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User:Michael Snow/Candidate statement and discussion

I offer here a statement about my reasons for running for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, and my abilities and qualifications related to this position.

To ask me questions about my candidacy, please post your question in the Discussion section below. I speak English, French, and German, so questions in all of those languages are welcome. I can also try reading Italian or Spanish, although I'm not completely fluent in those. I may choose to answer questions in English, to be more precise in my statements and allow more people to understand them (if this is a problem for you, let me know with your question, and I can answer in a different language). My responses to questions will be posted on this page, so that anyone can read them.

Statement by the candidate
The elected positions on the Board of Trustees represent the community as a whole. I think it is critical that the representatives listen carefully to user interests and concerns. We need someone who will represent community interests on the Foundation, and communicate back to the community about Foundation activities. I plan to work diligently and always be available and responsive when people have Foundation-related issues to discuss. I also want to make sure that we do not neglect projects other than Wikipedias, or languages other than English. We need to organize things so that all of our projects have the resources they need to succeed.

Professionally, I am a lawyer, and I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would benefit greatly from having a lawyer on the Board. My legal perspective would help the Foundation with issues related to the operation of a non-profit organization. For example, we need to achieve and maintain tax-exempt status, to encourage donations, and then make sure that donations are used appropriately for the Foundation's charitable purposes. Also, because all of the Foundation's operations involve the handling of intellectual property, I can bring valuable expertise to the Board in dealing with these issues. My professional training and practical experience in these matters would be valuable to have on the Board of Trustees.

I hope that you will support me for Contributing Active Member Representative to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. The Foundation has many great projects, yet has barely tapped its potential - I want to help us achieve that potential.

Thank you, Michael Snow

Treasurer position
Thanks for running - it has taken the pressure off of me to run. :-) My personality type (INTJ) would have forced me to run for the Contributing Active Member Rep if somebody like you (there are only a few people I regard as highly as you) had not decided to run. I also think that Arno will be an excellent choice for Volunteer User Rep. The only problem I see is that I am the de facto Wikimedia treasurer already. Is this a role you would be interested in? Another idea would be for a change in the by-laws to allow the Trustees to appoint officers that then would have to be approved by the membership. --mav 21:27, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, the bylaws provide that the Board of Trustees will designate one of the trustees as Treasurer. I'm not going to presume that would be me, but I am willing to function in that capacity. To the extent that involves assuming duties you currently fulfill, I'm sure an orderly transition can be arranged, leaving you more time for other contributions to the project. Also, I expect that the Treasurer could make use of assistance, either from volunteers or someday, paid staff. I'm not sure that a change in the bylaws would be needed to do that, and in any case the Board has the power to change the bylaws if necessary.

 * I appreciate the kind words as well. Regarding the position of Volunteer User Representative, I am not personally going to comment on any candidate. I am not running as part of a "ticket" with anyone, and I respect any candidate who may choose to run for either position. I encourage everyone to support the candidates they feel are best qualified. Naturally, Mav can support whomever he wants and express that as he feels appropriate. --Michael Snow 22:46, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

 * After additional consideration I've decided to run. My main reasons for doing so are
 * The election will not be first past the post, so my running will not lesson the chances of a person I want to win from becoming a board member.
 * Finals and final projects are over, so I'm free to spend the time needed to run.
 * None of the leading candidates seemed particularly interested in financial matters.
 * But since this is approval voting, I still will be voting for you. :) What we really need is an expanded board (or at least the two seats now being held by non-active Wikimedians). --mav 20:55, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you for the courteous notice. You don't have to justify yourself to me, as I have no reason to be offended, but it's good to know why you're running, since I'm a voter too. --Michael Snow 21:17, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Our content license
Hi. I am glad to see someone with legal expertise would run for the election.

I am wondering if the Foundation would have a talk with FSF regarding GFDL, so that we can either get some custom-made version of GFDL successor license or something else that fits to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Is this potentially something you would care? Tomos 17:56, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I am definitely interested in future developments in the GFDL. The Wikimedia Foundation should certainly work with the Free Software Foundation to have input on future versions of the GFDL, since we are a major user of that license. If an updated version fits our needs, it should be possible to use that version. However, given the nature of copyleft licenses, it would be difficult to change to a different license. In any case, whatever license we use for any of our projects, we should make sure the license is not so customized that it becomes effectively impossible for others to use that license. To be copyleft, the license has to be as readily reusable as the content. --Michael Snow 21:53, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your answer. :) And I did not mean to be tricky or anything when I talked about customization. it is true that customization might compromise the freedom of others to use wikimedia projects' materials. I was just concerned about those requirements on title of the document, principal authors, history, etc. of GFDL. It seems that it is hard to strictly comply with them in some cases. Regarding switching the license, I am one of those people who is hoping (and hopeful) that GFDL and CC-by-sa will become mutually compatible. I also recall some mailinglist discussion in which people talk about the possibility that FSF allows us to switch to a different, more suited license from GFDL. Tomos 03:52, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I was only trying to clarify, not criticize, and you raised important issues. I primarily wanted to reiterate that I believe our commitment to open content will guide our choice of which licenses to use, and what kinds of features those licenses should have. --Michael Snow 19:10, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Experience
Mike I am considering giving you my vote for Contributing Active Member Representative but the issue has arrisen on irc chat that you have not been using wikipedia long enough to warrant such a vote. Could you explain in detail why your lack of expierence (compared to other members) should be overlooked? GrazingshipIV 17:48, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

 * I will answer this in three ways:

 * Some of my qualifications and experience that relate to serving on the Board of Trustees are not specific to Wikipedia, so I have a lot more experience than just the time that I have been on Wikipedia.
 * I think I have demonstrated enough familiarity with our policies and processes to be a fully qualified candidate in that respect. What I lack is not experience - it's seniority. If seniority is an important consideration for people, they should vote accordingly, and I respect that.
 * I believe the more important question is not how long I have been here, but whether I am dedicated enough to the overall project. The elected trustees will serve for a term of one year. I am absolutely committed to still being active in the Wikimedia Foundation at the end of that year, and to representing community interests for the full duration of that year if elected.

 * I will elaborate some more on each of these points, since you asked for detail. However, I don't know what issues people want to know about, so anybody is welcome to ask me about this directly.

 * Point 1 - Because the Board of Trustees will face many questions involving legal issues, I think it would be very beneficial to have someone with legal expertise on the Board. As far as I know, Jimbo Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael Davis are not lawyers, and none of the other candidates so far are lawyers. I'm not suggesting that I should have final say on all legal questions, or even that the Foundation should be getting its legal advice from me. But I do think my experience and perspective about the law would be valuable to have on the Board.

 * Point 2 - I think it's fair to expect the elected representatives to be familiar with the community and our policies. The scope of our activity is so broad that nobody can be involved in everything at once, but they should know how to find things when needed. In that regard, I believe I am completely qualified. As an example, one of the projects I have been working on recently is Topical index. This is a thorough index, organized by subject, of the pages in the Wikipedia namespace (sort of like Utilities, but more complete). Although the Topical index may not be of practical use to everyone, I encourage people to take a glance at it and get a feel for the scope of this project (which is still ongoing).

 * In order to categorize pages, obviously I had to read them all first. As a result, I think I am quite familiar with our policies, policy discussions, and how the community works. Both through this project and out of personal interest, I have read a lot of "historical" discussion not only on Wikipedia, but also on Meta and the mailing lists. As a result, I have "experienced" many things that happened before I began participating personally. One of the great things about the wiki system is the preservation of history, so people can see how we got to where we are.

 * Point 3 - Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself whether you believe that I'm committed enough to this community. All I can add is that very experienced users, like Mav above, are willing to consider supporting me and don't seem to doubt my commitment. I don't believe I have done anything that should lead anybody to question whether I'm committed to the success of the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. --Michael Snow 21:41, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Trustee expenses / Bar membership
In the past, I have served on the board of a non-profit, and never requested reimbursement for my travel and lodging expenses. During the one year term from 2004 to 2005, if elected as trustee, would you submit travel, dining, and hotel expenses to the Wikimedia Foundation for reimbursement? I feel this is an important point considering the current general ledger of the Foundation. Also, I would like to confirm that your Washington State Bar Association number is 31665. --"D ICK " C HENEY 22:27, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Given your compensation from Halliburton, it's easy for you to say that you don't need to be reimbursed for your expenses. But to answer the question seriously, I would expect to abide by the same guidelines as the other trustees. I'm not going to categorically say that I won't submit expenses for reimbursement, but it's my understanding that this is not currently being done. For example, I don't believe the Foundation is paying for Jimbo Wales' upcoming trip to Europe. Since I don't expect the practice to change anytime soon, I don't anticipate that I would be requesting reimbursement of any travel-related expenses.

 * Also, while the bylaws do allow the trustees to receive expenses for attending meetings, I don't believe this will be necessary. The bylaws also allow for meetings to be held by telephone or even online chat, and unless all the trustees live in Florida, I expect this is how meetings will normally be held. In that case, no travel is required. Any other traveling I might do I plan to pay for myself, with the understanding that my ability to travel on behalf of the Foundation would be limited by my personal budget.

