User:Atheist723/Image policy draft

The images and media policy describes preferred image source, content, and usage in articles and other pages. It applies to all images equally, regardless of uploader, format, and subject.

= Images =

Source
Nearly all images uploaded to the Wiki should be taken by the uploader themselves in the RuneScape game client (in layman's terms, while playing RuneScape). A screenshot is taken by pressing Shift + Prnt Scrn, Prnt Scrn, or Command + Shift + 3 for Macs while the RuneScape window is open, then pasting it into an image editor, usually by pressing Ctrl + V (Command + V for Macs) or opening the Edit menu and selecting Paste. Once in the editor an image can be cropped, edited, and saved (preferably as a .png, details below). Other possible sources, and our related policies, are:

Game Guide
Game Guide images can be used, but only if editors cannot take a superior screenshot on their own. Furthermore, Game Guide images must be marked with the Game Guide image template.

Fan art
Fan art that has been displayed on the RuneScape website is not acceptable. Other types of fan art such as personal fan art and fan art created by another author is also not acceptable on the Wiki and is subject to deletion. Fan art does not include RuneScape images that have had transparency or acceptable particle transparency added, slight colour enhancements or added brightness.

Fansites
Images from other fansites cannot be uploaded. Most websites ask that the images featured there not be used elsewhere, and it is the wiki's policy to honour that request.

Cache
Per RuneScape:Jagex cache, images from the cache are forbidden.

Content
This section covers guidelines which are applied while in the game. These deal with manipulating the game environment to produce the highest quality images. If these conditions cannot be met, an image can still be uploaded. A Standard detail image is better than no image at all!

Orb of Oculus
The use of an orb of oculus is strongly encouraged for all images apart from inventory images.

High detail
All images should be taken in HD graphics. Existing images which are not in HD graphics mode should be tagged with the sd template unless they are historical images.

Anti-aliasing
4x anti-aliasing should be applied all images whenever possible, regardless of whether transparency is required or not. Current images without anti-aliasing should be tagged with the No AA template, except for historical images.

Lighting detail
High detail lighting adds shading and realistic reflections to objects in the environment. While attractive for environment scenes, it can be distracting and obscure details in monster, NPC, and other single-subject images. For these reasons, it may be a better to set it for low when taking screenshots of these subjects.

Ground decoration
Ground decoration shows or hides ground accents such as pebbles or grass. These ground decorations often show above or cover up parts of the subject of the screenshot. As such it should be turned off for single-subject screenshots. It can be left on for environment scenes.

Stance
During the Evolution of Combat updates added to the game in 2012, the ability was introduced to sheathe/stow your avatar's weapons and shields when out of combat, instead of constantly wielding them. To achieve the highest quality standard of images, whenever possible only unsheathed, relaxed stance equipped item images are to be used.

Costumes
While editors can wear whatever outfit they wish when capturing a screenshot, uploaders are not to repeatedly wear the same outfit or item in a prominent fashion. This type of "trademark item" use is like signing an image, and is therefore against our article ownership policy.

Gender
Any gender may be used for any image (providing the subject matter is available to both genders), and users should not replace images solely to depict their gender of choice. Replacing a low quality image with a higher quality image is perfectly fine, regardless of gender. Both genders may be depicted on equipment articles if there are equipment variations.

Location
It is helpful to stand in a location which contrasts the subject, if it is a worn subject. For instance, when showcasing a green piece of equipment, standing in a grassy area makes it harder to add transparency to the image.

Cutscenes
For cutscenes, only the most important parts should be displayed on the respective article. There should generally be no more than 4 images per cutscene. Action shots of cutscenes may look good, but they also increase the pageload a lot without adding anything useful to guides.

If there are plenty of images available that show cutscenes, they can be added to a separate page, pagename/cutscene. That page can then be linked to on the main page for that quest, thus allowing viewers who want to see more to see more.

Water images
DirectX is the perferred graphic mode for water images, but common sense should be used to determine if an image would be better taken in OpenGL.

Equipment
Equipment images should always be a full body image when possible, preferably using an Orb of oculus. An image of the full body is preferred over just the head, feet, weapon or any other separated part. The equipment image is meant to show the body of a player wearing the item. To show the item in detail, detailed item images can be made.

