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When I'm interested in a national park or landscape, I'd prefer to see a landscape, not someone posing in front of a landscape. That in itself makes it worse to my mind.

If Wikipedia were to let that pass, we could "look forward" to product placement attempts in every damn photo on the site.

Few pixels it may be, but it's a line that's important not to cross. Ever.

I don't know man. A ton of companies clearly edit their own articles and it's often fine for me for information purposes. If it's true that one of the main reasons to check these pages out is for tourism ideas then these better, professionally-shot results are really hard for me to get outraged about.

If a medical supply company replaced medical article photos with much better versions but which showed their logos in a few pixels on some equipment, would this be unacceptable for you?

For me the production value would probably be worth it.

How can I sensibly choose if to do business with someone if I am only getting positive spin? When I see a page that's clearly been sanitised I try and dismiss it completely - and often the firm with it. Or go hunting for balance - which might be hugely counter productive for my overall view of the company if I land up on a complaints site.

Of the "landscapes", take the image of the woman in black in dead centre of shot - it's terribly framed unless you just wanted a photo of your wife's ass. For deciding if I'd like to visit the region the only thought is "get out of the damn way". The orange tent in corner of landscape? Crop that shit out and have a decent landscape shot. Better still, get a photographer bright enough to take 3 steps left first.

The production value is solely of product placement not landscape photography, suited only for their website. Now then, if North Face had paid a renowned landscape photographer to take some excellent photos for Wikipedia it could become well known with no logo or product in sight. Positive PR, and probably a note on North Face's page for genuine production values. Except that's no longer an advertising campaign.

What did North Face achieve? Made sure I buy Patagonia, or Jack Wolfskin etc next time I'm buying outdoor gear - which I do fairly regularly.

If the shots were distracting or not appropriate for the pages, do you know why the changes didn't get reverted?

You have tried to make this argument several times. Do you actually think that a committee of editors carefully reviews every single change made to Wikipedia? That is not the case.

yes, I think that editors on most pages act like little lords and ladies over what they view as their property and instantly revert anything from outsiders that doesn't fit with their conception or isn't a clear improvement. (This has been my experience). sorry, that was my experience.

You're presenting a personal pov that's grossly hyperbolic even in its subjectivity and does not reflect reality. With the exception of a hand-full of highly sensible topics that are prone to brigading, such as political issues, most articles barely receive any edit and are far from being monitored. Articles that are particularly vulnerable are articles on geography-related topics from nations that don't have a strong wikipedia presence.

I mean, it's not that hyperbolic. Wikipedia is a highly toxic place for many people. Even the foundation appreciates this.

> If a medical supply company replaced medical article photos with much better versions but which showed their logos in a few pixels on some equipment, would this be unacceptable for you?

I think the key difference is that the hypothetical medical supply company produces the products that the article you're talking about is written about. I'm fine with seeing Coca-Cola logos on the Wikipedia article about Coca-Cola.

The North Face, however, does not own the national parks and scenic locales from the articles they defaced. They were not adding professionally shot photos to articles about North Face products.

I meant in a wikipedia page about something medical, such as kidney stones, say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_stone_disease (I don't think that picture is the best ever.)

not on a page that's related to them or their equipment. What do you think about such a scenario, if the logo is small?

I think there's a fundamental conflict of interest allowing corporate-backed editors to slip in photos of their logos like that. I don't think it's something that Wikipedia should endorse (and remove when they find it).

I don't have a problem with the logo itself. I have a problem with the motivations behind a corporation having the power to manipulate the information seen on such a global resource like Wikipedia that has almost nothing to do with their company.

of course, the conflict of interest is obvious. I just don't see it as a big deal if the result is better. if the result is worse I think it would get reverted.

I think it extremely important to stay distinct from any messages of commercial intent - except only on pages relevant to that - like a page about advertising, or Nestle's and North Face's pages etc.

The risk is ruining the whole thing by introducing commercial bias everywhere. The already imperfect mods now have a new, and probably impossible, spam filtering job. It's already imperfect and shows considerable bias on some pages, so you want to explicitly permit more?

Where does it stop? Who defines "better"? If you allow ABC Medical to discretely brand the image, do you allow XYZ Medical to replace those with photos with their brand? If not, that's hardly fair, so why not? What if it's ever so slightly less discrete? Are we expected to keep trusting the advice on the pages when an illness page is covered with Pfizer images - who entirely coincidentally just happen to have a drug for that illness? Do they get to bombard Wikipedia with "better" advertising laden photos ad nauseum until there's a can of Brawndo in every article, or every editor gives up and quits?

There's far too much advertising, branding, empty PR, and corporate shilling in the world already without proposing more vandalism and allowing idiots to shit adverts and brands all over one of the few spots that remains relatively clean.

Everywhere is not a sales opportunity.

in theory if XYZ Medical and ABC medical get into a war of replacing the image with better and better ones, while making their logos smaller or smaller, the articles win by ending up with the best photos of all.

so it's a question of whether the result is objectively better.

the shilling concerns you raise about article text are more than real. they're a battleground of socket puppet manipulation.

in theory that's why things have to be sourced, original research isn't allowed, neutrality has to be kept, etc. but in practice it's a really bad.

so I'm much more concerned about article text than I am about images and you raise a really valid concern.

Wikipedia and Wikimedia have a heavy preference for landscape photos without people in them. Not that they're totally against it, but it still runs against the norm.

The photos were uploaded as CC BY-SA, which I think is probably a silver lining, even though the deletion nominations often talk about blurring or removing the trademarked logo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_North_Face_W...

if there's a heavy preference for not having people, why were the replacements kept by the original editors? (why did they stick).

Does Wikipedia have a policy on logos in photos in general?

There is a ton of stuff companies could do that include their brand in an incidental way. Here is the article on kidney stones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_stone_disease

imagine a medical supply company took an objectively much better photo but had its logo in tiny letters somewhere on the tape measure or a beaker or something. seems to me a fair trade, it's pretty hard to take stunning photos and there are lots of subjects that don't have it. as long as it's just a few pixels and passes a normal human filter (it's better than what it replaced) I am just not seeing the huge harm. if the after picture was worse, it should get shown in this outrage article.

Companies could also just provide good photos under open licenses above board. Sure, no guarantee your pictures will get taken, and the marketing agency doesn't get to talk how cleverly they avoided getting caught by Wikipedia editors, but that's the kind of thing that makes people unhappy about your contributions.

People are not nesessary in those photos. They are obstructing the view.