User talk:Pradyumna Singh

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! John Stephenson 13:57, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Santa Claus

I have moved this page here and deleted one of its images, since the material is obviously not a serious contribution to the encyclopedia. Furthermore: the image was a potential copyright violation, in that there is no publicly-accessible evidence of a Creative Commons licence; it included a promotional link; it incorporates Wikipedia material (which we discourage); and it has recently been the subject of a controversy on WikiMedia Commons. Please do not re-upload it. John Stephenson (talk) 18:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I am glad to learn that material from Wikipedia is discouraged at the Citizendium and I trust there are similar measures in place to discourage Citizendium material being reused in Wikipedia. Although I have no intention of re-uploading the image, there is an important author issue which needs private deliberations at editor levels, or once the email system is re-activated.

I cannot agree with you that there is no publicly-accessible evidence of a Creative Commons licence. The image has a very clear CC licence and a licence trail which is publicly and permanently archived over at Wikipedia Commons irrespective of the outcome of the deletion requests over there. The Creative Commons licencing for this image was particularly solid considering the scrutiny it had been subjected to at Wikipedia. The "promotional" link is compulsory as part of the Creative Commons licence to identify the author and media source and to sufficiently protect this encyclopedia project in the unlikely event of an infringement notice being received. Such links usually have "reciprocal" benefits which boost Wikipedia's ranking in organic search, a similar backlink from a "strong" site would help CZ even more than it does Wikipedia to rank well.

NB: I am always cautious about copyright licences, permissions and attribution when uploading media to Citizendium's hosting considering CZ's circumstances.

If it is Citizendium policy that Creative Commons media, especially images, from Wikipedia Commons, is not allowed for reuse at Citizendium, it will make it very difficult for serious article contributors, now and in the future. It will inevitably lead to situations where Mediawiki based project will be compelled to activate the highly undesirable Instant Commons feature, or be left with self promoting contributors uploading their original research accompanied with self created images. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 05:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

If you can supply publicly-accessible evidence of a CC licence, that would solve that problem, but the link would need to be removed because it violates the Charter ban on advertising (Article 23). That still leaves the WP content. John Stephenson (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the publicly accessible CC-BY-SA-4.0 licence. The WP text was under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 which allows derivatives / mashups. The evidence of permision is archived at Commons OTRS ticket no. #2014122610002007. The image is hosted on Wikimedia Commons allowing reuse under a CC Licence on the same or similar terms to anybody. If the image is uploaded from WP to CZ while it was hosted under a CC licence there, it continues to be under CC on CZ even if WP stops hosting it for any reason. Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act affords sufficient protection to CZ if the content was "provided" by another host. The worst case scenario is there could be a DMCA takedown request, which if complied with promptly leaves no liability on CZ. Suppose Charlie Hebdo or Newsweek gave permission to CZ for a controversial newsy image, would it be refused only because a "promotional" backlink is required as part of the CC licence ? Pradyumna Singh (talk) 18:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

No, that is an assertion of licensing made by an anonymous Commons user, when it is for the original author of the work to release it. Permission is apparently found within the OTRS system, but we can't see it. Furthermore, attribution is given by linking, e.g. on the image page, not via an URL in the work itself. Another problem is that the Commons uploader has just been banned for reasons that are not altogether clear. John Stephenson (talk) 19:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The reasons for the ban are contained here, here and here. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Red links

Current policy is to allow red links, in order to encourage the creation of articles: see the information from here. John Stephenson (talk) 17:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well that is a very good policy to encourage search engines to downrank CZ articles, and consequently the overall project. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

John, you could also read this about redlinks to names of living people.

Red links to personal names should be avoided—particularly when the name is reported in a context which might cause readers to hold a low or critical opinion of the named individual. Frequently a red-linked name has been placed in an article, and subsequently a different editor has created an article about an entirely different person with the same or a similar name. Aside from the basic misidentification this causes, red-linking has led to people being incorrectly identified on Wikipedia as accused or convicted criminals, sex workers, or being involved in other forms of conduct that might be considered harmful to the subject's reputation. The risk of misidentification is especially concerning when dealing with living people..Pradyumna Singh (talk) 18:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not in a position to do anything about the policy. You could raise the issue on the forum and bring it to the attention of the Council, which is ultimately responsible for content rules. John Stephenson (talk) 18:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

These are matters for the editors and the author's representative on the EC to take forward. I'm still learning the policy and rules here. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 19:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Experimental policy for signed articles

Hi Pradyumna! Glad to see you back in The Citizendium and editting. Please note this proposed policy: https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Policies/Proposed_Citizendium_Policy_Article_7_Details which is being tried out this year in The Citizendium. Both Gertrude Stein and Paris, Tennessee are signed articles on which I have submitted my name as a lead author (something not allowed in Wikipedia, for instance). I ask that you please register your opinions about material which you feel should be removed on the Talk page, instead of summarily removing entire paragraphs. That would not be polite even if these were not signed articles; a better approach would, I feel, be to start on the Talk page and give the currently active lead author a chance to make adjustments based on your feedback. I hope you won't be discouraged when I return some of the material. In particular, all the sections removed from Paris, Tennessee are referenced in a peer-reviewed history journal and are relevant (and true) to the history of that town. The article is still under construction and perhaps that material needs to be delineated more clearly as "history". I value your feedback and input and wanted to explain. Best regards, Pat Pat Palmer (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Well I see that policy is apparently still in draft. FYI, I will be discouraged by anything which makes for a poor reader experience. I am personally not in favor of "signed" articles as they militate against community ownership of content, if I wanted to do that I'd be using my Scholarpedia account more often :-) Pradyumna Singh (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)