Talk:Greg Williams

Good job !!!! I love it. Please make some more :-)

Could you also think of "improving" the Foundation main page, maybe by a little humoristic cartoon from time to time ? Maybe one representing members of the Foundation, core people... that sort of thing ? That could be real cool Anthere

Thanks, Anthere! As you can tell, this is a "work in progress." I'm planning to post a new comic weekly, based on a wide variety of Wikipedia articles. If you have any thoughts about how we can make them more visible to casual readers of Wikipedia, please let me know. Greg Williams

Wow, I second Anthere's comments. These are fantastic, absolutely great! If I could talk to newspapers to see if they'd syndicate them, would that be okay with you? I think I know a major, major Canadian publication that would love to have them appear. I guess I don't have to ask, seeing that they are freely licensed, but just want to know if you have objections, or if the Tribune would find this a conflict of interest or anything. -- Zanimum 17:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

As to what Anthere mentioned, she and a bunch of others make up the Board of Trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation. The site for the foundation, actually a 501-c (?), is rather dull and texty, mainly because we don't have too many photos that can represent us as a whole, only images that represent our content. If you would consider doing any sort of illustrations that would represent the Foundation's goals, that would really bring warmth the stark corporate look of the site. The comic is more useful in the long run, but consider this for later. -- Zanimum 19:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, is that your handwriting, or is that a font? (Asking for purposes of international versions.) -- Zanimum 20:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Zanimum. I appreciate your comments. I'm hopeful that we can sort out a sensible way for these comics to have a home on Wikipedia - and, if newspapers have an interest in reprinting them, I'd surely like to hear about it. (The low resolution of these Web images might lead to legibility problems in print, however.)

The "font" in the current cartoons is hand-lettered, but a typeset font would be fine for translations. My biggest concern is readability. When these cartoons are displayed at a width of 600 pixels or more, the text seems to be fairly easy to read - but, at narrower widths, everything starts to pixillate and break apart, visually. It's a tricky process.--Greg Williams 06:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Were these pen-and-ink, or drawn directly on the computer? If so, then we could use higher-res images.

Thought so, as far as the lettering goes. If this does take off in popularity, as this generation's Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, then I can find a typographer to create a font based on your handwriting. I agree, it is tricky, but I personally would hope you stick with handlettered characters, it really help to further legitimize the content's uniqueness. -- Zanimum 20:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The cartoons are scanned from original pen-and-ink drawings, then colorized in the computer. I've tested a typeset font in my cartoon about "Hyperthymesia," and it seems to be slightly more readable. But if hand-lettered text would work better in a higher-resolution format, I'd be happy to try that. (However, I'm hesitant to produce more cartoons until we find a reasonable way to display them. Currently, all of my cartoons - and all references to them - have been removed from the English Wikipedia pages, because of concerns that they don't add encyclopedic value. I've always intended for them to be illustrative, and to highlight little-seen articles, so maybe a different presentation WOULD be more appropriate. Any ideas?)

Regarding the Wikimedia Foundation page that you and Anthere have mentioned, I'll try to think of some ways to give it a little spark. Right now, I'd like to concentrate on sorting out the cartoon situation. But I'll keep it in mind. --Greg Williams 14:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments

I love this! I've been meaning to turn some articles into songs and my friend and I read disambiguation pages on the radio. So much great content to mine! You've probably received a ton of great recommendations, but I couldn't help thinking of Stormtrooper effect while reading the hammerspace one, just absurd enough to be amazing to read about seriously. Keep up the good work :) --Jeremyclarke 19:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Jeremy. Although I wasn't familiar with the term "Stormtrooper Effect," I should have been able to guess what it meant. That's a well-written article; I'll definitely keep it mind. (It would be great if my cartoons could serve a promotional purpose, to highlight articles on topics that aren't necessarily high-profile, but that a reader might enjoy - like "Stormtrooper Effect." Maybe that's how things will shake out.)

