An image placeholder is a dummy image designed to draw attention to the need for an actual image. Wikipedia image placeholders were meant to be used on articles, especially those of living people, for the purpose of trying to obtain a freely-licensed image for them. In a Wikipedia Centralized Discussion this idea was found to be controversial. Changes to the software since then have also made the system less effective, and for both of these reasons it is not currently maintained. This page is preserved as an explanation of them.

Image:Replace this image male.svg or Image:Replace this image female.svg was placed on articles about living people that have no current free image. It was not intended to be placed on articles about other subjects, including people who died before the 1900s when photography became widespread. The image was intended to be placed at the top so that the image code is visible when the edit tab is clicked.

For pages without infoboxes the following format was generally considered best:

<span {{image class|Replace this image male.svg}}>[[Image:Replace this image male.svg|thumb|right|150px]]</span>

Template:image class (backlinks ) provides the CSS class "dummy", which allowed users to use CSS to suppress the display of the dummy image.

Typically code like this is also built into infobox templates.

There are various different types of infoboxes, but for calling them one of the following would normally have worked:

|image=Replace this image male.svg|width=150|

|image=Replace this image male.svg</br>
|image size=150px

The image Image:Replace this image1.svg was formerly used, but was being phased out.

Images uploaded through this system end up in Category:Images of people replacing placeholders. A lot of the images uploaded through the system are copyright violations. Those that appear not to be should have their image copyright tag replaced with {{|Multilicense replacing placeholder|class=people|reviewed=1}} to keep them separate from the stuff that needs to be deleted.

This section discusses some rather obscure MediaWiki functions and is only really of interest to administrators who need to make changes to it.

The "fromowner" system involves a number of elements:

• Firstly, the images Image:Replace this image male.svg and Image:Replace this image female.svg. These images are vector images 150px in size. The images are public domain.
• The image pages of these images redirect to Wikipedia:Upload/Replace this image/People. This page contains basic details of what the upload system is for and provides a link to the fromowner upload page.
• This is an alternative version of Special:upload that can be found at MediaWiki:Uploadtext/en-placeholder-people.^[1]
• The licence selections can be found at MediaWiki:Licenses/en-placeholder-people. They are deliberately kept short to keep things simple.
• The multi-licensed template used is Template:Multilicense replacing placeholder with class=people
• This adds Category:Images of people replacing placeholders
• So far the majority of uploads have been copyright violations. As a result, those that are not copyright violations should have their tag replaced with {{Multilicense replacing placeholder|class=people|reviewed=1}}
• This results in the images being moved to Category:Reviewed images of people replacing placeholders.

• File:Replace this image (building).svg
• Image:Replace this imageb.svg
• Wikipedia:Fromownerbuilding
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/fobuild
• MediaWiki:Licenses/fobuild

• Image:Replace this image.svg
• Wikipedia:Fromownergeneral
• MediaWiki:Uploadtext/fogen
• MediaWiki:Licenses/fogen
• Template:Multilicense replacing placeholder

See also {{image class}}.

• Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders
• Category:Wikipedia image placeholders
• Article-space album cover request system