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Wikipedia:How not to provide a picture of you

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The article "Wikipedia:A picture of you" is a guide on how to provide photography of you for Wikipedia. This has resulted in multiple great images being provided, such as the lead images for Philip Mould, Nilesh Ahuja, and Sarah Ashton-Cirillo.

The following is an example of someone attempting to upload an image of themself that accidentally broke Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images, and how it could be fixed.

Background

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Toby Fox is an American video game developer and composer, best known for creating the video games Undertale and Deltarune. Fox is also known for being secretive, and not having a large online footprint outside his well acclaimed games (fair enough). This has resulted in Fox not having many photos of himself online. With some exceptions, the most infamous of which is an interview he did at an EarthBound fan convention.[1]

In 2022, Fox created a newsletter to update his fanbase about his current projects. His newsletter has different tiers of levels of updates, ranging from updates just about when a new chapter of Deltarune releases, to the "TRUCK FREAK" tier where Fox will send "anything".[2]

The Image

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Weirdly, this isn't the first time someone claiming to be Toby Fox has done this.[3]

On April 1, 2023, Fox sent out a photo of him wearing swim trunks covered in a large amount of foam (pictured), to 1,000 people who were in the "TRUCK FREAK" tier. Following this, Fox sent out two follow-up "apologies" to those who received the image. In his second apology, Fox ended it with: "Also, someone make one of the pictures my picture on Wikipedia".

Since Fox's fan base is very dedicated, they thus attempted to add the photo to the page. However, since Fox never officially licensed the image, it was removed as a copyright violation. This changed on April 5, when the official Fangamer account uploaded the image under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license via email. With the copyright issue cleared up, you might think that the image can now be used on Fox's article. But the article is still semi-protected, so there's still another problem.

The Problem

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Top of an unrecognizable curvy building under blue sky with a helicopter so far in the distance that it resembles a sparrow
This image of a helicopter over the Sydney Opera House shows neither adequately.

Per the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images, an image must be an "important illustrative aid to understanding the subject." The picture in question is of the man fully covered in foam, including face. This makes for a bad visual aid for his biography. Now there is an exception to this. If the person is best known for dressing or having a certain appearance, then an image of them in that way would be a good illustrative aid for the topic. A good example would be Skeeter Reece, a person who was best known to work as a clown. An image of Reece dressed as a clown would be a good visual aid in this case. But since Fox is not known for being covered in a large amount of foam, it makes for a bad visual aid. It was best said by user Howardcorn33, "if the person is not famous for being covered in foam, then they should not be depicted covered in foam."

Now here are some ideas that Fox could upload that would be allowed to be used as his biography image. The photo he used in the Forbes 30 under 30 profile would work. It would be a good visual aid since the picture he's holding up against his face is the "Annoying Dog" from Undertale which Fox uses as an author surrogate online. Or he could be covered in foam again but have his face actually visible, that would also be fine.

Conclusion

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I can personally attest to this claim. Not too long ago, Fox posted an image of himself covered in foam online (yes this is real, please bear with me) and called on his fans to add it to the article. It (from personal assumption) got locked for that reason due to constant edits to the IB (reverting becomes tiring after a while), and although he has now given express permission for the image's usage, it's still not a suitable one for his article.

— 🌙Eclipse, Toby Fox § GA review § Stable

In conclusion, if you want to upload a picture of you, make sure that image is A: copyright free, and B: a good visual aid for a biography.

Also in the rare chance that Toby Fox sees this, please upload a better photo of yourself.

Update

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Toby! This was all you were supposed to do! DON'T BE COVERED IN BATH FOAM!!!

On June 23, 2026, the YouTube channel "Ledundead" released the video "40 Mins of Toby Fox" into the Creative Commons.[4]

But wait, there more! In July of the same year, user TheSilksongPikmin emailed "StephenVlog" (A YouTube channel that also had a video of Fox) to release a screenshot of his video to the article. A screenshot from the video is currently used in the article. For more info, see here.

References

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  1. ^ Pixelated Noose (2018-03-01). Toby Fox Camp Fangamer Interview July 2015 (Part 1). Retrieved 2025-11-06.
  2. ^ GALA-MOS (2022-11-21). "Toby Fox Opens Free Mailing List For Undertale/Deltarune News". NintendoSoup. Retrieved 2025-11-06.
  3. ^ Michael Guy Bowman (2011-08-18). radiation is now on youtube. Retrieved 2025-11-06.
  4. ^ Ledundead (2021-01-27). 40 Mins of Toby Fox.

See also

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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:How_not_to_provide_a_picture_of_you&oldid=1365061760"