Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately/Archive 8

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

"Revenue stamps" section in Postage stamps and postal history of India
The article is about the Postage stamps and postal history of India. Revenue stamps are not Postage stamps, so IMO this is an WP:UNDUE in this article. ww2censor disagreed and suggested that we discuss it here. Comments please.... Thank you. -- Redtigerxyz Talk 16:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Disagree to Redtigerxyz's proposal. While revenue stamps are not postage stamps, they have a long history of affiliation of postage stamps e.g. postage stamps used as revenue stamps & vice versa, created just by overprinting postage stamps, common production etc. AshLin (talk) 16:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Concur with Ashlin. Revenue stamps are indeed philatelic.  They may not be postage stamps, but are typically considered part and parcel of the philatelic history of any country. Excluding a reference to them because they are not exactly postage stamps seems exceptionally extreme.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have been meaning to bring this up. I think the common title Postage stamps and postal history of X is wrong, it should have simply been Stamps and postal history... but I suppose it is too late to change it now. I think the correct structure of these articles is Pre-stamp era, First stamps, then by reign/century etc until up to date then Revenue stamps then Cinderella stamps, which is roughly what I did when I did Bahrain. Maidonian (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually I deliberately made it "postage stamps" so as to exclude other types of adhesive labels, in particular revenue stamps, which don't seem like they fit well into the overall narrative. Also, postal stuff categorizes under "Communications in X", but revenues don't really fit, they're more of a generic governmental operation.  I would like to see a series of articles just on the revenue stamps of various countries, it would explain these somewhat mysterious objects that look like postage stamps but aren't.  It seems sensible to keep them under this project, since they are a standard part of philately overall, and to cross-link with postal articles. Stan (talk) 21:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, trying to deal with them within the same flow would be very confusing. With so many articles already created, the logical approach seems to be to add revenues and cinderellas at the end of the article until the revenue section is large enough to justify its own article. Cinderella stamps of a country, however, are unlikely ever to justify a separate article. Maidonian (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * IMO, concurring with Maidonian, "the common title Postage stamps and postal history of X is wrong" and should be moved to Stamps and postal history... to justify the inclusion of revenue stamps in such articles. It is never too late to improve... -- Redtigerxyz Talk 07:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I doubt there would be sufficient concensus to carry this out at this stage. It is probably better to accept what we have and add revenues at the end and split off when justified. One argument for the Postage Stamps Of title is that it does naturally lend itself to a complimentary Revenue Stamps Of article in due course. There is also the fact that while postage stamps are well researched in almost all cases, the sources for revenue stamps are much patchier. What is the consenus on starting to create some Revenue Stamps Of articles and how would they fit into the overall structure? Maidonian (talk) 10:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There are now three 'Revenue stamps of...' articles: Bahrain, India and Italy with a similar new category which is a sub-category of revenue stamps. Any views? Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 03:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Maidonian's suggestion not to include revenue stamp content in the "Postage stamps ..." series, but make them separate articles with "see also" links. It's unlikely that a casual reader interested in postage stamps of a country would care about revenues and even in the philatlic world these are different animals. Ecphora (talk) 16:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * While I am still not really in favour of separate articles because to the close association between postage stamps and revenue stamp, many of which are postage stamps used for revenue purposes, none of the new articles hardly seems worth making separately from the main stamp article but I won't object. However, I suspect that most will remain as stubs but hope to be proven wrong. Initially it might be more appropriate to start sections within current articles and hive off the section when it becomes large enough to exceed stub status in its own right. BTW there are already 39 separate country revenue categories on the commons at commons:Category:Revenue stamps created by Maidonian back in April 2010, I presume for this purpose, so there is quite an amount of material. John Barefoot is probably the best source for revenues literature. ww2censor (talk) 05:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding the categories at Commons I didn't create them with any plan in mind for this Wiki, it just seemed common sense as there were a lot of unsorted revenue stamps all mixed in one category. I agree the newly created articles are a bit thin at present but it was more to get feedback on a format than anything and certainly they have the scope to be substantial articles, particularly India where there are thousands of stamps if you include the states. Even tiny Bahrain could command a decent article in time. I am not proposing the creation of hundreds of almost empty stubs but there certainly is enough material to create quite a lot of good articles. I think there is a consensus here on how to proceed in this area. Maidonian (talk) 10:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I was not suggesting that a load of stubs should be created, but if there is sufficient prose and material to make some decent articles, I am all for that. If Bahrain can even make a stub there must be lots of possibilities for the larger countries. Perhaps we should make a concerted effort to gather some resources and post it for others to use. ww2censor (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There are numerous catalogs, books and articles on this subject. A quick search of the American Philatelic Research Library on line catalog for "revenue stamps" as subject produced 123 hits, and that is just scraping the surface.  Ecphora (talk) 16:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion
This Commons deletion discussion may be of interest to other philatelists. ww2censor (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion
People may want to get involved in the deletion discussion of List of people on stamps of Abkhazia. ww2censor (talk) 04:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Lists of people on stamps

 * On the periphery of this subject: I noticed that a lot of these "List of people on the stamps of country" articles are perfunctory at best. I've done a bit of work (updating, adding references and filling in missing names) from List of people on stamps of New Zealand and List of people on stamps of Fiji. Is it worth me carrying on doing this? I've got a decent set of catalogues for referencing and checking facts against. Daveosaurus (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If it interests you, of course it is. In WP we don't do original research but we synthesize knowledge to create new resources. AshLin (talk) 04:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * All verifiable reference are good but if your literature has ISBNs you should add them. ww2censor (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. Have added ISBNs and done a bit of minor tidying up. Let me know if they look good enough to get by with and I'll start work on more of them. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of these lists are perfunctory because they were split out from the once-enormous list of people on stamps, then not worked on since. Lists from actual countries are safe and could even be gotten to featured lists if someone were energetic, while the Abkhazia case is weird and I'm on the fence about it. Stan (talk) 22:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm double checking the lists and verifying each entry against a stamp catalogue (I've got a complete set of Gibbons' catalogues, and a few others as well), checking that the links go to the right person and adding the obvious missing persons. Some articles (e.g. Australia) seem to have had more work done on them, so in the meantime I'm going to work on existing articles that haven't had much work done on them. I've noticed a few oddities that will have to be worked out, for example the Papua New Guinea list includes not only all its constituent parts, but also those of West New Guinea (which shouldn't be included with Papua New Guinea at all, but would belong in a separate article). Otherwise I've also noticed that many recent issues of stamps feature persons whose notability is minimal - for example, the Fiji series showing its entire rugby sevens team; and modern developments such as personalised stamps and "customer advertising labels". New Zealand is also going to be a major headache; as well as NZ Post there are several independent postal providers operating in the country, some of which issue their own stamps and of which there are few, if any, catalogues. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We've merged some short lists into longer ones, for instance the predecessors of Australia and South Africa, because there's not much value in having lots of separate short lists - we broke up the big list because it was big, not because it was an illogical organization. There are a couple approaches for the less-notable that somehow made it onto stamps - one, you can design list criteria to exclude things like personalized stamps, and two, you can mention the names but just as text, with no links.  It's not so effective to simply omit the names, because inevitably someone will come along, notice the apparent mistake, and add them back. Stan (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In the past in List of people on stamps of Ireland I left some names unlinked as these people are unlikely ever to be notable enough to have their own article and just today removed a few other links. You could take this course and/or only link the most notable people who actually have articles. ww2censor (talk) 19:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Deletion discussion: Category: Stamp collections
There is a deletion discussion here about this category. Maidonian (talk) 11:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information
I have added a the following to What_Wikipedia_is_not:
 * 1) Catalogue. Wikipedia is not a stamp catalogue nor a database of collectables. More than the existence of reliable published information regarding specific items is required for inclusion.

