Is it allowed to add a link to a non-ODbL compliant picture to an OSM object?

[alan_gr (Alan)]

@KoiAndBlueBird

The specific problems with the image tag (or wikimedia_commons, etc.) do not really arise here, as there is (most of the time) just nature and one POI and a single photo of it.

Does wikimedia_commons= have a significant advantage over image here=, in that it can point to a category? So another mapper with a more recent photo could point to a category including both your and their images. With image= they would have to decide if their image is “better” than yours, or if the location has changed enough to justify replacing your photo, or if a winter image is more useful than a summer image, or…

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

Yes, I’d say that’s an advantage, for things that are photographed enough to warrant a category. The existence of a category on Commons automatically qualifies the thing for an item on Wikidata, which can link to Commons and feature the most representative photo within the category. Some applications like OsmAnd already know how to discover photos via Wikidata. So ultimately wikimedia_commons=Category:* is merely a placeholder for a future wikidata=* tag, but a pretty useful placeholder for someone who doesn’t have the time to create a bunch of items.

Recently there was an extensive discussion about the relationship between image and wikimedia_commons that touched on some of the points made here:

Restrict wikimedia_commons URLs as image=* tag values?

Hi everyone, this topic has been discussed many times, but nothing has been done, so let’s try another time in the new forum . At the moment, there are at least 82650 image=* tags having a commons url as a value (I just looked for “commons” value in taginfo, but some are tagged using the File:/Category: syntax so the value count is way higher). Reading the wiki talk page seems like the majority of the people agree that duplicate the information in both image=* and wikimedia_c…

[SK53]

@KoiAndBlueBird

Here I disagree. The reason why I was asking this question is so that I can add images to remote location on/near hiking (long distance) paths like the West Highland Way or the Cape Wrath Trail. The images can (and will!) help a hiker especially during the route planning phase to spot good places to set up camp or whether a hut is a viable sleeping possibility (not all are on the MBA website), etc.

I don’t see how this contradicts @pnorman . I might choose entirely different images in identical locations.

If photos are accurately geolocated and hosted on a site where that can be queried easily there is no need to add that information to OSM (see how cycle.travel does this). It also avoids the issue of ensuring an image tag is updated if something like a bothy is destroyed or taken out of use. If I walked the Cape Wrath ‘trail’ when rivers and streams are in spate then I may want good photos to choose a good place to ford them, but these places change, the underlying imagery where the river crosses the end of Sandwood Bay is quite different from what is mapped.

[KoiAndBlueBird]

@SK53

If photos are accurately geolocated and hosted on a site where that can be queried easily there is no need to add that information to OSM […].

But adding a wikidata or wikimedia_commons category is surely of use?

[Mateusz_Konieczny]

@KoiAndBlueBird

But adding a wikidata or wikimedia_commons category is surely of use?

or wikipedia tag.

as long it matches and it is not linking ceb botopedia or Wikidata entry generated for ceb article - yes.

( Cebuano Wikipedia - Wikipedia - basically entirely bot generated, wild duplication between their wikidata entries and of human-edited Wikipedias)