Star Wars Fanon:Image policy/Tutorial with images

Images are a privilege, not a right.
—SavageOpress1138

Below is Sakaros's guide to uploading and properly sourcing and licensing images. Read the first section. Then…

• If you need guidance selecting the right image, start with Step One.
• If you already have an image but don't have the source or licensing information (or don't understand what those terms mean), skip to Step Two.
• If you already have the source and licensing information for your image and just need help understanding the mechanics of uploading, skip to Step Three.
• If you already uploaded an image without source and/or licensing information and need to fix it, make sure you understand the first three steps, then proceed to Step Four.

So You Want to Upload an Image

Great! Although most people who peruse Star Wars Fanon are readers by nature and have vibrant imaginations, sometimes there really is no way to capture the details of a character or scene like providing an actual, visual representation. Images add flavor to articles and help readers visualize characters, allowing them to "see" the action as they read articles. Used properly, images can be an important component of an article.

But...you must wait 96 hours (4 days) after registration before you can upload images. That's a FANDOM thing, and SWFanon has no way to shorten that time.

Also but…images must comply with the Image Policy.

"But that's too much work!" you protest. The solution is simple: Don't upload any images. The Image Policy exists to protect the integrity of artists and their works, and give credit where it is due to other creators. Just as we would not want our fanon reproduced elsewhere without proper acknowledgement, artists of visual media are entitled to the same respect. And even if none of that persuades you, the Image Policy, like the Editing and Content Policies, is a policy, not a request. Images not in compliance with the policy will be deleted.

The How-To

"Okay," you say, "I understand the respect owed to other creators because I would want to be paid such respect myself." Or, failing that, "I don't want you to delete my images, so I'll comply." But how do you do that?

Step One: Select an Image

Obviously, the image must be related to the story of the page on which it appears. Generally, there aren't many constraints on images you can upload, provided the image in question isn't:

• Graphically violent
• Sexually explicit (including, but not limited to, pornography of any kind)
• Another user's image

Otherwise, as general guidance:

• If you made the image yourself, it's totally fair game. It's yours, so you can do whatever you want with it.
• If someone else made the image and gave you permission to use it, okay.
• If someone else made the image and did not give you permission to use it, you'll have to figure out if it qualifies for Fair Use (more on Fair Use later).

Once you've selected an image, it's on to Step Two!

Step Two: Sourcing and Licensing

"Whoa now, Sakaros," you object. "Aren't you putting the cart before the horse?"

1. No.
2. Bear with me. It'll make everyone's lives easier if you go in this order.

So you've selected your image. Now we're going to Source and License it. Full descriptions of those terms can be found here and here, but to sum up:

• Source is where it came from
• Licensing is how you have permission to use it.

Let's take these one-by-one.

Sources

The source is whence came the image originally; this trips up a lot of new users.

Example One: Screencap

Let's take an image from Wookieepedia as an example: this picture of the Death Star firing its superlaser at Alderaan.

"Easy!" you say. "I found it on Wookieepedia, so that's the source!" No. Saying Wookieepedia is the source is to say the first time that picture ever appeared was on Wookieepedia, and 99.9% of Star Wars Fanon users know that is not true. Other wrong answers include:

• Google (or Yahoo, or, Force help you, Bing)
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Star Wars Fanon (extra wrong)

The (only) correct answer, which you'll see on the image page linked above, is Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. The image is a screencap from that film, and is the first place the image ever appeared, so that is the source.

It is worth noting that the above "wrong" answers (Wookieepedia or other Wikias, search engines, Pinterest) are always wrong, for any image. Why? Those taking notes know the answer: because the image always appeared somewhere else first.

Example Two: Digital art

"Okay, I think I've got it," you say. "The movie or TV episode is always the source!" Yes, if it's a screencap. But what if it's a piece of digital art?

Take for example this image, which is a commissioned piece of mine. Because the character depicted is an OC of mine, she never appeared in any film or TV episode. So what's the source?

The answer here, as always, is the first place it was published, which here is the link on DeviantArt.

That's an easy one for me; I commissioned the piece, so obviously I knew where to find it. But what if you find a piece on Pinterest or Google Image Search that you really like and want to use? What then?

You are obligated to trace it back to its original source. You must find the original artist and where it first appeared. "But that's too hard!" you say. Fine, then don't upload; it's as simple as that. If you are not willing to put in the work to properly source images, you don't get to use images.

Example Three: User-made images

"I'm an artist!" you say excitedly. "Away with this silly 'searching for images' and 'using others' work with proper attribution'! I'll make my own images!"

You're totally free to do that. If you do, the source is "User-made". Simple as that. Here's one I made just like that.

