Difference between revisions of "Camera-wiki.org:Camerapedia"

From Camera-wiki.org
Jump to: navigation, search
m (Fate of the Wikia-controlled Copy of Camerapedia's Content: typo)
 
(25 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
'''Camerapedia''' was founded at camerapedia.org in 2004 by [[User:Lbstone]]. This strictly noncommercial, Mediawiki-based site provided for the creation of a serious independent resource about [[camera]]s, camera [[lens]]es and [[:Category:Accessories|accessories]]. [[User:Rebollo_fr]] became the most prolific author, giving the encyclopedia a strong coverage of vintage [[:Category:Japanese cameras|Japanese cameras]] and [[:Category:Japanese camera makers|their makers]]. In 2006 the [[Camera-wiki.org:Flickr|Flickr]] group ''Camerapedia'' was founded as a high-capacity, high-bandwidth illustration resource for the wiki. Camerapedia.org's webserver was financed by URL-owner Lbstone, the image resource space by the Flickr community.
+
==Early History of Camerapedia==
  
In January 2011 Lbstone had already negotiated the sale of the domain name to Wikia but had not informed any Camerapedia contributor of this, even not the trustworthy main author. When Lbstone did reveal it, various contributors could not be convinced of the benefits to a long-running independent non-commercial project of hosting by Wikia, even not by experienced Wikia staff people who joined the project before the takeover. Wikia made the individual page addresses of camerapedia.org plain redirects to the corresponding pages of <nowiki>camerapedia.wikia.com</nowiki>.<ref>For example, [http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Fujica_G690 www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Fujica_G690] was the address within camerapedia.org of the page about the [[Fujica G690]] and closely related cameras; as since Jan. 24th 2011 this was a redirect to [http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fujica_G690 the derivative article] within [http://camerapedia.wikia.com/ camerapedia.wikia.com] on the same subject.</ref> Two months later, after incidents of wrong user attribution of wiki texts and unauthorized image uploads - both reverted by Wikia after protests, advertisement mode was switched on. Camerapedia is a commercial site now, on thin ice since it started commercial mode without having a valid permission for most of its Flickr image links.
+
'''<nowiki>Camerapedia.org</nowiki>'''  (Camerapedia) was founded in 2004 by [[User:Lbstone]]. This strictly noncommercial, Mediawiki-based site created a serious independent resource about [[camera]]s, their [[lens]]es and photographic [[:Category:Accessories|accessories]]. It contained text freely licensed under [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License GFDL], but the photographs and other illustrations within the articles were linked from other websites, with the permission of those websites and the copyright holders. [[User:Rebollo_fr]] became the most prolific author, giving the encyclopedia a strong coverage of vintage [[:Category:Japanese cameras|Japanese cameras]] and [[:Category:Japanese camera makers|their makers]]. In 2006 the [[Camera-wiki.org:Flickr|Flickr]] group ''Camerapedia'' was founded as a high-capacity, high-bandwidth illustration resource for the wiki. <nowiki>Camerapedia.org</nowiki>'s webserver was financed by Lbstone, the owner of the domain name; the image resource space was provided by the Flickr community.
  
[[User:Voxphoto]] created a new Flickr group<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerawiki/ Camerawiki Flickr group], at [[Flickr]].</ref> (whose name changed a couple of times), and flickrmailed invitations to anyone who seemed likely to take some kind of action. [[User:Steevithak]] had done some hard thinking about what steps would be involved, and in the course of a discussion<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerapedia/discuss/72157625827923382/ Flickr discussion about forking Camerapedia], at [http://www.flickr.com Flickr].</ref> in the new group he proposed a plan of action<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerawiki/discuss/72157625758671255/#comment72157625884964020 Steevithak's proposal], at [http://www.flickr.com Flickr].</ref> that eventually was followed very closely. [[User:Heritagefutures]] and others encouraged Voxphoto and Steevithak to make these efforts to launch Camera-Wiki.org as new home for the old wiki community. Almost the whole community of Camerapedia contributors moved to the Camera-Wiki.org project.
+
==Takeover by Wikia==
 +
 
 +
Sometime prior to January 2011, Lbstone negotiated the sale of the domain name '''camerapedia.org''' to the for-profit "wiki farm" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia Wikia], but had not announced this at Camerapedia or, as far as is known, even privately informed any contributor. When Lbstone did reveal it, few contributors were convinced of the benefits to a long-running independent non-commercial project of hosting by Wikia, despite the promise of Wikia maintaining the technical infrastructure. Wikia made the individual page addresses of <nowiki>camerapedia.org</nowiki> redirects to the corresponding pages of <nowiki>camerapedia.wikia.com</nowiki>.<ref>For example, <nowiki>www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Fujica_G690</nowiki> was the address within <nowiki>camerapedia.org</nowiki> of the page about the [[Fujica G690]] and closely related cameras; since January 24th 2011 this has been a redirect to [http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fujica_G690 the derivative article] within <nowiki>camerapedia.wikia.com</nowiki> on the same subject.</ref> Two months later, after incidents of wrong user attribution of wiki texts and unauthorized image uploads—both reverted by Wikia after protests—advertising placement within wiki pages was switched on. Camerapedia.wikia.com is now a commercial site, meaning its use of images with "non-commercial" Creative Commons licenses is questionable.
 +
 
