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After some discussion on Talk:Morrigan it seemed clear to me me that there are some unresolved issues regarding images. So I'd like to use this discussion to resolve the issues raised there as well as some other issues regarding images. Loleil 00:18, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

What guidelines should be given to users?Edit

I think the discussion on the Morrigan page shows that trying to impose a standard on what is attractive won't really work (I though the image looked nice too). I suggest that the only hard and fast rule we have regarding images is that they are high resolution, and with enough detail to easily identify a character, location, etc., though I suspect users already have this in mind when uploading so even that may be unnecessary. Loleil 00:18, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

The issue that came up on Morrigan's discussion page about centred images for the infobox is probably a good idea: these are in a way "mugshots" where being artistic may detract from the point, which is what the character actually looks like. But for other images, such rules become counterproductive and as long as submitters use reasonable discretion (e.g. the cited example of a landscape where the subject is incidental being something to avoid!), there shouldn't be a problem, I don't think.
Perhaps a more knotty problem is trying to quantify how many is enough, and how many is too many. Though I haven't seen a problem with too many images being stuffed into pages here, I have seen it elsewhere, but it's one of those things that's a bit awkward to set down in writing and "use your own judgement" is too vague. Which isn't really a very useful comment other than drawing attention to the potential problem... --vom 00:56, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
In general, agreed. My initial thought is that all pictures for a CharacterInfoBox should be directly centered as it can be arbitrarily scaled, and my result in oddities because of that (and, as noted above and elsewhere, it is a direct portrayal of the character). Otherwise, if someone has a picture for a quest or what not, that is not centered but expresses the environment/surroundings in an "artistic" way, I wouldn't discourage that at all. Mytharox (and Zoev/Stenton/Ancestralmask/many others) uploaded a ton of images, of which I can't recall if they were all centered or not, but they certainly added a ton of value to the wiki. - Pwr905 01:13, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

What I found a little anoying with a few pages was that it only showed their faces. Morrigan could have three arms and a tentacle for all we see. Most wiki's would use a full-body shot, and I do think that would be better than just a face. Coroxn 01:41, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

I see the character infoboxes as like driver licenses myself, centred head or body shot and vital statistics, but everything else I would encourage a bit of creativity. I'm not sure what sort of rules we could reasonably implement for other images. All I can think of as a general guideline for images is
"Before uploading an image please check to make sure it doesn't already exist in the wiki. If it does, but your version is better, select the "upload a new image" option in the file. Please also make sure that images have high resolution and reasonably illustrate the subject in question and if you find a page where there are more images than there is text, consider removing less informative pictures, or making a gallery".
It's a little vague, but I think with this sort of thing it has to be. Loleil 01:54, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
I agree with everything said so far and I think some of the portrait "passport"-type images could be improved because some of them aren't high enough resolution. Also, pertaining to format, to keep the resolution high and the damage to the screenshot minimal, please advise people to use .PNG instead of .JPG format. .PNG preserves the quality of the original screenshot at the expense of file size, but I don't think anyone has problems with loading images nowadays so quality > size in general. A LOT of the images I see on this wiki are .JPG and you can see the blurry edges and deformed pixels around the colour transitions. .PNG takes care of that problem and also keeps the sharpness, which is what we want.--Gvg870 14:06, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
Yes, if .png is the standard then that should definitely be clarified. I've tended to go for .jpg because of size, but I do take Gvg870's point that this is really more of a historical consideration. But, damn it, some of my shots I'm most happy with are .jpgs and I've deleted the original screeshots. Gah! Zoev 16:07, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
I've been there too: and more to the point, with photographs, not just screenshots! But as tempted as I was to be grumpy about not making the switch sooner, I have to say I'm pleased I made the decision to move on to png format when I did anyway. At present I use Fraps for screenshots which saves in bmp format, which is lossless but huge; I manually convert these to png later on. I still use jpg where I think size is the overriding factor, such as anything containing a whole bunch of smaller images, but I keep the pngs for working on and for larger images. --vom 16:23, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

Should images of individual PC's be used?Edit

My feeling on this is no. Firstly as there isn't one type so it doesn't seem representative, but also it could cause problems where users want it to be their character who gets to be seen. To be fair I haven't seen any problems yet, but I am concerned it could become an issue later. Loleil 00:18, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

I would go as far as to say this should be actively discouraged: I was a bit taken aback when I first saw the same policy on UESP (the Elder Scrolls' wiki thingy) but actually it's a good idea and works well for the reasons stated. Though they're pretty stringent about it, I think that's probably easier to police. --vom 00:47, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. You open a whole can of worms where a particular editor with a lot of free time has their PC's image all over the wiki. Probably easier to avoid it all to begin with. - Pwr905 01:09, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
Excellent. Hard line approach it is! I'll make sure to try and weed out any pictures that have made their way in. Loleil 01:54, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

Are the CGI pictures appropriate?Edit

I've been considering removing all CGI as they are non-canon depictions, from a non-canon event and used only in one advert. As such, in-game pictures seem to be a better representation. Loleil 00:18, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

I think they're interesting, and as such, perhaps each character page would benefit from having a screenshot from the video in question, just to give a different perspective of them; personally I think there's more harm in removing them than keeping a token reference. But probably just the one, and making it clear it's not something you'll find in game. --vom 00:56, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I would lean towards leaving in the CGI images - under the tentative proposal that they be clearly marked as such; perhaps even an explanation that CGI images are not reproducible (normally) in-game. To put a finer point on it, if we take out the CGI images, we mine as well start debating deleting the concept art because its not canon. - Pwr905 01:06, January 10, 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point Pwr905, perhaps what's bothering me is that most CGI pictures are placed in the involvement section, maybe I might move them a little closer to trivia and make a note about how character x appeared in the Sacred Ashes trailer or some such. Loleil 01:54, January 10, 2010 (UTC)

My ideas on image policy Edit

After reading the above posts I thought of writing down my ideas on the image policy. I know there are several ideas that will contradict with the ideas of other members (based on the above comments), but I hope that we can agree on policy rules considering the majority.

