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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.

Valuation of cancellations of the Austrian Empire

Any views on this one? Should it be changed to Postmarks of the Austrian Empire which might be more in tune with this Wiki's objectives? Philafrenzy (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I was not very happy with the title or structure of this article when I first noticed it and with the extensive use of Mueller's Handbook valuations it may also be a copyright violation. I'm not sure what to do with it but we are not a valuation database or catalogue per WP:NOPRICES and WP:NOTCATALOG. ww2censor (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
My initial reaction upon seeing the article was to send it to AFD, but upon reflection I do think it can be salvaged if someone with knowledge in the area has a go at tidying it up. One thing I do think is that it should be moved to something like Postal markings of the Austro Empire and less emphasis placed on valuations. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
It wouldn't be difficult to change it to a postal history article along those lines. It would be a pity to lose all of the content. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Will someone with some Austrian knowledge port this into a postal history article or shall we ADF it? ww2censor (talk) 18:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I think it's acceptable as is (a little odd, but no more so than many articles) or could be generified. I don't see enough valuations to be copyright issue, they are just a sample from a large-ish work. Stan (talk) 19:04, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Posta Europea

Does anyone know anything more about this postal service? It might warrant an article though it is mentioned in the Egypt post and postage stamp articles. ww2censor (talk) 18:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

More, including a bibliography, here: http://www.egyptstudycircle.org.uk/PostalHistory/pe.html Philafrenzy (talk) 00:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Correios De Timor-Leste

Hello all, Please try to expand this article Correios De Timor-Leste Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahman.safwan (talk • contribs) 22:34, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Did the obvious stuff. Doesn't seem to be a lot to base an article on. They don't seem to have a website. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

File:German postage stamp in honor of Heinrich Göbel.png

File:German postage stamp in honor of Heinrich Göbel.png has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 23:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Postcard from Caradog Roberts to Rachel Jenkins.jpg

File:Postcard from Caradog Roberts to Rachel Jenkins.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.245.196 (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Philip Sutton

Could someone with knowledge of UK stamps please add details of Philip Sutton (artist)'s designs to the article on him? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

As recent stamps of Royal Mail they will still be under copyright. Could consider a fair use image. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, but I asked for details not images. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
OK. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

WP Philately in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Philately for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 14:58, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Stamp CA 1973 8c Xmas.jpg

image:Stamp CA 1973 8c Xmas.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 04:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

2006 definitives (british postage stamps).jpg

image:2006 definitives (british postage stamps).jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 06:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Irl 9shillingPO.png

image:Irl 9shillingPO.png has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

File deletions and WPPHILATELY

I've been informed that images are not in the concern of this project, so I will discontinue providing notices to the deletion of stamp images and the like to this project. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't distort what I wrote. I did not tell you that images were no concern to this project, I said that tagging images with this project's banner is not something we do because we don't assess images under the assessment criteria and therefore we do not track such tags. That is an entirely different thing than having no concern. If assessing images is to be an assessment feature we can always discuss it merits. As you pointed out images without project banners do not appear on the Article Alert reports, so for images up for deletion, you may of course place a notice here if you wish. This is something I also told you. ww2censor (talk) 08:39, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I apologize, I misread that. For some reason I read that as Philately does not concern itself with images. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Gold mining at Kolar Gold Fields, India.jpg

image:Gold mining at Kolar Gold Fields, India.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Many stamps up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2013_July_22 -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Letter to Russia with krokozyabry.jpg

image:Letter to Russia with krokozyabry.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia of Postal Authorities

The original of this site appears now to be dead. It is archived here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20121102091100/http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/home.html

Philafrenzy (talk) 10:38, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

There are around 100 references to it as a source for country articles, most of which refer to it as the Encyclopaedia of Postal History, though that does not appear to be the correct name. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
All dead links have been replaced by a link to the webarchive version. Same applies to the former AskPhil site which is currently being redeveloped. ----Jack | talk page 18:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Postmarks ad nauseam

We currently have Cancellation (mail), Postmark, Postal marking, Cachet, Private cancellation and Marcophily, plus some others. Clearly this is an important area but I suspect that there is plenty of scope for some mergers here? Philafrenzy (talk) 09:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

There's definitely much overlap here. Postmark, perhaps in theory a mark only showing the date and place where posted, often is used as a Cancellation or has killer bars attached. The problem is that both these are already pretty long and if merged would produce something clearly too long. Postal markings is more general and includes a great variety of marks that could be added to a cover; the other articles could be linked from that one. Private cancellation should go and its limited content moved. Cachet is something entirely different. Ecphora (talk) 18:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
It's a reasonable point but not re cachet which is unconnected as Ecphora says. The purpose of postmarking is essentially cancellation so I would suggest that Cancellation (mail) should be the retained article if mergers are proposed. ----Jack | talk page 20:09, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the public would differentiate cachet but I agree. Cancellation is more of a philatelic term and postmark is what they all are to the public. Clearly some cancellations are not postmarks, particularly with revenue stamps for instance, but that distinction could be dealt with in an article. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
I think marcophily should be a separate article too as it is about the study, not about the markings per se. It will never be much more than a stub but that doesn't matter. ----Jack | talk page 06:28, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

List of postal operators

Hello. There are currently two lists of postal operators : List of postal entities and List of national postal services. The former one is mainly based on the UPU membership list but it's unclear what the latter must contain, especially in countries where the postal sector has been liberalized. Even if in those countries the historical monopoly has the largest market share (80 % in the Netherlands, 90 % in Germany, 99 % in France French source) it isn't the only postal operators. The second list currently just seems to be a duplicate of the first (and a non-encyclopedic list of websites...) and maybe they could be merged. This would enable to have a new list, based on the UPU list with : the governmental authority (the ministry), the regulator authority, the designated operator (which means the designated universal service provider responsible for the rights and obligations arising from the UPU Acts), its status and in case of liberalization its market share and its main competitors. What do you think of it? A455bcd9 (talk) 16:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

A455bcd9 brought this issue up on my talk page and I suggested it warranted further discussion. As I replied there, I understood that the List of national postal services was for those national organisations and even though since postal liberalisation other are permitted to provide some postal services, most appear to be, certainly in the French case, international organisations who are now servicing the country. Can they really be termed national postal services? If, for each country, we are to include all those providing postal services no matter how limited or far reaching the list will become extremely unwieldy and overly long. Besides the List of national postal services and List of postal entities, we also have List of members of the Universal Postal Union the latter two are essentially duplicate lists. So now may be the time to merge or consolidate these into a smaller number of dissimilar but associated lists. What way should we go? ww2censor (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
List of postal entities is inadequately titled but it is easily the most useful and informative of the three and should be regarded as the definitive document providing a list of this type. I think it should be expanded using essential and otherwise useful information culled from the other two lists which would then be superfluous. Once we fully understand the scope of the list, a more suitable title should be introduced. ----Jack | talk page 04:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Profile in The Signpost

