Camera-wiki.org:Community discussions

Welcome to the community's discussion page, the place to discuss any subject related to this wiki, or simply ask for help about wiki editing. This page is not a general forum about cameras or photography. To reply to a question simply click the "[Edit]" button on the right side of the screen close to the question title, and ad your text below. Don't forget to sign your posts on this discussion page. To sign use the signature button on top of the editing window. Start a new discussion

Old site discussions, see Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions

Old site, wikia takeover discussions, see Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions/Future of Camerapedia and Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions/A New Home for Camerapedia‎

Discussions

Intro

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Where Should We Talk?

Although having our community discussions take place on this page is "the true Wiki way," I'd like to raise the question of whether it's actually the best place for it.

I do think it's essential to have a venue where the active and committed wiki contributors can talk out issues about policy, organization, etc. And as the size of our Flickr group grows it may be unwieldy to do it there. Early on, I did set up a google group mailing list; but at the moment it remains invitation-only and not much used. (I'm happy to invite you, just Flickrmail me your preferred email address, or send it to me via subfunky (at] gmail.com)

I know I keep beating away at this same message, but there are lots of folks in the world who potentially could be a great help to us--either with camera expertise or organizing a non-profit--but who find all this wiki-markup nonsense completely opaque and unfriendly. Many will forget to look for discussions or followup comments here, and miss them entirely (I only just figured out watchlists today myself).

I'd like to find some discussion venue that's accessible and easy for the less techie folks. I propose that email lists are a pretty good lowest common denominator where that could happen. Happy to take other suggestions, though.--Vox 12:44, 24 February 2011 (PST)

Image Uses

Going forward, I feel there are a couple of areas where Camerawiki could use some refinement. The first is pushing for a more standardized way to embed images in pages--always including the essentials of a link back to the source, identifying the contributor, and stating the license terms. The first is mandatory to use Flickr-hosted images in a way consistent with their terms of service.

Another area needing work is to aim for greater visual consistency between pages, which currently can be a bit chaotic. There's no standard for the image dimensions used, so some pages have excessively tiny thumbnails. The wiki markup syntax is not the most intuitive (not to me, anyway) when it comes to understanding how photos align or how text wraps, and so odd collisions with text often occur. I'd like to work with folks more familiar with the wiki markup language to define some "best practices" for nicer-looking pages. --Vox 19:17, 30 January 2011 (CST)

chaotic answer: At the moment the visual inconsitency is just a dusadvantage for wikia's skinned page view. Thumbnail images are sometimes used for good reasons. On some pages they are just decoration of camera type lists. In some of these pages they can be replaced by "small" variants instead of thumbnail. There are helpful buttons over the editor window to get some wiki syntax generated. Steevithak already began to enhance the Flickr_image template. I think about a second version for uploaded Flickr image copies.U. kulick 19:45, 30 January 2011 (CST)

Since we have one obvious advantage over Wikia (less page clutter), it would be nice to capitalize on that by encouraging nice clean, open layouts. I'm concerned that we need to be welcoming to contributors with great camera knowledge, but little patience for wrestling with markup syntax to lay out pages neatly. Even a template that e.g. automatically forms two columns, (text left, images/captions right) would smooth out the appearance of many pages. --Vox 23:03, 30 January 2011 (CST)

Actually, the wiki version of adding images and sizing them is quite easy, once you get used to it. It's much more flexible for getting an image in a particular place in an article, the exact size it needs to be relative to it's location in the article. Adding images as links from Flickr can be constrictive at times - you can't adjust the size easily. I'm hesitant to change an image to a different size because it would mean finding the original contributor's page and choosing a size that would be better than the original found on the wiki. One question semi-related to images: Are we going for images that represent the camera the best or just with images that are uploaded first? I've seen a couple images that could be replaced with better representations of that model, but am also hesitant to change anything. I've seen people on other wikis get into battles over having their photographs replaced. HaarFager 14:42, 8 February 2011 (PST)

If you would care to mock up some dummy pages with examples of "best practices" for laying out text and images, perhaps that could be a rallying point for making gradual improvements throughout Camera-wiki. The only thing to be aware of is the Template:Flickr image, because we're attempting to enforce more consistency in image attribution and rights clarity.

In my case as a total beginner, page layouts tended to be the result of random thrashing because I didn't understand the markup, and I expect that will be true for many prospective contributors who might be camera experts, but new to wikis.

