Commons talk:Picture of the Year/Help

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Picture of the Year 2023 || Introduction – Discussion – Committee || R1 Categories || R2 Finalists || Results

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Question from Augustgeyler

How many finalists will be selected out of round 1? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Augustgeyler (talk • contribs) 19:27, 20 April 2023‎ (UTC)

Hi @Augustgeyler. The top 30 overall, and the top 2 in each category (if not in the top 30) will advance as finalists for Round 2. Legoktm (talk) 04:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Can I vote for more than one picture?

Can I vote for more than one picture? Just wondering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheoneilSpeidJM (talk • contribs) 18:06, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

@TheoneilSpeidJM: Yes, you can vote for up to three images in the current round. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:33, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Question from SantiagoRMZ358

Why I still can't vote? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SantiagoRMZ358 (talk • contribs) 13:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@SantiagoRMZ385: The requirement for voting is a total of 75 edits on any Wikimedia project (Commons, Wikipedia, etc.) before January 1, 2024. It looks like your total number of edits right now it 35. Make 40 edits before January 1 to vote in next year's contest. :) — Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:46, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from NutmegBites

How do I vote? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NutmegBites (talk • contribs) 18:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

See this page for eligibility information: Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2023/Rules. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  18:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from El Comandante

Hello,

Is it possible to see a list of the pictures I've voted for?

El Comandante (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

See this link to find pages where your votes have been recorded. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 08:11, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from MenkinAlRire

Instead of the img title registered cultural heritage sites have text displayed like this: "This is a photo of a monument which is part of cultural heritage of Italy. This monument participate..." They don't really say much. It would be nice, to have these templates not override the proper image titles. (To indicate that its a registered monument an icon would suffice.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MenkinAlRire (talk • contribs) 21:09, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@MenkinAlRire, could you please provide a link for example? Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 08:18, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@ZI Jony, maybe half of the religious buildings show only these captions, e.g. File:Catedral de Westminster, Londres, Inglaterra, 2022-11-23, DD 49-51 HDR.jpg; maybe it is better to look at the list and search for e.g. "This is a photo of listed building number" xy 6x "This is a photo of a cultural heritage property in the Philippines with ID" 5x, "This is a photo of a monument which is part of cultural heritage of Italy" 8x ... and several others that appear once like "This is an image of rijksmonument number" xy. MenkinAlRire (talk) 08:38, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@MenkinAlRire, I'd like suggest you to contact the original author of the photo. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 09:12, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I think MenkinAlRire is talking about the way the gallery page sometimes includes e.g. "This is a photo of a monument in Pakistan identified as the" instead of a description of the actual monument. This is a known issue which we will hopefully fix next year. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  11:35, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites, you don't just shoot excellent pictures, you get me, too.-) I have to admit, my description wasn't really good. But your answer is (I didn't expect it to be solved this time.) Thank you, both. MenkinAlRire (talk) 11:51, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Juandev

How do I comment on PotY JavaScript functionality? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juandev (talk • contribs) 21:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Juandev, please let us know your comment/suggestions regarding JavaScript at Commons talk:Picture of the Year. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 08:21, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from AdrianManera

Hi there. The excellent https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Incense_in_Vietnam.jpg is -I think- erroneously catalogued under Objects/Other objects but should be under People and human activity/People and human activity

Is this the right place to raise this? AdrianManera (talk) 21:25, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@AdrianManera, image recategorized. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 08:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Wladek92

A page to resume my votes ?

Nice travel through the complete galleries! I think that some pictures - all of high interest, thanks to their authors - are rather for documentation, learning, topic illustration than Picture of the year. I have completed my selection but what have i voted for ? i cannot review my list. -- Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 07:37, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Wladek92, see this link to find pages where your votes have been recorded. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 08:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Numinex27

Are there requirements to be eligible to vote? edit: nevermind I found the answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Numinex27 (talk • contribs) 20:48, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Numinex27, seems you are not eligible to vote! See this page for eligibility information: Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2023/Rules. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 12:46, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Duschgeldrache2

The picture of Smilodon populator Lund (Crâne de smilodon exposé au Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.jpg) is in the wrong gallery, because it’s a mammal. It should be like the buffalo skull (Weathered Buffalo Skull Lupande Zambia Jul23 A7C 06119.jpg) under “Mammals”. Don’t know if this could be a problem. Maybe some people couldn't find it anymore.