I suggest a notability guideline would be useful, perhaps Notability (philately). User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:14, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does seem to come close to a "catalog" or "database of collectibles" in the "List of people/birds/fish & other things on stamps" articles. As to those articles, it appears that not much more than "the existence of reliable published information" is needed to be included.  There is no notability requirement, for example. And that is true for non-philatelic lists as well.Ecphora (talk) 22:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Notability is a requirement for inclusion in lists, see List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For the most part, until recently, being commemorated by the issue of a legitimate postage stamp was something that only happened to notable people. For instance, on List of people on stamps of Samoa, which I recently did some work on, most of the red links are to people who would probably be considered notable but who do not yet have articles - a number of former Cabinet Ministers, a famous hotelier, etc. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:NLIST takes a bit of interpretation. I have an essay at User:Fæ/Alumni that explores this a little but basically it is possible to have a notable and verifiable list that may in itself satisfy the criteria (say, on the grounds of historic impact) and so the members of it need not fulfil the WP:GNG (or WP:BIO) criteria. The grounds for why this might apply for a particular list should be clear in the lead text (per WP:LSC). In general it is good practice for lists of people to require articles to exist for members of the list, but there is scope for exceptions when the case is clearly made. Fæ (talk) 07:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * One could flip this around and ask what are some *non*-notable stamps. The average Christmas stamp? 10th anniversary of ABCD organization?  Individual members of a definitive series seem un-notable on their own, but the series as a whole seems clearly notable.  Firsts seem notable, otherwise Penny Black wouldn't rate an article. :-)  As for lists, we've discussed before, and I think there is a category in which topical collector interest is what makes notability - thus birds and fish, but maybe not five-year plans. Stan (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The Penny Black has been plated. If a reliable source is considered sufficient the characteristics of each plate could be considered notable. Consider, for example Australia Scott 245, according to the Brusden-White catalog, The Australian Commonwealth Specialists' Guide, there is a second plate. Also noted in the Brusden-White catalog is that the event commemorated by the stamp, "Responsible Government in Victoria" (whatever that is) is an error, the event being commemorated being the constitutional separation of Victoria from New South Wales. Perhaps because of this strange Freudian-slip-like language the stamp might be notable, but does Plate No. 2 merit its own article explaining how it differs from plate 1? Absurd, but there are reliable published sources, and there better be, as stamps printed with plate 2 are worth 200 times as much as those printed with plate 1. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent change to WP:Notability re Lists
FWIW - there has been a recent change to the Notability guideline re Stand Alone Lists WP:NOTESAL. The application of that change is an easy one for this discussion. If reliable sources discuss members of a group (such as Notable Iranians on Stamps for example) as a group then the list topic (Iranians on Stamps) would be considered notable. Inclusion of individual stamps in the list would be dependent on the nature of the group as discussed by sources and inclusion criteria. The key change for lists (not necessarily all lists) is that the list topic should have been discussed by reliable sources as a group. That discussion does not require discussion of 100% of the members of the group, but it does require that the grouping is being discussed, not just a random discussion of its members. Hope this helps --Mike Cline (talk) 14:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * All this gets back to my original comment: Wikipedia (for better or worse) is not that different from a stamp catalog or a database of collectables. See, e.g., List of bonsai on stamps or List of ships on stamps. Ecphora (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Clearly there are limits. For example, a book could be written, and probably has been, on the facsimiles of Fiji Scott 45 which were made in 1900, the details of how they differ from the original design, and, importantly, how they are postmarked. Any dealer in the stamps of Fiji is expected to know this and perhaps in Postage stamps and postal history of Fiji a note might be appropriate, as it is in Scotts Catalogue, but not a long article on them. There is no great pressure here to include such detail, but if it is to be it belongs on Wikia, which, by the way, has no philately wiki. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As to List of people on stamps of Fiji, I don't know what to think. It does seem a good way to identify notable people who might otherwise be missed. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not what the notability guidelines for lists says. It just covers List of X and X. It specifically left out List of X of Y because we could not reach a consensus. 陣 内 Jinnai 21:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

British Library Philatelic Collections
As part of the uk:chapter:Editathon, British Library we have developed this page in conjunction with curators of the collections.Harrypotter (talk) 12:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A number of articles in Category:British Library Philatelic collections such as the Fletcher Collection have been rated as Low importance to the Philately WikiProject. As the Fletcher has objects recognized of world-wide importance, such as the 1682 Penny Post Paid Dockwra handstamp, this seems an odd rating (as the Importance scale has yet to be agreed, I can only compare with other philatelic articles). Could someone from the project take a second look at the ratings for the articles in this category? Thanks, Fæ (talk) 08:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The classifications look about right, particularly as the articles are at an early stage. There are many fine collections that are important if that is what you study or collect but that does not make them important from the point of view of this encyclopedia. They are all welcome articles though. Maidonian (talk) 11:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am questioning the importance classifications rather than quality, importance is not related to the state of the current article. If the Fletcher Collection is considered to be of low importance to the Philately WikiProject then it is hard to imagine any collection world-wide regardless of content that could be classed as Top, High or even Mid importance. Taking another look, it seems contradictory to rate Board of Inland Revenue Stamping Department Archive as of low importance to this project when this collection is notable for holding the renowned File:Proof sheet of one penny stamps Stamp Act 1765.jpg which must be considered one of the most important philately objects of all time. Fæ (talk) 11:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue of importance ratings of philatelic articles was discussed here where some inconsistencies and need for guidance were pointed out. Articles should be rated by their significance to philately as a whole. Given the vast world of philately, it seems to me that the rating of an article like Board of Inland Revenue Stamping Department Archive is not clearly inappropriate. Ecphora (talk) 12:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The project would benefit by adding clear definitions of how to apply the importance ratings to avoid these issues (they have been discussed but not defined yet). As a non-philatelist I am happy to go along with your opinion, but the idea that no philatelic collection in existence could ever be rated higher than Low importance in the context of the philately project seems contradictory to my layman viewpoint. Fæ (talk) 13:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I started work on a table of criteria for rating importance of philatelic articles, but never finished it. Anyone is welcome to edit it.  Ecphora (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii
I added several images to the category commons:Category:Stamps of Hawaii and suggest creating a new article on Postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii. Can anybody take a lead on that? --Michael Romanov (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Created stub. Maidonian (talk) 11:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --Michael Romanov (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Article importance criteria
(This is copied this from the section, above)

The project would benefit by adding clear definitions of how to apply the importance ratings to avoid these issues (they have been discussed but not defined yet). As a non-philatelist I am happy to go along with your opinion, but the idea that no philatelic collection in existence could ever be rated higher than Low importance in the context of the philately project seems contradictory to my layman viewpoint. Fæ (talk) 13:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I started work on a table of criteria for rating importance of philatelic articles, but never finished it. Anyone is welcome to edit it.  Ecphora (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have been involved in a few projects assessment setup, the main one being for the Ireland WikiProject where we developed some rather decent importance criteria you can find here that shows several examples as guidance for assessors. Ecphora's tabel seems to be a decent start though the low-class description appears to be rather understated. The first point of reference for developing any importance scale must be Wikipedia's Version 1.0 Editorial Team's Release Criteria topic importance as follows:


 * While all project assessments are a subjective criteria I see no problem in developing a table that includes some clearer definitions for our use here but we should agree on the examples to be used. ww2censor (talk) 05:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Catalog numbers as references
I seems to me that if the information cited is in the Scott, Stanley-Gibbons, or other major stamp catalogue, a reference such as "Virgin Islands, Scott 18a" should be sufficient — cited in that instance as an example of a double impression, of an overprint. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Some time ago I was considering our use of catalogue numbers and wondered if we should be using them, especially because they are the copyright of the publishers. I have real reservation whether we should be using catalogue numbers to identify stamps on Wikipedia; I very much doubt the numbering systems can be regarded as common knowledge. Scott has an extensive copyright notice in their catalogue and I believe they are rather protective of this numbering system. This notice is transcribed from my Scott 2007 US Specialised Catlogue:

Permission is hereby given for the use of material in this book and covered by copyright if: (a) The material is used in advertising matter, circulars or price lists for the purpose of offering stamps for sale or purchase at the prices listed therein; and (b) Such use is incidental to the business of buying and selling stamps and is limited in scope and lenght, i.e., does not cover a substantial portion of the total number of stamps issued by any country or of any special category of stamps of any country; and (c) Such material is not used as part of any catalogue, stamp album or computerized or other system based upon the Scott catalogue numbers, or in any updated valuations of stamps not offered for sale or purchase, and (d) Such use is not competitive with the business of the copyright owner; and (e) Such use is for editorial purposes in publications in the form of articles or commentary, except for computer software or the serialization of books in such publications, for which separate written permission is required. Any use of the material in this book which does not satisfy all the foregoing conditions is forbidden in any form unless permission in each instance is given in writing by the copyright owner.


 * A extract from the copyright notice in my 2004 Stanley Gibbons Ireland specialised catalogue states:

''The contents of this catalogue, including the numbering system and illustrations, are fully protected by copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Stanley Gibbons Limited.''


 * By way of illustration, I think List of United States airmail stamps certainly contravenes the Scott copyright even if some might consider individual occasional as acceptable. Personally I suspect any use is a copyright violation and should be removed but would like to hear other views especially from editors experience in copyright issues. ww2censor (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * To be honest it sounds like a load of bullshit. I don't think you can copyright a numbering system (nor individual code numbers) under the United States copyright law. Lets see what experienced copyright editors think though. Yoenit (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It is far from BS. The catalogue numbering system of Scott and Gibbons and others is the result of decades of work and constitutes a copyrightable piece of intellectual property. They allocate the numbers based on their work classifying and describing the stamps, deciding which ones to include and in what order etc. There is a get out however as indicated in the Scott notice quoted above (e), and which I would think also goes for Gibbons, in that the use of the numbers for articles or commentary is allowed, and I think that would cover Wikipedia articles. The wholesale use of numbers in articles in list form is probably not acceptable, although if they had a problem with it I think we would have heard from them. In practice, the catalogue producers turn a blind eye to a certain amount of infringement as it suits their purposes to have their numbering system promoted, although they would never admit it. Maidonian (talk) 00:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As for Scott numbers, I don't think Wikipedia articles are examples of copyright violation, as above described under the conditions (a) to (e), if the numbers are used occasionally and just one or a few per article. However, more extensive use of the Scott numbers like in List of United States airmail stamps could be considered as a such violation. --Michael Romanov (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge, a catalogue numbering system is copyright as it is an original work of the compiler. In addition, as each catalogue uses a separate numbering system, and there are many different catalogue publishers, a short description of the stamp would be much more useful to the general reader. I do not have access to a Scott catalogue, but the catalogue I use (Gibbons) allocates British Virgin Islands #18a to the "long-tailed S" variety of the 1s. on white paper and with frame superimposed extending into margins - apparently a stamp quite different to the unknown overprinted stamp listed by Scott as #18a. Daveosaurus (talk) 02:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that the use of the numbers is to be avoided if possible in favour of a description of the stamp using generic philatelic terms which can then be linked to the relevant articles as necessary. Maidonian (talk) 03:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Regarding the suggestion that condition (e) gives us permission can be compared directly with regular fair-use for press and editorial purposes that generally Wikipedia does not consider as being free enough for our use under our fair-use criteria. Due to the fact that philatelists from different geographical locations tend use different catalogues that use different numbering systems the use of a description would likely be more useful to readers. Besides which, Scott numbers can be considered to be US-centric to the exclusion of other catalogue numbers. It may be of interest, I found Scott has defended its numbering system in at least one lawsuits (see this 1999 Krause 'v' Scott settlement opinion) though it has no direct comparison with the use here and a 2002 cease and desist letter here. ww2censor (talk) 05:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that there is no problem in using Scott or other catalog numbers to identify stamps in an educational or scholarly article such as those on Wikipedia. Philatelic journals regularly do so. The permission quoted above specifically includes "use is for editorial purposes in publications in the form of articles or commentary." (I note that literally the permission uses "and" for each requirement, but that makes no sense; one cannot simultaneously use Scott numbers in an ad to sell stamps and for editorial purposes in articles; apparently "or" was meant.) But even if Scott did not expressly grant permission, as it apparently has done, it would clearly be fair use. It is no different than citing in an article the catalog number of a book, painting or object in a published catalog of a museum collection, which is routinely done. I am not aware that Scott or any other publisher has ever complained about such a use. This is not to say that wholesale use of Scott numbers that effectively duplicates a catlog is permitted. In that regard, I agree that List of United States airmail stamps may be a problem. Ecphora (talk) 07:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see there is no pre-existing relevant case law that would relate to successfully stopping the use of selected catalogue numbers (rather the entire database) in any third party publication. If anyone was worried they could ask Scott to provide an opinion on whether they care about sample catalogue numbers being quoted in Wikipedia articles and then we would have something material to discuss. Fæ (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In terms of their permission, the point of "fair use" is that use can be made without permission. The permission they give would not be in itself acceptable on Wikipedia, as it does not mention the relevant licensing requirements of modification and commercial reuse. Whether use is fair depends on four factors, of course; I believe our primary focus needs to be on "the purpose and character" of our use and "the amount and substantiality of the portion used". It does not sound as though the usage under discussion here should be an issue from a copyright standpoint. I have no opinion about its merits otherwise. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Coming back to clarify my opinion, as what's under discussion here is much broader than whether "a reference such as 'Virgin Islands, Scott 18a'" would be an issue, again, what it comes down to is "purpose and character" and "amount and substantiality". It's usage in Bluenose (postage stamp) seems like no problem at all, similar to the way we cannot list the complete The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, but can note that an individual song made the list in its own article. In terms of amount and substantiality, this seems substantial and does not seem transformative. While Scott does not seem to have been completely successful in this 1999 Krause 'v' Scott settlement opinion, the matter was evidently not dismissed for no cause, which means that we shouldn't conclude that the content is not copyrightable. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is much doubt about this is there? A catalogue producers numbering system IS copyrightable but we can make selective fair use of it as long as is is proportional and we don't go too far. The Krause case is not the same as they are a catalogue producer in competition with Scott so obviously Scott are going to be all over any infringement by Krause. More generally, we should avoid the use of the numbers because 1) They show bias to the US for Scott or the UK for Gibbons 2) Most readers won't have the relevant catalogue 3) The numbers can change 4) It is lazy editing because it does not include the generic characteristics of the stamp. Maidonian (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the link, there is ("It was an astute and high-impact tour de force in copyright law as it relates to what some have come to believe was an unfair monopoly by Scott of a numbering system that has long since been in the public domain.") I don't know the background of their catalog system; "decades of work" does not factor into US copyright law, as the US does not recognize "sweat of the brow". The real question is the creativity brought to bear. I know nothing about stamp collecting or the systems used to codify stamps, but even so would believe that the settlement itself suggests caution is warranted on our part. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It is caution I am suggesting as such a system is copyrightable in principle, even if Scott may have let their numbering system leak into the public domain to a certain extent through their lax policing of thier rights in the past as Krause argued. I am suggesting that we treat it as non-free. Maidonian (talk) 18:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we have agreement on the most basic and minimal use; that it is acceptable (unless there is a specific complaint from the copyright holder) that quoting one Scott catalogue number in an article requires no special action, but quoting a list (say, for sake of argument, more than 5) ought to have a specific fair use rationale created for that Wikipedia article (my mind boggles at having to create a FUR for a single number being used and there definitely is no existing case law for a single catalogue number being copyright protected that is not a specific trademark)? Fæ (talk) 18:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A single catalogue number (Scott, Gibbons, Michel, Campbell Paterson, etc.) in an article about a notable stamp shouldn't be a problem, as far as I understand it. But the main description of the stamp should be one that is independent of catalogue numbering. I would suggest that any stamp notable enough for its own Wikipedia article should have a recognisable descriptive name - for example, I doubt that "United States SG A548b" would mean much to Americans reading this, but "Inverted Jenny" just might. On the subject of lists of stamps with catalogue numbers: In my work on lists of people I've avoided using catalogue numbers entirely; referencing to year of issue and page in a specific edition instead. While that is little less restrictive than using numbers from a single catalogue, it at least gives a year reference that someone with another publisher's catalogue can use. And as for other lists on stamps - fish, etc. - there are actually published catalogues of fish, etc. on stamps available. (Stanley Gibbons' entry in that category is a volume entitled "Collect Fish on Stamps"). Daveosaurus (talk) 05:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, single articles should be fine (probably even if there were a complaint from the copyright holder, as I cannot imagine it would have merit). In terms of lists, we don't use FUR for text. The decision is really going to come down to how many and for what reason. I'm afraid that fair use is pretty subjective. Wikipedia aims to be conservative there, but not insane. :) Brief and purposeful are key. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/List of people on stamps of Hungary
For those who would be interested in developing and maintaining these lists, please comment on the deletion page. --Michael Romanov (talk) 20:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've made a start on adding content to the page. However as my reference catalogues are from a British publisher, it would probably be better for someone with access to European catalogues (I think Michel or Yvert are the biggest names there?) to cross-check and add references from those works. Incidentally, is anyone able to set up something like "List of Philately-related deletion discussions"? I'd have completely missed this discussion if not for the heads-up. That way, articles on notable topics could be fixed instead of deleted, and obvious hoaxes could be detected which a non-philatelist might not pick up on. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually we already have WikiProject Philately/Article alerts that list such articles for deletion, etc. ww2censor (talk) 05:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, have watch listed that. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * On a similar note, someone might want to do something with this: List of birds on stamps of Aden Protectorate States, Seiyun. --Mika1h (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the article creator might benefit from the article being userfied until they can research and cite some quality sources? Fæ (talk) 11:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Userfying List of birds on stamps of Aden Protectorate States, Seiyun is unlikely to be useful because the creating user JPPINTO has only made a few recent edits in August 2010 after about 800 stamp list related edits in 2005. Perhaps we need to form a consensus on the minimum entries required for such lists to make it notable enough to keep. The topic of list notability was discussed as recently as March 2010 at the archived discussion Notability_of topical lists. ww2censor (talk) 14:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know enough about ornithology to be much help with that article, unfortunately. Looking through the catalogue I don't see any other obvious bird stamps issued by Seiyun, which ceased to exist in 1967. As there seems to be a precedent that lists of items on stamps of (philatelically) dead countries are included in lists of items on stamps of the country they're now part of, I'd suggest moving it to List of birds on stamps of Yemen and using that as a basis for expansion. Daveosaurus (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Meeting with British Library Philatelic Collections
I am in the process of arranging a follow-up discussion with the British Library after the successful edit-a-thon (see WP:GLAM/BL) and would like to bring in some Wikipedians who would be interested in supporting long term improvement to philately articles on Wikipedia. To join in with a discussion at the BL (it's next to St. Pancras station) about wider engagement with the philately community, please drop me an email with a brief note about how you would like to help. Thanks Fæ (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Being in India, bit difficult to help but great going Fae! AshLin (talk) 15:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Stamp collecting
Could someone advise me what to about changes to this article by Alliotdram in the most expensive stamps section which seem wrong to me. Thank you. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have reverted the most recent edits but given them a nice welcome and some advice as a new user. They appear to be making test edits and may not have English as a first language (considering they have installed a http://www.wikibhasha.org script). I suggest giving them a couple of hours to finish whatever they are doing and then revisiting the page, if necessary reverting any non-grammatical changes or apparent test edits. Fæ (talk) 14:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately they continued to edit-war and it appears possible that they might have been attempting to spam the page with a photo of something they have up for sale. Fæ (talk) 15:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Possible hoax
Anybody up for a little hoax investigation? 1847 China Japan Gold Traders Stamp is extremely suspicious, from the anachronistic typeface and design seen in the purported image, to the improbable timeline, to the curiously vague and/or non-expert references. Stan (talk) 23:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Put it up for speedy deletion on the basis that a stamp recently discovered and sold for millions would have press coverage, there is none in a full newspaper search on Nexis and none of the several footnoted citations can be verified. All Google matches appear to be the same (very busy) spammer across many forums and circular re-postings of the article. Fæ (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That article is a complete and utter hoax with no redeeming features whatsoever. In 1847 Japan was a closed country to an extent that would make modern North Korea look open and welcoming; it had practically no trade, never mind trade denominated in dollars. Daveosaurus (talk) 23:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Good catch. ww2censor (talk) 01:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

