Talk:Postcrossing

Statistics Table

Can someone update this? I can't figure out an easy way to access the top countries and how much of a loss/gain they have (unsigned/undated comment relocated here from main article page)

• I updated the stats on 14 Dec 08... the top 30 countries remained the same, but their numerical standing changed significantly; for example, Turkey was #10 and is now #30 in terms of numbers of postcards sent. Manual cut and paste is the only way I know of to update something like this... not sure it's even necessary, given that the statistics change moment by moment. Listing the top 10 is probably sufficient, with a link to the Postcrossing Stats page - which I added. Akindofmagick (talk) 16:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

New logo

The project's just got a new logo - see [1]. A high-resolution version of the new logo is here; it should be OK to use since it's part of the project's press/media kit (which explicitely says "[w]e encourage you to use the resources in this press kit", too), but somebody should probably still get back to them and have it clarified what this means and/or have the proper permissions for using the logo obtained and filed in OTRS. -- Schneelocke (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:User Postcrosser

I have created a Postcrosser Userbox for Wikipedians. Have a look at it please.--Joseph 11:32, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Code	Result
{{User:UBX/Postcrosser}}	This user is a Postcrosser.

Dynamiccookies (talk) 15:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Postcard Milestones Table

I updated the Postcard Milestones table by giving it a header and a 'Postcard' column. I also modified the citation/reference structure so that all references about the milestone are added after the date in the first column and the reference to the individual postcard is added after the postcard number in the last column.

We still need reference sources for about half of the rows. Please help add any you can find for the missing rows. Those rows were added before I modified the table, so I didn't want to remove them. However, I have no idea where the original author found the dates/times and other information.

Potential sources for references are Twitter and the old Postcrossing Forum through the Wayback Machine. Dynamiccookies (talk) 15:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I would still welcome any additional citations from Twitter or even the old Postcrossing Forum through the Wayback Machine, but Paulo Magalhães came through for us and posted every single million milestone from 1-60 on the Postcrossing Community site at my request, so I was able to update the table and reference his post. - Dynamiccookies (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I wanted to also share the script I wrote to parse the table from the Postcrossing Community site and automatically reformat it into Wikipedia's markdown. Here's a link to the script on GitHub. - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 16:36, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Adding Flags to Country Names in Tables

Should the Users Distribution and History tables include flags using the Project Flag Template? The argument is whether or not flags in these tables are merely decorative or actually serve a purpose.

Example: {{flag|USA}} -> USA

Flags were initially included when the tables were first added to this page (Added Diffs: Users Distribution & History) back in April of 2013 by Starpromi. Then, recently, in January of 2021, MB removed all of the flags (Removed Diffs: Users Distribution & History) from the tables citing: rmv flag icons per [Manual of Style], purely decorational

I liked the flags in the tables but am torn between whether or not they were functional. I welcome you to review the Manual of Style/Icons page for yourself. More specifically, please review the Flags and Inappropriate use/Encyclopedic purpose sections before responding. - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 20:20, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, I would leave them out because they are really only WP:FLAGCRUFT and serve little constructive purpose. ww2censor (talk) 19:37, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal of flag The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Accompany_flags_with_country_names. This is a table about countries and the accompanying flag is definitely informative. When we have lists of countries such as List of ISO 3166 country codes, the flag is usually kept. Adding the flag does not cause any accessibility issue as the text is displayed anyway.--DreamLinker (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose No need to remove the flag, seeing as it provides easy information about the countries. Idealigic (talk) 19:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• Weak oppose removal (i.e., support including flags) – the flags serve some purpose in making it easier to spot a country the reader is interested in. They don't "emphasize nationality without good reason" (MOS:FLAGCRUFT), because Postcrossing does put considerable emphasis on what countries postcards are sent from. On the other hand, they flags aren't really necessary and it won't be a big loss if they're removed. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:18, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Users Distribution Tables

Please use the following script to update the Users distribution tables.

This script and process has been put together to ensure clean, clear, and consistent data moving forward.

I welcome any comments, feedback, and suggestions to make this process easier. Thank you!

GitHub: postcrossing-wikipedia (with instructions) - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 21:51, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Postcrossing-themed stamps

I just finished rewriting the Postcrossing-themed stamps section as a gallery with a photo for each and every officially released Postcrossing stamp, but I could use some help writing up the descriptions for them.

When writing the descriptions, it's nice to include the entity releasing the stamps (post office, company, etc) and link to their Wikipedia page if one exists, the place and/or event where the stamps were first presented, the number of stamps in the set, the types of stamps and whether they're for the country, region, or Rest of the World (RoW), who designed the stamps, and a description of what is represented on the stamps. Also, for stamps released on July 14th, Postcrossing's anniversary, it's nice to point out which anniversary the stamp was launched on.

