User talk:Russell Potter
Welcome, Russell! --Larry Sanger 02:17, 31 October 2006 (CST)
Photos...
Hi Russell,
It looks like you figured out. :) That's strange that the filename was in red but that usually indicates that the photo didn't upload or the path to the filename was misspelled. It happens sometimes.
For future reference a lot of pictures on Citizendium will not show up on the page if you use a thumbnail for some odd reason. I find that if you use a frame instead it works.
About the photo, given that Franklin died in 1847 it would put it in the public domain, but I don't know if the Scott Polar Research Institute or the National Maritime Museum purchased the rights to the photo. Scott Polar Research Institute only had a photo that was a drawing while I couldn't find anything for the National Maritime Museum. I will look around to see if there is a copyright restriction for the photo. I have been very conservative with what pictures I choose to upload but I just wanted to help you out. :) If I can find that one of the two institutes own the rights to the photo I will ask for formal permission if you would still be interested to use it.
Do you know the policy for getting written permission of pictures only for the use of Citizendium? Wikipedia has a policy where it can only be added to wikipedia if the photo is put in the public domain, regardless if you have permission only to use it for wikipedia. This is very unfortunate because usually the best pictures have copyrights but I find that if you ask for formal permission it’s usually granted. If you know and can get back to me I would greatly appreciate it!
Thanks for the heads up on the photo and if you have any questions with photos just let me know.
Eric Pokorny 13:59, 1 November 2006 (CST)
Many thanks (was: Photos ...)
Eric, thanks so much! Yes, you are right, frames are the way to do it (the image I chose is already only a bit larger than its thumbnail anyway). The other trouble was that, apparently, WP had an image of a "Franklin Business Park" which had the same filename as the one I was trying to upload and place!
It is tricky with permissions -- it seems that for images from outside, you almost need two layers, one being "use permission" and the other being the permission to release the item used under terms of the GFDL. I'm also hoping that CZ can come up with a smoother way to navigate this!
best,
Russell Potter 14:04, 1 November 2006 (CST)
- Russell, that's great! I'm glad I could be of service. :) As for the Franklin image it looks like a sticky situation. The copyright has expired so I feel that they are little bit overextending when they want to secure the rights to the photo, however they seem to have a case in their favor when claiming continuing proprietary rights for derivative images. I think our best bet would be to ask for formal permission for the picture to be used for Citizendium, and emphasize that the picture will only be used educational use and that the Museum will be credited. Museums are usually generous in this regard, especially if they are assured that the photo will not be redistributed and that the recipient will not receive any financial benefit. Personally, I don’t think they would make a case if you used the photograph stating that the copyright has expired; I was just looking around and have seen the image on several websites obviously taken from the Museum, so it appears that any enforcement is lax for this picture. But I would ask for permission and hope they say it’s ok.
It can really be a pain to get permission for images but I feel that we get what we put in. If we work hard to get the best images for Citizendium it will definitely show and boost the reputation of the project, so I definitely think it's worth it!
Thanks for the update,
Eric Pokorny 23:21, 4 November 2006 (CST)
Image Permission
Eric et. al.,
I will contact a friend of mine who is a curator at the National Maritime Museum, and see what he can tell me about getting perimission. Fingers crossed -- it would be a great image to have, and perhaps other institutions might be more willing if someone "breaks the ice," so to speak.
Russell Potter 16:44, 6 November 2006 (CST)
Deep image
It looks like you have it figured out now. :) Everything looks fine but I think your problem was that you used a thumbnail instead of a frame or the path to the filename was incorrect. In the future the best thing to do is to check the path to the filename or just play around with the picture and see if you have any luck. If worse comes to worse you can always just re-upload the photo under a different name which will usually fix the problem. This is usually what works for me. I re-uploaded a resized photo and slightly cropped the image for you. I looked at the image talk and Larry Sanger said that you needed an image caption so I thought that I might help if I could.
