Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 10

New York 2016
Is anyone going to the World Stamp Show-NY 2016? There are many society meetings and hopefully some of us can meet up. ww2censor (talk) 23:01, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Great idea! Maybe we can have an informal meet of the Philately Project possibly at a convention center or hotel bar?  I will be presenting a talk on Tuesday May 31 about solving the mystery of two early Mexican stamps using paper fiber analysis (among other evidence).  Details here.  Anyone interested is invited. Ecphora (talk) 18:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll either be at the Postal Museum or Wreck and Crash Society meeting in the morning but maybe a lunch meetup would work though Tuesday is a rather busy day. I have a philatelic dinner from 6:30, so let's see who else logs in. ww2censor (talk) 11:16, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Postal/philatelic museums
Is there a difference between a "postal museum" and a "philatelic museum"? If yes, there should be articles explaining what each type of museum is about. If no, the articles Postal museum and List of philatelic museums should be merged, and so should the categories Category:Postal museums and Category:Philatelic museums. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 19:16, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Completely confused
Hi folks. I'm trying to determine if this US Postage Stamp, issued in 1999, can be used with a fair use rationale in the article on the subject it depicts, the racehorse Secretariat. My understanding is probably not, as the article in question isn't about the stamp. But at Stamp_rationale, it has a parameter that reads " an educational article about the entity represented by the image" -- so, does that parameter reference the subject of the stamp as well as the stamp itself, or just the stamp? Montanabw (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The USPS seems to allow use of copyright images in articles about the subject of the stamp, requiring only that its copyright be properly noted.  Weirdly enough, the USOC is not as forgiving about using any image containing the Olympic Rings. There are a couple of other persons/organizations also being strict on this. This I know due to being told on restrictions for first day cover cachets, with the USPS telling cachet-makers of cases where obvious design elements would require payments of royalties to the person or organization depicted on the stamp. Collect (talk) 12:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately we have a much higher standard than the US fair use concept. Besides which fair use does nto require any permission from the copyright holder, so what the USPS states only confirms US law. However, here on the English Wikipedia any use of a copyright image must comply with all 10 non-free policy guidelines. some editors quote US law in trying to use such images, including stamps, as you have, but post 1978 all USPS stamps are copyright and cannot be used unless they follow the policy. In general use of stamps can only be used on the enwiki when they are used to illustrate the stamps in article about the stamps themselves and not the subject of the stamp. So using a stamp in an article about the person or place shown are not allowed. See WP:NFC #3. You should actually be a bit happy that we are more liberal than many other language wikis that prohibit ANY non-free images. ww2censor (talk) 14:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The USPS specifies: Generally, no prior permission is required for:
 * Educational Use : Noncommercial, educational uses limited to teaching, scholarship, and research.
 * Credit Language: For all the aforementioned uses, users must cite the source of the image, the United States Postal Service®, and include language such as: "© United States Postal Service. All rights reserved."   (as I understand it, contributors can insist on being credited as copyright holder on Wikipedia)
 * Which is far broader than just "confirming US law." In additions, stamps prior to 1978 do not even hold the USPS copyright (dividing line is the USPS issue for its creation). Such stamps are governed by older regulations covering banknotes, stamps and other government obligations, explaining why "completely fake stamps" appear in old movies.  Collect (talk) 20:10, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Likely photographer?
On John Walter Scott I am using a photo label made from 1869-1870 in New York City. The person had an office on Nassau Street, in Lower Manhattan. Has anyone seen earlier photographic labels (the image appears to be a print on glossy photographic paper as nearly as I can determine.)  Can we guess at the possible photographers who may have taken the image? In the same series, there is also an Abraham Lincoln label - clearly the Berger photograph. Thanks. Collect (talk) 20:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If Wikipedia is a good source - Abraham Borgardus seems likely? Brady not as much, Gurney? Or the Pach Brothers - who seem to have made tons of portraits. I suppose the next question is which one of those would have been most likely to do the greatly reduced miniatures for the labels in 1869? Thanks. Collect (talk) 20:42, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Query
John B. Heywood and John D. Heywood appear to have been in Boston at the exact same time for the same period of time. Might someone verify that they are different persons perhaps? Collect (talk) 20:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)   avers it a coincidence. Sigh. Collect (talk) 20:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

USPS image use
At Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 66, an interesting discussion among TheVirginianHistorian, Masem, Hammersoft and Seraphimblade on the use of USPS non-free images, whether they should be treated with the same NFCC exemption as currency, or whether each stamp should be included only if it is treated as critically acclaimed exemplar of the fine arts before inclusion in topical stamp articles such as Puerto Rico on stamps. An exception is already been made for stamps with notoriety errors beyond the WP:NOTABILITY test elsewhere at WP in cases such as the Inverted Jenny, USPS reprinting out-of-copyright artwork as in their recent Civil War battle series, and USPS stamps of the literary arts series with the USPS critical fine arts descriptions which accompanies the Julia de Burgos stamp. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:49, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk: Non-free content
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk: Non-free content. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Mailbox category discussion
You may want to make some comment at this discussion c:Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/10/Category:Mailboxes in England which affect the structure of mailboxes in all countries. ww2censor (talk) 08:01, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Template:List of United States airmail stamps

