Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

This page is a help or manual page for the ISFDB database. It describes standards or methods for entering or maintaining data in the ISFDB database, or otherwise working with the database. Other help pages may be found via the category below. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page. If, after exploring the Help system, you still have a question, please visit the Help desk and let us know. We probably know the answer, but we need your help to know what we left out of the help pages. If you are new to editing the ISFDB, please see Help:Getting Started. For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates.

This page is about uploading images to the ISFDB wiki to be used there or on bibliographic records in the ISFDB database proper. For information on linking to images hosted elsewhere from database records, see Help:Screen:EditPub and ISFDB:Image linking permissions.

Step by Step Procedure

In order to upload a file to the ISFDB wiki, there must be a copy of the file on your local computer, in the format you want to upload. The file must be in one of the supported file formats: (GIF, JPEG, PNG, OGG, or SVG). Please be sure that the image is no larger than required, and in any case is less than 600 pixels along its largest dimension, if at all possible. You may wish to crop or rescale the image. You must be logged in to upload images.

1. Click on the "Upload file" link, found on the left of most wiki pages, or go to Special:Upload.
2. Fill in the path and name of, or browse to, the file on your local computer.
3. Specify the file name to be used on the wiki. It should be distinctive. The wiki software will force it to be unique. If the image is the cover of a publication, the publication tag may be appropriate. If you use something other than the publication tag, remember that other editions of the book are likely to have different art, so don't use just the book title, disambiguate with the year, printing number, publisher, imprint, artist, or some other info likely to distinguish this from other art for the same work. (This is less of a problem for magazines.) The name must use one of the supported file extensions: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .ogg, .svg or .png.
4. Enter a brief description of the image in the "Summary:" box, unless this is going to be done during the licensing step, below. You may add and fill in a license tag here, saving the 2nd edit mentioned below. The tag alone may be a sufficient description. (Note: This does not work if you are uploading a new version of an existing image. In that case you must make a separate edit if the license tag or any part of the permanent description is to change.)
5. Click "Upload file".
6. Once the file has been uploaded, the image's wiki page will appear. In order to get the URL (address) for the image you just uploaded, left click anywhere on the image and copy the URL from your browser's address window. (Or right click on the image and choose "Copy Image Location".) If you're adding a cover image to a pub record, this is the URL which you would enter into the pub record's "Image URL" field.
7. You are encouraged to attach a license tag to each image. Click "Edit" at the top of the image's wiki page.
8. Apply one of the license tags from Category:Image License Tags, filling in all required parameters as specified by the tag's documentation. If no tag is applicable, explain fully the copyright and licensing status of the image, and why the ISFDB can display it. (This edit can be avoided by doing this as part of the description summary during the original upload [Step 4]. Adding the license tag can be done when uploading new images, but not when uploading a revised version of an image already on file. See Re-uploading below.) If you did not do so in Step 4, you can include a brief description of the image during this edit, if you feel that a description beyond the tag is needed. (Often the tag provides a sufficient description.)
9. Click "Save".
10. If you are using one of the license tags that specifies an artist, and you specified an artist name, scroll down to the bottom of the wiki page. Look for the line that starts "Categories", and in it, the link that is labeled "Artist:" followed by the artist name specifed.
11. If the artist category name is displayed in red, click it to follow the link. In the edit box on the category page, enter [[Category:Artist Images|<Last>, <First>]] (where <Last> and <First> represent the artist's last and first names. If the artist has only a single name, use that.)

    (If the artist category link is in blue, you are done and need not click the link.)

12. Scroll down. At the bottom of the screen, click the "minor edit" checkbox, and then click save. This will place the artist catagory into the Artist gallery.

Semi-automated Procedure

From a publication record display, you can click the link labeled "Upload cover image" (or "Upload new cover image" if the Image URL field is not empty). This will open an ISFDB wiki upload form in another browser window or tab, and fill in a license template with data from the publication record. It will also set the file name to the publication tag. This will allow you to skip steps 1, 3, 4, 7, & 8 of the procedure above. The other steps must still be done. If the image was copied from somewhere, rather than being scanned from the publication, you will need to edit the "Source=" section of the pre-filled-out template. Don't forget to edit the publication record and set the Image URL as described above.

