Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 8

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WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

"Revenue stamps" section in Postage stamps and postal history of India

The article is about the Postage stamps and postal history of India. Revenue stamps are not Postage stamps, so IMO this is an WP:UNDUE in this article. ww2censor disagreed and suggested that we discuss it here. Comments please.... Thank you. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Disagree to Redtigerxyz's proposal. While revenue stamps are not postage stamps, they have a long history of affiliation of postage stamps e.g. postage stamps used as revenue stamps & vice versa, created just by overprinting postage stamps, common production etc. AshLin (talk) 16:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Concur with Ashlin. Revenue stamps are indeed philatelic. They may not be postage stamps, but are typically considered part and parcel of the philatelic history of any country. Excluding a reference to them because they are not exactly postage stamps seems exceptionally extreme.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been meaning to bring this up. I think the common title Postage stamps and postal history of X is wrong, it should have simply been Stamps and postal history... but I suppose it is too late to change it now. I think the correct structure of these articles is Pre-stamp era, First stamps, then by reign/century etc until up to date then Revenue stamps then Cinderella stamps, which is roughly what I did when I did Bahrain. Maidonian (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I deliberately made it "postage stamps" so as to exclude other types of adhesive labels, in particular revenue stamps, which don't seem like they fit well into the overall narrative. Also, postal stuff categorizes under "Communications in X", but revenues don't really fit, they're more of a generic governmental operation. I would like to see a series of articles just on the revenue stamps of various countries, it would explain these somewhat mysterious objects that look like postage stamps but aren't. It seems sensible to keep them under this project, since they are a standard part of philately overall, and to cross-link with postal articles. Stan (talk) 21:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, trying to deal with them within the same flow would be very confusing. With so many articles already created, the logical approach seems to be to add revenues and cinderellas at the end of the article until the revenue section is large enough to justify its own article. Cinderella stamps of a country, however, are unlikely ever to justify a separate article. Maidonian (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

IMO, concurring with Maidonian, "the common title Postage stamps and postal history of X is wrong" and should be moved to Stamps and postal history... to justify the inclusion of revenue stamps in such articles. It is never too late to improve... --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 07:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I doubt there would be sufficient concensus to carry this out at this stage. It is probably better to accept what we have and add revenues at the end and split off when justified. One argument for the Postage Stamps Of title is that it does naturally lend itself to a complimentary Revenue Stamps Of article in due course. There is also the fact that while postage stamps are well researched in almost all cases, the sources for revenue stamps are much patchier. What is the consenus on starting to create some Revenue Stamps Of articles and how would they fit into the overall structure? Maidonian (talk) 10:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

There are now three 'Revenue stamps of...' articles: Bahrain, India and Italy with a similar new category which is a sub-category of revenue stamps. Any views? Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 03:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Maidonian's suggestion not to include revenue stamp content in the "Postage stamps ..." series, but make them separate articles with "see also" links. It's unlikely that a casual reader interested in postage stamps of a country would care about revenues and even in the philatlic world these are different animals. Ecphora (talk) 16:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

While I am still not really in favour of separate articles because to the close association between postage stamps and revenue stamp, many of which are postage stamps used for revenue purposes, none of the new articles hardly seems worth making separately from the main stamp article but I won't object. However, I suspect that most will remain as stubs but hope to be proven wrong. Initially it might be more appropriate to start sections within current articles and hive off the section when it becomes large enough to exceed stub status in its own right. BTW there are already 39 separate country revenue categories on the commons at commons:Category:Revenue stamps created by Maidonian back in April 2010, I presume for this purpose, so there is quite an amount of material. John Barefoot is probably the best source for revenues literature. ww2censor (talk) 05:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the categories at Commons I didn't create them with any plan in mind for this Wiki, it just seemed common sense as there were a lot of unsorted revenue stamps all mixed in one category. I agree the newly created articles are a bit thin at present but it was more to get feedback on a format than anything and certainly they have the scope to be substantial articles, particularly India where there are thousands of stamps if you include the states. Even tiny Bahrain could command a decent article in time. I am not proposing the creation of hundreds of almost empty stubs but there certainly is enough material to create quite a lot of good articles. I think there is a consensus here on how to proceed in this area. Maidonian (talk) 10:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I was not suggesting that a load of stubs should be created, but if there is sufficient prose and material to make some decent articles, I am all for that. If Bahrain can even make a stub there must be lots of possibilities for the larger countries. Perhaps we should make a concerted effort to gather some resources and post it for others to use. ww2censor (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous catalogs, books and articles on this subject. A quick search of the American Philatelic Research Library on line catalog for "revenue stamps" as subject produced 123 hits, and that is just scraping the surface. Ecphora (talk) 16:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

