Commons:Valued image criteria

Shortcut: COM:VICR

A valued image (VI) on Commons is nominated and judged according to the following criteria. There are six criteria, and to succeed the candidate has to satisfy all six.

A valued image:

1. Is the most valuable illustration of its kind on Wikimedia Commons.

Or, more precisely, is the most valuable illustration of all images on Commons which fall within the scope of the nomination. Note that most valuable does not necessarily imply the best technical quality.

For details, see Commons:Valued image value.

2. Is nominated as being the most valuable within a suitably generic scope.

Note that scope is not a simple description of the image. Rather, it defines a generic field or category within which the image is the most valuable example. The scope must be broad enough to be realistically useful to somebody who wishes to search the VI repository.

For details, see Commons:Valued image scope.

3. Must illustrate its subject well.

Although the emphasis for a VI is on its value, it is still expected that the image is of a reasonable technical quality and standard. For photographs, the quality achievable using the built-in camera in a modern mobile phone should normally be good enough. The technical standard required should be achievable by any photographer who has taken care over the image. This means:

1. Reasonable sharpness, lighting, composition, and angle of view
2. No distracting, irrelevant elements (this can be mitigated if it is hard to re-establish the scenario)
3. The image must look good on-screen at the review size (e.g. 480 × 360 pixels for a standard 4:3 landscape image). Its usability in printed format is not considered.

Provided that the image complies with the above, it is not a valid ground of opposition that it would be easy to create a better one. A VI is the best available image of its type on Commons, not the best that can be conceived of.

The subject must be appropriate for the chosen scope: see Commons:Valued image scope#How to choose your scope.

4. Is fully described on the image page.

In particular:

1. The image page should use the {{Information}} template (or a suitable variation thereof) with all relevant fields filled in.
2. There should be a full and informative description of what the image depicts, along with any relevant auxiliary information. Multilingual descriptions should use the appropriate language templates, as in: |description={{da|Denne beskrivelse er på dansk.}}. An English description is preferred although not essential.
3. If the image is a user-created illustration—such as a map, graph, chart, coat of arms, or diagram—references should be provided so the information represented by the illustration is verifiable. If the image has been generated using a program or script, the program name, version number, and any other relevant details should be listed on the image page.

5. Is geocoded, when relevant.

All images are expected to be geocoded unless it would not be appropriate to do so. Exceptions include: studio and other non-place-related shots, unknown locations (interpreted narrowly, please see discussion), illustrations, diagrams, charts and maps, situations where the publishing of a location might be prejudicial (for example, privacy concerns, endangered species). Where an exact location needs to be avoided, some location data should normally be provided. Location data can be degraded by adding "{{Location withheld}}" and reducing the number of decimal places^{[Note 1]} (see here for an example) or alternatively incorporating the region or locality in the description field.

Note

6. Is well categorized at an appropriate level.

The image should normally be categorized to a reasonable specific level (that is, if a specific category is available the image should be put into that, and not into a higher-level category). Several categories should be used if appropriate, at least one of which should relate in some fairly direct way to the claimed scope (although it need not be the same). If no suitable categories currently exist, the nominator should create them before nominating. Images may optionally be added to any relevant content-related gallery.

Sometimes, a single image may become meaningful or truly valuable only when considered as part of an image set. To recognize this, multiple images can be nominated as a valued image set (VIS).

A VIS is a set of images illustrating some scope in such a way that the set, when taken as a whole, is significantly more valuable than a collection of individual images.

• Criteria 1, 2, and 3 should be applied to the set taken as a whole. It is not required that each individual image be capable of satisfying these criteria in its own right.
• Criteria 4, 5, and 6 should be applied to each separate image within the set. If any image within the set fails these criteria, the set should be failed.

See also: Commons:Valued image scope

Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, scores, audio, and video do not fall within the remit of the valued image project.