Commons talk:Meet our photographers

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Warning About this page: to be listed here, you must have 10 photographs that have reached Featured picture status. Listings that don't meet this requirement will be removed. See the discussion below for the reasons.

Please note this is a page intended to impress journalists rather than Wikimedians. The Wikimedia Commons hall of fame for community contributors will exist one day -- but this isn't it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion for inclusion[edit]

I'm going to go with 10 FPs. Thoughts? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good fair criterion. I love this idea. Nevertheless, maybe there are other issues to be concerned with (I'm not sure). Let me quote what is written on the page:
...recognise the benefits of using open content licenses and share the vision of the Wikimedia Foundation in making the world's knowledge freely available.
I'm not convinced that everyone really does this. Various photographers have different philosophies surrounding images. Some upload at maximum resolution, while others downsample to minimum levels. As a photographer myself, I appreciate protecting one's investments and a bit of self promotion. Trying to make money off of one's work is often at odds with the benefits in that quote, and many photographers struggle with balancing this. Even the selection of a licence, GFDL vs. CC-by-sa vs. public domain has its own philosophical and practical reasoning. Do we allow photographers who use the public domain, which is obviously not copyleft? It's a touchy issue for sure, but I don't know that all photographers who have 10 FPs will share the foundations core goals. -- Ram-Man 15:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this is very much a first draft. Reword it as required. But I find it hard to believe people who go to the effort of uploading their work here, and going so far as to get 10 FPs (!), don't share the WMF's vision. They must recognise SOME benefit to using an open content license (eg purely self-motivated: exposure on Wikipedia, a top 10 website), or surely they wouldn't be here donating their work. sharing the vision doesn't imply they donate ALL their work as copyleft, or that they don't downsample (but again, it would be hard to get 10 FPs with too much downsampling).
And a PD release is consistent with an open content license, is it not? It grants all the freedoms, at least. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You make all very good points, and I can't argue with anything in particular. I only wanted to consider it as a possible issue. -- Ram-Man 15:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, WOW... I just checked out your work and it is really impressive. :) You (and other people reading this page) may be interested in another idea I would like to get off the ground sometime, "Commons:Awards", which is more about recognising the time and effort people put into contributions (of all kinds, not just uploads and photography), without having this "quality" thing like this page does. People may feel "I've uploaded X hundred images and they might not be professional, but they're all being used", and that is totally a useful thing that I believe deserves formal recognition and gratitude. This page has a more limited use, as a possible press tool, to prove the point that volunteer (or free) doesn't necessarily mean amateur, and to hopefully convince people that we can be taken seriously as a professional resource. (Or maybe we can in the near future. :)) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 16:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a "professional" photographer would prefer the "Meet our photographers" type of page, but an "Awards" page is probably not a bad idea for those who cannot attain the 10 FP requirement but are still heavy and useful contributors. They'd have different purposes, but both would be useful. Increasing the credibility of the commons is never a bad thing either. -- Ram-Man 17:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My current count of GFDL'ed images contributed (both photographic and vector) is just under 500 (perhaps closer to 700-800 including fair use and public domain) with zero featured pictures on either commons or en. Being excluded as a "photographer" simply because my work lacks subjective appeal is, for the lack of a better word, disheartening. (Though, if I truly cared about such subjective approval then I wouldn't spend hours upon hours behind the mouse in inkscape working on the likes of this, this, this, this, or this that aren't the typical animal, building, landscape, or technical animation that attains FP status.)

IMHO, getting an "award" yet not being labeled a "photographer" seems more like a charade and just humoring us "non-photographers." Cburnett 18:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really do understand your concern here. While I mostly take photographs, unlike your very excellent SVG images, I have dozens of photos that are too boring to become FPs but may otherwise have the technical quality. If I focused on just those pictures, I might be totally excluded from this page because of that. I've also made over a thousand dot map images that will never be FPs due to their nature, yet they've taken dozens of hours to produce. Still, I don't think this page is intended to imply that if you are not on the list you are not worthy of very good contributions! But we should be careful of our terminology and wording. We don't want to imply that you are not a photographer or talented if you are not on the list. I think that's the point of "Awards". The fact that we have a FP process at all goes to show that we arbitrarily showcase certain contributions over others. This page is just an extension of that. I think about barnstars on the english wikipedia. Despites thousands upon thousands of contributions and being here for years, I received my first barnstar a couple months ago. It was nice for someone to recognize the work I do, but by no means do I think it should be a requirement that we hand those out or that we should feel bad if we don't get recognized. I contribute for the "greater good", and I assume that you do the same. Still I think the "Awards" proposal is a serious and sincere effort at trying to thank those contributors who sacriface so many hours of their lives and is anything but a charade. -- Ram-Man 19:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have little doubt as to the intentions here: "these people put in the effort for content and should be noted for it." At least, that is what I gather thus far.
Going solely based on FPs, to me, is akin to going solely by edit counts: numbers can misrepresent.
Does an editor who contributes exactly 10 pictures and who gets exactly 10 FPs contribute more to this project than someone who has uploaded hundreds (or thousands) of images with no FPs that span dozens of projects in all? According to the proposed criteria criterion: yes.
May I suggest a radical change to this? Scratch "meet our photographers" and replace with "meet our contributors". To get on the list you have to be nominated and the community evaluates your work. Based on the number of files and the quality of them, people then draw a subjective opinion if they should be on the list. Someone who uploads exactly 10 PFs might not get on but someone who uploads 100 with 5 FPs or 1000 files and 0 FPs might. This method would take more effort but I think the resulting list would be more accurate and better reflect who the real contributors are. Cburnett 20:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And by charade I was talking about being given an "award" because I don't have enough FPs to be, in the words of Pinocchio, "a real boy." Cburnett 20:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cburnett, I'm sorry you feel the "awards" (I'm sensing this is not a great name) would be a "charade". They would not be intended to be patronising, but a serious thankyou and recognition of effort put in here. This page serves a different purpose to that - and a different audience. (BTW I really doubt there is anyone who contributes exactly 10 pictures and who gets exactly 10 FPs.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I'm sure your intentions are sound so don't get me wrong on that one. I'm just making the point that being excluded from the proposed "FP club" :) as a non-"photographer" is patronizing to some degree and getting an "award" feels like a consolation prize. If you want to single out contributors then just make sure you aren't alienating the others by doing so. My real point is that wording and execution are not a tertiary item on this. If you want to list people who have the most FPs then just make sure you aren't implying that people not on the list (e.g., me) are not "photographers" or something. And, yes, I understand this is a draft and things are just getting started but I can be cynical and pessimistic enough for a dozen people. :) Cburnett 02:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I understand. Probably I didn't explain the context of this page very well: to show that an open content project can attract professional contributors just as commercial projects such as Getty Images can. And probably it would be good to develop the Contribution Awards either first or simultaneously, but this is easier to set up and I only have so much spare time.
FWIW I think average photos that are used, and have high quality annotation, are more useful and valuable than professional photos that aren't used, are very common subjects or are "unknown species, unknown location, unknown date". I know I'm never going to be listed on this page, but I also know I've expanded the domain of open content photography by uploading over 100 photos of professional tennis players here. They are all used and in many cases they are the only photo we have available for that person (so far at least). I'm sure you can have a similar feeling with regards to your vector graphics. [As far as I can tell Commons is the #1 resource on the web for vector graphics.]
Yeah, this page is kind of elitist - but it's not, in the first place, intended for a Wikimedia audience. It's intended for people who might dismiss us as a media resource because they believe volunteer/free==amateur. We do need, and we will create, that other page that is for Wikimedians, that says these are the types of contributions and users we value - contributions that fill gaps, strive for accuracy and utility, and users who tirelessly donate their time and effort here because they share the WMF vision. And I think you and I and all the people who care enough to comment on this page will all qualify to be listed there. That will mean more to me than if I just took a photography course, bought an expensive camera and learnt to take pretty macros. So... definitely these are not the only types of users or contributions that we value. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your candid reply. Much appreciated. Cburnett 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

how many people should be on this list?[edit]

eventually? 10 FPs is a lot? not a lot? It depends on if this should be a list of 15 people or 500. Nifty page though. ++Lar: t/c 15:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since we don't have 5000 FPs, I don't think this list will have 500 people. ;) Whatever benchmark we set, the list will surely grow as the project grows. To keep the page manageable, we could either remove inactive users, or split up according to speciality (such as "nature photographers", "landscape photographers", "architecture" etc). But what's more important is - what benchmark will ensure a high enough level of quality? If we actually have 500 professional level photographers, then that's amazing, and absolutely let's highlight them all. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 16:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If only .... --MichaelMaggs 16:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been following FP nominations and their requirements very closely lately, but I think that even for a professional photographer 10 FPs might amount to a relatively large proportion of their work. What about Good Images, don't we have those, too? Samulili 16:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's good, though. It's not easy to achieve and will give even the best photographers something to aim for, and keep them uploading. --MichaelMaggs 17:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think 10 FP is that high at all, although it is challenging. It takes a while because of the 2 week lag from nomination to promotion, but a talented photographer should have no problem reaching it if they are brave enough to survive the critical commentary. I have a professional photographer friend that I have been trying to convince to upload his pictures to Wikipedia/Commons. He could easily hit 10 FPs, and the very idea of being on a page like this would be extra motivation. Here is his first uploaded picture. He has better work than that. -- Ram-Man 17:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: A challenging limit is great because it might even motivate to upload further images. (I was thinking about that even before I read Ram-Man's comment.) I wonder if we might even add something like "and at least one additional FP every year (or every two years) from then on"? Or would that be too hard? On the other hand, every active photographer should probably not have a problem with that, while an inactive photographer does not really need such a page? What are your opinions on such a "progressive" policy? --Ibn Battuta 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that would be necessary. Activity is not an important criterion here, and hopefully FP is robust enough that photos designated FPs in one year remain so a year later. :) We could archive listings of inactive users if it's really necessary. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Count FPs from other projects such as English Wikipedia?[edit]

(BTW although it was implied, here it is explicitly: the FPs must be "own work" photography. And I was considering a similar page to showcase our vector artists. One thing at a time.)

Should we include FPs from en.wp in the count of FPs? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re this discussion, since the standards are different and there could possibly be duplicates, I'd say no. Just my opinon. -- Ram-Man 00:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If we count the FPs from en.wp, we have to count the FPs from any Wikipedia in the world (to be fair). Which would not only be hard to manage, but also really difficult in terms of different standards, duplicates (what if the images are not identical, but similar?), etc. etc. And would we really provide a forum to photographers who haven't uploaded a single image to Commons (but maybe just 11 FPs to the Hungarian Wikipedia)? Besides, we want uploaders to upload to the Commons if the license allows, don't we? So I'd simply say: No by any means. Just my opinion. :o)
I am wondering about the "own work" policy, however. Why not make it "the creators", "the copyright-owners" or whatever? How about those photographers who do not upload themselves, but make their work available (possibly not even directly to the Commons)--do we want to exclude them? I'm undecided on this one, but I wonder if we really hurt the aim of this page by extending it to "work by...". --Ibn Battuta 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, we stick to Commons then, that's OK. How about those photographers who do not upload themselves, but make their work available (possibly not even directly to the Commons)--do we want to exclude them? Do we want to exclude them? In my conception of this page, yes we do. This page is to show that volunteer and "free" projects can attract just as high quality efforts as paid commercial projects. A page which lauds Commons' ability to collect, sort and present the best of available PD resources, would be a separate page. (And I really consider that a great strength of this project too.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not make it too complex. Commons users who upload their own images is who we're really trying to encourage here. --MichaelMaggs 16:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overloading FP[edit]

Is FP actually the process we want to use for this? Many of our FP's aren't even by wikimedians ... I suspect that our #1 FP author is NASA. ;) The FP process is slanted heavily towards 'pretty' rather than just 'excellent', though I think thats been getting better recently. Overall I think this is a great idea. --Gmaxwell 00:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well. Using FPs as the measure strikes me as an easy way to evaluating the quality of a user's work in a relatively objective way, bypassing the need to evaluate each candidate in a potential popularity contest. The idea for this page came up in the context of comparing Commons to stock photography archives like Getty Images, and they certainly slant towards 'pretty' rather than 'useful', as far as I've noticed, so maybe if that bias exists, that is OK.
We could say FP+QI, and make the limit 20 or so, but IMO the QI barrier is perhaps a little low. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 02:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think if NASA approaches us to set up a profile here, we won't say "no", will we? :o) From the very few FP discussions that I've followed, I would actually say that even FP *can* be too lax. So I think 10 FPs is a good number. And while it's true that FPs are getting overloaded, I just don't see an alternative--QIs are just not "excellent" enough for my taste. This page is intended to be for those who give top-quality work to the Commons, right? --Ibn Battuta 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that QI is clearly too low. .. but I still worry that FP is the wrong fit, plus we'll be creating more incentive for people to get images through FP. I've been advising photographers not to bother with FP (and I don't myself..) because it's needlessly stressful and doesn't make the images any better. --Gmaxwell 04:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm... that makes me think the FPC process needs improving then, rather than abandoning. And possibly an influx of less picky voters. (Isn't creating an incentive for more people to nominate FPs a good thing? It's one of the only ways we have of providing a quality control, for one thing.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's because I'm too picky myself or maybe it's something else, but I don't think that the process is overly "broken" by picky voters. Maybe a little inconsistent from time to time. I've been trying to rock the boat with some non-flower images, so we'll see how that goes. (Not well so far!) Eventually voters will realize that we have too many of the same NASA images and be forced to open their horizons to other types of images. -- Ram-Man 12:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't hold my breath until that time comes... --Dschwen 14:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

size / "professional" photographers[edit]

I guess that image on the project page is just an example, but I think it points to a potential discussion later on: What's the maximum size (byes, pixels) allowed for? There's no need to be stingy, but to be fair to all, we might want to set a maximum.

