[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Commons

Wed Jun 2 11:20:00 UTC 2004

"Karl Eichwalder" <ke at gnu.franken.de> schrieb:
> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:
> 
> > I think it would be very nice to be able to have portfolios of images
> > of specific topics, even when we only use 1 or 2 of the images in a
> > particular article on a particular wikipedia.
> 
> I'd like to support your proposal.
> 
> > For example, we might quickly end up with 50 different pictures of the
> > Leaning Tower of Pisa.
> 
> Yes, those series are very useful.  Don't hesitate to upload detailed
> pictures (with descriptions, of course) and link them together on a main
> page.

In my opinion, it kind of depends on what the pictures show, and on what
descriptions are given. I don't want 50 similar pictures of the tower of
Pisa. I do want 50 pictures if this one is taking at sunset, that one shows
the surroundings as well and the third one is from an unusual direction.

I have said something against this kind of thing on the Wikicommons discussion
page, but please understand that I am not against having many pictures on
one subject. I am against having many very similar pictures and against
pictures with insufficient description.

I don't want 100 pictures of "a yellow flower". I do want 10 pictures each
of a 1000 different yellow flowers. I don't want 50 portraits of George W.
Bush. I do want 200 pictures of George W. Bush if some are portraits,
others show him sign a law as governor of Texas, others show him speaking
to the congress, others show him among soldiers in Iraq, etcetera.

In short, what I want is to request that pictures are either
* because of what they show (the 50th tower of Pisa, but only the second
  one from this angle)
* because of the additional information (the 30th George W. Bush signing
  a law, but we are being told _which_ law is being signed)
duplicates of not more than a few pictures in the collection.

Andre Engels