Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 4

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Archive Created Wed 16 July 2008

Changes Made or Requested

All changes now in place and there are also the two "speedy requests" at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Speedy#Add_requests_for_speedy_renaming_here

Re the Philatelists merge request, would it be worth asking for a resolution asap? I notice it has been there for over six days now and the last input was two days ago. --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 15:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the merge has been done but the two "speedys" don't look very quick to me! --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 11:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

All the category changes have been completed and as no one has raised any further points re the preceding topics on this page, I have moved them all into Archive 3 (see above). --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 15:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

--BlackJack | ^{talk page} 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Titling again

Sorry, I know this has been beat to death already, but after seeing History of postage in China etc, I just don't think the titling is right. The term "history of postage" is nearly unknown to Google, and is not used in anything in my philatelic library, so it's kind of a neologism, which WP generally discourages. Also, "History of X" articles are typically narratives, but the philatelic articles include both narrative and general data. "Postage stamps and postal history" is a mouthful - I waffled a long time before adopting it - but it has the advantage of accurately covering the range of topics found in an overview, the use of standard terminology improves Google hit rates, and it facilitates division into two articles when the amount of material warrants. Stan 16:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

• I agree - although I have started using the different titling. I think I have perhaps over-reacted to the challenge we had around the length of "Postage stamps and postal history of X, Y and Z". Wikipedia's limit on a title length is 255 characters, which is very long indeed, so I think really we ought to stand up to any challenges on the length and insist on meaningful usage. One of the problems is that numerous "Postage stamps and postal history" titles have been redirected and I don't think they can be used again, especially if a country's name has taken over the article. But I'm going to start using the combined name again unless an article is specifically about only one of the two topics. --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

My adminly powers suffice to rearrange anything as desired, just point them out to me. Stan 12:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Stan is right on this one, so using the original title system and dividing into postage stamps and postal history if necessary seems like the best way to go. ww2censor 13:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Russian stamp copyright

Folks here might be interested in this posting on the main interwiki listserve. Can anyone here comment on this? Thanks, Walkerma 17:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I saw the message, but don't really have an answer. In these days of people keeping a very close eye on copyrights, I'd want to see an example of the document where the stamp artist/designer signs away personal rights, plus some kind of independent confirmation, such as an official email from an official working for the Russian post. We've had several bouts of confusion on commons for stamps of some other countries, where people quote laws that seem to be contradicting each other. Stan 18:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! This sort of ambiguity is a shame, because I know stamps are a wonderful potential source of copyright-free pictures. One chemistry textbook I often taught from uses stamps for all the pictures of famous chemists, presumably for this same reason. Thanks, Walkerma 05:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

My suspicion is that publishers of textbooks are comfortable that those are fair uses for textbooks, and don't worry about them further. In lieu of a well-heeled legal department, we restrict ourselves to really clearcut situations. If it's any consolation, stamps are not actually that good of a source, since designers and governments alter the images for their own purposes. For instance, one of the famous jazz musicians was never seen without a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but the the USPS airbrushed it right out, so as to not seem to be promoting smoking! Stan 11:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The Philately Portal

I see the Philately Portal does not ever seem to get updated and there are several redlinks on it. Is there something I can do to help? AdrianMastronardi seems to have abandoned it as I left a message for him nearly 2 months ago, about something else, but he never responded. I don't know anything about editing the portal page but would do something if I knew how. Cheers ww2censor 15:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I think I figured out how to make changes and have made a few additions and corrections. What do we want to add here? ww2censor 16:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the general theory is to think of this as a sort of philatelic Main Page, where you highlight whatever is most interesting at the moment. If you like, you can try owning it for a while, and rotate through what you find most interesting. For many readers this is where they get a first impression of WP's stamp coverage, so "intriguing to the general public" is a good criterion. Stan 20:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Portals are a very useful link you can give to people in a particular field - if one of you is interviewed about Wikipedia stamp content by Linn's Stamp News, for example. I help out a bit at the Chemistry Portal. There we have a (small) selection of featured articles that we rotate through, one per month. I would suggest compiling a list of well-written articles on interesting stamps that you can use, then it's not much work each month to post the next one on the list. As Stan says, interesting is good, things like the British Guiana 1c magenta would go down well. Walkerma 02:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Hope you like the portal now. I have prepared one Stamp of the month suggestion based on your British Guiana 1c magenta comment. ww2censor 16:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Postal orders

