User talk:Ram-Man/archive2

More on your license

Hi Ram-Man,
Just noticed you'd updated your license when I went to upload an edit to your monarch image. But for someone really into the "spirit" of the Four Freedoms it still strikes me as quite against the concept of those freedoms. If I could suggest a reword?
If you want to use this image please be sure to read the terms of the license it is under. Of note, you must attribute me as the photographer, and may not license the image or any derivatives under a different license (ie if you use this image for the banner of your website you must license your banner under the GFDL)
I think it conveys the gist of your previous argument but in a much more friendly/non-restrictive way.
On another note (to drag an old issue back up) I also noticed when I did the edit to your monarch image that you too downsample your image (in the monarch it's 1800px). Pardon me if there's some perfectly simple explanation but isn't that a bit hypocritical given your strong views on the Four Freedoms and not down sampling images as you stated on Michael Magg's talkpage? --Fir0002 www 10:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be hypocritical except for 2 things. 1) Downsampling is appropriate in certain situations, such as when the image doesn't have enough resolution in the first place. Downsampling to the real resolution means that the image will look sharper and not lose anything. This can happen in an extremely noisy image or one taken at such a small aperture that the effective resolution is necessarily limited by physics. Downsampling is appropriate in certain lower-quality images. 2) But in this case, that doesn't apply because I cropped this image. There was a lot of distracting foreground and background elements that I eliminated when I cropped this one. I crop images all the time. (Just for note, sometimes I accidentally set my camera on the wrong quality setting and don't take full resolution images, so that's always a possibility too) -- Ram-Man 11:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the license, I appreciate your effort at helping me clean it up as best as possible. At some point I'll see about your suggestions. And to speak to the point about the four freedoms. I'm constantly reevaluating my position on these things. I've recently stopped using the CC-by-sa because I'm concerned that they are promoting use that is not copyleft. As strong as my opinions are, I encourage people to make their own decisions since my opinions change as well. I may be strongly against downsampling today in most situations, but someone may produce some really good argument why its a good thing. I don't know what that would be, but I try to stay open-minded. It's even theoretically possible that I could some day reject the four freedoms and even give up Wikipedia for good, if the right circumstances and arguments presented themselves. That's why as strong as my opinions are, people like you should make up your own minds rather than be sheep. -- Ram-Man 11:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the lag, but I'm afraid that due to exam prep I can't give much time to wiki.

First point seems a direct contradiction of your stance on MM's talk page - However, for reasons of the four freedoms, someone who isn't willing to publish their images at full resolution is basically saying that freedom to use isn't really all that important. Why should we feature someone who doesn't care about the all of the four freedoms? . I think you need to be a little more consistant!

True some of your down sampling could occur through crops etc, but I'm a bit sckeptical that so many of your crops come out to "nice" dimensions such as 2000px [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] , 2500 [8] [9] and 3008 [10] [11] [12] [13] and yet so few are at full res. Now I know you might be thinking me a little cynical here but would you mind uploading a full res image of that picture?

