User talk:Kerry Raymond
Kerry, I don't know if this works but lets see ... You rejected my entry on Newstead. A quick look at their primary website would provide some verificiation but let me say this ... 1) Proof that they lived at Newstead is available at https://newsteadhouse.com.au/our_history/ ... 2) I am a family member, Jewish historian and I know they were there from records I have in my possession which include a photo taken in 1891 of Lewis and his wife and others on the lawn outside the house, this photo from newspaper from QLD State Archives. I would therefore ask please that you reistate the text I amended. I hope you will. Regards .. Steve
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Merry Christmas and happy new year
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Brisbane Meetup in January 2016
[edit]Hi there! I'm dropping you this notice as you've indicated on your userpage that you're a Wikipedian in the Brisbane area. To celebrate fifteen years of Wikipedia, we are holding a celebration in Brisbane on the 16th of January and you are invited! For further information, and to register your interest, please see our meetup page. Hope to see you there!
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== mail == Hi Kerry I have received a message about deletion of a post from my IP address I wish I could have seen the post in question as others have used my computer ..
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Rockhampton North by-election in October of 1901
[edit]Greetings Kerry, we haven't chatted for a while!! Looking at List of Queensland state by-elections, did the North Rockhampton seat have a by-election in October or was the previous by-election held in June just over-ruled on by the courts in October? I can't find anything for a by-election in October?
Booubyjan, Queensland
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You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Brisbane meetup: Saturday 13 January 2018 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland
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Brisbane Meetup
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If you are in or near Brisbane, please join us on Saturday 13 January 2018 any time from noon to 4pm at The Edge at the State Library of Queensland. For more details and to sign up, please go to the meetup page. See you there!
You're welcome
[edit]I saw your message thanking me for my edit about Bishop Tim Harris on the page "Roman Catholic Diocese of Townsville" - this is probably not the best way to respond but I don't know any other method (I'm relatively new and still getting used to the nitty-gritty of Wikipedia editing), so just wanted to say: "You're welcome!"
Thanks
[edit]Thank you, Kerry! I am glad to be here and it’s cool to be a part of Wikipedia’s community. Kind regards, Shams_lnm [talk] 14:24, February 12th, 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Kerry! It was so nice to have someone to say G'day to me when first joining Wikipedia. Hope your GLAM Sessions at the State Library can get back on track after COVID-19. PS: You go gurl: you can edit Regards User:WilesHarper
Women in Red's April+Further with Art+Feminism 2018
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September 2020
[edit]New Page Patrol newsletter October 2022
[edit]Hello Kerry Raymond,
Much has happened since the last newsletter over two months ago. The open letter finished with 444 signatures. The letter was sent to several dozen people at the WMF, and we have heard that it is being discussed but there has been no official reply. A related article appears in the current issue of The Signpost. If you haven't seen it, you should, including the readers' comment section.
Awards: Barnstars were given for the past several years (thanks to MPGuy2824), and we are now all caught up. The 2021 cup went to John B123 for leading with 26,525 article reviews during 2021. To encourage moderate activity, a new "Iron" level barnstar is awarded annually for reviewing 360 articles ("one-a-day"), and 100 reviews earns the "Standard" NPP barnstar. About 90 reviewers received barnstars for each of the years 2018 to 2021 (including the new awards that were given retroactively). All awards issued for every year are listed on the Awards page. Check out the new Hall of Fame also.
Software news: Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have connected with WMF developers who can review and approve patches, so they have been able to fix some bugs, and make other improvements to the Page Curation software. You can see everything that has been fixed recently here. The reviewer report has also been improved.
Suggestions:
- There is much enthusiasm over the low backlog, but remember that the "quality and depth of patrolling are more important than speed".
- Reminder: an article should not be tagged for any kind of deletion for a minimum of 15 minutes after creation and it is often appropriate to wait an hour or more. (from the NPP tutorial)
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- This user script puts a link to the feed in your top toolbar.
Backlog:
Saving the best for last: From a July low of 8,500, the backlog climbed back to 11,000 in August and then reversed in September dropping to below 6,000 and continued falling with the October backlog drive to under 1,000, a level not seen in over four years. Keep in mind that there are 2,000 new articles every week, so the number of reviews is far higher than the backlog reduction. To keep the backlog under a thousand, we have to keep reviewing at about half the recent rate!