This Commons deletion discussion may be of interest to other philatelists. ww2censor (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

People may want to get involved in the deletion discussion of List of people on stamps of Abkhazia. ww2censor (talk) 04:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Lists of people on stamps

On the periphery of this subject: I noticed that a lot of these "List of people on the stamps of country" articles are perfunctory at best. I've done a bit of work (updating, adding references and filling in missing names) from List of people on stamps of New Zealand and List of people on stamps of Fiji. Is it worth me carrying on doing this? I've got a decent set of catalogues for referencing and checking facts against. Daveosaurus (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

If it interests you, of course it is. In WP we don't do original research but we synthesize knowledge to create new resources. AshLin (talk) 04:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

All verifiable reference are good but if your literature has ISBNs you should add them. ww2censor (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Have added ISBNs and done a bit of minor tidying up. Let me know if they look good enough to get by with and I'll start work on more of them. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Some of these lists are perfunctory because they were split out from the once-enormous list of people on stamps, then not worked on since. Lists from actual countries are safe and could even be gotten to featured lists if someone were energetic, while the Abkhazia case is weird and I'm on the fence about it. Stan (talk) 22:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm double checking the lists and verifying each entry against a stamp catalogue (I've got a complete set of Gibbons' catalogues, and a few others as well), checking that the links go to the right person and adding the obvious missing persons. Some articles (e.g. Australia) seem to have had more work done on them, so in the meantime I'm going to work on existing articles that haven't had much work done on them. I've noticed a few oddities that will have to be worked out, for example the Papua New Guinea list includes not only all its constituent parts, but also those of West New Guinea (which shouldn't be included with Papua New Guinea at all, but would belong in a separate article). Otherwise I've also noticed that many recent issues of stamps feature persons whose notability is minimal - for example, the Fiji series showing its entire rugby sevens team; and modern developments such as personalised stamps and "customer advertising labels". New Zealand is also going to be a major headache; as well as NZ Post there are several independent postal providers operating in the country, some of which issue their own stamps and of which there are few, if any, catalogues. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

We've merged some short lists into longer ones, for instance the predecessors of Australia and South Africa, because there's not much value in having lots of separate short lists - we broke up the big list because it was big, not because it was an illogical organization. There are a couple approaches for the less-notable that somehow made it onto stamps - one, you can design list criteria to exclude things like personalized stamps, and two, you can mention the names but just as text, with no links. It's not so effective to simply omit the names, because inevitably someone will come along, notice the apparent mistake, and add them back. Stan (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In the past in List of people on stamps of Ireland I left some names unlinked as these people are unlikely ever to be notable enough to have their own article and just today removed a few other links. You could take this course and/or only link the most notable people who actually have articles. ww2censor (talk) 19:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Deletion discussion: Category: Stamp collections

There is a deletion discussion here about this category. Maidonian (talk) 11:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information

I have added a the following to Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information:

1. Catalogue. Wikipedia is not a stamp catalogue nor a database of collectables. More than the existence of reliable published information regarding specific items is required for inclusion.

I suggest a notability guideline would be useful, perhaps Wikipedia:Notability (philately). User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:14, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia does seem to come close to a "catalog" or "database of collectibles" in the "List of people/birds/fish & other things on stamps" articles. As to those articles, it appears that not much more than "the existence of reliable published information" is needed to be included. There is no notability requirement, for example. And that is true for non-philatelic lists as well.Ecphora (talk) 22:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Notability is a requirement for inclusion in lists, see List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