This project is being profiled in The Signpost here. I have added my comments. If anyone else would like to contribute, now is the time to do so. Also if anyone has any comments on my contributions I should be happy to hear them. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:48, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I eventually added my 2c worth, well more like 95c worth I think as I am accused of being just a little bit verbose. Thanks to all who contributed, so lets hope there will be an increase in philatelic editors from now on. Maybe we should write an article that could be sent to some of the English language philatelic publications, such as the APS's American Philately, Linn's Stamp News and Gibbons Stamp Monthly. I seem to recall someone started something along those lines a few years ago but it fell by the wayside. ww2censor (talk) 17:55, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

AfD

Reading Oklahoma Statehood Stamp, I notice it was proposed for deletion in 2009 by someone who claimed the subject does not meet WP:N. The result was "keep" following a 4–4 tie on consensus. With this being a very small project, there doesn't seem to be any effective watch on AfD (or, indeed, on the altogether more contentious CfD) for philatelic items. Not sure what can be done about that except to regularly scan the titles in the proposed deletion lists but, if an item is found there, a notice should be posted on this page immediately to alert all members.

Defence of the Oklahoma statehood stamp was mounted mainly by the Oklahoma project as the author was one of its members and had presumably been politely advised of the proposal (or he saw it in his watchlist). The arguments they raised are worth reading, though, as they made some good points about why a particular stamp issued to commemorate a historic event is notable. We could use those in a future case and present Oklahoma as a precedent.

Please be assured that I have no axe to grind with AfD as I think it is an essential function, but it does need watching as notability can sometimes be given a skewed interpretation and perfectly acceptable articles can be lost simply because no one with any relevant knowledge comes forward to offer a rationale. CfD is a different matter entirely and I strongly believe it should be terminated with category control given to projects. ----Jack | talk page 06:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually none of the so called RS have any critical commentary about the stamp itself, just facts about its issuance and design. The only claim was it popularity in-state purchases which is only to be expected and I don't see the other point as very substantive. Being an out-of-copyright stamp with no stamp categories on the commons it did not pop up as an possible issue and I don't think it appeared on the philately alerts page because the banner was not correct. Recently a number of stamp articles both GB (this one and this one), Canadian (like those linked here and US (like this one) have been deleted for notability issues. I suppose anyone can claim each stamp is individually notable but with about 10,000 issues per year there has to be some thing special to justify an article. In depth design and issuance details are not enough to claim notability in my opinion especially as we are not a stamp catalogue which would have all those details. As I have previously stated and argued the foundation has the wikibooks:World Stamp Catalogue where such detail would be far more appropriate. With so few active philatelists I suppose an occasional one will slip through, as do one on other topics or even hoaxes, until someone spots them. Perhaps there is a need now to review all the individual stamp article for notability. ww2censor (talk) 07:51, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
This article is a great example of why we should be routinely using www.webcitation.org to archive web pages in references. There are three references and five external links in the article and every one is now dead. There actually are two stamps, 1957 and 2007, as I am sure all the Americans here know. This would seem to make the case for notability a little stronger as sources for the second one are likely to reference the first. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:08, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree that archived links are useful because of linkrot but all the dead links on Oklahoma Statehood Stamps are available on the WaybackMachine but none of them could be considered thrid-party reliable sources other than one which is not actually about those stamps. ww2censor (talk) 10:45, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
I didn't know there is a philately alerts page. I've corrected quite a few banners lately. ----Jack | talk page 09:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
You might also be interested in the New WikiProject Cleanup Listing Tool that shows how many problems a page has and for how long (sort by count). I have added to the main project page. ww2censor (talk) 10:45, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

France

Following on from the issue of notability of individual stamps or stamp series, the French article is a poor stub yet there are eight (that I can find) individual French stamp articles: Ceres series (France), Colonial Exposition Issue, Heroes of the Resistance, Marianne des Français series, Marianne du 14 Juillet series, Marianne et l'Europe series, Navigation and Commerce issue and Type Sage that are either orphans or are not notable in their own right that can be used to start to pad out the main article which is in dire need of major expansion. Any takers? Anyone got some good French catalogues or other reference books? ww2censor (talk) 08:27, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Veera Puran Appu.jpg

image:Veera Puran Appu.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:55, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Poland/German cover

File:1833 Poland Gostyń stampless.jpg is on the commons and is interesting due to the address town changing both states and names, so might well suit either the German or Polish article. I can't make up my mind. ww2censor (talk) 22:14, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Merging Cover (philately) and Philatelic cover

As far as I can tell, these two articles cover exactly the same topic. The places for discussion are Talk:Cover (philately)#Merger proposal and Wikipedia:Proposed mergers. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Uruguayan pillar boxes and stamps commemorating them

In 1879 Uruguay imported a batch of cast iron hexagonal pillar boxes from England, almost certainly from Cochrane & Co of Dudley, Worcestershire. It is claimed that there were nine of them and that as many as six survive. Most are painted bright yellow, and they form a minor icon of Uruguayan history. In 1993 the Correo Uruguayo commemorated this batch of post boxes with a set of stamps of 50c, $1 and $2.60.[1] Wikimedia has no images of either the pillar boxes or the stamps commemorating them. There are such photos elsewhere online, but all that I have found seem to be copyright "all rights reserved".

Please will any Wikipedian philatelist with any of this set of stamps take photographs and donate them to Wikimedia? And if anyone were to donate photographs of the actual pillar boxes as well, that would also be very welcome. Photos of either the stamps or the pillar boxes would enhance the articles "Pillar box" and "Postage stamps and postal history of Uruguay".

Best wishes Motacilla (talk) 10:49, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The stamps will probably be copyright so you won't be able to use them. You could link to copyright images elsewhere in external links. Have you seen this: www.stampprinters.info/URpen2.pdf‎ ?
How long is this article going to get? It is already very long and you are only up to 1909! I think you should consider moving some of the content to subsidiary articles like "First stamps of Uruguay" or something similar. It could also do with a lot more in-text references. Otherwise, fine work. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:56, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
If you are looking for someone to take and post a photograph of some object located in Uruguay, you might try using one of the request pages. See Category:Wikipedia requested photographs. Ecphora (talk) 14:20, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Barefoot revenue catalogue

I dePRODed Barefoot Catalogue having add a couple of citations. Can anyone add some more as this is a rather well known a decent set of catalogues. ww2censor (talk) 17:28, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this correct?

This recent edit to File:London Post Office Railway.jpg changed much of the description. Was it accurate or just vandalism? ww2censor (talk) 10:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

There is this too in the Flickr collection. Looks like it was designed for a royal visit. I don't think passenger traffic was normal at all but there must have been some because people had to carry out maintenance. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Naming issue

The renaming discussion at Talk:Office national des postes#Requested move may well interest others because it may well affect a wide range of other postal authority's names. ww2censor (talk) 11:33, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Help reviewing Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/American Civil War history on stamps ?

