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Copyright: Company claims that a picture is violating their licence rights

The image commons:Image:Barlach Magdeburger Ehrenmal.jpg shows a sculpture by Barlach from 1929. The picture was taken by me, after purchasing a photo permit at the Cathedral of Magdeburg where the sculpture is on public display. An anonymous user on the commons listed the image for deletion, claiming that the "Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Company claims that this picture is violating their licence rights on Barlach's works". (see also: commons:Commons:Deletion requests). The company's homepage is here (english), stating that All kinds of use and exploitation are strictly subject to our permission and licence charge and are to be marked with © Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Ratzeburg.. I am not that familiar with copyright law, but I thought that a photo of a copyrighted object can be taken and published legally. Otherwise pretty much all modern art, architecture, or objects would be copyrighted. I am also not sure about the ownership of the sculpture, i.e. if it belongs to the company. I am also not sure how these requests are based on german law, or if german law applies here at all. Any comments are very welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 01:30, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

What are the terms of your photo permit? —Mike 04:14, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember. I paid 2 euro for a small slip of paper, which I have thrown out long ago. This was advertised at the entrance of the church, and also priced so that tourists can take pics. -- Chris 73 Talk 05:07, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Whether German copyright law applies, I do not know, but I suspect that this may well be the case, given that the image was (a) taken in Germany, (b) the creator of the sculpture was a German, and (c) the photographer, too. (?) If the sculpture had been standing outside, there'd be no question at all: §59 of the German Urheberrecht explicitly allows taking pictures from public squares and roads and publishing these images. However, since the sculpture is inside the cathedral, this doesn't apply. It appears that with your photo permit you just got a license to take the picture for personal use, but did not get a license for general public redistribution of the picture—such redistribution apparently is only allowed for non-profit use and maybe for use (as a quote or illustrative example) for the purposes of criticism or research §51(1). See also this pretty good discussion (in German). For better info, I'd try asking on this mailing list of German lawyers, they have many discussions regarding copyright concerning photographs in their archives. (By the way, Ernst Barlach, the creator of the sculpture, died on Oct 24, 1938. Hence on January 1, 2009, the copyright on his works expires §64, and from then on, one can indeed use this photo for any purpose. The photo itself is a Lichtbildwerk (cf. Template_talk:PD-Germany) and copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the photographer, too.) Final note: the same problem may also exist for de:Bild:Güstrow Barlachs-Mutter-Erde.jpg: this garden is not a public square or road but private property... :-( Lupo 09:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a million for the excellent links and infos! I will try to contact the Church again to see if the permit included commercial use, and also who owns the Barlach sculpture. If not, thn we'll have to move the pics from the commons to Wikipedia, where I think the use may be feasible again, as non-commercial or fair use. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:14, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

As a follow-up comment, I don't know the details of German copyright law, but from what I can tell, UK copyright law doesn't cover sculptures, whilst recent US copyright law cover's both sculptures and buildings, with exceptions for what can be seen from public spaces. -- Solipsist 19:59, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Read the Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ - James and I wrote it to avoid these questions. In the US: Statues can be copyrighted, and pictures of them are derivative works (pictures of 2D works with "slavish efforts" made to ensure accuracy are copies and *not* derivative works). In this case, if the statue is not in the public domain, a picture of it would be a derivative works and therefore could not be distributed without consent of the copyright holder. →Raul654 21:03, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I have reached the secretary of the church in magdeburg by phone, and she thinks the sculpture is the property of the church. The person in charge who knows more about it, however, is right now on holiday and will be back on February 2nd. I will call again at that time. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:32, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately the copyright isn't usually transfered with the ownership of item, so that may not help. I'm not able to follow the German texts that User:Lupo helpfully linked. Is it clear that 3D objects are covered by German copyright law? -- Solipsist 20:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, and 100% clear: §2(1), item #4. Lupo 14:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh well ... I'll move it back to the english wiki, and add a fairuse tag. Alternatively, I also have a photo from further away, showing the whole memorial site, not just the sculpture, which I could add to the english wiki. -- Chris 73 Talk 02:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Moved to the english wiki, added fairuse -- Chris 73 Talk 03:20, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

An anecdote

Only loosely related to the above, but in order to show that also "outdoor" photographs of "buildings" can be copyright-infringing in (some) droit d'auteur countries.

The case is famous, it concerns the EU parliament building in Brussels: presently the architect of the building, advocating "droit d'auteur", prohibits any use of images of that building (photographs, logos based on it,...), e.g. by the EU administration on their letterheads.