 * Finally, yes, my Washington State Bar Association number is 31665. --Michael Snow 01:07, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Have you been admitted to the bar of any other state? Just so you know, I will be contacting the Washington State Bar Association tomorrow. If everything smells kosher, I am inclined to enthusiastically support your request for trusteeship... Though you might not want to make it public that the Republican Party and American petroleum and petrochemical industries are actively supporting you. --"D ICK " C HENEY 02:03, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

 * No, I'm not a member of the bar in any other state. And if I really had that kind of political backing, I would prefer they just donate directly to the Foundation. With the clear understanding, of course, that the Foundation will not accept any limitations on how the funds are to be used, and that the money most definitely will not be used to promote a particular point of view. --Michael Snow 06:06, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Languages other than English
Bonjour Michael.

Tu indiques parler également français et allemand. Autant que je puisse le dire, je ne t'ai jamais vu contribuer sur la wikipedia francophone. As tu déjà contribué à la germanophone ? As tu parfois ressenti le besoin de venir rendre visite aux autres wikis, pour voir comment cela se passe au dela des liens interwikis ? Comment comptes tu représenter les participants non anglophones ? ant

 * (Anthere notes that although I speak French and German, she hasn't seen me contribute to the French Wikipedia, and asks if I have contributed to the German Wikipedia. She also asks if I have felt the need to visit other wikis, and how I propose to represent non-English-speaking participants.)

 * Although I speak French and German, I haven't yet contributed to the Wikipedias in those languages. One reason is that I dislike having to log in separately to each project, and I think we really need to get the proposed universal login system done. Also, many of my contributions are probably better made on the English Wikipedia, for a variety of reasons. For example, I do a fair amount of spelling and grammar correction, tasks that I feel are best done by native speakers of the language, so I wouldn't tackle those in French or German. Also, while I've worked extensively in the Wikipedia namespace in English, I would hesitate to do that very much in French or German. Since I'm not intimately familiar with those communities, I might inadvertently assume that some English Wikipedia policy applies when in fact it doesn't, or even have people think I'm trying to unilaterally impose English Wikipedia policies on our other projects. I respect the independence of each of our projects and their freedom to develop certain policies according to individual needs.

 * To represent non-English-speakers in the Foundation, in one sense it would be ideal to have representatives from every language. Unfortunately, in choosing a Board of Trustees this is impractical and would create a massive, unwieldy Board. However, this does not prevent different language Wikipedias and other projects from choosing someone to represent their interests to the Foundation. These could essentially be non-voting delegates to the Foundation, who would communicate on behalf of a particular segment of the community. The elected representatives on the Board would then need to pay particular attention to what these delegates have to tell them. Wikipedia Embassy is a good start in this regard, although I believe most of the ambassadors are volunteers rather than being selected somehow by the other users in that language. But volunteering is the first step, as long as the ambassadors/delegates keep in mind that they need to represent their community's interests, not just their personal opinions.

 * About visiting other wikis, I'm not sure if Anthere is merely asking whether I've visited other wiki projects that are part of the Wikimedia Foundation, or whether she also means other wikis generally. The answer is that I have explored both to some extent. The other Wikimedia projects are fascinating to watch develop, especially if I can make out anything at all of the language (and even if I can't, I can get a vague idea of its progress based on how far it's gotten in translating the residual English text). I really enjoyed reviewing Erik Zachte's gallery of Wikipedia main pages in different languages. As for wikis in general, I have spent some time exploring to see what other wikis are about, and how wiki communities work in general. However, there I only observe and don't take the time to contribute, as the focus of my participation is here. --Michael Snow 05:46, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Favourite contributions
Just out of curiosity, and i am asking this to everyone who is standing, i would like to post a question. Could you point me to two or three of your favourite contributions in Wikipedia? Not the whole bunch of them, which I am sure you all have in powers of 10, but that special article you wrote, or made substancial changes to, and makes you happy. Just to see what you've been up to :) Cheers and all the best to you all, MvHG 15:14, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Two that are special enough for me that they come to mind quickly are Aashurah, an Islamic holy day, and the movie Fantasia 2000. Not that there's anything extraordinary about my contributions, other than the fact that I started both articles (my actual contribution to Aashurah was basically a stub). But I'll try to explain what makes them memorable to me.

 * I actually wrote the Aashurah article to illustrate a point I was making about the possibility of including items in the Selected anniversaries section of the Main Page in a format other than Gregorian calendar dates. This was about a week in advance of the actual day. I also thought the occasion would be appropriate to mention because it would be a major event in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. As it turned out, events on that day were significant enough that Aashurah landed on the In the news section instead. This also prompted a quick expansion of my meager start to the article. While I'm not clairvoyant enough to have anticipated how newsworthy the day would be, it was nice to see a little piece of my work get picked up by the community, caught up in events, and carried forward into something more substantial.

 * Fantasia 2000 is simply an article I had planned to write for a while and finally did it. The two Fantasia movies mean a lot to me as a musician, and in contributing to the Fantasia article, I noticed that an article needed to be written about the sequel. Eventually, I got around to actually writing the new article.

 * So anyway, these are two articles that make me happy, and that I enjoy seeing in our encyclopedia. I hope this small glimpse into my contributions manages to answer your question. --Michael Snow 23:40, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks! Its nice to see all the different kinds of answers. Happy election! MvHG 10:42, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Voting system for this election
Hi. Due to the concerns of a number of people, we are considering adopting a new system to replace First Past the Post. What is your preference? Please respond to WikiElections AT aol DOT com. This is not an assurance that the system will be changed, but rather an attempt to gauge the will of the electorate. Danny 04:04, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Since the email address provided is only available to the election inspectors, I have copied the text of my response here, if anyone is interested.

 * I appreciate the effort to consult with the candidates, but after considering the matter, I am not going to express any preference. Since the outcome of the vote will affect me personally, my preferences could be seen as a strategic recommendation designed to increase my chances of winning, rather than an honest opinion about the merits of different voting systems.

 * Instead, I will trust the process to run its course. I have confidence that the election inspectors can implement an appropriate system, in consultation with the community. Ultimately, I assume that some kind of approval for the process from Jimbo Wales and the existing trustees is also called for, since the bylaws state "The Board of Trustees shall determine the dates, rules and regulation of the voting procedures".

 * Regardless of what voting system is used, I am committed to running for Contributing Active Member Representative. --Michael Snow 04:37, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

License compatibility issues
As you're probably aware, one of the issues the project has is the wide variation in what can and can't be used under copyright law in different jurisdictions and the differing definitions of free used by contributors to the project. How will you seek to resolve the inevitable tension between those who want a completely free to use public domain Wikipedia, those who want to make full use of all works they are free to use under the copyright law of their jurisdiction, those who want a GFDL only encyclopedia, those who want a copyleft encyclopedia and those who want the best possible encyclopedia and accept all content which doesn't infringe copyright, even if some of it might be hard for all reusers, or a small number of reusers? The most compatible license is public domain, so does that mean that you prefer public domain content over other content? Would you want to strongly favor public domain content to maximise the freedom to reuse the work? How do you believe that increasing or decreasing the acceptability of licensed content will increase or decrease the participation in the project? How do you believe it will increase or decrease the chance of a competing project to fill any gaps in what we accept?

You mentioned considering the requirements of non-US jurisdictions. As you're probably aware, fair dealing is generally far less broad than fair use in the US, so non-US jurisdictions are likely to require far greater use of licensed content than a US work if they want to provide comprehensive coverage of things from the last century or so, with non-US uploaders possibly needing a license to contribute something a US person could contribute under fair use. How do you believe the desire to provide comprehensive coverage of recent non-US topics and the desire to have a GFDL-free work can be reconciled without harming the coverage of those non-US topics? How do you believe the presence of extensive fair use materials can be reconciled with the desire to have non-US version published in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the many other English language and non-English language jurisdictions where fair use materials are not acceptable? Should the projects be limited to what is acceptable under the copyright law of the most restrictive jurisdiction? Jamesday 07:28, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

 * You ask many questions involving complex issues, so my response will be somewhat lengthy. I appreciate the patience of those reading it.

 * The public domain (which is not a license, by the way - nobody owns it, so nobody can license it) is a wonderful resource for us. However, this is not a purely public domain project, and due to the nature of copyleft, I don't see how it can ever be. We can't unring the bell for all the contributions that have been made under the GFDL. I respect the opinions of people who believe that copyright should not exist on principle, but it's unrealistic to believe that copyright will be legally abolished anytime soon. If people want to try creating an encyclopedia that is entirely in the public domain, that's great, but that is not this project, and such an encyclopedia would be unable to use a lot of our content. Individuals are of course welcome to declare all their personal contributions in the public domain if they wish.

 * As for the objectives of freedom and quality, I believe one purpose of our project is to show that those two objectives can go together, consistent with the spirit of copyleft. I don't think we should favor any kind of content, other than the best content, as long as it's free for us and others to reuse. We want the best possible encyclopedia (speaking of the Wikipedias) in terms of overall quality, and accepting non-free content to make it "better" in one isolated spot would be hypocritical. Reusability is critical, because we purport to license our content for other people to reuse, and because in the wiki system we reuse it ourselves every time we modify it.

