User:Macdonald-ross/How to

Photo copyright in UK

The transitional provisions and savings of the 1988 Act states:

"Duration of copyright in existing works 12.— (1) The following provisions have effect with respect to the duration of copyright in existingworks. The question which provision applies to a work shall be determined by reference to the facts immediately before commencement; and expressions used in this paragraph which were defined for the purposes of the 1956 Act have the same meaning as in that Act. (2) Copyright in the following descriptions of work continues to subsist until the date on which it would have expired under the 1956 Act— ... (c) published photographs and photographs taken before 1st June 1957;" The terms of the 1956 Act are 50 years after the end of the year of publication, or 50 years after the end of the year of death of the photographer when unpublished. Therefore any published photograph that existed on the date the 1988 Act became law - i.e. 1 August 1989 - is copyrighted for 50 years after the end of the year of publication, while any unpublished photograph taken before 1 June 1957 is copyrighted for 50 years after the end of the year of the photographer's death.

It is only unpublished photographs taken from 1 June 1957 onwards that are covered by 70 years after the end of the year of the photographer's death.

In practical terms this means that any photograph published on or before 31 December 1959 is now in the public domain (1960 photographs will be protected until the end of this year, and so on), as is the work of any photographer who died before 1 June 1957 (the unpublished work of anyone dying between 1 June & 31 December 1957 will be protected until 31 December 2027, and so on).

How to avoid duplications

At some time or other, most of us have put up duplicate pages onto WP. We just did not realise a page on that topic was already up. Why? There are two basic reasons:

1. The title chosen was unexpected by the searcher.
2. The category was poorly chosen, or absent.

In both cases the original editor is mainly at fault. The remedy is to be more systematic:

1. The most important word in the title should come first. Usually this means noun first, adjective in parentheses (brackets).
2. Alternative titles should be redirects.
3. Choose categories carefully.

What I do now, after several hundred new pages in enWP and simpleWP, is to check the categories first. Then I read any page which might have overlapping content. Then I think about the best form of title. Example:

• Logic > categories Logic, mathematics and philosophy. Then:
  • Aristotlelian logic: think about Logic (Aristotelian), Logic (propositional) and Syllogism. Choose Syllogism as simplest correct title. Other two as redirects. Take out mathematics category, add Aristotle category.
  • Mathematical logic redirect to Logic (mathematics).
  • Practical logic: redirect to Logic (practical). Take out mathematics category, maybe adding a category related to decision-making.

Now what this does is maximise the chance of the next person finding the right page when they search. The single word 'logic' will bring up all the alternatives. That is why titles, categories and redirects are so important. I stress the 'Noun (adjective)' style of titles because it creates the best foundation for a whole group of pages on a related topic. I notice some pages with 'Basic English 850' as the only category. It is obviously wrong to leave a page in that condition. Add at least one category which would help a search. Some people do search through categories.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

History of the time scale

Earth history mapped to 24 hours

This article describes how the geologic time scale developed. The principles were first laid down by Nicolaus Steno in the late 17th century. Steno argued that rock layers (or strata) are laid down in succession, and that each represents a "slice" of time.

Steno formulated the principle of superposition. This says that any given stratum is probably older than those above it and younger than those below it. This principle is simple, but applying it to real rocks is complicated by their history. During the 18th century geologists realized that:

1. Sequences of strata were often eroded, distorted, tilted, or even inverted after deposition;
2. Strata laid down at the same time in different areas could have entirely different appearances;
3. The strata of any given area represented only part of the Earth's long history.

The first serious attempts to formulate a geological time scale that could be applied anywhere on Earth took place in the late 18th century. The most influential of those early attempts was led by Abraham Werner and others. They divided the rocks of the Earth's crust into four types: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary. Each type of rock, according to the theory, formed during a period of Earth history. It was possible to speak of a "Tertiary period" as well as of "Tertiary rocks". Indeed, "Tertiary" (now Palaeocene-Pliocene) and "Quaternary" (now Pleistocene-Holocene) remained in use as names of geological periods well into the 21th century.

Werner had the idea that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood. That is called the Neptunist theory. A major shift in thinking came when James Hutton read his Theory of the Earth; or, an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March and April 1785. James Hutton in those reading became "the founder of modern geology". Hutton suggested the interior of the Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock. Land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands. This theory was called Plutonist in contrast to the flood-oriented theory.

The identification of strata by the fossils they contained was pioneered by William Smith, Georges Cuvier and others in the early 19th century. Geologists could divide Earth history more precisely. If two strata (however distant in space or different in composition) contained the same fossils, chances were good that they had been laid down at the same time. Detailed studies between 1820 and 1850 of the strata and fossils of Europe produced the sequence of geological periods still used today. Cuvier thought many of the geological features of the Earth could be explained by catastrophic events which had caused the extinction of many species of animals. Over the course of his career, Cuvier came to believe there had not been a single catastrophe, but several, resulting in a succession of different faunas.

British geologists were most active in the 19th century. The "Cambrian," (the Roman name for Wales) and the "Ordovician," and "Silurian", named after ancient Welsh tribes, were periods defined by Welsh rocks. The "Devonian" was named after the English county of Devon, and the name "Carboniferous" was simply an adaptation of "the Coal Measures," the old British geologists' term for the same set of strata. The "Permian" was named after Perm, Russia, because it was defined using strata in that region by a Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison. British geologists were also responsible for the grouping of periods into eras and the subdivision of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods into epochs. In general, periods were named after places where the rocks were easy to see.

Geologists and paleontologists based the geologic table on the relative positions of different strata and fossils. They estimated the time scales based on studying rates of various processes. They estimated weathering, erosion, sedimentation, and how long it took to turn sediment into hard rock. The discovery of radioactivity in 1896 and its geological applications by radiometric dating happened in the first half of the 20th century. It made possible the absolute dating of rocks, and the discovery of the age of the Earth.

The International Commission on Stratigraphy is working to define exactly when geologic periods start and finish, and where the best examples are. They are called Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSP).

Adding unsourced information to biographies

There are various ways one might tackle the problem of adding information about a close relative.

In the case of cause of death, the obvious place to look is the coroner's report, legally required in cases of unusual or unexpected death. The appropriate coroner's office will find the reference number for the report, which is public information (at any rate in English-speaking countries).

Another avenue is to post information on the talk page of the article, saying that you will provide proof of your relationship to any admin to asks for it. It would help, in this case, if you were a registered user.

The default for patrolling rollbackers is to revert any controversial personal data which is not supported by sources. Sometimes the problem is solved by actually finding a source. That is very satisfactory! But we all know things which will probably never get into print, but which throw important light on some biography or other.