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.

Final scene of the death of "Wardour" (played by Dickens, in the play "The Frozen Deep." Illustrated London News, 1857

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:

http://www.irfanview.com/

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)