Talk:1911 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

Re-addition of image file and caption to article

At 06:55 on 10 June 2026, FromCzech made the following edit: .

In that edit, they deleted the following photo and caption (which I have re-inserted into the article):

FromCzech invoked MOS:CAPTION, however quoted no actual articulation, whatsoever, from that MOS policy.

I will admit that the caption is unconventionally quite long, however, there is no absolute policy against having a caption of that length.

(Before I begin, I should say that the file is PUBLIC DOMAIN, and hence is perfectly legal for me to use).

4 key points I would make:

1) Guideline 1: "A caption may be a few words or several sentences". There are a total of 6 sentences - none being particularly long. The number 6 does not stretch the definition of the word "several".

2) Guideline 2: "Corollary: if you have nothing to say about it, then the image probably does not belong in the article." There was PLENTY to say about the image, and I said it, providing multiple references. The text on the right is not only the only photo that I know of that positively identified all of the members of this championship-winning team, it also does something VERY important - claim that various of the team members were not of the nation to which they have been historically credited, and I also provided another source, also easily accessible in the public domain, that further bolsters that claim numerous times. And there were other important points to make regarding the picture, as well. There are possibly numerous places that this information could be relevant, however, I preferred to keep all the information in one place.

3) Guideline 3: "Succinctness is using no superfluous or needless words. It is not the same as brevity, which is using a relatively small number of words." There was a lot of information to cover, as the information contained in the text in the photo has quite significant potential ramifications. I used very little, if anything, in the way of floral, superfluous speech. The caption might not have been brief, but it was succinct.

4) Guideline 4: This page in a nutshell: Image captions should be succinct and informative. The caption was succinct and informative.

FromCzech, before doing a complete deletion of an image that is not only legally permissible to use, but also contains a caption that, while perhaps manifested unconventionally, is still within MOS guidelines according to numerous points, including the main nutshell point, I think you should reach out for a very broad consensus.QuakerIlK (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

• Hello! MOS:CAPTION: Captions should be succinct; more information can be included on its description page or in the main text.. MOS:CAPSUCCINCT: More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; instead, further information can be provided in the article body. And remember that readers wanting full detail can click through to the image description page. And as I wrote in the Edit summary, the image is clearly disruptive and in this form it is better not to have it at all. We already have a full team photo on the page, and an art poster is not needed for this topic. FromCzech (talk) 04:03, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I just undid your deletionism again. As I essentially stated in the edit summary, your revision was borne of extreme laziness. You don't at all argue that the information that I presented doesn't belong anywhere. If you think that, you should launch an argument with a central point. Also, don't mistake a lapse in time with lack of ability to refute your latest point. There is plenty more of such that can come. If I had thought that you had the temerity to delete nearly all of that caption while resting on your easily undermined latest rationale, I would have actually responded with yet further cautioning. But I have things I have to do in the meantime, right now, like eat dinner and rest and such. Any further deletionism from you without further discussion and patience with the process and discussion will only look like a hot-headed edit war on all of the material that I carefully and legally introduced, and claims of both hounding and nationalistic bias can easily be launched against you.QuakerIlK (talk) 22:58, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I honestly don't need any more time. The following further points come about quite easily.