 * Behind the tension you identify is a definitional problem about what is "free", and this extends beyond the Wikimedia Foundation to the system of copyleft in general. This stems from the fact that copyleft licenses promote freedom, in the sense of preventing proprietary modification, by attaching requirements to the use of the content. Complying with these requirements is, hopefully, a smaller sacrifice of freedom, but it does reduce freedom. One problem is the difficulty of mixing two copyleft licenses, or transferring from one license to another, even though both have the same underlying philosophy. I think the real solution lies in improving the flexibility of copyleft as a principle. That would also allow us to be more flexible in accepting content. In this sense, increasing our acceptance of licensed content would reduce gaps and increase participation.

 * Moving on to the more specific question of fair use and fair dealing, I actually prefer the term "fair practice". This is the term used in Article 10 of the Berne Convention, which allows quotations compatible with fair practice, provided that the source and author are mentioned. I think relying on international law is the better choice, especially since the Berne Convention is so widely adopted, rather than US-based fair use or Commonwealth-oriented fair dealing. This is why I have repeatedly advocated requiring source information for such material.

 * However, the real problem here is that whatever term we use, the law typically decides these questions on a case-by-case basis. Since each case is different, this makes it difficult for us to establish simple policies with bright-line rules. If one jurisdiction tends to be less permissive than another, that complicates the matter even further. But educational use is one case that is often permitted, which we should rely on if possible. I think we can argue that all of our content is educational in nature (and will generally stay that way, even when used commercially or reused by others). I am also hopeful that eventually the laws of different countries will become more consistent and allow us to use what we need. We should push to expand the ability to use material from other sources, so that we're not limited to what's allowed by the most restrictive jurisdiction. This is one of the few areas where the Foundation can justify political activism, which is normally off-limits for nonprofit organizations.

 * In the meantime, our approach needs to take the medium into consideration. For our online content, I prefer a relatively lenient approach, erring on the side of including content that has a good argument for legitimacy. Here it is easy to remove something that we're not allowed to use, and the DMCA and OCILLA can help shield the Foundation from liability. Print versions being distributed in various countries are a different question, because we need to consider the law of the country of distribution, and because we cannot "unpublish" hard copies. But since print versions will have to be selective in their content anyway, we can take this issue into account when making the selections. --Michael Snow 00:38, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Compliance issues
Hi. May I ask your view on Wikipedia's current state of GFDL compliance? Do you see, for example, any systemic or severe problem infringing either outsiders' or wikipedians' rights? Tomos 00:46, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * The concerns I have seen raised most frequently with respect to our GFDL compliance relate to history and author attribution. There is also the issue of compliance when we copy material from other copyleft sources, which may or may not be GFDL. My overall view is that our current practices largely satisfy the terms of the GFDL and are within the spirit of copyleft. For every legitimate criticism I have seen of our practices, I think we can make a reasonable argument that we are acting properly. We could improve in a few areas - for example, when copying from other copyleft sources, we should at least manage the basic GFDL compliance we expect of outsiders who copy our content.

 * But rather than get hung up on the technicalities of copyleft licenses, I think we should also allow for the concept of substantial compliance. The GFDL will get into situations its authors didn't specifically plan for, where its terms may not be applicable or may create unanticipated obstacles. Thus, as I also said to Jamesday above, I believe a certain amount of flexibility needs to be accepted within copyleft. Naturally, we should still strive to comply with the exact terms of our license as much as possible. On some of these issues, we should also promote future updates to copyleft licenses that would make true compliance more practical, both for us and others. --Michael Snow 17:57, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. :-) I certainly share the feeling that GFDL's technical details are not helpful for our efficient use of the wikis. I remember Alex once said reasonable compliance could be enough in US court . While that's a very good news, Japanese Wikipedia is aiming for the literal compliance because Japanese wikipedians do not assume that the concept of substantial compliance is valid in Japanese law/ court. Tomos 02:13, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * The standard legal term is substantial compliance, but Alex was clearly talking about the same concept. We are drawing on US law for that, and I don't know the extent to which other countries have comparable legal principles. One reason for the emphasis on US law is that the GFDL is ultimately a US creation, written with US law in mind, and easiest to understand and apply using US legal concepts. This is a little different from copyright law, where each country has its own rules, and we reconcile these problems by using international standards like the Berne Convention. In interpreting the GFDL, there is at least some hope that a non-US court would consider US law, because that's what the license is based on. Keep in mind also that the Free Software Foundation considers the English version of its licenses to be definitive, and translations are only unofficial.

 * However, you are quite right that we should not ignore concerns about GFDL compliance based on non-US law. I am very interested to learn that the Japanese Wikipedians have some concerns in this regard. Is the Japanese Wikipedia doing anything particularly different from the English Wikipedia in aiming for literal compliance? I'm not suggesting that the Japanese Wikipedia can't have different policies (everyone always seems to cite the German Wikipedia's prohibition of fair use images), but I think it helps if the Foundation is aware of issues like this. Then people can understand why differences need to exist, and also come to the recognition that we're all really not that different. --Michael Snow 17:53, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you very much for your answer, and I am glad to know that you think the board should be aware of those issues. For example, we are supposed to preserve edit history (author, date, time, comments) in a subpage when we copy-and-paste japanese wikipedia materials (specified as ja. equivalent of Wikipedia:Copyright), and place a link to the subpage from the space between the page title and the main text. But maybe that's too much technical and a bit inappropriate for this page. English Wikipedia suggests that link back might be enough, as you know. It is on my to do list to better inform these legal discussions and arrangements at ja to the wikimedia community at large, as well as to ensure those terms are more or less coordinated among projects. I cannot help but wonder how much of these differences grow over time among different projects/ languages. The Board's attention might help at times. Again, I appreciate your interest. Tomos 06:18, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Dues
How much do you think dues should be? anthony

 * A short question, but there's a lot to consider in this issue, and I will respond in some detail.

 * At this point, I do not have a set amount in mind. The Board of Trustees will need to consider a number of issues in terms of setting dues and establishing the different membership classifications provided for in the bylaws. There is the question of how to set dues in multiple currencies, and also concerns about how to do this appropriately when exchange rates do not always reflect standards of living (for example, a euro may be little enough to many Europeans, but the equivalent amount of cash might be a week's or a month's wages in some poorer countries). But one thing I can say for certain is that any dues should be reasonable, and ideally dues would be low enough to be within the means of practically all of our contributors.

 * I also observed that one idea you promoted as a candidate is having dues set at zero. For the purposes of this election, of course, they are. Other people have also indicated that they don't see the point in differentiating between contributing active members and volunteer members, or in having a separate representative for each group. If the community feels strongly enough about these issues, the Board could change the provisions of the bylaws regarding dues and membership classifications. I'm not opposed to these ideas, just waiting to get a better sense of what we want to do as a community.

 * However, I also think the Foundation also needs to take into account a part of the community we often take for granted - our readers. The editing community will be represented on the Board, but we also should consider the needs of our readers, so perhaps we can allow readers to be represented as members of the Foundation by paying dues instead. One possibility I have thought about is rearranging membership classifications to allow people to qualify for membership either by contributing content or by paying dues. The two could be separate classes, and people could qualify as members in both. We know there are many people who read our content regularly, but choose not to edit for a variety of reasons. Allowing them to pay dues instead would be one possible way of allowing readers a voice in the Foundation. This might be a little similar to the classification of sustaining member in the bylaws, although that looks like it was designed with more substantial donors in mind.

 * Some additional points are worth considering. The Foundation will need sources of funding, and having annual dues for members may be useful in terms of defraying basic operating costs. However, I do not want dues to become simply a means of buying a right to vote. Accordingly, we could perhaps provide something of benefit to dues-paying members. With this in mind, I think we might use an approach like that of the National Geographic Society, which Jimbo Wales has repeatedly cited as an example of his vision for the type of organization the Foundation can become. That is, we can provide some special content to members in return for their dues. By this, I definitely do not mean turning our sites into subscription services. But we could put something together and offer it to members as a bonus, whether it takes the form of a printed magazine, an email newsletter, or something else. For cost reasons, a glossy magazine like National Geographic might not be practical right now, but it's not like we lack for potential content. (Incidentally, as a frame of reference for setting dues, an introductory subscription to National Geographic is available for $19 US.) --Michael Snow 06:08, 30 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
Daboecia

Daboecia, or St. Dabeoc's heath, is a small genus of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, containing two evergreen shrubs, closely related to the genus Erica. They are native to cliffs and heathland in southern Atlantic Europe and the Azores.

Description
They produce urn-shaped flowers in shades of white, pink and red. Daboecia differ from European Erica species in having a substantially larger corolla. The leaves are always alternate in Daboecia, never whorled. The generic name comes from the Irish Saint Dabheog.

Distribution
Daboecia has an oceanic distribution in western Europe, including western Ireland, western France, northwestern Spain, northwestern mainland Portugal and the Central Group of the Azores. Like Erica and Calluna species, Daboecia are calcifuges, but will tolerate neutral soils and avoid peat.

Species
Some botanists regard D. azorica as a subspecies of D. cantabrica, which would render the genus monospecific.
 * Daboecia azorica Tutin & E. F. Warb.
 * Daboecia cantabrica (Huds.) K. Koch (Irish heath)

Cultivation
The two species have been extensively cultivated and hybridised to produce a number of popular garden plants. Cultivars include selections from the hybrid between the two species, which is named Daboecia × scotica.

