I'll eventually have a list.....

Well, I've been reading through everything that I can to get started on posting some articles but have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find the answers to.

First of all, I don't understand the whole 'image copyright' issue, so can someone give me a quick rundown on that. Specifically.....when I find an image on the net that I want to incorporate into an article, how do I check it's copyright status. I will use photobucket for the most part, which brings up another question...are the images that are there free from copyrights? I'm a tad bit confused.

Second, it's ok to jump right in and edit any article if I see grammar/spelling errors, isn't it? I don't want to step on any toes, but I can't seem to leave a misspelled word behind. lol

So far I've only done editing on three articles:

Hubble
Sons of Liberty
Andromeda Galaxy

Anyway, I'm starting out slow. Most of my articles will be in the Astronomy category. Thanks to anyone who can stop by and answer my q's.

Rush

reply to post by hsur2112


Haha, i remember ages ago when i started a thread of my own because i was doing too much -- now every one is... Fox -- Trend Setter

Right now, down to business...

Image Use -- Some people copy right there images for one reason or another, usually the picture will have a copy right logo on it or the artists name or what not, if you see no signs on it, nothing to tell you other wise check out the website its from to see what there rules are and if you then think its all good, post it on TinWiki

Edits -- To put it simply, you can edit what you want when ever the heck you want If you see any mistake at all, edit away my friend, you think you can add to something, then edit away. If you feel like you can improve and add to TinWiki just edit, if you make a mistake, don't worry we wont bite your head off. the beauty of tinwiki is that everything can be reverted so that if you do make a error, hey, who cares we can fix it in 2 seconds; but that's not a reason to go around doing errors for fun

One other thing, all the terms and conditions on abovetopsecret.com are in use on TinWiki.org. If you have any questions about tinwiki.org's terms and conditions, weather it is a tiny thing or big thing please contact William One sac -- he's the main man.

If you want any help with the general stuff on the board, post it up here and I'm sure someone will help you, myself, WOS and Optimist are usually running through -- plus Nyk537 is getting the hang of it so I'm sure he can give you some advice.

Fox

(nice additions by the way)

Hi hsur2112, I have given you 5,000 pts. incentive for the edits you have been making. As Fox says, you are free to edit any article on tinwiki, except for pages that have been protected against editing. Those pages will not have an option to edit them, rather instead they will have a link that says "view source." In that case, if you see something like that, just let one of the editors know and they will make the changes. Athis time, there are only three editors on tinWiki, Fox, Optimist and myself.

As far as pictures go, what Fox said is correct. However, I would ask that you upload images into your ATS member upload space before putting them on tinWiki. The reason for this is that sites like image shgack and photobucket have limits on things like bandwidth. When an image uses up its bandwidth, you get a big empty box where the picture was or worse. This has happened before on tinWiki and the results make the pages look terrible. If you start uploading alot of pictures, just say the word and I will give you plenty of points to upload as many pictures as you'd like.

Just one thing to keep in mind, when adding an image to tinWiki, make certain you add the image to the TinWiki Image Description page. Just add a title to the page and then add if the picture is in the public domain, etc... or whatnot.

Thanks a bunch guys for the quick replies, that really helps. And I did read earlier about uploading them to ats, so I'm going to figure that out tonight. Thanks for the clarification regarding the copyrights. I didn't want to do anything until I was sure about that. And yes, I will be sure to add them to the TinWiki Image Description page.

WOS...you are way too generous with the points there.

Rush

Originally posted by hsur2112
WOS...you are way too generous with the points there.

Shut up ! for god sake don't tell him -- he might suddenly relise how many he gives out and stop. But they were good additions.

Fox

Thanks for the compliment, Pro.

You're right, I'll tone down my excitement a little. hehe

Rush

Ok, so I'm doing an article on the International Space Station. Not a topic that screams "conspiracy", I know. But, astronomy is an interest for me so I thought it a good place to start. I hope to have it done in a few days.

Rush

Rush,

The ISS sounds like a very good topic. Looking forward to seeing that article.

About the copyright issue regarding images, I wanted to add some comments to what has been said here already. Images that are copyrighted are sometimes still legal to use, if it's for a journalistic article or, perhaps, an encyclopedic article and the image fits in according to certain conditions. I'm not entirely sure about the rules, and perhaps I'm not entirely alone in that: what I'm talking about is what's called Fair Use. (I recommend reading about it in Wikipedia, which should give at least some understanding of this fairly complicated Fair Use topic..)

In addition to Fair Use, it's also legal to use images that are in what's called the Public Domain, which basically means it can be used totally freely, I think. Such images include old photographs that are so old that copyright no longer applies (maybe the age limit is 70 years or something?, I'm not entirely sure). A photograph can also be Public Domain if the creator of the work has specificially released it as such. A creator of a work may also release under various other conditions that also make it possible to use the picture, for example the GNU documentation license (used by Wikipedia material, and various open source software, I think is the primary use of that license), or some Creative Commons license (which is what tinWiki material is published under).

A work does, as I understand it, anyway, not always have to be expressly stated as being copyrighted for it to actually be so. If you create a work, you do automatically own the intellectual property rights to that work, is what I think is the case. Still, the Fair Use laws often make it possible to display certain images regardless.

This whole topic is fairly complicated, at least it seems that way to me.

Some general rules for when to use an image, that could be good to follow:

- It's clearly stated by the creator that the image is released for use, either freely (public domain) or by GNU or Creative Commons
- The image is too old for copyright to apply
- Use in the given tinWiki article is believed to constitute Fair Use

If these rules are followed, and the copyright owner shows up here demanding that his work is removed, then I at least hope it's alright if that's just done at the copyright owner's request, and that no further trouble comes from it if the image is then removed. tinWiki is after all not using the images commercially, since this is a free site, and as I understand it there is no personal profit from the ad revenue here, other than the income going back to the expenses of running the site itself (bandwidth or something like that).

Of course, if the creator gives special permission, all is well. Also, sometimes tinWiki users have created original images themselves, and William One Sac has also gotten some people in the ATS art forum involved in contributing images to tinWiki.

Hope this I tried to say here made some sense. :-)

Optimist

Hey Optimist. Thanks for the info, good information. And I'll check it all out.


......still working.....

Rush