Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Emily Monroe wrote: I suspect that'd mean the arbcom, who are quite busy enough ... but hmm. How about appointed by arbcom from a pool of people who were voted in with a super majority? Voting is evil. It starts by requiring people to run for the position, and that alone excludes perfectly suitable people who aren't masochistic enough to put themselves through an election campaign. Good criteria are elusive. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Ray Saintonge wrote: Matt Jacobs wrote: Having been bitten multiple times, I can definitely say the unfriendly atmosphere has been a problem for a while now. Editors/admins who are regularly rude to others are not only tolerated by most of the community, they often have a group of supporters around them always ready to praise everything they do, manipulating RfCs and other voting (sorry, !voting) situations. This is not unlike schoolyard bullies who are usually accompanied by a swarm of sycophants. It is certainly true that our systems are at their worst when confronted with cynicism within the community. Not surprising, since the essential and founding assumptions of Wikipedia were that people are not like that. And most really aren't. But this remains an unsolved problem. To connect it directly with newbie-biting is a stretch, if not an impossible one: there is something in the idea that people on the site are assertive beyond the needs of the job because a confident manner is self-preservation. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikitech-l] Article metadata separation from main wikitext
David Goodman wrote: Having various reference techniques is very useful for people writing articles, who can choose whatever they feel comfortable with; having multiple simultaneous techniques is not quite as helpful for people trying to make small edits and fixes in articles, or adding references, because you need to be familiar with every individual one of them you might encounter. Personally, for example, I never use the cite templates if I'm adding refs to an unreferenced article, but i need to know them in case I work on an article already using them. And similarly with every possibility. I would rather have to learn any one thing, whether or not I dislike it, than need to learn them all. I recognize of course that this tends to inhibit experiment and improvement. This is well taken. A lot of the templates have developed on an ad hoc basis, and when these become established there is a powerful unwillingness to change something that people are habituated to. With multilayered tranclusion it becomes even more difficult to adapt templates to circumstances.With large quantities of existing templates it may very well be that you have no way of knowing that the template that you need already exists. Perhaps each group of templates needs a global review from time to time to see that the templates work together. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikitech-l] Article metadata separation from main wikitext
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: David Goodman wrote: Having various reference techniques is very useful for people writing articles, who can choose whatever they feel comfortable with; having multiple simultaneous techniques is not quite as helpful for people trying to make small edits and fixes in articles, or adding references, because you need to be familiar with every individual one of them you might encounter. Personally, for example, I never use the cite templates if I'm adding refs to an unreferenced article, but i need to know them in case I work on an article already using them. And similarly with every possibility. I would rather have to learn any one thing, whether or not I dislike it, than need to learn them all. I recognize of course that this tends to inhibit experiment and improvement. This is well taken. A lot of the templates have developed on an ad hoc basis, and when these become established there is a powerful unwillingness to change something that people are habituated to. With multilayered tranclusion it becomes even more difficult to adapt templates to circumstances.With large quantities of existing templates it may very well be that you have no way of knowing that the template that you need already exists. Perhaps each group of templates needs a global review from time to time to see that the templates work together. Agree with both David and Ray. One of the things I fear is having to learn a new reference syntax when I've only just got used to the current one (even though that's been around for a while). And templates absolutely should be reviewed periodically, and organised better. Having to spend the first ten minutes before you do something, searching to see if it has already been done, is a bit annoying sometimes. Even if that search fails, you are still not quite sure whether you missed something or not. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] you have to improve upon it before tagging it for speedy deletion
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:29 AM, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: The best PR we can do is to improve the improvable articles, and explain to the authors of the others why the subjects are not suitable for Wikipedia, or why the subjects might be, but the submitted articles are not capable of being used even as a base for rewriting. Sometimes when I find a totally impossible article (such as complete copyvio) on an important subject that interests me, I will decide to write what amounts to a new article on that subject--and I call it an improved version--but that's a polite fiction. I am actually writing an article using the original of the copied page as a source. True, at this point I am more likely to do that than to write an article of my own choosing, but I can't see any think they are obliged to do this. Spending time rewriting the best article possible on altogether unencyclopedic subjects that will inevitably be deleted does not help build the encyclopedia--rather the authors should be guided towards more fruitful subject matter. Absolutely. Just to get back to the question of speedy tags and PRODs for a minute, I have seen some people edit an article to improve it by cutting bits out, and editing it down (sometimes quite legitimately), and then, because there is not much left of the article, nominating it for speedy, or PROD. My feeling is that the processes should be separated somewhat. If you get involved to the extent that you prune and edit the article, you should wait for a reaction to that, rather than going stright to PROD. Or ask another editor to review the editing and decide on whether PROD/speedy is needed. At the very least, the admin who reviews the PROD or speedy tag should be aware that such editing has taken place by the person who nominated the article. Sometimes articles genuinely need editing down and stuff removed, and what is left should be PRODed, but at other times it can be a way to game the system and fool an admin into thinking that an article should be speedied or PRODed. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Emily Monroe wrote: Yeah, it does seem to me that the more spammy the article, the more likely the person simply doesn't know of Wikipedia's COI, spam, and notability requirements. It's not that they are writing in bad faith, they really don't know that, for example, just because their competitor has written an article doesn't mean that they should write an article about their own company. Sad, really. Getting back to the initial complainant: http://howwikipediaworks.com/ch10.html covers all sorts of things that are also not well known generally, but probably cannot so easily be found on the site. For example, bot edits were (a more ranty) part of the complaint, and they are dealt with in that discussion. That book chapter has no official status at all, of course: but in comparison the suite of policy pages and help pages is unambitious in actually explaining how the system functions, in the round. There is a proper distinction to be made between user-friendliness and simple friendliness, of course, but it doesn't seem entirely helpful to have two separate discussions going on, one on usability at Foundation level, and another on the community as self-criticism on the enWP level, without some sort of model of this life cycle kind in the background. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
George Herbert wrote: People who are causing a problem but have aware friends - people who know them and know AN and ANI and policy ok - rarely get driven off. Their friends post an ANI thread if they're blocked excessively, or go to the admin and advocate moderation, or go to another administrator and advocate moderation, etc. Once one becomes known to someone in that set of people, actually driving someone away from Wikipedia becomes exponentially more difficult, if anyone supports the problem case at all. In the real world that might be called corruption, or in some cases nepotism. Perhaps when there is a dispute between an admin and a non-admin leading to disciplinary action for both being at fault, the penalty for the admin should be doubled. I almost wish we had an admin action review board, whose job it was to say just quickly look at some fraction (10%? 1%?) of all admin actions and see if they're documented, justified, reasonable etc and give the admins feedback, request more writeup, ask for reconsideration etc. That's a possibility. Included among these sins could be impersonal behaviour and messages full of jargon. Key question - in terms of hostility, do people think that hostility to new editors is more from admins, more from self appointed gatekeepers, more from normal users interacting hostiley in a small article space? Probably a combination of the first two. The gatekeepers will often see themselves as future admins. If they know about the RfA process they will quickly learn what it takes to become an admin. The gauntlet that must be run there imparts adminship with highly prestigious status. Oldtimers can keep repeating that adminship is no big deal, but the actual process tells a different story. I would place the bulk of the responsibility for perpetuating hostility with the admins. They should know better; they should set the example; if they fail to do so they should be treated more harshly. The normal user expressing hostility within a narrow set of articles is less of a problem; his adversaries are often as well versed in the topic area as he is. His biases are more easily identifiable, in contrast with the one who reacts impersonally across an unlimited range of articles seeking strict application of rules over areas where he knows nothing. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources
Jay you are confusing source-based research with original research. If you research something to *confirm* it by researching in sources, you are not doing original research.? If you research it by repeating experiments then you would be. I doubt that any textbook author confirms their sources by repeating the experiments. Will -Original Message- From: Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 8:14 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources I agree with Gerard on this. Textbooks are typically loaded with primary sources, and the textbook is a secondary source, even if the author of the textbook did some orijinal research to confirm what the primary source said -- does not mean that research was reviewed. As far as private definitions are concerned, if there is a key difference between yours and my definition, it can be either inconsequential in a context or a key point of difference in a conversation. Every debate leads to confusion. If you are lucky, it does not lead to polarization. ___ http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/Sound/Tiggerz.mp3 Tune http://www.pooh-corner.org/tigger_lyrics.shtml Lyrics wjhon...@aol.com wrote in message news:8cbff4f848d9479-2ee4-14...@webmail-m017.sysops.aol.com... I dispute that this is my private meaning. And I propose that this is the standard meaning. As well as the inworld meaning. -Original Message- From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, Sep 9, 2009 1:48 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Secondary sources 2009/9/9 wjhon...@aol.com: What I said, and what I've been saying is that any source which is our first incident of a particular fact is a primary source, no matter what their source was. You must appreciate, though, that your private definition of this term is not the established meaning for this term, which has been in use since well before Wikipedia started. And that using private definitions of terms without acknowledging doing so only leads to confusion. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Stick this in your music theory and smoke it.
