Commons talk:Featured picture candidates

POTY

Does anyone know why POTY is not mentioned on the Commons Home Page. Seems weird that only those voting last year (I got a message) get a chance to vote this year. The votong period should be extneded. Charlesjsharp (talk) 15:11, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

There is the usual banner popping up on the Commons Main Page, watchlist pages, Wikipedias and Wiki Projects, at regular intervals. (Screengrab right now from Meta-Wiki as an example) There are so many other projects going on simultaneously (Wiki Loves Monuments 2025, SheSaid, Wikimania Scholarship, to name a few) and they all have banners so POTY must share the banner time with these. A banner usually pops up when your cache is refreshed or you enter a new Wiki project, and it's up to the rotation which one you'll see. Some browsers also keep track of which banners you have already seen and those will not pop up as regularly. The info is out there (I've seen the POTY banner many times by now) and there is no reason to extend the voting period. --Cart (talk) 16:01, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

There is a link to Commons:Picture of the Year in the Highlights section on the main page. MZaplotnik^(talk) 17:01, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

The organisers still have the opportunity to do a better job for the second round of voting. Charlesjsharp (talk) 12:28, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I think we should have a small box on the top right with a link to the voting page. I wouldn't dare to try to make one. I would break the whole page. However I could insert one if someone gives me the code. Yann (talk) 15:46, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

• Keep in mind that POTY is a relatively small competition compared to other photo competitions on the Wiki projects. It's mostly for a very small group of photographers who are privileged enough to have good cameras and skills. Even if we FPC-ers think this is an important event, we shouldn't blow it out of proportions. The competition itself doesn't contribute anything to the Wiki project; it's about as useful as the Miss Universe pageant. ;-) --Cart (talk) 15:56, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

• Agree 100% with Cart. Just one note: While POTY is certainly a relatively small competition, it still attracts much more attention that our FPC voting process. Compare the count of votes for the POTY winners with the count of votes for the most successful FPs. Furthermore, while WLM, WLE, WLF etc. are much bigger competitions, most people don’t understand them as Commons competitions, but access them (and identify them with) the individual language editions of Wikipedia. So in the end POTY is probably the most important Aushängeschild (advertisement sign, figuratively used) for Commons, at least much more important than FPC and the monthly photo challenges. – Aristeas (talk) 16:29, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

I do not know why we need parallel discussions about this, but I guess I'll copy my $0.02 from the POTY talk page: The overwhelming majority of people who see the main page are ineligible to participate in POTY. If the goal is to tell people about a contest to motivate them to contribute, announce the winners on the front page, not an inaccessible voting process. Otherwise, in time anyone logged in will wind up seeing the banners all over the place. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  15:58, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Division of Commons:Featured pictures/Historical#1850-1899

Hi, I think this section has become quite long. What do you think to divide it, i.e. 1850-1879 and 1880-1899? Yann (talk) 20:45, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

True, it is very long, and it's probably just going to be longer since it was a good era for events. When a country gets this many images in say 'Natural' or 'Architecture', we usually crop it off to a page of its own and place a link on the parent page. I could fix that tomorrow or so if people think it's a good idea. That way we can divvy it up in decades. What do you think? --Cart (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Splitting that large section into smaller sections by decades seems good to me: 1850–1859, 1860–1869, ..., 1890–1999. However I am not sure whether this requires an additional gallery page just for 1850–1899. Wouldn’t it be better to move the complete 19th century to a new gallery page, and also the 20th century to a new gallery page, both with sections for the decades? IMHO this would be the most natural solution. Later, if one of these pages becomes very long, we can split it again. Just my 50 cent, – Aristeas (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Good idea. Splitting it into centuries is definitely better. My brain was stuck in the old tracks. Splitting a page before it becomes too over-crowded is always easier to do. What do you say Yann? I can do this one of the upcoming days. --Cart (talk) 16:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

There are not so many files from before 1850, so I suggest one page until 1899, and one page for the 20th century, and one page from 2000, and then splitting by sections. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:09, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

I think I can come up with some compromise that will let us be consistent. We've already deviated from using only page size for new gallery pages, like with the Lepidoptera pages where we have one gallery page with only one photo, for the sake of consistency; and the Czech 'Natural' because it was easier to just include it than deleting it, when it was created from outside the FPC by someone. I'll get on this tomorrow. Thanks for the input! --Cart (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

The new gallery pages are up and running. The original Historical page is made into a "base page" with the first pre 1800 images and links to the rest. The 1800s, with the start of the industrial revolution the beginning of photography, is a good place to start when making new pages, and it leaves the "base page" relatively clutter free. Hope this is ok. Aristeas, when you have the time, would you please be so kind as to check with your programs so I didn't lose any File along the way? My own clunky system for keeping track of files while moving caught one, which is now inserted, but it's far, far from as sophisticated as yours.

