Image policy

WhoWasThisGuy is a memorial and biographical reference site. Portraits of historical or notable figures appear on biography pages so visitors can recognize who the page is about. This document explains how those images are sourced, displayed, and credited, and what you should expect when sharing a page on social media.

Where portrait photos come from

Most portrait photographs on biography pages are sourced from Wikidata (P18 image fields), which point to files hosted on Wikimedia Commons or Wikipedia. License terms vary by file: many are CC-BY-SA, some are CC0 or public domain, and some are used on Wikipedia under fair-use claims that are specific to that context.

We display these images in their original form on our biography pages as part of editorial commentary about the depicted person. Each image page that links out to Wikimedia retains the original source link in the page footer's "Sources & References" section so the full license and attribution are one click away.

Why we do not redistribute portraits as share previews

When a user shares a page to Facebook, X (Twitter), Reddit, Telegram, or WhatsApp, the receiving platform downloads the image declared by the page's og:image tag and re-hosts it on its own CDN. That is a separate use from displaying the image inside an editorial article, and not every license that permits the latter permits the former.

To avoid that risk, share previews on biography pages use a generated share card we produce ourselves (a 1200×630 graphic with the person's name, years, and our site brand). The share card contains no third-party imagery and is original to WhoWasThisGuy.

Attribution and license metadata

Where a portrait clearly originates from Wikimedia Commons or Wikipedia, we annotate the JSON-LD Person.image with a creditText ("Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia contributors") and a link to the Wikimedia reuse-outside-Wikimedia guidance page so attribution is machine-readable.

User-uploaded memorials

Personal memorial pages created by users carry photos uploaded by the page author. By uploading a photo, the user confirms that they hold the rights necessary to display and share it. Share previews for user-created memorials use those uploaded photos directly.

Found a problem?

If you are the rights holder of a photo and you want it removed, replaced, or credited differently, please use the removal request form. We respond within seven business days.