Help talk:Contents

Youtube Tag

I am not sure how to handle this, but "Help," which redirects here, is now a tag in Intervention. Do I make a disambig page? Or er, cancel out the redirect? (Although, I think having help redirect here is smart...) or um, just add the Tag template to the bottom of this page? Yeah, as I said, I wasn't sure how to handle this, so advice would be appriciated. Thanks. --Zoey 16:59, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

You could used Template:One other use - using Help, creating a standard tag-page on it, and putting {{One other use||LGPedia's help pages|Help:Contents}} at the top of the page.

...but I'm not sure how responsible it is to de-link a mnemonic help-link for a one-off tag...

Possibly a better solution would be to edit this page, and put

:"Help" redirects here. For the tag used in the episode Intervention, see Help (tag).

- then create a standard tag page at Help (tag).

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 20:21, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure if I understand why it would be bad to have a one other use template? Because if I make help (tag), every time the tag was used (it has been a few times I learned) someone would have to KNOW to redirect it to the (tag) page. So yeah, wouldn't the one other use thing be the best option? Or.. am I wrong? Not 100% sure about how the templates work really... and hey, that's why I asked :)--Zoey 00:28, 3 May 2007 (CDT)

The point is, the "one other use" template would (logically, at least) have to go on Help, and then say there is one other use for "Help", that being the LGPedia-help at Help:Contents.

That is entirely correct. What's problematic about it is that "Help", right now, works instictively: You are on LGPedia, need help, and just go to Help and everything is fine. If you de-link that by turning Help into a page about the tag "Help", the already-confused user will be even more confused when the page "Help" does not actually provide help, but talks about some weird tag.

On the other hand, putting One Other Use here isn't actually correct, 'cause this page isn't "Help" - it's Help:Contents. Hence my suggestion above - the text acknowledges that "Help" redirects to "Help:Contents", informing someone looking for the tag where to go to find it, while at the same time keeping the Help-link intact.

Just to make sure you understand me correctly: I see your point, and you are technically correct. But it boild down to a question of usability: The drawback of having to link each instance of the tag "Help" to "Help (tag)" is smaller than the drawback of having to inform every single user that the page "Help" is not actually the help-page.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:38, 4 May 2007 (CDT)

Ow, my eyes...

Wow, this blue is very obnoxious towards my eyes. Anyone else agree? Chelseyrl 01:07, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Copyright issues?

Does this wiki have permission to use images without a copyright notice, or are all images GFDL? If so, how come they are not marked as such? Also, what about sourcing of images? I know most come from the videos, but I noticed images of people "behind the scenes", so to speak, here with no "image rational", no source and no copyright information. Also, there are publicity photos, like the one of Jennifer (Bree), that I would think the photographer would perhaps want to be credited on the image page. I know when I wanted to copy a professional image of my own brother at Kinko's they balked a LOT, even though that photo was of my very own brother and I wanted it for personal use, all because the photo was obviously professionally done, and had the name of the photographer on the back as a clear give-a-way lol (the images was used as an ad in a magazine for sunglasses, BTW.) I'm just wondering, and a bit concerned because I know from working at Wikipedia there are strict copyright policies. Just asking as I see at the bottom of this page it says to "NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION". :) TIA. Kismet18 00:56, 13 February 2008 (CST)

First of all, that bold message is a default message in all MediaWiki releases, so while I'm not saying it's void, you should be aware that it was not consciously set by the administration. Secondly, of course we're not mandating free licenses for all images, because you are missing a very important difference between us and wikipedia - we are not an independent source of information. We are the official encyclopedia of lonelygirl15, hosted on the same server, maintained by the same people. Wikipedia has to be strict with copyrights because in most cases, it simply doesn't have permission by default. In our case, it's the other way round - in most cases, we do have permission by default. All promo-shots, video screencaps, etc., etc., are copyright-wise owned by the same people that "own" LGPedia. Permission to use is implicitly, and in many cases explicitly, given. And if they really wouldn't want us to use a certain image, they control both the admin account as well as the server's filesystem - they could stop us easily at any given time.