Heh I wouldn't worry too much about me being a sheep - more of a shepherd really! :-) Even your template I believe is a derivative of my own, with the comic sans style camera info box, and the line to allow people to request more flexible licenses. Actually quite a few people are using it (my style template) (Aka, Benjamint etc)! --Fir0002 www 09:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I did borrow the idea from you, as stated on the page: Template:Ram-Man_Camera_1. And I love comic sans. I use the font all over the place, so it only makes sense to not change that from your box. We don't use the box in exactly the same way, but it's good enough for my purposes. In any case, most (maybe 80%?) of my images come from my Nikon D50, which is 2000x3008 (6MP, 2:3 aspect ratio) out of the camera. That's why most of the dimensions are like that, although I sometimes crop out the 8 pixels to make it an even 3000px. I crop the rest of the images, except for a few exceptions. You can be skeptical all you want. Why should you trust anyone? EXIF data can be faked, images can be upsampled, downsampled. All you can go on is people tell you. Certainly you don't have a problem with cropping? I think perhaps you are wondering why I don't just upload all the original files without any modification at all? Simple: I modify them to try to increase their usefulness, and cropping does that. I also do some amount of sharpening (but not nearly as much as many people do), and I've even started blurring out backgrounds for FP candidates so that they wouldn't be "distracting" (I never did that before). As for consistency, I will admit that I am not always consistent. As I explained elsewhere to Tony Mills, I do struggle with various aspects of these issues, and I'm never quite sure if I got it 100% right. The quote that you provided is more of an open ended question. I'm not really sure what the answer to that question is. There has to be some compromise between teaching others why the four freedoms are important and standing firm in those beliefs. Legalism can be just as bad as anarchy. I'm not entirely sure what aspect (the "first point") is a direct contradiction. Do you mean to say that downsampling limits what others can do, so thus it contradicts the four freedoms? I'll let you clarify. In the meantime, I'm also not suggesting that a photographer should always upload original files. My main problem is any action that has the main goal of bypassing one or more of the four freedoms. I wouldn't suggest that you sell prints of your own work without pre-processing. Nor do I have a problem when pre-processing is done here. And certainly, you are not evil if you violate any of the four freedoms. Having a difference of opinion is fine. -- Ram-Man 04:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, don't stress I'm not upset or anything - as they say imitation is the sincerest for of flattery :-)

Why don't you use your D200? Surely that would provide a much higher quality image?

So would you be willing to upload a full sized version of some of your crops?

No I don't have a problem with cropping at all, my problem here is that you are restricting what a person can do with a photo by your judgement (however good it may be) to crop out information. Now in the purest form of the four freedoms I think the image should be uploaded either full res or in two versions.

Well ok that quote may be an open ended question, but I don't like the fact that you seem to place the 2MP downsampling rejection criteria on FPC on philosophical grounds rather than practical ones; but yet do not seem to adhere to those ideals yourself, bending or adapting them as suits you...

I don't want to get too personal about this, and indeed once the school holidays finally come I plan to put this in more general debate on the talkpage of com:fpc, so sorry if what I said is too pointed but I'm quite frustrated over the "downsampling = evil" attitude. --Fir0002 www 09:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well first of all downsampling isn't evil. Even in the worst case where someone was downsampling just to get around the four freedoms, I still think that isn't evil, although it doesn't match what the goals are. With regards to philosophy, I never said there was an obligation to give up all of ones work. Some things are private and should therefore stay private. If one chooses to crop, heck if one chooses to downsample, that is not automatically in violation of the philosophy, despite the guidelines. The key thing is whether or not they provide the same freedom for images here on Wikipedia as they would for commercial usage elsewhere. In other words, if I sell other high-resolution or less cropped versions elsewhere and don't use a free license, I have created a discrepency. I now have a lesser free version and a greater non-free version. That's the philsophical problem, and if you are not doing that, there is no problem. Obviously making a living is important and even in this scenario there is no serious evil.

Oh, I don't have a D200, if I did I'd use it. A family member owns one, and I borrow it on certain occasions, but not terribly often. I also borrow his lenses, which is why some of my pictures come from lenses that I don't own. That's why the resolutions are not what you would expect. I often shoot from my 8700 to trade off some noise for some additional resolution.

Lastly, the 2MP limit is an arbitrary limit determination. I've set that as my personal limit. It's a guideline for me as much as I can change it if I want to, but I only rarely will support < 2MP. If my philosophy applies in those cases, I'll say so, but I don't let me philosophy oppose anything higher. -- Ram-Man 11:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The saga continues

I ended up deciding I should have written down the address of the shop.  :-) But I'm going to get the D40. Thanks for your assistance in deciding. Regards, Ben Aveling 12:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Chanticleer Gardens Main House Springtime 2892px.jpg

Image deletion warning

Image:Chanticleer Gardens Main House Springtime 2892px.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

This is an automated message from User:DRBot. 14:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Quality Image Decline

I would appreciate it very much if you would tweak the brightness of the white on the swan, yes. Thanks for offering, I'm still a bit new. Ṣ₡ЯՄՊՏɧѱᎦ ^☎/ _∑ 21:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Lizard Photo

Thanks for reviewing my lizard photo for QI (July 5). I do now see that the bottom right leg is out of focus. Other than that DOF problem, do you have any other problems with the image? --Skoch3 20:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The lighting is a little harsh, with the shadows and such, but it's not so bad in this picture that it couldn't be a QI. But it's not just the leg. The center body of the lizard appears out-of-focus. The spots should be sharper. -- Ram-Man 20:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!--Skoch3 21:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Pennsylvania

Hello there!

