Mother of One, Truck Driver’s Daughter Emerges RSUST Best Graduate:

Mother of One, Truck Driver’s Daughter Emerges RSUST Best Graduate:

Mother of one flies high at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology’s convocation, CHUKWUDI AKASIKE writes

Those who think that nursing mothers do not have a place in the academic community need to have a rethink. So also are people who deride those whose parents or guardians are of poor academic background.

With the success attained by Chidinma Izuegbunem at the 26th convocation of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, the above perceptions have no place in annals of an academic community.

Chidinma is not just a nursing mother, she is also a daughter of a truck driver. Her father drives the truck popularly called tipper.

the university’s dome known as The Amphitheatre, the mother of one stole the show at the convocation ceremony, beating over 4,000 other graduates to emerge as the school’s valedictorian for 2013.

Besides, the Medical Laboratory Science graduate, who garnered a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.64, to become the shining star, received five of the nine awards on the occasion. These are the Vice-Chancellor’s Prize for Best Graduating Student; Dean’s Prize for Best Graduating Student in Faculty of Science; UNITECH Women’s Association Prize for Best Graduating Female Student; Prof. T.J.T Princewill’s Prize for Best Graduating Student in the Department of Applied and Environmental Biology (Microbiology option); and the Mrs. Daba Constance Odimabo Prize for the Best Graduating Female Student.

Her accomplishments drew applause from scholars, students, royal fathers as well as other dignitaries that attended the convocation.

  The mother of an 11-month-old baby, while speaking with our correspondent, said her success was not by accident as she prepared and worked hard to achieve a first class grade.

Beyond her industry, she acknowledged that God’s amazing grace also saw her through, putting her in good stead to ward off peer pressure on her way to emerging the best student in the university.

“My success is by the special grace of God and the efforts of my husband. I studied very hard. The issue of ‘sorting’ (paying lecturers for improved marks) does not arise because the Rivers State University of Science and Technology detests it.

“I started five years ago. When I was coming into the university, I had a target of making a first class. I made sure I came to school every day and did not skip lectures. Visual learning is my best form of learning.

“I preferred being in the class to listen to my lecturers, and watch their demonstrations. This is apart from reading my books in school and at home. I set a standard for myself from my Year One. My father, Emmanuel Izuegbunem, is a driver. He is a tipper driver,” she added.

But with this success, is Chidinma thinking of ending her career in the kitchen? ‘Tell that to the marines’ was her quick response, adding that she looks forward to attaining loftier academic heights very soon.

Indeed, according to the Igboukwu, Aguata Local Government of Anambra State-born graduate, she looks forward to becoming first a lecturer and then a minister of education or health.

She notes, “I want to be a lecturer. Perhaps from there, I shall rise to become the minister of education and minister of health because health is my own profession, having studied Medical Laboratory Science.”

Chidinma, who said peer pressure did not make her to lose focus on campus, also admitted that her marriage to Martin Azike, a lawyer, did not distract her. Though the affiliation started in her first year, it only climaxed in her fourth year.

“I knew him (my husband) when I was in Year One. My relationship with him did not pose danger to my studies because he is also a serious-minded person. He loves education. Since the day we met, he has been encouraging me to study hard.

“My husband usually visited me on campus when we were courting because I stayed in one of the school hostels at that time”.

Explaining further on how she coped with her studies while she was in a relationship from her first year in school, the valedictorian said though she entered into an affair with Azike in her Year One, the action did not disrupt her studies.

In fact, her husband, she added, encouraged her to sustain the tempo in her studies, resulting in her academic success.

“When I was about to wed, one of my lecturers advised me against the decision. His reason was that it could adversely affect my grade in the university. But I told him that there was nothing I could do because the wedding date had already been fixed. After our wedding, I told my husband that he should not allow himself to be a barrier to my graduating with first class.

“I told my husband this because some of my lecturers have started seeing him around me. My husband promised me that he would never be a barrier to my studies and would encourage me to make a first class. My husband really tried for me because in my final year, lectures commenced by 8am and my husband was always bringing me to school before classes started. I left the hostel and joined my husband after our wedding in my fourth year. He woke me up every night to do my reading.”