A discussion at Commons
There's a discussion regarding categorization of stamps in the Commons (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2011/02/Category:Stamps), that might be of interest to WikiProject Philately participants. --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 13:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

List of stamp forgers
I don't get it why this article has been nominated for deleting for a reason of duplicating a category. Since when have we been considering articles as duplications of categories? Any comments? I would especially appreciate a comment from Stan Shebs, an EN:WP bureaucrat. --Michael Romanov (talk) 03:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed the proposed deletion. See comment on Talk:List of stamp forgers. Ecphora (talk) 05:24, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of birds on stamps of Aden Protectorate States, Seiyun


The article List of birds on stamps of Aden Protectorate States, Seiyun has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Completely unreferenced, no claim to notability, just a single-entry table with no prose, WP:INDISCRIMINATE

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Modest Genius talk 21:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

commerical post companies
I noticed that this project covers the Pony Express, a private commercial venture, and not a public post system. Does this project cover post delivery systems other than the post office? (ie. FedEx (letters, packages, etc), Western Union (telegram), courrier services ) 65.95.15.144 (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it does but Telegrams are not generally included in philately apart from telegraph stamps. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability discussions on subjects of stamps
I was wandering along the road of unreferenced BLPs earlier today and came across Steve Dagora, who has as his primary "claim to fame" that he was a subject of a stamp when he was a young 'un. Does this project have any notability guidelines for subjects of stamps? Is the stamp in question notable? His Schrodinger status is debated, per policy he is presumed alive though he would be quite long in the tooth by now. I WP:PRODded the article on the assumption that it was an unreferenced BLP, or at the very least a WP:BLP1E. SDY (talk) 00:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Huh, I never noticed that this stamp actually names a specific person - the stamp's inscription literally says "Steve, son of Oala". That is very unusual for non-royalty, in fact I can't think of another example like that anywhere.  However, stamps reflect notability rather than confer it, so the appearance seems more like an oddball.  The 1954 article might mention that Oala was of some significance, and perhaps the son's depiction was a special favor of some sort - if we can get that tidbit, the episode and bit of bio would make a nice paragraph in the general survey of Papua New Guinea stamps. Stan (talk) 04:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * AFD here at Articles for deletion/Steve Dagora. SDY (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