This is way out of my league, could one of y'all take a look? It's AFC-space, so you can add comments directly to the text, top of the article, etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of postage stamps of Pakistan from 2007 to 2017

This deletion discussion may be of interest to this project. Pburka (talk) 12:05, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Assessment request

I've recently expanded the Postage stamps and postal history of Puerto Rico. Is this the place to request an assessment? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done, but it is actually here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately/Assessment#Requesting an assessment. ww2censor (talk) 14:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Any critique as it now has a) no image files bleeding into unaligned text, b) more complete sources, c) uses more resources available at Wikimedia Commons (from 3 to 8), and d) includes three new uploads expanding the Commons data base? Any comment is welcome. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Christmas seal category deletion at Commons

This discussion may interest people here: Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:1948 US Christmas Seal.jpg. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Stamps v. baseball cards

NFC policy allows commercial baseball cards to be featured in topical articles on baseball players with descriptive language alongside, why not USPS stamps in topical philately articles? See WP:NFC#UUI #8. Stamps exceed baseball cards in notability by virtue of their origin, a Congressional Joint Resolution. They exceed baseball cards in public circulation. No harm is done USPS by reproducing the images, only the stamps themselves can be used for lawful postage.

Why not allow USPS images in topical philately articles as stubs, then as descriptive narrative and commentary are added they become C class articles as at Puerto Rico on stamps or B-class articles as at Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps with about 40 viewers per day? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

A good example of a NFC stamp image used in a topical capacity can be found in the Breast cancer research stamp article. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
That is an example of an article written to one stamp alone. There can also be topical philately articles. These investigate how cultural expression of significant events are commemorated by a visual medium, stamps, as promulgated by Congressional Joint Resolutions. USPS permits use of their stamps for educational use, and that is the purpose fulfilled at Wikipedia in topical philately articles. The visual medium requires a visual representation for encyclopedic treatment of the subject, the stamp image in its entirety for purposes of identification of the stamp.
When the topical context is provided and a description is presented by a reliable source, which can be either USPS itself or Smithsonian Institute’s National Postal Museum, the USPS fair use license is satisfied for WP purposes, for stamps just as it is for commercially published baseball cards with a more limited circulation. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:05, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

USPS template images orphaned for deletion

At WP:NFU review, editors are defended orphaning then deleting six of the USPS stamp images with the fair use template at Puerto Rico on stamps, a topical philately article, — and seven others in two other articles, four of which have been resolved because USPS used reproductions of free-use art and simply added their label, so the images themselves are held as uncopyrightable.

All had description of the non-free USPS licensed upload images in conformance with WP:NFCI (non-free content, images) 3. Stamps and currency: For identification of the stamp or currency, not the subjects depicted on it. That consideration was dismissed, the recommendation was to use an online source such as Arago: people, postage & the post, can be used, describe the stamp image and link it to the online source for readers to obtain the visual information.

On the contrary, I believe that a simple statement of description from a primary (USPS) source may be sufficient commentary. Two other editors agree. That seems to be backed up at WP:NFC#UUI 8. A baseball card is not fair use to illustrate the article on Barry Bonds unless "to illustrate a passage on the card itself; see the Billy Ripken article." That is, use of a USPS stamp after 1978 can be fair use if the stamp has a passage describing the stamp itself alongside.

Additionally, unlike demands for third party reliable source critical commentary before displaying a stamp image in a topical philately article, I believe WP:NFCC 8. Contextual significance. applies: Non-free content of visual information found on the entire stamp image "significantly increases reader’s understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.” Stamps are a visual medium, it is not sufficient to describe them with text alone.

Is my understanding mistaken, and if not, what is the appropriate place for appeal?TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

TVH, had you simply restored the images and stood by your edits, per 3RR rule, demanding a discussion and a broader consensus on a per article/image basis, the images would not be orphans and hence automatically eligible for deletion. If it's not too late I'd give that option some thought. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:40, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, but the seven day limit is past for all twelve uploads, although Mercy11 tried to keep the Puerto Rico Flag by restoring the file, but without replacing it on Puerto Rico on stamps, it too is gone...justice delayed is justice denied.
My previous experience in trying to uphold a consensus outcome from a Dispute Resolution is, that when an editor confronts an administrator, the administrator can blank the outcome, and I am blocked for violating the 3RR rule, not the disrupting administrator. On the other hand, I have now uploaded over 80 stamp images related to topics I am interested in, published three philately topical articles and working on expanding one and adding two more.
It seems that the lack of response here indicates the issue is not yet "ripe" as the Supreme Court would say, for stamps to match baseball cards, video games or TV shows as visual media on Wikipedia in their own philately right. But I am interested in participating in that policy change whenever it is undertaken, because I believe such a policy change is justified under the existing USPS fair use licensing. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
As far as I know, even if an administrator deletes one of your edits a forth time he/she is in violation of the 3RR. Unless the deleting administrator is reverting vandalism or clear cases of copyright violations, there is no justification, esp in opinionated matters when no discussion occurred before the deletions took place. Disagreements about 'critical commentary' and 'needed v. not needed images' are something else entirely. And you can always appeal any blocking. It happens all the time. Administrators are not gods and can be called to account if they abuse or take advantage of their administrative privileges to get over in a debate with another editor. As far as I know, an uninvolved administrator can only block you, and again only in cases where there is vandalism, sock-puppetry and other clear cases of serious policy violations. If that same editor follows you around from one article to the next and resorts to the same tacky and opinionated arguments as justification for such behavior then there are also 'Hounding issues at stake. It seems there are plenty of NFC examples in place to support many if not all of your contributions. Having an image removed from WP simply because it was orphaned on the basis of someone's opinion about 'critical commentary', etc, seems a shame. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 11:43, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Philatelic journals or Philatelic magazines

Should category Philatelic journals be renamed Philatelic magazines? Comment here. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Including USPS nfc stamp images

You may be interested in the articulate discussion between two administrators, Jheald (pro) and Masem (con) on the subject of including USPS stamp images in topical philately articles at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 63#RfC: Is stamp non-free content use explained by WP:NFCI Guideline #3?. Survey. Support. Coat of Many Colours. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:32, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not in fact an admin, but I have hung round WT:NFC for what seems a very long time.
The issues in the current discussion at WT:NFC include (as I see them):
  • Most concretely, is the specific image File:Virginia ratification 1988 U.S. stamp.1.jpg being used appropriately on the article History of Virginia on stamps ?
  • More generally, what is the policy framework that should be applied for other post-1978 stamps (and I believe there are others, even relating just to the history of Virginia) in this and other articles on themes in stamps ?
  • Is the guideline WP:NFCI #3 relevant here ? If so, what steer does it give the discussion ?
  • Specifically on the meaning of WP:NFCI #3, which says that it can be okay just to use a stamp "for identification" (i.e. simply to show what the stamp looks like). How should this be interpreted ? If for example a person X has been featured on a stamp, and that fact is mentioned in the article, is it okay to show what the stamp looked like, if the image is being used specifically in the context of the stamp, rather than as the main identification of person X at the top of the article ?
  • Plus, something that has emerged in the discussion: Do we think that the subject of an article title like "History of Virginia on stamps" should be considered a fully first-rank encyclopedic topic, worthy of encyclopedic consideration in its own right? Or do we consider it as some kind of second-rank topic, merely an adjunct or a spin-out of "History of Virginia", not worth encyclopedic consideration in its own right, but being presented separately for reasons of space?
Perspectives of those working in articles in this area, as to what the best ways forward would be, would I think be useful. Jheald (talk) 13:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Stamp good article reviewer - sought!