This led to court proceedings, which until now have been won by the architect. And EU officials complaining themselves for having been insufficiently cauteous at time when they drew up the contract with the architect.

Nobody that hasn't been there really knows what the building looks like. Television (in Belgium at least), resorts to an areal photograph of a large part of Brussels, where the building is more or less visible in a corner. Sometimes interviews with EU politicians are taken so close to the mirror-glass facades of the building, that it could appear as any other modern building.

For explanation of "droit d'auteur", see e.g. Intellectual rights and Moral rights.

--Francis Schonken 14:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Issue in article: impending edit war

Hi. I guess I’ll need some help to avert an edit war on this one. In the article at hand, there are some peak heights given in meters for a National Park in Brazil. The numbers came from the official Brazilian government body in charge of those kinds of information in the country. Now, apparently this user has decided that those numbers are actually approximations, and thus the conversion to feet should also be approximated. I had originally given the exact conversion, since I thought that, as an encyclopedia, we should give the precise information, not what one user or another might think is a “suitable number” to appear on the article. Still, I was prepared to accept Nygaard’s round up, but since he adjusted 4,921 to 5,000, instead of going for 4,920, which is a round enough number, and closer to the original, I made such alteration. But he took exception to it, reverted the numbers back with a long explanation about how the official numbers (and I emphasize that) are not actually correct and thus his roundup would be accurate. He than closed it up suggesting that I should go back to the math books and learn how to calculate. The rudeness notwithstanding, isn’t it our obligation to go with official numbers in those situations (no original research) ? If I just go back and change the numbers again, this will almost certainly turn into an edit war. It is my impression that this user has a certain notion of being infallible in terms of geographical calculations (pardon me if that sounds a bit rude). And shouldn’t we stick to a precise conversion from meters into feet (although this point isn’t the main reason of the potential conflict)? Can I get some help on this one? Regards, Redux 13:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Redux, maybe you should just look at de:Serra dos Órgãos, they give the heights of some of these mountains. I must say I agree with Gene, and his numbers are fine. Lupo 13:49, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If there is serious concern that the official numbers are quoted to a precision that exaggerates their accuracy (a.k.a. "wrong") than such should definitely be stated in the article: "The peaks are officially listed at abcd.efg m in height (hijkl.mno ft) but independent measurements list them at approximately pq00 m (rs000 ft)". "No original research" means we don't want to be the first place someone publishes what their gps unit read when they climbed the peak, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to synthesize from multiple sources. --Sharkford 14:43, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Let's take one step at a time: Lupo, I'm not saying that the numbers aren't acceptable (in fact, I actually believe that Nygaard's technical point should go into the article, as I've stated in one of my comments in the talk page), just that it may not be ideal to plainly replace what was there. Part of this answer goes in the second part: Sharkford, the issue there does involve original research, since Nygaard calculated the numbers himself (mine was a direct calculation from meters into feet, expressing the exact same value in two different scales - it was done mainly so that people from the US would know exactly how high 2.5 thousand meters (v.g.) is, I didn't make any inovative calculations). Finally, the situation has now escalated passed the technical details. Nygaard has been extremely rude in every one of his comments, and since he has posted responses to every one of my comments within minutes, I assume he added the article to his watch list just so he could inforce his view of what should be in the article. The only reason why this hasn't already turned into an edit war is because I've not sunked to his level. In my last comment (actually I've just posted a new one, so one-before-last) I even proposed a half way, not only did he ignore it but also he repeated that I should go study math before I edit the article. I don't know if this user has a history of altercations in the website, but it's been extremely difficult to keep it civil with him, he's just interested in seeing his idea prevail. Regards, Redux 16:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edit war has started