Btw: The picture of the carpet of yellow algae (Alfombra de algas amarillas, parque nacional Ras Muhammad, Egipto, 2022-03-27, DD 42.jpg) is also in the wrong gallery. In present-day biology algae are no valid taxon. But they are definitly no animals. Because it would be a problem to make a new gallery (something like “Other lifeforms”) it could be put in “Plants and fungi” for historical reasons (matter of botany). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Duschgeldrache2 (talk • contribs) 05:54, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Duschgeldrache2 the photo you are talking about is under Animals/Other animals category. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 12:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Fun fact: I know that, because that’s why I posted here. Once more, IMHO Other animals is the wrong gallery. --Duschgeldrache2 (talk) 13:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@Duschgeldrache2, recategorized the photo. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 18:03, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Ijon

Nothing happens when I click Vote Now. On both Firefox and Chrome, without JS blockers. Ijon (talk) 16:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

One relevant line I see in the browser's console is:

POTY> init undefined

Ijon (talk) 16:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

You have to select a gallery after clicking on "Vote now". Once on a gallery you have to click on "Vote for this image" bellow each image and not on "Vote now" -- Giles Laurent (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. It's confusing that such a prominent invitation to clicking doesn't display anything or disappear... Ijon (talk) 17:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kersti Nebelsiek

Where are all the nice functions the voting pages had had the year before?

1. I can't any longer make the pictures as big as I want!
2. When I try to use the right mouse button, to put the picture on a different tab, only a thumbnail is visible.
3. When I tap on the link "Datei anzeigen" I am no longer on the page, where I was and can't go the page with pe pictures down in one rune, but always have to change back to the tab with the voting page.

All in all the voting pages were much better last year! Kersti (talk) 06:27, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

@Kersti Nebelsiek, due to some technical reasons Ingenuity rewrite our POTY scripts, some functions may missed here! However, we are always try to improve your UX. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 07:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Simon Villeneuve

Hi,

This image have been imported in 2016. The 2023 entry is based on a revert. It can nevertheless be submitted for PotY 2023 ? - Simon Villeneuve 13:40, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

@Simon Villeneuve, as this file promoted as featured pictures in 2023, we have to consider it for POTY 2023. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 07:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok. I thought that the import date was important for a PotY. So the only criterion is the featured date ? - Simon Villeneuve 18:41, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Fredericknoronha

How come so few images from the global south? Either there's a lack of cameras (or volunteers) there, or we have a bias in our judging. Lot of lovely images from Europe/North America, or even spaces where Western tourists travel. But this certainly isn't reflective of "the sum of all human knowledge" (or reflective of our world). Please do something to correct this imbalance. --Fredericknoronha Fredericknoronha (talk) 00:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Fredericknoronha, POTY is conducted on the basis of featured pictures. POTY 2023 is running based on pictures promoted to featured pictures on 2023. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 07:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I suggest at least some of the gap is due to lower participation from the so-called "global south" in Commons' processes, beyond contributing files. To even be considered here, a photo needs to have been promoted to featured status. To have a chance of being promoted, it first has to be nominated. And to be nominated, a file has to be noticed by someone who cares.

I would seek one major origin of the gap (not necessarily bias, as you are perhaps too hasty to suggest) in that: i.e. there are not enough people noticing contributions from the global majority, and nominating them according to the featured pictures process. You and others can contributed to narrowing the gap by more actively participating in nominating worthy pictures from global majority countries. Ijon (talk) 20:06, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it is due to a lack of cameras and volunteers - in Germany for example even people who live on social welfare will get a real good used camera, if they are really interested in their photographing hobby, as many people who have enough money tho buy such cameras will soon buy a better one and resell their old one - or give it for no money to frieds or kin. In poorer countries this is not the case, as good used cameras are still costly. As the world is solving their social issues this will change in poorer countries too, but it will take time. Kersti (talk) 07:56, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this important issue Fredericknoronha .

There are many factors that make this contest sadly lack images of the global south and one of them was explained by Kersti.