- Reminders
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New Pages Patrol newsletter January 2023
[edit]Hello Kerry Raymond,
- Backlog
The October drive reduced the backlog from 9,700 to an amazing 0! Congratulations to WaddlesJP13 who led with 2084 points. See this page for further details. The queue is steadily rising again and is approaching 2,000. It would be great if <2,000 were the “new normal”. Please continue to help out even if it's only for a few or even one patrol a day.
- 2022 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2022 cup for 28,302 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 80/day. There was one Gold Award (5000+ reviews), 11 Silver (2000+), 28 Iron (360+) and 39 more for the 100+ barnstar. Rosguill led again for the 4th year by clearing 49,294 redirects. For the full details see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone!
Minimum deletion time: The previous WP:NPP guideline was to wait 15 minutes before tagging for deletion (including draftification and WP:BLAR). Due to complaints, a consensus decided to raise the time to 1 hour. To illustrate this, very new pages in the feed are now highlighted in red. (As always, this is not applicable to attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, etc.)
New draftify script: In response to feedback from AFC, the The Move to Draft script now provides a choice of set messages that also link the creator to a new, friendly explanation page. The script also warns reviewers if the creator is probably still developing the article. The former script is no longer maintained. Please edit your edit your common.js or vector.js file from User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js
Redirects: Some of our redirect reviewers have reduced their activity and the backlog is up to 9,000+ (two months deep). If you are interested in this distinctly different task and need any help, see this guide, this checklist, and spend some time at WP:RFD.
Discussions with the WMF The PageTriage open letter signed by 444 users is bearing fruit. The Growth Team has assigned some software engineers to work on PageTriage, the software that powers the NewPagesFeed and the Page Curation toolbar. WMF has submitted dozens of patches in the last few weeks to modernize PageTriage's code, which will make it easier to write patches in the future. This work is helpful but is not very visible to the end user. For patches visible to the end user, volunteers such as Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have been writing patches for bug reports and feature requests. The Growth Team also had a video conference with the NPP coordinators to discuss revamping the landing pages that new users see.
- Reminders
- Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
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New Pages Patrol newsletter June 2023
[edit]Hello Kerry Raymond,
Backlog
Redirect drive: In response to an unusually high redirect backlog, we held a redirect backlog drive in May. The drive completed with 23851 reviews done in total, bringing the redirect backlog to 0 (momentarily). Congratulations to Hey man im josh who led with a staggering 4316 points, followed by Meena and Greyzxq with 2868 and 2546 points respectively. See this page for more details. The redirect queue is steadily rising again and is steadily approaching 4,000. Please continue to help out, even if it's only for a few or even one review a day.
Redirect autopatrol: All administrators without autopatrol have now been added to the redirect autopatrol list. If you see any users who consistently create significant amounts of good quality redirects, consider requesting redirect autopatrol for them here.
WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team, consisting of Sam, Jason and Susana, and also some patches from Jon, has been hard at work updating PageTriage. They are focusing their efforts on modernising the extension's code rather than on bug fixes or new features, though some user-facing work will be prioritised. This will help make sure that this extension is not deprecated, and is easier to work on in the future. In the next month or so, we will have an opt-in beta test where new page patrollers can help test the rewrite of Special:NewPagesFeed, to help find bugs. We will post more details at WT:NPPR when we are ready for beta testers.
Articles for Creation (AFC): All new page reviewers are now automatically approved for Articles for Creation draft reviewing (you do not need to apply at WT:AFCP like was required previously). To install the AFC helper script, visit Special:Preferences, visit the Gadgets tab, tick "Yet Another AFC Helper Script", then click "Save". To find drafts to review, visit Special:NewPagesFeed, and at the top left, tick "Articles for Creation". To review a draft, visit a submitted draft, click on the "More" menu, then click "Review (AFCH)". You can also comment on and submit drafts that are unsubmitted using the script.
You can review the AFC workflow at WP:AFCR. It is up to you if you also want to mark your AFC accepts as NPP reviewed (this is allowed but optional, depends if you would like a second set of eyes on your accept). Don't forget that draftspace is optional, so moves of drafts to mainspace (even if they are not ready) should not be reverted, except possibly if there is conflict of interest.
