Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 5

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Archive Created Wed 16 July 2008

Postage stamps and postal history of Israel

Hi. There is no article yet for Postage stamps and postal history of Israel (part of Category:Postal history by country) that would have so many Jewish themes. Feel free to go ahead and start it. (See the other country's in Category:Postage stamps by country that have theirs.) Nothing for Israel on Category:Postage stamps by country neither on List of country articles containing postal sections nor on List of philatelic bureaus. (but just a teeny note on Israel at Compendium of postage stamp issuers (Io - Iz).) This is truly a great shame and pity because Israel, and before that when it was the British Mandate produced and continues to issue the most beautiful and extensive stamps by any country. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Obviously there is no one here who has sufficient knowledge of Israeli stamps and postal history, otherwise an article would already exist. This is not the only country which is missing even a stub, so if you have the knowledge why not start it yourself. There is a lot of work to be done on philatelic topics all around. Maybe you have some ideas for recruiting some more editors which would help as there are so few knowledgeable philatelists on Wikipedia at all. I think we do a decent job of it. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 16:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Anatole Hulot

Hello. In this article, there are many technical words from the printing domain (typography, galvano, plate...). Could someone read it please and try to see if the technical parts are understandable and the English words carefully chosen? Even in French, I am not fluent in this topic. Sebjarod (talk) 18:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale template

I've created a new template {{Stamp rationale}}, for use in fixing up image descriptions of non-free stamps. You can see an example of its use on Image:Stamp CA 1967 8c.jpg. Eventually every non-free image will have to have a fair use rationale; this template simplifies putting one in place. Note that it's subst'ed into the page, so each image will have its own text that you can fine-tune as needed. Incidentally, we may not need to keep many images; commons has seen some busy uploaders, and commons:Category:Stamps has become quite large! Stan (talk) 14:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good though I have been using the regular FU template. My only concern with the subst template is that we have to place the subst into the image, then save it, then repoen it to fill in the appropriate missing image specific data. I would prefer to just drop in the complete template text in, fill it out and save it once. Where there are images that are used in several articles, unknowledgeable editors will subst the template several times which will place the "Non-free/fair use image data" section in several times, unless they see it is unnecessary and remove that additional instances. I also like to also include the comment "There is no possible commercial disadvantage to the copyright holder by using this image of a stamp in a Wikipedia article of a stamp that is no longer on sale" in my fair-use rationales. Otherwise it seems good. What about also putting the template test on the template page for copying by those who may prefer to just cut and paste? Cheers Stan. ww2censor (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The "no commercial disadvantage" line sounds like a good addition - I'm never any good at the fair-use-rationale essaymanship that's expected. Not sure what you mean by "template test"? The arguments to the template ideally cover 95% of the use cases, an additional manual edit for the remainder doesn't seem too burdensome; and of course it's always OK to use a more generic rationale. Stan (talk) 18:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Template text, not template test! The text that actually gets placed into the image page you are adding the rationale to when you use the subst, like "example 2" on this one. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 19:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is what I mean:

== Licensing ==
{{Non-free stamp}}

== Fair use image data ==
{{Non-free image data
|Description       = {{{1}}}.
|Source            = {{{3}}}
|Portion           = Entire stamp.
|Low_resolution    = Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original.
|other_information = Intellectual property owned by {{#if:{{{4|}}}|{{{4}}}|the issuing postal authority}}.
}}

== Fair use rationale ==
{{Non-free image rationale
|Article           = {{{2}}}
|Purpose           = Used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image.
|Replaceability    = Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.
}}

ww2censor (talk) 04:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

New member says "Hello"