If you see any more long gallery pages, please let me know. We shouldn't let these pages grow too big. As photographers, we at FPC need to have good broadband connection and we can deal with big pages. Most people in the world are not so lucky. So we need to branch off new galleries a bit sooner than we might think, so that they are accessible to everyone. --Cart (talk) 16:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Cart! This is a very clear, comprehensible and future-proof solution. – I have checked all FP gallery pages, including the new “Historical” pages, with my program and found neither any missing FPs nor any duplicate FPs. Well done! – Aristeas (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

PS: The mobile phone icon for the Gallery of Historical Events in the 2000s is great ;–). You are so right, we live in the age of swiping … – Aristeas (talk) 17:39, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Re. other long gallery pages, I've often wondered whether we should carve a 'Palaces' page out of Places/Architecture/Exteriors (a page which is currently about 80% larger than Historical Events was before these changes). It would match well with the existing Places/Architecture/Castles and fortifications to have Places/Architecture/Palaces too. Though, I do notice that some photos are in Castles and fortifications that might actually fit better in such a page, e.g. 1, so maybe it'd be a lot of work :-( Anyway, great work on getting this sorted Cart Cmao20 (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip Cmao20, I've had my eye on the 'Exteriors' page and it could really do with some fixing. 'Palaces' sounds like a good idea. I don't mind the work, as long as I can take my time and do it bit by bit, the hard part will be to determine what buildings are palaces and which are castles, since there can be some overlapping. But it's not the first sort of photos we've had that can be in two or several galleries. I can start on it, and then later we can fine-tune it if there are photos that should be elsewhere. Please chime in if you have some ideas or opinions. --Cart (talk) 00:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Let me know if there's anything I can do to make this easier or faster Cart, I could probably spend a pleasant couple of hours browsing these pictures so it wouldn't be too much trouble to help out. Cmao20 (talk) 21:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you Cmao20, this first part is not that bad. ;-) I'll get back to your offer when it's time for fine-tuning. That's when I'll need you. Right now, two people would only make things harder. --Cart (talk) 21:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

So the Commons:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture/Palaces is up and running. Probably one of the hardest new galleries I've ever done. Defining a palace and similar buildings is not so straightforward as at first I thought. I went to Wikipedia for some definition, but that almost made it worse. But I settled for the big buildings where ruling people had held residency and included buildings like châteaux, manors, grand houses, town halls, plus some government buildings and museums. Only, a building functioning as a 'châteaux' or 'palazzo' can be called just about anything in other languages (mansion, manor, hacienda, grand house, villa, etc.). Lines are very fluid. Sorting out the palaces from castles, I went for those with some sort of civilian purpose as opposed to those built for defense or military purpose. I've gone through 'Exteriors' and 'Castles and fortifications', where I also found several misplaced train stations, ceilings, religious buildings and even an airport. The 'castle' gallery contained plenty of buildings that looked stately, but really were just post offices, banks, universities, theatres, concert venues, triumphal arcs, and such. These were moved to 'Exterior'. Museums built as palaces/châteaux/manors and later converted, were moved to 'palaces', but those that were purposely built for art or old things were placed among the normal 'Exteriors'. I'm still not 100% sure what to do with these, but it's a start.