I wonder whether the adjective "professional" photographers needs to be there. How about amateurs with 10 (or 20) excellent pictures? Do we really want to draw that line, and how would we want to draw it? I think the minimum of 10 excellent pictures should be enough to assure that this page doesn't get out of hand... --Ibn Battuta 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC) PS: Great, great idea, pfctdayelise!!!![reply]

The problem with the term "professional" is that it means different things to different people. Does "professional" mean "makes their entire living from it", because there are not many (non-wedding, non-portrait?) photographers that support a family on just their income. "Professional" might also mean "skilled". Photography doesn't require a degree or any kind of certification, so it's an informal label at best. I'm not sure whether or not the term should be used. -- Ram-Man 04:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
@Ibn: do you mean the maximum size of the user's portrait on this page? It's set to be 200px. It will look fine if they use a landscape photo. I can remove the word "professional"... --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page Layout[edit]

The section for "technical items' is IMHO too much incorporating their preferred equipment in the person bio would make better prose. Detailed equipment would be better presented with the end result picture. The bio section could be expanded and the remainder of the space could be a last-week, next-week quick brief. Gnangarra 09:57, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, changed. (Note it looks a lot better with two landscape photos) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Corporate usage[edit]

While this may not be entirely the right place to start this thread it is related. Recently I was approach by a major Australian company for permission to use one the images I uploaded here on the new packaging of their main product. I assume many images sourced from here would have already been used by various businesses, I wonder whether its possible to also display these, as I doubt that the photographers of these images are all going to achieve the 10 FA limit, yet its another way of displaying Commons as a good source for images. Gnangarra 10:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up a lot recently, I guess it is time for a page like Commons:Our work in use. (BTW that is very exciting news! :)) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Commons_photographers[edit]

This category may be useful for you. --Yug (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This category idea has a weird touch to it. Who decides which level you are in? Especially since some people seem to have trouble evaluating their skills realistically. I just wouldn't dare to put such a tag on my userpage myself. --Dschwen 21:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That just needs better definitions instead of takes pretty pictures, maybe based on number of QI and FP quantities ph-0 1 QI, ph1 5 QI no FP, ph2 5-QI and 1 FP, ph3 20-QI and 5 FP, then the next level is the 10FP for here or something Gnangarra 01:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Uhum, but in its current state, with people tagged PH-3 who haven't uploaded a single picture yet, the categoy system isn't that useful. --Dschwen 07:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The current system mixes "Pretty photographs" and "pretty equipment". I have a rather pretty equipment and I do not make pretty photographs, for instance. Rama 08:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stats on FPs[edit]

Thanks, Bryan: List of users by number of FPs

Note this may not be accurate because often alternate edits of an image are uploaded by different users to the original photographer, and one of them may be the one that gets featured. (Then it wouldn't be counted in this list by the original photographer.) So it just a guide for numbers.

So if the guide was 10 FPs, there would probably be 10 or fewer users we could currently list here. I think that's OK, since this is a showcase not a phone book, and it will grow with time. What do other people think?

(Another criterion which I didn't mention yet would be willingness to be listed here - we wouldn't list someone here if they didn't want to be listed - which I don't imagine will exclude many active users, but will exclude some formerly active users such as Dbenbenn.)

(I would also consider a limit as low as 5 fine, since looking at that list shows all those users are high quality contributors.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:55, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The stats are very useful, and make me think that a threshold of 10 is about right. There are not that many users with 10 or more but there are quite a number who are clearly good enough to be capable of reaching that threshold. Let's encourage them to do so by uploading more pictures! --MichaelMaggs 16:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possibility to include other, exceptional photographers[edit]

I would suggest that anyone who has an article in English Wikipedia, on the basis of their being an artist, and who dontes their work here, should also be included. User:Rama brought to my attention User:Evstafiev, (see w:Mikhail Evstafiev). Perhaps we can rely on the FP criterion for automatic listing, and then have discussions about other individual cases too? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind a process where people can be nominated and the community can decide. Since you'd still have people "getting in" through the 10 FP requirement, it limits the "popularity contest" effect. People would then have two ways of being on this page, instead of one. -- Ram-Man 15:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, we don't want this to become just a place for professional photographers to advertise without contributing to the project. Anybody good enough to be listed as notable on the en-W should have no problem getting 10 pictures featured if they want to do so. If they don't, or are only willing to upload low-resolution images, they shouldn't appear in this list. Let's keep the list as objective as we can by making 10 FP images the only criterion. --MichaelMaggs 16:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your "low resolution" remark is problematic: in practice, "FP" often requires very high resolution photos. This is discriminatory to people uploading photographs scanned from films, dias or positives. For instance Evstafiev, whom pfctdayelise just mentioned, has uploaded decent-sized images (800x1000) from the Chechnia and Bosnia wars.
So, concretely, you'll be promoting the gazillion-th photograph of dragonflies shagging, over a precious war photograph, because of unfair technical considerations. Rama 17:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with that basic premise. A good scan of a good film image should easily be able to achieve the 2MP resolution. But even if for some reason it can't, that doesn't mean that a FP is beyond question. Some special images have enough mitigating reasons to support a FP despite low resolution. -- Ram-Man 19:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rama: I don't think so. An image scanned at a decent resolution from an original film negative or a slide (dia) can easily be as good if not better than a digital image. Even the best digital cameras still can't match the resolution achievable using slow film stock. It's true that old images are sometimes scanned as low res, but that's often because they are scanned from a poor quality print, in which case we probably wouldn't want them anyway unless they were very special. Remember that we are focussing on Commons photographers here, who should always have a high-quality neg to scan from. There's no discrimination. --MichaelMaggs 18:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is discriminatory: you don't use slow film in a war zone; you don't use autofocus before the 80s. With your criteria, photographs like Capa's documents of the Spanish war would be automatically excluded. Rama 06:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's why the FP criteria have long had the 'mitigating reasons' exception to the usual size guideline of 2 Mpixels. There's no reason why good war images should not be featured, and indeed I'd encourage you to nominate any you think good enough. --MichaelMaggs 09:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes a simple explanation like that would probably be sufficient. Plus, those types of pictures can be very appealing in a stereotypical sort of way and thus gain acceptance that way. -- Ram-Man 12:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, OK... let's try and keep to the matter at hand. :) How about the inclusion thing goes like this:

  • Any user who has more than 10 of their own photographs designated as Featured Pictures on Commons, can be listed here if they wish to be.
  • Any person who has an article in the English Wikipedia on the basis of their being an artist, and has uploaded at least 50 of their own images here, and has consensus support in a community discussion about such a listing, can be listed here if they wish to be.

How's that? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 00:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For the reasons I gave above, I agree with the first but would not want to see the second bullet point included. --MichaelMaggs 05:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with MichaelMaggs, any user is free to nominate the pictures of those artists, provided they have a proper license. However, and looking at the stats, I think that 10 FP may be a little too strict. As it is, only 8 users would enter the club and some of them might not be active any more. It hurts to see mdf out of it, one of the very best IMO. I'll have to re-start nominating his birds... - Alvesgaspar 09:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if you do that, it will achieve the desired end result of getting more images to FP status. Those users who do not yet have 10 FPs but are capable of it can join this elite club by uploading some more. --MichaelMaggs 10:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree with MichaelMaggs, no need to have more than one criteria. If they are contributing good work (under a suitable license) can we not expect them to make 10 FPs relatively easily? Or are there renowned artists who are contributors of work that isn't likely to succeed in a popularity vote like FPC? Perhaps we could revisit the criteria when such a case comes up. --Tony Wills 09:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And make that ten users... --Dschwen 13:37, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photographers versus illustrators[edit]

I arrived late and didn't read it all yet. Are we talking about "photographers strictus sensus" or also about illustrators? Remember that there is a significant amount of drawings and animations in the FP gallery and that these are among the most used Commons images. Alvesgaspar 07:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a shame to exclude illustrators such as Ladyofhats, but we'd need to change the title to something like Meet our Featured Contributors (meaning, meet our contributors who have 10 or more FPs). --MichaelMaggs 10:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would have that as a separate page, like Commons:Meet our vector artists or illustrators as you say (probably a better word choice). The criterion for that page could potentially be lower too, as far fewer people edit vector graphics. I think it's worth separating them because the people who care about pretty pictures aren't necessarily the same people that care about vector illustrations. Our SVGs and SVG artists deserve their own space and recognition. (And even 8 people on one page would make it moderately long.) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are almost 800 featured pictures in Commons, but only 60 are vector graphics or animations. I didn't care to count exactely how many FP's has each author but I think Ladyofhats, is the leader, with 5, followed by myself with 4. With these numbers it makes little sense to create a "Meet our vector artists" page based on the number of FP's, and I can't think of any other credible choice criteria. On the other hand, it would indeed be a shame to exclude illustrators from this initiative. Between the two evils, which are to create an irrelevant gallery of illustrators and to create a mixed gallery of photographers and illustrators, I clearly prefer the second. - Alvesgaspar 23:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But isn't the point of a list like this to encourage people? Wouldn't a list of two people (put the threshold at 4) encourage people to create, upload, and nominate VGs? (Note: I wholly intended that those two questions be loaded questions.) Cburnett 01:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why would it be "irrelevant"? I think having a separate page lets us more easily promote our vector graphics. Lots of websites offer pretty pictures; extremely few offer high quality vector graphics like ours. And I would put the threshold as low as 3. (It can always be changed in the future if necessary, of course.) --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By "irrelevant" I mean of little practical use and importance, since it will be quite modest in size and few people will probably go there. If it were included in the Photographers Page its visibility would be much greater. However, I don't have a strong feeling on this, maybe be we should get other illustrators' opinion. Alvesgaspar 16:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree with Pfctdayelise. Let's just get those pages started, hunt for more VG users, promote their work, and in time the page will grow. --Dschwen 07:34, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Have the illustrators page and the photographers page as sections on the same page, then just as many people get to see each, when it grows, separate it off to a completely separate page. Also don't set the threshold too low, give people something to aim for! I would have thought 5 FPs minimum. --Tony Wills 09:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with Tony Wills on the first issue. About the illustrations threshold, maybe we could start with less than five FP and later make it more strict, since there is only one user who qualifies (I don't want to insist on this because I'm one of them). Here is the count I made (don't trust it too much):

LadyofHats - 5; Orem - 4; Alvesgaspar - 4; Bastian - 3; Dake - 2; David.Monniaux - 2; DemonDeLuxe - 2; Mg lanznig - 2; Chacabano - 2; Alvesgaspar 10:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Launching[edit]

So do we have enough votes now to launch these pages? 10 needed for photos and 5 for illustrations. Let's get started. --MichaelMaggs 12:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering what was taking so long. I thought I might hit 10 before someone even bothers to start the page ;-) -- Ram-Man 12:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We are all waiting for you, of course! - Alvesgaspar 14:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And you! -- Ram-Man 14:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wouldn't like, for obvious reasons, to get involved in this decision process. However, I'm glad to contribute with some genaral ideas:
  1. To all authors (photographers or illustratots) with 10 or more FP should be sent a formal invitation to be part of the page and prepare a text and a portfolio (more on this below);
  1. To the authors with less FP than required, but close to attain the minimum (7 or 8 for photographs?), should be sent a message explaining the project and suggesting his/her involvment in the form of a little extra effort.
  2. The main page could consist of some general information (history, rules, ect.) and a gallery of link thumbnails to each author's page.
  3. Each author's page should have a short text (up to a A4 typed page?) with information about him/herself and his/her involvment with Photography (Illustration) and Commons. A portfolio with the most representative works (FP or not) should be mandatory.

--Alvesgaspar 14:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I emailed most of the users who already clearly meet the requirements. None have replied with appropriate text for their entry. I think they should write it themselves.
As I said, the FP stats are only a GUIDE because of edited FPs (may appear as someone else's). So do counts by hand if you need to - that's what counts, not the stats. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Logo for this page[edit]

It would be good to have some sort of logo for this page, rather than just the WMF logo. Any suggestions? --MichaelMaggs 14:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it a thought. Maybe the same logo with a superimposed camera? - Alvesgaspar 17:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. I strongly think it should only have the WMF or Commons logo.
Please remember this page is primarily intended as a PRESS page. So I'll take out the note about the requirements. Anyone reading the talk page can clearly see they can't just add themselves as they please. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:51, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fine about the logo. I couldn't understand your thinking about the requirements, though. I would have thought a brief comment on why people are on the page would be useful to a journalist who reads it; and it also provides a quick link to the FP page from where some more nice images could be grabbed. He or she certainly won't want to wade through the talk page to see what it's all about. Also, we need to make the page meaningful to Wikimedians who come by to see what they need to do to get onto the page, and again a brief statement is much simpler for them than having to go through the talk page. I'd prefer to add the comment back, but am happy to re-phrase if you think that would help. --MichaelMaggs 07:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a journo will really care about the process by which people got to this page. I'm sure they will just trust that we chose the best people for this page. (It does say This page showcases the highly skilled photographers...)
For Wikimedians we need to make the page meaningful, yes, but I would prefer to do it by a large bold notice at the top of the talk page - now that we seem to be decided about what the requirements are. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Meet our illustrators[edit]

Commons:Meet our illustrators is now also ready to go. Please add it to your watchlist. --MichaelMaggs 14:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Order and size?[edit]

Two questions:

  1. I am assuming all entries will be on one page, each entry limited to the size shown on the example page. Is that the idea?
  2. What order are entries going to be in (alphabetic?, chronological? highest number of FP?).

