Thread: heavydutysg135's Edge Uniformity Test post?

Heavydutysg's contributions to this and other forums have been very valuable to me and I am sure to many others. I hope he will edit the Wiki entry to his satisfaction and allow it to remain. Too bad about the misunderstanding. From here on out I am sure that anyone putting someone else's posting in the Wiki will get permission and give attribution.

This particular entry was my idea. BeBerlin has always expressed concern about copyright and attribution to the original authors.

This entry existed both on SRP and B&B forums, but after the server crash the SRP copy was lost. I did not realize David consciously decided to not put it back, but I told BeBerlin to take the B&B copy and put it into the wiki. I believe there are no copyright violations in the process, but we all resepect other people's desires and are not going to use somebody's work against their will, even if it's legal to do so.

It's unfortunate that for whatever reason David didn't get contacted about this, but mistakes have happened and will continue to happen - part of real life. One thing I'm sure of is there was no bad intention in all this whatsoever, just respect for the excellent guide and desire to give it more visibility. It's apparently been very helpful to many people and it will be missed.

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

Just for the record, I suggested that the copyright issue be clarified when the Wiki was launched, and have contacted each and every member whose material was used in the Wiki (David being the sole exception).

In fact some things I posted in my thread "About Blues and Yellows" were also added to the Wiki. I don't mind about that, because I know that I'm "typing in the public domain" whenever I write something on the forum. But for the record: no one asked my permission. I don't care, I even thanked the one making the effort. Nevertheless, I still believe it would have been better to first ask me if I was prepared to do the job myself. I would have tweaked my words and left out a few statements that I consider to speculative to be presented in the Wiki as solid information.

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

And one more thing: I started replacing the first person narrative with third person when we published this article: Brands of Straight Razors to avoid - Straight Razor Place Wiki . We even got a lawyer involved for this one.

"We" is not third person. It's first person plural. Replacing "I" by "we" may be a legal trick to avoid certain problems (I don't know), but it doesn't make an article more objective.

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

As much as I can understand David's being upset, I object any insinuation of wilful copyright infringement.

I have not insinuated that. Quite the contrary. I know that the you, Gugi and Hoglahoo (the names that turn up in the history of that particular wiki entry) only had the best possible intentions, as I already stated in my previous post. No need to feel attacked. But it is a golden rule to always fully rephrase information with your own words or otherwise be sure to cite with references to the original source.

My citicism is only meant to be constrictive. I admire you guys for doing such a great job, within such a short period. Only by doing nothing, one can avoid making mistakes.

Best regards,
Bart.

It looks like BeBerlin has been banned probably until such time that this is worked out.

I too found David's post as an excellent resource and recall printing it out, studying it like an article and even highlighting areas that were pertinent to me in my honing education at the time.

Hopefully this can be resolved.

Chris L

I read the last handful of his posts and must have missed the offense.

Chris L

It seems that this was an honest and well intentioned mistake as I had originally thought and I completely accept the apologies that I was given. Furthermore, I appreciate the initiative, time, and effort that several people have taken in creating a straight razor wiki so that anyone can learn more about our great hobby. It is a difficult and time consuming process to create something worthwhile. As I said before I am honored that at least one person thought that my article was well enough written to deserve a permanent place in this great community, I would have only wished that I would have been contacted ahead of time regarding using my work and then been cited as the creator after approving it. If I had been contacted ahead of time I would have happily consented to having my article posted without modification. By changing the “I’s” in the article to “We’s” I believe that this implies that everything in the article is generally accepted knowledge on this forum and I know that this is not the case based on some of the comments that I received when I originally posted it here.

Well, one of the things about the Wiki is that it is able to be edited by anyone with the time or inclination. So technically nothing on the Wiki should be construed as set in stone, at least IMO.

I think we need to be a bit careful when throwing the "P" word around. While technically it is probably correct, we would not want a careful scrutiny of all our posts for proper attribution of all concepts used. For example, to whom do we attribute the HHT? Or the TPT? These are certainly not concepts that any of us came up with ourselves, yet they are used repeatedly in posts all over the forum.

Probably the safest way forward is to ask the OP to put their useful post on the Wiki themselves. This would avoid all sorts of problems of this nature. It is unfortunate that this did not happen in this particular case.

James.

Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

It seems that this was an honest and well intentioned mistake as I had originally thought and I completely accept the apologies that I was given. Furthermore, I appreciate the initiative, time, and effort that several people have taken in creating a straight razor wiki so that anyone can learn more about our great hobby. It is a difficult and time consuming process to create something worthwhile. As I said before I am honored that at least one person thought that my article was well enough written to deserve a permanent place in this great community, I would have only wished that I would have been contacted ahead of time regarding using my work and then been cited as the creator after approving it. If I had been contacted ahead of time I would have happily consented to having my article posted without modification. By changing the “I’s” in the article to “We’s” I believe that this implies that everything in the article is generally accepted knowledge on this forum and I know that this is not the case based on some of the comments that I received when I originally posted it here.

David,

This is very nice of you. I too believe it was just a mistake. There has been so much information shared not only between all the forums that I have seen, but from authors of copyrighted information as well. I appreciate you efforts regarding teaching people your experiences and methods of honing and I have appreciated Robin's efforts on the Wiki. I would hope that all of us here continue to assist in bringing new people into the art of straight razor shaving along with growing and perpetuating that art which we have learned to enjoy so much. Sharing this information has been the root of our success ever since I started the 1st straight razor forum. It is amazing how much of the original information and ideas that came from the original SRP are out there in all the other forums still.

Very best regards,

Lynn