User:Tim Pierce/Drafts/WikiProject Photo Requests

This is a draft of a proposed WikiProject for categorizing photo requests.

Interested Wikipedians can sign up to help out at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Photo Requests.

Background

Tens of thousands of Wikipedia articles are in need of free photographs and images. It is up to us, the Wikipedia editors, to produce our own free images. How can we find which articles are most sorely in need of photographs? One way is to browse Category:Wikipedia requested photographs and its subcategories, to which articles are added automatically by the {{reqphoto}} templates.

Unfortunately, many of these categories are horribly overwhelmed, to the point where they may actually be harmful. The editor who adds a {{reqphoto}} template to an article may reasonably assume that they have brought it to the attention of someone who can help. In practice, this is more likely to consign the article to a category so horrendously crowded with miscellaneous, unrelated subjects that few photographers ever bother to visit it. At the time of this writing there were more than 5,000 articles in Category:Wikipedia requested photographs and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people alone. Even Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Turkey has more than 1,000 requests. Hardly anyone has the time and resolve to sort through such enormous collections.

We can and must do better.

Project overview

Wikipedia editors use {{reqphoto}} templates to flag an article as needing a photograph. These templates add articles automatically to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs. If supplied with additional parameters, such as {{reqphoto|animals}} or {{reqphoto|in=New Zealand}}, the article will instead be added to a more specific sub-category like Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of animals or Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in New Zealand. Photographers are more likely to look closely at a list of photo requests for a subject that they specialize in (e.g. architecture, portraits, nature and wildlife) or for the part of the world where they live. Moving these photo requests to an appropriate subcategory therefore increases the number of qualified photographers who are likely to see them.

I have written PhotoCatBot to categorize image requests automatically wherever possible. That helps a lot, but there is still a lot of work to do, and most of it will have to be done by hand.

Guidelines

Figuring out how to classify a photo request is mostly common sense. Here are some useful things to keep in mind:

Stick to existing categories whenever possible. If there's already a architecture category, it's probably not necessary to create an additional category for "buildings."

Try to think like a photographer. If you were a photographer trying to find out what images Wikipedia needs the most, where would you look? What's the most sensible way to divide up the image requests in a way that would be useful to the people who will be actually taking the pictures?

Don't be afraid to take liberties with the category definitions. If you're looking at an article that does not seem to fall neatly into any category that we have, it's okay to put it in a category that's generally related to its subject matter. For example, a request for a photograph of a music studio probably fits better into the musicians category than in the architecture category -- the reason that the music studio is of interest is probably less for its physical design than in the artists who record there.

When it is necessary to create a new category, be general. If you're reorganizing the cars category, it's probably overly specific to create a "1957 Chevrolets". A broader category for "Chevrolets" is a better place to start.

Tasks

• Removing the photo request template from any article that already has a photo (will almost certainly require human confirmation)
• Removing the photo request template from any talk page for an article that has been redirected (i.e. an orphaned talk page).
• Replacing {{reqphotoin|foo|bar|baz}} with {{reqphoto|in=foo|in2=bar|in3=baz}}.
• Categorizing photos on crowded subcategories, like Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people.
• Renaming photo categories from "Plotz articles needing photos" to "Wikipedia requested photographs of plotz" (both for consistency, and to make it possible to use {{reqphoto}} templates with them). This will require changing the templates for:
  • {{AARTalk}}
  • {{BirdTalk}}
  • {{MaTalk}}
  • {{airportpicreq}}
  • {{electronic-music-project}}
  • {{WikiProject Micro}}
  • {{WikiProject Plants}}
  • {{WikiProject Cincinnati Reds}}
  • {{WikiProject Boston Red Sox}}
  • {{ChicagoWikiProject}}
• Going through other lists and tables of missing photographs (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Lakes/Galleries/Image missing and updating their talk pages with {{reqphoto}}.
• Fixing problematic article categories. [[Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in xxx]] should be for geographic locations and [[Category:xxxx articles needing photos]] should be for Wikiprojects. To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part. All tagged articles also need to have a {{reqphoto|of=|in=xxx}} placed on their talk page. AllWhat links here links to the category need to be changed and the misnamed category then should be speedy deleted.
  • Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Australia literature - Australia literature is a Wikiproject, not a geographic location. Should be Category:Australia literature articles needing photos.
  • Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Texas state highways - Texas state highways is a Wikiproject, not a geographic location. Should be Category:Texas state highways articles needing photos. The
  • Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Yorkshire - Yorkshire is a Wikiproject. Yorkshire and the Humber is a region in England having four counties, each having category Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in North Yorkshire, Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in South Yorkshire, Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in West Yorkshire. Should be Category:Yorkshire articles needing photos.
• Revise Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) as needed.

Interested?

Please leave feedback if you find this project interesting and have other ideas for improving it!

If you'd like to help out with this project, add your name at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Photo Requests.