User talk:Melissa Newman

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Hayford Peirce 16:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

You are the mjn on the forum? If so, interesting points you bring up, welcome. As a starting point i think you will find the subpage concept to your liking (CZ:Subpages), especially the one called CZ:Student Level. We have not started to develop these pages yet but i think you will find this is exactly what you are hoping will become more developed in the future. Also, each article has metadata and that can be viewed by clicking the small M button at the top right of each talk page. Let me know if you have other questions, it can be a little confusing around here since we are always evolving but we are starting to become a little more settled as the model develops. Chris Day 17:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Melissa, I just want to let you know that I answered many of the questions that you raised in the Forums. It takes a while to learn how CZ works and I hope my answers in the Forums will help you. Regards, Milton Beychok 09:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Welcome and response to comment

You say:

"I am also interested in making sure that the information in the articles related to topics that would interest younger readers can meet the needs of homeschooling parents and teachers. For example, an article on the color Red. A painter will want to know what paints mix with red to produce what colors. A Web designer would want to know what RGB combination will produce what colors. But a teacher of a preschooler will just want 10 pictures of everyday objects that are mostly red to help a preschooler learn what is red."

I could not agree more. I have a two-year-old that I spend a lot of time teaching. The potential value of general encyclopedia articles is high. Frankly, though, I would eventually like to create a "child's first online wiki encyclopedia." See User:Larry_Sanger/Kid_pages. --Larry Sanger 05:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Uploading images

Melissa, I have uploaded into CZ many, many images from Wikimedia Commons and from Flickr. All of the images on Commons are definitely not Public Domain and all of the licenses for the images on Flickr do not allow their usage.

(1) According to CZ's file upload Wizard (as designed by Stephen Ewen), we are not to upload images from Commons unless we obtain the real name of the person who uploaded it into Commons ... in other words, no psuedonyms.

(2) As for Flickr, we can upload images from there only if allowed by the license shown in the Flickr profile of the person who contributed the picture. We must also obtain that person's real name which is often on his/her profile page or in the url of his/her profile page. Flickr has a search option that lets you search only for only those images that have licenses allowing usage.

We can contact the pseudonyms of authors on Commons and ask for their real names ... some will do so and some will not. That has been my experience.

We can also try to contact authors on Flickrs (whose licenses do not allow usage) and ask them for permission ... again some will do so and some will not do so. That has also been my experience.

All of the above can be confirmed by using Citizendium's file upload Wizard. I hope you find this useful. Milton Beychok 19:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please look at my added-on comment to your interchange with Larry about getting images from Commons

Melissa, I took the liberty of entering into your discussion with Larry about getting images from Commons. In essence, I copied your posting on the Forums about how you did it with your personal Wiki ... because I thought it would help Larry to better understand your idea. Check out what I said by looking here. Milton Beychok 22:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Curriculum subpage

Melissa, I may be wrong but I believe that you can name a subpage "Curriculum" if you so wish. Contact Chris Day who is our subpage guru. Milton Beychok 19:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)