Jump to content

Talk:Lichfield Gospels

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit]

User Wilshire01 repeatedly reverts any links to the images, captured with NSF funding and licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license by the University of Kentucky. These datasets, which the U. of K. VizCenter has published, along with metadata and tools for registration, are extremely valuable tools for any scholar of codicology, textual criticism, or image-analysis. I am suspicious about "Wilshire01", because this user seems to allow only links to the work of Bill Enders, who was an initial collaborator with the VizCenter team, but who has access to these images only according to the terms of the CC license. Wilshire01 seems to think that a CC license affords privileges only to one scholar. For the record, the EDUCE Grant fromt the NSF (#0916421, which paid for digitizing the Lichfield manuscript is readily available online, with its long list of scholarly outcomes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoAristarchus (talkcontribs) 04:05, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If a Wikipedia Editor would like to see it, I can post a link to a digital image of the formal licensing agreement between the University of Kentucky and Lichfield Cathedral, which should put an end to Wilshire01's claims of "copyright violation". — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoAristarchus (talkcontribs) 04:09, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User Wilshire01, once again, removes a link to a valuable scholarly resource, funded by the National Science Foundation and appropriately available on archive.org. Wikipedia is not a courtroom, nor is Wilshire01 empowered to declare "copyright infringement". If the Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral takes issue with the U. of Kentucky team's handling of the images they took under contract, there are fora for resolving that dispute. Wikipedia is not one of them. Scholars of manuscripts can profit from the published work and deserve to find a link to it on Wikipedia's article on this manuscript. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoAristarchus (talkcontribs) 03:28, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since Blackstache has referred to this talk page, I will add information to correct misinformation by PseudoAristarchus. However, I am surprised that Backstache would take this information seriously, having completed the Wikipedia editor training modules. Much of what I will address refers to Wikipedia policy and guidelines. A curious note about Blackstache is that he or she has gone through the training modules, has been an editor for 9 months, but has only replaced one link added by PseudoAristarchus. PseudoAristarchus, on the other hand, has been editing on Wikipedia since 2014, but has only added this link and replaced referenced information with non-referenced information on the Lichfield Gospels page. Blackstache, therefore, might simply be PseudoAristarchus or a surrogate. Again, having gone through Wikipedia training, Blackstache should be skeptical of PseudoAristarchu and his or her disregard for Wikipedia policy and guidelines.

I don’t have time to correct all the misinformation by PseudoAristarchus, but I will address the main misinformation. First, he or she calls Dr. Bill Endres simply “an initial collaborator with the VizCenter.” Reliable sources (multiple newspapers and the University of Kentucky, even including its Alumni Magazine), list Dr. Endres as the leader of the project. As one newspaper reports, “Led by Professor Bill Endres, the digitisation team spent two weeks at the Cathedral …” PseudoAristarchus has changed this information on the Lichfield Gospels article, listing the project leaders as Brent Seales and David Jacobs (May 2014). However, he or she makes this claim disregarding all reliable sources (I will address the lack of evidence from the EDUCE grant momentarily). As Wikipedia policy stipulates, “No original research.” All information requires “verifiability.” Furthermore, the policy states, “Its content is determined by previously published information.”

PseudoAristarchus states that the EDUCE NSF grant “paid for digitizing the Lichfield manuscript”; however, his or her link to the grant provides no evidence of this. And if anything, it raises further questions. It is as if he didn’t expect an editor to click and read. The EDUCE summary makes no mention of digitising the Lichfield manuscripts.

In fact, EDUCE stands for Enhanced Digital Unwrapping for Conservation and Exploration. Following PseudoAristarchus’ link, the grant states its purpose is “to capture in digital form fragile 3D texts, such as ancient papyrus and scrolls of other materials using a custom built, portable, multi-power CT scanning device and then to virtually "unroll" the scroll using image algorithms.” The Lichfield Gospels is not a scroll and a CT scanner was not used to digitise it. How money could have been used from this grant is confusing.