When this came up before I found mention at http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/jsp/db/board.jsp?id=45870 that he died on 18 june 1990. It was put there by an Australian e-mailer with no sourcing. I have no reason to doubt that person's good faith in saying so. SDY seems absolutely determined to get rid of the article. He has already extended the AfD twice because he didn't have enough support. It is an oddball situation, and getting more information about a Papuan is not the same as for someone in the developed world. Your and other philatelists' help would be appreciated. Eclecticology (talk) 08:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have no opinion on the notability (or otherwise) of this person, but this is with regard to your comment: "So tell me of one other person who has been identifiably featured on a stamp, and who has not had an article an article allowed." There are numerous people who have appeared on stamps and do not have articles. A few months back I added some content to List of people on stamps of Hungary. A number of the persons so described not only have no article in English, but also have no article in their native language. I'd happily name them, but it would be easier demonstrated by looking at that page and counting those red links which do not have after them links to articles in Hungarian. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:22, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not
'' Catalogue. Wikipedia is not a stamp catalogue nor a database of collectables. More than the existence of reliable published information regarding specific items is required for inclusion. ''

Has been proposed to be an official guideline. Discussion is at the link in the section title. Collect (talk) 23:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Discussion resulted in rejection of proposed change. See archived discussion here. Ecphora (talk) 13:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Why no criticism subsection in "Philately"?
I think the article merits a criticism subsection, and indeed when I reviewed the edit logs such a section had been made, then removed! What is up with that? Some censorship on the part of the stamp collectors? 70.180.125.253 (talk) 01:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Suggested category for Philatelic mistakes
Headlines such as Postal Service in Statue of Liberty stamp photo mix-up from BBC News prompted me to notice there is a Category:Philatelic fakes and forgeries but no apparent category such as Category:Philatelic errors for articles on postage stamp errors which have some widely acknowledged flaw due to a mistake in design or production. Such stamps tend to get well-documented due to collector interest, so references establishing membership shouldn't be a problem.

Examples of articles that would qualify include Baden 9 Kreuzer error, Gronchi Rosa, HMS Glasgow error, Inverted Dendermonde, Inverted Head 4 Annas, Inverted Jenny, Inverted Swan, Jamaica 1sh inverted-frame error, Pagsanjan Falls stamp, 1904 Pictorial 4d Lake Taupo invert, Treskilling Yellow

It would be a subcategory of Category:Postage stamps and probably other categories such as Category:Error, and might share a common category with similar problems in other areas such as Mint-made errors. As an unregistered editor I can't create the category but I'll be happy to help populate it if someone gets the proverbial ball rolling. 67.100.125.102 (talk) 20:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, such a category exists in French Wikipedia (fr:Catégorie:Erreur ou variété philatélique) and in Russian Wikipedia (ru:Категория:Ошибки на почтовых марках). It might not hurt to have one here. --Michael Romanov (talk) 03:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

New website
Hi all, if anybody has been wondering why I haven't been around much for the past several months, here is the new website I've been working on: StampData. Oldtimers may remember my occasional mutterings about how one might do a stamp catalogue wiki-style, well I finally went for it myself! The site is already seeded with data about 150,000+ stamp types that I've personally typed in over the past twenty years, plus about 6,000 images, many of which will seem familiar because I pulled them from Commons. :-) The catalogue is member-editable, has change tracking, annotations, etc, plus there is stamp-specific depth, such as knowledge about denominations, currencies, colors, overprints, and so forth.  It's also all-new code, so things are still a little shaky ahem, but it's at the point where it's more useful to get feedback from other people than to tinker in private.  Hope to see some of you there! (And yes, this is a shameless plug for an external website, but I imagine it's of more than average interest to project members.) Stan (talk) 14:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks interesting and could be a really useful resource once it's ready. It could perhaps use a bit more "how-to" information and one thing I've noticed is that what look like placeholder images can be really confusing. I've got a fairly average collection of most countries so I could probably scan anything that's out of copyright (e.g. anything local up to 1945, I think, it out of copyright) and upload it somewhere for you. Let me know if you're interested. Daveosaurus (talk) 01:23, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * And I was so proud of the synthetic images! :-) The site supports its own uploading (mostly so it can track both covers / album page and crops of them to get the individual stamps), so sure, it would be great to get them up. Stan (talk) 13:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Postal administration
Did anyone notice that Postal administration was turned into a redirect to List of postal entities? Postal entities is not a recognised term for the organisations providing postal services, while Postal administration is such a term. We already have List of members of the Universal Postal Union which is essentially the same list. Anyone object to restoring the article and merging List of postal entities with List of members of the Universal Postal Union? ww2censor (talk) 20:16, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see the rationale - trying to capture the list of non-UPU members that provide postal services - but in this day and age non-UPU is trivially short, seems like it could be a parenthetical comment in other articles. It rarely seems like a good idea to me to lose the definition of a term into a list, we have enough list-o-mania as it is.  I note that the more generic term postal service is subsumed into mail, perhaps that would be a better split? Stan (talk) 13:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Debate on Commons: former communist countries' stamp copyright as "official symbols"
Sebjarod (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Nomination as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate
One or more articles relating to this project have been nominated to be a future United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month. All editors interested in improving these articles or voting for next months collaboration are encouraged to participate here. --Kumioko (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Postage stamps of X category
There are 32 categories by this name. I would like to propose that they be changed to "Philately of X" in order to cover all philatelic articles of any kind relating to the same country under one category, e.g. Postal history of X, list articles, Revenue stamps of X, Telegraph stamps of X etc as philately embraces a lot more than just postage stamps. Any thoughts? Philafrenzy (talk) 13:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether to include revenue stamps in the regular country articles was discussed here. The consensus seemed to be that revenue stamps might be included as a section of the country articles (notwithstanding the title "Postage Stamps") but if they got to any length, they should be split off as independent articles.  There has been a lot of discussion over the country titles as "Postage stamps and postal history of X" and, although unwieldy, that seems to have been accepted.  Many readers will have no idea what "philately" means. Ecphora (talk) 09:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not proposing that every country have an article on each of those areas, that would not be justified in most cases, just that where they do have multiple articles that it would make more sense to have one correctly named higher level category. I agree some people wouldn't know what philately is but that shouldn't concern us too much if that is a more correct category name. As it is, if there is an article on the telegraph stamps of India, revenue stamps of India and pre-stamp postal history of India, all of which could well justify a separate article, they are not in with the other Indian articles just because they are not about postage stamps. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:12, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't understand that your suggestion is only for a category. That makes sense. Ecphora (talk) 13:41, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. I will await further comments before taking any action. Philafrenzy (talk)
 * I have been bold and created the Philately by country category and three Philately of ... categories, Bahrain, China and India. These yielded 3, 10 and 17 members respectively. Every country would probably yield at least three articles, even the small ones, as there will be a postage stamps of, revenue stamps of and list of people on the stamps of articles for each. Some will be much larger. I am now going to refrain from creating any more in case anyone objects.
 * The idea of this is that it is a flat category immediately under philately so that we can see ALL of the philatelic articles for a country in one place - no sub categories. This should be a great help in showing how well covered a country is. Ultimately, this could replace the separate postage stamps of X and postal history of X categories which clutter up the structure and largely duplicate each other (there may be exceptions), but I am not proposing the deletion of those categories now. Comments would be welcome. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Treskilling Yellow
Did anyone else notice this image is a featured picture candidate at commons:Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Gul tre skilling banco.jpg? ww2censor (talk) 05:55, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * This is now a featured image and hes been added to the commons:Commons:Featured pictures/Non-photographic media page. ww2censor (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

British Library Philatelic Collections
A group of stubs are being created for the BL Philatelic Collections as part of a project between the Library and Wikimedia UK. A full list will be published here when finished. If anyone knows these collections and can fill in the articles then please do so, otherwise they will remain as stubs until the collaborators visit the Library to extract the information to complete the articles. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:10, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Philately of... categories
I have received an objection to the following wording that I have placed in these categories:

Please try to keep this category as flat as possible by not adding sub-categories so that ALL of the philatelic articles relating to this country can be seen in one place.

