Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions/Archive 1

criteria for a good caption: New Tips

In light of the criteria for a good caption I would like to suggest a new addition to the tips for writing captions:

• Try to draw your reader into the article by providing links to relevant sections within the article from the caption. (see here for how to do this) and the Ebola article for an example. Richard Taylor 18:37, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In incorporating Richard Taylor's sensible tip, I have wound up bravely editing the guidelines 1) to establish that they are merely guidelines (possibly staying some unnecessary interference) 2) to be more explicit about the role of captions 3) to reduce the shrill insistence on "complete sentences" which is not a fixed rule in any publishing context: look at your own best-produced books. The one "rule" I eliminated was this: "...is an active sentence (that is, it doesn't use the verb to be)" as it might be tiresome for adults to be given directives about "good captions" that betray grammatical misconceptions that are as basic as this one. The one "exception I eliminated was this: "Images of the subject of biographical articles (A good caption is best, no caption is okay. A year for the photo is important)." Through an editor's following the guideline as an inflexible rule, an image at George III of Great Britain does not identify the painter's name or the date. I also switched "Exceptions to the rules" for "Special situations." I don't think any of the new text is very controversial, but you never can tell... I hope we can move forward, further refining what makes good captions, rather than merely reverting this attempt. --Wetman 18:13, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Formating Options

We've seen three options for formatting the picture so far:

1. Thumbnail with no caveat about the font size
2. Thumbnail with caveat about the font size
3. Full size image

I tried the third option first when previewing the first edition of the page and it looked potentially confusing with the double frame and image text just like the caption text, so I went for the first option which prompted a lengthy addition to the caption - which is then not a concise caption as recommended by the text immediately to its left.

Perhaps the thumbnail size was too small. (I'd only taken the default. The picture is 279px wide.) Perhaps the thumbnail icon is too obscure. -- ke4roh 11:38, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mega caption

Graner poses over the dead body of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner; a small patch of blood can be seen on his right temple and his eyes are sealed closed with tape. According to Spc. Jason Kenner's testimony, al-Jamadi was brought to the prison by Navy SEALs in good heath; Kenner says he saw that al-Jamadi looked extensively bruised when he was brought out of the showers, dead. According to Kenner a "battle" took place among CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose the body. Captain Donald Reese, company commander of 372nd Military Police Company, gave testimony about al-Jamadi's death, saying that he saw the dead prisoner. Reese was quoted as saying that "I was told that when he was brought in, he was combative, that they took him up to the room and during the interrogation he passed ... (the body) was bleeding from the head, nose, mouth." Reese stated that the corpse was locked in a shower room overnight and the next day was fitted with an intravenous drip. The body was then autopsied, concluding that the cause of death was a blood clot from trauma. Reese stated that this was an attempt to hide what occurred from other inmates; many believe it was part of a cover-up to hide the death from the outside world.

How big should captions get: Charles Graner? — Matt 04:12, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Shorter than that! A caption's job is not to tell the whole story, just to let the picture tell the story and lead the reader to the article for details.

Manadel al-Jamadi, allegedly combative, was bruised in the shower and died of a resultant blood clot. Graner gives signs of approval.

And the rest can go in the story.-- ke4roh 10:25, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

To be more complete: The information is excellent for the photo's description page because it gives detailed background. So much as the information relates to Graner, it should be included in the body of the Graner article. A caption should ideally be one sentence. If the information is too cumbersome for one, two will suffice. Three is getting long, and four is typically bordering on the absurd. Try to condense the sentences to give the most essential information in the shortest space. See the Marshall, Texas article for examples of longer, but still reasonable, captions. -- ke4roh 15:21, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

If a photo is subject matter in an article, as in this case, a long description is justified, but it may be better to make the photo with long description a separate section, with the text not a caption but regular text.--Patrick 21:54, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Short captions

Some have brought up the subject of short captions like "Broad Street Station, London, 1865" (under Image:Broad street station 1865.png on the train station article). When I wrote captions for a printed book, they insisted on complete sentences. I've never found a caption like that in National Geographic Magazine, either. We should strive for excellence in our captions by providing background information - filling in the unseen and giving context for the picture. Why was this picture chosen for the article on train stations, for example? Was it the first? Is it typical? There is more to putting a picture in an article than simply declaring the subject of the picture. The act requires tying the picture to the article through the caption. -- ke4roh 21:13, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

See also the conversation on Talk:Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution#text of portrait. -- ke4roh 19:24, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Another reason to write full sentences for captions is it tends to fulfill the other goals. It's hard to write a full sentence caption that doesn't fulfill at least one other goal of a good caption, and with that in mind, a full sentence is a good place to start. Keep in mind that captions are wiki text just like the articles - they're always subject to improvement! -- ke4roh 19:24, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Establishing relevance

We've had a controversy over the captions for Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The images are portraits of historical figures involved in controversies that led to the amendment. Objections were raised to lengthy captions that described the specific controversies. I think those captions were excessive. It is only necessary to establish the existence and broad nature of the connection between the subject of the image and the subject of the article. This is enough for the reader to find the right part of the article text for details. Since, in this case, the images themselves contained nothing more that was relevant to the article, the single sentence establishing relevance was all that was necessary. 81.168.80.170 21:19, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My feelings on the issue are: 1. At most, one sentence should be included in the caption. Anything further should go in the main article. 2. All pictures do not need detailed captions. In a well-written article, the text adjacent to the article may explain the picture sufficiently. If a reader wonders about the relevance of the caption, let him or her actually read the article. 3. When the article is on a particular topic, a caption depicting the subject need not have anything longer than a few words. For example: consider the article Nikola Tesla. The caption for the first picture is more than enough. 4. Lengthy captions are necessary only when the caption is not explained in full by the adjacent text. They should used when there is something extraordinary demonstrated by the picture, not thoroughly explored in the main body of the article. Consider, for example, the first picture in Pope John Paul I. -- Emsworth 21:44, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(For information and context, Emsworth seems most concerned with captions on portraits of people.) There is some more guidance about when not to write captions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Writing Captions#Standard image types. Nominative pictures (which simply serve as an example of the subject of the article with no further information) generally don't need captions at all. In writing captions, I've found that the most difficult are for portraits. Shorter is better, but it's also harder to write concisely, and there's nothing to tell about a portrait except the date. I agree that the adjacent text should explain the picture in detail, and I also believe that the caption should explain it in brief, as a means of introduction to the adjacent text for readers scanning the article. -- ke4roh 23:34, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the caption text should make readers interested to read the adjacent text. Interested. Waking up. Thus, boring text pieces are not recommendable. For this very reason, the caption text should not answer to everything. But it should steer to the correct portion of adjacent text. 213.243.157.114 00:19, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If the "nominative illustration" is a portrait, the name of the painter is always relevant, even if the editor has not heard of the painter. The date too is always relevant, even of a photo: "Einstein, 1906" Sometimes the photographer's name is relevant too: "photographed by Man Ray". Often details in the image might be missed, but would be obtrusive in the text: "wearing the Order of the Garter" "Buckingham House is in the background." etc. --Wetman 05:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Standard image types

Moved from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Writing_Captions

Articles about chemical elements, such as helium, contain an image of the periodic table with the element highlighted. How should these be captioned? We should apply whatever we decide to all the element articles, not just ones in our list to review. Are there any other standardised image types that should get uniform treatment? 81.168.80.170 18:11, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There are several types of images that warrant special treatment:

• Periodic table snipets for each element - no caption needed
• Images of Element samples in the element info box - no caption needed
• Images of plants and animals (fungi? others?) in info boxes - no caption needed
• Images of the subject of biographical articles (A good caption is best, no caption is okay. A year for the photo is important).
• Info box images with mission insignia - no caption needed, but if there's a description of the symbolism, it should be included on the image description page
• Other images (especially within standard info boxes) where the purpose of the image is clearly nominative, that is, that the picture serves as the typical example of the subject of the article and offers no further information - no caption needed.
• Chemical compound diagrams (as in TNT) could benefit from a mention of the role of the structure in the properties of the compound.

-- ke4roh 21:48, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

Added to Wikipedia:Captions#Special situations

Captioning rationale

My logic goes like:

• Captions should be short because there's already plenty of structure available to article content, not to mention the ability to structure relationships between different articles. Long captions are a new kind of structure, 'sidebars' like in magazines, or perhaps just another way to lay out content on a page. If Wikipedia ever wants these they should be explicit structures that are distinct from captions, or alternate content formatting should be introduced to produce a different visual layout of existing article structure. Either way, captions should be short, not mini-articles.
• If a caption contains no additional information, nothing that's not obvious to anybody who sees the image, it shouldn't be there.
• If a caption merely names the image subject then it is obvious and boring to those who recognize the image. To those who don't recoginse the image or are unfamiliar with the article's subject such captions are:
  • virtually ignorable, when the object in the image is the subject of the article (e.g. "Freud" under picture of Freud in Freud article)
  • uninteresting minutia when the image subject is an example of a general class of things (e.g. "1965 Ford Mustang" under picture of car in car article)
  • mysterious and confusing when the article is about something abstract that cannot be depicted (e.g. "Periodic Table of Elements" under table in atom theory article)

So, the image caption should do more than label, it should be interesting, or make the article subject interesting. It should be a single thought, so as to be short. This means one complete sentence (by definition). However, writing sentences is hard so it's ok to punt and overflow your thought into more than one sentence to be collapsed later.

This argument leads directly to these guidelines:

• If the caption is larger than the image, something's wrong.
• When the image depicts the subject of the article (headshots, etc.) write an interesting thought about the subject.
• When the image depicts an example write a thought about what makes the example a good one.
• When the image instructs or illistrates, point out an instruction or illistruation that is non-obvious to the uninformed reader
• When the article is about something abstract that cannot be depicted, point out a connection between the image and the article that an uninformed reader would not otherwise know

In all cases you need not assume that the reader has read the article, in fact you may assume he has not.

Rules are made to be broken.

--Kop 16:01, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Captions vs. alt text

A caption's job is to tie a picture to an article. The alternate text is responsible for describing the image if it is missing (as would be the case in a text-based browser or for a blind user). Wikipedia:Alternative text for images recommends writing good alternative text. The technical lack of a facility for writing distinct captions and alternate text impedes compliance with both sets of guidelines. I have mentioned the feature request at [4]. -- ke4roh 12:59, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Move discussion of alternate/title/caption text to MediaWiki?

There's a discussion on these topics at MediaWiki [5], which seems the most appropriate place as technical changes may be required. It also seems like a good idea to work all this out at once. (I've made this same note at Wikipedia talk:Extended image syntax#Alternate text / Title text / Caption text and Wikipedia talk:Captions#Captions vs. alt text.)-- kop 18:15, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This was filed as bugzilla:368. — Omegatron 00:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Bolding? and complete sentences?

1. People are starting to bold parts of image captions & xref to this page, but I don't see anything about what to bold or when.

• • I've noticed this too. In my opinion, bold text should not be in captions (or, more specifically, text that should be bolded such as article titles shouldn't be in captions.) Italicized words however, such as for vocabulary words, should be fine. Scott Ritchie

1. Complete sentences seem like they'd be more of a distraction in many kinds of articles. For example, in Australian Kelpie, where the images are all similar in form and are designed to show the different coat colors of the breed. "Red and tan Kelpie" seems like that's all that needs to be there. Trying to make it longer ("This red and tan Kelpie is typical of the breed." "This black and tan Kelpie, like most of its breed, enjoys dog agility.") obscures the information rather than making it clearer. I'd much rather not have complete sentences on such images. And "This is a red and tan Kelpie." "This is a black and tan Kelpie." would just be silly. Elf | Talk 01:19, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed a lot of anon users bolding the name of the person in the photo on the subject's biography page. Most of the time I've seen it, the user has done so by wikilinking the name of the person. Since it's on the person's bio page, it bolds it instead of making it a link. I think that it may be because of the wording of the "Clear identification of the subject" section. That section states "If the illustration is a painting, the painter's Wikilinked name, and even a date give context." But if the image of the painting is on the page of the artist's bio, wikilinking the name is unnecessary. I'm going to refine the wording of that section to reflect this. Dismas|^(talk) 02:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Shaving cream example

This caption is touted as a good example. Do you think it is?

Is this really a good example? Does it clearly identify the subject of the picture? This is presumably an image of a Burma Shaving cream billboard which was part of the advertising campaign of which the caption speaks. However, as a European, I have trouble reconciling what I think of as a billboard with what the image depicts; it should say that it is a billboard. And it should say that it was part of the campaign mentioned, if this is actually true. Lupin 02:44, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You've got it right on all counts. (See User_talk:Lupin#Monopoly captions which I expect to copy here soon.) I just haven't gotten around to re-working the caption yet. :-) Either we should come up with a better Burma Shave caption or find another caption to hail as adequate. We can do that in this space. -- ke4roh 10:27, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I question the choice of the image. Burma Shave is a specific cultural reference and a dated one at that. People from North America who are over the age of fifty will understand it instantly. It's obscure to most others. The image itself is not the best illustration of its subject matter. Why not choose an image the world would understand? Try the Eiffel Tower, Darth Vader, Mount Everest, kangaroos... Durova 11:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

As an image demonstrating billboards, it could be better. But in the article it is actually used to demonstrate billboard sequences, for which it is ideal, as the first such sequence ever.

I've improved the caption. It now reads "This billboard was the last in a sequence of roadside signs telling a joke. It was part of a campaign for Burma-Shave canned shaving cream, and was the first of its kind." Now we just need to make a new screenshot. ··gracefool |☺ 01:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Monopoly captions

From User_talk:Lupin#Monopoly captions

Hi, Lupin, I hope you don't mind I just put the full-sentence Monopoly (game) caption back with explanation on the edit summary. I was trying to provide some context to people who have never seen the game so they'd know more than "in progress," plus trying to comply with guidelines at Wikipedia:Captions, the first of which is that captions should consist of complete sentences. Please edit the caption as you see fit to help it follow the guidelines. Also, please look over the guidelines, and if they need to be revised, please help. Also see Wikipedia_talk:Captions - there are several discussions on particular examples. -- ke4roh 20:27, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

I dispute the usefulness of these guidelines. Maybe I will attempt revision one day, although I feel the tide of opinion is somewhat against my own. I've tried to make your caption directly relevant to the image, which is the biggest failing of many of the captions I've seen which cite the guidelines. (Perhaps it could also be deleted altogether under the "nominative" exception at Wikipedia:Captions#Exceptions to the rules). Lupin 03:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I like the Monopoly caption, though I'm still a bit frustrated with the Emacs caption. Any ideas for improving that one? Thanks! -- ke4roh 15:50, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

It's now a full sentence. Lupin 17:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! -- ke4roh 18:50, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

I'm curious: what's your opinion on captions? Could the guidelines be made more useful? I must admit I've had quite a time writing captions for subjects of which I knew nothing before reading the article, and with image description pages full of <sarcasm>informative</sarcasm> text like "Camel drinking Coca-Cola," it does challenge me to come up with some more context for the picture. So, I'm trying to improve the background information on images I've contributed and images I wonder about while captioning. -- ke4roh 18:50, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

I haven't devoted much thought to this, so please take this with a pinch of salt. But I would say that if you want to write good captions then you first have to decide what the function of a caption is. IMO, the primary purpose of a caption is to describe the image, by which I mean to give a reasonably detailed account of what the image depicts. Captions may also answer the question "why is this image in this article;" alternatively, this question could be answered in the article. I don't think a hard and fast rule can be given to say which is better, although clearly this question should be answered somewhere unless the answer is blindingly obvious.

Broadly speaking, other information belongs in the article and not in an image caption. I am of the opinion that dogmatic guidelines such as "thou shalt use complete sentences" and "thou shalt not use the verb to be" are unhelpful since every image needs a caption to be tailored to it and not to be constrained by some arbitary set of rules. Lupin 21:55, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. The opening of Wikipedia:Captions attempts to summarize the purpose of a caption: to tie the image to the article and to provide some context for the picture. It's quite challenging to write a caption that accomplishes those goals and is not a full sentence, and writing a full sentence leads the captioner towards those goals, hence it's the top priority and an easy one to meet. Now what's the difference between these two captions for Image:Emacs.png?

1. The default splash screen, which greets the user when Emacs is run in a graphical environment.
2. The default splash screen greets the user when Emacs is run in a graphical environment.

The second is a complete sentence (the first is only a fragment for want of a verb because "greets" is buried in a prepositional phrase), and it's one word and one comma shorter. When I read the first caption, it seems halting and incomplete (though it clearly describes the image and provides some context). The second one delivers a complete thought.

On the requirement for no passive sentences, I had an 8th grade (of 12) English teacher who insisted that we write paragraphs of three or more sentences and at most one of thse sentences could contain a conjugation of "to be." Why? Because "to be" doesn't describe action. Excessive use of "to be" can put the reader to sleep. I occasionally watch scientific NASA films. My chief complaint: "Many passive sentences were constructed." (But wouldn't that be clearer and more interesting if it were "The writers butchered this video with passive verbs throughout the script."

Sometimes a passive sentence is appropriate. In law, the North Carolina government writes, "Each employees hands must be washed with soap and warm water before returning to work." The non-legal writer might be tempted to say "Each employee must wash his or her hands...", but the law is not concerned with who washes, only with the fact that the hands are washed. I have yet to nocice a caption requiring passive voice, though I wouldn't be surprised to see one. Sometimes I edit captions to make them active, but not nearly as often as I'll edit them to make them complete sentences.

Consider the difference between these two captions:

1. The default splash screen greets the user when Emacs is run in a graphical environment.
2. The default splash screen greets the user running Emacs in a graphical environment.

In both cases the primary verb is "greets", but the first involves "is" and the second does not. The second also comes up two words shorter and clarifies that the user runs Emacs.

What belongs in the caption versus the article? We went 'round and 'round aobut that with the caption for Image:Spinal_Tap_logo.jpg for heavy metal umlaut. I would add a little extra information to the caption and my text wound up in the article minutes later, with the caption replaced by "Spinal Tap". (It was on the main page that day.) "Spinal Tap" doesn't tell the reader anything more than they can get from looking at the picture, though, so I tried again, and we wound up with the information in both places. It's particularly difficult to write a caption for an image like that because there isn't much context. In that respect, the information in a caption should be context - some more information for the readers about the circumstances of the photo.

