How does this forum work?

Can we post materials in the public domain here (for example, Richard's letter to Chancellor Russell about Buckingham), or do we just ask questions about sources for particular events or people? We don't seem to have anything equivalent to Yahoo's Files unless this forum has a similar function.

From what I see, we can post pictures (Whitehound has put up at least one), though not something like, say, a Word document.

Constantia wrote:

Can we post materials in the public domain here (for example, Richard's letter to Chancellor Russell about Buckingham), or do we just ask questions about sources for particular events or people? We don't seem to have anything equivalent to Yahoo's Files unless this forum has a similar function.

1. This is indeed where you can post materials in the public domain. You can also ask questions about sources for anything, including events and people.

2. There is a Gallery feature for this board like Yahoo Files/Photos, and I can set it up, but first I need to know what folder categories you want. Examples would be Portraits, Documents.

3. Once the Gallery is set up, you can upload graphics to it using the "Host An Image" feature. Just click on the "Host An Image" icon that's three to the left of the YouTube icon in the upper-right corner of the window where you compose a post. I haven't done this, and so am not sure how it works...and anyway, we need the Gallery set up before this feature will work.

4. You can also "Insert An Image" that you have hosted elsewhere on the web (e.g., Photobucket or Picasa) into a post by clicking on the "Insert An Image" icon that's two to the left of the YouTube icon in the upper-right corner of the window where you compose a post. This, I have done. You just insert the URL where the photo is located, and it will be included in your post. Be sure to preview the post to make sure the photo is working correctly.

5. Yes, you can post Word documents -- you do this as an attachment by writing your post, and before you send it, you go to the bottom of the screen. There you will find the "Attach file" window. The file forms you can post are:

Pictures : .bmp - .png - .jpg - .gif - .tif
Sounds : .mp3 - .m4a - .wma
Videos : .mp4 - .mov - .m4v - .mpg - .3gp - .3g2 - .wmv
Documents : .txt - .doc - .docm - .docx - .pps - .ppt - .pptm - .pptx - .xls - .xlsb - .xlsm - .xlsx - .pdf

That should cover it, yes?

6. I can create some basic rules for posting here once we get further along and we decide what the rules are. But this is a start. We may have problems with space as we have only 20 megs of storage, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Just let me know what you would like your Gallery categories to be, to begin.

Thanks, Weds!

Wednesday wrote:

1. This is indeed where you can post materials in the public domain. You can also ask questions about sources for anything, including events and people.

2. There is a Gallery feature for this board like Yahoo Files/Photos, and I can set it up, but first I need to know what folder categories you want. Examples would be Portraits, Documents.

3. Once the Gallery is set up, you can upload graphics to it using the "Host An Image" feature. Just click on the "Host An Image" icon that's three to the left of the YouTube icon in the upper-right corner of the window where you compose a post. I haven't done this, and so am not sure how it works...and anyway, we need the Gallery set up before this feature will work.

Thank you. Please do set up the Gallery and explain to us how it will work. I think Portraits and Documents will suffice as categories for the fifteenth-century materials, at least for the time being. (I'm assuming that the original documents [or our own transcriptions of them] are in the public domain but translations of Latin documents and modern renditions of medieval documents published in books under copyright are not.) I'm envisioning a wealth of hard-to-access materials that new Ricardians may not even know about. Imagine the work we could save a potential biographer of Richard if all the primary materials were in one place.

If we wish to post something here, say Titulus Regius (original wording with no commentary), should we run it by the moderators first, to make sure that we're not violating copyright law? If so, we could provide links to an online version rather than posting the document itself. We could also have links to longer documents, say More's so-called History of Richard III (in my view, it's important to know the view we're countering).

Does anyone know whether the York Records, York Civic Records, rolls of Parliament, Harleian manuscripts, etc., are in the public domain? Or do recent publications of them place them under copyright?

By the way, when I used "forum" in my original post, I meant this particular category (as you figured out, Weds. Thank you). One of the confusing elements of this forum (the Richard III Network) is that the individual categories are also called forums (as in the "Select a forum" link that I can see as I type this post). We can't call them "threads" because there are individual threads within a given "forum." Is there a better term than "forum" for these categories?

Constantia wrote:
> Thank you. Please do set up the Gallery and explain to us how it will work. I think Portraits and Documents will suffice as categories for the fifteenth-century materials, at least for the time being.

Weds writes:
I've set up the Gallery. I'll assemble an official page on this later, but this is how it works:

1. Access the Gallery by clicking on the "Gallery" link which is located among the links at the top of any page of the board (third from the left, right under "A forum where you can discuss....")

You will see that there are two Categories/Board Albums in the Gallery at the moment: "Portraits & Photographs" and "Documents."

