User talk:Daniel Maidman

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Daniel Maidman!

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 14:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons Licence.

Green Giant - thanks so much; I've addressed the issue for all four images in an email to OTRS at permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, although I have not heard back yet. I have also updated a key location at which the images appear, that is, my own website - could you let me know if the disclaimer now appearing at the bottom of the page here sufficiently demonstrates my identity, and wishes regarding the images? All the best, Daniel 6:20, 23 February 2014

Thank you for your contribution to the project, it is much appreciated. Thank you also for quickly addressing the issues; hopefully the OTRS team will get back to you soon. The disclaimer on your website looks correct to me but just to be on the safe side, I will ask if a more knowledgeable person (@Stefan4: ) can cast an eye over it. Don't worry about being new to the system, because we were all new at some point, even our Beloved Leader, User:Jimbo Wales. :) Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 11:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I did my best, and I'll look forward to hearing from the OTRS team as well as (@Stefan4: ) if he has the time to take a look. Thanks also for your kindness and encouragement, it is much appreciated, especially in a forest of hashtags confusing to the eye of a non-coder like myself. Sincerely, Daniel 13:20, 24 February, 2014

You are most welcome, and it doesn't matter if you updated the previous talkback or created a new one, because it shows in the history of the talkpage anyway. It's a steep learning curve, so we don't expect you to be a wiki-whizz kid overnight :) Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 18:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

You know, my wife is involved with Drupal, and she explained that one of the reasons for its success was that its user community tends to be supportive and encouraging. I had never encountered that kind of phenomenon before, but I'm beginning to understand. Thank you, Green Giant. Best, Daniel 14:30, 25 February 2014

Hi again - it looks like OTRS never read the three emails I sent them, the last two with the permissions in the formats requested. The files seen to have been deleted (also, I'm guessing just posting here doesn't alert you to my having posted? I was experimenting with possible less pay-attention-to-me-right-now posting styles. Whoops.)

So, anyhow, I'd very much like to have that media uploaded to commons.wikimedia.org, I definitely have and relinquish the relevant rights, and I could use some help getting acknowledgment from the OTRS team. Beyond that, would it be uncool to re-add the media to my own Wikipedia page? I was under the impression one ought to be fairly hands-off about those things if the privilege is granted of having someone post a page about you in the first place. When I saw one was up, I made some graphics available for it - if I can get the graphics uploaded to commons in a more stable way, who should re-add them to the page?

Thanks again very much for your help. Daniel 22:38, 27 February 2014

Hello again. Sorry for the late reply, but I've been on night shifts all week. You are absolutely right that when you post here it doesn't alert me because technically Commons is a separate project from Wikipedia. It is something that is being worked on but it might be a long time before it gets fixed.

Please don't be too worried about OTRS not replying quickly, they might well be backlogged. Let me also reassure you about deletion here, it is just that the images are hidden from public view and restoring them is very easy. The reason is that we have to respect the rights of people who create works, but I believe that your continued activity here makes it clear that you are the genuine article.

If you are 100% sure that you want to release those images, the best thing I can recommend is that you add a CC BY SA marker next to each of them on your website. Have a look at the list of licences at Commons:Copyright tags#Free Creative Commons licenses and pick one that fits. You don't have to add the actual licence image but it makes it easier to identify what has been released.

Now on the question of the article about you, there are actually two somewhat related concepts:

• The first is the one you have correctly identified i.e. it is best to avoid articles about yourself so avoid editing it like the plague, because you will run into a conflict-of-interest problem and it might look like a PR exercise by yourself. As an artist, it would be the same as you trying to do the art critics job of publicly reviewing your own work. You'd be amazed how many people have actually edited articles about themselves, only to run into problems.
• However, if you release the images, there is nothing stopping an uninvolved person (innocent whistle) from adding those images to the Wikipedia article. In fact, on closer inspection, I note that the article discusses Blue Leah a little, so even if you hadn't released the relevant image, it would have been possible to use a reduced size image of that work under fair use rules.
• The second important concept is Wikipedia's rules about biographies of living people, which basically mean that you can complain about unfair portrayal of you in the article. For example, if I was to add something controversial about you to that article and I had no reliable independent sources for it, then you would be within your rights to ask the Wikimedia Foundation to remove such content. However, if there are reliable sources then we can refuse to remove it simply because it is verifiable. Obviously that doesn't mean I can use derogatory words about you, just that I can highlight that such controversy exists.

So it is important to bear both of these things in mind and feel free to ask anybody if in doubt. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 17:36, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Green Giant - hello again to you too, and as you can see, I also am sometimes delayed; thanks for the time whenever you have been able to spare it.

I’m glad I strike you as probably me! I’d be glad to continue to try to prove it, with parlor tricks like giving you a sentence from a piece in Huffington before it runs, or something like that. I’ve got an article I’m really proud of in the next issue of “International Artist,” in collaboration with painter Noah Becker (Wikipedia article).

And thanks also for the fantastic clarification. I was preparing to write an explanation of my use of cc-by-sa-3.0 in the email I wrote to OTRS when I went to the page about me to check on a detail and found that an uninvolved, and yet very benevolent, individual had happened upon the page and done some beautiful work with formatting and entirely fair use of images.

I’m glad my intuition was correct regarding my keeping a hands-off policy on that page.

This page is one of the most moving recognitions I have received in my life as an artist.

Finally, my experience here leaves me wanting to contribute more. The only things I really have are extensive contacts among figurative painters. If developing some kind of stockpile of such work is something Wikimedia Commons could use, I could probably help facilitate that over time. I’d be glad to be in touch with any user who might be working on that kind of project.