 * I request assistance in improving Template:List of United States airmail stamps. --Jax 0677 (talk) 20:17, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I also request assistance in improving Template:List of United States Post Offices‎. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * These two template have now been listed with a proposal to merge them at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 November 3 by Jax 0677, so you may want to comment there. ww2censor (talk) 23:29, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Postal privatisation bills
This topic was merged to Japan Post many years ago but there have been many such bills introduced in many countries, so it could be made into a stand alone article. Has anyone some sources for different countries? Royal Mail have just done so, Ireland did so in 1984, and there was a European Postal Services Directive in 1997. Anyone interested in collaborating. We could start a sandbox for a start. ww2censor (talk) 13:12, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Stamp article deletion discussion
Are you aware of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom of Finland stamps? Your input might be valuable. ww2censor (talk) 22:00, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Name change request
An anonIP has requested a name change of Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain at Talk:Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain. More interested editors views would be appreciated. ww2censor (talk) 11:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This arose before, many years ago, and was left in abeyance without any real consensus. A clear WP:CON is needed. Thanks. Jack | talk page 14:40, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of Tasmania
Hello all, you might want to keep an eye on this article as someone has repeatedly added suspect content in recent weeks. I've reverted for now to a clean version by Philafrenzy. Thanks. Jack | talk page 15:09, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The first removed section seems plausible but ideally should have a source. The second removed section should be nuked from orbit and an Adminstrator should seriously consider hiding that content as serious coatracking and a potential BLP violation (one would expect the name to be a household name in Australia if that content was true, but even Google only brings up a handful of results - and none which connect the other matter to Tasmanian stamps). Daveosaurus (talk) 05:08, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Dave. I agree that the first part might have been verifiable but that wasn't done and, given that the rest was dangerous nonsense, I removed it all. Jack | talk page 14:43, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Liechtenstein stamp FFD
File:1921 stamp Liechtenstein Gutenberg Castle.jpg is being discussed at FFD but it may well be in the public domain. Does anyone know the designer which would verify its copyright status? Do any of the catalogues list the designers? Otherwise it may just stay on the enwiki as local when it could be moved to the commons. See. ww2censor (talk) 10:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Updates to the Pitney Bowes article
On behalf of Pitney Bowes, I've proposed an expanded and updated article as part of my work at Beutler Ink. I've saved my draft in full here, and submitted an edit request at Talk:Pitney Bowes to update the infobox and add the proposed "Overview" section. Given my conflict of interest, I will not edit the article directly and seek uninvolved editors to review the draft for accuracy, neutrality, and verifiability. I will be submitting additional edit requests to address the article's other sections later, but for now I'm wondering if a WikiProject Philately member may be willing to help with this initial request? I can answer questions on my user talk page or on the article's talk page. Thank you, Inkian Jason (talk) 21:26, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Italian stamps
Earlier this month I noticed that an editor was uploading several Italian stamps to the commons using their version of PD-Italy template. I checked the Italian entry about individual countries copyright status but it was very deficient, so based on some discussion with an Italian editor who confirmed the 70 pma rule applies (which some of the uploads do not even comply with) and the Italian PD template does not apply (see: c:User talk:Katharinaiv and c:User talk:Ruthven), I've rewritten the entry together with a list of known designers and their life dates, similar to the France entry. It is at c:Commons:Stamps/Public domain and if you can add any details, such as names or dates that would be appreciated. unfortunately several of the images, mostly in this category are therefore copyright violations and will have to be deleted. ww2censor (talk) 23:38, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, very useful. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:29, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Revenue stamps articles
Could some editors with knowledge regarding revenue stamps please assist in writing articles about the revenue stamps of individual countries? I had begun writing some articles back in 2012–14, and wrote three more articles this week (Revenue stamps of Fiji, Oman and Seychelles). However, there are many countries still missing, including many major ones, for example, there are still no articles about: Many articles like Revenue stamps of Argentina and Revenue stamps of Canada are stubs which can be greatly expanded. When I have time I can work on many British Empire/Commonwealth countries and a few select non-Commonwealth countries, but would anyone be interested in writing articles about other countries? --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 20:08, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Revenue stamps of Brazil
 * Revenue stamps of Belgium
 * Revenue stamps of China
 * Revenue stamps of France
 * Revenue stamps of Germany
 * Revenue stamps of the Netherlands
 * Revenue stamps of Portugal
 * Revenue stamps of Spain
 * Revenue stamps of Thailand
 * Revenue stamps of Yugoslavia
 * Some online references which might be useful for potential editors include the Forbin 1915 worldwide catalogue and Barefoot's Revenue Stamps Information which contain listings of various countries. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 20:13, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I will try to do some. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:14, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template Transclude lead excerpt.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:51, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Images needed
We now have the category Category:Wikipedia requested images of philately so editors can try to fins suitable images for these articles. Images needed is now also included in the project's assessment banner. ww2censor (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Naming issue
There is a rename and move request for the Apollo 15 postage stamp incident article at Talk:Apollo 15 postage stamp incident that may be of interest to express your views on. ww2censor (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This was moved renamed Apollo 15 postal covers incident a few days ago. ww2censor (talk) 13:50, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Philip G. Cole
Philip G. Cole, a physician who collected artwork by Charles M. Russell and Olaf C. Seltzer, is described as having "one of the nation's most complete air-mail stamp collections" in his 1941 obituary. Has anyone in this WP come across his name and do you think he is sufficiently notable to have his own article please?Zigzig20s (talk) 16:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Please ping me when you reply.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Scott catalogue issue
Can someone please take a look at the nigh on five year old issue at Talk:Scott catalogue? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:07, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

POD & USPS merge
Talk:United States Postal Service discusses this proposal. ww2censor (talk) 09:58, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Tagging articles
I notice that template Postage stamps of the United States and a number of articles linked from it are lacking WikiProject Philately tagging. --Doncram (talk) 04:48, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Postcards of the USSR
Dear members of the project, I have re-acquired my cache of Soviet-times postcards and I'm in the process of uploading them to Wikipedia (Wikicommons). However, I could certainly use some help and guidance from the local band of philatelists here.


 * 1) I am not sure whether they should be classified as "post cards" or "postal cards" in English. Please see one example (note that it's 2-sided, see "other versions" section for the other side) and advise where it belongs;
 * 2) Some of the said cards have personal texts on the reverse that tend to be written with a blue-ink pen. Anybody willing to help me with their knowledge to erase these personal texts before uploading? (Otherwise I will simply withhold uploading the reverses of such card.)

I appreciate in advance any help you might be willing to provide! -- Wesha (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2019 (UTC)


 * c:Category:Postal cards of Russia is a sub-category of c:Category:Postcards of Russia and because they have impressed stamps, they are postal cards even though they have a picture side. You will also notice there are subcategories for definitive and commemorative stamps, so you should categorise accordingly. There is also a Soviet Union category: c:Category:Postal cards of the Soviet Union and I've added it to the parent category c:Category:Postcards of the Soviet Union just like the Russian one. This should all be uploaded to the commons only as all those categories are on the commons. One BIG problems is that you claim these as your own work. That is false, you just scanned or photographed the cards, so you must attribute the creator, who is the post office and not you. It's good to hear you found your old material again. I've moved the post to the project where it might get more response. Good luck. ww2censor (talk) 18:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Stupid me, I've just noticed that they indeed bear a copyright notice of Ministry of Communications of the Soviet Union so I re-attributed them as such (although it should be noted that later, in 2006, a newer law has overridden this, so they are suitable for Wikipedia).
 * What is "definite stamp"? I'm not familiar with that term, is it an everyday-use stamap, the exact opposite of "commemorative stamp"? Upon my research, I believe the answer to that is "yes", please correct me if I'm wrong.
 * Thanks for your help! -- Wesha (talk) 20:11, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Airmail postcards
I've got an airmail postcard. Which category (on Commons) should I put it in? -- Wesha (talk) 05:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If it's not a definitive or commemorative impressed stamp, just put it loose in the parent category. ww2censor (talk) 16:50, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think I found it, c:Category:Airmail_postal_cards_of_the_Soviet_Union -- Wesha (talk) 03:59, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Postcards vs. postal cards vs ???
"Postal cards are postal stationery with an imprinted stamp or indicium signifying the prepayment of postage."

