page real estate, but for a number of reasons I find it is not the best solution to do it as implemented currently in the Assessment template, which completelty mixes together the distinct color themes of all three image assessment projects, in one ugly frame-in-frame-in-frame eyesore, thereby compromising their project identities. I have explained more about that on the bot request page. This is not intended as a criticism of Ricordisamoa, who has merely done his best to implement the same appearance and logic as in the original template. I think a frame side-by-side solution, retaining the colour themes in less wide cells should be sought for instead. I do not know enough about wiki-syntax to find the best technical solution, but I think there is a possibility to implement that by tweaking the existing templates (and let Assessment only do the FP job) and simply let Samoabot order the templates, such that they appear in a consistent order on the file page, and just under the Information and 'friends' ({{Location}}, {{Photo Information}}, {{Panorama}}, ...) templates. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• This a constructive idea which I full support. A possible approach is to prepare a series of alternative designs to be presented in a fresh discussion about the subject. I don't blame Ricordisamoa for the initiative either but still think that the changes should be reverted before we discuss the issue. Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
• I have outlined the idea here with some very, very simple textual mockups. Hope you get the idea? If it is not technically feasible to tweak the existing templates, such that they are shown side-by-side, another solution is to change the implementation of the Assessments template from the ugly frame-in-frame to a frames side-by-side layout. If it is too cumbersome to modify a heavily used template, one could also create a new template for the purpose, e.g., {{Reviews}}, and then retire the Assessments template once a transition has been done? -- Slaunger (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Problems with QI notifications ?

Hi there. Two of my pictures have been recently promoted as QI, but I'm not notified in my talk page. Is it normal ? This one among them.--Jebulon (talk) 20:23, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I notified User Dschwen already (it's in german language). No response yet. It is ok, if you add the tag yourself with a reference to the diff-link of the daily QI extraction (example) --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry guys, I don't know what happened with the bot on that run. If you could add the tags yourself it'd be helpful. By now I think it is a little too late to revert the bot run and retry. --Dschwen (talk) 22:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I looked through the logs and found an error meaasge. I hope this is a fluke. But I'll keep an eye on the bot. --Dschwen (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

SVG

Suggestion: A "quality" SVG has to be valid and is tagged as valid with (example) Template:Igen also showing the used tool (text editor, InkScape, ...), and ideally reviewers also look at the source (ctrl-U or similar, but preferable with the link at the colored "valid" or "invalid" in the box) to check that this is in a state permitting derivative work with a text editor. –Be..anyone (talk) 21:32, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

A serious proposal on self-certification

There is apparently a QI backlog of a few years at our current review rate (even 3x our current review rate) if we include just those photographers who have said how many images they are now holding back waiting to drip them through. I’m not sure what the intrinsic value to the photographer is of getting 1000’s of your images stamped as QI, or of thinking your time is wasted in uploading images if you can’t get your images stamped. QI has three purposes IMO – 1) Setting standards and showing all uploaders what good images look like. 2) Encouraging photographers to upload good images, 3) Getting a base of known good images for others to use. As for #1 – we’ve already got enough images to do that. For #2, if you aren’t convinced you are good enough, and that we love you, by the time you’ve uploaded 600 QI images, is having three times the amount of QI going to make things any better?

That brings us to #3. Our photographers with large numbers of QI images are doing good work, adding to the number of quality images on Commons. Why are we making it so hard on them and all of us? The only way to clear the backlogs, given current resources, is to allow people to self-stamp. Is this a bad thing? We’d need another logo, and another category. You get permission from the QI project to self stamp with the project’s logo after getting “n” images through the traditional process. At that point, you know what’s required, and you can self stamp, using the “self approved” stamp. The project reserves the right to revoke your self stamping privileges if you abuse the system (too many bad images), and the project has the right to submit any of your self stamped images to traditional CR if they are particularly bad, removing the stamp as needed. With a little script work, we can now offer two search criteria, the “classic QI, peer reviewed”, and “self QI”. Editors on other projects looking for good images will get a wider range of images to look at, with two levels of trust.

Self certification is not unusual in the real world – vendors assert, through something like a Suppliers Declaration of Conformity, that their product meets an accepted standard. Sure, there is the possibility for abuse, but the standards body or government agency has the right and responsibility to periodically check up on the self-certifiers, and downgrade a product, or remove the suppliers right to self certify. The QI project would be that body, and would have the right to route self-stamped images to CR, and remove the self stamp rights for repeat offenders. Even now, anyone can put the QI logo on their image and add the quality category now – and the QI project removes them when they are caught.