Aristeas, I would very much appreciate if you could run your check program to see what I've missed. (I saw that you already found one) I had the misfortune to experience two computer disconnects where I lost what I was doing. So I'm leaning rather heavily on your programs instead of going back and re-do the whole thing. If that one FP was all I didn't manage to restore, it would be a miracle. And Cmao20, I would be very grateful if you could go over the new gallery. A second pair of eyes is much needed after the first sorting! Some tweaking of scope might or might not be in order too, I'm too cross-eyed to see it all clearly at the moment. ;-) Anyone else who would like to assist is of course also welcome. I have updated the footer and header templates and the FP gallery list, and I will ask the translation team to mark what should be marked for translation so that the templates will transcribe correctly. Best, --Cart (talk) 11:44, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks so much Cart. Amazing work. Yes, this was honestly what I was finding when I looked at the galleries myself. The exteriors galleries just seemed super messy! Lots of photos that were really not castles at all in the castles gallery, and some that were arguably castles or at least fortifications in 'Exteriors.' Will go through this and see if there's anything that seems out of place to me. Cmao20 (talk) 11:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Cmao20 for dicing deeper into the descriptions of the buildings and fixing the misplaced ones. Much appreciated! From previous gallery sorting experiences, I know that I can go over a page four times, only to see one misplaced a year later by mistake. ;-) --Cart (talk) 12:59, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Cart! This is a big step forward for the gallery pages. Just as both of you have already emphasised the differentiation between castles/palaces and other exteriors was quite unclear and many images were in the wrong or only second-best gallery. The new ‘Palaces’ gallery helps a lot. – Until now my program has found only one lost, one duplicate gallery entry (both fixed), but I will run some additional checks to be 100% on the save side. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Great! Only two files misplaced, that was much less than I expected. Thank you so much for finding them. You and your programming skills are a blessing to the WP project. :-) --Cart (talk) 13:13, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

File:Woman reading Quran during Ramadhan in Cairo, Egypt.jpg Background Composite?

Hi, I raised this on the talk page of the file but it was pointed out that this might be a more appropriate forum. I suspect the background in this FP has been replaced considering the following points. Apologies for the lengthy comment but I wanted to be thorough if I'm accusing an image of not being genuine.

• The background horizon doesn't line up with the leading lines in the foreground. The horizon should be around the woman's head where the lines on the wood shutter are horizontal, based on the leading lines in the foreground). In a wide angle shot like this (24 mm), it basically doesn't matter how high above the horizon you are (within reason), the leading lines of horizontal objects like the wood shutter on the left, the glass door frame, or the table on the bottom should point to the horizon.
  • For an example of how elevation doesn't matter, this is 412 m in the air and the horizon is still perfectly in line with the leading lines.
• The edge where it was cut looks manually masked (straight line across tiles that show a step etc.).
• The background perspective doesn't make sense for a 24 mm focul length. For the minarets to be this large in the frame at 24 mm, it would have to be taken from closer to the double pointed minaret of Mosque of Qanibay al-Rammah than this photo, and from higher up. But the double pointed one is 100 m from the closest of the two minarets of Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hassan in the background, yet the ones further away tower over the one in the foreground, so it would have to have been taken from further away with a longer focal length as well to get more compression.
• The background is too dark for a sky that would produce this level of brightness of the foreground.
• There is a second file in the series, this one, where the foreground shows the sun throwing light on the wall on the left (implying the sun being on the right) while the light outdoors is coming from the left, so this one is more obivous composite to me, but less of an issue since it's not FP. The background here is the same scene, but horizontally mirrored.

If this is the case, I'm not sure it would be voted to FP with that awareness, but I would appreciate some other opinions from another user or the author @مصطفى الشربجى because I may well be missing something. Am I being overly sceptical? Thanks. — Julian H.^✈ 10:04, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

• I agree with all your points. I think especially the existence of the second file is quite damning. If this image had been a declared composite, I probably still would have voted for it. But I think it may be appropriate to open a delist discussion. Many people in the original nomination voted on the basis of the photograph's 'authenticity', a quality which it may not possess. Cmao20 (talk) 16:17, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for looking so carefully at this photo, Julian! Some points – that the background appears relatively dark and that the edge of the window looks masked – could IMHO be explained in a less problematic way, namely that the photographer has masked the window in order to dial down the exposure locally and maybe also to add some additional blur. But the background perspective issue is really delicate. That there is neither a {{Retouched}} template nor any a similar hint, and that the montage concerns a central element of the photo (not just the removal of some less important irritating stuff etc.) is a problem. However this does not necessarily indicate an intent to deceive. Occasional contributors like the author of this photo often don’t know that on Commons we usually declare montages and strong retouching, and on more widely known platforms like Flickr even daring montages often go without the slightest hint. It were reviewers like me (sorry) who praised the feeling of authenticity, it was not claimed by the author. Therefore we should not condemn the author, but hope that مصطفى الشربجى can explain what was done in this photo. In that case, and if the editing would be clearly described, I would be fine with keeping the FP status. We should give the author a considerable amount of time to answer these questions, because they are a occasional contributor, and also try to contact them via e-mail (they have enabled that feature). – Aristeas (talk) 18:26, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

