MediaWiki:Images

When a user is new to this wiki, oftentimes they are eager to upload new images to make articles snazzier. We appreciate your enthusiasm, but request that you follow a few guidelines to make it easier for your images to be kept as part of the wiki. It's really not as complicated as it looks.

Image quality

Oftentimes, there will be issues with the quality of an image uploaded to this wiki that will require it to be replaced. These include:

• Grainy graphical artifacts due to too much compression.
• The image dimensions being too small to really see anything.
• The image being zoomed in too much on a given detail, thus limiting its usefulness.
• The image having an overly obtrusive watermark on it when a suitable unwatermarked image could be obtained.
• For photographs, if the image was taken under poor lighting conditions.
• For screenshots, if the image is not a direct screen capture but a photograph of a television screen.

Images with quality issues are often tagged with the {{badimage}} template. If you were directed to this page by an image bearing this tag, this is why.

Image format

Most images you will see on this wiki will be in the JPEG format. We have found that in all but a select few cases, this is the ideal format for our purposes, as it helps keep file size down and generally displays images clearly. It is not the only format we use, but in the case of screenshots of movies or cartoons, we request that you use it whenever possible.

File Size

The file size of images is important to keep an eye on when uploading. While this wiki has no hard and fast limits on the size of images, we are conscious of how big they are in an effort to keep page load times manageable. If an image is bogging down the loading of a page, it will often be requested that a replacement be uploaded in a smaller size, different resolution, or even different file format. Generally, most regular users of this wiki prefer to keep file sizes at under 150KB for the sheer majority of images, though larger file sizes are permitted for images that need to be sharp, clear and legible due to large amounts of text.

Of particular note are animated GIF files. While there are some of these in use in articles, this wiki uses animated GIFs sparingly at most. The reason for this is that many of these files are not made very carefully, and the file sizes on them can get quite large very quickly. As a result, it can be very hard to justify keeping one on the server, unless it can be shown that it illustrates a point or concept that can't be conveyed in a still image. If this is the case and you simply must use an animated GIF, try to keep the number of frames (and thus the file size) to a minimum.

When to upload an image

While the above discusses the legal and technical concerns this wiki has with submitted images, there are additional issues which are entirely subjective, but worth consideration. This wiki hosts thousands of Transformers images, with more added every day. A lot of these are often deleted for the reasons above, but sometimes an image is unsuitable for much-harder-to-define issues. To ensure your image's continued use, ask yourself a few questions while uploading:

• Does the image duplicate the function of an existing image already on the wiki? If it is meant to replace that image, you might be better off going to that image and uploading your image as a new version of that one.
• Does the image illustrate something meaningful and informative for the wiki? Will adding the image you are uploading to an article improve that article? If an article already has numerous images, adding more will often increase clutter and decrease readability.
• If the image is from a recently published or aired comic or cartoon, does it contain spoilers that might ambush other users? Images with prominent spoilers should be uploaded sparingly and always be placed under {{spoiler}} tags in an article's fiction section.
• Would one image work better in the layout than multiple images? Particularly in images depicting toys, it's often best to bundle together images of the toy's robot mode, vehicle mode, and accessories into one image to make the page layout less burdened.

What needs images?

This wiki frequently tags articles its users believe are in need of additional images with the {{picsneeded}} template. This adds them to the Articles in need of images category. If you are browsing this category, please check the individual articles before uploading. The tags on the articles usually contain specifics as to what's requested. As well, existing images in need of better replacements are included in the Images to be replaced category.

External link

• Online image metadata reader — Useful for (potentially) determining the copyright year of fan-generated images