Illerai:Image Maintenance

Welcome to Old School RuneScape Wiki:Image Maintenance, here you will find important information and tools to help you maintain the wiki's images. The Old School RuneScape Wiki has over 177,889 images that require maintenance around the clock due to updates, poor quality, lack of transparency, and so on. Before you begin, please read and understand the Image and media policy. This will help make sure that all your edits abide by the policy and will not be wasted. To start working with images there are a few things you should know.

General notes

Category:JPEG images, Category:Dithered images, and Category:Images needing transparency are the main maintenance categories to find images that need improvement. The wiki's ultimate goal is to give all of our images a professional, uniform look that compliments the text information on the wiki.

Although our mission is to update images and keep the wiki's media up-to-date, this does not give you the right to replace a perfectly good image with one featuring your own character. Images should only be replaced if absolutely necessary.

Images and media policy

Please be familiar with and attempt to adhere to the Images and media policy when editing existing images or uploading new images.

Regarding concise clarity

Always where possible keep the image clearly focused on the topic matter. Images should show the entirety of what they are intended to show, in addition to showing it in sufficient detail.

In regards to clue scroll locations, clue scroll location images should always have the minimap included in the picture, especially for those located in the Wilderness. Many readers would like to be able to quickly get to their destination spot in order to leave the Wilderness. For example, if a small image that has a minimap is replaced with a larger one that does not have a minimap, then our readers are being disserviced as the clarity of the location image has become compromised in regards to the content of the image.

To do list

Image templates

The following templates should be added to images needing attention.

For a detailed explanation of each template's use, please follow the link to the template page.

• Template:Jpeg
• Template:Gif
• Template:Transparency
• Template:Translucency
• Template:Too small
• Template:Obfile
• Template:Retake image

Maintenance categories

The following categories hold images that have been categorised by the above templates and need attention. Members are encouraged to make the changes that will allow them to be removed from each category.

• Category:JPEG images - These images should be replaced with new images saved in the PNG format.
• Category:Dithered images - These still images should be replaced with new images saved in the PNG format. For more information about why PNG images offer better compression than GIF, read this.
• Category:Images needing transparency - These images should be made transparent.
• Category:Images needing translucency - These images should be made translucent.
• Category:Images that are too small - These images should be retaken in higher resolutions.
• Category:Obsolete images - These images should be replaced with updated versions.
• Category:Images needing to be retaken - These images should be retaken to meet the wiki's quality standards.

Specific to animated Images

The Old School RuneScape Wiki has a number of animated images that will sometimes need changes that our normal templates do not cover. These templates and categories are especially suited to animations. Remember that not all animations are necessary. Try to avoid excessive animations within articles.

• Template:Unnecessary animation: Add to animations of subjects that do not need to be animated.
• Category:Unnecessary animations: These do not need to be animated, upload a still image (preferably retake a PNG image).

Things to avoid

• Converting JPEGs to PNG (or GIF) should not be done unless the PNG is original and not derived from JPEG. If an image is originally JPEG format, then it is likely best to leave it in that format until a better original comes along. Converting JPEGs to PNG virtually always excessively increases the size of the image and does not add any quality. Therefore save time and bandwidth, leave JPEG files as JPEG unless recreating them from scratch.
• Converting low-quality GIFs to PNG. GIFs that use indexed colour have a significant difference in quality that will remain in a PNG copy. As with JPEG images, a new screenshot must be taken in order ensure the best quality.
• Animating things that do not need animation. This causes slower page loads and adds nothing to the article.