Hello! I joined the project today and just wanted to introduce myself. I am a 27 year old Austrian, who is collecting stamps for over 15 years (but I got really engaged a few years ago). At the moment I am interested in Eastern Europe stamps and Japanese ones.
My major contributions to WP are translations from the German WP. I noticed that there are a lot of extensive articles on philately in the German WP, and others that are completely missing here. Today I already translated some short articles, but if you have any special requests feel free to tell me or make a request at Wikipedia:Translation#How_to_propose_a_page_to_be_translated. Kind regards, — Tirkfl ^talk 12:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Greetings. Not sure I would contribute enough to join the project, but I do admire your incredible work here. I worked on the beginning of histories for Israel and Palestine, maybe I skirt around and do minor touch-ups. Keep up the great work! HG | Talk 06:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. The more I think about it, the more I like this project. You folks seem very reasonable, well-organized and thorough. Plus, thanks to your hard work on images, the articles are quite attractive. I have some questions about the set up of the stamps & history articles. I'm wondering if maybe the heading of the "by country and state" template should be changed. Perhaps add the word "authority" because it includes stamp-issuing authorities that aren't really states, such as colonial offices, the EEF, colonies that aren't countries (Br E Afr), and regions (Indian states). As I think about the Israel & Palestine article I attempted, I'm also wondering if it would be ok to have some articles that give an overview of multiple authorities/countries. For instance, perhaps there could be an article about British Commonwealth countries, e.g., how their postal services/stamps adjusted to independence, when the stamps were coordinated or not, etc. Similarly, could there be an article about the Ottoman empire or the region that is now Germany? Finally, I'm curious about your guidelines for topical lists. Can there be a list of, say, Elvis Presley stamps or "map" stamps? Does it depend on the topic being mentioned in a certain number of philatelic articles, or need we find a pre-existing published list? (Sorry, I'm full of questions as I explore your Project.) Oh, and to what extent might websites, e.g. philatelic societies, be sufficiently reliable as sources? Thanks for your consideration. HG | Talk 16:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi folks! As an oldtimer, I'd say that we should feel free to experiment with organization; as is usual for WP, we've changed things in midstream several times, and we're not done yet. The key thing is content; if you decide one day to write about Korean philately, if you don't have sources on your shelf, you'll run out of steam very quickly. It works best to have a book or two open next to the computer, and then summarize what it says. Topical lists are marginal for WP - list of people on stamps works, because people on stamps are generally notable enough for articles, but for instance List of ships on stamps was harder, because of definitional problems (what is a "ship"?), and let's be honest, most appearances of Elvis on stamps are bald-faced attempts to extract money from collectors - what more is there to say about a Chad stamp that simply reproduces a familiar photo? Maps are potentially more interesting, because they often tie into political disputes - a list of stamps with links to WP articles on the relevant dispute would be quite worthwhile. Again, it's all about content; start with the facts not already in WP that you wish to record, then structure articles around those facts. Stan (talk) 18:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

DYKs

I'm wondering if we should announce DYKs here as they reach the Main Page? Anyway, stamp designer Otte Wallish is about to go on the main page, and official mail will probably be there soon. We had Israel and the Palestinian National Authority recently. Thanks. HG | Talk 05:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Template size

As mentioned in a previous discussion last year, this template is becoming quite large(Template:Postalhistorybycountry). If each and every country that has ever produced a stamp gets included then it will not serve the purpose of making it easier to navigate... I suggest that it gets cut down to several regional templates instead of an A-Z list as suggested and more specifically to the members of regional postal unions such as European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations for Europe and so on. A good example of how the spiraling size of such templates was managed elsewhere can be seen here:

StephP (talk) 12:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I already replied where you first posted on the template talk page. Let's keep the discussion in one place. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 16:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I only posted this here for more exposure.StephP (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I assumed that. ww2censor (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Title for an article

Hello. What is the policy on en.wiki about the title/translation of institution of non-Englishspeaking countries? I like to create an article about the Musée de La Poste (French name) or should I write La Poste's Museum? Note that "Postal Museum of France" would have been the translation for its former name. Sebjarod (talk) 19:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC) Note:I created the article but wait to redirect or rename your advice. Sebjarod (talk) 19:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

La Poste Postal Museum seems to me the most reasonable, and logical, English name, especially based on your comment that "Postal Museum of France" was the direct translation of the previous name. Anyone else agree? Or do we use the name the French have given it? Cheers ww2censor (talk) 00:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it not redundant?

The name changed because in France there is a notion of "musée d'entreprise" (museum of a corporation), hence the name "Musée de La Poste". Sebjarod (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

European stamp images

Just noticed that Europeanstamps website that include many images up to 2002 is back online. ww2censor (talk) 03:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Rhodesia Scout first day cover

There is an April-May 1977 FDC from Rhodesia for a trade fair, which features prominently the Scout emblem of that time. Does anyone have a copy of this, and would you please make me a blowup of the Scout image itself? Or do you know where I can see an image online? Thank you so much! Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not ask someone over at Scouts on Stamps Society? ww2censor (talk) 18:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Titles for Country Articles

The project page currently states:

A word about article titles. We have formerly used Postage stamps and postal history of X as our title standard but this has been challenged because of length. It has instead been proposed (see talk page) that the key words are "postage" and "history" so we should use History of postage in X instead. Subject to any serious objections, this convention is being introduced.

I object. The use of the word "postage" in titles such as "History of postage in X," sounds antiquarian and awkward. For this to encompass both stamps and postal history, the word "Postage" would have to mean something like "the conveyance of letters by postal messengers" or "the postal service". Both these meanings are marked as obsolete in the New Shorter OED (1993 ed). The only current meaning is the charge for mailing a letter.

If this is the consensus, this rule should be removed from the project page. FarleyKatz (talk) 01:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that, depending on the actual coverage of the article, that Postage stamps and postal history of X or Postage stamps of X or postal history of X can be appropriate. Like FarleyKatz I also strongly object to the term postage in. I don't think the length of a title is a problem at all.

