Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 July 8

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July 8

Family Connections

Little puzzle for you all, to start the week off. We had a huge family reunion yesterday, and many people did not know each other (our family is massive). So, in introducing people, I had a hard time telling them what relation they were to each other. Some were genetic, some were by marriage, and others were adopted. So....... I need help.

• My cousin's son is what relation to me?
• My cousin's son on my father's side is what relation to my cousin on my mother's side?
• My brother's step-daughters are what relation to me and to my cousins?
• My brother's adopted step-daughters are what relation to me and to my cousins?
• My brother's step-daughter's daughter is what relation to me, and my cousins?
• What relation would my brother's step-daughter's daughter have to my brother's adopted daughters? (I suspect she would be their step-niece, even though they are more or less the same age).
• What would be the relation between them all and my other brother's daughter?
• Would my aunt on my father's side also be an aunt to my cousins on my mother's side?

KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Try this for starters: http://www.iroots.net/tools/cusncalc/ --TammyMoet (talk) 09:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's what I reckon:

• My cousin's son is what relation to me?

Your (first) cousin once removed.

• My cousin's son on my father's side is what relation to my cousin on my mother's side?

No direct relationship, as they share no common blood. Closest link would be "cousin's cousin".

• My brother's step-daughters are what relation to me and to my cousins?

To you, your step-nieces. To your cousins, their step-cousins once removed. But "step" is not usually used with such relationships.

• My brother's adopted step-daughters are what relation to me and to my cousins?

No different than biological children once they're adopted. That is, nieces to you, and cousins once removed to your cousins.

• My brother's step-daughter's daughter is what relation to me, and my cousins?

Your (step-)niece's daughter, and to your cousins, their cousin twice removed.

• What relation would my brother's step-daughter's daughter have to my brother's adopted daughters? (I suspect she would be their step-niece, even though they are more or less the same age).

Adopted children are treated the same as biological children. So, they would be step-aunt and step-niece.

• What would be the relation between them all and my other brother's daughter?

Who all?

• Would my aunt on my father's side also be an aunt to my cousins on my mother's side?

No. She would be their aunt's sister-in-law. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the comprehensive analysis, Jack. The second to last question meant, "What relation would all of the people mentioned above have with my niece from my other brother" (who was not present at the reunion - she is in Africa). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope you had some printed documentation on this for the attendees - a family tree or something like that. And this kind of complication is why anybody not so directly identifiable are often referred to generically as "cousins" or "in-laws" (unless that takes all the fun out of it). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Aye, BB, we have these amazing inventions called 'birth certificates'. You lot over in the 'yippe-aye-ay' wild west ought to try them out sometime. In any case, I knew who everyone was, because, not only was I introduced to them by (a) family member(s) I have known since I was a baby, but also, they told me who they were introducing me to. I was just wondering what the formal name for such a relation would be. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Most Americans from the 20th century onward have birth certificates. As to "cousin", you may find this EO discussion interesting.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we should give three cheers to KageTora, especially as he is an Englishman. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

In spite of all temptations to belong to other nations? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

As do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts! CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what this part of the thread means. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:53, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

A song from HMS Pinafore, called "He Is an English Man". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, just seen it on YouTube. Well, you drink coffee, I drink tea. I like my toast done on one side. You can hear it in my accent when I talk. I'm an Englishman in... er.... England. :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Photos of celebrities

Many of the photos of celebrities on Wikipedia have been shot by amateurs at some event or other, and are of poor quality. We have them here because the photographers are happy to upload them, whereas official photos of the celebrities are often prohibited from Wikipedia for copyright reasons. But given that Wikipedia will often be the first site that comes up when you google on a person's name, I wonder if some of the celebrities themselves are unhappy about such a prominent site showing photos of them that are low resolution, unflattering, or showing them in an untypical setting. In other words, is there any movement on behalf of celebrities themselves or their agents to publish photographs with appropriate permissions so that they could be used here? --rossb (talk) 10:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I know of no movement or group effort. That said, I have dealt with a celeb or two who found out what was necessary to get a better photo uploaded and saw to it. Dismas|^(talk) 10:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see this as a big problem - if someone dislikes the photo we put up there, they can simply provide another one. The conflict of interest rule suggests that they should upload the photo to WikiCommons and then use the Talk: page to ask the regular editors to update the article to include it. I can't imagine many editors refusing to do so if the new picture is obviously better than the best that we already have.

I don't see an kind of "movement" to do that - but there really doesn't need to be. It's not like these people need to form up a protest group and demand that some kind of action be taken. Getting a better photo up there is easily accomplished in most cases.

The two things that tend to go wrong are:

1. If the subject of the article simply demands that the unflattering photo be removed without offering a suitable alternative.
2. Situations where a non-free photograph (like a typical publicity shot) was offered to us with the usual list of caveats and copyright protections - and we had to refuse to use it. It can sometimes be difficult to persuade a celebrity that the "free" part of Wikipedia implies "Copyright-free" and not just "Free to use".