Giving an insight into her upbringing, Chidinma said she had her early education (primary and secondary) when she was with her grandmother (her father’s mother). But was that a minus in accomplishing her life and academic desires? Her response was an emphatic no. In fact, she admitted that the era prepared her for the daunting task of facing her studies in her own accord.

Advising other youngsters to take a cue from her, Chidinma urged them to take their studies seriously by reading their books regularly and resisting all manner of peer pressure. Such peer association, she said, could distract them from achieving their academic goals and nobler things of life.

Earlier, RSUST Vice-Chancellor, Prof. B Fakae, commended the Rivers State Government for its immense support to the university and for energising the school towards glory. Congratulating the graduands, he described the convocation as a celebration of excellence.

“First , it is God Almighty who gave us all we needed for this mission of change.  It is through the instrumentality of our visitor, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, who threw the challenge at us that we make this account today. We are grateful for the support so far received from you and we are equally grateful for the funding that has enabled us to reach the height so far attained,” he said.

The VC said achievements were made in research and e-learning, scholarship, infrastructure, accreditation of programmes, quality assurance in academics, corporate social responsibility and others.

Also, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the university, Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte (retd), congratulated the graduating students on their achievements, just as he attributed their success to years of hard work and dedication.  He also urged them to be good ambassadors of the university.

“As you go into the world, which is more complex than the university environment you have been used to, I implore you to use your present achievements as a springboard to launch yourselves to greater accomplishments.

“The qualities of hard work, commitment and dedication that enabled you attain this new level, coupled with the new skills and knowledge you have acquired, should propel you to greater heights in your future undertakings. In whatever endeavour you may find yourselves, we urge you to be good ambassadors of your alma mater, the Rivers State University of Science and Technology and your nation,” Karibi-White said.

Four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-five persons obtained first degrees while 526 others received postgraduate degrees on the occasion. (Punch)

