Category talk:Non-free biographical images

Subdivide between photographs and portraits/drawings?

As this is a rather large category, it might be beneficial to create subcategories to distinguish photographs from other kinds of images such as paintings or drawings. I think this would be useful for editors considering uploading an image and looking for something comparable to determine whether the upload would be permissible. BD2412 T 06:38, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@TAnthony and BrownHairedGirl: As you are the only active editors who have actually edited this category, I would appreciate your thoughts. There are presently over 16,500 images in this category. It might also be beneficial to categorize by year of publication where known, as eventually the copyrights will expire. BD2412 T 05:27, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@BD2412: thanks for the pin, but my only edit was a driveby AWB job[1] to add {{CatAutoTOC}}.

I don't do much work with images, so I am not well-placed to make a judgement. So the following is written without experience of actually using the category.

This is a category by legal status. As such, it doesn't seem to me to be directly of use to readers. For editors, the legal status is relevant only in that it provides an extra place to look for an image for the subject of a biographical article. These images may not be used on other types of articles, so the categ is of no use for anything else other than for legal compliance.

For legal uses, I see no benefit in subcatting it.

For an editor seeking to illustrate a biographical article, the key question is whether this category contains any image of the subject, of any type. In most such cases, there's no image. It's a matter of luck to find anything, and it's rare to have the luxury of choosing between a photo and a drawing/painting.

So if this anyone wanted to subcat this, I'd suggest two forms of subcats:

• by year of copyright expiry, for images whose copyright will expire in the next decade. (Whether the copyright expires in 2055 or 2065 isn't much use.)
• Cats to help readers and editors find an image of a subject. I can see 4 broad ways of doing that:

1. Nationality of the subject
2. Gender of the subject
3. Decade when the image was created.
4. Occupation of the subject (broad sets, e.g. "politicians" rather than "FooParty members of the BarState Senate")

However, I think that the most useful tool would be search. The search tools allow "incategory" and "intitle", and a searchbox to create such a search would be very handy. But AFAIK it won't work if the category is subdivided. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:46, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: Thanks for a thorough and thoughtful analysis. I think categorization by date can be done by bot, since this is a required field for uploading a non-free image. The rest would need to be done manually, although I think it's worth doing. I also expect that classification by gender will reveal a fairly substantial disparity. BD2412 T 15:20, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

In retrospect, this should apply to all of Category:Fair use images, as date is the key dividing line for copyrightability for all. I am not dissuaded from categorizing images whose copyrights will not expire for decades; editors in the 2060s will thank us for having done it if that is done. BD2412 T 15:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I am confident that by the 2060s, my great-great-grandchildren's contemporaries will have tools to do that automatically. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes of course, our descendants will all be in the Matrix by then LOL. On topic, I totally agree with BrownHairedGirl's assessement. BD2412 if you make an attempt I will try to help.— TAnthony^Talk 19:36, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I have made a WP:BOTREQ for population of categories by year. I do think categorization by medium can also be useful, but a bot can't do that. Gender and occupation have obvious utility, but are a somewhat lower priority for me. BD2412 T 03:36, 8 August 2020 (UTC)