Commons talk:Photo challenge/Archives/2025

Photo challenge November results

Sidewalk: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Rientro al tramonto	Gently sloping sidewalk in central Stockholm	Sidewalk on Smolnaya Embankment
Author	Repuli	Slottsviken51	Inforested
Score	21	8	8

Congratulations to Repuli, Slottsviken51 and Inforested. -- Jarekt (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Intentional Camera Movement: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Flying on the swing	White Equinne	1961 Cooper T53
Author	Vsatinet	Herbertkikoy	Julian Herzog
Score	18	11	11

Congratulations to Vsatinet, Herbertkikoy and Julian Herzog. -- Jarekt (talk) 19:29, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge December results

Footprints: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Hund im Herzen	Pawprints of hares in freshly fallen snow	Track on sand
Author	Ilka Franz	Slottsviken51	Saral Shots
Score	18	13	11

Congratulations to Ilka Franz, Slottsviken51 and Saral Shots. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:32, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Pastels: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	A piece of pastel colors rainbow mille crepe cake and a piece of strawberry cream mille crepe cake	Red Arrows flying the "Tornado" manoeuvre in evening light	Foggy morning
Author	Junyu-K	Julian Herzog	BogTar201213
Score	23	10	9

Congratulations to Junyu-K, Julian Herzog and BogTar201213. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Newspapers

Commons:Photo challenge/2025 - March- Newspapers, question? before to nominate for deletion or to delete all the derivative works with potential copyright issues I guess we wait the end of the challenge, isn't it? I hope the next challenge will no be book and CD covers. Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 12:52, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I've asked about this at COM:AN#Photo challenge - Newspapers because I think it's something that needs to be dealt with asap rather than waiting until the contest has ended. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:05, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge January results

Ovals: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Horseshoe Bend (Arizona)	Underpass of Michelinstraße in Hallstadt	Fontana in un giardino storico in Roccalvecce (Viterbo)
Author	Gzzz	Ermell	Albarubescens
Score	15	12	11

Congratulations to Gzzz, Ermell and Albarubescens. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Leatherwork: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	2
image
Title	Tanners at work in one of the old tanneries of Fez, Morocco	Pilot with Leather Aviator Helmet	Handmade shoes
Author	Lusi Lindwurm	Roy Egloff	AK-Bino
Score	24	11	11

Congratulations to Lusi Lindwurm, Roy Egloff and AK-Bino. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:46, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

My image was in this challenge (Modified headlights on a 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT) but never got voted. Why is that? Osamadidnothing (talk) 12:24, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge February results

Absence: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Absence of essence	Automatic river lighthouse. Yenisei River, Krasnoyarsk	Linden alley at Kalevankangas Cemetery in Tampere, Finland
Author	Tn.kuvat	VSerebrenikov	Xannima
Score	18	17	12

Congratulations to Tn.kuvat, VSerebrenikov and Xannima. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Healthy living: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Heal thy life.	Sun salutation for healthy living	Young athletic girl
Author	Tn.kuvat	Sneha G Gupta	VSerebrenikov
Score	12	11	10

Congratulations to Tn.kuvat, Sneha G Gupta and VSerebrenikov. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Improvements needed

I asked some of my students to take part in the Commons photo challenge, but... wow, we are using some old and clunky and newbie undfriendly code and layout.

First, the code for 'To submit pictures please follow this link' should not be at the bottom of the gallery, requiring folks to scroll down. I had people ask me, reasonably, why they cannot add their image following the instructions at the top, where it says " To do that you click the [Edit] button of the Entries section of your chosen challenge ". Sigh. This is not possible on the page-protected Commons:Photo challenge page, it only works on the subpages like Commons:Photo challenge/2025 - April - Meadows. Maybe our instructions were not updated once this "click link" was implemented? In either case, making folks waste few seconds to scroll down and find it is just bad design. Lock it to the top, please, and update the instructions.

Second, a lot of my students have trouble editing those subpages, as they are full of hard-to-read (for newbies) code. We need a new system, which does not require folks to notice the <!--PLEASE INSERT IMAGES AT THE TOP of the gallery.--> stuff. What we have here is very old and frankly, embarrassing, in the modern day and age.

As a result, only 1 out of 5 students of mine who tried to do this, edited the correct place (with my help): [1]. I can't blame them.

Photo challenges are things we advertise from the front pages, we want to use them to attract new contributors, and then we show them - this? Great way to scare newbies away... :( Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 06:57, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I totally agree with you.

