Fanlore talk:Image Policy

Images of Actors and Celebrities

I was just wondering if we could get some clarity on what images are appropriate to be uploaded of celebrities. I don't mean them portraying characters, or interacting with fans, but just publicity images of them. I ask because I have noticed some photos being uploaded lately like this File:Lucylawless.jpg and File:Kellymarietran.jpg, and I am wondering if these are okay, or if they should be deleted. Any clarification would be appreciated. -- Kingstoken (talk) 11:31, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any need to have an image of a celebrity on Fanlore simply for the sake of having one. It feels spammy, as they are useless in terms of Fanlore's mission. The exceptions are if the celebrity is interacting with fans in a unique way, or if the actor is well-known for dealings with fans, or the image is of a character (and even then, there's no reason to have a photo when fanart is available.) If there isn't fanart, then that should be noted on the page as an indicator of that character's popularity as a creative muse.

Which points to another issue: what Fanlore is not. Unless a page for a celebrity or a show or another canon source has a clear path forward in terms of how that page is about fans, fanworks, and fanac, then it should not be on Fanlore. That's what Wikipedia, and a plethora of other sites are for. Pages for Three's Company and Daryl Hannah for instance, in my opinion, do not have enough of a creative fanworks base to merit pages on this wiki. If they do in the future, then a future fan can make a page. Right now, these pages are absolutely outside our scope. --MPH (talk) 14:20, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I had thought about deleting some these images, but I didn't want to cause unnecessary problems -- Kingstoken (talk) 15:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I was just wondering if we should add this clarification to the Image policy page, like it is preferable to used a fan created image, such as fan art, over promotional photos. I think this might be a good idea, because not everyone would read the talk page. -- Kingstoken (talk) 15:13, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

+1, I see this topic has come up a while ago and we were just discussing it again on the Fanlore discord! For now, Enchantedsleeper pointed me to Fanlore:What Fanlore is not page, but I agree that this policy should be explicitly stated in more help pages that offer guidance about how to do images on Fanlore. -- Quaelegit (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2023 (UTC)