Anyone created a wikipedia page? WOW

[Midpack]

I created my first recently, and boy do they make it hard to do so. I had posted a draft of my original work on a forum while I was developing leads, so when I had a final version and posted it on a wiki page, I immediately got back a marked for deletion order pointing to my thread on the subject. Jeeez, we got that sorted out though.

Their editor is pretty arcane, not WYSIWYG at all. But then so is the Wordpress, though that has a primitive visual editor now.

Then when I started adding pictures, I found another level of difficultly. I went to some length to make sure I was using non-copyrighted photos, and I got the email written permission from two pro photographers to use some of their old photos. But wiki requires the original photographer send in a specific message in wiki's legalese relinquishing rights to the picture for all time, irrevocable. One pro was willing but I waived her off, the other pro never responded - and I don't blame him.

I always liked wiki, but I'm not sure I want to create pages or keep contributing...

 

[GrayHare]

The wiki page language is HTML-like. I tried but could never figure out how to make many common items, like footnotes, work properly.

 

[MooreBonds]

Then when I started adding pictures, I found another level of difficultly. I went to some length to make sure I was using non-copyrighted photos, and I got the email written permission from two pro photographers to use some of their old photos. But wiki requires the original photographer send in a specific message in wiki's legalese relinquishing rights to the picture for all time, irrevocable. One pro was willing but I waived her off, the other pro never responded - and I don't blame him.

I always liked wiki, but I'm not sure I want to create pages or keep contributing...

While I'm not a huge Wikipedia fan, think about their situation - holding probably millions of photos, all it takes is just one photographer to say "Hey, I never gave explicit permission for my photo to be used", and they have a $10,000 legal bill on their hands (or more if it goes to court). By having direct written communication from the photographer, it is more certain, since anyone could create an email to say anything and claim it was from the original photographer. if you did fake the e-mail, then Wikipedia would have to countersue you, and create an even further, protracted legal headache.

 

[Midpack]

While I'm not a huge Wikipedia fan, think about their situation - holding probably millions of photos, all it takes is just one photographer to say "Hey, I never gave explicit permission for my photo to be used", and they have a $10,000 legal bill on their hands (or more if it goes to court). By having direct written communication from the photographer, it is more certain, since anyone could create an email to say anything and claim it was from the original photographer. if you did fake the e-mail, then Wikipedia would have to countersue you, and create an even further, protracted legal headache.

Understand all that, but here's what the photographer must agree to - not only are they granting permission for wiki to use their image, anyone may then wiki copy and modify the picture for use, including a commercial money making use, and it's irrevocable. And the photographer cannot put a watermark or embed their name for credit. That seems excessive to me...

Main page: Wikipedia:Example requests for permission
Dear *[NAME],

I am writing to confirm whether permission is granted to use *[a page/content] from your website under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). A user with the *[IP xxx/ username xxx] has pasted in text from your website [WEBSITE ADDRESS] to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text concerns *[TOPIC OF PAGE] and the original submission can be viewed at *[Address of Pre-copyvio boilerplate version].

This user claims on the talk page *[TALK PAGE ADDRESS] to *[have the authority to release this material under CC-BY-SA/ be the original author of the material], but for the page to remain on our site, we need further evidence that this is the case. Please be assured that if you do not grant permission, your content will not be used at Wikipedia; we have a strict policy against copyright violations.

You can read CC-BY-SA in full at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe...s_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License. The license stipulates that any copy of the material, even if modified, must carry the same license. This means that anyone would be licensed to distribute the material, possibly for a fee (we would distribute your work free of charge). Under the license, no distributor (commercial or otherwise) can restrict future distribution, so your work would never become proprietary. In addition, the license does not grant the right to imply your endorsement of a modified version.

Please note that your contributions may not remain intact as submitted; this license and the collaborative nature of our project entitles others to edit, alter, and update content at will, i.e., to keep up with new information, or suit the text to a different purpose. There is more information on our copyright policy at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights .

The article will be deleted in seven days time if permission is not confirmed, though it can be restored at a later date if you choose to respond later to state that such use is allowed.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully,

*[NAME]

*delete as appropriate

 

[razztazz]

The past few weeks they've been asking for donations to keep Wikipedia running. Maybe people should donate but send a message insisting they update their software

 

[ERD50]

Understand all that, but here's what the photographer must agree to - not only are they granting permission for wiki to use their image, anyone may then wiki copy and modify the picture for use, including a commercial money making use, and it's irrevocable. And the photographer cannot put a watermark or embed their name for credit. That seems excessive to me...

I see both sides of this. I don't blame you for not feeling too excited about contributing a page, if they are going to make you jump through all these hoops, and make such demands on the photographer.


But like MooreBonds said, this is probably all about protecting themselves. Yes, they could be less onerous, but with so many contributors, and so many images, even a tiny % of problems could be really difficult for them.

Maybe you're better off having the forum you started on posting it as a 'sticky', or creating their own 'wiki' area (like BogleHeads and others).

-ERD50

 

[Walt34]

Understand all that, but here's what the photographer must agree to - not only are they granting permission for wiki to use their image, anyone may then wiki copy and modify the picture for use, including a commercial money making use, and it's irrevocable. And the photographer cannot put a watermark or embed their name for credit. That seems excessive to me...

It is excessive and anyone with any sense would immediately reject that. What about the photographers rights?

I've posted a link to this video before. It's bit tedious at times (hey, it's about copyright law) but anyone who owns a camera should be aware of this stuff. I bought the book and thought it was well worth it. While few folks would register their family birthday photos at the copyright office if you get photos of the first alien spaceship landing you're gonna want to register those!

 

[braumeister]

I did some Wikipedia page creation and editing about ten years ago and it wasn't especially onerous at the time. From time to time I've looked into getting involved again but decided against it mainly because of the kind of thing you mentioned.

I'm glad there are others who are willing to put up with it.

 

[Midpack]

I did some Wikipedia page creation and editing about ten years ago and it wasn't especially onerous at the time. From time to time I've looked into getting involved again but decided against it mainly because of the kind of thing you mentioned.

I'm glad there are others who are willing to put up with it.

I edited a few pages years ago, when I was 100% certain if my contribution - that seemed almost too easy. But creating a new page today is discouragingly difficult.

Several local organizations have asked to publish the information, so I may give up on wiki...

 

[target2019]

Have not created a wiki page, however, I write quite a bit this summer using markup, of which wiki markup is a branch.

Instead of using a text editor, I found a tool called Markdown Pad 2. It is free, and eventually I paid a small fee to get additional features.

There are probably similar tools which help you apply markup and give you a live preview for the wiki markup.

After using markup, I came to prefer its simplicity over ms word, especially for shorter articles.