That paragraph continues:

For articles about military occupations, use German postage in occupied Poland; for post offices abroad, use Italian postage in China. In some cases, none of these will be appropriate and it is then best to stay close to the naming used by major catalogues like Stanley Gibbons Ltd.

I think that e.g. Postal History of the German Occupation of Poland (1939-1945) would be more appropriate. Looking at List of postal services abroad some article are headed German Post In X, which doesn't make the distinction between postal services due to military occupation and peacetime postal services of one country outside its own borders like Russian post offices in the Turkish Empire. I also strongly object to the term postage in. Bleddynefans (talk) 09:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Should we try and get a manual of style laid out for this?? Just a thought. Ta, --1qx (talk) 09:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

A review of prior discussions of this issue - see here and here, here shows that this has been extensively discussed, and that the consensus is as stated by Bleddynesfans and ww2censor here. I propose, therefore, to revise the project page to remove the statement that articles should be titled History of postage in X and state that depending on the actual coverage of the article, Postage stamps and postal history of X or Postage stamps of X or Postal history of X may be appropriate titles. FarleyKatz (talk) 13:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I revised the paragraph on the project page, substituting suggested title formats, which I believe follow generally accepted use as described above. FarleyKatz (talk) 16:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Newlands Road Philatelic Society - The all junior that helped shape philately

In the 1950s I, along with a few other boys & girls, founded and ran a stamp club for the boys & girls in Newlands Road Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

This club never was organized or run by any adults. The club started on April 15th 1953, and finally closed in 1967 (Jan). This alone would have been remarkable, but the activities and publicity that this, the ONLY all junior stamp club, gained was historic. I was 13 years old when it started; when I became an adult, at the age of 21, I had to leave (!) in 1961. The club celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1963 by holding a public exhibition at the Art Club on the Pantiles (the most famous area of Tunbridge Wells). The Mayor of Tunbridge Wells formally opened it in July. IN THE BEGINNING

Three boys, Colin Fowle, Robin Grey & Clive Grey called round whilst I was having dinner one Saturday and asked if I would organize a Stamp Club for them, they thought I was good at organizing as I was always organizing things! This was at the beginning of April 1953. A meeting was called for all the children in Newlands Road to meet in our garage. The garage was crowded out and as a result Robin was elected “Chief”, and myself Secretary and Treasurer. The first actual meeting was an auction sale and 4½d was raised for the club funds.

Our neighbour, Mr Hodgson, judged and gave prizes for the first competition. He also very kindly gave four prizes of 2/6 each to John Teasdale, Colin Fowle, David and Myself.

Well that is how it all began. The club generally met about once every two weeks, but in the first couple of years that wasn’t general.

NO ADULTS.

I must point out that at no time in its 14 year history was the club run or organised by anyone else other than those under the age of 21. Adults did come to meetings, but only at OUR invitation. Some of the adults were very famous philatelists who came from long distances to speak to our members.

The club helped shape the changes in stamp issuing policy of the British Post Office, in the late 1950s early 1960s. We ran a campaign for several years to try and persuade the post office to issue small low value definitive stamps. We used the designs by Charles Rang, then editor of Gibbons' Stamp Monthly, whose champion in the House of Lords, Viscount Ellibank, provided us with about 100 printed sheets of these designs, we sent off copies of these to all the Kient MPs and the leaders of the three main parties and the Post Office, and the PMG. After much publicity in the philatelic Press, the local press and the Observer Sunday Newspaper, we were well known at that time. We ran public Opinion polls, and had questions asked in the House of Commons on our behalf. (July 23rd 1959 I have the copy of Hansard of that). We never obtained the small pictorial definitives, but we did get an easing up of new commemoratibes issues, which at that time was REASONABLE!

We entered the national Melivile stamp competition as a full member of the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain, the FIRST ALL JUNIOR stamp club to be allowed to join! and in 1960 one of our members was placed 3rd and was shewn in the London International Stamp Exhibition. The club was funded mainly by running FDC serivices of new issues. We held our own competitions in which the grand trophy was a solid silver "STAMP" mounted on a shield. After the closure of the club in 1967 the funds and trophies were held , and eventually in 1980 the Newlands Stamp once again was AWARDED to the best set of school entries in the National Melville Junior competion. So again the clubs's name lived on.

In 2003 the NRPS again made history, philatelically, by being the first philatelic Society to EVER use the Smilers as a celebration, when I celebrated the 50th anniversary with 4 different such designs.

There is a Yahoo group for old members & their friends to join. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newlandsroadphilatelicsociety/ Here will be found all the FDC's, the Newlands Posts, publicity articles etc etc, and the 2003 Smilers.

