Update:

I’ve now decided to continue to post pictures to Wikimedia Commons but I will not be adding them to any relevant page on Wikipedia as a rule. Wikipedia does not want to be a photo gallery and I understand that. My work of posting these images to Wikipedia Commons remains solid and useful.

Original article:

Since I finished what I could of my travel book series, I am now turning to other things. My back has to heal up better and I probably should spend more time indoors to help that along.

I’m now spending quite a bit of time contributing by better photos to Wikimedia, the photo repository for Wikimedia (internal link).

I wasn’t impressed with Wikipedia when it first started. In the last five years it has become much, much better. You still can’t use it as a primary source, since an encyclopedia never can, but you can follow all of its links and references to primary materials. The photos are also great when needed, in that stock photography websites charge insane amounts of money for each image.

One must register with Wikimedia first, upload and describe a photo according to their requirements, and then place a link to it at an appropriate Wikipedia page. I thought the dashboards and the interface the two groups used were too intimidating but it’s not that difficult once you go through it. Just takes time.

I saw there were no photos at Wikipedia on the Nopah Range in Inyo County. At least, none taken while on the ground. Just two photos from the valley floor. I therefore added a photo gallery to this page. Two of these shots are among the best I have ever taken:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopah_Range

Update: I am informed by a polite editor that Wikipedia is not meant to be an image gallery, so pictures will often be removed from a Wikipedia entry. If, however, an article is very short, a large amount of photos will be tolerated. It all depends. I am learning.

Original article returns:

Seeing no photos of a wild Red Rock Canyon desert tortoise, I added my four tortoise photos to this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rock_Canyon_National_Conservation_Area
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It took most of this morning to get my Nopah photos up but they are now up permanently posted where they await somebody 12 years from now to do a report. Many photos I am going to post have been seen here but not organized, not full sized, and not with a copyright release.

Here’s what I did for the Darwin, California entry. You might remember that a friend and I were recently there for a nighttime fluorescent mineral hunt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin,_California

Update: My photo gallery has been largely removed by an editor, again, because Wikipedia does not desire to be a photo gallery. Understood. My images remain at Wikipedia Commons to be searched for and placed by others (or myself) into appropriate articles.

Original article returns:

If you are sitting on a hard drive of travel photos or something about your hobby, I’d encourage you to check out how photos can be added to these two resources. Document history with old photos you might have sitting in paper envelopes. The photo below shows Nevada’s Rye Patch Recreation Area signboard in 1995 when the reservoir was dry and before the area got popular for nugget shooting. I added that to the Rye Patch Wikipedia entry. Many of us have these little history gems just waiting to be posted.

In adding what we have, we build up what’s called the inverted pyramid of knowledge. With Wikipedia and Wikimedia, everyone can help.

I wish you good health until my next report.

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