Another day, another rabbit hole to fall into! Yesterday, as I was looking into some real-person references, I jumped into a succession of rabbit holes that lead me to a dozen of problematic maps of Star Wars Episode I: Racer. The issue with the following images is simple: they have been modified by an user in 2006 to feature the outline of the circuits (as well as the driving direction, marked by an arrow).
Complete lists:
I have tracked the images point of origin as The official Nintendo Player's Guide (most likely very similar to Star Wars: Episode I Racer: Prima's Official Strategy Guide, which I haven't been able to check), where you can see those maps without modification, as well as abstract diagrams of the outline of the circuits. The book can be consulted on the Internet Archive.
While I'd be in favor of the immediate deletion of those images, I've been advised to put this matter in front of the community. In term of our established policy, those images are in a legal grey area: Images should be true to their source. However, a small amount of editing is permissible in order to enhance an image's usefulness or illustrative capability. It's also true that the images discussed here are somewhat useful, as I cannot find any official equivalent that would be as clear in displaying the outline of the circuits. It's possible that depending to the reaction of the community, the policy might be amended to specifically cover this kind of image modification. What are your thoughts on this? NanoLuukeCloning Facility 22:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Discuss
- We should certainly have the unmodified versions of the maps available for the tracks' pages themselves, but these modified versions can be useful for denoting the circuits each track had. I'm not opposed to keeping them, or perhaps creating newer versions of them, so long as the unmodified maps are provided as well. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 22:14, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's fine to keep them, as long as the unedited versions are the primary ones showcased. Rsand 30 (talk) 23:47, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
- Why would we primarily showcase the less useful renditions? Asithol (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Because those are what are given in the source. Rsand 30 (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, but our purpose as an encyclopedia is to take information from sources and present it in the most useful way to our readers. We should make it clear when we've edited original images, but it doesn't seem to serve readers to highlight an original image over a more useful one. Asithol (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Because those are what are given in the source. Rsand 30 (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Why would we primarily showcase the less useful renditions? Asithol (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at it from a pragmatic perspective of what's most useful to the reader, I definitely think we should keep them at least until we have equally-illustrative unmodified images available. Imperators II(Talk) 11:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
- What kind of policy amendment are you thinking of, Nano? It sounds like this is covered, in the existing "small amount of editing" phrase you quoted. The issue here doesn't seem to be the editing, it seems to be the absence of the originals. Asithol (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- To be perfectly honest, I've not thought this through beyond the SH itself, and I was planning on seeing if this was divisive enough to warrant puting the matters to a vote (which, given the current direction, might not be necessary at all). NanoLuukeCloning Facility 20:43, 27 March 2023 (UTC)