I'm writing to inform you that we are now forming the first local Wikimedia Chapter in the United States: Wikimedia Pennsylvania. Our goals are to perform outreach and fundraising activities on behalf of the various Wikimedia projects. If you're interested in being a part of the chapter, or just want to know more, you can:

• Contact us on IRC at #wikimedia-pa
• Join our mailing list
• Visit our blog at http://wmfpa.blogspot.com
• Sign our list of interested participants

Thanks and I hope you sign up! Cbrown1023 talk 17:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Delisting proposals from an IP address

Please see my proposal at Commons talk:Featured picture candidates#Delisting rules. --MichaelMaggs 20:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Railway bridge projection

Hi Ram-Man,

Although you oppose my FP nomination, I value your reasoning as it is not based on latitude and longitude. And you have traced similar copies on the web, so you see that this different version suffers from bushes in the foreground and the left pillars are heavily distorted in the rectangular projection. On the image I nominated I have been significantly closer to the bridge, so I expect an architectural projection to look even less like reality.

Regarding photographer's position, there is no real chance from further back as on the photo you have tracked down I was already at the edge of the village. -- Klaus with K 17:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Every projection will have its positives and negatives, but in the case of the bridge, I think it is very important that the viewers are not confused by the actual shape of the bridge. The projection that I cited has distortion at the edge, which is to be expected given that particular projection. As you say, it is quite possible that such a projection is not (easily) possible with those source images. I would say then that it is just not a good subject matter for an FP, but I'm just one opinion of many. I do appreciate the difficulties of panoramas, having made quite a few myself. -- Ram-Man 18:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Dinemellia dinemelli picture

Hope you don't mind, I had a go at lessening fringing (resulting in a file name that barely fits on my screen). This time, I didn't touch colour balance. Thegreenj 22:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

More on your license

Moved discussion here but left this link so I don't forget about it. -- Ram-Man 04:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Image

Hi Ram-Man. I like of your opinion. What you think of this image? -- Mateus Hidalgo 16:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I love waterfalls and am happy to give a critique of this image. Overall the exposure is pretty good. While normally outdoor shots look best around sunrise or sunset because harsh daytime light destroys detail, this image is quite decent. The waterfall is not overexposed (!) and there are not too many deep shadows. Compositionally, the view of the entire waterfall is nice.

There are a few weaknesses. Compositionally, the plants at the upper left side of the picture are distracting and ideally would not have been included in the picture. The other problems all center on the fact that this particular camera tends to produce lower quality images. In-camera noise reduction smudges out fine details and makes the picture appear somewhat blurry. Also, there is some color fringing (chromatic aberration) caused by the particular lens used in the camera. -- Ram-Man 16:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your critique. Really, the camera don't help me much rs. The unique edit in image was a reduction of size and a emphasis in the colors (this is the name of the comand in Gimp, but I don't know if this "emphasis" is done saturating the colors. You know?). I'm just a curious in the fotograph, and for this with your coment I can learn more. Greetings, -- Mateus Hidalgo 19:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the original image. Which the images you prefer? The edited is many exagerated? -- Mateus Hidalgo 19:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Many people prefer more saturated images because they often look prettier. I personally prefer more accurate, less-saturated color. It depends on who you ask. However, harsh lighting will cause some desaturation, so adding a little back into the picture can make it more like what the human eye would have seen. -- Ram-Man 19:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Yes, it's was the occured. The colors "live" is more saturated that the color of the original image. I note that they varies with the compensation of ilumination. Well, thanks for the chat :). Greetings, -- Mateus Hidalgo 20:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Swan displaying.6669.JPG

