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Archive 1←Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8→Archive 10

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 910 articles are assigned to this project, of which 161, or 17.7%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=Philately}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else think we should subscribe. There seems no harm one way or the other. ww2censor (talk) 16:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Postal (money) orders articles

I just ran across a large group of articles dealing with Postal money orders, which are in the Postal orders category. Although these seem to be primarily within the world of numismatics, it seems to me they also belong within Philately, but most are not placed in any philately category. Accordingly, I made Category:Postal Orders a sub-category of Category:Postal services and Category:Postal history, to tie them in. Some of these articles have some straight philatelic content, such as Postal Orders of Gibraltar which should be moved into appropriate philatelic articles. Ecphora (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair-use image cleanup

In Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Invalid_fair_use_of_stamps:_Admin.2Fbot_action_required, User:Ragib complains, with some justification, that Category:Fair use stamp images has too many invalid uses of stamp images. Members of this projects are ideally situated to a) develop better criteria for legitimate fair use in non-philatelic articles, and b) work through the images and prune the inappropriate, or fix their uses to be valid.

On the subject of better criteria, I'm thinking that "issued a stamp" is insufficient, because it's such a frequent event :-) , but that a sentence or two on *why* the stamp was issued (politics, etc), or something about the design, such as the significance of symbology or selection of photos (young Elvis vs old Elvis), should be sufficient. Picking a random example, Image:Abaroa-365Bol.jpeg has what I would consider a solid rationale, the stamp having an alteration of interest. Stan (talk) 16:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I have noticed many non-free stamp images being used in articles about the subject and not about the stamp itself. Some decent justification is absolutely required for the image to be kept on the en wiki at all these days and especially for them to be included in such articles. In such cases, if there is no reasonable prose about the stamp it should be removed from the article in question even if the stamp itself has a proper fair-use rationale for another article. Many stamp images don't have the FU rationale, so we might want to see how many there are and what we can do. However, your example does not have a fair-use rationale template as is required(?) these days, even if it is a proper rationale for the current use.
Incidently I have also noticed that there are some commons stamps listed as PD when they are not even FU, such as these. ww2censor (talk) 17:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Question about philately categories

Hello. I just followed up a watchlist item re Category:Postage stamps by country and noticed that there are some sub-categories there now which include these:

They are being used primarily or solely for storing images. I'm not at all sure that images should be stored in this way.

In addition, category:Postage stamps of Newfoundland is empty.

Regards. BlackJack | talk page 07:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The Nicaraguan ones shouldn't be in a gallery cat in the first place, I just whacked them. I can go either way for putting images in with articles, or segregating them into subcats of Category:Postage stamp images. It's a recent development to have a bunch of PD-US images, which are allowed on en: but not on Commons; we could easily end up with large numbers in that state, so some kind of organization seems like a good idea. Stan (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Philately

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Canadian postal code GA Sweeps Reassessment

Just a note that an article tagged by this project, Canadian postal code, has been placed on hold following its GA Sweeps Review, which can be found here. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Inactive participants

I propose that the "inactive participants" list be deleted. I can't see much of a reason for it, and it seems a little bit unfriendly. Ecphora (talk) 20:51, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Some other projects, such as the Macintosh Project, list their inactive, or former, members as well as loose associates. I don't see a problem but if there are others who agree, we can remove them, or retitle them. ww2censor (talk) 21:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I think it's useful as recognition of editors that participated at one time, and so you can expect that their edits are likely to be at least somewhat aligned with project standards, but at the same time the inactive status lets you know that you might not get answers if you ask them questions. If someone really doesn't want to be on the inactive list, I'm not going to contest the self-deletion. Stan (talk) 03:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Back in June 2007 I placed a notice on all those, now inactive, editors talk page and some, like George Williams, replied allowing me to move them to the inactive section, but don't ask me to remember who actually replied. ww2censor (talk) 04:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Stan. This list helps remember who worked on what, permit to know which articles might be less followed because one of their main author is gone from the project. Sebjarod (talk) 06:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sand dunes?

Hi to all. I searched for Sand dunes article in English Wikipedia to refer to it from Russian section by iwiki, but I haven`t found anything. And in other sections too. Why? Hard boycott or smth similar? Help me, please. (sorry my poor English) Nickpo (talk) 03:59, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

There does not appear to be an article on "Sand dunes" or "Dunes" (stamps) on English Wikipedia. Perhaps you could translate the Russian article. Regards. Ecphora (talk) 04:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
:o( Thanx for your answer. But I can't be able due not writing correct English a lot. Sorry. And thank you for your Mauritius "Post Office", it's great! Nickpo (talk) 05:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Scottish island stamps

I wonder if I could enlist your help? A new and fairly single purpose user, Member389845 (talk · contribs) has been adding stamp related items to numerous Scottish island articles. Some, such as the Summer Isles seem corrobrated by local sources. Others are not or seem at variance with the facts (local issues from uninhabited islands e.g. [1].) See especially this repeated change to Staffa - [2]. Philately is not my strong point and so far all I have done is ask for better sources on the User's talk page. Any assistance gratefully received. Ben MacDui 17:14, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Most or all of these "stamps" appear to be fantasy issues of uninhabited islands, as listed here. Member389845 (talk · contribs) adds edits stating in each article that these so-called stamps are "keenly sought after by collectors of British Locals". The "reference" for these "facts" is a commercial website page selling CD catalogs of local issues. This suggests the editor may be connected with the website. As such, these edits look like pure spam and should be removed. Ecphora (talk) 21:26, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
These edits look very much like advertising with spam links as reference and need to be pruned significantly. ww2censor (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Understood, and many thanks. Ben MacDui 18:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Traffic on Philatelic Articles

This website has a feature that allows you to determine how many times a Wikipedia article was viewed each month. Out of curiosity, I tested how many times some of the philatelic country articles had been viewed in November 2008; here’s the results:

