Category talk:Wikipedia featured desktop backgrounds

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[edit] Taste, please?

Does anybody seriously want a WWI trench as a desktop background?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cheshire_Regiment_trench_Somme_1916.jpg

Or dead people?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Conf_dead_chancellorsville.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Challenger_explosion.jpg

Sure, the aspect ratio and resolution is correct, but come on people! Let's stick with the cute animals and jets.

Blakeyrat (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please post archive file of all images

Would somebody please post a tarball and zip file of all the images in the gallery? Maybe even set up a torrent if bandwidth is a concern. I came to this site to download wallpapers for my computer, and I imagine that others have and will come for the same purpose. Let's make it quicker and simpler. --Jcarroll 05:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I tried, and the zip is too large (85MB, virtually no compression). I wouldn't know how to make a torrent LukeSurl 18:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Widescreen

Wallpapers can be in 16:10 format as well (8:5); which is the default aspect ratio for widescreen monitors. They are rapidly becoming popular these days, so it's not a bad idea to include them here as well. --Michiel Sikma 16:24, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I strongly support that (as someone with a wide monitor) or having them in a separate wide wallpaper gallery otherwise. --an odd name 15:14, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
The problem with this is it can keep going, for example a lot of people (myself included) have monitors with can be swiveled to vertical therefore images with ratios of 3:4 are practical backgrounds. Factor in widescreens that can be swiveled and 10:16 are valid as well. Some people (myself included) also have dual monitors where an image can be spread across both screens making 8:3 practical. I realize these items are varying degrees of popular. My vote is we leave this page as 4:3 with a minimum of 800X600 and start a new page for newer monitors with a minimum of 750,000 pixels (1024x768 although not necessarily that ratio) and an aspect ratio in the range of 4:3 (75%) to 16:10 (62.5%) and the inverse of that, 3:4 to 10:16. Vicarious 19:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
However, widescreen is becoming quite popular quite quickly. The standard accepted widescreen resolution for backgrounds seems to be 1920x1200, since this fits the high-end as well as all the lower-end screens. Using a widescreen (1680x1050) myself, I think its a bit of a pity that I have to look so far and wide for backgrounds, else get large standard backgrounds and crop them.Tigerhawkvok 07:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I also strongly agree here, since the majority of laptops being sold lately are widescreen, at 1280x800 resolution. I think that the best thing for users would be to put the pics up and let them decide if they want them or not, possibly organising them based on aspect ratio. Simon80 14:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
This 1920x1200 CRT user strongly supports listing 16:10 (8:5) images, as well as possibly organising these images by aspect ratio... As for those of you that can swivel your LCD to make it a "tallscreen"... well... I'm sure that can be delt with.... Tallscreen gallery anyone? - Aknorals 03:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
This 1280x800/1280x768 lcd panel display user strongly supports the addition of widescreen images. The advantage of 1280x800 images is that when centered on a screen they can work extremely successfully with a 1280x768 panel when using the "center" mode in windows. Again, a good reason being that many laptops(namely HP) are being sold with panels that have a native resolution of 1280x800NeoVampTrunks 02:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Another agree from me. Realistically, the future of TV and computer displays is trending very quickly towards 16:9 and 16:10 respectively. Apple Computer already offer an entirely 16:10 aspect lineup on their displays and for other manufacturers, 1920x1200 is the common "highest" resolution for LCDs. I'd suggest that if a "large" resolution page needs to be made, then 1920x1200 be the resolution, not 1024x768 (which is very small) -- this has the advantage that it supports 1600x1200 (the highest common 4:3 aspect) without scaling. Mattisgoo 05:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I have created such a gallery: Category:Wikipedia featured widescreen desktop backgrounds. At the moment the constraints are an aspect ratio of 16:10 ±6%, minimum width 1024 pixels. Mike1024 (t/c) 17:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Where'd it go?? I remember using this gallery (or one similar to it?) to find many of my desktop backgrounds. I want a new background, and poof! that category is gone. there's seems to be a lot of support and very little opposition of this.--Perwfl (talk) 02:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
The categories were merged with similar categories at the Wikimedia Commons, because consensus determined that whether a picture makes a good wallpaper or not doesn't do much for an encyclopedia. I would have preferred that the categories were kept, but someone did an excellent job of adding all the pictures that were here to the Commons categories. You can find them here: commons:Category:Commons featured desktop backgrounds and commons:Category:Commons featured widescreen desktop backgrounds. --Herald Alberich (talk) 20:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Size

