Talk:Tuner (radio)/Gallery RFC

RFC: Image Gallery

{{rfc}}

Should the article contain a gallery of images (as shown below) illustrating the history of radio tuners?

Reason for Image Gallery

These images show the evolution of Tuners from analog American tube tuners to solid state and digital Japanese tuners, include inside views of the circuit boards and vacuum tubes. The images are clearly lit and visible. Similar to other galleries mentioned in the image policy, Lily, Wedding dress, and Oil painting, this modest gallery illustrates the range of stereo tuners in a way that enhances the reader's understanding of the evolution of consumer electronics design that words cannot. Nothing in the image policy discourages galleries wholesale, and they appear on many articles, often much larger and more extensive than this.

Reason against Image Gallery

WP:GALLERY is clear that these are generally undesirable but does make allowances. Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article while avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. The claimed demonstration of the evolution of tuners is not immediately evident looking at the gallery and accompanying captions. Editors discussed potential improvements to the gallery to address this but ran up against concerns that the story is already told in the text and a smaller number of images is included conventionally and the gallery photos are superfluous.

Survey

Please state Yes or No with a brief statement. Please do not reply to the statements of other editors in this section. That is what the Discussion section is for.

• No Images should only be included when they are encyclopedically valuable and paired with sourced text specifically connected to that image (eg., if there is an article paragraph about Heathkit AJ-20 tuners, it would probably be appropriate to include an image of said tuner). Although galleries can be appropriate in a few situations when each image is connected to a small amount of article text, large galleries consisting of images divorced of any relevant, sourced text are more suited for other Wikimedia projects. (t · c) buidhe 05:12, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• No. This gallery is exactly what it appears to be - an indiscriminate and random collection of differing tuner types that have no direct connection with any material contained in the text of the article (otherwise the image could be placed with that material). WP:GALLERY applies here in spades. What is worse: the caption obscures up to half of each image and one of them is largely truncated. We certainly do not need a reference as to what each is because mostly it says on the front panel, but per WP:OI, we don't need them anyway.

"A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the below paragraphs or moved to Wikimedia Commons."

2A00:23C8:9883:A001:1122:3237:7FEF:568A (talk) 18:19, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• Yes. I do find the opposition to this gallery perplexing. The article text does specifically mention, contrary to the comment by buidhe for example, Heathkit the company and tube tuners in general. This article has undergone a recent expansion and referencing. WP:DEMOLISH would suggest that the quickness to remove constructive and helpful improvements is discouraged. The text in the galleries is sourced and relevant and helps explain what each thing is and how it fits in the chronology. The main reason why the images aren't on the side of the paragraphs is due to space constraints. Maybe in the future the article will be long enough to not need a gallery; in the meantime, nothing in the policy contravenes it. Contrary to the IP's statement, the images are not indiscriminate but carefully selected to have a representation of the inside and outside of an American, Japanese, and German tuner (inside only at the moment), a tube tuner inside and outside showing the increasing number of vacuum tubes and components, a solid state with gyroscopic tuning versus a knob and the inside of a solid state tuner, and a newer digital tuner with a button panel and a digital watch like display. It is not important to be able to read the actual text in the images because the point is the interface and the complexity of the electronics. Gallery policy says if a point of contrast is being made, the gallery is OK. This one shows how the 60s tube tuners became progressively more complex (compare the simpler, fewer tubes of the Scott with the Sherwood front and back showing more complexity) before solid state and digital came in. I intentionally picked the best images as there are many more on commons, so the idea that this is indiscriminate is simply prima facie incorrect. This gallery is helping and not hurting, and the opposition feels like WP:IDONTLIKEIT grasping around for a policy justification that just ain't there. Much more redundant galleries have consensus on other articles, see lily for example. These images of tuners are additive and illustrative and portray variation alongside the narrative being portrayed in the article of increasing miniaturization and the digitalization of electronics. The article specifically discusses the changes in the industry from post-war USA to digital Japan, and that story is also shown in the images in a more evocative way. Andre🚐 19:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• No. The gallery as it stands now has no context and is primary sourced. There would have to be secondary sources, a referenced intro, and photographs you can read. None of that exists now. Wikipedia policy is not "add it now, find sources and a rational later". Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:15, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Image Gallery

• 
  Heathkit AJ-20 (USA; 1960)
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  H.H. Scott Stereomaster 370-B, 8 tubes (USA; 1962-1963)
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  Sherwood S-2100, 13 tubes (USA; 1963-1966)
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  S-2100, rear view
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  Siemens Studiomeister RS222 superheterodyne, (Germany; 1974-1977)
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  Marantz 150, analog tuning (USA; 1977)
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  Luxman T-34, solid state, analog tuning (Japan; 1978-1979)
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  inside view, T-34
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  Onkyo T-4000, digital tuning (Japan; 1990)