--Tony Wills 13:04, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Chronological will not answer the question of initial set order. FP num wil vindicate frequent resorting. Alphabetic is probably the most progmatic and least elitist ;-). --Dschwen 18:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This page is not just a press page, but also a promotion page for the photographers, those at the top of an ever lengthening list are going to get more publicity, so order will be important to them.
  • Chronological is not too difficult and is merit based (long service acknowledgement :-), the initial set order can be determined by looking at when each achieved their 10th FP (I'm happy to do that if that's decided). But it would be very static (do we put new qualifiers at the top or bottom?
- Or could order simply by how long the user has been contributing.
  • FP num being dynamic is good in my opinion, so the page isn't static (and hence boring :-). Whole list doesn't need regular sorting, but entries move up and down when they get new FPs (sort of a sift sort). Gives incentive to keep contributing once 10 FPs reached.
- Or could order by total contributions (edits and uploads?).
  • Alphabetic is problematic, ordered by name or username? If username I would like to request to change my name to Aaaaaa, or perhaps !!!!! ;-). If name, sort by first or last name? Relatively static.
  • I think order inherently needs to be merit based (not arbitrary) but a randomised listing that updates regularly, would work.
  • Or qualifying candidates can edit war with each other to get to the top of the page :-) --Tony Wills 20:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that my proposal of putting only thumbnails in the main page (maybe with the authors' pictures) will help to solve the problem of order. Alphabetical order of usernames wouldn't introduce any relevant bias since all thumbnails could fit in one or two lines. Alvesgaspar 20:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New Here[edit]

I came in late in the conversation and to feign stupidity for a millisecond, what is FP and I don't see anyplace I can add my self as a photographer on the article page?? WayneRay 12:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)WayneRay[reply]
Wayne, keep in mind this is intended as a press "bragging page" (about the professional contributions we can attract) rather than a community showcase page - that will exist one day too, but right now this is not it. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely and had I known the meaning of the FP I wouldn't have butted in but I will keep "watching" with interest WayneRay 14:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)WayneRay[reply]

Inviting people for listing[edit]

I've contacted at least these people: David.Monniaux, Malene, Tillea, Lviatour, Diliff, Aka, Fir0002. We should keep a record so we don't run around overlapping for no reason. It would be good if someone could manually check the next few. Their accurate totals may be +- a few due to edited FPs. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC) Italic text[reply]

Could someone run a new SQL query to update the number of FP's each user has?--Digon3 16:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done, see link above (again it's not cleaned up for illustrations and mere edits). --Dschwen 16:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank-you, I'm checking for illustrations and mere edits now. --Digon3 17:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, User:MarkSweep only has about 8 FP instead of 11. Two of his FP edits are User:Tilleas and one is from Jon Sullivan (assuming that is not User:MarkSweep real name). --Digon3 17:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we will probably be adding you and Alvesgaspar really soon :) --Digon3 17:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page[edit]

Since this is intended to be our contributor front end, shouldnt it linked from the main page? Gnangarra 01:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea -- when a few more people volunteer bios to flesh it out. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 03:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gallery links[edit]

While its nice to view the galleries of these people, Since there is 10 FP criteria should there be a gallery for each with ten of their Featured Pictures in it. Gnangarra 13:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multilingual?[edit]

A variety of nationalities represented, but I see all profiles are in English only. Is it assumed that all the press can read English, or should this be a multilingual page? --Tony Wills 21:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the press understands English or not, Commons should be multilingual where ever possible, more so with front-end/promotional type pages. Gnangarra 00:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts on Commons:Meet our photographers [edit]

This page wasn't exactly a success. I won't call it a complete "flop" because I don't know what happened with the other photographers, but I was never contacted by anyone (from the press or not) and this talk page has very few comments (if any) from outside users (I mean, those not related with FPC or QI). During the discussion phase, I was surprised to learn that this was intended to be a "press page", not an internal thing. I think we should re-evaluate our objectives and, either close this page down, or find other ways to make it known by both wiki people and outside people. Like it is now, it is a very lonely place. Alvesgaspar 13:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Geez, it's not even up for three months, which is a mere blink of an eye in wiki-adoption-timescales. Cut it some slack and if anything promote it instead. This page is not linked from any significant page (just some usepages and discussions)! --Dschwen 14:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We have enough people on there that we should probably link it to the main page and welcome page. --Digon3 talk 14:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't expect it to generate much noise, considering it's not linked from anywhere important. If it was linked to the main page or perhaps some other meta pages about the project, then perhaps it would be quite different. -- Ram-Man 16:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I have linked it to the main page. I am hesitant to link it to Welcome and Community portal pages because I could not find a place appropriate enough. Can anyone think of another place we can link it to? --Digon3 talk 14:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also linked it on the Featured Pictures page. There seems to be some discussion on whether or not it should be linked on the main page. See here and here. --Digon3 talk 13:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Random order[edit]

Any objections to using the order randomizer I made for the boardvote on meta? You can see it in action here. It's client side, every reload is a new ordering.--Gmaxwell 14:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a decent idea. --Dschwen 15:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I took the liberty of activating the randomizer. As the number one on the list I'm probably the least conspicuous to do that ;-). Note that I wrapped all your profiles in a new div element each (for those who substed the Wikimedia Photographer template). This is needed for the shuffling code to work. The other modification is the JavaScript code devised by Gregory, which I put into MediaWiki:Common.js. --Dschwen 15:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How to change my information?[edit]

How to change my information? I do not find any more how to make! --Luc Viatour 08:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See User:Lviatour/Profile. --Kjetil r 09:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
thank you --Luc Viatour 09:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool stuff[edit]

I like this page a lot - while the selection criteria are necessarily arbitrary, it's a compelling demonstration of the talent going into Commons as well as the fact that amateurs produce some of our most stunning media. I believe it will encourage more people to contribute. Dcoetzee 21:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Instruction[edit]

How do you add a profile? Benjamint want to add his profile because he has more then 10 FPs --Simonizer 09:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Create a subpage, preferably User:Benjamint444/Profile, put the Template:Wikimedia photographer in there (check User:Malene/Profile for an example how to fill in the fields) and add your subpage to Commons:Meet_our_photographers/People (using {{User:Benjamint444/Profile}}). --Dschwen 16:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Benjamint 01:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recommended cameras : your help is requested ![edit]

Hello, Graphist already create a list of recommended free software so it may be GREAT to ask photographers of this list to involve themself in the expansion and improvement of the list of Recommended cameras.

Yug 06:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Add[edit]

Hi,

I've (proudly, have to say) added myself to this page :) I think I have 11 FP so far, so I guess it's OK. Hope this doesn't bother. Benh 08:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations! --MichaelMaggs 09:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Change of criteria[edit]

Hi, all. I propose to change the criteria to 40 FP requirement to add a photographer to the page. Please notice I do not propose to remove any one, who's already here, but I believe that 10 FP is not enough any more. Thanks.--Mbz1 20:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hey, how do I keep up? --MichaelMaggs 21:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Mbz1, 40 FP sounds just about right. -- penubag  (talk) 01:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree. The idea I think is to ensure that we don't feature everyone with a camera but only those with proven talent. It is not easy to achieve 10 and once they reach that we've proven the point. Simply increasing the number to 40 is just an attempt at limiting the total number of people. You might as well just place a cap on the number of people rather than change the entry requirements. If 10 is too easy to get (which I disagree), then try 15 or 20, but not 40. -- Ram-Man 15:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm with Ram-Man, 40 is too much. Maybe we could rise to 15 but that should me done gradually to avoid frustrating the expectations of those who are almost there. For example: 10 before July 1st; 12 before August 1st; 15 from August on. Another idea is to have active members, those who have contributed with at least n FP's in the last calendar year; and non-ctive members, all the others. -- Alvesgaspar 16:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would keep it at ten. That is already difficult enough. I you manage that, you show you can do the effort. More than that is then irrelevant. Let the club grow... Lycaon 17:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree: keep it at ten. --MichaelMaggs 21:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you all for the responses.--Mbz1 04:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Add[edit]

I finally added myself. I now have 14 FPs which qualifies me, aswell as an invite from user:Simonizer. Benjamint 11:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does one one list oneself here?[edit]

Hey all ;o), Well, I was looking over some of my pics and it seems that I qualify to be listed in Meet our photographers. In order to avoid wasting people´s time, here are the images that have reached FP status: 1. File:Old zacatecas lady.jpg 2. File:Fishmarket 01.jpg 3. File:Drought.jpg 4. File:Grape worker.jpg 5. File:Street musician.jpg 6. File:Viejita.jpg 7. File:Graveyard visit.jpg 8. File:Interior convento 3.jpg 9. File:Catrinas 2.jpg 10. File:Blind accordion player.jpg Can somebody coach me as to how to upload my information? I promise to behave. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'll have to edit User:Tomascastelazo/Profile (I started a profile page for you). Just add it to Commons:Meet_our_photographers/People when you are done ({{User:Tomascastelazo/Profile}}). --Dschwen (talk) 17:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Add[edit]

Hi, I've added myself after I've reached the requirement. I'm also very proud of that and I'll upload more and better content to Commons soon. Thanks ;) --Acarpentier 17:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations! --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good for you!! Lycaon (talk) 19:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations! Of course you can...welcome! :) --AngMoKio (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I've added myself, think I've done it fine. --Muhammad (talk) 21:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help![edit]

Well, wiki or html is not necessarily something I do well... can someone upload this picture #REDIRECT [[1]]onto my profile please? Thanks! --Tomascastelazo (talk) 00:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorting[edit]

Hello, does somebody mind if I sort the photographers listed on this page by (nick)name, ascending? Or do you prefer to keep the current version, the oldest being the first? →Diti the penguin — 15:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do mind. This was discussed before and a Javascript was put in place to shuffle the list at each page view. Do you have JS deactivated in your browser? --Dschwen (talk) 15:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Commons_talk:Meet_our_photographers#Order_and_size.3F further up on this page. --Dschwen (talk) 15:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I have JS activated; but I didn't notice it was shuffled at each reload. ;) Ok, thank you for the info, I knew I hadn't to modify this page without discussion. →Diti the penguin — 16:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jörg Hempel[edit]

I think Jörg Hempel aka User:LC-de has reached the criterion. --Ikiwaner (talk) 22:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I count nine on his discussion page, but that might be missing some. --Dschwen (talk) 23:23, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I count 11:
--Ikiwaner (talk) 19:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Lycaon[edit]

What about User:Lycaon - doesnt he deserve to be here too? Is user authorisation required for additions?--Kozuch (talk) 17:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He sure deserves to be there too, but I suggest we should contact him before! Diti the penguin — 18:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He used to be there, but then he removed himself and explained here why he did. Good luck in contacting him :)--Mbz1 (talk) 18:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like I cant find the explanation on the linked talk page...--Kozuch (talk) 19:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, let me please spell it out for you. Here is the question and the answer from the link I provided:
"...Secondly, why aren't you on the Commons:Meet our photographers page? Sarcastic ShockwaveLover (talk)
10:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
... Q2: I was but I had a formatting problem with my profile and so I'm not there
until I find some time to fix that. Lycaon (talk) 10:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)"

--Mbz1 (talk) 00:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Limits to the space filled by each contibutor?[edit]

When I look down the list of users and their presentations I notice some disproportions in the space used by each user. I think 80% of the users are using the space fine, but there are a few, well, especially one currently, where the space used seems really excessive and blown out of proportions.

  1. Is this something we should establish a guideline for? I do not image a quantitative guideline syaing such and so many pixels high. Just a qualitative statement and perhaps a link to an example which is considered a good example, for instance User:MichaelMaggs/Profile.
  2. Do others agree that it looks odd?
  3. Would it be impolite to simply ask the few users this relates to tone it down a little? (I volunteer to do that, but not is everyboy thinks the current situation is OK).

--Slaunger (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. --99of9 (talk) 12:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Do you think we need a written guideline about it, or should we just ask the few users to tone it down a little? --Slaunger (talk) 12:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think a recommended/guideline number of pictures would work best. Maybe 4? Text is usually interesting, so I'm happy to read as much as you're all willing to write (within limits!) --99of9 (talk) 12:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Approx. four photos seems fine (if they are not too large). E.g., the Diliff profile (which curently has six I guess) is just acceptable for me, because five photos are rather small and nicely aligned on top of each other. Concerning text, i really do not think it should extend much beyond the photos. The individual user can refer the reader to linked user subpages for details of subtopics if the reader is interested. --Slaunger (talk) 12:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A number of pictures limit is IMO pure nonsense. It is all about screen realestate. What ComputerHotline is doing in his profile should not happen. Common sense should tell you to keep the space modest instead of trying to "beat" all other profiles... --Dschwen (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Screen realestate" - like that term, and I basically agree with you. Best not to invent some hard to quantify guideline if this can be solved by using common sense arguments. The most estate consuming one was just significantly reduced in size by the creator after asking the user to consider it. Still using too much screen realestate though IMO, I'll ask again, nicely.--Slaunger (talk) 09:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No limits necessary, just ask people to be reasonable when designing their profile. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Commons is a wiki, can't anyone just edit a disproportionate entry until it looks ok?--Commander Keane (talk) 01:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If asking people to be reasonable does not help, that is a possibility. But only as a last resort IMO, as the personal MOP profile really should be onsidered personal if at all possible. Cf. the activity criterion discussion below I will post a message on each memebers talk page and ask them to check if the size of their profile is reasonable and also point them to the activity discussion. --Slaunger (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really even care if someone modifies my own profile to make it more efficient (although it isn't that crazy right now anyway). This is a Wiki, why not let anyone edit? I mean as long as it remains accurate. We could also ask nicely for those people to shrink their space. But I don't see the space issue as very important overall. -- Ram-Man 17:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I thinks it is best to ask nicely, but concerning your profile, it is very, very fine, a good example of an adequate profile and certainly not too space consuming IMO. --Slaunger (talk) 19:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think everybody can make any profile as he wants. If someone wants to include some images in his profile, so, he can make it, without limits. With, for example, a sample of his photographs themes (nature, buildings, personalities,...) --ComputerHotline (talk) 08:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"No limits", eh? Of course there should be limits, but we should not have to quantify them, in the vague hope that the members are responsible and noble users, who don't need to be told explicitly where the exact limit is. It is just common sense, that upon comparison with other members profile, it should be reasonably sized. And, sorry to say, your profile is currently not reasonably sized as compared to others. It is also quite cluttered, and I would suggest to restructure it into a more appropriate size and also use fewer images, but of larger size. You have a lot of interesting contributions, let the viewer gain some appetite by seeing a few of your very best examples as teasers on your profile, and then link to specialized galleries in you user subspace (as Benh also suggest below). --Slaunger (talk) 19:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much, much better now, CompterHotline. Thank you for your consideration of our concerns. --Slaunger (talk) 20:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Slaunger (and everyone). I don't have much opinion on that. I consider appearing on MOP as a reward, so I would be sad if this is "limited" in some way. But maybe it would be a good idea to "equalize" profiles' size. If someone wants to say/showcase a lot about himself, there still is his user profile page anyways... You could just ask MOP people to add a link to their page. Benh (talk) 18:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • After several self-adjustments by MOP members, I consider the current profiles adequate in size. There is some diversity in the space used, but I think it is acceptable, as there are different emphasis on text/photos, and some use more text space due to localization in more than one language. Unless someone objects, I will mark this thread as resolved. Should this become a problem again we can refer to this thread and ask nicely again. --Slaunger (talk) 07:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Activity criterion[edit]

I guess there are two objectives with COM:FP:

  1. For the project to show some of the users behind our best photos, advertising, so to say
  2. A reward, or something to strive for when setting personal goals

Looking over the users here, quite a lot of them have either been inactive for a year or more, are retired or only occasionally active. For me to have a point with COM:FOP, it should somehow represent what is currently hot and active at Commons. Users already here should be motivated to stay here as well. The current perpetual inclusion is too laid-back IMO. Therefore I would like to suggest an activity criterion to be added to the 10 FPs criterion for inclusion.