For photo replacements, I agree with you that in many cases authors just grabbed what was in the Camerapedia pool as of that date, when much better images might be available. My preference would always be to replace images in the event we can get 1) plain light backgrounds; 2) camera examples in better & more original condition; 3) sharper images without wacky HDR, sepia, or Hipstamatic processing.

---

Vox Edits

I have been going through some of the Editing Guidelines pages, rewriting a few explanations with the hope of making them clearer to wiki newbies. The goal is to encourage people who are not experienced with wiki markup to join us, by offering them more explanations and hand-holding as they begin. I am the guinea pig for this, because I'm mostly trying to clarify issues that I found a bit confusing myself at first. However I encourage all your more wiki-savvy editors to re-check my edits, to make sure I have not introduced errors. --Vox 22:47, 1 February 2011 (CST)

Suggestion

I would like to suggest that a "create new page" link be added to the left in the "Navigation" column. It would make it much easier for new users to add a new camera that doesn't already have a page created. Plus, it speeds up the process for experienced users as well. Pages can be created without a link there, but newbies wouldn't know where to find this information or even if it's listed in the help section somewhere. HaarFager 14:46, 8 February 2011 (PST)

I think that's a good suggestion. I'm the guinea pig for "how do newbies perceive this site," and I think that would be much clearer. It could even be helpful for a page to open with a few standard elements pre-filled, such as a placeholder for one main image, links and notes sections at the foot, etc. Naturally the veterans would understand everything could be changed but it would keep beginner pages to a certain minimal standard of clarity and consistency.

That's an excellent suggestion about having some pre-filled areas already on the blank page form. That's the way we do it over on the Hot Wheels Wiki and it helps new users immensely. Yes, veterans would understand that a typical blank form page for a new camera article could be made blank quite easily if they're creating another kind of page, so having the standard blank page form be set for new camera articles would be the best basic form you coule go for. I'll try to work up one and post a link to it in this section. HaarFager 16:08, 8 February 2011 (PST)

I suggest something simple like this, pretty basic for a page, but a lot of pages don't have much information and this template can be expanded quite easily: New Camera Page TemplateHaarFager 16:32, 8 February 2011 (PST)

That's a great start. I'm not sure the block of specs needs to be at the beginning--maybe invite some comment from the other admins?

I figured that if it was kept at the beginning, people would be able to find it uniformly across every page. If it were left to the user and how much information they were adding about that particular camera, this information might wind up anywhere. I feel that's the kind of important information about the camera that people will be wanting to know about anyway. It's the same reason that the navigation bar at the top left of this page can be found in that same area on every page. There's a good reason why it's locked there. HaarFager 20:41, 8 February 2011 (PST)

Hey, Vox, you can sign your comments in a wiki discussion by appending four tildes (~~~~) to your comment. That will put in your name and a time stamp so we know who said what and when.
Steevithak 21:07, 8 February 2011 (PST)

After doing a little reading myself, I noticed there was an existing template referenced in the help area about creating new camera pages: Camera_wiki:_Standards_(cameras). Since I needed to try creating a new page anyway, I used that template as the basis for a new page on the Ansco Viking 6.3. I think this may be the first new camera page I've created so any feedback on the results is welcome. It's a bit minimal and doesn't have a manufacturing section because I just don't have enough info on the camera's history. Maybe somebody else can add that section and fill it in. I read the help section on adding category tags and tried to include the correct set of tags.
Steevithak 12:21, 9 February 2011 (PST)

Steve, I followed the link for the new page template and it looked pretty close to what is already found on here. Only it was more of a guideline than a template and new users might not comprehend the intracacies of wiki building. I'd like to know one thing about the page you created, which was very nice - by the way. Where did you find the coding for the infobox along the right side? I've only seen it on a couple pages here, and sadly, one of them I removed because I was trying to make the page more in line with most of the others I'd seen on here. It was a real mess, though. The infobox looks really good and goes a long way toward unifying the look of all the camera pages. Have you had a look at the template I created? I'm going to go over and amend it to reflect the infobox coding as well. As to your asking Vox to sign his posts - I spent 20 minutes going through the history of this topic because I thought I had accidentally deleted his signature on a comment above mine. I didn't think that it was just that it had never been there! Oh well, I'll live and learn! HaarFager 14:14, 9 February 2011 (PST)