For the most part, until recently, being commemorated by the issue of a legitimate postage stamp was something that only happened to notable people. For instance, on List of people on stamps of Samoa, which I recently did some work on, most of the red links are to people who would probably be considered notable but who do not yet have articles - a number of former Cabinet Ministers, a famous hotelier, etc. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:NLIST takes a bit of interpretation. I have an essay at User:Fæ/Alumni that explores this a little but basically it is possible to have a notable and verifiable list that may in itself satisfy the criteria (say, on the grounds of historic impact) and so the members of it need not fulfil the WP:GNG (or WP:BIO) criteria. The grounds for why this might apply for a particular list should be clear in the lead text (per WP:LSC). In general it is good practice for lists of people to require articles to exist for members of the list, but there is scope for exceptions when the case is clearly made. Fæ (talk) 07:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

One could flip this around and ask what are some *non*-notable stamps. The average Christmas stamp? 10th anniversary of ABCD organization? Individual members of a definitive series seem un-notable on their own, but the series as a whole seems clearly notable. Firsts seem notable, otherwise Penny Black wouldn't rate an article. :-) As for lists, we've discussed before, and I think there is a category in which topical collector interest is what makes notability - thus birds and fish, but maybe not five-year plans. Stan (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The Penny Black has been plated. If a reliable source is considered sufficient the characteristics of each plate could be considered notable. Consider, for example Australia Scott 245, according to the Brusden-White catalog, The Australian Commonwealth Specialists' Guide, there is a second plate. Also noted in the Brusden-White catalog is that the event commemorated by the stamp, "Responsible Government in Victoria" (whatever that is) is an error, the event being commemorated being the constitutional separation of Victoria from New South Wales. Perhaps because of this strange Freudian-slip-like language the stamp might be notable, but does Plate No. 2 merit its own article explaining how it differs from plate 1? Absurd, but there are reliable published sources, and there better be, as stamps printed with plate 2 are worth 200 times as much as those printed with plate 1. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent change to WP:Notability re Lists

FWIW - there has been a recent change to the Notability guideline re Stand Alone Lists WP:NOTESAL. The application of that change is an easy one for this discussion. If reliable sources discuss members of a group (such as Notable Iranians on Stamps for example) as a group then the list topic (Iranians on Stamps) would be considered notable. Inclusion of individual stamps in the list would be dependent on the nature of the group as discussed by sources and inclusion criteria. The key change for lists (not necessarily all lists) is that the list topic should have been discussed by reliable sources as a group. That discussion does not require discussion of 100% of the members of the group, but it does require that the grouping is being discussed, not just a random discussion of its members. Hope this helps --Mike Cline (talk) 14:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

All this gets back to my original comment: Wikipedia (for better or worse) is not that different from a stamp catalog or a database of collectables. See, e.g., List of bonsai on stamps or List of ships on stamps. Ecphora (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Clearly there are limits. For example, a book could be written, and probably has been, on the facsimiles of Fiji Scott 45 which were made in 1900, the details of how they differ from the original design, and, importantly, how they are postmarked. Any dealer in the stamps of Fiji is expected to know this and perhaps in Postage stamps and postal history of Fiji a note might be appropriate, as it is in Scotts Catalogue, but not a long article on them. There is no great pressure here to include such detail, but if it is to be it belongs on Wikia, which, by the way, has no philately wiki. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

As to List of people on stamps of Fiji, I don't know what to think. It does seem a good way to identify notable people who might otherwise be missed. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not what the notability guidelines for lists says. It just covers List of X and X. It specifically left out List of X of Y because we could not reach a consensus.陣内_Jinnai 21:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

British Library Philatelic Collections

As part of the uk:chapter:Editathon, British Library we have developed this page in conjunction with curators of the collections.Harrypotter (talk) 12:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

