User:Pfctdayelise/Letter to FOWs

I'm an editor on Wikipedia (as indeed anyone can be, if they so wish), and I noticed we had someone uploading images of album covers with a note "The organiser of The Whitlams official mailing list and employee of their record label has been encouraging listees to bulk up their wiki page. It is on this basis that I assume they approve of usage of their image". I guess this is you? If it's not, please forward this email to the right person.

I am always really delighted to see new Wikipedia editors, and the Whitlams article could use a good edit. But I just want to give some advice for new editors so that they don't get a nasty shock if their shiny new changes are reverted. (You don't have to sign up for an account to edit, but it tends to help.)

(All the shortcuts like this -- WP:Foo mean that if you type "WP:Foo" into the *Wikipedia* search box, it will take you to the page I'm talking about).

Firstly, articles. There are three important things to keep in mind here (I'll discuss them with a view to editing the Whitlams' page)-

WP:NPOV Neutral point of view - this means obvious fan-gushing is likely to be removed. You can talk your subject up, by all means, but be reasonable, not hysterical, and allow room for critical viewpoints.
WP:V - Verifiability and WP:NOR No original research - this means sources should be cited for facts (eg. "Biggest selling indie single in 1998"). For examples on how to do this see WP:CITE. Also means personal anecdotes do not belong, eg. stories from shows people have seen. If they were reported on in the mainstream press, then yes - provided a citation or link is provided.

What articles would be appropriate? According to the current guidelines, it is appropriate to have a separate page for any and all studio albums, but not live or best-ofs unless there is some compelling reason. Also articles on songs/singles are discouraged unless they are particularly notable (so it is appropriate that there *is* an article on No Aphrodisiac). So if people wanted to make up the separate pages for each album, that would be great! There is some advice about how to format an album page and what information to include at WP:ALBUMS.

Secondly, images. This is where the issue of copyright comes in. Wikipedia is provided under the GFDL license, which is a "free" license. It allows anyone to use, edit and redistribute the materials for any purpose, *including commercial* (with the possible disclaimers of requiring attribution and requiring any derivative works to be available under the same license). For this reason images like album covers, band photos etc, are usually not usable. There is an "escape clause" known as "Fair use". With this, copyright-holders retain all rights, and the image is only used in a very limited context eg. on the band's page.

When uploading images, they should be tagged with {{albumcover}}, for recording covers. There is a list of tags here for reference: WP:ICT ("Image copyright tags"). See also WP:IDP ("Image description page") for some guidelines as to what information should be provided when uploading images.

I know this is a huge pain in the arse, but it's unfortunately necessary. If people upload images with tags like {{Somewebsite}} or {{Don't know}}, it just increases the chance that they will be deleted in the future, and makes more work for someone else later.

BUT some photos taken by fans would be great, a couple of decent ones. Much easier than using official ones. The photographer will have to be willing to release their photo under a free license like the Creative Commons. *****If there is someone who has a suitable image that they are willing to let be used by Wikipedia and potentially others as well, please get them to contact me (details at the end of this email).***** I would really, really like to see this happen!

Finally, sound files! No one has done this yet but it would be cool if they did. There's a fair use rationale for sound files, similar to images. Sound files can be uploaded with a {{music sample}} tag. These files should be short (<30sec), in the ogg format, and no more than one sample from one song. I think one or two (or maybe three) samples from each album would be plenty, concentrating on the singles.

Because files have to be in the OGG format, this is a bit more complicated. I have written a bit of a guide for how to do this, please see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Music_guide#How_to_contribute_sample_music_files_for_a_band

The first sound file I ever uploaded was a sample from "No Aphro". :D You can read its info page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Whitlams_-_No_Aphrodisiac_sample.ogg

Contacting me

I know this is a ton of information and maybe you'll just ignore it all. But it would be nice if you didn't, and we could have a win:win (better Whitlams article, happy FOWs, happy Wikipedians... wait, that's win:win:win). If you could fwd this to the FOWs list, or wherever the previous call-to-arms went out, that would be great. I am happy for any potential new editors to ask me questions about how to do something or if something is right or where to find something. Either they can email me at this email, or they can add a note to my Wikipedia Talk page -- it is at User talk:pfctdayelise or here is the full link you can paste into your browser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pfctdayelise

Again, I just want to repeat that you can edit anonymously, but it does make life easier both for you and for other Wikipedia editors if you sign up for an account. (Helps us distinguish you from the many anonymous vandals, for a start). The Whitlams page is on my watchlist so I will see any changes made to it. If I see something inappropriate I will change it and let the person know, but it would be best to start off on the right foot anyway.

Anyway yeah... that's enough for now I think! Happy editing :)