Good luck with your song idea! Sounds very Jonathan Coulton-esque. (Check him out, if you're not already familiar with his stuff.) --Greg Williams 20:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

License

Shouldn't the cartoons be licensed under the GFDL if they're using text from Wikipedia? Angela 04:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

claim fairuse Greg. You do not want to release cartoons in gfdl. That makes no sense. —the preceding unsigned comment is by Anthere (talk • contribs)

Yes, claiming fair use likely would work. Would GFDL/CC-BY-SA co-licensing work? Or is that only for completely original creative works? -- Zanimum 20:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Other

I am not sure how I can help "protect" a manner of presentation, since by definition a free license authorize this. The best you can do is educate people, in particular not to reduce quality and not to reduce size. Explain, explain and again explain. Show by example. Find champions to help you spread the opinion that quality should not be lost.

Otherwise, about their removal on wikipedia, I am not entirely sure what to say. I think this level of editorial policy is up to community. Certainly, you can put them on commons, and put a link on their wikipedia article to say there are images about them on commons. We do that all the time. Of what about starting a wikibooks about cartoons or fictional caracters ?

Anyway. The other thing is that I would really love that we establish a sort of relationship to improve the Foundation page. Zanimum is right, it is freaking dull. Look up http://wikimediafoundation.org. Scary. Do you have any idea ? Also, do you live near St Petersbourg ? Anthere

The thing is, we use illustrations frequently on Wikipedia, whenever free photos alternatives aren't available. The villain and mad scientist pics, for example. I dunno. -- Zanimum 20:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question, Anthere: Yes, I do live near St. Petersburg. I haven't visited the Wikimedia offices, but we've been in touch. As I mentioned above, I'll be happy to think about the Foundation page, once the cartoon project is running smoothly. --Greg Williams 14:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Biographical information

Could you give me a few sentences about you, for when I pitch to the newspaper I have in mind? -- Zanimum 14:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I have worked as a designer and illustrator at daily newspapers in Tampa, Florida, in Dayton, Ohio and in Dubuque, Iowa. As a designer, I have been a core participant in comprehensive redesign projects at all three of the newspapers named. As an illustrator, I have specialized in caricatures and humorous illustrations. I also have contributed feature stories on a wide variety of topics.

Wikipedia template changed

The template on Wikipedia is up for deletion, however someone has now removed the authorship part of the template, and that seems to be appesing the templates for deletion crowd. Hopefully it will be kept, and this nonsense will be all over in a bit. -- Zanimum 15:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure which template you're talking about. I'm interested to see how (or whether) my sort of illustrative work will fit into the Wikipedia mindset. Please keep me posted if you notice any pertinent changes or discussions, would you?

Oh, just seeing that you didn't create the template. It's here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Illustrated_Wikipedia ... anyway, the template was created by a user named Phil Boswell, who started it saying "This article has been illustrated by {{{2}}} · [[:Image:{{{1}}}|(see cartoon)]] See here for more information." Placing it in an article like this {{illustrated Wikipedia|pet_skunk.jpg|Greg Williams}} would thus read "This article has been illustrated by Greg Williams · (see cartoon) See here for more information."

I eventually read Andrew Lih's blog on the cartoons, and reworded it to say "This article has been illustrated by ____ as part of the "Illustrated Wikipedia" project.", with the "has been illustrated" as the link to the cartoon, instead of having "(see cartoon)" do that.

Anyway, Wikipedians generally don't like when people take credit for their work, let alone add humor to the mix, so people got offended, put the template on "Templates for deletion". A user named "Amarkov" edited the template to remove the name field; without it, it complies with WP:OWN, so he felt comfortable voting to keep it.

There seems to be a cautious support overall among people voting (which is obviously mostly just a small group of Wikipedians who hang out on the "Templates for deletion" page. But it seems hopeful that the template will be kept, however your name will only be on the images and image description pages themselves, not on the links.

While the "TfD" is voting on it, I've reinserted the template into Dr. Seuss and Pet skunk, probably the most read of any of the topics you've covered so far. It's important to note that a successful or unsuccessful template deletion doesn't rule for or rule out the inclusion of links to the cartoons somewhere on Wikipedia, and has absolutely no affect whatsoever on any other Wikimedia project like Commons, or print syndication. -- Zanimum 16:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Just seeing Phil's contacted you on your WP user talk page. -- Zanimum 16:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Sort gallery by date

I recommend sorting the gallery by date and better classify. --Cat out 16:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I would actually recommend by date, and also thematically, based on the categories used by the Featured articles list. -- Zanimum 21:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)