I've noticed the poor design of placing the "submit entries" link at the bottom, but didnt get time to improve that.

Submission of photos and the subsequent voting are both done in a rather user-unfriendly way. And the voting step cannot be scaled up if submitted photos exceed several hundred. To scroll thru the whole page is really tedious.

However, photo contests (as well as quality image, featured image, valued image) are all just niche intra-wiki things, so i personally dont want to spend my time on these things, sorry. RoyZuo (talk) 11:09, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Photo_challenge/preload&diff=prev&oldid=1025509318

i added a button at the top of the submission gallery. this will be there from may 2025 onward.

a lot of the multilingual instruction could be replaced by editnotice or other similar design. RoyZuo (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that Commons:Photo challenge process can use some improvements. Maybe higher reliance on some javascripts for submitting images and voting. --Jarekt (talk) 16:18, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

@RoyZuo Thanks! I will just note that something linked from Main Page is not that niche, and I think it is a great way to draw new contributors (I always recommend it to my students). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:19, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@Piotrus@Jarekt what do you think if we put the multilingual instructions like this https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Sandbox&oldid=1025724817 ?

in addition we can make Template:Editnotices. RoyZuo (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

i also just made some more tweaks to the links at the end. let's see how it works next month. RoyZuo (talk) 11:50, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@RoyZuo It's helpful. Ideally we would have something fully WYSIWYGy but hmmm, the main point is to avoid newbies scared with wall-of-texts of code. How about this: we could use the code from stuff like en:T:TDYK (or Twinkle, or en:User:SD0001/DYK-helper), where a form pops-up, is easily filled, and creates a subpage. Each nom could be on a subpage that would be transcluded into a gallery. Why not? (A bot could also copy the file names into the current gallery, of it could be added to the current gallery in the initial execution of the nomination). I cannot code this myself, sorry, but it should be possible (since I've seen similar stuff in other wiki places). Again, the goal is to make newbies not to have to deal with the scary long code, which I am sure significantly reduces the amount of contributions we get for Commons contests. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:32, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Hanyangprofessor2, @RoyZuo, @Piotrus and @Jarekt

I completely agree that the Photo Challenge page (and system?) needs a rebirth. It is hard for a newbie to understand all the mechanics behind... So some UI/UX improvements should especially be considered.

I was already concerned about the results of the photo challenge. And recently, I thought that the latest Photo Challenge about Hiking was particularly hard to judge and to select the winners for. That's why, I felt like using a specific tool to select the best images would be game-changing. I considered using Commons:Montage, by deploying it on my computer, but it's not really adapted to this proper situation... and I didn't find any satisfying open-source photo-challenge image rater.

So, if you have any ideas to enhance the overall experience, feel free to share them! I have kind of a coding knowledge, and I feel like I could create some tools to improve the experience: whether it is a bot or a Commons JS Gadget... Let's try!

P.S. @Hanyangprofessor2 & @Piotrus, I'm wondering what you're teaching, where (University? High School?) and how you convinced your students to participate. Could you tell me more about this ? -- Wikisquack (talk) 21:22, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

@Wikisquack I haven't looked at the voting yet. IIRC POTY system is pretty good, why isn't it more widely implemented? As for myself. Sure. Check out [2] and en:User:Piotrus/Teaching for some specific details like lists of my courses and their results. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:42, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

@Wikisquack, Piotrus, RoyZuo, and Hanyangprofessor2: I also think that a javascript speaker should look into how POTY and other scripts do it do it. For submission pages we could use some javescript activated if you press some big button. It would ask you for a file name in a way similar to the way User:Matěj Suchánek/moveClaim.js does it and then it would add it to the page in the right place. For voting I would see if we can steal some ideas and code from POTY. --Jarekt (talk) 01:11, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Here's my imagination:

submission step:

1. we could make a gadget that's active on any jpg/png description page, which gives a button "nominate for photo challenge" if it's the user's own upload. the gadget adds the file to a nomination page.

   (this gadget could even be extended to cover all kinds of nominations for qi, vi, fi, motd...)