"A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope"

Well, I have these which do not have imprinted stamp, but also explicitly say "not to be mailed without an envelope". Which category should I put them into? -- Wesha (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would categorise them as postcards though apparently produced by the postal service. Who is to stop you putting a stamp on and mailing them in a postbox? Have you seen any? ww2censor (talk) 09:47, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for rewriting List of types of revenue stamps
I am proposing rewriting the List of types of revenue stamps article from scratch, so as to make it more useful for readers. I invite you to participate in a discussion on the article's talk page here. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 18:13, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Philately
Proposal to delete all portals

The discussion is at Village pump (proposals). Voceditenore (talk) 07:33, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests
Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to WikiProject Philately since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as infobox journal for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as starbox begin should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposal of a new project
I'd like to propose a new Wikimedia project: a universal philatelic catalog, i.e. studying stamps from all countries, but also everything collected by postal or fiscal philatelists: cancels and all other postal markings, postal stationary, international reply coupons, etc. This catalog will not try to provide estimated standard prices, because such prices are always subjective.

This catalog might also include the philatelic vocabulary (e.g. perforation gauge), including everything which may be of same help for identification (eg. CF, CCCP, Magyar posta, d (penny...), Lundy, etc.).

Why a new project?
 * Wikipedia already includes pages with lists of stamps, but Wikipedia is not a catalog. Would you imagine half of Wikipedia pages dedicated to philately?
 * dedicating a Wikimedia project to philately may seem strange, but:
 * it's not only a leisure: postal history and fiscal history are specialized sciences, about things with an official character (in most cases),
 * this leisure is truly universal,
 * Wikivoyage is dedicated to travelling, another universal leisure; in the case of philately, the existence of a project seems even more justified,
 * philately is a very popular leisure in China; this project could be the opportunity to develop Wikimedia projects in China, as it is not politically sensitive.

Questions to lawyers: magazines, paper catalogs... reproduce stamps, and postal administrations seem to favour this practice (free ad).
 * 1) what's the legal basis allowing this?
 * 2) how to proceed to do the same (without illustrations, a philatelic catalog is not really usable)?
 * 3) would this have consequences on possible licenses for the project?
 * 4) would it be possible to use Commons to store illustrations? Would there be conditions?

This project might seem overambitious, but it's the same for all Wikimedia projects, and I have experience of what is achievable, after having created more than 1,360,000 pages on the French Wiktionary (including more than 43,000 manual creations).