Can I please solicit feedback on this wording and whether others feel that this wording is a good idea? I will stop using it if that is the consensus. The objective is to be able to see all of the philately articles about a country in one place for the first time and I would venture to say that it is instructive and useful to see how well covered different countries are on this project, but I know there is no rule about the flatness of categories and it may be that the request is inappropriate. Please let me know your views. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * This is a reasonable aim of yours yet the counter request is also a reasonable one. You may consider developing consensus for a via media where a very small amount of categories may help you achieve your aim without overcategorisation. Say three-four categories at the most, such as one category on "philatelic collectibles", another on "entities", and third on "postal history" (wherever these apply, or suitable ones for that country) may be more than enough and yet achieve what you basically desire. You may also consider the setting of arbitrary limits which will guide us in the creation of categories. Say, a mimimum of ten articles required for a category and categories to be created only once the topmost category exceeds thirty or whatever is decided by consensus.
 * I request you to go through WP:CATEGORY and links therein which will help you to find the right line to take in this issue. You may also consider using a classification. AshLin (talk) 02:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Rubbish - this issue needs to be considered that it runs counter to what parent and child categories are in category trees and seems to show a self invented idea about visibility that has nothing to do with good categorisation.  To have one parent category I have no problem with - but to have an instruction of which many will have no idea about what is going on  is simply disruptive behaviour SatuSuro 09:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Satu I think you may have got a bit carried away here. If your objection is only the request that ideally no more categories be added, I am more than happy to remove that suggestion if that is counter to policy or the consensus. Do you have any other objection to what I have done? The "Philately of" categories are already at the bottom of a pile of other categories and presumably the structure has to stop somewhere, we don't extend it to higher levels of detail just for the sake of it do we? Philafrenzy (talk) 09:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The wording sounds like a good idea. In my experience (1) categories only get unwieldy when there is more than one page of entries - a couple of hundred, I think, is the limit - and (2) the way sub-categories seem to work isn't very intuitive for me as an only occasional tinkerer around with things. I think that with about 90% of the countries of the world, it would be a struggle to find more than a couple of dozen articles that fit in the category. Daveosaurus (talk) 10:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope - flatness is a disruptive proposal - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Categories

to ask for sub categories to be not added is a misreading of the function of categories - parent, child and grandchild, all serve a purpose - to be concerned about either volume or visibility within an internal structural component of the machinery is missing the point -  the philately category for uniformity - if in a whole range of countries there are many sub categories - they should be embraced  and accepted ... category mainspace pages are not for the average user anyways... SatuSuro 10:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's just a request not to add unnecessary lower categories, nothing more and nothing less. I won't be at my computer for a while now so will be unable to contribute more until later. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think flatter is generally better, but it seems like a lost cause trying to hold back the categorizers who aren't satisfied until each article has its own separate category. (And you're not sure if I was exaggerating just then, right? :-) ). Stan (talk) 14:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I was referred here after Philafrenzy blanked Category:Postage stamps of Switzerland to replace it with a "Philately of..." category. I see no consensus on this page for such a move. I am not convinced that it makes sense: Articles about postage stamps are mainly articles about the postage stamps themselves, not articles about the hobby of collecting these stamps (i.e., philately). I am reverting these changes as concerns Switzerland and ask Philafrenzy to conduct a WP:RFC prior to making such wide-ranging changes.   Sandstein   11:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I would back such a suggestion - at RFC - rather than continuing on as if nothing had been questioned SatuSuro 12:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have changed the request about the flatness of the categories to just request no unnecessary sub-categories so that should meet the above objection I think. Also, I am more than happy to revert the blanking of any "Postage stamps of" categories on request so that they continue to group the postage stamp articles together under the higher "Philately of" categories, both can be correct I think. Would that address your concerns? There do seem to be significant benefits to a "Philately by country" structure as it enables all philatelic articles about a particular country to fall into one category for the first time - Just look at Germany for instance. We now have 37 articles that naturally go together with obvious benefits to users and which were previously in diverse categories. I agree Philately is not as well known a word as it might be but it is the right word for this area. That's why this is a philately project not a stamp collecting or postage stamp project. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:08, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please revert all changes to Australian postage stamp categories, including Norfolk, Christmas Island, Australian Antartic terriory Cocos Is. etc then. Gnangarra 15:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Postage stamps of Australia re-populated as requested. Let me know if it still isn't what you want. Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 16:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Philafrenzy, if you have depopulated and blanked the pages (!) of many categories without prior discussion, you come perilously close to being accused of large-scale vandalism at worst and callous disregard of process at best. If you wish to get rid of categories, you may not blank them, but must request their deletion at WP:CFD. I ask you to please undo all edits in which you have blanked category pages and mass-removed categories from articles. Please take the appropriate steps to establish consensus before resuming such activity.  Sandstein   19:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There are also a number of categories which Philafrenzy had deleted thru CSD as empty categories that need to be restore as well as the structures around them. Gnangarra 06:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I apologise if I have not established sufficient consensus for this. I have posted on this page several times since December as I was making the changes and received no opposition. I seem to have misunderstood the degree of consensus that implied. You have asked me to revert but I assume this refers only to category blanking which was not very extensive and in most cases involved categories which had few members and should probably not have been created in the first place. Or are you opposing the concept of a "Philately by country" structure as I think the utility of that speaks for itself? Are you aware that most of these articles were just in an A-Z "Postage stamps by country" category with an almost mirror "Postal history of" parallel listing with no links to other articles covering the same area? Please clarify how far you are asking me to go. I have been bold and improved the encyclopaedia's coverage of this area significantly. Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Whether you have actually improved anything is a matter of opinion - and you should seek other wikipedians comments first, then congratulate yourself after... there is nothing about flatness in any wikipedian category pages - I really think the least you can do is revert yourself (ever category page with that unnecessarily bolded instruction) on such a silly request - and wait (it might take some while) until other more experienced category workers get a chance to understand what you are up to... SatuSuro 05:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I ask you to revert all category blankings, which are disruptive, and all mass removals of categories from pages, until you have positive consensus for such actions. I have no objections to your parallel "Philately of..." category, but I believe it should hold only articles related to stamp-collecting, and perhaps the "Post stamps of" and "Postal history of" categories as subcats.  Sandstein   07:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I fully agree that the philately-cats should not be the main cat for articles on mail or stamps, It's about the business/hobby and not a synonym for the stamps in general. On the other hand, I do understand it is sometimes is hard to find the right forum to have such discussions, so this kind of things happen. Per Bold, Revert, Discuss is there someone well versed-enough in automated edits to easily revert this; after which we can start an RFC here? L.tak (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The statement about sub-categories has been completely removed and all deleted categories restored and all blanked re-populated (even those with almost no valid entries in the first place). I can't agree that organising every philatelic article about a particular country in a "Philately of" structure is not a valid way of organising them, but I do accept I went too far in not retaining some of the "Postage stamps of" categories below the "Philately of" higher category. We have a Philately category so why not a "Philately by country" structure? Nothing else brings all of the articles about the philately of a particular country together in one place, including collectors who specialised in a particular country, the postage and revenue stamps of that country, its postal history and notable individual stamps, catalogues and collecting societies. This is a Philately project for a reason and not a postage stamp or postal history project. Philately is the correct term even if it is not as well known a word as it should be. It encompasses much, much more than just postage stamps. That is what I am trying to achieve even if my implementation was faulty! Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What we arrive here is a definition discussion I guess. For me (and for Philately), Philately is the hobby/job of collecting/studying (and possibly categorizing etc) stamps (possibly extended to automatic postage marks etc). I didn't know it could cover more post-related things, but that is not my point: the point is that the articles are not about the hobby/job, but about the stamps area itself. That means that a Stamps and postal history of... cat is much more appropriate (IMO). In addition, a Philately of... cat would be suitable, but that would run into a duplicate category. I would reserve a Philately of... cat structure for articles about e.g. Philately in the Netherlands (discussing it becoming popular in the 70ties, with the valuable airmail stamps of the fifties and the structure of several well known collection agencies). These articles (if well sourced) would be very useful, but to my knowledge, they don't exist! L.tak (talk) 12:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that we are getting confusion here between Stamp Collecting and Philately. The philately article does make it clear that there is much more to it than stamps, there are nine types in the "Types" section of the article. Clearly traditional is and has been the most important but there is so much more to it than postage stamps and if we orientate solely around postage stamps we miss out other types of stamps (revenue/saving/cinderella etc) and other areas such as postal history and the pre-stamp era, postal stationery etc. that are important parts of philately. The extent to which it has been possible to populate the "Philately of..." categories I think shows just what I mean. I think that we also need to differentiate "Philately of" from "Philately in". I am not against categories which cover the practice of philately in a particular country but I am not proposing those, only a category covering all aspects of the philately of a particular country, which we have never had before. Philafrenzy (talk) 12:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

British Library collaboration - part II
Hi!

