I was thinking of writing a "How to pick a good image" page.

Would that be a good idea?

Well, the first thing would be figuring out and getting consensus on what constitutes a "good image."

Other than that, sure.

Probably would be a good idea. Do some brainstorming to make sure that you're in the right ballpark.

If/when this happens, it should be incorporated into the page about entering and formatting pictures.

Considering it still looks like a good idea to me, I'm gonna get more sleep. Me thinking writing is a good idea is a sign of something wrong with me.

How To Pick A Good Image. I did this in one sitting and I'm still a bit sleep addled.

edited 2nd Jan '11 3:18:47 AM by Deboss

I think you should change the order of your points:

Image Pickin'.

Works.

Tropes.

Quality of image.

Safe For Work

Copyright and Fair Use.

Right justified images.

Potholing

This mirrors the process of finding a picture. First pointing out image picking, so everybody knows where to go. Then describing what we are looking for. Followed by the more general points and the technical part.

Go for it. I pretty much just wrote it in the order things occurred to me in.

Wrote a paragraph about "pervasively iconic characters" decided against adding it.

!! Pervasively Iconic Characters. Some characters are so iconic that it's nearly impossible to be able to speak english and not know the Broad Strokes about them. This list is not determined democratically, it's determined by Fast Eddie and other other staff. This list is not easy to get on, and if you have to make an argument that the character is that iconic, the character probably isn't. There's a number of things that getting onto the list entail.

• This is not a value statement or popularity contest: this list is exclusive for a reason, namely that the number of characters that are part of the back ground of POP Culture is very very small. If you have to make an argument that a character is famous enough to be on the list, they probably aren't. Nor is it an attempt to say works on this list are good and all other works are secondary. Whether a work is better than another one is not the purview of this wiki at all, and an argument that it's better than a famous work offers nothing.
• Things that are looked at when judging a character.
  • Pervasiveness: the character or event has to be extremely pervasive among the mainstream, such that simply speaking the language is enough to have some idea bout the character. Meeting someone on the street is the level of mainstream desired. If you have to lower the number of people to get pervasiveness beyond "english speaking", it's probably not mainstream enough. A good benchmark test for this is Star Wars. If the work isn't as famous now as Star Wars is now, (not "at any time") it's probably not on the list. "Everyone who (watches Romantic Comedy movies) understands this" is bad.
  • Age: being old is good. It increases the cross section of the population likely to have been exposed to the character. "Everyone who (is under twenty) understands this" is bad.
  • Staying Power: being old and still used as a reference is important. If it gets to the point where it's an idiom (ex: Achilles' Heel) and people know what you mean regardless of exposure to the original work, it's well on it's way to becoming an Pervasively Iconic Character or phrase. "Everyone who (studies classic literature) understands this" is bad.
  • Broad Strokes: even if the character is well known, doesn't mean minutiae about the character is well known. Superman may be known for having Super-Strength but his favorite color is beyond what most people get through Pop Culture Osmosis. "Everyone who (is a true fan of the medium) understands this" is bad.
  • Medium: some mediums are more popular than others, namely Film and Television. These media have an incredibly large audience and will form the backbone of most peoples pop culture knowledge. Unfortunately, this means most newer media types such as Web Comic and Video Games are nearly excluded in their entirety. In the future, this may change, particularly when the medium becomes "mainstream" and stays that way until it's old enough. "Everyone who (reads Web Comics) understands this" is bad.
  • Non visual media: some of the more common iconic characters are, unfortunately, not visual. Robin Hood is a character whose name is iconic enough to reach above Fan Myopia, but, unfortunately, has dozens of visual interpretations, resulting in dozens of actors and visualizations that are sometimes contradictory. "Everyone who (has seen the latest Robin Hood movie) understands this" is bad.
• Current list of characters/works that anyone you meet on the street can be expected to know of  ^*
  ^{not necessarily about}
  : Robin Hood, Star Wars, Superman, Batman.

This looks great, Deboss, excellent work.

Looks nice. It should probably be indexed on Administrivia when it's finalized.

edited 2nd Jan '11 9:32:20 AM by KrisMahai

I see somebody removed the potholed demonstration, I take it it was gratuitous or just the page breaking?

It was breaking the page.

This sounds like a good place to clarify this bit: The maximum width is set to 350 pixels on the wiki and 300 on the forums.

I was told at some point that the max width for the wiki was actually 330, and that ideally we want to avoid 350-pixel (or larger) images because that means the site itself has to scale them down every time they're loaded.

Which is correct?

On another matter, maybe there should be a mention of the Visual Pun option (particularly as a possibility for the otherwise-unpicturable trope?)

edited 2nd Jan '11 3:42:27 PM by suedenim

350 is the max; I use and see pics between 330 and 350 all the time. Now, if the pic is bigger than 350, the page will resize it, at least for older images that are already on pages; the image uploader may not allow you to upload a pic bigger than 350 pixels now. It will definitely balk if you try to upload one that's bigger than 200KB.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:50:42 PM by Willbyr

From your "Pervasive Characters" paragraph;

Medium: some mediums are more popular than others, namely Film and Television. These media have an incredibly large audience and will form the backbone of most peoples pop culture knowledge.

Either use "media" or "mediums" as the plural, but not both in one paragraph. :)

edited 3rd Jan '11 7:22:34 AM by AndrewGPaul

I'm actually using them in different ways. I'm using media as a general reference to works, and mediums as to mechanics of how the work is presented (written word, comics, filmed, animation etc.).

A link to Images In Wiki Pages should be added in the “Images on the wiki” part.

I think additional points in the avoid list are spoilers and pictures showing something, which looks like a example but isn’t one. (Opposite of JAFAAC)

Maybe we should add under the “Tropes” part a “think twice” point. “Memes” should be there, visual puns and Real Live pictures too. These not forbidden per se, but should be handled with care.

I didn't know about that page. Go ahead and edit it. I'd say that spoilers should be kept to a minimum (rather than strongly opposed in all cases). I'm okay with images that aren't what they look like with context. I'm a bit unclear on Visual Puns myself.

I may be wrong, but I think one of the mods said at one point that pics should never be used if they're spoilers, and even if that's not the case, if one's used it's bound to come up in Image Pickin' with someone screaming that it's a spoiler.

Might also want to make a mention of Image Links Wiki and If you have a good image, feel free to add it there.

Is it okay to launch?

bumpity

The only thing I see is that you don't actually explain what makes a good page image different from a poor one. It's a great consolidation of the procedure, but the few pointers about what to look for in a picture are buried and scattered in amid "'don'ts" and "how tos". The very first section should be "What makes a picture a good candidate for a page image."

I planned to have it somewhere near the top, but the closest it is, is the first one under "tropes". The reason it's not up near the top, is that I wanted to cover Works first.

Also, moddifed intro paragraph to include things.

edited 7th Jan '11 11:13:08 AM by Deboss