h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok the bbc and h2g2 are getting beyond belief now, a few months back i came here and asked if we could put some pictures from outside of h2g2 and found that that was not allowed and as there are were no pictures to do with my particular interest so i just left it at that, until I came across an animated pisture of Buffy & Faith and figured someone must have created it and submitted it, so on that thought I decided to create a picture of Spike to submit and now find that we cant even do that. What exactly is the problem and why do we have absolutley no choice in the pictures on this site?

Hi THE SCOOBIES (Buffy)

I'm sorry you're upset about the picture situation - it was the thing we pre-BBC people took longest to get over when h2g2 was rescued by the BBC.

The problem is mostly copyright and, to some extent, staff time. The BBC need to make sure that it has the legal right to use all the pictures it displays on its sites. The problem with letting people upload their own pictures is that some people - not you perhaps but some people - might try to upload pictures they had 'borrowed' from other places. This isn't legal (although it isn't uncommon by any means) and the BBC could get into a whole load of trouble. It's more difficult to track down borrowed pictures on the web than it is to search for plagiarised words and to offer an uploading service fairly to everyone they'd have to employ several staff full time to check them all out thoroughly.

I'm sure you can see that this isn't possible given the limited resources at h2g2's disposal.

An alternative is to display your picture on some webspace and put a link to it from your User Space.

I'd love to see the picture you have drawn .

Amy

Thanx for replying Amy, I can understand that the BBC are worried about copyright, and that is fair enough but they wont even allow us to request a certain type of picture be created by the community artists which I cant see a problem to be honest.

But the bbc/h2g2 should take notice of the fact that half of there users are from the talk Buffy site and maybe it would be a good idea to have a community artist that created animations for our Talk Buffy Users, I have at least 20 fans in my little friends group alone and they would all love to see some Buffy/Angel related animations on here.

Maybe you could have a word with them on our behalf?

Thanks

Stacey x

The problem with animations is that the filesize is generally much bigger than for a static graphic and the BBC has a policy of only allowing one loop. You will find animated blobs on the site with continuous looping but these were created before the BBC took over. Animations also take much longer to create than static pictures and we are very short of artist time as it is.

For these reasons it has been decided that animations aren't on offer for clubs and societies and I'm sure you can see that it wouldn't be fair to make an exception just for your club.

However, you *are* allowed to request static graphics for your club's page . Have a look at <./>RF22</.> which sets out the criteria and the rules and regs.

Ive done what you suggested, if you want to see it the link is http://groups.msn.com/BuffysSunnydalesecrets/buffyanimations.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=335 its not brilliant but its the first animated style pic ive ever done.

Stacey xx

That's very good. Which graphics package did you use to create it?

Thanks. I havnt actually got a graphics package i just did a drawing and scanned it into my ulead photoshop package and used the paint tool, its not very precise and cant do anything intricate but it worked ok

Stacey x

That's as good a method as any .

I notice you refer to it as an 'animation' but I notice it's a jpeg, which is not an animated format. Are we both meaning the same thing when we talk about animations? I think an animation is a picture with an illusion of movement created by repsenting 2 or more pictures on the screen in rapid succession - just like a cartoon on tv. An example would be <./>B1156898white</.>.

Do you really mean 'digital'?

Probably, I didnt know what the actual name for that type of pic was so i just called it an animation caus it looked like a cartoon but it doesnt actually move no lol

Stacey x

Ah, in that case the answer to your question in post 3 is that I'm sure some of the CAs would love to create a badge and a picture for your club. All you have to do is to get your club page categorised by Natalie and then submit a request for graphics. All is explained on <./>RF22</.>.

I hope you continue to draw because you definitely have talent . If you'd like to learn more about digital art the Community Artists will be delighted to help.

oh great thanx, ill have a look through the artical and find out what we have to do.

Thanks ever so much for your help

Stacey x

You're most welcome.