User talk:Aquarius Rising

From Tarotpedia

Contents 1 Welcome 2 Thank you 3 Re: Image sizing 4 Rider Waite images 5 Thank You! 6 Another THANK YOU 7 Personages - personnages 8 Fantastic Ashcroft-Nowicki Article!! 9 Trumps page 10 Waite-Colman Smith vs Waite-Smith 11 Egyptic vs. Egyptian... 12 Themes 13 Awaiting feedback? 14 Tarot Decks: Medieval and Renaissance Themes 15 Tarot Decks: Occult and Esoteric 16 Tarot Decks: Egyptian and Tarot Decks: Egypto-Hermetic 17 777 and books question 18 Image use: TdM & WS 19 Eastern/middle eastern 20 Majors Only

[edit] Welcome

Hi Aquarius Rising.

Thanks for joining, it's great to have someone with experience contributing. JMD and I are both fairly new to this, and only a few of the other members have experience at this point. Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

WELCOME!

le pendu 18:38, 26 January 2006 (PST)

Thank you. I've made quite a few edits today. --Aquarius Rising 01:09, 27 January 2006 (PST)

Fantastic stuff, Aquarius rising! and thanks!!! -- Jmd 06:36, 27 January 2006 (PST)

[edit] Thank you

Hi Aquarius Rising,

Thanks for all the effort you've put in, it's been really helpful, and is greatly appreciated.

Please let me know if there are areas that need to be addressed, or any thoughts you might have on what should be done, before the site "goes public".

best,

robert

le pendu 12:32, 28 January 2006 (PST)

• Hi Robert ... I've given some suggestions on various article-talk pages. Otherwise, the site looks all good for grand opening. There will, of course, be tweaking and adjustment as we go along, both in the short and longer terms. Even established wikis like Wikipedia still have to tweak things as issues come to light. --Aquarius Rising 15:36, 29 January 2006 (PST)

[edit] Re: Image sizing

Hi Aquarius Rising,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll discuss it with JMD and see what he thinks when he comes online shortly.

BTW.. do you know the resolution of your monitor? Am curious also because of your comment about the menu the other day.

best,

le pendu 22:53, 29 January 2006 (PST)

• "Screen area" is 800 x 600 pixels. Is that the "resolution"? --Aquarius Rising 22:56, 29 January 2006 (PST)

Yes, that's the resolution... and perhaps explains a bit why the images seem so large to you. You're resolution is pretty "low", so images will appear much bigger to you, and take up more screen space, same with the nav menus, you basically have the text "scrunched" compared to a lot of other users with higher resolution. On my monitor, I can see all the way down to "special pages" in the Toolbox without scrolling.

The average percentage of users with a screen size of 800x600 these days is around 5%-15%. The vast majority of users use 1024x768 or higher. You might want to change your resolution to "see" what I mean, but of course, reset it back to whatever is most pleasing to you. This becomes a design issue, we simply need to decide the weight to give to users with 800X600 resolutions.

Thanks for the suggestion, I do take it seriously.

le pendu 23:19, 29 January 2006 (PST)

Hi Aquarius Rising

I've discussed it with JMD, and did some research. On this page it says:

"From MediaWiki 1.5 the default thumbnail width can be set in the preferences, so typically it is better not to specify "px", in order to respect the users' preferences (unless, for a special reason, a specific size is required regardless of preferences, or a size is specified outside the range of widths 120-300 that can be set in the preferences)."

So for now, I'm setting the images to Thumb, and not adding PX, and will allow users to set it in their own preferences. We might reconsider this later, but for now it seems the best solution. Thanks again, for your great suggestions.

le pendu 00:59, 30 January 2006 (PST)

[edit] Rider Waite images

Hello Aquarius Rising,

I meant to give you a note straight away, and got caught up in re-organising various historical pages with le Pendu - and plain forgot.

The term 'Rider Waite' is a registered trade mark, and thus suggest that it only be used in context to describe an alternative name to the deck designed by Waite and Colman Smith.

I had deleted the images as they appear to be (and are so named) from the copyrighted deck, and, until we obtain images from a non-copyrighted deck, suggest that we maintain a minimal approach to imagery such that it complies unhesitatedly with section 107 (Fair Use) part of copyright.

I also realise that the set of Majors is in fact on Wikipedia... until we have had a chance to really look at the manner in which the Wiki-page has included the set of images, however, it remains a doubtful inclusion in terms of possible copyright violation - especially in terms of its name as Rider-Waite.