I'd like to start with three linguistic versions: fr (the one I'll contribute to), en and zh. Who would be interested in contributing (in these languages or other languages)? Please, feel free to forward and translate this proposal and translate it when needed. If there is interest in the project, I'll propose it formally. Lmaltier (talk) 09:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Given that the majority of country pages here are at a very low level of development (see France for instance), do you envisage that there are sufficient interested editors to make this viable? Philafrenzy (talk) 10:16, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think so: this cannot be compared to Wikipedia pages, as the objective is very different, and contributing would be easier, just like it is easier to create a Wiktionary page than to create a full Wikipedia page. Such sites already exist, but they are much less ambitious. The objective is to produce the major reference catalogue, just like Wikipedia is the reference encyclopedia, and Wiktionary the reference dictionary. Collectors would be happy to use what they own as illustrations of this reference catalogue. Lmaltier (talk) 11:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think you would have major copyright problems as the majority of stamps (certainly from the last 70 years or so) are in copyright and therefore not eligible for Commons. Philafrenzy (talk) 12:10, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If philatelic societies, dealers and publishers, with all their expertise, cannot do then then how can with do such a thing with only volunteer editors. This is just not a viable proposition. We already have the World Stamp Catalogue in English but it is rather sparse with few editors. For two reasons would be the place for such an expanded project; it already exists and I expect you would need permission from the foundation to start a completely new project. I, for one, have made just 11 edits there in 14 years here when most of my edits are philately related. Even trying to keep up with the newly issued stamps alone is an impossible task which only the stamp catalogue issuers can do, considering there are about 10,000 new stamps issued worldwide each year. With reference to your questions posed above, the only one of consequence refers to the commons images, so you should know that the commons only accepts freely licensed files so many stamp images would be excluded from illustration which would be the point of an expanded catalogue. This applies mostly to stamps that are less than 70 or 50 years old (depending on the country) or where the artists are not yet dead long enough, which is also usually 70 years pma. ww2censor (talk) 13:25, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link to the World Stamp Catalogue. I wasn't aware of its existence. With some difficulty, I found a page looking like a catalogue: b:World_Stamp_Catalogue/Albania (with only a few stamps, but with pictures!).
 * This catalogue is not ambitious enough: each line of the table could become a page (including the whole stamp history, proofs, etc.), and it should not be limited to stamps. Just like Wikipedia or Wiktionary, it's the unreasonable objective which leads to success. Expertise is not the major issue: dictionary publishers, with all their expertise, have never produced such a major result as wiktionaries...
 * My questions about pictures are not about what is currently allowed (I know current rules) but how to achieve the objective. This is why my 1st question (what's the legal basis allowing this?) is the most important one. I ask the question because I don't know the answer. A clear answer to this 1st question is needed to be able to answer other questions. Lmaltier (talk) 15:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * A catalog sounds to me as much like a database as like a collection of wiki pages. Have you checked into the possibility of building it within Wikidata first? After all, WD already handles paintings and other similar items in a very comprehensive manner. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not surprised by this suggestion but, no, a catalogue is not a database, it's a reference work, just like a dictionary or an encyclopedia. It's exactly the same. Furthermore, the objective is to get many contributors (easy contribution) and many readers, and this is not compatible with Wikidata. Lmaltier (talk) 06:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Lmaltier, I saw your note at WP:VPIL, and I think you should consider User:Jim.henderson's advice and talk to the Wikidata folks. They have some "games" that allow very easy contributions.  Even if the final product ended up elsewhere, they could provide some support, e.g., by letting you link to items or automatically assembling some information into standard forms like this one.  It's also a good option for factual information that you want translated between languages.  I recommend that you post your idea at d:Wikidata:Project chat and see if anyone would give you advice on how Wikidata might be able to support your goals.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Nice to have confirmation from User:Whatamidoing (WMF), who knows more than I do about wikitech and wikipolitics. Immediately launching a separate Web site within the Wikimedia complex seems a difficult struggle. The most successful such topic-based, semi-independent operation that I know of is Wikispecies, which serves a very disciplined group of editors. Well, Mediawiki and Meta also seem to be doing all right but they are internal, and besides, I think they are too many. Wikivoyage was started a few years ago by refugees from a schism at the fully independent Wikitravel who brought with them the right to use all the old files of their homeland. I don't think that one has greatly thrived, as many pages have slipped out of date without enough tending. Naturally the wikipolitical question would arise, what happens when collectors of coins, dolls, postcards and seashells arrive? Do they each get their own, or should there be a general collectors' wiki? That will lead to the question, why do you want to be so closely associated to WP anyway? Why not go for almost complete independence, with a Wikia site? A strong presence in Wikidata will be part of your answer. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for advice. However, Wikidata cannot be the solution: would you move Wikipedia to Wikidata? It's exactly the same. I'm afraid that the quantity and variety of data available is greatly underestimated: whole books have been written on some issues (e.g. Chinese large dragons). I know you write Even if the final product ended up elsewhere, but this would imply that major contributions would be on Wikidata, a project with no common discussion language, and this would lead to failure, as most potential contributors don't speak English.
 * Also note that I got a detailed answer to my 1st question (in French): fr:Wikipédia:Legifer/janvier_2020. An example to understand this answer: if Wikipedia wants to illustrate a work of art, copyright rules on this work of art do apply, even if this page uses a stamp reproducing this work of art; however, if the objective is to illustrate the stamp, this copyright does not apply. This is why philatelic catalogues are published without legal issues.
 * About Wikivoyage: I tried (once) to contribute (in French), and it's close to impossible because of the way templates are used. I'm not optimistic, at least for the French version.
 * The most important rationale for this project could be the development of Wikimedia projects in China. I think it's important, and that it's worth a try. Lmaltier (talk) 07:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As a long-time volunteer, I can and have moved parts of Wikipedia to Wikidata. If you want a multi-lingual, fact-based project, then Wikidata can help you.  I suggest that you go look at the long infobox at Jimmy Wales.  Then open the wikitext for the page, and see how little the editors needed to type manually to get all of that information.  Imagine a world in which you can enter a fact once, such as the original issue year for a stamp or a record sales price, and that fact could appear in every language edition of your catalogue automatically, even if the contributor only speaks one language.  And much of this can be done from a smartphone, by answering simple questions.  Try it out, and then imagine the questions being about stamps.
 * As for size, I believe there have been around a quarter million stamp designs made, and then there are other things, like the different cancels. A few million items, if we're lucky to get that much contribution?  Wikidata can already handle that scale.  They've already imported information about 30 million scientific papers.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know the Wikidata rationale, and also the drawbacks. I agree with the interest of sharing facts (including this kind of facts) and making them accessible through very powerful tools. This is not my concern. My concern is that all contributors of each wiki must be able to discuss in a common language. This is a real need in most wikis (this is less a need for Commons, as contributors don't collaborate for producing a good page). Lmaltier (talk) 09:34, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I recently got auto-prodded into paying more attention to WP doings, so I've been wandering around and getting back up speed, and this caught my eye. My interest in stamp cataloging goes back nearly 30 years, and the current state of my efforts can be seen at StampData, which has been up for a decade though not especially popular.  At 70,000+ lines of PHP driving the website, I expect I can claim to have written more stamp-specific code than any other human. (And yet, that's not really a big resume enhancer, ha ha.)  Anyway, having actually built an online catalog most of the way to being complete, there are a couple really tough issues beyond the easier ones of licensing and volunteer participation:
 * What counts as a distinct type of stamp? For instance, for booklet stamps the Scott catalog declares it as one type, which the Michel catalog has a different number for each combination of perforated and straight edges.  What about varying perfs?  One catalog might say "perf 11-13" while another assigns different numbers for 11, 12, and 13.  US collectors would not like a Washington–Franklin Issues that lumped them all together as "perf 10-12"! Similarly, some catalogs differentiate color shades, or watermark orientations, and others can't be be bothered.  This means that there is no existing catalog whose numbers can serve as a definitive index, nor even much of a consensus to try.  (Compare to WikiSpecies, where there is plenty of naming chaos, but the professionals at least share the goal of authoritative consistency.)
 * How do you reconcile contradictory source data? One of the fun aspects of StampData is that I have accumulated a bunch of data from other stamp catalog websites, and can generate internal reports of data that different sources disagree on. Some facts are easy; the face value is printed right on the stamp, so it's easy to tell which sources are mistaken about that.  But date of issue?  It seems like an objective fact, so it is kind of alarming to find out that the major printed catalogs and major websites have thousands of listings that disagree on the date, even for modern issues from countries with a well-organized stamp program.  And then you get to the even more subjective things like colors and designs.  Even though StampData has miles of specialized code to deal with all this, there is also a long todo list of aspects that are still not handled adequately.
 * That said, I still think cataloging is worthwhile, and we have projects like CDDB as inspiration for how to bring order out of chaos. One possibility is to design a process to import the appropriately-licensed parts of StampData content into WikiData. Stan (talk) 15:05, 23 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I personally think that this catalogue would be nearly impossible to compile, and the issues raised by other editors above are valid - I would be especially concerned with the lack of contributors. Rather than a "universal philatelic catalog", I think an effort to improve the coverage of philately on Wikipedia would be much more beneficial - both for Wikipedia and philately itself.
 * Unfortunately, WikiProject Philately seems to have a severe lack of high-quality articles. Of the 4436 articles that fall within the scope of the project, there are only 4 featured articles and 15 good articles. Most of these (eg. George V or Auberge d'Italie) have relatively marginal importance to philately.
 * It would be far more useful to have some interesting good quality articles relating to philately on Wikipedia, than a massive, perpetually incomplete catalogue. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 19:27, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am for completeness, however this may not mean a page per stamp, you can have a page per issue or type, whatever is required to meet notability requirements.  If you can get the data consistent, the bulk of the translation is done, the more complex stuff is do-able.
 * You would need wide buy-in from the philatelic community, either to do it on Wikipedia or on WikiStamps.
 * Of course catalogue numbers belong on Wikidata.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough  (the apparently calm and reasonable) 12:13, 24 February 2020 (UTC).