Our biographies of living persons rules cover what has to be done under the kinds of situation where a person objects to content in the article about them - and that obviously includes photographs.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

My question was posed more from the point of view of a Wikipedia editor. It would enhance many of our articles if we had better (or any) photographs of the person in question, and it occurred to me that it should often be in the subjects' interests to provide us with one, or to allow an existing photo to be freely used. --rossb (talk) 12:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

From someone with a proper, mature understanding of Wikipedia, what you say is quite rational. Regardless of the subject's actions, there's going to be an article about them, and (given the ubiquity of crappy cameras) there's going to be a (probably dreadful) photo of them. For someone like a politician, actor, or musician, it's surely in their rational self interest that the photo on Wikipedia be the best it can. But I've come to believe that the media/PR agents for many celebrities just don't understand Wikipedia or the free content movement in general, and so aren't acting in their clients' rational interest. In the early years of Wikipedia, before we had contributors like User:David Shankbone, and before Flickr was such a good resource, I spent quite a lot of effort trying to get freely-licenced PR photos from various celebrities agents. I failed in almost every case. Many just didn't understand, or weren't interested in, Wikipedia's aversion to fair use (they just wanted us to use the same PR photos, under the same licencing, as they gave to newspapers etc.). Almost none understood the difference between a free content licence like GFDL or CC-by-SA and plain public domain. And a distressing proportion wanted a quid-pro-quo: they wanted to use their giving us the photo as leverage to get some kind of control over the content of the article. I dealt (personally, I think) with one TV actress who was simultaneously upset that the amateur photo on her article was unflattering, but who (in exchange for a GFDL licenced PR photo) wanted me to remove sourced but not super-flattering stuff from her article (bad movies she'd made early in her career). After so many of these conversations, I came to think that this is the way the PR industry works - they try to parlay something they've got (photos, interview time) for some kind of control. I guess that's how conventional media, where the journo and celeb are interdependent, works. But, like every Wikipedian, I can't offer any kind of deal, nor is it in my gift to allow some celeb's agent to control their article. Faced with that, the rational thing would, in many cases, be for the PR to GFDL licence the photo anyway; but none did. I think the root cause is that the people who work in PR are often former journalists, who cut their teeth before Wikipedia, and think it's something to be negotiated, cajoled, or controlled. I'd imagine that as people who grew up with Wikipedia mature into the PR business, things will change. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:58, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

(ec)Wikipedia has a highly restrictive interpretation of "fair use", much more so than the law requires, based on the axiom of having as much free content as possible and minimizing fair use content. Several years ago, before I pretty much gave up on it, I argued that personal shapshots are "original research", and violate the rules. The powers that be wouldn't accept that argument, though I still think it's true. I also recall saying that these snapshots make Wikipedia look amateurish, and was fairly astonished when they told me they want it that way. Don't ask me to find the discussions, it would take days and days of searching. But it's still a sore subject. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Commons has a project to get people to pronounce their own names as a sound file. You could see if they are having any luck and if photos could be integrated with that effort. Rmhermen (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• This discussion belongs at the help or teahouse or some other page--it's not a request for sources. μηδείς (talk) 22:19, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• Early in my editing career in 2006, I created a bio of a deceased person TV and movie director Frederick de Cordova. Someone then helpfully added a smeary little 23k image of him, from a presumably copyrighted source, and they said it was under "fair use." Is that still an appropriate way to get around having to find someone's candid snapshot? Edison (talk) 02:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Fair use is allowed when they're dead, because it's not possible to get a live picture anymore. Although if someone comes up with a free one, the bar gets set pretty high in trying to justify the fair-use one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:55, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Is it correct that if some celebrity's PR guy were to furnish Wikipedia with a high quality photo of the celeb, and were to provide the GFDL, then anyone would be authorized to freely use sell the image for profit on Tshirts, coffee mugs, calendars, in advertisements, or whatever as long as he includes the GFDL language? Edison (talk) 15:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
      • No. GFDL only concerns itself with copyright. The image would be usable without copyright concerns provided the terms of thr licence are complied with. However many countries including a number of US states have some form of Personality rights which restrict how people can use someone's likeness, particularly of living people. Depending on the applicable laws, stuff like mugs and calendars may or may not be okay, advertisments would generally not be, particularly if you are implying some sort of endorsement. Remember for someone intending to make large amounts of money or is willing to spend it on whatever they are doing, they could likely find an image of most famous celebrities, taken by a professional photographer willing to licence the image for a resonable royalty for whatever they want to do with it. The bigger concern would be small scale reusers as well as those intending to use the images for criticism etc. That said, fair use law in the US means someone could potentially use an image provided by the celebrities PR agency for criticism even if they don't have a suitable licence. See also Commons:Commons:Personality rights and Commons:Commons:Photographs of identifiable people. Nil Einne (talk) 17:22, 10 July 2013 (UTC)