One verifiable source may be found in the "Philatelic Congress of Great Britain Year Book" for 1962 held at Worthing. See pages pages 23 to 28 "Junior Philately" by Alfred Toms MBE. ALSO see the photo files in the Yahoo group, mentioned above, for the press cuttings from well known and well established publications such as Gibbons Stamp Monthly, Stamp Collectomng Weekly, The Children's News paper, and the Local newspaper Kent & sussex Courier. ALSO the pages from Hansard. In all the Philatelib Congress Year books The club is mentioned as members from 1959 to 1967. I hope this is satisfactory evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philcovers (talk • contribs) 20:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

More history and details can be added, if interest is shown. Chris (PHILCOVERS) (Chris (talk) 19:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC))

It seems that there are no verifiable sources, so any article you might make will likely be deleted as not being notable. ww2censor (talk) 02:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Definitive Airmail Stamps of Denmark and their use Article Created

I've been editing in WP for about 18 months and have been very active on some other topics. I was very active in Philately up until the mid-90s when work schedules made continued involvement difficult. While browsing around WP I found the Philately project and thought I'd contribute. I created the above article today from some work I'd done previously. I will expand the useage sections as I have time to get covers scanned and the references well documented. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This would be a sub-article of Postage stamps and postal history of Denmark and some of the links you have made don't appley to this specific article, but thanks for your efforts. BTW, it is better form not to add sections with no data whatsoever, but wait until you can populate the section. The article has been renamed Definitive airmail stamps of Denmark by another editors to comply more closely with other philatelic article. It does have some formatting and reference issues but I will see if I can fix them for you. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 02:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

A few further suggestions:

The Danish letter Ø should be used where required (it's conveniently located below the edit box to click on).
Where you cite articles a number of times, you can use a short name such as "Luning 1978" and link to the full bibliographic record. See, e.g, Postage stamps and postal history of Turkey. (There are more sophisticated ways to do this, but I don't know how.)
It appears (from my 1999 catalog) that Denmark stopped issuing airmail stamps in 1935. If that's correct, answer the burning question, why? What happened if you wanted to send a letter airmail in 1936?

Keep up the good work. Ecphora (talk) 02:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ecphora - Thanks for the suggestions--always eager to learn new WP techniques.

I essentially made the same assumption about Airmail stamps and airmail service in the 1970 when I began studying European airmail postal history. International commercial airmail service in Europe began in 1920 and evolved significantly until WWII. State-owned, state-subsidized and private airline companies along with national postal authorities were all involved in promoting this new thing called Airmail. Although there was never (as far as I know) any mandate to affix airmail stamps to an airmail letter (normal stamps could pay the surcharge), many postal authorities issued airmail stamps primarily to promote this new type of service. The biggest problem airmail faced in the 1920-30s was reliability and speed. In fact in 1925, a letter from London to Paris was still cheaper and faster by surface mail than by airmail. The reason was primarily weather and the in-ability to fly mail at night, whereas weather and darkness didn’t stop ships, trains and trucks. In the 1920s and into the 1930s, airmail was essentially seasonal, restricted to non-winter months and thus needed some state sponsored promotion. Airmail stamps did this to some extent.

Even through Denmark issued new airmail stamps in 1934, the reason was merely to take advantage of new printing technology (engraving) and to continue to promote airmail as a service. In all European countries, airmail postage was a surcharge above regular letter, postcard, and registry postage. In 1933 new rates were set and they lasted until 1940. The 1934 set handled these rates fine until the war was over. But as their supply became exhausted, regular stamps proved just as useful to pay the airmail surcharge. After the war, the whole airline/airmail landscape changed and airmail stamps issued to promote airmail service essentially disappeared from Europe.--Mike Cline (talk) 11:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I looked at my old catalogs and many of the European countries do follow this pattern, with airmails stopping before WWII or petering out after it. Great Britain, it seems, has never issued airmails, but France, on the other hand, appears to have continued unabated after WWII. Some of the eastern block (e.g., Hungary & Romania), in contrast, issued tons of airmails with lots of Soviet space images. This might be summarized on the Aerophilately page, and the Denmark airmail page might use a brief comment. Ecphora (talk) 13:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed the great majority of airmail stamps issued post WWII were issued for revenue reasons, not to promote or provide postage for airmail service.--Mike Cline (talk) 13:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Prague pneumatic post

Please consider adding to Prague pneumatic post. Thanks. Bebestbe (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

What reference do you have? There is only one reference for the whole article—it needs loads more. I may have an example of a pneumatic mail postcard but have to find it. ww2censor (talk) 03:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Reorganisation of Postal history of Palestine: invitation to join discussion

There's a discussion going on at Talk:Postal history of Palestine#Major page problems about the future shape of Postal history of Palestine. It is suggested to split off some sections. Since there's a 50:50 split (among the four people that have yet commented) about one crucial point on how the article should be reorganised, I'd like to invite further members (and non-members of course) of WikiProject Philately to join the discussion.Bleddynefans (talk) 09:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Other ideas: We could put out an RfC and/or notify the Palestine, Israel, Jewish history, etc wikiprojects. Also, if I'm not mistaken, there may be points of agreement among the four commenting editors. Don't despair! Thanks. HG | Talk 15:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

