Tech Tips: Sharing Your Photos at Wikimedia Commons

When you are searching for images that you can freely use online, many of the images you will find are Creative-Commons-licensed images that people have uploaded to websites like Wikimedia Commons. 

For this tip, you will upload a photo to Wikimedia Commons so that others can see and use it. First, you need a Wikipedia account, so complete that Tech Tip first: Wikipedia Account.

Then, you need to decide what you can share. There is a helpful graphic at the Wikimedia Commons site to let you know what kinds of images you can, and cannot, upload and share. If you have travel photos, those are great to share! (For my sample here, I uploaded a scan of an illustration from a book I own that is in the public domain.)

STEP ONE: Upload an image.

Go to Wikimedia Commons, and click on Upload. The wizard will then walk you through the process step by step of uploading the image and writing the image information to go with it. 

There is step by step help here.

When you are done, you will see your image at Wikimedia, with the image information you provided! Here's the illustration I uploaded for this tip: Story of the Deluge.

STEP TWO: Write a blog post.

Write up a blog post with your image, along with image information, including a link to your Wikimedia Commons page. Did the wizard answer all your questions as you were uploading and captioning your image? Have you ever edited a Wikipedia article or uploaded a Wikimedia Commons image before? You can now congratulate yourself on having helped to build Wikipedia!

Finishing Up: After you publish your blog post, you are good to go! Use the phrase "Tech Tip: Wikimedia Commons" as your blog post title and "Tech Tip" as the label; then you can do the Declaration.