Adding images to Wikipedia

As of mid 2024 the English language Wikipedia has over 6.8 million articles, and Wikimedia's media library Commons has over 105 million files. For many years Commons has been growing faster than Wikipedia with some large uploads of images from museums and other sources, (especially the Geograph), and we now have images available for lots of articles that were written before we had images for them.

So we now are producing lists of articles that don't have images but for which images may be available.

Wikipedia:UK articles with co-ordinates but no image is a list produced by computer of articles about things in the UK, these are articles without images, but because they are in the UK we probably have images if we look.

To add an image to an article.

Open three different editing tabs on your PC. One for this page, one for Wikipedia:UK articles with co-ordinates but no image and one for searching Wikimedia Commons
On Wikipedia:UK articles with co-ordinates but no image find an article and check that it still doesn't have an image.
Search Wikimedia Commons for that location. Please remember to check that you have the right place, not somewhere else with the same name (One useful check is to click on the co-ordinates in the article and the camera location on the picture are in the same place on the maps).
If you find an image that you want to use, click on the link to the article in the list and then click edit on the article.
Copy:
[[file:photograph name.jpg|right|thumb|Your caption here]]

to a new first line of the article.
Copy the name of the file from Wikimedia Commons and paste it over the words photograph name
Replace Your caption here with a caption that explains the relevance of the image to the article.
Put Adding picture in the box marked Edit Summary
Click preview to see what the photo looks like in the article
If you think it improves the article, click save.
Edit Wikipedia:Articles with UK Geocodes but without images and remove the article that you've added a picture to.

Congratulations! you've just transformed a Wikipedia article.

Adding an image to an Infobox

Many Wikipedia articles start with infoboxes. Using the classic editor, these involve a load of computerese starting and ending with double curly brackets. {{ }} The most common one is infobox UK place For that one, the image and caption go after the equal signs in :

|static_image =

|static_image_caption=

For example, if the Commons file is named "File:Kinlochleven.jpg", then this would become:

|static_image = Kinlochleven.jpg

|static_image_caption= Kinlochleven

If you don't see those parameters there then just copy and paste those two lines in. Other infoboxes are likely to have different parameters to call images, you can find out the parameters for any infobox by going to its template page just type "template:" in front of the infobox name when you search for it.

Alternatively some find the Visual Editor is OK for template editing.

Advanced options

Descriptions for blind people

Some people use Wikipedia via screenreaders and can't see pictures, so we put in alt text that gives them a brief description of the point that the image was visually making.

Use the slightly longer template with an additional "alt=" parameter

[[file:photograph name.jpg|right|thumb|Your caption here|'''alt=A description for blind people''']]

Replace A description for blind people with a few words that would give a blind person more information than the caption. Remember this is in addition to the caption and makes the point that the caption previously left to the picture itself eg A very tall column with a man at the top and some lions at the base or a large green statue of a lady holding a torch.

Other languages

In Wikipedia articles, on the lower left part of the screen you will see a list of other languages that we have that article in, usually we won't have images in that language either. Feel free to add images to other language versions of Wikipedia, but please leave the caption and alt text blank unless you can write them in that language.

Sometimes one image just isn't enough

For example you might have a waterfall in spate and in drought and you want to put both images side by side

You can do this with the following code:

file:photograph 1.jpg|Caption 1|alt=A description for blind people

file:photograph 2.jpg|Caption 2|alt=A description for blind people

</gallery>

Sometimes a gallery isn't suitable

We need to remember people with slow connection speeds, so we only want images that illustrate something in the article. When we have far more images than we use and in those cases it is worth adding a link to the category on Commons.

You can do this by putting the following near the end of the article, usually in the see also section {{commonscat|category on Commons}} Just replace the words "category on Commons" with the name of the category on Commons (if the name is the same this parameter is not needed).

If you can't find an image

If you can't find a suitable image, and the article is about something that someone could legally and safely photograph, then you can put a photography request on the talkpage(please no demolished buildings, submerged villages, medieval basements of banks or military firing ranges). You can do this by copying {{reqphoto|in=County, State or Country}} for example {{reqphoto|in=Hampshire}} would put the image into the Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Hampshire The more specific the geography the better, remember you are asking people to go somewhere and take photos, so keep it local. In the United Kingdom and other countries with freedom of Panorama you can photograph most buildings, statues and other three dimensional things that are on permanent public display. In most other countries the rules are more restrictive, sometimes much more restrictive.

FAQs

Q What does thumb do?

A The thumb parameter makes the image thumbnail size rather than full size. We have other options as well, but thumb works as a good default.

Q What if none of the images are suitable for illustrating that article?

A Sometimes the only image we have for a village is a roundabout, hedge or rusty tractor, if you don't think that any of the images you've found are worth adding then leave that one and check another article (advanced option - edit the list and add the words "no suitable pictures on Commons" and today's date. That way hopefully we can add it to lists we circulate to our photographers).

Q I want to know lots more about adding images, where can I find out about all the possibilities?

A Wikipedia:Picture tutorial

Q How do I add the image into the Infobox rather than above it?

A We may not cover this in today's class. But Help:Infobox picture has all the details.

Q Why do you keep the images in a separate Wiki, wouldn't it be easier if they were in Wikipedia?

A We keep most of our images in a separate image library so that they can be available for use in lots of different projects, including the nearly 300 different language versions of Wikipedia. In each language version of Wikipedia you can use files loaded to that wiki and also files loaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Q Why do so many images have Geograph in the file name?

A Geograph Britain and Ireland is a photography competition in Britain and Ireland, people compete to be the first to photograph somewhere or something. Because they use a compatible license to us we have been able to copy millions of their images to Wikimedia Commons, and that's the main reason why we have images for almost every UK village, Grade I or II* listed building (and many of the grade IIs), monument, waterfall, castle, canal or railway station.