Pro tip: Did you know that visual artists such as painters have their own SNG? The most common part of this "creative professionals" criteria that applies to artists is WP:ARTIST 4b (solo exhibition, not group exhibition, at a major museum) or 4d (being represented within the permanent collections of two museums).
Reminders
- Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
- There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord and #wikimedia-npp connect on IRC.
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Images and school articles
[edit]Hi Kerry, when creating the Trebonne State School article, I noticed that you uploaded a photo from the school's website and put it under the CC BY 4.0 license and I was just wondering if this can be done with any school article? Thanks, 2024 is Underway (talk) 01:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- OK, there are a number of considerations. First is the copyright issue. If you look at the Trebonne State School website, then down at the bottom of the page you will see this copyright link which tells us that the text and photos on this school's website are generally CC-BY-4.0, which is OK for use on Commons , but with some exceptions, e.g. school logos (and Commons also has restrictions on logos more generally), anything identified as being the copyright of someone other than the Qld Ed Dept (but they commit to trying to ensure they do properly identify such material), licenced learning materials (something you are unlikely to be interested in adding as photo to a Wikipedia article about the school), and the somewhat ill-defined "personal information e.g. photographs" (but I interpret this as "no photos" of people and no personal information about people, e.g. names, addresses, etc). And Commons also has a policy relating to photos of identifiable people, so add the two together and it pretty much means state school website photos of people are not suitable for upload to Commons. I note the same copyright notice is linked off all pages for all state school websites, but always double-check before uploading. Now, the copyright notice on Qld Ed school websites has changed over time so you may find photos uploaded in the past that might not be consistent with the current rules, but if they were consistent with the rules at the time, then it's OK. My point here is don't say "well, I see a similar photo has been uploaded in the past, I guess it's ok to upload this one". Always check the current copyright notice. So, the two photos I uploaded from the Trebonne SS website are both from the sliding photos on their home page. The first is of a school building with no logos and no people (tick!), the second photo which you might not have noticed as I did not put it in the Trebonne State School category is a nice view of the surrounding landscape near the school (with no logos, no people). OK, now sometimes you can copy a photo from a school website and crop it to eliminate a logo or a person. That's OK as CC-BY-4.0 permits modifications, just put the "Where did you find this work" as "Crop of ..." and then supply the details of webpage etc as usual. Similarly you can blur or otherwise remove a logo (again, note that you did this by adding some words to that effect "with the school's logo removed/blurred"). Now if we look at a different state school (chosen at random) Ingham State School, what might we use from the slider of 4 images. The only possibility here is a crop of the first photo to show the school building in the top left (removing the kids playing hopscotch). There is another photo lower on the home page of a classroom but it's full of kids. Of course there are usually more photos on school websites (lots if you are willing to read through dozens of past school newsletters) but most will be unusable photos of happy kids, but you do occasionally get lucky if you search the website thoroughly! It depends how much effort you are prepared to invest to get a photo this school. I usually do a cursory look in the "usual places" and if that fails, shrug and move on. If there's one thing about Wikipedia, it is that there is always something else you can be doing with your time. Kerry (talk) 08:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The above applies to QLD state schools. Also, it also applies to the text as well as photos. Adding copied CC-BY text into Wikipedia articles is possible but needs to be acknowledged in the article (a whole separate topic, ask if you want to go down that rabbit hole). Non-state schools websites are usually All Rights Reserved copyright (the default if no other licence is explicitly stated); in theory, they could have a suitable CC licence but I don't think I've ever seen one that did, but occasionally they do have a historic photo of the school (must be pre-1955) which can be uploaded under the licence {{PD-Australia}} as photos taken in Australia before 1955 are out of copyright under Australian law. PD-Australia is the shorthand for "public domain under Australian copyright law" (Again, I can discuss further if you have a specific photo in mind). Kerry (talk) 08:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I note that sometimes you will see a suitable photo on a school website except that it has text overwritten across it in a way that can't be cropped out. Sometimes the text is part of the image itself, but sometimes it is just overlaid on the image as part of the website presentation. So if you save the image to your computer, in the latter case you will get the image without the text (hurray!) so it never hurts to test such an image by saving. I can't think of a school's example off the top of my head, but the Qld Police website (also CC-BY licenced) has one here which looks like the wide load photo is covered in white text and blue boxes (unusable you might think), but save it on your computer and, hurray, it's a nice photo of a wide load with a police escort that you can upload to Commons under their licence. If you have a specific photo that you