White Wolf:Image use policy

&larr; White Wolf: Policies and Guidelines

This page outlines the rules and guidelines that apply to the use of images on WWWiki. They are not absolute, for the most part, but it is generally expected that they be observed unless there is a good cause for ignoring them.

The basic overview:


 * 1) Obey our copyright policy when uploading images.
 * 2) Use the image description page to describe an image and its copyright rules.
 * 3) Use a clear, detailed title for the file.  An obscure name like "qua_047.jpg" won't help anyone!
 * 4) Remember that an image that is uploaded will replace any file that already has that name.
 * 5) Edit (crop) the images to show only the necessary information.
 * 6) Don't include any watermarks or text in the image (this includes copyright notices; those belong in the text of the image description page!).
 * 7) Use the JPEG format for photographic images, and PNG or GIF for diagrams and other low-contrast images.

Remember that WWWiki is not an image gallery! We have a finite amount of disk space and bandwidth available, and that space would be best used for adding more articles. The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" is quite literally true, considering average file sizes for images. Please upload images solely for the purpose of illustration. Generally, no more than one or two images should be used in an article; three images might be acceptable for some long articles.

Describing images
When creating an image, it is important to include text to describe the content of the image. This can be done by editing the page text. In all cases, the images should be accompanied by a specific note with:


 * credit for the original author of the image or other media file (if the file is a fan-created work) including a link where the original author may be contacted, or
 * the original source of the image or other media file (if the file is derived from an official White Wolf work, e.g. cover images, screenshots and sound bytes).

You must also include information about:


 * whether the file is uploaded to WWWiki with express permission of the author, or under fair use rules, and
 * the source of the file, being a specific game, movie, book, other official work, a website, or any other medium.

Adding the appropriate descriptions on the Image: page not only ensures that WWWiki remains compliant with copyright rules, but also provides much more practical information for anyone who may want to use an image in the future.

Copyright
Please note: this is not the official copyright policy — it is merely a reminder and additional tips.

When you upload an image, make sure you own the image, or that it is in the Public Domain, or that the copyright holder has agreed to license it under the Creative Commons License. Please note its copyright status on the image description page.

Images that are cover images, screenshots and other snapshots from Star Trek books, games and movies generally fall under the category of fair use, as long as they are not posted in large numbers. Be sure to include the appropriate boilerplate message with the description.

Many White Wolf fans spend time creating their own artwork, either recreating images from the shows or original scenes inspired by the games. Do not upload such fan-created images to WWWiki without the express consent of the author. If you do upload an original fan image, you must include a note naming the original author, a link to the author's website as a source, and confirm that the image is posted with the author's consent.

Editing images
To replace an image with an edited version, use the upload file page, and make sure that your file has the same name as the one that you want to replace. Converting an image to another file format the (end of) the image name changes, hence one gets a separate image description page.

Deleting images

 * 1) Drop a line to the person who uploaded the image, telling them of your concerns. You may be able to resolve the issue at this point.
 * 2) Remove all uses of the image from articles - make it an orphan
 * 3) Add one of these notices to the image description page
 * 4) * copvios: add the copyright infringement notice for images from possible copyright infringements to the image description page:
 * 5) * otherwise: add the listed for deletion notice to the image description page.
 * 6) List the image on one of these links:
 * 7) * copyvios: list the image on possible copyright infringements
 * 8) * otherwise: list the image on White Wolf:Images for deletion
 * 9) The image can then be deleted after a week in the normal way - see our deletion policy.

To actually delete an image after following the above procedure, you must be an administrator. To do so, go to the image description page and click the (del) link. Do not click the Delete this page link, as this will delete the image description page but leave the image intact. To delete the image talk page (if any), you can use the Delete this page link as usual. Deleted images cannot be undeleted! Therefore they are gone permanently unless someone happened to keep a backup.

Image titles
Before uploading an image to WWWiki, please check whether there are already images of the subject. Then decide whether your image should replace one (in each article that uses it) or be additional. In the first case, give it exactly the same name, otherwise a suitable other name.