So, every time I post a new topic, I will go on moderation? ___ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intervals_in_5-limit_just_intonation Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote in message news:b8ceeef70909172024q121c6b6co8ef07b31e5bf8...@mail.gmail.com... Ok, that post was totally off topic. You're on moderation now. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote: http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/Sound/MSixths.mp3 DATA 35,27,2,24,40,6,45,27,2,30,50,4 DATA 55,33,2,36,60,4,65,39,4,42,70,4,0,0,4 ' How is it that the above numbers, which approximate the western scale, ' in stereo, in parts a constant major sixth (5:3) apart... DATA 60,35,2,30,40,6,54,45,2,27,50,4 DATA 54,55,2,48,60,4,54,65,4,60,70,4,0,0,8 sound a lot like the above series? Hint: you need to multiply all of them by 66/35 to render them. Complete source (or the equivalent in a key for ladies) available upon request. I like the first series better, because both parts are more interesting than the scale, while in the second version, one part basically is Doh-Ray-Mee. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Moderating the moderators
Sorry, guys. This is not good enough. You *must* manually reject. Your mail to 'WikiEN-l' with the subject Re: Well known Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval. The reason it is being held: Post to moderated list Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive notification of the moderator's decision. If you would like to cancel this posting, please visit the following URL: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/confirm/wikien-l/d269eb6a28d7da25cafea5b201ee9a7a75401985 -- [http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/ BrewJay's Babble Bin] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 74, Issue 64
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:47:57 -0500 From: Emily Monroe Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Editors/admins who are regularly rude to others are not only tolerated by most of the community, they often have a group of supporters around them always ready to praise everything they do, manipulating RfCs and other voting (sorry, !voting) situations. Do you think that civility blocks and bans pre-arbcom will help the situation at all? If we want to make WP more friendly, we have to make sure admins and high-profile editors are actually trying to BE friendly. If they can't handle that, they shouldn't be working in a collaborative environment. Exactly the reason why I support civility blocks. Emily I do agree that they need to be applied, but I also think that civility expectations need to be higher for admins, followed by long-term editors. These people 1) should know better, and 2) are often newbies' first experience with WP. Otherwise, I can see Civility being gamed by groups of editors in content disputes. My own experience was that a number of editors accused me of making personal attacks for calling out a boldfaced lie made by an admin(!) attempting to undermine my credibility in a dispute. I think a first step would be for arbcom to start desysopping admins who are uncivil on a regular basis. This would help remove some of the leniency problems, IMO. Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:50:58 +0100 From: Charles Matthews Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Ray Saintonge wrote: This is not unlike schoolyard bullies who are usually accompanied by a swarm of sycophants. It is certainly true that our systems are at their worst when confronted with cynicism within the community. Not surprising, since the essential and founding assumptions of Wikipedia were that people are not like that. And most really aren't. But this remains an unsolved problem. To connect it directly with newbie-biting is a stretch, if not an impossible one: there is something in the idea that people on the site are assertive beyond the needs of the job because a confident manner is self-preservation. Charles I would disagree that the connection is a stretch, as my experience is that it was directly related. The editors watched certain articles and would attack incoming editors who even suggested a change they didn't like. Attempting to address the attack on any noticeboards would bring choruses of it's not an attack, it was justified, or further attacks on the editor using misleading diffs. One of the group was eventually desysopped for abusing the tools, but the time and level of drama involved was way disproportionate to the clear-cut nature of the case. In most cases the few censures the group of editors received were ignored among the attaboys from the usual crowd. Sxeptomaniac ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Durova wrote: A new creative copyright is generated each time a tourist stands beneath the Venus de Milo and takes a snapshot due to the inherent creative decision in choosing angle and lighting when photographing three dimensional artwork. No, the copyright is not generated until the photo is fixed in a published form. Often the photographer is unknown because he is a passing stranger to whom we hand our camera for the single purpose of taking that picture. Creative copyright also attaches when the same tourist heads over to the Mona Lisa and takes another snapshot, since the frame around the Mona Lisa is three dimensional (there's also the creative joy of capturing dozens of tourist ballcaps in the periphery). I would prefer to wait until the ballcaps have moved out of the picture, and I can easily crop out a rectangular frame. It's also important to remember that the criterion for copyright is originality rather than creativity. At the time of that work I was thinking if it came out right, a viewer might imagine for an instant that Admiral Farragut was capable of turning and ordering another assault on New Orleans. Of course with eyes a few pixels moved and the expression could have turned out entirely different. Another change in the eyes could have him leering suggestively toward a youthful crew member. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Stick this in your music theory and smoke it.