are not sure about uploading, show me the URL and I'll offer my opinion. Kerry (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you Kerry, this was really helpful! While I don't have a specific photo, this was more of a question for future reference. But to clarify, any photo in a school newsletter, without any kids/logos in can be classified under the licence? Additionally, what about photos on the school's Facebook page or other social media? Finally, off topic question, can a school's history section on its website be used as a last resort? (To just fill in the blanks of a school's history) or is it still not allowed because its a primary source? Sorry for all these questions, but no one's really interested in school articles, so there is really no 'Expert' on the topic I can ask (I plan to become that expert lol) Thanks again, 2024 is Underway (talk) 09:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- So long as the newsletter is on their school website with the CC-BY licence, yes. Facebook is a separate website so the CC-BY licence doesn't extend to it unless you can find an explicit statement that it does, similarly if there is a link from the school's website to any other website unrelated to the school, the copyright for the school's website does not extend to that other website (nobody can CC-BY-licence other people's website). Kerry (talk) 10:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for clarifying! 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- History from a school's website. I cite them all the time, nobody has ever objected for the basic facts of the date, the name of the first teacher, number of students, the size of the building, etc. Just don't include any hubris "from those humble beginnings, it has grown to be the best school in North Queensland." Now citing them is one thing, reusing the text verbatim does require an attribution. see Template:Creative Commons text attribution notice Kerry (talk) 10:12, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- oh ok, Thank you! 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Attributions can be put in a subsection of References called Attribution, see Buranda State School as an example. However, people tend to do this mainly when there is a lot of text copied under the Cc-By licence. If it's just a few sentences within a single paragraph, people often use a more lightweight text attribution template like the one I mention above as part of the citation, but I think if you only use the Visual Editor, you may not be able to do that. You might need to bite the bullet and learn a little wikitext to do it. Or rewrite in your own words (which is what I normally do, because it's less work than finding the right attribution template). It might be possible to do a "canned solution". If you look at my user page, it's got lots of my favourite citations (and partial citations) in wikitext to paste in via the Visual Editor (another time saver!). Kerry (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Or create a special template for the purpose. Kerry (talk) 10:35, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll keep this in mind, thanks again for helping me with this, it's appreciated!, 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The use of the school history from the school's website is allowed under Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves (see points 1 through 4) but point 5 is important. The article can't be entirely based on the school's website as it fails to demonstrate notability. I have done articles on heritage-listed schools because state heritage status is accepted as evidence of notability. You may struggle with notability on the average state school, which is why I generally include just a brief description of the school and its history in the town/suburb article. Evidence of notability is required for the article topic but not for article content. Kerry (talk) 10:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- oh ok, thanks. As for a school's notability, I tend to find at least one source that is either ABC News, Nine News (excluding A Current Affair), 7 News or the Guardian. If a school does not have at least one of these sources, I don't write about it. This is mainly due to these sources being 'national' and not 'local', which defines notability. Local sources just help with filling in the gaps. For example: Abergowrie State School 2024 is Underway (talk) 11:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- OK, I just wanted to make sure you understood about notability as you could waste a lot of time writing articles that ended up deleted otherwise. Kerry (talk) 22:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Just looking at Abergowrie State School, I would make the following comments about school opening dates. There are a number of different sources and often they don't agree. It also depends on what the sources mean by "opened". Does it mean the day the first child enrolled, or the first day lessons started, or the day a dignitary turned up and cut a ribbon sometimes before or more usually some time later? I Often the source isn't clear what "open" means. The Queensland Family History Society database is usually the most reliable because they index the names of students, which they get (when they can) from the admission registers, or when they are not available that way instead from things like books published by the school itself for significant anniversaries, which is often based on locally-held records. Newspapers may report openings (of whatever kind). I find that Queensland Govt online site for opening and closing dates of schools tends to be least reliable (and I don't know what sources they use). Also the Queensland State Archives also tries to pin down the dates of schools based on records they hold. But despite everyone's best efforts, they do often end up with different dates (or no dates at all). So I check all these sources and see what they say and often engage in correspondence with QFHS