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Help:How to upload your own photos

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Revision as of 18:04, 15 February 2023 by Borderman (talk | contribs) (page created from my other site - work-in-progress)
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Photos provide an important function, especially for a website that uses them extensively for galleries and articles. While many articles do not necessarily require an image to enhance the quality, galleries are redundant without them. Here on The English Lakes we use photos for both galleries and articles so they are necessary to provide a useful resource for everyone.

Uploading your own photos to The English Lakes is fairly straight forward. You will need to create an account first. Once this is done the first step is to click on the upload file link, which is located in the "Tools" menu to the left. You will now be on the upload page, the instruction which look like this:

Upload instructions

Want to upload a file to The English Lakes?

To upload a file to The English Lakes

  • Choose the source file. Other file extensions are also permitted. Whenever possible upload the image with the highest possible resolution.
  • Edit the destination filename below. Use a descriptive and concise filename, e.g. Sunset over Windermere.jpg instead of IMG_0086273.jpg. You will not be able to change the filename once you've uploaded the file unless you move the page.

The following variables must be filled in

  • Description: Write a descriptive and concise caption of your image.
  • Date taken: The creation date, or publication date if creation date is unknown.
  • Author: This is you (hopefully) so link to your username or real name. This is used for attribution purposes.
  • Source: Use "Own work" if you are the author. You can also link to an external site here.
  • Licence: The drop-down licence options, preferably cc-by-sa-4.0 (self)Why should I include this?

The following variables are strongly preferred but not mandatory

  • Latitude and Longitude: These are essential and need to be decimal degrees as they render the map location.
  • OS grid: Ordnance Survey National Grid reference numbers, e.g., NY2621 is a 1km x 1km grid square. On this site it is used for categorising images into grid squares.
  • w3w: This is the what3words address, which is another way to find an exact location. The National trust car park at Buttermere village is checked.piglets.loudly
  • View direction: Provides an approximate direction of view. There are 16 pre-set templates to use; just add one from this table.

Please organise your files after uploading using appropriate categories – see How to create categories.


Please add one of the licences from the drop-down list you wish to include your image under.
It is important file uploads have a licence associated with it. This lets the reader know, for example, if a file is in the public domain in a particular country or not. If you do not provide suitable licence and source information, your upload will be a candidate for deletion after one week. Thank you for your understanding.


It may look complicated with the following options available to you but after a couple of tries it will be like second nature. If you do encounter any problems you can always post any issues on the administrator's noticeboard or email the administrator directly through this site.

Upload options

The upload function is not available unless you have created an account. However, you will be able to upload as many images as you like as long you as you fill the upload form in correctly. The form has the following options:

The standard MediaWiki upload file screen showing the basic options

Source file

Choose the file you wish to upload from the source. We ask that it isn't any larger 30MB but it can be any one of the following file types: gif, ico, jpeg, jpg, ogg, png, svg, pdf.

File description

The file description box includes "file destination" and "summary" which are mandatory. , however, we would prefer that all image uploads are titled appropriately (relating to the image and not just a string of numbers and letters) and that there is at least a brief summary to describe what the image is. This helps when searching the site. The "licensing" drop-down list is there to ensure that the image you upload comes under at least one of those licences.

You should be the author of the photos. We cannot accept other peoples photos without their permission. If you are uploading on their behalf, this should be stated in the summary (more on that screen below).

The summary box has the following for filling out. Some fields are optional. Fill out as many of these fields as necessary. The latitude and longitude are essential as these render the map.

{{Image details
 |description     =
 |date-taken      =
 |author          =
 |source          =
 |licence         =
<!------------------CORDINATES-->
 |latitude        =
 |longitude       =
 |dms-latitude    = <!--optional-->
 |dms-longitude   = <!--optional-->
 |os-grid         =
 |w3w             = <!--optional-->
 |elevation       = <!--optional-->
 |view-direction  = 
<!------------------MAP-->
 |service         = leaflet
 |static          = no
 |zoom            = 14
 |fullscreen      = yes
 |scrollwheel     = yes
 |width           = <!--optional-->
 |height          = <!--optional-->
 |clicktarget     = <!--optional-->
}}


Currently, these are the licences we use and are available in the drop-down list. Selecting a licence on the upload page will display a preview.

Upload options

There are two options. You can choose to "watch" the image page and "ignore and warnings".

  • Watching a page means that it will be added to your watch list, which is accessible from your user area. A watch list is a list of pages you currently watch and if any changes are made to those pages you will be notified.
  • Ignoring warnings simply means you will ignore any warnings that pop up during the file upload process.

That covers the upload screen and its various options. After the image has been uploaded you will be presented with the image page. This page is the image's permanent location and from there it can be included in other locations across the site. For example, to include an image or media file in an article page, use a link in one of the following forms:

  • [[File:your-file-name.jpg]]  →  to use the full version of the file
  • [[File:your-file-name.png|200px|thumb|left|alt text]]  →  a 200 pixel wide rendition in a box in the left margin with "alt text" as your chosen description
  • [[Media:your-file-name.ogg]]  →  for directly linking to the file without displaying the file
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