  • United States 5793 times
  • Great Britain 1466 times
  • Germany 1280 times
  • Mexico 771 times
  • Israel 676 times
  • Australia 315 times
  • Palestine 229 times
  • Mayotte 175 times
  • Obock 145 times
  • Eastern Rumelia 132 times
  • French post offices in Zanzibar 103 times
  • Russian post offices in Crete 98 times

Ecphora (talk) 17:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed I have been using this tool since earlier this year but some of the other stats are also interesting.
There is cause for consideration as to where our editing efforts should be directed. The top four articles I have listed are visited so much more than any of the others and even these are in need of attention as they could well be improved upon. In that vein I am currently working on a completely revised Airmail article that is being enhanced with text from the German wiki but still need lots more information and citations.
In that vein it would really be great if we could get a functioning collaboration going; something that has been tried but failed. Postage stamp and/or Mail could be and should really be Featured Articles. Is anyone on board with that? Keep up the good work folks. ww2censor (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I will be glad to participate in any specific project. Ecphora (talk) 03:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Major category confusion

I find the contents of two major categories, Category:Philately and Category:Stamp collecting, be messed up and confusing. I kindly request the English speaking colleagues to double check the category contents and, if necessary, move articles from one category to the other. Thank you. --Michael Romanov (talk) 08:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You're correct. The problem, as I see it, is that it's just not clear exactly what distinguishes the two categories. If we can't come up with a reasonably clear difference, perhaps they should be merged. Ecphora (talk) 14:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
The stamp collecting cat should contain items that are related specifically to stamp collecting itself. The philately category should have the items that relate to the studying of stamps, their design, production and uses. There may well be some overlap but essentially each article should fit primarily pretty well into one of the other. I'll have a look and see if any seem incorrectly categorised. ww2censor (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your interested responses. I agree that there could be an overlap. Yet, we should be careful here because my feeling is that some articles have been categorized improperly. So, I anticipate your assistance, ww2censor, in this matter. Cheers, --Michael Romanov (talk) 01:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Stamps: non-free content/fair use

A discussion about the extent to which stamp images may be used in non-stamp articles is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 40#Stamps. The current criteria is here. You may want to contribute your views. ww2censor (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Indian stamps under copyright?

Are Indian stamps under copyright? Can they be shown under a fair use argument? AshLin (talk) 19:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes they are. What are you trying to do with the stamp images? You cannot use Indian stamps under fair use criteria in articles about the subject or topic of the stamp if they are less than 60 years old. Use in articles about the actual stamp are usually allowed. Only Indian stamps more than 60 years old are in the public domain according to commons:Commons:Stamps/Public domain#India. Hope that helps. ww2censor (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Your reply clarifies the issue. I had wanted to use stamps for the subject of the stamp itself but it is amply clear that this type of use is not permitted by Indian law. Thanks for the links and prompt response. AshLin (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Aha, a new issue. PD- vs Postal Deptt guidelines. Please see my query at Wikimedia Commons licensing here. AshLin (talk)

Document stamp

Hi, folks!

A brief question - what would the official name be for the revenue stamps that are placed on documents in order to legalize them - eg. documents compliant with stamp duty in the UK; marriage certificates; official translations of legal documents, etc? A suggestion has been made that "documentary stamp" is used in the US, but is this also the case for the entire english-speaking world? please place your answers here, as this question has been asked in several wikiproject pages. Thank you! (the discussion that led to this question can be seen just above the link provided.) BigSteve (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Where is the page (AAlerts)

Copied from User talk:Headbomb.

Yesterday several notices were dropped on some WikiProject talk pages. I was able to find the Ireland WikiProject alerts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland/Article alerts but, despite the post, the Philately WikiProject alerts page is nowhere to be found. It is not at Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately/Article alerts where I expected to find it. Was it not created, do we need to create an empty page first, of did the bot just fail? Please reply at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That's where the page should be located, but you don't seem to have subscribed Wikiproject Philately to the alerts. I can't find the template on your mainpage. Simply place {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription}} somewhere on the main page and the alerts will be generated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately/Article alerts in the next few days. The alerts will also show up on the project main page where you placed the template (you can chose to not display them if you want, but remember to give the link if you don't display them). For details see WP:AAlerts#Subscribing.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Guidance needed for "importance" ratings

The "importance" ratings for Philately articles are in need of reworking. Although they are overall not too bad, there are some inconsistencies in the ratings. Some guidance in a few areas would be helpful so that the ratings are less subjective, particularly for the country articles and the "top" importance level.

Country articles. Country articles are inconsistently rated as to importance (when they are rated at all). None is in the "top" importance category. Should any be? Only two, United Kingdom and Greece, are rated "high." Seven are rated "mid" importance, including Germany, Turkey, and India. Why is Germany "mid" and Greece "high"? Surely, Greece and Turkey, with comparable philatelic history, should have the same rating. What should be the rating for the United States? Also included in the "mid" importance level are some obscure stamp issuing locales of little philatelic significance, such as Ross Dependency and Falkland Islands. There are about 35 "low" importance country articles, including countries which have rich philatelic traditions and are heavily collected, such as Russia and Israel, as well as several issuers of major historical importance to classic philately, such as Tuscany.

  • My suggestion would be that importance be assigned by taking into consideration a number of factors, including (1) how "important" is the country in the world today, aside from philately? (2) how popular the country is among philatelists? (3) the country's significance in the history of philately (e.g., the German States). Assuming that no country articles will be rated "top", the articles for the major stamp issuing countries of the world and those heavily collected, e.g., United Kingdom, France, Russia/USSR, United States, Brazil, Israel, should all be rated "high." The obscure locales, such as Ross Dependency and (unfortunately) Tannu Tuva, should be rated "low" while the rest would be "mid". Mid would include places like Bolivia, Yugoslavia, and Sri Lanka. The German States and Italian States should merit "mid" or possibly even "high."

"Top" importance articles. There are few articles rated "top" importance. They seem to include the most basic topics in philately, such as Philately itself, Postage stamp, Postal history, Definitive stamp or Postmark. They include one specific stamp, Penny Black, and one person, Rowland Hill (postal reformer). Comparable basic topics, however, are spread throughout other ratings, such as Airmail, Stamp catalog, and Post office (all "high"), Cancellation ("mid"), and Zip code ("low").