Customisable Items
Images of items and equipment with a great number customisable cosmetic properties should only display the item in its default state. Having multiple images of the same item increases the page load and inflates the amount of work when maintaining, managing, and updating the images. Taking a picture of the customisation interface is a superior option. Images of items with very few customization options, such items that can be "loyally recoloured," thus having only four variations, may be displayed.

Format
This section covers preferred standards which are set or applied after the screenshot is taken, outside of the RuneScape client. This is usually in an image editor.

File type
The preferred image format is .png (in lowercase letters) because it has no compression artefacts and it supports transparency. Images can be saved in .png by changing "Save as type"(or similar) option at the bottom of the save window in most image editors. Images not in .png format should be tagged with jpeg or gif.

Transparency
All images showing items, objects, scenery or NPCs should have transparency. This means that the image's background should be deleted and replaced with transparent pixels. If the image editor cannot do this, editors are free to upload images without transparency to which other editors can apply transparency, or they can paint over the background with another colour (preferably white) to make adding transparency much easier and faster for other editors. Existing images without transparency should be tagged with the trans tag.

Particle transparency
Images that have particles or bloom effects may have their particles recreated to support transparency, as long as the recreated particles are not different than the original particles at a glance. Recreated particles must look like the original as much as possible. Existing images without particle transparency should be tagged with the Translucency tag.

Inventory icons
All inventory images must not contain shadows. The shadow should be deleted and replaced with transparent pixels. Inventory icons that still have their shadows should be tagged with the Inventory shadow template.

Chatbox/player names
The chatbox must be cropped away if it is not relevant to the image. If it must stay, Jagex Moderator names can appear as they may be relevant; however, player names are almost never relevant and should be removed in a way that does not distract from the image or replaced with a player spoof name.

Cropping
Be sure to crop the image to show only what is needed to serve the image's purpose. Crop away any irrelevant pixels that would distract from the image's original purpose. For example, a player wishing to create an image showing the bankers at the Grand Exchange should keep only the pixels showing the banker and possibly the desk they're standing at. The rest of the building and players should be cropped away as much as possible.

Image size
The maximum allowed image file size for images uploaded to the wiki is 2 megabytes (2MB, 2048KB). Images which exceed this size are usually unnecessarily large and should be scaled down or cropped to a more reasonable size.

Image use
This section covers how images should be uploaded to and used on the Wiki.

Image name
When uploading an image to the Wiki, the name should be as descriptive as possible. It is helpful to identify how the subject is being depicted, whether it is a detail image, an inventory icon, an equipped image, and so on. Names such as "Screenshot-01" or "Untitled 1" are not acceptable. Likewise, including player names in the image title is not allowed. As for the extension, .png is preferred over .PNG.


 * Images of detailed items should be called Item name detail.png
 * Images of item taken in the inventory should be called Item name.png
 * Images of scenery should be called Name of scenery.png
 * Images of monsters, summoning familiars or NPCs should be called Monster/Familiar/NPC name.png
 * Chatheads should be called NPC/Item name chathead.png
 * Images of a player wielding an item should be called Item name equipped.png
 * Images of location should be called Name of location.png
 * Images of quest rewards should be called Quest name reward.png
 * Images of a player wielding a complete set of armour should be called Type of armour set equipped.png. Additionally, if the image is of a player wielding a specific set of armour, such as Bronze armour set (lg), the (lg) or (sk) should also be included in the file name.
 * Images showing the location of something on the world map should be called Object map location.png
 * Other images showing the location of something should be called Object location.png
 * Inventory images showing more than one of an item should be called Number of item name.png
 * Images of built Construction objects should be called Object name built.png
 * Images of Construction icons should be called Object name icon.png
 * Images of Stealing creation items should be called Item name (class number).png
 * Images showing the location of a simple Treasure Trail should be called Location TT type treasure trail.png
 * Animations should be called Action.gif
 * Images of old versions of updated subjects should be called Subject old.png, with the subject following all of the above rules, and added to graphical updates.

If the image is of an item, monster, npc, or quest reward, please try to keep the name consistent with the name of the article for that thing. For example, Bob (smith).png instead of Bob.png. Also keep things such as capitalisation and punctuation consistent not only with the article name, but with the guidelines above. Spaces should always be used in file names instead of hyphens, etc.