Discussions on the commons
Two posts on the commons may interest fellow philatelists: Your opinions may help. ww2censor (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * c:Commons talk:Stamps/Public domain concerns a page move
 * c:Commons talk:Stamps/Public domain is self evident.

List of types of revenue stamps
As part of my efforts to increase the coverage of revenue stamps on Wikipedia, I am currently rewriting the List of types of revenue stamps. I had started the list back in 2013, but over time I found it to be rather useless since it is incomplete, too long and it is rather difficult to find useful content in it. I had nominated the list for deletion in 2016 but it was decided that it should be kept despite the problems with it. In 2019 I attempted to start a discussion about a possible way of rewriting the article but I got no replies. Since then I have been working on a new draft of the list with the intention of eventually replacing the current article with it.

In the new draft I am currently adding information about British Commonwealth countries and other countries which I was able to find info about online, but there are many others which I don't have any information on. If other users can add the list of different types of revenue stamps which was used by some of the countries which still have empty sections it would greatly improve the list.

If this new list gets too long (which it probably will) I have no problem in splitting it up into multiple articles just like the Category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 10:33, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Um, interesting but are you not concerned that by listing every type of revenue stamp issued by every country the list will be extremely cumbersome. I only checked Ireland and see just one entry when the current list has many entries but maybe you are just not finished with that one. The way the list is now, each type just lists the countries that used that type but in your draft it will have substantially many more entries, even if you just use the current details. Seems like a hell of a lot of work for not a lot of gain but if you are up to the job that's up to you to devote all that time. I think your reasons for changing the layout are flawed. The new version will also likely be incomplete and like the current layout will have the same problem of being difficult to find useful content, though I am not convinced of the latter. ww2censor (talk) 22:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * My issue with the old list (ie. the current article) is that the different types of revenue stamps vary a lot from country to country, and they are called by different names in different countries. An "Excise" stamp from Ireland might have the same function as a "Cigarette Duty" stamp from the Cape of Good Hope (a stamp affixed to a cigarette packet to show that the tax on it has been paid), but due to their different inscriptions where would you include them? In addition, not all "Excise" stamps may have the same function. Some may be for cigarettes, others for alcohol and others for entertainment tax on cinema tickets. There are countless other examples - eg. American Proprietary stamps might have had the same function as British Medicine Duty stamps. Also, in the current list how do you deal with similar but slightly different types, eg. Malta had "Stocks and Shares" stamps, while Basel had stamps for "Stocks and Bonds" - these are currently grouped together as "Stocks, Shares and Bonds", a grouping which neither Malta nor Basel actually used on their stamps.
 * In addition, there are also many other entries in the current list are too country-specific, eg. I'm pretty sure that only the UK issued Public Records (Land Revenue Records and Inrolments) stamps, that only India issued Vakil stamps or that only Western Australia issued Egg Stabilisation Charge stamps, but these all have their own section or subsection in the current list. One must remember that the article as it is now has 304 sections excluding references and it only covers a very limited amount of countries (mostly British Commonwealth) - yet the new article has "only" 237 sections but it includes all the presently-existing countries in the world (some colonies and dependent territories plus old names of countries which changed their names are still missing). If every country/dependent territory etc is included in the new list, we might have a total of 400 or so sections (I don't plan on including every single entity, eg. Indian princely states would be grouped into just one section since there are hundreds of those states and most used similar or the same types of stamps). But who knows how many different types are still missing in the current list? I myself have no idea, but it's definitely more than 400. If the article gets too long, sorting it by country makes it easier to split it up into a group of articles rather than a single article - just like the postage stamps compendium.
 * Another advantage of the draft list is that you can easily see what information is missing. In the current list, if you look at "National Insurance" and you see a handful of countries you would assume that those are the only countries in the world which issued this type of stamp. On the new list if you go to "Slovenia" and you find the section empty you would know that there's some missing information there.
 * It is a lot of work - particularly because I'm trying to add references wherever these are available unlike the current list - and this is why I'm only adding a few countries at a time (I don't have the time or inclination to do it all at one go so it's a gradual process which will take a long time to reach a reasonable level of completion to allow it to make its way to mainspace). I haven't reached the Ireland section yet so that's why the country's list is still not included. I will definitely not replace the current list by the new one until I make sure that everything mentioned in the old one is included in the new one.
 * Xwejnusgozo (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Very clear and concise reasoning, thanks. A lot of work still to do and my hat is off to you for taking this one. If there is anything I can do, let me know. ww2censor (talk) 14:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Any help needed?
Hello, all. Stamp collecting is a hobby of some members of my wider family and I have a fair collection myself which was built in times past. I've only just become aware that there is a project here dedicated to the hobby, even though I did perform a GA review last year on Revenue stamps of Malta, which passed. If I can help you in any way, I'd be willing to try, though I think it would have to be a family effort. Thanks and all the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 21:57, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Black Heritage pillar boxes
Do we have any editors who can take some photos of the four black pillar boxes? They are only scheduled to be in that state for the month of October, so please get out and take some photos before they disappear again. There are in London (Acre Lane, Brixton), Glasgow (Byres Road), Cardiff (King Edward VII Avenue) and Belfast (Bedford Street). ww2censor (talk) 23:49, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Requested move of Cancellation (mail)
There is a requested move here: Talk:Cancellation (mail) that you may be interested in commenting on. ww2censor (talk) 18:43, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

New monograph
Contributors to this portal may be interested in my new monograph A Sharp Eye on collecting US Classics. Charlesjsharp (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Barefoot Catalogue up for deletion
Can you help with more sources to save this: Articles for deletion/Barefoot Catalogue? ww2censor (talk) 14:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