An activity criterion could be made in many ways, but one simple one could be that it is required that the user has contributed at least one FP over the last year. People who are inactive for a period will then drift off the list, but if they get back with FP material, they can be included again.

Thoughts? --Slaunger (talk) 12:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't want to "forget" the contributions of those who are not currently active, but I generally agree. Perhaps we could have a "Meet our retired photographers" archive? :-). One thing we also need to tie down is what happens when an old photo gets FP? Surely that doesn't make the user active again? --99of9 (talk) 13:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just did a check at what would happen if we applied a rule saying that it was required that an FP had been uploaded by the user within the last 12 months. It turns out that 8 out of 22 (36%) of the users on COM:MOP have not uploaded an FP within the last year.
Although a photographer does not meet the activity criterion does not mean they are inactive. There are a few examples of users, e.g., Malene who are still active in uploading of works, but who has changed focus to local Wikipedia work and with less emphasis on "wow" work. Those are not retired, they are just not FP-active.
I do not think we need a "Former member of MOP" page for that. They still get acknowledged by being substantial contributors to the existing FP gallery. If they would like o get back they should "just" make a continued effort to upload FP promotable material. --Slaunger (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Slaunger (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After double-checking that I'm not on that list.. ;-) ..yep, I think it is a good idea. --Dschwen (talk) 17:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Me neither, uf! Let me quickly return to Commons and FPC :-) (I'll do that as soon as I finish my present non-virtual task. Almost done!) -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • He, I'm still waiting for the first member to glide out of the list to pop up and agree as well... I think that if we introduce such an activity criterion we should do it in a way such that current members that will glide out due to lack of FP activity do not feel backstabbed or cornered. First of all, I think we should do that by informing all COM:MOP members up front on their respective talk pages about the existance of this discussion. Next, I think it is important that we set an activity deadline some time ahead of us, say April 1, 2010, such that members who are about to glide out get a chance to either nominate existing material uploaded within the last year, or upload new material and get at least one image promoted before the activity deadline. I'd be happy to post such a meaasge on each members page (and while we are at it ask each member to consider the screen realestate used by their personal profile, see above). --Slaunger (talk) 07:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking seriously now, I'm not sure I agree with the idea of delisting the non-active members. As with the old FPs, doing that has no apparent benefits rather than keeping the page smaller and would contibute for killing the history of the whole thing. Maybe a box could be added to all entries with the dates of the first and last FP of each user? Or, in the case the list gets too long, the entries could be collapsed and restored at will? Frankly, I would like to be able to show off a little to my grand children (don't have none yet) in a couple of years... Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if we collapse entries in the longer run to keep the apparent size of the page manageable, it does not really make sense for me, as still, the entire page has to be loaded albeit the details could be hidden. There is not a great point is just showing a number of headlines anyway. Eventually, we just have to face that the page will get so large that something has to be done about it.
    I never really understood the argument about killing the history. The history is in the history page. For me insisting on inclusion even for inactive members is equivalent for former winniers of Olympic medals to stand on the podium each and every year along with the new medal winners. It gets awfully crowded there on the podium, does it not?
    The page name itself "Meet our Photographers" indicates for me an anticipation of being presented with users who you can actually "meet" or communicate with at Commons. Users you can ask about advice, and who do FP work which is up to standards of an ever increasing bar. You would not anticipate to meet retired users there, nor users who are not really part of the FPC circuitry anymore as contributors.
    Thus, we simply need some mechanism to keep the list manageable. That involves making it harder somehow. One method, which has been suggested previously is to raise the minimum number of required FPCs. I'd rather see us using an activity criterion for reasons mentioned above. Furthermore it can motivate current members to actually make an effort to stay here.
    Last, but not least, I certainly anticipate that we will continue seeing FPs from you for many more years, Joaquim! Also for your grandchildren to show! We have users here in their late 70s, who upload FP material. Just keep thirty nominations ready in the drawer for upload and you can be on COM:MOP for the next thirty years!
    I think I will ask the other members about their opinion to get a wider palette of opinions on this.--Slaunger (talk) 15:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've been thinking about this one before posting (!). My views on rights across wikis is very simple (& always has been). They are granted by the community with the intention that the user will actually be active. People do not say "let me have this and in a couple of months I'll get bored but I'll keep them because it makes my user page look nice...".
    • I have to agree with Slaunger. The real estate is granted because people are contributing. The implication to me is that it is for the duration of their contributing. Exactly how policy should be formed, criteria etc are for discussion but in principle MOP is for people who are currently contributing FP images. --Herby talk thyme 15:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would agree with reducing the space used, but it should not be fixed and users must use common sense for that. I think I too had a rather long profile (so much for commons sense), so I shortened mine. Regarding removing those who are not active, I think users who have not uploaded any image for the past year should be removed if they do not have any FP for that time as well. --Muhammad (talk) 16:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The issue of activity is less important to me than the issue of quality and value. The issue of quality is taken care of by delisting: if a photographer's images no longer meet the top standards for FP, then they should be delisted. If this happens enough, a person becomes ineligible for MoP. Value is a different issue. I have long had a problem with users who receive FPs for predominately 2MP images. These people are intentionally not adding value by uploading the maximum size possible. However, an inactive user who uploads high quality, full resolution images has added as much value as they can even if future contributions stop. I'd rather reward the latter group. If we are going to advertise these photographers (which I think is fine), they shouldn't be able to game the system. I have not checked to see if any members fit my concern, but I wouldn't support restrictions on the less important "activity" first. -- Ram-Man 18:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • About thh activity criterion. Please check out the very first sentence on this page. This is not the Wikimedia Commons hall of fame. If you are not active anymore you are of no use on this page, meet the photographers was designed as a site for press relations and potentially networking. --Dschwen (talk) 19:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't agree with the idea of "activity criterion". If someone of the photographers can't make some photos, this is maybe because he has no time to make it. The "activity criterion" is discriminatory. --ComputerHotline (talk) 08:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Extrapolating some I find it literally incredible that people can think that in 10 years time they should still be featured photographers if nothing has been featured for 10 years - maybe it is just me? --Herby talk thyme 09:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again you are mistaking this page for something it is not. --Dschwen (talk) 12:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I fail to see it can be discriminatory to add another criterion. Discriminatory is when different rules apply to different people. For instance, if it was proposed to raise the lower limit of FPs to 50 for all users from France, to get a better balance between the countries represented on MOP, now that would be discriminatory. So would proposing (as I have seen previously) raising the minimum number of FPs for newcomers while letting old users stay who were let in using old criteria. That is really discriminatory as well. --Slaunger (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although the proposal was withdrawn, I applaud the sentiment behind discussing and setting criteria. I think we want to find a good balance between making this a useful page that tells more about some of our very best "currently active" folk, and a page that honors those who have contributed much even if not currently active. That may not be easy. Perhaps an "emeritus" section rather than outright removal? ++Lar: t/c 22:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal[edit]

To boil down what is scattered around in the comments above, I propose the following

Two criteria has to be fulfilled to be included in Commons:Meet our photographers:
  • The user has created at least ten photographs currently having Featured picture status.
  • At least one of those photographs should have been uploaded during the last 12 months.
In addition:
  • Users, who are banned, indef blocked or officially retired cannot be included.
The proposal should take effect from April 1, 2010 to give current members a chance to fulfill the activity criterion.

--Slaunger (talk) 16:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Support Fine with me --Herby talk thyme 17:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I'll become inactive on June, 2010, but I've only had one FP since September 2008. Why is zero per year the cutoff? Why not one per year? Why a limit at all? If the issue is space, set a standard for the maximum height. I see the purpose of this page to show off how the Commons attracts talented photographers. If that is the goal, then putting a time limit is silly. It is not like photography is "cutting edge": most photographs that are good today will be good tomorrow. Also, replace "upload date" with "date featured". -- Ram-Man 18:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Comment The point with one within the last 12 months is that users can have extended wikibreaks and come back. (Actually, I consider it healthy to do so). If you come back with one or more FPs again you are active again and be on the list again. One can meet you. The number and timespan could be different, but one the last 12 months is both easy to check and easy to remember. It should remain "upload date" and not "date featured" as date featured gives no indication about current activity. If we maintain that no current activity is required, we should rename the page to Commons:Meet our Photographers. --Slaunger (talk) 19:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - Per my reasons above (and Ram-Man's). Yes, delisting the entries helps kiling the memory because the names and links are no longer visible to the common user (who doesn't care about the page's history). Also agree that the entries should have a standard size. Why not adopt some compromise solution like inactive members only showing a name and a link? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Comment When COM:MOP was created the current criteria matched well the purpose of the page as at that time users with more than 10 FPs were active users. Now, the criteria do not match the purpose anymore as a substantial fraction of its members are FP-inactive. Having said that, I also hear what you are saying Alvesgaspar. But maybe this should be at a different place, like a Commons:Hall of Fame? Such a page could be a list of users ranked by the number of creations that has been promoted to either FP, QI or VI, one section each in that order. To get on the list, you would need at least 10, FPs, QIs or VIs. The list should just contain a link to the user page and a count of each image type. This would be a list with no requirements about activity level, just accumulated contributions. Personally, I find such lists of rank and friendly competetition great fun and motivating for productivity, but I also (clearly) recall the great Ph-X debate, where it was clear that opinions differ very much regarding what drives the individual. Personally, I think a lot of the members at COM:MOP have a competitive nature (and I do not put any negative meaning in that). They like striving for the best and constantly improve themselves. Otherwise they would not have achieved 10 FPs. And perhaps having such a internal Wikimedian HoF page could be considered an interesting addition. HoF should not distinguish between the type of media the creator has made (photographs or illustrations). I can even image ways where such a HoF could be automaintained by a bot (because maintaining it manually would be a pain). --Slaunger (talk) 22:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose ack Ram-Man. I'm planning to be active by this summer, umm but before then I should buy a new camera... -- Laitche (talk) 20:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support. I see Ram-Man's point, but to be honest, "meet our photographers" would imply that the people listed are active photographers. –Juliancolton | Talk 21:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support If it is to serve the stated purpose, this list really needs to be active photographers. To "reward" those who are no longer active, I have no problem with some kind of archive or inactive list. --99of9 (talk) 03:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose about "At least one of those photographs should have been uploaded during the last 12 months. In addition: Users, who are banned, indef blocked or officially retired cannot be included." --ComputerHotline (talk) 08:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support. Per title of this page and its intention. I know people want eternal glory, but this is not the page where you get it. Sorry. --Dschwen (talk) 12:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Comment - Not eternal glory, but adequate visibility. Not participating in FPC does not mean the photographer is unavailable for other projects, inside or outside Commons. If I recall correctly, the initial purpose of this page was to make our creators visible to the outside (press, etc), was it not? MOP is not a podium but a 'yellow page' section! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Per Dschwen + check all the opposes, what a surprise... —kallerna™ 15:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose If we are not running out of disk space I would prefer to "meet" here "our photographers" since their pictures continue to be used on Wiki projects. --LucaG (talk) 16:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support. Consider my vote a support... but I would be sad, as this would exclude myself. Please consider people's life change as well. In my case, I would be glad to continue contributing, but run of of time. A lot have happened in my professional life as well as in my personal one :) (You should see the many Gbytes of untouched photos I have on hard drive...). Also consider that people might upload photo and have none of them featured in the last 12 months. Would u still exclude them ? (my case !! :) ) - Benh (talk) 18:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Evidently. But I am open to other suggestions concerning time limts and numbers. My main objective would be to get some kind of activity criterion. I am actaully surprised how much permanent inclusion on COM:MOP seems to be for many of the current members. There seems to be quite a gap with the official purpose of the page and how it is perceived by many of its members. I think the right way to solve that, it to make the Commons:Hall of Fame page which is also mentioned at the top of the talk page. A HoF could be fun to have, and I feel inclined to draft a sandbox version of such a page just to try out the idea and gauge the opinion of the Community for such a thing. --Slaunger (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose - I really don’t get the positive points of this proposal except for the maximum height of profile. Sorry for my English, I’m trying my best to translate my opinion, please take no offence if some may look rude; I’m trying to express the best I can.
  1. I wonder what are the intention behind that idea, on what aspect can it help commons ?
    Bonjour, Acarpentier. The primary objective of MOP is to make a show room of users for external use. Media, advertising, etc. This requires that its members will respond when contacted, are aware of the ongoings on Commons, and agree with the overall goals of Commons. This requires some level of activity related to present time. For instance, Fir0002 (aka. Peter) is officially retired. And in his stated reasons for retiring he explicitly mentions that he disagrees with current licensing policy on Commons and the fact that no non-commercial licenses are accepted. Given that i find it problematic that his profile is on the page. --Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In what having a FP’s during year make you more available to be contacted by a external person ? A user could be more active (an aware of the ongoings) than another and not having any FP during the active year. The method you choose to base your activity criteria is in my opinion a wrong one. If you analyze your declared intentions and the way you want to justify them, you obviously will remark that they are not objectively responding to it. This answer's worth for your following answer to my question bellow (again sorry for my english, if I didnt choose the best word's for it, I'm trying my best). Thanks --Acarpentier 17:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The speed and short delay of all this is supposing the author of this debate is trying to pass his idea the fastest as possible, tell me why to be so hurry about doing that move.
    Who's in a hurry? We have plenty of time to discuss this. I took initiative to invite each and every member on their respective talk pages such that the proposal could be discussed fairly with participation of all members without anybody feeling backstabbed by being thrown out based on a discussion they had not taken part of. Also, I did not ask people to start voting right away. I would have rather stayed in discussion mode longer such that the proposal could be adjusted based on a consensus. If it is my April 1, 2010 deadline, you are referring to as beeing in a hurry, we can just change it to June 1, 2010 or January 1, 2011. It is a minor detail in this context. --Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Slaunger (The proposer) opinions here is overexposed and take’s 50%+ of the discussion.
    I'm sorry about that. It is just because I am enthusiastic. I also normally have a problem formulating myself in brevity. I hate it when that happens. I'll try to work on that. However, since you mention my user name so many times here, I feel entitled to respond to your concerns about my involvement. OK?--Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  3. It’s good for the image of wikipedia to have a couple of photographers in different area of the world, maybe you are not aware of this but even here on Montreal, I’m invited to present the idea of co-working behind Commons on a big convention.
    That is great news. Was the contact initiated due to your appearance on MOP? If so it is interesting input to this discussion. --Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. And for last, the delay of one year to submit FP is too short according that people are sometime not available on submitting picture but still collecting some for further posting on Commons, passing a rule like this one may discourage people of doing so after being removed. --Acarpentier 02:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Several have objected concerning the 1 FP uploaded during the last 12 months feeling the time period is too short. Then how about compromising to 2 FPs uploaded over the last two years instead then? Cordialement, --Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not surprise of your reaction, it was obvious that you would trying to explain but none of them are good answer's to me, if it where to convince me of something, it failed. I still feel you take too much space on this debate: if this proposal pass, it will be an example of where one Commons principal goal’s fail’s, in my opinion and as it's worthing. However, you can count on me to continue contributing, in a month I'm flying to Seattle for one of my client event's, I'll take some valuable photo's outhere and will try to post them and make them FP's. --Acarpentier 14:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I withdraw my proposal I would like to withdraw the proposal in its present form. Nomatter the outcome of the present vote, it seems clear that it will lead to polarization among our most highly profiled photographes. And I do not think that is healthy. Actually, it was not my intention that a vote should have started so early. My proposal was meant as something which could be used to discuss how to implement an activity criterion, not to be taken literally as it stands. I would had hoped that a consensus-based solution could have been found. I think that either an acitivity criterion should have an entirely different form than what I proposed, or the time is not right yet to discuss it at all. I am sorry if members have found that my part in the discussions have been disproportionate. It was not my intention. I have also been taken aback by the latest quite critical comments regarding my presence in this thread. For the time being I find they are unbalanced, but I will think about it. --Slaunger (talk) 21:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the purpose of this page?[edit]