2. the nomination page is simply lines of code

<gallery>
<!--UsernameA-->
FileAA.jpg
FileAB.jpg
<!--UsernameB-->
FileBA.jpg
FileBB.jpg
</gallery>

i think this way it'd be pretty easy to keep track of the submission limit per user. the gadget also takes care of all limits such as must be uploaded in that month.

voting step:

something similar to com:QIC or poty. on a compact wall of images, voters can click their choices and vote using a graphic interface. RoyZuo (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

@RoyZuo Nice ideas. Please be bold and implement as many of them as you can. I am happy to review them if asked. Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 05:59, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

@Hanyangprofessor2 I'm currently working on a user-script to nominate the pictures. Wikisquack (talk) 08:29, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge March results

Hiking: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	1	3
image
Title	Silhouette of a female hiker in front of the Massif du Mont-Blanc	A hiker on the last meters before reaching the summit of the Schneespitze in the Stubai Alps	A picture of three people hiking the path called "Dragon's Back" in Brecon, Wales. Taken by Lauren Moon in June of 2024.
Author	Stephan Sprinz	Milseburg	Lighting-design-lila
Score	15	15	11

Congratulations to Stephan Sprinz, Milseburg and Lighting-design-lila. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Newspapers: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Newspapers are living history	Newspaper reader in Naples, Italy	Rolled up newspaper delivered to a home in Redan, Victoria.
Author	Sindugab	Mozzihh	Peterdownunder
Score	14	12	10

Congratulations to Sindugab, Mozzihh and Peterdownunder. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:48, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge April results

Meadows: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	A hill dream	Sunset over a green meadow with forest in foreground and layered mountain silhouettes in the distance, under a glowing orange sky.	Fioritura a Castelluccio di Norcia. Italia
Author	Anna.Massini	Martinovmejl	Repuli
Score	14	12	9

Congratulations to Anna.Massini, Martinovmejl and Repuli. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:11, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Camelidae: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Camel at toni's zoo - B&W	Kamel am Strand in Ägypten.	Ägyptische Motive mit Kamel. Strand des Grand Makadi Hotels am Roten Meer.
Author	Roy Egloff	Kora27	Kora27
Score	16	11	10

Congratulations to Roy Egloff, Kora27 and Kora27. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:15, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

War

Good or bed? Mehranjj64 (talk) 23:34, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi baro bache Farsi. Faghat ma mifahmim va gheire Farsi zaboona Kasi nemifahme chi migim be ham va kheili hal mide. Dooseton daram Mehranjj64 (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge May results

Flags: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Rettungsschwimmer im Parque Natural de Corralejo, Fuerteventura	Flag of Namibia on an airplane winglet	Parachuter with the national flag of Italy
Author	Fischer1961	Mozzihh	Marcxosm
Score	18	7	5

Congratulations to Fischer1961, Mozzihh and Marcxosm. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:37, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Danke schön Fischer1961 (talk) 19:50, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Flowers: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Sunflower field in Burgundy	Waterlily	Hasenglöckchen eingerahmt
Author	Ibex73	Peterdownunder	Englandfan~commonswiki
Score	12	8	8

Congratulations to Ibex73, Peterdownunder and Englandfan~commonswiki. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge June results

One stands out: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	One purple Tulip surrounded by a few white Tulips.	Flamingos, one shakes itself after a bath, Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Gau, Camargue, France	a goose surrounded by ducks
Author	MikeBurnsPhotos	Mozzihh	Chrissieminton
Score	17	15	11

Congratulations to MikeBurnsPhotos, Mozzihh and Chrissieminton. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:11, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Steam: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Treno a vapore nella stazione di Pontassive in occasione della Befana	Sinter terraces full of steam in the morning sun, Lower Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park	Vasca e sorgenti di acqua calda sulfurea al Parco della Mola di Oriolo Romano
Author	Repuli	Lusi Lindwurm	Albarubescens
Score	13	10	8

Congratulations to Repuli, Lusi Lindwurm and Albarubescens. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:42, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

grazie Repuli (talk) 06:27, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Problems with running Photo Challenge code this month

@Hanyangprofessor2, RoyZuo, Piotrus, Wikisquack, and Kritzolina: and others who might be able to help, The code I am using for creating voting pages and tabulating results, which was originally written by User:Colin, stopped working this month with some errors like An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions. (commons.wikimedia.org:443) etc. The C# code I am running can be found at as subpages of Commons:Photo challenge/code. Can one of you try to get the code to work in Visual Studio and see if the issue is with my connection or with some new configuration of Commons? Jarekt (talk) 02:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Sadly, I am not a code monkey. But I would love to recommend taking part in this to my students, so ping me when it is fixed! If nobody helps here, try Commons equivalent of en:WP:VPT? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:03, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately I also am no expert in the technical side of things and can't help here. Kritzolina (talk) 05:44, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