• Yes, as you say, there is probably no wrongdoing on the part of the photographer, even if it is indeed a montage. It is surely a well done one, and I would be happy for it to remain an FP, but people do deserve the chance to think and vote again with this information taken into account. Cmao20 (talk) 13:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• Agree. – Aristeas (talk) 18:53, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• Interesting discussion. I made a forensic analysis with ChatGPT for both images (duration: 5 minutes).
  • Result: There is no evidence that the entire exterior view (the “window picture”) was replaced or composited. All forensic indicators — edges, focus gradient, lighting, and noise — are consistent with a single, genuine exposure captured through the window. It's fascinating to watch ChatGPT at work during the analysis — systematically checking edge consistency, noise continuity, lighting coherence, and depth of field to assess whether the scene is genuine.
    An additional observation from me: The fact that in both images the face is beautifully lit from the right side without any overexposure strongly indicates indirect window light, which perfectly fits the overall exposure balance and further supports the authenticity of the scene. --Tuxyso (talk) 19:17, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Similar i asked myself. Or author is master of Light. Her nose is blown, i am sure flash or other light was around, while skirt isnt under such light. Book should be more white, unless they put some umbrela on balcony. So could be good staged shot or but... I doubt for originality. --Mile (talk) 14:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

FPCBot asking for help

The gallery link Fungi#Order : Agaricales (Gilled Mushrooms) in the nomination Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:2025-10-11 D500-920 Achim-Lammerts Kuehneromyces-mutabilis.jpg does not point to a valid section on Commons:Featured pictures/Fungi. (The section after the # in a gallery link is valid if and only if it corresponds letter for letter to a subheading which is immediately followed by a <gallery> element.) Therefore one or more new featured pictures are added to the Unsorted section of Commons:Featured pictures/Fungi. Please sort these images into the correct section. Thank you! / FPCBot (talk) 05:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Syntaxys, this is your nomination, could you please sort this out? (Of course, anyone else is welcome to solve the problem too!) If you need help, just ask an experienced FPC regular. Thank you! / FPCBot (talk) 05:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

To explain what’s going on: The gallery link pointed to Commons:Featured pictures/Fungi#Order : Agaricales (Gilled Mushrooms), but Order : Agaricales (Gilled Mushrooms) is a superordinate heading without a <gallery> element; it has subheadings for the individual families and these hold the <gallery> elements. The bot cannot guess to which family the new FP belongs, therefore it complains. (Until recently the bot used to put the FP just under the first subheading, but obviously this was a bad habit because in most cases that’s the wrong subheading, so the new FP was misplaced into the wrong subsection. I have stopped this and gave the bot the ability to ask for help instead.)

The solution is simple: Because this photo belongs to the Strophariaceae, the correct gallery link is Commons:Featured pictures/Fungi#Family : Strophariaceae. Please move the new FP manually from the Unsorted section to the Strophariaceae section. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 10:08, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Hallo Syntaxys, könntest Du Dich bitte um Dein Bild kümmern? Danke! – Aristeas (talk) 10:21, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh sorry, ich habe es eben hoffentlich richtig erledigt. Danke für den Hinweis! Syntaxys (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Hallo Syntaxys, ja, das ist perfekt, vielen Dank! Sorry für meinen etwas unhöflichen Tonfall – normalerweise bin ich netter. ;–) Ich hatte mich über einen anderen Nutzer geärgert und daher war ich so kurz angebungen, sorry. Nochmals vielen Dank und herzliche Grüße, – Aristeas (talk) 20:20, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Alles gut :)

Ich hatte Deine erste Nachricht nicht bemerkt, sonst hätte ich es gleich erledigt. Aktuell reagiere ich etwas verzögert, da ich mit der Kamera im Wald herumstreune :)

LG/A Syntaxys (talk) 06:04, 19 October 2025 (UTC)