Adding an image to Camerapedia is as simple as adding the URL for the image to the wiki text. However, you should be careful about two areas:
- The rights to use the image
- The hosting of the image
Copyright issues
If you are the copyright holder of the image, you can of course insert it into Camerapedia.
If you are not the copyright holder, you must assume that the image is copyrighted in such a way as not to allow insertion unless the image is accompanied by a clear statement saying the copyright holder either has released it into the public domain or has released it under the GFDL. You may also insert images released under a Creative Commons license provided that you respect the full terms of the license accompanying the image.
Without the explicit consent of the copyright holder, do not take images to illustrate Camerapedia from other sites, scanned magazines or even manufacturers' publicity, unless you are certain that this material has fallen into public domain. If you do have this explicit consent, state this clearly on the discussion page of the article in question or in the image's Flickr page if it is hosted there.
A set of "image rights" tags is provided to quickly identify the status of an image. These are of considerable help for Camerapedia administrators and for potential redistributors, and should be added to the picture caption as follows:
- {{creative commons}} for images licensed under Creative Commons - please check license of each image details before re-use;
- {{with permission}} for images used in Camera with permission of the copyright owner;
- {{fair use}} for images used under fair use (this practice is appropriate for ads older than 50 years w/o high artistic value, please follow the link for the details)
- {{public domain}} for images released into public domain by their former copyright holder, or in public domain thru copyright expiry (please follow the link for the details)
We will remove images for which ownership and/or copyright cannot be quickly verified. To be sure that an image of a camera, etc., is not copyrighted, simply take a photograph of it yourself.
The interpretation that is currently given in the Copyrights page is that the images are not part of Camerapedia's content and are agglomerated documents regarding the GFDL (see section 7 of the GFDL). This means that a published image keeps its original licensing status and that your insertion of it within a Camerapedia page does not constitute a claim that the image was previously released under GFDL, that the image is in the public domain, or that the image is thereby released under GFDL. Please note however that this interpretation might be debatable and that the careless or unscrupulous may ignorantly or wilfully claim that publication in Camerapedia proves GFDL or even public-domain status.
Hosting issues
Most of the images published in Camerapedia articles are currently hosted by other websites.
The images must be hosted by a person or organization explicitly consenting to having bandwidth used in this way, and you need to respect the relevant guidelines and restrictions.
One of these organizations is Flickr. This is free to join and post images to and actively encourages users to link to its images from elsewhere. We have set up a Flickr group for Camerapedia. To add a picture to this Flickr group implies willingness for the picture to be displayed in Camerapedia, whether the actual insertion in a Camerapedia page is made by you or by another contributor. We encourage you to take photos of your own camera gear and (with their permission) that of your friends, and to post the images to this Flickr group.
The Flickr guidelines page states that each picture hardlinked from another site (e.g. Camerapedia) must be provided with a link back to the relevant Flickr page. To respect this, you must insert a Flickr image in the following way:
[URL_of_the_Flickr_page_where_the_image_appears URL_of_the_Flickr_hosted_image]
This way a click on the image will directly take the reader to the corresponding Flickr page, and it will be easier to check that the use of this image in Camerapedia is allowed. The first URL mentioned is simply the address of the Flickr page where this image appears, while you can obtain the second URL in Flickr by clicking on "all sizes" and selecting the image size appropriate for Camerapedia.
Images on Wikia server
You can load up images to the camerapedia.wikia.com server. You can choose an appropriate image license from the "Licensing" drop-down list of the upload page Special:Upload. The only working options are
- I took this photo myself
and
- This is copyrighted, but use is permitted by the copyright holder
These options add the Template:Self to the file description page.
For other licenses please add an appropriate license attribution to the file description text field before loading up, or edit the file decription page after upload to add that info. If You load up the photo of someone else You must have the permission, or the image license must be public domain, or must be a "Creative Commons" license not excluding commercial use. The license attribution here must be the same as the image's original license.
Flickr images
Flickr's camerapedia group is the main image source. For ease of image usage a template can help:
Copy the following and paste it at the correct place in the camera page to insert an image from Flickr:
{{Flickr image
|image_source=
|image=
|image_align=
|image_text=
|image_rights=
}}
meaning of the template-attributes:
- image_source
- full URL of web page where the image is presented at Flickr
- image
- full URL of image (JPEG or GIF format)
- image_align
- right or left
- image_text
- brief explanation
- image_rights
- image right status (optional attribute), must be one of the following:
- "creative commons" for images licensed under Creative Commons - please check license details before re-use;
- "with permission" for images used with permission of the copyright owner;
- "fair use" for images used under fair use (please follow the link for the details)
- "public domain" for images released into public domain by their former copyright holder, or in public domain thru copyright expiry (please follow the link for the details)
IMPORTANT HINT: Use "Creative Commons" (noncommercial) or "All rights reserved" images only when they were given into the Flickr Camerapedia pool after January 23rd 2011. This rule should be obeyed until Wikia has requested and received successfully new image usage permissions from the image donators. This rule is important because "Creative Commons" (noncommercial) or "All rights reserved" images given to that pool until that date were explicitely given for a noncommercial wiki, the former original strictly noncommercial www.camerapedia.org. U. Kulick 17:02, March 31, 2011 (UTC)