--Jmd 01:05, 1 February 2006 (PST)

Hi jmd ... My understanding is that copyright and trade mark are two distinct types of intellectual property rights. A copyright is not a trade mark, nor vice versa. The section 107 passage (re: fair use of copyright) that you mention refers only to copyright. I would suggest that the placement of the majors image on Tarotpedia falls within the scope of fair use of copyrighted works. Various copyrighted works from other decks besides the Rider-Waite have been downloaded by spoonbender, kiama, le pendu and me in the last couple of days for use on Tarotpedia. There would need to be reliance on fair use to justify those uses of copyrighted works. I don't see how the use of Rider-Waite deck images is any different from use of any images from any other copyrighted tarot deck in terms of showing fair use. As for trade mark, I would suggest that the only way we could breach any trade mark is if we started selling a deck of card images that we marketed as being "Rider-Waite Tarot" cards. --Aquarius Rising 01:26, 1 February 2006 (PST)

Ah! 'copyright' and 'trade-mark' are indeed different... I need to be more careful in what I write! 'Rider-Waite' is copyrighted by US Games, from my understanding, and do not know if they have also made it a trade mark, so I stand corrected.

The point I really wanted to bring is that whereas a few cards in the context of a discussion (about the deck, or about the Majors, etc) is well within the 'Fair Use' clause (and equivalent clauses in other countries, as far as I am able to ascertain), it remains questionable that a whole subset (such as the group of majors, or the group of cups, or a whole chapter from a book etc) falls within 'Fair Use'.

In our reflections, and discussing this with a few other people who do have background in intellectual property, we thought it would be best to opt for the more conservative approach with decks that either have definite (or questionable) copyright attached to them.

It would, of course, be terrific to be able to present the same for all decks, or at least the very influential ones.

--Jmd 15:39, 1 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Thank You!

[edit] Another THANK YOU

Hi Aquarius Rising.

I've said it before, but want to say again THANK YOU. Your contributions are amazing, Every day, I look at the content that you have added and think "Wonderful". You've made a significant contribution to the site, and I am VERY, very grateful. Please know that it is deeply appreciated. Is there anything I can do to show my appreciation???

best,

robert

le pendu

Hi Robert ... You're welcome! It's easy to get absorbed in this wiki. I can envision that the site will be growing by leaps and bounds. --Aquarius Rising 20:41, 2 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Personages - personnages

Umm, Aquarius Rising, wasn't Historical Personages spelled correctly? Isn't Historical PersonNages spelled incorrectly??? Or am I particularly daft today? -- Spoonbender 10:52, 6 February 2006 (PST)

The word comes from French.

I checked again. Both spellings seem to be used in English. French seems to have "personnage" as the more common spelling, though.

So I don't have a clear answer.

--Aquarius Rising 11:45, 6 February 2006 (PST)

Hope it's okay if I jump in. A google search for Historical Personages returns 630,000 results. For Historical Personnages returns 132,000 and a "Do you mean: Historical Personnes?". My impression would be that Historical Personages might be the most common or correct.

le pendu

Well, the online version of Merriam-Webster doesn't even know the word 'personnages', so I think it would be best to change the page back to its previous title. -- Spoonbender 12:14, 6 February 2006 (PST)

Thanks for bringing this up. One of the 'behind the scenes' page that is being worked on is a style manual. Given the varieties of standardised spellings, deck title usage, etc, this is still something that we are resolving in this Beta phase. Of course, the discussion pages will continue to use personal preferences of each contributor, as these are signed personal entries. For the article pages, the style manual will help achieve consistency. Just so as not to be too concerned, I will myself have to use the non-standard Australian 'standardize' when I write within the articles, and of course WHATEVER the stylistic decision, it will never suit everyone in this global community that uses various conventions.

--Jmd 15:18, 6 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Fantastic Ashcroft-Nowicki Article!!

Many thanks for posting the link to the terrific article in the Faery section...

Scion

[edit] Trumps page

Is now unprotected.

I keep thanking you, but want you to know I really appreciate all of you "work" on the site. It's amazing how quickly it has grown in about two weeks!

best,

robert

le pendu 19:30, 7 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Waite-Colman Smith vs Waite-Smith

Greetings Aquarius Rising,

just thought I'd let you know personally, rather than only altering the Style Guide, given your incredible amount of input.

Seems like our decision, which was the result of mainly my 'push' in this matter, was based on an incorrect assumption: Pamela Colman Smith's surname is not both of the last names, but only 'Smith'.

The Style Guide is therefore being altered to reflect this, and formerly written 'Waite-Colman Smith' (deck/s) will be changed over time to 'Waite-Smith' (deck/s).

Just also another thankyou both for your grace in this matter, and your very significant contributions to building this Tarotpedia.

--Jmd 15:05, 9 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Egyptic vs. Egyptian...

Hey A.R.!

Just a quick query, and I hope it's not annoying: Why do you list "Egyptian" as a subcategory of Esoteric decks, when it's already listed under culture?