What is the standard for fairly large? Is 72 kb really a fairly large image? Some of these pictures seem too small to really be used for wallpaper. NoIdeaNick 09:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

There should be some guidance in terms of resolution. I don't think the size in KB is too important provided the quality and resolution are good. As the most common PC screen resolution in use is 1024x768, I would propose that as a minimum. In addition, wallpapers look best on a PC if they are the correct resolution for the screen - it is better to resize them in a good photo editing program than let Windows rescale them (they tend to come out a bit sharper - this applies for scaling down as well as up, although scaling the image size up is never good). It is also worth noting that there are many more featured pictures that would make very good desktop images with a little cropping. Halsteadk 13:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I went through and took out all of the images that were below 800x600 that I could find. I'll go back later when I have more time and do a closer check. I could also get rid of some of the bigger images (say everything smaller than 1024x768), but I'm not sure that I want to do that without more discussion. NoIdeaNick 23:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd leave the ones that are 800x600. Until fairly recently, (within the past year?) that was actually the resolution I used. And anyway, backgrounds that I have that are that size stretch to fit the larger resolution just fine. --Jen Moakler 06:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I support 800x600 as a minimum. Some people still have this resolution plus if an image can be centered instead of stretched. Vicarious 19:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd support 1024x768 as the minimum. You cannot purchase a standard monitor without that being pretty much the baseline resolution.Tigerhawkvok 07:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] intro text

There's corrections that the intro needs, firstly, it says an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 5:4, but than says between .73 and .77. this range does not include 5:4 which it states as acceptable. The second issue is a simple ommision, is this a comprehensive list or not? aka, is every image that fits the criteria listed? Vicarious 19:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know that the category is currently comprehensive, but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. In other words, it is possible and even likely that not every image fulfilling the criteria is currently in the category, but there's no reason why an image that does fulfill the criteria shouldn't be included. If you can find an image that meets the critera, by all means add it. NoIdeaNick
I agree it'd be nice if it were comprehensive, perhaps we could find a programmer to write a script that would find such files, perhaps the mathbot guy. My point though was that the intro should say, "this is an incomplete list" so people know that their are/could be other images to be found. Vicarious 01:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

As to the other problem, should it say "anything between .73 and .82", then? --Herald Alberich 18:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed and changed. I'm surprised such a glaring inconsistency stayed around for so long. boffy_b 18:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pages

Would anyone object to having the gallery split into pages with a previous/next option? (example here). I'm on dialup and some of those thumbnails are quite large (spotted 33kb, 35kb and 40kb ones in the first two rows alone), and I imagine the number of images will only increase. - Diceman 11:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little reluctant to this notion even though I too am on dial up, mostly because I don't want to hinder the majority of people (high speed) by causing them to surf multiple pages, but I don't think it's much of a hinderance, and with a proper index on the main page it could even be a benefit. I don't know if it's possible to have an index though, without someone doing a LOT of maintanence. For example, if there's 16 images per page 10 pages and the images are in alphabetic order then when someone adds a nice picture of and aardvark all 10 pages and the index will need modified. Hopefully you have a better idea than my vision. Vicarious 14:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Are the majority of people on broadband? If so, I've fallen behind the times quicker than I thought. Reminds me of the case of 800x600 and 15 inch monitors...
I was mistakenly thinking of this as a page when it is a category ("we could just use the category as an index" I was going to say). If the load time bothers me in the future I might create a low-bandwidth gallery with maybe 40 thumbnails per page. - Diceman 12:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Not only would I say the signficant majority of people that speak english (as a primary language) are on highspeed, but I suspect there's an extra bump for those that visit wikipedia. Vicarious 12:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking of creating a category for hand-picked high resolution images that aren't featured but nonetheless a good alternative to the likes of webshots. Of course I won't be able to browse all of wikipedia's pages myself so others would add their own (hopefully good) picks. It probably couldn't exist as a page as someone would have it deleted for being non-encyclopedic. - Diceman 14:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot Request

I have been discussing with the creator of user:mathbot about automating this process and he's open to the idea but needs to know what we want first. I've mentioned ideas above but need a final answer. I'm creating a farse either or but voting would get hectic otherwise.