  • There should be some guidance on what constitutes a "top" importance article. Just basic philatelic terms? The Penny Black, but not the British Guiana 1c magenta? Should any country articles rate "top" importance? If so, which? I raise these questions, because I really don't have much of an answer at this time. Ecphora (talk) 03:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we should adapt the Numismatics Project guidelines, which focus on how significant the article may be for average readers. That I believe will result in considerably more "top" ratings. Ecphora (talk) 10:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I have been following your posts. I fully agree that we need guidelines. In the numismatic assessment page, the assessment guidelines only deal generically. They only provide you a starting point. We should decide this in greater depth and debate over each issue if necessary. Why dont you whip up a userpage with draft guidelines? Let's develop it from there! AshLin (talk) 12:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
See the imbalance between articles at Top, High, Mid and Low importance pages for pointers on the issues to address while making draft guidelines. AshLin (talk) 12:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
When I setup the assessments within the project no one else was particularly interested so I started on my own. My experience was based on being an active member of the Ireland WikiProject assessment team who have assessed 20,000+ articles mostly manually; this is obviously a much smaller project. More than a year ago we developed two importance rating example tables for which we have been complemented as being one of the best. We should probably develop something similar here for each different category even if that means we need more than one table to cover most different topic categories. Currently, in this project, we are just using the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria#Importance of topic criteria but they don't specifically address philately as they are very general in nature.
The reason for the disparity in some current ratings is, firstly, that all assessments ARE subjective, so there will always be some variance though more consistency would be better, secondly, because some assessments are made by non-philatelic editors who may not know or understand the topic, and thirdly, because we are using the generic rating criteria. Concerning the two high ratings, I rated Great Britain as high-importance, over a year ago but the Greece article was assessed by one of that article's main editors who makes many Greek edits so he may have done so with a pro-Greek bias. There should probably be some agreement on certain levels of assessment. For instance, all Top-importance ratings should be agreed on by the philatelic editors and all High-importance ratings should at least be reviewed when rated by more than one project member, or can to nominated for rating, while the lower ratings can be done by individuals based on our agreed importance rating criteria that we will develop.
I am not sure I agree with the Numismatics Project guidelines criteria as being quite right for this project because they are based more on the importance to the reader and not on an article's importance within philately as a whole. I have created a new page to develop our criteria so please add it to your watchlist - the shortcut is WP:PHIL/A/I. Don't forget that after each assessment bot update you may want to view the updated quality log to check any new assessments. ww2censor (talk) 15:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I think you're right; This discussion indicates that "importance" should be judged within the project, not from a universal viewpoint. If one used the latter, I suppose one might conclude that all philately articles have little importance. I'll continue this on the new criteria talk page. Ecphora (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I have copied this discussion to the WP:PHIL/A/I talk page. ww2censor (talk) 23:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Question on uploading images

I've just joined here, and am kind of confused about the process of uploading images. If I wish to upload images of stamps and postal history from my own collection, where would those fall in the licensing/fair use rules? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amvros (talk • contribs) 20:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

You are best off to only add stamps that are in the public domain and these should be uploaded to [3] where you will find many images already under different categories and might review commons:Commons:Stamps/Public domain and commons:Commons:Stamps/Public domain templates. Fair-use images may only be uploaded here under strict criteria and they must have an acceptable fair use rationale. You might want to familiarise yourself with the following: WP:NFCC#3a, WP:NFCC#8, WP:NFC#Images, and this FAQ before uploading any non-free stamps. Remember the burden of proof to provide a suitable rationale is on the editors who wishes to place an image in an article otherwsie it may be deleted. BTW please sign all your posts by typing ~~~~. If you have any problems or questions please ask here or on our talk pages. ww2censor (talk) 21:19, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes it a lot clearer. Amvros (talk) 21:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)Amvros

Recategorisation

Maidonian has been removing proper categories for numerous philatelic articles and redefining them into Category:Philatelic terminology. He is also adding this category as an additional category where is it unnecessary and unwarranted overcategorisation. Oftentimes one succinct category is quite sufficient and using related and sub-categories is not needed. This is such a radical change in categorisation that I think it would have been better to discuss with the community before making so many changes many of which I think need to be reverted.

This category was originally intended for articles that used specialised philatelic terms not as a general depository for other general philatelic articles like specific types of stamps, postal history aticles, etc., that are well categorised under Category:Postage stamps and other categories. In fact back in 2008 (see the talk page} there was another category of terms called "Technical aspects of philately" which was merged with this one as they seemed to duplicate the same technical ground. I am pretty sure if "Technical aspects of philately" had been used in preference these changes would not have been made. With due respect to Maidonian edits, I get the impression that his perspective is that nearly everything fits only into Category:Philatelic terminology and I regard this is somewhat disruptive and pretty useless to regular readers because it seems to me that terminology should be used only for specialist philatelic terms or glossary of unfamiliar terms and not for as a place to put article that are, actually already were, easily categorised elsewhere under more easily discoverable categories by regular readers. I don't think this recategorisation adds to the reader's understanding of the topics.