 Question Image:Swan displaying.6669.JPG was taken at ISO400, exposure time 1/640 sec (0.0015625), F number f/6.3. You want both more detail and less noise. Short of me going off and getting a faster lens, would that have been possible? Ben Aveling 12:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Shooting at ISO200, 1/320 sec should have been plenty to stop that action at 62mm. The biggest problem here however is not high-ISO noise, but underexposure. The whites of the swan should be brighter, but as it stands they are too close to the noise threshold. Of course that would blow out the gull in the background, but that's just a distracting element anyway. I'll admit that taking pictures of white, detailed objects can be very difficult. You often have to have get the exposure perfect, which is why exposure bracketing is helpful in situations like this where you don't have time to think. Of course the camera has to be fast enough to capture enough shots to bracket the exposure, which is why getting it right in the first place is ideal. -- Ram-Man 12:30, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Nod nod. Certainly not interested in the gull, that's why I cropped it, and its reflection. I'd have zoomed it out of the picture if I had time - I didn't. I'm pretty sure I had the exposure compensation set to 0, Maybe a little higher would have been possible, without burning a hole in the shoulder, or worse. Of course, I wasn't planning on taking that shot until it happened, I was pleased to get the focus right and the framing close enough. The D40 doesn't support bracketing, for whatever reason, so that's not an option for the immediate future. Thanks, Ben Aveling 07:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• • • Guess what I got. Of course, I have to manually focus until such future date as I can upgrade to a bigger body, which is interesting. I'd hate to have to depend on my ability to do so, but it does encourage deeper thinking about what I'm doing, which has to be a good thing. Cheers, Ben Aveling 13:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Template

Would you mind if I stole Template:Ram-Man Camera 1? I'd like to have a way to put some EXIF details back in, since Photoshop removes EXIF. Thegreenj 20:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Extend it, copy it, whatever you want. It is loosely based on Fir0002's template. -- Ram-Man 20:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've started using my version of it, which is pretty much a word for word copy of yours. Thegreenj 18:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Blur

• Do you know how to blur and darken the background only in this picture? --Digon3 ^talk 16:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me see what I can do... -- Ram-Man 23:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thats what I was looking for, thanks. Could you tell me how you did it? --Digon3 ^talk 16:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I mostly used a wand tool to select the background without any feathering. I used the "Curves" tool to bend down the brightness to darken the background. After that, I duplicated the layer, deleted the flower from the layer and replaced it with transparency. Then I did a Guassian blur on the layer. I then reloaded the same selection and deleted the gaussian blur wherever there was a flower. The two images merged together formed what you see there. I did some (but not much sharpening to the flower itself). -- Ram-Man 11:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

User-specific galleries, templates and categories

When you edited Commons talk:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy, you accidentally erased User:Samulili's oppose vote. --Digon3 ^talk 22:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, thanks! -- Ram-Man 22:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal concerning User PH-n templates

Hi, there is a proposal and vote concerning the {{User PH-0}},...,{{User PH-3}} templates, that you may be interested in. --Tony Wills 10:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Lviv FP

Hello! You voted on my pictures of Lviv on FPC [14]. Now, somebody, who don't like this image (and maybe me) want to delist it month after featuring and nominating to POTD. What do You thik about it? Maybe You vote to keep FP for my photo! See here: [15] Thanks!!! --Lestat 09:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it allowed to make image requests on photographer talk pages?

-- carol 02:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

that pine cone

I am right now uploading a version that I lightly cloned that thing off from the end of the cone. Feel free to have it deleted right away if you disapprove of any part of it. This arboretum seems to be nicer about letting photographs of their stuff out.

It is uploaded now... Image:Scrub Pine Pinus virginiana Cone Closeup 2000px-small edit.jpg. I was quite careful about it.

Did you know that at 400% view this photograph is pixelated? -- carol 07:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Tokina 12-24mm f4

I have just seen that you have this lens. I also want to buy this lens. How satisfied are you with it? --Simonizer 12:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your Feedback. I think i will buy this lens --Simonizer 08:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Image:Wrangell_Alaska_Welcome_Sign.jpg

Image deletion warning

Image:Wrangell_Alaska_Welcome_Sign.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

Calliopejen 04:52, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Commons Guide

Hello,

Having seen a number of your pictures in QI and FP sections, I was wondering if you would be interested in sharing some of your knowledge and assist in writing of a photography guide for Commons users?

