Talk:Ford Vedette

Lost image?

What happened to the image (Image:Ford Vedette Coupé 1950.jpg) that was in the article earlier? The whole file has now disappeared. Was this image a copyvio or is it a picture of some other car? -- Petri Krohn 15:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a correct image and it was not a copyvio, it just got suddenly deleted because it got into a hole in Wikipedia policies. I am trying to sort out this issue now and I hope the image will be back ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience. You can still see the image in its original location, the Garage de l'Est homepage (click "photo archive" - please be warned that the archive is huge and contains about 500 jpegs, so make sure you've got the appropriate connection and time to download it). The Garage graciously agreed to the use of their photos in Wikipedia, but apparently some policy I wasn't aware of said that the image has to be deleted and it was without prior notice. The bottom line is - the picture was OK, I am working on having it back. Thanks for your interest in the article! Bravada, talk - 15:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The picture was uploaded here under a "used with permission" license. This is incompatible with Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Images.2FMedia #3. We do not accept media that is used with permission; it must be fair use or free use. If anyone has access to such a vehicle and has a camera, please by all means go and take a photograph of it and upload it here under a free license. Certainly with 7 model years of production and thousands in existence, we can find one to take a photo of to be released under a free license. --Durin 16:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. I now found the relevant dicussion under User talk:Bravada#Image:Ford Vedette Coup.C3.A9 1950.jpg. -- Petri Krohn 16:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's moderately irrelevant and rather unpleasant, actually, as it resulted from a severe misunderstanding, so I believe you should better stick to what is being said here. Durin is absolutely right - that's the policy. But I beg to disagree with him on both the number of vehicles that are probably left (I would guess a few hundred, and only some of those in good condition) and the easiness of getting a high-quality image of one. You basically need to locate an owner or a place where it is exhibited and arrange for an occassion to photograph it. Given that, to my best knowledge, there isn't a single Vedette in my country, this would mean quite an effort for me.

So, it is way easier and faster to make Wikipedia more informative for users like you, who are interested not only in raw words but an illustrative picture, to ask somebody who has already done a good picture of a Vedette in great condition to allow for it to be used on WP. But I cannot imagine asking somebody who does us a great favor, for whom English is not the first language and who is not a lawyer, to dig through the paragraphs of the GNU or whatever license and for the inconvenience for signing lenghty declarations of consent (I am not sure they would be valid when done by email anyway) just to make the picture available for every company that lifts it from here to make money on it. Bravada, talk - 16:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• Forgive me if I'm way off the mark, as I don't know Polish. But, I believe the GFDL is in Polish at this location. --Durin 17:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that - this is an article on the license which does not actually explain how it works but on some details only interesting and understandable for people generally acquainted with the issue. This is not something unusual for the Polish WP, which is why didn't even bother to check it. There is also a Polish translation of the GFDL, but it's a long legal document too intricate for my limited intellectual capacities. But perhaps you could just answer my basic question regarding th GFDL and CC licenses - basically, e.g. I, by editing an article, grant the license TO THE WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION to do whatever they want with my work, so it is up to the Wiki Foundation to allow somebody to use it or not, yup? Further down the line, does the WF automatically allow everybody to do everything with the content they've got those licenses for by default, or do I need a permission to e.g. just dump several articles and GFDL photos and publish a book and make money on it? Bravada, talk - 17:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• When you license something under GFDL you are licensing it to everyone in the world, not just the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia, as a result, can not control what someone else does with the content. This is a good thing. See the case that Interiot referenced for you regarding a CD catalog. Very nasty situation, one we hopefully will avoid here. You can take whatever content from here that is freely licensed or used under fair use and make a book for profit if you like. --Durin 17:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

So why am I wasting my time editing! I have quite a few good commercial ideas... :D More seriously, it would be against my moral principles to propose anybody to release their images under such a license - just imagine how would Mr. Hans Stedehouder feel if a business competing with his would use one of his pics in their advertisement! So I believe there is a big need for properly "permitted use" copyrighted pics to be allowed on Wikipedia. Bravada, talk - 18:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

PS. This is fairly inconsiderate of Wikimedia to have chosen such license. Was that that hard just to create a license that would restrict commercial use to that done with the consent of the Wikimedia Foundation? I believe WF will not make or allow bad use of the content, but "everyone in the world" surely includes people who would!