Hey, just wondering, should postal orders (of mainly British decent) be within the grounds of this project? If so, please check out Category:Numismatics, there are numerous postal orders there. Thnx Joe I 03:01, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question! For what it's worth postal orders are one of the few post office produced and sold products that actually are a cross over item because while they are essentially a numismatic item, they often have postage stamps affixed to make an additional value to the issued item. By way of illustration look at this image I uploaded that is used in a number of postal order pages. My interest is in the stamps and not so much in the numismatic aspect of this item. ww2censor 03:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so all postal orders belong to both numismatic and philately groups? I didn't even know they were "essentially a numismatic item". So should all postal orders be marked as in Category:Numismatics as well? Are they only a British product? Joe I 04:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

FWIW have a read postal order and looked at the amount of postal order pages in the numismatic category, though some are poorly written. I would defer to others as to including them in a philatelic category as well. Cheers ww2censor 04:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I think they're very marginal; can't remember any of my philatelic rags having articles about them, although there have probably been some. I would make the category descend from Category:Postal system and Category:Numismatics, and add an xref from the philately portal, for the lost and confused souls who somehow find them more interesting than stamps. :-) Stan 13:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a thriving "Postal Order Society", which includes collectors of banknotes, stamps, cheques etc etc. See http://postalorders.informe.com/forum/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klaasnaajer (talk • contribs) 17:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Which you will find at The Postal Order Society (Great Britain) as well as the link you mention. You might also want to look at Postal Order. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
• User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
• User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
• User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. 207.160.66.129 14:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikified world stamp catalog

User:Eclecticology reminds me that I long ago proposed a wiki for a world stamp catalog at meta:Wikistamp. I haven't pursued it because it needs critical mass to get going - I estimate 3-5 people, a couple of whom need to know enough about software and web programming to build all the infrastructure bits. Since that proposal, there has been an attempt at wikibooks - wikibooks:World Stamp Catalogue, but woefully underpowered for the scale of the task being attempted. Are there enough people here now to make a try at doing it right? Stan 17:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like an overly ambitoius project considering there are approximately 10,000 new stamps each year worldwide, not to mention all those already issued. Another serious consideration is that a stamp catalogue really needs to have images and besides the copyright issues of stamp images that will likely preclude any approach to completeness, obtaining access to enough images would be neigh impossible even if the copyright issues were overcome. As a postal historian, I actually have little interest in stamp catalogues and therefore limited knowledge, so you can't count on me for much input. All the best of luck but be practical in your outlook. ww2censor 04:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

My "secret sauce" is custom software that can work with partial data and knows a lot about the content, for instance it can sort all the currencies of the world, and validate twisty multiple overprint situations. I've been focussing on text because it's searchable; I expect a stamp-specific wikibook would have to establish its own fair-use rules, and copyrighted images to be uploaded there alone, not to commons. Stan 12:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Stan for replying. I should have looked here before waiting in vain at the SYS page; that's my own damn fault. This is indeed an ambitious project, but the general success of Wikipedia makes it hard to believe that anything is "overly" ambitious. Doing this as a Wikibook may indeed be a more valid option than having it here in Wikipedia. Three to five people would seem to be a very small critical mass, but I can appreciate how difficult it can be get to even that small number. Although I have a good grasp of the philatelic concepts, and a somewhat large accumulation of philatelic literature to back it up, I do find that dealing with software, tables and images can be onerous. I agree that the project will need to develop its own fair-use rules without going through commons. My general impression is that most governments' copyrights on stamps are quite flexible, or there would be no stamp catalogues at all. We've gone a long way from the situation in the 1930s when the US Secret Service saw any copying of postage stamps (even in black and white) as tantamount to counterfeiting.

Postal history is interesting, but I agree that it opens a lot of points that go well beyond the stamps themselves. As such it opens up an entirely new set of complications. The 10,000 new stamps per year poses a formidable challenge, but my own feeling is that new issues should not be the priority at this stage. Anyone is still obviously free to work on them, but it would be nice to have a country's past issues brought up to date. Dealing with new issues would then be a maintenance issue. It's still less than a week since the last US election, but I'm sure that the interested Wikipedians are well on their way to establishing or updating articles for all the current congressmen. This is not as big a task as catching up on the biographies of former congressmen, and organising that information in an accessible way. Eclecticology 22:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Bermudian Stamps - Info Request