Could you please see this page:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photography_Guide_Project_Alpha

Please consider participating in this. Thank you.

--Thermos 16:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello,

Unfortunately the project page was deleted because of lack of media (I suppose). An undeletion request has been filed and I hope to have the page up on later day. In the meanwhile, sorry for inconvenience. I will notify you on the further developments. --Thermos 03:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Project page has been restored to commons: namespace. --Tony Wills 23:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

POTY Competition

Hi, I'm writing to let you know that an image of yours that become a Commons Featured Picture during 2007 is now part of the 2007 Picture of the Year competition. If you have > 200 edits you are welcome to vote too. Thanks for contributing your valuable work and good luck. Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Derek,

An image of yours has made it to the POTY final. Congrats and good luck. Don't forget, you are eligible to vote, too. cheers, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Butterfly Reset

There where some concerns by Dori that i did mayor changes while fixing the posterization spoken by Laitche and Alvesgaspar. I did small changes in the lower right corner which is a tad lighter now. To make shure everything is going correctly i kindly asking you if you can vote again and would be very thankful. Best regards --Richard Bartz 13:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Image:Sausage_making-H-5-edited

I am fantastic glad for you honour me by support FPC of my photo! After some comment I made a minor editing and nominate it, please see it!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND HAVE A NICE DAY! :D --Beyond silence 18:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry for stealing your time, I made a more colour balanced version Image:Sausage making-H-5-edited2.jpg. Thanks --Beyond silence 23:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Request

Hi, I have recently uploaded a non-free image on Wikipedia [16], however, it does not show something that cannot be reproduced by a free image. I'm asking you because you said in your description, you like nature photography. So, would you please try to get an image just as good, or better than this (at the moment, this is the best image of the Cabbage Moth available, the others have an odd angle, or don't show the whole insect, or the background doesn't differentiate enough from it etc). I guess you'll get a better shot (with wings open), if it's dead, and also if possible, please try to put the insect on the same color background. If you're going to respond to my request, many thanks in advance! diego_pmc 19:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I normally don't take "studio" shots of nature. I take them out in the wild as I find them. I don't know if I'll even see a cabbage moth anyway, considering that it's a European moth and I don't live in Europe. You may want to find someone else to help you out. -- Ram-Man 11:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata Flowers Closeup 2800px.jpg

Image deletion warning

Image:Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata Flowers Closeup 2800px.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. In all cases, please do not take the deletion request personally. It is never intended as such. Thank you!

--B.navez 18:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

License for Image:Cymbidium Clarisse Austin 'Best Pink' Flowers 2000px.JPG

Howdy. I was just looking over your lovely image there from COM:FPC and I noticed the license was a bit unusual. While some would disagree, I think your license fits more or less with CC-by-sa. I was wondering if you would mind changing your license to be a little less BITE-y (it doesn't have to be template, but threatening legal action on people in a license isn't very friendly). Thanks! --ShakataGaNai ^Talk 22:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

And also as a courtesy, I also closed the RFD discussion. ViperSnake151 22:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've had this discussion before, but the reason for my license note is very clear: people have copied my images illegally a large number of times. I have also had many people contact me and I help them do things the legal way. Nevertheless, I think it is within my rights to have such a warning. However, I will change it to be a little less threatening. -- Ram-Man 00:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- Ram-Man 00:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Unidentified wasp