The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (confirmed 2017):

 * D. cantabrica 'Waley's Red'
 * D. cantabrica subsp. scotica 'Silverwells'
 * D. cantabrica subsp. scotica 'William Hicks'

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Daboecia


text:
Bunita Marcus

Bunita Marcus (born May 5, 1952) is an American composer.

Bunita met Morton Feldman in 1976, beginning a long association that lasted until his death in 1987. For seven years they were inseparable. Feldman and Marcus composed side by side, sharing musical thoughts and ideas. In 1985 Feldman dedicated to her his new piano composition: "For Bunita Marcus."

title: Bunita Marcus


text:
Hoel III, Count of Nantes

Hoèl of Cornwall (died 1156) was count of Nantes, from 1148 to his death. He was raised the son of Duke Conan III and Maud FitzRoy, an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England. However, he was disinherited by his father when on his death-bed, as Conan III claimed that Hoèl was illegitimate and no son of his. Bertha then became heiress to Duke Conan's lands in Brittany, while Hoèl was allowed to remain Count of Nantes. He was accused by St. Bernard of Clairvaux of having an incestuous affair with his sister Bertha.

The traditional story of the disinheritance might be a fable. Viscount Charles de la Lande de Calan proposed, in 1908, that Hoël was an illegitimate son for whom Conan III decided to provide Nantes for his support. The name Hoël had been used for illegitimate sons of the counts of Nantes. Katharine Keats-Rohan, in 1996, proposed that Conan III disinherited his legitimate son for the purpose of unifying Brittany through the marriage of his daughter Bertha to her cousin Alan, whose father inherited two of the provinces of Brittany. Hoël was given Nantes for his lifetime. This arrangement would have required years of planning to implement, and might have begun before Hoël was born.

Supported by Geoffrey FitzEmpress, Henry II's younger brother in 1156 the Nantaise rebelled against Hoèl and drove him out of the country. Control of Nantes was part of a larger strategy in the ongoing war between Stephen of England and Empress Matilda. With his sister's marriage to Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond, Brittany entered the conflict on the side of Stephen.

Shortly after his exile from Nantes, Hoèl of Cornwall may have sought sanctuary at the Cistercian abbey of Melleray, where he may have died shortly thereafter.

title: Hoel III, Count of Nantes


text:
User:Patterson~enwiki

The Patterson is a small brook, originating in the mountains of Worcester, Vermont, and flowing into the North Branch of the Winooski river. It is often mistakenly referred to as Shady Rill. Flowing over igneous rock, it is low in plantlife, and supports only small populations of salamanders and insect larvae. Nevertheless, each spring it is stocked with 2000 large brook trout, and hosts the Shady Rill children's fishing derby.

title: User:Patterson~enwiki


text:
Talk:Composite data type

This is just wrong. These are NOT what C and C++ call composite types. A struct is what C calls an aggregate type. a composite type in C is a completely different type. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.35.35.34 (talk) 17:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Is the article justified?
I think this article and record are describing essentially the same concept. Perhaps it should be merged with that as well.

Derrick Coetzee 16:55, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I think this article has its own meaning of existence - besides two similar articles Object composition and C++ structure - and should not be merged. Deryck C. 09:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

 * This article does not seem sufficiently justified. The notion of "composite type" is extremely broad, rather fuzzy, and language-dependent, so there is little that can be said in general about this class that is not better said in the data type article itself and more specific articles.  Ditto for primitive type.  Indeed the distinction between the two is quite debatable; S-expressions for example are a primitive type for LISP but definitely a composite type, and strings in C are just arrays.  Methinks that primitive type and composite type should be a very short articles, little more than dictionary entries, with all material moved to data type or other articles. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see what you mean. S-expressions themselves are not data types and arrays aren't composite types. Mike92591 (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is my turn to say: I don't see what you mean. In most languages, such as Pascal, the programmer can define new array types. By the article's own definition, those are composite types. As for S-expressions, they are THE main data type in LISP; why do you say "not data types"? All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 20:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The article's definition is incorrect. Like composite types, arrays are derived types but, there is a significant difference. Composite types are aggregates. Here's an example:

 * actually contains the types  and   but   just uses them. S-expressions are just expressions. You're probably thinking of lists but, those can be broken down further into "atoms". Mike92591 (talk) 00:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Also, Struct should be merged with it. Mike92591 (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I can see merit in having articles on struct (C programming language), or composite type (C++), or generally XXX type (YYY programming language). However, different languages have not only vastly different type systems, but also vastly different nomenclatures for speaking about types and vastly different ways of classifying and defining them. Thus any article on a special class of data types that is not tied to some language risks being biased and arbitrary. Methinks this is the case with this article. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 20:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.183.23.147 (talk) 03:02, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

It is definitely wrong. there is no composition of types in aggregates, only a simple arrangement of older types in a structure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.179.218.41 (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposed move of (most of) the "C/C++ structures and classes" section into struct (C programming language)
If nobody has any objections, I'm going to merge a big chunk of this article (the examples specific to C and C++) into the article struct (C programming language). I think this article has better language for the most part, but the other article covers a couple things this one doesn't. --Libertyernie2 (talk) 21:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Composite data type


text:
Odo II, Viscount of Porhoët

Odo II, Count of Porhoet (died after 1180) was the son of Geoffroy, Viscount de Porhoët, and his wife Hawise (possibly Fergant). He became Duke of Brittany in 1148, jure uxoris, upon his marriage to Bertha, Duchess of Brittany.

On Bertha's death, Odo II denied her son Conan IV of Penthièvre, Duke of Brittany his inheritance. While Odo II's marriage to Bertha was his first, it was her second marriage, her first being to Alain 'le Noir' de Penthièvre, Lord of Richmond (Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond). Odo II allied with his brother-in-law, Hoèl, Count of Nantes. Odo II was deposed by his stepson Conan IV in 1156, and taken prisoner by Conan IV's ally Raoul de Fougères.

He married secondly, in 1167, a daughter of Guihomar IV, Viscount of Léon, and his wife Nobilis, sometimes identified by the names Eleanor or Joan by later authors

Issue
Odo II had two children with Bertha:
 * Geoffrey de Porhoët
 * Adelaide (or Alix) of Porhoët (d. 1220). She was sent to Henry II of England's court as a hostage and was alleged by his enemies to have become his mistress. This accusation remains unclear. She later became Abbess of Fontevrault.

Odo and his second wife had three or four children:
 * Odo III of Porhoët (died 1231). He was married, but the name of his wife is not known.
 * Harvey or Henry of Porhoët
 * Eleanor of Porhoët, wife of Conan of Penthièvre, de La Roche-Derrien, son of Henry of Penthièvre, Count of Tréguier and Guingamp, and Mathilde de Vendôme.
 * maybe Alice of Porhoët, who married into the Mauvoisin family

title: Odo II, Viscount of Porhoët


text:
Richard Rodney Bennett

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29 March 1936 – 24 December 2012) was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012.

Life and career
Bennett was born at Broadstairs, Kent, but was raised in Devon during World War II. His mother, Joan Esther, née Spink (1901–1983) was a pianist who had trained with Gustav Holst and sang in the first professional performance of The Planets. His father, Rodney Bennett (1890–1948), was a children's book author, poet and lyricist, who worked with Roger Quilter on his theatre works and provided new words for some of the numbers in the Arnold Book of Old Songs.

Bennett was a pupil at Leighton Park School. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Ferguson and Lennox Berkeley. Ferguson regarded him as extraordinarily brilliant, having perhaps the greatest talent of any British composer in his generation, though lacking in a personal style. During this time, Bennett attended some of the Darmstadt summer courses in 1955, where he was exposed to serialism. He later spent two years in Paris as a student of the prominent serialist Pierre Boulez between 1957 and 1959. He always used both his first names after finding another Richard Bennett active in music.

Bennett taught at the Royal Academy of Music between 1963 and 1965, at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, United States from 1970 to 1971, and was later International Chair of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music between 1994 and the year 2000. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1977, and was knighted in 1998.

Bennett produced over 200 works for the concert hall, and 50 scores for film and television. He was also a writer and performer of jazz songs for 50 years. Immersed in the techniques of the European avant-garde via his contact with Boulez, Bennett subsequently developed his own dramato-abstract style. In his later years, he adopted an increasingly tonal idiom.

Bennett regularly performed as a jazz pianist, with such singers as Cleo Laine, Marion Montgomery (until her death in 2002), Mary Cleere Haran (until her death in 2011), and more recently with Claire Martin, performing the Great American Songbook. Bennett and Martin performed at such venues as The Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, and The Pheasantry and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.

In later years, in addition to his musical activities, Bennett became known as an artist working in the medium of collage. He exhibited these collages several times in England, including at the Holt Festival, Norfolk in 2011, and at the Swaledale Festival, Yorkshire, in 2012. The first exhibition of his collages was in London in 2010, at the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre, curated by the Nightingale Project, a charity that takes music and art into hospitals. Bennett was a patron of this charity. Bennett is honoured with four photographic portraits in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Bennett was gay and in 1995 Gay Times nominated him as one of the most influential gay people in music.

Anthony Meredith's biography of Bennett was published in November 2010. Bennett is survived by his sister Meg (born 1930), the poet M. R. Peacocke, with whom he collaborated on a number of vocal works.