New Shortcut Needed

The "shortcut" on the project page reads "WP:PHIL". When clicked, this takes you to the Philosophy project page. I see this has been battled over between the philatelistas and the philosophistas. As much as I like philately, I believe that most Wikipedia users would assume WP:PHIL takes them to philosophy, not stamps. So, I propose we decide on a shortcut for philately. It appears that "WP:STAMPS" already is set up as a shortcut for this page. That seems like a good idea. Other suggestions? Ecphora (talk) 13:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I did have it on my watchlist and TrueWikimedian stole it from us without any discussion and I did not notice the change, so I have reverted it as I still think it appropriate because people use both terms: stamps and philately. There was only one editor who did not like us having it as our shortcut and he was the one who put the hatnote into our page. I will add the stamps shortcut to the page too. BTW, it appears that the Philosophy project was not even using the PHIL shortcut on their page even after it was retargeted; they use WP:PHILO. Cheers & thanks. ww2censor (talk) 15:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If the philosophy crowd doesn't care, that ends the question. Ecphora (talk) 01:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Stamp images needed

I'm working on some philately articles for which I'd like to add images of certain specific stamps which unfortunately I don't have to scan. I was thinking of creating a project sub-page with a list of images needed (and the name of the editor requesting them) and adding a link to that on the "To do" list on the project page. Then, if someone has one of the stamps they could scan and upload it. Then, that want could be removed from the page. If a fair use explanation is needed, they could contact whoever made the request before uploading. Any objections or suggestions? Thanks Ecphora (talk) 23:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I would add a note to get people to upload the image to commons if they know the image is PD. Stan (talk) 00:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

That could be a good idea. BTW, what articles are you working on? ww2censor (talk) 02:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I've spent a lot of time lately on Postage stamps and postal history of Mexico. I'd like to work some more on Postage stamps and postal history of Turkey and I'm thinking about writing one called "Art Deco stamps", which would require a number of images I don't have. Ecphora (talk) 03:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

How detailed should a philatelic article be?

The following has been moved here from Talk:Definitive airmail stamps of Denmark

This comment raises interesting issues that I haven't seen discussed, i.e., how detailed should articles (or more specifically philatelic articles) be? Should a country article, for example, have a complete postal rate history? If so, should it have images of actual covers with different rates? I haven't found any helpful guidance on this; The Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately#Country studies article does have some general guidelines for Country articles and indicates that they should be comprehensive and in nature of a survey, but doesn't attempt to address how detailed an article should be. This article isn't more detailed than others, for example the postal rates and post office tables in the Postal history of Palestine article. If such articles get too detailed and lengthy, portions can be spun off into separate articles. I just raise this for thought; I don't believe we need to (or should) tackle this thorny (and probably unresolvable) issue today.

I would suggest that this article be renamed and left as is (it represents lots of work and someone may be interested in all the detail). I agree it's too detailed to incorporate fully, but a summary of the major points could be added as a new section to the Postage stamps and postal history of Denmark article with one or two images and this article could be linked from there. Mike-Why don't you try adding such a summary and see how it looks? Regards.Ecphora (talk) 22:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

You would of course select an example of an article which is the longest and has content issues that are being discussed, so Postal history of Palestine is not a good example. Let me suggest you look at our only philatelic featured article Postage stamps of Ireland which I must admit I did most of the work on, so I am biased. However, getting it to FA bodes well as a concept for content that is appropriate for a high quality article. Indeed you are correct that the issue of content has not been discussed in any detail and with so few of us around will likely be a difficult thing to do. I am sure that some readers will be happy to see examples like this one, but I just think it is too detailed for an encyclopaedia. For now put a summary section into the main article and link to this one after renaming. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 03:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I want to make an observation not so much on the specifics of this article or the discussion on-going about the title or appropriate detail of a philatelic article. Ww2censor noted:

with so few of us around will likely be a difficult thing to do

This was the 1st foray for me into the Philately project because I am so heavily involved in another WP project's articles that philately didn't make my radar. That said, I personally have a wealth of 40 years experience in postal history, areophilately and until the mid-1990s was a regular exhibitor in regional, national and international exhibits. The article under discussion was essentially derived from a National Vermeil level exhibit, but it did take some energy on my part to get it ready for Wikipedia. I personally am an INCLUSIONIST to the extent that any content in WP is suitable as long as it meets VERIFY, NPOV and NOR policies. The argument that any article is too detailed for an encyclopedia is so problematic because one person's detail is another's gross generalization given the context of any subject.