Putting this confusion aside, it appears at least some funding from EDUCE contributed to digitising the Lichfield manuscripts. However, it was far from the only funding. Dr. Endres provided funds (this is reported by multiple sources). One essential piece of reported funding supported Dr. Endres to travel to Lichfield and work out the contract. Without this funding, the project does not happen. So why PseudoAristarchus ignores this information raises questions about his or her credibility. As Dr. Seales reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Lichfield project does not happen without Dr. Endres.

Finally, PseudoAristarchus makes aggressive and defensive comments that “Wikipedia is not a courtroom.” This avoids the real issue. First, CC Licencing states, “The rights granted to You under this Licence shall terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this Licence.” So unlike PseudoAristarchus’ claim, a court of law is not necessary.

Second, most importantly, PseudoAristarchus ignores Wikipedia policy again. It states: “Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory copyright infringement. If there is reason to think a source violates copyright, do not cite it. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites.”

The policy is “if there is reason to think a source violates copyright.” The contract between Lichfield and the University of Kentucky is posted on the University of Houston website. Who knows why it appears there, and I’m not sure how the University of Kentucky would feel about this. However, it provides plenty of “reason to think.” Wikipedia maintains credibility by using verifiable sources and not taking chances on contributory copyright infringement. Again, Wikipedia policy: “If there is reason to think a source violates copyright, do not cite it.” — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wilshire01 (talkcontribs) 21:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Blackstache did not respond to my concerns, but added the link back in. Clearly, he is trying to bully this link's inclusion. The contract on the University of Houston website states that the CC licence is for images from digiting the manuscripts. Not other items. Even Google Books can't do this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wilshire01 (talkcontribs) 00:07, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The concerns above are wide ranging, and largely irrelevant to the one external resource I have tried repeatedly to restore to this page, hence no response. Concerning that resource:

  1. I have tried repeatedly to restore a link to archival registered images of the Lichfield Gospels. This is valuable, relevant material for this page. It has been removed repeatedly by Wilshire01 with false/erroneous claims of copyright infringement.
  2. The link is acceptable here. This is an external link, and per the policy: "Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy."
  3. Additionally, concerning copyright on external links: "It is not necessary to obtain the permission of a copyright holder before linking to copyrighted material, just as an author of a book does not need permission to cite someone else's work in their bibliography. Likewise, Wikipedia is not restricted to linking only to CC BY-SA or open-source content."
  4. Having established that external links are not subject to the same bar as content added directly to Wikipedia, it is nevertheless still the case that the content meets the Wikipedia copyright requirements. The link contains images from the following years, and each has documented copyright information at the same source Wilshire01 references above:
    1. 1912 (http://amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu/lichfield/Chad/Chad_1912/Readme.txt license)
    2. 1929 (http://amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu/lichfield/Chad/Chad_1929/Readme.txt license)
    3. 1962 (http://amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu/lichfield/Chad/Chad_1962/Readme.txt license)
    4. 2003 (http://amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu/lichfield/Chad/Chad2003/Readme.txt license)
    5. 2010 (http://amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu/lichfield/Chad/Chad_RGB/Readme.txt license)

Having replaced this link multiple times and warned Wilshire01 twice for removing content, I am restoring the link once again and requesting administrator intervention.Blackstache (talk) 06:54, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Update: there will be no administrator intervention at this time. The point above stands. Blackstache (talk) 15:24, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Blackstache needs to read the whole section on copyright that he or she quotes. I will quote the pertinent part copyright: "However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. An example would be linking to a site hosting the lyrics of many popular songs without permission from their copyright holders. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry [1])."

The test here is "reasonably suspect." The readme files that Blackstache links to contain enough inaccurate information to "reasonably suspect" that something is not correct. They list Seales as leader of the project, of which there is overwhelming and reliable sources that state that Dr. Endres is. It mentions two people who are not mentioned in the Chronicle article. Dr Endres is not listed, and he is the expert behind the project. So I don't know how someone can trust these readme files.

Also, one of the names mentioned is "Blackwell," which is suspiciously similar to "Blackstache."

