Category talk:Images of New York City

Why not Commons?

This may be a novice question, but why are these photos not in commons? A couple of my photos where moved to wikimedia and then deleted from wikipedia. Anyone shed some light?

Yes, it's a novice question and an important one. Fair use is a minor reason, and convenience the major one:

Some media are permitted in Wikipedia but forbidden in Commons. Mainly these are Wikipedia:Non-free content which belong to someone who has not released them for general use. These can be used only for particular Wikipedia articles for specific purposes. This class, however, don't belong in this Category anyway.
Many novices are unaware of Commons and will upload few files, so the benefit of making them understand Commons would be small for the effort. Once the media files are in Wikipedia, other editors may notice them and consider them worthy of Commons, so those get promoted while others are left behind. It takes a certain effort to move them, and somebody must think them worth the effort. I sent about a hundred pictures to Wikipedia, inlcuding more than a dozen in this Category, before someone recommended using Commons, and have sent more than a thousand to Commons since then. I don't intend to make the effort to move the ones I put here.

Hmm, maybe the template on the front pages of the various Categories of WP Images, which alludes to these two questions and points to a general description of Commons, should say a bit more or at least provide a link to a narrower explanation of the differences. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]