Commons:Contributing your own work

العربية | беларуская (тарашкевіца) | català | Deutsch | English | español | français | македонски | 日本語 | occitan | polski | русский | தமிழ் | 中文 | +/− This is a guide for people who wish to contribute their own work to Wikimedia Commons. It describes the requirements for the work to be included and offers advice on "best practices" in the wiki.

Step 1: Is it really your own work?

Did you know that not all works that you have created are actually your own work? It's true! Read Commons:Own work to make sure that the work you've created is actually allowed here.

Step 2: Is it suitable here?

• Is your file a media file?
• Is it likely to be useful to a Wikimedia Foundation project? For example, can you point to a Wikipedia article that would benefit from this file's inclusion?

If you don't answer YES to both of these, maybe your file doesn't belong here. Read Commons:Project scope for more details about what is suitable to be included here.

Step 3: File format

Commons only uses open file formats. Recommended:

• Photography: JPG (don't save as "progressive JPG": this will causes thumbnailing problems)
• Illustrations: SVG (save as 'plain SVG') preferred; PNG is also OK
• Audio/video: OGG

Commons:File types lists which file formats are accepted at Commons. Commons:Software and Help:Converting video list commonly-used software programs which can be used to convert files to these formats if needed. Commons:Media help lists programs which can be used to play OGG audio and video.

There is a hard 20mb file size limit for uploads. Images should easily be able to fall under this. Audio or video files may need to be split up before uploading.

Step 4: Uploading

People uploading their own work can head straight to the 'own work' upload form. (You need to be logged in, so if you haven't created an account yet, do so now.) See also Commons:First steps/Upload form.

Choose a meaningful descriptive destination filename! Files can't be easily renamed, so try to get it right the first time. If you forget, simply upload the file again under a meaningful name, and mark the old one like so: {{bad name|image:better named file.jpg}}.

Step 5: Describing the file

Use the {{Information}} template. Especially pay attention to the "Description" field.

Imagine someone coming across the file by pressing "Random". What information do they need to know to be able to understand the file? Imagine someone looking for the file via a search engine, and the only information they get is from the description you write. What keywords should you include to make sure they can find it?

You can also use templates to provide descriptions in multiple languages. This is very useful! See Commons:Templates for galleries for details.

If you make a mistake doing this on the upload form, don't worry! You can change it later by editing the image description page just as you would a normal wiki page.

Step 6: Choosing a license

See Commons:Choosing a license. It's recommended to read that page at least once, but if you trust our judgement, we recommend one of the following:

• {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}}: "Copyleft (Multi-license GFDL, all CC-BY-SA)"
• {{self|GFDL|cc-by-2.5}}: "Own work, attribution required (GFDL, CC-BY 2.5)"
• {{PD-self}}: "All rights released (Public domain or GFDL if the PD release is invalidated)"

These are available via the license selector, or you can manually enter them by copying the bolded text above into the summary box on the upload form.

If you make a mistake doing this on the upload form, don't worry! You can change it later by editing the image description page just as you would a normal wiki page.

Step 7: Adding categories or galleries

Add your file to at least one relevant category or gallery.

Add the most relevant categories that exist. Read Commons:Categories for more about how categories work. You can find some categories by entering keywords in the CommonSense tool. It will suggest categories based on the keywords you enter.

Another way to find categories is by searching to find similar media, and checking which categories they are in.

If you make a mistake doing this on the upload form, don't worry! You can change it later by editing the image description page just as you would a normal wiki page.

(optional) Step 8: Use the file in Wikimedia

You can now use the file automatically in any Wikimedia project, as if it was uploaded to that project! So you don't have to do anything special -- it just works automatically.

Image at Commons:

What you write on your project's page: [[image:example image.jpg]]

For more details about image syntax, see Help:Images and other uploaded files.

(optional) Step 9: Contribute lots more

There are lots of tools set up to help people who upload a lot of material.

Firstly you may be interested in reading the guide on user-specific galleries, templates and categories. You can set up a category with a name like Category:Files by User:Example, and add all your files to that categories, to make them easy to find. (Note that the Gallery tool automatically shows you all the files you've uploaded.)

Several programs exist that can be used for "batch uploading". See Commons:Tools#Upload_media for a list.

(Keep in mind that even during batch uploading, files still need indiviual descriptions!)

(optional) Step 10: Have your work recognised as high-quality

Commons:Quality Images is a process that recognises high quality works contributed by Wikimedians (and if you've signed up for an account here, that makes you a Wikimedian!), that meet the image guidelines. Here you can get valuable advice on how to improve your photography.

If your work is of the very highest quality available anywhere, you should submit it to Commons:Featured pictures. These files are the absolute "best of the best" and one is featured each day on the main page as the Commons Picture of the Day. It's recommended to spend some time looking at the existing nominations and already-Featured Pictures to get a feel for the level of quality expected.

All done!

If you have any problems or questions, you can ask at the Commons:Help desk.