Wikinews talk:Picture of the Year 2007

This page is for all your questions, comments and input on the Wikinews Picture of the Year 2007.

Suggest new candidate images

• I propose adding any or all of the images that were taken for the Christchurch March for Democracy article here. --Nzgabriel | Talk 04:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• There are a few that I thought too...not to be biased, but was surprised not to see any October storm pictures there. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Please understand that I can't know about every image that might be suitable, that's the reason you can suggest candidates. I've added 2 pictures which I felt were good, I don't think adding all images from these articles would be appropriate but I would encourage you both to suggest more specific candidates. Basically other people can add candidates from here as well, as long as they meet the criteria. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• Please add Image:RCAF Canadair Sabre 6.jpg or Image:Model aircraft CWHM.jpg here too. Thanks. —FellowWiki Newsie 16:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Done first image, please suggest specific images if you want to add them. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'd like to see Image:Jokela school November 8th.jpg up as well, please. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• All the images of Jokela are up for deletion on Commons. See: Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Jokela images by KRP. —FellowWiki Newsie 16:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Ah, ok, I'd thought that was done by now, it was started in November... Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'd like to see Image:New_Delhi_India.jpg

It is a nice photo, but what's the relation to news events of 2007? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

To Do-list

• Alert Wikinews in other languages. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• Spread the word on Commons, IRC, mailing lists, OTRS, Wikipedia, Wikinews Reports blog, Wikinews on Flickr?, ... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
• Find more candidates.
• Create new logo for this competition to replace Image:POTY barnstar 1-2007.svg. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 02:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

General discussions on this project

Voting process

Anyone think we should vote differently? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Allowing people on other wikimedia projects to vote: On one hand the goal is to find the best picture, on the other hand, unlike commons, the images here arn't spread to the other projects as much. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll put a note to wmfcc-l, I think part of our criteria should be that the image is a highly effective and appropriate illustration for the article it was used on. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Really cool idea, but you might want to have a few days for nominations, then close nominations and open voting. Having nominations and voting open at the same time is a bit problematic. Also I presume only freely licensed images can be nominated? (not fair use) Would be good to clarify that. Finally, I really think you should create your own logo. :) Image:POTY barnstar 1-2007.svg was created specifically for the Commons competition, and it has implicit the idea of "Featured Picture" as the star in the middle is the symbol of Featured images and articles. Maybe you could put some symbol to represent newsiness. thanks, user:pfctdayelise 01:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your ideas.

• • We're working in a short time frame, that's why I suggested having nominations and voting together. Newly accepted nominations will be favoured in the gallery, and we'll make efforts to solicit votes for new images near the end of the elections. We'll have to see how things go.
  • Only images on Commons are allowed, so no fair use.
  • I think this election has a lot of things in common with the one on Commons, nevertheless a new logo would be nice, as our candidates indeed have nothing to do with "featured". --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 02:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The APEC photo is copyrighted, not hosted on Commons. commons:user:pfctdayelise 12:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Logo

Some quick options:

• I think there were some objections to anything that refers to "Featured". --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the current one, Mayflower was not being cooperative in finding pictures of cameras. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the camera one too. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the current, and I shoot Olympus :-) --David Shankbone 17:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I picked an Olympus especially for you :-). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You make me blush :-) --David Shankbone 02:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I really hate to bring this up, but the barnstar is gfdl, the camera is cc-by-sa, and the logo is all rights reserved. None of those licenses work well together. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we could get rid of the Olympus logo. --David Shankbone 15:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Well as you know the animated gif I made was also mixed licenses... isn't it alright just to explain which parts are under which license? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Anon voting

Why can't we allow anons to vote? We aren't using any special software like Commons is so I don't see why we can't allow anons to vote. We would get more votes too. —FellowWiki Newsie 01:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree...anyone and everyone should be allowed to vote. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

How would you stop people voting twice? Poeloq 01:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

They all have user names or IPs...simply say one vote and watch the page. Either way, disallowing anons does not stop users from voting twice. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I could log out and move around my office and vote from about 16 different IPs. Just throwing that out there. --SVTCobra 01:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can do the same thing with multiple accounts. —FellowWiki Newsie 01:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but a checkuser could see it and ban me. But if I go around using IPs with no accounts associated with them, the best anyone can do is establish a probability of misconduct if the IPs are in the same range. Anyway, ignore me. A conspiracy to elect a "picture of the year" is not likely. --SVTCobra 01:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