The infobox is the camera template referenced in the new camera page standard I was talking about above. Here's a direct link to the template itself: Template:Camera. It has a few drawbacks. There should probably be separate template/boxes for each camera type so you don't end up with a lot of unused fields. Also there's no clear indication of what the possible contents are for some of the fields. For example on Camera Type, I can guess most of them but would be handy to have a definitive list.
Steevithak 15:01, 9 February 2011 (PST)

I noticed the confusion as well. That can probably be fixed in the template itself. HaarFager 16:33, 9 February 2011 (PST)

Sources

Original Documents

We need to discuss policy at one point..many of us own out of copyright documents (eg old manufacturer catalogs), which can be scanned and be made widely available, like Silvain has done over at www.collection-appareils.com. Note that I am not referring to user manuals, for which wa can link to Butkus' site. Many of of us have done this one page-by-page basis as needed for an article. I have some obscure items, which could be made available in toto, but which would be lost in my image stream or in the camera-wiki pool. My suggestion is to

a)---set up a class of pages called 'Source' which allows us to provide a full 'publication of that item; say with a standard layout, all as small page images, four or five columns wide. The resulting document electronic document can then be referred to in footnotes in a given camera's main article.

b)---set up a new group 'camera-wiki-docs' where the scans of these things (as well as historic ads etc, should go. That stops the main pool from getting flooded with historic page images and keep that pool's emphasis on the camera pictures. Also, we don't own the rights to such page scan images, just to the actual scans we made. So keeping them separate is useful from a rights perspective too.

As the page scan images will sit on Flickr, the additional server load will be low, but the value-adding to camera-wiki will be huge, I would think...

Keen to get the community input on this. --Heritagefutures 13:49, 22 February 2011 (PST)

Steevithak has been pondering whether Camera-wiki even might set up its own separate Flickr account, dedicated to public domain material and images donated from outside Flickr (e.g. eBayers). This comes out of a discussion over what to do with Rebollo_fr's large collection of public-domain scans from old Japanese publications. (We can't assume Rebollo_fr will want to maintain his Flickr Pro account forever for our benefit.) Otherwise, I'm not overly worried about swamping our pool with document scans. First, some folks (e.g. Mario Groleau) have added dozens of doc scans to our pool already. It makes browsing the pool less pleasurable; but as long as there is some searchable text accompanying a page, we can always use Flickr searches to sift through the pool for particular items. But spawning a new Flickr group is easy & free if this seems useful to folks--Vox 12:20, 24 February 2011 (PST)

Just to follow up on this.... the Camera-wiki Flickr account now exists, and among other things we've started posting scans from vintage publications. You can Flickrmail that account if there's anything that would be best to host over there (donated images, large volumes of scans, etc.) --Vox 17:08, 22 March 2011 (PDT)

I haven't thought this through. But for now, just one comment. Heritagefutures writes: we don't own the rights to such page scan images, just to the actual scans we made. I understand that (i) Flickr.com is hosted in the US, and that US copyright law would apply to what's on it; and that (ii) as clarified by Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., US copyright law does not recognize anybody's rights to scans, however painstakingly made, of images that are themselves in the public domain. (IANAL.) Zuleika 17:18, 25 March 2011 (PDT)

Page names, wiki name

I've just commented in the talk page of something named Camera-wiki.org:About. But in the last day or two I have been tinkering with such pages as Camera wiki: Adding images. Or to highlight the differences, Camera-wiki.org:About versus Camera wiki: Adding images. Shouldn't there be one, consistent pattern for the names of pages about/for (rather than straightforwardly of) ... um, Camera-wiki.org, or Camera-Wiki.org, or Camera-wiki, or Camera-Wiki, or whatever this site is called? Zuleika 17:08, 25 March 2011 (PDT)

PS There's other odd naming. For example, what had been Camerapedia:Image used with permission is now simply Image used with permission. Shouldn't this too be prefixed? But I'm not going to rename until there's agreement that there should be a prefix and on what the prefix should be. Zuleika 18:38, 25 March 2011 (PDT)

PPS An "advanced" search for a term (example) brings a list of discrete namespaces. Among these are Camera-wiki.org and Camera-wiki.org talk. ("Camera [space] wiki" and so forth do not appear.) So rightly or wrongly, "Camera-wiki.org" is the "official" prefix. And rightly so, I think. If I'm right on both counts, then a lot of pages need to be renamed, and I'm willing to do part of this work. But I hesitate to rename important pages, and don't recommend that others do so, until others chime in here. Comments? Zuleika 21:34, 25 March 2011 (PDT)

Maybe I can shed some light on the cause, if not the solution, to some of the crazy page names. When we exported from Camerapedia and then imported into Camera-wiki.org, I didn't realize the "Camerapedia.org:" namespace even existed until some editors started randomly renaming pages into new camera-wiki namespace variants. The renamed pages resulted in major problems when I tried to update the config file to a new community namespace (e.g. lots of the renamed pages went missing).