2. Click on one of the Board Albums to see its contents.

3. Once you're in an Album, you can add photos/documents by clicking on the "Upload Pic" icon at the top left of the album.

4. NOTE: The Gallery is also set up so each member can create their own Personal Album and upload photos to it. To create your Personal Album, go to the Gallery as in #1 above. At the bottom left of the window you will see:

* Users Personal Albums
* Your Personal Album

6. Click on "Your Personal Album". You will be guided how to create your own album.


Constantia wrote:
> (I'm assuming that the original documents [or our own transcriptions of them] are in the public domain but translations of Latin documents and modern renditions of medieval documents published in books under copyright are not.) I'm envisioning a wealth of hard-to-access materials that new Ricardians may not even know about. Imagine the work we could save a potential biographer of Richard if all the primary materials were in one place.

If we wish to post something here, say Titulus Regius (original wording with no commentary), should we run it by the moderators first, to make sure that we're not violating copyright law?

Weds writes:
If someone feels they need to run a document by a mod first, they can, but I don't think it needs to be mandatory. Most people interested in Richard seem to be somewhat scholarly and aware of copyright issues. If something is posted that a mod thinks may be in violation of copyright, we can contact the poster and ask for their source. Which leads to....

Constantia wrote:
>If so, we could provide links to an online version rather than posting the document itself.

Weds writes:
I think if something is online, it might be a good idea in every case to provide the link to the online version in addition to providing the document itself. In this way, we can all be sure of the online source?

Constantia wrote:
> We could also have links to longer documents, say More's so-called History of Richard III (in my view, it's important to know the view we're countering).

Yes, absolutely. Until we begin posting things, we're not going to be able to tell how quickly we'll use up the free megs provided by the host for the board. But in the case of longer documents, if there is a "static" URL (meaning, a URL that isn't likely to go away or change for the document), please simply link to it. Especially in the case of contemporary documents like More's so-called History.

Constantia wrote:
> Does anyone know whether the York Records, York Civic Records, rolls of Parliament, Harleian manuscripts, etc., are in the public domain? Or do recent publications of them place them under copyright?

Weds writes:
* If a recent publication provides a translation of the original medieval English into modern English, then the modern translator holds the copyright.

* If you are quoting from the original medieval record, it is long out of copyright.

* If you translate your own medieval English and share it here, then you get to choose whether you want to claim copyright and let us know when you share it.

Constantia wrote:
> By the way, when I used "forum" in my original post, I meant this particular category (as you figured out, Weds. Thank you). One of the confusing elements of this forum (the Richard III Network) is that the individual categories are also called forums (as in the "Select a forum" link that I can see as I type this post). We can't call them "threads" because there are individual threads within a given "forum." Is there a better term than "forum" for these categories?

Weds writes:
The terminology I've seen elsewhere goes like this:

"The Board" = The Richard III Network ("The R3N discussion board"). I've also seen this referred to as a "Forum" (as in "The R3N discussion forum")

"Category" = The main sections of the board (e.g., "Richard's Life as Duke of Gloucester" and "Richard's Life as King"). These are shaded in blue on the "Home" page of the board.

"Threads"= The topics being discussed under each category -- like this thread.

Does that help?

Wednesday wrote:

Thibault wrote:
Thank you. Please do set up the Gallery and explain to us how it will work. I think Portraits and Documents will suffice as categories for the fifteenth-century materials, at least for the time being.

Um, actually, that quote (and all the others attributed to Thibault in your post) was from me. Not that it matters, but I hope that nothing is wrong with the automatic quote function.

Thanks for setting up the Gallery and providing instructions. It sounds a bit like the Photos section on Yahoo. And thanks for answering my other questions. Still puzzled, though, as to why my quotes were attributed to Thibault.

Constantia wrote:

Um, actually, that quote (and all the others attributed to Thibault in your post) was from me. Not that it matters, but I hope that nothing is wrong with the automatic quote function.

Thanks for setting up the Gallery and providing instructions. It sounds a bit like the Photos section on Yahoo. And thanks for answering my other questions. Still puzzled, though, as to why my quotes were attributed to Thibault.

Oops, sorry. There's nothing wrong with the auto-quote system. The error was mine; it's hard for me to quote on individual sections, so I did it manually. I shall go back and edit the post so that it properly credits you, Constantia. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

EDITED TO ADD: All Thibaults in my previous post have been corrected to Constantia now.

Thanks. By the way, I figured out why my own quotes were showing up in BB code and fixed them.

Quote :

Wednesday wrote:

EDITED TO ADD: All Thibaults in my previous post have been corrected to Constantia now.

Thibault wrote:

Phew.....I thought I was suffering from memory loss...... 

Nope. Y'r fine. Me fingers went too fast for me eyes.