Wikipedia:Image sleuthing

"Elementary, my dear Watson"

What is image sleuthing?

The following Wikipedians have signed up to be image sleuths. Asbestos Bart133 Evil Monkey Foobaz Kbh3rd MarkSweep MaxPower Neutrality Nrbelex Quadell Scott Burley Tagishsimon Zeimusu

There are many thousands of images on Wikipedia. Most are tagged so that we know where they come from and how they are licensed, but some are mysteries, tagged {{unverified}} or {{unknown}} or not tagged at all, with no obvious way to tell whether we can legally use them or not. Eventually, if we can't find out the source and copyright status of an image, we'll have to delete it. But some of these images are useful or attractive, and are begging to be rescued. That's where the image sleuths come in. The sleuths use any methods they have – from Google Image Search to uploader e-mails to secret informants met at midnight – to discover the source and copyright status of an image.

So how does this work?

Below, you will see up to 15 images with comments to the left of each. Sleuths set to work tracking down the origin, copyright and licence terms associated with each image. If there's general agreement that an image is acceptable – available under free licences, in the public domain, or legitimately a fair use – then you can move all discussion to the image's description page and remove the image from the list below. If the image can't be certified acceptable even after a week of searching, then image should be moved into the deletion process. (Sleuths often try to find suitable free or public domain replacements.)

If an image has been listed for over a week, or if the status of the image has been determined beyond reasonable doubt, then anyone can remove the image from the list and either tag it or list it on ifd. If there are fewer than 15 images below, anyone can add a new one. Some good place to look are Wikipedia:Untagged images and Category:Images with unknown source.

If you do move an image to the deletion process, please always contact the uploader of each image, on their talk page: do not make the assumption that they are not contactable. More generally, contacting users does sometimes elicit the information and so is considered a good thing.

The assignments

Image:Zakir.gif

File:Zakir.gif

Listed March 13

• Used in Dr Zakir Hussain.
• Last chance to save this image
• The small size of this image makes it a strong canditate for a fair use claim even without a known source. It is being used in a biographical article to which it contributes sigificantly and there is no possiblity of replacing it with an equivalant free image. The date is presumed to be during his presidency of india. tag ((fairuseunknownsource))

Image:Zbigniew Wassermann.jpg

File:Zbigniew Wassermann.jpg

Listed March 13

• Used in Zbigniew Wassermann.
• Anybody know Polish copyright policy? Found here and I'm willing to bet that's the original though I found it elsewhere. Nrbelex ^(talk) 23:59, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The english version states, "All rights reserved. Reproduction without reference to source prohibited." whatever that means. The two statements seem to contradict each other unless I'm reading this incorrectly. Nrbelex ^(talk) 00:01, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • That is weird. Either way, I'd say we could make a pretty good fair use claim. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 20:00, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Zholobov.jpg

File:Zholobov.jpg

Listed March 14

• Used in Vitali Zholobov
• Google turns up lots of pics of the same pose. All the exact matches seem to be from wikipedia mirrors though... [[User:Scott Burley|User:Scott Burley/sig]] 09:53, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
• I'd like to replace it with [1] that image. It is from 1976 (so not public domain) but it is an "official" image and show the subject in a space suit, making it a better image for a cosmonaut. — Zeimusu | Talk 07:05, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Good fair use claim though. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 16:23, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree, the photo of him in a spacesuit is a much better image, and makes a strong fair use claim. Foobaz·o< 01:31, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • OK, i uploaded the spacesuit photo to Image:Vitali Zholobov.jpg and replaced it in the article. Should i post it to ifd now or wait until its week on this page is over? Foobaz·o< 04:21, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Zhougough.jpg

File:Zhougough.jpg

Listed March 14

• Used in Gough Whitlam
• Very similar to the image set here. Still looking for this particular image. Nrbelex ^(talk) 22:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This should be OK if we need a replacement or an alternative. Nrbelex ^(talk) 22:33, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The same collection has a black & white version of another untagged picture on the Gough Whitlam page. The Whitlman Institute states: "You may download, display, print and reproduce material from this website only in unaltered form and with acknowledgement, and only for your personal and non-commercial use or use within your organisation." So the replacements will work. I wonder where the uploader got a color version though... Nrbelex ^(talk) 22:48, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Zither.jpg

