Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics/2023 list candidate photos

Kia ora koutou! This open letter is addressed to all parties that register list candidates with the Electoral Commission.

We're running a candidate photo initiative for the 2023 New Zealand general election.

Here's the deal:

You make photos of all your list candidates available for use on Wikipedia via Wikimedia Commons.
We will add those sets of photos to the article Party lists in the 2023 New Zealand general election.

Background

We first offered this deal for the 2020 general election. Only the Labour Party took up the offer. The result:

Labour Party list candidates had photos used with the party lists in the 2020 New Zealand general election article.
New Labour MPs had recent, high-quality, authorised photos of themselves on their new biography pages.
Nine of the new Labour MPs were included in a photo collage of new MPs on the homepage of the English Wikipedia on 25 November 2020.
New MPs from other parties still had biography pages created, but without images.

Why do we offer this?

From our perspective, adding images to articles improves the encyclopedia.

We want photos of all candidates to improve the usefulness of the party lists in the 2023 New Zealand general election article and biography articles created about MPs elected in the election. We publish articles about newly elected MPs immediately after the election, and these are a popular source of public information about new MPs.

From your perspective, publishing candidate photos on Wikipedia will likely:

Help voters get to know list candidates and elected MPs beyond name recognition alone.
Ensure that your candidates and MPs have recent, high-quality, authorised photos on pages created about them (as opposed to no image or an older, poorer-quality image).
Ensure that your candidates are not left out when other parties provide photos of their candidates (like what happened in 2020).

Why do we need your help?

It's time-consuming to obtain correctly-licensed, high-quality photos for every individual. Most MPs elected in 2020 who didn't have photos provided by their party still don't have photos on their pages. Some have older or lower-quality photos.

It's much easier for everyone if the parties make these photos available in advance.

There are also some legal reasons why it's tricky for us to do this alone:

Photos used on Wikipedia MUST be explicitly freely licensed.
Neither the party nor the candidates usually own the copyright for the photos; by default, the copyright rests with the photographer.
It is up to the copyright holder to release the photos with a free license.

Let's help each other

Here's how we can work together to build a better Wikipedia and increase voter awareness of candidates:

If the party commissions a photographer or photographers to take candidate photos, make it part of the commission that the copyright be transferred to the party (you might already do this anyway).
The party's CEO, general secretary, or equivalent office holder, could then decide to release the photos to Wikimedia Commons (which is where we keep all the images used on Wikipedia) under a free license.

If you want to participate, there are two ways you could go about this.

Method 1: you (or your photographer) upload the photos

You or your photographer would make an account on Wikimedia Commons. It's free to make an account, but the account name MUST be for an individual and you cannot make an organisational account.
Upload the photos starting on this page.
Leave a note on the talk page that it's been done, including one photo's file name on Wikimedia Commons.
We can then start using the photos on Wikipedia.

Method 2: you (or your photographer) makes the photos available and we upload them

You or your photographer would send us the photos or make them available (e.g. via Dropbox or SharePoint). You might already do this for media organisations.
We would upload those photos to Wikimedia Commons.
We would ask the copyright holder to complete an online form called Interactive Release Generator.
Once the Interactive Release Generator form has been processed, we can start using the photos on Wikipedia.

Next steps

From our perspective, method 1 is more straightforward for us, and method 2 may be a little more convenient for you. We can help you with any steps in method 1 that you are unsure about.

We'll be moving forward with publishing the candidates' photographs we receive, even if it means that one or more parties miss out on having their candidates' photos on the list of list candidates. We hope you will take us up on this offer. There isn't a deadline, but the earlier you provide the photos the sooner we can publish them.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask them via the talk page, or reply to the email that has been sent to you.