GuildWiki:Image use policy

This page is a brief overview of the policies towards images &mdash; including format, content, and copyright issues &mdash; on GuildWiki.

Rules of thumb
Below this brief checklist of image use rules is the detailed reasoning behind them.


 * 1) It is assumed that as a Guild Wars fansite images taken from in game are useable under Fair use rules.
 * 2) Do not use images taken from the Official site with the exception of those found in the fansite kits.
 * 3) Never use scanned images from magazine articles about Guild Wars or any image that another web page has been granted exclusive access to.
 * 4) Do not include credits or your own copyright in images. Images with credits or copyrights will be deleted.
 * 5) Use a clear, detailed title. Note that if any image with the same title has already been uploaded, it will be replaced with your new one.
 * 6) Crop the image to highlight the relevant subject.
 * 7) Use JPEG format for most images, PNG files do not scale well in this Wiki, and GIF files are usually of too low a quality.
 * 8) See screen capture for tips on taking good pictures in game.
 * 9) When you upload your screen captures to GuildWiki, you are putting them out there for others to use. If it is felt that your image of that sword focuses more on your Elementalist who is holding it than on the sword itself, others may crop and re-upload the picture or simply upload a new picture of the item.
 * 10) The defining criterion of whether contributors will keep Image A or Image B of an item is the one most useful. This means the one that brings out the object of the image more clearly.

Deleting images

 * 1) Add the deletion notice   to the image description page.
 * 2) If someone has marked an image for deletion and you disagree with their reasoning, post in that image's talk page your reasons for keeping said image.

To actually delete an image after following the above procedure, you must be an administrator. To do so, go to the image description page and click the (del) or Delete this page links. Deleted images cannot be undeleted. Therefore they are gone permanently unless someone happened to keep a backup.

Image titles and file names
Descriptive file names are also useful. A map of Ascalon could be called "Ascalon.jpg", but quite likely more images of Ascalon will be useed in GuildWiki, so it is good to be more specific, e.g. "Old Ascalon Map.jpg", or "Ascalon Map with all towns.jpg". Check whether there are already maps of Ascalon in GuildWiki. Then decide whether your map should replace one (in each article that uses it) or be additional. In the first case give it exactly the same name, otherwise a suitable other name. Avoid special characters in filenames or excessively long filenames, though, as that might make it difficult for some users to download the files onto their machines. Note that names are case sensitive, "Ascalon.JPG" is considered different from "Ascalon.jpg". For uniformity, lower case file name extensions are recommended.

You may use the same name in the case of a different image that replaces the old one, and also if you make an improved version of the same image - perhaps an image of a monster with out the health bar or a better cropped image of a weapon - then upload it with the same title as the old one. This allows people to easily compare the two images, and avoids the need to delete images or change articles. However, this is not possible if the format is changed, since then at least the extension part of the name has to be changed.

Currently there is no easy way to rename an image &mdash; they will not "Move" to new titles in the ways that articles will. The currently accepted method to rename an image is to 1. download the image to your hard disk, 2. re-upload it again with a new file name, 3. mark the old (incorrect file name) image page with a deletion tag noting that the image has been replaced by an exact duplicate of the file (for example, ).

Format

 * All screen capture images used on GuildWiki should be in JPEG format.
 * PNG images are used mostly for icons (profession icons like Image:Warrior-icon.png and skill effect icons like Image:Hex-degen.png) that will not be scaled as that can cause a severe decrease in image quality.

Uploaded image size
Uploaded files must be smaller than 16 megabytes. The MediaWiki software GuildWiki uses can resize images automatically as of version 1.3, so it is rarely necessary to resize images yourself.

Although files up to 16 megabytes can be used, there is no need for any image to be that large. Any image that is larger than a few hundred kilobytes can cause issues for people trying to view the page that it is used on, so it is asked that images be kept under 150K.

Displayed image size
In articles, if you wish to have a photo beside the text, you should generally use the "thumbnail" option available in the "Image markup", or approximately 200-250 pixels of width if you're doing it manually. Larger images should generally be a maximum of 550 pixels wide, so that they can comfortably be displayed on 800x600 monitors.

Since mediawiki dynamically scales inline images there is no need to reduce file size via scaling or quality reduction when you upload images.

Content
Images should only be those directly relating to the Guild Wars series of games. Minor use of images not directly related to Guild Wars is acceptable on user pages.

Any uploading of pornographic material may result in long term or permant bans. Uploading of other material not related to Guild Wars and attempting to pass this off as Guild Wars images may result in short term bans (e.g. uploading a picture of a car with the image name Bog Skale.jpg).

Revision history of articles containing images
Old versions of articles do not show corresponding old versions of images, but the latest ones, unless the file names of the images have changed.

Free and open-source software
DISCLAIMER: This section describes software written by a third party. GuildWiki does not endorse, explicitly or otherwise, the use of any third party tools. As with all third party software, the user should investigate the tool themselves and take precautions prior to installation in order to protect their privacy and security.

These free and open source software packages have been recommended by Wikipedians for use in image and media manipulation:
 * The GIMP &mdash; General image editor. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
 * ImageMagick &mdash; Image conversion and transformation suite. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
 * GraphicsMagick &mdash; A clone of ImageMagick emphasizing consistency of the programming API and end-user command-line options. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
 * Paint.NET &mdash; Image editing software based on the .NET platform. (Windows)