The guidelines at Wikipedia:Captions are just that — guidelines. I no more expect to see the perfect caption than I expect to see the perfect article. But that said, I don't see why we shouldn't strive to write better captions. Your thoughts? -- ke4roh 12:09, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Consider the difference between these two captions:

1. The default splash screen, which greets the user when Emacs is run in a graphical environment.
2. The default splash screen greets the user when Emacs is run in a graphical environment.

The second is a complete thought, and a complete sentence which reads flowingly, I agree. Its failing is that it makes no direct reference to the image. Without doing so, the potential for reading it as a fact whose spatial proximity to the image is merely coincidental is high. I find this kind of ambiguity infuriating. The subject of a caption should, in the first instance, be the image. Making this tacit assumption on the part of the reader is unjustifiable in most situations, I feel.

I am also not convinced of the ennui induced by the verb "to be". I am completely convinced that sentence constructions whose sole purpose is to avoid using this forbidden verb lead to contortions which are awkward and confusing.

The use of complete sentences should not be a requirement for captions, in my opinion. If there is not enough information available for a caption which has direct relevance to an image, then why not use a simple tag? I agree that in general this is suboptimal, but this is entirely different from saying that a caption which consists of complete sentences is always better than one which doesn't. Less is sometimes more. Lupin 14:49, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see your points. Our discussion on the first point reduces to a question of how much to trust the reader to interpret and think. At times it can be a tough judgement call. In the more difficult cases, it becomes important to craft the caption to clearly state what is in the picture. I typically trust the reader to expect that at least one of the nouns in the caption would describe the picture. (See for example water skiing.) In the Emacs caption 2 immediately above, the reader must decide if the picture is of a splash screen, a user, or a graphical environment. Perhaps the guidance could be revised to indicate that the caption should clearly refer to the picture. (What do you think of the water skiing caption?)

On contortions to avoid ennui from "to be", Winston Churchill put it nicely (though he was addressing a complaint about prepositions at the ends of sentences): "This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put." "To be" has its place, and it should be used in some cases. It's not worth contortions to avoid, but it is worth a moment's thought.

Where would a simple tag better suit an image than a full-sentence caption?

Many thanks for the enlightning conversation. -- ke4roh 23:36, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at Ford Mustang. It may be one of those places where a full sentence is overkill, but if we had more information about the various models in the text (e.g. "The 1965 Ford Mustang introduced the 'whiz-bang super accelerator'"), perhaps it wouldn't seem so satisfactory to look at the pictures with those simple tags. (Therein lies the dilemma. If we haven't thought of a good caption, perhaps a short one will do in the meantime, but that short caption could always use some expansion to explain why that particular picture was chosen for the article.) -- ke4roh 23:46, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

My question about your "trusting the reader" to interpret a caption correctly is this: why? When it is so simple (if slightly inelegant on occasion) to avoid this potential source of misunderstanding, is it not better to do so?

As with many things, judgement has to be exercised here. In the case of the Water skiing caption, my personal feeling is that the caption is appropriate, since the connection to the image is plain. Others (who may never have come across water skiing before) may disagree however, in which case the caption should be clarified. Lupin 00:26, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps a new guideline is in order: "The caption should clearly identify the subject of the picture without detailing that which is plain to be seen." I'd put that as number one or two (I lean towards 2, but expect you would prefer 1). In fact, I have a hunch you'd remove the complete sentence guideline entirely, but captions like

Adrian Carmack working on the Baron of Hell. The DOOM monsters were digitized from clay models.

(on Image:Adrian_Carmack.jpg for DOOM) bother me for their choppiness as much as those ambiguous ones bother you. Your thoughts? What's left to resolve? -- ke4roh 13:15, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

I think that given that people seem so fond of guidelines, something like what you suggest is in order. However I would do it like this: the guideline should say "The caption should clearly identify the subject of the picture" and then in the exceptions section point out that things which are obvious even to someone coming to the subject for the first time may be omitted, provided this is not to the detriment of the caption. Otherwise, the guideline itself provides a convenient loophole for those wishing to ignore it. Moreover, I think that "detailing what is plain to be seen" is often precisely what a good caption should do -- a good informative image has an easily identifiable subject, and a good caption should describe the subject of the image.

I agree that "choppy" captions are bad. I would favour replacing the first guideline with one about captions of a certain length flowing off the tongue... but of course that's harder to define, let alone "enforce".

Putting either the "full sentences" guideline or an "anti-choppiness" guideline as the number one priority seems to me to approach the problem backwards - content should rule over style, in the first instance. Stylish captions with obscure or irrelevant content should not be favoured over those with relevant content which are phrased badly; instead, the good content should be rewritten stylishly (but unambiguously), when this is possible. This is my main gripe with this purely stylistic guideline being given so much emphasis. Lupin 13:37, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm thinking about a major refactoring of Wikipedia:Captions to address your concern and make the justifications for each of the guidelines clearer. (I just whipped up the numbered guidelines one day based on all the discussions we'd had until that time, and I was somewhat surprised nobody had any comments about them until yours.) I'm imagining using the TOC box as the numbered list and having a subsection to address each of the guidelines, explain its relevance, and discuss any exceptions to that particular guideline. I'm also inclined to reference the sections of talk pages that generated each guideline. Of course, the refactoring will take a few minutes :-). I also don't want the page to be prohibitively long - just enough to cover the subject.

As for approaching the problem backwards, there is a method to my madness (not to say it's right, just a method). Namely, if people read and follow only one rule, it should be the one most likely to result in a good caption. I would expect people to make the caption describe the picture in the absence of explicit instruction to do so (though some of the captions that otherwise attempt to meet the guidelines don't do that clearly enough). In fact, when I wrote a chapter for a real book, they insisted on exactly two things: captions must be full sentences, and images must be referenced in the body of the work. Everything else was up to the individual authors and editors. It surely generated better captions than no guidance at all. -- ke4roh 01:42, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Small tag in captions

What is the feeling toward using the small tag for text in captions? I couldn't find any mention of the issue here. Rmhermen 22:05, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Now that you've brought it up :-), I'll add my comment here, which is that I hate it because in every browser on every system I use the result is illegible or nearly so. And I don't want to have to change my browser settings just for wikipedia and change them back every time I go anywhere else on the web. And, yes, I use wikip's default styles because I like to see what other people will see when they come here. So there. I remove it whenever I can so that I can read the text. Elf | Talk 23:03, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The HTML small tag shouldn't be, and isn't generally used in captions. Caption text is currently displayed using the default stylesheet as smaller than the main body text, however according to a comment in the CSS it's never supposed to go below 9px [6], and there are many elements of the default page which are smaller / as small as the caption text. Richard Taylor 01:56, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Period at the end of the caption or not?

Hi, is there any rule/recommendation for writing or not writing a period at the end of the caption? Thanks. Miraceti 16:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

if it's a sentence --Wetman 01:07, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there should be one, because all captions are supposed to be in complete sentences. --Knowhow 05:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that single-sentence captions should have a period at the end. Amusingly, the example captioned image currently has single-sentence captions with periods, but on the same page, references the style guide which says single-sentence captions are not to have periods. How can we go about getting the style guide changed? --71.146.10.244 18:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I've seen people claim that incomplete sentences don't need a period at the end--a rather strange sort of statement. It's incomplete (without a verb, subject, whatever) and so it forfeits the right to a period, like a convicted felon losing the right to vote? There is no grammatical rule that says so (but then, grammar rules don't really deal with punctuation), and even if the article on Captions currently seems to suggest that fragments can't have periods, I'm going to take that as a suggestion, not a rule. Drmies (talk) 02:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MOS#Captions is pretty clear on when and when not to use punctuation. It follows the same logic as Wikipedia's guideline of punctuation in quotes. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Image summaries

This isn't about captions exactly, but when I add a summary to an image I'm uploading, should I link the names used to describe the picture? For instance, if the summary is "Screenshot of Microsoft Office Excel 2003, taken from example.com" I know I should probably link "example.com" but what about Microsoft, Office, and Excel? Or just Excel? Is there any convention to this? (For now I only link source URLs). Thank you! -- Foofy 22:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

What captions should not include?

Is a caption a suitable place for discussion, and providing all points of view? Here is a recent example showing two different possible captions, from the page on Plasma cosmology, a non-standard, non-mainstream, theory of the Universe.

Do people think that in these examples, we should include (1) the mainstream point of view (b) Note how plasma cosmologist view the mainstream theory (c) comment on the degree of explanation of the plasma cosmology view? --Iantresman 14:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

M87's Energetic Jet. The glow is caused by high energy electrons spiraling along magnetic field lines -- so-called synchrotron radiation. Astrophysicists suggests that M87's dynamics are affected by a supermassive black hole, a concept derided by plasma cosmology advocates. [1] Some plasma cosmologists have suggested in a cursory, comparative fashion that radiation like this may be due to Birkeland currents, [2]. Plasma cosmology has neither the explanatory power nor the theoretical infrastructure yet to explain such jets as fully as the mainstream models do.

'M87's Energetic Jet. The glow is caused by high energy electrons spiraling along magnetic field lines -- so-called synchrotron radiation. Advocates of plasma cosmology compare the filamentary structure to pinched plasma filaments seen in the laboratory and computer simulations.[3]

You should shorten the caption, hinting that the image can be interpreted in two different and opposing views. In this way you fulfil succintness requirement for image captions and drive the reader to the article.--Panairjdde 13:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

A caption is NOT a suitable place for discussion. It should be short and concise. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Random/title bolding in caps?

I've been seeing people putting boldface in captions. Particularly repeating the article bold, but miscellaneously just all over the place. It drives me a little crazy, but I thought it might be a policy I didn't know about. Any thoughts? jengod 00:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes the bold part is also a wikilink pointing to the same page (which shows up bolded instead of as a link). Generally, I think bolding should be used VERY sparingly overall, and only where the article title is first noted, or alternative names (such as Cologne (Köln in the German language)) are in play. Oh, and when used for subsection-purposes, though these should really use = in most cases. 07:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Logo captions

At Wikipedia talk:Logos/Archive 1#Caption guidelines for logos a proposal was made a week ago that the following guideline be added to the list at Wikipedia:Logos: "Logo images should always be surrounded by an image box and be labelled with a caption". This is in regard to corporate logos, and is intended to make it clear that any logo used in a Wikipedia article is being used solely as an illustration, not as a logo. The proposal has received feedback and not been objected to after a week, so it has been added to the list at Wikipedia:Logos. I've just noticed that this new guideline at Wikipedia:Logos is in conflict with a guideline here at Wikipedia:Captions. The conflicting guideline here reads: "Company or product logos, where the logo is current, and the article is about the company or product. - no caption needed". I would like to remove this guideline from Wikipedia:Captions. All corporate logo and product images need captions to ensure that we "avoid using a logo in any way that creates an impression that the purpose of its inclusion is to promote the company", as a guideline at Wikipedia:Logos expresses. Are there any objections to the removal of the guideline "Company or product logos, where the logo is current, and the article is about the company or product. - no caption needed" from this page? Kurieeto 23:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree with the removal of the logo special situation. I do not see where or how this exception to the other keys to good caption style was arrived at. Does someone have a link that shows there was in fact a general consensus for the logo caption exception and an explanation of the reasoning?--In1984 21:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Because it is in conflict with the longer standing logo guideline Wikipedia:Logos and was added to special situations March 9, 2006 without any discussion, much less consensus, I'm remvoing the line about company/product logos. Please discuss here before restoring. It is already causing disputes for which there is apparently no justification.--In1984 23:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• This discussion should be continued at Wikipedia talk:Logos#Captions for all Logos, which is listed at the Village Pump and has more posts. nadav (talk) 07:05, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Auto Caption from Description?

Is there a way to have the Image's description automatically be the caption? --jeolmeun 17:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Automatically being captioned? I don't think so. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Guideline or not?

Is this page a style guideline or not? Should it have the guideline tag? Gimmetrow 19:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just tagged it as such... not really sure why this page wasn't already tagged. I'm not familiar with any guidelines about tagging pages as guidelines (hmm meta-guidelines) but this page seems mature enough now to warrant such tagging. (→Netscott) 19:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Credits of photos.

On the Hippie page I reverted an edit which credited the photographer in a caption [7]. Old caption

"Dancing Hippies" Berkeley, California 1969 by Robert Altman http://www.altmanphoto.com

new caption "Dancing Hippies" Berkeley, California 1969 I was expecting to find some guideline here on this. In general the credits seem to be limited to the image page, is this a standard, policy or guidline? --Salix alba (talk) 23:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The standard is to generally limit credits to the image page. However, particularly famous photographs or photographs by famous photographers are often an exception. Kaldari 19:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The photo credit should go on the image's page, not in the caption. The only exception should be when the photographer is notable enough to have an article, and even then, only if relevant to the article. EVula 20:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Iraqi soldier on patrol in Baghdad, Iraq
(April 2005).

At some point, the gate keepers of Wikipedia will recognized that ALL images should contain some sort of photo credit. Like any other form of art, a photographer should be given credit for his or her efforts. Additionally, for places such as a war zone, an individual who risk his or her life to capture an image should be noted for their work. There's a big difference between a picture of some mundane location in middle America and a photograph that captures a moment in time on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq.

Photographers and/or photojournalists, recognizing the value of Wikipedia as a place to publish their work, may start becoming major contributors to this growing corner of cyberspace...

In order to save itself from possible...future...Copyright legal headaches, Wikipedia should require that ALL uploaded images contain the author's name. The business folks at Google are finding out that the recent purchase of You Tube came with a host of unresolved internet legal issues.

As Wikipedia moves forward in its development as a new medium of information, a serious discussion needs to take place regarding the attribution of material (i.e. both print and visual) contained within these pages. Only when that happens will Wikipedia move forward to its next level of development.

And finally, in the interest of Wiki-Peace, I've removed ALL the photo credits from each and every submitted caption. Until I reach 1,001 active photo submissions, I'll refrain from battling over the merits of this issue...
v/r
Peter Rimar
Chitrapa 05:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Chitrapa that the policy of non-attribution in the images that are actually seen in an article is unwise. Technically, this policy may be consistent with the details of licenses (Creative Commons, for example) that require attribution, since the details are generally available to users knowledgable enough to just "click" the image. However, this procedure violates the spirit and the normal understanding of attribution. On several occasions I have written photographers to ask that they license their work using Creative Commons Attribution licenses - so that I can then use their work for Wikipedia. After securing this agreement, I have then placed copyright notice in the caption. Flickr also does exactly this, for example; even so, the fraction of images that artists make available using acceptable Creative Commons licenses on Flickr isn't large. While I understand the spirit of GFDL licensing, which all of us agree to when we make edits, it weakens Wikipedia if we are unable to promise artists proper attribution of their work when used by Wikipedia.Easchiff 04:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both Chitrapa and Easchiff. Though most images on Wikipedia don't require attribution in their licenses, a bunch do (CC-BY and variants). Those should probably be attributed in the caption of the image (as well as on the image page of course), since some readers probably don't even know there's more information if you click the image.

This guideline page should address this issue somehow. So for now, if nobody has any objections, I'll change "Who took it? (Generally, this is only included in the caption if the photographer is notable.)" to "Who took it? (Generally, this is only included in the caption if the photographer is notable, or if the image's license requires attribution.)". I'm not sure how bold I should be with guideline pages, so I'll wait a few days to make sure there's consensus first. -kotra (talk) 08:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen no objection, so I changed it as described above. -kotra (talk) 22:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, photographers should be given credit in the caption itself. It is time to rewrite guidelines now, since we obviously have a consensus. (Mind meal (talk) 03:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

I disagree, as do most above. The text should be changed back. Johnbod (talk) 03:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Your logic in this regard? Why is it asking too much that we follow the law and attribute work to photographers? It defies the very reasons we require such licenses in the first place. If Wikipedia wants more images, they should do what they can to make it attractive for photographers. (Mind meal (talk) 03:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

The same reasons given by all the others above; the credit is on the image page, along with much other information. I don't object to many images being credited in the caption, but for most of those we have it is not necessary. It is not a legal issue; in fact we are unable to alter the licence to enforce this on other users anyway. Do we want more images so badly? Dozens are deleted every day. Johnbod (talk) 03:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

That is unacceptable. That is a separate page that most users simply do not click. Yes we want more images, and badly. Dozens of images being deleted for having copyright issues is no reason to want less photos that are properly licensed. There simply is no reason we should not be doing this. Why not attribute the work wherever possible? It is a legal issue! We should safeguard Wikipedia in this regard by doing this, not adhere to ill conceived arguments that have no logic behind them. By "all others above", who do you refer to? In this section, the consensus is we should attribute works in the caption. Below, also, there is a split. Also, when someone stipulates we attribute their work in a caption, we MUST do this, per the CC licenses, i.e. "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor." (Mind meal (talk) 03:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

I count this section 4:4 at present - some concensus! Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the language of the main page to reflect the requirement of CC licenses. Do you object to this? The language is quite clear on them concerning attribution: "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor." We don't need consensus when we are talking about following the law. (Mind meal (talk) 03:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Sorry, we don't go slapping photographers names in articles (including captions) because we're bullied in to it. Free encyclopedia, yes, free advertising, no. Shell ^babelfish 05:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Since when is giving attribution, and acknowledging sources, called advertising? Also, nobody said anyone was bullied into doing anything. I hardly see how a request to include a person's name in a caption is deemed "bullying." What if we handled references in this way? Just an anonymous link for someone to click and then see who produced the work. That wouldn't fly. Could you please point me, an obviously ignorant editor in your eyes, to the consensus you continuously assert there is on this matter? That would go a long way. On this page, there is only division on the matter. I'd appreciate it. (Mind meal (talk) 08:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive98#Images, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive302#Photography edit war on model Ana Beatriz Barros and WP:IUP#User-created images may be of interest. The second one is the one closest to the issue at hand, I think, and it is related to the third link. I don't know about legal issues but I think these are likely best raised with the Foundation lawyer, Mike Godwin, User:Mikegodwin. x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree, on the last point especially. Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. While I couldn't disagree more with the findings of link 2, I'm glad the issue has been discussed previously. When I get a photo released at Flickr for use here, and I'm asked to place their name in the caption...I feel like crap saying we can't after I've just had them relicense their work. It doesn't feel right. I would be against having external links in captions; I just think we should attribute work to the name of the individual, plain and simple. I don't see what this will hurt? If anything, it puts us on more stable legal grounding.(Mind meal (talk) 15:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

A dicussion is underway at Village Pump on this topic: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Photograph_attribution_in_image_captions (Mind meal (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Using periods

Less than a month ago, Jasoncatlett added the following paragraph to the caption guidelines (without discussion):

"Sentence or not, watch the stops: if the caption is a single sentence or a sentence fragment, it does not get a period at the end. If the caption contains more than one sentence, then each sentence should get a period at the end. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style."