Bennett's cremated remains are buried in Section 112, Plot 45456 at Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. His grave is marked by a grey granite headstone.

Music
Despite his early studies in modernist techniques, Bennett's tastes were eclectic. He wrote in a wide range of styles, including jazz, for which he had a particular fondness. Early on, he began to write music for feature films. He said that it was as if the different styles of music that he was writing went on 'in different rooms, albeit in the same house'. Later in his career the different aspects all became equally celebrated – for example in his 75th birthday year (2011), there were numerous concerts featuring all the different strands of his work. At the BBC Proms for example his Murder on the Orient Express Suite was performed in a concert of film music, and in the same season his Dream Dancing and Jazz Calendar were also featured. Also at the Wigmore Hall, London, on 23 March 2011 (a few days before his 75th birthday), a double concert took place in which his Debussy-inspired piece Sonata After Syrinx was performed in the first concert, and in the Late Night Jazz Event which followed, Bennett and Claire Martin performed his arrangements of the Great American Songbook (Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart and so on). See also Tom Service's appreciation of Bennett's music published in The Guardian in July 2012.

Film and television scores
He wrote music for films and television; among his scores were the Doctor Who story The Aztecs (1964) for television, and the feature films Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) and Equus (1977). His scores for Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), each earned him Academy Award nominations, with Murder on the Orient Express gaining a BAFTA award. Later works include Enchanted April (1992), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1999) and Gormenghast (2000). He was also a prolific composer of orchestral works, piano solos, choral works and operas. Despite this eclecticism, Bennett's music rarely involved stylistic crossover.

Instrumental works

 * Sonata (1954) - for piano, first published work
 * Farnham Festival Overture (1964) - for orchestra
 * Symphony No. 1 (1965)
 * Impromptus (1968) - for guitar
 * Symphony No. 2 (1968) - commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
 * Party Piece (1971) - for orchestra
 * Scena II (1973) - for solo cello; commissioned by the Music Department of the University College of North Wales, Bangor, with funds from Welsh Arts Council, first performed by Judith Mitchell 25 April 1974
 * Viola Concerto (1973) - commissioned by the Northern Sinfonia for Roger Best.
 * Music for Strings (1977)
 * Harpsichord Concerto (1980) - premiere conducted by Leonard Slatkin. St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Richard Rodney Bennett, harpsichord
 * Sonatina (1981) - for solo clarinet
 * After Syrinx I (1982) - for oboe and piano
 * Summer Music (1982) - for flute and piano
 * Sonata (1983) - for solo guitar
 * After Syrinx II (1984) - for solo marimba
 * A Little Suite (1986) - based on selections from Rodney Bennett's song cycles The Insect World and The Aviary.
 * Morning Music (1986) - for wind band
 * Symphony No. 3 (1987)
 * Concerto (1988) - for alto saxophone
 * Marimba Concerto (1988)
 * Concerto for Stan Getz (1990) - for tenor saxophone, timpani and strings
 * Partridge Pie (1990) - based on The Twelve Days of Christmas
 * Percussion Concerto (1990) - commissioned by and first performed at St Magnus Festival, Orkney, soloist Dame Evelyn Glennie, 1990
 * Over the Hills and Far Away (1991) - for piano 4 hands
 * The Four Seasons (1991) - for symphonic wind ensemble
 * Dream Sequence (1992) - for cello and piano, first performed in December 1994 at the Wigmore Hall, London by Julian Lloyd Webber and John Lenehan (1992)
 * Trumpet Concerto (1993) - for trumpet and wind orchestra
 * Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune (1999) - for string orchestra or double wind quintet
 * Lilliburlero Variations (2008) - for two pianos, commissioned by the Dranoff 2 Piano Foundation in Miami
 * Fanfare (2012) - for brass quintet

Operas

 * The Ledge (1961) - libretto by Adrian Mitchell
 * The Midnight Thief (1964) - libretto by Ian Serraillier
 * The Mines of Sulphur (1965) - libretto by Beverley Cross
 * A Penny for a Song (1967)
 * All the King's Men (1968) - libretto by Beverley Cross
 * Victory (1970) - libretto by Beverley Cross

Ballet

 * Jazz Calendar (1968)
 * Isadora (1981)

Choral and vocal works

 * Tom o' Bedlam's Song (1961) - voice and cello
 * The Birds Lament (1966)
 * Five Carols: There is No Rose, Out of Your Sleep, That Younge Child, Sweet was the Song, Susanni (1967) - written for St Matthew's Church Northampton
 * Spells (1974) - written for soprano Jane Manning
 * Sea Change (1983)
 * Nonsense (1984) - chorus and piano duet, a setting of the seven poems by Mervyn Peake
 * Missa Brevis (1990)
 * On Christmas Day to My Heart, (1998) - written for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College Chapel, Cambridge in 1999.
 * A Good-Night (1999)
 * The Garden – A Serenade to Glimmerglass (2006) - commissioned by Nicholas Russell for Glimmerglass Opera in honour of Stewart Robertson for its Young American Artists Program

Albums
Solo: with Marion Montgomery with Carol Sloane (singer) with Chris Connor (singer) with Mary Cleere Haran (singer) with Claire Martin Opera Orchestral Choral
 * I Never Went Away (1992) - Delos
 * Harold Arlen's Songs (1994) - Audiophile
 * A Different Side of Sondheim (1995) - DRG
 * Take Love Easy (2002) - Audiophile
 * Richard Rodney Bennett: Words And Music (2007) - Chandos
 * Surprise Surprise (1977)
 * Town and Country(1978)
 * Puttin' On the Ritz (1984)
 * Lush Life (1988)
 * Love You Madly (1989) - Contemporary
 * Classic (1991) - Contemporary
 * New Again (1991) - Contemporary
 * This Funny World: Mary Cleere Haran Sings Lyrics By Hart (1995) - Varèse Sarabande
 * Pennies From Heaven: Movie Songs From The Depression Era (1998) - Angel Records
 * The Memory Of All That: Gershwin On Broadway and In Hollywood (1999) - 2011 reissue
 * Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the 20s (2002) - Varèse Sarabande
 * When Lights Are Low (2005)
 * Witchcraft (2010)
 * Say It Isn't So (2013)
 * The Mines of Sulphur (2005) - Chandos
 * Symphony No. 1 (1968) - with works by Bax and Berkeley, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Igor Buketoff, RCA
 * Jazz Calendar / Piano Concerto (1972) - Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich, London Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Gibson, Philips
 * Spells / Aubade (1979) - Jane Manning, Philharmonia Orchestra, David Willcocks, David Atherton, Argo
 * Partita / Four Jazz Songs / Enchanted April Suite (1995) - Britten Sinfonia, Nicholas Cleobury, the composer, Neil Richardson, BBC
 * Diversions / Symphony No. 3 / Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1996) - Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, James DePreist, Koch
 * Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol 1 (2017) - Celebration; Marimba Concerto; Symphony No. 3; Summer Music; Sinfonietta, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson, Chandos
 * Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol 2 (2018) - Concerto for Stan Getz; Symphony No. 2; Serenade; Partita, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson, Chandos
 * Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol 3 (2019) - Symphony No. 1; A History of the Dansant; Reflections on a 16th Century Tune; Zodiac, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson, Chandos
 * Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol 4 (2020) - Aubade; Piano Concerto; Anniversaries; Country Dances, Book One, Troubadour Music, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson, Chandos
 * Stuff and Nonsense (1999) - Astounding Sounds for London Oriana Choir
 * Letters to Lindbergh (2013) - Signum UK
 * Sea Change: Choral Music of Richard Rodney Bennett (2013) - The Cambridge Singers, the composer and John Rutter, Collegium Records

Selected TV and filmography

 * Pickup Alley (1957)
 * Face in the Night (1957)
 * The Safecracker (1958)
 * Indiscreet (1958)
 * The Man Inside (1959)
 * The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
 * The Angry Hills (1959)
 * Chance Meeting (1959)
 * The Devil's Disciple (1959)
 * The Mark (1961)
 * Only Two Can Play (1962)
 * Satan Never Sleeps (1962)
 * The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963)
 * Heavens Above! (1963)
 * Billy Liar (1963)
 * Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) (TV)
 * One Way Pendulum (1964)
 * The Wednesday Play (1964–1967) (TV, 3 episodes)
 * The Nanny (1965)
 * The Witches (1966)
 * Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Score)
 * Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
 * Secret Ceremony (1968)
 * The Buttercup Chain (1970)
 * Figures in a Landscape (1970)
 * Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Score (Dramatic))
 * Lady Caroline Lamb (1973)
 * Voices (1973)
 * Murder on the Orient Express (1974) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score)
 * Permission to Kill (1975)
 * Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976) (TV)
 * The Accuser aka L'Imprécateur (1977)
 * Equus (1977)
 * The Brink's Job (1978)
 * Yanks (1979)
 * The Return of the Soldier (1982)
 * Knockback (1984) (TV)
 * The Ebony Tower (1984) (TV)
 * Murder with Mirrors (1985) (TV)
 * Tender is the Night (1985) (TV mini-series)
 * Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (1987) (TV)
 * The Charmer (1987) (TV mini-series)
 * American Playhouse (1988) (TV, 1 episode)
 * The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) (TV)
 * Enchanted April (1991)
 * Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
 * Swann (1996)
 * The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1997) (TV)
 * Gormenghast (2000) (TV mini-series)

title: Richard Rodney Bennett


text:
Battle of Kinston

The Battle of Kinston was fought on December 14, 1862, in Lenoir County, North Carolina, near the town of Kinston, as part of the Goldsborough Expedition of the American Civil War.

