Collinwiki?

[proudhug]

Haha, I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore.  What does any of this have to do with copyrights?  Nothing's being infringed upon, and even if it was, the U.S. has its "fair use" rule.  If things were that strict, this site wouldn't exist, and neither would Mr. Juggins' or 95% of the websites in existence.

[Midnite]

Haha, I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore.  What does any of this have to do with copyrights?

Do you mean what do wikis have to do with copyright?  Please forgive me for having taken the thread further off topic in my previous post, but I interpreted your "How so?" as a question.

Nothing's being infringed upon,

No one said anyone was guilty of infringement.  You said there won't be any uploading of copyrighted text and images, and I find that highly commendable.  You also made a comment that unless a person is making transcripts or selling the information, you don't see how there can be a violation, and I disagreed with that statement.  Copyright claims HAVE been made involving DS by license holders, actors, fans, and website owners when transcripts were not involved and even when there was no profit.

and even if it was, the U.S. has its "fair use" rule.

Plot and content summaries, for example, may qualify under the fair use exception, but what I was saying is that these summaries should be original material and not copied.

If things were that strict, this site wouldn't exist, and neither would Mr. Juggins' or 95% of the websites in existence.

I think you may have missed my point.  Whether or not copyright is enforced, strictly or otherwise, is at the discretion of the copyright holder.  Just because Dan Curtis Productions, MPI, SciFi, Pomegranate Press and others may overlook some situations doesn't mean they can't, or won't, enforce others.  If MysteriousB, dom and I were less vigilant about what is posted here, we may have been contacted over this issue by one or perhaps all of them.  We have, however, enforced copyright on behalf of our posters.

The creators of the DS FAQ that you mentioned don't own the characters, storylines, title, and other aspects of DS, but they do hold a copyright on their compilation.

The task you're undertaking seems daunting, proudhug.  I wish you all the best. 

[proudhug]

Sorry, we got sort of off topic and I just got confused about what we were even talking about anymore.  I don't pretend to know much about your copyright system, or mine (Canadian), so even if I felt there was a purpose at this point, I wouldn't be "equipped" to uphold any worthy discussion about it.  But it seems we misunderstood each other anyway, I think.  You thought I was suggesting copying summaries from other sites?  Of course everything on the wiki should be original material, with the obvious exception of dialogue quotes and character names/situations and stuff, and possible screengrabs or book cover images.  And of course if anyone lent their own copyrighted material to the site, that'd be cool.

[Midnite]

You thought I was suggesting copying summaries from other sites?

Um, no.    I responded to your first 2 sentences in Reply #13.

[proudhug]

This sounds like a great, if daunting, project!

The task you're undertaking seems daunting, proudhug.

Apparently not as daunting as convincing people of the project's viability!

[Gothick]

It sounds to me as if a "wiki" is a combination between a chatgroup or e-list (like the yahoogroups) AND a blog--perhaps like an affinity group on LiveJournal.  From what you're saying, Proudhug, it's as much a social thing, a sharing of fannish enthusiasm, as it is an attempt to create a metatextual artifact focused around a specific topic (Dark Shadows).

I would think that the people who would be into this would be people who do other "wiki" projects.  I'm obviously completely unfamiliar with those.

If you want to post links to other projects to give me a better idea of what you have in mind, that might help!

Good luck!

G.

[proudhug]

On the contrary, chatting and blogging are generally fobidden on wikis.  Discussions are only encouraged when it pertains to the betterment of the site and it's specific articles.  The idea is solely to collaboratively create an encyclopedic reference sourse for a specific topic.

Wikis are designed to be simple to use, in order enable the maximum number of participants.  I posted a couple of links above, but once again here are some excellent examples of wikis using the MediaWiki software:

* http://www.wikipedia.org - A massive encyclopedia of every topic.  You've probably stumbled upon this at some point even if you didn't know it.
* http://www.memory-alpha.org - A Star Trek wiki, probably the largest fan-based wiki online.
* http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page - A Star Wars wiki similar to the one above.
* http://doom.wikicities.com/wiki/Entryway - A wiki pertaining to all things related to the Doom series of video games.