The new article Girlguiding Bermuda includes a section on a 1969 issue of stamps on the theme of Girl Guides. The information is incomplete and if anyone has any further information, it would be welcomed. Kingbird 05:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

George Pataki

I posted this on the George Pataki talk page but received no response. I encountered some articles in the late 1970s and early 1980s by a George Pataki in American Philatelist. These are mostly about Romanian stamps. Can anyone confirm whether this is the same George Pataki who is governor of New York. Eclecticology 00:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll

The comment, "Lewis Carroll invented what may be described as the world's first stockbook, The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case, which contained 12 pockets for stamps of different value," appears at http://www.rpsc.org/Library/kaulbach/more8.htm I would be interested if anyone is familiar enough with the history of stockbooks to comment on this. Another site claims that he had a patent (British?) on this but does not elaborate. Eclecticology 00:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Dorothy Wilding

I noticed that our project is seeking information on Dorothy Wilding. I located a couple sources and placed what I found at Talk:Dorothy_Wilding. Keesiewonder 14:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Columbian Issue

I've put something together on the Columbian Issue ... I was shocked when I realized that one of the most popular and familiar sets of US stamps was just a redlink. There's quite a bit more work to do, I think, including comments about the modern "re-issue" (and its foreign sister releases). Probably more could be said about the envelopes and postal cards, too, but I've never been a postal stationary collector. Anyway, its better than nothing. Serpent's Choice 11:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice! I'll make a couple comments on the article's talk. Stan 14:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Problem page

US stamps was created a few days ago by new user User:Serjmooradian who also uploaded a mix of PD and FU stamps for it. I'm not quite sure what to do with it; simplest would be to redirect to US overview article, and maybe find uses for a couple of the fair-use images. There is a wikibook project for a stamp catalog, which is about the closest fit for the page as-is. Stan 15:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Stan. ww2censor 03:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability criteria for commemorative issues

See Chembai Stamp. Does this commemorative issue require a separate article? The stamp itself has little intrinsic value. Thanks Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 22:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

This is certainly a non-notable stamp as are about 10,000 others each year (in recent years anyway). So it seems like a speedy delete might be in order, but Stan would be a better judge of what action to take. ww2censor 03:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

But just think, with enough stamp articles we could take over! "Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Stamps and Some Other Stuff" :-) In this case, the right thing is simply to redirect to Chembai's article. We do need to think about notability criteria, Category:Postage stamps is rather a mixed bag. I'd say every definitive series is automatically notable. A country's first commem is probably notable, and any that have a "story", like the US Elvis stamp. Stan 06:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Should we nominate this for merge/AFD? - Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 07:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There is more behind this, User:Venu62 (a.k.a Parthi) has malicious intent in putting this up to you folks (my own personal opinion) - see Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#User_reverting_image_copyvio.2Fno-source_tags. I created the article for the stamp after User:Venu62 removed it from Chembai citing some lame reasons. I'm OK with the stamp being moved again to Chembai article. ­ ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 12:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

What is it with Indian stamps anyway?!? If you want the stamp in the person's bio, even one sentence about why they got a stamp, or something about the stamp's design, is really all it needs to be legit fair use. I don't understand why everybody is unable to write anything about the stamps they include on pages. Stan 20:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Stan for pointing this out, I updated the description of the picture to justify fair use. ­ Kris (talk) 15:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Philatelic historic texts on wikisource

Hello. I began to put old texts about philately on the Wikisource in French (see my user page there for the first two), with the reproduction of two well-known texts in French philately. Two questions :

• Do you know if there are some texts on the Wikisource in English (or other languages) ? I search but may have forgotten to look at some places.
• What do you know about letters Rowland Hill's son wrote to postal authorities to obtain the first stamps of these countries for his father's collection ? I have one page of the letter to the French post in Yvert et Tellier's specialized catalog of France (page 32). Thank you for some hints in my quests. Sebjarod 19:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

For those interested (French philatelic history) : s:Pearson Hill letter to French Post (and its traduction in French). Sebjarod 12:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

On the Wikisource in English, now a category: Category:Postal history. Sebjarod (talk) 09:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Participants