Hello,

I've just created the article for the first Belgian stamp, the "Epaulettes", created in 1849. I just wondered if anyone could possibly fill the infobox in with a catalogue value for the type? Thanks! Brigade Piron (talk) 21:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It's now up for GA review, I'd welcome any potential reviews! Brigade Piron (talk) 07:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
It's still there - it'd be great if someone from this project could do the review. As far as I know, it's the only Philately GAN around! Brigade Piron (talk) 08:02, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Still looking :( Brigade Piron (talk) 09:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 13/06

Draft:Postal Certification. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:36, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

German stamps and Argentinian meter images

These two issues are in disucssion at the Commons Village pump at c:Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Loriot and old German stamps and c:Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Postal cancellations: presumably public domain but... and I think your imput will be appreciated. ww2censor (talk) 14:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Philately at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 09:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Harry Potter or Daniel Radcliffe?

I'm going through some of my references today to add more information to the list of people on stamps of the United States, but I'm split on adding the information for the Harry Potter issue of November 2013. The stamps show still photos from the films, so I'm tempted to put the actor names rather than the character names. Thoughts? Thanks. Slambo (Speak) 16:30, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

For my 2¢ worth, I would put Harry Potter with a description "Film character" because it is not, as such the actor who is commemorated. However, you may want to llok at the other stamps where it says "actor" and see if the stamp was for the film of the actor themselves. ww2censor (talk) 18:08, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
I would say, is the person on the stamp depicted wearing glasses or not? If he is, it's Harry Potter, because Daniel Radcliffe doesn't wear them in real life. Plus, living people don't appear on U.S. stamps, AFAIK. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:11, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps listing them as CharacterName (as portrayed by ActorName) would work? But now that I think about it further, the Star Wars stamps issued in 2007 aren't listed on that page either and they have almost the same situation of listing the character or the actor. However, the Star Wars stamps weren't photos from the films but paintings of characters and scenes in the films. Maybe it's time to start a list of fictional characters on stamps of the United States page where these and others (like the folk heroes in the set issued in 1996) can be listed. The other actors on the list are commemorated as themselves; even though the stamps sometimes show actors in character (like the 1997 movie monsters set showing Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr., all in costume with their film character names shown as well), the actors' names are shown either in the stamp design or on the pane that included the stamps. As to commemorating living people on US stamps, that policy changed in 2011 (USA Today article about the change). Slambo (Speak) 03:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Looking further, I see there was a discussion already about the Star Wars stamps with the suggestion then to make a list of fictional characters on US stamps. So I've started it in my userspace by looking through my copy of the 2006 Scott catalog. So far, I purposely left out most of the religious characters depicted on Christmas stamps (there's a whole argument that I don't want to get into right now). I also left out mention of generic classes of people (such as the Olympic athletes on the stamps of 1979) and of people depicted in artwork that can be connected back to real people (like Whistler's Mother). I included characters that are identified either explicitly by name or by likeness, but I'm sure that there are some that I missed because the actor images didn't match any that I saw in a quick search (like the character portrayed on the Enrico Caruso stamp of 1987; I don't really know opera, so I couldn't identify the character shown). I got up to about halfway through the 1995 comic strip issue in scanning the catalog and I would appreciate any input from other editors. Slambo (Speak) 22:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, there it is, now in article space. I know that I've missed a couple that are depicted behind the main subject (like on the directors stamps) or where I couldn't identify exactly which character is shown (like on many of the opera singer commemoratives). I also purposely left out the depictions of Joseph and Mary and of the Madonna and child that have appeared on recent Christmas issues, instead opting to solicit discussion on the talk page regarding their inclusion. There are more references that we can find for the list, especially from newspaper accounts of more recent issues, or from other philatelic publications, and I expect to work on that as an ongoing project. Slambo (Speak) 01:48, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
...and now it's submitted as a DYK nomination for the main page. Slambo (Speak) 17:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Stamp catalog numbers

The use of Scott catalog numbers was discussed here 3+ years ago and a renewed duscussion on the same topic is now taking place. ww2censor (talk) 13:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Timbres magazine

Is up for deletion here. Any views? Philafrenzy (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! Harej (talk) 15:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

AfD

I've raised an AfD on one article as a representative of the many created for people listed on the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists for whom their listing on the roll seems to be their sole claim to notability. All discussion welcome. Bazj (talk) 15:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:Philately articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 06:31, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

William H. Ahmanson, collector of Canadian stamps

Hello. I have created an article about William H. Ahmanson, an American businessman and philanthropist who was also a philatelist. I have added some referenced info about his donation of an extensive collection of Canadian stamps to the National Postal Museum. I will try to expand this further, and I thought I'd mention it here in case some of you are able to find more referenced info about this. Btw, watch out because his nephew (his brother Robert H. Ahmanson's son) is also called William Hayden Ahmanson. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:34, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

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Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Yury Serebryakov

I have just nominated this for deletion as a search on my sources failed to find and mention of this person. Russian speakers may do better. Philafrenzy (talk) 12:33, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Linns's

Do anyone else notice that the Linn's have redesigned their website but lacking any search ability so all the refresher course links we have used are now broken, offline, dead or unavailable. The ones I noticed can be found by the Wayback Machine, so we can add archiveurl and archivedate fields to the citation templates. Please update any you find and convert untemplated citations into templated ones to use those fields. This search suggest there are Linn's Refresher Course links in 39 articles so should not take too long if a few people help out, especially on the articles they are interested in. Thanks in advance. ww2censor (talk) 14:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Philatelic magazines vs. Philatelic journals

Moved from Talk:Kollektsioner § Kollektsioner is not magazine

Discussion moved from Talk:Kollektsioner

15:29, 17 June 2015‎ Randykitty (talk | contribs)‎ . . (5,171 bytes) (-13)‎ . . (Undid revision 667361844 by Michael Romanov (talk) Please do not add non-existing cats; we have cat "philatelic journals" and "philatelic magazines", this falls in the latter)

The fact is that Kollektsioner is NOT magazine. It is an annual philatelic research journal. What's the point in introducing Category:Philatelic magazines? I am returning Kollektsioner to Category:Philatelic journals. --Michael Romanov (talk) 20:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Further discussion needed

