Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:04:39 UTC
Currently when an image is deleted, if it was being used in article/s, it instead appears as a grey box with a red link to the image name. e.g. http://fi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katujen_kasvatit&oldid=1264113 This causes editors to get angry if images are deleted without being "removed from use" because the red links are ugly and unprofessional. Removing images from use is tiresome, especially if the image is widely used (a la Commons). Could this representation of deleted images be changed to be less intrusive, if not invisible? (simply display nothing at all if the image doesn't exist) Then images could be deleted without having to worry about this. Thanks!
Then you wouldn't notice of a missing image. Moreover, people adding non-existant images will be puzzled of why it doesn't show. You may add a new class for these images so it can be CSS hiddenable (for anonymous users, for example) but it should show.
I agree with #1: "broken" image references must be visible, at least to editors. But even to "readers" it may be confusing to not see the "broken" image, if the text references it explicitely. Generally: A Wiki is never finished, and pages in it are never perfect. If there's something wrong with a page, fix it, don't ignore it.
As an afterthought: it would probably help if it would show on the watchlist when an image used on a watched page gets deleted. I'm planning to add a feature to CommonsTicker that would achieve something like this. Anyway, this would be a separate feature request.
It would be nice to be able to see "usage history" for an image, but that would likely be something suitable for the toolserver.
usage history is impossible to do efficiently. it would require to search the fulltext of every revision of every article, since the image was uploaded. And that would still miss usage through a template.
OK, I actually agree, there should be something. That doesn't mean it couldn't be more subtle than what we have at the moment. (In reply to comment #2) > Generally: A Wiki is never finished, and pages in it are never perfect. If > there's something wrong with a page, fix it, don't ignore it. And do you think the current method is working, with projects screaming blue murder at Commons for deleting images being used? Don't you agree this proposed solution could help this problem?
People need to be able to hunt down broken image links, as with broken template links etc.