It looks like we are losing members due to retirement, lack of interest, or whatever other reason, so I intend to soon move the list of participants around to indicate active participants and other associated members. Hope you all (whoever is still watching this page) agree. If you have any ideas for reactivating interest in philately, I am willing to help in any reasonable way possible. I already manage the Philately Portal but that does not seem to bring in any editors. Maybe you have some ideas Stan. Cheers ww2censor 16:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm not clear on the reason to tinker with the participants list - seems hard to second-guess who is "active" and who is not. I'm doing less stamp stuff myself right now because I have a horrendous upload backlog and the desert wildflower season is impending (raining as I type, yay). My vague idea for increasing interest is to write an article on WP for the APS journal; most philatelists are likely unaware that WP has a stamp-related section. Stan 01:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent idea! Even a handful of knowledgeable editors from APS would be a big boost. I should add myself to the participants even though I have currently diverted my attention to the World Stamp Catalogue on Wikibooks. You've done a fair bit of photography; any experience with uploading images of watermarks? Eclecticology 01:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the two in watermark are my doing. I just scanned with a black background, and then did extreme contrast increase in software. Haven't had much luck with the fainter watermarks tho, presumably I'm not alone since the catalogs have line drawings for those. Some day I want to try putting the stamp in a baggie with watermark fluid, see how that works on the scanner, or perhaps try a macro photo into the watermark tray. Stan 13:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea Stan. I just thought that moving people who had not made any Wikedits for 6 months seemd like a reasonable benchmark. A couple people who might soon meet that criteria have also not responded to direct talk page requests which seems to indicate they have moved on without noting that fact. For the moment I will not do anything. Cheers ww2censor 03:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Currencies

Hi,

I come from Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics and just found out about this wiki project. For my tenure at Wikipedia, I found that articles at Category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers contain links to currency units, without disambiguation, like dollar. I'd like to ask for your assistance. It would be great if these links can be fixed. I can help too. Let me give you some references: Category:Circulating currencies, Category:Modern obsolete currencies. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 00:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Promoting the project

I have been adding the {{Philately}} tag to many talk pages as there were only a handful up to a few days ago. The total now exceeds 260 with many more to add. If you pass by pages that are missing the tag please add it or if you have time take a category and do a bundle. Thanks folks ww2censor 15:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

VR official

So it seems that the VR official is a "non-notable" because an uninformed busybody noticed that it only has one source (never mind that it's the SG specialized) that seemed to have only one online mention (one boggles at how anyone could be so bad at search). Anyway, it would be good to have another reference or two if someone knows of some - my British philatelic lib is sadly lacking - plus feel free to add your own witty comebacks to the article's talk page. Stan 03:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Added one link to the British Postal Museum and Archive, a very reputable reference indeed. ww2censor 04:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Philatelic stubs

Verne Equinox has removed several philatelic stubs from articles that IMHO are still stubs due to the lack of detail. If you don't agree with some of his edits, please restore the stubs if they are appropriate. However, he has been adding some stubs and other decent edits, so his actions are mostly constructive other than the stub removal. Cheers ww2censor 02:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Postal history template

New template:

I'd like to see an article on each and every one of the 600 or 700 or so entities soon enough. When this template grows it will be split A-M M-Z ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you" Contribs} 10:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I hate these kinds of templates - having to split by letters just shows how poor a solution they are compared to categories. But people seem to like them for some reason, so shrug. Stan 13:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Stan as this may potentially become excessively large. I think templates like this are fine for subjects by year and for very small groupings. But, keeping an open mind, it'll be interesting to see if and how it develops. --GeorgeWilliams 08:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Way too ambitious IMHO. Categories would seem like the way to go because potentially the template will be so large it might take up more than a page to itself. It will definitely take up more than a screen-full when open. Besides it looks like Sir Blofeld is not a Philately project member and we could really use philatelic writers rather than template builders at this time because there are only 2 or 3 active editors doing any real work for philately. ww2censor 11:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to have any strong view one way or another on this template, so I suppose it will stay. I have retitled the template from "Postal history by country and state" to "Postage stamps and postal history by country and state" as this seems all inclusive for the topic. ww2censor 22:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I don't like this template. Far from complete and when it is complete it will be huge. It will take up most of the article by itself while the articles are mostly small. I vote to delete it or at least not use. --Saipan Sam 05:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

And I just found something that really is wrong where this template screws up the "What links here" section of each page's toolbox. As well as valid links you get a list of every country in the template and that makes it difficult to spot the valid links. No good at all. --Saipan Sam 05:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I have moved this discussion to the template talk page. ww2censor 04:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Orphan