Do we need to introduce a new Category:Philatelic magazines? And if yes, do we need to recategorize all articles in Category:Philatelic journals? --Michael Romanov (talk) 00:26, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Yes, Category:Philatelic magazines exists because you created it just recently, on 25 May 2015. As far as I can see the problem, the possible solutions could be as follows:
1. All articles from Category:Philatelic journals are moved to Category:Philatelic magazines. The former is deleted, the latter is maintained from now on.
2. Articles about publications produced by commercial companies are moved to Category:Philatelic magazines. Those that have a strong philatelic research content and issued by philatelic societies are kept in Category:Philatelic journals.
3. All articles are moved to a combined Category:Philatelic journals and magazines.
4. All articles are kept in the original Category:Philatelic journals. The new Category:Philatelic magazines is deleted.
  • That old discussion was closed "no consensus" in April of last year, didn't really remember that. I have not started moving articles between cats ("philatelic journals" has only 14 entries, so that would be the work of minutes). I just categorized the new articles on magazines created by Michael Romanov as "philatelic magazines". Creating a cat is nothing out of the ordinary and does not normally need prior discussion or consensus and I create cats frequently. There are many disadvantages to a "Philatelic periodicals" cat (a argued by almost every participant who commented on that in the discussion linked to above). --Randykitty (talk) 14:27, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I would support separate categories for magazines and journals, or separate categories for journals and academic journals. The terms are similar but the concepts are different and if there are enough items to fill multiple categories then I see no problem in having multiple categories. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:34, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • And — looking at Category:Military journals – are these military JOURNALS peer-reviewed academic publications called true "journals"? Nope. No way. So, I would continue to use the single Category:Philatelic journals unless all interested parties and the whole Wikipedia community come to a definite solution how to treat journals, peer-reviewed academic journals, magazines, etc. in terms of adequate categories. And then, we will just accept the common rule. Okay? --Michael Romanov (talk) 14:40, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I just gave them as examples of categorizing, I didn't say they are perfect... Having said that, I checked just the first two entries, and they seem to be bona fide peer-reviewed academic journals, not magazines. Having separate category trees for academic journals and magazines goes back many years, judging from the histories. It also makes sense, because academic journals really are a particular form of periodical. We have thousands of articles categorized in some "journal" cat or another. I don't doubt that several (perhaps even many) are incorrectly categorized. But that is an argument in the sense of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS: it is not a reason to follow that example, but a reason to clean up and correct those incorrect categorizations. --Randykitty (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
What this is all about IMHO is an effort to eventually restrict Journal categories to academic journals. There simply isn't the consensus to do so and I don't think this is the place to achieve it. As Michael Romanov suggests, that discussion should be taking place elsewhere so that there is a sound basis for the proposed changes. Philafrenzy (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
"Eventually"?? Like it or not, this has been the practice for years. As it is you who wants to change accepted practice, the burden is upon you to show that this would be advantageous for the project. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 15:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with Randykitty that what he describes has been the practice for at least the last 6 or 7 years to separate academic journals (with the understanding that there are some periodicals which can be equally well classified as either--that is, they carry both news & discussion of a science, and research articles --by far the best known of these are Nature and Science. (There is also the special category of "review journals", periodicals that carry only articles of a highly advanced nature reviewing progress in a field, rather than reporting research--the Reports on Progress in Physics and the Annual Reviews in ... series are the best known. We have in fact yet another category for these. )
As the discussion above shows, these distinctions are not obvious from the words "journal" and "magazine", especially because individual publication often use the words in their titles in different senses for historical reason--for example, 'Philosophical Magazine is an academic research journal in physics--it is not a magazine in the usual sense, and it is not about what is now known as philosophy. I would therefore support a category renaming for all the journal categories to academic journal or, possibly, research journal. The present wording, tho clear to specialists , is not clear to others, and WP is not written for specialists. DGG (talk) 17:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Quite clearly Wikipedia's own definition of journal is not exclusive to academic journals per Journal which states: many publications issued at stated intervals, such as academic journals, or the record of the transactions of a society, are often called journals. So while some editors may wish to only define academic journals as journals that is not actually the case and we should not be forced into such a narrow meaning. In the philatelic world the majority of those publications are considered journals, so they are journals. Personally if, after discussion in the appropriate forum WP:CFD and not here, we are not allowed to use the term journal for philatelic publications then we should upmerge those considered by some as magazines and by philatelists as journals, to the main cat Category:Philatelic literature and not to Category:Philatelic magazines. I totally disagree with a combined category Category:Philatelic journals and magazines. While we are discussing this category tree we should move all the authors who are listed under Category:Philatelic literature into the appropriate Category:Philatelic authors‎ because they certainly are not literature. ww2censor (talk) 22:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps we should take this to CFD and rename all current "journal" cats to "academic journal". But before we do so, I'd like to have a better understanding of what people here think is the difference between "academic journal", "journal", and "magazine". According to our description, magazines "are publications, usually periodical publications, that are printed or published electronically. (The online versions are called online magazines.) They are generally published on a regular schedule and contain a variety of content." As I see it, academic journals are a specialized subclass of magazines (namely: periodicals that are peer-reviewed and cover scholarly subjects). What exactly makes these philatelic periodicals "journals" and not "magazines"? (I take it that we can agree that they are not peer-reviewed academic journals)? Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 09:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
To complicate this further, I think it should be noted that not all academic journals are peer reviewed, so I'm not sure that peer review alone can be used to differentiate between (academic) journals and magazines. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:23, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Being peer-reviewed is basically the definition of an academic journal. The form of the peer review may differ (sometimes the peer review is done by the editorial board only - mainly in mathematics), but in principle, if it is not peer-reviewed, it's a magazine. --Randykitty (talk) 14:37, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Good point. I was thinking about peer review in the narrow sense of submissions being blind reviewed by two or three referees, but you're right that it can also just involve the editors. Using that definition, it's correct that all academic journals are peer reviewed. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
There's some evidence for non-referred academic/scholarly journals. It seems only a three-pronged definition works: academic review (peer review, editorial or not); academic audience; and academic content (not just news/views/interviews -- e.g., the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Magazine is a magazine, not a journal, despite being edited by academicians who are peers of the readers). Fgnievinski (talk) 19:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Can you give us one example of an academic journal that is not peer-reviewed?? --Randykitty (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Sure, I gave four in the link above, pls see Talk:Academic journal#evidence, where other relevant quotations are sourced. Fgnievinski (talk) 14:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
That doesn't contain a single example of a non peer-reviewed academic journal. --Randykitty (talk) 14:58, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
@Randykitty: Pls read more carefully: "found the following non-referred academic/scholarly journals in English among the results: Art and Australia, Agricultural Science, The Australian Law Journal, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, etc. (just the first few, in alphabetical order)". Fgnievinski (talk) 15:13, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I am reading carefully and the text that you cite above is nowhere in the comment that you linked. Anyway, the Australian Law Journal has an article here, so it was easy to check its homepage. Took me 30 sec to find out that this journal is peer reviewed, as clearly stated in the [submission guidelines. So I still don't know where you got this, but your source is apparently not very reliable. --Randykitty (talk) 15:55, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
My source is Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, as described in the wikilink that I gave you three times above: Talk:Academic journal#evidence (hint: you may wish to use your browser's search/find option). Fgnievinski (talk) 17:58, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I have moved your anchor, so that it actually goes to what you are trying to link. And I said earlier, wherever this comes from (Ulrich's apparently, I have no access to that service) is not giving correct info, as already the first journal that I checked is most definitely peer reviewed. --Randykitty (talk) 04:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, it's a law journal, so peer review might well have been introduced recently, like in the Stanford Law Review ([1]), which was then still considered an academic law journal nonetheless. Fgnievinski (talk) 04:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Not to mention Law journals. Fgnievinski (talk) 15:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
And since "editorial peer review" leaves the door wide open, I suspect that many publications in the philately literature could be called "scholarly journals" (maybe not "academic journals", as it involves members outside of academia) -- don't they have editorial selection carried out by philately experts for a philately audience describing their philately studies/investigations? Fgnievinski (talk) 19:48, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm talking about peer-review being carried out by editorial board members, not the editors. Not the same thing. --Randykitty (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I understand that "peer review" might be carried out by editorial board members or external invited experts. I, too, thought that "editorial peer review" meant editorial-board peer review (citation needed), but I could only source its usage when referring to the whole of scholarly peer review ([2]), or even external-experts peer review ([3],[4]). It is not to be confused with "editorial review", which may be understood as editorial screening in journals ([5]); the editor's decision based on peer reviews; editorial selection in magazines; and author editing ([6],[7]) in general. So I think we need an article about editorial peer review before it can be used to define academic journal. Fgnievinski (talk) 14:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Dear colleagues, let me sum up the discussion. At the moment, it's not straightforward to reach a consensus on this issue regarding the philatelic journals vs. magazines. Obviously, the issue is part of a more general problem to characterise articles about journals/magazines in Wikipedia as a whole. So, I would stick to the previous Category:Philatelic journals and maintain it as the status quo until more general discussion in Wikipedia results in solving this issue. Based on this consideration, I am taking the liberty and reverting all articles about philatelic journals/magazines to the single Category:Philatelic journals. Thank you. Best regards, --Michael Romanov (talk) 10:49, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
  • If you want a category deleted or merged, you will have to list it at WP:CFD first. I have reverted one of your categorizations as a "journal" instead of a magazine: The American Philatelist. There are several reasons for that. 1/ The webpage of the publication states it is a magazine. Indeed, it has all characteristics of it: 2/ "write your article in a conversational style and in first person", 3/ no peer review, 4/ authors receive an honorarium (try that with an academic journal...) --Randykitty (talk) 12:18, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
    What was "out of process" here was the creation of the category Philatelic magazines in the first place since the previous discussion resulted in no consensus and the closer said "There seems come confusion over the distinction, if any, between "periodical", "magazine" and "journal", and no clear reasoning, except perhaps by example to support one name over another." It is Randykitty that needs consensus here for the existence of Philatelic magazines at all. Philafrenzy (talk) 12:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Not at all. Categories can and are created all the time, no discussion is needed for that. The distinction between academic journals and magazines is made in many areas, from astronomy to health-related subjects, to religion. A sweeping decision to do away with that distinction really cannot be made at one small subproject. --Randykitty (talk) 12:51, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
I doubt it's reasonable to insist on a specific POV if there is no consensus. And doubtfully it's understandable to introduce someone's own status quo in the absence of consensus. Hope for your understanding and cooperation. Best regrads, --Michael Romanov (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Category talk:Postcards#"Postcards of..."