Furthermore, Blactache has not explained how the contract posted on the site (of his linked readme files) mentions only CC licensing for images from the digitization of "the manuscripts." The posted contract provides no mention of CC licensing for any other items. Wilshire01 (talk) 05:05, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the link for copyright issues. Please see my last comment along with this one. In the last entry, I discussed Wikipedia policy for links and problems with the Readme files referred to by Blackstache. They contain erroneous information about the project, project leader, and people involved. It lists someone by the name of Blackwell as contact person. He would does not appear in the Chronicle of Higher Education article or is he listed as a member of the imaging team. It appears the Readme file is designed so that people cannot get full information. The Readme file also overstates the importance of the NSF funding by not listing all funding for the project. Finally, and most importantly, the Readme file lists Lichfield Cathedral as the holder of the copyright for these images taken by other institutions. After research, I found this not to be true. Lichfield Cathedral cannot provide CC licensing for items for which they do not hold the copyright. Wilshire01 (talk) 05:32, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

http://vis.uky.edu/folio/about/chad-gospel/ has this link [1] which appears to contain the same content as the archive.org content. It has the message "All images © 2010, The Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral, under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. Reproduced by kind permission of the Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral". This suggests to me that this link, or the archive.org one, is acceptable for Wikipedia unless strong evidence is produced that this declaration is false and that the images are being reproduced without the permission of the actual copyright holders. The Creative Commons License issue is not directly relevant - the majority of external inks on Wikipedia contain material that is not CC licensed. It would only be relevant if it were incorrect and that incorrectness could then make the rest of the statement, the "by kind permission of" bit, dubious. Who are you suggesting are the actual copyright holders? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tiptoethrutheminefield, what you will find is that all of these sites (VisCenter, InfoForest, University of Houston, and Archive.org) are the same people. It is rather confusing and mysterious and took me awhile to figure out. You can find copyright information at D-Lib Magazine, an academic journal for librarians :http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may14/05inbrief.html (It is about half-way down the page). You will also find the information on Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral :https://lichfield.ou.edu/st-chad-gospels/historical-image-overlays . I am guessing that the images referred to as 1912 by the network of sites are actually the 1911 one. Information about the original project can be found in the Acknowledgements section on the Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral site: :https://lichfield.ou.edu/content/acknowledgements . Wilshire01 (talk) 01:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I did not think of this sooner. I just did a search on Google Books for Lichfield Gospels and Conway Library (1962 images), information retrieved from D-Library Magazine :http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may14/05inbrief.html and Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral :https://lichfield.ou.edu/st-chad-gospels/historical-image-overlays . An academic book in Google books attributes permissions to the Conway Library [2]. This shows that the VisCenter sites and the Readme files have incorrect information. Wilshire01 (talk) 02:31, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wilshire01, I don't personally find your arguments convincing and my personal sense is that you are a far too inexperienced Wikipedia editor to be making unilateral decisions about copyrights and links on this encyclopedia. If I were you I would turn my attention elsewhere, until you have a lot more Wikipedia experience. Please also note that Bill Endres has released his work to Creative Commons: [3]. This talk page is a massive maze of walls of text and should be archived as unreadable bloat. Lastly, if you insist on pursuing these supposed copyright issues, please see the very specific advice that the administrator Neutrality gave in the close of the ANI thread you opened: [4]. -- Softlavender (talk) 08:58, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Softlavender *Softlavender I'm confused. Bill Endres has released Creative Commons of the 2010 images. Not the images from 2003, 1962, etc. The problem occurs with these historical images, copyrighted by other institutions. The Welcome page for Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral [[5]] mentions that the site only displays limited historical images because the copyright belongs to other institutions and permissions were acquired for a limited number of past photographs for display on Historical Image Overlays [[6]]. The readme.txt given by Blackstache contains misinformation, as mentioned, attributing copyright to Lichfield Cathedral and not the proper copyright holder, the Conway Library. The sites that Blackstache links to are not only ignoring the rights of copyright holders by displaying these historical images, but they provide these images for free download (with incorrect copyright attribution). The problem is not the display and download of the 2010 images. The problem is the display and download of the historical images, such as 2003 and 1962. Display is one thing, but providing images copyrighted by other institutions as free downloads takes this to troubling level. That is why I felt these links warranted removal. Perhaps we can continue this conversation on my talk page. Wilshire01 (talk) 02:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, this page remains the best place for this discussion. jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 08:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wilshire01, I think you may be asking too much from Wikipedia editors here. We have a source that is stating to have the right to host and release to public viewing scans of the Lichfield Gospels. That source has a connection to the scanning of the Gospels, so their claim is not an unreasonable one. Their scans are well presented and are on obvious public display - so there is nothing secretive or vague about their claim or the release. If Conway Library are the actual copyright holders and they are disputing VisCenter's right to release these images, in particular the ones that VisCenter did not photograph (the 2003, 1962, etc. ones), then I think the Conway Library has to have done something to assert that claim. Without that, your investigations are OR and I think they cannot on their own be used to question the veracity of VisCenter's copyright statement to the point that it would be inadmissible for a Wikipedia article to link to their archive. I suggest you contact whoever you consider to be the actual copyright holder and get them to make a statement on the issue. Without something like that, I think there is not enough third-party evidence to conclude delinking those images would be appropriate. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks jmcgnh and Tiptoethrutheminefield. I'll have to see if I can contact someone at the Conway Library. That's a good suggestion. I thought the book attributing copyright to the Conway Library [7] was convincing evidence. It makes the Readme.txt highly questionable, similar to someone offering a digital image of Mickey Mouse taken at the Anaheim Library and attributing copyright to the Anaheim Library. But also (which I haven't mentioned), there is the anomaly of the Readme.txt attributing copyright to 2010 and not 1962, which makes no sense for a reproduction of images from 1962. So I'm still rather confused by this whole thing. (And an odd coincidence: Blackwell (the writer of the Readme.txt), his wife, and Softlavender are all graduates of Duke University. I don't know if that has affected the conversation or not.) Wilshire01 (talk) 00:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that VisCentre releasing to public viewing the older 2003, 1962, etc. images seems irregular if at the most all they have done is make new digital copies of those older copies already existing on film or as printed originals. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 01:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wilshire01: Copyright can get very complicated, as I think you recognize. In at least one of the contracts you offered as evidence, it was specified that Lichfield Cathedral retained copyright over the images. They can claim that as a matter of contract, but there are also copyright precedents that say non-transformative imaging of art works does not create any new copyright. Someone could take the position that the images, as faithful representations of the original manuscript, cannot themselves be copyrighted, the original artwork being indisputably in the public domain. I don't have a particular view on how this should all be resolved, but I recognize that it's possible for someone, in good faith, to have a particularized view of this and still be very wrong. That's why I asked one of the copyright "pros" – to the extent that WP has pros – to take a look at the situation to see if their experienced view could bring some settlement to the issue. jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 22:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmcgnh:Thanks! Yes, I'd like to know as definitively as possible an answer to this. One thing that makes me highly suspicious is that PseudoAristarchus claimed that he would post a link to the digital copy of the contract between Lichfield Cathedral and the University of Kentucky as proof. However, he didn't follow through on this. Do you think it would be better to contact Dr. Endres, since he was the one in charge of the project and the contract? If he responds, that seems the easiest route to a solution. Wilshire01 (talk) 20:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed links that ignore rights granted by the contract with the Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral. In the contract, digitizing and registering historical images was part of payment for allowing the digitization of the two manuscripts (section 4.3). No rights were granted for historical images for display or CC download. Display and CC rights were ONLY granted for the 2010 digitization of the St Chad Gospels and Lichfield Cathedral's Wycliffe New Testament. Any time a manuscript is digitized, stress is placed on it. Determining patterns of aging was a way to provide an act to counterbalance this stress. See my article: "Imaging Sacred Artifacts" [[8]] (to find the pertinent place, search for "reciprocity." I will discuss this issue with Lichfield Cathedral. If Softlavender or Wiki editors have any questions, please feel free to email me. 129.15.66.167 (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, user PseudoAristarchus is me, Christopher W. Blackwell, the Louis G. Forgione University Professor of Classics at Furman University. I have no idea who Blackstache is (the coincidence of "black-" notwithstanding… IP addresses should bear this out), and I have no particular interest in anonymity. I was co-PI with Brent Seales on the EDUCE Grant from the NSF (#0916421), which paid for digitizing the Lichfield manuscript. I was there, in the cathedral, for all of the work; I negotiated the transportation of the copystand from Greece to England; my wife wrote the technical manual for the copystand that we used; I argued with the conservators for the value of UV imaging, and with the invigilators on the matter of touching the MS to minimize the gutter. I also have the license agreement on each of my innumerable laptops, desktops, and servers. Evidently someone has decided, on behalf of Mr. Enders, that the Wikipedia page for this manuscript shall pay homage only to him. Whatever… Lichfield was ten years ago… I have moved on to bigger things; Dr. Seales has moved on to much bigger things; and if this Wikipedia page is the low, arid hill that the Enders-proxies want to die on, they are welcome to it.