and the Archives about these things which may result in updates (the Dept of Education does not appear to be interested in discussing school openings). With the QFHS data, I am a member of the society so I can see on their database what the source is. For Abergowrie, it is from one of the school's two history books (which I'd call a 2nd-best source, which usually means they could not access the admission records). However, the Qld Ed date of 6 July 1953 must be wrong. This newspaper article says the school is going to open on 23 Feb, but "going to" and "does" aren't always the same thing, but it's probably unlikely to be earlier than that date. The newspaper on 5 March 1953 reports on the official opening by Jesson (who was the local MLA for Hinchinbrook at that time) and saying the school opened "last week" and there were already 38 enrolments, and looking at a 1953 calendar shows that Mon 23 Feb would have been "last week" from the perspective of 5 March, so all the evidence points to Mon 23 Feb. And nothing seems to support the Qld Ed date. Kerry (talk) 23:28, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Closing dates are nightmares as there is the last teaching date, but formal closure may not occur until years later when the Dept of Ed have decided there is no prospect of the school ever reopening. Most schools close because enrolments gradually fall away to very low (or zero) numbers, often reflecting declining population as a whole. Newspapers don't tend to find that interesting to report. Closing dates are much harder to pin down than openings. Even now, we have a number of schools in those "grey zones" of not teaching but not closed, e.g. Urandangi State School (see https://urandangiss.eq.edu.au/), Tresswell, Givelda, Burra Birri, and these are just ones I've noticed, doubtless there are more. Kerry (talk) 23:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, Kerry! This was super helpful. I will add the following to the article using the sources provided: "The school opened on 23 February 1953, and was officially opened on Saturday, 28 February 1953 by the MLA for Hinchinbrook at the time, Cecil Jesson." The internet Archive appears to be down at the moment for Maintenace, so I will have to add it when it is back up and running. Now, the official date of opening by Cecil Jesson is questionable, but I do think it is correct because the source that says the opening on the 23rd said "It will officially open next Saturday" and the Thursday, 5th March article says "was officially opened last week". 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- And with the Queensland State Archives, it appears to not have an agency page for all schools. For example, I managed to find one of Trebonne State School, but not Abergowrie State School, which is incredibly frustrating when trying to find opening dates. 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, school agency records seem somewhat hit and miss Kerry (talk) 11:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- It seems that this school's history is not quite so simple. This source states: "Abergowrie State Primary School was opened on Saturday 21 February 1953 by Mr. C. G. Jesson, M.L.A. assisted by the Regional Director of Education Mr. A. Whitmee. The building, which was just finished a week before the first school term began on February 23," but it is a blog, however, it does provide sources at the end, which I will investigate when trove is back up. 2024 is Underway (talk) 12:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- I know the blog you are referring to. It's useful and seems to use appropriate sources. But, as I say, there is always some fluidity in relation to what is meant by "open"and interpretation of sources can be influenced by what you think you already know (confirmation bias). Newspapers also sometimes hold over stories to "slow new days" so a story that talks about "last Saturday" may be delayed in publication by enough days that "last Saturday" is actually a week earlier than you think. So, there comes a point where you may decide you have to write "Abergowrie State School opened circa Feb 1953 [cite][cite][cite]" because the sources provided do support that but maybe don't collectively support an exact date. If you are up for a trip to the State Library of Queensland, they hold these two school histories. Tip if you are not familiar with SLQ, as the books are not on shelf but in storage, create an account and then request them from the catalogue before your visit so they will be ready waiting for you when you arrive (retrieval takes about 30 mins to an hour and they will keep them at the desk for about 5 days after your request before returning them to storage, longer if you ask for it). Kerry (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- More on SLQ. If you don't have an immediate plan to visit SLQ, you can also use the login to "favourite" the books, so when you do get around to a visit, you can remember what it was that you wanted to look at and then pre-request it. Kerry (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- I might have to, to uncover the truth! But these sources can be used as a reference right? I wouldn't see why not. As for the blog, the info is really helpful. For example, it provides the reason why it's still open even though it has low enrollment figures "Today, the community has shrunk, and school numbers have declined with parents choosing to send their children to larger schools in Ingham. However, due to the distance to these schools, and the remoteness of some children’s properties the school is kept open by the State Education Department." And was wondering if it could to be used as a reference? The author seems to be a historian and a reputable one at that. I tried to find out if blogs can be used on Wikipedia and read this, but it hasn't been touched since 2009. 