A Union expedition led by Brig. Gen. John G. Foster left New Bern in December to disrupt the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad at Goldsborough. The advance was stubbornly contested by Brig. Gen. Nathan Evans's brigade near Kinston Bridge on December 14, but the Confederates were outnumbered and withdrew north of the Neuse River in the direction of Goldsborough. Foster continued his movement the next day, taking the River Road, south of the Neuse River.

title: Battle of Kinston


text:
Vementry

Vementry (Old Norse: "Vemunðarey" ) is an uninhabited Scottish island in Shetland on the north side of the West Mainland, lying south of Muckle Roe.

Description and history
The island is known for its well-preserved chambered cairn. The well-preserved remains of a Neolithic heel-shaped cairn about 10 m in diameter and rising to over 1.5 m in height.

Also on the island are two 6-inch QF Mk I First World War gun emplacements which overlook the narrow entrance into the former naval anchorage of Busta Voe on Swarbacks Head, a cliff standing around 49 m above sea level. These guns were removed from HMS Gibraltar, an Edgar-class cruiser which was acting as a depot ship for 10th Cruiser Squadron. They were manned by a mixed crew of RN sailors and Royal Marines. The guns are mounted en barbette on concrete platforms with a 0.45 m concrete parapet and gun shield to provide protection against incoming fire. There are two ammunition lockers built into the parapet of each gun platform, and each platform is linked to a separate main magazine by a trench. A simple stone-and-concrete fire control pillbox also exists on the site. The guns were abandoned in situ after the end of the First World War and were never used after this time.

Mainland and island
Vementry is also the name of a small farm on Mainland, Shetland, immediately south of the island. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "Isle of Vementry". There is no ferry service to the island, although the shepherd on the mainland farm occasionally makes the short trip to work with stock on the island.

The Isle of Vementry is separated from the mainland Vementry by a narrow channel or "sound", consisting of Uyea Sound to the east and Cribba Sound to the west. Cribba Sound is famed for the quality of mussels produced at the mussel farms located there.

title: Vementry


text:
Conan IV, Duke of Brittany

Conan IV (c. 1138 – 20 February 1171), called the Young, was the Duke of Brittany from 1156 to 1166. He was the son of Bertha, Duchess of Brittany, and her first husband, Alan, Earl of Richmond. Conan IV was his father's heir as Earl of Richmond and his mother's heir as Duke of Brittany. Conan and his daughter Constance would be the only representatives of the House of Penthièvre to rule Brittany.

Accession
Conan was the son of Duchess Bertha by her first husband, Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond. With the death of his mother in early 1156, Conan IV expected to inherit the ducal throne. However, he was denied his inheritance by his stepfather, Odo II, Viscount of Porhoët, who refused to relinquish authority. Odo may have entered into a pact with Conan's maternal uncle, Hoel, Count of Nantes, with the goal of dividing Brittany between them. Being under threat of rebellion in Nantes, sponsored by Geoffrey VI, Count of Anjou, Hoel could not send Odo any aid. Within the year Conan IV was able to capture and imprison Odo and claim his inheritance.

Conan also inherited the title Earl of Richmond from his father Alan, which made him subject to both the King of England and the King of France.

Plantagenet ambitions
Henry II of England, the Count of Anjou, attempted to obtain control of the Duchy of Brittany, which neighboured his lands and had traditionally been largely independent from the rest of France, with its own language and culture. The Breton dukes held little power across most of the duchy, which was mostly controlled by local lords. In 1148, Duke Conan III died and civil war broke out. Henry claimed to be the overlord of Brittany, on the basis that the duchy had owed loyalty to Henry I, and saw controlling the duchy both as a way of securing his other French territories and as a potential inheritance for one of his sons. Initially Henry's strategy was to rule indirectly through proxies, and accordingly Henry supported Conan IV's claims over most of the duchy, partly because Conan had strong English ties and could be easily influenced. Conan's uncle, Hoel, continued to control the county of Nantes in the east until he was deposed in 1156 by Henry's brother, Geoffrey, possibly with Henry's support.

When Geoffrey of Anjou died in 1158, Conan attempted to reclaim Nantes but was opposed by Henry who annexed it for himself. Louis took no action to intervene as Henry steadily increased his power in Brittany. Conan's control of Nantes had the effect of reuniting Brittany. Henry II, responded by seizing the Earldom of Richmond, Conan's paternal inheritance, and demanded the return of Nantes. Conan and Henry made peace, and in 1160 Conan married Henry's cousin Margaret, sister of the Scottish king William the Lion. Conan and Margaret had at least one daughter, Constance. A son of Conan's named William appears to have still been alive towards 1200.

Unrest and abdication
Conan faced several revolts from his own nobles, rebellions possibly covertly supported by England. To put down the unrest, the Duke appealed for help to Henry II, who, in return, demanded the betrothal of Constance to Henry's younger son Geoffrey.

While local Breton nobles began to rebel against Conan IV, Henry had begun to alter his policy of indirect rule in Brittany and started to exert more direct control. In 1164 Henry intervened to seize lands along the border of Brittany and Normandy, and in 1166 invaded Brittany to punish the local barons. Henry then forced Conan to abdicate as duke and to give Brittany to his daughter Constance; Conan also betrothed Constance to Henry's son Geoffrey. This arrangement was quite unusual in terms of medieval law, as Conan might have had sons who could have legitimately inherited the duchy.

According to the histories that record the abdication of Conan IV, he died in 1171 sometime after his abdication.

Henry II had claimed to be Overlord of Brittany, as would his son Richard the Lionheart. Henry never claimed the Dukedom of Brittany. After Conan IV abdicated, Henry II held guardianship over Brittany for Conan's daughter Constance, until such time as Henry II's fourth legitimate son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, could marry her.

Portrayals in literature
Conan is usually remembered in Breton historiography as a weak ruler, unable to protect his duchy against the powerful Angevin king, although historian Eric Borgnis-Desbordes has recently qualified this opinion.

Conan IV is mentioned in the tragedy Jean sans Terre ou la mort d'Arthur (1791) by Jean-François Ducis, the novels Time and Chance (2002), Prince of Darkness (2005) and Devil's Brood (2008) by Sharon Kay Penman, and the second volume of the trilogy Le Château des Poulfenc (2009) by Brigitte Coppin.

title: Conan IV, Duke of Brittany


text:
Nervión

Nervión (Nerbioi) is a river that runs through the town of Bilbao, Spain into the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay). Its lowermost course, downstream of its confluence with the Ibaizabal River, is known as the Estuary of Bilbao.

Geography
The river is 72 km long from its source at the Burgos and Alava provincial limits to the sea and runs in a South to North direction. Soon after its source, the river forms a spectacular 300 m waterfall in the Delika canyon (Alava) and then enters the Biscay province through the city of Orduña. This waterfall is the largest in Spain with its 222 metres. It re-enters Alava through the towns of Amurrio and Llodio. The river then runs back into Biscay province and out to the Cantabrian sea, entering the Bilbao metropolitan area at Ugao-Miraballes. The tidal influence reaches 15 km inland from the sea, in Bilbao's old town.

The main tributaries are:

 * From the west: Cadagua and Galindo.
 * From the east: Arratia, Ibaizabal and Asua.

The Ibaizabal is considered by some to be an equally important river, so the whole system is often called Nervión-Ibaizabal and the final tract just "Estuary of Bilbao". The basin area is 1900 km2.

Naming
Despite its current popularity in Spanish, the traditional name of the stretch between the estuary and Basauri, where the Ibaizabal and Nervión merge, is Ibaizabal (meaning 'wide river' in Basque), according to historical evidence traced from the eleventh century up to the twentieth.

Charles Frederick Henningsen, who travelled across the Basque Country during the First Carlist War, calls the river in Bilbao the Ibaizabal. The literary writer from Bilbao Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) as well as former mayor of Bilbao Javier Ybarra (1913–1977) refer to it as the Ibaizabal. Geological and hydrological data also seem to support this assumption.

History and economy
Since ancient times, the Orduña pass that links Spain's inner plateau with the Nervión valley has had a great economic impact. During the Middle Ages it served as a natural border between the Biscay lordship and Castile counties, and tolls were collected there. Through the centuries, the Nervión valley was a vital communication corridor for Biscay, and the main rail line from Bilbao to the rest of Spain was constructed following the river in 1870.

At the same time, Bilbao developed great commercial activity, with its seaport being the most important on the north coast of Spain. The port's activity relied totally on the navigability of the river in its final 15 km. Engineer Evaristo Churruca developed an enormous project that would solve the traditional navigation problems of the river. The estuary divided the population of Greater Bilbao; the Left Bank was occupied by factories (steel, smelting and shipbuilding) and their workers, the Right Bank was a residential area for the factory owners.