Prior to that edit, it has always been the convention to end captions that are complete sentences with periods regardless of how many sentences there are. This change has led some editors to go through Wikipedia on editing sprees to purge periods from captions. Before this gets out of hand, I think we should discuss the change, and decide if that's what we really want. Kaldari 18:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

As I am the "some editors" (*bows*), I'd like to provide some counter-evidence. Contrary to the presented argument, the "no periods at the end of single-sentence captions" didn't magically appear a month ago. It originally derives from Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Captions, where it has been since mid-January, when it was first introduced.[8] As an aside, I'm fairly certain this is the first time it has been contested.

Now, honestly, I don't particularly care about this one way or another (I'm just upholding the Manual of Style; if it is altered after gaining consensus here, I'll change my editing habits accordingly). I'm merely presenting additional evidence. EVula 19:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, as far as normal style guides are concerned, I'm pretty sure that complete sentences get periods regardless of how many are in the caption; and sentence fragments may or may not also get periods, depending on the house style. I would suggest leaving this as one of the keep-it-consistent-but-don't-change-the-style points in the MoS. Kirill Lokshin 21:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Complete sentences, even lone ones, should definitely get periods; I'm very surprised to hear anyone suggest otherwise, and would like to hear the rationale. Further, I think that long captions, be they complete sentences or not, probably should get periods, and that very short captions — just a word or two, or just a name — probably should not. In-between lengths, I'm not sure about. Ruakh 22:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's what CMS recommends:

Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., 12.32: Syntax, punctuation, and capitalization. A caption may consist of a word or two, an incomplete or a complete sentence, several sentences, or a combination. No punctuation is needed after a caption consisting solely of an incomplete sentence. If one or more full sentences follow it, each (including the opening phrase) has closing punctuation. In a work in which most captions consist of full sentences, even incomplete ones may be followed by a period for consistency. Sentence capitalization is recommended in all cases except for the formal titles of works of art.

• Milton at the Nobel ceremony, 1976
• The White Garden, reduced to its bare bones in early spring. The box hedges, which are still cut by hand, have to be carefully kept in scale with the small and complex gardern as well as in keeping with the plants inside the "boxes." —Wayward ^Talk 01:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The CMC sounds reasonable to me. Many or most captions are just labels—like titles and headings, they need no punctuation. Only when a caption is expanded to become prose does it need punctuation.

And remember, "consistency is the hobgoblin..." etc: one rule needn't lord it over all captions in Wikipedia, because readers only read one article at a time. —Michael Z. 2006-09-19 02:22 Z

To respond to Ruakh's comment, I disagree with the "long captions, be they complete sentences or not, probably should get periods". Length is irrelevant; if a caption is somehow "very long" but isn't a complete sentence, there's something wrong and it should be rewritten. Keep in mind that captions are supposed to concise to begin with, so merely ranking captions by length is flawed. EVula 03:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure complete sentences are inherently better. The (hypothetical) caption "the 2131 centennial celebration of the original Church of Our Lady of Apoggostio, as painted by Leonardo de Rafael" could be recast as a complete sentence by putting some of that information in a predicate, but I don't think that would be an improvement. (Not that I think it would be a step down, either; I just don't think it would make a difference.) And concise doesn't necessarily mean short. (That said, I really don't feel strongly that captions consisting solely of long fragments should have periods; that's just my first inclination. If you feel strongly that they shouldn't, I don't mind at all.) Ruakh 04:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that particular (rather amusing) caption I think works just fine without being a complete sentence, so I think we may have just stumbled across an accidental agreement. ;) I think that a sentence fragment, regardless of length, shouldn't have a period; after a certain length, though, the alternative of rewriting it as a complete sentence (or two) should be examined. EVula 05:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Image credits (in captions)

I'd like to know what the Wikipedia policy is on crediting photographs uploaded under (for example, creative commons attribution) license in the *image caption itself*.

The case that I am referring to is of one photographer putting a 'Photo by XXXX YYYYYY' into the thumbnail description of every image. For some reason, this irks me quite a bit. It is not standard on Wikipedia, at all, and it is a bit like me putting my name under an article I just wrote (not legally the same I know, different licenses), so everybody will know:"Hey its me who wrote all this!" What is the policy on this? MadMaxDog 07:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand all the facets of this debate but it seems to me that as voluntary editors we agree not to put our names under articles however when we use somebody else's material (such as a photograph) that they should be credited as we cannot volunteer that which is not ours.--Bajutsu (talk) 07:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I see this turned up above, earlier. I agree that it should be resolvedlong-term wise. I just think that crediting at article level is actually *against* the spirit of Wikipedia (being a communal work), and distracts from the image and caption itself. Or am I being too 'communist'? MadMaxDog 07:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• The prohibition against crediting non-notable authors is currently being broken on Wikipedia's Main Page. There is a discussion at: Talk:Main_Page#Photo_credit_for_picture_of_the_day concerning whether or not this is desirable. Johntex\^talk 21:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As the guidelines state, credit is only given in captions if the photographer is notable, for example "William Faulkner photographed in 1954 by Carl Van Vechten". Kaldari 23:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This attribution debate is moot, as every uploader has the opportunity to attribute the author right there in the upload form. The photographer is clearly credited, right under the image, on the image description page. All you have to do is click the thumbnail, whic is what anyone interested in actually viewing the image would have to do anyway. As Kaldari points out, unless the photographer is notable, his/her name has no reason to appear in article namespace, and hence shouldn't appear in the caption. There have been huge, lengthy discussions on this elsewhere (do a search!) and the consensus is always to keep attribution on the image page and out of articles. --mikaul^talk 09:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I have just removed the phrase that allows crediting if the license mandates it. Only pictures that could also be on commons or fair use pics can be included. On commons only free material. For example the CC-BY-3.0 license states that [attribution] may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. "

This means that if we allow one CC-BY-credit in an article, we will have to allow them all, because of the requirement of equal prominence. We are creating a "Collection", and any reasonable manner does not include the place where such attribution must occur. A reasonable manner is to credit all authors on the place reserved for that purpose. For pictures that place is the description page. — Zanaq (?) 10:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I added the phrase in question because it appeared to reflect consensus based on the above discussion (I didn't see this one). Thank you for reverting it because it didn't reflect consensus.

As for your point about allowing CC-BY credits in captions leading to credits in all captions, I think you are misunderstanding the CC-BY license. It says in the part that you quoted that CC-BY only requires that it be credited at least as prominently as others are credited on that page, not the other way around (that others must be credited at least as prominently as the CC-BY work).

As for the argument that someone can easily just click on the image to learn more about it, that argument depends on how often people actually do click on images to find out more, or even know that it is possible. Certainly it won't be obvious to new visitors to Wikipedia that all the images are clickable. Also, if Wikipedia is printed, there is nowhere in the printed result where credit information is available except in the caption. I agree that it looks less streamlined to have "Photo by John Doe." in captions, but that doesn't override the requirements some artists have on their work. It can be argued that credit must be present everywhere the work appears, including every page it appears (the description page is a related, but separate page). -kotra (talk) 21:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

If wikipedia were to be printed, it would have to include a section with the author & license info. The whole of this wikipedia is the "work", and an article is just a fragment of the work. The license also says a link to the license text must be included. I see no reason to subvert original research, notability and relevancy guidelines here. — Zanaq (?) 20:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure if I follow the first part of your comment. When Wikipedia is printed, it displays the notice "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License." This describes the text, but not the images. I would assume therefore that images that require attribution are currently not being properly attributed when the page is printed. This is just a minor problem, though. A more major problem is that on the web, these particular attribution-requiring images are not getting their required credit unless one clicks on the image, and many visitors are unaware that it is possible to do so. The only solutions would be to either include attribution in the captions for these particular images, make it more obvious where the image's license information can be found (like the "enlarge" icon in thumbnail versions, but for license information), or prohibit attribution-requiring images altogether. That is, if Wikipedia cares about respecting the licenses of its images, which I'm under the impression that it does.

As for subverting the WP:OR policy, WP:N guideline, and WP:REL essay: WP:OR#Original images states that images are exempt from the original research policy. Also, the purpose of the original research policy is not to prevent attribution in the main article space, it's to prevent non-neutral POVs and inaccuracies. The notability guideline does not apply here either, because it's only concerned with the topics of articles, not the actual content. the relevance essay is an essay, not a guideline, and besides, attribution is relevant from a technical and legal standpoint, though perhaps not directly relevant to the topic (note that references aren't always directly relevant to the topic either, but they are necessary to back up the content). -kotra (talk) 19:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the least we can do here at Wikipedia, after asking photographers to sacrifice their hold on photographs, is to give them attribution on the page itself. "Photo by..." is not distracting in the least. This is what we SHOULD be doing all the time, because the source page is actually a separate page for all intents and purposes. It should be standard practice that we include photographers names in the caption. I can't tell you how many Flickr users quarrel over this after being kind enough to relicense their work. If we want more photos, we may as well do this. Why was the guideline edited when the consensus above this one had more clear support? Also, when someone stipulates we attribute their work in a caption, we MUST do this, per the CC licenses, i.e. "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor."(Mind meal (talk) 03:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

I mostly agree with you, but I think only images with licenses that require attribution (like CC-BY) should have attribution in the captions. Not all images. But otherwise, I agree. As for the reversion of my edit, I think it was justified; there apparently wasn't consensus to change it (apparently there were discussions elsewhere I was unaware of, though I had looked beforehand). So, I think there is still no consensus, and this issue needs to be discussed more. I don't feel like my above points (and yours) have been adequately addressed yet, which leads me to wonder if other editors are just stalling because they don't like the addition of "Photo by John Doe" to some captions for solely aesthetic reasons. -kotra (talk) 05:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

edit: though I still don't know if consensus yet exists for your addition, I've shortened it to be more concise. It now says the caption should include attribution "if the photograph's license requires attribution". Hopefully no meaning is lost. -kotra (talk) 05:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kotra. It seems there is no consensus either way, and yet we have one camp keeping their content on the page (generally only notable people) and acting as though it is the way of the land. That is what gets me. I am embarrassed to tell people I contact at Flickr that not only will we host their content only when they allow commercial and derivative reuse...but that we can't even provide a credit to them beneath the photo. We already ask a lot of photographers. Why not give a little back is my argument. (Mind meal (talk) 06:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Discussion duplicated and continued below.

Tips for describing pictures

Further to discussion at WP:FPC talk, this section could do with brushing up, at very least. The "for photographs" list needs fleshing out, perhaps to make people aware of the WP:NOR implications of uploading (and captioning) photographs and other concerns, but certainly to weed out unnecessary suggestions like "who took it" and "why was it taken". Why was it taken? Well, er, it was a nice day, and along came this bird.. --mikaul^talk 09:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

why did wikipedia decide that captions should be full sentences?

I think this rule is really, really, overly prescriptive and artificial, and I don't think consensus really exists for it. Captions that are full sentences often come off as stilted and overly wordy; they take up more of the reader's time without conveying any more information. The NY Times (for example) doesn't always have full sentences in its captions, so why should we?P4k (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think WP requires captions to be full sentences? WP:Captions#Wording even says "Most captions are not real sentences, but extended nominal groups", and includes examples that are short phrases. Gimmetrow 16:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes a full sentence is a good things; other times, not. I've never seen anything stating that captions have to be full sentences. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to lead

The lead seems to me to have a low meaning-to-word ratio, which is pretty much the opposite of what you want in a guideline that talks about how important it is to be snappy and succinct, I think. I edited it and then reverted myself so you guys can see my proposal. There has been a lot of discussion on WT:MoS recently about captions; I think the guideline could be very much improved simply by giving more good and bad examples of captions. The guideline seems generally helpful, but again, I think it would be worth some effort to make it really tight, since that's what the guideline is about. Thoughts? - Dan (talk) 14:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Definite improvement & good edit. A four-image gallery at the bottom of the page would be the best format for examples, given the length of the {{Style}} sidebar. --mikaul^talk 14:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Not sure which version you saw, I just rewrote it, and then reverted again to comply with "consensus before editing". Please compare this version and the most recent one, guys. - Dan - Dan (talk) 15:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the {{tl:Style}} sidebar, this might be one style-guidelines page which would be better off without it, so we can add more images with captions. - Dan (talk) 15:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Author credits for CC licenses

When an author or licensor stipulates we include their name in the caption, we legally must do this. The guideline right now does not recognize this. The Attribution Creative Commons and Attribution ShareAlike Creative Commons licenses both state "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor." See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en. The language in our guideline should be corrected immediately. (Mind meal (talk) 03:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Seriously - point me at an image where this is the case. I've dealt with thousands of images on Wikipedia, helped with permission on WP:OTRS and even uploaded photos for people who couldn't understand our system - in more than 2 years, I've never seen someone ask for credit in a caption. If they are, I'd seriously consider passing on the image. Shell ^babelfish 05:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahh - wait, you're reading the quick summaries that CC gave. May I suggest you read the actual license text? [9] It states "give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing". When the quick summary says "manner" it means crediting it as they state, i.e. using their full name if that's what they give, their nickname if that's what they give etc. This has nothing to do with where the attribution is located. Shell ^babelfish 05:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is keeping Wikipedia from attributing photos to the author in captions? What makes such practices unreasonable to this medium? If you wrote a book, would you expect your name to appear on the front cover or only on the title page? Because it is so very easy for us to include attribution beneath a photograph, there is nothing that would make it unreasonable to our medium or the means by which we do things. This is a guideline anyway, not policy. If you want it to become policy, propose it to become policy. People keep citing consensus, but I see no consensus for excluding author names from credits....not on this page. If anything I see a divide, and where there is a divide I don't think we should say it must be this or that. (Mind meal (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Also, if someone prints a Wikipedia page out there is no attribution for the photo. By default, anyone who redistributes the material is then violating the terms of the license. Yet another reason why attribution should appear in the caption. lastly, why risk not giving attribution when asked? (Mind meal (talk) 06:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Guidelines are just as enforceable as policy -- since both are just a reflection of community practice, its all about consensus. If you want to make this kind of a change, why don't you gather opinions on it first by talking about it on the Village Pump or something similar? Wikipedia isn't responsible for someone re-using our content incorrectly -- in your example, they'd also be violating our GFDL license but you don't see us slapping page authors on the article to resolve that issue, do you? You may also want to refer to the image guidelines where it talks about not placing signatures, names or copyrights in photographs - yes, we ask a lot of photographers, but we ask the same of every editor who writes something for Wikipedia; so far, we don't seem to be lacking in either area. Shell ^babelfish 06:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

"...its all about consensus." Where is it? Where is the consensus you assert on not including credits in captions? I see a lack of consensus and editors asserting it where there is none. The fact is that there is no consensus either way regarding this matter. You say, "...so far, we don't seem to be lacking in either area." Are you kidding me? There are tons of articles that need photos. I should have guessed that anything as common sense as saying who the photographer is under a photo would be met with bureaucracy here on Wikipedia. That is pretty much par for the course on this site. Aside from asserting "common" practice, you have yet to say exactly why the inclusion of author name in a caption is so undesirable. On the contrary, I have done nothing but give logical, thought out rationale for why we should. You have thus far failed to do so. Could you tell me why you feel they should NOT be credited with taking the photo in the caption? "Wikipedia isn't responsible for someone re-using our content incorrectly." But Wikipedia is responsible for using content correctly. (Mind meal (talk) 08:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Any "common practice" on the wiki is a de facto demonstration of consensus, surely. Of the several million images used here, you won't find a single one crediting a non-notable author in the caption, nor do the many thousands of non-notable authors of those images insist on attribution beyond the image description page. I'd be very surprised if you could show anything near consensus for attribution in captions.
Images in article mainspace are only thumbnails, after all, essentially links pointing to image description pages where attribution is always given. Of course anyone remotely interested in either the image or the author will click the thumbnail. We don't have to put "click here" next to every hyperlink. Wikipedia is essentially a massive hyperlinked database, and anyone who hasn't, erm, clicked to that isn't ever going to find anything here anyway. The same is the case on many image-heavy websites, Flickr included: attribution is only bound to appear where the image is displayed as the main subject of a page.
I guess you could argue that attribution is needed when viewing images here at 100%, and you'd have a much stronger argument. What I can't see is any need to clutter up articles with pointless, non-notable names; that and and the self-reference issue are insurmountable barriers to caption credits, AFAICS. --mikaul^talk 12:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that mikaul, you put that in a much more clear manner than I was managing. Shell ^babelfish 13:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(Also posted somewhere above): Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive98#Images, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive302#Photography edit war on model Ana Beatriz Barros and WP:IUP#User-created images may be of interest. The second one is the one closest to the issue at hand, I think, and it is related to the third link. I don't know about legal issues but I think these are likely best raised with the Foundation lawyer, Mike Godwin, User:Mikegodwin. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have problems with some of mikaul's statements here.

1. "Of the several million images used here, you won't find a single one crediting a non-notable author in the caption, nor do the many thousands of non-notable authors of those images insist on attribution beyond the image description page" This is not correct. Foxfire (bioluminescence) is one example of an article that already credits its non-notable author because of its licensing (CC-BY-SA). True, I was the one that added the attribution long ago, but surely others exist. It hasn't been reverted yet, so it must be ok with the people who saw it (though to be fair, it's probably a fairly untrafficked article). However, this is all irrelevant because guidelines are not based on what is current practice. It's the opposite: current practice is (or at least should be) based on the guidelines.

2. "I'd be very surprised if you could show anything near consensus for attribution in captions." This is a straw man. Nobody was saying that there is yet consensus for attribution in captions. However, Mind meal and I were saying that there isn't consensus for NOT having attribution in captions. There is no consensus either way, and so we should try to work toward consensus.

3. "Images in article mainspace are only thumbnails, after all, essentially links pointing to image description pages where attribution is always given." I disagree. Images in the mainspace are not merely thumbnails. If they were, we wouldn't enlarge images beyond their normal thumbnail size to make crucial details and text legible, as per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Images. Images are in the mainspace to illustrate the article, and if necessary, people may click on them to see a larger version.

4. "Of course anyone remotely interested in either the image or the author will click the thumbnail." Unless they don't know they can. New visitors to Wikipedia or less web-savvy ones may not know the images in Wikipedia are clickable. The pointer hand is usually the only clue they're clickable, and it's not obvious unless you hover over the image, nor will everyone know what it means if they do see it. Basically, we can't just assume people will know about the image description page.