A merge proposal
Perhaps a few more eyes could be helpful on this merge proposal Talk:Cut square (philately). ww2censor (talk) 22:06, 25 June 2021 (UTC) ✅

stampworld.com
Is someone able to indicate the consensus regarding https://www.stampworld.com/? Is it a reliable source for the purposes of origin and date of stamps? Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:40, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That site seems to be a user driven catalogue where buying and selling also takes place, so no that would not considered be a reliable source. Well established catalogues are the way to go though for some modern stamps, going back to 2002, the UPUs WADP Numbering System is also useful. See https://www.wnsstamps.post/en/Statistics ww2censor (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the quick response. The stamp I'm interested in is from Rhodesia and was issued in 1965. The stamp itself is dated (not as in a watermark) as the stamp celebrates the date of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence and there is no mistaking its origin - in that case if adding the image to Commons is further verification necessary? Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 11:49, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you asking about some of these, first 15 images on the page, overprinted stamps https://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/267-Rhodesia/year/1966 ? These are British government produced stamps and use the template PD-UKGov. They were issues on 17 January 1966. I don't know what verification you need. They would go into this category c:Category:Stamps of Zimbabwe . ww2censor (talk) 13:05, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , Again, thank you! I found the stamp I was looking for: https://colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/303555-Independence-Rhodesia. This one was printed in Salisbury.
 * What is the basis of using a PD-UKGov tag? Production does not convey intellectual property... Would the fact that the Lancaster House Agreement re-established Southern Rhodesia, which legally meant that from the period 1965-1979 there was a revision to the constitutional status quo (as if no UDI), mean the tag could be used? Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The overprinted stamps were originally issued by the British colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1964 and so are covered by crown copyright (since expired). The fact that they were overprinted at UDI doesn't change that as the overprinting is insufficient to create a new work for copyright purposes (in my opinion). The 2/6 independence stamp was issued by the "rebel" government in Rhodesia and as UDI was not recognised by the British government, I assume it is therefore not covered by crown copyright. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * is not talking about the overprinted stamps. This licence PD-Zimbabwe would be the one to use except that a 1965 stamp cannot comply with the URAA copyright rule. See Copyright rules by territory/Zimbabwe. The copyright holder of many countries is often the post office when it's a government body. The producer is not the copyright holder, that belongs to the creator. I don't know what you want to use this image for but it might be possible to use it under the enwiki's strict non-free media policy. ww2censor (talk) 22:02, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I understood and was just covering both types and was just about to link to the same page. I agree it cannot be on Commons. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:07, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks for the replies. I'm *not* a constitutional lawyer, but my understanding of the Lancaster House Agreement was that it had the constitutional effect of making the Colony of Southern Rhodesia de jure in existence for the period 1965-1979.  As such government intellectual property (eg stamps) created in that period would be Crown intellectual property at the time of issue. However, my suspicion (opinion!) is that Crown property is transferred to the successor state (ie Zimbabwe) following independence...so I will need to go down the non-free usage route. FWIW, if my opinion is correct, I suspect a number of the stamps c:Category:Stamps of Southern Rhodesia have incorrect licences (ie are actually not PD-Zimbabwe compliant). Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 23:43, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Your logic is sound but I think you would need a lawyer's opinion to be sure that IP was covered by the agreement. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * here's the UK statute that confirms my suspicion: see s.11 Property and assets: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1980/395/pdfs/uksi_19800395_en.pdf Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 07:08, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Issues with postal village
See discussion at Talk:Postal_village. Mangoe (talk) 04:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Canadian stamp deletion nomination
You may want to comment on this Commons stamp deletion nomination at c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Christmas ink smear stamp.jpg. ww2censor (talk) 09:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Airmails of the United States
A discussion about the title of this article has been started here: Talk:Airmails of the United States. Others might some views on it. ww2censor (talk) 23:26, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Portal:Philately
Portal:Philately has been significantly upgraded and expanded. Feel free to further improve it, if anyone is interested. North America1000 07:03, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

symbols
I can't find coverage of the symbols used, e.g. for the different types of cancellation marks. Should we include them, and where should they go? I can create clean SVGs of the symbols that don't have Unicode support (like the CTO symbol, or pen cancellation). — kwami (talk) 05:00, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Category intersection of country and stamps on Commons
Some of the people here may be interested in Commons:Commons:Village_pump and will be willing to share their opinions. Gone Postal (talk) 16:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from cite web, cite journal and doi.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal


An article of interest to the project - Dogsled mail — has been proposed for merging with Mail delivery by animal. Project members are invited to participate at the Talk:Dogsled mail--Annwfwn (talk) 01:28, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I have gone ahead and merged it. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:49, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Standards for lists of people on stamps
So we have a developing situation where several per-country lists of people on stamps, such as List of people on the postage stamps of Vanuatu are proposed to be deleted, because they are non-notable, poorly-referenced, etc. At least one of the comments suggested that all of the lists might be intrinsically non-notable, which come as a surprise to the many people who've worked on, for instance, List of people on the postage stamps of the United States. My first reflex is to say that the deletions are wikilawering run amuck - the lists are per-country because the original list was gigantic, and splitting them up was the reasonable solution, and it seems biased to assert that the US stamp program is somehow "more important" than those of Vanuatu, Haiti, etc. But I suppose it's possible to develop some kind of neutral standard for which lists are allowed to stay, and which can never acceptable for Wikipedia, and so I'm posting here to collect people's thoughts on what the rule should be. Stan (talk) 14:47, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it doesn't matter which country it is at all, but depends on the quality of the individual list. It shouldn't be just a list of names whithout further information - you could just use categories for that - and it should be somewhat complete. --Lupe (talk) 02:26, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