I've recently started work as the Wikipedian in Residence at the British Library; this is a full-time position working within the BL and aiming to help support collaboration between the institutional community and the Wikimedia community. I've been looking at topics where a) the BL has a lot to offer the community, and b) there's a strong desire to work with editors.

One of the subjects that's very promising is philately; compared to some other subjects, philately is relatively underrepresented on Wikipedia, and while there are some very good articles (including one FA), there are a lot more that are stubs, or simply missing. The BL has a number of world-class philatelic collections, including some unique material, and the curators are very keen on helping Wikipedians who're interested in writing about those collections, or writing about philatelic topics in general. They've done some work with Wikipedians in the past - see Philafrenzy's post above - and are familiar with what we do and how the project works.

They (and I) can offer support in a variety of ways - recommending sources on a particular topic, reading over and commenting on finished articles, and hopefully providing copyright-cleared images from the collection to illustrate them. If anyone is interested, please do get in touch to discuss what I can do to help you! Andrew Gray (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Exciting! I can see a couple key fronts for development - one top-down, and the other bottom-up.  The top-down approach is exemplified by our single-country philately overview articles; they are, in a sense, the connection between the world in general and the philatelic corner of it.  The BL could be very helpful for recommending source literature and maybe providing access to them; it's not really good to base our overviews on standard stamp catalogs, as they lack essential background, but the philatelic literature that is the real source of stamp info is often hard to come by.  It would also be good to have authoritative images of the more-common stamps; many of those overview articles still only have one or two illustrations scanned from my own collection years ago, and I can't always vouch for those items' authenticity, ahem. :-)


 * The bottom-up approach is to focus on particular stamps/topics of special interest. In those cases it's essential to get copies of the images (with links back to the source); for a visual hobby, text-only articles are not of much interest, plus having the images only stored externally is a brittle approach that will stop working with next year's page redesign.  I've also found that the images can prompt work on related articles, for instance if they need more depth to explain how a printing process can go awry, or the historical context for how a stamp got to the proof stage before rejection. Stan (talk) 18:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I can certainly provide sourcing for either type, and images of a wide range of material are one of the things very prominently on my to-organise list, fear not :-)
 * From both directions, I think part of what we'd need is an organised idea of what articles we have, what articles we don't have, how good they are, etc. This is especially the case for particular items of interest - while I can easily work out which overview articles we're missing or need expanding, identifying individual items we should have an article on is quite difficult. The List of postage stamps is a bit of a mismash, with some redlinks that just go to arbitrary phrases (eg/ Red Army man); would it be worth compiling a list of "priority items" I can try and seek out references/images for? Andrew Gray (talk) 15:58, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The category structure should show all of the countries clearly, in fact I would be surprised if there are any major countries for which there is not a philatelic article, even if most of them are stubs. Similarly, we probably have articles for all of the important philatelic terms, but few of the important collectors. I am not arguing that there is nothing to do, on the contrary, but I think developing the existing articles is really the next stage. (And I am sure you are aware that there is at least a stub for every single BL Philatelic Department collection - I know, I did most of them.) Philafrenzy (talk) 18:17, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I do indeed! And impressive they are too, three departments have praised it to me so far this week :-)
 * We have country and term articles, but not collectors - hmm. Where do we stand, currently, on things like "individual" stamps? I have no idea what number of rare/significant stamps might rate an article (Inverted Swan, Red Mercury), or what proportion of "normal" issues we should have articles on (Machin Series, King George V Seahorses) - what are the project's normal notability thresholds? Andrew Gray (talk) 19:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Since you are getting the credit for it, can I have part of your salary please? There are no established notability criteria specifically for this project so we just use common sense and the standard ones. Obviously every country needs a philatelic article and there are collector articles, just mainly UK and US ones. Active philatelists know where the natural break points are in countries and what the important series are, and also what are the individual items of note. You wouldn't believe how much there is to know about philately, how many books have been written and how many man hours have been put it. Ask David Beech or check their personal library in the department - that's nothing. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I misphrased that - when I say praised it to me, I mean told me how impressed they were having heard about the existing work you did! No credit either given or claimed on my behalf :-)
 * Thanks for the notability clarification. I'm not closely familiar with our philatelic articles (yet!), and I'm hoping to make sure I get a good understanding of the way they're organised so that I don't get confused in future, hence the (slightly basic) questions - apologies if it seems a bit slow on my part. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I know what you meant but feel free to claim all the credit, someone might as well. BL help is most definitely needed with the articles about their collections, and anything else they can provide is to the good, but really we do not need BL help to fill out the country articles which must be our biggest weakness in this project as a whole. Some of them are good - someone has gone to town on Uruguay for instance, but other articles for important countries are very thin indeed. The sources are all out there and there really is no difficulty finding them. Catalogues with the basics are in most public libraries and available on eBay or elsewhere for nominal sums. The legendary Stamp Atlas by Stuart Rossiter is available on Amazon UK from 1p. It's just a matter of there being insufficient contributors to do the work. I, and the few other active people, can't do it all, nor should we. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:58, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Mmmm - the manpower gap is endemic in many projects, unfortunately! The issue about a surplus of easily-obtainable standard sources hadn't occured to me, though I can certainly see why it comes about. Is this still the case with specialised works, eg/ books on specific stamps, or is there still a role for providing material there?
 * As to the specific collection articles, I'll be in touch :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't want to discourage you Andrew, and my views may not be representative, but the state of Philately on this wiki is completely unrelated to the availability or otherwise of material from the BL. I think that it would be interesting to hear from other members what they would want to receive/or alternatively from you what you can provide specifically? I assume that if we request something specific it takes curatorial time and possibly money to provide so there would need to be an undertaking from this end that we would actually use the material in an article or are we talking about some sort of bulk upload of scans/text? Philafrenzy (talk) 18:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure - I don't think the provision of material is going to be a magic bullet or that it's the priority requirement, but I think it might help in some specific cases. In my experience (with other topics, admittedly) the ability to find specific resources is often something of a stumbling block - someone will write a stub, be vaguely aware there is a book/article they can't get hold of, leave it there. If there's some way of saying "I want to write on ---, please help me get the sources" and then getting the resources to them, we might be able to help that particular aspect of content creation. Doing it responsively to requests makes it likely the material will be directly used, & thus avoids the effort (and, as you say, cost) of digitising material that's not needed. I'm wondering if something like a focused version of WP:RX would work - does that look practical as a model? Andrew Gray (talk) 21:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I would think that the best way to proceed would be to place notices on the talk pages of every project member asking them what specific resources they need in order to complete their articles and see what you are asked for. If nothing, you have your answer. If you do get a range of requests, you can evaluate the feasibility of fulfilling them in time, money, copyright issues etc. One other option is simply to bulk upload BL images of philatelic items to commons under a suitable licence, if you can get them to agree. These would eventually feed through into articles. Thirdly, there is the option of a philatelic editathon/focus group/meetup in the department etc that might generate some ideas, but that is realistically only suitable for people that can get to London. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I went through the list of members a week or so ago and left messages for the ones who are a) currently active, and b) currently contributing to philatelic topics; I think I might do a second wave for those who're currently active but working on other things, to see if any of them are interested in switching back to their old ways ;-)
 * Bulk upload is a possibility - there's issues around it, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it's certainly an option on the table and one I'm hopeful we'll get somewhere with! One big question, practical issues aside, will be identifying suitable and desirable material - obviously the curators can recommend good things, but if we can align any images with the writing interests of existing editors, so much the better in terms of it being used.
 * An editing event would be great, but it'd need a certain critical mass of people there to be most effective, which runs into the same distance/number-of-users problem. I'm currently working out a program of public outreach sessions - practical training in how to edit, etc. - and we could try targeting one of them specifically at people interested in philately, perhaps by working with a society. Couple this with some of the "glossy" aspects of an event (curators involved, material displayed), and we might pick up some active editors who're interested but haven't worked on the topic before, as well. You know the offline philatelic community better than I do - do you think there are people out there who might be interested in this sort of thing if we arranged it? If it sounds possible, I'll float it with David. Andrew Gray (talk) 15:40, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Both the National Philatelic Society and the Royal Philatelic Society may be interested. I wouldn't, however, want to see the Wikipedia angle hidden behind the glossyness, though you are absolutely right that a private tour of the department, opportunity to see material not otherwise on display etc may draw people in. I would see it as a session where the objective would be to get people registered on Wikipedia on that day, and make their first edit on a philatelic topic using information gathered from the BL collections on that day. A bit ambitious perhaps but I think it should be made clear that it is a hands-on training event where people will be learning, not a cheese and wine party with a few stamps thrown in or a lecture. The age profile of the typical collector is fairly high, but there are some very capable people out there too. The Royal, for instance, has some major IT projects ongoing. I would be happy to attend such an event either as a delegate or on the Wiki side as an unofficial trainer/helper. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Bingo - primarily a training/practical skills session, with a little "value added" attractiveness from being at the BL rather than a community centre somewhere; mostly new users with a couple of experienced editors to assist. I've put a note in my diary to talk to the department about this early next week, so I can see what they think, and start thinking about practicalities - I'll drop you an email once I've spoken to them. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Maldavian Bull's Heads
I have made a formal proposal to rename the new article Aurochs' head issue to Bull's Head stamps or Bull's Heads. Your views are requested on the talk page. ww2censor (talk) 04:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