There are probably several questions to be discussed and decisions made as to what should and should not be in some the different philatelic categories. Should "type of stamps", such as War tax stamp or Miniature sheet be categorised as terminology or as postage stamps; I prefer the latter. Back when BlackJack started some of these categories he defined the technical aspects category, which is what now is called Category:Philatelic terminology as being for "all the technical articles around design, paper, gum, perforation, roulette, etc. that the true (i.e., technical) philatelist is interested in". Perhaps it would be better to go back to the ""Technical aspects of philately" name rather than "Philatelic terminology". ww2censor (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ww2censor, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill here. If you think that my categorisations are wrong then please revert them but they were a sincere effort to improve the philately pages which I agree suffer from over-categorisation. I don't think that you have taken into account that while phil terms has increased, others have decreased. I submit that there are so many specialist terms in philately that the Philatelic Terminology category is inevitably going to be quite large. I have just had another look and they all seem to be genuine philatelic terms to me. Instead of making generalised assertions, could you please tell me specifically which entries you think are wrong. May I remind you to assume good faith in commenting on other users. Regards. Maidonian (talk) 17:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
If I was not assuming good faith Maidonian, I would have reverted you immediately AND not bothered to start this discussion. All I want to do is discuss some terms of reference, or criteria, for some of the philatelic categories, especially Category:Philatelic terminology. While you consider my views are overstated a problem does arise if familiar named articles are removed from easily found categories and put into the Philatelic terminology category when they are not specialist terms and fit more appropriately into other categories. This stems from the fact that I think regular readers will have difficulty in finding what they are interested or looking for. Of course it is obvious, if articles are recategorised, that some categories will increase and some decrease. When you state: "there are so many specialist terms in philately that the Philatelic Terminology category is inevitably going to be quite large", I get the impression that you want to place everything in there that smells even slightly of a technical nature when that is really not necessary. I have already mentioned a few of your recategorisations that I disagree giving some examples above but I am not going to go through all of your category edits and give my comments on them, that would be highly unproductive for both of us. Let's have a constructive discussion on what should or should not be in this category. ww2censor (talk) 04:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
It would have been propoer for Maidonian to discuss his proposed change to the category structure beforehand especially as there is a WikiProject associated with it. Since there is now a discussion on the topic, let us decide here what should be the main categories concerned with the WikiProject. AshLin (talk) 04:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Surely Philatelic Terminology is fairly self-explanatory. We all have at least one book of philatelic terms and they all include roughly the same entries (and the same ones as in the Wikipedia category). There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Others have done the work for us and it includes terms such as Watermark, Presentation Pack, Specimen Stamp etc. The name of the category is fine too in my opinion. I accept that it is a large category and I have given the reason for that. I also accept that some terms may be borderline as to whether they should go there or somewhere else. Please put forward nominations for specific terms that are in the wrong category (or just move them). Regarding Category:Postage stamps I suggest that it should be reserved for articles about famous stamps or ranges, eg Admirals, Wildings, The inverted Jenny etc. I note the category includes the rare stamp template. What about a name change to "Notable stamps" or something similar to make this clear? Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 10:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I am not in agreement with many of the category changes that Maidonian is doing. For example, he has changed many articles, such as Philatelic expertisation, to the sole category of Category:Philately. That is the topmost category in the hierarchy which should consist mostly of subcategories and should have very few articles directly in it. Philatelic expertisation would more appropriately belong in Category:Stamp collecting and Category:Philatelists, possibly others. An article can properly belong in more than one category; the purpose of categorization is to help readers find the article and related ones. Ecphora (talk) 01:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
I would recommend some more discussion here before very extensive changes are made to the existing categories. Ecphora (talk) 01:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Philatelic Expertisation was in philatelic terminology but I moved it because it didn't seem to fit (see above messages). I thought the top catagory was the safest one pending a more accurate allocation. It definitely does not belong in Category:Philatelists which is about individuals. I don't think it fits neatly anywhere. Is there any objection to some articles being at the top level? I will not make any further category changes until a consensus is reached. Maidonian (talk) 01:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Many of Maidonian's changes are perfectly correct. For example Line pair did not belong in Category:Postal markings because Postal marking only concerns "annotation applied to a letter by a postal service". Others were not necessary, in my opinion. For example Ship cover seems to be appropriate in Category:Postal system, but since it is not so technical a word, not in Category:Philatelic terminology. I think the latter should include primarily technical terminology; otherwise, it could include nearly all philatelic articles. Similarly, Postage stamp, one of the most general articles, seems to belong in Category:Philately but is not specialized enough to belong in Category:Philatelic terminology. (Obviously, there are no black and white answer here, and one man's technical term is another's common term.) Cancelled-to-order seems appropriate in Category:Stamp collecting because the article basically addresses cancellations purely made for collectors. Rather than go through more examples, I think one should keep in mind that the purpose of the categories is simply to enable readers to find relevant articles. For that reason, we shouldn't shy from having articles appear in multiple categories. Ecphora (talk) 02:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
I never suggested that all Maidonian's recats were all improper or inappropriate but that many were not what I thought were useful to readers and that is the paramount reason for categorising. Ecphora has more succinctly expressed some of what I feel. Indeed, some categorisation can be subjective and we may not always agree entirely but we can always discuss it. It might be a good idea to place some basic criteria for inclusion in the top of each category. That way we have a better understanding of what should fit where. While Maidonian is correct that we probably all have some books with a terminology list, we are not slavishly producing a duplicate philatelic publication, but an encyclopaedia accessable to all, so identical listings may not apply when simplicity and ease of use can be achieved. ww2censor (talk) 02:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
My point about the books of philatelic terms was that almost everything that I have put in Phil Terms also appears in the books on the same subject and that is strong prima-facie evidence that the categorisation is correct. I agree with Ecphora that there is no problem with having more than one category per article as long as they speak to different aspects of the subject. That is the case throughout Wikipedia isn't it? Over-categorisation may be an evil but it would also be wrong to choose just one category to pigeon-hole an entire subject. In categorisation we need our porridge to be not too hot and not too cold, but just right. The idea of having a definition at the top is an excellent one. Maidonian (talk) 12:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I already raised an issue about not always careful and proper categorisation in the earlier discussion topic, Major category confusion. The current conversation just demonstrates that we might want to seek a better understanding of categorisation in terms of key Wikipedia policies and guidelines as is defined and prescribed in Wikipedia:Categorization. In this connection, while not belittling an extremely significant Maidonian's contribution to the WikiProject Philately, I would support ww2censor in his efforts to develop the Project in accordance with Wikipedia fundamental principles and rules. --Michael Romanov (talk) 05:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I am having second thoughts about my suggestion that Category:Philatelic terminology should contain "technical terms" for several reasons. First, I doubt that there can be agreement on what's technical. I merged (after proposal) Category:Technical aspects of philately into Category:Philatelic terminology because "the contents of these appear to be indistinguishable and randomly divided between the categories." Second, it serves a useful purpose to collect Philatelic terminology, "technical" or not, in one place. Portal:Numismatics does not have such a category, but it does have something that serves the same purpose (perhaps better), namely Glossary of numismatics, which is "a collection of concise Numismatic and coin collecting terms for the beginner or professional", each with a short explanation, and links to articles where they exist. I'm not suggesting that there be a Glossary of Philately because frankly, I don't know who could do the work, but we could use Category:Philatelic terminology as a glossary of terms you might find in a dictionary of philately. Ecphora (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
To be frank, the more I look at it the more I think the category structure is a tangled mess of spaghetti that may be beyond saving. I think a major problem is the overlap between Postal System, Philately and Stamp Collecting. The Philately/Stamp Collecting division is particularly toxic. If we could somehow merge these I think the rest might fall into place. I have gone along with the separate definitions, i.e. one is study and another collecting without any study but I think in reality there is a 90% overlap. After all, in some languages the word for stamp collecting is the same as that for philately. I propose the merger of these two entries into one titled Stamp Collecting and Philately. It is not too long and can encompass all relevant aspects. The catageories can then fall in line. Wikipedia is supposed to be for the general public and I don't think they really see any difference. Maidonian (talk) 09:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that the Philatelic category structure is "a tangled mess of spaghetti" -- in general it seems understandable and useful, although there are some areas of inconsistency or confusion (there always will be in these categories.) But even if it is a "mess of spaghetti", I don't think that's necessarily bad. The Wikipedia:Categorization page suggests that is what to expect --