The day to day QI review is then a process of 1) approving images in the classic sense, but this is only for people who aren’t self-stampers (allowing a larger number per day), or for a small number of images that self-stampers want to get though the peer review system (maybe for the FP process?) – though with a much smaller number of permitted images (one per week?) and 2) monitoring self stampers via a category fed by a bot with some small percentage of new self stamped images from that day/week.

The advantages are: 1) New users go through the existing process for a while until they get "n" QI images via peer review. 2) Experienced users no longer have limits on how many images they can get (self)stamped per day 3) Commons benefits by having more images, more quickly, that are marked as “quality”. 4) The project keeps a reputation for quality, using a “trust but verify” model.

There are many tweaks that can be made - such as requiring a minimum success rate for your "n" peer reviewed submissions. Or requiring at least one project member to "countersign" your self stamping. But the above is a simple proposal to see if there is any interest in pursuing this model. --Generic1139 (talk) 21:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I fear that leads to nothing more than discussions about whether certain users actually default rate each, really each image, which they have uploaded to nominate it as a Quality image. At the present, everyone can can easily observe that there is no pre-selection in some form of a number of users. No matter what comes, the page will be flooded. Currently there are at least a few useful hints from colleagues, why an image can´t be a QI. The system works like this: I nominate everything, because it is easier. If 70% will be promoted (actually much more), for the rest, which will be declined I do not care. Which of course also mean that there are a number of complacency opinions, just to get in return even the consent of the other. You only should have a look at the small list of those who participate in QI. It looks much more then a private tool for a small amount of users, the broad group of participants will be not addressed. --Hubertl (talk) 11:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

1) I don't want to evaluate my own images due to personal bias. 2) If my photos are rejected, I don't normally contest them. FP is about prestige and status, QI is about usefulness to the project, IMO. -- Ram-Man 01:29, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

 Comment Usefulness to the project is Commons:VI, QI meets a standard lower than FP and does not need the wow effect. FP is a section for users with DSLR cameras. Hardly a user without a DSLR can get a FP, this makes an elite section linked to users with money, which excludes a large majority of users in poor countries. It would be good to ask how many afro users are in commons? then another question, how many afro users have gained commons FP ?, the answer is almost surely 0. FP is a section for users in developed countries where the FP increasingly resemble tourist postcards --The Photographer (talk) 15:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

VI has scope rules that QI does not, limiting its purpose significantly. QI's purpose is much broader, but it still serves a similar goal: separating good images from the bad. If this is not for "usefulness to the project", what other purpose could there be? -- Ram-Man 19:46, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Wilfredo. When I stated participating in Commons, a few of my works passed as FP and QI even though with a considerable amount of oppositions. But the standards are increased dramatically nowadays and I don't even think to nominate any of my pictures at FPC. I made a few nominations in QI recently without expecting anything. It is just a reality and I would like to accept it as it is. Nowadays I enjoy hosting images is Commons only for Wikipedia and off wiki reuses. There are a lot of off wiki projects where my works are highly appreciated for academic purposes and some of them are the only existing photographic records. But in Commons there just low quality works in a QI point of view and sometimes people even consider me as technically not skilled enough to take quality pictures, without considering the cheap tools I used. Jee 04:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

The Photographer and Jkadavoor: By and large I agree with your description of the asymmetries in especially QI and FP, where those who can afford a DSLR (and have the skill) has a sizeable advantage over users, who do not have the same budget for investing in a decent camera and thus has a technical disadvantage. And this means that there are parts of the World where we have many more FPs and QIs than other parts of the world. And these areas are closely related to "where the money is" or where "wealthy people travel". I see myself fitting into that stereotype.

So, what should we do about it? Is the system broken? How do we get more 'good' pictures from less well represented areas? Are our metrics for evaluating pictures the wrong ones? It does strike me, for instance, when I scrutinize the finalist winners in WLM 2014, that a large fraction of them would not pass a QI review. Yet many find the images are very useful, valuable and has wow.