2024 is Underway (talk) 22:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it's a source I would be willing to cite for the reasons you give, reputable author, provides sources. I almost certainly have cited that source on Wikipedia (I think in relation to some church history). The question of "what is a reliable source" is always somewhat in the eyes of the beholder though. We have people on Wikipedia for whom citing is not something they are accustomed to doing, so they often look for or seek to develop rigid guidelines of what is and isn't acceptable to make it easy to judge/enforce. I've written and reviewed publications (which required citations) all my working life, so I am more self-confident about my ability to judge these things without rigid guidelines. Relative to the importance of the information being cited, who wrote it, where /when did they write it, why did they write it, what circumstances or motivation might lead them to be less than truthful? What better sources might exist that could have reasonably been consulted? What harm could arise if the information we add to Wikipedia is incorrect in this regard? In this case, who benefits from lying about a school opening date?! Anyone?Yes, there may be errors in sources, because we are discussing events of 70 years ago and information does get lost over time, but there's no source that we've discussed which has any real motivation to mislead us and a number of them cite their sources. And thanks to the digitised newspapers on Trove, we have access to contemporaneous sources in this case, which are discussing events of previous weeks not 70 years ago. Yes, someone might strongly object to it as a source because it's a blog, but given the number of sources we have, does it matter if we didn't use that source? Given the amount of completely uncited content we have on Wikipedia, I think we have way more than enough source material wrt to the opening of the Abergowrie State School. Kerry (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Kerry, I have added the info from the blog, which also led me to the specific council, which provided even more information. I also uploaded the image on the blog under the {PD-Australia} copyright due to the image being from 1953. but commons needs a U.S copyright "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States." Finally, with the opening date I said this: "The school opened on 23 February 1953, and was officially opened by the MLA for Hinchinbrook at the time, Cecil Jesson." I will add the date if it is found in one of the jubilee booklets. Thanks again for all your help, this will really help when writing and fixing up future school articles. 2024 is Underway (talk) 03:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, as someone who has uploaded hundreds of PD-Australia photos for over a decade, my experience is that you don't need to do anything more than assert PD-Australia with a pre-1955 date for the photo. I really have no idea why that message is displayed. Kerry (talk) 03:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, I do see the same message too, it's not targetting you in any way. There used to be issues where people in the USA seemed to think that local (Australian) copyright laws did not apply in Commons and that everything had to comply with US copyright laws, but I think as part of free trade agreements developed over the years, mutual respect for other countries' copyright systems have been largely resolved through those agreements. Kerry (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. 2024 is Underway (talk) 03:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, I do see the same message too, it's not targetting you in any way. There used to be issues where people in the USA seemed to think that local (Australian) copyright laws did not apply in Commons and that everything had to comply with US copyright laws, but I think as part of free trade agreements developed over the years, mutual respect for other countries' copyright systems have been largely resolved through those agreements. Kerry (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, as someone who has uploaded hundreds of PD-Australia photos for over a decade, my experience is that you don't need to do anything more than assert PD-Australia with a pre-1955 date for the photo. I really have no idea why that message is displayed. Kerry (talk) 03:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Kerry, I have added the info from the blog, which also led me to the specific council, which provided even more information. I also uploaded the image on the blog under the {PD-Australia} copyright due to the image being from 1953. but commons needs a U.S copyright "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States." Finally, with the opening date I said this: "The school opened on 23 February 1953, and was officially opened by the MLA for Hinchinbrook at the time, Cecil Jesson." I will add the date if it is found in one of the jubilee booklets. Thanks again for all your help, this will really help when writing and fixing up future school articles. 2024 is Underway (talk) 03:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it's a source I would be willing to cite for the reasons you give, reputable author, provides sources. I almost certainly have cited that source on Wikipedia (I think in relation to some church history). The question of "what is a reliable source" is always somewhat in the eyes of the beholder though. We have people on Wikipedia for whom citing is not something they are accustomed to doing, so they often look for or seek to develop rigid guidelines of what is and isn't acceptable to make it easy to judge/enforce. I've written and reviewed publications (which required citations) all my working life, so I am more self-confident about my ability to judge these things without rigid guidelines. Relative to the importance of the information being cited, who wrote it, where /when did they write it, why did they write it, what circumstances or motivation might lead them to be less than truthful? What better sources might exist that could have reasonably been consulted? What harm