Partial view of Wikipedia's category system
.

After all, Wikipedia itself is a "tangled mess of spaghetti". Ecphora (talk) 01:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, now I have viewed the chart it is all clear to me. What about my proposal to merge the Philately and Stamp Collecting articles? Maidonian (talk) 06:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't see the need. Category:Stamp collecting is a sub-category of Category:Philately (which itself is a sub-category of Category:Collecting) and should properly include topics specifically focusing on collecting, like Stamp album, Stamp hinge, stamp catalogs, etc. Ecphora (talk) 01:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
What about renaming Category:Stamp collecting as Category:Stamp collecting tools or something like that? Ecphora (talk) 01:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Stanley Gibbons catalogue

There is no separate article in English Wiki for the major English stamp catalogue, and I suggested here to have one. Maidonian has opposed this idea, so it would be interesting to hear opinions of other users in this regard. Thanks. --Michael Romanov (talk) 05:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I have added my reply on the talk page. I am not necessarily against it, I just doubt the necessity and notability. There is also scope for confusion as we already have Stanley Gibbons the firm and SG the man. Maidonian (talk) 09:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Are there enough articles on Wikipedia to justify an Outline of philately?

Here's a discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist 23:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

London 2010: Festival of Stamps

Next year, there's a Festival of Stamps happening in London - see [4]. I'm part of Wikimedia UK, the Wikimedia chapter based in the UK. I mention these two facts because was wondering if anyone would be interested in exploring potential links between the Festival and Wikipedia? Is there any interest in doing e.g. article writing competitions/drives, either online or offline? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Category?

Is there a category for Postage Stamp Artsts? I am working on the stub about Mark Severin, who among other things designed postage stamps, and I would like to add a suitable category to his page, if there is one. I have looked through various postage-related articles and have found diddly squat about the artists themselves - not a single named one, for instance (although I admit my trawl was fairly cursory). Surely this is an overlooked area - the artists is a very important part of the object, surely? 86.133.212.153 (talk) 12:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Stamp artists are found in Category:Stamp designers. Ecphora (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Country definitives

I've done a fair bit of work (more to come!) on Country Definitives, if anyone fancies reassessing its quality and importance, or indeed, improving it.

I plan to finish the citations sometime in the next few weeks, based on the latest edition of the SG Concise GB Catalogue once I lay my hands on it. I'll delete the references to the Stamp Atlas at that stage, as I don't think there is any information in the article which cannot be found in the SG catalogue. AndyB (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

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Notability of topical lists

Ironically, just this morning I was pondering the lists of fishes on stamps, and now Maidonian has proposed some deletions. So this seems like a good time to talk about what merits being in WP and set down a guideline so we know what to do for things in the future. Now, to take the oldest topical list, the one for people on stamps, I don't know of anybody who disputes their notability or appropriateness; for the most part, people honored on stamps are articleworthy, and indeed the list provides a handy link between history/biography and philately. Birds, fish, ships, Scouting, etc seem much less clear to me. Certainly the ATA thinks they are sufficiently notable to be worth publishing, and the scientifically authoritative FishBase also includes fish-on-stamps data. Left-handed piano players? Almost certainly not, even if someone were to win awards for an exhibit on the topic.