Section heading added, as it marks a fresh start from the slight drama of the previous section.--Slaunger (talk) 07:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Comment -- Let me try to help. The first thing we should agree on before taking any action is about the purpose of the page: either it is an internal podium to help keeping creators interested and active in FPC or it is a link to the outside world (the original purpose). My key idea, which I was probably not able to express properly, is that delisting a user from MOP after one year without a promotion only makes sense if we regard the page as a podium, i.e. an internal thing. On the contrary if we accept that MOP is a kind of photographers' yellow pages, it doesn’t really matter if the user continues to be active on FPC or not. During the last three years I have received a number of requests from various parts of the world concerning the use of my pictures in books, publications, etc. I’m not sure if those people got my contact from the MOP page or not but they were certainly not interested in knowing if I was still active on FPC or not. If the first interpretation prevails (a podium), then I agree that some minimum annual threshold should be established for users to keep the membership. If the second interpretation prevails (yellow pages) then delisting a member should only be considered if the user is retired from Commons (whatever that means). What I propose now is to sample the opinions of regulars so that we have a more accurate idea of what the hell we are talking about… Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment -- I had a smile reading your comment’s, I agree with you. Here’s the first line I always see since 3 year’s when editing this page: « Please note this is a page intended to impress journalists rather than Wikimedians… 14:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)  » - I think this simple phrases mean lot more that it’s say’s. I also receive lot’s of message and email from people for usage of my picture and I also not so sure from where are they coming from but what I know is that I always refer them to the MOP pages and other Commons places sot hey be initiated with this great place so they as their turn talk to other people about it, and etc. I think that it’s a good link to the outside world (the original purpose) and that what's Commons really need’s from that page IMO. Also, I think that the idea of having an activity criteria to make sure people answer to those message of outside people (eg: journalists) is also good, the only part here I don’t agree is how it was defining an «active user». And for last, I find the other part of the proposal interesting, as I always like standardization and structured information. Even a more strict and professional template could be created in order to present it more clearly to journalist’s and outside people. --Acarpentier 23:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for being so constructive, both of you. I agree with the "yellow pages" analogy put forth by Joaquim. We could also think of its members as "Embassadors of Commons". For me, key elements to being a good embassador (or on the yellow pages) would be
    • Represents the top fraction of contributing photographers
    • Responsive to queries from the outside
    • Updated with respect to current community efforts relating to photography and (preferably) other aspects of Commons
    • Agrees with the scope, purpose, and license philosophy of Commons
  • --Slaunger (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts. Commons would like to encourage good photographers to freely license high quality effective images here. While altruism is great a "thanks you" in some way is always appreciated.

Commons holds a vast variety of media - some frankly is dire, a lot is quite useful and some is of real quality & use to Foundation projects and the wider community. These are logically in the form of FP, VI & QI images. It would seem wise to point people towards some of the better images as best we can. As such MOP is entirely sensible (it can maybe be tweaked in the light of changes on Commons since it was introduced though).

However I do feel that any immediately "advertising" should be directed towards current contributors (we can happily discuss that definition) because they will be around to respond to queries, will be uploading higher res/better quality images and be aware of what Commons is currently about/trying to do.

That there should also be a "these are some people/images contributed in the past that are excellent" seems an equally worthwhile idea. I hope we would be proud of images that are here even when people who contributed them find other things to do with their lives. This is a worthwhile discussion on a flagship aspect of Commons. --Herby talk thyme 11:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While people on the list should be around to respond to queries, that is independent of whether or not they are active FP contributors. For example, I always follow my talk page and any "email user" requests, even if I am not active in FP. I don't think this kind of proposal is going to help regarding that issue. -- Ram-Man 12:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad you are available. The question is how do we assure that all are available? (I know for sure that some are not). Lets just forget about the FP-uploaded-since-when proposal as that is a dead and buried proposal, thus the separation from the previous thread. --Slaunger (talk) 12:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree with Slaunger in respect of the "dead" proposal in practice the only way to assess the availability of any user is to see if they have contributed anything recently. I am not just talking images but any edits. I would not propose this as a way of assessing availability but I don't see any other method that could be fairly applied to everyone.
I still think there maybe should be two pages (at the least) which "feature" the highest level of the images we have here & their contributors. One for very current images and one for images where the content is older. Given the changes in technology images from a period ago may well be good but the spec changes quite consistently over time. If someone has not uploaded the level of highest quality images for a while they should still be acknowledged but not in the same way as more recent images.
Bear in mid I would widen thsi to include QI contributions at least. VI might be more questionable if they were solely VI as I would wish to see QI as a base level indicator. --Herby talk thyme 12:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment That's not about the purpose. It's my opinion of delisting from the COM:MOP. If the member who didn't upload any files to Commos in the last 24 months then delisted, but upload again they can come back anytime if they want to. Not getting FP just uploading. How about this activity criterion ? I think the criterion of delisting would be needed someday. -- Laitche (talk) 08:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Honestly, this may just me, but I'd prefer to see this page removed altogether. It elevates certain contributors above others, discourages new contributors, and creates needless strife over a meaningless status symbol that seems to have little importance to the rest of the world. I'd rather have users document their contributions on their user page and just have a list of active users, maybe categorized in some manner. Better to give credit to anyone who makes a contribution, no matter how large or small. Dcoetzee (talk) 09:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I wouldn't disagree with the comment. I do think something based on QI images for example would be a useful "signpost" to some of Commons better images (+FP for sure). From a public basis I guess we would like folk to find a selection of our better & more recent images rather than some that maybe aren't quite so good (being polite ;)). That will effectively publicise the creators of those images if the page/pages/cat whatever are well done? --Herby talk thyme 16:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No sweet without sweat isn't the right way to motivate or at the worst to coerce users to establish again - maybe that works at the market economy. I think as long the minumum of 10 featured pictures of any MOP member are used in the project or aren't delistet there is no need to remove the profile. Life and money goes up and down and so the abandoness to spent pictures to the project. Commons administers lots of tiny treasures by good photographers, so it should to be a given to pay tribute to them whether they're active or not as long the pictures are in use. Richie 21:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another take on activity[edit]

The name of this page, Meet our photographers implies for me an anticipation that the users here can be met somehow. Thus, it does not really make sense for me to have a user like Fir0002 included here, as he has explicitly retired from the project. I came to think of the activity criterion we have for admins. I think some of the same ideas could be applied here. The idea would be to gauge if the users on MOP are really available for the project.

  1. Every x months compile a list of MOP members who have not had any edits the last x months (e.g. x = 6 or 12)
  2. Place a note on the user's talk page and also send them a mail, asking them to confirm on some page that they are interested in staying on COM:MOP
  3. Give the member a period of y days to respond. If no reaction is received from the member within that period, the users is considered unavailable and will be removed from the list (e.g. y = 30 days).
  4. If a removed member becomes active again as an editor, he may himself add his profile again to MOP is he wishes so.

These very, very soft requirements could weed out some obviously unavailable users from the list, which I think would be beneficial for the project. For instance, all members who opposed my previous proposal would not be in danger of being considered unavailable as they responded to a message on their talk page and thus showed they were available.

Please do not vote. Lets try to seek a consensus instead - if that is possible. Also, feel free to modify the proposal.

--Slaunger (talk) 19:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with the spirit of it. But instead of removing the whole entries I would prefer to maintain just a line with the name and the indication 'retired', linked to the entry (which is moved to some subsection). This way all contacts (including the email) would be preserved without overloading the page with useless info. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good suggestion all in all. The de-adminship works on a similar basis - you are given 30 days to respond. I think in the case of those genuinely retired from the project there is effective a link to them on each image if someone wishes to try and get in contact with them? Certainly if people do not respond to talk page enquiries they are, in effect, inactive here. --Herby talk thyme 14:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's a good proposal. I agree with it. Also the Fir00002 case is obviously for me a great exemple of where MOP is inaccurate. since it clearly mentioned that he's retired, he should be removed from it after beeing noticed. That would be fair IMO. --Acarpentier 15:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove inactive contributors. Put them on a page like Commons talk:Meet our photographers/retired and just link to that page. Problem solved. --Dschwen (talk) 15:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like this proposal, and agree with Dschwen. Also, I'm going to start adding a "please do not vote... but edit" clause after any proposals I write :-) Imagine if instead of an 'edit' tab we had a 'vote on this stub' tab! we'd never get any work done. –SJ+ 22:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like this one - and agree with Alvesgaspars added comment. I am not so sure i understand why it is that the featured photographers on this page would be more qualified to talk with journalists compared to other members of the commons community. I may be ok at taking photographs but i may also be a total goof trying to say something intelligent about the project when talking to a journalist...and thats not nessesarily linked to me being active or not.
  • I would hate to leave the page. It has been an honor to be listed there. I am still hoping i will be able to contribute FP's again in the future. I finally got a new camera that actually works too - so who knows perhaps it will actually happen. In the mean time i will just upload normal pictures when i have a moment and some material that might have some value for the project, and answer emails with questions of using my images in all kinds of funny contexts. Cheers all - i am still here - just not as often or as active as i used to ;) --Malene Thyssen (talk) 21:42, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something along the lines of Slaunger's proposal makes a lot of sense to me. It might even encourage some of us who haven't contributed images for a while to get the old camera out again. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:11, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Revisiting the proposal[edit]

Hi again folks. We had a soft proposal here, which everyone agreed on two years ago. Do we still agree? If so, I am willing to carry out the proposal. To summarize the proposal (and being a little more specific)

  1. Approximately every 6 months the MOP maintainer (I could start) compiles a list of MOP users who have not had any edits the last 6 months.
  2. The MOP maintainer places a note on each apparently inactive users talk page, and also sends them a mail (if enabled), asking for confirmation on Commons:Meet our photographers/register activity that they would like to stay on COM:MOP.
  3. An apparently inactive member is given a period of 30 days to respond. If no reaction is received from the user within that period, the user is considered inactive for the time being and will be moved from the list of active contributors to Commons:Meet our photographers/inactive (no random order, but ordered by user name on this subpage) by the MOP maintainer. The retired page will be linked to from the main MOP page.
  4. An inactive member may at any time move the MOP profile again from the inactive subpage to MOP main page if the editor wishes so.