2009/9/18 Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca: So, every time I post a new topic, I will go on moderation? Every time you post a new topic which is not relevant to this mailing list, yes. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
The best practical way to audit admin actions is to become an admin oneself. Admins have just as many conflicts among them as any other active people here. There are people I watch, and people who watch me. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: George Herbert wrote: People who are causing a problem but have aware friends - people who know them and know AN and ANI and policy ok - rarely get driven off. Their friends post an ANI thread if they're blocked excessively, or go to the admin and advocate moderation, or go to another administrator and advocate moderation, etc. Once one becomes known to someone in that set of people, actually driving someone away from Wikipedia becomes exponentially more difficult, if anyone supports the problem case at all. In the real world that might be called corruption, or in some cases nepotism. Perhaps when there is a dispute between an admin and a non-admin leading to disciplinary action for both being at fault, the penalty for the admin should be doubled. I almost wish we had an admin action review board, whose job it was to say just quickly look at some fraction (10%? 1%?) of all admin actions and see if they're documented, justified, reasonable etc and give the admins feedback, request more writeup, ask for reconsideration etc. That's a possibility. Included among these sins could be impersonal behaviour and messages full of jargon. Key question - in terms of hostility, do people think that hostility to new editors is more from admins, more from self appointed gatekeepers, more from normal users interacting hostiley in a small article space? Probably a combination of the first two. The gatekeepers will often see themselves as future admins. If they know about the RfA process they will quickly learn what it takes to become an admin. The gauntlet that must be run there imparts adminship with highly prestigious status. Oldtimers can keep repeating that adminship is no big deal, but the actual process tells a different story. I would place the bulk of the responsibility for perpetuating hostility with the admins. They should know better; they should set the example; if they fail to do so they should be treated more harshly. The normal user expressing hostility within a narrow set of articles is less of a problem; his adversaries are often as well versed in the topic area as he is. His biases are more easily identifiable, in contrast with the one who reacts impersonally across an unlimited range of articles seeking strict application of rules over areas where he knows nothing. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Durova wrote: You're starting to touch on the vigorous debates that a few media editors have and which hardly anyone else understands. Let's frame the terms of discussion properly, though: you begin from the debatable presumption that restoration and creative input are mutually exclusive concepts. I would frame it somewhat differently by saying that restoration and *original* input are mutually exclusive. In printed matter it brings up questions about correcting spelling errors or typos in the original of a text, or altering the spelling of a British text for publication in the US. The further we drift from the original, the mor3e important it is to have the changes documented. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
David Gerard wrote: I suspect (as you've noted) that copyright may not be the right tool for the job. (It would undoubtedly encourage restorations, but the cultural price may not be appropriate. But that's getting more to the philosophical.) Copyright law is already pretty screwed up; piling a bigger load on that horse doesn't help. I think what we need to do - a practical action that we can do at present - is more encourage a culture of crediting restorers. This means naming the restorers, details of the restoration, etc. on the image pages. To a point. But how much restoration deserves mention. Some may only be noticeable at high resolution; for someone whose needs are fulfilled by a low resolution image the restoration may be of no value. Noting the restorer is of course best practice, to be accurate about image provenance if nothing else. Encouraging third parties to actually do so is going to be a long and gentle process. It's hard enough to get media reusers to credit an image with more than Wikipedia when it's under an attribution licence, let alone list any detail they're not absolutely forced to by law. Credit to Wikipedia is about as much as you can realistically expect. For the many who don't even realize that they can edit themselves Wikipedia is only one monolithic entity. The thought process that distinguishes individual Wikipedia contributors from the monolith only begins when they become aware of their own ability to edit. With the spread of free culture, I suspect credit will become more common as a social expectation, which is why getting into crediting restorers is a good thing to start now. Optimist!!! Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Carcharoth wrote: Yes. But that doesn't mean ignoring other ways to recognise work done. It's not a black-and-white copyright-only issue. There are other laws and other ethical and moral concerns beside US copyright laws. If you look at everything only through the lens of US copyright law, you will get a distorted picture of the world. Some European jurisdictions have ruled that colorizing a black-and-white copyright American film violates the owner's moral rights. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Carcharoth wrote: Yes. But that doesn't mean ignoring other ways to recognise work done. It's not a black-and-white copyright-only issue. There are other laws and other ethical and moral concerns beside US copyright laws. If you look at everything only through the lens of US copyright law, you will get a distorted picture of the world. Some European jurisdictions have ruled that colorizing a black-and-white copyright American film violates the owner's moral rights. You are... agreeing with me? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Carcharoth wrote: On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: Carcharoth wrote: Yes. But that doesn't mean ignoring other ways to recognise work done. It's not a black-and-white copyright-only issue. There are other laws and other ethical and moral concerns beside US copyright laws. If you look at everything only through the lens of US copyright law, you will get a distorted picture of the world. Some European jurisdictions have ruled that colorizing a black-and-white copyright American film violates the owner's moral rights. You are... agreeing with me? Mostly. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Thanks for the kind words, David. With digital restoration, often one encounters elements about the original that are unknowable. A couple of examples follow. Segregated drinking fountain, North Carolina, 1938: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938b.jpg The child is pushing away from the fountain and rotating on his hip with one foot raised, turning to get away from the photographer. Which suggests that the shot was taken very quickly: not much time to get an ideal composition. What was the photographer's intention? Many Americans of the 1930s had a view of the subject that would be intolerable today. Farm Security Administration photographers were discouraged from photographing racial issues so the fact that this image exists raises intriguing possibilities. That's a courthouse at upper left. It stayed in frame while the crop took out the curb, outbuilding, and power lines. There are several ways to explain the reasons for this crop in terms of overexposure and compositional principles, one of which is the dynamic effect of diagonal lines. There's a diagonal from the courthouse to the segregated fountain sign to the child: cropping kept that diagonal but moved the center off the child to a midpoint between the sign and the child, enhancing tension between the two. I don't know what John Vachon thought when he took this, but to my eye this is about the difference between law and justice. It's possible that I changed the entire POV of the photograph. Early this year when I worked on the Wounded Knee Massacre restoration (which discovered four human remains and became a minor news story), it was a pattern of five dark spots which seemed to follow the contours of the snow that led to the discovery. http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/01/discoveries-and-tough-decisions.html These finds don't quite happen accidentally. I browse through thousands of files looking for ones that might have something interesting in them. That original had an unusual composition: why were there several large bundles in the foreground? The bibliographic record is often underdocumented, so subtle cues within the image itself may be all one ever has to go by. Old photographs often have thousands of dust and dirt specks. So how does one tell random degradation from meaningful information? Dust from blood? Genuine photographic elements often look slightly different from print damage, but software plugins aren't trustworthy at telling the difference. Intelligent decisions often require a knowledge of historic context. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching.jpg Yes, it's a lynching. His feet are only a few inches above the forest floor; his shadow nearly meets his foot. Beneath him there's also a discoloration. Is that a stain on the negative or real part of the scene? Well, it seems to be directly beneath something dripping from his left shoe. There appears to be a pattern of drip stains on the left leg of his overalls from the ankle to the knee. Then a similar discoloration in a circular pattern at his crotch. Could the elements be related? People who were being hanged have been known to lose bladder control. Yet I suspect something worse. Look at the stains on his shoe again. That's unusually dark for a urine stain, and it shines in the sunlight. Possibly dried blood. This man may have been castrated. High resolution digitized photos of lynching are hard to find. This one happened to have the right technical specifications for restoration; it is--within its gruesome subject--comparatively understated. Others show more obvious mutilation, often with a crowd of smiling vigilantes next to the corpse. The perpetrators were hardly ever prosecuted. I can't mention this speculation onsite because the circumstances are unconfirmed. The man's name and the location are unknown. The photograph was taken in 1925. It helps to speak from experience when discussing digital restoration. -Durova -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