I finally ended up getting some help on the MediaWiki IRC from the experts. We went through a lot of page rename reverting and finally got the configured community namespace renamed to Camera-wiki.org. But the whole process left a trail of confused pages names in its wake. Some of the vanished pages reappeared and in some cases there were duplicates of pages in two different namespaces. I think all the duplicates and redirect-loops are fixed now.

Officially, the config file refers to the sitename as "Camera-wiki.org". If any other variants still exist as namespaces, they should be renamed or nuked. You're welcome to either do it or add any you see to the ToDo list.

One other weirdness I've noticed is that some pages have an embedded space in the name "Camera-wiki.org: foo" which results in an underscore in the URL. Not sure if that's normal but it's kind of annoying. I'd like to see those renamed too.

Steevithak 16:15, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

On the last point, recall that an URL can't have a space (although it can have "%20", which may be rendered as a space). Mediawiki software automatically converts a space in a page name not to "%20" but to "_" -- or anyway this is how Wikipedia itself is set up.

OK, I'll start renaming. And as I work at it, I'll try to check that I'm not somehow managing to make matters even more confused. Zuleika 17:42, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

This could be tricky. I first tried to rename this page, but was told (in red!) A page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name. The page does already exist; but even if it did not, then my guess is that I couldn't rename this page to it because the renaming would be across namespaces. However, I'll try elsewhere. Zuleika 17:51, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

I can move across namespaces. I'm not at all sure that it's desirable to give non-admins this ability, but it's certainly useful for me today. Zuleika 18:08, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

Pages I'm not authorized to rename:

• This page
• Camera wiki: Page names
• Camera wiki: GNU Free Documentation License/default

Pages I'm not authorized to edit (and in which I can't update links):

• Camera-wiki.org:Community portal
• Camera-wiki.org:About
• Camera-wiki.org:General disclaimer

Zuleika

For deletion?

I'm sure that

• Other technical considerations
• Film or Digital

were meant well, but the former seems to me to require elaboration into an entire website before it would be of real use, while the latter is a decade out of date, addressing "beginners" who now would anyway be using digital (perhaps in their cellphones). Delete? Zuleika 19:42, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

It seems nothing links to Film or Digital, so its deletion is far from urgent, but there would be no tears chez Vox if it mysteriously vanished. --Vox 21:02, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

I don't fully understand what a "WikiNode" is, but my impression from Google is that I should use the past tense when talking of it, and thus that this article is better deleted. (If it's retained, then it should be moved to "Camera-wiki.org:WikiNode" and extensively revised.) Zuleika 00:18, 27 March 2011 (PDT)

I added a link to the original documentation - what is left anyway. Wiki is a slow medium. Just because google isn't showing you growth of WikiNode - I can tell you that wikis are developing their WikiNode slowly but surely. I can help start to flush it out if you would like. As for putting it in the project space - maybe project spaces are better for bigger wiki? Small wiki don't seem to need to build out in the project space. My thoughts anyways. Best, MarkDilley

This wiki already has a project space. Perhaps it shouldn't have, but it does have.

Two "neighbors" are now specified. It's implied that one is dead. The other is a missing page on a website that seems to lack any wiki.