Now that the River Nervión has lost economic importance, the navigable part of the river is being abandoned in favour of the sea port, to allow urban development to take place on the banks of the river after the withdrawal of heavy industry.

The quality of the water has improved through sanitization projects on the river and the disappearance of the most polluting industries.

Environment
After a century of intense industrial activity the river, especially the final 25 km, was ecologically dead with oxygen levels 20 percent below the norm. This made the Nervión one of the most polluted rivers in the world. In 1990 the local authorities launched a plan to overcome this situation, resulting in a constant improvement of the environmental status that after 15 years has transformed the Nervión in to a clean river, full of aquatic life.

title: Nervión


text: User talk:63.214.17.153

title: User talk:63.214.17.153


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Vaila

Vaila (Old Norse: "Valey") is an island in Shetland, Scotland, lying south of the Westland peninsula of the Shetland Mainland. It has an area of 327 ha, and is 95 m at its highest point.

Vaila is home to an organic sheep farm and is also known for its mountain hares.

From 1993, the island was owned by Richard Rowland and his wife, Dorota Rychli. The couple sold it to an undisclosed buyer in 2023.

History
The island has been inhabited for thousands of years, and Neolithic and Bronze Age remains have been found there.

Other remains on the island include Mucklaberry Castle tower, which was restored in the 1890s.

In 1490, the Ciske family's estates were divided and Vaila and Foula became the property of Alv Knutsson. However, the Ciskes were Norwegian, and as Scotland had annexed Shetland a few decades before, there were confusing and conflicting claims of ownership.

In the 17th century Martin Martin recorded an unusual folk tale: The inhabitants of the isle Vaila say that no cat will live in it, and if any cat be brought to it, they will rather venture to sea, than stay in the isle. They say that a cat was seen upon the isle about fifty years ago; but how it came there was unknown. They observed about the same time, how the proprietor was in great torment, and as they supposed by witchcraft, of which they say he then died. There is no account that any cat has been seen in the isle ever since that gentleman’s death except when they were carried to it, for making the above-mentioned experiment.

In 1837, Arthur Anderson (the co-founder of P&O), chose the island as the base for his Shetland Fishery Company. This helped end landlords' dominance of the Shetland fishing industry. The journalist John Sands lived on Vaila for a while during the late 19th century.

Vaila Hall, was built in the 1890s, by Herbert Anderton, a Yorkshire mill owner. It is considered to be one of the finest mansions in all of Shetland. It incorporates an older laird's house, built by James Mitchell in 1696. Stone and labour were brought in from England, and ornamentation from even further away: for example, it is thought that the stone griffins may come from Germany.

In 1993, the Andertons sold the island to a solicitor, Richard Rowland, and his Polish wife, Dorota Rychlik. In June 2022, the couple put the island on the market for offers over £1.75 million. It was purchased by an undisclosed buyer early in 2023.

Geography and geology
The geology consists of fine dark grey sandstone of the type found in nearby Walls, which was formed 400 million years ago, and subjected to glacial processes. There is some Sandsting granite in the south east by Gaada Stacks.

There are five burns, and four ponds on the island, meaning that it is fairly well watered.

The south end is higher and dominated by Ward Hill (a common name in the Northern Isles), which is divided into West Ward (81 m), Mid Ward and East Ward (95 m).

There are several caves in the south and west, and natural arches on the east and west coasts.

To the north west is Wester Sound, and Easter Sound to the East. Vaila Sound is to the north, and contains one of the many Shetland islands called Linga.

title: Vaila


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Goiânia accident

[[File:Teletherapy Capsule2.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|A typical teletherapy radiation capsule is composed of the following:1. a sealed outer protective casing (usually lead),

2. a retaining ring, and

3. a teletherapy "source" (diameter in this diagram is 30 mm), composed in turn of

4. two nested stainless steel canisters welded to

5. two stainless steel lids surrounding

6. a protective internal shield (usually uranium metal or a tungsten alloy), and

7. a cylinder of radioactive source material (caesium-137 in the Goiânia incident, but usually cobalt-60)]]

The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated.

In the consequent cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".

Description of the source
The radiation source in the Goiânia accident was a small capsule containing about 93 g of highly radioactive caesium chloride (a caesium salt made with a radioisotope, caesium-137) encased in a shielding canister made of lead and steel. The source was positioned in a container of the wheel type, where the wheel turns inside the casing to move the source between the storage and irradiation positions.

The activity of the source was 74 terabecquerels (TBq) in 1971. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes the container as an "international standard capsule". It was 51 millimeters (2 inches) in diameter and 48 mm (1.8 inches) long. The specific activity of the active solid was about 814 TBq·kg−1 of caesium-137, an isotope whose half life is 30 years. The dose rate at one meter from the source was 4.56 grays per hour (456 rad·h−1). While the serial number of the device was unknown, hindering the ability to verify its identity, the device was thought to have been made in the U.S. at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a radiation source for radiation therapy at the Goiânia hospital.

The IAEA states that the source contained 1375 Ci when it was taken and that about 44 TBq of contamination had been recovered during the cleanup operation. This means that 7 TBq remained in the environment; it would have decayed to about 3.5 TBq by 2016.

Hospital abandonment
The Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia (IGR), a private radiotherapy institute in Goiânia, was 1 km northwest of Praça Cívica, the administrative center of the city. When IGR moved to its new premises in 1985, it left behind a caesium-137-based teletherapy unit purchased in 1977. The fate of the abandoned site was disputed in court between IGR and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, then owner of the premises. On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building.

Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the radioactive material that had been left behind. Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb". The Court of Goiás posted a security guard to protect the site. Meanwhile, the owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site, but they could not remove the equipment on their own once a court order prevented them from doing so.

Theft of the source
On September 13, 1987, the guard tasked with protecting the site did not show up for work. Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira illegally entered the partially demolished IGR site. They partially disassembled the teletherapy unit and placed the source assembly in a wheelbarrow to later take to Roberto's home. They thought they might get some scrap value for the unit. They began dismantling the equipment. That same evening, they both began to vomit due to radiation sickness. The following day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness, and his left hand began to swell. He later developed a burn on his hand in the same size and shape as the aperture, and he underwent partial amputation of several fingers.

On September 15, Pereira visited a local clinic, where he was diagnosed with a foodborne illness; he was told to return home and rest. Roberto, however, continued with his efforts to dismantle the equipment and eventually freed the caesium capsule from its protective rotating head. His prolonged exposure to the radioactive material led to his right forearm becoming ulcerated, requiring amputation on October 14.

Opening the capsule
On September 16, Roberto punctured the capsule's aperture window with a screwdriver, allowing him to see a deep blue light coming from the tiny opening he had created. He inserted the screwdriver and successfully scooped out some of the glowing substance. Thinking it was perhaps a type of gunpowder, he tried to light it, but the powder would not ignite.

The exact mechanism by which the blue light was generated was not known at the time the IAEA report of the incident was written, though it was thought to be either ionized air glow, fluorescence, or Cherenkov radiation associated with the absorption of moisture by the source; a similar blue light was observed in 1988 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States during the disencapsulation of a caesium-137 source.

Source is sold and dismantled
On September 18, Roberto sold the items to a nearby scrapyard. That night, Devair Alves Ferreira, the owner of the scrapyard, noticed the blue glow from the punctured capsule. Thinking the capsule's contents were valuable or supernatural, he immediately brought it into his house. Over the next three days, he invited friends and family to view the strange glowing powder.

On September 21, at the scrapyard, one of Ferreira's friends (identified as "EF1" in the IAEA report) freed several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. Ferreira began to share some of them with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Maria Gabriela Ferreira, began to fall ill. On September 25, 1987, Devair Ferreira sold the scrap metal to a third scrapyard.

Ivo and his daughter
The day before the sale to the third scrapyard, on September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, successfully scraped some additional dust out of the source and took it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the concrete floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate an egg sandwich while sitting on the floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, applying it to her body and showing it off to her mother. The egg sandwich was also exposed to dust from the powder; Leide absorbed 1.0 GBq and received a total dose of 6.0 Gy, a fatal dose for which medical intervention was ineffective.

Maria Gabriela Ferreira notifies authorities
Maria Gabriela Ferreira had been the first to notice that many people around her had become severely ill at the same time. On September 28, 1987 – fifteen days after the item was found – she reclaimed the materials from the rival scrapyard and transported them to a hospital.

Source's radioactivity is detected
In the morning of September 29, a visiting medical physicist used a scintillation counter to confirm the presence of radioactivity and persuaded the authorities to take immediate action. The city, state, and national governments were all aware of the incident by the end of the day.

Health outcomes
News of the radiation incident was broadcast on local, national, and international media. Within days, nearly 130,000 people in Goiânia flooded local hospitals, concerned that they might have been exposed. Of those, 249 were indeed found to be contaminated – some with radioactive residue still on their skin – through the use of Geiger counters. Eventually, twenty people showed signs of radiation sickness and required treatment.

Fatalities
Ages in years are given, with dosages listed in grays (Gy).