Licensing

Every image page ought to include a license tag or statement, to indicate by what right the ISFDB displays it. Use the best fit of the available tags from Category:Image License Tags, but do not use a tag if the image does not fit its conditions. If no tag fits, then consider whether the image belongs on the ISFDB.

Book or Magazine Cover Tags

• Use Cover Image Data if the image is of a book or magazine cover, used under "Fair Use". This is the most common case.
• A simpler form of this is Cover Image Data2. This requires less work by the uploader, but does not put the image in categories by artist and publisher.
• An intermediate form is Cover Image Data3. This also requires less work by the uploader than {{Cover Image Data}} does, but documents the cover artist, as {{Cover Image Data2}} does not.
• Use Cover Image Data-PD Old if the image is of a book or magazine cover, published before 1923.
• Use Cover Image Data-PD Renew if the image is of a book or magazine cover, published in the US during the years 1923-1963, and you have carefully checked the copyright records and are sure the copyright was not renewed. If you don't know how to check the copyright records, don't use this tag.

Sections of Book Covers

• Use Sig Image Data if the image is a cropped (and possibly enlarged) artist's signature from a cover (or similar source).
• Use Logo Image Data if the image is a cropped (and possibly enlarged) publisher's logo from a cover (or similar source).

Sections of Interior Art

Use Sig Image Data-Int if the image is a cropped (and possibly enlarged) artist's signature from a piece of interior art published with a work of SF.

Author Photos

• Use Template:Author Image Data for author images used under fair use -- that is taken and published since 1923 (particularly since 1964) and for which we do not have the copyright owner's permission.
• Use one of the CC or PD tags described below if the image fits the conditions of the tag.
• Use By Permission if you wrote or emailed the author (or photographer, or copyright owner) asking for permission to use a photo, and got an explicit "yes" response.

Other images

There is not much reason to host images that are neither book covers (or parts of covers), nor author photos on the ISFDB. But if there is a good reason to upload such photos:

• Use one of the CC templates below if the owner has released the image under a Creative Commons license.
• Use one of the PD templates below if the image is in the public domain under US copyright law.
• Use By Permission if you wrote or emailed the photographer (or copyright owner) asking for permission to use a photo, and got an explicit "yes" response.

Other Public-domain images

• Use PD-self when the author/creator posted the image here on the ISFDB wiki personally, releasing it into the public domain. Should not be used for book or magazine covers.
• Use PD-author when the author/creator is known to have released the image into the public domain, in a statement that can be linked to or cited. Should not be used for book or magazine covers.
• Use PD-US when the image is in the Public Domain under US law, but none of the tags above apply. A valid reason why the image is PD must be listed.

Creative Commons Attribution tags

Use one of these if the image has been (or is being) released under a Creative Commons license, requiring only that re-users provide proper attribution:

• CC-by-2.0 -- Version 2.0
• CC-by-2.5 -- Version 2.5
• CC-by-3.0 -- Version 3.0

Creative Commons Sharealike tags

Use one of these if the image has been (or is being) released under a Creative Commons license, requiring that re-users provide proper attribution, and that they license modified versions under the same terms

• CC-by-sa-2.0 -- Version 2.0
• CC-by-sa-2.5 -- Version 2.5
• CC-by-sa-3.0 -- Version 3.0

Re-uploading

If you wish to upload an improved or revised version of an image, simply upload again to the same file name. The software will warn you that the name already exists, and ask if you wish to overwrite the existing image. Say yes, but be very sure that you are overwriting the correct image. User accounts that have been registered less than 5 days are not allowed to overwrite existing images.

Note: On an initial upload, the upload comment becomes the image description. This does not happen on a re-upload -- the upload comment is merely a description of the change. If the file description needs to be changed, the image description (wiki) page must be edited separately.