To me, this looks like an idea that looked mildly interesting a few years ago but that has subsequently died. Zuleika 05:34, 27 March 2011 (PDT)

"incredible" stuff

Both of these are, I think, embarrassments:

• Yumeka dx-3
• Holga lens for Canon DSLR 1:8 60mm

NB I have nothing against either product. If something can be said lucidly and informatively about either, by all means let's keep an article. But these articles don't look even slightly "encyclopedic". Zuleika 00:47, 28 March 2011 (PDT)

Do You want to chaperone camera-wiki.org a little?? A plain collection of fact sheets truly cannot be called encyclopedia. Some text is always better. Some humour about toy cameras simply must be allowed from time to time since it's impossible to take them all as seriously as other products. Many articles here may be as brief, but it's good to have them in the wiki. This way it covers not just a handful of perfectly described items but embeds the perfect articles in a real good excerpt of the big world of cameras. You may feel free to add the missing fact sheets in these articles, but first You must find out the facts. But we don't want copy & paste from fact sheet sites, we have the "self-authoring priority" tradition here. Thus don't complain too much about a few articles which may ripen later - feel free to write better ones. Just look into the stubs category and you find a universe of picture-only articles. We appreciate if You do add some appropriate text to the illustrations. There's a lot to do, please don't hesitate. Don't worry, be happy. U. Kulick 11:24, 28 March 2011 (PDT)

Polemics

Believing that this is an encyclopedia of cameras and not merely a collection of ramblings that may encompass a polemical essay about old scores, I have altered this (then titled "Camerapedia", although this may not be obvious now) to this. If I (or others) should hesitate to make similar cuts and edits in the future, do please explain. Zuleika 20:15, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

That instance was a very personal statement, which I found moving, although it was far from a NPOV. While I agree the article needed to be made more factual, I think the Talk: page might need an acknowledgement of the aggrieved feelings which caused the earlier draft to be written. --Vox 20:29, 26 March 2011 (PDT)

I think the writer should be encouraged to post such material within his or her own blog. This is a fledgling encyclopedia that's going to flourish or wither depending on a number of factors. Exhibiting sour grapes is going to do nothing to make the encyclopedia appeal to the huge majority of its potential readers and contributors, who I think are more likely to infer a persecution complex etc etc. Zuleika 00:02, 27 March 2011 (PDT)

@Zuleika, I think You should be encouraged to let the writers here the freedom to write the truth. It is right to point out the fault that was made by Lbstone - and it's right to repeat that until that guy gives the necessary excuse to the community and its main contributor rebollo_fr.U. Kulick 10:56, 28 March 2011 (PDT)

Outdated links within talk pages

I don't understand why links within dated (and thus obviously old) and signed material in talk pages should be updated. But if somebody has already changed them, then I don't propose to change them back. But what should I do about this edit? Within it, one editor changes a perfectly good (in its clearly marked day) Camerapedia.org link to its newer and (Steevithak and I believe) wrong address within camera-wiki.org. I've subsequently moved the relevant page to a new address. Should I re-update the link, or revert the earlier change? Zuleika 00:02, 27 March 2011 (PDT)

Category:Wiki

I've been looking at categorization of pages that aren't articles. Plenty of it is bizarre. Exhibit A: "Category:Wiki". What's this for? (Perhaps something important, as it is indefinitely protected against edits by mere non-admins.) Zuleika 09:13, 27 March 2011 (PDT)

No reason to worry: this is a wiki! Nothing in it is bizarre. We have a strict categorization, basing all categories and sub-categories on the "Category:Root_category". But we can't worry users mixing general wiki categories with the special camera topic categories. Therefore we need the wiki category to bundle the general wiki categories in a separate branch of the category tree. So there's nothing bizarre

Other wikis prefer to fill category pages with contents. That is not our tradition. Category pages in camera-wiki.org are just one navigation path offered to the readers. We have one article categorized with postfix |* in many categories, thus making it appearing as first article before the alphabetic listing of articles. In addition we use navigational templates and of course many inter-page links. That means that there are three pathes to surf thru this site, beside the search function.U. Kulick 10:27, 28 March 2011 (PDT)

Quality, please

I don't like to say this, but I have good reason to think that there's a considerable amount of untruth within this encyclopedia. As examples, until my edit to it just now, TLR told the world that:

1. The camera uses two equal lenses [...] [The cameras] normally consist of two equally constructed lenses with equal focal length and equal "speed".
2. unlike SLR cameras, the viewed image is not exactly the same as the image recorded on the film

The first is wrong. The viewing lens is typically (and very sensibly) of simpler (and lighter and cheaper) construction. (Hint: Just read the names on the lenses.)

The second tries to make a sensible point, but fluffs it. Maybe the writer had forgotten the percentages given for the coverage of the finder of an SLR.

I can't come up with a recipe for a quick solution, but suspect that a very large amount of what's already here needs improvement. Quality drive, anyone? Zuleika 19:16, 27 March 2011 (PDT)