There is a call for re-categorizing "Postcards of country X" based on a country depicted on a postcard and ignoring country that actually issued it. For instance, if a postcard (e.g. Commons:File:Indian stretcher bearers at work (Gallipoli) (14831089314).jpg) issued in Australia depicts Turkey, it should now be in the category Commons:Category:Postcards of Turkey. The discussion is open here. Thank you. --Michael Romanov (talk) 09:22, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Post towns in the United Kingdom

Category:Post towns in the United Kingdom, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.RevelationDirect (talk) 00:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Up to 10,000 German stamps may be deleted from the commons

You may not be aware of the public domain issues about the German stamps, instigated after a March 2012 German court decision, which started this Commons review process c:Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/German stamps review that stalled late in 2012. You should read that page and its associated talk page where about 10,000 German stamps have been identified as possibly being copyright violations. A new discussion started a week ago c:COM:VP#What to do with German Stamps? which has prompted a start to deletion nominations in batches. However other than myself, it does not appear any German editors or other philatelists from any wiki have had any input. If all these stamps are removed from the commons, I estimate that the global wiki effect could be noticed in anywhere between 15–50K articles. More reviewers will be needed to determine which images are good and which must go. Some can possibly be moved to those language wikis that allow non-free media in certain circumstances like the enwiki. Please review this issue and if you can assist please do so. ww2censor (talk) 10:55, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Going to the source.

So, I finally asked the USPS about its copyright policy for using stamp images on Wikipedia, published by a non-profit foundation. The answer is:

The following uses of copyrighted material generally do not require prior approval from Integration and Planning:

663.31 Fair Use Exceptions

The use of stamp images, brochures, print advertisements, or other copyrighted materials for educational and news reporting purposes generally do not require prior approval from Integration and Planning. The Postal Service does not require a license for an educational use that is noncommercial and limited to teaching, scholarship, and research. Likewise, it does not require one for the reporting of current news in newspapers, news magazines, news journals, and other media.

For the aforementioned uses, users must cite the source of the image, the United States Postal Service, and include language crediting the Postal Service and noting its rights, such as: “ United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.”

All aforementioned uses must consist of the unaltered, original image or text as issued or published by the Postal Service. Any modification or alteration to an image or to text constitutes an unauthorized use.

