Talk:Emporis

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[edit] POV

who deleted all that information on the basis it was incorrect? it was not. this entire article as it stands has been written entirely by an emporis PR. emporis works exactly like gracenote. refer to that article please. emporis was built on voluntary submissions and then sold by its owners to themselves in order to extend ownership over the content within. the article was written by mikebull which is a username for michael wutzke who as it happens owns emporis. either the entire article is scrubbed as a lump of incorrect p.r bull or all the controversy be reverted because it IS correct. http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:_vyMuIViTMIJ:forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D89522+emporis+unpaid+photographers&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1 here's a nice skyscraperpage thread on it.

Please consult a Wikipedia moderator if you see fit. You are using Wikipedia as a platform to display contentious and unverifiable information with a clear point of view to it. The tone of your language also gives you away. Montalto 21:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

no not at all. i am however disgusted that the article on emporis was written by one of its owners. this violates wikipedias policy does it not? i am also disgusted that the article completely avoids any of the controversy that wikipedia has generated. none of these are unverifiable statements, the links provided verify them perfectly. you will note skyscraperpage editors saying that emporis lied, you will note that former emporis photographers complain they were unpaid and you will note that the entire site was set up by volunteers who someone else made money off of. this is a valid point for the CDDB article which raises the same issues. why is this not an issue for another internet database also collected by volunteers and then commercialised? if you dont like the phrasing then rephrase it however do NOT delete things that are verifiable. if you have a problem with the section then vote on deleting it or not as you should do--Gothicform 22:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but your source is unreliable because it is nothing more than a series of unconnected statements and opinions which do not even agree with each other. I insist that the group of people who are suddenly forcing this controversy onto the Wikipedia page are using this site as a platform for their opinions, and the emotion is evident from both the content of the changes and the talk on this page. Any further changes will result in a request for mediation. Montalto 22:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

no you are the one using it for your opinions. you copy edited a page on a business written by a business owner. the statements agree perfectly with each other except for emporis... i suppose youd like to remove the ethics from nike? nike say they dont use sweatshops? how about WMD in iraq. please... get mediation in :) the article as it stands is nothing more than p.r puff written by the people it is about. it in no way covers the fact that emporis is highly criticised for having been a database collected by volunteers that became a commercial database, that has refused to pay volunteers it does owe money to, and has committed gross copyright infringements in the past. the article also contains many unverifiable statements including "Emporis Photonet and a variety of other open platforms" and "give members of this organization access to the vast amount of information". why dont you rewrite the article to say that the platform is NOT open (its copyrighted to emporis, not gnu) and if you check doesnt even work or that emporis absorbed the CTBUH database and then started charging members of it for information? furthermore the information in emporis is NOT verified by the emporis data committee unless they have been verifying non existant buildings that have been lifted off various websites to pollute the integrity of the database. you are arguing about something you know nothing about... and being outvoted. --Gothicform 22:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I see that I am being "outvoted" because a band of people is acting in collusion on the same purpose. Why else would 5 people have made changes today after a long period of inactivity? I have already referred this to mediation and will help anyone concerned to refute the claims you are making. It would be fine to write about a controversy if there were any basis for it. Emporis is like Wikipedia in many ways, except that editors must apply for access and maintain a consistent record of quality in their contributions. And yes, some data is hidden from the public to support server costs. CTBUH members do not pay for access to the data, and you will be unable to provide evidence that they do. The page was not written by a business owner, I wrote the original article and others have contributed to it; and I certainly do not own Emporis! Any issue between its volunteers and its management needs better documentation than what you are providing. And you have not provided any examples of nonexistent buildings on Emporis, but I do not believe they would willingly allow them as it defeats the whole purpose of the database; nevertheless, as on Wikipedia, errors do creep in. Montalto 22:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diagram story

As an administrator on a tierce website (neither Emporis, neither skyscraperpage) about architecture I'll just comment on the diagram story since I am allowed to. Indeed the diagrams linked in the article by Gothicform are the property, in their integrality, of skyscraperpage. Indeed they could be seen on Emporis for a moment and indeed skyscraperpage had been grumbling about its diagrams being borrowed. The fact Emporis had asked for the permission seems to be a dubious assertion, but as I have remained away from this dispute I will just comment that these diagrams are SSP's property, were also seen on emporis and that SSP was quite unhappy about this.

Here is the copyright on the diagrams, retrieved from SSP itself: All images are copyright protected and may not be used without permission. Copyright © 2006 SkyscraperPage.com, All Rights Reserved.

Matthieu 20:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you show any evidence supporting your point of view? Persons I have contacted within Emporis have a completely different take on the matter, namely that the diagrams were displayed only internally on Emporis as the first stage in a partnership to which the owner of Skyscraperpage.com agreed. Furthermore the diagrams were removed when their artists objected. I don't see why this controversy needs to be displayed on an objective website like Wikipedia. Montalto 21:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect it is not my point of view. I work for neither but I suppose you can compare yourself: http://landolove.com/random/londonpage.jpg.
And here is skyscraperpage's versions: http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?23636275 some of them are rigorously the same as you can check yourself and they are indeed copyrighted. Some are different but that's because they come from older versions. For instance on that screenshot the second one is the One Canadia Square and it is a different diagram: http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b88. Now all the question is: "Did Skyscraperpage authorised Emporis to use the diagrams?". Common sense would say that the answer is "no" as it was a rather memorable flame war between the two, you can contact skyscraperpage and they'll tell you if they authorised the use of the diagrams. As for the rest, it isn't exactly my concern but I think the people who have edited the "controversy" section have valid points.
PS: I certainly don't intend to be taken in these bickering and I didn't edit the article. Just giving what I've seen.Matthieu 21:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
As you can see on the Emporis site, no third-party diagrams are currently displayed. The dispute you are referring to was resolved long ago, and what I see going on here is the effort of people with a grudge to defame a website which has already agreed to remove any intellectual property that it does not have a right to. Its original posting was a misunderstanding based on an agreement with the owner of Skyscraperpage.com, and I can acknowledge that the diagram illustrators were not consulted but I do not see why this episode - which is a very small part of Emporis' history - merits inclusion in this article. Montalto 23:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yet we have articles on other corporations that have a similar section to the on that was recently created today on this page. So it is justified to include the good, bad, and the ugly! If the ugly is unbearable that is YOUR problem.24.90.163.84 23:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll answer both, as I pointed out two (or three) times, I won't edit that article. I don't care about it so much anyway. I'm bringing what I've seen myself here and only this. Then you may disagree about this, I see this page had been edited and reverted many times today and I don't want to be involved in this. Matthieu 23:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

