Forum:Deleting Talk Pages Only Images

So I was doing some conversion of JPGs to PNGs, and discovered that a majority of them are only used in talk pages that have long since been resolved. And checking these Images Used only at Talk Pages, I see that they are all resolved and are just a burden to this wiki if we keep them here. Reasons include:
 * 1) Problems have been resolve, pointless to keep them any longer.
 * 2) Some are very poorly named, renaming them would be forcing open some closed forums and  archived talk pages.
 * 3) A good deal of them are JPGs, no sense in converting them just for a long ended talk.
 * 4) Some of them are poor quality.
 * 5) Some are doctored/marked, with highlights, boxing, collages, etc, which are all not allowed in our image guidelines.
 * 6) A few of them are actually scanlations.
 * 7) Some have no sources, and probably would take a long time to find those sources.
 * 8) Some may be duplicates of images that we are using for articles (like we already have this, and we don't need this).
 * 9) Some are just charts, screens, and whatnot created by users, not taken from manga/anime/other related sources.

My suggestion is to erase all these long-due images (if we cannot find a single good use for them in any articles/templates), replacing them with a Redlink. And in the future, any talk page only images should be deleted once the talk has been resolved. 04:18, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

Discussion
I'd kind of support keeping them just for archiving purposes, and maybe in case a user might want to talk about something that's already been resolved. But I have no problem with them being deleted anyways. They've served their purpose. 04:33, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

A lot of them have already been deleted anyway like ones on user talk pages. So it can go either way. The ones I will absolutely support getting deleted are ones that were incredibly pointlessly uploaded when they could have just been externally linked. SeaTerror (talk) 18:58, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

Well, first off, all those useless ones would be the charts and graphs and other wiki background screens. Technically, if they are used only for talk pages, then ALL images can be externally linked. 01:13, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

I also checked, though not related to this topic, that there are other JPGs that are not yet marked with the Jpg. Is there anyone who knows how to track down all files of one type? 04:07, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

External links don't always last especially like how Imageshack went full commercial and disabled free uploading. I meant an image like http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mermen_falling_on_Sea_Urchin_Armor_Spine_Squad.png. SeaTerror (talk) 04:24, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

Yes, for external link people can indeed just point to a website if they want to point to an image for reference, and let the link die out later, rather than keeping such images to clean up later, risking being forgotten. As for all these easily referenced manga/anime images (like the Urchin Squad one), we can get rid of them since it's easy to point out what chapter/episode they are in and look up there later. Is that what you mean? 05:26, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

I meant an image like that can just be linked to an external scanlation site and if needed then later updated to a different one. There are some images we can't delete like RAW databook images since those would be hard to find elsewhere. SeaTerror (talk) 19:09, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

Those aside, there are many easy to find manga images that we can link. But even databook images have served their purposes, hard to see why we need those anymore either. 23:29, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

So if I don't see much response, I can start initializing the mass delete of all manga-page images for talk pages? What about the others? 15:51, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

There might be some that we really don't need anymore. There are probably some scan ones out there that could be updated to raw images we already have. But there are also a good amount of them that should stay. Going through them all would include reading entire forums in order to understand why the image is there, and would be an absolute shitload of work. I'm just not convinced it's worth it to start another big project that's going to go unfinished for some time. We were supposed to delete all jpgs like 2 or 3 years ago now? 16:33, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, but impractical at this stage. Unless someone is volunteering to go through all talk page only images and change them with an external link, I don't think this would actually happen, at best for a good year, and more likely never. How about we just make it a rule from now on, and if anyone going through an archived talk page finds an image they object to they're perfectly welcome to change it to an external link? That way they'll be changed if there's any fuss, and we won't have a problem from now on.

16:44, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with JSD and Nova. 16:47, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

I don't want any external links, as they're not viable long-term. Any images that need to stay must be uploaded here. 16:50, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

But if they need to stay, they'd be on article pages. If they don't need to stay, there's no problem removing them. Which images are essential for talk pages but not actually important for articles?

16:56, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

The other problem with that is we're not allowed to edit other people's talk page messages like that unless it's for redlinks. SeaTerror (talk) 19:16, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

I have no issue with removing images from user talk pages. We should have already, as far as I'm concerned.

Forums and wiki talk pages are another issue. Policies, rules, and page content are based on discussions, and we should make sure that if an image is essential to the discussion, it should continue to be a part of a discussion. For the very same reasons why we never delete the discussions themselves we should not delete the images.

Sure, there are plently of discussions out there that aren't that essential to rules, policies, and page decisions, and do I think we need to keep those images? Not really. But I also don't want to see people spend the next 2 years wasting effort trying to read all these discussions to try and figure out which images "are essential" (a subjective and likely problem causing issue on its own). 19:54, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

I arrived late, so I'll just add my two cents and leave. We should keep them, for both archiving and context. We don't know if the issue it helped resolve might resurface in the future, so it's good to have it at the ready if it does. They provide context to stuff. If they illustrate a point that is relevant to a discussion, then deleting the picture is no different than deleting someone's key post. 20:04, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

Some should be deleted like the one I linked earlier. That was just uploaded to be uploaded when an external link would have been fine. SeaTerror (talk) 20:13, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

Well, if we are gonna delete it, then we should set up a bot for that, to hunt down all the red links afterwards. If we do keep them, what about the jpg situation? Those should've been cleared up 2-3 years ago, as JSD mentioned. 22:10, August 11, 2015 (UTC)