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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions#Video timestamps

Infobox caption of team sport athlete

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WP:CAPTION lists one of the criteria of a good caption as provides context for the picture. MOS:CAPLENGTH lists an example of "Publicity photo for Jailhouse Rock (1957)" for Elvis Presley, which gives relevant context for an actor beyond the standard "<surname> in <year>".

At Kobe Bryant, the infobox image shows him in a uniform with "Lakers". The caption has long read "Bryant with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2014". It was changed by Seasider53 to "Bryant in 2014" with the rationale "Rv, per policy previously linked to. Users wanting additional info can click on the image".[1]

Other team sport athlete bios with a caption bearing their pictured team include Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rodri, Megan Rapinoe, Shohei Ohtani, Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James, and Caitlin Clark.

Should the infobox caption of a team sport athlete in a uniform include mention of the team? —Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as it adds additional info. Also, it will not always be obvious to users to click on the photo. Assadzadeh (talk) 06:05, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Users who click on the image are presented with: "Kobe Bryant playing for the Los Angeles Lakers during a game against the Washington Wizards on December 3, 2014."
If an image doesn't have this information in it, it wouldn't be available to be included in the caption, so I don't understand your statement. Seasider53 (talk) 08:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are several criteria for a good caption. A good caption:
1. clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious;
2. is succinct
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. For cherry-picking balance, should I add a list of articles which adhere to said policy? Seasider53 (talk) 08:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
without detailing the obvious: Non-fans of a given sport would generally not be familiar with any displayed team name or location on a uniform. —Bagumba (talk) 08:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And what about the guideline example of Publicity photo for Jailhouse Rock (1957)? Change that to "Publicity photo for Jailhouse Rock ( Presley in 1957) as well, because "succint" and hey, just "click on the image"? —Bagumba (talk) 08:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nailed it. Seasider53 (talk) 08:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: - also worth mentioning re: "Non-fans of a given sport would generally not be familiar with any displayed team name or location on a uniform" that only in North America is it the norm to have either the city name or nickname of the team in massive letters on the front. No such clues in, for example, Lionel Messi's infobox image -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but there's still the reader curiosity of which team is the player pictured with. A general concept at MOS:LINK is:

Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links

Of course, the opponent, exact date, or photographer is trivial to most images, and those are generally not needed in a caption. —Bagumba (talk) 09:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is nowhere in the policy that says the default is "<Person name> in <Year>" so articles which don't use this formualtion can still adhere to the policy. Given Elvis is used as an example, it is clear that other descriptors are allowed, and the ideal caption can range from none at all to a regular full-sentence caption
I see no problem with mentioning the team name, though I wouldn't go as far as saying it should always be included. Spike 'em (talk) 11:32, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't go as far as saying it should always be included: Yes, one might have a portrait with a generic or obscured uniform, like at George Sisler, that leads to an editorial decision that a team mention is not relevant. But that's on a per-case basis.—Bagumba (talk) 11:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the information is not visible in the image but it is in the file info (as is the case with Sisler), why would you not include it in the caption? This is so backwards, it’s laughable. Seasider53 (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, you were the one blindly stripping captions to plain "<surname> in <year>", telling us to "click on the image". But now you find it "laughable" for a caption to have less info than the file? —Bagumba (talk) 13:36, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LAKERS. Seasider53 (talk) 13:39, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which LAKERS? Is this a developmental team named the Lakers for a player making his way back from injury? Is this the Minneapolis Lakers? Why do you assume everything is inherently obvious to the point of being self-evident? The policy says the caption should give "relevant context". If the team for which a player is playing is not relevant context, I don't know what is. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 16:35, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The one listed in his infobox, right below the image. I didn't realise he only played for one team, which makes this whole thing even more wild. Seasider53 (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A weaselly explanation, considering you've removed them from players with multiple teams too, e.g Wayne Rooney.[2] WP:CAPTION anyways says (emphasis added):

Different people read articles in different ways. Some people start at the top and read each word until the end. Others read the first paragraph and scan through the article's body for other interesting information, looking especially at pictures and captions. Those readers, even if the information is adjacent in the text, will not find it unless it is in the caption.

—Bagumba (talk) 19:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is bizarrely assumptive, isn't it? I agree, as you stated elsewhere, that we should use caption wordings on a per-article basis. If we don't feel the extraneous information benefits the reader, the caption should state the bare minimum. If readers aren't able to deduce that the image of Bryant is from his days with the Lakers, we should hold their hand at said article. Seasider53 (talk) 20:24, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said... he could have been playing with a developmental league team on rehab from an injury. You can't know that from the image alone. Certainly non-basketball fans wouldn't know better. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 20:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is also the text in MOS:CAPTION which says In a biography article no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone, but one might be used to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject. The team being represented in the photo would certainly count as "other circumstances" to me, as does the film in the Elvis example. Spike 'em (talk) 12:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't see a good reason to be so strict about the caption. The longstanding caption at the Bryant article seemed reasonable to me. Seasider53's approach seems anti-reader, and certainly isn't required by any policy. Zagalejo (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a need for a hard-and-fast rule. Regarding the Kobe caption, either alternative is acceptable, which means that it wasn't necessary to change the status quo. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Captions for Portraits in Biography Articles

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I find this sentence unclear (2nd paragraph, 2nd line): "In a biography article, no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone; but one might be used to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject."

Let’s assume I don’t add a caption to the portrait image, the caption section will still appear, but it will be empty by default. So, it should be mentioned that the image should be frameless, or we should fix the sentence. Because I don’t think "In a biography article, no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone" is practical — the caption can always help to provide context and understanding for the reader. Riad Salih (talk) 20:01, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you're proposing what precisely? Wehwalt (talk) 01:25, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Don’t you think that all images in this case should have captions and that the frameless option is rarely used? Riad Salih (talk) 05:38, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think some people have made it their business to add captions to every infobox image they can. Whether that means it should be made a rule is quite another issue. Wehwalt (talk) 12:28, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They should stop doing that. Search the text widener in WP:Principle_of_Some_Astonishment. EEng 14:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng@Wehwalt But this sentence isn't used for the infoboxes, but in general. This means that in an article, if I add a picture of another portrait in a section, for example, I shouldn't add a caption. In this case, the caption section will still be visible but empty, In the template settings, it should be changed to frameless. This is what I mean. Riad Salih (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It already says that a caption "might be used to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject". You even quoted it. So, we are already giving advice for you to "provide context and understanding for the reader" as you want. And changing one picture to be frameless when other images in the article aren't would look horrible. Much worse than an empty caption. Especially since, as established above, we are already told that a caption that contextualizes the image can be added. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation after "Figure 1"

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Which style should we prefer for figure numbers (referenced elsewhere) in captions?

  • Figure 1 Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1 Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1: Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1: Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1: Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1. Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1. Lorem ipsum
  • Figure 1. Lorem ipsum

174.138.212.166 (talk) 02:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Figure 1. Lorem ipsum (6th option).—Alalch E. 22:37, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard § Discussion at far-left politics

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard § Discussion at far-left politics. —Alalch E. 10:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]