Spoliation (I mistyped it) is the legal term used by the official. I do not know if it is
accurate in English. I understand it as robbery or spoiling. He considers his information
as reserved in order to protect the sites or the owners, and he is horrified that we
publish the coordinates of each site found on other sources or with the help of local
users. I have checked the applicable law and really some information of heritage databases
may be restricted for this purpose. He probably thinks this is a Wikileaks-like problem.
IMHO, if their location is published on other sources then this is not our concern. I
agree we must be cautious and we probably will split them into diferents tables or tag
them somehow, but this is not easy in Wikipedia without verificable sources.
Vicenç
From: goethe.wiki(a)gmail.com
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:15:05 +0100
To: wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Provoking spolation
Not sure what spolation in the original post means, but I suppose it is ruining the
monuments, right?
My two cents on the matter: I have some experience doing fieldwork in Portugal and Spain
during my PhD. I was looking for amphibians, and the best place to find them is in small
ponds, usually man made, intended to make potable water available for cattle or to water
the crops. Most of these are in private property. In some cases, it was easy to ask
someone in the vicinity who the field belonged too (usually the exact person we found, or
a close relative), but in other places, there was no one to be found in a 10 km radius. In
these cases, we would usually go in anyway (not that I recommend it) and explain ourselves
if someone came by asking what we were doing. Depending on the height of the fence, the
normal reactions would go from curiosity to threats to call the police (not that anyone
did, after we explain what we were doing or left the premisses). It also helped that we
had a permit from the National Nature Conservation Institute to capture the animals.
In addition, in Portugal, hunters are permitted to cross fences up to 3 meters without
permission in designated hunting areas, during hunting days.
In other words, now your local legislation about trespassing, talk to local people and
land owners and explain clearly what your intentions are. The national WLM pages should
perhaps mention something on the lines off:
"Beware that some monuments are located in private property. Be sure to ask for
permission to land owners before entering private land and taking photographs."
Gonçalo
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