But! If you use stock references, you must cite their sources. It's still "user-made" if you made the overall image, but you cite the sources of individual components as bullet points under "user-made". See an example here.

Specificity

Always cite as specifically as possible. For the above-referenced picture of the Death Star, citing to Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope is good; citing to Star Wars is not. For the commissioned image, linking to the exact page on which the image appears is good; linking to just DeviantArt, or even to the artist's main page, is not.

For screencaps from TV shows (e.g. Star Wars: The Clone Wars), you must cite the specific episode as well as the show in general.

Be careful with images scanned from books, like this one. The book is the original source.

Author

Whenever known, you must include the author of an image. Some guidance:

• If you made the image, easy-peasy: the author is you.
• If you found the image on a site like DeviantArt, still easy; link to the main page of the artist.
• If you found the image in a book, check the book credits to see if the visual artist is credited.
• It's rarely necessary to cite the digital artists involved in creating films or TV episodes, because it's a collaborative effort among many artists. An exception might be a digital short or fan film created by a single creator.

Whenever the author has a website (be it a page on Wookieepedia, a main page on DeviantArt, or a personal website), include a link to that site.

AI art generators

It is beyond the scope of the Image Policy or Star Wars Fanon in general to address the ethics of using artificial intelligence-based art generators, such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion. However, any image created using an AI art generator must include the name of and a bluelink to that system in the Source field (e.g. "User-made with Stable Diffusion").

Licensing

"O…okay," you pant, "I think I've got all this sourcing stuff figured out. Good to go!"

Well, not quite. There's still Licensing to figure out.

Here is a full list of all the various licensing options. Some are self-explanatory, but a few common ones bear explanation:

User Copyright

User copyright means you made the image and own the rights to it. If it's yours, you can do whatever you want with it.

Fair Use

Fair Use is a legal doctrine in the United States which allows the use of copyrighted works, without permission from the original author, under certain circumstances. A full discussion of Fair Use is beyond the scope of this article (or this Wikia), but a good summary can be found here. Fair Use is judged by four factors.

Is your use Fair Use? You have to determine that. Fandom, Star Wars Fanon, and Star Wars Fanon's administrative team will not give you legal advice on whether your proposed use is "Fair Use" within the legal meaning of the term. Calling something "Fair Use" does not make it so; you have to make the determination.

"Well, fine then," you grumble. "Having conducted a searching and thoughtful legal analysis of the four-factor test and applied each of the factors to my proposed image upload, I have concluded that I am legally protected from copyright infringement by Fair Use." Good for you. Here are the most common applications:

• Fair Use is the basic template, to be used when nothing more specific applies.
• Screenshot is for Fair Use of an image taken from a movie, TV episode, or video game.
• Comic panel is for Fair Use of an image taken from a comic book or graphic novel.
• Book cover is for Fair Use of the cover of a book or video.

Permission

Fair Use can be tricky; one man's "Fair Use" is another man's "unlawful copyright infringement, pay a sum of $1,000 per day". If you didn't create an image and it's possible to find the original artist, it's always best to get permission to use the image. There are two variations on permission:

• Permission and Fair Use is appropriate when you have been given permission by the artist or creator of an image to use it, but you believe Fair Use would allow others to use it even without permission.
• Copyright and Permission is appropriate when you have been given permission by the artist or creator of an image, but either you believe Fair Use would not allow others to use it without permission or the artist has explicitly rejected a Fair Use application—that is, the artist intends to treat any use without permission as copyright infringement.

If you commission your own art (i.e. pay an artist to create a picture of your OC for you), one of these will be appropriate.

Public Domain

Public Domain means that a work either lost its copyright status (because it expired over time or was not renewed), or was never copyrightable in the first place. Public Domain works can be used by anyone; however, make certain a work really is public domain before you call it that.

AI-Generated Images

U.S. copyright law is currently unsettled on what copyright protections, if any, creators enjoy in AI-generated creations, and SWFanon is in no position to clear that minefield. Instead, AI image exists for exactly that situation. If you upload an AI-generated image, license it with this template.

Step Three: Uploading

"Finally!" you exclaim. "I know whence it came and I know the artist. I've properly noted the licensing status of the image. I'm ready!"

Almost.

"$*#(*&)(*&@*#!" you shout. I let you get it out of your system; I know this can be kind of an arduous process, but I swear, we're almost there.