--Slaunger (talk) 21:36, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. However, I would even go a small step further: to be allowed to list oneself on COM:MOP, a user should have at least 10 FP promoted self-made images, and at least one of them should have been promoted in the last 12 (24?) months. Point 4 of your proposal should only apply in case this additional requirement is still met. Imo, this would ensure that users who contributed some FP's in 2006/2007 or so, but still aren't inactive in the sense of that they still do minor edits etc. on Commons, cannot appear in the list of currently highly-active photographers. --A.Savin 09:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Whereas I personally would not mind your "raising the activity bar" proposal (my initial proposals were along this line) I would still like to try this soft proposal as a start as I think it is a proposal, which nobody can be against, and it could help moving some of the obviously inactive/retired contributors to the inactive subpage. When I had stricter activity criteria in previous proposals, the counter-argument was that is a MOP member responded to talk page comments and/or mail, they were to be considered available and sufficiently active for justifying a continued presence on the page. --Slaunger (talk) 00:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template[edit]

Why does the list of people keep being re-arranged and why does the list not appear in the same order as listed in the TOC? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 01:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And know I'm there[edit]

after a hint from User:Quartl a added myself. --Berthold Werner (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two more new profiles of 99of9 and me. --Quartl (talk) 07:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Class of 2010[edit]

It seems several photographers who are not (yet) on the page passed the limit this year:

I already contacted some of them. Possibly there are more candidates who don't appear in Category:Featured pictures by creator and who were not been revealed by my quick search. --Quartl (talk) 14:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would User:Airwolf be eligible as well? Jean-Fred (talk) 14:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With 17 FPs on Commons, certainly. --Quartl (talk) 14:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

profiling Commons photographers on Wikimedia Foundation blog[edit]

Hi all, I hope this finds you well. My name is Matthew Roth and I work in the communications department at the Wikimedia Foundation. As part of an effort to do a better job of profiling the wonderful photography and dedicated shooters who contribute so much good work to Commons, I'm starting a new feature on the Foundation blog to profile FPs and Pictures of the Day and the people who shot them. We want to provide short stories behind the photographers and the photos, including some biographical information and the context of the pictures. If you're interested, please feel free to contact me at mroth@wikimedia.org or on my talk page. We'll fairly regularly do blog posts in conjunction with the picture of the day when it is promoted on the home page, but would like to include photos that have appeared previously as well. Also, two of my interns will be reaching out to various folks directly and inviting you to participate, if you like. I'm happy to provide any more information. Thanks! Matthew (wmf) (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Matthew, I provide bits of background information about my Featured Pictures in User:Quartl/Featured. They are not very polished though, since I don't think anyone ever reads that page :-). Best wishes, --Quartl (talk) 09:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination: User:Ximonic[edit]

What about listing User:Ximonic?--Kozuch (talk) 14:39, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just ask him if he would like to write own profile and to add it to this page. --A.Savin 16:58, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who could convince me to enter this old fashioned club ?[edit]

Hi there,
"Meet Our Photographers" should be a window opened over the "real world", in order to show, out of "Commons", who we are, what we do, and what we can provide.
It should be "THE" good way for the "professional" world of image and picture to discover "Commons".
It is far to be the case.
As a simple visitor, I'm afraid this page is really dusty, and needs to be strongly refreshed.
We have a list with 43 names. Some of them disappeared completely from here around, some others are still on "Commons", but did not feed the FPC page anymore. Some "old timers" have more than ten FP, but in the way to be delisted due to new criteria like minimum size. Total: something like 20 persons, more or less, are currently "out of order".
In the contrary, we have a lot of very active contributors with (far) more than 10 FP (for instance Slaunger, Myrabella, Eusebius, Alchemist-hp, PierreSelim, Llez, Poco a poco, Carschten, Cephas and others, including maybe myself).
Could MOP really (and seriously) live without the names mentioned above, as they are the "best of the best of Commons" TODAY ?
It is a nonsense, in my opinion.
I understand very well that MOP is not a "podium", but, again, a showcase for outside (journalists etc...). It is a very good reason to improve and refresh the page, IMO...
As it looks now, It is not a good advertisement for "Commons", and I'm afraid it does more harm than good.
I think it is time now to decide: should we delete this useless page ?
Or should we try to do something in order to make this page attractive, together for the photographers of Commons and for the world outside of it ?
It is no more time only to add following names and profiles, but to "change".
I've no special ideas, but I think we must have a reflexion together. The previous debates I've read here above are too old now, for the times are changing.
Any interest, thoughts or ideas ? As a beginning, I suggest we collect seriously the complete series of the "more-than-ten-FP" contributors (by the way, is "ten" enough, now ?) in "Commons" and add their names in the relevant category: for instance do you know that Ximonic, cited here just above, does not appear in the Category:Featured pictures by creator ? Are there other contributors like him all around ?
Or, let the things stay as they are... A pity, isn't it ?
Yours friendly, --Jebulon (talk) 18:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Commons has no unified rating of users by the number of FP's, the list at the top of Category:Featured pictures by creator is far incomplete. I agree that several contributors deserve an entry here but do not have one so far. But Commons is a voluntary project, no one is obligated to write a self-profile, also no one must include their uploads in a [[:Category:Featured pictures by User:XXX]] etc. So, the only way is, to invite users you listed above, by contacting at their talk page. Concerning long inactive contributors, afaik there was a proposal on this discussion page to exclude some inactive entries automatically, but I'm not sure if there was a consensus. --A.Savin 19:09, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, Jebulon that the page in its present stage if of very little practical use, if it intended to be a promotional page for journalists and others. It is something I have reiterated over the years again and again. If we want to keep this page, we should as minimum get rid of the inactive contributors. We actually had consensus for an activity criterion a little over two years ago, where there were no objections to this proposal. However, it was never carried out - I had a wikibreak and noone else did it. A month ago I reopened the thread volunteering to carry it out, but there has been zero response to that. I interprete is as if this page is effectively dead.
I therefore have another proposal: Let us retire this page and also Commons:Meet our illustrators and instead let us make a single page Commons:Meet our users. On this page we should present some profiles of currently active Commons users doing outstanding work in each of their work areas. Administration, categorization, organizers of events such as POTY, helpers, photographers, illustrators, restorators, license experts, valued image contributors, quality images contributors, geocoders, template coders, tool developers, bot operators, domain experts, etc. The page could be dynamic. I.e., new members being considered every month like "users of the month". The users could be elected by simple majority "liking", a user could be nominated by any other user. Something like that.
The point is, that if we only had photographers on Commons, there would be no Commons. We need users specialized in all these tasks to make Commons go round and be complete, and often the users doing the more tedious work are not really being appreciated as much as they deserve. Of course a proposal like that really belongs on the Village Pump. --Slaunger (talk) 20:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that a lot needs to be done to make the page better. For example, making its design more attractive and exciting; or imposing some kind of standartization on the information supplied. For example, a photograph of the photographer and some sort of interview made when a new ember enters the club; or removing the users who no longer contribute to Commons and FPC; etc., etc. I'm sure that with a bit of imagination and the talent of some we could make it much more popular and dynamic. I don't agree with termination, as the page continues to be visited by more than one hundred users each day (here). What about starting a fresh discussion on this? As for Slaunger's idea of widening the scope of the page, that is a very different business which could (and should!) be discussed in another forum. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:06, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm happy with the beginning of this discussion. I agree with both of you. First, we must refresh, and then, follow Slaunger's ideas, which are pretty larger, and digg a bit more... The basic first questions are: how many people are concerned ? And how many of them are interested? As said by Joaquim, let's start a fresh discussion.--Jebulon (talk) 23:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding page views, I think the about 120 page click on MOP per day is quite low. 80000 users visits the main page every day, where there is a link to MOP in the highlights section. That is: About one in 700 users clicking in on the main page chooses to go to MOP. For comparison 1 in 200 users go to COM:FP (not that I think that is an impressive ratio either). --Slaunger (talk) 08:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding MOU (Meet Our Users) I will to COM:VP regarding this more dramatic proposal. --Slaunger (talk) 08:51, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reviving this page is a good idea. Volunteering is a rule: only those who want to go will be. It should not be a plethora of name, and the state should raise the minimum number of at least 25 selection. 2years of inactivity should involve automatic out of the list. I agree with Slaunger, administrators are indispensable people. They unload a huge amount of work, it would be good and just highlight them. But that's another story ... Long live the "Project Jebulon," the name of the author who start this debate and will coordinate our efforts. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 07:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment I totally agree with Jebulon, what a shame I did not complete my profile sooner ^_^ (kidding). I like the idea that of Meet our Users we are not only a community of photographers. --PierreSelim (talk) 11:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have opened a discussion on Meet our Users on the Village Pump. --Slaunger (talk) 11:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The english speaking "Village Pump" is somewhere restrictive, I never go there, as there is a similar COM:BI ("Bistro") for french speaking speakers ...--Jebulon (talk) 12:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • For the moment, I'll stay here, as I'm more interested by improving the present MOP section. I think that "MOP" and "MOU project" are really too different. MOP/MOI is to be a showcase, and the MOU project looks to me more "internal", and not very interesting for the wor ld outside of "Commons", in my opinion. Maybe "we are not only a community of photographers" (or illustrators), but it is how we are perceived "outside". Not as a community of administrators, geocoders etc... Administrators, tools managers, geocoders, bot managers, categorizers etc... does exist here only because of...pictures ! My proposal is to continue here the discussion about "how to improve the MOP page", in order to answer to the question-title of this section...--Jebulon (talk) 13:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        The semantic leap between "[other roles] exist only because of pictures" and "we are (perceived as) a community of photographers" is an unfortunately common misconception around here, and probably something needs to be done about it − but it won’t be for today, or anytime soon I am afraid, and is anyway beyond the scope of MOP.
        That being said, I will agree on that with Jebulon: photographers are the showcase-material around here. When the Wikimedia Foundation endeavours to showcase Wikimedia Commons volunteers, they go for the pictures of the day and their highly-talented photographers ; and well, I don’t think anyone finds anything wrong with that approach − I certainly don’t. MOP is the exact same thing. It was imagined as the shiny showcase of Wikimedia Commons − that it achieves it is debatable, but the means to it are probably the good ones I think.
        tl;dr: sure, do improve the page, its design, coverage, anything. I will look forward to the result :-) Jean-Fred (talk) 13:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I've redacted the MOU proposal. It is not a good idea in its present form, and distracts focus from this MOP thread. --Slaunger (talk) 23:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Back to Jebulons original post. He mentioned me as one of the creators eligible for inclusion, but not present. I am not here for the following reasons
    1. I simply do not feel worthy to be here. That I have been able to scrape together 11 FPs over the course of 5.5 years (2 FPs/year average) is more a matter of luck than skill. There are contributors here, e.g., Benh or Böhringer, within my type of photography, who are in an entirely different league. --Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Due to lack of recent activity by several current members, the page is outdated and cluttered by (now) irrelevant material. I think the old soft activity criterion that there was finally consesus for two years ago after a lot of pain and negotiations should be reconsidered. Implementing that would help. --Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    3. I think that recently the Wikimedia blog has taken over some of the promotional ideas of this page. On the blog there has been several entries featuring contributors of POTD, with interviews and all and with journalistic quality. I my opinion the blog does the job better (although I do not know the reader impact of the blog) than the MOP page. --Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    4. I think the bar is too low: I would support something like 25 FPs (like Arcaeodontosaurus suggests) in total (together with the proposed activity criterion) or 5 FPs wiithin the last 12 months. Not realistic to carry out though as that means there are active included users, who would have to leave, and I think that will lead to some poisonous reactions. --Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • So I guess I am not the right person to convince you, Jebulon~, to enter this "old fashioned club" Clin. --Slaunger (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's OK, but I need technical assistance, because I lack of "how-to-do" (implement a vote ? Create a new page design ?), and my english is not good enough.
    1. First, it is necessary to know who is concerned, so I/we must count exactly all the "FP creators". What is a "creator" ? Not only photographers, but illustrators and restorators too. In my opinion, we should merge these three groups, and exclude the pictures where there is no "Commoners" minimum creation. For instance we should not have a "Meet the Nasa" or "Meet the US Army", or "Meet Google Art project", should we (but maybe have some links) ? And the new project could be called as the "Meat our creators" page. For this and that, we need a vote.
    2. Second, we must have a new threshold. In my opinion, 10 FP is no more sufficient, 25 should be better, as the "Commons" project is adult now. Of course, the "between 10 and 25 FP owners" already on the list are welcome (Slaunger, it is time to register "now" !). For that, we need a vote.
    3. Third: We must ask all the persons in 1) and 2). What do they think ? Any interest ? Then, after a month, create a sub page for the "disappeared", the "retired", and the "don't care", with only links to personal user page for instance. This page should change of course, as users could change their mind too. Do the "don't care" agree of a census of their own FP (Thanks Slaunger, you are right: nothing without user's agreement)? For this we need a vote.
    4. Fourth: How to improve the new page, in order to make it more attractive (and up-to-date) both for users and for visitors (this project is to make a real and modern showcase of "Commons").
    5. Fifth: We must send messages to users (concerned persons) at every step.
    6. Sixth: "Votes" is for all the "community", not only for the restricted series of current FP owners, as the "Meat Our Creators" page is to be a project for all "Commons".
  •  Comment -- That was a good start, chief! Now, we need to organize these topics in discussion/decision subsections. Let me briefly comment on those points:
      1. Agree, we should merge the various types of creators and leave the NASA, historical, etc. uploaders behind. One possible problem is the definition of a common threshold for all categories.
        The goal is to celebrate "creators", not "uploaders", that's the point IMO. Any picture taken by a "Commoner" should count, any significantly "modified" picture could count--Jebulon (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I like the name "Meet our Creators". Note that on Meet our illustrators, the threshold is currently 5 FPs (and not 10 as here). However, I would argue for the sake of simplicity that the criteria for inclusion should be the same independent of the type of contributions. I agree that the threshold for consideration is that the modification is significant. As an example of what I see as a significant change, the type of restorations typically undertaken by, e.g., Adam Cuerden can normally be considered "significant". In many cases, several users has helped bring a file to FP (certainly the case for a significant fraction of my FPs). In that case only the most significant contributor can include the file in his/her FP count - most often the creator. --Slaunger (talk) 22:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        You read in my mind. Remember the goal: celebrate outside those who make "Commons" something excellent in quality. So, I can't imagine this without Adam Cuerden, for instance, among others.--Jebulon (talk) 22:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      2. Agree with everything, including the 25 thereshold.
        I think 25 FP is an OK criterium (an no, I will not sign in now :-) ), but only if it is the same rule for all. Say, if I were a newcomer and had generated 20 FPs during 9 months, I would really see it as unfair (quite frankly I would be pissed) that some other user, who had generated 11 FPs over 6 years could pass the gate, but not the clearly more talented and productive newcomer. Another problem with only relying on an FP count is that it does not take current activity and availablity into account. Therefore, I think it has to be coupled with either the previously agreed activity criterion or perhaps better, replace a total FP count criterion with an n FPs the last 12 months criterion. N could be 5. The latter requirement should be checked every three months and the page updated accordingly. That would make the page more dynamic/volatile and better reflect that there is someone to meet, when clicking in on "Meet our creators". Moreover, it could be a driver for our most skilled FP creators to stay active in case they like to be on the list. --Slaunger (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      3. It is too early to decide on this, it will depend on the outcome of the discussion.
        Not so early, IMO. If we want to know "how many", we must know "who"...At least, a census is now necessary, IMO (who to be send messages?).--Jebulon (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I would contact the existing members on their respective talk pages (or by whatever means is recommended on their user or talk page). In addition a note on COM:FPC talk pointing to this discussion. At least that is what I did, when I tried to open a discussion on the activity criterion. A note on COM:VP and the language variants thereof could also be relevant. It is not sure that we need any voting. If we can reach consesnsus on some guidelines by discussion that is also fine. --Slaunger (talk) 23:21, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Fine. Maybe I could send an information message at the talk pages of french-speaking users, and a general message at the french VP, COM:BI? Could you send me a project in english on my talk page for unification, or should I remain independent ? There is no emergency.--Jebulon (talk) 23:32, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      4. One idea: Create a starting page with all creators in alphabetical order, represente by (ideally) a small portrait. This page is to link to the individual pages which, imo, should stick to some form of standard in which information and design is concerned. Informatiom should include: first edit in Commons; first and last FP; number of FP; short text by creator (as is now); link to Commons blog interviews; photographic gear, ...
        I can see the point in all that you suggest. The only thing I am not sure about is the ordering. I like the random ordering we have now, but this may not be tecnically feasible with a new layout, e.g., a tiled one, where an overview is in a gridlike pattern on a single page perhaps linking to more detailed profiles. The order could also be arranged such that the currently hottest contributor is at the top (most FPs the last 12 months). For those with a competitive edge, this could also be a fun game to play. Does any of you know the "Flow" layout accessible from a user profile on http://500px.com. I think that is a really neat and very dynamic layout, which we could be inspired from.--Slaunger (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      5. Agree, to start as soon as the organized discussion is launched.
        could somebody help in writing a short text in good english as a basis, to be translated (by me ?) in french, and by any volunteer in own language ?--Jebulon (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      6. Agree, the scope should be the largest possible. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 12:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Looks good − happy to see the discussion moving forward. :-) Just one question: I am not sure I get the sixth point − what would be the "vote" about? Inclusion of this or that creator? Jean-Fred (talk) 15:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since I have been specifically pointed to this discussion by User:Slaunger, I'll add my opinion, despite that the discussion doesn't look like it's going anywhere at the moment. The following is totally IMHO.

