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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Steve Dodd/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 22:53, 30 January 2010 [1].

Steve Dodd

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Nominator(s): hamiltonstone (talk) 02:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article as part of my interest in developing and promoting content relating to Indigenous arts in Australia. Dodd was a pioneer - an outback Arrente man whose acting career spans seven decades, and is not done yet. His story is extraordinary—stockman, war veteran and performer—yet, because he almost never performed in more than very minor film roles, he is almost unknown. I wrote this article to try and bring out what little is known about this interesting figure in Australia's cultural history. Thanks to User:Jezhotwells for the GA review, User:Jonyungk for the peer review comments, and to User:Ealdgyth for flagging some possible issues. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Alt text looks good.
  • No dabs, and external links work. Actually, ref 7 and the Dodd portrait's source appear to time out as I type; the portrait source worked for me at first and then stopped working.
  • Speaking of the portrait, it looks disturbingly blocky compared to its source. Did you notice, and if so, did you intentionally use high compression? I copied the photo from cas.awm.gov.au just before it started timing out, so I can crop and upload a nicer version later if you wish.

--an odd name 09:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, OddName. Some of the more technical stuff, such as image format, is not my strong suit. I didn't intentionally do anything - i temporarily saved the file to my hard drive, cropped it in MS Photo Editor to the format you see, saved again and uploaded. If you can produce a better result, please go ahead, i would be very grateful. The link issue appears to be a problem, hopefully temporary, at the Australian War Memorial end - i'm having problems with their search engine which was working fine this morning. Should resolve itself over the next day i expect. hamiltonstone (talk) 10:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done! I also archived ref 7 and its image, just in case. --an odd name 20:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I read this ariticle in peer review and have followed its progress closely since that time. Hamiltonstone has done an excellent job of putting together a compelling article that also helps fill an important need. The article was already a fine one at peer review, and hamiltonstone has only improved it. In its overall quality as well as its illumination of the situation in Australia for Indiginous artists, I believe the article meets the criteria for FA status. Well done. Jonyungk (talk) 16:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But why are some of them in John Smith and others in Jones, Robert format? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 00:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All the ones that are articles in Murray are done as "John Smith, 'chapter name', in..." All others are done as "Smith, John etc". The styles are consistently applied in this way (i had to fix one that wasn't quite right). The reason was just that i thought "Smith, John, 'chapter', in..." looked odd with all the commas. If you and others don't like it, i can change them around. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think they're odd, I see quite a few books that do the same. It looks fine otherwise I think YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 23:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I reordered them all. One reference still appears with first name first - that is because it uses the editor, not the author name field and WP automatically generates this name order. So it looks slightly odd but is actually consistent with the style guide. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Sandy posted on the FAC talk page that this needed an image review. Only two images:

  1. File:Steve Dodd Korea portrait.jpg. We need a publication date for this, according to the tag on the image page, though the PD tag refers to when the image was taken or published, so we only need to show one or the other. Also, is there more information about where it was obtained?
    Sorry, my mistake. There's a link to the source at the bottom of the page, which I missed because of the template. I've moved it higher. Date made March 1953, so that should be fine—the tag says images in Australia, where the creator is unknown, are PD if taken or published before January 1, 1955. Here the donor's name is available, but not the creator's. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 02:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. File:Chips Rafferty.jpg. The link showing the source for this one seems not to be working.
    I fixed the link to the source, which is here. In this case, the name of the photographer is known. I'm confused about the tag, which seems to contradict itself. It says "A. Photographs or other works published anonymously, under a pseudonym or the creator is unknown [are PD if] taken or published prior to 1 January 1955. But then it says "B. Photographs (except A): taken prior to 1 January 1955." I can't work out what that means. Does knowing the name of the photographer make a difference or not?
    Okay, I checked the PD page, and it makes no mention of the photographer's name, but says, "Any photographs created before January 1, 1955 are thus in the public domain in Australia." So that's fine as far as Australia goes, for both images. It's not clear that these images would be PD in the U.S., but I don't know whether that matters at FAC. I've asked at WT:FAC, and will report back. Sorry that I don't know the answer. I'm a newbie image reviewer. :)