Hi Derek, could your wasp be a Sphex ichneumoneus (a.k.a. Great Golden Digger Wasp)? Lycaon 07:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's the right size and color. I don't know how you always find these, but it is most helpful. -- Ram-Man 11:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It is fun detective work :-)). Happy to be of assistance... Lycaon 11:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

enough is enough

I'm not sure, Ram-Man, what you are talking about.I beleive everybody here knows that I care much, much, much more about the image value than about the image quality. To me your images were noisy images of very common flowers and they still are. It is complicated for me to explain to you why I've changed my vote. I'm afraid you will not understand my English. I'd like to talk about different maters please. First you blaimed me in having "the pinnacle of extreme pickiness." Now you blame me that I am not being totally honest. Both of your statements are lies. May I please remind you that we suppose to be discussing the images and not the persons? May I please also ask you to leave me alone and spare the response? Thanks.--Mbz1 00:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "spare the response", but I removed my comment because it was not my intention to cause trouble, and I apologize. -- Ram-Man 00:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks. BTW do you really still do not know that I'm she and not he? --Mbz1 00:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't really normally concern myself with the real gender of people because 1) they could misrepresent themselves if they wanted to and 2) I usually don't check. So I use the english generic "he" to refer to everyone unless I know that the person is female. Now that I know, I'll comment differently so I don't look like a total idiot. Thanks for the headsup. :) -- Ram-Man 00:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

signature

I love anonymous support, but your signature will make it yet more precious to me ;-)). Lycaon 09:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Filbot

Hi Ram-Man, I noticed your comment at this discussion where you objected against the proposed policy change to inhibit non-subst:ed user templates that include license templates. At that time I was absent and when I read it later on, I very much appreciated your comment as I use such user templates myself. There is, however, a new development. A recently started bot named Filbot begins to tag newly uploaded images that do not directly use one of the license templates. I do not know yet whether Filbot's author is aware of the earlier policy discussion and whether this is accidental or not. Yesterday, I have opened a discussion at one of the adminstrators' noticeboard. You might want to take a look at this issue, too. Thanks, AFBorchert (talk) 05:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

There is...

... a problem with your sig here. Care to sign again? Cheers. Lycaon (talk) 08:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Please enlighten me.

Hi. Do I blast you for your opinions? No. Did I oppose your images? No. So why the heavy reaction? Lycaon (talk) 00:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Opinions are fine when they have to do with the image itself or according to the normal terms of evaluation. But licensing terms? These have nothing to do with featured pictures. In addition, I have no problem if you have personal views on what licenses are good or bad, but when you try to push your agenda on the FP process, then yes, I have a problem with that because it affects others. When you choose to make a posting about it (rather than just silently abstaining) your only purpose can be to let everyone else know why you object. That's proselytizing, pure and simple, and it is that which I take strong offense. If you had a problem with my licensing, bring it up on my talk page where such discussion belongs.

I make a big deal when people upload exactly 2MP images because I think they are just trying to play the system. But unlike your complaint with my licensing terms, the FP guidelines specifically state that we want the largest images possible, so I have a perfectly legitimate reason to complain about it. Others choose which principles they find most important and choose to ignore others. Its a subjective process. But I have a problem whenever someone brings outside negative comments (e.g. when someone opposed my image because of "too many well-done flower pictures").

It is this simple: You didn't have to say anything, but you chose to say something. The only purpose can be to try to persuade others, otherwise what was the point? Whether your vote was support, neutral or oppose is immaterial. I really care most about your comment because I care more about the Wikimedia projects than I do about some silly star attached to an image. I try to get FPs mostly for fun.

If there was a strong copyleft license practically identical to the GFDL but without the restrictive need to include a physical copy of the license, I'd happily license my images under those terms. However, I can't create my own personal license because it won't be acceptable here, so I use the one that is closest. I used to license all my works under the CC-by-sa, but I had issues with the weak copyleft in the license and problems with people using my images inappropriately, so I stopped using it in hopes that the future GFDL license would cure the various problems. The Creative Commons organization seems to encourage such behavior (and why shouldn't they, as they are just enforcing the terms of their license?).

I've contributed more than a hundred thousands edits to the English Wikipedia and have uploaded well over a thousand pictures (and images) to Commons. The implication that I'm choosing a "restrictive" license intentionally so as not to be useful is something that I take offense. I strongly approve of the various Wikimedia projects, but I can't fail to defend my own copyright and the principles of copyleft.

-- Ram-Man 18:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your thorough reply and will act accordingly. Lycaon (talk) 18:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)