 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Blurry images should not be used on Wikipedia. |
Wikipedia’s primary mission is to produce a “free” or “libre” encyclopedia of the highest quality. To that end, and with Wikipedia’s continued emergence as a leader in the field of collaborative research, it is becoming necessary to encourage editors to contribute material to Wikipedia which meets certain quality standards.
But a continuing problem with Wikipedia is the inclusion of images which, charitably, look like they belong on a MySpace fan page, or poorly cropped private and personal photos repurposed from Flickr. Indeed, while a grammatical error can be easily corrected by any editor, correction options for similarly low-quality images are extremely limited.
Therefore, it is the goal of WP:NBI to remove and replace images that are blurry.
That’s it.
No blurry images. Simple, no?
Blurry, out-of-focus images make Wikipedia look like the worst kind of high school report. And at this point in Wikipedia’s development, where many editors believe Wikipedia has the “power” or standing to demand the release of public domain (or Creative Commons) photos from just about anyone, the mission to produce an encyclopedia of the highest quality should allow us to politely refuse to use images which do not meet a certain minimum quality standard.