If you mean to include the early attempts by occultists to link Tarot to Egypt (which resulted in early cartonmancy decks) couldn't they be distinguished more clearly as "Proto-Occult" decks or "Early Cartomancy" decks as opposed to "Egyptian" decks?... especially since their Egyptian stylings tend to be the 18th & 19th century veneer over various Hermetic structures. Maybe we should split out these early cartomanticic decks from the Egyptian themed decks, especially since most people looking for "Tarot decks:Egyptian" are looking for theme in a modern deck.

What do you think?

Scion

---

(undated message of Scion sent Feb. 15/06)

Scion,

Thanks. Your point is well taken, and it's been on my mind as well these last couple of days. The current content of Tarot Decks: Egyptian is a composite listing of Falconnier-Wegener, Etteilla School, Egipcios Kier, and modern Egyptian theme decks. The idea of a composite listing is inspired by Mark Filipas' article on Egyptian Tarot which covers all these strains of Egyptian Tarot. I'll work on something tonight. For beginner-friendliness, maybe I'll create a new page called something like Tarot Decks: Egyptian Themes. That new page would coexist alongside the present page Tarot Decks: Egyptian, with that present page being perhaps renamed Tarot Decks: Egyptianized Occult Decks. That present page's focus would be Falconnier-Wegener, Etteilla School, and Egipcios Kier; but that page would still have a subheading for Egyptian theme Decks but instead of a listing of theme decks there would be a link to the new page. The glitch is that some of the Egyptianized Occult decks have Egyptian themes too that might interest theme-lovers -- like (1) the U.S. Games "Egyptian Tarot" based on Falconnier/Wegener and (2) the Brotherhood of Light, etc., so perhaps the Tarot Decks: Egyptian Themes page should have a cross-reference telling the reader to also see the Tarot Decks: Egyptian Occult page for other Egyptian designs. Thanks again. (By the way, I'm enjoying your constructive and interesting edits here on Tarotpedia.) --Aquarius Rising 14:29, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Themes

Excellent... I had a feeling you were thinking about it. And I'm a fan of Filipas myself.

One more thing, I would shy away from calling the titling the Egyptian-Themed decks as such because The "-themed" designation isn't used anywhere else in the Decks section. No other "theme" decks will carry the hyphen, if you know what I mean. In effect, the theme decks need the user-friendliness more than the esoteric/historical decks. Maybe leave "Tarot Decks: Egyptian" as the domain of the Theme decks (Under Tarot Decks: Peoples and Places, etc) with a hotlink to anotrher page for occultist/Filipas Egypto-Hermetic decks that would fall under Tarot Decks: Esoterica?

Thanks

Scion

Thanks, I'll work on something tonight. I kind of like the term "Egypto-Hermetic" as a way of distinguishing from Egyptian themed non-hermetic. (By the way, there is already one page with "Themes" in the name - Tarot Decks: Medieval and Renaissance Themes - in order to distinguish such themed decks from pre-1901 decks. --Aquarius Rising 14:37, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Personally, I do not think it is in the long term very helpful to differentiate within the theme listings the Egyptian-syled decks into 'Egypto-Hermetic' and 'Egyptian' styled decks. People using Tarotpedia would reasonably expect to be able to find 'Egypto-Hermetic' decks under a general Egyptian theme. In addition, the modern Egyptian-styled decks tend to derive or be influenced by either the Etteilla-type or Falconnier-type decks (there may be exceptions, by that's all they would be).

Perhaps, in a 'Tarot Decks: Egyptian' listing, a clearer suggestion would be to have a couple of subheadings to differentiate the styles. This would keep both the thematic list (already becoming a little unwieldly) without too much overlap, and provide clarity for the viewer heading to the Egyptian grouping.

We need to also be careful with a general category such as 'Tarot Decks: Esoteric', as most decks may be argued to belong therein.

With regards to 'Tarot Decks: Medieval and Renaissance Themes', I suggest removing the word 'Themes'.

--Jmd 15:03, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Awaiting feedback?

Hi Aquarius Rising,

Have been busy offline the past few days, just wanted to check in and see if there were any outstanding questions/issues that you are waiting for feedback on??

best,

robert

le pendu 16:40, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Hi le pendu ... Thanks for asking. Jmd was able to give some feedback on the follow-up questions (which are on the Besancon talk page), but do chime in there if you can. --Aquarius Rising 19:04, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Tarot Decks: Medieval and Renaissance Themes

jmd ... Although other Theme pages don't have the word "Themes" in the title, I was thinking it might still be a good idea to keep the word "Themes" in the title of that page. That page is intended for modern-day decks based on Medieval and Renaissance themes that aren't reproductions or restorations of actual pre-1901 decks. That page covers mainly Waite-Smith based decks that have a Medieval or Renaissance theme rather than being historical decks per se. --Aquarius Rising 19:03, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Tarot Decks: Occult and Esoteric

