2022-2023 Online Encyclopedia Projects
(above: Henrietta Shore, Study for Mural of Rock Breakers, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
Online Encyclopedia American Art References Project
Who should apply
This online encyclopedia (OLE) editing project is only for a freelance contractor (FC) deeply experienced in OLE editing, such as extended-confirmed users. OLE articles under extended confirmed protection (ECP) can be edited only by extended-confirmed accounts. Some artist biographies for this project are likely to have ECP. Experienced FCs know the roles of OLE talk pages, ECP, administrators and closed discussions. They also know that OLEs have strict inclusion policies that demand verifiability. Replacing facts without approval of authors of prior edits will be avoided. There is no need for an edit war: edit reversions are a waste of prior effort and will be avoided. After procedures are successful concluded, FC may post a new reference in the OLEs artist biography page.
Equally important is that only FCs who are comfortable with reading and writing scholarly texts about famous artists and passionate about freely educating people about American culture through its visual arts should consider the project.
Examples of OLEs are: Britannica, Encyclopedia.com, Wikipedia (English), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, the World Digital Library and the Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) Online Digital Library. TFAO's Online Digital Library is an OLE not allowing editing by third parties. It contains the online publication Resource Library (RL). Not allowing RL editing by third parties is a main reason that hundreds of authors trust RL to publish their texts. RL has proven to be one of the most reputable online sources of representational art knowledge. Posting of images will be avoided since researching their copyrights is too complicated for this project. FCs are subject to some OLE's conflict of interest policies which may damage FC's relationship with the OLE without proper procedures and care.
Freelancer services companies (FSCO) representing clients and FCs include UpWork, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour and Hubstaff Talent. One FC and one FSCO will be selected for this project.
Project goal
Less than 1% of visitors to TFAO URLs currently come from OLE page "Resources" or Notes" section (RNS) entries. An enormous amount of TFAO material, including RL articles and essays, is referenced, however, through Google searches. TFAO has proven to be one of the most reputable online sources of American representational art knowledge. It is extensively used without charge by scholars, teachers, students and the general public worldwide.
This project is intended to help OLE users reference further sources of information concerning historic American representational artists. It is an experiment to determine whether it is effort and cost effective to work with a FC to place high quality RL references into RNS entries. .
Reference links in some OLE pages are laden with link rot (404 error). This can substantially degrade the quality of those pages. The archival quality of RL references is unsurpassed. To TFAO's knowledge, over the past 26 years there has NEVER been an instance of OLE link rot for any RL page. This is another reason to justify placement of high quality RL references in an OLE.
Payment source to FSCO for FC work
A TFAO volunteer (VOL) will be FSCO's client. The VOL will provide the funding to pay FSCO for FC's work. After the project is completed, TFAO may reimburse VOL for the expense of this project. Payment to FSCO for FC's work. should not be considered payment for a typical FSCO job. This is because TFAO is a non profit organization that provides all RL online content to the public without charge and has no commercial activities.
Concerns and answers
FCs are naturally concerned with whether RL content is legally available for OLE postings under copyright law. TFAO has defined when and what can be excerpted from its RL publication in its User Agreement and Legal Notice. Within TFAO's 9,600 pages of text, fair use amounts of RL text are available for quotation. Text obtained from Art Museum, Gallery and Art Center publicity materials, excluding materials by named authors - see Rails submitting texts for further information - are available for copying with attribution. Copying any of RLs 1,300 articles, essays and scripts written by hundreds of named authors requires the approval of the copyright holder, not RL. Texts by identified authors have been peer reviewed and fact checked thousands of times. TFAO has a thorough procedure for challenge of previously published texts in its Errors and Omissions page. Almost all of TFAO's 23,800 published images are unavailable for copying without express consent of copyright holders.
FSCO interview process provided between VOL and FC
An interview process will be provided via FSCO before FC proposes a contract to VOL. FC will include in the FSCO contract proposal evidence of prior projects similar to this one with avoidance of OLE reversions. Before entering into a FSCO contract, FC will demonstrate to VOL the ability to identify information within Resource Library essays (RLE) worthy of posting in a Resources" or Notes" section (RNS) within a OLE page. Three OLE postings (one per artist) will be submitted by FC as a part of the FSCO contract proposal. Each posting will be subject to following step two and three requirements for the project. The FC will start the edit process with artists chosen by VOL from an America's Distinguished Artists pages (ADArtists) page.
Also see:
An Evaluative Analysis of TFAO for American Art History Scholarship
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Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.
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