Now to my real point here. Having participated in many deletion and related debates, I have gravitated to projects and subjects in WP that favor INCLUSIONISM. If the Philately project and its participants favor the DELETIONISM and its not encyclopedic philosophy, it will lose a lot of participation by Wikipedian's that may be the experts its needs to create good philatelic articles. There is just too much energy required to defend against DELETIONISM that can use the phethora of disconnected and inconsistent guidelines to selectively make their case. There should be only three things that determine inclusion of an article: VERIFY, NPOV and NOR. INCLUSIONISM will create a better Wikipedia while DELETIONISM may create a cleaner Wikipedia, but one that has huge holes in the real knowledge that's out there.--Mike Cline (talk) 11:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Certainly I found this article quite interesting. The theory of WP is that it is supposed to be a compendium of knowledge, not the whole body of knowledge itself; we won't ever reproduce every table and graph in scientific papers, we won't list every address and phone number, etc. A test I use is to compare to the sources - an article that is a 10-page summary of the material in a 100-page book is exactly the right size and detail, even though it seems long and detailed. This article seems right at the edge; I think if every philatelic topic had this level of coverage, then we would say that this part of WP is "complete". So I think it's in scope, and a good example generally, not a bad one. If there is any part that might be problematic, it would be the gallery of covers; how will a random future editor be able to tell whether edits of the descriptions are correct, or subtle vandalism? They almost seem like original research, but on the other hand, they're really just captions of illustrations. We don't have a lot of covers with complicated rates, so I don't have much of a sense of how best to handle. Stan (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Stan - although your comments are a bit off the point I was making above about Inclusionism, your comments about the rates and routes is interesting. Despite the fact that they are complicated, for the most part they are sourced WP:VERIFY with credible 3rd party sources. In other words, I didn't research Danish and International postal rates using government documents and compile the table of rates--Luning, Tester and Hedelius did that in their works. I didn't research the historic routes of various airlines from their documents--Revue Aeronautique International did that and published them in their annual statistics work. I just interpreted the data on the cover and combined the information from multiple sources to explain a route--IMHO not original research as defined in WP:NOR. Any editor could look at the cover's data, review those publications (they are publically available in the right libraries) and draw the same or different conclusion and modify the description accordingly. If anyone chooses to subtlely vandalize, the only defense is having serious editors remain vigilant on articles they are interested in. The INCLUSIONIST philosophy promotes serious, continued interest in a large variety of WP articles that interest people. The DELETIONIST philosophy can drive editors to essentially not care because its too hard to fight.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you have sources, it's just that nobody stays vigilant forever; people quit, they lose interest, etc. I don't have a good answer for covers; I don't have much philatelic literature of my own on rates and routes, so although I think I qualify as a serious editor, I wouldn't even know which publications to go looking for (our general articles on postal history could be a good resource if they were more comprehensive). On inclusionism/deletionism, although people fight over it, I think it doesn't really apply here, because we have sources whose very existence sufficiently demonstrates notability. The big fights come up when people try to build articles on obscure subjects using only primary sources (which they shouldn't be doing anyhow imho). Stan (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Stan – I want to raise this discussion a notch here and see how it plays in Philatelic articles. In the above discussion, WW2Censor made the following comment: but this airmail stamps article is imho way too detailed for an encyclopaedia. That’s the kind of ‘’deletionist’’ philosophy which I find very challenging in WP. Here's why! At any level of abstraction, for any topic that in itself might be a suitable WP article ask yourself this question: What is a suitable level of detail for an encyclopedia (relative to the topic)? Is is 10%, 25%, not more that 75% of the knowledge about the topic? I don't know how to answer the question. Take the following article Water. Is it too detailed or not detailed enough? It is a pretty interesting article with lots of branches to explore. OK! so water is a pretty ubiquitous thing that is unlikely to have a small constituency on WP, but what about Misnomer a term that I was able to reach arbitrary by clicking on a link in the water article and moving through WP randomly. For word that has a relatively simple meaning, there's alot of detail in the article. Is it too much for an encyclopedia? Too much or too little detail is absolutely an untenable standard to judge an article by because it so arbitrary. Those who edit with a Deletionist philosophy selectively apply WP guidelines to defend their personal feelings about articles whereas the Inclusionist really relies on WP:Verify, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR for content appropriateness. I don't know what the appropriate level of detail is in WP for an encyclopedic article on a philatelic subject. I do know that no matter what the subject, WP:Verify, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are the keys to writing good WP articles. I do know that if the subject of the level of appropriate detail becomes or remains arbitrary based in an individual's feelings, then many who might want to contribute worthwhile stuff will probably do that elsewhere. I won an International Silver once in brand new category: Revenues for an exhibit of Cattle Registrations of the Philippines (1898-1960). It was extraordinarily comprehensive and covered everything from the Spanish period through the Post-WWII republic period. The exhibit contained some previously unknown, but authentic Japanese Occupation material. I still have much of the material and could easily build a comprehensive article on the subject for WP. ( I won't because I'm confident it would be too detailed for some and have to be defended). IMHO, until there is so much philatelic stuff on WP that it demands some really tight oversight to maintain its organization, just about anything ought to stand as long as it meets--WP:Verify, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR --Mike Cline (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Mike, you are reading way too much into what I wrote. I never suggested deletion anywhere; that is your interpretation. I suggested this particular article was too detailed and specialised for an encyclopaedia and that it was more like a specialised catalogue but I never suggested deleting it! So please don't paint me with brush; you have no grounds. To discuss the matter you raised further, here is what I think is the real issue or problem with some of the philatelic articles. There are, like this article, and if you wrote a Cattle Registrations of the Philippines article too, some very specialised articles around when, at the same time, there is not even an attempt at a decent generalised article on the same topic (yes Denmark does have a general article but the Philippines does not, yet).