2nd AfD for List of people on the postage stamps of the Faroe Islands
Articles for deletion/List of people on the postage stamps of the Faroe Islands (2nd nomination) may be of interest. Pam D  14:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Several lists nominated for deletion
Several lists of people on postage stamps in [various countries] are up for deletion. See WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Lists_of_people. It looks like some of the pages aren't tagged with this WikiProject's banner, but would be of interest. Ah, I see there's a more specific section about this above. Keeping this notification, however, as others have been nominated since then. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 15:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I am quite disturbed by these nominations. The underlying argument from the contributors most active with deletion proposals seem to be that stamps are irrelevant trivia. Bw --Orland (talk) 16:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, one wonders how List of Pokémon Trading Card Game sets is not trivia... :-) But the debating illustrates a practical problem - how does one justify a list in such a way that future skeptics don't try to take aim at it? When Eclecticology and I and others first worked on these lists in the early days, notability seemed so obvious it didn't need to be said.  If it now does need to be said, how does one say it?  In thumbing through the featured lists, I came across List of people on United States banknotes, and since the banknote design process is 90% identical to the stamp process, it seems worth studying that list and its background more closely. Stan (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I've seen a few of these discussions at Articles for Discussion. I have a lot of sympathy for the editors who created these, due to the reasonable assumption that the topic is notable. There is presumably some topics where notability is obvious: List of Countries, List of Chemical Elements and while this is less clear, the assumption was reasonable.  Also it seems that a small number of editors are now rushing to libraries to find offline sources, during a pandemic, with a 7 days window, for maybe 100+ deletion nominations.
 * Would a fairer approach be to have a wider discussion if, in general, List of people on postage stamps is a notable thing? I don't have the experience to know what that forum would be. Maybe WP:RFC, maybe a topic at WT:N? - more experienced editors might know better. I am neutral on issues of philately but the status quo seems to be rushing something bigger than the average article. CT55555 (talk) 19:12, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know if a wider discussion would go much differently. I suspect there is a strong age correlation; people over 50 remember having to think about how to get stamps, deciding which types to use, reading announcements in the newspaper, having bar arguments about whether so-and-so was on a stamp, etc, and so for them the value of a list seems intuitively obvious. Without that personal history, it seems like more of a random topic.  Plus, there have been stamps issued for trivial reasons, especially by certain countries in recent years, and even the philatelic experts are unsure how to handle them (some catalogues list them, and some don't).  So I think a workable rule is going to need some background research - on my agenda, but has to compete with other activities. :-) Stan (talk) 13:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I share your concern. Reading between the lines, I got the impression that you could prove it is a notable subject by the books you mentioned somewhere and if there was a centralised discussion on this, you might not need to fight 75 arguments, just one central one. I suppose deleted articles could be brought back, but I saw advantages if this could interrupt the widespread deletion proposals. CT55555 (talk) 14:05, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The American Topical Association doesn't seem to have any generic "people on stamps" publications, but they do have a 5-volume series of women on stamps worldwide, so that would be a solid source for lists of women on stamps for each country, and many of those appearances have interesting backstories too. Stan (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I think when people try to delete lists of things that are very wide in nature, it might not be necessary to find one volume that covers everything. To repeat an argument I used elsewhere, if someone proposed to delete History of USA and someone could not find one book that covered it all, but found two books that covered "early history of USA" and "recent history of USA" I think that would prove notability. I'm not certain of this, but I don't know if one source to cover everything is necessary? I could be wrong. CT55555 (talk) 14:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You are right in that one source isn't necessary. As a practical matter, for any list that grows over time, printed works are only going to cover up to the most recent edition, and it would be some twisted logic to argue that a list is sufficiently notable for WP until the end of the year in which the source was published, then becomes instantly becomes un-notable. :-) Stan (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess the closest thing to a general discussion about these is the bulk nomination at Articles for deletion/Lists of people on the postage stamps of countries (A-B). In my latest comment on that page, I indicated that some country-specific philatelic literature does include lists of people on stamps. Perhaps we should limit the discussion of all this to the bulk nomination page to have everything in one place? Xwejnusgozo (talk) 01:22, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It would be a good idea to give positive examples of lists that are worth keeping. Lupe (talk) 15:59, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Lists of people on postage stamps closed as keep
Articles for deletion/Lists of people on postage stamps closed as keep, consensus was quite clear that the general topics of people on postage stamps was notable. Members may wish to note the sources that were used to establish notability. CT55555 (talk) 00:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Updates to 2020 Postal Voting in U.S. Article
Hello! I'm a U.S. Postal Service employee seeking to update the Postal voting in the 2020 United States elections article. This WikiProject is listed on that article's Talk page, so I thought this might be a good place to ask for help. I recently proposed a redraft of the article's Postal service crisis section, which appears not to have been edited much since 2020, when it was describing ongoing events. I rewrote a handful of sentences so that they're now in past tense, cleaned up a few citation templates, and added some information on how the Postal Service eventually performed in the 2020 election. You can read my full edit request on the Postal Voting in 2020 Talk page, and the section draft is accessible on my user page. As a USPS employee, I can't make direct edits to agency-related pages. I have to suggest changes and then let independent editors decide whether they pass muster or not. If someone from this WP could review my section draft, I would really appreciate it. I'm open to any feedback you might have. Thanks! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 01:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This editor has a conflict of interest so I have posted the suggestion on their talk page to use the WP:TPW instead of editing directly. This is a common suggestion for COI editors. ww2censor (talk) 14:27, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Scope of "Great Britain commemorative stamps..." articles
Do the articles in the "Great Britain commemorative stamps..." family of articles (e.g. Great Britain commemorative stamps 2020–2029) not include stamps issued for use in Northern Ireland? -- DeFacto (talk). 10:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * As a part of the United Kingdom, there are no postage stamps valid only for use in Northern Ireland. Stamps have been issued with Northern Ireland scenes or emblems but those are either commemorative stamps valid throughout the UK, as an English-themed stamp would be valid in N.I., or regional postage stamps of Great Britain which are a form of definitive stamp intended primarily for use in N.I. but still valid in the whole of the U.K. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:19, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Philafrenzy, thanks for your reply. It seems then that NI has the same status, as far as stamps are concerned, as England, Scotland, and Wales. I was wondering why the articles were titled "Great Britain commemorative stamps...", which excludes Northern Ireland (it only covers England, Scotland, and Wales), rather than "United Kingdom commemorative stamps..." which is fully inclusive of all four UK nations. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:16, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree on both points. All UK stamps are valid throughout the whole of the UK, regardless of what they may show. Incidentally, there are plenty of NI scenes on UK stamps as Royal Mail are careful to be inclusive of all the nations of the UK, particularly in more recent years. I can think of the Giant's Causeway on a 1981 commemorative, and these too. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:21, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess they all need moving to the more inclusive name then. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Probably. I created the category Philately of the United Kingdom a decade ago which has many "British" and "Great Britain" articles but they are not all wrong, for instance, I wouldn't move British post offices in Morocco just for the sake of consistency. There are others too that may be better left. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:31, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was only thinking of the six "Great Britain commemorative stamps..." articles (...1970–1979, ...1980–1989, ...1990–1999, ...2000-2009, ...2010–2019, and ...2020–2029), where the problem is quite apparent. They should be renamed as "United Kingdom commemorative stamps...". -- DeFacto (talk). 09:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I doubt anyone would oppose you as it is self-evidently correct. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've moved them. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:02, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And "Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain" to "Postage stamps and postal history of the United Kingdom" (over the redirect). -- DeFacto (talk). 09:55, 4 January 2023 (UTC)


