Comments on: The Passion of the Scanner

By: bowerbird

bowerbird — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:23:32 +0000

redwolf, good for you for keeping your mind open
and coming to the right conclusion! and thanks for
your work saving our history for the cyberlibrary…

and jason, thanks for textfiles.com!

-bowerbird

By: Neville

Neville — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:07:18 +0000

That’s the spirit!

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 03:21:30 +0000

The man’s name is RedWolf. Show some respect!

Things went fine. I’ll take my behaviour advice from you about half an hour after I take my medical advice.

I’m sorry my actions were not up to your standards, but me is me and there we go.

By: Neville

Neville — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 02:25:46 +0000

“Instead of petulantly deriding his behaviour in a posting in a weblog, I instead put my money where my mouth is…”

Let’s change this to “As well as petulantly deriding…”

You can return my list with another list all you want. My argument, which you conveniently ignore post after post, is that if you hadn’t been such a dick in your dealings with redfox things would have gone better. Maybe there would be more than one “website that has now gotten global attention and which has, sans watermarking, brought a pile of new historical images up for the world to enjoy.” if you’d acted like an adult. I don’t disagree that redfox responded in a childish manner, but you hardly encouraged an adult exchange.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:50:34 +0000

Let me return your list with another list.

1. RedWolf was scanning in advertisements from magazines roughly 10-15 years old, watermarking them with his website’s name/logo, and then redistributing them. He had been doing this on his website for a period of roughly 4 months.

2. Upon noticing this, I posted a comment in his weblog telling him this was a bad idea.

3. Over the course of the ensuing conversation, RedWolf branded himself the “publisher” of these scanned works, implied aspects of “fair use” that a 10th-grader would dismiss during a book report, and called me a communist for questioning his profiting off the previously-owned works.

4. Along this timeline, he flip-flopped on the watermarking, deciding to remove, then add, then remove, then add, then remove them, which I think classifies him somewhere in the range of “a pile of glands with a weblog”.

5. Instead of petulantly deriding his behaviour in a posting in a weblog, I instead put my money where my mouth is, and started a website following all the credoes and suggestions I had stated to RedWolf, a website that has now gotten global attention and which has, sans watermarking, brought a pile of new historical images up for the world to enjoy.

Not that I had to provide a list or anything.

By: Neville

Neville — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:34:02 +0000

Many things. Allow me to compile a short list:
1. A new friend/acquaintance. Someone with similar interests who may be able to help you out in the future on some sort of joint project. (I know you fancy yourself as a lone ranger, but it might happen)
2. He becomes actively interested in convincing others to stop watermarking. Whilst you’re doing a dandy job with your vigilantism, another pair of hands wouldn’t hurt surely?

…

I did say a short list.

Anyway, I shouldn’t have to provide a list – there was no reason to be a dick about it, being nice would have been equally effective in my opinion. That alone should be worth it.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:09:53 +0000

What would have been a better result?

By: Neville

Neville — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 08:39:47 +0000

What I was getting at is that you were a real dick about it. The same result – maybe better – could have been achieved if you’d just gotten off your high horse and been a regular human being and treated others with respect.

But you’re right, the end justifies the means, so keep it up.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:37:05 +0000

The result of all this morally superior-toned text you didn’t like is that RedWolf no longer watermarks, I don’t watermark, several people have written to me that they intend to remove the watermarks from their collections they have online, and I have scanned over 300 pages of historical advertisements and brouchures into digitize.textfiles.com.

I can live with those results.

P.s. Don’t watermark your scans.

By: Neville

Neville — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:56:32 +0000

What bugs me about this whole thing is the reeking stench of moral superiority. In a general sense I agree with your pursuit to archive material which would otherwise be lost, but I’m not sure that gives you some holy right to leave snarky little comments on other’s sites, and to respond to them with such a faux-intellectual tone. Why not explain in the benefits of not watermarking his scans? Pointing out the flaws in watermarking is a lot less convincing than pointing out the benefits leaving the scans untouched.

eg: “Hey, a love the site. I think it would be way better if you left your watermark off the scans – I appreciate your efforts in scanning the material, but the watermarks kind of ruin the archival attempt in my opinion. I have a site ‘textfiles.com’ and have an interest in archiving this sort of stuff – if you stopped watermarking I’d love to link to you as an example of archiving done right.”

It may not gel with your “Crusader of archiving, death to the watermark infidels” action, but I think it would probably turn out with a better result for all.