Impossible to talk with that guy. He's now "warning" me that I'm "wasting his time". As a matter of principle, I will not have a bully trash-talk his way through this. Technical details are no longer the issue, this guy doen't know the first thing about how to behave in a democratic environment, or about courtesy, for that matter. So I, a declared pacifist, will now engage in an edit war, something I swore I'd never do, especially for a reason as silly as this one. I really don't get it: he got worked up over 1 foot in the measurement (and this after defending that 20 ft are insignificant in a correct measurement). He's just posted another abusive comment (where his "warning" is), I won't bother to answer it, since it would only generate more abuse. I never added an article where I had made minor changes to my watch list just so I could make sure the coma I changed stayed where I put it, and I've told people that they were wrong without resorting to name calling. If someone can offer mediation to this, it would be great, I'm not in the least interested in an edit war, but I've given up reasoning with him, I won't even read any other abusive comment that he posts in any talk page, unless he starts showing the same courtesy that I at least tried to show him. To the rest of the community, I'm sorry about this, it's completely not what Wikipedia is about, and it is as regretable as it is unnecessary. Regards, Redux 17:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:Gene Nygaard has also been going through spaceflight articles taking off significant digits saying that the level of accuracy down to a ounce for the mass of spacecraft was not possible. I have decided not to do anything about this as there figures on find on the internet for these masses vary widely but he seems to think that it is impossible to measure anything accurately. Evil Monkey → Talk 00:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yeap, this guy has accuracy issues. A quick visit to his talk page and you can easily find that Denni called him on his attitude. Result: Nygaard called him a "wimp". By his welcome message, I see this guy has been here only since December 11, which makes him sort of a newbie, but he has not yet graspped the concept of working here in Wikipedia. Just earlier, he offered to "let me" keep the official information I mentioned earlier if I proved to him that the Brazilian government was right. That's a troublemaker with a capital "T" if I ever saw one. Regards, Redux 02:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Does it strike anybody as odd that somebody who has to have everything just right would spell "whimp" wrong? 69.104.185.14 17:43, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC) (Sorry if my sig doesn't work but I don't really understand this forum thing. If it doesn't work this post is by Sgt. Grunty)

Fiction about Wikipedia

I am currently writing a short story about WP. Is there anyone else out there who is interested in that sort of thing? Are there other examples of fiction about all things wiki? It could eventually become an article on metawiki. We could also start writing a collaborative wikistory. Any takers?

Floflei6 06:37, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll add in the erotic components. --SPUI 07:09, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the collaborative idea is not good. I think the story idea itself is good. Many possibilities come to mind. One I like (but I'm not going to write one) would be a mystery.

NOTE NOTE NOTE following is an idea for an utterly fictional story

An edit war with a real casualty as someone mentally unbalanced becomes goaded beyond belief.

It initially appears to police to be an inexplicable random killing. But the hero-detective gets a clue that happens to mention the victim's Wikipedia username, Googles for it, and discovers the victims Wikipedia user page and Wikipedia. Great opportunity here to describe Wikipedia from a newbie's point of view and do subtle promotion. Detective soon discovers that beneath its calm, serious, levelheaded exterior, Wikipedia seethes with cliques, cabals, disputes, arguments, contentions, factions, edit wars, blocks, and bans. As is usual in detective stories, the victim is someone extremely obnoxious, probably a POV-warrior for a grotesquely unpopular POV, and there are literally dozens of Wikipedians who have crossed swords with him in disputes. Each with their own colorful background (e.g. pictures of BDSM paraphernalia on their user pages).

Several have actually been driven to the point of using language so intemperate as to be interpretable as a death threat. Several of them use sockpuppets, have multiple Wikipedian identities, and of course use ISP services that dynamically assign different ISP addresses. Furthermore, half-a-dozen live within fifty miles or so of the victim and all of them, including the victim, were present at face-to-face Wikimeetup. The detective needs to unscramble the threads of clues, motives, and identities. Please, nothing so obvious as a username that's an anagram of the user's real name! (I still can't forgive Dan Brown's utterly transparent anagrams in The Da Vinci Code).

Naturally it turns out that the killer's beef was not the victim's grotesquely unpopular point of view, but some utterly trivial bit of minutia. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:43, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should involve at least one Nihilartikel and at least one article where versions in different languages contradict one another. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:19, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

The modus operandi could be a certain poem in Chinese which is known to have caused at least two people to die when they have heard it, and understood it, and died from the power of suggestion. (This is something I read about decades ago.) A vicious user invites innocents to create translations in various languages, which cause the editors to expire as they read the poem and complete their transcription of it into their favorite edition. No one can figure out why until the edit history and related changes are used to trace when the deaths are occurring. The edits propagate through various backups and mirror sites. The clue which breaks the case is the banning of a certain user, and which temporarily breaks the pace of the deaths. But when blogging about it on a rogue web site, the evil user brags about timing of two deaths which were noticed by a user who has been missing his friends, and who knows when they stopped editing. The hero user asks a developer to add a feature to trace IP addresses for all contributors to the translations. The developer creates cookies which the evil user cannot resist, and which become resident on the evil user's machine. The developer uses one of the cookies to trigger an explosion on the evil user's machine, which incapacitates the evil user, who is now incapable of editing due to loss of the use of his hands.