• The 3 Lines issue is highly subjective and far from an absolute rule. At 300 px on the article page, the caption is 26 lines. At 550 px on the talk page, the caption is 14 lines. If the photo was full page width (and I have seen wide captions as wide as 1300 px), it could be only 6 lines. (Would you like the photo to be full page width?) Also, the 3-line limit is only a recommendation, not an absolute rule. If a file is displayed as an image at 200px, that would literally accommodate only maybe 15-20 words. One such on the Vlasta Děkanová page, featuring her and Alois Hudec and Jan Gajdos, is only 200px, and the first 3 lines accommodate only 14 words. "Several sentences" is far more than 14 words.
• Prove that the edit and overall edit is "disruptive". It is perhaps distracting. "Distracting" and "disruptive" are not the same word and do not carry the same meaning. Any photo on any article is going to be more "distracting" and information-getting than mere text, and photos are most definitely not disallowed on Wikipedia, especially if they are legally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, as this one has been, as it is Public Domain. All of the relevant information to that photo best belongs compartmentalized in the caption. The information in the caption, stating the reason for the file's inclusion, belongs in the same place as the photo, rather than in another place where any interested reader would have to do more work (computer clicks to access, for example), which would require even more action and work from the reader, in addition to checking the multiple sources in the caption with yet more clicks and off-site access and unnecessary data usage. Having all relevant parts on one page reduces data usage.
• You state that an art poster is not needed for the topic. First of all, back up that opinion. Second of all, the inclusion of the poster does not extend beyond the width of the team photo, and the text relevant to the team photo extends to more than 3/4 of the length of the poster. The page works best as a whole.
• If you have problems with the semi-redundancy posed with this photo, then the team photo at top can be replaced by this photo, as it is more fully informative. However, they are not the same. The team photo includes their coach, whereas the full page photo does not. Also, the team photo shows the team members with their competitor numbers and the full page photo does not, although it includes the non-competing team alternates. The photos are far from the same.QuakerIlK (talk) 23:45, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
• Furthermore, the topic we are dealing with falls within the humanities and social sciences. A quick AI overview presented when doing a Google search for “average sentence length in academic writing” says that the *average* sentence length, within this broad discipline that generally features longer sentence lengths than within STEM, is 20-25 words. The average for the caption I wrote is 30 words (approximately 180 words divided by 6 sentences). The number “7” does not stretch the definition of “several”, and 7 times 25 words is 175 words. Remember, those are just averages. The caption falls within the number of allowable sentences and it is barely outside of the parameters for “average” for the word count that one would expect to find within “several” sentences within this broad discipline.

Sorry for the long delay in replying, but this is WP:WALLOFTEXT, which I had trouble reading, and I also don't understand the confrontational tone and accusations of laziness. Why are you still addressing the existence of the image in the article, when I stopped addressing it after User:EvergreenFir adjusted the image size? I'm only addressing the length of the caption, which clearly contradicts MOS. It's long and confusing, so no one will read it. The three lines recommendation is only a recommendation (even my proposal had four lines), but we should follow it as much as possible, and the current 26 lines are far beyond the recommendation and full of details unnecessary for the page as a whole. FromCzech (talk) 04:48, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

I asked for WP:3O because I feel like it's impossible for us to convince each other of our opinions, and because this discussion clearly doesn't encourage anyone from the outside to contribute. FromCzech (talk) 05:00, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

As far as I know, there is no firm maximum on the size of a caption. Guidance varies noting the "several sentences", "three lines" rules the two of you note. I also note MOS:CAPTION indicates that captions are normally sentence fragments, sometimes sentences. The lack of firm word count is because it is subjective and varies from place to place. In this instance, it's my opinion that the caption is too long. Just because there are relevant things to say about the image does not need they need to go into the caption. If they are relevant, they can be added to the article. See, for example, the example given at MOS:CAPCONTEXT: there is plenty more that could be said about The Last Supper, but just 21 words suffices. While I'm not going to try to draft a new one, I'll also, the caption is not succinct. For example, it mentions multiple times who is second from the left vs second from the right. Details comparing it to other sources likewise should probably be in the body of the article. Noting and sourcing the page is also likewise not necessary, unless I am missing something. meamemg (talk) 18:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Fourth opinion: I was also taking a look at this, here are my thoughts:

I can see that the addition of the image and caption was done in good faith, with effort to referencing the information. However, I feel that the image is being used incorrectly (technically in terms of its size and also in its placement and use in conveying information). I feel that it was the correct decision to remove the image and caption, which was visually disruptive and could cause technical problems on mobile platforms, particularly with tables above and below it. I would like to note that while the image and caption were removed from the current version of the article, all the information is still there in the article history and can be accessed and recovered by anyone. It isn't irrevocably deleted, and deletionism can be a derogatory term so let's avoid that.