And thats different from not letting or letting anons vote how? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I say let them vote. --David Shankbone 04:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Encouraging people to register and vote allows welcomes to be issued to people from other projects. So, "We'd like if you register and tell us your home project, but you can vote anonymously". --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I drafted these rules and I don't care if anons can vote or not, but I would keep the 200 contribs limit. That would only leave people from other wikis; User:Pfctdayelise said she disliked having to register. She can vote anon for all I care, as long as she confirms her IP on Commons. But then again, IPs are less private, but I guess people don't care about that. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

How can an anonymous user vote if they have less than 200 edits? Everyone should be allowed to vote so far as I can see. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 03:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can see that anon voting would lead to more votes but I don't think it would be very valuable because it would be so easy to rig the contest, unless we could get thousands of votes. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Future suggestion

I don't think it would have worked well this time around, but in the future I think we should all aim to snap some photos, even just one, so that next year all entries are Wiki-editor produced and not from a wire service or professional. Here's another idea for now that might bring us more traffic: anyone against working with Commons to update the Featured Picture daily? I bet they'd enjoy finding a newsworthy picture, it will bring us more users and interest, and it will help keep the front page fresh. Any objections to approaching them as a joint project? --David Shankbone 03:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Not at all but in order for images to be pic of the day, they need to be featured. And users vote for featured and if there is a tip of a flag missing, like your Israel image I submitted, or a chimney is crooked like my sunset one, etc etc, then good luck on getting it past the vote. Because seriously, they expect every featured picture to perfect, and if its not, then they tell you to photoshop the hell out of it. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

"anyone against working with Commons to update the Featured Picture daily"? Do you mean some Wikinews thing or a Commons thing? Because the Commons POTD is now FP-only, due to the fact that we are now passing a lot more than 365 FPs per year. But I guess you are talking about Wikinews' Template:Featured picture.

Having a look at the other "big" Wikinewses (de,pl,it,fr,es), it appears only Polish has something that resembles a front-page newsphotography thing (pl:Wikinews:Pliki multimedialne).

One idea could be to start a news POTD (or POTW, week). If you want, it could be a cool thing to coordinate with the other Wikinewses. Host it on Commons and get bots to update it daily to each Wikinews that wants to participate. But I don't know if you think there should be a story for each picture?

Unlike regular POTD you can't plan too far in advance if you want the pictures to really represent news...

If you were to host it on Commons I think Commoners would be likely to get involved.

BTW, I know FP standards are very high, so for self-created works you guys should definitely get involved with Quality images. Having a "Quality images"-based 'news POTD/W' could work. cheers, user:pfctdayelise 09:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for trying to work with Commons to get more regular updates to the featured picture. It gives people who might get a newsworthy photo that isn't good enough for Commons POTD status another outlet. I would prefer to see photos with an associated article, or at least a mention in a news brief.

Being realistic about it I'd say aim for one a week, but be relaxed about it and allow more than one update a week if there's another good photo.

Something to bear in mind is that a good news photo might be one taken with a phone camera. Those are usually poor quality photos, but can illustrate something significant in news terms. We already have a couple of Wikipedians utilising a bot to promote our content on WP, a few Commoners suggesting photos would be welcome too. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the first part of what David said, there are currently 22 Wikinewsie created images (as well as one created for Wikinews, not by a Wikinewsie), so there is a fair amount of selection, should we want to have a category for Wikinewsie-created, and one for outside creators. That way, if we vote an outside image as the best overall, we still have something to promote. -- Zanimum 17:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Very good suggestion David. When I first started Template:Featured picture I mentioned it on Commons to have the people browsing through the new images to signal newsworthy images to us, but that didn't work out. It would be great to start a place on Commons to centralise photojournalism and collect good images. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the two things I was saying was that 1. I think we should push ourselves to take more photographs, even just for stock file photos. If you see a car accident, a protest, whatever. The second suggestion was to invite Commons to sniff out news-worthy photos for our featured photos. I agree with Dragon - I the process at commons is too technical. We aren't looking for perfect photos, just news-worthy photos, and I think Commons probably is best positioned to monitor what they get, and then update our Featured Picture. It is also a way to get Commons more involved with Wikinews, and would be a way to have projects interact. In other words, Featured Picture on Wikinews would essentially be selected by people at Commons. Of course, if we have one in particular that we think should go up, we can tell them. But otherwise, I think we should invite Commons to provide us with a news-oriented photo each day. --David Shankbone 18:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews Press Photo?

Great idea. I think, that it maybe better will be do it for all versions of Wikinews in next year - on metawiki/other site? I want to start it on pl wikinews. What do you think about name Wikinews:Wikinews Press Photo ? ;) Przykuta 07:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Confirmation

• I confirm the results of this election. --Skenmy^(t•c•w) 22:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you for confirming. Next year I'll invite you on the committee :-). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm very flattered and want to say thank you for the consideration. I'm very happy - that's awesome! --David Shankbone 01:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)