User talk:ThePortraitLady

April 2023

Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your image was inserted successfully on the page Heather Jackson, but because it appeared to be irrelevant to the article or violated the image use policy, it has been reverted or removed. Please use your sandbox for any tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thank you. ^Complex/_Rational 16:47, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I read the image use policy and didn’t find anything related to a violation. The portrait I drew is of Heather Jackson. I used 4 different pictures to draw that portrait so that it wouldn’t be completely similar to one picture. What is wrong? EthicalComics (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Images should be as correct and relevant as possible. If you want to include an image in the Heather Jackson article, it should be a photo of the real person that is either licensed for free use (e.g., Creative Commons license or public domain), or if no such images exist, has an appropriate non-free use rationale). While your drawing may be inspired by the subject, it is misleading to include it in lieu of an actual photo, especially as a derivative work. ^Complex/_Rational 16:57, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t understand why my portrait is flagged while there are other thousands of illustrated portraits that remain. I’m part of a group who draws portraits for people who don’t have a picture of their article and I’ve never heard of this reason for a portrait to be deleted. EthicalComics (talk) 16:59, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Circumstances may vary, but it's not appropriate to draw a portrait of someone and pass it as an image of them.

Per the manual of style guideline for lead images, Lead images should be natural and appropriate representations of the topic; they should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see. These kinds of portraits do not necessarily illustrate the topic specifically, and would not be found, say, in a print encyclopedia or newspaper article. Especially when living people are involved, for which Wikipedia has very strict policies (in part for ethical and legal reasons), it's essential to get the image right.

Also, if your primary motivation is to promote your group's work, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons are not web hosts. There are plenty of image hosting services out there. ^Complex/_Rational 17:08, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is not to promote our group’s work. We make portraits for women who don’t have a portrait on their Wikipedia article.

Would my portraits work better if the background was white? EthicalComics (talk) 17:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The background is of little concern. And it would be of greater encyclopedic value to spend the same effort in procuring real images of the subjects and uploading those instead.

Without a real reference, for example, the portraits you draw could represent a similar-looking person and the uninformed reader would not know the difference. Especially because you speak of using four different images, combining them may result in a portrait that does not represent well any of the source images. Having no lead image is preferable to having an image that is not necessarily accurate and would surely never occur in other reference materials. ^Complex/_Rational 17:21, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If I used one picture to draw a portrait, it would be removed because it would be too close to the original (already had it done once). When I started in the group, I was told to always use a few different pictures to ensure my portraits wouldn’t be too similar to a copyrighted picture, which is logical.

Moreover I have absolutely no idea how to find free of use images. EthicalComics (talk) 17:25, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image creation, upload, and usage policies may differ between your group and Wikipedia, so I can't speak to what they told you. They are correct that you need a sufficient "threshold of originality" to create a new copyright. The point, however, is that drawn portraits such as these are not suitable for encyclopedia articles.

I understand that finding free use images can be difficult sometimes. You might find helpful the tutorial on finding suitable images, as well as this directory of websites whose images usually have appropriate licenses (which I find very helpful for some of my off-Wikipedia work). Taking images yourself is also usually a safe bet, though of course this is not always possible. Indeed, a number of biographical articles lack images for this very reason, and the only options then are non-free images (not optimal, and the policy their usage that I linked above is necessarily strict) or no images whatsoever. ^Complex/_Rational 17:49, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Images are allowed under certain criteria to illustrate/identify the subject of an article, but they are not necessary. Your artwork is lovely, but is not appropriate for use here, in part because there is no notable connection between your work and the subject. For example, an official Presidential portrait or another recognized painting would be OK, as would be a sketch by a notable artist in some cases. In this situation, you are essentially posting fan art, and an argument could be made that you are (intentionally or not) using Wikipedia as a promotional tool for your artwork. Thanks. — TAnthony^Talk 18:32, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm kind of shocked about the existence of the Le sans images project, so I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Les_sans_images that I encourage you both to join. EthicalComics, please don't add any more images until we get some consensus, but in good faith I'm going to restore what I have removed of your artwork for the time being.— TAnthony^Talk 18:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Gotcha, I will stop adding portraits to the non french pages, and I'm curious to see what other people will comment to your discussion.

I'm also curious to why you t

think peopld te couthink that I'm promoting my work? Is it because I add my work too often? Would it be better if someone else added my portraits? The truth is that I have plenty of free time and I'm very taken by the project of Les sans images and that's why I post so much. But I will try to find someone else willing to add my portraits. 2A00:801:797:2D45:4791:8B4F:5B73:A947 (talk) 09:46, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dear EthicalComics of course you are not promoting your art as you contribute volunteerily to a project in your capacity of drawing adequate portraits of women for whom we have no illustration and all this published under free license, which enables anyone to copy, sell and reuse these contents. We have to assume good faith here. I think there is a misunderstanding here : some people can provide free illustrations which do provide an encyclopedic value and your drawings are always accurately based on reality.

I want to thank you for your contributions and hope this will be solved. Hyruspex (talk) 15:14, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you @Hyruspex! Hopefully I will not get my portraits reverted every single month in the future. One can always hope! EthicalComics (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]