Using the same name
Using the name of an already existing image means replacing that image. You may use the same name in the case of a different image that replaces the old one, and also if you make an improved version of the same image - perhaps a scanned image that you scanned again with a better quality scanner, or you used a better way of reducing the original in scale - then upload it with the same title as the old one. This allows people to easily compare the two images, and avoids the need to delete images or change articles. However, this is not possible if the format is changed, since then at least the extension part of the name has to be changed.

Using a new name
Using a new name means creating a new file on WWWiki. Suitable names are descriptive titles that are useful in identifying the image. An image of the cover of the second edition of Vampire: The Masquerade could simply be called "vampire.png", for example, but quite likely more images about vampires will exist on WWWiki. In this case, it is good to be more specific, e.g. "vampire_the_masquerade_2nd_cover.png".

As a rule of thumb, the name of any new image you upload should start with the article title of the object or person it shows. If there's more than one object or person, choose the most important one. After that title, you might want to add a (very short) description, or a qualifier such as a year, the abbreviation of a movie title, etc.

Avoid special characters in filenames or excessively long filenames, though, as that might make it difficult for some users to download the files onto their machines. Note that names are case sensitive, "vampire.PNG" is considered different from "vampire.png". For uniformity, file names should consist of lower case letters only.

Renaming images
Currently, there is no easy way to rename an image — it has to be downloaded, then uploaded using another name. Administrators are allowed to "copy" images to a new name this way and delete the original image, if the file name doesn't adhere to the above rules.

Format
Use the following guidelines to determine what file format should be used for your images:
 * Drawings, icons, political maps, flags and other such images (basically those with large, simple, and continuous blocks of color) should be in PNG or GIF format.
 * Photos and photo-like maps should be in JPEG format.

In general, if you have a good image that is in the wrong format, convert it to the correct format before uploading. However, if you find a map, flag, etc in JPEG format, only convert it to PNG if this reduces the file size without causing artifacts.

Try to avoid cropping or otherwise editing JPEGs too frequently — each edit creates more loss of quality. If you can find an original of a photograph in 16-bit or 24-bit PNG or TIFF, edit that, and save as JPEG before you upload.

Note that it is not recommended to use animated GIFs to display multiple photos. The method is not suitable for printing and also is not user friendly (users can not save individual images and have to wait before being able to view images while other images cycle round)

Size
There are many technical hints in this section that some people may not have the tools or expertise to deal with themselves. If, for example, you find a great image that needs to be cropped, resized, or recoded and you don't know how to do that, ask someone on the Paw Prints page to do it for you.

Scale and crop images to a size appropriate for the article. Keep in mind that many browsers still use 800x600 displays, and so images wider than 200-300 pixels may overwhelm the article. Larger images also take more time to download over slow links. Likewise, images smaller than 100 pixels wide may be difficult for users of larger displays to see. An optimum size for images with text flowing around them would be 200 pixels. Images without text on the side can be wider.

Images appearing in a sidebar should be resized to a width of exactly 200 pixels; larger images would stretch the sidebar while smaller ones would leave an unused border. Don't put all images in a sidebar, though - floating images are preferred. (See Help:Image markup for the available syntax).


 * (As of March 2004, it is no longer necessary that images be the exact size that they are to be displayed in the article — the MediaWiki software can resize images so that thumbnails of larger images are displayed in the articles themselves, and links to the full-size image are automatically generated.)

In terms of image file size, please also bear in mind that not everyone has a broadband internet connection. A considerable number of people have 56kbps modems or slower connections than that. Images stored in an article should generally be kept below 70 kilobytes in size, and 35 kilobytes or smaller is even better. Larger images are okay to use as a link, but please warn people that the image is larger.

See also: Help: Image markup

Revision history of articles containing images
Old versions of articles do not show corresponding old versions of images, but the latest ones, unless the file names of the images have changed.