Archive for the ‘Wiki’ tag
Get back to where you once belonged
Japan was a bust. The slap-the-country-in-the-face-post can wait until I return to Melbourne in 27 days.
I’m looking forward to clean air, trees, beautiful buildings, great food, jobs that don’t take 14 hours out of every day, and women who speak English.
I also have a new header image featuring the Melbourne skyline (courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons). Until I leave for Montréal, Melbourne is where I’ll be looking for home.
New Hampshire Numberplate - Live free or die!
While using Wikipedia to research Montréal and the surrounding area, I came across this image of a New Hampshire numberplate. I wouldn’t die for freedom, myself; under dire oppression, I’d rather bide my time looking for a way to put my life and liberty together. Yet I have always loved this American revolutionary slogan, and it shocked and pleased me to see it on something so mundane as a numberplate. I think I’m going to like North America…
The importance of using a creative commons license
Last night I changed my blog header image. Since I’m thinking of moving to Vancouver, I wanted an image of the skyline. I was planning on using Doug Morgan’s wonderful Twilight Over False Creek, which I’d recently seen on the Wikipedia article for Vancouver.
When I went to check on the license for it, though, I found the image had disappeared. A little googling found “Doug Morgan’s” page on Pbase, but it also found text like “All images property of Douglas Morgan”, and “Do not use without permission.”
I could have emailed Doug, but it was getting close to bedtime and I wanted a new image up to go with the day’s post, “In Search of Home”. So I went with a vastly inferior skyline image, still available at Wikipedia, and available for use under a Creative Commons license.
Now, Doug really might not want people using his images for blog headers, and that’s up to him. But, he might not mind, either; and if so, he just missed an opportunity for (a very small amount of) exposure. I don’t have my blog available for use under a Creative Commons license, so I can’t claim any moral high ground, but I have thought, in the past, about using the licences, and I will continue to in future. This is just a case that shows how choosing to use a Creative Commons license can result in your work getting publicity, and someone else’s losing out.