  • I'm not on this page because it looks quite dusty, because I'm not a huge fan of having a picture on Commons (and without a picture of me I think it's a bit pointless to have an entry here) and because I think that this page in its current form is not a good showcase for Commons.
  • This page should transport a message: "Look, we have cool people here doing great work and they provide it under free licenses" (or similar). To transport that message we don't need to (or, rather, should not!) have 90 portraits on a single page. IMHO 3-8 "featured" creators would be sufficient. Ideally these 3-8 would cover a wide range of artwork. The page should be viewable without scrolling (on reasonnable resolutions).
  • The 3-8 "featured" creators should be rotated.
  • The "featured" creators are shown with a very short summary, like "John Doe, on Commons since 2008, mostly interested in historic buildings", the portrait picture and one example picture.
  • There may be a list of a hundred or so creators which satisfy some FP criterion and want to have a "profile" here. The "featured" ones are chosen among those.
  • There may (should) be an option to show everybody on the list, not just the 3-8 "featured" ones
  • This "full list" could have more detailed info
  • "featured" creators should have a picture of themselves (IMHO some default head graphic is really not what we want on a showcase page)
  • A possible criterion for being a "featured" creator could be: as soon as someone gets a new featured picture, his profile gets moved to the "featured" creators set and the "oldest" one drops out (basically a move-to-front list with the first 3-8 entries "featured"). Many other criteria are possible, e.g. random, number of FPs, or a combination...
  • There's no need to remove anyone from the "full list", ever - if he's inactive he just does not become "featured"

--Kabelleger (talk) 21:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Design brainstorming[edit]

Hi. In the idea to give some food for thought, I have quickly ripped off the English Wikipedia Teahouse style to give : User:Jean-Frédéric/Meet our creators/Teahouse style.

Hope that helps (remember I am not a designer at all ;). I guess before designing anything, it would be better to define what information we want to display − like Alvesgaspar started above. So, do we want a heavily standardized thing, and if yes with which pieces of information? Jean-Fred (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

C'est joli, je trouve ! Mais la question est évidemment pertinente. La réponse viendra au fil des discussionsNice, and good question. Answer will come through our debates--Jebulon (talk) 17:03, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we should come to the discussion already with some models to choose from. English Wikipedia Teahouse is nice but the principle is similar to the one we have now. I would compose the initial page with very simple tiles, each one containing a photo (or an alias) of the creator plus the name and category (photographer, illustrator, etc.). These tiles would be the links to the individual pages, all based on the same model. This design has the advantage of showing all creators in a single initial screen. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, another take more in line with what you suggest, ripping off wmf:Staff_and_contractors this time: User:Jean-Frédéric/Meet our creators/WMF style.
    In my opinion though, it would be better if the MOP page displays a sample of the work of the creators featured there, both to showcase some work and to invite visitors to click through to the creator profile. What do you think?
    Jean-Fred (talk) 22:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that is in the line of what I imagined. Only that the pictures would be inside a colored tile, like the one in the start screen of Windows 8, and the tiles closely packed. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think this is moving along a good direction. How about if every creator was represented by two images in a tile? To the left, a photo/illustration/avatar of the creator, to the right the latest FP promoted by that contributor. For those not interested in having a photo/illustration/avatar of themselves, it could be their first FP, which was shown instead. The last FP would help making the page dynamic. A layout challenge though may be FPs of very varying aspect ratios (pano vs portrait). --Slaunger (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, here it is a crude sketch of what I ment. This is just a jpeg image, no links are here. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:00, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is it "humor" ? I'm not sure I understand very well what you mean by 'masonic title' ?--Jebulon (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Alvesgaspar take, in wiki-format : User:Jean-Frédéric/Meet our creators/Alvesgaspar style. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Très bien, Jean Fréderic! We Jebulon are is about to nominate you as the official MOC designer! Two suggestions: make the tiles smaller and the title more discrete, in the same style. Now, we need an exciting new design for the individual pages... -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 16:18, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, is it "humor" about me ? I'm not sure I understand very well what you mean ? In order to avoid any misunderstanding, may be could you in the future chose...well... another target ?--Jebulon (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Very good approach, Jean-Frédéric! For my part, the current design of the profile pages I like as it is. --A.Savin 18:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Jeb for your interest to renovate this highly ignored part of Commons. I noticed your sincere efforts to improve the various parts of Commons several times; Congratulations. I visited this page several times and feel pity about its nearly dead condition. I remember that I shared this feeling with Jeb and invite him when I joined here. I liked the proposal in general; but like to discuss a few points.
  • Is this page is meant for the contributors’ hall of fame (entire contributions from the beginning) or to showcase our current contributors or for both?
  • If it is for the entire contributions: I prefer a sorted listing bases on the descending order of the number of FPs. The retired people will automatically move to the end of the listing as the newcomers come in with more FPs. At the same time, retired people with enormous contributions (like 100+ FPs) will stay here. There is no need to remove anybody from the list for the time being. (I don’t think any conditions like long time inactivity or lack of contributions to remove a person will work; as people are clever enough to bypass them. Further, I don’t think it is fair to remove an expired person from this list if he had big contributions.) I think the current margin (10+ FPs) is enough; may an easier figure for photographers, but too hard for illustrators and restorers. The listing can be as brief as possible to include more people without scrolling. A photo/alias of the contributor with some bios and/or an FP (last or the one he preferred) in small size may be enough.
  • If it is to showcase our current contributors: Then this page can be populated from the contributors who had N+ FPs in the previous year. A random listing as the current one is preferred.
  • For both: I personally prefer a listing of both, either in a single page or in two.
  • Regarding the title/caption: I think the word “creators” is misleading; as it usually used to represent the people behind an organisation. But I can’t find a word that collectively represents photographers, illustrators and restorers (I typed mediagraphers; but MS Word says no such words). “Contributors” is good; but it may be a bit misleading as it includes all contributors like reviewers, uploaders (NASA, Flickr), etc. What about “Media Creators” or “Media Contributors”?
  • Design by Jean-Frédéric: Simple and beautiful. People who don’t like their photo published (like me and Jeb) can use an avatar or just another work of them as a profile picture (like my “me and my wife on the finger of God”). I think the word “photographer” under every name can be avoided. Instead their real name and profession (if any and want to disclose) and nationality may be a better choice. I assume the username will be a link to their profile page where more info available.
Just some ideas (still from a very interruptive Internet connectivity), -- JKadavoor Jee 07:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I think having both an external "Meet our Media Creators" (I agree, Jee, that it is a good idea to include Media, as we have many other types of noteworthy users, who creates other kinds of content) and an internal "Wikimedia Commons Hall of Fame" would be a good idea. - Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The "Meet our Media Creators" shall be dynamic and based on N FPs last 12 months type of criteria in order to show the most active current contributors of featurable media. - Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I think we should offer the 12 users with most FPs the last 12 months a tile on a single page there. Participation should be voluntary. If some do not want to participate, take the next on the list until the 12 tiles are filled out. That is N in N FPs the last 12 months is dynamically adjusted to the top 12 current contributors. - Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  4. At regular intervals (e.g. two or four times a year), refresh the list. (I volunteer to maintain this). It is a prerequisite that it is "easy" to figure out how many FPs have been promoted the last 12 months. E.g., the FP promotions shall be kept on archived user talk pages, or moved to dedicated chronological FP promotion archives, see User talk:Slaunger/Archives/FPC for an example. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  5. To make the page dynamic, each tile should be based on a transcluded user-specific template following a fixed template (as today). I propose that each tile contains two images. One, which is selected by the user (a portrait, an avatar, a user contribution, e.g., first FP) and another one, which is the latest FP promoted by that user. It is the responsibility of the user to maintain the latest FP part of the user-template. This will make the page dynamic and more interesting. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  6. The "Wikimedia Creators Hall of Fame" page has no activity criterion, but is a ranked list of contributors based on number of FPs (can later be extended with other "top contributors lists" based on number of QIs, VIs). --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  7. The Hall of Fame page is primarily for internal use for friendly competitiveness and to honor those users, who have donated massive amounts of high quality material. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Inclusion on the Hall of Fame page is voluntary. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Inclusion on the Hall of Fame page has as a prequisite that FPs are categorized using user categories like Category:Featured pictures by User:John Doe withe the parent category Category:Featured pictures by creator. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  10. For the Hall of Fame, I propose using a simple table format with links to user pages sorted descending wrt to FP count based on category counts in the FP user categories. In that manner the table is maintenance free and will sort itself as new images are added to the user-categories. Functionally equivalent with the current table shown in Category:Featured pictures by creator, where it is possible to sort by number of FPs. Just refactored into a nicer design. --Slaunger (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  11. I propose setting a threshold for inclusion, such that the Hall of fame becomes approximately a "top 100" of all time FP contributors.
  • Very interesting development, Slaunger; I personally agree with all points above except the removal of any from the main list (Hall of fame). The points mentioned by Kabelleger look very similar to this. -- JKadavoor Jee 06:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. on the one issue you mention, let me clarify: I do not think that users shall be removed from the main (Hall of Fame) list, unless of course they roll out of the Top 100. Regarding the 100 I am indifferent about the exact number. It can be 50, 200 or all, I am just concerned that the list will become too long and boring, if we include all, who has ever contributed an FP. --Slaunger (talk) 21:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks, Slaunger. Yes; the top N threshold may be a good approach, if the list is too long. I also don't want to include all FP contributors in the main list unless they have already 10+ FPs. My only concern is that I don't like removing the expired people from the list if they had good contributions. If we plan a threshold like six month of inactivity, they will disappear from the list soon even before their first death anniversary. -- JKadavoor Jee 04:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ah, OK, I had not thought about letting the Hall of Fame be thresholded at, e.g., 10 FP, and thus let the list expand as more and more users reach that limit. But I think that is a good idea, especially if kept in relatively compact table format. --Slaunger (talk) 22:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of inactive users on COM:MOP[edit]

I'd suggest not to let the discussion die out. There was a proposal to exclude accounts with no edits in the last 6 months or so, so I've looked through the list and this kind of "inactive" users currently should be the following ones:

As this is obviously too few to make COM:MOP any more transparent, I've also compiled accounts with the last upload of a self-made image more than 6 months ago:

Any ideas if this is OK so, or which criteria otherwise we should use to sort out inactive user entries? Thanks --A.Savin 19:12, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes; such criteria will help only to catch a few innocents; others will (and already) override them by participating in some discussions and uploading a few low resolution files. And I don’t think there is a need to force people to contribute by such childish tricks. (BTW, I didn’t understand why nobody gives any opinion on my comment above. Is my comment is too inappropriate as my position here? I appreciate healthy discussions.) -- JKadavoor Jee 06:05, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Jee, I certainly do not think anyone here sees your original comment as in any way inappropriate (nor your position) :-) I do not know why only so few has commented after an initial lively debate. I agree a good discussion is healthy, and I have now tried to give some detailed feedback and suggestions above. Using an activity criterion like N FPs last 12 months, will IMO avoid the problem of "childish tricks" suplemented with a less profiled, more internal Hall of Fame with total FP counts will do the job I think. --Slaunger (talk) 09:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment -- Agree with Slaunger, there is nothing wrong with your comments Jee. The problem here is that the whole discussion is unorganized and we are writting our wonderful ideas in the water. What we need is a strutured decision process, similar to the ones we had before in FPC, and someone to lead it (or, at least, to launch it)! So that alternative solutions for each specific subject are proposed, discussed and voted. I'll be glad to participate and give my best but have to time to lead anything now. Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm afraid it is my fault for part. I've launched the discussion, asked some questions, but I'm not enough on "Commons" for the moment, and I don't know enough how to "structurate" a debate here. My next action will be an information about this discussion, in french, in the COM:BI, and a special message on every french speaking concerned talk page. I'm still very interested by this project, but I've no time enough now, sorry.--Jebulon (talk) 17:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some attempts towards a Hall-of-fame table with minimum manual maintenence[edit]

Hi, I have been playing around implementing a few templates in order to test an (almost maintenance free) sortable list of FP contributors. Something like this could be used in a "Hall of fame" type of page as discussed above. Here is an example including the ten first FP contributors by user name (actually some have been skipped, see below)

User User FP category Number of contributed FPs
99of9 Browse FPs 14
A.Savin Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:A.Savin found!
Alchemist-hp Browse FPs 61
Alvesgaspar Browse FPs 182
AngMoKio Browse FPs 31
Archaeodontosaurus Browse FPs 150
Bgag Browse FPs 11
Carschten Browse FPs 21
Cephas Browse FPs 51
Chepry Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:Chepry found!
Dschwen Browse FPs 50

The table consist of a row for each user, which is really just a template taking the user name as the template argument, e.g., 

{{FP user row|99of9}}

Embedding this in a sortable wikitable generates a row with three cells

  1. A link to the user page of 99of9,
  2. A link to the user category with 99of9s FPs
  3. The number of FPs contributed by 99of9 counted as the number of files in the user FP category.

In the example shown the table has been generated manually with rows alphabetically by user name. Thus, the initial view of the table is sorted ascending by user name.

If one wants to sort the table descending by the number of FPs, one clicks twice on the "Number of contributed FPs" column (first click gived ascending order, fewest FPs first).

For this template machinery to work, it is required that the user category of FPs is named in one of the following ways

  1. Category:Featured pictures by User:John Doe
  2. Category:Featured pictures by John Doe
  3. Category:Featured Pictures by John Doe

There are several examples of existing FP user categories, which does not follow this scheme. To name a few of the approximately 15 deviations from this standard category naming scheme

Now, these few cases could be solved by either renaming

  1. Allowing for other variants (but this costs in expensive ifexists parser functions)
  2. Require that the user categories comply with one of the formats above
  3. Implement support for some extra optional template parameters, which allows for indicating non-standard category names besides the user page. (I would prefer to rename the categories, as the other option will clutter the template code a little and make it harder to maintain.)

There are a few issues regarding the table which bothers me.

1. The initial sorting will always be the order in which the table has been defined. In this case by user name. However, I would prefer to see a default descending sort by number of FPs. Now, I could reorder the rows, such that the user with the highest number of FPs appears first

User User FP category Number of contributed FPs
Alvesgaspar Browse FPs 182
Archaeodontosaurus Browse FPs 150
Alchemist-hp Browse FPs 61
Cephas Browse FPs 51
AngMoKio Browse FPs 31
Carschten Browse FPs 21
A.Savin Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:A.Savin found!
99of9 Browse FPs 14
Bgag Browse FPs 11
Chepry Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:Chepry found!

However, the initial ordering would rapidly deterioate, as the ranking between users is changed. This would require a lot of maintenance to maintain the ranking. Therefore, from a maintenance point of view it seem best to have the initial ordering by user name as in the first example.

As an alternative a bot could be run regularly to check the category counts and, e.g., daily, build the table in ranked order. However, that is also a complicated solution, and, as we all knows, bots may be out of order from time to time...

2. Given the inconvenience of 1. it would be nice, that the default sorting of the third FP count column could be set to descending, such that one would only have to click one on that column header to get it sorted as a ranked list with the highest number first. However, it appears that this is not possible. One has to click twice to get the descending sort order.

3. It would be nice to have a first column number, which is the rank number: 1, 2, 3, 4.... This could be added as an option to the row template, but again it would be terrible to maintain, as every time the ranking is changed one would manually have to go in and adjust these. Another option is to have the rank numbers as a separate static, single-column table of same layout aligned to the left of the sortable table by embedding two tables in a single row of an enclosing table as shown here. I have read this is possible, but have not managed to make it work. My example is here, but there is something wrong. Maybe another user can help? I think it is somethig very trivial, which needs to be fixed.Thanks, Jee!

No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
User User FP category Number of contributed FPs
Alvesgaspar Browse FPs 182
Archaeodontosaurus Browse FPs 150
Alchemist-hp Browse FPs 61
Cephas Browse FPs 51
AngMoKio Browse FPs 31
Carschten Browse FPs 21
A.Savin Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:A.Savin found!
99of9 Browse FPs 14
Bgag Browse FPs 11
Chepry Browse FPs No user category of featured pictures by User:Chepry found!

Any comments r suggestions would be welcome. --Slaunger (talk) 00:58, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I too read the sorting help page and it seems very complicated. Not happy with a list ordered by user name; but adding a static column with rank numbers seems difficult to maintain. Do we get a table in the ascending order of the number of FPs if we place the Number of contributed FPs as the first column? -- JKadavoor Jee 04:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not think it will be hard to maintain the rank table. It is just to add a new number at the end of the table for each new user. Unfortunately, it does not help to have the No of FPs as the first column. The initial sorting will always be in the same order as written (unless, perhaps, some additional JavaScript magic is applied to the page). But I think it is neat with the template, which gathers the relevant information for each user, and the possibility to sort the table based in PAGESINCAT magic words and some parser function logic.--Slaunger (talk) 22:00, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK; Slaunger; the current table is a good start for the Hall of Fame. Also consider Kabelleger's second last point of featuring 2-3 rows of contributors (8-12 members) at the top of the Hall of Fame page; thus eliminating the use of two separate pages for Featured Media Contributors" and Hall of Fame. The Featured Media Contributors" may be top contributors or Hall of Fame members who have latest FPs (prefer this). -- JKadavoor Jee 13:56, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment -- Sorry Slaunger, but I don't think that a table is the right approach to the problem raised by Jebulon. In my opinion we need something more attractive, both for internal as well as external use. The same sorting principles could be applied to a gallery of tiles of the type suggested above. Each tile would contain a link to a standardized page with details about the creator and his work. As for the retired members, they could be reached via a button at the bottom of the page. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see Slaunger's table more as a proof of concept. I would prefere tiles as well (just not the ugly ones with the heavy frames that were fashionable in the late nineties ;-) ). Tiles could be sorted by custom Javascript and Slaunger's template would be helpful to provide the numbers for the sorting order. --Dschwen (talk) 18:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Alvesgaspar: The example is not meant as a replacement of COM:MOP, but a conceptual idea/proof of concept (as Dschwen also mentions) for forking it in two pages, a refactored MOP containing only active FP contributors, and another, new "Hall of Fame" page, which could be a listing of all user, who has ever contributed, e.g, 10 FPs (or a top 100 or whatever). Much can be done to improve the layout, and add information/images but that is just a matter of form and markup. It should not just be for the retired users, but for all FP contributors (to avoid endless maintenence by moving users forth and back). --Slaunger (talk) 21:55, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Dschwen. Inddeed, I think some JavaScript could further help. I did see an example somewhere of how to write a JavaScript snippet, such that the sorting was remembered in between page loads. I do not know if JavaScript can be crafted, which by default sorts the table descending by the number of FPs. --Slaunger (talk) 21:55, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Excellent, Daniel & Kim! Btw, that is not design of the nineties, it was inspired by Windows 8! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Win8 has a fresher variation on this theme (but why should we copy Win8 in any case?!). This looks like Win 3.1 thumbnails. I would suggest overlaying text over the image and have the image fill the entire tile. That would get rid of the questionable color scheme as well. --Dschwen (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, this discussion seems dead. :( JKadavoor Jee 17:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:The Photographer[edit]

Request for entry of User:The Photographer. See Category:Featured pictures by User:The Photographer. ArionEstar (talk) 13:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ArionEstar: : Getting on the page is not something you request, but do yourself, if you feel like it and you have created at least 10 Commons FPs. Since The Photographer has created well above 10 FPs, he can just create a profile in analogy with other users here and add it to the page. -- Slaunger (talk) 14:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Stats[edit]

Commons:Meet our photographers has been viewed 15117 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 3390 in traffic on commons.wikimedia.org.

I didn't know about this page either, how do I get included. I have been photographing since 1973 and uploading to Commons and editing since 2006 Wayne Ray WayneRay (talk) 19:47, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WayneRay. The criterium for being admitted to the page is written in a notable box at the top of this talk page. If you have created 10 Featured Pictures on Commons, you are allowed to create a profile and add it to the page. -- Slaunger (talk) 15:04, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ok Thanks, I only have one from 2009 on the Scouting Portal so a long way to go LOL WayneRay (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

I have 10 featured photos on the EN project, but have not been submitting them to the commons FP project, can I include my profile on this project page or should I resubmit the shots already featured on the EN project here and start over? --WPPilot (talk) 14:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How do I edit my meet our photographr profile?[edit]

Hi there, could someone tell me or point to a page where I can edit my profile in this page? Many thanks! --Tomascastelazo (talk) 05:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tomascastelazo, your main profile is available here: User:Tomascastelazo/Profile. Best regards, --Alchemist-hp (talk) 06:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! --Tomascastelazo (talk) 00:08, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Counting FPs[edit]

I just posted this on Featured picture candidates. If anyone would like to comment, please go to that page. Charles (talk) 16:21, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is a template which I and many others use on our user pages to count our FPs:

Charles has uploaded 479 featured pictures to Wikimedia Commons.




It seems to me that Commons should have a template to distinguish 'own work' uploads from uploads of other people's work. Both are valuable, but are different. One would recognise photographic skill, the other would recognize users' efforts in adding high quality media to Commons. Charles (talk) 16:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

Hello everybody, what do I need to do to have my profile on page "Meet our photographers"? I already have at least 10 FP. Best regards! Tournasol7 (talk) 15:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
Then you can add your profile there. Just create User:Tournasol7/Profile and add it to Commons:Meet our photographers/People. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:41, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yann; ✓ Done. Thank you very much! Tournasol7 (talk) 14:38, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pumpkinsky[edit]

This user is banned, but still listed here. Charles (talk) 15:31, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • There is no reason to erase the pages of the history books on the pretext that the facts are not to our tastes. As long as he has ten FPs to his credit, he has his place on the page, this is the only requirement. It's not a page that lists the good behaviour. If some people want a list of exemplary people on which they appear, a list a bit like a "select club". And if "Meet our photographers" become that list, then make me aware please, that I remove my name. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why are people removing themselves?[edit]

I noticed that over the past year, there's only one new addition and a trend of several people removing themselves from this list. It's surprising because it's perhaps the most prominent page highlighting members of the community (being linked from the main page). Is this just about a trend towards greater privacy? @Code, Poco a poco, Christian Ferrer, Cccefalon, and W.carter: just curious — Rhododendrites talk |  21:19, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I quite like FP project but I don't want to be highlighted in this way anymore. I mean with a "profile page" listed here. Christian Ferrer (talk) 21:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not about privacy. I created a profile because I initially thought we were supposed to do that when we had a bunch of FPs. After a while though, I found it tacky and tasteless so I removed my entry. I'm here to donate good pictures for the Wikiproject, not to promote myself. --Cart (talk) 09:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It isn't a wish for more privacy in my case. I rather see no need to show myself to the world in that or any other way. In fact, if somebody is interested about the author behind a picture, they will find me in my user page where I provide lots of information about myself, my work and my equipment. I just don't see any need to enhance that visibility in that page. And, yes, what was a high target some years ago (achieving 10 FPs when you have none) is 670 FPs later not that inspiring anymore. Poco a poco (talk) 10:53, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the responses. I hadn't looked at this page in quite a while, but it's been on my watchlist. I liked seeing it when I was relatively new, putting faces (or at least people) to the names. It's true that making it exclusive makes it a little weird. Maybe a better requirement might be "uploaded 100 of your own photos" or something. We have some people who uploaded a handful of images, including 10 FPs, and are otherwise mostly inactive. There are also a lot of "our photographers" who consistently upload useful material but aren't interested in (or don't have the equipment, etc.) for FPC. The other issue is, of course, that it can get really long. I feel like maybe a more effective use of these mini-profiles might be to have a gadget on the main page that selects one at random, just to be clear to a new visitor that there are people here. ... Of course I say all this as someone who never actually added myself to the list. :) — Rhododendrites talk |  15:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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