could arise if the information we add to Wikipedia is incorrect in this regard? In this case, who benefits from lying about a school opening date?! Anyone?Yes, there may be errors in sources, because we are discussing events of 70 years ago and information does get lost over time, but there's no source that we've discussed which has any real motivation to mislead us and a number of them cite their sources. And thanks to the digitised newspapers on Trove, we have access to contemporaneous sources in this case, which are discussing events of previous weeks not 70 years ago. Yes, someone might strongly object to it as a source because it's a blog, but given the number of sources we have, does it matter if we didn't use that source? Given the amount of completely uncited content we have on Wikipedia, I think we have way more than enough source material wrt to the opening of the Abergowrie State School. Kerry (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- I know the blog you are referring to. It's useful and seems to use appropriate sources. But, as I say, there is always some fluidity in relation to what is meant by "open"and interpretation of sources can be influenced by what you think you already know (confirmation bias). Newspapers also sometimes hold over stories to "slow new days" so a story that talks about "last Saturday" may be delayed in publication by enough days that "last Saturday" is actually a week earlier than you think. So, there comes a point where you may decide you have to write "Abergowrie State School opened circa Feb 1953 [cite][cite][cite]" because the sources provided do support that but maybe don't collectively support an exact date. If you are up for a trip to the State Library of Queensland, they hold these two school histories. Tip if you are not familiar with SLQ, as the books are not on shelf but in storage, create an account and then request them from the catalogue before your visit so they will be ready waiting for you when you arrive (retrieval takes about 30 mins to an hour and they will keep them at the desk for about 5 days after your request before returning them to storage, longer if you ask for it). Kerry (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- It seems that this school's history is not quite so simple. This source states: "Abergowrie State Primary School was opened on Saturday 21 February 1953 by Mr. C. G. Jesson, M.L.A. assisted by the Regional Director of Education Mr. A. Whitmee. The building, which was just finished a week before the first school term began on February 23," but it is a blog, however, it does provide sources at the end, which I will investigate when trove is back up. 2024 is Underway (talk) 12:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, school agency records seem somewhat hit and miss Kerry (talk) 11:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- And with the Queensland State Archives, it appears to not have an agency page for all schools. For example, I managed to find one of Trebonne State School, but not Abergowrie State School, which is incredibly frustrating when trying to find opening dates. 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, Kerry! This was super helpful. I will add the following to the article using the sources provided: "The school opened on 23 February 1953, and was officially opened on Saturday, 28 February 1953 by the MLA for Hinchinbrook at the time, Cecil Jesson." The internet Archive appears to be down at the moment for Maintenace, so I will have to add it when it is back up and running. Now, the official date of opening by Cecil Jesson is questionable, but I do think it is correct because the source that says the opening on the 23rd said "It will officially open next Saturday" and the Thursday, 5th March article says "was officially opened last week". 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Closing dates are nightmares as there is the last teaching date, but formal closure may not occur until years later when the Dept of Ed have decided there is no prospect of the school ever reopening. Most schools close because enrolments gradually fall away to very low (or zero) numbers, often reflecting declining population as a whole. Newspapers don't tend to find that interesting to report. Closing dates are much harder to pin down than openings. Even now, we have a number of schools in those "grey zones" of not teaching but not closed, e.g. Urandangi State School (see https://urandangiss.eq.edu.au/), Tresswell, Givelda, Burra Birri, and these are just ones I've noticed, doubtless there are more. Kerry (talk) 23:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Just looking at Abergowrie State School, I would make the following comments about school opening dates. There are a number of different sources and often they don't agree. It also depends on what the sources mean by "opened". Does it mean the day the first child enrolled, or the first day lessons started, or the day a dignitary turned up and cut a ribbon sometimes before or more usually some time later? I Often the source isn't clear what "open" means. The Queensland Family History Society database is usually the most reliable because they index the names of students, which they get (when they can) from the admission registers, or when they are not available that way instead from things like books published by the school itself for significant anniversaries, which is often based on locally-held records. Newspapers may report openings (of whatever kind). I find that Queensland Govt online site for opening and closing dates of schools tends to be least reliable (and I don't know what sources they use). Also the Queensland State Archives also tries to pin down the dates of schools based on records they hold. But despite everyone's best efforts, they do often end up with different dates (or no dates at all). So I check all these sources and see what they say and often engage in correspondence with QFHS and the Archives about these things which may result in updates (the