Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Help desk/Archive 1 (section)

== Adding pics to other people's articles ==

Howdo all. I've just signed up to the site, as I have used it as an encyclop&aelig;dia for some time now, and thought it was about time I contributed back to this great project.

Anyhoo, I was wondering if it would be terribly rude if I added some of my own photographs to some of the articles, for example [[Manchester Town Hall]], or if I should really focus my contribution on textual stuff first.

-- [[User:OwlofDoom|OwlofDoom]] 17:31, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

: There's simply no such thing as someone owning an article, so everyone is free to add whatever pictures they deem relevant and necessary to any article they want.  So jump right in. -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 17:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

:: Great! Thanks for letting me know. I wasn't really concerned about "ownership" though, more that a picture is hardly an intelligent contribution. :) Still, I feel better now.

:: -- [[User:OwlofDoom|OwlofDoom]] 17:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

::: We generally have far too few pictures, and of those too many that are either of dubious status or dubious quality.  If all you ever do is upload photos of stuff you've taken, then you've still made an invaluable contribution.  And if they're all of the quality of the Manchester Town Hall one we're in for a treat.  You can tell you're a wikiholic when you wake up some Saturday, look out of the window, think "oh, it's sunny", and immediately head off to photograph every encyclopedia-worthy thing in town before the rain comes. -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 19:01, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

:::Finaly's right. No one [[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles|owns articles]]. You might be interested in [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]]. We are very grateful for anyone contributing images. Please don't feel it's a less useful contribution. It really isn't. [[User:Angela|Angela]][[user talk:Angela|.]] 22:37, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
::::In fact, a picture is very important in an article about a building. So if all you ever did was add pictures of buildings like the one at [[Manchester Town Hall]], those of us with interest in architecture would be thrilled. [[User:Isomorphic|Isomorphic]] 17:42, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
So, (In a similar question), is adding pictures welcomed? I mean, I think quite a few of the technical articles could do with a few diagrams being added, but I wasn't sure if it was 'frowned' upon for bloating the database.... [[User:Xgkkp|Xgkkp]] 11:26, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
:Adding pictures is greatly encouraged.  If you've got good pictures or diagrams that you can release under Wikipedia's [[GFDL]] license, go right ahead and add them.  File size and database bloat are not issues, at least within reason.  In fact, it seems that we won't give articles [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|featured]] status anymore unless they have a picture or diagramm. [[User:Isomorphic|Isomorphic]] 17:42, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

To follow up on this subject, I just want to ask simply, are images from government websites (US and Canadian primarily) considered public domain and therefore good to use here? [[User:TimothyPilgrim|TimothyPilgrim]] 01:58, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

:The US government does not claim copyright so images from there should usually be ok unless the site says otherwise. The same is not true of other governments though, who do claim copyright. See [[crown copyright]] for example. [[User:Angela|Angela]][[user talk:Angela|.]] 14:17, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)