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Sentinel-2

Hello, I just came across the Sentinel-2 satellite article and I think it has an unusual infobox format that may need updating. Could you please take a look at it? Thanks. BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:20, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

BatteryIncluded, what do you find unusual about the infobox? {{Infobox spaceflight}} is about individual missions or vehicles, while {{Infobox spacecraft class}} is about specific families of spacecraft. My concern is about the article itself. It looks like an advertisement, or that it was copied from somewhere; and I know with certainty that much of the text in Sentinel-3 is taken from this paper. I'm not familiar enough with the program to confidently write about it, but I'll add it to the to-do list. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:05, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, I see now there are spacecraft and spaceflight infoboxes. Sorry about that, Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:13, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello. I just came across this page: Mars Telecommunications Orbiter and it does sem to have a very unusual infobox. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Question re {{Portals}}

@Huntster - if possible - please help clarify - according to WP:ALSO => "Other internal links: {{Portal}} and {{Wikipedia books}} links are usually placed in this section." - seems the "see also" section may be the preferred section? - although other locations on an article page may also be ok I would think - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 02:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

But you also have to consider the aesthetics of the page layout. Placing the vertical portal template in the See also section leaves an inordinate amount of whitespace, while using the bar in the See also section is rather atypical, though I suppose that wouldn't be a problem. There's more to good article appearance than slavishly following the MoS (great starting point, poor universal guide). — Huntster (t @ c) 21:53, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Huntster: Thank you for your comments - yes, I *entirely* agree - pretty much my earlier thinking as well - seemed the {{portalbar}} worked very well aesthetically at times on the very bottom of the article page imo - seems another editor suggested otherwise based on WP:ALSO noted above - may now return to my own earlier thinking about all this - Thanks again for your comments - they're *very much* appreciated - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:37, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Arcus

Evening Hunster,

I'm puzzled; I changed an "an" to "a", hence the typo note but certainly didn't intend to remove the image. I though it a good one that added to the article. Finger trouble, I guess, but sorry to create work. The ref page number hyphen change is also odd - I've never been able to get excited by different sorts of them! Cheers.TSRL (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

TSRL, lol, it happens. Some weird edit conflict or evil gremlin in the server. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Question on date syntax

Hi Huntster.

I like the ISO date standard, and for years typed all my dates in citations thusly: 2015-02-15, etc.

Recently, I discovered that the cite news template I can automatically insert from the upper right corner of the edit box, has a box I can click to add today's date to the Date accessed field with a single click, and that tool seems to add a date in 15 Feb 2015 format. I'll probably keep using that since it is so convenient.

The question is what/how to put in the date into the Date field. For a month or two, I've mostly used the same dd mmm yyyy format of the automagic template tool. But I've observed some changed later to ISO yyyy-mm-dd format, even when the Date accessed field date format is not changed. So I'm just very unclear on what might be best. Should you have an opinion and care to share it, I'd be interested.

In the meantime, I will say that I figure there either are, or will be, bots that can be set up to automagically get the dates in whatever approved formats the community wants, and the really important thing is to just get the date info in there, in any standard format. Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

N2e, ultimately the date format isn't really that important, and will certainly change several times over the life of the article. Guidelines and historical precedent suggest two courses: article dating should be formatted based on the topic's region of origin (aka, the Washington D.C. article should be formatted MMM DD, YYYY, while a European article should probably be formatted DD MMM YYYY), and/or the dating should follow how the original author formatted it (unless the formatting is simply way too atypical). Some wikiprojects have developed their own guidelines...the Military project follows military standards (date first), while spaceflight project has also adopted the date first format, but that happened after a long developed consensus. The overriding rule, however, is that all dates in an article really should be formatted the same. ISO dates are a bit of an oddball...some like it, the majority really don't, but for accessdates (and only accessdates) there is a degree of tolerance. My personally recommendation is, if you don't really know which format is best to use, to continue using the date first format. If it needs to be changed for whatever reason, someone will eventually come along and take care of the fixin'. (sorry for the wordiness, I'm in one of those moods.) — Huntster (t @ c) 05:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Space media use