  1. Minimum size 800x600 with a ratio of .73-.82 (4:3-5:4 relaxed).
  2. Minimum size 1024x768 with a ratio of .73-.82 (4:3-5:4 relaxed).
  3. Minimum size 1024x768 with a ratio of .60-.82 and 1.2-1.7 (normal and widescreen in horizontal and vertical).


vote here

  • 1 and 3 as seperate categories. Vicarious 19:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, so any comments. I could use my bot to add to this category any pictures over a certain resolution. Do we go with 800x600 or 1024x768? I would prefer the second, I think 800x600 is too small for a wallpaper nowadays. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, so I will follow option 2, add all featured pictures of size at least 1024x768 and ratio of .73-.82 to Category:Featured desktop backgrounds. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Done, here are the images I added, if somebody would like to check what the bot (me!) did. Mathbot 04:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC) Image:Bang_Pa-In_floating_pavilion_edit.jpg -- Image:Ggb_by_night.jpg -- Image:80486dx2-large.jpg -- Image:80486dx2-large.jpg -- Image:MotoX_racing03_edit.jpg -- Image:Albert_Harris_-_Coconut_shy_B.jpg -- Image:Thurston_Lava_Tube.jpg -- Image:P1010027.jpg -- Image:Meadow_Argus02.jpg -- Image:American_Eskimo_Dog.jpg -- Image:Hippo_skull_dark.jpg -- Image:FlyingBugPollinating-Oct15-lighter-cleaner.jpg -- Image:Beetle-Bessbug.jpg -- Image:Xvisionxmonarch.jpg -- Image:Superb_fairy_wren2.jpg -- Image:Dscn3156-daisy-water_1200x900.jpg -- Image:Petrified_wood_closeup_2.jpg -- Image:Pincushion hakea03.jpg -- Image:Chestnuts.jpg -- Image:Pomegranate03 edit.jpg -- Image:Backlit mushroom.jpg -- Image:Mackerelskybig.jpg -- Image:CirrusField-color.jpg -- Image:Snow Scene at Shipka Pass 1.JPG -- Image:Apollo 17 The Last Moon Shot Edit1.jpg -- Image:Air Force One over Mt. Rushmore.jpg -- Image:Columbia.sts-1.pad at night.triddle.jpg -- Image:Twin Linear Aerospike XRS-2200 Engine.jpg -- Image:Challenger explosion.jpg -- Image:Opening Ceremony Athens 2004 Fire rings.jpg -- Image:Apache Wickiup, Edward Curtis, 1903.jpg -- Image:Booby chick.jpg -- Image:Alpamayo.jpg -- Image:Dandelion clock.jpg -- Image:UnripeLemon4.jpg -- Image:Jakarta slumlife65.JPG -- Image:First Gold Beam-Beam Collision Events at RHIC at 100 100 GeV c per beam recorded by STAR.jpg -- Image:Meissner effect.jpg -- Image:Airplane vortex edit.jpg -- Image:Adams The Tetons and the Snake River.jpg -- Image:Kiritimati-EO.JPG -- Image:Peacekeeper-missile-testing.jpg --

[edit] Challenger

What kind of tasteless individual would have that as their desktop bacgground? 172.216.192.72 15:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Challenge Process

While the previous commenter was perhaps a bit hyperbolic, s/he has a valid point. I was led here by the seeming morbidity of suggesting this trench-warfare image as a wallpaper. Have a look -- cheery, no? Notice the (at least) 3 dead soldiers? It's a fantastic image -- but on my desktop?? Anyways, there doesn't seem to be a simple means to suggest pages that shouldn't have been 'bott'ed into this category. I don't know much about this stuff, but what I wanted was to come here and find a link to 'suggest an image for removal' or some such. Was I just fantasizing? Eaglizard 10:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Not "botted," I actually added that one myself. I'm an inclusionist (as far as these categories are concerned, anyway), and I follow the letter of the law when adding pics to this and the widescreen category - as long as they're FPs, are large enough (which they have to be just to be FPs nowadays), and are the proper ratio, I add them. By the way, I'm pretty sure those soldiers are just sleeping, and a history buff might be quite happy to put that one on his background. Here's another image I doubt anyone will use, but I added it to the widescreen category anyway, just because it fits the criteria. I suppose if you really think pictures like that shouldn't be included, you can remove them, explaining why in the edit summary, but I think that decision should rest with the person choosing his/her background, and he/she should get as many choices as possible. --Herald Alberich 05:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion

Can you just put like whatever in here? I put one because it satisfied the three criteria. If there's a process let me know and I'll run it through. ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ Milto LOL pia 01:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope, as long as it's an FP, is large, and is the proper ratio, the only procedure is to add the template. Thanks for being bold. --Herald Alberich 05:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] .svg

I notice the .svg image and didn't think that could be used as a desktop background. I don't see any way to make it so on mine (not that I would want to). I'm not taking it off in case someone knows something different. EgyptianSushi 05:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)