Preparing the Template

All images must include the image template. Here it is, for your convenience:

{{Information
|attention=
|description=
|source=
|author=
|filespecs=
|licensing=
|other versions=
}}

A full description of each can be found here, but just a couple key points:

• Required content
  • Every image must have a description in the "description" field, source in the "source" field and a license in the "licensing" field, no exceptions.
    • The description is what it is within the universe you create. For example, let's go back to our superlaser example. In Star Wars, it's obviously the Death Star. But let's say you made an article entitled "Bob's Big Ol' Battlestation", which coincidentally also shoots a green laser. The proper description would not be "The Death Star fires its superlaser", but rather "Bob's Big Ol' Battlestation blasts some bad guys" (or words to that effect).
  • If you know the author, that is required too.
• Linking
  • If you're linking to something on Star Wars Fanon (which should only occur in the description or if you're linking back to your user page; SWFanon is never a source!), enclose the link in double brackets. E.g., [[User:Sakaros]] produces User:Sakaros. To change how the text reads, add a vertical bar ( | ) and the text you want to display. E.g., [[User:Sakaros|my user page]] produces my user page.
    • For licensing templates, use double braces around the name of the template. For example, if you were using Fairuse, you would put {{Fairuse}} on the "licensing" line.
  • Other Wiki-media
    • If you're linking to Wookieepedia, use {{sw|}}. So {{sw|DS-1 Orbital Battle Station}} produces DS-1 Orbital Battle Station. You can modify the displayed text here, too; {{sw|DS-1 Orbital Battle Station|Death Star}} produces Death Star.
    • To link to Wikipedia, the same principle applies, but the link is {{w|}}.
    • Easy way to remember: "sw" for "Star Wars", "w" for "Wikipedia".
  • To link to non-Wiki-media, use single brackets. [https://www.deviantart.com/newest/ DeviantArt] produces DeviantArt. There's no need to use a vertical bar; whatever you type after the web address and a space is the text that will appear. Alternatively, you may use the plainlink template, which achieves the same result with slightly different coding ({{plainlink|https://www.deviantart.com/newest/|DeviantArt}} produces DeviantArt).

Prep your template with all the required content in Notepad (or the Apple equivalent); MS Word works too, but remember that the single accent mark used for Wiki-coding italics and bold is not the same as an apostrophe in Word. Once your template is filled in, now we're ready to upload.

At Long Last, the Uploading

Make sure you have the image you want to upload saved on your computer.

You can upload from any page, but let's start from the Recent Wiki Activity page.

Along the top bar, you'll see a menu category labeled "Explore." Mouse over it.

One of the dropdown options is "Images." Click it.

On the next page, you'll see all the recently uploaded images, in order from most to least recent. In the upper right corner of the page, you'll see a box labeled "ADD NEW IMAGE". Click it.

A popup window appears. Click "browse", then find the file where you've stored it and double-click.

Once the filename appears, click "More Options".

The filename of the saved file will be the filename on SWFanon unless you change it in the "Filename:" box.

Next look at the "Caption:" box. You can use the tool in the bottom right to expand it.

Remember the template you staged in Notepad/Word/whatever? Copy it, then paste it in the box labeled "Caption:".

If you have the licensing information in your template, there's no need to select anything from the "Licensing" dropdown menu.

"Watch"ing the file will give you notices if it's modified. Check or uncheck it as you desire. Leave "Ignore any warnings" unchecked; if there's a problem, you want to know about it.

When you're done, click "Upload photo".

The image will appear on the Images page shortly.

Congratulations! You've successfully uploaded a properly sourced, licensed, and attributed image!

Secret Step Four: You Already Messed Up and Need to Fix It

"$%^@&#$^!" you lament. "I understand everything above, but I didn't find this tutorial until after I had uploaded my image! I am lost! Life is without meaning! I am doomed to the loathing of the administrative staff and the contempt of my fellow users!"

Step back from the fire, Joan. We can fix this.

There are three possibilities. If no one has noticed the lack of source or license, your image will look like this:

On the other hand, if an eagle-eyed user or administrator did notice, your image will probably look like this:

If you selected a licensing template from the dropdown menu on initial upload, but forgot the image template and source, it might even look like this:

Or, if somebody caught it, this:

Not what you want to see, but all are easily fixable.

First, prepare the image template with description, source, and license as described above in Step Three. Then, click the "Edit" button in the upper right

If there were no notices, it will look like this:

If there were notices, it will look something like this:

If the notices are there, delete them. If you already had a licensing template, delete that too (because it should be in your image template). Then copy/paste your image template into the box.

Then click the "Publish" button on the right:

This will take you back to the image page, now with your template in place!

Another crisis averted!

Questions and Suggestions

The Admin team—Bureaucrat Sakaros and Administrator Sebolto—are happy to answer any questions. However, you must read this tutorial first. Sakaros helps those who help themselves.

If you have any suggestions for improving this tutorial, please let Sakaros know.