Signing when creating a locality ?

Just wondering...

Would it be an acceptable (or desirable) practice that the creator of a new locality indicates his/her name, or should the contributions be anonymous ?

This information is logged but it's only viewable by members of a higher level, for example level 3 management.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2012 04:42AM by Debbie Woolf.

Hi Debbie,

Thanks for the quick reply ! Yes, I know that Mindat automatically records my input as I create a locality under my ID.

Please see the new locality "Carrière Bonsecours" : I have added my name and date of the input of info.

What I wish to ascertain is : is this acceptable as a practice ?

My reason for doing so is that other collectors might want to contact me through a PM and ask further info as I clearly indicate having visited this site recently.

On the other hand, people knowledgeable of the Mindat site could find me anyway as I copyright the site and mineral pictures under my name. But, this means having a closer look...

Rhaaaa, what would life be without those deep, existential questions !

I think this is at least problematic because it is very likely that the locality will be edited again.
And then it will not be clear who wrote what - except for the management (and only with some effort).
Everybody would have to add her own section and in the end you would have a big mess of possibly conflicting information.

Even a note like "Locality entry created by Mr.X" might cause problems, because localities are moved, split and merged.

If you want to write something about the locality and leave contact information, it is better to write a Mindat article and put a reference to this article on the locality page.
Then you also have much more freedom in what and how you write and you can add photos etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2012 02:12PM by Amir C. Akhavan.

Hi Amir,

Thanks for the reply and the relevant comments ! It's highly appreciated.

You're right : in the long run, not only is there a "possibility" that conflicting info may occur, it will definitely happen !

Errare humanum est !

The suggestion of creating an article is interesting and so much more appropriate...

But... sigh... my self-esteem just took a beating : how can it be that I din't think of this solution in the first place ?

Learning is a never-ending procees !

Hi Jean-Yves,

I've edited the localities

[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

to be more in line with the general policy.
So I've taken out the signage, changed the order of languages and removed a few things that had to do with the actual field trip and the specific findings on that trip. These things should be done in an article.

Ooops... process !

Well, I've also learned about the possibility to add Mindat article references to localities just recently.

Anyway, I forgot to mention: my French is very limited, so check if I have contorted any of the sentences beyond recognition.

Re-hi, Amir,

You were writing at the same time I was answering...

Just took note of your newest post, about the changes you had to input.

Would like to be in line to the general policy, but is there any guide I can refer to ?

There is the Mindat Manual.

For everything not written there, use common sense:
- This is an English website
- No advertisements, or things like "go there, there's tons of stuff, just climb the fence..."
- General information, no trip reports and the like

[manual.mindat.org]

The locality editor gives details of what to say in descriptions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2012 03:50PM by Debbie Woolf.

Hi Debbie,

Just read the Locality Editor info : sure will be handy...

Thanks !

Jean-Yves

Debbie and Amir,

Further to this thread, just finished editing the localities and photos I had uploaded...

They will all be in English only, and limited to what is described in the manual.

Just realized it will save me work - I had done my latest additions in both French and English !



Jean-Yves

"Carrière" should be "Quarry" in the loc name as well.

A lot of useful, detailed locality information is held not by processionals or the literature, but rather by dedicated amateurs who have collected many times at a locality and what they know has never made its way into the literature. If some of this information is entered into the descriptive text for a particular locality I think it might be useful for the writer to place their name and date at the end of of what they wrote about the locality and or the specimens from it. I have done that on several occasions where I think I may have been one of the few people to have collected at the locality. Often I know that there are others who know the locality much better than I, but that they are not likely to find their way to mindat to write about it. For example I got a brief tour of the Emperor gold mine in Fiji in 1973, Certainly the geologists and or the miners who worked there could write something much more meaningful than the blurb I wrote, but till one of them takes the time to do that, what I wrote is likely to be useful and of interest to those looking at that locality page.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Adding the names of contributors to locality descriptions doesn't work well, as has been explained above.

The only sensible way to do it is to write in third person (never in first person please!) and attribute certain comments etc to yourself. For example, I could write:

"When Jolyon Ralph visited the locality in March 2010 he noted there were five open pits, with three headframes still standing, and plenty of traces of secondary copper mineralization on the dumps."

That makes it easy for someone in the future to add to it without having to rewrite everything you wrote.

Jolyon

To Phil :

You were right, I did forget to correct the French in the locality names...

Just edited those I had created, changing "carrière" to quarry, which is more appropriate.

Learning the ropes, gents !

Athough signing a new locality can compromise data and info related to minerals and their localities, maybe some people are driven by having credit for the info they have provided. personally I think this is a wrong approach to adding to the database.

Its all our contributions that make mindat what it is and hopefully we all can take pride in our contributions because others benefit from the information we take the time and effort to add. Down the road someone else may decide to update your information and any additional info is always a bonus so we must keep that door open keeping in mind that the person who updated the information shares the credit that others benifit from. I guess thats the bottom line.

keeping it profesional and accurate is what mindat is about. We all benifit from the scrutiny of the adminstators here, they all deserve some credit for their efforts even though sometimes a member`s pride or ego may be hurt if they are not mentioned directly on the locality page.

A uploaded picture showing a member`s copyright is a good link to inquire with. Other than that maybe a member association link added to the page is another way, but ultimately Jolyon and the administrators make the calls, and they know whats best and whats right or wrong for mindat.

Keep up the good work everyone, I know I appreciate it.