Hamiltonstone, this is a useful Signpost article about what's required of free images at FAC, in case it's helpful. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 00:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha, I chose this page to review because it didn't have a lot of images. Serves me right for being lazy. :) The situation is quite complicated. Regarding what is PD in the U.S., according to WP:PD:
  • "If the work was published 1923 to 1995 (inclusive) and not copyrighted in its countries of origin in 1996, it is in the public domain in the U.S.
  • "Otherwise, if the work was published before 1978, it is copyrighted in the U.S. for 95 years since the original publication ..."
So the question is whether this was copyrighted in the U.S. in 1996. WP:PD says, "In Australia, the copyright on published photographs taken before May 1, 1969 expired 50 years after the creation ... new legislation became effective on January 1, 2005, extending the copyright term ... but explicitly ruling out a revival of copyright on works whose copyright had already expired. Any photographs created before January 1, 1955 are thus in the public domain in Australia." I believe this means that the photographs are regarded as copyrighted in the U.S., because they were copyrighted in their country of origin in 1996, and were published between 1923 and 1995. The U.S. copyright appears to be 95 years from the original date of publication.
The question for this FAC, then, is whether images have to be PD in the U.S. as well as the country of origin. If yes, I don't think these can be used. But because this is a complex question, I'll make sure someone checks this who is knowledgable about images. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 02:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've been told here that images have to be PD in the U.S. before we can claim PD for them at all. I believe these images fail because they were regarded as copyrighted in the U.S. as of 1996, and are therefore copyrighted for 95 years from the date of first publication; see Wikipedia:Public domain#Country-specific rules. But I have asked that this be checked. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 03:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SlimVirgin is correct in the whole URAA issue (foreign images not in their country's public domain by on 1 Jan 1996 have their US copyrights restored, note the two copyrights). However, a recent movement on Commons advocates to tag such images (that have already been uploaded to Commons) with commons:Template:Not-PD-US-URAA (along with the copyright status in their source country) and leave them on Commons, deleting them (or the template) when a concensus has been reached, rather than deleting them outright. See these discussions for the various threads. Personally, I think this makes the images unstable (liable for deletion at any moment) but this is my personal view. Jappalang (talk) 03:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Jappalang, that's very helpful. Is there a rule that explicitly says images on Wikipedia (not on the Commons, but just on Wikipedia) have to be in the public domain in the U.S., rather than only in their country of origin? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 03:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jappalang answered on my talk page. The answer is that images used on WP must be PD in the U.S., regardless of whether they're also PD elsewhere, and it seems that these aren't PD in the U.S.. The discussion about images of the kind you've used in this article can be found here. The bottom line is that some people think they're acceptable and some not, which means they're safe for now as far as the Commons goes, but they could be deleted at any time. This is the wording of the tag Jappalang mentioned above:

This work is not in the public domain in the United States because its copyright in the U.S. was restored by the URAA as it was still copyrighted in its source country on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 in most cases). It is copyrighted in the U.S. until 95 years after the year it was initially published (or until at least 2047, if it was first published between 1978 and 2002, inclusive).

This is not a valid license on Commons; a valid license template must accompany this tag or this image will be deleted. Even when this tag is accompanied by a valid license template, we are currently trying to figure out what to do with files like this one. If you are the copyright holder of this image, and do not wish to have it hosted on Commons, please contact our designated agent or nominate the image for deletion, explaining the situation.

