Image Changin' Etiquette

Okay, I went through and added some stuff in and bolded all the titles. I was thinking of going in and putting a link to either this thread or making an "IP Guidelines" thread for directly discussing modifications to the list. We could just do it here though, I guess.

Most of the addition was in the "when to pull an image" entry.

edited 18th May '11 1:25:09 AM by Deboss

That looks great, nice work. I saw a couple of minor hiccups but I don't have time right now to do a thorough sweep...in the last post, I think there's a space between the first two percent signs.

There is a space between the % signs. The "comment out" code has a higher priority than the "don't execute any coding within these brackets" code and the paragraph disappears even with the whatever coding around it.

edited 18th May '11 6:32:18 AM by Madrugada

Duly noted. Some other notes:

• This and this should probably be addressed as well.
• "When to pull an image" needs to state all the pull-on-sight criteria.
• Catalogue's criteria need to be moved over to How To Pick A Good Image

EDIT: For the second thing...obviously NSFW and spoilers, but I was thinking there were a couple of other things that merited an insta-pulll...glaring copyright/watermarks?

edited 18th May '11 10:54:51 AM by Willbyr

I said it before, but I'd rather not have a list of reasons to pull an image. Writing them down as if they're rules will make people think of them as rules when they're not.

Whether you call them rules or guidelines, that doesn't change the fact that we have a set of pull-on-sight criteria, for valid reasons...none of the policies we follow on this wiki are set up as "rules" but they're still spelled out, and I don't see a need to deviate from that.

I left JAFAAC out on purpose. People keep misusing it.

Oh, a thing that's missing is the three-day clock. If a thread is stagnating, it's possible to holler for a mod to put a three-day countdown clock on the thread.

Where do you think it should go?

Agreed with Willbyr's suggestions.

What about publishing the criteria as "common reasons to pull or replace"? That way it would be obvious that those are not rules, but rather guidelines.

That's a good idea. The note about the clock should probably go in the first entry on crowners.

edited 18th May '11 8:48:58 PM by Willbyr

See, that sort of thing is really subjective. Different people are going to draw the line in different places. Codifying this stuff as guidelines will end up having people follow them as if they're rules.

Although if it were written in first-person, I guess I wouldn't object.

edited 18th May '11 9:52:54 PM by troacctid

I still think that would fit better on How To Pick A Good Image.

I think it would be a good idea that if a page doesn't have an image and you don't have a suggestion, you don't start an Image Pickin'.

Good idea.

Okay, somebody suggested that we should make a lagging crowner standard. We want it known that if a crowner is open for, say, a month, and nothing has pulled ahead, we either slap a clock on it or dig up new images (Hover Tank comes to mind). If nothing wins, we stuff the Image Links, tag the page, and lock the thread.

I support this 100%.

I think it would also be good to refrain from any "the current one is okay, but we can do better" threads. Start one if you have a suggestion, or think the current one is bad at getting the trope across. That should help with the backlog.

What happens on the very rare occasions a JAFAAC image is the best picture for the trope because the image actually illustrates the trope, regardless of being JAFAAC?

I've seen people argue that the mere fact that the picture is JAFAAC automatically makes its appropriateness as an illustration of the trope in question irrelevant, but I do not understand why that is, particularly.

I mean, it has been explained to me that JAFAAC are automatically bad because they could be confusing to someone not familiar with the subject of the image, but this leads me to wonder about the apparent dumbing down process. What I mean is, when does it become the ignorant troper's responsibility to learn about something new? (And I use "ignorant" here in its technical definition, "lacking knowledge of", and not as a synonym for "stupid".)

Let me illustrate using myself as an example: the picture on the If I Were a Rich Man trope page (a page I reached using the Random button) is a complete and total mystery to me. Apparently it has something to do with Pokemon (a franchise that has never, in any form, been of interest to me). I have no clue who the girl is, and I have no idea why the picture illustrates the trope. To me, its not only JAFAAC, its utterly mysterious. According to the standards presented here that picture should be pulled immediately.

But... and here is my question... why is it not my responsibility to find out who that is, and why that picture applies to the trope, rather than your responsibility to dumb things down so I don't have to go to the effort of doing so.

If you want to argue that a picture is not JAFAAC with some modicum of persuasion, you should be pointing out counterexamples—details in the image that help show the trope. For example, in the If I Were a Rich Man pic, she's holding a wad of cash in her hand, wearing fancy clothes, sitting on a pile of riches, and the art style of the background (plus a slightly softened focus) is indicative of an Imagine Spot. It hits multiple key visual cues to tell us the trope is happening.

Arguing that it's not JAFAAC because it's an example is not going to win you any points with anyone, since...well...that's pretty much the definition of JAFAAC: it's an example, but we can't tell from the image.

And to answer your first question, in general we consider a bad image worse than no image at all. If the best choice for a page image is JAFAAC, we go without an image, because that means we've determined that there's no way to demonstrate the trope with an image, so there's really no point in having one.

The only examples of good JAFAAC I've seen are on the Personal Appearance Tropes index. IE: a mug shot perfectly displays the trait. It's possible to do better, such as Fiery Red Head where (s)he should be both redheaded and angry.

The purpose of the description is to explain the trope. The purpose of the image, what with being in the description, is to help explain the trope through illustration. Examples (which most JAFAAC fall into) go in the example page.

For the same reason it's not your responsibility to try and decipher a bad description or look up a professional term on The Other Wiki. Now that I've mentioned them, I think it's time to say We Are Not Wikipedia, that means "this picture is totally an example" does not cut it here.

Per this thread, we should state somewhere that pages, especially for works, generally need to be limited to one pic, and that other related pics should go on an Image Links page and/or the work's character page. I know we've got at least one trope page that uses two pics, but that's very much an exception to the general guideline.

Also, on the "when to pull an image" post in the Welcome thread, we should add memetic pics like demotivators, LOL Cats, and other Image Macros to the list of "pull on sight" pics.

edited 8th Jun '11 8:17:49 AM by Willbyr

How are you defining Image Macros? Also, demotivators are already mentioned.

edited 8th Jun '11 3:44:50 PM by Deboss

Well, pretty much anything on that page. I know demotivators and LOL Cats are the ones that show up most, but we need to cover all the bases.

edited 8th Jun '11 4:16:52 PM by Willbyr