Articles have a limited amount of space so personally I think it's best to crop unnecessary borders or in general crop the picture as much as you can get away with to save size. If you want a very simple program I would recommend irfanview which is free and very easy to use for simple resizing and cropping. If you are interested you can get it here:
As for the Franklin image that is great. It’s a coincidence because I was going to ask you the other day how that turned out. Glad everything is ok. If you need anything even if it is very small just let me know. :)
Eric Pokorny 00:01, 20 November 2006 (CST)
Category:Literature Workgroup (Top)
Russel, do you think that in all of these Authors should be included the category "Literature Workgroup (Top)"? --Versuri 15:23, 23 November 2006 (CST)
Authors
Yes, thanks for the comment, I think we should add at least those on the list for which one editor/writer or another has signalled interest (by adding their initials) It may help us get going. I'll do it.
Russell Potter 15:31, 23 November 2006 (CST)
Bringing articles to Top level in Literature (and elsewhere)
Hi Versuri,
Thanks for tagging these articles. I haven't checked, but do be sure to add a CZ_LIve tag as well, else when the CZ is "refreshed" from WP these tags will be overwritten (see Peter Blake's note above). That's why I only want to tag articles that really will be taken live, that is, articles that someone has committed to and will be substantially improving!
Cheers,
Russell Potter 16:58, 23 November 2006 (CST)
- Russel, take a look at Larry's email. It is not necessary that the article is live to tag "Category:XYZ Workgroup (Top)". --Versuri 17:16, 23 November 2006 (CST)
- Versuri, yes, I'd read that e-mail, but while I think it's great to bring articles that the Lit Editors and Authors can work on to the Workgroup space, if we just tag every seemingly "major" author we may well end up with more on our plate than we care to eat! I'm happy, at any time, to see Poe, Cervantes, and Dante joining Shakespeare and Chaucer! So let's wait a bit just for now and let the authors and editors catch up with the goodies we've highlighted on the Workgroup page.
Russell Potter 18:14, 23 November 2006 (CST)
Joan of Arc's voices
Hello Prof. Potter,
First of all, it is nice to see that someone else is actually watching this work on Joan of Arc! Sometimes it can seem kind of lonely here which has both its good side and its drawbacks.
Admittedly, the splitting off of the visions section was a pretty radical step. It has been my intention, honored more in the breach than not, to explain such major edits on the article talk page and perhaps I should pay more attention to doing that in the future.
That said, it was my feeling that the analysis of Joan's visions / voices is not so much about Joan as it is about how people, then and now, have responded to Joan. And I would say the same is true of the clothing section. As well, the legacy section maybe should be split off (as it is in the bio of George Washington).
Whenever one approaches a truly transcendant personality such as Joan, her significance lies not only in her life and deeds, but also (maybe more so, in some respects) in how people have responded to her. And that is the case with her voices. It is for that reason - that the section is almost more about how Joan has impacted others than about her - that I elected to split it off into a new artilce.
I feel far more confident of my decision to start new articles on the two trials - the Trial of Condemnation and the Rehabilitation Trial - neither of which receive their due in the main Joan of Arc article (nor can they for simple reasons of length).
There is a huge amount of work needed on the Joan of Arc related articles, And given my style of editing where I poke away a few sentences each day (it took me longer to do my revisions of the Siege of Orleans article on WP than it did for Joan to lift the siege), it could take a while!
James F. Perry 20:55, 7 January 2007 (CST)
- I have just added a section to the Joan of Arc article entitled Modern perspectives with sub-sections on clothing, voices / visions, and legacy. Provisionally, my plan is to have only a brief introduction to each of these subjects on the main Joan of Arc page, with one of two options from there. One option is that there could be a full-length article on each of the sub-topics. The other option is for an article Modern perspectives on Joan of Arc which would subsume all three of the above sub-topics (and possibly others). Currently, I tend to lean towards the latter option as it would appear to be more flexible. Please let me know your thoughts on this. James F. Perry 09:48, 8 January 2007 (CST)
On my talk page, you wrote:
- . . . if you take the section on Visions out of the main entry altogether, you render the main entry far less valuable, I fear. Some summary, or shortened version, should remain in any case; if there is to be a separate article on Joan's visions, it should be clearly cross-referenced with the main entry.