Are there any other images of these people that you could use? The other option is to claim fair use for the purposes of this FA. I can't see that there would be a problem with claiming fair use for the image of Steve Dodd. I don't think you could claim it for Chips Rafferty in this article. In the longer term, you could try to obtain a free licence. It may be possible to do that for the one with a named photographer. Even for the other one, it could be that the donor was also the photographer. Perhaps you can track them down through the museum. I'm not suggesting you do that for this FAC though. :)
I think that's my image review completed. In summary, these images appear not to have a free licence as far as the United States is concerned, which is needed for them to be used as free images on Wikipedia, and therefore fair use would have to be claimed. This could be done for the image of the subject, File:Steve Dodd Korea portrait.jpg, but not for the second image, File:Chips Rafferty.jpg, in my view.SlimVirgin TALK contribs 04:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<shakes head> My sympathy to you SV for having opened up that can of worms. No wonder people have begun challenging the URAA in the courts - what a loopy bit of law. If ever there was a case for WP to have servers hosting images in source countries, there it is. I would suggest that the chance of securing copyright release on these images is zero, particularly since Australian authorities such as the AWM will probably be greatly surprised to learn that copyright exists somewhere even though not here. As you note, in one case it is not even known who took the photograph. And the chance of locating either a photographer or their estate on an image taken over half a century ago, and either gifted to the War Memorial or taken by a government official in the first place, is likely to be low, putting it mildly. I've been unable to locate any alternative image of Rafferty at Commons. Given he died nearly forty years ago, again i would rate the chance at close to nil. (No one is likely to be loading their holiday snaps of Uncle Chips on Flickr). <sigh> Chips' image is gone. I've left the Dodd image. If i can work out the best way to approach that using your guidance above, i will. But I would say there is no question of it being legitimate fair use at the very least. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:32, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Hamiltonstone, you're right that this is nonsensical. I don't think we'd even need servers in different countries. We just need as a community to decide not to have such strict images policies. I feel bad enforcing them, because I often disagree with them, but I want other people to do image reviews for my FACs, so I feel I need to offer some in return. That means I can't ignore the rules, but I do feel like a poacher turned gamekeeper.
Regarding the Steve Dodd image, in your shoes, I'd download it to Wikipedia and claim fair use, tagging it {{non-free use in|Steve Dodd}}. The rationale should say it's an image of historical importance, it's an image of the subject of the article who is deceased, the article would be much poorer without it, it has no monetary value that would be affected by our use of it, it has been previously published, there are no equivalent images that are regarded as in the public domain in the U.S., and it is in the public domain in its country of origin. There are some rationales here you could use.
Alternatively, another reviewer might disagree with me, and say you can go ahead and claim it as PD, given the disagreement on the Commons. However, FAC reviews generally don't follow the rules on the Commons, but the rules on Wikipedia, which differ sometimes, so I believe other reviewers would probably also say you can't claim these as PD for the purposes of this article. I'm sorry it's all so confusing. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 01:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To other reviewers / delegates. I will get to the image fix in next 48hrs. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a first step, I have added the commons:Template:Not-PD-US-URAA tag at Commons, in addition to the Australian tag (which says the image is out of copyright in Australia). Personally, I am happy to leave it at this for two reasons: first, given the already chequered case law history of the URAA, it is yet to be determined whether the law will stand and second, in the case of this particular image, the Australian War Memorial does not appear able to identify an original copyright holder. I will try and speak to someone at the Memorial about whether they believe that they themselves own the copyright (in the event that any copyright exists). A note to the delegates when they come to consider closing this: if my approach to this image is the sole stumbling block to promoting this article, let me know before you close it, and I will try an alternative (even if that means deleting the image entirely). hamiltonstone (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Stuff it, I decided to go the non-free use rationale route, even thought i think it is ridiculous, in order to hopefully put this beyond doubt. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think we can't actually use fair use images for living persons (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-09-22/Dispatches#Article-specific criteria). My sympathies for the mess you've found yourself in regarding images. Ucucha 11:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Ucucha, i found that Signpost article useful. I read it, and it does not appear that the fact that the subject is living is an inherent issue. It "generally precludes" their use, but the explanations of why this is the case indicate that the matter should be approached by applying criteria for why the use is desirable, rather than a blanket rule about whether the subject is alive. I have beefed up the non-free use rationale as a result of reading the article, though. Finally, i realised there is a different way in which the image's inclusion can be defended: Australia has freedom of panorama in its copyright law, and the image in question is on permanent public display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. So, whichever way one approaches this issue: as a sceptic about the URAA's validity; through non-free use; or through freedom of panorama, I think the image is acceptable. I think I'm done here. hamiltonstone (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is also in foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy, which speaks about "almost all portraits of living notable individuals" being excluded from fair use. I think the claim under either freedom of panorama or URAA being bad may be stronger than the one for fair use, as in theory we could get another image of him, but my knowledge of the issues is very small. I agree with SV that this is a place where our image policies are more restrictive than they should be. This FAC gets broad support, and for good reason; it's a pity this stuff is causing trouble. Ucucha 01:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hamilton, have you tried contacting Dodd's agent? He might have an image of himself in uniform, if that's what you particularly wanted, or some other so we'd avoid this issue. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 01:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say just remove the picture, as they aren't needed, and the fair use claim doesn't work, as it's just being used as a decoration rather than linking in with the text much, and it doesn't show anything hard to understand in words, just a dark-skinned person wearing an army uniform. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think fair use can be claimed here if Hamilstone particularly wants to show an image of Dodd in uniform from that period, adding in the cutline that it's from the Australian museum website. The policy says under unacceptable use (my bold), "Pictures of people still alive, groups still active, and buildings still standing; provided that taking a new free picture as a replacement (which is almost always considered possible) would serve the same encyclopedic purpose as the non-free image." If Hamilton's encyclopedic purpose is to show this person from that period, it can be used, though it could be argued it would have to go in the appropriate section, not in the lead. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 02:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved the image to the section on his early career, and have modified the body text and image caption slightly, to make the purpose and linkages clearer. I am hoping that this responds to slimvirgin's comments above, making it clear the image is intended to serve a specific, historical purpose, rather than as a general portrait of the subject. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have also spoken to the subject's agent. No decision yet on whether a contemporary image will be made available on terms consistent with WP free content. If it is, you'll see it appear in due course. I am very grateful for everyone's input on the images. Once again, a note to the closing delegate: if you are not happy with the image situation as it currently stands, please advise before archiving. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Comments (Ucucha)

