Talk:Alamy

Deletion
So, why wasn't it deleted? Beyond "Alamy is a stock photo agency that was founded on X that has a directory of Y images" there isn't a great deal to say about it; it often supplies images to the Daily Mail etc but it's dwarfed by e.g. iStock. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 23:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

status

 * It was; it was then rewritten and restored in a much more extensive article on Sept 24, 2013. On March 13, 2015 a substantial so negative section was added, with sources. In response to a complaint from the firm at OTRS, I re-edited the article, keeping the sourced material, but decreasing its emphasis, and also removing some previous material than seemed too promotional. I have asked the company if they know of additional references to support their POV beyond their own statement. Additional 3rd party material would be welcome, including sourced information on market share.  DGG ( talk ) 23:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Major updates
Updated article in light of remarks made previously: - additional references to support their POV - additional 3rd party material - sourced information on market share MaryLesowitz (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Deletion needed
At the moment, the material is generated from the company only. The tone of the article is promotional, bordering on pure advertising. There is no references or mention of criticism of the company (such as selling images for which they do not have rights), nor their obfuscated means for removing copyrighted material. As such, the article is not neutral. Ultimately, this is a company, and as such it is not noteworthy of an encyclopaedic entry. This article either needs a drastic, independent 3rd-party rewrite, or simply deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.213.198.112 (talk) 08:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Alamy and Commons
Due to my *cough* role in the discussion on Commons I would probably be suspected of having a WP:Conflict of interest or at least be suspected of being biased. Also linking to talk pages on Commons seems strange - but this is actually what this is about. And yes, I even link to a comment of myself, but I believe all statements are verifiable.


 * Notably, Alamy also copies material with public domain license from Wikimedia Commons and other sources and offers it for sale without attributing the original author(s). There is also no communication towards the customer to educate them about the public domain status of content they are buying. For example, customers can be charged extra for use of material in a large organization as opposed to personal use, even when the rights are in the public domain.


 * Images with a low resolution can be scaled up by Alamy although this does not improve image details. Images with a high resolution can be scaled down.

Alexis Jazz (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Reply 1-APR-2018
There are several *cough* concerns with this request. Allow me to take them in kind:
 * 1) The supposition that editors from one corner of Wikipedia follow, understand, or are even interested in complicated discussions from another corner of Wikipedia. Take myself for example. Five minutes ago, the only thing I knew about Alamy was that it's the capital of Kazakhstan (well, not exactly, I discovered). In other words, the warm and gentle tone of familiarity shown in your edit request, while appreciated, is completely lost on those who haven't a clue of what you're talking about.
 * 2) Edit requests must indicate whether text is to be added or subtracted, an important qualification which has been forgotten in your edit request. Indeed, the request contains very little direction, but does hold various clues. There are quotation marks... and even references! So perhaps someone is saying something. But no one can be sure from where these words in the request came from, nor where they should go (in the article). This puzzle-box of an edit request reminds me of another great riddle, that from the wonderful piece of children's literature Green Eggs and Ham. Inspired by that, I gently offer as a reply my questions about this edit request:

0.85em

Only the COI edit requester can answer these questions. 0.82em 23:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I used the quotation marks to make it clear what part needs to be added to the article. I removed the quotation marks now. I would have been just as happy to put it in a box, but I don't know of any suitable template to do that. I didn't "forget" to say whether text is to be added or subtracted, it simply didn't say on Conflict of interest or Request edit that this is required. It's not possible to remove something that is not in there anyway. By the way, why did you mark the request as implemented when it wasn't? Alexis Jazz (talk) 12:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I didn't mark it as implemented, I marked it as answered. As only half of my questions were answered by your latest response, my selection of 'answered' was evidently premature. Thanks to the roundabout information from your reply, here's what we now know: Your request was that I read an entire article in order to determine the answers to two questions raised by any request (what and where), answers to which you were privy but others were not. One question thus remains: where shall it be placed — the beginning, the middle, the end — or shall it be the reviewing editor's fiat? Please advise. 0.82em 14:54, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * According to Request edit, the "A" parameter is "for implemented edits; adds the request to Category:Implemented requested edits". To find out what Alamy is, you would have to read the first line of this article, not all of it. If either the template or COI would have warned me to add information like this to the request, I would have done that.
 * My suggestion is to append it to the "Overview" section. But if you can improve the article by splitting/merging/renaming sections that's fine too. Alexis Jazz (talk) 19:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Reply 02-APR-2018
Thank you for your reply. It's much appreciated. 0.82em 20:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Another issue is the Commons citation. It's not entirely clear to me if the practice of giving Commons discussions as references for material in articles is something that is either already done or even allowed. You did mention that it should be covered because it is "what this is about." to which I would agree that it certainly seems that's what it's about. It would be nice to understand how this is what it's about, beyond what you've already stated "linking to talk pages on Commons seems strange - but this is actually what this is about." It would be nice to know where the community stands on this inclusion, and how it's been handled before in the past. Other cases where current events involving an article have intersected with the Project, such as Pakistan and Fontgate, have seen discussions confined to the talk page. Perhaps this ought to be the case with the present article in question. In any event, I believe additional discussion is warranted.
 * The thing is that Alamy copies content from Commons. This makes Commons a party in this. And since I am an active user on Commons and actively participated in the discussion, people could think I have a COI or am biased. When Alamy copies public domain images from other sources, I wouldn't have any COI. I actually could make changes to this article when I omit Commons, but the fact they do copy from Commons is interesting. I don't know of other big stock photo sites that do this and it means that also "amateur" content can find its way to Alamy.
 * The reason for linking the discussions on Commons is because some facts are summed up there with links to prove them. If you think it would be OK to include that information in the article, I'll be happy to rewrite my edit request.
 * In answer to your questions:
 * "It would be nice to know where the community stands on this inclusion": Generally this makes the community vomit.
 * "and how it's been handled before in the past.": In some cases when an image was originally uploaded to Commons and then copied by Alamy, the appearance on Alamy resulted in the image on Commons being deleted because it is found on a stock photo site. We assumed the photo was copied from Alamy to Commons when in fact the exact opposite had happened. Commons was (until now) virtually unaware Alamy was copying content directly from Commons. Other than this Commons does not "handle" this: Alamy knows exactly how to walk the edge of the boundaries of the law. Alexis Jazz (talk) 07:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

To add to article
Basic information to add to this article: what exactly the name "Alamy" means. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 07:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)