Ten things you may not know about images

WP:10I WP:10TI If you're new to this website, these are probably ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia. We hope this gives you a better idea of the whats and whys of illustrating the world's most popular encyclopedia. If you're more experienced with images on Wikipedia, you probably know most of these—but maybe you've never seen them written down, or you don't know where to point other people who want a quick and easy (sometimes complicated) explanation of a subject. Commons picture of the day Marpissa muscosa 5 Luc Viatour.jpg Marpissa muscosa jumping spider —Click the image for more information— There is more to our images than you can see at first look. If you click on any image on Wikipedia, you will go to a page about the image itself. This image page will have information on the image's source, authorship, and copyright licensing, along with a more detailed description of the image. Unless the image is very small, you'll see a larger version of the image here. Clicking on this image will take you to the full-size original version. If you want to save images from Wikipedia, be sure to save the original version of the image, which is higher-quality than the thumbnail sizes on the article and image pages, and usually contains Exif data: information about the photographer, settings, and the equipment used to take the picture. If you reuse images from Wikipedia, please be sure to respect the provided license and provided credit where credit is due—usually to the photographer, not Wikipedia! We have over seventeen million images. We reached 17 million images on all Wikipedia projects in May of 2013. You can see some of our best work at our featured pictures page, the featured pictures page on Commons, or in the results of the annual Picture of the Year contest. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics. We want more images. However, we primarily want freely-licensed images (GFDL, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY, public domain, or another free content license, not just any picture on the web) which are compatible with our policies and our goal of creating a free resource for everyone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, contributing a free picture is giving a thousand words to everyone who wants to use it and will ever see it; a non-free one only gives them to visitors to a single website. We depend on people like you to create and contribute images for Wikipedia, and the rest of the world, to use, as long as you are willing to release the images under a free content license. You can read about a few of the people who are already contributing their work on the meet our photographers page. When we say "free content", we're talking about the freedom the public has to use the images for any purpose, not the price. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_pictures, http://freedomdefined.org/Definition (definition of a free content license) ...but we want usable images. Please do not upload images that shouldn't or can't be used in an article. While we allow users to upload a few freely-licensed images to use on their user pages, we don't need a 4 billionth image of your Jack Russell Terrier on that article. (Even if he's really cute.) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a free web host for your images. Please use a website designed for this if you just want a place to share your personal photos. We take copyright seriously. Blatant violations of copyright law and our image policies are usually deleted immediately. Our long-term mission is to create and promote content which is free of the typical encumbrances of copyright law. This mission requires us to take copyright very seriously. Unlike most other websites that allow users to submit content, we aggressively remove all copyright infringements as soon as we can find them, and we block people who willfully ignore this after being warned. Because free content is such a fundamental part of our mission, our policy on image licensing is more restrictive than required by law. We try to use non-free images only when nothing else is possible. Most images found on the web are copyrighted, even if the particular website does not specifically state this. Also, most images found on the web do not meet our non-free content policy, which states that a non-free image may be used only when it cannot be replaced. For example, there's no way that a logo of a political party or a screenshot of a video game can be replaced by a free image, but a photo of a living person or location can almost always be replaced, even if doing so may be very difficult. To help Wikipedia, search for free images, especially for living persons, existing buildings, and places—but don't upload a non-free image just because the article doesn't have one right now; we can (and will) wait for a free image to be created or released. Also, non-commercial, educational use only, and no-derivatives, and other such restrictions on the type of use limit how other people may use the image outside of Wikipedia. Such images aren't considered "free", and so if these images cannot be justified as "fair use" within their articles, they will be deleted from Wikipedia. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content Copyright law is complicated, even for lawyers, and applying it to Wikipedia even more so. Even if you are a licensed attorney who practices in this area, US copyright law (which applies to Wikipedia) is complex, and while an understanding of how it applies to Wikipedia may be achievable, there are considerable gray areas. Deciding the status of one image in a complex situation can be very difficult at times, if not impossible. We have more than photographs. Animation: When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is π. Our media collection also includes hundreds of thousands of vector images, audio recordings, animations, and videos. Vector images can be displayed or printed at any size without loss of quality. The creation of these alternative media types demands different skills and equipment than is required by still photography. We have an image use policy. Once an image is uploaded, and the source and licensing information are correctly given, it may be used in articles. Our Image Use Policy describes the accepted ways of displaying, formatting, and otherwise using images in Wikipedia. If you jump in to using images in articles, you should be familiar with it. For example, did you know that no image will display more than 550 pixels wide inside an article? Ideally, all images used on Wikipedia would be on Wikimedia Commons. Because we want free content, ideally all images uploaded would be free for everyone, and therefore would be acceptable on our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Images submitted to Commons are used the same way as images uploaded locally to Wikipedia and are automatically available on Wikipedia—as well as on hundreds of other Wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation. More information: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_image_resources Uploading the same image multiple times is unnecessary. If something is wrong in the description of the image, you can edit the image description page. Just like every other page on Wikipedia, the image description page can be edited by anyone. Just click "edit this page" while looking at the image page. Did you forget to say what the license or source for the image is when you uploaded it? Don't re-upload the image—just edit the image description page and add the licensing information! Also, the wiki software can change the display size of the images, so you do not need to re-upload a smaller version of the same image to use a smaller version in an article. See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. There, you can learn how to use frames, control the placement in the article, and add captions! For more on captions, see Wikipedia:Captions. You can use (free) images from Wikipedia on your own site, or anywhere you like. You can use images that are freely-licensed images, provided you comply with the individual image's license terms. While all article text is licensed under the GFDL, free images have several free content licenses to choose from. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses for the many possibilities. You can use them on any appropriate page on Wikipedia. You can even use them outside of WikWikipedia:Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia Shortcuts: WP:10I WP:10TI If you're new to this website, these are probably ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia. We hope this gives you a better idea of the whats and whys of illustrating the world's most popular encyclopedia. If you're more experienced with images on Wikipedia, you probably know most of these—but maybe you've never seen them written down, or you don't know where to point other people who want a quick and easy (sometimes complicated) explanation of a subject. Commons picture of the day Marpissa muscosa 5 Luc Viatour.jpg Marpissa muscosa jumping spider —Click the image for more information— There is more to our images than you can see at first look. If you click on any image on Wikipedia, you will go to a page about the image itself. This image page will have information on the image's source, authorship, and copyright licensing, along with a more detailed description of the image. Unless the image is very small, you'll see a larger version of the image here. Clicking on this image will take you to the full-size original version. If you want to save images from Wikipedia, be sure to save the original version of the image, which is higher-quality than the thumbnail sizes on the article and image pages, and usually contains Exif data: information about the photographer, settings, and the equipment used to take the picture. If you reuse images from Wikipedia, please be sure to respect the provided license and provided credit where credit is due—usually to the photographer, not Wikipedia! We have over seventeen million images. We reached 17 million images on all Wikipedia projects in May of 2013. You can see some of our best work at our featured pictures page, the featured pictures page on Commons, or in the results of the annual Picture of the Year contest. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics. We want more images. However, we primarily want freely-licensed images (GFDL, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY, public domain, or another free content license, not just any picture on the web) which are compatible with our policies and our goal of creating a free resource for everyone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, contributing a free picture is giving a thousand words to everyone who wants to use it and will ever see it; a non-free one only gives them to visitors to a single website. We depend on people like you to create and contribute images for Wikipedia, and the rest of the world, to use, as long as you are willing to release the images under a free content license. You can read about a few of the people who are already contributing their work on the meet our photographers page. When we say "free content", we're talking about the freedom the public has to use the images for any purpose, not the price. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_pictures, http://freedomdefined.org/Definition (definition of a free content license) ...but we want usable images. Please do not upload images that shouldn't or can't be used in an article. While we allow users to upload a few freely-licensed images to use on their user pages, we don't need a 4 billionth image of your Jack Russell Terrier on that article. (Even if he's really cute.) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a free web host for your images. Please use a website designed for this if you just want a place to share your personal photos. We take copyright seriously. Blatant violations of copyright law and our image policies are usually deleted immediately. Our long-term mission is to create and promote content which is free of the typical encumbrances of copyright law. This mission requires us to take copyright very seriously. Unlike most other websites that allow users to submit content, we aggressively remove all copyright infringements as soon as we can find them, and we block people who willfully ignore this after being warned. Because free content is such a fundamental part of our mission, our policy on image licensing is more restrictive than required by law. We try to use non-free images only when nothing else is possible. Most images found on the web are copyrighted, even if the particular website does not specifically state this. Also, most images found on the web do not meet our non-free content policy, which states that a non-free image may be used only when it cannot be replaced. For example, there's no way that a logo of a political party or a screenshot of a video game can be replaced by a free image, but a photo of a living person or location can almost always be replaced, even if doing so may be very difficult. To help Wikipedia, search for free images, especially for living persons, existing buildings, and places—but don't upload a non-free image just because the article doesn't have one right now; we can (and will) wait for a free image to be created or released. Also, non-commercial, educational use only, and no-derivatives, and other such restrictions on the type of use limit how other people may use the image outside of Wikipedia. Such images aren't considered "free", and so if these images cannot be justified as "fair use" within their articles, they will be deleted from Wikipedia. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content Copyright law is complicated, even for lawyers, and applying it to Wikipedia even more so. Even if you are a licensed attorney who practices in this area, US copyright law (which applies to Wikipedia) is complex, and while an understanding of how it applies to Wikipedia may be achievable, there are considerable gray areas. Deciding the status of one image in a complex situation can be very difficult at times, if not impossible. We have more than photographs. Animation: When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is π. Our media collection also includes hundreds of thousands of vector images, audio recordings, animations, and videos. Vector images can be displayed or printed at any size without loss of quality. The creation of these alternative media types demands different skills and equipment than is required by still photography. We have an image use policy. Once an image is uploaded, and the source and licensing information are correctly given, it may be used in articles. Our Image Use Policy describes the accepted ways of displaying, formatting, and otherwise using images in Wikipedia. If you jump in to using images in articles, you should be familiar with it. For example, did you know that no image will display more than 550 pixels wide inside an article? Ideally, all images used on Wikipedia would be on Wikimedia Commons. Because we want free content, ideally all images uploaded would be free for everyone, and therefore would be acceptable on our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Images submitted to Commons are used the same way as images uploaded locally to Wikipedia and are automatically available on Wikipedia—as well as on hundreds of other Wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation. More information: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_image_resources Uploading the same image multiple times is unnecessary. If something is wrong in the description of the image, you can edit the image description page. Just like every other page on Wikipedia, the image description page can be edited by anyone. Just click "edit this page" while looking at the image page. Did you forget to say what the license or source for the image is when you uploaded it? Don't re-upload the image—just edit the image description page and add the licensing information! Also, the wiki software can change the display size of the images, so you do not need to re-upload a smaller version of the same image to use a smaller version in an article. See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. There, you can learn how to use frames, control the placement in the article, and add captions! For more on captions, see Wikipedia:Captions. You can use (free) images from Wikipedia on your own site, or anywhere you like. You can use images that are freely-licensed images, provided you comply with the individual image's license terms. While all article text is licensed under the GFDL, free images have several free content licenses to choose from. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses for the many possibilities. You can use them on any appropriate page on Wikipedia. You can even use them outside of Wikipedia, such as on a website, in printed material, anywhere! All "free" image allow these uses, provided you follow the license's terms for attribution and usipedia, such as on a website, in printed Wikipedia:Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia Shortcuts: WP:10I WP:10TI If you're new to this website, these are probably ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia. We hope this gives you a better idea of the whats and whys of illustrating the world's most popular encyclopedia. If you're more experienced with images on Wikipedia, you probably know most of these—but maybe you've never seen them written down, or you don't know where to point other people who want a quick and easy (sometimes complicated) explanation of a subject. Commons picture of the day Marpissa muscosa 5 Luc Viatour.jpg Marpissa muscosa jumping spider —Click the image for more information— There is more to our images than you can see at first look. If you click on any image on Wikipedia, you will go to a page about the image itself. This image page will have information on the image's source, authorship, and copyright licensing, along with a more detailed description of the image. Unless the image is very small, you'll see a larger version of the image here. Clicking on this image will take you to the full-size original version. If you want to save images from Wikipedia, be sure to save the original version of the image, which is higher-quality than the thumbnail sizes on the article and image pages, and usually contains Exif data: information about the photographer, settings, and the equipment used to take the picture. If you reuse images from Wikipedia, please be sure to respect the provided license and provided credit where credit is due—usually to the photographer, not Wikipedia! We have over seventeen million images. We reached 17 million images on all Wikipedia projects in May of 2013. You can see some of our best work at our featured pictures page, the featured pictures page on Commons, or in the results of the annual Picture of the Year contest. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics. We want more images. However, we primarily want freely-licensed images (GFDL, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY, public domain, or another free content license, not just any picture on the web) which are compatible with our policies and our goal of creating a free resource for everyone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, contributing a free picture is giving a thousand words to everyone who wants to use it and will ever see it; a non-free one only gives them to visitors to a single website. We depend on people like you to create and contribute images for Wikipedia, and the rest of the world, to use, as long as you are willing to release the images under a free content license. You can read about a few of the people who are already contributing their work on the meet our photographers page. When we say "free content", we're talking about the freedom the public has to use the images for any purpose, not the price. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_pictures, http://freedomdefined.org/Definition (definition of a free content license) ...but we want usable images. Please do not upload images that shouldn't or can't be used in an article. While we allow users to upload a few freely-licensed images to use on their user pages, we don't need a 4 billionth image of your Jack Russell Terrier on that article. (Even if he's really cute.) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a free web host for your images. Please use a website designed for this if you just want a place to share your personal photos. We take copyright seriously. Blatant violations of copyright law and our image policies are usually deleted immediately. Our long-term mission is to create and promote content which is free of the typical encumbrances of copyright law. This mission requires us to take copyright very seriously. Unlike most other websites that allow users to submit content, we aggressively remove all copyright infringements as soon as we can find them, and we block people who willfully ignore this after being warned. Because free content is such a fundamental part of our mission, our policy on image licensing is more restrictive than required by law. We try to use non-free images only when nothing else is possible. Most images found on the web are copyrighted, even if the particular website does not specifically state this. Also, most images found on the web do not meet our non-free content policy, which states that a non-free image may be used only when it cannot be replaced. For example, there's no way that a logo of a political party or a screenshot of a video game can be replaced by a free image, but a photo of a living person or location can almost always be replaced, even if doing so may be very difficult. To help Wikipedia, search for free images, especially for living persons, existing buildings, and places—but don't upload a non-free image just because the article doesn't have one right now; we can (and will) wait for a free image to be created or released. Also, non-commercial, educational use only, and no-derivatives, and other such restrictions on the type of use limit how other people may use the image outside of Wikipedia. Such images aren't considered "free", and so if these images cannot be justified as "fair use" within their articles, they will be deleted from Wikipedia. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content Copyright law is complicated, even for lawyers, and applying it to Wikipedia even more so. Even if you are a licensed attorney who practices in this area, US copyright law (which applies to Wikipedia) is complex, and while an undersng of how it applies to Wikipedia may be achievable, there are considerable gray areas. Deciding the status of one image in a complex situation can be very difficult at times, if not impossible. We have more than photographs. Animation: When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is π. Our media collection also includes hundreds of thousands of vector images, audio recordings, animations, and videos. Vector images can be displayed or printed at any size without loss of quality. The creation of these alternative media types demands different skills and equipment than is required by still photography. We have an image use policy. Once an image is uploaded, and the source and licensing information are correctly given, it may be used in articles. Our Image Use Policy describes the accepted ways of displaying, formatting, and otherwise using images in Wikipedia. If you jump in to using images in articles, you should be familiar with it. For example, did you know that no image will display more than 550 pixels wide inside an article? Ideally, all images used on Wikipedia would be on Wikimedia Commons. Because we want free content, ideally all images uploaded would be free for everyone, and therefore would be acceptable on our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Images submitted to Commons are used the same way as images uploaded locally to Wikipedia and are automatically available on Wikipedia—as well as on hundreds of other Wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation. More information: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_image_resources Uploading the same image multiple times is unnecessary. If something is wrong in the description of the image, you can edit the image description page. Just like every other page on Wikipedia, the image description page can be edited by anyone. Just click "edit this page" while looking at the image page. Did you forget to say what the license or source for the image is when you uploaded it? Don't re-upload the image—just edit the image description page and add the licensing information! Also, the wiki software can change the display size of the images, so you do not need to re-upload a smaller version of the same image to use a smaller version in an article. See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. There, you can learn how to use frames, control the placement in the article, and add captions! For more on captions, see Wikipedia:Captions. You can use (free) images from Wikipedia on your own site, or anywhere you like. You can use images that are freely-licensed images, provided you comply with the individual image's license terms. While all article text is licensed under the GFDL, free images have several free content licenses to choose from. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses for the many possibilities. You can use them on any appropriate page on Wikipedia. You can even use them outside of Wikipedia, such as on a website, in printed material, anywhere! All "free" image allow these uses, provided you follow the license's terms for attribution and usmaterial, anywhere! All "free" image allow these uses, provided you follow the license's terms for attribution and us