 +
==Founding of Camera-Wiki.org in Response to Takeover==
 +
 
 +
The project community found a response to the unwelcomed takeover. [[User:Voxphoto]] created a new Flickr group<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerawiki/ Camerawiki Flickr group], at [[Camera-wiki.org:Flickr|Flickr]].</ref> (whose name changed a couple of times), and flickrmailed invitations to anyone who seemed likely to help. [[User:Steevithak]] had done some hard thinking about what steps would be involved, and in the course of a discussion<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerapedia/discuss/72157625827923382/ Discussion about forking Camerapedia], at [[Camera-wiki.org:Flickr|Flickr]].</ref> in the new group he proposed a plan<ref>[http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerawiki/discuss/72157625758671255/#comment72157625884964020 Steevithak's proposal], at [[Camera-wiki.org:Flickr|Flickr]].</ref> that eventually was followed very closely. In the night of January 23rd 2011 they "forked" Camerapedia, duplicating all its article pages and moving them to a new installation of MediaWiki. [[User:Heritagefutures]] and others encouraged Voxphoto and Steevithak to make these efforts to launch Camera-wiki.org as a new home for the old wiki community. A majority of Camerapedia contributors moved to the Camera-wiki.org project; within its first six months more than 700 new article pages were added.
 +
 
 +
==Fate of the Wikia-controlled Copy of Camerapedia's Content==
 +
 
 +
Camerapedia.wikia.com has had a mixed record. The page designs used in Camerapedia.org were not designed for the narrower columns of Wikia's standard layout (needed to leave room for sidebar advertising), which causes some articles to re-flow in bizarre ways. Some users have contributed their own images which they have uploaded to Wikia's servers, athough a greater number of images may have been removed or blanked by unhappy past contributors. As of June 2012, Wikia continues to host the old Camerapedia content but without any active administrators. The site has largely become a static mirror of Camerapedia as it existed in early 2011 but with many of the photos removed.
 +
 
 +
==Camerapedia.com==
 +
The "dot-com" domain '''camerapedia.com''' is completely unrelated. Squatting of camerapedia.com had predated the formation of the genuine Camerapedia wiki by years.<ref>See [http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200102020542/http://camerapedia.com/ this February 2001] grab in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.</ref> Long no more than a blank page, this was first exploited (for an anonymous advertising page) by December 2007,<ref>See [http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20071206163556/http://www.camerapedia.com/ this December 2007] grab by Wayback.</ref> and one year later into something that looked at first glance like an encyclopedia.<ref>See [http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20081205080643/http://camerapedia.com/ this December 2008] grab by Wayback.</ref> The encyclopedic first impression was achieved by plagiarizing Wikipedia.<ref>An example is the text "Twin-Lens Reflex Camera" on the home page, copied from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twin-lens_reflex_camera&oldid=241438791 28 September 2008 version of "Twin-lens reflex camera" at Wikipedia], in violation of their  [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyrights&oldid=239946175 "Copyrights" page in effect at the time]. Besides failing to credit Wikipedia or mention GFDL, the foot of the Camerapedia.com page states "Copyright © 1995-2008 by Information Superbrand, Inc. All rights reserved." By Dec 2011, the only noticeable change was that "© 1995-2008" had been [http://web.archive.org/web/20111228132936/http://www.camerapedia.com/ updated to "© 1995-2011"] (snapshot from [https://archive.org/web/ web.archive.org])</ref> Camerapedia.com was the product of "Information Superbrand, Inc.", a small company based in Irvine, California<ref>[http://www.manta.com/c/mm7qxbp/information-superbrand-inc Company profile] for "Information Superbrand", Manta. Accessed 4 April 2011.</ref> that has created a large number of worthless websites with "pedia" in their domain names.<ref>Stan Schroeder, "[http://mashable.com/2008/02/18/ruining-pedias-wikipedia-wiki/ Ruining ****Pedias For Fun and Profit]", Mashable, 18 February 2008. Accessed 4 April 2011.</ref> By December 2014, camerapedia.com has reverted to a blank index page with no content.<ref> [http://web.archive.org/web/20141217005218/http://camerapedia.com/ December 17, 2014 snapshot] from [https://archive.org/web/ web.archive.org]</ref>
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==
Line 10: Line 23:
 
==See also==
 
==See also==
 
* [http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/User:Rebollo_fr?oldid=91010 Rebollo_fr's personal account]
 
* [http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/User:Rebollo_fr?oldid=91010 Rebollo_fr's personal account]
 +
* [[Camera-wiki.org:History|Camera-Wiki.org History]] a general account of Camerapedia/Camera-wiki.org history
  
 
[[Category:Camera- or photography-related web sites]]
 