Being a big fan of Dark Shadows, I naturally felt the format would lend itself nicely to our favorite soap opera as well.  Until recently, I too had been unfamilar/uninterested in the concept, but upon further investigation, I've found the format fascinating and the syntax extremely simple.

[Gothick]

Thanks for those links.  I did check out Memory Alpha and read the entry on Nurse Chapel.  Great stuff!

G.

[proudhug]

Well, I've gotten stuff for the wiki done up to the 5th episode of the original series.  That doesn't sound like much, but it really is a lot of tedious work, especially at the beginning.  I'm going through the episodes in order, adding all information as it's revealed, so even though I'm fully aware of much of what is changed later on, I'm not bothering to add anything until I get to the actual episode it's revealed.  This way, all of the information will be properly sourced.  Of course, anyone is welcome to pick it up at another point in the series and start going from there.  There's a "Community Portal" section of the site with some examples of places people could start submitting information.  Anyway, here's the link:

http://darkshadows.wikicities.com.

Let me know what you guys think, and if or how you can contribute.  The wiki editor is extremely easy to figure out and if anyone has any questions, there are several information sources that explain things if I can't do it for you.  And like I said, even if no one else is able to work on this with me, it's still something I'll continue to stumble through, because I think it'lll be an awesome resource site when it's "done."

[Misa]

This is great proudhug, I'll look at it in depth as soon as I get a chance. It really looks like lots of work. If I can contribe anything I sure will.

Misa

[LeFanu]

Very cool, proudhug!  My only question is, what do you plan to do in consideration of how the backstories changed as the show progressed?  Could get confusing. I would be willing to help in some way - it's a wonderful idea!

[proudhug]

For the sake of completeness, all contradictory information will be noted somewhere in encyclopedia.

I can see two types of instances.  The first is where something changed and (usually) the latter is considered "canon".  An example would be Josette's death being in the 18th century rather than the 19th century.  In this case, the more accepted time period (18th Century) gets precedence in any articles obviously, since this is what we actually saw.  This contradiction could be noted either in the actual text or as a footnote.  So, a note like "The Collins family album mistakenly lists Josette's life from 1810-1834." could appear in the article proper, or be placed as an italics footnote: "In episode 52, Josette's birth and death years were given as 1810 and 1834 respectively.  This was alterered when blah blah blah."

The second type of instance would be where neither piece of information has any more credence over the other.  This may be because both were mentioned only one time in the same manor and can't be reconciled, but don't contradict any other accepted facts.  In this case, it's probably best to list both pieces of information in a neutral way and let the reader pick which they prefer to believe.

[Misa]

Hi,

I was wondering why you think the episodes take place in 1967?

Misa

[proudhug]

I answered this question in my TALK page on the site, but I might as well put it here, too.

When I get around to filling in the timeline information that I have for each year, this will become clear.  A couple years ago, I began creating a very detailed timeline of events of the show... a massive headache at times, as you can imagine (though the early episodes actually do hold up pretty well).  I've currently only gotten up to about episode 180 so far (the file's about 1Mb in size right now already), but it's pretty evident that the timeline in the show (and most soap operas) doesn't sync up with the rate at which time progressed in "real life."  For example, the first seventy episodes of Dark Shadows take place merely over one week in the lives of the Collinsport residents! That's an average of two weeks of our time per one day in Collinsport.  Naturally over time, things don't quite line up.  The first time the year is actually mentioned on the show is during a 1967 episode.  Backdating, you will learn that Victoria and Burke's train actually arrived in Collinsport in 1967!  Fortunately, this is consistent with David's age being given as nine in both '66 and '67 epsides, as well as Liz's time on the hill being eighteen years.

I hope that clears things up.  Placing the "contemporary" episodes in the year they aired doesn't make the timeline work.

[Misa]

Oh! Thanks for the explaination it makes sense now.

Misa