It seems to me I can use download images from the Smithsonian Arago.com freely including recent issues. The article Puerto Rico on stamps is to show images as current news in an online encyclopedia. The concern of image misuse for commercial purposes by others "downstream" is accounted for by noting “United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.” Do you read #663.31 in the same way? Basically, WP and Wikicommons are prohibited from cropping or otherwise altering the total stamp image as copyrighted by the Postal Service, and otherwise it can represent the image with attribution. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Only "fair use" images may be hosted here and only "free" images on Commons. That means that you can only use a fair use image in Wikipedia if you have a significant discussion of the image in the relevant article and a rationale for each use of the image in an article. Commons can only have images that are unambiguously out of or free from copyright (or under a CC BY SA licence etc). You won't be able to put any copyrighted image on Commons no matter what disclaimer or caveat you add. In other words, your scope to use copyright U.S. stamps is limited to Wikipedia hosting with a detailed rationale for each use. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
The USPS statement is very clear that their stamps are "All right reserved" and derivative works are not permitted, so in most circumstances we cannot use them. I sort of expected as a long time editor you would appreciate the nuances of the fair use doctrine, which is what the USPS have stated above, as opposed to the enwiki's much stricter policy for non-free media. Besides it being policy and also because there are circumstance where wikipedia material may be sold or used by others, whether commercially, derivatively or both, the educational exception that people often quote as a reason to use copyright images under the fair use doctrine does not apply and cannot be used. For that very reason an attribution is insufficient because post-1977 USPS stamps are simply in copyright. The only current possibility is to ensure that any non-free stamps, US or otherwise, are only used if they comply with all 10 non-free policy guidelines.
However, if you can persuade the foundation to change its licencing policy, then you might have a chance but I can tell you other editors have brought up the same argument over the years, even for a change on this wiki alone, and nothing has happened to change the policy in the last 7 years. You should actually be happy and consider we are rather lucky there is even a non-free exception available to us because many other language wikis do not allow any non-free media at all. These copyright matters are taken so seriously that up to 10,000 German stamps are likely to be removed from the commons due to the legal status of German stamps being clarified which had been thought to be in the public domain. ww2censor (talk) 23:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
@Ww2censor:I thought that the additional blanket permission for news source publication found in the answer to my email would allow stamps in the same way photos of celebrities from the AP (with attribution at wikicommons) get into WP biographies. Stamp images are published online by the postal service, as well as copied by news outlets for public domain distribution. I make no alteration for profitable use, and give the same USPS protections notice for any subsequent user as the USPS uses. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
WW2censor is correct. Wikipedia has its own strict standards for content: either it must be released under a licence which (at a minimum) permits commercial use and derivative works, or else fulfill the WP:NFCC criteria. The fair-use statement you have quoted is only for non-commercial use of the unaltered images and is therefore incompatible with Wikipedia. You'd be better off looking for free (compatibly licenced or public domain) content rather than trying to 'fix' a system that most people don't see as being broken. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what anyone else does outside Wikipedia, we only allow copyright images here with a strong individual rationale for each image. Which AP photos do you refer to? Philafrenzy (talk) 10:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
You also seem to have forgotten that the educational use excuse does not fly here per WP:IUP#Copyright and licensing, so please stop trying to wriggle around the non-free policy. It is what it is and the USPS statement does not help you. Regarding news sources using copyright images, they publish under the fair use doctrine but as you well know we have a much stricter policy. Exactly which celebrity's photos do you know from AP are in their biographies that fail WP:NFCC? Most likely they should be deleted as copyright violations; give me a list and I'll review them. Why do we have to point out the same policies over and over? As I already suggested you need to get the foundation to change its policy. For now you will have to just be content that we can use some non-free stamp images instead of none at all. ww2censor (talk) 12:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, an AP example escapes me. I am not sure it is fair to characterize me as making up excuses or wriggling. But it seems it is enough to present a low resolution version of an image on WP, "unsuitable for commercial reproduction" -- as in the case of product logos in File:Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition logo.jpg, and File:Doom logo color.png. The stamp images fall under the same criteria, --- low resolution unsuitable for counterfeiting. It is not the policy which restricts stamp images, the images as captured from the Smithsonian Institute Arago webpage meet the Foundation criteria.
Note the example of the image of the Julia de Burgos stamp at Puerto Rico on stamps justified on this page with your approval, but since arbitrarily removed some time ago by a drive-by vandal without discussion. The presumption seemed to be against stamp images even though they meet additional tests of literary notability not found in the Foundation policy. A stamp's notability is related to millions of copies of each stamp in circulation and its nomination by an Act of Congress, not in scholarly acclaim of each stamp as a stand alone object of the fine arts.
I persist in trying to convey information about stamps in an online encyclopedia because I believe the knowledge they, along with interpretive narrative, convey important facets of our culture and society of general interest, and that is worthwhile. Ah, the censor would like a list to pursue. I wish you would start removing all the logos for violent games connected with acts of violence, especially those of mass murder, documented at Video game controversies, -- but others have arrived at a consensus that information in an online encyclopedia is an important value to promote in its own right, and I think the same standard should be applied to stamps, a much more benign arena. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:36, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry but you still seem to be wriggling (no offence meant) to try and get around the policy. It's all about what you would like not what complies with policy. You can't support the AP claim you made and the two examples you gave are being used in the infobox of the articles in question which we do allow for specific stamps such the stamps in Jamaica 1968 human rights stamps and HMS Glasgow error though I think this stamp is now in the public domain. The moral issues are a complete aside and we don't take a stand on that here to my knowledge. ww2censor (talk) 09:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
You have clearly misapplied policy, and created something of your own desire, -- is it disliking the idea of an article as a "stamp album" as I recall one editor putting it? I have always included descriptive context interpreting the stamp images for significance. As to your last post, non-free images are not restricted to info boxes, WP:NFCCP #9. "Restrictions on location. Non-free content is allowed only in articles (not disambiguation pages), and only in article namespace", not only Info boxes as you assert -- according to the policy you cited.
Can it be that you do not acknowledge stamps as informational content? But WP:NFCCP #5 says, Content. Non-free content meets general Wikipedia content standards and is encyclopedic. That is my desire, adding informative content to the online encyclopedia, and informative content includes visual images of postage stamps, a government sponsored aid to national and international exchange of information and commerce.
Can stamps after 1978 be encyclopedic content? yes, WP:NFCCP #10.b.links to Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Non-free content which specifies "use of **{{Non-free USGov-USPS stamp}}—for images of U.S. stamps issued in 1978 or later", a template I have used for every stamp download for use in article namespaces. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Clair Aubrey Huston or Clair Aubrey Houston

which is it? the article title, Clair Aubrey Houston, and the article text do not match. Frietjes (talk) 15:22, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Post & Go stamps

There should be an article about Post & Go stamps, which were introduced in the United Kingdom in 2008, but are now being issued elsewhere such as in Jersey since 2014, and Guernsey, Gibraltar and Qatar since 2015. I don't know a lot about the topic, but I could try to help out in writing the article if someone else is willing to help. Some useful links:

Xwejnusgozo (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I have recently started an article on Post & Go stamps, you are welcome to add information. In particular, I am curious to learn about the Qatar issues, and aren't there also similar stamps from Ireland? --Schlosser67 (talk) 14:19, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
@Schlosser67: Nice work on the article :) I added a couple of sentences about the stamps of Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar and Qatar. I'm aware of the Irish issues (which are apparently called "Stamps on a Roll" - see here) but I can't find a reliable source containing information about them. If I do manage to find something, I'll add it to the article. Best regards, Xwejnusgozo (talk) 18:35, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
This webpage was linked from the one you gave above. Some of these issues of The Collector Magazine may be of some help, This 2010 issue makes a few mentions which appear to be introductory year. ww2censor (talk) 23:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Lists of birds on stamps

All the lists of birds on stamps are up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of birds on stamps of Bophuthatswana (not just the one mentioned). There was a previous discussion on the notability of such lists 5+ years ago, actually about the fist on stamps lists, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 6#Notability of topical lists. You may want to contribute your thoughts. ww2censor (talk) 17:47, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Adelaide 2016 provisional