A number of articles in Category:British Library Philatelic collections such as the Fletcher Collection have been rated as Low importance to the Philately WikiProject. As the Fletcher has objects recognized of world-wide importance, such as the 1682 Penny Post Paid Dockwra handstamp, this seems an odd rating (as the Importance scale has yet to be agreed, I can only compare with other philatelic articles). Could someone from the project take a second look at the ratings for the articles in this category? Thanks, Fæ (talk) 08:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The classifications look about right, particularly as the articles are at an early stage. There are many fine collections that are important if that is what you study or collect but that does not make them important from the point of view of this encyclopedia. They are all welcome articles though. Maidonian (talk) 11:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I am questioning the importance classifications rather than quality, importance is not related to the state of the current article. If the Fletcher Collection is considered to be of low importance to the Philately WikiProject then it is hard to imagine any collection world-wide regardless of content that could be classed as Top, High or even Mid importance. Taking another look, it seems contradictory to rate Board of Inland Revenue Stamping Department Archive as of low importance to this project when this collection is notable for holding the renowned File:Proof sheet of one penny stamps Stamp Act 1765.jpg which must be considered one of the most important philately objects of all time. Fæ (talk) 11:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue of importance ratings of philatelic articles was discussed here where some inconsistencies and need for guidance were pointed out. Articles should be rated by their significance to philately as a whole. Given the vast world of philately, it seems to me that the rating of an article like Board of Inland Revenue Stamping Department Archive is not clearly inappropriate. Ecphora (talk) 12:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The project would benefit by adding clear definitions of how to apply the importance ratings to avoid these issues (they have been discussed but not defined yet). As a non-philatelist I am happy to go along with your opinion, but the idea that no philatelic collection in existence could ever be rated higher than Low importance in the context of the philately project seems contradictory to my layman viewpoint. Fæ (talk) 13:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I started work on a table of criteria for rating importance of philatelic articles, but never finished it. Anyone is welcome to edit it. Ecphora (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii

I added several images to the category commons:Category:Stamps of Hawaii and suggest creating a new article on Postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii. Can anybody take a lead on that? --Michael Romanov (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC).

Created stub. Maidonian (talk) 11:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --Michael Romanov (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Article importance criteria

(This is copied this from the section #British Library Philatelic Collections, above)

The project would benefit by adding clear definitions of how to apply the importance ratings to avoid these issues (they have been discussed but not defined yet). As a non-philatelist I am happy to go along with your opinion, but the idea that no philatelic collection in existence could ever be rated higher than Low importance in the context of the philately project seems contradictory to my layman viewpoint. Fæ (talk) 13:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I started work on a table of criteria for rating importance of philatelic articles, but never finished it. Anyone is welcome to edit it. Ecphora (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I have been involved in a few projects assessment setup, the main one being for the Ireland WikiProject where we developed some rather decent importance criteria you can find here that shows several examples as guidance for assessors. Ecphora's tabel seems to be a decent start though the low-class description appears to be rather understated. The first point of reference for developing any importance scale must be Wikipedia's Version 1.0 Editorial Team's Release Criteria topic importance as follows:

Need	The article is of priority or importance, regardless of its quality
Top	Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopedia
High	Subject contributes a depth of knowledge
Mid	Subject fills in more minor details
Low	Subject is mainly of specialist interest.
Bottom	(Optional) Subject has no real significance to the project.
Template:No-Importance	(Optional) Subject is a disambiguation or redirect page, residing in article space.

While all project assessments are a subjective criteria I see no problem in developing a table that includes some clearer definitions for our use here but we should agree on the examples to be used. ww2censor (talk) 05:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Catalog numbers as references

I seems to me that if the information cited is in the Scott, Stanley-Gibbons, or other major stamp catalogue, a reference such as "Virgin Islands, Scott 18a" should be sufficient — cited in that instance as an example of a double impression, of an overprint. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Some time ago I was considering our use of catalogue numbers and wondered if we should be using them, especially because they are the copyright of the publishers. I have real reservation whether we should be using catalogue numbers to identify stamps on Wikipedia; I very much doubt the numbering systems can be regarded as common knowledge. Scott has an extensive copyright notice in their catalogue and I believe they are rather protective of this numbering system. This notice is transcribed from my Scott 2007 US Specialised Catlogue:

Permission is hereby given for the use of material in this book and covered by copyright if:
(a) The material is used in advertising matter, circulars or price lists for the purpose of offering stamps for sale or purchase at the prices listed therein; and
(b) Such use is incidental to the business of buying and selling stamps and is limited in scope and lenght, i.e., does not cover a substantial portion of the total number of stamps issued by any country or of any special category of stamps of any country; and
(c) Such material is not used as part of any catalogue, stamp album or computerized or other system based upon the Scott catalogue numbers, or in any updated valuations of stamps not offered for sale or purchase, and
(d) Such use is not competitive with the business of the copyright owner; and
(e) Such use is for editorial purposes in publications in the form of articles or commentary, except for computer software or the serialization of books in such publications, for which separate written permission is required.
Any use of the material in this book which does not satisfy all the foregoing conditions is forbidden in any form unless permission in each instance is given in writing by the copyright owner.