PS2. So wouldn't it be easier just to ask people to release content into public domain? I upload my own photos like that since I think that when everyone should be able to use it, there is no reason to dabble with licenses.

Forget the GFDL. I suggest you ask for the image to be released under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License (or something similar). This is easy enought to understand, and the web site even displays the license in the "local" language. -- Petri Krohn 23:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

'(indent reset)' Thanks for the link! Yup, this is very easy to understand. Unfortunately, for the copyright holder of the photo it means "I allow my competitor from accross the street to use my own pics to prop his business". Which is a moderately improper thing to propose him to allow for. Bravada, talk - 23:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• Per other discussion, a permitted use tag would be taking several step backwards in our fight against copyright violations. The lines that we've drawn with respect to our licensing are, in part, done to create a manageable copyright situation. Though, it's arguably not manageable even now. We have broad categories of images; those used under fair use, and free-licensed images. If we create a permitted use category, we significantly worsen our situation with regards to the management of copyright violations.
• While there may be no Ford Vedettes left in Poland, I'm sure there's other Vedettes out there. I believe in m:Eventualism. Somebody, eventually, will find a Vedette sitting in a parking lot somewhere and take a photo of it. This has happened for a number of other car makes for which we have pictures. We don't need to set up a special photography session to do so. Also, while having an image on an article certainly adds to the article, we still have the article and it has value without the image as well. --Durin 13:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

1. If the use of the "permitted" image would be restricted by providing an appropriate consent from the copyright holder, sending a copy to the Wikipedia Foundation etc. then this category could actually become the most-waterproof concerning copyright issues! As concerns the usage of images by forks, mirrors etc., I believe that altering the "database dump" code not to include copyrighted images should be relatively easy. Only the laziness of some people might stand in the way here.
2. Frankly speaking, I find an article about a car incomplete about a picture, and I do not feel like starting a new article anymore if I know I will not be able to provide a picture.
3. I believe it is more probable to find an owner/enhusiast of the Vedette who will be willing to release pictures into public domain than to find one (Vedette, not owner) sitting in a parking lot. Besides, one of the worst plagues that infest car articles of recent is a flood of photos of cars "sitting somewhere in the parking lot", which are mostly low quality (by definition, how can you take a good picture of a car parked in a crowded supermarket lot?) Bravada, talk - 13:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• The preference is to have a lower quality, free license image than a high quality copyrighted image. I again encourage you to consider m:Eventualism. You can't write the perfect article. Believe me, I've tried. In the latest of these, I created this, and then within a few months it was ruthlessly edited to a different form. From my chair, I think it's great! The collaborative effort to move forward to a form of perfection makes this project a wonderful, wonderful thing to contribute to. I have dreams of creating an article that from nothing to the first edit becomes a Wikipedia:Featured articles. I already have a subject in mind, and it is highly notable. I have access to the subject and can take my own imagery of it. I have access to a large amount of resources to cite information from. In short, I have the perfect setup to make a featured article in one edit. But you know what? I'm kidding myself! :) I know it will be ruthlessly edited by a bunch of other people after my first edit. *shrug* That's ok, and not having perfection (in this case not having a photo) doesn't mean the contribution isn't fantastic. An article with just an image and no text is virtually worthless. The reverse is not true. The text is considerably more important than an image. Images are important, and very useful, but they are not absolutely critical to the success of the project; we don't have to have images on every article in order to provide a great resource. --Durin 13:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I know I might not exhibit the qualities of a perfectly sane person, but do not accuse me of being so severely delusional. Most of the articles I create are a pile of rubbish at the first take, but sometimes some other merciful editors join in and after some time it gets more or less OK. But I believe even a "starter" article about a car is rather worthless without a pic.

As concerns the preference for bad quality but free images, I believe this is just one example of WP schizophrenia. WP started out as something else and became something else, but the WP superiors have not realized that and moved on to adapt to the new reality. WP was started out as a repository of free information (also in visual form), but it has currently became a WEBSITE in its own right, and a reference point. Even if you are going to dump the entire WP and start your own Digestopedia or whatever, people are still going to come HERE for their answers. I believe if you did a blind test and presented people the same article as a Wikipedia page and as some other mirror, people would rate the WP article higher on most aspects. But the current WP regulations do not take into account and promote the development of the site alone.