5. "We don't have to put "click here" next to every hyperlink. Wikipedia is essentially a massive hyperlinked database, and anyone who hasn't, erm, clicked to that isn't ever going to find anything here anyway." This is another straw man. Text links are different from image links. Text links are conspicuously blue, so people can know there are links in the text are without hovering their mouse over all the text. Images on Wikipedia, on the other hand, just look like unlinked images everywhere on the web. The Enlarge icon in the caption helps, but it is easily overlooked (I never realized it had a purpose until this discussion).

6. "The same is the case on many image-heavy websites, Flickr included: attribution is only bound to appear where the image is displayed as the main subject of a page." I believe this is false. Flickr attributes the author everywhere their images are displayed, even on pages where the image isn't the main subject. Examples: [10][11]

7. "What I can't see is any need to clutter up articles with pointless, non-notable names;" The names may be non-notable, but they aren't pointless. As I said in the section above, complying with legal requirements of licenses trumps any concern about clutter or appearance in my opinion. If people don't like attribution in captions for appearance reasons, there are several options: a. Don't use images that require attribution, b. Ask the copyright holder for permission to only have attribution on the description page (in CC-BY, this would fall under "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"), or c. Instead of text in the caption, include a small icon of the word "Attribution" or "License" or something similar linking to the image description page, much like the Enlarge icon in captions already. This would require a bit of creative coding to make the license info show in printed articles, but it's certainly possible.

8. "that and and the self-reference issue are insurmountable barriers to caption credits, AFAICS." If by "self-reference issue" you mean that editors would be including their own name in the mainspace, I don't think this is a problem. The text of articles isn't signed or WP:OWNed, but images are different. WP:OR describes how images are exempt from the original research policy, so I see no problem. -kotra (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

<outdent> response to kotra:

1. Straw men are all over this discussion, aren't they? ;o) I don't expect that credit will stay there for ever, as it's plainly contrary to image use policy.
2. A consensus for caption credits has been claimed at least once on this page.
3. They're thumbnails. They function as thumbnails, are referred to as thumbnails, and (not surprisingly) are described as thumbnails in the wiki markup.
4. Apart from technophobes, there probably are people sufficiently disinterested in images that they never click a thumb to see one, so why go to the trouble of posting up credits for them? We can safely assume that anyone interested enough will click, eventually.
5. I like the icon idea. Good compromise.
6. [12]
7. ditto #5
8. By self-reference, I mean the appearance of wiki userames in article namespace. This factor is the nemesis of all caption credit proposals.
9. If you float the icon idea as a compromise proposal at the VP, I think it'll fly. --mikaul^talk 01:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

1. Apparently someone just rightly fixed that caption I mentioned; after reading that policy to the end I see that you're right: "All photo credit should be in a summary on the image description page". Doesn't mean it can't be changed though, if there is consensus to do so.

2. Yes, I claimed that there was consensus a while back because the most recent discussion there was all on one side, and after waiting a few months for any opposition there was none. However, since then (and apparently before then, in other places I was unaware of), there was opposition, so I agree, there is no consensus now.

3. I agree that they are thumbnails. I never said they weren't, just that that's not all they are, or even, I would argue, their main purpose. Their main purpose, in my mind, is to illustrate the article as standalone images. The click-to-enlarge ability is secondary. People (well, at least me, I can't speak for anyone else) don't click on all the images they want to look at. I just look at them; if I need to seem them larger, I'll click on them.

4. I don't think it's safe to make that assumption. Besides, it's not for the benefit of viewers that images requiring attribution are properly attributed, it's for the benefit of the licensors. It doesn't matter if the readers don't care who took the picture, it still must be prominently credited as per the license.

5. Thanks! The icon idea seems to be getting some good feedback at the village pump, too. Maybe it will be used, if it turns out the current attribution system is inadequate.

6. Someplace having linked images similar to Wikipedia doesn't mean visitors will automatically know Wikipedia's images are clickable for more information. Unlinked images elsewhere still look exactly like Wikipedia images.

7. I guess you mean "ditto #6". You're right, there's one. I think they allow it there because the images are tiny, with a big number obscuring part of it, and the purpose of those thumbnails is to take the viewer to the main image page. Wikipedia's article images are a little different (and anyway, why are we comparing what Wikipedia should do to what other websites do?).

8. You may be right that "Photo by kotra" could look self-promotional in a caption and maybe occasionally cause some sort of conflict of interest, but I don't see any actual policy reasons for it. As far as original research is concerned, images are exempt, and I would say that attribution (in the caption or elsewhere) is just a part of the image.

9. Could be. I might try that if the current proposal fails, and if Mike Godwin's response is encouraging. -kotra (talk) 04:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion ported to the Village Pump here.

I think the consensus here is pretty overwhelming. The line about contradicting WP:OWN is because people should feel free to create derivative works of WP's images, as well as its text. – flamurai (t) 15:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

10 supporters, 3 conditional supporters, and 24 opposers is not consensus by any stretch of the imagination. It's not even near-consensus. That said, crediting in captions does not currently have enough support to merit a change in the policy. A compromise solution is already in the works, though. Unfortunately, though, it's stalled right now due to a lack of research on the subject (I was going to conduct a study, but I've procrastinated... maybe I'll get to that soon). -kotra (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Silence implies consent. 24-10 against a proposed site-wide policy change is enough to maintain the status quo. – flamurai (t) 16:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

New discussion from both sides of the issue trailed off at roughly the same time (mostly due to a lack of input from legal experts), so I don't see how the essay you cite is relevant in this situation. But I certainly agree (as I mentioned above) that there wasn't enough support to merit a change in policy. -kotra (talk) 18:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

FYI, as well, for anyone using the argument that the CC licenses require attribution in the caption, I believe in that argument, we would be required to also have a copyright notice in the caption. From the CC FAQ:

If you are using a work licensed under one of our core licenses, then the proper way of accrediting your use of a work when you're making a verbatim use is: (1) to keep intact any copyright notices for the Work; (2) credit the author, licensor and/or other parties (such as a wiki or journal) in the manner they specify; (3) the title of the Work; and (4) the URL for the work if applicable.

– flamurai (t) 09:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Use of "Figure X", Table X"

Captions do not generally include a figure number so it can be linked to the text. On some articles with many illustration that are important to explain the text it is probably a good idea to do this as is done in paper sources. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

We can do even better: instead of giving the reader a name to hunt for, use an invisible wikilink. For instance, I put "<span id="caption1" />" immediately in front of the Burma-Shave image on the project page. You can link directly to the image from any other page with WP:Captions#caption1, or add a "|" character to make it appear as "See (image)", if you like. #caption1 would link to that image from anywhere else on the same page. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Image credits in captions

Just removed some in-caption image credits The Cooper Collection from the article LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and the image uploader has now added the image credit as a ref note. The uploaders Cooper Collection is identified as a source on the image page which I dont have a problem with but the use of refs to provide a credit appears to be against the spirit of this guide. The images have also got credits on the actual images as well. Looking for opinions on the use of refs in captions to provide image credits. Thanks MilborneOne (talk) 20:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Image credits in captions is an ongoing discussion (see above for a few of these discussions), but the majority of the Wikipedia community seems to feel that they are unnecessary and a net negative (unless the author/artist is particularly notable). Reflecting that majority (not consensus, but...), this guideline says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page."

Using a footnote to credit images is an interesting idea, but it's certainly not standard, and is probably confusing. It would probably be best to remove the footnotes, especially because the images in question do not require attribution (most of them appear to be in the public domain). -kotra (talk) 03:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, interestingly the uploader has now changed some of the pd-self to cc-by-3.0 to get around the problem, not sure you can withdraw something from the public domain! MilborneOne (talk) 09:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't, unless it didn't have permission to be released into the public domain in the first place (like if the person who tagged it as public domain wasn't the copyright holder). For these particular images, I don't know. Some of them may have been in the public domain (because they're almost completely made of government-created graphics), and I don't think just adding a watermark credit on the image makes it a derivative work (thereby making it copyrightable or licenseable), but I'm not a copyright expert. If you want to find out, Wikipedia:Media copyright questions would be the place to ask. -kotra (talk) 10:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again I have asked over at media copyright questions. MilborneOne (talk) 11:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Oxfordian theory

Oxfordian theory (a school re Shakespearean authorship) has images with extraordinarily long captions -- e.g. multiple-sentence captions outline the arguments supported by the text (not appearance) of documents, presented in facsimile, whose text is not in question. Discussion at talk:Oxfordian theory#Prose removed from captions. It may (i'm withdrawing from it, and haven't examined the perhaps grudging and apparently minor changes in response to my citation of the accompanying guideline page) be important to look back a few days in the edit history, in order to put established local style into perspective. Experienced interpreters of these guidelines may be better able than i to communicate whether Oxfordian theory requires the, uh, florid, exceptions that some editors are insisting upon.
--Jerzy•t 19:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

columns within captions

At North Caucasian languages, in the info box, I would like to divide the legends for the map into two columns, West Caucasian and East Caucasian. In that possible within an infobox template? kwami (talk) 23:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility

I added Wikipedia:Accessibility#Images to the see also section. It seems to me that Accessibility needs can conflict with the desire for concise captions. In particular the mechanical engineer sample set, which seems fine to a sighted user, might not work for someone who is using a screen reader. Also, the notion of relying on the image description page for additional information is problematical, since any descriptive text is usually buried in all the tedious licensing information. --agr (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

When captions are redundant within infoboxes

I have come across a number of redundant captions added on infoboxes, when the person in question is clearly depicted. I am one of the biggest advocates of short but informative captions on pictures within the article, however I have come across a number of these redundant additions and just looking to check the water. I obviously support captioning where there are more than one persons in the picture but just wondering if there was anything out there to stop the propagation of redundant captioning within infoboxes.Londo06 16:44, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

If you see a caption you think is redundant, feel free to remove it. I don't think it's much of an issue though, personally. -kotra (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense to me as well.Londo06 14:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Any way we can tighten up the language in the special situations section. Perhaps the delineation between film actors and sports persons, where one has a large proportion of captions and the other having all but a handful.Londo06 19:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If the picture is of a person I think it is good to put what year it was taken to show that it's not necessarily what they look like now or at another period of time, as per Gahndi or Mel Gibson.--Jeff79 (talk) 08:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A recent reversion has occurred. Please enter into discussion here before enterring into changes.Londo06 15:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Still waiting for your argument against the widely-used and accepted captions saying the year the photo was taken for biographies.--Jeff79 (talk) 15:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

See User_talk:Jeff79#I_know_you_don.27t_like_me_but...; presented in the Queens English, in a clear, concise and conclusive manner.Londo06 16:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Teasers?

It appears that the section WP:Captions#Drawing the reader into the article suggests making the captions "teasers". This philosophy appears contrary to other WP stylistic guidelines such as WP:LEDE - essentially: give the reader the information they need let them decide if they want/need to go deeper to satisfy their current need. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Centered captions

Any hard and fast rule on centered versus flush-left captions? I prefer centered as in Gorman, California. (At least as of 05:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC) they are centered.) Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Asked also here. --Nemo 11:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Question about captions in info boxs of biographies

Would this be the right place to address this? Should info boxes in bios include captions of the photo of the subject? Per this guideline, it makes it seem that mabe they are unneeded per: Other images (especially within standard info boxes) where the purpose of the image is clearly nominative, that is, that the picture serves as the typical example of the subject of the article and offers no further information - no caption needed. I saw somebody deleting them from info boxes. It seems that the argument that including the year the photo was taken does aid the reader. Anyways, thank you. Also, I might ask this in the BLP board as well. Cheers, --Tom (talk) 13:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

"Click to enlarge"

Is there anywhere a guideline that says: An image caption should not include a note saying "click to enlarge".

Such a note could be inappropriate in some downstream use (especially printed media), and is unnecessary in any case since virtually all images on WP work this way. Staecker (talk) 13:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a guideline that such phrases should not be in alt text; see WP:ALT#Phrases to avoid. I agree that a similar guideline would be useful here. Eubulides (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

When do captions need to cite sources?

Currently I can't see guidence as to when captions should cite sources. This topic is appropriate both for this project page and for Wikipedia:Citing sources, and I've somewhat arbitrary started a thread at the latter guideline; please comment if you're interested. Eubulides (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Amended credits section

Brought the Wikipedia:Captions#Tips_for_describing_pictures and Wikipedia:Captions#Credits wording into agreement. This brings the guideline in line with existing practice for featured pictures (example provided). A relevant precedent was discussion surrounding Jerry Avenaim, who is a very notable photographer. Mr. Avenaim's Wikipedia contributions were profiled in The New York Times last July.[13] Appropriate mention within the caption for a photographer of this standing is encyclopedic and fitting, just as we do with historic artists. Durova³⁴⁹ 19:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Image credits in footnotes?

I know the consensus is that image captions don't need to cite an author, but it seems to me that putting a credit in a footnote improves the page by making it (in a self-contained way, for instance for those who print articles on paper) show where images come from. In particular, it seems absurd to me that the MOS not only allows but requires that ideas, quoted text, and even commonly accepted facts cite a source in a footnote, but explicitly rejects giving image credits in a caption. The argument in the case of captions is presumably that they would clutter up the main body of an article. So what about making such credits in footnotes? Of special note are the many pictures released by their authors under a permissive license, but who have requested credit on pages where their images are used; leaving those credits only on the image description page seems to abuse the spirit under which their images were released, to no particular benefit compared to providing footnote credit. (Notice that I'm not suggesting that all images throughout Wikipedia get this treatment, but only that it be allowed as a possibility.) Cheers. –jacobolus (t) 19:32, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I put the following text on the Village Pump, and am suggesting that discussion of this come here, as a reasonable place for it:

Hi all,

I've perused a few of the earlier discussions about image credits in captions, and while I find the arguments unconvincing, I can at least see where their proponents are coming from. Essentially, the argument goes something like "allowing credits in captions will add clutter and could potentially make wikipedia articles seem like advertising for the image creators.

The move to banish all credits to image description pages seems to me to violate several important tenets of wikipedia style: (1) articles should be self contained (2) article content should be verifiable (3) wikipedia should honor both the letter and spirit of free content licenses (4) wikipedia policies should be follow a consistent set of foundational principles.

To this end, I propose allowing articles to add photo credits in footnotes. This avoids all of the stated problems (clutter, promotion), while keeping articles self contained and verifiable (many users do not know that images are clickable, at least that I've witnessed), making them viable as printable (rather than only screen) documents, and crediting photographers concerned with proper attribution (for instance, as implied by the spirit of CC-BY type licenses).

This brings the citations for images in line with citations for quotations, numerical data, other facts, and even ideas and interpretations used in article text. Adding image creator credits to footnotes is unlikely to be enough incentive for users to add spammy images as self-promotion, and balances the goals of professional clutter-free encyclopedia writing and proper ethically proper credit for image creators.

I'm putting this same text at Wikipedia talk:Captions#Image credits in footnotes.3F, which seems like the appropriate place for the discussion, since several previous discussions of image credits took place there. (As far as I can tell, both numerical majorities and prevailing arguments in all the discussions I've seen have favored crediting image creators, while defenders of the status quo have mostly argued on the basis of "this is already settled, you punks." but that's neither here nor there).

Thanks for your consideration,
jacobolus (t) 05:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) Since when's this a style tenet? (3) And yet textual contributors don't sign articles; plus the logistical problems of keeping things in sync when someone edits an image; footnotes can still be spam (4) don't see the relevance here. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

"This is already settled, you punks" seems fine enough to me - unless you have evidence of some new consensus, or some reason why there ought to be a new consensus. We don't do authorial credits in articles, and that is pretty much the end of it - it's settled. Is there something I'm missing? — Gavia immer (talk) 05:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

There should be a new consensus because even the arguments against including credits in captions don't apply to footnotes. re: cybercobra's REFSPAM link, if you read that page, it says “Repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. Often these are added not to verify article content but rather to populate numerous articles with a particular citation.... Citation spamming is a subtle form of spam and should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia” This clearly does not apply to image credits generally; anything can be abused but this slippery slope argument is not a credible counter to the main argument here, and is just a diversion. (3) someone who uses a chunk of wikipedia text typically writes "this text comes from wikipedia" or similar next to the text. If they did not do so, but only but such an attribution behind a link somewhere, buried far from the text in question, they might be technically following the letter of the license, but would be violating its spirit. –jacobolus (t) 05:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that image credits can be acceptable if the author of the image is notable by himself. "Portrait of George Washington in military uniform, painted by Rembrandt Peale" is an acceptable caption. "Photo of the towers of the Palacio San José taken by User:Belgrano of Wikimedia Commons" is not. MBelgrano (talk) 13:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

That seems to be to be a logical position. – ukexpat (talk) 16:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, because in such case the artist's name is present more for informational purposes than attributive ones. --Cybercobra (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Footnote credit as you propose is really no better than our existing practice of image description page credit. Both take 1 click to get there and both are hidden from view when viewing the image as it is in the article. We don't need to maintain credits in two places, and I think credit on the image description page makes more sense from an organizational standpoint. Also, I'd wager the image page credit is more likely to be actually seen, as people will be enlarging photos more often than clicking little footnote links, which most people ignore anyway. -kotra (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

It's vastly better if someone decides to print the article. If no one is going to see the footnotes, then it really shouldn't bother anyone having them, right? I mean, that's the point of footnotes: people who want to can read them, and everyone else can ignore them. –jacobolus (t) 09:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

FYI, a previous discussion is here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#edits_marked_with_copyrights. Also, here's what I posted to Talk:HSL and HSV, which is the article in question.