What I am suggesting is that if it is somehow possible we should be concentrating our efforts, for now, into generalisation rather than specialisation. I know full well that philatelic collectors have become specialists and there are really no generalists around any more. More's the pity, but that bias, if you will, is coming through here too which is a pity because the primary purpose of an encyclopaedia is to impart general knowledge. How do we solve that problem, when there are so few knowledgeable philatelic Wikpedians? I don't have an answer to that. Maybe there is some way we encourage philatelic editors to start with the basics and fill in the detail later. Horse before cart, not cart before horse!

As an example, here we have a detailed article about Denmark's airmail stamps when both Airmail and Aerophilately, as base articles are a disgrace. Mind you I am working on a major revision of the Airmail article which is under construction here right now and is based partly on the translation of the German featured article de:Flugpost but it is not ready yet; there is lots to do. Aerophilately was/has been a collaboration for a long time but no one has even put mouse to mouse-pad yet on that one, except for a few new references Mike added last month. Recently it dawned on me that we probably need to advertise the Philately Project to the wider philatelic community. I wonder if a well written article in the The American Philatelist would bring in some interested people. It may be worth a try. BTW, I suggest we continue this discussion in a more appropriate place where a wider audience can get involved, unless we are pretty much done for now. ww2censor (talk) 22:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

WW2Censor - Indeed there was no attempt to brand you one way or another and the term Deletionist does paint a more easily misinterpreted meaning than inclusionist. I really don't know your track record so if my comments came across wrong, I apologize. I was merely using your specific comments as indications of what I was trying to convey. I never thought that this article was in jeapordy of deletion nor were you suggesting it. Your points about the relative state of a variety of philatelic articles are right on the mark. Clearly, wider participation is needed. But WP is built in a fitful way, bits and pieces at a time. Some bits are extraordinarily detailed while their eventual parents and framework lay round in a disorganized state. The hope for WP is that some day it all comes together. Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia is a serious and useful ideological debate.

PS - In June you rated the Airmail article as a START class article which is defined as: An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources. -- In other words the article doesn't have enough detail. Were you wrong in your rating?--Mike Cline (talk) 23:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Your apology is accepted for sure. Besides looking at some of the philatelic article I have started, you can check out my track record in my contribution page, but also by knowing I maintain the Portal:Philately, have completely redesigned the template Template:Postalhistorybycountry and brought Postage stamps of Ireland to FA for a start. to answer your question, indeed I think my assessment of Airmail was correct at the time because for sure it was: incomplete and lacked adequate reliable sources. Though under construction, have a look at the draft revised airmail article and you will see a good start at what I hope will be at least a B-class article.

Stating that the wiki is developed in fits and starts is correct and we do need wider participation but how we achieve is the $64,000 question. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 02:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Volunteers work best on what they're most interested in, and so every part of WP is a random mix of survey and in-depth articles. While it may be better for readers to develop the encyclopedia breadth-first, detailed articles are valuable as "pioneers", often raising design and organizational issues for the first time. Stan (talk) 11:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed Stan is totally right but we should still encourage editors to work on the general articles too, even though they have specialist interests. Since joining in nearly three years ago I have become involved in both general and specialised topics I did not previously have a deep interest in. ww2censor (talk) 12:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Spread the word

ww2censor (talk) commented-

Recently it dawned on me that we probably need to advertise the Philately Project to the wider philatelic community. I wonder if a well written article in the The American Philatelist would bring in some interested people.