Anyone who wants the images, with clear documentation as to their open-content rights, can find them all at this server, which hosts projects associated with the Center for Hellenic Studies of Harvard University. Excellent access to the images is also at the publications of the VisCenter from the University of Kentucky. These links have been active and widely publicized for a decade now, and have not been challenged by anyone; likewise, the work of digitization and publication has been publicly available (with these links) on the NSF's website since 2011. Neither the University of Kentucky, nor Furman University, nor the Center for Hellenic Studies of Harvard University, has received any challenge to the CC license, despite the readily accessible contact information in all of these publications. With so many very public sites asserting a CC-BY-NC license, with clear contact information withall, for so long, Res ipsa loquitur (which means "the matter speaks for itself", Bill).

Casual readers of this Wikipedia page will get good information, and easy access to citations of Enders' publication record, if they feel like citing it for their assigned essays.

Serious (amateur or professional) scholars can access the rich dataset for themselves at our archival server. No serious scholar is going to be thwarted by the pathetic wiki-war here, so I'm content to let the Enders-proxies own it. And I'm grateful, because this page, and its Talk record, now features on my syllabi when it is time to discuss "information fluency" (and not in a good way). C.W. Blackwell (talk) 06:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Lichfield Gospels. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:53, 15 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Above, on 3 April 2017, I B. Endresresponded to the issue of the contract. The contract only grants Creative Common (CC) rights for the images taken of the physical manuscripts. CC rights cannot be granted by Lichfield Cathedral for photographs of the St Chad Gospels for which they don’t hold the copyright. I’m not sure why this is causing confusion. Christopher Blackwell is free to email me, and I will assist him in following the contract.

Since C.W. Blackwell makes a number of false claims, let me address the main ones.

