Talk:Signal for Help

Signal for Help
Needs to be rolled into (or at least linked to/from) the disambiguation page for “Help me” Scott.pt (talk) 20:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Citation needed for national praise
Since Ad Age, a publication of Crain Communications, is an American information source, it is not national in terms of the Canadian origin of the sign. See Americentrism. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 06:58, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Reversion of contact for Signal for Help
Revirvlkodlaku didn't specify in what way the deleted sentence is "ill fitting". I think it is important to include the contact for spreading awareness of Signal for Help. This is useful information for women all over the world. Unless it violates Wikipedia policy, can you suggest a way to make it fit? Humphrey Tribble (talk) 21:19, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I removed that passage because it turned out not to be a case of an individual recognizing the Signal for Help, so it isn't relevant to the topic. I think that only cases where someone recognizes the signal and proceeds to intercede in a given situation is it relevant to the signal's use and effectiveness. This, for all intents and purposes, was a case of mistaken identity. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 22:13, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I am not referring to the recent incident, Revirvlkodlaku. The editor who added it was using good faith but I noted that the source is not available to most people. In any case, you are correct; it isn't a good example.

I am talking about the contact information: "Organizations wanting to launch Signal for Help in their own country or region, are invited to contact the Canadian Women's Foundation." I think it important for women that this signal become recognized as easily as the signal that someone is choking. Does Wikipedia allow for a simple statement that there is a source of more information? It is simply a piece of information for users of English Wikipedia around the world. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 22:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see what you mean; I misunderstood what you were referring to. I don't actually know what the Wikipedia policy is on this. Perhaps you could include the information as part of an external link? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 05:29, 14 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Advocacy. Wikipedia should not be doing the "inviting" in its own voice, a direct quote from somebody at the CWF about their hopes for wider adoption would be okay. The "invited to contact" wording sounds like a warning that the CWF would object to another charity popularising the gesture without asking permission first, which is possibly not what they want. --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:45, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both. I have reviewed the article on advocacy. There is a good match for the following example. "The public needs to know this! Wikipedia is not a platform for public relations campaigns, even for worthy causes...Once information has been published, it may be noticed by Wikipedia editors and utilized as a reference." There must be a suitable quotation that could be used. I will investigate over the next couple of days, then run it by you.

I don't read the statement as a warning at all, Lord Belbury, since the Canadian women's foundation freely passed it to the women's funding network. More likely, they want to prevent anyone profiting. I'm pretty sure a gesture can't be copyrighted anywhere. I was more concerned when I saw the Wiki illustration which is a close copy of that used by CWF. That might be copyrighted. Did you have any contact with them regarding the illustration, or were you just forestalling problems? Humphrey Tribble (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Forestalling problems, but other ones: the CWF versions of the gestures are under a deletion discussion at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_found_with_signal_for_help (since they didn't go through proper channels to CC-licence them, and there's nothing on their website that says the images are free to use). When File:SFH 1080x1080.jpg was deleted from Commons as a presumed copyright violation in April, this article was left without an absolutely crucial illustration for over a month, with nobody noticing, so I thought I'd replace it with a public domain equivalent ahead of time, to stop that from happening again. --Lord Belbury (talk) 21:46, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Short answer: The signal for help (hereafter called SFH) was developed for the Canadian Women's Association by Toronto ad agency Juniper Park/TBWA. The CWA website provides a free download of a SFH kit. I have located a good article about the development process; it could provide some suitable quotations.

Also, there is now a website called signalforhelp.net hosted by TBWA Worldwide Inc. The fine print on the site says that all rights are owned by TBWA. I surmise that is simply to give some control over SFH and that it can be freely used. I have sent an email asking for explicit information about usage and hope to turn up some independent worldwide articles which would provide quotations also. An auto reply tells me that the key person is away until the end of the month, so I might shelve the article until December. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 03:46, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I have received the following reply from TBWA: "There is no copyright on the Signal for Help CWF downloadable kit. We are good to use these assets anywhere. We would ask that the articles does mention the Canadian Women's Foundation as they are the original organization which created it." Is my say-so based on a message on my computer sufficient? I could work on the article as time permits, but I have little knowledge of copyright issues in general and none about Wikipedia procedures. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 21:20, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think TBWA would actually have to say that they were releasing the images as public domain or a usable CC licence, either on their website or in an email direct to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team. It looks like a forwarded say-so email isn't enough, it has to come direct from them. It also has to be very clear which licence they're releasing the images under: "We are good to use these assets anywhere" isn't quite doing that. --Lord Belbury (talk) 09:21, 18 November 2021 (UTC)