User:Dosseman

Dosseman is not my proper name, which is Dick Osseman. However, when - after 15 years of Wikipedia use - I started to publish in Wikicommons I found that I needed an identity for that purpose. This is it.

My pictures, tens of thousands of them, concerning Turkey and to a lesser extent Syria (from right before the war), Jordan and Italy are at http://www.pbase.com/dosseman and related sites. I intend to add a decent number of pictures to commons (so far over 73.000, counting in November 2024), often to illustrate sights that I liked a lot, or maybe more often the ones that are overlooked by the general tourist. In general mainly historical and cultural ones. Always I claim copyright for large size pictures, so contact me in those cases through Pbase. Or write to dosseman@upcmail.nl . And if you use a picture I took anywhere, please mention me, using my full name. Try not to make errors. And my name has nothing to do with Osman, but refers to a man with oxen.

I have been granted autopatrol rights on 25-3-2020. That indicates I do not have the ability to mark [other's] actions as patrolled; instead only their own [my own] actions are automatically marked as patrolled. This right is commonly granted to users who aren't necessarily involved in patrolling pages, edits or uploads, but create a high level of quality pages or uploads that do not require patrolling by other users. It seems to have advantages that I will be working out, and maybe use to good advantage. I mention it because I have on occassion been bothered by other users who thought they ought to correct my work. Please don't, but write to me instead if you feel I'm wrong. When publishing my pictures I increasingly re-organized pictures by others. Some categories are used as dumps for hundreds of pictures that in some cases deserve a more careful placement in sub-, or sub-sub-categories. When needed I create those categories. Though I often am surprised to see pictures I would be ashamed to show to others because of their lack of quality.

In May 2024 I was made a patroller. I'm still working out what that implies.

I made a speech as guest speaker on 22-10-2023 at the Turkic Wikimedia Conference 2023 in Istanbul under the title "A traveller’s pictures of Turkey, taken over 30 years (EN)", explaining how I became the passionate photographer and then wikimedian that I have turned into. The audience liked it. I hope I said some sensible things. I do not put the whole speech here. But regarding categorising (which I do a lot) I stated: “I think there are not enough descriptions. And writing descriptions, mistrust whatever you read.” […] When adding to existing categories I check those for errors. I often find wrong attributions. Many tourists often name all pictures in a series after one important element like Hagia Sophia. Then Wikipedians importing from a photo site like Flickr may not notice this and categorise the pictures wrongly. Or wrongly label pictures that originally were well labelled. Descriptions should explain what is meant precisely as well as what is not meant. For instance, “exterior” is the outside of a building. But not from any distance. I find pictures of a building, taken from hundreds of meters, categorised as “exterior of …”. In descriptions I use all names I know of the subject. A mosque may be called after its founder, its restorer, a nearby hammam, or have a name like “kuyulu” as there was a well on its grounds. It makes all those names easier to find, I wish more people did so. Some categories are almost hidden in small regional categories. Categorising in districts can be useful. But for a foreigner Şişli is not clear, Istanbul is. And Turkish provinces have a name that is also the name of the capital and often of the main district (where sometimes “merkez” is added). I wished the three levels were kept apart better, again using descriptions. There is a lot of over-categorising. If a picture of a town shows five minarets, some people put it in all sub-categories for their mosques. I try to use just one, maybe two categories for the main object of a picture. I often see “Wikidata Infoboxes”. People seem to think they are superior to descriptions. I think they are overrated. They seem to contain condensed truth, but I found many mistakes. In a small set of Armenian Churches I found two had the wrong picture. Another was on the wrong location. Editing and creating Wikidata Infoboxes is difficult. I fear their wrong information becomes the source of more wrong information elsewhere.

I was pleased to receive a message as shown below (can be checked in my talk page, 25-6-2020). And I do intend to keep it up.

		The Turkish Barnstar of National Merit
		This is for your continuous efforts on uploading numerous beautiful Turkey-related images. You deserve recognition and appreciation. Keep it up. CeeGee 11:33, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

And earlier this one:

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	Hi Dosseman! Each and every one of your photographs is an invaluable contribution to Wikipedia. Thank you! पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 16:36, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

A week before my 73rd birthday I received:

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thank you very much for all of your marvellous contributions of photography in the Anatolian and the surrounding geographies, and another thank you for tirelessly uploading them into the WC every single day! Keep up the good work. Emre Dokur (talk) 15:33, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

And when I was 74:

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	Thank you for your uploads about Türkiye! You are making Commons great! Kadı Message 13:37, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

And as if that was not enough:

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	Thank you for taking photos of Türkiye and for presenting the picture of pride in the state institution Anadolu Agency. If you go, we are waiting for you in Sivas too :) --88.236.188.202 19:42, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

And then came (though I must add I have an archive stretching back to the 1990's):

	Turkish Archiver
	What a precious archive! It is great to find open access photos of the past ten years of the distinguished buildings of the Turkish homeland. Thanks for sharing. Bjelica (talk) 21:05, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

For Turkish readers the next one, that I appreciate highly, will be clear:

	Türkiye Katkı Nişanı
	Gerek Wikimedia Commons'ta gerek Wikipedia projelerinde Türkiye ve Türk kültürüne olan katkılarınıza binaen sizi Türkiye Katkı Nişanı ile taltif ediyorum. Katkılarınızın devamını diliyor, saygılarımı sunuyorum. Kadı Message 20:30, 28 November 2024 (UTC)