All of the stamps I found are listed on the following sites for reference:

• Postcrossing Blog
  • Reference the individual post(s) about the stamps, not just this general multipage post
  • Include the post date and author
• A Stamp A Day Article
• Philatelic Pursuits Catalogue

There is one stamp released by Russia on March 25, 2016 that I'm trying to determine whether or not it was officially released in partnership with the Postcrossing community's trademark. If it wasn't, then I plan to create a second gallery for unofficial stamps and add titles to each gallery for distinction. If you're aware of any other unofficially created Postcrossing stamps, please mention them here or add them to the unofficial stamps gallery.

If you do add any photos of missing stamps, or if you find any better images of a stamp and want to replace the current one, there is a non-free use license that we can use for these called "Postage stamp, where copyright depends on the country". It's specific use is "to illustrate the stamp in question", which is exactly what we're doing here. ​- Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 01:12, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Dynamiccookies: Unfortunately, policy and guideline does not permit the use of non-free image in galleries such as Postcrossing#Postcrossing-themed_stamps. This usage placed this article as the third highest article on the entire project for the use of non-free images. Please reduce the use of non-free images to only those images which are specifically mentioned in the citations provided as examples supported by reliable sources. Any other use is decorative in nature and not supported by WP:NFG. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

  I know non-free images are not preferred, but I had no idea they weren't allowed in galleries specifically. Thank you for making me aware of that. I am curious as to why this is the case though, especially when there is a specific license for postage stamps "to illustrate the stamp in question".

  I do want to let you (and everyone else) know that I don't plan to keep the non-free images in the gallery now that I know non-free images have their quality automatically downgraded, and of course now that I've become aware of the gallery restriction. I've reached out to individuals in the Postcrossing community forum asking for them to provide self-taken higher resolution photos of the stamps in question so we can replace the non-free images. I've already had a couple people respond wanting to help, so they're digging through their stamp collections to take photos. I also plan to continue adding citations and more detailed descriptions of each stamp. I had been working on a draft of this section on my sandbox page, but non-free images are automatically removed from sandbox pages and I didn't want to lose my progress, so I went ahead and published it on the Postcrossing page to keep my progress and request help from others in expanding the section.

  Thank you - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 14:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Taking a photograph of a stamp doesn't automatically transfer copyrights of the stamp from the holder of the copyright of the stamp to a photograph. I'm sorry, but having people take high resolution photos of the stamps isn't going to clear them of copyrights. They will still be encumbered with the rights held by the original copyright holders. As to illustrating the stamp in question; if a particular stamp had sufficient reliable sourcing to support notability of the stamp by itself, independent of this article, then an independent article about that stamp could have an image of the stamp in the infobox at the top of the article. If a given stamp is not independently notable, and is instead listed on an article such as this as part of a larger set, then a non-free image generally would not be acceptable unless there were one or more reliable, WP:SECONDARY secondary sources that discussed its visual appearance. If the only criteria to include a non-free image were to illustrate an article, we would have absolutely no limitations on non-free content on this encyclopedia. Hope this helps, --Hammersoft (talk) 19:01, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the additional information. I'm fairly new to working with images on Wikipedia, and I appreciated the shared knowledge. So, in my digging, I learned there are a number of countries that release stamp designs as public domain. I've already found that Belarus, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, and Russia have PD-exempt categories/licenses on the Wikimedia Commons site, so I've already uploaded the original images of those countries stamps to the Commons site using those licenses and marked my non-free licensed images for speedy deletion. I'm going to dig into the remaining stamps copyright laws for their respective countries and replace any others that have similar laws. If you're aware of any, or you know of any good resources for this, please let me know. Also, I still plan to add additional details and citations from multiple reliable sources for the images that currently don't have any. I've only focused on references from a couple blogs speaking about all of the stamps, but there are other articles about individual stamps from newspapers and even the post offices that I still need to reference. - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 16:02, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate your diligence and receptiveness to this feedback. Far too many people have a distinctly opposite approach. Please be aware that blogs are not generally considered to be reliable sources. See WP:BLOGS for more information. Using post offices as references would not be the best, given that they are primary sources. Newspapers are generally fine. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:34, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Ok I think I need to clarify this. It's great if sources can be found that discuss a particular design, but really the whole gallery needs to be gone. Instead, there should be a few representative examples to support the "Postcrossing-themed stamps" passage. The number of non-free files should be trimmed to as little as possible still support the section. In fact, it might be possible to eliminate the usage of non-free content entirely and still have a representative sampling, given that there are quite a number of these available under free licenses. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2021 (UTC)