This downward spiral in the morality of each user who becomes enmeshed by the edits is stopped by an emergency appeal to users on Chinese wikipedia, who find someone who can write the antidote poem, which must accompany each instance of the killer poem in order to stop the deaths. The pace of edits keeps increasing on each encyclopedia as the blogosphere catches hold of the story, the killer article, and the antidote poem. (Maybe I should ask the name of the Chinese poem on the Reference Desk to get the ball rolling.) Ancheta Wis 03:02, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maoism in eastern philosophy?

I will be glad to read some contributions about this issue: do anyone find reasonable and NPOV the inclusion of Maoism in the article eastern philosophy? See my post in the discussion page here. Thank you! Bai Shengzhi 21:13, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Monolith

When looking for information about Uluru I discovered an error in the definition for monolith. It states, "...and solid metamorphic rock, such as granite." Granite is not a metamorphic rock. It is an igneous rock. I thought that you would like to know. Thank you.

[above posted by 67.76.104.59 at 00:01, 31 Jan 2005. Wikilinkage added by MD]

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it. But the cool thing about Wikipedia is that you could have fixed it yourself! Maybe next time :) — mark ✎ 10:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Animated GIF images on articles

Hi. An anon user has loaded animated GIF images in our articles on tennis players Roger Federer and Pete Sampras (and maybe others that I'm unaware of). That's causing a difficulty to load the pages: I have a cable connection and the articles are taking a little too long to load (usually, I can already see the text, but the page is still loading on account of the animations). I can only imagine how it is for anyone with a dial-up connection. A while back, I removed the images from Federer's article, but the same anon user reverted back, claiming that the images were within Wikipedia's images policy, since they were not too big (in terms of bytes). That may be so, but these tennis animations are making the articles too heavy to load (unlike a similar animation illustrating the spread pattern of the Tsunamis in Asia, which is at our article on the Asian disaster). Not to mention that they seem rather unnecessary to illustrate any point about how Sampras used to play or how Federer does. Can anyone confirm that the articles are indeed taking too long to load (or is it just my browser?)? And if so, how does that stand with our images policy? Regards, Redux 18:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

One data point: Because all Wikipedia pages open pretty slowly, these pages didn't seem particularly slow on my fast connection.

From a policy point of view I think the word on animated GIFs has always been "allow, but use sparingly".

From my personal point of view, the animations look good and do add something to the article. (An animation tells a thousand words, that sort of thing). However at the same time they are kind of distraction. Ideally the GIFs would come with some sort of "play" button so that the GIFs only appear on demand. It would fairly easily to rig something like this up using templates (put text in one article, which is included in two articles, one which includes the GIFs, the other which doesn't, the "stop/play button" toggles between these two versions.) Pcb21| Pete 20:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think very sparingly is the answer. I loved the tsunami animation we had in the indian ocean quake article, but that was a rare case where animated data really worked. Also, big animations are definitely a no-no. Reduce them to fewer frames and link to the big animation (just like the indian ocean quake tsunami one). --fvw * 20:57, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

I think that you should only use animated GIF if absolutely necessary, and if so, very, very small (in length). Like having animated pictures of tennis players is nice, but not really necessary unless its about their certain technique, which it might be helpful to see in motion.Sgt. Grunty 18:13, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

featured articles

does anyone know what user has created the most featured articles? if you know can you post it on my talk page. --Larsie 21:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If its not User:Lord Emsworth, who has 44, I'd be surprised. Pcb21| Pete 22:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I beleive Pete is correct here. →Raul654 06:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Newsgroup FAQ

I want to create a FAQ for the Usenet group git.talk.cars. Questions answered would include "What are recommended car repair shops near Georgia Tech?" , "What are the recommended car washes near Georgia Tech" , and more. I really like the Wiki-type open editing, but I am not sure if something like that is appropriate in this or other Wikimedia projects. Thoughts? SCEhardt 01:54, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not lists "Lists of Frequently Asked Questions" explicitly as something Wikipedia is not. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks might work for it. --SPUI 06:25, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! Thinking about this further, I'm not sure that it would even work in Wikibooks since that would probably not allow for opinionated reviews. Right now it is looking like [Wikicities] might be a good fit. SCEhardt 14:56, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

MSN Encarta free to searchers

MSN's Encarta encyclopedia is now free for two hours to those who click an appropriate link on their search engine. [1]. --Alterego 06:19, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Hmph! I'm not terribly impressed. Their article on my home town (Ruthin) only has 66 words, which wouldn't even get to the end of the opening paragraph of our article, which is 15-20 times bigger :) Their article on Manchester is pretty small too, and doesn't note the merger of two of its biggest universities last year, which we noted the day it happened.... -- Arwel 02:30, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC) P.S. Ye Gods! It doesn't even mention Wayne Rooney...!