Wikipedia guidelines are entirely clear on this: WP:UP says "One should never create links from a mainspace article to any userpage", and WP:CAP says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page. If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography may be appropriate." tedder (talk) 18:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I added some of what you're quoting, and it came from some really old discussions on this page which never really got to a mutually satisfying consensus. Then and now, the main reason I see for allowing (on a case-by-case basis) the crediting of non-notable people in captions is to follow Creative Commons' attribution requirements... the image description page credits probably are sufficient for CC's legal code but not the human-readable summary (i.e. Creative Commons seems to contradict itself about how to credit authors). We (I) asked Mike Godwin on his user talk page for his input but there was no response, so we eventually just put that it is "assumed" caption crediting is unnecessary. It may not be true, but it is what we assumed. -kotra (talk) 02:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The summary is just that, a summary; only the legal code matters. Have there actually been any complaints about this "in the wild"? (i.e. are there actual instances of image contributors complaining about the way they're credited?) --Cybercobra (talk) 03:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps only the legal code matters if it were taken to court. On the other hand, an argument could be made that the human-readable version is the de facto licensing agreement, as it is presented as a reliable summary of the legal code. IANAL, so I cannot make that determination. Regardless, legally valid or not, we shouldn't totally disregard the wishes of the photographers and artists who provide us free content. If the occasional non-notable credit in a caption does not conflict with our ideals, i.e. it wouldn't hurt, then we should at least consider accommodating them. I have no opinion on that, but it may be something to consider. Anyway, to answer your question, yes I have come across one or two artists who have voiced a desire for their works to be credited in captions, and you're likely to find more in reviewing the history of this talk page. But I'd wager that these vocal handful are fewer than the number of artists who refuse to release their works under a Wikipedia-permissible license or have become disenchanted with Wikipedia due to how they see we credit media. Of course, these still may be a very small group of people, and the benefit of their content must be weighed against the cost of what would need to be done to welcome them. -kotra (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) I was not familiar with WP:UP, and am perfectly willing to avoid links to user space. Sorry. (2) Wikipedia guidelines may be "clear" about credits, but as far as I can tell from reading all the discussions I could find, they are both extremely controversial and backed more by bludgeoning than reasonable argument. What a case there is for the current guidelines has broken down into 2 main arguments: (a) adding captions to images adds clutter, and (b) photographers will use wikipedia articles as a platform for self-promotion, perhaps for SEO purposes with links back to their pages, etc., but at least being noticed as named in the middle of the content. The SEO concerns are out of date since WP adds nofollow to external links. As far as I can tell, neither of these arguments is relevant in the case of credits in footnotes. Therefore, instead of just quoting back the existing policy and hiding under its skirt, I would appreciate it if you tried to actually make a case for not putting credits in footnotes. Thanks. –jacobolus (t) 09:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be "noticed" for your work, then you've come to the wrong place. See WP:OWN. SharkD  Talk  15:28, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Notice that I said that the argument against putting credits in captions is to avoid artists using wikipedia for self promotion. This seems like a legitimate enough goal: Wikipedia is not a platform advertising art, etc. etc. I don't think that putting image credits in footnotes has that problem (I don't personally think putting credits in captions has the problem either, but that was the claim, anyway). –jacobolus (t) 20:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Reasonable argument: I submit that the de facto Wikipedia norm is to credit all original content produced to "Wikipedia" generically rather than to the individual, specific contributors. Edit histories are where more detailed authorial info is tracked. Images only mention the wiki-creators on their pages for uniformity with fair-use image pages and to allow artists to later choose more broad/permissive licensing terms since we permit several. Aforementioned norm likely exists for the purposes of fostering an open, wiki-ish, WP:OWN-free atmosphere. --Cybercobra (talk) 15:47, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

You're right that it's the de-facto norm on Wikipedia, but maybe the reason that this is surprising for so many is that crediting images is the norm pretty much everywhere else, even in publications with individually authored but not bylined text. The general expectation from looking at textbooks/magazines/brochures/academic papers/traditional encyclopedias/etc. is to see image credits. I think this mainly happens because images are to some extent independent and self-contained works of their own, not usually produced by large-group collaboration. Perhaps the main reason is just that images were often produced by someone other than the author of text they illustrate, and bylined to offer proper credit in contexts where everything else is credited too, and then inertia carried that practice along even into other contexts. It's possible that these cultural prejudices run contra to the "wiki ethos", &c. Given how widespread they are, I think you perhaps dismiss them too easily. Similarly, I don't you'll find tremendous agreement that writing authorship information on image description pages is only for "uniformity with fair-use images": rather, it comes from the same legal and cultural tradition that leads to image captions most places. I imagine, for instance, that if Wikipedia stopped describing image sources on image description pages, its pool of images and image contributors would shrink dramatically. The event of a user adding additional more permissive licenses to an image after its initial licensing must be extremely infrequent relative to the number of images on the site: I don't think that's it either. –jacobolus (t) 22:07, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It feels like you are tilting at windmills here; whether a credit is in a caption or hidden down in a reference, the effect is the same. Image credits are on image description pages, just as text contribution credits are in the history. The spirit of the WP:OWN policy is clear: content, both image and text, is edited and shared collaboratively. It may be a failure of Wikipedia not to credit contributions more blatanty, but.. it is what it is. tedder (talk) 22:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I would just like to raise the point that, not only has jacobolus credited himself with nearly all the images in the article, he's also removed nearly all images created by other users. SharkD  Talk  23:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Unintentional, and with several different motivations over the course of about 2 months. (1) I added some images, (2) I decided some of the existing images were irreparably defective and added some more images to replace them. (3) I created some demonstrative figures out of nominees/winners of wikipedia "picture of the year" contests. (4) I noticed that their authors specifically requested image credit in their images as licensed (under cc-by-sa) on their sites. (5) I added image credits to those images. (6) I figured if I was going to add image credits for some images, I might as well add credits for all the images then on the page. The intent is neither nefarious nor self-congratulatory. In any case, if there's actually a consensus against putting credits in footnotes (I see about 3 editors asserting that, but little conclusive evidence; all the discussions I've seen seem roughly evenly split, with arguments mostly just passing in the night) then I will happily remove them. Cheers. –jacobolus (t) 02:53, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Additional examples

Are there examples of how to add captions that, 1) are labeled "figure 1", "figure 2", etc.; and 2) use short phrases without punctuation? If not I would like to see some made. SharkD  Talk  23:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

What more precisely do you have in mind? I'm having trouble imagining it. –jacobolus (t) 02:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

More on credits in image captions

The page currently says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page." However, the CC legal code and our templates that support it permit a copyright holder the spicy the form of attribution. (for an example see File:David Siegel.jpg.) In such a case we must use an image caption credit or not use the image (or be in violation of license terms). DES ^(talk) 13:00, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I share the concerns raised in the above comment (which I assume meant to say "However, the CC legal code and our templates that support it permit a copyright holder to specify the form of attribution.") As I understand it, our practice of attributing authorship for text contributions by having readers look through our history is based on the note at the bottom of every text edit page that says "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. See the Terms of Use for details." But there is no such agreement for media files contributed to Wikimedia Commons. Their use is governed only by the license under which the file was uploaded, which must be one of the free content licenses that Commons accepts. Our Terms of Use makes this clear. Common recommends "Multi-license with CC-BY-SA-3.0) and GFDL." Increasingly we transfer images without asking permission from other photo collection sites, such as Flickr, as long as a suitable free license such as CC-BY or CC-BY-SA is granted. CC-BY-SA says "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.)" Flickr offers HTML code to use in attributing a work. If an author's attribution requirements are excessive, we always have the option to not use the image. But I don't think "It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page." is sufficient to address the complex legal and ethical issues involved with photo attribution.--agr (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Some background: I added that particular line as a compromise, because, while CC-BY's "human-readable summary" says we should abide by the copyright holder's requested method of attribution, CC-BY's legal code (which we assumed has more legal weight), doesn't seem to say anything about the copyright holder being able to specify the method... and so, though we assumed this meant that CC doesn't require us to follow the method the copyright holder requests, none of us discussing the issue were actual copyright lawyers, so we could only say it is "assumed". Copyright law is incredibly complicated and laypeople like us cannot say for certain whether the law says one thing or the other in this regard. But perhaps it would be better to say "It is assumed by some that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page, though this is currently disputed. A formal legal opinion on the matter has not been received." (additions in bold)

For your convenience, here's the relevant text:

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

— CC-BY 3.0 human-readable summary

The credit required by this Section 4(b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Derivative Work or Collective Work appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.

— CC-BY 3.0 legal code

-kotra (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the wording you propose would be better. I am not a lawyer, but I can see courts taking the human-readable summary into consideration, even though there is a disclaimer saying it has no legal significance. Our article on the Parol evidence rule lists several exceptions that seem relevant in this context. But I also think we should look at this from an ethical perspective. Wikipedia is a strong proponent and beneficiary of free content and copyleft. I don't think we should act based on narrow legal technicalities if we can avoid doing so. I suspect the vast majority of people who submit content under CC-BY and its cousins do so based on the human-readable summary, not the legal text. In that context we should respect what the human-readable summary says. I would distinguish between content submitted by the author to Wikimedia and content we import based on a CC-BY compatible license. People who submit their photos directly, like myself, presumably have seen how we credit images and willingly upload their images anyway. People who submit to Flickr, say, likely expect attribution to mean what is done on Flickr, i.e. their name or pseudonym is on the same page as the photo. --agr (talk) 21:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It is both unethical and unreasonable to have a system on Commons that tells authors/licensors that their images will be attributed in the manner specified by the author or licensor, and then refuse to honour this on Wikipedia pages.

I propose the following change to the guidelines:

For photographs:

• • Where was it taken?
  • When was it taken?
  • Who took it? (this is only included in the caption if the photographer is notable, or if required by licence conditions)
  • Why was it taken?

Rowland Goodman (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that it's either unethical or unreasonable. An author could upload an image to Commons under a license that says "Reproduction of this image is permitted provided that the author is credited in 72-point Americana Bold in red with yellow polka dots." The fact that an author may specify whatever licensing terms they like doesn't mean that Wikipedia should be required to accept them.

You are right that a caption credit is very common and is usually not an unreasonable request. But this is an encyclopedia, which is intrinsically a collective effort, and you will note that there are no individual credits on the article pages at all. As the terms of use say, "you agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution." Tim Pierce (talk) 20:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I stumbled across this discussion today and have read through most of this page. This section actually address's the correct concerns - to be blunt - if someone uses the CC sa-by 3.0 License they can specify how they want their attribution to read. If Wikipedia accepts that license than there is no acceptable guideline here that overrules the copyright holders terms. That is clear if one reads the full legal code of the CC by-sa 3.0 license. The File:David Siegel.jpg example is a perfect way to illustrate how an attribution requirement can be worded. Another issue with this discussion that is being overlooked is that when a copyright holder chooses to allow something to be used here, and that file is also hosted here, that means that file is licensed to Wikipedia. It does not necessarily mean "For Wikipedia use only", is just means that Wikipedia is the end user. As such the copyright holder can terminate that license with Wikipedia at any time if Wikipedia's use of it somehow violates the license's terms of use. In plain English - a photo credit or by-line being *with* the image when it is used can be a requirement of use, if it is not given the rights of usage can be revoked. There is a slightly misleading wording that is used at Wikipedia which is "Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable". If that is all that there was it would mean the actual license for the image can not be revoked. But that is not all there is - that statement comes from FAQ at Creative Commons. One has to read the next line of the FAQ to better understand the full context: This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a Creative Commons license, from using the work according to that license The important words are according to that license. Again, if one reads the full legal code for the Wikipedia accepted CC by-sa 3 license, section 7. Termination it states the the license will terminate automatically upon any breach of the terms by an end user. Bottom line - any end user must follow the requirement of the given license. The stance that some editors currently have about not giving proper attribution is based on older Wikipedia guidelines and polices that, in the case of images, stated we did not accept any license that required attribution. However now attribution is part of all CCL's, and none of them state the end user must only follow attribution requirements if the copyright holder is "independently notable". Since there was a push to make everything at Wikipedia available via a CC by-sa 3.0 license Wikipedia editors can not "assume" anything in regards to attribution - in fact most of the WP:CREDITS section should be removed or drastically re-worded. We have tags such as {{Attribution}} and {{CopyrightFreeAttributeEmail}} for images and {{Source-attribution}} for articles. Those can even be used in conjunction with {{ConfirmationOTRS}} if need be. We need only give attribution if it is required, however common sense should always tell an editor to "give credit where credit is due". Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Having spent some more time studying the CC-BY-3.0 license in the last few weeks I have come to disagree. There is no clause I can find in the legal code that gives the author the ability to specify the format or location of the attribution. Instead, it says (as quoted above) that credit may be given "in any reasonable manner" without specifying how or where or why, giving the licensee freedom to choose the manner. The CC FAQ appears to concur:

In the case where a copyright holder does choose to specify the manner of attribution, in addition to the requirement of leaving intact existing copyright notices, they are only able to require certain things. Namely:

• They may require that you attribute the work to a certain name, pseudonym or even an organization of some sort.
• They may require you to associate/provide a certain URL (web address) for the work.
  — Creative Commons FAQ

So, absent a formal legal opinion on the matter, it seems to me that by using CC-BY-SA 3.0, an author is implicitly giving up fine-grained control over exactly how they are credited for their work. They must still be credited, but the licensee has a considerable degree of freedom over how to provide that credit. Tim Pierce (talk) 15:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If there are only a few words here and there - yes that is how one could read it. But after dealing with images and copyrights here for the last 3 years and in the real world for the last 30 or so I can look at the license and understand why all of CCL's are written very generic: because they are used for not only images but also music, books, artwork and pretty much anything else that can be licensed. I am not going to re-paste the entire legal code here, however, as all of the current CCL's are now "attribution" licenses that means the "Licensor" is required to be given the "Attribution" as they specify it to be (If they want it to be) whenever the end user ("You") seeks to "Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work." Remember this is a multi use, generic license - it would be pointless to word it so it is directly aimed at only one form of media. For example "Attribution must be displayed at the head of the motion picture or television broadcast" would not work for a book. "Attribution must be given on the front cover as well as the title page" would not work for a motion picture. This is why the wording used is generic and states "reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing." In plain English the "medium" being used means the format or manner of use. Is it an article being printed in a newspaper? Is it a song being played on the radio? Is it a motion picture being screened in a theater? Is it a painting hanging in an art gallery? For this discussion the "You" is Wikipedia and "The Work" is an image. The first "use" is the image page - and overall Wikipedia does give proper attribution on image pages. The next "use" being discussed is image use in Wikipedia articles. The "medium" being used here is the internet. What kind of attribution is "reasonable" becomes the question at this point. It is already established we allow attribution on article pages. For "quotes" in article we have footnote at the bottom of the page, for articles or sections of article where text is used under a free license we use a tag such as {{Source-attribution}}. For articles on albums, books, motion pictures, video/DVD releases and television shows we give attribution to the artists, the label, the recording studio, the distributor, the director, the producer and various other "jobs", sometimes in an infobox and sometimes in the body of the article and sometimes both. It has already been established that for images we give attribution to someone an editor feels is "independently notable". If one looks on the internet at other websites that contain informative articles we find that attribution is given, one can even find articles taken from Wikipedia the carry attribution such as: "Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article..." Given that Wikipedia already allows attribution in articles and on images the opinion that Wikipedia does not use a medium that would allow for photo credit outside of an image page does not hold up.

As for what the "author" might require when "You" "Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work" it would very by what is being licensed. A distributor of a motion picture may have a long list of requirements via contract that must be used - their attribution requirements may include breakdown of specifics - such as "In any or all print media advertising attribution must be:" with a list of the name of the film, the producer, the director, the main stars and so on. As this relates to the FAQ you mention - when all of the section is read the first things it states are All current CC licenses require that you attribute the original author(s). If the copyright holder has not specified any particular way to attribute them, this does not mean that you do not have to give attribution. The key words in this first section are If and has not specified. If you read the examples for what would happen if there was nothing specified one of the examples is for a "derivative work or adaptation" where "You" might have to give attribution as "Screenplay based on [original work] by [author]." If this were a motion picture that kind of attribution is common sense (no pun intended) and that kind of common sense should be applied to image use as well. The section that you quoted above is as you quoted but one needs to read the full legal code in order to fully understand that the key words in that section of the FAQ are They may require.... In plain(er) English that "may" means *could* require, not "can only require". So you "may require" attribution to read: © Tim Pierce and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. However the attribution could also be greatly broken down:

• "For world wide web use attribution must appear at each use location and must read: © Tim Pierce and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License"
• "For print use, excluding books, attribution must read: © Tim Pierce and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a similar license. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA."
• "For front cover or back cover book use attribution may appear on the inner sleeve, for content usage attribution can be in a credits section. In all cases attribution must read: © Tim Pierce and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a similar license. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA."
• "For gallery shows a card must be placed near the image, it's use is any printed material associated with the gallery show must also carry attribution and must read: © Tim Pierce and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a similar license. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. However if the printed material is limited on space © Tim Pierce and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License may be used next to the image provided there is a note that reads To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. in the printed material as well."

That is just a brief idea. The FAQ is akin to the "human-readable summary", which states Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). It does not state, nor does the full legal code, Attribution — You must only attribute the work to a certain name, pseudonym or even an organization of some sort and possibly a certain URL (web address) for the work. This all should be a non-issue now that Wikipedia has moved to use only attribution licenses. It becomes more of an issue, I feel, when you see an image taken form Wikipedia and it has a credit as "Wikipedia" and not the photographer. Providing a link to another page or another website with the image is not really providing a credit. You might say it would be like reading a murder-mystery novel and when you get to the last page you find a notice to visit a website to find out "Who did it". Soundvisions1 (talk) 18:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If there is case law that supports this interpretation of "reasonable attribution" then I will agree with you. Otherwise I think that at most it is an as-yet unresolved legal question, certainly not anywhere near as clear-cut as you suggest here. Tim Pierce (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Section Break

It may be "too soon" for any "case law" with specific regards to CCL's and attribution but I will search. Having said that, what is within easy to find reach - There was an interesting lawsuit where an Australian ad agency hired by Virgin Mobile used images from Flickr that had a CCL attached. One of the images was of a minor living in Texas. (Download a PDF of the lawsuit here: Susan Chang v Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons) The lawsuit was not soley about attribution, it has multi layers - including a "Breach of Contract" section. It states that when the image was downloaded from Flickr the end user entered into a valid contract via the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. It is stated in the lawsuit that Virgin Mobile was obligated, inter alia, to attribute Justin Wong as the photographer of the picture. Virgin Mobile failed to comply with this obligation, thereby breaching the terms of the contract. It goes on to cite the legal code of the version 2 license, section 7(a), that says "(t)his License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License." So therefor when Virgin Mobile used the photograph without properly attributing the photographer and licensor, Justin Wong, the contract terminated, which thereby abrogated any rights that were otherwise granted to Virgin Mobile under the terms of the license. The lawsuit was dismissed, mainly because the Texas court system felt it had no jurisdiction over in Australia. It is interesting to read Lawrence Lessig, CEO of Creatives Commons, comment: As CEO of Creative Commons, I apologize for any trouble that confusion about our licenses might have created. We thought the meaning was clear. We work hard to make this as clear as we can. We will work harder. (From the Why-a-GC-from-Cravath-is-great Department: The lawsuit is over Of interest is also the conversation on that page about attribution - including a link to the Wikimedia Commons Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia article. NOTE: If you read that note the "Hotlinking" section which says that while you can hotlink the images "it is still good practice to add attribution as you would for copies on your own server.")