A extract from the copyright notice in my 2004 Stanley Gibbons Ireland specialised catalogue states:

The contents of this catalogue, including the numbering system and illustrations, are fully protected by copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Stanley Gibbons Limited.

By way of illustration, I think List of United States airmail stamps certainly contravenes the Scott copyright even if some might consider individual occasional as acceptable. Personally I suspect any use is a copyright violation and should be removed but would like to hear other views especially from editors experience in copyright issues. ww2censor (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

To be honest it sounds like a load of bullshit. I don't think you can copyright a numbering system (nor individual code numbers) under the United States copyright law. Lets see what experienced copyright editors think though. Yoenit (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It is far from BS. The catalogue numbering system of Scott and Gibbons and others is the result of decades of work and constitutes a copyrightable piece of intellectual property. They allocate the numbers based on their work classifying and describing the stamps, deciding which ones to include and in what order etc. There is a get out however as indicated in the Scott notice quoted above (e), and which I would think also goes for Gibbons, in that the use of the numbers for articles or commentary is allowed, and I think that would cover Wikipedia articles. The wholesale use of numbers in articles in list form is probably not acceptable, although if they had a problem with it I think we would have heard from them. In practice, the catalogue producers turn a blind eye to a certain amount of infringement as it suits their purposes to have their numbering system promoted, although they would never admit it. Maidonian (talk) 00:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