Hey, all that means is now some high falootin' magazine will quote an Encarta or Britannica employee saying "Some little town in Wales has a larger article than African art!" ;) --Golbez 22:58, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Gallery of Left Field Edits

Every now and again, a user takes an article in a direction you just weren't expecting. After you get over the knee-jerk reaction of 'Is this vandalism', you are just left thinking 'hugh what?!*?'. So perhaps we need BJAODN's second cousin twice removed, the Gallery of Left Field Edits. To get the ball rolling here is an edit I just wasn't expecting;

Clothing - edit by User:69.138.177.63

-- Solipsist 21:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your edit diff was a comparison against current so it changed when Ambi reverted. I fixed it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:45, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oddly enough, that edit struck a chord with me. Do we have an article on the absurd things people do with their pets (as opposed to the obscene things they do, for which I expect there's plenty :-)? --Phil | Talk 08:41, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Proposed policy

Hello. I've been drafting a proposed policy Wikipedia:Images unsuitable for inline display. Input, ideas would be welcomed. See that page for more information and discussion. —Cantus…☎ 11:04, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

And, if you believe there is no such thing, check out Wikipedia:Descriptive image tagging. --Carnildo 08:45, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the second policy to the first. Being able to select which images one would like would make Wikipedia much more accessible to schools, libraries, etc. I love Wikipedia, but I'm afraid to use it in front of my kids. I never know what image someone may have added to an article! :O — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:12, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

GMAILFRENZY

Howdy, everyone; I've got about *50* Gmail invites lying around... anyone want one??? Just drop me an email or talk page message... BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh, come on! That kinda ruins the nice feeling about being in an invitation-only email service. Sgt. Grunty 18:19, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Do you really need that feeling of elitism? Haha =X — J3ff 04:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Message from BartBenjamin

This message was left on my user talk page by BartBenjamin. Could someone contact him about contributing to the wikimedia foundation? Cheers. -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 23:48, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Graham,

Thank you for welcoming me to Wikopedia. I have already become a registered contributor and have made a few such contributions to the Wikopedia encyclopedia. In so doing, I've come to realize that you do, in fact, have a severe bandwidth shortage that limits Wikopedia's value as an online reference. Except in the middle of the night, pages take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to appear, which often makes browsing or any serious research a frustrating endeavor. To that end, I have a few suggestions that perhaps you could pass along to the "powers that be," as follows:

-- REQUIRE ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO REGISTER. I don't think it would be asking too much to limit contributions to persons who register. With this change, people could browse the listings without registering but could not make edits. Requiring registration would also cut down on the instances of vandalism, since such fraudulent changes would be easier to trace if you had more information about the contributor than merely their IP address.

-- I'd be willing to contribute money to the Wikipedia Foundation if I knew more about its plans to solve the current bandwidth shortage. Is a solution close at hand? If not, I don't envision Wikopedia being able to keep pace with its growing popularity. If money is a serious problem, perhaps you need to charge a small "contributor's fee" to support these much-needed upgrades. If you have as many contributors as I suspect, then asking each to contribute $5 or $10 per year may not be too much to ask. However, I believe that Wikipedia should always remain free to browsers who don't wish to edit its contents.

Thanks for letting me express my ideas. I think Wikipedia has a tremendous potential if these issues can somehow be addressed. I am very pleased that I stumbled upon this online resource, and I look forward to making additional contributions in the future.

Bart Benjamin

bart22benjamin@yahoo.com

Jose Riveras

I changed the name of my article to Jose Rivera (Playwright) because I found through my son there is another Jose Rivera, who happens to be the WBA boxing interim world welterweight champion.

Thanks. User:Marine 69-71

Hi. Nice to see you again. I changed Jose Rivera in a disambiguity page, as there are (at least) three Jose Rivera's on Wikipedia. I also added the links back from the three biographies. Hope this is OK, and happy editing -- Chris 73 Talk 04:37, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

fleshing out my entry on Wikipedia

Not sure if I'm filling this out right, but here goes: I'm Chris Hondros, a war photojournalist, and was surprised to get an email from a friend that I've been given a mention in this fine reference work. Must be hitting the big time. Anyway, the entry is pretty good though there are a couple of minor errors and adds that I could suggest; I understand from your site that anyone can edit it but I don't think I could manage it myself, since I'm a little technically challenged. Anyway, if one of your editors would like to contact me you can do so at hondros@aol.com. Thanks!