So with all the talk over at Talk:Mars, I realize that I would love to learn more about the copyright laws surrounding space media. I have found the relevant regulations on media use for NASA, ESA, and JAXA. (Do you have links to the analogous pages for ISRO? Roscosmos? The Chinese CNSA?) I notice that the ESA and JAXA regulations allow for the use of media in places like Wikipedia if you jump through certain hoops. Is the reason they cannot be uploaded because Commons refuses (for legal reasons) to host content not licensed under a CC license sufficiently permissive to make it "free"? If so, why isn't there a procedure to jump through the space agency's hoops to get permission to use the media on a single English Wikipedia page, upload it locally with a template saying it can only be used on X page per Y archived permission from Z space agency, and use it?

Secondly, I was hoping to clarify a few points about free use on English Wikipedia. I understand that we cannot use free use to justify using the wonderful Rosetta flyby image on the Mars page because it is highly replaceable as a global image of Mars. Would the same image, however, be acceptable under free use on the Rosetta page, since it irreplaceably documents Rosetta's flyby of Mars? In a similar vein, would this image, currently nominated for deletion from Commons, be acceptable under free use on 25143 Itokawa, since the only images of 25143 Itokawa in any detail are from Hayabusa?

Sorry for all the questions, feel free to answer only whichever ones you have time for. I was just very curious and hope to be able to deal with space media on Wikipedia more aptly in the future! A2soup (talk) 07:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

A2soup: Great questions. I am heading to sleep just now, so expect a response tomorrow. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:01, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

A2soup: Okay, lets tackle these point by point:

1. Uploading images to Commons isn't a matter of only allowing Creative Commons licenses. Those are simply the most common. NASA images are, for example, public domain because any document entirely created by an employee of the United States government is automatically public domain. Be careful, though, because NASA hosts a wide variety of images from other agencies, and it may not always be apparent. These are not public domain. Almost all other space agencies by default claim an All Rights Reserved copyright over their works, with specific works occasionally being freely licensed (either under CC or released from copyright). Such examples include Hubble images by ESA (commons:Template:ESA-Hubble on Commons) and Rosetta's NAVCAM (commons:Template:ESA-ROSETTA-NAVCAM). Some exclusions to this are works by German Aerospace Center (commons:Template:DLR-License), European Southern Observatory (commons:Template:ESO), and NRAO (commons:Template:NRAO). ESA and JAXA's usage restrictions may, on the surface, seem to allow usage here, but they specifically do not automatically allow commercial re-use, which means they cannot be hosted on Commons. That's an important point because Commons aims to provide media for all reuse.
2. Other agency regulations. ISRO does not have a specific media reuse page, just their general Terms of Use, which does specifically claim copyright. Roscomos also does not seem to have a specific media use policy, but at the bottom of their website it does specifically say "The materials published in this web-site are copyright of Roscosmos." I cannot locate anything for the Chinese either, not even a specific copyright statement, but it should be assumed in absentia.
3. If an editor can convince an agency to release an image under a free license (either releasing from copyright, or releasing under a non-restrictive CC license such as CC-by-sa-4.0, for example), that is great. Otherwise, the only way to use copyrighted material is through fair use. See Wikipedia:Non-free content. Fair use has restrictions, though. It should not be used purely for decorative purposes. It must be used in an absolutely minimum fashion. It cannot be used if a freely licensed alternative can replace the non-free media in any way. What does this mean for us? Let's assume a generic article for a Russian satellite. If no freely licensed images of this satellite exist, but Roscomos has an image of it available, fair use would allow for an image of it in the infobox to educate readers on what it looks like. That is pretty much all you can do...any additional images would be very difficult to justify under minimum usage. It may be tempting to add another non-free image, say a photograph taken by the satellite, but does that really increase reader comprehension enough to justify inclusion? The narrow, safe view is no. Speaking personally, if I had my way, non-free images would be strictly prohibited on Wikipedia, to enable a purely free resource to the public, but I do not get to have my way. :D
4. To cover your second paragraph, I'll say this: as mentioned in point three above, is it really necessary to document Rosetta's flyby of Mars with a photograph? Or will detailed wording suffice? I could not begin to justify the inclusion of a non-free image for that purpose. For Itokawa, those images should absolutely be deleted from Commons, along with several other derivative images. But it is an interesting case. Because no other images exist of that comet that are truly freely licensed, fair use would justify inclusion of one of them in the article. I've put together a detailed point-by-point Fair Use Criteria statement at User:Huntster/FUR that can be modified to suit individual scenarios (and the individual points may need to be modified to suit each case).