David Goodman wrote: The best practical way to audit admin actions is to become an admin oneself. Admins have just as many conflicts among them as any other active people here. There are people I watch, and people who watch me. Perhaps so. And maybe I should have taken steps to become an admin way back when joining the mailing list was a prerequisite to becoming one. Now, I would just not run myself through that gauntlet; it's not worth it. To be successful would require too much equivocation, or agreeing to put too much effort on those parts of adminship which do not interest me at all. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Here's the after link for the second example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching2.jpg After all the work was done it was startling to pull back and view at thumbnail. It's possible to look at the unrestored file and seek visual reminders of this was long ago; restoration takes away that comfortable little refuge. I wonder whether it's still possible to identify him. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the kind words, David. With digital restoration, often one encounters elements about the original that are unknowable. A couple of examples follow. Segregated drinking fountain, North Carolina, 1938: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938b.jpg The child is pushing away from the fountain and rotating on his hip with one foot raised, turning to get away from the photographer. Which suggests that the shot was taken very quickly: not much time to get an ideal composition. What was the photographer's intention? Many Americans of the 1930s had a view of the subject that would be intolerable today. Farm Security Administration photographers were discouraged from photographing racial issues so the fact that this image exists raises intriguing possibilities. That's a courthouse at upper left. It stayed in frame while the crop took out the curb, outbuilding, and power lines. There are several ways to explain the reasons for this crop in terms of overexposure and compositional principles, one of which is the dynamic effect of diagonal lines. There's a diagonal from the courthouse to the segregated fountain sign to the child: cropping kept that diagonal but moved the center off the child to a midpoint between the sign and the child, enhancing tension between the two. I don't know what John Vachon thought when he took this, but to my eye this is about the difference between law and justice. It's possible that I changed the entire POV of the photograph. Early this year when I worked on the Wounded Knee Massacre restoration (which discovered four human remains and became a minor news story), it was a pattern of five dark spots which seemed to follow the contours of the snow that led to the discovery. http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/01/discoveries-and-tough-decisions.html These finds don't quite happen accidentally. I browse through thousands of files looking for ones that might have something interesting in them. That original had an unusual composition: why were there several large bundles in the foreground? The bibliographic record is often underdocumented, so subtle cues within the image itself may be all one ever has to go by. Old photographs often have thousands of dust and dirt specks. So how does one tell random degradation from meaningful information? Dust from blood? Genuine photographic elements often look slightly different from print damage, but software plugins aren't trustworthy at telling the difference. Intelligent decisions often require a knowledge of historic context. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching.jpg Yes, it's a lynching. His feet are only a few inches above the forest floor; his shadow nearly meets his foot. Beneath him there's also a discoloration. Is that a stain on the negative or real part of the scene? Well, it seems to be directly beneath something dripping from his left shoe. There appears to be a pattern of drip stains on the left leg of his overalls from the ankle to the knee. Then a similar discoloration in a circular pattern at his crotch. Could the elements be related? People who were being hanged have been known to lose bladder control. Yet I suspect something worse. Look at the stains on his shoe again. That's unusually dark for a urine stain, and it shines in the sunlight. Possibly dried blood. This man may have been castrated. High resolution digitized photos of lynching are hard to find. This one happened to have the right technical specifications for restoration; it is--within its gruesome subject--comparatively understated. Others show more obvious mutilation, often with a crowd of smiling vigilantes next to the corpse. The perpetrators were hardly ever prosecuted. I can't mention this speculation onsite because the circumstances are unconfirmed. The man's name and the location are unknown. The photograph was taken in 1925. It helps to speak from experience when discussing digital restoration. -Durova -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
On 19 Sep 2009, at 21:47, Ray Saintonge wrote: Credit to Wikipedia is about as much as you can realistically expect. For the many who don't even realize that they can edit themselves Wikipedia is only one monolithic entity. The thought process that distinguishes individual Wikipedia contributors from the monolith only begins when they become aware of their own ability to edit. This may be true for text, but it isn't true in the case of media files. I've uploaded a number of photographs taken by myself to Commons, and they've been appropriately credited mostly as I've requested (i.e. to my name) in various non-Wiki places. As long as the requested attribution is clear on the image page (possible caveat: and is required by the license), then most reputable places will attribute correctly. There are always some notable repeat offenders, which can be taken to task, and the odd mistake/someone not knowing better. But on the whole, people do read the attribution section of the information boxes. Mike ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Permission required on copyright expired images...