But another important factor is in my opinion Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) and Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM). Every year, these two contests bring tens of thousands of excellent new pictures to Wikimedia Commons : WLE brought over 80'000 new images in 2024(!) and WLM brought over 188'000 new images in 2024 (!!). Among those pictures a big number of them get used in the articles and these images also have excellent chances of reaching the Featured picture status that is necessary to be qualified to the POTY competition. If you check the Featured picture candidates (FPC) right now you'll see many monuments as the current candidates because many of these pictures were uploaded as part of WLM 2024 that is mostly happening between 1st of September and 31th of October. And in May to July (during WLE) there are usually a lot of pictures of animals/natural parks on FPC.

The problem is that Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments are currently closed to some countries and don't accept their images. For the moment, only pictures from countries with a local organizer are allowed to enter the contest. But many countries of the global south lack a local organizer and the pictures from these countries are therefore forbidden to enter these contests since years. A very simple way to resolve the lack of organizers for some countries would be to just add a "Wiki Loves Earth in the rest of the world" and a "Wiki Loves Monuments in the rest of the world" open to all countries without local organizer, just like Wiki Science Competition already does, so that the whole world would finally be allowed to enter these contests. I proposed this idea on WLE 2024 talk page (saying it would would bring more diversity to the contest and allow to highlight less usual places) but I received no answer.

I really hope that in 2025 WLE and WLM open themselves to the whole world and not just a few countries as it would result in many people (myself included) posting pictures from these other countries.

Pinging OlesiaLukaniuk (WMUA), Romaine and Ciell (creators of WLE/WLM main pages).

Thank you for reading/considering this and have a beautiful day -- Giles Laurent (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

One major photo contest is forgotten: Wiki Loves Africa. (And currently Wiki Loves Monuments is still running until the end of the month!)

First I like to say that the idea to open up a photo contest to the whole world was mine idea a long time ago, but having discussed this in the Wiki Loves Monuments team, there are major issues that have to be addressed to make that work. With just a very small organising team as we have, this is not doable. Also I like to remind you that organising a photo contest is a huge amount of work. Every year each photo contests drains a lot of energy and time from the volunteers who organise it, please don't underestimate that.

It is too easy to say that Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments just should open up to every place in the world. Already these photo contests produce such a high quantity of photos, that many photos still aren't properly categorised. And then they are at least categorised by country! If these photo contests would open up to everywhere in the world, then I expect the number of photos getting uploaded would double in size. But then making sure those photos get properly categorised/etc, that will be a huge challenge. I would expect that we need at least a team of 20 volunteers to take up that task, before we can seriously start thinking about it. Also don't forget, I am just talking about categorisation. It would be impossible to send an additional 100 000 images to the international jury of each contest. So we also need a team of at least 10 volunteers who would form a jury to select the best photos from all the countries without a national jury (and then I am hoping the tools used for the jury process can handle such large amount of photos). But also earlier in the process there is another burden. How do we make sure that if half the world sees the banner (It is common to serve a banner in the local language of everyone who sees it, meaning hundreds of languages! -> According to Ethnologue, there are over 7,000 living and dynamic languages.) they end up on a landing page that is translated into the many local languages existing in the world (we can't assume everyone speaks English or one of the other major languages). Who (multiple volunteers!) is going to take the responsibility to make sure that page (and the banner) gets translated in the many languages? (Most energy related to that goes into finding all these people who can translate and making sure they do so.) And there are more challenges.

At this moment thousands of photos from the various photo contests from the past 14 years have not been properly categorised. This is an issue that is caused by technology limitations, limitations in number of available volunteers, their limited capacity, and limited interest to work on this. I had the idea to bring this issue up this year, if this issue gets solved and if you can find the number of volunteers needed to take up the tasks required to be able to properly organise a photo contest in a global scale, then sure we can think of opening a photo contest to the whole world. Romaine (talk) 12:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer Romaine!

I'm happy to hear that you already had the idea to open the photo contest to the whole world. I totally acknowledge that organising a photo contest is a huge amount of work and I'm extremely grateful towards all the volunteers that organise them, including yourself, thank you!

I know saying things is easier than doing them but things always need to be said before being done. This is why I think it would be a great thing if you could discuss it with other organizers as you said that you planned to do so for this year.