Hello. Through a philatelic forum outside Wikipedia, I found this orphan : Postal currency. Could someone help the original author to get rid of the requested-sources banner, please ? Sebjarod 19:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Ww2censor. Sebjarod 18:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I also left a post at the Numismatic Wikiproject to see if anyone could add something else or add some winks. Thanks ww2censor 23:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I added that to banknote. I hope this will increase its exposure. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 04:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Holiday stamp

Holiday stamp has been nominated for deletion, so you should make your comments here to avoid the AfD being successful. Mind you the article could do with expansion. ww2censor 04:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Participants

I only see a handful of editors, maybe 3 or 4, doing any philatelic work these days and the list gives the impression of lots of participants but many of the 20 listed participants seem to be either totally or philatelically inactive, so I going to split the participants list into two; active and inactive. For all the inactive participants I intend to post a note on each users talk page telling them I am moving them to inactive status if they have not made any philatelic edits for six months and that if they wish to be listed as active to just move their name back up to the active list. Maybe this might spur some activity again too. If they are around, they can do that easily and if not, there is no harm done as it just proved their inactivity - some may, unfortunately, even have retired from Wikipedia. I am choosing six month, as opposed to three months that some other lists use as their criteria for inactivity, because I know that editors have other interests that may keep them away for more than three months. ww2censor 15:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Confused

Hi. New here and confused already. Why does the project have two categories category:Postal history by country and category:Postage stamps by country when there seems to be a standard naming convention for articles that is, for example, Postage stamps and postal history of Canada? You have some of these articles in both categories so why not have a combined category:Postage stamps and postal history by country?

Postage stamps by country is easily the more popular category with 116, though the first six are lists and not typical. Postal history by country has 27 which are – Postage stamps and postal history of Abu Dhabi, Postage stamps and postal history of Aden, Postage stamps of Aitutaki, Postage stamps of Alaouites, Postage stamps of Anjouan, Antarctic stamps, Postage stamps of Antioquia, Postal history of Armenia, Postage stamps of Australian Antarctic Territory, Postage stamps of Batum under British occupation, Postage stamps of Bolívar, Postage stamps of Boyacá, Postage stamps of the British Antarctic Territory, Postage stamps of British Somaliland, Postage stamps of Bushire under British occupation, Postage stamps of Cundinamarca, Postage stamps of Diégo-Suarez, Regional postage in Great Britain, Postage stamps of Hatay, Postal history of Heligoland, Postage stamps of Kastellórizo, Postage stamps and postal history of New Zealand, Postage stamps and postal history of the Ross Dependency, Postage stamps of Tripolitania, Postage stamps and postal history of Vatican City, Postage stamps and postal history of Yugoslavia, Postage stamps and postal history of Zululand.

I propose that all of the postal history by country articles are standardised by title so that Postage stamps of Aitutaki becomes Postage stamps and postal history of Aitutaki and that all of these 27 are moved to or confirmed in category:Postage stamps by country, renamed as category:Postage stamps and postal history by country, where a similar article title standard should be adopted.

I guess a consensus should apply as there may be a valid reason for having this split. I'll leave things be for a couple of weeks and then do what I think is right if no one objects. See you. --Saipan Sam 06:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall (maye it was before my time) why there two categories were made but they are there for the moment until we do a CfD. I cannot agree completely with you on this. A single category for all articles called "Postage stamps of xxx", "Postal history of yyy" and "Postage stamps and postal history of zzz" would make sense because for some countries there will be two articles and why have to go looking for them in another category if they could all be found in one place. It is not an extremely bad situation to have both categories so long as articles are appropriately categorised but a single category would certainly avoid any confusion.

However, I disagree with you on renaming all stamp or postal history titles to be "Postage stamps and postal history of xxx". What happens when there are two articles, one for each topic, for one country, which will be the case when I finish working on "Postal history of Ireland". If you were to re-title Postage stamps of Ireland to be Postage stamps and postal history of Ireland, what do I call the "Postal history of Ireland" article? Why would you add something to an article name that is not actually in the article. Sorry that does not make any sense to me. On the other hand if an article get expanded from being only about stamps to adding postal history of that country, then by all means move the article to a new more appropriate name and there is absolutely no harm done.

Stan is likely the only other editor around to give any input on this and he will editing very little over the summer, so any changes should wait a while yet until he is more active. ww2censor 16:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Makes sense where a country does have two articles. Any I look at, I'll bear in mind your points. As for category, leave it for now. --Saipan Sam 04:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

GB Machin stamps page

Guys, I've just added the List of Machin stamps page, and was hoping you could give me your opinions on it? Ideally in the future I would love to see it get to be a featured list, so any other things you feel should be added...

