TALK: Credits and Collections

OK, one last discussion before I leave!

Even though I've only been a reader and contributor for a few months,
I've noticed a lot of pictures appearing without any name credits. Some
appear regularly without names, others have a habit of popping up with
credits from different artists.

I remember a little while back a discussion about setting up a complete
archive for all the Ascii art ever drawn. The main point was setting up an
indexed archive to make it easier to find particular drawings.

Now while it's important to be able to find the drawings, I feel it's just
as important to know who drew them. A lot of the pictures I've seen must
have taken a lot of time and effort (not to mention skill and talent!) to
draw and it seems unfair that artists can't always get the recognition of
their skills.


What are the logistics involved in setting up an archive that contained all
the Ascii art pictures with every picture containing an artist's signature?

It would probably be more useful to split the index into individual files,
one for each type (eg Star Trek, cartoons, etc.).

Ownership of most of the pictures would not be difficult to prove. In cases
where there were arguments over the original artist, I'm sure somebody
would have an authored copy in their personal collection.


Another advantage of this index would be searching through it looking for
a particular picture to prove who was the artist. Most word processors can
search for a string pattern of text characters. To find a drawing in the
collection, it would be a simple case of copying one line of the drawing
and setting the word processor to search for it. A bit like checking out
fingerprints.


Sorry if this was a bit rambly, it was one of those ideas I tend to get at
about three o'clock in the morning!

Comments, as ever, are welcome.

                                                       DR J

In article <2u2220$1e...@gagme.wwa.com> DR J <me9...@brunel.ac.uk> writes:
>
>OK, one last discussion before I leave!
>
>Even though I've only been a reader and contributor for a few months,
>I've noticed a lot of pictures appearing without any name credits. Some
>appear regularly without names, others have a habit of popping up with
>credits from different artists.
>
>I remember a little while back a discussion about setting up a complete
>archive for all the Ascii art ever drawn. The main point was setting up an
>indexed archive to make it easier to find particular drawings.

The existing ASCII Art Bazaar goes a long way toward providing this.  
Of course, no index is perfect.

>Now while it's important to be able to find the drawings, I feel it's just
>as important to know who drew them. A lot of the pictures I've seen must
>have taken a lot of time and effort (not to mention skill and talent!) to
>draw and it seems unfair that artists can't always get the recognition of
>their skills.

Yes, I agree that people should be attributed.

>What are the logistics involved in setting up an archive that contained all
>the Ascii art pictures with every picture containing an artist's signature?

The ASCII Art Bazaar which is housed on the Gopher I administer contains
a very nearly complete collection of images posted on A.A-A through March of
1994.  That is about 9 megabytes.  It is organized by subject and has an 
intelligent Gopher search engine (called REGGIE) that facilitates queries.
Since April, I have saved an additional 7 megbytes of images that I will
be adding to the Bazaar.  Later this summer I expect to implement a set of 
hyperindices that will make the Bazaar even easier to use by supporting
searches on artists and other keys.

Many of the artworks in the Bazaar are the originals and already have
credits.  But I would be willing to add attributions to others if
a claimant's request is reasonable, by that I mean, a little explanation
is provided.

Regards,


R L Samuell
Keeper of the ASCII Art Bazaar
(gopher://twinbrook.cis.uab.edu/1asciiarc.70)
Keeper of the SMILEY CATALOG
(telnet twinbrook.cis.uab.edu 3399)
--
 ...

In article <2u2220$1e...@gagme.wwa.com>, DR J  <me9...@brunel.ac.uk> wrote:

>Ownership of most of the pictures would not be difficult to prove. In cases
>where there were arguments over the original artist, I'm sure somebody
>would have an authored copy in their personal collection.


What I have done at times is imbed or disguise my last name in some part of
the artwork.  How it's done depends on the nature of the picture itself, but
only the original artist knows where it is and how to "decode" it.

-Dave

 ,----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
 |                         /                                                  |
 | Dave Munroe            /                               Hewlett-Packard     |
 | dmu...@vcd.hp.com    /                             Vancouver, Washington  |
 |                      /                                                     |
 `----------------------------------------------------------------------------'