WP is also a brand that has enormous equity. If you'd ask people if they would donate the rights to their pics or whatever else to Wikipedia, they would probably agree. But I don't think they would agree to donate the same to just about anybody, INCLUDING people who could outright make money on that (I am still amazed why in the world would anybody try to promote the idea of letting people get stuff for free and make money on it). So, promoting the "free content" idea is one thing, but developing Wikipedia is another. I believe that an ugly free pic is worthless. A great free pic is invaluable. But a good copyrighted pic is very good, as it helps illustrate the article and improve the Wikipedia user experience.

Allowing photos "with permission" does not stand in opposition with promoting free content. But I believe that the place to exhibit "all the free photos in the world" is Commons, while Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. You wouldn't want some awful pics with questionable illustrative value in an encyclopedia, would you? Bravada, talk - 13:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Woah, let's take a step back here. I never accused you of being delusional. I have the utmost respect for you, and would never ever accuse you of such. As for the rest of this discussion, I think this is the improper forum for it. We're talking about fundamental policy issues, and not about the Ford Vedette itself. If I might recommend, this discussion should be taken to Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy. Respectfully, --Durin 14:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It was just a figure of speech, but as I see it was not understood so. I will try to employ a more dry style from now on. Now I will try to elicit the most important points and restart the discussion at the talk page you pointed to. Bravada, talk - 14:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Important notice to all editors of this article

Well, the image is back as you can see - the copyright holder graciously agreed to allow for anybody to use the picture for any purpose in accordance with Wikipedia image uploading and use policies. Nevertheless, even though some more Simca-related pictures can be obtained from that source, we are still missing pictures for several other cars which might be featured on the Main Page in the coming days. Please see talk:Simca for details - you might be the one that reaches an author of an appropriate picture first, and as response rates tend to vary, we need to search as wide as possible. Thanks! Bravada, talk - 05:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ford Vedette suspension?

There's a question as to the suspension of the 1949 Ford Vedette.

There is broad agreement that the Vedette became an early car to use MacPherson struts. At least by 1954 (by which time it was Simca building them, not Ford) it used struts. Also in 1950 the Ford Consul was using struts.

The question is, did the 1949 Ford Vedette use struts from the outset, or did it use a different suspension system (unequal length wishbones have been suggested, presumably with lever shocks? Was the bodyshell then redesigned for struts when it went to Simca?

(Posted at all three of the relevant talk pages, but please reply at Talk:MacPherson strut#Ford Vedette suspension?)

Andy Dingley (talk) 13:07, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

If you want an answer in English, Andy, as in a source, check this out:

http://www.vwtrendsweb.com/features/0306vwt_macpherson_strut_suspension/

I have a French language source - in fact a succession of sources because the same phrase appears in each annual review of what was on display at the Paris motor show - which described the front suspension of the Vedette as it appeared on the show stand in October 1948 as being "à roues indépendants avec ressorts hélicoïdaux". I think that may very well be French for MacPherson struts albeit before MacPherson's name had been applied to them. However, if someone with a better combination of technical French and understanding of suspension geometry were to confirm (or refute) what I think on this ... well, that would be reassuring (or not). But in my own mind I have always understood that the Ford Vedette was the first car with this front suspension, but of course it was uncommonly discourteous of the chaps not to do the thing first off in a country where they speak God's own language.... Regards Charles01 (talk) 21:29, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Additional info re: sale of plant, introduction of 2-tone paint

The book titled 'The Whiz Kids' by John A Byrne (1993) has a chapter about Ford USA's posting of Jack Reith to Ford France, his 'turnaround' of the plant and the orchestration of the sale of the plant to Simca. It also claims that Reith intorduced two-tone paint schemes on the Vedette. The author also characterizes Lehideux as an incompetent former Nazi collaborator, stating that the plant had produced vehicles for the Nazi army in WWII while Lehideux was a manager. Chapter is titled 'An American in Paris', pages 196-210. I don't know enough about the author's efforts to research this information from the French perspective; the book is essentially a history of the post-war American management methodology used by Robert McNamara and others. Cfcook76 (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

There's a wiki entry on François Lehideux to which I seem to have contributed. Feel free to do likewise using any sources you can find. Maybe there's enough for you to make a start at an entry on Mr Reith as well? I'm not sure the issue of whether or not Lehideux was one of the good guys or one of the bad guys is necessarily all that encyclopaedic, but I respectfully submit that facts (properly wiki-sourced, of course) can speak for themselves on this. Success Charles01 (talk) 18:58, 13 October 2014 (UTC)