My idea with starting up COM:VI years ago was to give users with less fancy equipment a chance to get acknowledged for their contributions of "new scopes" of which there are plenty from such areas within having to be QI. Regrettably it has not worked out as well as I had hoped. It is in reality a niche project, which is not well recognized. I do not know what should have been done differently. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:22, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if we do actually have a significant number of contributors from aforementioned countries. I might be wrong, but afair some images rejected here coming from countries like Bangladesh were actually simply processed horribly. I can see the point that QI is perhaps too strict in its interpretation of quality, going beyond "well usable" to printable without flaws. Yet some people complain that the rules here are not strict enough. I really like the concept of VI ( and by that I mean the core idea of identifying images that are well suited to illustrate a subject in MediaViewer full screen size), but somehow it really is niche and used by only 20 people or so on a regular basis (it is fairly confusing for newcomers). Concerning QI, I would be prepared to consider images of lower raw quality (size, sharpness, perhaps noise), but I expect that people actually bother to learn and apply reasonable corrections for tilt, color, CA and stuff like that (I hate it when WLM winners have CAs so prominent that I can see them at 800px or so). I find it very problematic to suggest measuring with different scales for different places. In addition, I must admit that I hate the idea that every image has to be QI, that is a massive misconception imo, because at the end of the day, very few people actually care about the seal (okay, perhaps less so with the new good image tool, but that is not very relevant in cats with no or few images!). I feel that not uploading an (potentially downsized) useful image because of small issues is not serving the spirit of commons. Perhaps we should have "Useful image" as a 2mpx QI, that is that the image needs to look good at this res, regardless of the 100% view as a level below QI for those that upload good stuff but cannot achieve QI status despite their photographic skill. But that would only add another project... --DXR (talk) 00:15, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see resolution as a serious issue. Personally, I require it to look good at 2MP (approximately screen size on my home monitors). I don't like when people reject a photo when it doesn't look good at 100% in a 40MP image. But that does not happen very often at all, and it's easy to send it to consensual review if it is. The vast majority of the time the flaws in an image are poor composition, exposure, DoF, focus, sharpness, contrast, angle, tilt, etc. Also, whenever I see a photo of lower quality, I check the EXIF to see if it came from a low end camera. It is almost always from a higher end camera and the flaw is caused by the photographer, not the equipment. -- Ram-Man 00:32, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, these flaws are worse, but also not a big issue nowadays here in most cases. I am not sure about evaluating QIs at 2mpx, because I personally find myself zooming in even on generic images on WP and I love diving into details and hate if nothing but mush remains. You can hide a lot of avoidable (user) errors in 2mpx, so I think that threshold should rather be at 6 or 8 mpx. But I can see different possible approaches here that are legimate. --DXR (talk) 00:44, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Slaunger, I got a ping so this reply. May be a bit off topic; but let me express my opinion. Like many other projects, Commons is also a media file repository for educational media contents. So we need media from all around the world to satisfy our mission. But can we expect same quality from places where people are struggling to make a living? There are many young contributors like students too who can't afford expensive tools. But their works are more useful and valuable for us just because of the remote places they are living. There are many projects like http://www.projectnoah.org/ and http://www.inaturalist.org/ makes advantages from it. Nowadays some Facebook groups like https://www.facebook.com/groups/453040944791943/ are also very effective as they provide quality advises on identification from experts around the world. And those experts take time to appreciate every new contributors, make they feel worthy that automatically result in more contributions. But Commons is dominated by a wealthy club who repeatedly supply just another high quality "tourist post card" and find time in making funny comments on newbies from under development areas. Naturally those newbies get tired and save themselves from this nasty place soon as there are many better places exist. I see some hope in new projects like Commons:Photo challenge though. :) Jee 03:31, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Jee, I really don't know... If people just come to commons for the gratification of Seals and Stars, they will not be happy regardless of their skills and equipment. I think that the reality of commons, namely the fact that most images are just there without being noticed very much, is simply not close to the concept of more feedback-based pages like flickr. Again, I also think that simply learning photography, composition and light will take time. I don't see how your accusitions about the "wealthy club" get us any further in practise. I made crappy photos for three or four years and it simply took time learning. But the FPs I took this year would probably still become FP if they were shot with a used D40 for less than 150$ (of course still not cheap, but far more affordable). People make great photos with limited cameras or indeed phones and surely these images wouldn't get laughed at. But I don't buy the argument that people won't upload their images because awards are out of reach. Contributors here should be driven by the want to document their environment and showing it to the world, especially if this part of the world is not that well known. If you have any concrete suggestion about better recognizing images from developing countries, please tell it to us. I like doing special photo challenges for developing countries (maybe even best photo with a non-DSLR/Mirrorless) but I still maintain that lowering the quality threshold at QI is not right or logically sound.

• A lower overall quality threshold leads to worse contributions by everybody
• A special quality threshold by country is hard to maintain, confusing for newcomers and also questionable (what about poor people in rich countries and rich people in poor countries?) --DXR (talk) 06:38, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi DXR; I'm not accusing any, and sorry if you feel so. Instead I'm blaming the QI concept itself as it only consider technical quality of a photograph in ideal conditions. In fact, photographs are not taken in ideal conditions. For example, some organisms prefer to live in very low light environments. We can see some of them only under hot sun. Another point is the "value" of a photo. It depends on many facts like the availability of a subject. So average photographs of an endemic or endangered subject is much valuable than high quality photograph of a common subject. Photographs documenting special moments like mating, feeding, courtship, etc. are also valuable than static moments. I agree with you about the important of learning process. But learning is happening not only in technical side; the more it happened about the properties of the subject we capture. So definitely an experienced man can make better results with cheap tools. But there is a limit to how much we can stretch. My understanding is that no possibility for an FP or QI from a compact camera nowadays (there may be a few exceptional cases).