Now of course I am aware there are some shots on this wiki that have not been taken by this production crew or on their order, but the large majority of them is unused - uploaded for some reason by random users in the past, long replaced by images we're definitely allowed to use. The only exception seem to be the actor pages, and thanks to more and more promotional material being released by the crew, this will soon be a thing of the past as well. In addition, you should ponder one thing: Would Kinko's have balked if your brother had tried to have that image copied? Don't get me wrong, I don't need a lecture in image ownership rights, but using a professional image of Yousef Abu-Taleb on the official encyclopedia of the show Mr. Abu-Taleb is working on is less of an issue than an independent encyclopedia just randomly taking it. After all, we're not abusing the image in any way - we're using his promotional material to promote his current role. That is a very different thing.

Lastly, the problem of credits. Yes, we lack them. That is undeniable. But I think the reason for that is mainly the same as before - in 90% of cases, the ownership is clear - lg15.com incorporated, or however the official name may be. Be it that they're screencaps, that they're promo shots, in the end, they're lg15's images on lg15's server, in recent cases often from lg15's flickr. There's just no attribution necessary, due to the simple fact that we've not moved anything away. We're not presenting material somewhere else in a weird corner of the web, we're using the company's material on its very own server.

In fact, in many cases, it would be dangerously wrong to just attribute an image to a photographer - it may have been originally done by Kevin Schlanser (in most cases), but after it's been cropped and photoshopped for portal images, for example, we can't just claim it was done by Mr. Schlanser - that would be a false attribution, and could lead to defamation lawsuits (if Mr. Schlanser doesn't like the end product).

As for the 10% that are of unknown source, the problem is exactly that - we can't credit what we don't know. It is unfortunate these images are here, and, in the few cases where they're still in use, unfortunate we couldn't replace them yet, but in the end, it boils down to three basic truths:

1. We simply don't know who took them or where they're from. So we can't credit anyone.
2. They are mostly unused anyway - no photographer can claim we're promotionally using his works when they're just lying dormantly on the server - we're no different from Google Images in that regard.
3. As said before, we're only "half evil", so to speak. A random professional shot of Mr. Abu-Taleb on Wikipedia would violate both the photographer's as well as Mr. Abu-Taleb's rights - a random professional shot of him here only violates the photographer's rights, if anyone's at all. Simply because Mr. Abu-Taleb's likeness is used for promotion of the show and all over this encyclopedia anyway, as part of his contract. In addition, it is more than possible that several of the shots used are actually true promotional material of the actors, meant for public usage to represent them. In that case, it'd be more or less just impolite not to credit the photographer.

So, to come to a conclusion: The statement at the bottom of the editing page is essentially correct - you should not submit copyrighted works without permissions. But. Given that we're an official part of the lg15.com production group, we do have permission to use any material released by them by default, and no further attribution should be necessary. Those images that are from random sources on the internet don't need credits, they should be deleted for legal reasons. Those who are unused can be deleted right away, the few that are used should be replaced by promotional material asap.

And that's where you come into play. You, just like any other user, can browse the file library and edit image pages just fine. So the easiest way to do something, if this honestly concerns you, is go through the images we have on the server, find those that do not belong to lg15, lgpedia, or the contributors, and tag them for deletion. An administrator will look at them and delete them if there are no objections.

Please do not tag the used ones for deletion, instead categorize them in a category like "Images that should be replaced for legal reasons". That gives us an overview of where and how many images still have to be replaced.

So, in the end, rest assured, we understand your concerns, but due to the fact that we are more or less actually part of the company that released the large majority of our visual material, the situation is by far not as grim as it sounds. We would like to correct this as soon as possible by getting rid of the offending material, but especially the more active users here often have their own pet projects occupying them, while the administration is busy keeping everything running - therefore, we need your help. Please identify and categorize these legally offending images so we can replace and remove them as soon as possible.

Thank you.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 04:11, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. But, I think you may have taken my query a bit the wrong way. I wasn't trying to stir up trouble by challenging the purpose here (not that you said that), I was only concerned, in that, I thought this wiki was made by fans only, and could possibly receive some flak from the production, crew or photographers, so to speak. I guess from editing Wikipedia and, having so many rules there I wanted to be sure of the rules, if any for this project. In fact, I would like to possibly upload images and help with that and other things. I just didn't want to infringe on anyone's personality rights and/or copyrights. That's all. Again, thank you very much for taking the time to communicate to me and others that may be confused on this matter. It helped a LOT! :) Cheers. Kismet18 16:14, 13 February 2008 (CST)

I'm happy I could be of help. We can always use more, committed contributors :)

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 16:20, 13 February 2008 (CST)