I can think of a couple rules of thumb. We could say that any "top-level" or "most important" topic in WP may have a stamp-topic-related list. So that means "astronomy", "geology", "literature", and so on, but excludes "Welsh children's literature" or "Saturn". Another idea is to allow anything for which a list has already been published in the philatelic literature. Stan (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Glad someone noticed. I have only nominated the particularly silly ones (in my humble subjective opinion). eg fish on the stamps of country X. I agree people makes sense for what is says about culture and also top level such as all fish on stamps or all cars on stamps etc. It is the huge number of articles created when it is all cross referenced to individual countries that clutters everything up. Maidonian (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC) P.S. I have also nominated some postal order articles as a lot were created as templates and never completed. Maidonian (talk) 22:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
One list vs several is more of an organizational issue, I don't think it really matters to notability. Even the people on stamps started as a single list, but it soon became important that if it ever got close to completeness, it would just be enormous. Per-country division is one of the obvious ways to break up a too-long list, but it's not the only way; it might be interesting to divide up a fish-on-stamps list by time - issues from before 1960 will be "more interesting", less likely to be randomness chosen strictly to sell to collectors. Stan (talk) 22:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
People per country makes a lot of sense. Fish per country doesn't IMHO. I think all these fish articles were created by one person and have been neglected ever since. They look active in the history but I think it is just minor formatting edits in reality. I note for instance that List of fish on stamps of Brazil is a whole screen but Postage stamps and postal history of Brazil is really only one sentence. I think they should either be deleted or moved back to one big article. Sorry I didn't reply sooner but I was busy preparing an article on Polar bears on the Stamps of Peru. Then I am doing Cactus on the stamps of Sweden. (just joking). Maidonian (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Fish per country and alike should be transferred to an appropriate Wikibooks resource. There is a special Wikibooks category: b:Category:World Stamp Catalogue, though it is being developed slowly. Authors of such Wiki articles can be advised to consider Wikibooks. I agree these articles are not notable here, in Wikipedia. However, they perfectly match Wikibooks. --Michael Romanov (talk) 01:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Although personally I don’t appreciate topical collecting, I note that the Philately Project page touts that “WP has great potential as an aid for topical collectors, as in List of people on stamps and Ships on stamps.” Perhaps the various fish/country articles (which should not be stand alones) should be merged into a single Fish on stamps article here. I don’t think the Wikibooks stamp catalog (an impossible and pointless project, IMHO) is a good analogy. Wikipedia is teeming with lists of the significant to the absurd and topical stamp lists, whatever their appeal to some of us, do fit here. Ecphora (talk) 02:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Michael, what about the list of people on stamps? Should that go to Wikibooks too? (I note that we will lose the cross-linking to correct name spellings and so forth.) Or do we just declare that "people on stamps" is the only topical list that is sufficiently notable to be in WP? Stan (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I believe this discussion of moving topical lists to Wikibooks is misguided. According to Wikibooks: What is Wikibooks:
"Simply, Wikibooks is a collection of open-content textbooks. … Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. … As a general rule only instructional books are suitable for inclusion. Most types of books, both fiction and non-fiction, are not allowed on Wikibooks, unless they are instructional. …"
I think that, if these lists were moved to Wikibooks, they would be deleted as inappropriate. As I said before, Wikipedia is the land of lists and these sort of lists are appropriate here. Ecphora (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem with these lists is that by splitting them up to make them shorter, they actually create a large number low-notability articles. You get every country that has ever issued a fish/bird/etc stamp with an article. This can't be more usable than one long list. I also don't understand why the split has been by country. If each country only featured fish from itself that would be fine, but they don't. I see three options 1) recombine them into one or several lists (could be by hemisphere, continent, ocean etc.) 2) leave as is 3) delete the lot. I favour 3). Who is actually using these articles? The original creator, who I think is no longer active, probably thought they were a great idea but does anybody else? Has any substantive content ever been added to these lists since they were created? Maidonian (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
One of the reasons I was pondering the lists in the first place is that the format was overly detailed, probably auto-generated from a personal database - family info is redundant with the species articles, etc, and that was discouraging me from working on them. Also including all those catalog numbers is borderline copyvio. As always it is difficult to know who uses WP and for what (does anybody read any of our philatelic material?). I know that one of my motivations for working on the ships-on-stamps list was to help develop my own collection of the topic. It occurs to me that in the case of plants and animals, there are lots of "popular" species that occur on multiple countries' stamps, so maybe a single flat list with multiple country/year annotations would not be so large. Stan (talk) 17:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
..a single flat list ... would not be so large... - In the case of birds, there are at least 27,000 stamps or so with 366 countries and 3500 species as per this. AshLin (talk) 18:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC).
Indeed! Not at all surprising for birds, which have always been a favorite for stamp design, being both a reference to the real-life use of carrier pigeons, and an allegory of swift flight. But these statistics usefully illustrate a couple points; per-country list(s) would have 27,000 entries, averaging around 74 entries/country, which is a good per-country list length (of course, many will be very short, and some much longer), while a species-organized list would be an order of magnitude shorter. Stan (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
If there are 27K stamps with birds, then there must be hundreds of thousands (millions?) of "stamps with people" on them. Again, although I see little real need for any of these lists, they all appear to be within acceptable scope of lists on Wikipedia. What say our fearless leader? Ecphora (talk) 14:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
The people on stamps list collection is perhaps halfway to completeness, and there's less than one might think. Some countries, like Kuwait don't have a tradition of depicting their notables, and we only list a person once per country, so Queen Liz gets just the one entry despite appearing on hundreds of British stamps. I'd guess that it will probably top out at around 50K total, including all the celebrity wallpaper. Reviewing the standalone list guideline, I'd say that it does allow for quite a range of topical lists - for instance, a fish-on-stamps list could be justified as connecting stamps to current state of ichthyology, since stamp catalogues and ATA checklists are going to be thoroughly out of date. (The existence of printed checklists also shows that there is potential clientele.) Stan (talk) 15:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Let me comment a little bit more. My personal opinion is that these lists are now of a limited use because of their incompleteness, random coverage of topics, and miscategorization in several cases. I would better prefer to have a more detailed article on a specific topic as we already started creating them in Russian Wikipedia. But I don't mind if somebody makes efforts to developing the discussed lists, systematizing them and categorizing properly. --Michael Romanov (talk) 15:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Although I am not a Topical collector, IMHO all Topic on Stamps of Country lists would no doubt pass the WP:List, WP:CLN and WP:GNG guidelines as long as the country is notable (they all are) and the list is properly organized and sourced. Very short lists or silly intersections as mentioned above aren't the issue here. I was looking at a few of the Fish on Stamps lists and a few ideas struck as to how these lists could be improved.
  • In the catalog columns, add an in-line citation to each catalog on the header line. No need to source each entry to a specific page, just each column to a specific catalog.
  • Add a legend at the top to explain the possible entries in the column type. I assume NOR means Normal but who knows. A legend, common to every topical list would be a big improvement.
  • Strengthen the lead-in to say a bit more in summary about the topic in the context of the country. Leace no doubt as to the inclusion criteria. Source those comments.
I wrote this essay a while back to help other editors improve their lists, so it may give some additional ideas. Creating a Better List.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I assume then that the PROD templates should be removed from the lists, pending resolution of this issue? Ecphora (talk) 04:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I would certainly support that!--Mike Cline (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I oppose that on the grounds that the information in the articles is trivial and useless. It does not matter to anyone which fish appeared on which country's stamps, although I have no objection to one master list. Just to be clear, I have no objection to fish as a species and often enjoy eating them. Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 14:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Then what if the master list gets too big to be a single list? Stan (talk) 15:00, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
If we have to have it at all, as suggested above, it could be split in whatever way seems most useful such as per continent, hemisphere, ocean, freshwater and salt water species etc. It would be more than one article but vastly less than a per country basis. Since bodies of water cross national borders, and countries do not feature only native species, there is actually no basis for a per country split anyway. Nonetheless, I continue to believe that the whole thing is misconceived. There is no need for any lists of fish on stamps of any kind. Similarly for Birds etc. etc. (People are a different matter). Why fish on stamps, why not fish in art, fish on beer mats, fish on match box labels. The whole thing is *ollocks IMHO, it's just that because it already exists we are afraid to delete it. Maidonian (talk) 15:22, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
You've confused me - first you say you have no objection to one master list, then you say the whole thing is *ollocks. I personally would be content with or without topical lists; what's important to me is that we have a published criterion for editors to consult when deciding what to keep and what to delete. Stan (talk) 22:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thematic (or topical) stamp collecting is a very popular area with many stamp collectors. There are societies which cater for some areas as for example Bird Stamp Society; I couldn’t find one for fish. Up to date lists will always be a good resource for collectors of the subject, once they know of its existence. Catalogues are constantly being published on one subject or another, showing that there is a demand for lists of this sort. The last catalogue I could find for fish was published in 1999, which by now is well out of date. Even though I personally have no need for lists like these, I would be against their deletion. I am sure that someone will come along sooner or later, put more work into these lists, bring them up to date and keep them up to date. JPKos (talk) 16:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to anyone collecting whatever they want, it is entirely a personal matter and philately is a hobby. But we are talking about Wikipedia here, which is an encyclopaedia and one designed for the general reader. Not everything that exists in the world needs an article, that's why we have notability. There is a demand for my local Yellow Pages but I am not going to create an article replicating its contents on Wikipedia. I notice that no-one in this discussion has said they actually find the articles useful and use them. The fact that they have not developed over years is prima facie evidence that they are not useful. Maidonian (talk) 16:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that there's consensus that these lists are appropriate, although possibly they might be better combined into more comprehensive groups. These lists are no more trivial or specialized than much else on Wikipedia, including a number of philately articles, and apparently are of some interest to topical collectors or bird/fish aficionados. The tags need to be removed or the information will be lost. Ecphora (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I was thumbing through the various writings in Category:Wikipedia notability earlier today, and didn't find anything really clearcut for or against. So we pretty much have a free hand - we can promulgate a guideline ("list of people on stamps is in, everything else is out", "anything already published by ATA", etc), or maintain the status quo, which is that random editors are on their own in deciding notability. I think we should have a guideline, because it is an area that is non-obvious to the general community of editors (how many people even know that there are dozens of published checklists?), and this is one of the ways that a WikiProject contributes to the encyclopedia as a whole. Stan (talk) 23:05, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that some lists are fine, it is over-listing, to give it a name, that is not helpful. I propose a compromise that:

  • Lists of people on the stamps of their own country are OK
  • Lists of other items uniquely associated with a particular country are also OK, e.g. list of French cars appearing on French stamps
  • Top level lists are also OK, e.g. List of all lighthouses appearing on anyone's stamps
  • Any others are not OK and should be merged or deleted. e.g. List of ANY car/fish/bird etc. appearing on a country's stamps.

This keeps the useful ones and deletes the others and enables the remaining lists to be linked to articles relating to the culture of the country. For instance a list of French cars on French stamps would have obvious scope for illustrations and links to the articles on Citreon, Renault etc. Birds native to Britain could be linked to other British nature articles and so on. Some lists would expand, some contract and others be deleted. I am still not keen on these lists but there seems to be a consensus that some are OK and therefore a published policy on this project would obviously be the best way forward. Oh dear, this could actually cause an expansion in lists. Maidonian (talk) 00:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Some questions:
Well, yes (unfortunately). There could be latitude if someone was closely connected to a country but not an actual citizen. It would be up to the editor to explain in the list why they were there. If after this was done there was nothing or almost nothing left of an article then clearly it could be deleted. There was a call for a policy and I have suggested one. This is no broader than the free-for-all we have now but at least there would be some logic to it. Whatever policy we have will present difficulties of implementation. Maidonian (talk) 00:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
And an alternative would be to have just top level lists, e.g. all birds on stamps and people on stamps. Maidonian (talk) 00:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest much broader criteria. WP:Lists take precedence here.
  • A topical list in WP would have a supporting, but not necessarily identical ATA checklist - ie, topics not sanctioned by ATA would be discouraged.
  • A topical list in WP would contain only entries supported by major catalogs
  • Short topical lists are discouraged, and maybe an arbitary XX number of minimum entries. When that cannot be met, then the suggestion is to combined a topic of multiple countries - either regionally or politcially.
  • There would be a requirement for a strong lead-in that specifically established inclusion criteria and related the topic to the stamps of the country/region.
  • Minimum sourcing would include the appropriate ATA lists-article level sourcing; and entries should have catalog sourcing from at least one of the major catalogs.