In 20 years, 109'000'000 files have been uploaded to commons and tens of millions of them are still unproperly categorised. Yes it is regrettable that we have uncategorised files but I think it is more important to have doors open to files from underrepresented places/countries because even if some of these files also become unproperly categorised, the best of them will have been selected and properly categorised by the jury and given the proper highlight that they deserve. These selected files will then be likely to be promoted to Featured picture statuts and finally run into POTY contest so that in the end more diversity gets represented.

So if only one had to be done because of lack of ressources I think that it would be more important having a jury for the rest of the world instead of the 20 people categorizing pictures. Also, in case it would be absolutely necessary to have good categories (which shouldn't be the case since WLE/WLM have ran for years and still have unproperly categorised files as you said), it would be a possibility to put responsibility of good categorization on the uploader and state that unproperly categorised files will not be taken into account by the jury.

As for the contest page langage, I think it's more important just having a contest page open to the whole world even if it's only english than not having a contest page because not translated to 7000 langages. Many people can use Google translate included in their browser if they need or copy/paste stuff to DeepL/Google translation. Wiki Science Competition was only in english for the rest of the world for example.

As for the tools for the jury I think WLM in Italy must use a good one because they reviewed 50'000 pictures in 2023.

Also, these contests are what bring many people to Wikimedia and some of the people brought here with the contests might want to help in return some day. So opening up to the whole world can attract people to Wikimedia that would otherwise never come here.

To sum up, I think it would be more important to have open doors to the whole world, even if everything would not be as perfect as we want with categories and langages, so that we can host and promote more diversity.

Kind regards, -- Giles Laurent (talk) 14:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

If we get 80 000 additional new images which are uncategorised (or just by country), this will be a big mess and those images can't easily be found and then also not used. Just opening up a contest without thinking about the categorisation, does not solve a gab in contributions from areas of the world with less images. (And also this non-categorisation would frustrate the community a lot in the work it is doing.)

Photo contests have been organised the most in the more wealthy areas of the world and relatively less in other areas. People living in a less wealthier area of the world often had less education, causing they speak less or no other languages. How to exclude people from areas where we have less images from: just offer a banner and landing page not in their local language. It practically excludes them. Google Translate is offered only in 243 languages currently, mainly languages from the wealthier areas of the world, and in many of the areas with less photos people speak a language not covered by Google.

But I think a large limitation is the available number of volunteers who wants to help and the scale of the work needed to be done. After WLM was organised in 2010 for the 1st time, it only opened up to teams from European countries to be able to deal with the amount of work that is needed to properly organise it, and then in 2012 open to teams from everywhere in the world. This step by step opening up was not for nothing. Another thing that can be noticed is that there are not enough volunteers for each single country, so the volunteers from multiple countries work together in organising one local contest for a group of countries. This has happened for example in Belgium-Luxembourg and the Levant.

Looking at the map of past photo contests, there are multiple places with relatively less participation:

• Caribbean islands (some part of larger countries elsewhere) + countries in Central America
• Africa
• Central Asia
• Oceania

To simple say that a photo contest is opened up to everywhere, will likely end up in a big mess. But I think it can be a solution to form a team for an area with multiple countries/islands. In many of these areas the number of volunteers is relatively low, but together and with support from elsewhere in the world, a team can be formed in what for example WLM/WLE is organised in an area together. It is important also to reach out to and include the involvement of local people. Romaine (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from DragonflySixtyseven

"Round 1 will end 14 October 2024, 23:59:59."

In what time zone?

Question from Isla

Is it possible to undo a vote? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isla (talk • contribs) 17:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from 47.206.73.105

Why does it say not eligible on the tab that is suppossed to say vote? — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 47.206.73.105 (talk) 15:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kerrimoon

After selecting three images, what do I do to submit them? There is no "submit" button. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kerrimoon (talk • contribs) 20:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Alexysun

Hi there, How many pictures can you vote for for Finalists? Alexysun (talk) 04:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from Félix An

Why do all the buttons say "Voting closed"? It's only October 21. Félix An (talk) 02:28, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Question from 2603:7081:7942:C93C:B530:F909:3995:CF6B

How do you vote? Every picture says 'not eligible'. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2603:7081:7942:C93C:B530:F909:3995:CF6B (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)