>Shouldn't photo credits be allowed *only* in the image description page?
>I don't see why images would have a special status when compared to text
>contributions, the credits for which are found also a click away, in the
>edit history.
This could have the effect of greatly reducing the images available
for use, particularly those of high quality and/or limited availability.
I recently have been up against such an issue when trying to find
some good photographs of whale images for the sperm whale and blue
whale pages (the blue whale page has resorted to using a postage
stamp as its main image).
It turns out any underwater photos of these creatures - let alone
good ones - are in very short supply. After a while of searching I
found the stock agency http://seapics.com which has many fantastic
pictures you'd have trouble finding elsewhere (while not a fair
comparison, to get an idea try searching for sperm whale or blue
whale at seapics.com and then try the same at images.google.com).
I'm now writing a letter to seapics (snail-mail still has an extra
value sometimes :) to try to obtain explicit permission for use on
wikipedia. These folk sell images for tens or even hundreds of
thousands of dollars depending on use (some info at
http://seapics.com/information/clients/pricing.html).
Due to the high exposure, allowing just one of their images to be
used in wikipedia would be a significant donation to wikipedial; to
be honest I don't think I have a particularly good chance of success here.
**But** if I couldn't guarantee credits where used, I could be pretty
sure my chances would be nil.
My understanding is that we currently accept images with credit
required when used, so changing this policy would also mean a massive
amount of work.
I'm strongly in favor of allowing credits inside the article, but
discouraging it - favoring images where the copyright holder has no
such requirements.
--Iain
[newbie]
"Thomas Dalton" wrote
>We don't need to go through and put "So-and-so says"
> at the beginning of every sentence in the encyclopaedia.
I basically agree. The referencing junkies will push us back a notch, to where we have the 'materials for an encylopedia', not the encyclopedia itself. Or perhaps that has always been where we are. In which case we are delaying the day when we have 'finished' articles.
Is this good or bad? Well, the Internet is full of argumentative people, and many topics are contentious. The way to deal with those people and topics may well be to summarise controversies. But we really do need, even there, a degree of concision; otherwise we are going merely to recreate the scholasticism of past centuries. And then, in fact, people want to look up facts in encyclopedias. They don't always want quibbles.
As with many things here, we'll sort this out; but not very quickly.
Charles
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Here is a scenario that explores the boundaries of
what counts as Original Reseach. Suppose there is
a legal issue about which there are two popular
opinions, say A and B.
Now I log into a well-known depository of legal
journals and search for this issue. I get about 20 hits.
Then I look at each of these hits (articles published
in peer-reviewed law journals) and in all cases the
writer gives opinion A.
Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
something like: "The consensus amongst legal
scholars is that opinion A is correct" (or similar),
with a footnote stating the evidence.
Can I do that? My sources were the best that exist,
and everything I did can be verified easily by anyone
with a good library. On the other hand, I have drawn
my own conclusions from these observations so
maybe I'm afoul of the No Original Research policy.
I tend to think it's ok because the conclusions I drew
were the same as any reasonable person would draw,
and these conclusions don't require any private
information. I admit it is a boundary case though.
What do you think?
--Zero.
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On 12/21/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> en.WP's username policy is incompatible with SUL.
> This is a problem. We have heard from brion that the
> implementation of SUL is not negotiable. We have
> heard from several en.WP editors that they are not
> willing to give up the non-Latin username blocks
> without further development work to mitigate the
> issue.
That's not my position at all; my position is that SUL being implimented
tomorrow would either break a key en.WP vandal fighting tool, or result en
en.WP doing highly unfriendly things to editors whos native account is in a
non-latin script in another WP project, or possibly both. The consequences
for en.WP and the project as a whole would be terrible.
That is not "Don't do SUL". That is not "en.WP reserves the right to
continue banning non-Latin names forever". That is "I don't think we're
ready for it and I don't think we've thought it all through yet".
I personally like the idea of SUL. But I have not seen anywhere near the
degree of due dilligence applied on any side to thinking about the side
effects with regard to this en.WP policy, so far.
Any disambiguator, be it the existing anti-name-spoof detector work, a
numeric output (in either latin or localized for other WPs...) of the
user_ID would be an adequate solution in my opinion based on what I
understand.
That is not the only possible solution. It's a solution that I hope is
adequate and comprehensive, which would require some development. But I
don't have any reason to believe that it's the only globally acceptable one.
Considering that the brion (the developer) is
> not negotiating, I find the arguments about exactly
> which technical developments en.WP would demand in
> order for a policy change strange.
>
> This appears to be heading to a showdown. I think
> *that* is the worse than blocking ru.WP admins and
> non-latin vandals going to town at en.WP together. I
> would like to hear from anyone who does not strongly
> disagree with one of the two polar positions that have
> restated many times.