German stamps are not in the public domain!
Have others noticed this major change to the status of German stamps? We may have to transfer some possible fair-use images here before they are deleted. ww2censor (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The majority of stamps in use here are fairly old and so should be safe. The more modern stuff may be lost but it may not be much of a loss. I see that there is a project under way on Commons to implement this new rule. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The review process does give in-use images a chance to be transferred, so it's unlikely anything will vanish without warning. I also copied the whole pile to stampdata.com, just in case. :-) Stan (talk) 01:49, 20 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Members, please be aware of the progress being made at commons:Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/German stamps review. Things appear to be moving along quite quickly. ww2censor (talk) 18:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of New South Wales
There is some feedback saying that "The picutre of the 2d laureate is actually a Spiro Brothers forgery." Can any Australia expert confirm? Philafrenzy (talk) 19:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That would be good to know, albeit irritating, as I paid full price for it once upon a time... and don't remember the dealer, so no chance of a refund. Stan (talk) 23:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure it is a forgery, but someone has said it is in the beta article feedback tool. They might be wrong. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:43, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm no Australian expert, but this plainly is a fake. Earee (Album Weeds, Vol. V., p. 119), states that a common forgery is lithographed and "The labels containing NEW and WALES have no semicircles along their inner borders."  See the attached image which has the semicircles lacking in the image in question.   Ecphora (talk) 01:52, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry Stan, just part of the risky life of being a stamp collector. Ecphora (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep. I was wondering how it got by me originally, and upon examining the Scott catalogue I was using at the time (pre-color-pics), it looks like their illustration was of the forgery! There seems to be a shortage of high-resolution examples online, we could really use detailed images of all the different plates... Stan (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

2012 Olympics gold post boxes in the United Kingdom move
This has been requested to be moved to another title. Please see Talk:2012 Olympics gold post boxes in the United Kingdom. Simply south...... eating shoes for just 6 years 20:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Die (philately)
Does anyone have a three-dimensional picture of a stamp die (not a die proof or pull) that they could add to this article? Philafrenzy (talk) 09:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll ask if we've got any upstairs... Andrew Gray (talk) 09:44, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, like this except better and for a stamp: http://familycrest-rings.com/images/crests/die4-large.jpg Philafrenzy (talk) 10:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The best one of the files available was for a revenue stamp (good to have variety...) and, as it turned out, we actually have an image of the corresponding stamp, which you uploaded last year! File:Northern Ireland Revenue Dog Licence 1865-1928 2 shillings steel die for letterpress.JPG - I've dropped it into the article. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That is awesome wikification Andrew. Great to be able to show the resulting stamp. It is a southern Ireland stamp, according to the Barefoot catalogue, with the 4 shilling version issued in Northern Ireland too in an overprinted form. Seems the BL file name is wrong? According to Barefoot it shows the Irish Hound so I will tie that in too. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually this stamp has made me think about partition and the use of stamps. I think on reflection that it is a stamp for use throughout the whole of Ireland prior to partition and the Northern Ireland version (issued 1921) was only required after partition. Who knew a dog licence stamp could make you think so much? Philafrenzy (talk) 12:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I suspect that's it - my understanding is that the civil service and administrative system was essentially uniform throughout Ireland until the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and of course that was rapidly overtaken by events! As a result, anything pre-1920 will simply be "Ireland", no distinction, as with your 1904 example. I suspect "Northern Ireland" here means this physical copy of the die was held in Ulster somewhere and inherited by the NI Revenue Service post-1922; they then kept issuing the same stamps until 1928, which I am guessing is the period we had overprinting. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I found one of the Northern Ireland overprinted stamps which is here. The NI ones were only 4 shillings so I am unsure whether there would have been multiples dies or whether the engravers were able to amend an existing die as the BL picture is for a two shilling die. I have added a few to the category and they are used up to 1953, but I may be exhausting your level of interest in dog licence stamps now, and possibly mine too. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder if there were multiple rates, or if they had multiple denominations of stamp to allow paying for several dogs at once. Interesting question! I shall see if I can dig up anything in Whitaker's, if I can find a contemporary one... Andrew Gray (talk) 13:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You can find brief details in the Barefoot catalogues for British Commonwealth Revenues and Great Britain Revenues, both of which should be in the philatelic department library, but be careful, if you spend too long on it you may turn into a philatelist with consequent loss of teeth and hair. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Review at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Philatelic Society
Greetings, if anyone is interested in helping a declined AFC, there's one of possible interest to y'all here: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Philatelic Society. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I will have a go at this. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Help request
Some of you may know that a range of Doctor Who stamps is coming out this year. The Doctor who wikiproject is naturally interested, but they're not 100% sure of the copyright status of British stamps. In addition, I am unsure about the notability of individual runs of stamps like this. Could anybody help out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Doctor Who? Thanks. Sophie means wisdom (talk) 22:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Gave my opinion on the talk page. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * And so have I. I agree with Philafrenzy on the copyright and notability issues anyway. Daveosaurus (talk) 03:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)