Chris Hondros www.christopherhondros.com

If you'd just like to make suggestions, go to Talk:Chris Hondros and leave them there. It may take a while for someone interested to get around to updating the article though. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:49, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Excuse my cheek, but would you like to contribute a photograph to illustrate the article? I think either a photograph of yourself, or a photo that you're proud of, would be acceptable. You would need to permit this photo to be used more widely than just on Wikipedia, but you could certainly reserve rights to it and ask for credit to yourself to appear with the photo. If you're willing, others can explain the copyright issues.-gadfium 03:15, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Um, I kinda doubt the original poster will see these comments. After all, he asked to be contacted via email. :-S — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:15, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Then he can just wonder why nobody's talking to him. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:30, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Incredibly enough, I did stumble upon this discussion, and I left my suggestions at Talk:Chris Hondros. I'd be happy to send someone representative sample of my work as well, or links are available online. Thanks --CH

Ah, relatives.

I showed my great-aunt Wikipedia for the first time. Her response?

So, what, it's an online trivia database? --Desplesda 05:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Stub sorting

moved from WP:AN.

At this point in time, I believe that stub sorting has become a monster. Some people have created several stubs which are completely useless and aren't used. In addition, deleting them on TFD has been become slightly difficult to say, and many people seem to have different thoughts on what stubs to keep and what stubs to get rid of. I created a WikiProject in hopes to control the monster, but I am uncertain whether it's really taming it. I'm not really certain what to do at this point. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:39, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem (after seeing this). Stub notices affect a lot of articles. Perhaps some kind of poll on new stubs (yeah I know voteing is bad but some kind of order really is required).Geni 01:42, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A disscussion on the varius clean up templates and the like has just started on the wikiEN-I mailing listGeni 02:10, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First, mailing list discussions don't really count. (I mean, they're a valid way of generating ideas, but most of the community doesn't follow the mailing list and so it's not a great way of getting a community consensus.)

The request was for ideasGeni 05:15, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Second, I'm not sure that I understand what you see the problem as being. If useless stubs are created, they should be nominated for deletion. The vast majority of the existing stub categories are being used. (The problem is that most people aren't aware that they are supposed to sort stubs, so they just throw everything in under "stub". Despite this, many of the stub categories contain hundreds of articles.) There has been discussion lately about whether ot not it is appropriate to place more than one stub tag on an article. Perhaps it would make sense to do a new poll and mention it at Wikipedia:Goings-on so that people know it's happening.

It's easier to address specific concerns. If there's a stub template that shouldn't exist, nominate it for deletion and post a note at the project so that people who care can be aware of what's going on.

There are still way too many stubs in the parent category. There are several stub sub-categories that are way too big to be useful (see Category:People stubs, for example). I'm not sure why having specific stub categories is necessarily a problem. Special-interest categories attract work by special-interest contributors. As far as I can tell, the extra categories are not threatening to take over all available storage or processing space. Categories, like redirects, are fairly "cheap", aren't they? Stubs, currently, are much better-organized than the category system in general. (It takes a certain minimum level of wiki-know-how to create a template, which cuts down on abuses.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 04:41, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I heartily endorse any effort be made toward closing down Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting. It is nothing more than busy-work for everyone. Start from scratch by creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub improvement, with assistance toward helping editors quickly improve articles beyond stub level, even in ares they are not familiar. Stubs should all be marked with only a simple text message and not categorized. Each separate WikiProject should create a page where requests for cleanup and expansion can be placed, for articles appropriate to the WikiProject area. -- Netoholic @ 05:45, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