Also, is there any issue, copyright-wise, with using images of current stamps on pages? It could certainly do with some, to help with some of the description, but I'm not sure about any copy-vio's.

Cheers, Midx1004 20:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I see a problem with the use of Machin images as they are crown copyright for 50 years so they are out unless you can provide a fair use rationale for each instance. Making list is not encouraged any more because they are not encyclopaedic and besides which this is not a catalogue. There is already a sister project for that wikibooks:World Stamp Catalogue. If the list was incorporated into the main article then the use of images, with appropriate rationale would likely be fine. I would reconsider that option if I were you. Thanks ww2censor 16:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm okay then I guess images of the stamps is a no-go. Shame, but nevermind. Where does it say that lists are discouraged?? There are several lists of stamps on Wikipedia already, let alone large lists on other subjects - are they going to be removed at some point? I certainly don't think the list should be incorporated into the main Machin article, it'd make it far too long, and the general rule for Wiki articles is to separate lists onto a new page. Plus, I would disagree that this particular list is not encyclopedic, it's not like the page is going to change more than maybe once per year, and where else on Wikipedia does it talk about the variations and differences in machins for collectors? The main article does some, but not a great deal. Maybe variations should be highlighted more in the list, though I'm not sure which would be the best way to do that... Midx1004 18:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright is the biggest problem for stamp images and until we are able to get specific permissions from philatelic bureaux, who most often seem to not reply to any questions, we shall have to live with the difficulty of being unable to use stamps from certain countries and/or time periods in articles except with fair-use rationale. Regarding lists, you are correct there are many lists, but I recall seeing somewhere, but cannot find it now, that lists were not being actively encouraged. Just think about it and you will agree that lists are basically not encyclopaedic but more catalogue-like. However, I doubt lists will be actively deleted any time soon. You are correct that there is nowhere else that you can find a list of Machin variations and differences but that is not a good reason for it being here - you are trying to justify that it should be here not that if fits into the Wikipedia rationale - the two are different but I will not suggest this list is deleted. I am just being critical and like seeing any decent philatelic articles as well as any active philatelic editors, but I just don't really favour lists as being a constructive or positive use in an encyclopaedia. You wrote about the variations and differences: "The main article does some, but not a great deal", well that is the point about the difference between an encyclopaedia and a catalogue. ww2censor 13:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

A Project Award

Am I correct in thinking that there is no current WikiProject Philately award (If there is, I couldn't see one..)?? I thought I'd have a go and create one. Let me know what you think.

I unveil to you, The Philatelic Star:

Cheers, Midx1004 15:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

In philately there are usually gold, vermeil, silver and bronze awards so maybe we would need one of each. I wondered why you would only put the word Wikipedia into the award instead of some philatelic or stamp related title. Personally I don't like the colour either, but the idea might work, though who is going to get them as there are but a handful of philatelic editors, Stan, Fconaway who is not even a project member, occasionally Sebjarod and Sir Blofeld and minor edits here and there by a few others plus me. Seems way overblown for such a small band of people that it smacks of self-adulation.

I put the word Wikipedia on it to make it a Wikipedia stamp - seems obvious to me to try and tie the two together, but I'm open to ideas. Again with the colour - it can be any colour, I just liked the blue that's all. If anyone can come up with a colour that means something, then by all means suggest one.

Personally I think that all Wikiprojects should have an identifying award - so what if only 5 people win one - does it really matter much?? Midx1004 18:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea! I think User:ww2censor deserves to be the first winner for his immense achievement in making Postage stamps of Ireland the first philatelic Featured Article. (Unless you count Mail, which was defeatured a while back). The article got a rough ride in FAC but ww2censor was very quick to deal with every issue as it arose, and prevailed in the end. So I think ww2censor should be nominated for one of these. Walkerma 04:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Design-wise perhaps these should be known as "Philatelic Barnstars" rather than "Philatelic Stars" with a small Philately somewhere on the "stamp", preferable under, rather than over the star instead of the word Wikipedia. Perhaps, if you did not do so yet, have a look at this page before finalising your design. Being the subject of Walkerma's nomination, I won't comment as I am biased and any award would not be up to me anyway. Cheers ww2censor 14:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the main barnstar page, but I was looking more at the Wikipedia:WikiProject_awards page, and there are quite a few on there that leave off the 'barn' from their titles, but as I said I don't really mind and will go along with the consensus. As to your other point, I'm not sure why you'd need the word Philately on the award, as the award itself is a stamp, something that I'm sure people will recognise... If you were looking at a French stamp it would have the word France on it. This is a Wikipedia stamp so it should have the word Wikipedia on it. In my opinion, that is :) . Midx1004 16:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

After a request from ww2censor, I've set up a test of the assessment version of the template. Please can you take a look at Talk:Rowland_Hill_(postal_reformer) and Talk:Postage stamps and postal history of New South Wales and let me know if this is OK? If it is, I will tag some more.

