Hello, users and contributors!
For the last number of years, the Disney Wiki has opted to use promotional artwork (or renders) as profile images for character infoboxes. A number of issues have surfaced over the use of renders, and as such, we have decided to move away from promotional artwork in favor of using cropped screencaps in our infoboxes. Here's an idea of what the change will look like:
Why the change?
The issues that lead to this decision include, but are not limited to:
- Accuracy: How a character appears in promotional art vs. how they appear in their respective films or show is a common point of contention as promotional artwork tends to deviate from the source material in some ways.
- Image source: The origin of a rendered image is a common cause of concern, as some users have the tendency to mistake fan art for official art. This leads to users instilling fan art into infoboxes, which is strictly against the wiki's policies.
- Quality and Elusiveness: Promotional art can be hard to obtain, as they are rarely released by Disney outright. This is a strain for users, as it can take excessive amounts of searching and editing to find decent standalone artwork for a character. As a consequence, the quality of these non-officially released renders are not always the best.
Things to know
With this new implementation, there are some new rules that must be adhered to.
- Non-administrative users are not allowed to change profile images. Doing so will result in an immediate revert. If you have a suggestion for a new profile image for a particular character, read the instructions listed here to learn how your image can be selected. Note: Monthly submission evaluations will not begin until April 30th.
- Characters from the Mickey Mouse universe (Mickey, Goofy, Minnie, Pete, etc.) will continue to use renders for their infoboxes. Reason being, it is nearly impossible to find quality screencaps of these characters in what is considered their modern, traditional designs. This includes those from Silly Symphonies shorts that were later integrated into the Mickey Mouse roster such as the Three Little Pigs.