I think everyone agrees that there are too few editors working on philately. I tried to get people in two organizations I am a member of to participate, but so far no luck. It might be a good idea to draft a short article for The American Philatelist. I would suggest starting with an overview of what Wikipedia has on philately, how Wikipedia works (anyone can contribute), and what's needed (lots). It might be nice if the article is a true collaboration, as an example of what Wikipedia is actually like. Ecphora (talk) 02:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

So, let's set up a sandbox/draft page somewhere in the project and get it started, but I cannot help out for a little while as I am working on 2 difficult issues right now. I will lobby a few other philatelic editors. ww2censor (talk) 02:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I took a stab at it. See User:Ecphora/sandbox. Also, Ww2censor, could you add some discussion of this on the Portal or other appropriate pages? Thanks. Ecphora (talk) 09:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I added a section relative to solicting editors from the realm of philatelic exhibitors. This is really the group of editors (if we can get many to participate) that will raise the level of Wikipedia philately up several notches. In terms of WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, award-winning philatelic exhibits don't need much alteration. Wikifying them and integrating their subject matter into the overall philatelic scheme is the real challenge, but one I think we all would like to face.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I also think this appeal ought to a bit broader (not just the APS) but to any number of specialized societies and groups. I think once our appeal to the APS is agreed upon. It should be adapted immediately to any other group we can think of that might give it some coverage. In I wrote briefly for the AMMS journal and they were always clammering for more content. I suspect it is the same for all the societies and journals. Bottomline: We shouldn't care where we get new editors from as long as they bring expertise and have an interest in some aspect of philately--details or general.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think it's great you all want to try some outreach. Perhaps it might be done informally, too, through listservs or bulletin boards (i.e., internet equivalents). If an article is submitted, you might want to say more about the structure/content of philately articles, current state of progress (e.g., FA/GAs), and less about the editing process (e.g. 2nd paragraph in current draft). On the other hand, you might want to mention that it takes a certain kind of personality and patience to deal with collaborative editing and our encyclopedia policies. Even w/o an article, I suspect you can create more buzz thru listservs and blog posts etc. Anyway, more power to you. HG | Talk 22:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a very good idea to me. I do a lot of "evangelising" for WP chemistry (my main field of interest), and it is helpful (in fact I had an email today from someone who heard a recent talk, asking how to contribute!) I took a look at the Sandbox version, and it seems good as a plea for help; this would be suitable for some environments, but IMHO it reads more like an advertisement than an article. I don't read the philatelic press much these days (though I used to read paper copies of "Stamps" avidly for years), but I wonder if a more descriptive piece may be more appropriate, with a single sentence at the end saying something like, "The Philately Project encourages interested readers to help in improving the coverage of philatelic subjects on Wikipedia." I think a stamp magazine would be more likely to publish an informative article focussing on how philately is organised on WP - we don't want to sound too "pushy". (However, there are probably other venues where a "please help" piece would be more effective.) What do you think? I'd be happy to help with copyediting if needed. Walkerma (talk) 05:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

By all means, please revise the draft. Thanks. Ecphora (talk) 07:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

My initial reaction to the draft was that it seems too formal in tone, not casual and interesting enough for a philatelic reader. Perhaps Walkerma can assist in this regard, but unfortunately I have not had any time to make any revisions myself. ww2censor (talk) 15:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Bad link?

The Europeanstamps link under Resources does not appear to be working. Ecphora (talk) 12:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that yesterday. It was offline late 2007 and early 2008 but come online again several months ago. Let's keep our eye on it and see what happens. Maybe it is just a temporary glitch. ww2censor (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It is online today again; my first time checking it for a week. ww2censor (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Self-referentialism

I have moved the page, List of country articles containing postal sections to Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately/List of country articles containing postal sections. Being primarily used by this project for organization and being self referential it didn't belong in the main article space.

As well the template {{WikiProject Philately Notice}} is inappropriate for the article space. If the pages that template is being used on is only for this project I request those pages be moved to the project space too.—[DeadEyeArrow – Talk – Contribs] 05:40, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

We need a list of all countries (alive and dead) that have issued stamps, somewhere/somehow, but there has been some dispute about the form such a list should take. The template should go on talk pages in any case. Stan (talk) 13:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

That template is only used on a few pages, so I will move it to the talk pages. ww2censor (talk) 17:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Postal Authority Rename Proposal

I added a short proposal to rename Postal Authority to Postal Administration to its talk page - Talk:Postal_authority#Proposed_Rename_to_Postal_Administration

What do you all think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Cline (talk • contribs) 13:27, 28 July 2008)

Please follow up at the link above, not here. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 20:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:PD-BY-exempt

I am informing you today that, as of right now, that license now covers stamps from the Republic of Belarus. So any stamp officially issued by the Republic of Belarus and that has the following "sign of postage printed on paper and carrying an artwork, and inscriptions "БЕЛАРУСЬ", "BELARUS", year of issue (in Arabic letters) and a par value (in Arabic figures). The par value of postage stamp may be designated in letters." are fair game and in the public domain. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

There are several more ex-USSR Public Domain templates at commons:Category:PD-exUSSR-exempt license tags that are available for use on this wiki too. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 13:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, some did already cover stamps for many years, such as the Russian Federation; I just announced the Belarus template here last night due to the fact the law, thus template, was changed very very recently. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 15:07, 30 July 2008 (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.