As for Scott numbers, I don't think Wikipedia articles are examples of copyright violation, as above described under the conditions (a) to (e), if the numbers are used occasionally and just one or a few per article. However, more extensive use of the Scott numbers like in List of United States airmail stamps could be considered as a such violation. --Michael Romanov (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, a catalogue numbering system is copyright as it is an original work of the compiler. In addition, as each catalogue uses a separate numbering system, and there are many different catalogue publishers, a short description of the stamp would be much more useful to the general reader. I do not have access to a Scott catalogue, but the catalogue I use (Gibbons) allocates British Virgin Islands #18a to the "long-tailed S" variety of the 1s. on white paper and with frame superimposed extending into margins - apparently a stamp quite different to the unknown overprinted stamp listed by Scott as #18a. Daveosaurus (talk) 02:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the use of the numbers is to be avoided if possible in favour of a description of the stamp using generic philatelic terms which can then be linked to the relevant articles as necessary. Maidonian (talk) 03:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the suggestion that condition (e) gives us permission can be compared directly with regular fair-use for press and editorial purposes that generally Wikipedia does not consider as being free enough for our use under our fair-use criteria. Due to the fact that philatelists from different geographical locations tend use different catalogues that use different numbering systems the use of a description would likely be more useful to readers. Besides which, Scott numbers can be considered to be US-centric to the exclusion of other catalogue numbers. It may be of interest, I found Scott has defended its numbering system in at least one lawsuits (see this 1999 Krause 'v' Scott settlement opinion) though it has no direct comparison with the use here and a 2002 cease and desist letter here. ww2censor (talk) 05:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that there is no problem in using Scott or other catalog numbers to identify stamps in an educational or scholarly article such as those on Wikipedia. Philatelic journals regularly do so. The permission quoted above specifically includes "use is for editorial purposes in publications in the form of articles or commentary." (I note that literally the permission uses "and" for each requirement, but that makes no sense; one cannot simultaneously use Scott numbers in an ad to sell stamps and for editorial purposes in articles; apparently "or" was meant.) But even if Scott did not expressly grant permission, as it apparently has done, it would clearly be fair use. It is no different than citing in an article the catalog number of a book, painting or object in a published catalog of a museum collection, which is routinely done. I am not aware that Scott or any other publisher has ever complained about such a use. This is not to say that wholesale use of Scott numbers that effectively duplicates a catlog is permitted. In that regard, I agree that List of United States airmail stamps may be a problem. Ecphora (talk) 07:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see there is no pre-existing relevant case law that would relate to successfully stopping the use of selected catalogue numbers (rather the entire database) in any third party publication. If anyone was worried they could ask Scott to provide an opinion on whether they care about sample catalogue numbers being quoted in Wikipedia articles and then we would have something material to discuss. Fæ (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• In terms of their permission, the point of "fair use" is that use can be made without permission. The permission they give would not be in itself acceptable on Wikipedia, as it does not mention the relevant licensing requirements of modification and commercial reuse. Whether use is fair depends on four factors, of course; I believe our primary focus needs to be on "the purpose and character" of our use and "the amount and substantiality of the portion used". It does not sound as though the usage under discussion here should be an issue from a copyright standpoint. I have no opinion about its merits otherwise. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• Coming back to clarify my opinion, as what's under discussion here is much broader than whether "a reference such as 'Virgin Islands, Scott 18a'" would be an issue, again, what it comes down to is "purpose and character" and "amount and substantiality". It's usage in Bluenose (postage stamp) seems like no problem at all, similar to the way we cannot list the complete The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, but can note that an individual song made the list in its own article. In terms of amount and substantiality, this seems substantial and does not seem transformative. While Scott does not seem to have been completely successful in this 1999 Krause 'v' Scott settlement opinion, the matter was evidently not dismissed for no cause, which means that we shouldn't conclude that the content is not copyrightable. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think there is much doubt about this is there? A catalogue producers numbering system IS copyrightable but we can make selective fair use of it as long as is is proportional and we don't go too far. The Krause case is not the same as they are a catalogue producer in competition with Scott so obviously Scott are going to be all over any infringement by Krause. More generally, we should avoid the use of the numbers because 1) They show bias to the US for Scott or the UK for Gibbons 2) Most readers won't have the relevant catalogue 3) The numbers can change 4) It is lazy editing because it does not include the generic characteristics of the stamp. Maidonian (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• According to the link, there is ("It was an astute and high-impact tour de force in copyright law as it relates to what some have come to believe was an unfair monopoly by Scott of a numbering system that has long since been in the public domain.") I don't know the background of their catalog system; "decades of work" does not factor into US copyright law, as the US does not recognize "sweat of the brow". The real question is the creativity brought to bear. I know nothing about stamp collecting or the systems used to codify stamps, but even so would believe that the settlement itself suggests caution is warranted on our part. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• It is caution I am suggesting as such a system is copyrightable in principle, even if Scott may have let their numbering system leak into the public domain to a certain extent through their lax policing of thier rights in the past as Krause argued. I am suggesting that we treat it as non-free. Maidonian (talk) 18:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Do we have agreement on the most basic and minimal use; that it is acceptable (unless there is a specific complaint from the copyright holder) that quoting one Scott catalogue number in an article requires no special action, but quoting a list (say, for sake of argument, more than 5) ought to have a specific fair use rationale created for that Wikipedia article (my mind boggles at having to create a FUR for a single number being used and there definitely is no existing case law for a single catalogue number being copyright protected that is not a specific trademark)? Fæ (talk) 18:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

A single catalogue number (Scott, Gibbons, Michel, Campbell Paterson, etc.) in an article about a notable stamp shouldn't be a problem, as far as I understand it. But the main description of the stamp should be one that is independent of catalogue numbering. I would suggest that any stamp notable enough for its own Wikipedia article should have a recognisable descriptive name - for example, I doubt that "United States SG A548b" would mean much to Americans reading this, but "Inverted Jenny" just might. On the subject of lists of stamps with catalogue numbers: In my work on lists of people I've avoided using catalogue numbers entirely; referencing to year of issue and page in a specific edition instead. While that is little less restrictive than using numbers from a single catalogue, it at least gives a year reference that someone with another publisher's catalogue can use. And as for other lists on stamps - fish, etc. - there are actually published catalogues of fish, etc. on stamps available. (Stanley Gibbons' entry in that category is a volume entitled "Collect Fish on Stamps"). Daveosaurus (talk) 05:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, single articles should be fine (probably even if there were a complaint from the copyright holder, as I cannot imagine it would have merit). In terms of lists, we don't use FUR for text. The decision is really going to come down to how many and for what reason. I'm afraid that fair use is pretty subjective. Wikipedia aims to be conservative there, but not insane. :) Brief and purposeful are key. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)