Dept of Education does not appear to be interested in discussing school openings). With the QFHS data, I am a member of the society so I can see on their database what the source is. For Abergowrie, it is from one of the school's two history books (which I'd call a 2nd-best source, which usually means they could not access the admission records). However, the Qld Ed date of 6 July 1953 must be wrong. This newspaper article says the school is going to open on 23 Feb, but "going to" and "does" aren't always the same thing, but it's probably unlikely to be earlier than that date. The newspaper on 5 March 1953 reports on the official opening by Jesson (who was the local MLA for Hinchinbrook at that time) and saying the school opened "last week" and there were already 38 enrolments, and looking at a 1953 calendar shows that Mon 23 Feb would have been "last week" from the perspective of 5 March, so all the evidence points to Mon 23 Feb. And nothing seems to support the Qld Ed date. Kerry (talk) 23:28, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- OK, I just wanted to make sure you understood about notability as you could waste a lot of time writing articles that ended up deleted otherwise. Kerry (talk) 22:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- oh ok, thanks. As for a school's notability, I tend to find at least one source that is either ABC News, Nine News (excluding A Current Affair), 7 News or the Guardian. If a school does not have at least one of these sources, I don't write about it. This is mainly due to these sources being 'national' and not 'local', which defines notability. Local sources just help with filling in the gaps. For example: Abergowrie State School 2024 is Underway (talk) 11:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The use of the school history from the school's website is allowed under Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves (see points 1 through 4) but point 5 is important. The article can't be entirely based on the school's website as it fails to demonstrate notability. I have done articles on heritage-listed schools because state heritage status is accepted as evidence of notability. You may struggle with notability on the average state school, which is why I generally include just a brief description of the school and its history in the town/suburb article. Evidence of notability is required for the article topic but not for article content. Kerry (talk) 10:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll keep this in mind, thanks again for helping me with this, it's appreciated!, 2024 is Underway (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Or create a special template for the purpose. Kerry (talk) 10:35, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- So long as the newsletter is on their school website with the CC-BY licence, yes. Facebook is a separate website so the CC-BY licence doesn't extend to it unless you can find an explicit statement that it does, similarly if there is a link from the school's website to any other website unrelated to the school, the copyright for the school's website does not extend to that other website (nobody can CC-BY-licence other people's website). Kerry (talk) 10:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you Kerry, this was really helpful! While I don't have a specific photo, this was more of a question for future reference. But to clarify, any photo in a school newsletter, without any kids/logos in can be classified under the licence? Additionally, what about photos on the school's Facebook page or other social media? Finally, off topic question, can a school's history section on its website be used as a last resort? (To just fill in the blanks of a school's history) or is it still not allowed because its a primary source? Sorry for all these questions, but no one's really interested in school articles, so there is really no 'Expert' on the topic I can ask (I plan to become that expert lol) Thanks again, 2024 is Underway (talk) 09:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I note that sometimes you will see a suitable photo on a school website except that it has text overwritten across it in a way that can't be cropped out. Sometimes the text is part of the image itself, but sometimes it is just overlaid on the image as part of the website presentation. So if you save the image to your computer, in the latter case you will get the image without the text (hurray!) so it never hurts to test such an image by saving. I can't think of a school's example off the top of my head, but the Qld Police website (also CC-BY licenced) has one here which looks like the wide load photo is covered in white text and blue boxes (unusable you might think), but save it on your computer and, hurray, it's a nice photo of a wide load with a police escort that you can upload to Commons under their licence. If you have a specific photo that you are not sure about uploading, show me the URL and I'll offer my opinion. Kerry (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The above applies to QLD state schools. Also, it also applies to the text as well as photos. Adding copied CC-BY text into Wikipedia articles is possible but needs to be acknowledged in the article (a whole separate topic, ask if you want to go down that rabbit hole). Non-state schools websites are usually All Rights Reserved copyright (the default if no other licence is explicitly stated); in theory, they could have a suitable CC licence but I don't think I've ever seen one that did, but occasionally they do have a historic photo of the school (must be pre-1955) which can be uploaded under the licence {{PD-Australia}} as photos taken in Australia before 1955 are out of copyright under Australian law. PD-Australia is the shorthand for "public domain under Australian copyright law" (Again, I can discuss further if you have a specific photo in mind). Kerry (talk) 08:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
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