For those of you not familiar with this system (now used on over 1 million articles on the English Wikipedia, 800,000+ of which have been assessed), the project template generates categories automatically based on assessment parameters added by a project member. These parameters are most often quality and importance, and we have standardized on one crude but very straightforward system of assessment (see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment), and likewise for importance. The quality scale is almost universal across all projects (so a B-Class article for the Australia project should also be B-Class for Philately, etc), but importance is judged based only on importance WITHIN a project. For example, the NSW stamp article is rated Start-Class by us and by WP:Australia; for importance it's ranked low by WP:Australia but mid by WP:NSW.

Once you have this set up, every 3 days or so a bot trawls through these categories and creates lists like this, a log like this (great for spotting talk-page vandalism too!) and a very nice summary statistics table like this.

Please let me know if I should go ahead and change the main project template - currently I've just got this in User:Walkerma/Sandbox. Thanks, Walkerma 04:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Already noticed your first test and have posted a reply on your talk page pointing out one feature request. On a quick estimate there are about 1,200 article within the project but there could well be some more I missed based on a down and dirty calculation. Of these about 650 have the {{philately}} project template on the talk page. Cheers ww2censor 04:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to add fancy parameters/features like image requests, getting a basic template to work is testing my abilities! We probably should have small size and nesting options too, but that's rather challenging too. I'd be reluctant to change it myself, others are very welcome to try! Walkerma 07:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

This change is OK with me. I don't try to do assessments myself, I find it a little nebulous and never know what to choose, but it seems helpful, so go for it. An image-needed addition would be useful, helps let us know which ones to scan first. Stan 07:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and make the change. Sorry this took a while, I've been very busy at work and also travelling. I simply don't know how to add a request image parameter, but that is something that can be added later. You can see the start of the list here as well as the log and the statistics table.

One thing that stands out is the sorry state of some of our key articles like Philately and Postmark. Walkerma 04:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Currently there are just under 700 pages with the template and you estimated about 1,200 article currently. I will assess a few obvious ones soon, but I agree with the low quality of several of what we regard as main articles. I have been trying to get some people interested in Aerophilately for quite some time but there are so few editors. Maybe I will write an article for the APS's magazine The American Philatelist and see if that brings in some real knowledgeable philatelists. We could really do with some committed (not mentally !) editors. Cheers ww2censor 04:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) BTW, I see an error in the syntax. You need to remove the word WikiProject; it works fine when I just start the syntax Philately. TIA ww2censor 04:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see this problem, can you perhaps fix the problem or let me know where exactly it occurs? (Sorry, but I'm in a bit over my head with these templates!). Walkerma 03:22, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I fixed the template page by removing the work WikiProject from the displayed text; it need only be Philately not WikiProject Philately. The functionally seems fine though but I will check that out too. Added an assessment page but I have not finished with it yet as it needs some importance criteria. ww2censor 05:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Help needed : images of Castles

Hello. Do someone possess some 1955 Castles definitives of the United Kingdom, please ? Some scans uploaded on Commons would help to illustrate this fr.article (translation on en: perhaps in the next month, amongst the long "to do on wikis" list). Sebjarod 11:27, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What about starting here. Knowing if they can be used on the fr.wikipedia is a copyright issues but according to this commons page the Crown copyright finishes after 50 years, so you should be good to put them on the commons and use them in your fr article, as well as on any en translation. Cheers ww2censor 01:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Indian stamp

Could someone look at Image:MohunBaganPostage-stamp.jpg; I've tagged it as non-free as Commons:Licensing#India and [[Commons:Copyright_tags#India] don't mention stamps. John Vandenberg 07:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Indian postage stamps are copyright for 60 years and this looks like a new issue, certainly not 60 years old, so your copyright tag is appropriate. ww2censor 19:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Weird article