And on a very related note - a question was asked of the CEO:

• Question: I'd like to know why I can't plug in my own attribution requirements. For instance, if I release a picture under the CC, I want to specify that any page using that pic must contain a specific link. According to a discussion I had on cc-community, apparently I can't do that under the CC.
• Reply from CC CEO Lawrence Lessig: Actually, you can use the new attribution license to specify the attribution, including a link. (and so it begins)

You may also want to this: AutoWeek: Oh come on. In the meantime, if that isn't enough to establish what is being discussed, I will seek out any legal cases where attribution played a factor. Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Consolidation?

Please note that this page has been nominated to be consolidated with the primary Manual of Style page. Please join the discussion at the MOS talk page in order to discus the possibility of merging this page with the MOS. Thank you.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:41, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I think it is unwise that this information be fragmented into a page that appears to be very much to do with images and related guidelines, and needs to be in the same place. Please come forth with any technical or content problems that would arise from the merger. Tony (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to say that the miles of text devoted to dragging out fragments from the main text and using ellipsis points (wrongly spaced here, see MoS), is eccentric, even bizarre. I'd be happy to see it cut right back. Tony (talk) 04:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Centre-aligning captions

I've just been given a boilerplate talk page rebuttal from User:96.41.164.58, who seems to be responding to a number of editors who've independently (and perhaps incorrectly) told him that it's inappropriate to add <center> tags to image captions for the sake of aesthetics. Is there really no clear stance on this in the MoS? Should there be one? --McGeddon (talk) 11:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

period after image caption?

I'm curious why image captions on wikipedia, that are not complete sentences, do not get periods. Guidance for figure captions in almost all journals and theses IS to add a period. This is even if the caption is a sentence fragment. I can dig up references showing this. The guidance I always heard was that the appelation below a figure represented a comment on the figure (and you can even have a paragraph, although for wiki with the tiny images, I would not do that). As such it goes below the figure and has a period. On the other hand tables get the name above the table, with capitalization and without a period, as this is the "title" of the table. In essence, I think the current style guidance is "wrong" since it differs with most common practice. Wiki should try to normally not blaze new trails...only doing so when the very particular format here or of the web drives that...but otherwise should try to stick to the most standard usage, so readers don't do double takes. Anyhoo...even if the answer is "we just decided to do it this way", could you direct me to where this was debated before, could not find. TCO (talk) 04:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

(Waffling with self) Of course we probably want to follow the format other encyclopedias do, which might be more popular. I guess magazines and such might not add a period after a sentence frag caption. But I don't know...TCO (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'm curious why image captions on wikipedia, that are not complete sentences, do not get periods. -- You're asking the wrong question. The proper question is: Why should extended noun phrases have a final period?
  I can dig up references showing this. -- Please do.
  I think the current style guidance is "wrong" -- "wrong", or wrong? [I struck this part of my comment since it struck me as needlessly aggressive.] --87.79.224.212 (talk) 03:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
  Maybe more to the point: I believe that there are only so many options. One reason I believe the threshold "grammatically complete sentence vs. non-sentence" makes a lot of sense is that on the one hand it provides an easy to understand underlying mechanic, and on the other hand I believe that on very short (one or two word) captions or on captions that simply name e.g. the depicted painting (see Painting for examples), periods are really awkward.
  So imho, the question cannot be about whether to put final periods on all captions. (At least I for one would be heavily opposed to adding captions in the aforementioned cases.) Therefore, we would still need a sensible underlying rule when to use a final period and when not to.
  As to how other publishers handle this issue, I've found e.g. this printguide at princeton.edu which advises against using periods in captions that are not full sentences. So it appears this rule is not something "made up" by Wikipedians. It's one variant that is out there, and imho it is the one that makes by far the most sense.
  Needless to say, my argument hinges on my personal strong opposition to periods on the examples I mentioned (e.g. very short captions or just names of the depicted painting or other work of art). Should a consensus emerge at some point that periods should also be used on such captions, then we'd again have a very simple underlying rule ("periods on all captions"). Until then, the simplest and most sensible dividing line remains "grammatically complete sentence vs. non-sentence". --213.168.116.136 (talk) 21:34, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Examples

The examples given don't seem very good - ie:

• "Burma Shave" the shown image neither 'tells a joke or a rhyme'
• the engine image has a caption that doesn't really explain the image (ok I know it's an engine) - it doesn't appear to show any stage of a design process
• image of a large ship captioned "...structures and vehicles of all sizes..." - ? Slightly surreal message

The "raven" caption appears normal and good.

I honestly fail to see how these are examples of good captions - and don't match 'common sense' standard usage of captions in the majority of articles eg Map. Are they supposed to be good examples or ?Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Frankly, the captions on Map ([14] this rev) stink. They show maps, and they even tell what kind of maps they are, but they don't explain WHY those particular maps are relevant to the article or more particularly their section. Consider, in the "Scale and accuracy" section, "A 'global view map' of Europe, Western Asia and Africa." The map shows half the world via what looks like an orthographic projection. The caption could read, "This map projection preserves distances on parallels, but shows considerable distortion near the edges." Leave the reader to figure out or click through to see what part of the world is displayed. -- ke4roh (talk) 02:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica^Tea? 00:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Credits / references in the caption

Typical ECG abnormalities in Brugada syndrome: ST elevation in V1-V3, without ischemia.

I am currently in discussions with a few organizations with respect to them releasing images under a CC3.0 license. The CC license requires attribution. It is also useful to have references to verify the image content. Wondering about using a little blue link such as I have done in this example as both reference and credit?

Hope to turn these collaborations into positive experiences for both Wikipedia and the other party involved. They would provide high quality content. We would provide exposure. Much like WP:GLAM partnerships. Currently these images are not under a CC3.0 license. Some have expressed concern regarding reasonable attribution as we discussed previously.[15] Would also like to determine if we do increase traffic to other sites and publish this. Would give use something to take to potential partners. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

We would provide exposure. -- Advertising, in plain English. GLAM are Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums, not private corporations with a financial interested in advertising.

More importantly, what exactly is the rationale for adding the attribution in the image caption rather than storing it in the file description page? --195.14.223.157 (talk) 00:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I've often wondered whether we're in breach of CC-attribution licence terms by not showing the attribution on the page where we use the image. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Why? We provide attribution on the file's page, which is automatically linked from the articles using the image. This concern is specifically invalid for Wikipedia articles as they are CC-licensed themselves. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Because we don't provide attribution where we use the image. I fail to see the relevance of the page's own licence. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems important and effective to me. A few photo archives (including the LOC) have declined to become active contributors to Commons because our version of "attribution" did not match what they expected. Among the concerns I have heard expressed: some people print out pages or save PDFs of them; most others simply browse quickly, possibly even reading through to the footnotes and credits, but do not "click on images" to get further metadata. The latter is not standard practice online. Three options I can imagine for unified detailed credit include: a short hyperlinked string that runs up the side of the photo, a parenthetical credit at the end of a caption, or a footnote to a detailed source (which would ideally draw from the same structured wikidata as the commons page). – SJ +

<small> Tags in Captions for Infoboxes

There's been quite the dispute between me and User:Oanabay04 over the use of <small> tags in image captions for infoboxes along the Media/Elwyn Line in stations such as West Chester (SEPTA station). What is written policy on the usage of these tags in the infoboxes. If we could get a straight answer, it might put this dispute to an end.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 00:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The problem is that the size of the text ins not consistent between infoboxes. For Station infoboxes (see Locksley_(SEPTA_station)), the caption in the infobox is clearly the same size as the text. For television show infoboxes, the text is smaller (and thankfully, not quite as small as the result of adding <small>, which I believe is too small); please see here The Pink Panther Show. Please advise why caption size changes. Thank you.Oanabay04 (talk) 12:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

"Special instructions" ~ instruction creep

I suggest moving the "Maps" item to the section above, and ridding ourselves of the rest. They seem to be mere applications of the general guidance set out in the rest of the guideline. It would therefore preferable not to state them, as WP:CREEP. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

"click for a larger view"

This question comes from WP:GAN: the caption of the image in article included (after relevant text) the wording "click for a larger view" with the word "click" url-linked to the image on Wikimedia Commons (not to the description page, but to the image itself). So the question is: should this type of captions be prohibited in this guideline? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

See above on this page for an old attempt to start a similar discussion. Staecker (talk) 17:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done in this edit. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

*sigh*

The fact that this lovely bit of info lasted for nearly two days (in the lead sentence, no less) tells me exactly how many people look at this page... Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 17:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I cleared out my watchlist a long time ago and hadn't re-watched this page yet. I'll keep an eye on it and hope others do, too. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

...but then it hit me: the statement was about ninjas! Of course no one could see it! Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 13:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Capitalising non-sentence captions

O-kay, I didn't see anything on this page to tell me - do captions that are not sentences have caps or not? I always assumed not (see my image captions at Banksia oblongifolia), just as they don't have periods......or have I got it wrong? Casliber (talk · contribs) 18:26, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Those captions are ripe for converting to proper sentences by providing a little more context. I would do it myself, but I don't know much about the plant. The map is easy: "Banksia oblongifolia grows exclusively along the Australian east coast." For the plant in its habitat, describe the habitat a bit: "Banksia oblongifolia thrives in the damp shade of swamps, but it also grows in the open." -- ke4roh (talk) 21:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Haha, yeah, i've done that before to avoid the dilemma meself :) .....but would you do it with all captions? Even brief ones?Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I try to do it with all my captions, except, of course, the special situations. I've stopped trying to re-write everyone else's captions, though. -- ke4roh (talk) 00:20, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Exception for technical images

There has been an increasing focus on making sure that captions are succinct. While this is generally preferred, technical diagrams and charts are often better presented with long captions that explain details in the image. The alternative is to move text into the main body of the article. This can easily lead to awkward references to the diagram in the main prose such as "see the equilibrium between e_i and ē in the chart at left" or "this is denoted by the line labeled NSC in the diagram at right." It's best to avoid this type of language in the main article text. Many technical articles already use long captions in this manner (see the image in Quantum_mechanics#Mathematical_formulations and other images in the article). At one point long captions for technical images were standard on Wikipedia, but "succinct" has increasingly become the rule in all cases. The MOS should be amended to give technical images an exception. My personal bias is that I would like to promote History of macroeconomic thought which has long captions like the one here, and some reviewers have criticized caption length on the basis of MOS. I propose adding text to the exceptions section of this page: "Technical images such as charts and diagrams should have longer captions than the usually preferred succinct form. References to denotations and representations in the image should be confined to the caption and avoided in the main article text."

Advantages of long captions for technical images:

• Avoids awkward references to images in prose ("in the chart at right," "see the blue line in the diagram in the next section"). This violates the spirit of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid and can be just as annoying as "this article is about X."
• Avoids having to refer to technical denotations in article prose ("...representative firm denoted as e_i")
• Allows technical language, notation, and discussion to be removed from the main body, which allows the reader to focus on less technical information if they do not wish to get involved in the heavier aspects of an article.
• Allows better flow since a caption can be used as a sidebar for detailed, technical discussions of images that interrupt main article flow.

--Bkwillwm (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

An example of a featured, technical article with long captions: Equipartition theorem. In the sense that MOS reflects established conventions, I think it would be fair to say that technical images can have long captions.--Bkwillwm (talk) 06:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Crediting section

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should our guideline on giving credit to photographers in captions be changed to specify that we should give credit in captions where such credit is requested? Ray^Talk 20:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

• Detailed explanation of my reasoning: This is prompted by a discussion at WP:COI/N, where an editor has been accused of COI for crediting himself in his photos, and having his captions reverted. I think that our assumption that no caption attribution is needed is only fair where such attribution has not been requested, and we should stick in a note that where such credit is requested, it should be given. On a legal level, I suppose more learned opinion than mine is welcome. On a moral level, I think Wikipedia should be grateful to people who let us use their photos by licensing them under free licenses, not bitey, and give attribution even if not legally required. Ray^Talk 20:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

• No - I see nothing wrong with the current wording in Credit that the appropriate credit is given on the image description page. MilborneOne (talk) 20:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
• I also think that attribution on the image description page is sufficient... many thousands of people allow their photos to be used in articles without getting a namecheck, including myself. Teapotgeorge^Talk 21:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Captions says... Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page. Teapotgeorge^Talk 21:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

  My particular concern here, is that we may drive away certain editors from posting their pictures, purely for the sake of form. I don't think giving credit to somebody in a caption is an onerous requirement when it's requested. Ray^Talk 21:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

  Commons has 5 million images and attibution doesnt appear to be a problem, so one or two uploaders who are not happy with it and who do not upload images would probably go unnoticed. MilborneOne (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

  I've come from WP:COIN too, it seems to me as though people shouldn't add their name to a caption even if they are notable. It does seem a little promotional IMO and if one person can do it why shouldn't I add my username to captions of photos that I've uploaded? The caption should only be describing the photo and nothing else. Smartse (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

  I agree. In the particular COI notice mentioned earlier I had commented that the editor in question was doing far more good than harm in uploading the photos, and there might be other cases where this is true. But regardless, if an editor actually requires that we credit them in the caption and won't upload otherwise, then that editor is not likely to be here to improve the encyclopedia, but is instead here for self-promotion. In that case, perhaps driving them away isn't such a terrible thing. -- Atama頭 23:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

  Agreement here too. A couple of other things: the only time captions mention authors is when the author is is relevant to the article. Also worth noting that CC-BY licenses stipulate that equal prominence should be given to all similarly-licensed images in a given publication. We have to maintain a level playing field for all participants, so people agree to play by the rules (agreement being implicit in the CC license, as I say) or they don't play at all. --mikaul^talk 03:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

• No – the curent wording is fine. Captions should not give credits ("unless relevant to the subject"), just as the many astonishingly brilliant paragraphs of text do not credit their authors (except incidentally via the history for text, or file information for images). The case leading to this RFC was a misunderstanding and not a problem, but the question has now been asked and it needs to be confirmed that Wikipedia does not credit content creators in articles. If photo credits were given, the credits would become links, and the links would become external links.THIS COMMENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY JOHNUNIQ Johnuniq (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
• Conclusion Well, it seems pretty clear that consensus of opinion is against my position, and I see no need to let the RFC run and peter out in 30 days; time. The current guideline of putting attribution on the picture page except when otherwise relevant to the picture's use in the article will remain, it seems. Thanks to all for commenting. Ray^Talk 15:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This seems worth revisiting. – SJ + 00:14, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Credits in the info box image

Given that the info box was designed to only give a few appropriate vital details of the subject, it is wise to refrain from giving "image credit" to the artist in images that are presented in the info box templates. Images placed within the body of the article "may" be acceptable on a case by case basis, but in the info box, only enough information to identify the subject should be presented.--JOJ ^Hutton 13:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Credit for all images is on the image pages. -- ke4roh (talk) 21:35, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Anyone else have an opinion on info box image credits? Its my opinion, based on the wording of this MOS, that "credits" are allowed in images in some instances. Yet this is usually interpreted by some to mean every instance, as long as the artist is notable. Many times, citing the artist, even when notable, is not relevant to the subject. This is especially true in the info box image. So we should add that artist credit in the info box image should not be allowed.--JOJ ^Hutton 13:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• Plan in playing the WP:BOLD card and add the following sentence:
  • Image credits in the info box image are discouraged, even if the artist is notable, since the infobox should only contain key facts of the articles subject, per MOS:INFOBOX.
• That should do it.JOJ ^Hutton 21:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

  In this case I think a footnote would be appropriate, but in all cases it is better to mention credit on the same page where possible. [the wikivoyage practice of listing editors in the footer of a page is a good one as well, but that's for a different MoS page.] – SJ + 00:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Caption credit OK in POD?

Today's (3/3) Picture of the Day is a map by Eric Gaber that gives him credit in its caption. This seems totally appropriate to me, particularly since he expressly asked for credit when contributing the picture.

However, this page, WP:CREDITS, states that "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page."

Does this mean that his credit should be expunged from the POD forthwith? Or are PODs exempt from this WP policy?

The reason I ask is that this issue has come up today with regard to three picture on the Bat Creek inscription page. I think it is reasonable that they be credited (with a small tag, and in italics to make them periferal), though it has also been suggested here that such credits be in footnotes.

I see that this has been discussed extensively above, in "Crediting Section" (9/08), "Image crediting in footnotes" (3/10), "More on credits in image captions" (3/10), "Credits/references in the caption" (7/11), and "Credits in the info box image" (4/12). Most of the commenters agreed with the WP:CREDITS policy, so am I to assume that all would agree that the credit to Gaba must go? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuMcCulloch (talk • contribs) 23:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC) Sorry -- forgot to sign the above. HuMcCulloch (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, caption credit is ok, whenever as an editor it makes sense to you. "Credit in the article" related to text outside of the caption. Credit inside the caption is often (some would say always) appropriate. I think the recent idea of having at least a footnote with detailed credit makes sense: many use cases, from pdfs and screenshots to offline collections, don't include separate image pages with metadata. We are pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable under "Attribution" licenses by having attribution one or more clicks away, and not labeled as such, in a way that effectively hides attribution from most casual viewers. – SJ + 00:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Video game infobox captions

Hey, I was wondering if a caption for a video game cover in an infobox is really necessary. For example, the Red Dead Redemption article used to have a caption for the cover in the infobox, but I recently removed it here, and quoted WP:CREDITS. But was that the right thing? I'm mainly questioning this because I can't really find anything written about it in this article (which I was recently directed to look at). Thanks in advance, Rhain1999 (talk) 11:03, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

See the above discussion. - X201 (talk) 12:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Rhain1999, I was somewhat amused by your inquiry considering its relevance to the previous conversation. We have agreed that if it's just a generic cover with nothing especially notable, no caption is necessary. We have also agreed that if it's a cover with a simple directly-relevant image (the protagonist, for example), the caption should briefly identify the protagonist. We have not reached consensus on more complex situations involving multiple key characters on the cover and such. -- ke4roh (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

"Succinct" Captions

There's an issue that a user has with some infobox cover art image captions that can be seen here (my reverts to the longer captions which had persisted for some time)

• [16]
• [17]

The user Jørgen88 is reverting these changes on claims that this MOS states "succinct" and that adding the few extra words to explain the characters shown on the cover is too much. From most other articles I've seen, this is completely reasonable to add identification as it helps to improve why the image is there in the first place. But the take Jørgen88 seems is that the caption should be so tight as possible but I've never seen it enforced to this great a degree. Opinions? --MASEM (t) 17:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

My reading of the FUR guidelines is that the image should/must have a short sentence describing it. GTA IV and Everybody's Golf 5 have had a descriptive captions for years. They aid the reader and impart important information.- X201 (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The caption of an image doesn't have anything directly to do with non-free media (generally, significance should be in prose, with the caption repeating that). But I am focused more on the fact that if we can have a cover image do more than just be a cover image but also identify characters or setting or art style, we should be identifying that in the caption. --MASEM (t) 18:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've had discussions with both of you (same user?) about this (see my talk page) and I respect any census that an administrator or sufficient user base (not close 'Wikipedia friends') would reach. But, as I've said earlier, your edits are in direct violation of the guidelines of this encyclopedia. We cant just add what we feel like, further than what the object of the image is, which in this case, is a cover/box art. I'm not going to revert you again, for now. If theres no more feedback from the community in the next few days, I will revert back. Jørgen88 (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll try and explain how your actions are appearing in the hope that you can see in what way your edits are puzzling me, and I think Masem. Take the caption of the St. Peter's Basilica images on the right as an example,

Michelangelo designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica on or before 1564, although it was unfinished when he died.

