Wikipedia

Beautiful pictures should be available to everybody

Consider sharing your pictures on Wikimedia Commons before sharing a link on Facebook.

How to get started

  • Click on Create Account to create a free user account on Wikimedia Commons.

  • Log in and click on the Upload file link in the sidebar.

  • Unlike with Facebook you will need to give a name to each file. That’s the biggest obstacles for beginners. The name can be in your native language. You must also give a description in English. This description can be changed later. The name and the description are required to avoid Wikimedia getting spammed with gigabytes of useless content. Don’t give up here too quickly.

  • Read the docs:

Why

Sharing beautiful pictures on Facebook is so easy! And it gives me immediate positive feedback of many people! Why should I choose a method that is a little bit less comfortable?

  • You will get more than a number of “likes”. You will get another type of feedback, less immediate but more valuable: other people are going to actually use your picture, include it in a Wikipedia article, classify it into a category so that people can find it back even in five years, even in fifty years.

  • Are you aware that Facebook does have a price? Facebook is incredibly happy about your activity because every picture uploaded to their servers increases their capital. With every upload you give FB the irrevocable and perpetual right to use your picture. If your picture gets so famous that commercial publishers want to reproduce it, they are more likely to ask Facebook, not you, for the permission to do so.

You might say that anyway money isn’t your motivation for sharing your pictures. Thank you for this noble attitude. But in that case, giving your pictures to FB isn’t what you actually want in your heart.

Common questions

Les photos restent bien notre propriété donc?

Oui, chaque photo que tu ajoutes à Wikipédia reste ta propriété. Tu donnes à tout le monde un meme droit de l’utiliser. La Wikimedia Foundation (la personne juridique derrière Wikipédia) utilise alors ce droit pour publier ta photo sur Wikipédia. Avec FB aussi tu reste le propriétaire, mais la licence est différente (tu donnes à FB le droit d’utilser ta photo, mais pas à tout le monde). (Disclaimer: je ne suis pas un expert en droit et mes explications ne remplacent pas ce qui est écrit dans la licence que tu choisiras).

Background

Wikipedia is for me a sign of hope that we will manage to govern this planet, that a human world is possible, that humans rule, not money.

“Something about Wikipedia is working better than the rest of the internet, and we can learn from it.” “[T]he content of a popular Wikipedia page is actually the most reliable form of information ever created. Think about it—a peer-reviewed journal article is reviewed by three experts (who may or may not actually check every detail), and then is set in stone. The contents of a popular Wikipedia page might be reviewed by thousands of people. If something changes, it is updated.” (Wikipedia: The Most Reliable Source on the Internet?, S.C. Stuart for pcmag.com in June 2021)