>
> Are there any en.WP editors who believe blocking users
> on sight based on their font is not a useful enough
> process to be worth breaking SUL for other editors?
>
> Is there anyone outside of en.WP who believes that SUL
> is not a useful enough process to be worth creating
> bad blood between wikis?
>
> Birgitte SB
>
The conflict here is being exaggerated. There is only one reason for there
to be a "showdown" here - if SUL is right around the corner and we haven't
had time to think through the implications for the en.WP policy and come to
agreement on how to deal with those.
If SUL is right around the corner, with all due respect to its importance to
the project as a whole and its importance in development, can it be held off
long enough to discuss appropriately and develop a reasonable global
consensus?
Letting an artificial schedule drive us into a large inter-project conflict
seems insane.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com
> From: zero 0000 <nought_0000(a)yahoo.com>
> Now I log into a well-known depository of legal
> journals and search for this issue. I get about 20 hits.
> Then I look at each of these hits (articles published
> in peer-reviewed law journals) and in all cases the
> writer gives opinion A.
>
> Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
> something like: "The consensus amongst legal
> scholars is that opinion A is correct" (or similar),
> with a footnote stating the evidence.
>
> Can I do that?
The point is, _you probably don't need to_. If your opinion is firmly
founded on facts, there's no need to state it at all. You don't need
to spell it out for the reader. You can just say "All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man," and leave it at that.
Sidestep the issue by stating the facts _without_ explicitly stating
my interpretation. Pick a couple of the best or most-respected
journals, or the articles that state opinion A in the flattest and
most succinct way. In the article, put "According to [bigshot author]
in [leading journal] says 'A is absolutely correct because blah
blah,' while [distinguished writer] in [respected journal] says
'Because of compelling reasons yada yada, A is correct.'"
In the footnote, after citing the sources actually quoted, if you
think it is important you could add "other sources with similar
opinions are" and cite and quote a couple more of the best.
I think you can document my borderline-original-research on the Talk
page, saying I found these twenty references or whatever, because I
believe it's perfectly OK to present original research on Talk pages
in hopes of influencing other editors' behavior.
Don't try to keep opinion B out of the article if it's sourced. If
the legal community thinks opinion B is bizarre, though, by all means
find someone who says so and cite and quote them.
For a recent concrete example... so recent that my success or failure
isn't clear yet... although looking at my interactions with another
editor I think it's going to stick...
in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing I had written "The term
was popularized by the controversial psychiatrist Margaret Singer."
An editor objected to the word "controversial."
So, I changed the sentence to "The term was popularized by the
clinical psychologist Margaret Singer, who has become closely
identified with the love-bombing-as-brainwashing point of view."
And I added a source citation, and a quotation, in a footnote,
reading, ""One particular California psychologist, Margaret Singer,
has been involved in offering testimony supporting cult brainwashing
theories in over 40 such cases.... Such testimony, even though
apparently effective, has drawn the ire of some scholar studying
newer religions. These scholars claimed that such testimony should be
disallowed because itdoes not represent a consensus position of
scholars in the relevant fields of study, and it disregards
considerable evidence that participation is virtually always a
volitional act."
You see the point? Is Singer "controversial?" Instead of drawing that
conclusion for the reader, I briefly state a fact which explains why
she _might_ be controversial, and back it up with a source citation
and a quote so that anyone can judge whether my brief statement is a
fair statement of the gist of the source.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ivy_League#A_Rutgers.2FIvy_reference_from… and followup, and be afraid. Be very afraid.
In brief: The first known college football game took place between Rutgers and Princeton, and the Ivy League sort of coalesced out of a group of schools that had been playing each other for year. There is dispute about a statement that "both [Rutgers and the College of William and Mary] declined invitations to join the Ivy League at its formation in 1954." Clearly there was discussion about what colleges should be included, and clearly Rutgers was talked about. But it's not so clear whether Rutgers was invited and declined, or whether Rutgers was considered and rejected. Or something in between, or both, or neither, or what. (It's like the question of whether or not John Bolton "resigned.")
The editor who says Rutgers was invited and declined has a source that falls beautifully into borderline territory. He insists that he's seen it in microfilm copies of the Rutgers student newspaper, and that he's seen it recently, but declines to pin the exact citation down to anything more than the entire microfilm archive itself. But that's NOT the reason why I'm posting this.
Here's the scary part.
Someone found what looked like a valuable confirming source: a recent article in the New York Daily News that said, "Rutgers might have joined the fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then, Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the big boys."
Good, right? Unfortunately the reporter did not cite his source. So someone contacted that reporter and asked.
