User talk:Omegatron/Archive/September, 2007

Weasel words template re: Koreans and Fan Death

I have commented on the talk page regarding the above subject. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 13:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Edit-protected request: COinS metadata in Infobox Book

Just FYI: Edit-protected request: COinS metadata in Infobox Book. Cheers, Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above has now been actioned. There are are issues around the date, which expects either a year (or ISO8601 format), not the wiki-linked prose used at present; and that it includes the square rackets around linked items. Also, it would be better if the infobox had "first" and "last" parameters for author name. Please take a look. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:34, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

re: Cite conference

I (vaguely) remember adding this because I needed to cite a conference proceeding titled Proceedings of the <parent organization of the conference>, but wanted to add the name of the actually conference as well. I'm unable to find where I used this in any article in my contribution history, though. Cheers, —Ruud 14:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sooo... you added it and you don't know what it's for? Can we deprecate it, then? I mean, if there's a reason to keep it let's keep it, but clarify exactly what each parameter is for. If there's no reason to keep it, let's remove it from the template documentation and phase it out. — Omegatron 22:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I know what it's for: proceedings which are called differently than Proceedings of the <conference name>. I just didn't seem to actually have used the feature (and doubt that anyone else has). —Ruud 19:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, ok. It would probably be better to just have one field and type out the "Proceedings of" part. — Omegatron 22:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but in the case of Proceedings of the <organization> you probably want to give the name of the conference somewhere as well. —Ruud 23:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bit rate articles

So what happened with the merge of all those bit rate articles? They appear to still be there. >Radiant< 08:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still needs to be done. :-) See Talk:Bit_rate#Merge_of_bit_rate_articles — Omegatron 23:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quote format

Please explain your reasoning:

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Pseudoskepticism&diff=prev&oldid=150289140

There is no absolute standard regarding quotes but this method is used by a few editors and wastes alot of space in articles. It is even used by some editors to draw attention to certain quotes (using normal formatting indents for the other quotes) in an attempt to add POV formatting. They can thus draw attention to the quotes they want noticed. At least you are consistent and using it for all of them, but to me it looks weird with all that white space.

Your edit here shows that my edit summary wasn't ad hoc..... If you want to get that method adopted as the only allowable method, be my guest. It has an advantage, but it still takes up too much space. Can the code be altered to take care of that problem so the quote doesn't look like it came floating in from outer space in a large bubble of white space? -- Fyslee/talk 06:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wastes alot of space in articles. ... but to me it looks weird with all that white space. Can the code be altered to take care of that problem so the quote doesn't look like it came floating in from outer space in a large bubble of white space?

This is the way blockquotes are formatted in any other text. It looks fine to me, and to the people who set that as the site's style. If you think there is too much whitespace around them, bring it up on the village pump, on Mediawiki talk:Common.css, or edit your own CSS to reduce the whitespace. Don't go around changing articles to use non-standard markup just because you dislike the way things are defined in the site's style sheets.

Your edit here shows that my edit summary wasn't ad hoc

How? I didn't add the blockquote recommendation. It's been the standard to use blockquote tags for block quotes for a long time. It's the second to last button on the editing toolbar. The {{quote}} template is just a shortcut that generates the same HTML blockquote tags, so I added it to that page. Change all those quotes in the pseudoskepticism article to HTML blockquotes if you want, but the visual output is going to be the same. The colon markup produces a definition list; it is not for indentation or blockquotes. See Wikipedia:Lists#Definition_lists, Help:List#List_basics. — Omegatron 00:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

COinS removed from infoboxes

FYI:

Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm.. It should only add one non-breaking space inline with whatever text it is placed next to. The HTML comments can certainly be removed, though I imagine the citation templates are bigger, and I'm not sure if comments count towards template limits. — Omegatron 23:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yr Binary Prefix Images

Hi: The images being deleted are stated to be not "free." I seem to recall u generated them as a photo of the Seagate box and a screen shot from your system. As the "owner" did u place them in the "public domain?" Tom94022 06:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures and screen shots of copyrighted works are, unfortunately, not considered independent works. They are considered "derivative works" and not free if the original was not free. — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did create the images, and would release them under a free license if possible, but it is not currently clear whether such an image can be copyrighted (see Screenshot#Copyright_issues, for example).

It's quite clear, however, that using them to illustrate the binary prefix article is an acceptable fair use (and would never cause any legal trouble even if it wasn't). — Omegatron 06:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that it is not a legal issue (unfortunately sometimes it is portrayed as such). The issue is that nonfree images should be avoided when possible because Wikipedia aims to be a free encyclopedia to the extent possible. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and put fair use information on the 3 images - u (Omegatron) please feel free to edit if u want to. Since u and I seem to agree that these images are far more effective at communicating the problem than simply text, i suspect we out vote Carl :-) Tom94022 17:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Voting is not an issue. Wikipedia operates on consensus instead, and the consensus of the community has been (so far) to promote the project as being free as much as possible. While I understand you're joking, realize that when you start to think in that manner, the community as a whole will start to take notice and act on the threat from within. There are many projects who have either disabled uploading entirely or restricted uploading simply to not have the temptation exist. Thanks for the laugh, though! ~Kylu (u|t) 19:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is absolutely no consensus on how "free" the project should be. Have you looked at the talk pages for our related policies? The policies do not reflect the will of the community and need to be changed.