There should be an article on the Adelaide 2016 provisional, an unusual modern provisional issue which generated some press coverage:

That is not an emergency or provisional stamp, they is simply make-up rate stamps that many countries have issued to make up the difference between a new rate and the previous rate before stamps at the new rate are available. There are far more notable stamps that should have articles long before this. A make up stamp which actually redirects to Non-denominated postage that some make up stamps were (see Non-denominated postage#Letter-denominated stamps), could be made into a real article that would include this stamp. IMHO, that's all it's worth. ww2censor (talk) 17:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
The unusual thing about the issue is that it is a rarity now worth $1000s, which is almost unheard of for modern stamps. The fact that a provisional issue was issued in Australia also makes it notable - it's not like it was issued by a country such as Guyana or Benin which have countless numbers of provisionals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.11.121.43 (talk) 00:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
They may be worthy of mention at Provisional stamp (if anyone feels like expanding the article to a whole-world perspective), but there isn't really anything more notable than the hard-to-find provisional overprints of dozens of countries; except possibly that someone on ebay has managed to prove that there is, indeed, one born every minute. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
As previously stated, no matter your opinion, it is not a provisional stamp, it's a make up stamp that apparently several foolish people are prepared to pay silly money for. The make up stamp redirect should be separated out from the non-denominated postage to include mention of this stamp, if someone is prepared to do some work on it. ww2censor (talk) 10:32, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
I think we may be 'divided by a common language' here. I don't see any reason why the 4c rose of 1980 (Scott 693) or the 5c blob of 2007 (no idea of Scott number - my Scott catalogue is much older than that) can't be provisional stamps (temporary issues) and make-up rate stamps (increasing 10c to 14c, and 45c to 50c) at the same time. I agree, though, that I wouldn't call a 30c stamp in any way 'undenominated'. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:15, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

On what basis isn't it a provisional issue? The Adelaide issue is definitely "a postage stamp issued for temporary use (it was only sold for a couple of days in early January) to meet postal demands until new or regular stocks of stamps can be obtained (it stopped being sold after regular stamps arrived)". Although the issue consists of counter-printed stamps, they were sold at post offices at face value, so they are postage stamps. I don't think that the people who bought this issue are "foolish" - it is a rare issue from a popular country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.11.101.215 (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

A new page make up stamp has been created that mentions this issue amongst other such stamps issued. Please add any others you know of with suitable citations. ww2censor (talk) 23:03, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

About some proposals on WT:VA/E

I proposed to add stationery, letter (message), greeting card & postcard to WP:VA/E. Any members of this WikiProject are encouraged to vote on the proposals.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Creating a Stamp Database As Part of the Wikipedia Philately Project

One of the great frustrations collectors have is finding basic information regarding stamps that they may come into possession. Another big complaint among many collectors is that it is often frustrating to have to deal with the multitude of stamp catalogues when trying to identify stamps and purchase stamps in the marketplace, especially from markets outside the collector's home nation. I believe that the Philately Portal at Wikipedia could play a valuable role in helping resolve these concerns by creating a Database of Stamp Issues that would include both Stamp Identification Data from the relevant global-scope catalogues as well as information from Specialized Catalogues, and include the basic technical information regarding a stamp (perforation, dimensions, date of issue, etc). Given that Wikipedia is now really the go-to internet source for reference information, this kind of a database would greatly enhance the coverage of philately in Wikipedia and likely expose the hobby to many new potential collectors who, starting with the question "What is this stamp I have" start surfing links within the database to broader articles covering specific series which have already been contributed. I have created a mock-up of the kind of Wikipedia post I envision here for a database entry in my sandbox User:DJCMH/sandbox/French_Morocco_1926_Hassan_Tower_Definitive as a proposal of what I am thinking. I know this would be a huge kind of project to undertake but I think the benefits to the global philatelic community of providing such a reference database would be immense.

Regarding the use of Catalogue numbers - I believe that the listing of catalogue numbers in and of themselves is a fair use of information. The database would not be in any way a competitor to the catalogues in terms of trying to offer valuation guidance, but rather a simple refernce that would allow users to get basic Identification information AND more importantly cross-references between the major catalogue numbering systems, which in the absence of any likely single global stamp identification standard being developed for the hobby will likely remain the basis for stamp identification for years to come. DJCMH (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest in pushing forward this fascinating and important project. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia in the first place and cannot be used for such a purpose as you suggest. Actually, there is another Wikimedia project, Wikibooks, that could be a home for your stamp database. Please have a look at b:Category:Philately. Currently, it contains two catalog-type databases: b:International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog‎ and b:World Stamp Catalogue‎. The former is a good example of building an advanced database. The latter needs more efforts from people like you. So, I would suggest you to take over that project and adapt it to the needs of your stamp database. Regards, --Michael Romanov (talk) 17:01, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Michael thanks for your reply, the World Stamp Catalog Wikibook indeed does look like it would be a good home for such a project! DJCMH (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
I was about to reply on your talk page but came here to look for a link to give you but I see that Michael Romanov has already replied. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a catalogue per WP:NOTCATALOG and we also have the wikibook's b:World Stamp Catalogue, as Michael mentions above but there are also two quite extensive online catalogues: http://colnect.com/en/stamps and one of own editors User:Stan Shebs has http://stampdata.com built a database partly based on Wikimedia content. However, building something that others have already done the donkey work on seems rather a waste of time, especially considering we have a very restrictive copyright policy that only allows freely licenced images, so that is a major problem in making a wikibooks catagloue really useful. External sites use the images as fair-use. We have also had some discussion about the use of stamp catalog numbers and we consider extensive use as a copyright violation though occasional use is allowed. Personally I would not bother much on such a project but instead recommend spending time improving interesting philatelic articles and leave the catalogues to those who will devote extensive time to it and have little else to do because such a database will take a long time and where are you getting the details; extensive use of those sources may well be a copyright violation too. If that's you then you have my full support. ww2censor (talk) 17:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 Comment: Actually I just checked the wikibooks copyright policy and here I see that they do allow fair-use images. ww2censor (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thinking about this over the weekend and now I think the potential issues with copyright for the catalog ID information may just be too much of an issue. Think it's time to go back to the drawing board. DJCMH (talk) 09:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Heh, an excuse for a status update - stampdata.com is still under development, now up to 530K types or so. I've been gradually morphing it something that is a union of data and images originating from different websites, about 1.5M URLs at this point, and can get reports on things like inconsistencies in factual bits, like date of issue. Quite a lot of "business logic" in the backend, to handle randomness like all the different ways to write the same denomination, and right now I'm working on connecting souvenir sheets to the stamps on them, you can see an example at http://stampdata.com/sheet.php?id=1404 . Stan (talk) 19:58, 29 April 2016 (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.
  1. ^ "Stock Photo - URUGUAY - CIRCA 1993: stamp printed by Uruguay, shows Letter Box, circa 1993". 123RF. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
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