 * The use of "Great Britain" as an abbreviation for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is common in philatelic circles. I've just checked major English-speaking catalogues - Stanley Gibbons (2016), Scott (1989) and an old Stanley Gibbons (1905, before Irish independence) - and they all use "Great Britain" for the UK. Daveosaurus (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Very consistently and over a long period of time "Great Britain" has been used in philately as the blanket term their stamps and/or any philatelic references to it. In addition to the stamp catalogues above, most philatelic publications use the term "Great Britain" or "British" and changing any article title here will not alter that fact, so I'm in favour of the status quo and continue using what as been used for over 100 years. The recent moves, which were rather preemptive without decent discussion, should be reverted because I don't see any sources being offered that would show the notability of using the UK term instead. ww2censor (talk) 14:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The entity we are referring to is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, because the northern Irish are not British, they are Irish, albeit within the UK. If we move back will it be stamps of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? I think UK will make a lot more sense to non-philatelist visitors, who probably make up the majority of readers of those pages. Stamp catalogues can continue to use whatever name they choose. Philafrenzy (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

The geopolitics
"Great Britain" is an island upon which a major part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) sits. Another major part of the UK sits on the island of Ireland. The UK is a sovereign country, Great Britain is not. All citizens of the UK, no matter which of its islands they come from, are British citizens, and hence entitled to call themselves "British". UK citizens from the part of the UK on the island of Ireland are also entitled to be Irish citizens if they so wish. None of Northern Ireland, one of the four constituent countries of the UK, is in Great Britain, although each of the other three constituent countries, England, Scotland, and Wales, is. Here's an interesting diagram that illustrates the geography and politics of the British Isles. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:10, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the key point here is that Great Britain is not a stamp-issuing entity, the United Kingdom is. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The stamp-issuing entity is "International Distributions Services plc trading as Royal Mail" (at least, that's what they call themselves this week). For historic reasons stamps issued by the Royal Mail do not have any country of origin identifier so we can't base the articles on what the stamps call themselves. So we have reliable sources using "Great Britain", and original research using "United Kingdom". The question to ponder is: is this a rare case where NOR does not apply? Daveosaurus (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Daveosaurus, I don't see a shortage of reliable sources using "United Kingdom" or "British" (belonging to or relating to the United Kingdom, not just the portion of it in Great Britain) when referring to stamps from the UK, particularly more recently published sources. I see no compelling reason to use the less inclusive (literally incorrect) term when referring to things coming from the UK as a whole. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Infobox for philatelists?
See this conversation about the inadequacy of using Infobox engineer for philatelists. Is using Infobox engineer the best practice so far? Has any thought been given to creating an infobox specifically for philatelists? Inviting @TimeTreks to this conversation. &mdash; Archer1234  (t·c) 20:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * infobox engineer at John Walter Scott to use Infobox person. I was able to find corresponding parameters in Infobox person for use in that particular article but I do not know if that template is sufficient to recommend for use more broadly with other philatelists (i.e., are there are some philately-specific parameters that are not supported). Maybe there is no need for a separate infobox for philatelists. &mdash; Archer1234  (t·c) 20:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * well spotted. A few years ago the editor User:Wikited added several philatelists using the improper infobox Infobox engineer and when I happen upon one I usually refine the details into the correct Infobox person as I did with this one. I did point this out to the editor and asked them to correct their error but they never did anything about it. I suppose going through their contribution history would be the only way to find those still existing but that seems like a long task. I don't know if a way to search for a users edits plus that specific template. If you were to review all article using that template it come to just under 990 which might be better than searching their own contributions. It might even be easier to search through these philatelist categories . Your John Walter Scott infobox now looks much better, so thanks for your work in this regard. ww2censor (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see any point in reinventing the wheel. Making a philatelist specific infobox template when the Infobox person works quite well seems too much work and can be used for other stamp related people that a specific philatelist template would not be suitable for. ww2censor (talk) 22:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I've added a few of these article with improper infoboxes to this category Category:Philately articles needing attention as I get time to go through the offending editors contributions. ww2censor (talk) 11:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a class parameter to WikiProject banner shell, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to WikiProject banner shell, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass WPBannerMeta a new custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Seeking editor input on United States Postal Service edit requests
Hey there! I'm stopping by this WikiProject to ask the folks here if they would like to review one or both of two open edit requests on the United States Postal Service Talk page, the first of which proposes updates to the article's During the Trump administration section and the second of which does the same for the Coronavirus pandemic and voting by mail one. My main goal with these requests is to ensure that descriptions of certain recent events in the agency's are fully correct, and where possible, to add fresh information that's been reported by trusted journalistic publications. I figured that since WP Philately is listed on the USPS Talk page, I might find interested editors here. As you can probably tell from my username, I'm a USPS employee with a COI, so I can't edit the agency's article myself. I need non-COI editors to assess the validity of my proposed changes. If anyone from the WP Philately community wants to give my requests a review, please use the links above and let me know what you think. I'm happy to answer questions or provide clarification, as needed. Thanks! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Postal history and postages stamps of France
Hello. I am making a small scale comeback on Wikipedia although not the one in my native language. I put some typing on Postage stamps and postal history of France here : User:Onceaphilatelist. For now I know it's messy but a start, and I welcome any comment how to manage this page, perhaps a postal history of France to put aside how to explain the postal evolution? Onceaphilatelist (talk) 13:12, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It's nice to see some returning philatelic activity, so welcome back. The frwiki page looks quite sparse but the dewiki article looks quite good. I'm not great at reading German but can speak it reasonably well, so maybe one should use that as a basis. Without sources, your work so far looks quite good but I can't see if it will be verified easily. That's a problem I've had with French translations. Several years ago I wrote Postage stamps of Ireland with the intent to write its sister article Postal history of Ireland but I did not get around to that yet other than starting a draft page. At this stage I doubt France can support two separate articles but if a combined article were to get too long then there could be a reason to separate it into two. Let's see what sources you can come up with in the meantime. Many of the "postage stamps and postal history" articles are lacking but they take a lot of time to expand properly especially without suitable sources. ww2censor (talk) 17:04, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello. Thank you for your insights.
 * This article won't written in a night, so I will go along my personal library along with smaller articles around the main history. Onceaphilatelist (talk) 18:18, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Art Deco stamps - input invited
Should we keep it? Y'all are best qualified to judge: Thanks,
 * Articles for deletion/Art Deco stamps

-- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 03:09, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: List of PHQ cards
PHQ cards are postcards issued by the British Post Office depicting the designs of their commemorative stamps.

Our article, List of PHQ cards, has been proposed for deletion (WP:PROD).

You’re invited to look at the article. Follow the instructions on the PROD notice if you wish to endorse or object to the article’s deletion.

— A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 02:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)