Images should illustrate the prose they accompany (WP:IMGCONTENT), with succinct captions for explanation or to aid in connecting the image to the prose (WP:CAPTION, section "Some criteria for a good caption"). Here, the image is set alongside the Medal table footnotes but does not illustrate any of them and is disconnected from the prose. The image–caption relationship is a bit circular, with the image used as a source for the caption explaining it. It seems to be used as a reference for members of the winning team, with additional sources used in the caption to explain its inaccuracies.

It's all a bit much and so far beyond normal practices that I find it WP:ASTONISHing.

The image is a full page of a newspaper. Something like that shouldn't be used unless the prose is describing a full page of the newspaper. (For example, sometimes an article about a newspaper will have an image of a front page of that newspaper as an example of its style and layout.)

My recommendations:

• A lot of the information in the long caption, which appears to be well developed, could possibly be placed with the image's page on Commons, either somewhere in the description – not the caption! – or on the image's talk page. I'm not especially familiar with Commons policy so please check on this.
• If it is an official poster for the event, the poster could be cropped out of the large image and used in the article with an appropriate caption, also adding some sourced text to the prose about the poster and artist.
• For the group photo in the large image, I'm not sure if it's needed. The caption from the long image acknowledges that the group photo at the top of the article is of the "officially competing members", so I don't know why we would want to have another group photo with a couple alternates in place of officially competing members.
• Most of the long caption is talking about what is wrong on the newspaper page. I don't feel its necessary to include that in the article unless it is notable as a hoax or myth regarding the event. I feel that it's also best to avoid nationality arguments which can be contentious. Simply stating which country an athlete competed for at this event is sufficient, without going into whether they were 'historically recognized' as Russian, Bohemian, etc.

I would also like to recommend some reorganization of the first section of the article (everything above Medal table). It's a bit difficult to read with the discussion of sources and parenthetic statements. I would suggest breaking it into two sections: Event/Competition/Tournament to summarize what is known, and something like Historiography to discuss the sources and what has been pieced together (being careful to avoid original research and combining sources to make a statement that isn't verified by any of them). Then, create a lead section which summarizes the article.

This is a non-binding third fourth opinion, but I hope it helps! – Reidgreg (talk) 15:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

In terms of the number of opinions that have been introduced that side against the vast majority of the content of my edit, this opinion makes a third, not a fourth. Only FromCzech, meamemg, and Reidgreg have chimed in so far. Moreover, all 3 opinions have so far skirted or not at all contended with 3 points, 1 of which I am introducing now.

• 1) FromCzech has been hounding me.
• 2) FromCzech is a Czech national and the fact that I am introducing evidence (of which I have more than what I have so far shared) to support that past Czech champions were not Czech might offend them. (And I should add that ALL of the sources that I have been using, so far, in this matter, are Czech.) So you may want to consider their reason for their having asked for additional opinions to begin with. If they didn't have problems with such claims, then surely such would be borne out by them attempting to salvage the material. However, once buttressed by second and third opinions, they went back to deleting almost all of the information, including all references in the caption, and they didn't, AT ALL, attempt to salvage any of the referenced information, which should give rise to suspicions to their offense, I would think. Their actions reflect their intent.
• 3) Also, none of you have brought up the similarities between captions accompanying files/images and quote boxes. There is a quote box on the main article for Judaism ( Judaism#Rabbinic_hermeneutics ) in which the 13 Principles of Hermeneutics are outlined, and the word count on that is TWICE the word count of the caption I originally had. The only difference between a quote box and a caption is that one isn't attached to a file/image and the other is. They are both "free-floating" and interact with the format of the article in the same way, which addresses many of your points/concerns. Also, the page for quote boxes does not mention length limits for content AT ALL. I would also say that far more people look on at that article and have had no such complaints with its formatting whereas that quote box is concerned, so I don't understand the focus on formatting issues with this, especially on a page that surely receives far less traffic than the main article for Judaism does.