  • Christopher Blackwell was NOT present “in the cathedral, for all of the work.” For that matter, Blackwell wasn’t present during the imaging of a single page of the St Chad Gospels. Please check the team photograph from Lichfield, taken June 29, 2010 (in photograph’s metadata), which was midway through the imaging of the St Chad Gospels. Before imaging the St Chad Gospels, Blackwell had left for London and then Spain to try to work out an agreement to digitize two Illiads held by the El Escorial.
  • Blackwell’s peripheral nature to the project is further demonstrated by him not being mentioned in an article about the project by The Chronicle of Education. Also, no newspaper articles, such as this one, mentions Blackwell.
  • Christopher Blackwell is NOT listed as a CoPI on the EDUCE project (NSF funded project). It lists William (Brent) Seales, Joseph Gray, James Griffioen, and Ross Scaife.
  • The first transgression of the contract occurred at the hands of Christopher Blackwell. Section 1.6 of the contract requires all CC images to have embedded metadata. In 2010 or 2011, Blackwell uploaded and made available all images from the project on a University of Houston server. None of the images had metadata.
  • Creating a dataset is intellectual work. Neither Blackwell nor Seales has the necessary background (literacy in medieval manuscripts) to intellectually construct a dataset for a medieval manuscript. The dataset they present is my intellectual work mid-process. When I scanned the 1962 photographs, I recognized a number of photographs were missing. This is easily rectified by contacting the Courtauld Institute, who has a film library of over one million photographs. Digital work is only as good as the research questions driving it: see my “A Literacy of Building: Making in the Digital Humanities.”
  • Why does the NSF allow incorrect dates and copyright information for photographs? The NSF doesn’t check. They rely on grant recipients and their academic integrity. For the past six years, accurate information has been readily available. See Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral: Historical Image Gallery, Aging, D-Lib Magazine, or Imaging Sacred Artifacts in Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture.
  • The EDUCE grant (NSF) only PARTIAL funded imaging at Lichfield. I never expected partial funding from EDUCE. In 2009, I spoke with Brent Seals about the availability of his multispectral camera. We discussed the EDUCE project, which provides funding for digitally unrolling damaged Herculean scrolls. At that time, Seales was stumped on the scrolls. He had hoped to detect metals in the inks to differentiate it from papyri. I provided him with an alternative possibility: inks molecularly bond with papyri or parchment, and as they age, they rise and take bits of papyri or parchment with them. I suggested that he try to detect this rise or a change in density. I told him he needed to think about any writing surface as dimensional, having thickness and creating a mini ecosystem of scratches, layered pigments, and inks. (See my work with RTI Gallery or video) Providing Seales with a new approach, I never expected partial funding through EDUCE for my project. In 2015, I learned I had given Seales the intellectual perspective he needed, the one used by Vito Mocella, the first computer scientist who was able to detect letters in the Herulaneum scrolls. See “Revealing letters in rolled Herulaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging.”

Anyone with questions is free to email me. MedievalWonder (talk) 20:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Blackwell here (in case my Username or IP doesn't show up in this edit): Well! Today I learned that Bill Enders is actually following this Wikipedia page! I thought it was just his international fanbase taking up the cross and sword to preserve his scholarly reputation.

Dear Bill, never change! May I suggest the following? On the one hand, we have Brent Seales and me, with a $500,000 NSF Grant on our CVs and a published report (easily to be found on the NSF website) documenting our work, as well as the published (by Google) work on the Chad multispectral images from Brent's year as a Google Fellow in Paris, and of course we have an archive of Chad images nicely processed and published down in Houston by Blackwell (Seales may not even put all of his Lichfield Work on his CV, since he needs room for the articles about his research in The New Yorker and The Economist).

On the other, we have a guy on a Wikipedia Talk page.

Pop quiz: Do you remember what "res ipsa loquitur" means?

[Speaking mostly to myself] I do not like being nasty, and a professional pissing contest is exactly how I do not roll, usually. I am wallowing in this filth because (a) it is offensive when one member of a collaboration takes undue credit for the work of the team; (b) it is offensive when a scholarly resource paid for by the public and legally licensed for use and reuse is attempted to be appropriated by someone guilty of (a); (c) I honor above everything a scholar who pursues the hardest possible challenges, failing at many points, until (through brilliant insight) he succeeds, as Seales has done; and so (d) it is obscene to me for anyone to appropriate any part of that glory.

I had the honor to collaborate with Seales in Venice, in Lichfield, and at El Escorial. So I get to bask, a little, in his triumph now. But I while we shared those earlier successes, I am merely an awestruck spectator on his latest work. For Enders to try to appropriate wholly our shared work in Lichfield, and to appropriate even in part Seales' current success, is contemptible.

You know, Bill, if you stopped policing this Wikipedia page, you would have time to compose the Iliad, and write a commentary on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoAristarchus (talkcontribs) 04:35, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(Bill here--I couldn't find my password for MedievalWonder) Just a quick response to provide people will a source for accurate information about the digitization of the St Chad Gospels. I published a book about it: Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D & 3D, Leeds, Arc Humanities Press, 2019 — the book is a publication supported by CARMEN, The Worldwide Medieval Network. MedievalAwe (talk) 17:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]