Talk:Hollywood, Los Angeles

Question about the Hollywood sign: The sign is copyrighted. Even if it's a photo taken by a private individual, is its use here okay? -- Zoe

The sign is copyrighted? Really? Wow. --KQ

Yes, the copyright owners (which I think is the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce) are the only ones allowed to legally use it on T-shirts, etc., etc., -- Zoe

KQ: In Hollywood (home of MPAA and RIAA), Everything is copyrighted. :) -- Chris Mahan

People can claim copyright to anything they want. That doesn't mean their claim holds any water. It might also be possible that the Hollywood CoC has a valid trademark claim to commercial uses of the sign. That has nothing to do with copyright, and while that too is a pretty dubious claim, it's a bit more reasonable. At any rate, if some resident takes his camera down there and snaps a photo for us and uploads it here, we can use it without any legal impediments at all; anything anyone tells you to the contary is utter nonsense. --LDC

Thanks, Lee, just wanted to be sure we were okay here. -- Zoe

From the page history:

(cur) (last) . . 07:50 6 Jul 2003 . . Oliver Pereira (No - years that are linked should link to the year pages. I'm sure we have a policy on this.)

(cur) (last) . . 07:42 6 Jul 2003 . . Patrick (when mentioning a year for literatue a link to the year in literature is more meaningful than to the year in general; for film similar; therefore restored)

(cur) (last) . . 04:31 6 Jul 2003 . . Oliver Pereira (fix opening paragraph; remove hidden links to "year in literature" pages; other minor changes)

This looks like a miniature edit war. Rather than changing the links again, I'd like you to consider the following:

(1) If we aimed at uniformity (either way) here, we'd have to change thousands of links.

(2) It is rather clumsy to have something like Book Title (1888) (see also 1888 in literature).

(3) Those links directly to the literature/film pages are not "hidden". That's what we have the "|" for.

(4) It does not matter. Users can click on from the literature page to the general year page and vice versa.

(5) I don't think we have a policy on this.

Personally, I'd agree with Patrick here. --KF 09:51 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. I wouldn't call it a war; my last edit left the "year in literature" links in (in an unhidden form), even though I don't think they were necessary. That was a compromise. But to address your points...

Yes. But this isn't much of an argument. Hundreds (thousands?) of edits are made to the Wikipedia every day anyway, and millions more will be made over the next few years, so a few thousand more are neither here nor there. :) Uniformity of links is good - it makes it easier to navigate the encyclopaedia, and avoids frustrating the users by sending them where they are not expecting to go.
I agree. I personally wouldn't include links to "year in literature" pages except in pages about literature, and I only left them in this page to avoid an edit war. Now that I think about it further, it seems obvious to me that the links shouldn't be there at all. The "year in literature" pages will show how the books Laughing Gas and What Makes Sammy Run? fit into the context of the literature of that time. But this article isn't about literature. It's about a place in California. So the context here is geography, not literature. How those two books fit into the history of literature is utterly irrelevant to an article about a place.
I don't follow you here. We have the pipe ("|") to hide the title of the article, replacing it with some alternative text, yes? This is often useful, for example in linking to disambiguated pages like Blah (movie). We rarely want the parenthetical bit to appear in the article, so we hide it, using the pipe. The "year in literature" pages are not disambiguated year pages. 1936 in literature is not a different usage of the term "1936"; it's a page about a particular aspect of that year. Adding a reference to a year by writing [[1936 in literature|1936]] would be like adding a reference to George W. Bush in an article on gardening by writing [[George W. Bush's views on gardening|George W. Bush]]. No-one would be expecting to get to an article on George W. Bush's views on gardening by clicking on his name. It's exactly the same situation here.
When you say it doesn't matter, all you mean is that you personally aren't bothered by it. But other people are. Therefore it matters. I find it frustrating to click on a link expecting to go to one place, and ending up at another.
Actually, we do! This has come up before, in connection with the "year in music" pages. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) said, until an edit I made to it yesterday,

Do not use piped links to "years in music" (e.g. [[1983 in music|1983]]). See Wikipedia:Wikiproject Music standards.

I believe that it only referred to the "years in music" pages because they were the first "year in..." pages to arise. But I see no reason to think they might be a special case, which is why I added the phrase "or analogous pages" to the rule yesterday. If you want to change the policy, I expect the best place to bring it up would be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). -- Oliver P. 04:22 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've written a short note there (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)) inviting others to join in. Personally, I don't want to change our policy because, as I have already pointed out, in this particular case I don't consider it frustrating at all to be redirected to the literature/music pages. Anyway, you should probably be discussing this with Patrick rather than me, but thanks nevertheless for your answer. --KF 05:02 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. But I think you mean that you do want a change in the policy, since as I pointed out above, the piped "year in literature" links are contrary to our current policy! As for my message, well, it's an open letter, and intended for anyone who wants to read it, not just you. I've notifed Patrick about the discussion on his talk page. -- Oliver P. 07:31 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)