Now, I'm but one editor with opinions and experience, and I fully admit I'm biased against using non-free images, but there you are. It's a bit of a wall of text...sorry. I hope I've covered your questions, but please don't hesitate to ask more if you have them. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow, thanks so much for the incredible reply! Thanks especially for not only answering the questions, but giving the rationale behind each answer.

There is only one question that you didn't explicitly address, but I think I can infer the answer now. The question is: "Why isn't there a procedure to jump through the space agency's hoops to get permission to use the media on a single English Wikipedia page, upload it on English Wikipedia locally (as with fair use) with a template saying it can only be used on X page per Y archived permission from Z space agency, and use it?" After reading your reply, I would guess that such a procedure, while technically legal, would be seen as just too far removed from the ideal of Wikipedia as, in your words, "a purely free resource to the public". Is that right? A2soup (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

A2soup, whoops, I meant for point 3 to cover that question. The reason there is no such procedure is that it would be the same as claiming fair use, really. The agency really only has two options: free or non-free. They can give permission for the image to be used on a specific Wikipedia article, but the image would remain copyrighted, so fair use must still apply. They can release an image under a free license and state it only applies to a specific article, but this isn't actually legal since a license is universally binding on an image (just as a Flickr user could upload an image under CC, then later change his mind and switch to All Rights Reserved, any reuse before the change--such as uploading a copy to Commons--would remain under the CC license...it cannot be revoked).

This is all a moot point, however. Take a look at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html, where images "by permission only" were deemed expressly forbidden on Wikipedia; this was back in 2005. As you say, it is contrary to the ideals of Wikimedia. Organisations and individuals try this all the time on Commons and through the OTRS system, and are soundly rejected. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:51, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Gotcha, nice clarification of the legal and philosophical points there. Well, I'm a whole lot more knowledgable about these things now thanks to you, and I am very grateful for your time and effort in answering my questions. I reserve the right to refer tricky copyright questions to you in the future ;) A2soup (talk) 06:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

On the unintended under-representation of ESA, ISRO, JAXA, Roscosmos, and CNSA space media in Wikipedia

@A2soup:, great conversation you and Huntster had above. I'll just add one thing.

As an economist, and one is is both fascinated by, and teaches on, the idea of emergent order and spontaneous order, which is the foundation of so many of the unintended consequences in human social systems, I think there is a very interesting unintended consequence emerging here. The very fact that NASA is US government, which makes so much of their media public domain, and that the Indian/ISRO, Japanese/JAXA, Russian/Roscosmos, Chinese/CNSA, ESA, and other space agencies are not, means that video and media on the various-languaged Wikipedias will, at a very relevant margin, tend to over represent NASA/US space stuff, and under-represent others. I'm fairly sure that the other space agencies, or more correctly, the army of bureaucrats who run the various bureaus and make policy for the mundane day-to-day release of info by those agencies, are not intending the result this is likely to occasion.