Netoholic's a lot more undiplomatic than I would be, but I mostly agree with him. It's certainly conceivable that someone would page through Category:Science fiction stubs looking for articles he feels competent enough to expand, but the real solution is the ability to do boolean queries on categorization, in this case Category:Science fiction and Category:Stub. It's easy to ask for new software features, though, and hard to get them done. Although I'll continue to sort stubs I find on random page patrol, since I can't think of a better workaround offhand, it's a poor solution. —Korath (Talk) 14:59, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it would be tremendously useful to be able to view the intersection of two categories. (Thank you for acknowledging the difficulty instead of just throwing out the idea s if it were the fault of categorizers that it doesn't exist. Yes, please, pretty-please, let's figure out how to get this implemented as a feature. How much additional load on the servers are we talking about?) What if, for every stub type, we worked to create list of resources for expansion? (It could go on the template talk page, on the category page, on a subpage, or on a completely different page.) In many cases, it would not be difficult to come up with a few easy resources for online information. The categorization would make it easier to organize this information and make it readily available to editors. -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:47, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Stub categories in general don't bother me, though I've never believed that either tagging stubs or categorizing them does much of anything to motivate people to actually expand them, which is the real need. But there's definitely one useless and meaningless stub category that needs to go, which is "substubs". --Michael Snow 08:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikicalendar

I'm not really sure if Wikicalendar: 2005 and Wikicalendar belong on Wikipedia. Two editors have put in a lot of good faith effort but the articles are not encyclopedic, at least in their present forms. I guess the idea is to have a, uh, wiki calendar. Unfortunately the article Wikicalendar: 2005 is self-referential, mentions "reload your web browser", and needs to be renamed, among other issues. And Wikicalendar probably needs to be deleted unless this turns into a notable project outside of Wikipedia, like Wikinews. But I don't want to bite the newbies. Thoughts? Rhobite 06:02, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Help needed with setting up texvc in Mediawiki

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate here. But I'm desperately trying to get some help to set up my Mediawiki so that I can enter the mathematical equations is TeX. I posted in meta wiki but it has a very small audience. So I thought I would try here. Here is my problem.

I got the texvc precompiled binary from sourceforge and added in the math directory. And I changed the value of $wgUseTex in LocalSettings.php to true. But that is not helping. After reading the very inadequate help file I found that I had to install teTex, dvips, and convert in the PATH: Could anyone tell me how to do this? Thanks a lot.

If you run your own web server this should be a simple matter of installing the packages. They're all standard open source programs and are available in the standard package systems on most if not all Linux and BSD flavors; see the documentation for your OS for package installation details. For another OS you should check the usual free software archives as you would for other such packages. If you don't run your own web server you will have to contact your system administrator and request that they install these packages. --Brion 21:59, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for answering my question. I'll request my system adminisrator to install them on the server. -- Praveen

Very Displeased

This site is terrible! I cannot find anything I am looking for, and am being accused of editing pages, which I have not! This whole site is so stupid, how do I now if what someone writes is true? I cant go putting a wrong fact on my report now can I?

This comment was by User:Armygirlzrock, whose only other edit was to User:Pavel Vozenilek (note, not the User_talk page, which might account for upsetting somebody). See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. As for finding something, try putting it in the search box on the left and clicking "search". -- Arwel 15:16, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:researching with Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Probably shared an IP with someone with stuff on the user talk, then registered to post here. --SPUI (talk) 20:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political vs. Traditional correctness

(Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style) Georgia guy 14:32, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gmail invites

--Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 22:22, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

User:Ludraman/gmail was created to avoid having these on the VP. JOHN COLLISON (An Liúdr amán) 14:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Copyvio? Original Research? Wikify?

I ran into Plant hormone theory I and Plant hormone theory II, and I can't decide what to do with them. Both are lifted verbatim from here. I couldn't find a copyright tag on the website. Comments made by the author on his site make me believe that information is more "original research" than established botany, and might make the articles candidates for VfD. I don't have enough botany background to evaluate the information with any authority. Any ideas? Joyous 00:33, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Just put them on VfD as Original Research and possible copyvios. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:44, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

It is usually less fuss to use WP:CP than WP:VFD so I suggest going that route, since both seem possible. Remember to remove the links from Template:Plant hormones if it is not appropriate to have the articles even if rewritten. Thue | talk 14:22, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Edit summary text for reverting edits

I was wondering if there is anything wrong with using an edit summary that looks like the admin rollback feature? When I revert vandalism, I copy & paste text to the edit summary before editing it, so it looks something like this (with links to the contributions page of the VandalUser):

Reverted edits by VandalUser to latest version by GoodUser.