I see jmd's point about the word "Esoteric" in the title of the page in that arguably most decks could be argued to belong therein. I had the same concern myself earlier today. I was thinking maybe about renaming the page "Tarot Decks: Occult and Hermetic", which would alleviate issues of what decks belong and don't belong therein. Any thoughts? Thanks. --Aquarius Rising 19:12, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Tarot Decks: Egyptian and Tarot Decks: Egypto-Hermetic

Hi everyone. I can see Scion's points but I can also see jmd's points. There are indeed some decks listed in Tarot Decks: Egyptian, i.e., the ones listed therein under Egyptian Theme Decks that are not really in the Falconnier/Wegener or Etteilla lines at all; such theme decks are really like GD or RWS derivative decks with Egyptian themes. Those kinds of theme decks are the ones that Scion likely had in mind when he suggested having the two Egyptian categories. --Aquarius Rising 19:22, 15 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] 777 and books question

You're good, man! Actually that other weird 777 deck is kind of a hodgepodge. It's neither Golden Dawn based (Justic & Strength are in Marseile order) nor Thelemic. Actually it belongs itn the area for decks with extra cards/majors. So I'm gonna stash it in there. If you ever get a chance to see it: it's a doozy... and not necessarily in a good way. LOL One other thing: per my convo with JMP & Pendu, I'm cooking up a book section divided by subject and I know you have WAY more experience with Wiki. So I have a code question. If I want to do a main Tarot Books: Subject page, am I better served setting up categories that tag the bottom of each book's page. Or just doing a cluster of hard pages divided manually and then grouped on a main page? Does that question even make sense. WOuld welcome your input and thoughts... Thanks Scion 19:34, 20 February 2006 (PST)

I'm not sure I exactly understand your question. Cats could work for books, and could be lower maintenance. The beauty of hard pages, though, is that you can list red links (i.e., no article) like we're doing for decks by theme. --Aquarius Rising 19:51, 20 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Image use: TdM & WS

Hey! got your note in my talk section and agree wholeheartedly... I too feel like the Marseille & WS images are the most practical ones, with the optional extra cards a lower priority possibility. The thing is there are so many TdM decks and WS recolorings to choose from... The only reason I had linnked extra deck images to those pages was to make use of images buried in the file gallery on card pages with no ilustrations at all... adding visuals without taking up server space. Your point is well taken. My only question is why we wouldn't place the code for te TdM under the TdM header and the WS image under the WS header so that they would appear next to the appripriate text? Thoughts? Scion 12:36, 22 February 2006 (PST)

The problem with placing the code for the TdM under the TdM header and the WS image under the WS header so that they would appear next to the appripriate text is that users will have different web browsers, different thumbnail size defaults under wikimedia preferences, and different screen resolutions - so not every users will see the same thing in terms of image & text placements, and sometimes leaving pregnant blank space as the text placement doesn't match the image placement. Hence my suggestion of putting all image code at the top. --Aquarius Rising 14:32, 22 February 2006 (PST)

I seem to have an issue when all of the card includes are at the top. Later in the page where the section EDITs show up, they seem to be shoved off into the text covering up actual copy. However, when the cards are placed throughout the page, I don't have this problem. Am I the only one who sees this? le pendu 18:27, 22 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Eastern/middle eastern

Oops! Well, I should have checked that one. Although I do feel they should be two separate pages. Maybe Asian and Middle Eastern as separate pages. Not to get all PC about it, but they are literally two different continents that only get lumped together by "orientalist" westerners. How do you feel about "moving" Eastern to Asian and removing the Middle Eastern decks to eliminate the redundancy. What say ye? Scion 14:54, 26 February 2006 (PST)

Moving Eastern to Asia could work. However, some decks listed under Eastern and considered Eastern by Orientalists aren't in Asia, e.g., the Moroccan Fez deck (Morocco) in North Africa. Perhaps we could move "Eastern" to "Asian and Middle Eastern"? [1]. It would be a good idea to have them in one page as many people aren't exactly sure of the divide and could end up putting the same deck in both lists.

--Aquarius Rising 15:01, 26 February 2006 (PST)

Combining sounds good! But how about we separate them into two sublists on the actual page to make it clear? :) That way anyone who gets confused will have the choice presented to them before they list a deck. Sound good? You wanna or shall I? Scion 15:04, 26 February 2006 (PST)

Looks slick! Scion 15:20, 26 February 2006 (PST)

[edit] Majors Only

Sorry for the lack of links... You got to that poage about 30 seconds after I posted everything... Need a fdew hours to track down images of these obscure decks online...Scion 13:32, 12 March 2006 (PST)

Scion ... sorry, I wasn't trying to point you out, as I knew you'd be back to post some links. But I was still thinking that, for this page especially, it would be a good idea to have that reminder for other people, as there are many little-known majors-only decks, and it would only frustrate users to see a list of decks without links. --Aquarius Rising 13:35, 12 March 2006 (PST)