"If you have any concrete suggestion about better recognizing images from developing countries, please tell it to us." - IMHO, there is no need to maintain the quality standard as high as for FPs. We need not demand more quality photographs that a particular camera used can't produce, if the subject is rare here. :) Jee 07:36, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Jee, I fully agree that images of rare animals/plants are very valuable even if the quality is not great. I also think that we should consider this more in FPs, even though this is obviously not my area of competence... Then again, wouldn't VI work well for such images? Like I said above, a "Useful image" concept is probably going more into that direction, I guess it is hard to lower one's standards in judging QIs and I agree that the process is not well-adapted to difficult situations (like concert photos or indeed macros). --DXR (talk) 09:01, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I think Slaunger had such an intention when he started the VI project. But it didn't attract may due to a lot of reasons including its complicated interface and best in scope concept. I had respected that project and made some set nominations earlier. Now the set is discontinued due to technical difficulties. May be fine tuning / renovating that project will work. :) Jee 09:17, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Jee: I agree that this is not really an issue with the QI project, but more related to VI. I also agree in your assesment that in hindsight the whole setup behind the VI project poses a too high entrance barrier for many new potential contributors. I agree it would be a good idea to renovate and re-vitalize that project. That discussion shall probably be continued on VIC talk. I have opened a discussion there with some intial proposals and ideas. -- Slaunger (talk) 12:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

QI vs. FP

If I can pick up the "FP is a section for users with DSLR cameras" complaint, can I suggest this is looking at it the wrong way round. FP is a means for selecting the best images on Commons. These images can come from Commons users, from Flickr, from scanned historical artworks, from digital illustrations, from video cameras, microscopes and space telescopes. Please let's leave FP to judge the best without concern about the size of the wallet of the person behind the camera, or which country he or she lives in. Sure if one looks at certain statistics we see under-representation in some countries/topics and over-representation in others. I agree that some of our reviewers find it hard to judge "difficult to shoot" subjects well and that sometimes insignificant technical flaws can become ridiculously over-considered compared with artistry or educational value. FP is primarily about the images, not the photographers. It is true FP is additionally a forum where photographers can be inspired to contribute images to Commons, get feedback on their work and gain some reward when they do well. But there are folk at FP who nominate other people's photos and folk who review without contributing any images. It is also true that many FP reviews can be over harsh, especially towards newbies.

QI is a bit different as it is not only "FP standard without the wow" but is restricted to images created by Commons folk. I don't know the history of this restriction but I can imagine that if we lifted it, the numbers of potential images would be overwhelming to the current review system. But the restriction leads to two classes of images on Commons -- those taken by users can get a quality badge but those taken by other cannot even if technically superior. This distinction isn't meaningful to our end-users at all, so can be considered a defect -- there is no way to assess and rate third-party images unless they are up to FP standard. Should the QI standard be explicitly made lower than FP, or should we create a lower standard again, "good image", that applies to all pictures on Commons whether taken by a Commons user or by a Flickr user, taken in the UK or in Africa. -- Colin (talk) 14:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that there are two competing interests here at QI: (1) find the best of the best quality images and (2) collect the best "good" images that are not quite FP quality? -- Ram-Man 17:54, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Back on topic

I support the idea of "good images" primarily as a filter, since many categories have become so overblown with junk that it's hard to find any useful images. Two practical issues stand in the way: implementation and criteria.

For implementation, we want as little bureaucracy as possible but also don't want every image to be marked as a good image. Perhaps a list of trusted users who can mark any image as good - but we don't want these users to take any pride in their status. Basing it on a fixed number of QIs would make it too much of an honor, and making it a vote would be more politics than I'd be comfortable with for what should be a very low-key process. Then again, if we let anyone mark images as good (but have a system to contest it), I fear this will descend into chaos. So I don't really have a good answer here.

For criteria, I feel like it should be lower than QI: definitely no pixel-peeping required. Perhaps something comparable to the technical requirements of VI (but without the scope requirement, of course) would be acceptable. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

If some "experts" here have a backlog, maybe allowing one nomination per review could help them. With a simple definition of "expert", e.g, anybody claiming to be an expert who actually managed to contribute n (10?) FPs to commons—not necessarily own photos. –Be..anyone (talk) 00:49, 22 December 2014 (UTC)