But that's not the issue here, anyway. The use of these images is acceptable even under the excessive restrictions of the current policies. — Omegatron 01:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That last point is, apparently, disputed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use images

I have tagged these images to say the nonfree use is disputed. These are used just to illustrate Binary prefix but all of them can be replaced by text alone while conveying the same information, and per WP:NFCC use of nonfree images is only acceptable when text or a free alternative cannot perform the same function. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no way that text can convey the same information as these images. Please remove the disputed tags. — Omegatron 05:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that all these images convey is "The Seagate drive box said this" or "Windows XP said this". Those facts can be conveyed by text, and there is no artistic merit to the images. Can you explain how the images add to the mere facts? — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask you, on a personal level, why you're doing this? What are you trying to accomplish by removing images from Wikipedia? How does this improve the quality of the article and benefit the project? — Omegatron 06:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nonfree images hinder the ability to reuse Wikipedia content. By replacing them with free alternatives, or removing them when they are not needed, we end up with content that more people can use in more ways. In the case of these articles, the only purpose of t

he nonfree images is to show how certain companies have used binary prefixes - we can just say that in text. For example "Seagate used 160 GB for a drive with 160 x 10^9 bytes." — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give an example of how use of these particular images creates a real problem for reusers of Wikipedia content? A concrete, real-life example.
- Remember that fair use for us is often (but not always) fair use for downstream users as well. It's "not a legal issue" for them, either. (Jimbo remarked to me in an e-mail that this makes fair use content "free in the relevant sense", which I would imagine you and I both disagree with.)
- Remember that all non-free images are tagged with machine-readable codes so that they can be stripped out by paranoid downstream users.
In this case, the purpose of the non-free images is to show examples of use of binary prefixes in Windows XP dialog boxes that readers will recognize by sight.
- There is no way to substitute this with text
- There are no free alternatives (except for something generated in Wine, perhaps? It's the GUI widgets that are supposedly copyrighted. (Though I seem to remember something about icons and widgets being "utility articles" and not copyrightable in this sense. It's certainly not clear-cut.))
Again, from a personal perspective, why are you doing this? I'm trying to understand the mindset of the "not free enough" crowd. — Omegatron 01:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to explain that I do think these can be replaced by text, because their only purpose is to claim that a certain interface said a certain thing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a good fair use rationale for Image:Windows XP C partition properties.png -- SWTPC6800 01:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. We can also note this:

"Screen Shots (Excluding Xbox)". Use of Microsoft Copyrighted Content. Retrieved 2007-08-22.

— Omegatron 01:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is quite a nonfree license, with those restrictions on use. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and? — Omegatron 02:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the speedy deletion was disputed, I have nominated these for deletion at IfD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain, for my personal edification, why you want these images deleted so badly? — Omegatron 03:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really care whether they are deleted, although we deleted orphaned nonfree images as matter of policy. I don't feel these images contribute to Binary prefix in a way that cannot be easily replaced by text, and there's no reason to have nonfree images on that article if we can avoid it. Some articles, like Guernica (painting), really do benefit from the nonfree images. Perhaps you can explain why you think it's appropriate to keep these nonfree images given that the goal of wikipedia is to make the encyclopedia as free as possible? — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly seems that you do care. Mindless obedience of rules is generally not something to be proud of, especially on a project like ours that explicitly values not following rules mindlessly. If you didn't care about this rule, you wouldn't be pushing to enforce it when several others disagree with your interpretation. I want to understand why some editors think it is so important to destroy other's work. — Omegatron 03:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if they are deleted - originally I just removed them from the article, but didn't tag them for deletion. I do feel they are inappropriate for the article, as I have tried to explain. What do you think these add to the article that can't be conveyed in a paragraph? — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They provide real-life, visual examples of the discrepancy that users will actually encounter? I'm apparently not the only one who thinks they're beneficial.

I also created several screenshots of free software for that article, but you're not fighting to get them deleted... — Omegatron 23:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The standards for free images are much more lax than those for nonfree images. I don't think the free ones are great, either, but since they're free I don't think they're worth arguing about. On the other hand, it seems amazing that an article on Binary prefixes would have any nonfree images at all, much less galleries of them. I still don't understand what you see in these particular images that goes beyond the fact that they use binary notation to measure disk space; can you explain it to me in more detail? — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The standards for free images are much more lax than those for nonfree images.

Haha. Better get to work replacing them all with text descriptions, then. Let's start with Image:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg. We only have permission to display it to our own users, after all. Someone writing a GFDL derivative work from our article couldn't include the image (unless they also, god forbid, asked for permission to use the image or claimed fair use).