The article reads good in general, but I'm a bit concerned about broadness and the sources used. Many pertinent facts about Dodd are evidently not recorded in reliable sources, even his age. You have solved that by using quite a few references to primary sources, which may or may not be considered acceptable. I am not sure there is any issue here that warrants not promoting the article. You've probably had to do more work on finding all the bits and pieces here than you would have had if there were some nice monographs on the subject, and it looks like you've done as good a job as you could considering the paucity of sources on the subject.

I did not check whether all refs can be considered reliable sources. A few specific comments:

Lead
  • "films spanning seven decades" - at least to me, this sounds like individual films going on for seven decades. Perhaps "over seven decades" instead?
Acting career
  • "Web site Milesago suggests Dodd may have been the actor in Woobinda (rather than Bindi Williams), but Dodd's age would rule him out." (in ref) - Could you please cite this? Otherwise, it is original research.
References nitpicking
  • ref. 9 needs a page number, and needs to be in the same format as ref. 14
  • ref. 13: shouldn't JASAL be expanded to the full name?
  • Ucucha, can you spell out any concerns about breadth of coverage? You are right - an extraordinary amount of detective-work has been involved in locating these sources. It is one of the issues in Australia with systemi bias against Indigenous recognition. It isn't so much of an issue now, but for early figures in Indigenous arts, such as Dodd, it is quite a challenge. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 06:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It has very little about his personal life, in a few places you have contradictory sources on whether he was in some movies, and little about critical comments on him. The material that is there is often supported by only a few sources, which also contradict each other a few times. But you can't do anything about that, and after thinking a little more about it, I am now supporting its promotion (trusting you'll sort out the little issue with refs 9 and 14). Ucucha 14:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ucucha 00:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:

Support Well done. I made a few edits to fix exceedingly minor ref formatting and punctuation issues. It's odd to see the film names in plaintext in the Filmography; would be best to italicize those. Kudos on an interesting article, and thank you for the attention to dashes, ref formatting and logical quotation! Maralia (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I've switched the film titles in the table to italics as suggested. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:20, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Nicely written, and I enjoyed reading it. I would have liked to know more about his personal life, but I'm assuming nothing more is known, or reliably sourced. I wonder whether it would be worth giving an estimate of his age. This source gives a range of 72-82. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 12:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, and thanks for your assistance here. Dodd appears to have been a very private man, and you are correct, the sources say no more than i have included. From conversation with someone who knows him i know his current age, but there are no reliable sources publishing it. That webpage is undated, so I would prefer not to quote it on his age. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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