I'm taking your standpoint on captions to say that this image should not be captioned as it is in the Wiki article (top), but should actually be captioned as it is in the bottom image

St. Peter's Basilica

. Your viewpoint appears to be that captions should only describe the picture and not the contents of the image, and should not impart any other information apart from "This is a picture of x". I hope this example explains what I think is the difference between the two viewpoints that obviously exist. - X201 (talk) 08:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with images further down in the article having a small sentence for explanation, though for the esthetics sake, its better to have section in the article explaining it, rather, and then have the name of the building in the captions or no captions at all. I quote: Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text. The infobox is, on the other hand, a completely different area. Its a place for short and accurate information, not descriptions and detailed observations. Actually, it should in all fairness not have a captions at all, as its quite self explanatory that its a cover image. As a last reminder, I will quote Help:Infobox: Concise. Infobox templates are "at-a-glance", and used for quickly checking facts. Long bodies of text, or very detailed statistics, belong in the article body. Jørgen88 (talk) 10:56, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

To be fair, the examples shown are not equivalent to the issue above about game covers where the caption uses a few short words to identify characters otherwise not shown anywhere else in the article. The equivalent case to that would be if one of these say "A photograph of a domed building", and the other said "A photograph of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica". --MASEM (t) 14:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

(I've listed this discussion on RFC and have also posted a request for comment on the Village Pump.) - X201 (talk) 08:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• I saw the note at the Village Pump. I have looked at the linked examples, and I strongly prefer the "detailed" sentence fragments to the basically pointless "Look, box art" label. If we were going to say nothing more than "Oh look, it's the box art", then I'd skip the caption entirely in an infobox. In general, if the caption is smaller than the image, then I think that's probably succinct enough for normal images. I happen to prefer shorter captions in infoboxes, but one complete simple sentence is never too long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  I understand how we all prefer certain methods of displaying information, but we have to remember the entire concept of the infobox sections and the rules made by the community. Help:Infobox picture and Help:Infobox are pretty clear about how it should be. If people want more information, they can always click the image, as User:PaleAqua mentioned. If a compromised understanding is to be made, I prefer no captions at all, as a box cover often is quite self explanatory. Jørgen88 (talk) 12:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  • When we are actually discussing what the rules ought to be, then the fact that the current version of an advice page happens to say one thing or another is irrelevant.
  • There is nothing at all on those pages that says 12 words that communicate actual information is worse that four words that communicate almost nothing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• I actually prefer the condensed versions for captions in infoboxes as they seem distracting when they span multiple lines, but on free standing images prefer a little longer captions. If I'm curious about an infobox picture I'm likely to click on it, especially if it has been cropped or resized to fit the infobox and will see the additional details there. PaleAqua (talk) 04:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  I agree with WhatamIdoing in that if the caption is useless it should just be left out. In theory the image should be a reverse caption for the title of the page / infobox and not even need another sub caption. PaleAqua (talk) 04:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Images used in infoboxes should be blatantly self evident, so any caption (if one is even neccessary at all) should be as brief as possible. Images that require long descriptive captions should not be used in infoboxes. Roger (talk) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  • from an entirely uninterested and uninvolved other editor. The inclusion identifying the Protagonist on the BioShock article I feel is entirely relevant as the only thing included in the image is that one character on a back ground. The inclusion identifying the Protagonist on the GTA article on the other-hand is inappropriate for the reason that it lists 3 protagonist without any way to identify which of the 6 characters is which... I hope this comment can help reach a fair comprise and a consensus. I will not be following this discussion because I have no interest in it, and would not have commented here now if it hadn't been requested to be reviewed on WP:HD by Jørgen88 (talk · contribs). If you want to ask me something about my , please do so on my talk page and I'll copy-paste and respond here. Thank you. Technical 13 (talk) 14:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Dodger, in the interest of keeping it "as brief as possible", are you willing to give up communicating information? No caption at all is truly "as brief as possible". "Official box art" (one of Jørgen88's choices) is IMO brief to the point of being a waste of space. But do you think that "Box art depicting <name of character>" is really too long? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

  Agree with Whatamidoing. The most redundant part of the captions included are the game names, which are clear from context, and "official" is going to be the default presumption. I think captions of "Box art depicting <name of character>" or "Box art depicting <names of characters>" are sufficiently short and information-dense to be considered succinct. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

  I'll say again that the objective of an infobox caption is not to be "succinct," but to do the minimum necessary to inform the reader about the subject of the article. I tend to think naming multiple characters detracts from the introduction. Imagine Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) (ignore the image and caption there now - I think we'll all agree it's bad) with a picture of a movie poster and this caption: "Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Grainger with teachers on the official movie poster for the U.S.". Yes, I should like to know that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are the main characters, but that information will be conveyed elsewhere, but even the movie poster, whose job it is to inform people about the movie in hopes of getting them to pay to see it, does not name the characters except the title character by virtue of the title itself. A better caption might be "U.S. Movie Poster", which caption would distinguish it from the other move poster. -- ke4roh (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I prefer the shorter captions to the one including the name of the character when the images are used in infoboxes, although I don't think the issue would be the same if it were further down the article. This is especially true for the caption that includes the name of multiple characters, which really seems quite unnecessary, and doesn't (to my mind) impart any particularly useful information. The other one is less of an issue, although, personally, I still prefer the shorter one, if a caption is needed at all, which I'm not sure it is. Anaxial (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we should just scrap the idea of having captions under infobox images all together, and just have further explanation down in the article, where theres room for more images and text. An infobox should be short and to the point. Jørgen88 (talk) 14:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I'd go that far, at least as a general principle, because there will be exceptions. The use of the caption in the London infobox is an example of this, and given that it's a large, multi-part picture, not, to my mind, an excessive one. However, there will certainly be many instances where a caption is unnecessary, and box art will often be one of them. After all, what else would it be, and who else, other than the main character(s) in the game, is it likely to be showing? Anaxial (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

When we are talking about covers, and they are showing something that - if it weren't for its placement in the infobox - that is the subject of discussion of the article more than just being the cover (for example, the cases above, where the protagonist - otherwise not shown in screenshots - is shown, or another case at Ico where the fact the cover was purposely made close to that of a famous painting, as another random example), eliminating the caption altogether is pointless. I agree that if all we're saying in the caption is "the game cover", then yes, you've wasted our time. But when the cover (which, 99% of the time, will have to meet WP:NFC, which means they really should help the readers' understanding) can be used to explain something in the article, and unfortunately have it in the infobox, there's no reason not to use the infobox caption appropriately. I will note that the FA process does emphasize good captions - short, but still appropriate. --MASEM (t) 18:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Ico is a great example of how it should NOT be done, where the captions are far too long for the infobox. One line should be the maximum. If people could add whatever amount of information in the infobox, it would be a complete mess. Captions in the infobox needs to follow the concept of the infobox, with minimalistic and simple information. There is however an image of a cover further down the article, with acceptable amount of captions as it is not a part of the infobox, but a part of the development section which allows for more information. If people feel they have the need to explain further about the cover in the infobox, they should add that further down. Jørgen88 (talk) 22:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

But like several other examples I can point to, such captions clear the FA process with ease, and in fact they are encouraged there. Given they are the ultimate practioners of MOS, that implies that what you consider "succinct" and what they consider "succinct" are far different. Again, this is also what NFC supports, to identity any useful infobox image information in its caption to give better relevance for the non-free image. Also, infoboxes aren't designed to be "minimalistic", they're designed to be at-a-glance. Those are two different goals. --MASEM (t) 01:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. "At a glance" is not reading several lines about a box cover, its about detecting simple information like release dates and so forth - "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance". Adding a long phrase under each info box image is directly contradicting this. Jørgen88 (talk) 12:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You're equating "succinct" to "few to no words" when it really is, per M-W "marked by compact precise expression without wasted words". This doesn't mean we don't present extra information as long as that information is provided in a brief form. Yes, we don't have dissertation-length captaions under an infobox dialog, but this also does not mean we're limited to a single line or a fixed number of words, and if we are providing additional information in a summary form that also helps to avoid repeating NFC in an article, that's a better position. --MASEM (t) 14:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The exact number of words that exceeds what is seen as sufficient as captions is not whats important, what is important, is the entire style and impression that the reader is left with after taking a look at the infobox, of which a cover art and its captions are part of. Also, explaining the visuals, like the character or other parts of the image, should be seen as both obvious and self explaining, therefor not necessary information to have as a part of the infobox. If something in the infobox, like a cover art, needs further explanation, that should be covered by a section in the article itself. Jørgen88 (talk) 23:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree that information presented in an infobox caption should also be information present in the article in some manner. The problem is that when we talk about typical cover art for albums, films, etc., and the way which our articles are most often structured, by the time someone gets to the section in the prose that talks about the cover art or the detail that we want the reader to take note of, it's scrolled off the page. Case in point: the BioShock Infinite cover is actually discussed in detail due to perceived blandness, but this is a matter discussed in the game's reception which is about 6-7 page-fulls down the article, well past where the infobox was. It is a major inconvenience to scroll all the way back up to see what's being talked about and then to scroll all the way back down and find the place you were at. This is only a problem with infobox images, not other images where they can be placed inline near the point of discussion. Now, we either let that inconvenience be there because we want zero extraneous information in the infobox, or we allow short captions that preview information that should be discussed later in the article, adding maybe 2-3 lines at most to an infobox (by no means overwhelming the information already there), so that when they get to the point where the image is discussed in the article, they don't have to go scrolling around forever for it. The latter doesn't break the idea of "succinct" captions nor the purpose of an infobox and still helps to serve the reader better. --MASEM (t) 00:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

A solution to this can be a label/footnote under the cover that points to further explanation either in the article or right under the infobox. One example how this can be done is in the article about China where theres a footnote in the infobox after the capital, that leads to further explanation right beneath the infobox. The Grand Theft Auto V article is an example where this can be useful, as the captions under the cover make little sense because it mentions three protagonists without pointing out who of the at least five visible characters displayed in the image they represent. Jørgen88 (talk) 19:21, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Right, and adding three words "(clockwise, from right)" or whatever would be equivalent, gets that identity. And that reason certainly doesn't apply to the Bioshock Infinite cover, where there's only one person on it, and the caption is clearly calling who that person is supposed to be. Again, a footnote does not make sense if you are identifying elements of the infobox image for people, as they would have to scroll all the way up and down the article if there's more than a few to make the connection as opposed to having the infobox caption right there. But we can still do this. For example, a featured article I did which has an informative caption is at The World Ends with You where 5 characters, described later in the text, are listed and in an method to identify them. It takes 1 line + change. It helps we don't "waste" words identifying that this the box art, since it's pretty clear that's what it is, and on the BioShock Infinite article, I can see doing that since ID'ing whether it was North American or European box art doesn't make sense. Same can be done on GTA V's article. --MASEM (t) 22:24, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It would not always get that if the objects explained in a caption is not placed by a specific order in the image. It would then demand for the image to be edited or to describe every person in detail for the reader to understand whos who. In an article like the Bioshock Infinite, putting "box art shows main protagonist" is more than sufficient, but that is also very self explanatory as people, unless they're blind, can observe that for themselves. A foot note would not mean they would have to scroll, as it would take them directly to the information when they click the footnote. Not that a little scrolling would hurt anyone. About the caption describing objects in 'The World Ends with You' cover, it is short and theres somewhat an order to know whos who, though the image requires a closer detailed impression of the characters, which means people will have to click on it and that image has its own sections with further explanation on the image. It also confuses me that it says 'from left to right',though its not clear if the guy in the rear is second or third in line as he is about the same place as another character from the left. I see that you have (above) in brackets, but another image may be even more confusing and fuzzy, meaning it would require even more explanation. In a case with more than one character, as a reader, I'd rather have a short "North American box art" than a lot of names and explanation to who they are and where in the image they are placed, that would just leave me more confused than informed. In the article about Bioshock Infinite, "official box cover" makes more sense and sound a lot more encyclopedic than "box cover featuring main protagonist *name* wearing *clothes described* and holding a *weapon named* and so forth. People can see that. "Official box cover" describes what the image is, while any more description is unnecessary as it describes what can observed. Of course one can write "...featuring main protagonist", but then again why would it not be? I think most people can understand that its the main protagonist, and not some less meaningful character. The point here is keep it encyclopedic and not like a video game magazine where theres more room for detailed observation. Jørgen88 (talk) 02:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The argument against the GTA V cover still doesn't make sense. I would argue there's common sense to figure out which 3 shown are the characters in the game, but even if that's a problem, we can use simple position designations. ("top center", "right center", "bottom center" to id those quadrants. As with most other GTA game covers the other images on the cover are simply decorative - eg, the female character is never in the game, for example. For BioShock Infinite, while again common sense says that you'd put the protagonist on the cover, that's not a rule, and nowhere else in the article do we have an image (nor need to add an image) to show who Booker is. There's other male characters in the game, and someone could mistake that for any the others. A simple caption, "Cover art, showing Booker DeWitt" (one line) is sufficient since we mention upfront who Booker is in the lead. This again comes back to understanding that our non-free mission sets out that we should be using cover art more descriptively (beyond just showing it) to help improve the reason to include it. If the cover ID's characters in the work, we should call those out in the caption as to better link the image to the text. I completely agree to avoid frivolous details like "this character is holding a gun", all we need is a name - or if more than one character, names and a means to ID which is which. This is by no means breaking infobox rules or the "succinct" caption concept. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

It does become a problem when a cover has no symmetric order for captions to explain who the characters are. Thats why a caption would only explain what the image is, which in most video game articles would be a box cover, while in any other image might be something else. A video game article can easily have a section for characters with low res pictures of each main character that is within fair use. The GTA 5 captions say theres three protagonists but theres no way of telling who is who. You can explain each one, but that would again completely ruin the esthetics and encyclopedic style that Wikipedia is built upon. Jørgen88 (talk) 22:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's leave the caption off entirely, or move the picture out of the infobox and put a regular caption on it. If it is to be a supremely awesome picture for the purpose like the one at Maya Angelou, then the caption needs to give context to the picture - not just say "Box art" - but explain how the picture shows the characters doing what they are known for in the game. I'll be mightily impressed if such a caption can be constructed, and would expect no caption instead. ke4roh (talk) 21:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree that the caption in an infobox should be exceptionally short or absent. I don't need to see "box art" or anything else. If I'm curious about more information, that should be included on the image's page. The image in the infobox should serve a nominative purpose - that is, the picture is of the thing described in the infobox, so the title of the infobox effectively serves as the caption. The main exception to that would be to illustrate the date of a picture of something (or someone) that changes over time, or if it is not inherently obvious what it is. Deepwater Horizon oil spill offers an example of both. I think the Bill Cosby picture today is a little on the long side. It could be simply, "Cosby in 2010," or perhaps "Cosby speaks in 2010." The location detracts from the purpose of the picture. -- ke4roh (talk) 02:12, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Maya Angelou was TFA the other day; the caption takes three lines on my screen.
• Pilot (Parks and Recreation) was TFA two days ago; the caption takes five lines on my screen.
• Sumatran rhinoceros was TFA the other day; the caption takes two lines on my screen.

This clearly indicates that the community is using the word "succinct" just like the dictionary does: it's about the information density of the caption, not just the overall length. If we'd meant "don't let an infobox caption exceed one line", we'd have said that. We didn't mean that, and so we didn't say that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• Actually, we wouldn't have said that because we didn't have infoboxes when this part of the MOS was written, and this page hasn't yet been properly been updated to deal with the situation. We're just getting to that now. This page and the wikiproject for good captions have languished without my careful attention as I have focused my limited attention on adding various content instead. I have also quit patrolling FAC and TFA, and if I were doing that, then I'd surely have said something about the long captions.

-The Pilot article is an interesting situation. I am not familiar with the subject matter, so a caption helps. To my way of thinking, it would be better with a shorter caption - "The conversion of this pit into a park carried the plot into the second season," but it certainly needs a caption.

-Sumatran rhinoceros does not need a caption. I could click through and see they're at the zoo.

-The caption for Maya Angelou seems just right for the picture, and that calls for the question: "When should the picture go in the infobox vs. elsewhere?" The picture is nominative, but it also gives some important context. The caption tells that the subject is an especially notable poet, which in itself serves to describe why there's an article on her. So yes, good find.

 DoneI have adjusted the "Special situations" to reflect our conversation. If you object to my changes, please edit and follow up here. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I wonder if it should be suggested that if a infobox image or leading picture needs an longer caption ( though still succinct caption of course ) that making it a stand alone image further down in the article should be considered. For example the image in the Pilot (Parks and Recreation) seems like it could be removed from the infobox and added to the plot section. PaleAqua (talk) 08:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

 Done. I updated to caution that a longer caption in the infobox could be indicative of a picture that doesn't belong in the infobox. I did not update the Pilot article because I am not familiar with the subject matter. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm late to the party, but I agree that infobox images especially should have succinct captions (with some exceptions). Kaldari (talk) 07:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the real question here is not whether infobox captions should be "succinct"—everyone agrees on that point—but whether "succinct" is measured by the absolute number of words, or by the lack of pointless, information-free wordiness. In other words, is it better to use four pointless, non-descriptive words or to use 12 words that contain actual information? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I think its better to have a few words describing what the image is, and then put further information about the subject in a section in the article, if necessary. Jørgen88 (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

If no one has anything further to add, I will start enforcing the view of the majority here and minimize the image descriptions in the infoboxes of video games and other articles. I'd also like to make the the Manual of Style more clear on this issue. Jørgen88 (talk) 08:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Great! Time to be bold! -- ke4roh (talk) 10:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Um, I don't see a majority view, and as this RFC is still open, that would be POINTy. --MASEM (t) 14:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Well this isn't going anywhere, so I'm just going to follow the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions#Infoboxes and leading pictures for editing guidelines, using BioShock Infinite as prime example. Jørgen88 (talk) 06:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

There's no consensus here, reverted. Take Bioshock Infinite - the game is a first person shooter, you need to be explicit that the box is depicting the protagonist, because there will be no other depictions of him. And it's not always the protagonist depicted, see Bioshock or System Shock 2. A box art caption would really help in System Shock.