After fixing up Star of Chelsea, I noticed that none of the refs were relevant, and the links to the two people (artist and researcher) are also unsourced, and there are no mentions of any of this on the net that is not somehow copied from WP material (both en: and hu:). My own cinderalla literature is sketchy, does anybody have something more comprehensive that they can check? I'm suspecting that this is all bogus, despite the image. Stan 20:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. A Google search seems to confirm this - though I admit that stamp coverage is poor on the internet. Certainly the word "famous" seems rather inappropriate! Look at the original version, the only thing missing is the LOL at the end. Likewise Horace A. Talbot and Cseresznyes lajos are probably hoaxes by the same two users, they are also unknown to Google outside of Wikipedia. The language also seems very suspect - Cseresznyes's collection is the prime source for researches regarding the confirmation of the originality of the hand-painted stamp Star of Chelsea. Sounds like a crude attempt to create links in. I've tagged it with {{hoax}}. On WP:CHEMS we've had the occasional hoax of this sort. Walkerma 20:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I thought they'd wait at least a week or so, but they've already been deleted! Walkerma 07:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

There *are* real-life cinderella stamps with stories as bizarre as this one, so wasn't obviously a hoax, but shrug. Stan 07:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the template requests references to support the article, it doesn't say "This will be deleted tomorrow" - but I console myself that they could qualify for deletion just on terms on notability alone. When none of the three article subjects show up at all in Google they can't use words like "famous". Walkerma 14:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

• 25 September 2007 - expires 30 September
  • Commonwealth postal orders --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Something about us

An article on a Machin-specialised blog explored the English and French Wikipedia's articles connected to the Machin series. Sebjarod 17:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Bath Postal Museum

Hi, I've just started a stub for Bath Postal Museum on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset but I know little of the subject matter & it would be great if experts from this project were able to expand it.— Rod ^talk 19:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Philately/New articles

Hello, some questions about this portal's window : What if we kept 25 articles in the new articles list on the Portal (around 24 today) ? Not to high, not to low ? Do we keep an archive of philatelic articles created by date ? Sebjarod 20:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I had not thought about it so far as this issues did not arise. I can always make a new archive page that we can add to when we reach a figure of 20-25. Thanks ww2censor 23:08, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Done for both New & Expanded articles. ww2censor 04:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

"Make-up stamps"

A question has been asked on the Miscellaneous Reference Desk in relation to the USA "H" rate make-up stamp and requesting general information on the history of such issues. Would any interested party like to respond to this question? 86.21.74.40 (talk) 17:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Replied and will make some redirect pages now to Non-denominated postage. ww2censor (talk) 18:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Stamps by year categories

Hi, is there any sort of stamps by years categories available? One big wanted category is Category:1953 stamps. I'm not really a member of the project but if someone is interested, I'll willing to assist in creation (probably a good idea to start with a few templates to get it set quickly). Before this starts, where the Category:Postage stamps by year would fit into Category:Categories by year also needs to be determined (maybe within Category:Works by year). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we have enough articles on individual stamps to justify such a system of categories; the categories would mostly be either empty or have just one article. Commons does have stamps by year categories, because there are plenty of stamp images to organize. Not clear to me if we will ever have lots of articles on individual stamps, most issues would only have a couple sentences' worth of sourced information. Stan (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Remember this is not a catalogue but an encyclopaedia so large categories of stamps are unlikely to ever be an issue. A stamp should have some notability like these before it even gets an article and imho there are several stamp articles that are ripe for deletion because they are WP:NN. Also 1953 is relatively early for images to be available as PD, depending on the country, so even stamps older than 50, as Stan suggests, will likely never see articles. Thanks for asking because we don't need to have categories that are unpopulated or even under populated that we then have to delete. ww2censor (talk) 19:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that while this is technically a good idea, there is not enough articles on stamp articles on wikipedia just yet. While I think it would be great to cover more of the notable stamp issues many stamps are not notable enough for an encyclopedia entry. Its perhaps best not to create any year categories until it develops -but with current participation in this field on wikipedia I'd wonder if this would ever happen. Regards ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 20:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

organizations category

I proposed a rename of the current Category:Philatelic associations and societies to Category:Philately organizations. Two changes: The most important, a succinct and standard "organizations"; the second, and perhaps contentious, change from "philatelic" to "philately". Please weigh in if you have opinions at the 12/28 CFD. --Lquilter (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.