  • CharacterInfoBox should not contains any CGI images or Concept Art images, it should only consists of in-game images (But if we cannot find a proper in-game image we can use CGI images or Concept Art images)
  • Any character image should be focused on the character not the background. We should not encourage of uploading images where that image gives the priority to the background (Exp: An image which contains a beautiful mountain as background for 60% of the image area and the character contains in the remaining image area)
  • CGI images should be preserved since they are more attractive than in-game image but only one CGI image should be available in a single character page (Also I believe that CGI characters are also belong to the "DA world". Because this Wiki doesn't represent only the "DA games". It represent the entire "DA world").
  • We should encourage the users to upload the images with higher resolution (at least 1024x768).
  • If a user is using the "thumb" option it is required to insert proper descriptive image description (Even without the "thumb" option we should encourage the user to insert proper descriptive image description)
  • The images should be inserted into the correct section (Exp: A "romance related" image should be available in the "romance" section of Morrigan , not a image of "Morrigan casts a spell" etc.)
  • A character image should not contain the entire body. It should only contains the body which is above the hip. There are can be exceptions for this when we are unable to find better / proper image.
  • The available body content of the character (within the image) should be balanced (Exp: if the right shoulder is available within the image area, the left shoulder should be available too). There are can be exceptions for this when we are unable to find better / proper image.

Special Note: When uploading maps I believe we need only the area of the map not the entire screen-shot (See [1]).

  • You should focus more on the Quality of the screenshots instead of how they are centered. I agree the first image in characterinfobox should be centered, but for others it may not necessarily be the case. Almost any screenshot from the game with resolution higher than 1280x1024 taken with max graphics settings will look pretty. And provided it doesn't entirely skirt the purpose I'd take that screenshot over a "properly centered" lower quality screenshot. That is just me though. I have a thing for high quality, especially as it relates to the beauty of DA:O. Lighting is also very important. We don't want dark screenshots so I recommend getting people to enable frame-buffer effect in Video options when they're taking a screenshot.
  • I agree on the your comments on the quality but still believes centered images should be available as much as possible. -- Snfonseka 15:38, January 11, 2010 (UTC)
  • Also I don't see the point in the "above the hip" thing? I think that's more of a personal preference rather than something which may become an eventual rule. The best thing to do is have a few people take screenshots, upload them to discussion and have people vote for those for a week or so. Then we choose what the community thinks it's best and we insert it into the page. Agree?--Gvg870 14:43, January 11, 2010 (UTC)
  • Like I said before these are "my ideas on the image policy", so my idea of the character images are that they should focused on upper body rather entire body. Also the suggested "image validation process" will take unnecessarily a lengthy time. So I believe the best solution is, that we allow to insert the images to the articles for anyone (This is a Wiki that "anyone can edit", so no monopoly is needed) and if we believe that the inserted image is not suitable for this wiki then we temporally remove it and put that image for a vote. This process will reduce unnecessary delays that will occur in your suggested process (in any case, your suggestion regarding the voting concept is a good one). We don't want to purposely delay the improvements of our articles. Thanks....-- Snfonseka 15:38, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

Is there anything implemented on having multiple images in one infobox and/or changing images to another similar picture? I see people changing pictures or adding additional pictures to already existing images in the infoboxes and the change isn't much if any an improvement.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 14:32, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

No there isn't, and I want to discourage people from changing infobox pictures just because they think it looks better. However, there are some pictures which do need to be updated to something better looking, so I'm not sure what we can do apart from keeping an eye on changes and reverting any that are a step backwards in quality. Friendship smallLoleil Talk 23:10, January 20, 2010 (UTC)
I personally don't want to be in the image wars (I don't want to post images if images already exists and currently I am not uploading any images anyways) but Starfang (Greatsword) had a picture and today they have 2 and the original was replaced, due to the policy you just posted I put up a clean up tag. Maybe people can get the 'pick your picture' and 'stop messing with it' now that its been officialized as a policy.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 23:26, January 20, 2010 (UTC)
Let's hope so! I think when there are multiple pictures of a similar standard the talk page might be the best way to resolve it too and the Starfang image is okay, it just needs to be a bit smaller, and to have the two sides evened up. Friendship smallLoleil Talk 02:45, January 21, 2010 (UTC)
All good, I talked to Light-Revan and he fixed the images. Even put the other one into a tiny gallery box for us. Great guy. -- tierrie talk contr 18:20, January 21, 2010 (UTC)
Oh, ya much better :D  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 23:08, January 21, 2010 (UTC)

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