Listed on March 18

• Used in Zither
• May be from [2]
  • Yeah, looks like it. Their copyright policy is god-awful. Anyone know of a PD replacement? (I can't imagine we could make a fair use claim on something like this.) – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 20:41, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
• I've asked instrument world if they have any that picture that they can release. They link to wikipedia so they might be willing to make a gfdl release. — Zeimusu | Talk 12:52, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• [3] is restriction free. But not an very informative image. I good image, but probably not what we want. [4] is also restriction free. Better than the first one, but is an unfinished zither, also a different shape than the original. --MaxPower 14:47, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

Image:Zozobra.jpg

File:Zozobra.jpg

Listed on March 18

• Used in Zozobra
• The inset is found [at zozobra history — Zeimusu | Talk 03:52, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Jagannath baladev subadra radhadesh.sized.jpg

File:Jagannath baladev subadra radhadesh.sized.jpg

Listed on March 18

• Used in Jagannath and Subhadra.

Image:Jake LaMotta.jpg

File:Jake LaMotta.jpg

Listed on March 18

• Used in Jake LaMotta
• Found it here. Dunno if that's the original. Fair use possibility? Nrbelex ^(talk) 05:56, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Also here... doubting the originality of either now... Nrbelex ^(talk) 05:58, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Jaggery.jpg

Listed on March 18

• Used in Jaggery
• Gorgeous photo. This can't be a personal photo. . . can it? – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 21:32, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
• Wow - after some extensive searching, I'd say it can - and a damn good one too! Nrbelex ^(talk) 06:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Amazing. That's National Geographic quality. If it makes it through the gauntlet, I'm nominating it as a featured image. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 14:02, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Which of course is the question: Perhaps the reason it is National Geographic quality is that it is scanned from the National Geographic. . . — Zeimusu | Talk 16:08, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Still digging. . . – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 17:30, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
• I looked through images at nationalgeographic.com based on all keywords I could think of, and turned up nothing. Also, the Image Description says "Traditional Jaggery Making Process. Bangalore-Mysore highway, India - September 2004" Either the magazine was published in September 04 or, more likely, that's when the uploader took the photo. Using this photo, I still couldn't find the photo anywhere. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 19:31, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Jamel Debbouze portrait.jpg

File:Jamel Debbouze portrait.jpg

Listed March 19

• Used in Jamel Debbouze
• Seems like a publicity photo. For instance, it is used to indicate his participation in the 2004 "Printemps de Bourges" festival here: [5]. And the 2004 "Paleo festival" here and here. It also shows up at [6]. Google search also shows it at fanpages etc. Anyway, none of these seems to be the original source - I mean the one that would hold the copyright - but the "official" usage implies that it is a copyrighted image. All the sites linked above are in French; maybe someone who reads French well could take a quick look and see if they find copyright info? FreplySpang 22:14, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Jamay.jpg

File:Jamay.jpg

Listed March 19

• Used in Jamay

Image:JamesBaxter.jpg

File:JamesBaxter.jpg

Listed March 19

• Used in James Keir Baxter
• In preparation for a fair use claim, I've written an article for this image (images in sub-stubs are hardly fair use). It needs copyediting and correction of my spelling. — Zeimusu | Talk 02:41, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Probably [7] from [8], and may well be published in one of the works referenced on that page. Fair use as a low resolution image with known source in a relevant article. — Zeimusu | Talk 14:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Jasenovac concentration camp pictures

File:Jasenovac6.jpg
File:Jasenovac32.jpg
	Listed March 20

• All these photos are about the Jasenovac concentration camp. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 02:39, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
• These images probably come from national archives. the simon wiesenthal resource have a number of similar images with source information (though I couldn't find these). The encycopedia of the holocaust also features similar pictures. The photographer is often unknown, anonymous Ustasi or Soviet army photographers. The age of these images, their (I hope) unreproducable nature, and their obvious relevance to the article make these strong candidates for fair use. If nobody finds the actual source, they can be tagged fairuseunknownsource or fair old. — Zeimusu | Talk 03:26, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I found Image:Jasenovac1.jpg at the USHMM, uploaded better image and tagged it PD. USHMM has lots of PD pictures from Jasenovac, although only this one is on Wikipedia. Thuresson 06:49, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I'll bet you dimes to dollars these all have the same copyright status. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 19:36, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Image:BobbyFischer.jpg

File:BobbyFischer.jpg

Bobby Fischer listed 20 March

Uploader inactive since April 2004, has not replied to queries on their talk page and has no email contact. -- Infrogmation 16:34, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• A differently cropped version of this photo [9] -- Infrogmation 17:00, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Another different crop is the cover of the book "Bobby Fischer Rediscovered."[10] – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 19:27, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)