And, guess what: the reporter's source was the Wikipedia article.
geni wrote
> Adminship is a big deal. You may not want this to be the case but it is.
'No big deal' still implies that admins shouldn't swagger around on the site.
Charles
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On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet(a)tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The notion that the numbers used in the Latin script are universal is
> > also a fallacy.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> >
> Yes, but it's quite a good approximation to reality. For example, the
> front pages of ar:, am:,he:, ru:, el:, th: and zh: are clear evidence
> that use of ASCII Hindu-Arabic numerals is widespread in common
> practice, even in cultures with their own distinct historic numeral
> systems.
>
> And if we really wanted to, we can also represent the same set of
> decimal digits in other writing systems, for example Devanagari
> numerals, since we already have the localization code to do this ready
> to go.
>
> I like Stephanie's suggestion of User:?????? <#2352562> as a display
> format: we could quite easily arrange that User:#2352562 would be an
> alias for User:?????? throughout the system, with ?????? remaining that
> user's true name everywhere.
>
> Thus, for the user "Examplename", User:Examplename would be their user
> page on every wiki, with User_talk:Examplename being their discussion
> page, and so on... but, for wikis where the script used in their name is
> not one of the native scripts for that wiki,
>
> [[User:Examplename|Examplename]] <[[User:Examplename|#425256]]>
>
> would appear in every context where the machine-generated text
>
> [[User:Examplename|Examplename]]
>
> would have appeared before, and "#425256" (or its equivalent with the
> decimal numerals in any other script) would also be usable in the
> software as a synonym for their real-name throughout the SUL universe.
> That is to say:
>
> * User:#425256 would be a redirect to User:Examplename on every wiki.
> * Blocking User:#425265 would have the effect of blocking User:Examplename
> * Special:Contributions/#425265 would have the same result as
> Special:Contributions/Examplename (and would display "User contributions
> for [[User:Examplename]]" at the top on home-script wikis, and "User
> contributions for [[User:Examplename]] <[[User:#425256|#425256]]>" at
> the top on others...
>
> Note that the numeric tags would only appear on ''system-generated''
> text: no user would ever be required to use their alternative numeric
> tag in any human context (unless they wanted to, of course).
>
> Net effect:
>
> * for most practical purposes, no visible change on any wiki, except in
> the immediate context of a username with "foreign-script" characters
> * no user will need to rename any of their accounts
> * no user will need to create any nicknames if they don't want to
> * most users won't even notice the change, since 99% of all editors tend
> to have same-script names
> * only formerly-unreadable "foreign script" names will appear with
> numeric tags on any given wiki, yet
> * either tags or names will work in any computer-input context such as
> blocking or user page display, throughout the entire SUL universe, but
> with the system always giving the true name display priority
>
> Just to gild the lily a bit more, we could also add a bit of latitude
> about what constitutes a "foreign" script: for example, if the community
> on zh: agreed that they could distinguish Latin characters (which they
> can in practice), or the community on en: was to agree that they could
> generally distinguish and remember Greek and Cyrillic characters, the
> software could be configured so that numeric tags could disappear on
> usernames in those scripts within those wikis. Or, contrariwise, if a
> community so desired, numeric tags could appear on all system-displayed
> usernames, even their own.
I think this can be a fair and readily implementable system, both
technically and socially. It solves the problem en.wiki was
addressing (clumsily) with the username policy, and is fully
compatible with SUL. It displays no bias for or against any
particular character set. In other words, I now expect that the SUL
implementation team will account for this proposal, or something very
much like it, when SUL goes live. If they're not considering it now,
I for one think they should. (Although I like the earlier suggestion
of salting the account IDs to avoid silly status games over longevity
:-) )
I'd just like to express my sadness at the lack of co-operative spirit
and foresight shown by some defenders of the en.wiki username policy,
and the lack of assumption of good faith all around. While I
personally dislike the policy for its heavyhandedness, it's clear that
there is a problem that it addresses, and does so in one of the very
few ways available *in the current technical environment.* What my
fellow en.wikipedians are failing to deal with properly is that the
technical environment is about to change, soon and inevitably. SUL is
not going to just go away, because it's too useful to too many people.
Plans need to be made now to deal with the major sociotechnical
changes that will accompany SUL's introduction. One of those changes
must be a revision of the en.wiki username policy. That will come
about through discussion and (cross-)community consensus, so flinging
what amount to accusations of bad faith around, right off the bat, is
less than helpful, to put it mildly. We need to shed more light and
less heat on this subject, as soon as we can. I hope we can come
together, as a community of communities, and rise to the challenge.
-Michael Noda
Is there a way to examine the wiki source of an article except by
clicking "edit"? I'm confident this is a newbie question so please
forgive me.
Zero.
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