Wikipedia:WikiProject Philately
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Title
WikiProject Philately
A few Wikipedians have made suggestions about how we might create articles about philately. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obliged in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!
Scope
This WikiProject aims primarily to organise large numbers of articles relating to philately, postage stamps, and postal history.
Parentage
The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Leisure.
Descendant Wikiprojects
No descendant WikiProjects have been defined although creation of category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers is a major task within the whole project and could be termed a sub-project.
Similar Wikiprojects
No similar WikiProjects have been defined.
Participants
and current activities (Oct/Nov 2005)
- Stan Shebs - general articles, country accounts, illustrative scans
- BlackJack - currently building category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers (majority of links within micros now complete and starting on the macros - 29 Dec 2005)
- GeorgeWilliams - currently helping BlackJack to build category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers
- Sebjarod - adding interwikis and translating articles from de./fr.wiki to C:Postage stamps and C:Stamp designers.
- Johann_Wolfgang - I have lots of stamps, if anybody needs pictures of stamps feel free to ask.
- StampMan - Johann, could u start scann'em at 300px? :D (let's have some fun, shall we? :-) By experience, this is (at least) the quality level we need for digitalizing stamps.
- Martin Walker - I have not been a very active collector for some time, but I may be able to help out occasionally with pictures of stamps and a few articles. I collect GB and NSW.
- Swollib - I am going to add images of stamps to many articles, I can also write about the postal history of New Zealand and articles on New Zealand stamps.
- Ww2censor - I'm working on two major philatelic articles Postage stamps of Ireland and when that is finished Postal history of Ireland and have just completed a major update of List of people on stamps of Ireland but need someone to identify
3 Irish people; 2 in the 2000 issue for Irish Independence besides Eamon de Valera & Sean Lemass in this stamp andthe additional actor in the 1996 Centenary of Irish Cinema stamp [1] for the film The Field. When I am done with that I see there are contributions needed for Rowland Hill, Penny Post and William Mulready to name a few philatelic articles. BTW, this site [2] is a good, fair use, source for European stamp images even though the file size is not too big, the quality is good and they are mint stamp scans that are far cleaner than those recently uploaded and used by some Wikipedians. - --AdrianMastronardi 21:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC) - I'm working on a new design of the Portal and improving the Postal history article.
If you are interested in helping or contributing, please add your username to the list and give a brief description of your activity as above. Thanks very much and welcome.
Communication between the team
As our colegues at the numismatic project, should we start a irc weekly/monthly session (kinda difficult, I know) or (at least) a "discussion list" in order to enhace this project? Any suggestions are welcome here! :D
- The talk page here (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philately) is the usual form of discussion list; everybody interested is likely to have it on their watch list.
Portal
Reader access to the philatelic area is via Portal:Philately.
Country surveys
Each stamp-issuing entity, whether or not it is currently active, should ideally have a main article (or at least an article section) containing an overall survey of its philately. In practice, every issuer has a reference in the Category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers that is described below. The compendium references are all micro articles and many are complete in themselves, while others provide summary information and link to a main article elsewhere.
Current issuers should have a standalone main article entitled "Postage stamps and postal history of X" that is linked from its country's main article, typically from the "miscellaneous topics" section; or else a section within the country's main article that is about its postage stamps. The latter approach is fine re a small country or one that no longer exists as an independent nation (see: Abu Dhabi).
Former colonies, provisional stamp issuers and other entities which made only a small contribution to postal history may need only a section in an article about the controlling entity. This presupposes that the entities themselves must have their own articles. Otherwise, the reference in the compendium may be sufficient. Note that redirects to the present-day country are undesirable simplifications that make it hard to reference the old entity. For example, German East Africa had a postal history that was entirely independent of Tanganyika and Tanzania.
A postal history should begin with precursors and mark key dates, such as the first introduction of regular postal service, the introduction of stamps for prepayment, etc. The survey should also link to the political and other changes that impacted the postal service. The length and depth of the survey will depend on the country, but would ideally be under 2,000 words or so and written for a nonspecialist audience with links to all technical terms introduced.
Illustrations are crucial for these surveys and should include images of covers, postmarks and stamps that are representative of each period. Note that this generally means that common stamps are preferable to rarities. Postmarks connecting a stamp to a specific place and time are also highly desirable. As always, attractive images are better than unattractive, but this should be a secondary consideration. Examples of surveys include Stamps and postal history of Austria, German East Africa#Postage stamps.
The definitive index to all postal surveys by issuer is Category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers which contains references to all issuing entities in alphabetic order. These references are micro articles and many of them are complete in themselves, though most contain a link to a main article elsewhere on the site. This work includes not just a reference to the main issuer in its commonly understood form but also ancillary references such as abbreviations on overprints or alternate names on inscriptions that may be the reader's reason for lookup. Note that work on the compendium is ongoing but the references are already in place; work at present is connecting the internal links.
There is also a quick reference List of entities that have issued postage stamps but note that this is not as complete as the compendium and does not have the ancillary references.
See also postal organizations for authorities such as the Royal Mail or Deutsche Post.
Stamp issue articles
Many issues of stamps justify closer attention than is appropriate for the general survey: e.g., the Empire issue of Italy; the Prexies of USA; and the Yacht issue of the German Colonies. These articles should be in much greater depth with content primarily aimed at philatelists.
They should be indexed by List of postage stamp issues.
Stamp articles
A small number of postage stamps such as the Penny Black, Inverted Jenny, etc. are sufficiently celebrated to justify creation of individual articles. Normal article format seems sufficient for these. These should be indexed by List of postage stamps.
Most individual stamps do not justify construction of a main article but are certainly worthy of mention in articles about their issuers. The most practical approach to this would be to include a separate sub-section about the individual stamp in the main article about its issuer; or in an article about its own general issue (see above), if appropriate.
Topical lists
WP has great potential as an aid for topical collectors, as in List of people on stamps and Ships on stamps, but this needs further exploration before a standard can be proposed.
Hierarchy Definition
No classification of philately has been defined.
Template
The project membership banner is displayed below. Please take a copy of this and display it on your user page. Use the code Template:Tl to insert it.
The only other template currently in use is the active project banner at the top of this page and the discussion page.
Idea. A template for individual stamps, with tabular data for the technical info, may prove worthwhile at some future date.fr:Wikipédia:Projet/Philatélie