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Filling the description box


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as English is not your first language, I'll assume you don't really mean to exactly COPY Wikipedia information. First of all, take note that Wikipedia should not be taken as 100% reliable, but is certainly worth a look. By all means use it, but engage the brain as well, buyers will recognise if they are just seeing lifted information. What is definitely against the rules is simply copying captions from fellow Alamy contributors

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Thank you Robert,

 

Off course i would never copy descriptions from other Alamy photographers. This is obvious. I ask about Wikipedia because i saw a couple of users doing this. So i am confused and tought maybe there is something that i dont know and you can copy from Wiki. But it looks like it is not allowed.

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Hello,

 

I have one question again. Is it allowed to copy information from Wikipedia to the description box for editorial images?

 

I would appreciate if somebody can help me with it. Thank you.

 

 

Check the license/copyright before copying anything out of the internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License

 

If you are selling stock, you should at least be sensitive to licensing and copyright.

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Wikipedia is a reasonably reliable source of information, albeit that this is supporting/back up information and NOT key to secure a sale, but a definite NO in my view would be to copy/paste. I, too, would also double check details. We all have to source information from somewhere - it is not hard coded into our brain at birth - but treat it as something we can leanr from and adapt rather than just blindly copy (and forget).

nj

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If I put information from Wikipedia and/or other sources in the description box, I always edit it and rephrase it in my own words. Of course this can be difficult to do if English isn't your first language. One of the main reasons why Alamy recently made the description box unsearchable was because contributors were dumping all kinds of irrelevant info into it that was screwing up search results.

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When I use an exact quotation from somewhere, I do the same, I expect from somebody using my images: I name the source. F.e. (Source: WIKIPEDIA). I use WIKI a lot for scientific names, synonyms, or the exact naming of landmarks. I normally don´t use the description field. I try to give all relevant information in the caption.

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I find Wikipedia a very useful source of information. A copy would be a breach of copyright. You also need to bear in mind that the information may not be correct and you would be well advised to double check data that you are not sure about.

 

 

dov

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Now that the Description field is not searchable, I'm only using it occasionally (rarely) if I feel there is worthy extra information about the subject that a buyer might not know. But mostly I assume that, if someone is searching for a subject by keyword, they already know about the subject. Buyers don't browse through Alamy looking for things that sound interesting.

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Does anyone add urls to the description field. I have often thought about it but never done it. Lets say a photo of a store front with a url to their web site or say a statue with a link to wikipedia .

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Now that the Description field is not searchable, I'm only using it occasionally (rarely) if I feel there is worthy extra information about the subject that a buyer might not know. But mostly I assume that, if someone is searching for a subject by keyword, they already know about the subject. Buyers don't browse through Alamy looking for things that sound interesting.

 

I always wondered why anyone would waste time writing descriptions.  When I am searching for an image, I know what I am looking for, I know about the subject etc.  I would never read the description of an image.  The caption and what I see on the image is all I need.  If I need to know more I google it, I don't rely on photographer's description.  But that's just me  :)

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As the description field is no longer searchable, if you are simply trying to motor through your submission. you can leave it alone. If, on the other hand, you think there might be a benefit in demonstrating that you know what you are on about and that your photograph has some thought behind it or authority through research then it can do no harm and may well do some good. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon perhaps?

 

My experience over the years has been that publishers prefer to leave the cerebral side to writers and the quick jab of the shutter to photographers, but scoring a few credibility points in our patch is worth the effort

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Wikipedia content is designed to be re-distributed and freely re-used as much as possible, hence why it is covered by creative commons licences etc.

 

Simply check the licence for whatever you want to use.

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