Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories

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This page is considered an official guideline on Wikimedia Commons. It illustrates standards or behaviors which most editors agree with in principle and generally follow. Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

This page is a guideline for the creation and use of templates, categories and gallery pages that relate to one specific user. Users often create such items to collect their contributions in one place and save time/effort repeating licensing/source information. For the corresponding policy see COM:PSP.

In general: you are welcome to create things for your own convenience, as long as they won't disrupt other people browsing in a normal way.

User pagesEdit

Users are welcome to create a page in the User namespace with their own username, for example User:Example for a user named "Example". The system will sometimes link to this user page automatically, such as in page histories. Additional pages may also be created as long as they are named as subpages, by following the user page with a slash and the subpage name, e.g., "User:Example/Sandbox".

User pages and subpages can be left uncategorised, or can optionally be added to relevant subcategories of Category:Commons community. They should never be added to categories in the Category:Topics hierarchy.

Gallery pagesEdit

Users are welcome to create galleries of their own work on pages that are subpages of their user page, e.g. "User:Example/Gallery". Optionally, they can be categorised under Category:User galleries ({{User gallery}} does this automatically). Users are welcome to create as many of these galleries as they wish. They can also create galleries in their user space such as "My favourite pictures at Commons".

Users can also place a link to the MyGallery Javascript tool on their userpage, which shows all their uploads. {{MyGallery/userbox}} looks like this, and on a userpage will link to that user's uploads:

MyGallery

CategoriesEdit

Users are welcome to create user-specific categories using their username (e.g. Category:Photos by User:Example) or real or stage name (e.g. Category:Photos by John Doe). Such categories must be categorised only under Category:User categories; this should be done using {{user category|username}}.

Ambiguous user categories (e.g. Category:Photos of London) must be disambiguated (e.g. Category:Photos by London (Commons user)).

Subcategories of user categories must also be marked as user categories, and not be categorised under the main category tree. Furthermore, media files must still be categorised under the main category tree (i.e. files in Category:Photos of the 2012 Summer Olympics by User:Example must also have a main category such as Category:2012 Summer Olympics or subcategories thereof).

Categories shouldn't be created to collect files based on a user's personal opinion (e.g. User:Example's favourite pictures); user galleries may be used for such purposes instead as described above.

TemplatesEdit

Users are welcome to create user-specific templates in order to standardise the information they produce on their image pages. Such templates should exist as user subpages rather than in the template namespace, e.g. "User:Example/Template" or "User:Example/Info". The template should use Template:Information as basis.

AcceptableEdit

Users can use such templates to specify how they want to be attributed, e.g. by their real name or username. Some "advertising" for the user's work is allowed, such as a link to an external website (portfolio/gallery). (As we discourage image watermarks, the image page is the appropriate place for such "advertising".) Requests for notification about use are allowed (only requests, not requirements). A notice such as "other terms/higher resolution available on request" are allowed. Contact details are allowed. Technical details such as camera model or method of creation of the file/s are allowed.

Not acceptableEdit

No user template can require additional conditions of use above and beyond the terms of their chosen license. Additional conditions such as notification can be requested but must not be required.

Regarding licensesEdit

Regarding license templates: if the user-specific template incorporates a standard license template, the user-specific template should be subst:ed in use. If the user-specific template does not incorporate a standard license template, then it can be subst:ed or not as the user prefers.

Templates such as "CC-BY-SA-UserExample" (which combines the standard license template with file author information) should not be used. Use of such custom templates reduces machine readability about file licenses. (It becomes impossible to tell by parsing the wikitext which license applies, if there are potentially as many license templates as there are users.)

ExamplesEdit

User:Example/Template1

This file is a work by User Example. More of my work can be 
found in [http://www.example.com/gallery Example's gallery]. I would 
appreciate being notified if you use my work outside Wikimedia.

Example's works at Wikimedia Commons are all licensed under the GNU Free 
Documentation License:

{{CC-BY-SA-4.0}}

On an image page, the user would only put the template {{User:Example/Template1}}. Because this template incorporates a standard license template, it must be subst:ed, so they must always put {{subst:User:Example/Template1}}.

User:Example/Template2

This file is a work by User Example. More of my work can be 
found in [http://www.example.com/gallery Example's gallery]. I would 
appreciate notification if you use my work outside Wikimedia.

This template does not incorporate a license template. On an image page, the user would put at least two templates: {{User:Example/Template2}} {{CC-BY-SA-4.0}} (or any other acceptable license from Commons:Copyright tags). Because the license template is separate from the user-specific template, the user-specific template doesn't have to be subst:ed.