Wikipedia:Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia

Shortcuts: WP:10I WP:10TI

If you're new to this website, these are probably ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia. We hope this gives you a better idea of the whats and whys of illustrating the world's most popular encyclopedia. If you're more experienced with images on Wikipedia, you probably know most of these—but maybe you've never seen them written down, or you don't know where to point other people who want a quick and easy (sometimes complicated) explanation of a subject.

Commons picture of the day

Marpissa muscosa jumping spider

—Click the image for more information—

1. There is more to our images than you can see at first look.

   If you click on any image on Wikipedia, you will go to a page about the image itself.

   This image page will have information on the image's source, authorship, and copyright licensing, along with a more detailed description of the image.

   Unless the image is very small, you'll see a larger version of the image here. Clicking on this image will take you to the full-size original version. If you want to save images from Wikipedia, be sure to save the original version of the image, which is higher-quality than the thumbnail sizes on the article and image pages, and usually contains Exifdata: information about the photographer, settings, and the equipment used to take the picture. If you reuse images from Wikipedia, please be sure to respect the provided license and provided credit where credit is due—usually to the photographer, not Wikipedia!

2. We have over seventeen million images.

   We reached 17 million images on all Wikipedia projects in May of 2013.

   You can see some of our best work at our featured pictures page, the featured pictures page on Commons, or in the results of the annual Picture of the Year contest.

   More information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics,http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics.

3. We want more images.

   However, we primarily want freely-licensed images (GFDL, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY, public domain, or another free content license, not just any picture on the web) which are compatible with our policies and our goal of creating a free resource for everyone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, contributing a free picture is giving a thousand words to everyone who wants to use it and will ever see it; a non-free one only gives them to visitors to a single website.

   We depend on people like you to create and contribute images for Wikipedia, and the rest of the world, to use, as long as you are willing to release the images under a free content license. You can read about a few of the people who are already contributing their work on the meet our photographers page.