It would in fact be my plan to have a summary of important issues raised by Joan of Arc's life in the main article. This would include not only the voices / visions, but also issues related to clothing, politics, nationalism and other matters not presently discussed in the main artilce, such as G.B. Shaw's depiction of Joan as the first Protestant. In short, all major issues raised by Joan's life in the minds of those of later generations. But this would be just a summary and would point to a major (separate) artilce - Historical perspectives on Joan of Arc. Crossreferencing between the two articles would of course be done.
It might be preferable if any additional comments on this matter were to go on the talk page of the Joan of Arc article. That way, anybody else who is interested in this issue might be able to read them. I would definitely like some feedback on my work given the major changes which I am making to that artilce.
James F. Perry 15:10, 9 January 2007 (CST)
Bonnie Hicks
Hi Russ. Please see Bonnie Hicks and Citizendium Pilot talk:Literature Workgroup. Stephen Ewen 02:37, 14 January 2007 (CST)
Welcome back :) Chris Day (Talk) 15:44, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
- Seconded. :) Stephen Ewen 21:37, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
Categorizing John Logie Baird
I'm sorry if I've tagged your article wrongly. The "CZ Live" tag requires substantial changes in three areas of an article (or three substantial changes total, depending on which page you read), and to my untutored eye, there appeared to have been major changes to only two areas when I checked.
But, you know what's going on with it better than me-- and that's why you should adjust the checklist. Hey, wait, come back here! I'll stick to the minimum you need to know to edit it in this instance.
So, go and edit the talk page. Look for "status = 4" in that top block. Change that number to 1, if the article just has minor cleanup left to do, or 2, if you have big plans yet to fulfill for it. Then go down a couple lines to "by =", erase that stuff about me, and replace it with 4 tildes so that you have "by = ~~~~". Then save, and there you go!
Petréa Mitchell 21:03, 4 April 2007 (CDT)
- Thanks, Petréa - no problem. It is actually hard to see at a glance how much the entry has evolved from WP, epecially since, now that CZ is public, some bits end up being copied back to WP from CZ. Russell Potter 22:31, 16 April 2007 (CDT)
Piping links and case sensitivity.
Following on form a comment you made to Jessica Pierce. The system is case sensitive - Except for the first letter! so Novel and novel are the same article. Only the letters that come after the first one are case sensitive. So SuSE Linux and SUSE Linux are different articles. (Both are technically correct names. Originally the odd caps with the small u but changed to all caps last year.) As proof of concept, User:Russell Potter and user:russell Potter are the same page. Derek Harkness 08:43, 8 April 2007 (CDT)
Hi Derek. Thanks for the clarification! I had tested this and was not sure if it was consistent, or specific to some particular implementation of the wiki software. I think we should still list the convention, though, as capitalizing first letters, as this looks and feels stylistically consistent with the entries themselves. Russell Potter
Life
Thanks, Russell. Nancy Sculerati 12:23, 11 April 2007 (CDT)
Gilad Atzmon article
Hi Russell...I have just added a link to GA's site, where he has listed several reviews of his books. He has had two novels published so far, in 22 languages, and has written more than 200 political papers published on many sites on the internet.
Do you know the process to get Gilad's listed as topic informant (as he has indicated his willingness to do so)? Edna Spennato 09:00, 17 April 2007 (CDT)
- Hi Edna, thanks for the update. It looks to me as though this entry still should have its main home with the Music workgroup, but should also be cross-listed with Literature; having the extra editors from both areas should help, as I'm the only currently active Literature editor. Atzmon's music seems to be his main area of artistic endeavor, followed by politics, followed by literature (of course they all overlap somewhat).
- I'm not at all sure about how CZ will handle topic informants -- we don't even have a policy at the moment specific to biographies of living persons, which WP has and we should develop. I might suggest contacting either Larry, Zach, or one of the constables to see what they think. Russell Potter 10:54, 17 April 2007 (CDT)