PageImages does not return images of article subject, it returns images representing the article itself, so this must not override the images on page. Using the WD images for pages without images is probably fine though.

PageImages does not return images of article subject, it returns images representing the article itself,

True, in principle there is a difference; depending on how a client is using the Wikibase repo, they might also be the same.

so this must not override the images on page. Using the WD images for pages without images is probably fine though.

Sounds reasonable.

Once Wikimedia projects get accustomed to fetching Wikidata properties and the properties in question, by becoming more visible, have grown more used and more consistent, I expect someone will propose to give priority to Wikidata, but there is no need to do that now.

If the value of P18 is among one of the images in a Wikipedia article, then that might be a reasonable choice.

Some wikipedias might want different images as "chosen image". There can be multiple statements for P18 with different values and we could use qualifiers to say which wikipedia choses what image.

As it concerns "featuring" an image in the header of the mobile Wikipedia page (and in the app) or in search results, there should always be the option for Wikipedians to choose *not* to have any "featured" image for a page. (e.g. none are suitable for this purpose) Sometimes this might be the case for abstract topics [1] or the page has only some tangentially related images [2], and sometimes graphs and maps don't work so nicely as featured images. [3]

I am also concerned about featuring fair use images, and imho don't think they should be used in this way. [4] (and not possible currently to link them in Wikidata with P18)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Vermont_Civil_War_units
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Generation_(song)

If there are multiple P18, one can always make one of them preferred rank.

As I already pointed out in T87336 this is not really a good idea from the copyright point of view, because..

• pageimages belong to the language versions of wikipedia and therefore need to obey the local copyright laws..
• while WikiData seems to be based on US-copyright alone.

And since we do have a lot of stuff on Commons that is PD only in some countries, the suggested implementation of taking the pageimages directly from WikiData, would result in copyright violations.

Please differentiate between Commons' project goal and the international legal reality. Copyright laws are complex – especially in an international context. And regardless of its ambitions, there are a lot of Commons images that can not be used in certain language versions. E.G. German Wikipedia can not use all the images wth licence templates implementing {{Urheberrechtlich_geschützt}}
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Urheberrechtlich_gesch%C3%BCtzt

Beside that this suggestion would rise editorial problems – especially if the WikiData-images would overrule (3.) the images used in the local articles:

• The scope of the Wikipedia article and the scope of linked WikiData object is not necessary 100% identical – not even among the Wikipedia language versions.
• Afaik there is not even a WikiData object for every Wikipedia article yet.
• Wikipedia articles in different languages are not just translations, but independent from each other. Therefore the same lemma may have different contents and require different illustrations according to the different languages and cultural contexts. Just think of sexuality or medical topics in the Arab world, or of maps with disputed demarcations.

Since Pageimages are used in a really prominent way nowadays (especially in the Wikipedia App), Wikipedia authors should retain the final say about, which image should be representing "their" article. And being able to edit WikiData, does not ensure this alone, because that could end in Edit-Wars between the language versions.

3. always prefer Wikidata P18 where available and not deprecated.

IMO this would be one step too far if it overrides T91683: Allow editors control of the page image.

I also note that, if we had T91683, this could be done on-wiki by a template that does something along the lines of {{#pageimage:{{#property:p18}}}}.

In T95026#1966760, @Nemo_bis wrote:

In T95026#1966111, @Anomie wrote:

I also note that, if we had T91683, this could be done on-wiki by a template that does something along the lines of {{#pageimage:{{#property:p18}}}}.

Maybe, but such a template would need to be placed on millions of articles. Why?

I didn't say it would be the best option, just a possible option.

Ping @JKatzWMF.

@ovasileva this seems like it would be useful for Wikivoyage. I'm not seeing many lead images for articles there given their reliance on the page banner to provide illustrations for the lead..

@Jdlrobson - agreed. We're planning on doing this along with T91683: Allow editors control of the page image across all projects. I was planning on implementing it during the first few weeks of next quarter.

If someone works on this I highly recommend not going for P18 only. There are different properties that might represent an image. We for example have a special one for coat of arms.
If you ask Wikidata for the page image for an Item it will give you one, not just from P18 but also other relevant image properties. I recommend either using that page prop or relying on the configuration that lists all the properties in the order they should be used for a usecase like this.