   When we say "free content", we're talking about the freedom the public has to use the images for any purpose, not the price.

   More information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_pictures,http://freedomdefined.org/Definition(definition of a free content license)

   ...but we want usable images.

   Please do not upload images that shouldn't or can't be used in an article. While we allow users to upload a few freely-licensed images to use on their user pages, we don't need a 4 billionth image of your Jack Russell Terrier on that article. (Even if he's really cute.) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a free web host for your images. Please use a website designed for thisif you just want a place to share your personal photos.

4. We take copyright seriously.

   Blatant violations of copyright law and our image policies are usually deleted immediately. Our long-term mission is to create and promote content which is free of the typical encumbrances of copyright law. This mission requires us to take copyright very seriously. Unlike most other websites that allow users to submit content, we aggressively remove all copyright infringements as soon as we can find them, and we block people who willfully ignore this after being warned.

   Because free content is such a fundamental part of our mission, our policy on image licensing is more restrictive than required by law. We try to use non-free images only when nothing else is possible.

   Most images found on the web are copyrighted, even if the particular website does not specifically state this. Also, most images found on the web do not meet our non-free content policy, which states that a non-free image may be used onlywhen it cannot be replaced. For example, there's no way that a logo of a political party or a screenshot of a video game can be replaced by a free image, but a photo of a living person or location can almost always be replaced, even if doing so may be very difficult. To help Wikipedia, search for free images, especially for living persons, existing buildings, and places—but don't upload a non-free image just because the article doesn't have one right now; we can (and will) wait for a free image to be created or released.

   Also, non-commercial, educational use only, and no-derivatives, and other such restrictions on the type of use limit how other people may use the image outside of Wikipedia. Such images aren't considered "free", and so if these images cannot be justified as "fair use" within their articles, they will be deleted from Wikipedia.

   More information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content

5. Copyright law is complicated, even for lawyers, and applying it to Wikipedia even more so.

   Even if you are a licensed attorney who practices in this area, US copyright law (which applies to Wikipedia) is complex, and while an understanding of how it applies to Wikipedia may be achievable, there are considerable gray areas. Deciding the status of one image in a complex situation can be very difficult at times, if not impossible.

6. We have more than photographs.
   

   Animation: When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is π.

   Our media collection also includes hundreds of thousands of vector images, audio recordings, animations, and videos.

   Vector images can be displayed or printed at any size without loss of quality. The creation of these alternative media types demands different skills and equipment than is required by still photography.

7. We have an image use policy.

   Once an image is uploaded, and the source and licensing information are correctly given, it may be used in articles. Our Image Use Policydescribes the accepted ways of displaying, formatting, and otherwise using images in Wikipedia. If you jump in to using images in articles, you should be familiar with it. For example, did you know that no image will display more than 550 pixels wide inside an article?

8. Ideally, all images used on Wikipedia would be on Wikimedia Commons.

   Because we want free content, ideally all images uploaded would be free for everyone, and therefore would be acceptable on our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Images submitted to Commons are used the same way as images uploaded locally to Wikipedia and are automatically available on Wikipedia—as well as on hundreds of other Wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation.

   More information:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_image_resources

9. Uploading the same image multiple times is unnecessary.

   If something is wrong in the description of the image, you can edit the image description page. Just like every other page on Wikipedia, the image description page can be edited by anyone. Just click "edit this page" while looking at the image page. Did you forget to say what the license or source for the image is when you uploaded it? Don't re-upload the image—just edit the image description page and add the licensing information!

   Also, the wiki software can change the display size of the images, so you do not need to re-upload a smaller version of the same image to use a smaller version in an article. SeeWikipedia:Extended image syntax. There, you can learn how to use frames, control the placement in the article, and add captions! For more on captions, see Wikipedia:Captions.

10. You can use (free) images from Wikipedia on your own site, or anywhere you like.

    You can use images that are freely-licensed images, provided you comply with the individual image's license terms. While all article text is licensed under the GFDL, free images have several free content licenses to choose from. SeeWikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses for the many possibilities. You can use them on any appropriate page on Wikipedia. You can even use them outside of Wikipedia, such as on a website, in printed material, anywhere! All "free" image licenses allow these uses, provided you follow the license's terms for attribution and usage.