ICE List Wiki:Adding videos

Adding & managing media on the ICE List. This is the canonical guideline for volunteers - especially the Media Team - for adding photos, video, and documents to the wiki. Media lives in a structured Media database: you add each item once, tag what it shows, and it appears automatically everywhere it is relevant.

Principles (read first)

Only public or rights-cleared material. Add media that is already public, or that you have the right to use. When in doubt, link the source rather than re-hosting.
Protect bystanders and targets. Agents acting in their official capacity are the subject of this archive. People being detained, victims, witnesses, and bystanders are not - do not caption, tag, or name them in a way that could endanger them. Blur or crop where needed before uploading.
Strip metadata. Remove EXIF/location data from files that could expose a filmer or a safe location before uploading.
Prefer uploads for anything at risk of deletion. A social post can vanish; an uploaded file survives takedowns and does not leak our visitors to a third-party platform.
Accuracy over volume. A wrong tag is worse than a missing one. Verify before you mark something Verified.

The one way to add media: the Media item

Every piece of media is one wiki page containing a single {{Media}} call. That page stores the item to the database, renders the embed, and files it. Do not paste raw embeds onto incident pages any more - create a Media item and tag it instead.

Step 1 - create the page

Name it ICE List:Media/<Platform>-<id-or-short-slug>, e.g. ICE List:Media/Instagram-DXe6hX5kzSh or ICE List:Media/Upload-Minneapolis-2026-01-24. (Do not use the Media: prefix - that is reserved by the software.)

Step 2 - fill in the template

{{Media
 | type      = Video
 | platform  = Instagram
 | url       = https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXe6hX5kzSh
 | embed     =
 | caption   = Agents detain a man outside the courthouse
 | date      = 2026-01-24
 | state     = Minnesota
 | agency    = ICE
 | agents    = Garvey, Sean; Doe, Jane
 | incidents = 2026-01-24 Minneapolis courthouse arrest
 | status    = Unverified
 | source    = Filmed by bystander, reshared on IG
}}

Field reference

Field	Required	What to put
type	yes	`Video`, `Photo`, or `Document`
platform	yes	`YouTube`, `Vimeo`, `Instagram`, `X`, `Threads`, `Facebook`, `TikTok`, `Reddit`, `Upload`, or `Other`
url	yes	Full source URL. For an uploaded file, use `File:Name.mp4`.
embed	YouTube/Vimeo only	The video ID only (the part after `watch?v=`). Leave blank for everything else.
caption	yes	One line describing what the media shows. No bystander names.
date	strongly	Date of the incident, `YYYY-MM-DD`. Drives sort order.
state	if known	One US state. Enables state filtering.
agency	if known	`ICE`, `CBP`, `HSI`, `ERO`, `DHS`...
agents	if known	Agent page name(s), separated by `;`. See tagging rule below.
incidents	if known	Incident page name(s), separated by `;`.
status	yes	`Unverified` / `Pending` / `Verified`. See lifecycle below.
source	yes	Where it came from / who filmed it. Never a submitter's personal details.

The tagging rule

Separate multiple agents or incidents with a semicolon ;, never a comma. Page names contain commas ("Surname, First"), so a comma would split one name into two broken tags.

Right: agents = Garvey, Sean; Mojica, Victor (two agents)
Wrong: agents = Garvey, Sean, Mojica, Victor (reads as four names)

Whatever you put in agents and incidents is what makes the item appear on those pages automatically. Tag generously but only what the media actually shows.

Verification lifecycle

Status	Meaning	Requirement to reach it
Unverified	Just added, not checked	Default. Anyone may add at this level.
Pending	Under review	A reviewer is actively confirming date, location, and identities.
Verified	Confirmed	Source located, date and location corroborated, any agent ID cross-checked against another item or record. Set by Verification-tier volunteers.

Do not mark something Verified on a hunch. If you cannot corroborate it, leave it Unverified and note what is missing in source.

How to tag without editing wikitext

On any Media item page, logged-in volunteers see a "Tag media" panel at the top. Fill in agents, incidents, state, agency, and status there and click Save tags - no wikitext editing needed. See ICE List Wiki:Tagging media.

Where your item shows up (automatically)

On every incident page you tagged - via {{MediaForIncident}}, already placed on all incident pages.
On every agent page you tagged - via {{MediaForAgent}}, already placed on all agent pages.
In the ICE List:Media browser and the faceted Special:Drilldown/Media filters (platform, state, agency, status, type).
In the ICE List:Video evidence gallery (recently added).

You never link media by hand - tagging does it.

Uploading a file (best for at-risk footage)

Go to Special:Upload. Name it clearly, e.g. Minneapolis-2026-01-24-bystander.mp4.
Create a Media item with platform = Upload, type = Video, and url = File:Minneapolis-2026-01-24-bystander.mp4.
Tag and set status as usual.

Promoting from the submission queue

Public submissions land in the ICE List:Media submission queue (volunteer-only). To promote one: open the link, confirm it is real media, create a Media item for it as above, tag it, and note in the queue row that it was actioned.

Inline one-off embeds (rare)

For a single embed inside prose where a database item is overkill, the raw templates still work: {{YouTube|ID|caption}}, {{Vimeo|ID|caption}}, {{Instagram|url|caption}}, {{Tweet|url|caption}}, {{Threads|url|caption}}, {{Video file|File.mp4|caption}}. These do not enter the database or auto-appear anywhere - prefer a Media item.

Troubleshooting

Embed shows as a grey box / "enable JavaScript": embeds render client-side; a hard refresh usually fixes it. Instagram/X/Threads also need their platform script, which loads automatically.
"blocked by the spam filter" on save: the URL uses a blocked shortener (goo.gl, youtu.be, fb.watch). For YouTube, use the full youtube.com/watch?v=ID form and put the ID in embed.
Item not appearing on a page: check the tag spelling matches the page title exactly, and that you used ; between multiple names.