Hell, let's remove all our images and replace them with text equivalents. What additional encyclopedic information do the images provide compared to text descriptions? The reduced file size will benefit our downstream users. — Omegatron 01:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why we acknowledge grants of wikipedia-only use, frankly. The entire point of our nonfree use policy is to use images we are not directly licensed by the copyright holder to use, and what we want is for the copyright holder to release images under free licenses, so we weaken our case by accepting licenses for wikipedia-only use. But I get the sense that you aren't actually interested in discussing this, from the tone of your replies, so I will bow out. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We don't allow Wikipedia-only use. Are you not aware of the rules and the way they came about? That image is considered fair use, or it would have been deleted by now, even with the permission of the copyright holder. When inline images were first added to the site's software, images were allowed as long as they didn't violate copyright law. This includes things like the copyright holder's permission to use on our site (which is why Image:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg has a permission notice from the Associated Press), an image licensed for non-commercial use only, and so on. Then a group of anti-intellectual-property agenda-pushers took over and prohibited it, without community consensus. We should repeal the prohibition against it and use images with the permission of the copyright creator, like any other normal publication. Relying purely on a shaky fair use defense without even asking permission is legally stupid and morally troublesome. A lot of people realize this, so they add more and more rules to the NFCC to limit our legal exposure, which limits our use of non-free images to a tiny fraction of what we could legally use if we had more rational policies.

We should allow any non-free image that:

Improves the quality of an article
Is legal to use on our site (fair use, with permission, non-commercial only)
Does not have a free equivalent ("might theoretically have a free equivalent someday" is not a good enough criteria for deletion. images should be replaced, not deleted.)

These should be the only criteria required for inclusion of non-free media in our project. The arguments against using such content in our articles (hindering downstream use, invalidating the GFDL, discouraging the creation of free content) are largely irrational. They're based around a minority Free Culture viewpoint that considers the concept of copyright itself to be invalid, a position not shared by most Wikipedians, and not part of the original goals of the project, despite Jimmy's paradoxical remarks on the subject. The increasing restrictions on use of media in the last year or two are harmful to the quality and coverage of our project, and should be repealed and amended. — Omegatron 17:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Omegatron, please re-upload those images under a "Public Domain" license/template as creator of the images. The copyrighted content on the box is incidental to the photograph of the box and hence copyright law is not applicable. It would be the same if you took a picture of a billboard.

Also, the sentiment you raised about the problem with image deletion jihad I have rased on WP:NFCC (as have others). Many editors have been caught unaware about the changes. People who think this policy is not right need to post there as well as to TALK:Jimmy Wales. Nodekeeper 00:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The copyrighted content on the box is incidental to the photograph of the box and hence copyright law is not applicable. It would be the same if you took a picture of a billboard.

I know. I thought that was the case, but tagged it conservatively. Apparently people really really can't stand anything that might be non-free, so I will be sure to tag all images with free licenses from now on so as not to arouse suspicion. :-)

Also, the sentiment you raised about the problem with image deletion jihad I have rased on WP:NFCC (as have others).

I have too, but I can't handle the stress induced by trying to talk to them, so I avoid it for my own sanity. I've been avoiding my own talk page, now, too, because this stuff infuriates me so. From what I've seen, there is no community support for that policy, but the page is owned by a group of people who refuse to see reason or compromise.

I've talked to Jimbo, too. He's reasonable ("We don't have free licenses because we are out of context maniacs, we do it because we want the encyclopedia to be redistributed and modified freely. The license serves a purpose."), but has some strange ideas about fair use being "free in the relevant sense", and that the current rules are good enough to allow any image we would want to use (clearly not). I think his unilateral declarations against certain licenses is the ultimate cause of these troubles. He's only human, like the rest of us. The community should make these decisions by consensus; they should not be mandated from above. I don't see this changing unless those of us who disagree with the changes in policy make a concerted effort to oppose them on the mailing lists or something. But it seems that each editor goes to the policy talk alone, is shot down with dismissal and incivility, and gives up. I don't have the patience to keep it up, either. — Omegatron 17:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

lol

Having fun with those citation templates? -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tons. :-) Even with Zotero it's a pain. Someone really needs to write a Web 2.0 interface for them, with a big database containing everything we want to reference. — Omegatron 23:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe, you're right, it is a pain. I kind of stopped doing many references myself, I just try to write stuff that's not questionable, if someone has a problem they can just ask :P. Granted, many good references are still needed to advance an article to the next level.

I wrote a lot more for the Nuclear power in France article, noticing that our areas of interest in the subject are rather complimentary. It looks pretty good... I'm actually kind of proud of it at this point, thanks for all your work on it! -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fromowner images

Hi Omegatron. I don't mean to offend but there was some consternation on IRC regarding the new Fromowner images - some people seem to think they're a tad on the bright side - so I reverted, just for now. Has this been discussed on-wiki? If so, I can point people towards that. Hope you're well, ~ Riana ⁂ 05:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]