ScienceArtz

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism. If you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the work of others. Thank you. Michaelbusch 16:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, not a free gallery. Michaelbusch 16:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Artist Contributions

Hi Michael Busch,

I'm confused. My company is working on a science visualization project with Ann Druyan and she suggested I contribute some of my work to wikipedia. I'm a novice at this but I can't understand how contributing images are "vandalism". Could you help me out here? I read the wiki page you suggested and I can't for the life of me figure out where I was in error.

I'm a scientist, not a wiki expert. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

First rule of graphics on Wikipedia: only add them if they are useful. Your portrayal of Ceres is non-useful: it is just a textured sphere (we've had people adding similar pictures made using the program Celestia) and bears only a passing resembleance to the actual object, so it is deleted in the interests of clarity. Your portrayal of a carbon atom is actively misleading: even if you can see the orbitals, they don't look at all like that. Your graphic of a skull is fine as far as it goes, but replacing the labeled anatomy image with an unlabled CG is removal of content and vandalism, because you are removing something and putting something less informative that you produced in its place. With regards to adding your own work to Wikipedia: you must be incredibly careful or you will hit conflict of interest (see WP:COI). This is what I meant by 'this is not a free gallery': you shouldn't go around posting your own graphics to articles without at least some support by other editors. The same applies to editing articles about yourself. Michaelbusch 17:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The only reason I added my blog address that the upload form asked for a link to my site for copyright purposes, to show that I did own the copyright in order to make the contribution. I really don't care if its on there. Is this what you mean? The only edit I've made to the article on me was fixing a broken link. I noticed it when I saw the page and corrected it. Was this inappropriate? The skull image was based on a hand digitized 3d model of a real skeleton and is extremely accurate. The contribution states that we should "be bold".

We're building an animation for a documentary that shows what it would be like to fly in from the edge of the Milky Way to Earth, flybys of planets, zooming in through the human body. I was planning on contributing a number of the stills to wikipedia because I believe it's a valuable resource. I don't need credit. Do I just upload the images and let other people post them? Sorry about all the questions. Thanks for your patience.

I merely made the comment about articles concerning you as a standard warning. So far you haven't done anything terribly inappropriate on that front. With regards to images: reading the above, someone could get the impression you are advertising your film. This would be blatant conflict of interest (Wikipedia is not a soapbox). I'm willing to accept that you are editing in good faith, but it is probably best if you don't add any images by yourself. You could suggest images for inclusion in articles on the corresponding talk pages (something along the lines of 'I'm working on this for a film. Would it help the article?' followed by a link to the image on your website). Concerning the skull: I was not saying that it is inaccurate, just that it is less informative for the reader to see a graphic than a labeled chart. Good luck with the documentary. It reminds me of the classic powers-of-ten exhibit. Michaelbusch 17:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Now I just noticed that the Wiki page for Bryan Brandenburg is being deleted. Was this for contributing images?

There are concerns about WP:COI and the article being unencyclopedic. It is not related to your adding images. Michaelbusch 18:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

GFDL images

Hi Bryan - you may be interested in uploading some of your images to the Wikimedia Commons project at http://commons.wikipedia.org; then they can be used across all projects, provided the licensing checks out. You do have permission to release these images under the GFDL, right? Nobody owns exclusive rights to your work? Just checking, and it may help avoid some of the above conflict. Also, images there can be categorized according to what the show, which will help future users find them. If they are deleted from here, don't worry too much about it; Wikipedia's image licensing requirements can be a little arcane at first. Let me know if you have any further questions. -- nae'blis 20:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bryan; sorry, was on vacation the last few days. I saw your messages; Commons allows images with Watermarks so long as they can be used for any purpose, including commercial. See Acceptable licenses to get more specifics. Note especially #4, "Acknowledgement of all authors/contributors of a work may be required." The two most "common" on Commons are, I believe, Creative Commons variants and Free Art License. The link above has links to the actual text of those licenses. Good luck and thanks for your contributions! -- nae'blis 05:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Bryan Brandenberg AFD

Hi Bryan - unfortunately I don't know the first thing about software programmers and the discussion seems to be well in hand over there, so I don't have any intelligent commentary to add. Are you uncomfortable mentioning that you are the person being discussed? I noticed you haven't said anything there yet (unless you were one of the IP commenters). I think it would be reasonable for you to weigh in, and any evidence you have (not just supposition, we don't want to start a war) about Dallbin would help lend light to the matter. Hope that helps. -- nae'blis 03:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Linux monster

I am choosing to treat this account as the master account, and leave this account unblocked as it has made useful contributions outside the one article in question. Blocks are supposed to be preventative, not punitive, so I will not block this account for actions over a month in the past. However note that threats against other contributors are absolutely not acceptable - if any more are made, this account will be blocked indefinitely, and any more may be blocked on sight. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)