==Article Editing== (ironically, i had to edit the word "editing" for spelling! There's only one "t" in it, not two!)

Yes, the above can be confirmed through the refrences that were provided in the main article. People should not be allowed to remove the new contents in this article as they are completely factual with citations. A wikimod needs to keep an eye on this page.

UnitedPakistan

[edit] Outsider's Point of View

Hello. I stumbled across this on WP:Mediation Cabal. As a neutral third party, I just want to say that the Controversy section seems to constitute original research, which is not allowed in Wikipedia articles. Citations are needed for the entire section. The sources for the current sentences are not reputable ("Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require stronger sources."). Moreover, the following sentence violates WP:NPOV: "Emporis also has a bad reputation for having failed to pay photographers having reportedly sold dozens of photographs without having compensated the authors of the work." That said, the entire article also needs citations, not just stuff in the controversy section. Gzkn 01:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually no any OR. Happened facts. Just more references may be needed. However I enough of current... Elk Salmon 01:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
"Well, actually no any OR" <-- Unless more references to reliable sources are provided, the section currently constitutes original research. It may indeed be true that Emporis is violating copyright, but there needs to be verifiable sources backing up this claim. And no, those forum postings currently cited don't count as reliable sources. Gzkn 01:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

as the entire article was originally written by the owner of emporis about emporis does this not also constitute original research? he fails to cite any sources in the claims that emporis is an "open" platform for example when it is heavily commercialised and charges access. there are no sources to the claims that the building industry uses emporis nor any governmental agencies, the phrase building industry is broad and suggests widespread use. there is no source to show that emporis is the main information platform for the CTBUH membership, simply that emporis effectively took over the CTBUH, and no examples of it being used for authorative data rankings. are you saying that the claim by the owner of skyscraperpage on his own forums that emporis have used skyscraperpage content without their permission is not reputable? that the claims by the owner of emporis on the same forum that they "lost" the agreement is not reputable? google has the whole thing archived with all the main players there although i realise an outside observer would not know who is who in a forum. --86.6.160.50 04:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Right, that's why I said above "the entire article also needs citations, not just stuff in the controversy section." And yes, I'm saying that forum posts are, in general, not reputable sources. See WP:SOURCE. In particular, see the section Using questionable or self-published sources: "Personal websites and messages on USENET and Internet bulletin boards are considered self-published...self-published material is largely not acceptable." If there's a news article on this matter, or if you're able to link to legal documents if there's an ongoing legal dispute, then that's perfectly fine. If Skyscraperpage or Emporis issue press releases about that matter, those would probably be OK too, although third party sources might be better IMO. Gzkn 05:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like to add my support to Gzkn here. Ideally the whole article would have citations, but for any controversial or possibly defamatory material they are essential. Forums do not qualify as a reliable source and cannot be used. Unless you can verify the information, then it must be removed. Trebor 14:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Violation of the 3 Revert Rule

To de-escalate this issue, I would highly recommend that users stop the revert war. I have warned all involved parties on your talk pages about the 3 revert rule. Gzkn 01:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation request regarding "controversy" section

Montalto has requested informal mediation regarding the Emporis "Controversy" section and has identified Gothicform, MatthieuN, UnitedPakistan, Elk Salmon, and 86.6.160.50 as involved parties.

I've tried to summarize the dispute on the mediation page. If you are interested in mediation, please let me know either on the mediation page or here -- I have some ideas that I think may be helpful to resolve the dispute constructively.

Thanks -- I'm looking forward to working with you all. TheronJ 15:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • For any interested parties, I have made two additions to the mediation page.
    • I have a proposed list of relevant policies and guidelines here.
    • I have a proposed compromise here.
  • Short version: I don't mean to foreclose discussion, but IMHO (1) both positive and negative information regarding Emporis must be verifiable by reliable sources; (2) forum posts are not "reliable sources" as that term is used on Wikipedia; (3) although the Emporis website is acceptable for non-controversial, not excessively promotional statements about Emporis itself, there are many statements on the current page that remain unsupported. Therefore, if everyone agrees, I will be happy to reduce the article down to the level supported by the current source - the Emporis website. As editors find additional sources (e.g., newspaper articles or other published reliable materials), everyone will agree to work together to fairly represent any positive or negative material. Thanks, and let me know your thoughts, TheronJ 17:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Is this case active or can I close it? --Ideogram 04:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Since I got one "yes" vote and no "no" votes for my proposed compromise, I went ahead and implemented it, shortening the Emporis article to the verifiable information and redirecting Emporis Buildings and Emporis Skyscraper Award to Emporis. Let me know if anyone objects. If not, I will wait a few days for comments, then close the mediation. Thanks, everyone! TheronJ 14:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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