As far as WP:ASTONISHing qualities are concerned, this is a file and relevant content I have introduced only on an article for a competition from over a century ago. If I had astonishment as a goal, I could have easily put it somewhere far more prominent.

As far as compatibility with mobile devices is concerned, don't be absurd. The user can either switch to Desktop view on either Wikipedia OR their own phone settings.QuakerIlK (talk) 23:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@QuakerIlK: A third opinion comes after the opinions of the two people involved in the dispute. If there weren't two different opinions, there wouldn't be a dispute. I added my opinion onto the end as a fourth. Third opinions are for quick opinions on specific issues with specific articles, with opinions often framed in policies, guidelines, and practices – in descending order of importance. The WP:IMGCONTENT policy is more important than the MOS:CAPTION guideline, which is more important than the Judaism article example you just raised. I sincerely suggest that you take a little more time to absorb the opinions that editors have been kind enough to provide. – Reidgreg (talk) 01:00, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

• I specifically qualified your statement as being the third in terms of its opposition to parts or all of my edit. I did NOT say, in an unqualified manner, that it was not the fourth. Your posing it as the fourth in an unqualified manner could be construed as misleading.
• PROVE the exceptionless hierarchy of the 3 different policies/guidelines/examples that you invoked, while also incorporating the policies/guidelines related to quote boxes, which is ALSO relevant because of the similarities it poses to image/file captions and because it addresses many of the formatting issues on which you all are basing many of your objections.
• ADDRESS the first two points I made in my previous post, as they are relevant to this discussion having been brought into existence in the first place. Evidence of hounding and nationalistic bias is a good way for an editor to get blocked or banned permanently. Deletionist actions based on that sort of behavior and bias are both a crime against information and a crime against Wikipedia. Your refusal to address those issues can make you complicit by positioning and support. You can see that FromCzech deleted ALL of the referenced content with only one opinion that only partially supported theirs.QuakerIlK (talk) 01:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

  Claiming that @Reidgreg is being misleading by calling the thing that comes after a third opinion a "fourth opinion" was unproductive, unhelpful, and unessessary. Your post demanding (that's how the all-caps use of "PROVE" and "ADDRESS" read to me) is a bad look. Setting aside that your second bullet is a strawman (nobody said there can't be exceptions...but nothing here seems to warrant one), Reidgreg and I came here from WP:3O to deal with a narrow content dispute: the images caption. Behavior of editors, especially elsewhere is well outside the scope of that. Speaking for myself (and I'm reasonally confident Reidgreg would agree), I have no bone to pick in this fight. But it was astoundingly obvious that the caption on the image was far far too long.

  I sincerely suggest that you take a little more time to absorb the opinions that editors have been kind enough to provide.
  — User:Reidgreg

  @QuakerIlK, I really hope you take this to heart. Given how quick your response was, I don't think you have. This is likely the last I'll say on this subject. meamemg (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

  Likewise. I've stated my opinion on the content dispute, and conduct issues are beyond the scope of WP:3O. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I have been on Wikipedia either with this account or my previous one (Miloluvr) for 18 years. I am familiar with enough of these issues, and especially hounding, and FromCzech's history of abuse of my edits. I don't need any more types of 'consultations' on this. I have stated more than once that FromCzech has been hounding me, and that this is largely what this is, to absolutely zero interest from either of you. Completely skirting that issue and numerous other issues I've brought up, that are relevant and that do speak to your numerous objections, is equivalent to taking a side. Hounding and repeated deletionism is far more aggressive than me merely putting a couple of words in ALL CAPS or boldface. If neither of you has any interest in 1) FromCzech's history of hounding me and 2) continue to ignore the issue of things like actual maximum lengths of captions (which mine approximates) and 3) quote blocks (for which there is no stated maximum, and I have given a prominent example of one twice the length of my own caption) and 4) repeated deletionism of perfectly factual (if perhaps needing a little verbal modification) and well-sourced material and 5) other issues that I have tried to address whereas formatting issues are concerned, then I see no further point in discussion.QuakerIlK (talk) 15:57, 24 June 2026 (UTC)