I based this off other revert texts I've seen, but browsing around, I saw that this is actually the resultant text from the admin rollback feature, and might lead one to think that I am impersonating an admin. I used this text because I thought it looked professional and contained a sufficient amount of information for a vandalism revert. On the other hand, I wouldn't want people to either think I'm an admin or that I'm impersonating an admin. Should I stop using the above text, and instead stick with a simple "rv vandalism to latest version by GoodUser"? Just looking for opinions regarding this matter. --Death phoenix 05:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any problems with it. The rollback function is only there to make life for admins a bit easier, but the end effect is the same. I occasionally roll back by hand, but I am a bit more lazy and just type rv or a very brief message. -- Chris 73 Talk 06:58, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'll just carry on the way I've been doing it, then, though I wonder why I don't just type rv vandalism. --Death phoenix 07:51, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Chris 73. There's no harm in rolling back with such a message, but it's more work to form the message. Often, it makes sense to give a message explaining why you rollback, for example because the user has made harmful edits in the past, and therefore you don't trust this edit.-gadfium 08:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... that's true. There's no reason why I should create extra work for myself. --Death phoenix 14:10, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Don't see any problems either. You're just taking the time to write an edit summary. Mgm|^(talk) 09:32, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

There has been at least one admin candidate who was rejected because he "purposely made an edit summary look like he was an admin using the rollback button"[2]. 205.217.105.2 17:48, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That was actually the article I was looking at that made me ask this question (I didn't want to remind everyone of it, though). In that particular RfA case, however, the candidate didn't get rejected simply because of that one reason. One commentator chose to point that out as a reason to reject him, but (especially after reading the other oppose comments), I highly doubt that was the reason he got rejected. --Death phoenix 18:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That oppose vote was probably more based upon his later edit here, in which he responded to a question about that revert history by claiming to be an admin. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:13, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think he was claiming to be an admin. He was saying "I choose to be an admin," i.e., he's decided to be an admin (in other words, he's decided to run for adminship.) As the Wikipedia:Impersonation policy notes, all users should be given the benefit of the doubt in reference to suspected admin impersonation. 205.217.105.2 19:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Err, judging from the history, you just created that page today [3]... Impersonating an admin is a blockable offense, particularly because the impersonated party can confirm whether or not they mistakenly edited from an anonymous IP address. In either case, to answer the original poster's question, replicating the admin rollback text is fine. Cheers, DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:32, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Not only did 205.217.105.2 create the page before citing it he also impersonated a number of admins (See his history, he has signed as 172, Hadal, RickK [4][5][6]) Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 20:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your point being? Thc420 04:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The point being, every time you impersonate an admin, or anyone else, you will be blocked. Do it once, 24 hours. Do it twice, 48 hours. Etc., etc., etc.. Rick K 05:35, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I never did like sysops who just feel like they're all big because they can idly threaten users from behind a computer screen in some mildewy basement. If, on the other hand, we ever were to meet in a dark alley.. Thc420 08:43, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please don't make threats.-gadfium 08:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sneaky

I had occasion to search the Wikipedia to find anywhere that watchtower.org might have crept in, and found a link from the flamingo article. Somewhat puzzled, I followed the link and learned that "Observing this lovely creature in the wild delights our sense of sight and sound. But more than that, it heightens our appreciation and love for its wonderful Creator, Jehovah God." Just thought I'd share that with you. Shantavira 18:22, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've replaced the link in question. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 20:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rename Petition to reschedule cannabis?

Should it be renamed cannabis rescheduling? Does anyone have any other ideas? 205.217.105.2 16:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Introduction page discussion

After a couple attempts to redirect Welcome, newcomers to Wikipedia:Introduction, I think it's time to discuss our various introductory pages. There is a need for consensus on whether we need all of them, and if so what purpose each serves and what it should contain. Please contribute to discussion at Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee. Isomorphic 18:55, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/État québécois

If someone would help out our screwup, that would be appreciated. We tried to follow the instructions to put a page on the Vote for Deletion but screwd up and have no idea what to do. Thanks to whoever can come to our rescue. JillandJack 18:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Moved from the main Village pump (miscellaneous) space. Looks like you completed all the steps except signing the VfD. I added your name to the VfD. --Death phoenix 18:40, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Printing an article

Where are the directions for printing an article located? I searched through a couple dozen help, howto, etc. pages but found nothing. Rmhermen 15:57, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics - no update since Jan 1

Hi,

Does anyone know why the Wikipedia Statistics site hasn't been updated since Jan 1?

Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 16:08, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

horny

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Revision as of 16:08, 9 February 2005 edit Nyenyec (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 1,021 edits Wikipedia Statistics - no update since Jan 1 ← Previous edit		Revision as of 19:52, 9 February 2005 edit undo 192.206.243.9 (talk) horny Next edit →
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