Have a wonderful week, Green Giant.

Daniel 17:18, 1 March 2014

• Thank you for the kind words, I am just glad we didn't scare you away from the project. The fair use image was something I considered to be a back-up option in case OTRS didn't get back to you. I have to make clear that images are not my specialty; I've been more of a text contributor, particularly good at separating reliable sources from unreliable ones, but I am developing an interest in images. This was the root of my hesitance about confirming the validity of the link you provided at the top of this section. That said, I have read through the image policies more carefully and I'm convinced that you have done more than enough to confirm the licensing. I am going to take the liberty of uploading the four images from your website and adding them to the article. This would completely clear you of any possibility of conflict of interest.
• As for your point about further contributions, you would be most welcome to do so and if you can persuade fellow artists to contribute too, that would be fantastic, especially as I think images could enhance articles greatly. I would be more than happy to help in any way that I can, and I will investigate whether there is a sub-project that might make such a process easier. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear Green -

First, let me apologize for the tongue-lashing I seem to have gotten you mixed up in at that other page; I will go and be humble at him as soon as I get done writing here.

Second, thanks again for the beautiful formatting on the page about me, and for reaching outside your expertise to deal with the image issue. Thank you for shielding me from conflict of interest, and also - if you’re a text person, I need to go read some of your work! Are there any pages you’re particularly proud of that you’d like me to check out first?

And - to explain why I haven’t already gone properly through your work, and why my replies are generally a day late - like yours, my schedule is crushingly busy; so many conflicting demands are placed on it that I tend to do any one thing a bit slower than I’d like. I apologies for your having to wait.

I will look forward to anything you might find on a sub-project on the subject of these artists. I’d call it the New Figurative, but this isn’t really a movement, and there is no organization, manifesto, membership, or sense of common purpose. It’s just a lot of people who like painting figurative paintings, and found out through Facebook and Instagram that they weren’t alone. I think it’s very exciting.

Have a great week -

Daniel 11:41, 2 March 2014

Thank you for the supportive message at the admin's talkpage, it is much appreciated. No worries about delayed responses though. Regarding the possibility of other artists images, I can't see a specific sub-project, although I might be wrong. So all I can recommend is that anyone interested in doing what you have done, should build on your experience. If they have a website, they should mark the specific images with an appropriate license. If they want to create an account to upload images then it would be best to email OTRS in advance from their own website. If they would prefer someone else to do the uploading, then I'm happy to help. If there is an existing Wikipedia article about them, they should probaby avoid contributing to it, except obviously if they feel that there is controversial material which needs checking. If someone is notable enough and there isn't an article about them, I'd be willing to assist in such efforts, although I suspect your Huffington colleague, John Seed, is already doing a lot of work in that direction. A lot of "if's" but it is the simplest way I can think of to express my thoughts.

As for my contributions in general, they are not particularly brilliant, so don't be surprised if you are reading my edits and you suddenly find that watching paint dry is a more exciting alternative. My most recent work was about the small island of Lihou, in the English Channel, just north of France. It has been expanded in the last few weeks from a stub to a good article, which is a status accorded after an article undergoes one of the peer-review processes. For comparison purposes you can look at the version before I started on it → here. Apart from that I've not done much else since the start of the year, except for a list of sun temples from around the world, a short biography on a minor 19th-century Uruguayan President (Tomás Villalba) and a short biography of Kang Chang-hee, the current Speaker of the National Assembly of South Korea. Right now I'm preparing to tackle Richard Oastler, who was a prominent 19th-century labour reformer, who was particularly effective against the employment of children. I've gathered six pictures for the article, of which one is a very poor photo that I took of his statue, which is in my home city. Aside from the content-adding activities, I'm also working on proposals for two new projects within the Wikimedia framework. One would aim to improve user accounts and I think in light of your experience here, it would probably help new users. The other proposal would improve how we handle fair use of copyright images, basically by having them in one place instead of dozens. Although they are both unfinished, you can see the shameless advertising for one of the proposals in my signature. All really thrilling stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. :)

By the way, I read an old article of yours in the Huffington Post, about your "encounters" with the IRS. It reminded me of a sort of reverse experience I had, when for some unfathomable reason I paid a higher level of tax for two years (2006-2008), and it took the tax office three years to accept that I was due a refund. I struggled through those years and needless to say it was a relief when the refund cheque finally arrived. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 16:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Green - hello! And you see what I mean about delays. The fact of the matter is we’ve got a newborn, so not only am I not able to answer promptly to all my other commitments, I don’t even want to! It’s a very exciting time…

John Seed is a wonderful writer and appreciator of art, and I think over time I’m going to see if it’s possible to work with him on fleshing out one or more article entries to lend coherence to the collection of images which I have little doubt the artists in question will be glad to contribute.

I haven’t had a chance to read any of your material yet, but the delightful obscurity of it reminds me of the scholarship described in Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” - well worth reading if you have a chance. It cuts back and forth between contemporary scholars of fairly esoteric material, and the historical characters they are studying and, based on incomplete records, misunderstanding in a few very funny ways. Not that that’s the case with your work, only that the texture of the obscurity you seem to like feels similar. In any case, when I have enough time to read, I will look forward to reading your work.

That article at Huffington is the one everybody finds! I am not entirely out of the woods yet, but things are much less horrible than they were back then. I wasn’t even sure if I should publish that one, but I figured if I were going through it, many other people were going through a bad time not too different, and could use a few words to the effect that they weren’t alone. I’m glad you were finally repaid what you were owed.

Have a great evening -

Daniel 18:37 5 March 2014