It looks like Wikimedia is enforcing that our HttpClient has a User-Agent defined per Policy:Wikimedia Foundation User-Agent Policy - Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki. I've added that to the CreateVoting.cs file and that seems to work for me. I've updated both Commons:Photo challenge/code/voting.cs and Commons:Photo challenge/code/CreateVoting.cs though I haven't tested the change on the former. Jarekt, let me know if that works for you. -- Colin (talk) 07:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Colin, Thank you for coming to the rescue yet again. I did managed to recompile the new code for creating voting pages and it did work. Tomorrow I will recompile the voting code. Thanks again. --Jarekt (talk) 04:08, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge July results

Vending machines: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Selecta vending machine in Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland.	Ticket machines in the concourse of Nuremberg Central Station	Sake, øl og whisky i byen Fuji i Japan.
Author	W8Kp3mZr1j	Ermell	Odd Roar Aalborg
Score	11	8	6

Congratulations to W8Kp3mZr1j, Ermell and Odd Roar Aalborg. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:50, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Waterside structures: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	De Adriaan Windmill in Haarlem, Netherlands	Seen on a tour of Norfolk Harbor, these massive dockside cranes will work on naval vessels.	Blick von der 580 Meter hohen Steilklippe „Cabo Girao“ auf die am Ufer liegenden Terrassenfelder in der Nähe der Ortschaft Câmara de Lobos auf Madeira.
Author	JoanaImages	JoannaPoe	Otto Domes
Score	15	14	13

Congratulations to JoanaImages, JoannaPoe and Otto Domes. -- Jarekt (talk) 02:55, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Photo challenge August results

Home interiors: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Time to milk the cows.	Old style Chinese decoration	Contemporary blue and white bathroom
Author	Magnolia677	Pauloleong2002	OKJaguar
Score	10	9	7

Bark: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image			File:200130 D 9059.CR2.jpg
Title	Andrews Mare, Lyndhurst, New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK	Willow trees on the bank of the river Windrush at Witney, Oxfordshire, UK	Tree on Lake Gunn Nature Walk in Fiordland National Park in Southland on South Island of New Zealand
Author	JoanaImages	Scampz	Karel Stipek Austria
Score	17	14	10

Congratulations to Scampz, JoanaImages, Karel Stipek Austria, Magnolia677, Pauloleong2002 and OKJaguar. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:13, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

September

Bricks: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Oasis de montagne de Chebika, en Tunisie, au petit matin du mois de janvier	Member of the Bhil ethnic group in southern Rajasthan in front of fired bricks, which the Bhil traditionally produce by hand, often in slave-like conditions	Bricks for construction
Author	Louhaeun	Lusi Lindwurm	Saral Shots
Score	12	10	8

Chimor gold ear and head ornaments: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Gold colors fireworks from Dadaocheng, Taipei on 2025-08-20	Золочёные фигурные купола Церковного корпуса Петергофского Дворца 2H1A4248WI	:w:Chimor
Author	Junyu-K	Kora27	WMrapids
Score	16	9	7

-- Colin (talk) 10:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Challenge errors

Both the Factory Interiors and Herders photo challenge topics appear both as open until the end of December and as already ended at the same time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TSB GR (talk • contribs)

Fixed (see explanation here) -- Wikisquack (talk) 22:50, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:09, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Herders photo challenge upload fault

I am uploading and publishing my photo for this month's challenge and it keeps disappearing from the entries list.

I checked the list format and the upload process and everything looks normal.

The photo also appears on my uploads - contributions list normally but not on the actual challenge entries list.

What is going on??? TSB GR (talk) 10:26, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I can clearly see the image you uloaded with the filename "Herder Montenegro" and added to the challenge not quite 20 minutes before your post. Are you trying to upload another picture? Otherwise it might have been a disply issue on your side. Kritzolina (talk) 10:52, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I can see it now too, Kritzolina!

I didn't try to upload anything else and I was worried because every other time I uploaded a photo for challenge submission it always showed immediately.

Next time I will wait a bit after uploading, maybe an hour or two before worrying :)

Thank you for your response and happy holidays! TSB GR (talk) 11:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Try to manually purge the page sometimes. Happy holidays too! Wikisquack (talk) 11:28, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Very handy, thanks again and enjoy! TSB GR (talk) 11:33, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)