Actually this isn't a copyright discussion. http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=581 To ensure that publication of material from its collections receives due acknowledgment and promotion, the Library requires that permission to publish is obtained prior to publication. All requests for permission to publish should be made in writing, giving details of the item/s required and their proposed use. The requirement for permission to publish is based on ownership, not copyright, to ensure copyright and donor provisions are met, the State Library of South Australia receives due acknowledgement and promotion for use of material from its collections, material is cited in a way that ensures it can be found by other researchers. Am I the only one who follows links? http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/01000/B838.htm On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Sarah Ewart sarahew...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Is that date taken or date published? This is why provenance of photographs (both photographer and publication details, and dates) is important. You should also make clear *who* is saying that this photograph was taken in 1903. Sometimes publication and photographed dates are mixed up. Also, the location where something is published can be important. If the photographer is known, it's 'taken before 1 Jan 1955'. If the photographer is not known or they are anonymous or pseudonymous, it's 'taken or published before 1 Jan 1955'. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
I agree from this, and your previous post, that restoring historical images can be a difficult process, particularly when the images themselves may have originally been pure factual journalism rather than having a polemical purpose, although in my experience, that is more allied to the commentary attached than the image itself. In the case you cite, processing an image may well involve some interpretation of the depiction, and you rightly point out some of the pitfalls involved. Absent the intention of the photographer, who may not even have considered how his image may have been used (as long as he was paid), making assumptions I believe to be unhelpful, and even Original Research. All this convinces me that image restoration should be limited to correcting obvious physical defects in the source, and not going beyond that. I am not in any way criticising those who do this (after all, I've done it with my own images, although I do know what I intended when I created the image), bur I do believe that restoration should not blur into interpretation./ramble Durova wrote: Here's the after link for the second example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching2.jpg After all the work was done it was startling to pull back and view at thumbnail. It's possible to look at the unrestored file and seek visual reminders of this was long ago; restoration takes away that comfortable little refuge. I wonder whether it's still possible to identify him. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the kind words, David. With digital restoration, often one encounters elements about the original that are unknowable. A couple of examples follow. Segregated drinking fountain, North Carolina, 1938: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segregation_1938b.jpg The child is pushing away from the fountain and rotating on his hip with one foot raised, turning to get away from the photographer. Which suggests that the shot was taken very quickly: not much time to get an ideal composition. What was the photographer's intention? Many Americans of the 1930s had a view of the subject that would be intolerable today. Farm Security Administration photographers were discouraged from photographing racial issues so the fact that this image exists raises intriguing possibilities. That's a courthouse at upper left. It stayed in frame while the crop took out the curb, outbuilding, and power lines. There are several ways to explain the reasons for this crop in terms of overexposure and compositional principles, one of which is the dynamic effect of diagonal lines. There's a diagonal from the courthouse to the segregated fountain sign to the child: cropping kept that diagonal but moved the center off the child to a midpoint between the sign and the child, enhancing tension between the two. I don't know what John Vachon thought when he took this, but to my eye this is about the difference between law and justice. It's possible that I changed the entire POV of the photograph. Early this year when I worked on the Wounded Knee Massacre restoration (which discovered four human remains and became a minor news story), it was a pattern of five dark spots which seemed to follow the contours of the snow that led to the discovery. http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/01/discoveries-and-tough-decisions.html These finds don't quite happen accidentally. I browse through thousands of files looking for ones that might have something interesting in them. That original had an unusual composition: why were there several large bundles in the foreground? The bibliographic record is often underdocumented, so subtle cues within the image itself may be all one ever has to go by. Old photographs often have thousands of dust and dirt specks. So how does one tell random degradation from meaningful information? Dust from blood? Genuine photographic elements often look slightly different from print damage, but software plugins aren't trustworthy at telling the difference. Intelligent decisions often require a knowledge of historic context. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching.jpg Yes, it's a lynching. His feet are only a few inches above the forest floor; his shadow nearly meets his foot. Beneath him there's also a discoloration. Is that a stain on the negative or real part of the scene? Well, it seems to be directly beneath something dripping from his left shoe. There appears to be a pattern of drip stains on the left leg of his overalls from the ankle to the knee. Then a similar discoloration in a circular pattern at his crotch. Could the elements be related? People who were being hanged have been known to lose bladder control. Yet I suspect something worse. Look at the stains on his shoe again. That's unusually dark for a urine stain, and it shines
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay
Restoration is inherently interpretive. Consider something simple: a newspaper cartoon in black and white. There are many possible whites; which do you select? Do you retain or eliminate paper grain? Older illustrations are often imperfect by a few tenths of a degree, so when the border isn't quite rectangular what rotation do you choose? Do you crop wider to compensate or do you crop out the border itself? When you detect an obvious printing error such as an uninked spot within a straight line, do you fill it in or do you retain the empty spot? If you retain that spot when it looks like a printing error, what do you do when ink rubs away from the page after printing? Or when you're not sure of the cause? The two most prolific Wikimedians in this area are Shoemaker's Holiday and myself, and although we often work together we also have longstanding philosophical differences that reflect in our featured picture galleries. The most obvious of these regards color balance. A more interesting debate concerns nineteenth century etchings and engravings (it's interesting to us--might bore the rest of you to tears). People who rely on tools and plugins don't avoid interpretion; that only delegates the interpretive work to a computer program. There's an example from my bookshelf which, fortunately, also happens to be available via Google Books preview. Scroll to the Texas saloon on page 11. http://books.google.com/books?id=SNoNlmvJQy4Cprintsec=frontcoverdq=digital+restorationei=-_mzSqbdNqKIkATfoamJBA#v=onepageq=f=false This author is very helpful in some other respects, but his reliance on plugins is a liability here. The software has made choices with the building facade which are clearly wrong: real windows don't morph into puddles. Enough of the right window remains visible to show that it is a duplicate of the left window. A better reconstruction would borrow data from the intact window. The vertical lines of the facade planks can be rebuilt in a similar way. Shadows on the facade and men's clothing gives a trustworthy measure of the sunlight's angle, direction, and intensity. That would serve as a reference for distinguishing and correcting brightness variances that result from stains. Of course if this were a Commons upload the edits would be documented in detail on the image hosting page, the unrestored file would be uploaded under a separate filename, and both file descriptions would link to each other for cross reference. -Durova On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Phil Nash pn007a2...@blueyonder.co.ukwrote: I agree from this, and your previous post, that restoring historical images can be a difficult process, particularly when the images themselves may have originally been pure factual journalism rather than having a polemical purpose, although in my experience, that is more allied to the commentary attached than the image itself. In the case you cite, processing an image may well involve some interpretation of the depiction, and you rightly point out some of the pitfalls involved. Absent the intention of the photographer, who may not even have considered how his image may have been used (as long as he was paid), making assumptions I believe to be unhelpful, and even Original Research. All this convinces me that image restoration should be limited to correcting obvious physical defects in the source, and not going beyond that. I am not in any way criticising those who do this (after all, I've done it with my own images, although I do know what I intended when I created the image), bur I do believe that restoration should not blur into interpretation./ramble -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