--Mike Cline (talk) 01:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Two comments:
  • I don't think the ATA "sanctions" topics. Its website has an alphabetical list of checklists which presumably are topical subjects, but they're for "members only" and outsiders like me can't access them.
  • The idea to limit people by country lists to people from or connected with a country presents many difficulties. You would have to vet each name and make a judgment whether that person is, e.g., Bolivian enough to be included. This raises OR issues as well as lots of unnecessary work. Also, "people on stamps of X" lists are (for whatever reason) popular and many editors have added to them. I suggest leave 'em be. Ecphora (talk) 01:38, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's a radical idea I just thought of. For any article X in WP, allow an "X on stamps" article/list. However, an article has to have plausible FA potential, and a list has to have at least 50 entries with justified inclusion per Maidonian. This lets one do things like the Russians' "Tallinn on stamps" (which I thought looked good), and also gives us natural breakups, for instance a bird list is always going to be too long, but breakout lists for particular bird families will often be reasonably sized. It effectively disallows nearly all "X on stamps of Y" because there are few "X of Y" articles. Stan (talk) 04:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this. It seems to me it would eliminate all articles in the Category:Lists of people on stamps and allow only "Lists of people of X on stamps of X" which, as discussed above, is highly problematic, and rejects lists that appear to be popular and provide some cultural and political information (e.g., which persons, of whatever nationality, are honored on the stamps of X). I don't think those lists present a pressing problem.
The original problem discussed was what to do with some "Fish [or birds] on stamps of X" lists. It might make logical sense to break out those lists by families, which presumably is how the fish or bird people would organize it, but is that how topical collectors deal with it? And which would be more useful for the general reader--

Ecphora (talk) 05:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the people lists can be an exception - in fact one could argue that they don't really correspond to any topical collecting activity at all; I've never heard of anyone collecting "people on stamps" without further specializing. If you had to make it correspond to something, there are "people of country" categories. And yeah, while penguins are a convenient family, Accipitridae are not so obvious (how do people sort bird lists anyway?). I think ATA has a bird of prey list, which corresponds to several families grouped together. Stan (talk) 05:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
At this point, I don't see any easy approach to break up a potentially lengthy list of "birds/fish on stamps" into manageable sub-lists other than the existing "birds/fish on stamps of X" type lists. Perhaps significantly, that is the same way that we deal with the "people on stamps" lists.
While we ponder this some more, I will remove the PROD tags to preserve the information and to prevent some lists from disappearing while others of the same type remain. Ecphora (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Concur--Mike Cline (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Can I just point out that setting a policy according to ATA publications is not really appropriate? ATA lists are not widely used outside the US and there is the danger of US bias. I have never seen one in the UK for instance. There needs to be some other criteria. Maidonian (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree, for me it's just been a convenient example of practice outside the WP context. Any actual guideline that referenced philatelic societies would do so in a suitably generic way. Stan (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

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First class stamp?

Can somebody please enlighten me on what a first-class stamp means? Do we have this factoid on Wikipedia? AshLin (talk) 09:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The context is that America is supposed to have the world's cheapest first-class stamp. AshLin (talk) 15:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Category:Female philatelists

I created this category, it is not intended to be matched by a male philatelists category. It is now up for deletion on the basis that there is no justification for a male/female split and that female philatelists are not a subject of academic study. If anyone has an opinion either way, please add it on the discussion page. I thought it was a useful addition but I seem to be in the minority right now. If there is no further support for it, it is likely to be deleted. Comment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_17#Category:Female_philatelists Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

A few years ago we discussed the country philatelist categories and agreed it was fairly useless to have categories where there are less than 5 or 6 entries. In consequence several country categories were deleted at that time but now Maidonian has recreated philatelist categories some of which have only 1 or 2 entries. Those categories and this Category:Female philatelists clearly seem like overcategorisation to me. Personally I prefer to only add categories when they are really needed. ww2censor (talk) 13:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I must admit that I was unaware of the previous discussion, however, perhaps it is time to review that decision. This is a class of category that is likely to keep expanding. I once queried the creation of a category with only one entry and was told that was not relevant and that it would fill up in time! Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 14:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Only the German, French, British and American philatelists are populated with a reasonable number of entries. I just don't see any point at all in having 1, 2 or 3 entries in a category; all others are just overcategorisation. We certainly can discuss it further at the project. ww2censor (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
If I had been aware of the previous discussion I would not have created them, however, it is too late now unless they are deleted which seems like over-kill. Surely they will fill up over time and isn't it also possible that the existence of the category will cause someone to write relevant articles out of national pride? Maidonian (talk) 15:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Just seen the following:

Shortcut

":Example: The Beatles' wives, Husbands of Elizabeth Taylor, Catalan-speaking countries

Avoid categories that, by their very definition, will never have more than a few members, unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme, such as subdividing songs in Category:Songs by artist or flags in Category:Flags by country."

- These philatelists sub-categories are part of a larger scheme and are definitely capable of growing. We will never run out like the Beatles wives. Maidonian (talk) 15:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It seemed like you were miffed that I dropped links to old discussions at the category discussion. That is n ot the intention. Indeed, you are correct that these categories are capable of growing which is exactly the point, they are not needed right now because they are under-populated. When there are enough articles to populate a needed category that is the time to create them. ww2censor (talk) 15:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
The Female Philatelists debate, which I am losing, is on a completely different basis. It is about whether a specifically female category is justified, not the size of the category, hence I did not understand why you made reference to this other matter which is not relevant and which you have not previously raised with me. That is not the place to raise it for the first time, I think. Regarding small categories, I think the policy is saying that they are not a problem as long as they are part of a larger scheme and capable of growing. I stand to be corrected. Anyway, I always enjoy our debates. Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 15:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

American History on US Postage Stamps

Draft Page

Greetings. For the last three+ months (as of May, 2010) I have uploaded 100's of quality hi-resolution images of U.S. Postage stamps I have taken from my collection and from other sources -- mostly issues from before 1950. I am in the process of drafting a page in a sub-page in my user space 'American History on US Postage Stamps' and hope to offer it as a philatelic reference that outlines what U.S. history and historical figures are to be found on the given U.S. postage issues, as well as being a reference for the history of the stamp issue itself, noting artists, engravers, dates of issue and other related material in the stamp issue's production. The page will not attempt to discuss a given historical subject in any length but will simply provide a general overview of the subject that ties in with the given postage issue. (Some of the sections of the page are still in the draft stage.) The page will link up with corresponding history pages and will also serve to bring those interested in U.S. history into the realm of philately while helping to bring collectors into the realm of history, as they have done for me years ago. Drop in, take a look and leave a comment on the discussion page if you have any thoughts. GWillHickers (talk) 02:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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