Readers need context, if the animal depicted is in a zoo, and not their natural habitat - such as for the Sumatran rhinoceros referenced above - and it's not mentioned in the caption, readers could be mislead. "I could click through and see they're at the zoo." - is not good enough.

Captions should be succinct. They should provide context. - hahnchen 11:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is disputing your points. Your recent edit removes quite a bit of material that has been on the captions page for years. See the changes I made in response to this thread. There was a whole section about "Special situations" which mostly discussed what has become pictures in infoboxes. I clarified that based on what I perceived to be consensus from this conversation. What part of it did you find disagreeable?

Regarding Bioshock Infinite and the others - Maybe there should be a caption. Since this is cover art, one would think that the graphic designers behind it thought about what they were depicting and produced something with the intent of representing the game. I presume that the ordinary player learns by playing the game who the protagonist, antagonist, and other characters who might be depicted on the cover are. Then it would not be unreasonable to expect our readers to do the same. On the other hand, "Cover art shows protagonist DeWitt" might be a suitable caption.

Regarding Sumatran rhinoceros - "Sumatran rhinos Emi and Harapan in the Cincinnati Zoo" [18] gives the names of these particular animals and their exact location. Neither is helpful to understanding the species. The caption could be "Sumatran rhinos in a zoo" and clarify the habitat issue, if there is anything unusual about their surroundings or behavior as a function of them being in the zoo.

The general idea is one I have attempted to state here a few times: infobox images serve the same purpose as the infobox itself, namely to provide information about the article's subject. The rules for the caption, therefore, are somewhat more constraining because the caption is not to spin a tale around the picture and draw the reader into the article, but it is to explain, with minimal distraction, how the image conveys the subject of the article. This clarification is not at odds with the guidance at [19], but rather a case study for a particular situation. Perhaps the guidance needs refinement, but I certainly wouldn't throw it out. -- ke4roh (talk) 13:53, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a different issue at work as well, and that's coming from WP:NFC which most current cover art falls under. There is implicit allowance to use cover art on published works for branding and marketing, but to meet NFC policy better, it has always been strongly recommended to do any further advancement of the cover as helping to understand the article, and as it is located in the infobox (by convention), the only place this readily can be done is the caption of the infobox. Now, this doesn't mean every detail about the cover needs mention in this, if there is more to be said; just enough caption to identify the key element(s) without repeating the obvious. Importantly, not every cover needs a caption; there is zero that needs to or can be be said about Amplitude (video game), for example. But providing just a bit of information that makes the NFC cover useful without excessive words is completely in line with "succinct" captions. --MASEM (t) 14:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Bits that I found disagreeable? The whole "no caption" thing for buildings, cover art, animals, vehicles... The caption in Volkswagen Beetle makes the lead image more useful that of the captionless Volkswagen Golf. Take a look at some of our buildings/architecture FAs, readers are much better served when the lead caption alerts them to which facet is being depicted. I don't think we should be ignoring image captions just because they're in the infobox. The infobox caption is to provide information about the image. - hahnchen 17:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that the No caption section of the version you reverted specifically mentioned "unchanging subject matter". So I think that even with that version of the guideline a caption for Volkswagen Beetle would be apropos. PaleAqua (talk) 18:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the car captions are reasonable. I'm on the fence about Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - the fact that the museum can be seen from Fifth Avenue is somehow significant, but the address (on Fifth Ave) is just below. Yes, the caption should tell about the picture, inasmuch as the picture tells about the subject of the article. Glucose ([20]) saying, "Glucose C6H12O6" under the diagram isn't especially helpful because the title of the infobox says "D-Glucose" and the chain structure immediately after tells that it's carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and C6H12O6 is stipulated lower down. Hahnchen, what are your opinions on these examples? -- ke4roh (talk) 18:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The caption on the Guggenheim article is not to say the museum is situated on 5th, but to say, "This is what it looks like if you were standing on 5th". You can't easily say that later in the article ("The view from 5th ave. is shown at the top"), as that's not the style we use, and it won't be immediately apparent to a random editor, particular with the Gugginheim due to its asymmetric architecture. (The same would not be true, necessarily, of something like the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building, which is nearly the same from all sides). --MASEM (t) 20:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I apologize for being late to the party, but I feel the need to express an opinion on point after finding this RFC via the recent ANI posting. First, I am a firm believer that virtually every photo image should have a caption; there are perhaps instances where the image requires no explanatory caption, but such situations are the exception, not the general rule. Second, "succinct" captions are preferred, especially in infoboxes where space is limited and captions lengthier than a line or two of text can be distracting to the infobox's "at-a-glance" purpose. For example, in one of the photo examples cited above, that of the Sumatran rhinos in the Cincinnati zoo, is it really necessary to include the animals' given names in the caption? Does including the animals' given names really impart any information valuable to the reader? Could the core information to be conveyed not be posited in a single line of caption text? For infobox photo captions, generally, I think the goal should be a single line of text, but it should rarely include more than two lines; I see no problem with including three to five lines of explanatory text in captions for non-infobox photos. There is an art to writing appropriate photo captions, requiring no less skill than that for writing headlines or prose. That having been said, I think the prescriptive approach advocated by this RFC is the wrong one; I think we should state the generally applicable guidelines for captions, with appropriate examples for multiple situations in this MOS section, and then trust our editors and the Good Article and Feature Article review processes to refine captions as necessary and appropriate to particular circumstances. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I think there is general agreement that within the infoboxes, we should strive to avoid captions as the image as a representation of a topic should be common sense obvious - if you're going to simply repeat the title of the article, you don't need the caption. That said, in normal encyclopedic approach there are times we expand even when seemingly unnecessary but better to serve the larger encyclopedic approach. For example, on images of persons, living or dead, if we can identify the event and/or year of the photo, that helps to establish their look at that age. The Volkswagon image clarifies a model year out of several.

I would think it reasonable, following above Dirtlawyer1's suggestion, that if one employs an explanatory caption, it should be no longer than 2 lines (barring IAR cases). It should avoid stating the obvious in relation to the topic directly - we don't need to say that a corporate logo image is the corporate logo for the company, for example. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a good example as it is obviously a picture of a building, so that's not mentioned in the caption, but the view that it is taken from is stated. Were I to talk the Bioshock Infinite cover, it would be "Cover art featuring the protagonist Booker DeWitt". (possibly even removing "the protagonist"). But again, the aim should be one line, two lines at most, and avoid repeating the title, or being an alt-text description, but just enough to set what the image is. --MASEM (t) 23:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Two lines can be too much as well, to explain what can be observed. The Bioshock Infinite cover can have "Cover art over with main protagonist/s". Anything more than that can be further explained in the main article where the plot section or character section can be in more detail. Jørgen88 (talk) 08:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• There are many good points made above, but in general Jørgen88's interpretation of "succinct" seems over-rigid, and his claim that a consensus supporting his position has emerged is incorrect. I mostly agree with Dirtlawyer above, and I would oppose any specific limit. We should not lose sight of the fact that generally (outside infoboxes) we have far more images with too short captions and relatively few with over-long ones. MOS rules are frequently quoted and applied out of context & I'm wary of creating another one that really isn't needed and may be misused. Johnbod (talk) 13:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you're confusing captions in an article with captions in the infobox. If captions are made for an image further down the page, its not a big deal if it has a line or four. But if its in the infobox, it is a problem. An infobox should be as to the point and short of important information as possible. I don't think information about protagonists are important information that fits in an infobox along with release dates and console availability. You wouldn't write a letter with the text outside on the envelope. Jørgen88 (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm evidently not "confusing captions in an article with captions in the infobox", as I distinguish between them in my comment. If the content of an image in an infobox is not obvious it should be explained succinctly. Better to use another image than a puzzling one (as at Parks & Recreation for example). If some types of articles are tied to using the box cover image, then sometimes this will need a bit of elucidation. Johnbod (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Yet, to others, it may be important, and since info can be added without going past one/two lines, it certainly fits "succinct". You're using a definition that's far too narrow for WP. --MASEM (t) 05:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Its not to narrow for an infobox. Whats narrow and whats not depends on the circumstance. As Dirtlawyer said above, the infobox is an "at a glance style" and should not include long sentences about fictional characters. Jørgen88 (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

And the cases described are certainly not long sentences about characters by a long shot. "Cover art showing the protagonist Booker DeWitt" is short. That fits squarely into a succinct caption. It would not detract from the rest of the infobox. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not just the length that is the problem, I'd say that need to include a description of the items or characters shown in a box cover is quite unnecessary. Jørgen88 (talk) 11:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

We know that you believe that describing the contents of an infobox image is "quite unnecessary". However, everyone else seems to believe that providing a brief description is necessary and appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

A short sentence is certainly reasonable. Succinctness is preferred, but not when it sacrifices adequate description. ❤ Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 14:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Define "adequate description". To me, adequate description is not what the name of a fictional character is, but release dates and other specific information related to the infobox. If we should set some sort of length of text line, it should be no more than one line and it should usually not include less important information as fictional characters. Jørgen88 (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like the only captions you want are the other fields in the infobox, which means you don't want captions at all. It's glaringly obvious where the other fields are, captions don't detract from that. I don't think we need extra coverage for infoboxes when we already have a paragraph on succinctness, but based on some of the proposed changes above, readers would definitely "miss the essentials in the picture". - hahnchen 12:07, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with a little bit of captions, as long as its absolutely minimal and avoids unnecessary info, such as descriptions of items or characters in the box cover, which is far from "essential". Jørgen88 (talk) 11:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Then we disagree over what is essential. That the Bioshock Infinite depicts the protagonist should not be buried in the text. - hahnchen 16:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

If box art shows a main character, then I think it wholly appropriate to point this out in the caption, especially since copyrights prevent us from adding most images of video game characters. The question really becomes "Shall we have one (1) unlabeled image of the protagonist in the article (namely, in the box art inside the infobox), or shall we have one (1) labeled image of the protagonist in the article (namely, that same box art inside the infobox)?" Jørgen88 plainly prefers having no labeled pictures of protagonists in the article. The rest of the community disagrees with him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess only those who agree with you are representatives of the "community" then. Jørgen88 (talk) 18:04, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Draft sandbox

Hi, folks! I have put together a draft here. If you take issue with where I put it, please put it where you want. The effort was to create a page we could talk about. I find it exceptionally difficult to talk about concrete guidelines without any guidelines to talk about - so here's a draft we can edit, discuss, and mutilate. It's based on my earlier attempt, but it is less prescriptive and offers more examples. I have tried to incorporate the ideas we have discussed here. Please provide feedback. -- ke4roh (talk) 01:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that approach is necessarily best because situations vary across the board. I do agree a core piece of advice is that a caption is not necessary if the image is intuitively obvious - an abstract cover art image can be presented without comment, for example. But whether one uses a fragment or full sentence depends on the situation. I think it may be better to build out typical cases as short as already used, prefaced by the need to keep captions succinct if used. --MASEM (t) 01:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

What should we change, then? The effort behind the draft was to give some examples of the different length captions and the motivations for selecting them in those cases - which seems to be what you're advocating. Feel free to hack at the draft. -- ke4roh (talk) 13:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a different approach I'm thinking here. I'd start with "Infobox images often do not need a caption if, by common sense, the connection of the image to the topic is clear, and no further clarifying details are necessary. If used, infobox captions should avoid repeating these obvious details and focus on the non-obvious but important aspects that may not be apparent without reading the full article; infobox captions need to be succinct and should strive to take up only one or two lines of text in most cases." (my text, but can be improved). Then I would describe appropriate cases of caption use with concrete examples, such as identify the date (and perhaps place/event) a picture of a person was taken, etc. I would be less descriptive of exactly the rules because as per this discussion, the consensus is broad but clearly not on eliminating captions but simply wiser use of them. --MASEM (t) 17:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I like it, as it gives great examples and are to the point of what is sufficient and succinct. I also think we should add that it is important that we should avoid superfluous descriptions, especially in infoboxes. Jørgen88 (talk) 11:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

What is the following line specifically pointing at in in MOS:INFOBOX? "take extra care that both the image and the caption stay sharply focused on the whole of the article's subject per MOS:INFOBOX" On following the link to MOS, I'd expect to be taken directly to the text about staying focused, or at the least be able to find some text with the same/similar phrasing, but searches for "Sharp" "focus" and "Image" don't help me find what the link is referring to. - X201 (talk) 14:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOX#Purpose_of_an_infobox: "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. ...[E]xclude any unnecessary content." Shall we clarify more? -- ke4roh (talk) 15:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I like it better than the original changes but am unsold on the idea we need to prescribe infobox captions separately. The examples given for "no caption" are better than before, but with animals, you generally need to take into account habitat and sexual dimorphism. You have two examples of persons in the "short caption" section, I think the Michael Jackson example is poor - I don't think it's a "routine performance", but specifically from the Bad Tour, which I would name in the caption.

The image and the caption are a singular unit. The caption provides data and context we might miss by just viewing the image alone. This is the same in the infobox as it is everywhere else. - hahnchen 16:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I have updated the draft to include examples of captions for animals and add another for Elvis Presley. I stand by the Michael Jackson example because the year informs the reader about the period during which the picture was taken, and hence the tour involved. If it proves contentious, I would rather take it out of the draft than bicker over it, but I would imagine we can come up with a similar brief example. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so the draft has been around for a few days and gotten 33 views so far[21], with just a couple of edits. Are we ready to put it in? (This is not to overlook Masem's phrasing which I think says about the same thing as the draft but with less clarity for the circumstances which require captions.) -- ke4roh (talk) 03:14, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with it, but I fear it will still be ignored or used as any user pleases. I would like to use this for infobox captions with no or minimum of informations, while others will still use overly long captions. Jørgen88 (talk) 19:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I tweaked the proposed language to make it clear that it applied to all infobox images, not just photos. That having been said, the proposed language is still a touch too prescriptive for my tastes. Ideally, this guideline should be more suggestive, and less prescriptive. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:43, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the "take extra care that both the image and the caption stay sharply focused on the whole of the article's subject" section is not fully clear on its intention, and is open to too broad an interpretation and I can envisage the problem of caption or no caption still being fought over.

e.g Sticking with the covers that have been mentioned throughout this debate and interpreting the above line in a draconian way I can imagine edit summaries and talk page lines not too dissimilar to: "The Bioshock cover only shows the main protagonist, it doesn't show the setting or indicate the game's plot, it does not stick to the guideline and "stay sharply focused on the whole of the article's subject" therefore I'm deleting the caption."

The wording can still be used, but I think it needs explicit examples and/or guidance notes on correct and incorrect usage of the clause. - X201 (talk) 11:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

When I initially wrote the draft guidelines, I deliberately sidestepped the question of these particular video game titles because the debate was under way. I think we have now agreed on a few:

• No caption for: Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V, Amplitude (video game)
• Full sentence captions: BioShock Infinite

I have added the two with permalinks to the draft text along with some discussion to reflect what we have said here. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I disagree the GTA4/5 infobox images do not need captions. There are in-game characters displayed on the cover that aren't necessarily shown in the article (not every panel of the box though) and thus identifying them in a terse statement on the cover is appropriate (and improves the NFC rationale for its use). --MASEM (t) 13:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ke4roh. That many details as displayed in the GTA5 infobox picture clearly won't fit for captions and should be avoided. If theres any need for further explanation, it can be added in the article or on the summary page for the image file. This is turning into a circle, it can only be explained so many times. Jørgen88 (talk) 18:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

To not be circular about it, I'll suggest that the MOS remain silent on GTA4/5 but rather cite Amplitude (video game). I have updated the draft accordingly. -- ke4roh (talk) 12:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the partial implementation of it. May be a good idea to start a new sub-section and list the outstanding discussion points at the top of it. - X201 (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we're still confusing "succinct" with length. It needs to be tight and without excessive detail, but at the same time has to serve the work of a caption particularly in light of NFCC. I will give another example from a recent FA-promoted article (so it's caption has been vetted by the community): Ico. Two points on that infobox image: it is a separate cover from the North American version, and that it was specifically drawn by the game's creator in the style of a famous surreal work. Now, these points are repeated later in the body of the article, but by the time the reader gets there, the image has far scrolled off the page. These two points are also critical for justifying the non-free use of the cover art since they are both points of discussion of the image itself. The current approach that the draft writeup is driven towards would go against what FA determined to be fine, at least in pushing length over caption content. I agree that reiterating the obvious is inappropriate for infobox captaions, but when things are not obvious or otherwise completely abstract, we do need to explain them there. --MASEM (t) 13:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that brevity vs succinctness is confusing people. Also, it's wordy (I've just tried to fix some of this), and the Maya Angelou caption is perhaps a poor example of "staying sharply focused on the whole" (which is an oxymoron, as well as not exactly being found in the cited guideline page that is supposedly the source). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. I think there's some value in having specific examples of various different circumstances warranting no caption, partly to address issues such as the question below about video game images. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:34, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Wording section

Sorry to be late to the party. I'm having a hard time with the first point in the "Wording" section and I'm trying to reconcile it with the rest of the captions guidelines. I see that it was contributed initially here. I have looked at talk archives but did not readily spot related conversation.

Most captions are not grammatically complete sentences, but extended noun phrases; for example, "The Conservatory during Macquarie Night Lights, a summer festival" (no final period), but "The Conservatory was spotlit during Macquarie Night Lights, a summer festival." (full sentence with final period).

Is this what we intend to have there? I object because it seems to contradict the rest of the page which is all about how to write a quality caption. If it pointed out that most captions are poorly written as incomplete sentences, it would be satisfactory. -- ke4roh (talk) 01:17, 23 August 2013 (UTC)