An effort should be made by users uploading files to this wiki to see if in fact the item or image has already been uploaded previously, and to preserve existing naming conventions for this item or for similar kinds of images. Attempts to upload a new image under a new file name for something that already exists on this wiki may result in that image being deleted.

Image descriptions
Image descriptions should be included on the image page. They should be kept short and to-the-point. Please do not give yourself credit in the image description, watermark the image, credit clans, chat names, or other people, or identify RuneScape accounts in the screenshot. Credit is given to you as the uploader of the image in the image history, and the names of the RuneScape accounts involved are irrelevant. Also avoid including explanations such as "replacement for another image." The description should link, if possible, to the article of the subject which it depicts.

Use in articles
All images hosted on the wiki must be used in the main article namespace at least once. Project-related images, such as the sysop crown, are an exception. Since the Wiki is not an image host, no personal-use images are allowed to be uploaded, whether it be for use on a talk page or a signature. You cannot justify a personal image by adding it to the pages of items that appear in your image! If you want a personal image to appear on the wiki, you must use either ImageShack, imgur, or Photobucket, since they are currently the only such websites supported by the wiki. (Hosting sites such as Tinypic aren't supported and so will only display an html link.)

Historical images
Images taken in RuneScape Classic or before a significant appearance update should be kept. New screenshots will replace the old at the top of the page and other places of prominence. The old images should be kept, but moved to the Graphical improvements page. Historical images are allowed to be in Standard Detail since the image cannot ever be recaptured in HD; as such they should not be marked with the Sd tag. Instead, they should be tagged with the Historical image tag: reason for being historical.

Glitch images
A glitch image (file, media, etc) may be uploaded if it meets the following requirements:
 * The image is of original content and does not contain material that may be deemed of duplicate nature to any other media hosted on the wiki.
 * The image augments text describing such glitches in such a way that simply describing the glitch in a purely textual format would not or could not define the contents of the glitch adequately.
 * The image portrays the glitch in a manner such that the contents of the glitch are readily notifiable and/or recognizable.

= Animations =

What to animate
Animations are usually only necessary for:
 * Emotes
 * Magic spells
 * Special attacks
 * Enchanted bolt effects
 * Unique and interesting item animations
 * Unique and interesting NPC animations

Combat
If the animation requires the player to be in combat, use a player or a monster with low HP. If using a player, make sure they have Auto retaliate set to Off, and if using a monster, ensure it is killed in one hit so its retaliation does not interfere with the animation.

Animation length
Make sure that the animation is long enough. They must be long enough to capture the entirety of the subject. Also include about a second of buffer at the end before the animation loops to prevent hectic looking animations. Likewise, ensure that the animation only records what is necessary. Be sure to trim excess footage from the beginning and end.

Animated PNG
Animated .png (.apng) files should not be used. They are currently supported by few browsers, so due to browser compatibility concerns, do not use any.

File size
Animations must have a maximum filesize of 1 megabyte (1024kb) or less. When animations are larger than this, they are typically longer or show more than they need to be. Some frames should be removed or the image itself cropped.

= Audio = Complete audio files may not be uploaded. Uploading complete files or even linking to those files other than in links to websites that have a legal and bona fide copyright permission from the original copyright holder is illegal. Even for encyclopaedic purposes or for purposes of critical commentary, there are very narrow and defined limits for how much or even if the audio files can be used. Musical files, jingles, and sound bites must not exceed 30 seconds in length, must be directly related to RuneScape, and must be uploaded under the "ogg" file extension.

Policy on this particular point is not a settled issue on this wiki, and this should be used as a guideline only. Keep in mind that all items uploaded to this wiki must be either released under the terms of the CC-BY-SA copyright license or compatible with that license. See RuneScape:Copyrights for more information.

= Video = Streaming videos (such as YouTube) should not be embedded in articles. If a video adds significantly to an article, link to it instead of embedding it, however there must be consensus to do so. Since embedded video is not actually hosted at the Wiki, they are allowed without limitation in the user namespace.

Any disputes about any media meeting the criteria above should be discussed on its talk page and tagged with the relevant templates.