Now so far, this is just a theoretical idea. I wonder if Huntster knows how to run a script and see what proportion of media in spaceflight-related articles on the Wikipedias are from NASA, and what are from all the other major-spaceaccess-nation's agencies. Would be interesting to know, if it is possible to figure out at a reasonable cost. (moreover, it might be the case, that such info might encourage some of those underrepresented agencies to free up a bit more of their media.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

N2e, unfortunately scripting is not my forté. However, I can say with absolute certainty that, not counting citizen photography and works, NASA images make up the extreme vast majority of space-related material on Commons. ESA's recent releases of the Rosetta Navcam images and their previous agreement for Hubble works is helping, but I'd guess the number is still probably 90-95% in favour of NASA. I think perhaps we'll eventually see Roscosmos come around, given that works by the Kremlin are now freely licensed, but who knows when that will occur. India might, but that's just a feeling and it's too early to tell. I see no evidence that the others will any time soon, though. I think it's less of a bureaucracy issue, and perhaps more of a cultural one. — Huntster (t @ c) 06:11, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Super, thanks Huntster. Yeah, I don't think we need a script. Your take of overwhelmingly NASA/US imagery and media in the Wikipedia is the same as mine for the English Wikipedia.

My point on the second item was not about "bureaucracy" as it is commonly understood, and I should clarify. I don't think that the policy is a function of bureaucracy as the term is commonly used in US and UK English. All I mean is that it is never some amorphous large entity that makes a sentient decision about policy: it is always particular individuals. So for example, thinking 18th Century: "France chose to go to war." makes no sense, or at least leaves out the human choice within the human social system. "The political elite of France chose to go to war." does not, and is more analytically correct.

So the idea in my statement: "the army of bureaucrats who run the various bureaus and make policy for the mundane day-to-day release of info by those agencies, are not intending the result this is likely to occasion." was simply that there are particular individuals at particular places within these administrative agencies who have made, and continued, the policy of no CC-SA or public domain release. My insight yesterday, and my argument here, is simply that I highly doubt those folks, those individuals in ESA, JAXA, Roscosmos, ISRO, CNSA, etc. are intending the outcome of "the great and large Wikipedia is vastly over-representing NASA/US spaceflight media" to be the result they intended by that policy.

I find this emergent outcome, this unintended result to be quite fascinating, and fun to think about. N2e (talk) 11:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

N2e, oh sure, I understand. But at the same time, I don't necessarily agree about the reason. The U.S. government really is unusual in its policy of all works being public domain. Historically, I don't think any other government has operated that way. So, NASA was poised to provide these amazing works for us even as it was formed. More recently, elements within other governments have begun adopting the policy of freely releasing their works (such as selective release from Crown copyright, or release by Russia's Kremlin), but, and I could be mistaken, there still exists no other government in the world that has a universal public domain, or even CC, licensing policy. I find it to be a universal truth that bureaucracies are rather resistant to change, be it a government or other large organisation, so I don't find it surprising in the least that the global government spaceflight community still operates under copyright as a rule, rather than as an exception.

The advent of the internet and the now-greater voice of those proponents of free exchange of information are slowly having an effect on policies in governments around the world. Some government entities are opening up, and Commons has even been seeing massive releases of works by museums and universities alike. But it's a slow process...as I said, "resistant to change". I don't believe it is anything malicious, or even necessarily conscious; merely an institutional desire to maintain a status quo. And yes, it is an interesting thought exercise! — Huntster (t @ c) 13:57, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly; that is what I've been saying. I too don't find it "anything malicious, or even necessarily conscious"—it is rather just the carrying out of long-standing existing policy that is, as you say, likely part of "an institutional desire to maintain a status quo." That is why the outcome that has emerged here on Wikipedia w.r.t. images is an unintentional one. And I would doubt most people in those agencies are even aware of that unintended outcome. N2e (talk) 23:27, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Papallazarou

Just wanted to let you know that I put notices on the user's page regarding the reverts to Francesca Gonshaw and Craig Ferguson. In the interests of WP:DTTR I didn't use {{uw-warn}}, but I thought you should know that I placed the notices there. Sorry if I've overstepped, but I think these notices are important. Please let me know if this is an issue. —    Bill W.    (Talk)  (Contrib)  (User:Wtwilson3)  — 02:51, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Wtwilson3, that's fine. I have no problem if folks want to notify, just that over time, I've found that notices hold no real value for edits of this nature. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:05, 17 March 2015 (UTC)