[[Category:Camera- or photography-related web sites]]

Latest revision as of 20:28, 4 November 2018

Early History of Camerapedia

Camerapedia.org (Camerapedia) was founded in 2004 by User:Lbstone. This strictly noncommercial, Mediawiki-based site created a serious independent resource about cameras, their lenses and photographic accessories. It contained text freely licensed under GFDL, but the photographs and other illustrations within the articles were linked from other websites, with the permission of those websites and the copyright holders. User:Rebollo_fr became the most prolific author, giving the encyclopedia a strong coverage of vintage Japanese cameras and their makers. In 2006 the Flickr group Camerapedia was founded as a high-capacity, high-bandwidth illustration resource for the wiki. Camerapedia.org's webserver was financed by Lbstone, the owner of the domain name; the image resource space was provided by the Flickr community.

Takeover by Wikia

Sometime prior to January 2011, Lbstone negotiated the sale of the domain name camerapedia.org to the for-profit "wiki farm" Wikia, but had not announced this at Camerapedia or, as far as is known, even privately informed any contributor. When Lbstone did reveal it, few contributors were convinced of the benefits to a long-running independent non-commercial project of hosting by Wikia, despite the promise of Wikia maintaining the technical infrastructure. Wikia made the individual page addresses of camerapedia.org redirects to the corresponding pages of camerapedia.wikia.com.[1] Two months later, after incidents of wrong user attribution of wiki texts and unauthorized image uploads—both reverted by Wikia after protests—advertising placement within wiki pages was switched on. Camerapedia.wikia.com is now a commercial site, meaning its use of images with "non-commercial" Creative Commons licenses is questionable.

Founding of Camera-Wiki.org in Response to Takeover

The project community found a response to the unwelcomed takeover. User:Voxphoto created a new Flickr group[2] (whose name changed a couple of times), and flickrmailed invitations to anyone who seemed likely to help. User:Steevithak had done some hard thinking about what steps would be involved, and in the course of a discussion[3] in the new group he proposed a plan[4] that eventually was followed very closely. In the night of January 23rd 2011 they "forked" Camerapedia, duplicating all its article pages and moving them to a new installation of MediaWiki. User:Heritagefutures and others encouraged Voxphoto and Steevithak to make these efforts to launch Camera-wiki.org as a new home for the old wiki community. A majority of Camerapedia contributors moved to the Camera-wiki.org project; within its first six months more than 700 new article pages were added.

Fate of the Wikia-controlled Copy of Camerapedia's Content

Camerapedia.wikia.com has had a mixed record. The page designs used in Camerapedia.org were not designed for the narrower columns of Wikia's standard layout (needed to leave room for sidebar advertising), which causes some articles to re-flow in bizarre ways. Some users have contributed their own images which they have uploaded to Wikia's servers, athough a greater number of images may have been removed or blanked by unhappy past contributors. As of June 2012, Wikia continues to host the old Camerapedia content but without any active administrators. The site has largely become a static mirror of Camerapedia as it existed in early 2011 but with many of the photos removed.

Camerapedia.com

The "dot-com" domain camerapedia.com is completely unrelated. Squatting of camerapedia.com had predated the formation of the genuine Camerapedia wiki by years.[5] Long no more than a blank page, this was first exploited (for an anonymous advertising page) by December 2007,[6] and one year later into something that looked at first glance like an encyclopedia.[7] The encyclopedic first impression was achieved by plagiarizing Wikipedia.[8] Camerapedia.com was the product of "Information Superbrand, Inc.", a small company based in Irvine, California[9] that has created a large number of worthless websites with "pedia" in their domain names.[10] By December 2014, camerapedia.com has reverted to a blank index page with no content.[11]

Notes

  1. For example, www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Fujica_G690 was the address within camerapedia.org of the page about the Fujica G690 and closely related cameras; since January 24th 2011 this has been a redirect to the derivative article within camerapedia.wikia.com on the same subject.
  2. Camerawiki Flickr group, at Flickr.
  3. Discussion about forking Camerapedia, at Flickr.
  4. Steevithak's proposal, at Flickr.
  5. See this February 2001 grab in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
  6. See this December 2007 grab by Wayback.
  7. See this December 2008 grab by Wayback.
  8. An example is the text "Twin-Lens Reflex Camera" on the home page, copied from the 28 September 2008 version of "Twin-lens reflex camera" at Wikipedia, in violation of their "Copyrights" page in effect at the time. Besides failing to credit Wikipedia or mention GFDL, the foot of the Camerapedia.com page states "Copyright © 1995-2008 by Information Superbrand, Inc. All rights reserved." By Dec 2011, the only noticeable change was that "© 1995-2008" had been updated to "© 1995-2011" (snapshot from web.archive.org)
  9. Company profile for "Information Superbrand", Manta. Accessed 4 April 2011.
  10. Stan Schroeder, "Ruining ****Pedias For Fun and Profit", Mashable, 18 February 2008. Accessed 4 April 2011.
  11. December 17, 2014 snapshot from web.archive.org

See also