public generic occupation image library
I would like to suggest FamilySearch start a public generic occupation image library, which could be used rather than just having the generic featureless male or female image.
An image which gives more information about an ancestor, their personal life, such as their occupation, enables people to relate to them better and is surely better than a generic male or female image.
So those suggested images would make profiles more relatable, or human (ie help turn our hearts to our ancestors). They would be used for those people one has found a found an occupation for, but who have no personal photo. Such photos would certainly be used beyond about 1820, when cameras became more used publicly, but could be used more recently also.
I have had images restricted about 10 times, because they didn't seem to follow the guidelines, but each time, when I have explained, the images have been allowed. All these images have been generic, free, mostly clipart, showing, or closely related to, the person's occupation. I found their occupation through census information, christening or death records, or some other documentation or source, which is attached to the profile for anyone to check.
Having a generic library, where one imaged is checked and approved by a staff member and then open to be used for anyone, would save staff and users' time. Checking, restricting and releasing the same or similar images, used by different contributors, would be replaced by one image being checked by staff and released to contributors, to be used openly or freely already approved.
Not everyone reads details in documents such as census or children's christening records, but everyone can see the image, even in the landscape family tree mode.
Using such images also helps greatly:
1. when one is trying to sort out multiple people (usually men) with the same name in a nearby location. For example, when one sees a possible duplicate profile and then sees that one John Smith is a joiner and another is a blacksmith. One can have a sense that it is unlikely he changed profession. So, they would probably be different people.
2. when one is trying to find where a person may sit in a tree branch and one looks in landscape family tree mode, one can easily see the fathers in direct lines and the sons (in the dropdown list of children) who have the same or similar occupations. Then one can investigate closer, as a first step, the links by similar occupations.
Now I put a note in the description of the images I use, trying to indicate such things, but that didn't seem to help avoid restriction, maybe the staff member didn't have time to read that.
best wishes