 * Admilson Alves de Souza, aged 18 (5.3 Gy), was an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source. He developed lung damage, internal bleeding, and heart damage, and died October 28, 1987.
 * Leide das Neves Ferreira, aged 6 (6.0 Gy), was the daughter of Ivo Ferreira. When an international team arrived to treat her, she was discovered confined to an isolated room in the hospital because the staff were afraid to go near her. She gradually experienced swelling in the upper body, hair loss, kidney and lung damage, and internal bleeding. She died on October 23, 1987, of "septicemia and generalized infection" at the Marcilio Dias Navy Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro. She was buried in a common cemetery in Goiânia, in a special fiberglass coffin lined with lead to prevent the spread of radiation. Despite these measures, news of her impending burial caused a riot of more than 2,000 people in the cemetery on the day of her burial, all fearing that her corpse would poison the surrounding land. Rioters tried to prevent her burial by using stones and bricks to block the cemetery roadway. She was buried despite this interference.
 * Maria Gabriela Ferreira, aged 37 (5.7 Gy), wife of scrapyard owner Devair Ferreira, became sick about three days after coming into contact with the substance. Her condition worsened, and she developed hair loss and internal bleeding, especially of the limbs, eyes, and digestive tract. She suffered mental confusion, diarrhea, and acute renal insufficiency before dying on October 23, 1987, the same day as her niece, of "septicemia and generalized infection", about a month after exposure.
 * Israel Batista dos Santos, aged 22 (4.5 Gy), was also an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source primarily to extract the lead. He developed serious respiratory and lymphatic complications, was eventually admitted to the hospital, and died six days later on October 27, 1987.

Devair Ferreira survived despite receiving 7 Gy of radiation. He died in 1994 of cirrhosis aggravated by depression and binge drinking. Ivo Ferreira died of emphysema in 2003.

Other individuals
The outcomes for the 46 most contaminated people are shown in the bar chart below. Several people survived high doses of radiation. This is thought in some cases to be because the dose was fractionated. Given time, the body's repair mechanisms will reverse cell damage caused by radiation. If the dose is spread over a long time period, these mechanisms can mitigate the effects of radiation poisoning.

Other affected people
Afterwards, about 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination; 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their body. Of this group, 129 people had internal contamination. The majority of the internally contaminated people only suffered small doses (< 50 mSv, corresponding to less than about 1 in 200 excess risk of developing cancer later in life ). A thousand people were identified as having suffered a dose which was greater than one year of background radiation; it is thought that 97% of these people had a dose of between 10 and 200 mSv (between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 50 excess risk of developing cancer as a result ).

In 2007, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation determined that the rate of caesium-137 related diseases are the same in Goiânia accident survivors as they are in the population at large. Nevertheless, compensation is still distributed to survivors, who suffer radiation-related prejudices in everyday life.

Legal matters
In addition to a public civil action for damages to the environment was brought in September 1995 by the Federal Public Prosecution Service (Department of Justice), together with the State of Goiás’ Public Prosecution Service, before the 8th Federal Court of Goiânia, legal proceedings were also brought against the Federal Union; the National Nuclear Energy Commission; the State of Goiás (through its Health Department); the Social Security Institute for Civil Servants in the State of Goiás – IPASGO, which at the time of the accident was the private owner of the land where the IGR was located; the four medical doctors who owned IGR; and the clinic’s physicist, who was also the supervisor.

On March 17, 2000, the 8th Federal Court of Goiás ordered the defendants to pay compensation of R$1.3 million (near US$750,000) to the Defence of the Diffused Rights Fund, a federal fund for the compensation of damage to the environment, consumers, property and rights of artistic, historic, or cultural value and other collective rights.

In his sentence, the Judge excluded the state of Goiás and the Federal Union from the payment of compensation.

The CNEN was ordered to pay compensation of R$1 million, to guarantee medical and psychological treatment for the direct and indirect victims of the accident and their descendants down to the third generation, to provide transportation to medical exams for the most serious victims, and was responsible for the medical follow-up for the people of Abadia de Goiás city.

The Social Security Institute for Civil Servants in the State of Goiás, IPASGO, was ordered to pay a fine of R$100 000, plus interest as of 13 September 1987, the date of removal of the Caesium 137 capsule.

As the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. However, one of the owners was fined R$100 000 because he was found liable for the abandoned state of the IGR building where the Caesium source was kept, including the removal of gates, windows, timberwork and the roof in May 1987.

The clinic’s physicist was also fined R$100 000 because he was the technician responsible for the control of the medical manipulation of the radiological device.

Although the two thieves were not included as defendants in the public civil suit, the judgement of the court found them directly responsible for the accident. If they had been arraigned as defendants, they certainly would have been convicted, as their actions led to strict (no-fault) liability. However, in terms of criminal intent, they were not aware of the seriousness of their actions in removing the Caesium source from its location, and they had no knowledge of the dangers of the radiological device; moreover, there was no danger sign erected in the abandoned clinic in order to ward off intruders.

Objects and places
Topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses were removed and examined. Those that were found to be free of radioactivity were wrapped in plastic bags, while those that were contaminated were either decontaminated or disposed of as waste. In industry, the choice between decontaminating or disposing objects is based on only the economic value of the object and the ease of decontamination. In this case, the IAEA recognized that to reduce the psychological impact of the event, greater effort should have been taken to clean up items of personal value, such as jewelry and photographs. It is not clear from the IAEA report to what degree this was practised.

Means and methods
After the houses were emptied, vacuum cleaners were used to remove dust, and plumbing was examined for radioactivity. Painted surfaces could be scraped, while floors were treated with acid and Prussian blue mixtures. Roofs were vacuumed and hosed, but two houses had to have their roofs removed. The waste from the cleanup was moved out of the city to a remote place for storage. Aeroradiometric operations were undertaken by low-altitude survey, which was carried out over Goiânia. The radiometric equipment and materials available at the IRD were quickly transported and mounted on a Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil helicopter provided by the police of the state of Goiás.

Potassium alum dissolved in hydrochloric acid was used on clay, concrete, soil, and roofs. Caesium has a high affinity for many clays. Organic solvents, followed by potassium alum dissolved in hydrochloric acid, were used to treat waxed/greased floors and tables. Sodium hydroxide solutions, also followed by dissolved potassium alum, were used to treat synthetic floors, machines and typewriters.

Prussian blue was used to internally decontaminate many people, although by the time it was applied, much of the radioactive material had already migrated from the bloodstream to muscle tissue, greatly hampering its effectiveness. Urine from victims was treated with ion-exchange resin to compact the waste for ease of storage.

Recovery considerations
The cleanup operation was much harder for this event than it could have been because the source was opened and the active material was water-soluble. A sealed source need only be picked up, placed in a lead container, and transported to the radioactive waste storage. In the recovery of lost sources, the IAEA recommends careful planning and using a crane or other device to place shielding (such as a pallet of bricks or a concrete block) near the source to protect recovery workers.

Contamination locations
The Goiânia accident spread significant radioactive contamination throughout the Aeroporto, Central, and Ferroviários districts. Even after the cleanup, 7 TBq of radioactivity remained unaccounted for.

Some of the key contamination sites:
 * Goiânia's Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia (IGR) (-16.6746°N, -49.2641°W), despite being the origin of the radiation source, suffered no actual exposure or breach of radioactive contents. IGR moved its clinic to another location in the city, with the previous site having been replaced around 2000 with the modernized Centro de Convenções de Goiânia (Goiânia Convention Center).
 * Roberto dos Santos' house (-16.66848°N, -49.26341°W) on Rua 57. The radioactive source was here for about six days, and it was partially broken into.
 * Devair Ferreira's scrapyard (-16.66713°N, -49.26652°W), on Rua 15A ("Junkyard I") in the Aeroporto section of the city, had possession of the items for seven days. The caesium container was entirely dismantled, spreading significant contamination. Extreme radiation levels of up to 1.5 Sv·h−1 were found by investigators in the middle of the scrapyard.
 * Ivo Ferreira's house (-16.66401°N, -49.26911°W) ("Junkyard II"), at 1F Rua 6. Some of the contamination was spread about the house, fatally poisoning Leide das Neves Ferreira and Maria Gabriela Ferreira. The adjacent junkyard scavenged the remainder of parts from the IGR facility. The premises were heavily contaminated, with radiation dose rates up to 2 Sv·h−1.
 * "Junkyard III" (-16.66915°N, -49.28003°W). This junkyard had possession of the items for three days until they were sent away.
 * Vigilância Sanitária (-16.675°N, -49.273°W). Here, the substance was quarantined, and an official cleanup response began.

Other contamination was also found in or on:
 * Three buses
 * 42 houses
 * fourteen cars
 * five pigs
 * 50,000 rolls of toilet paper

Disposal of the capsule
The original teletherapy capsule was seized by the Brazilian military as soon as it was discovered, and since then the empty capsule has been on display at the Escola de Instrução Especializada ("School of Specialized Instruction") in Rio de Janeiro as a memento to those who participated in the cleanup of the contaminated area.

Research
In 1991, a group of researchers collected blood samples from highly exposed survivors of the incident. Subsequent analysis resulted in the publication of numerous scientific articles.

In popular culture
A 1990 film, Césio 137 – O Pesadelo de Goiânia (Caesium-137 – The Nightmare of Goiânia), a dramatisation of the incident, was made by Roberto Pires. It won several awards at the 1990 Festival de Brasília. An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Thine Own Self was partially inspired by the accident.

Economic implications
Much of the radioactive substances were cleared after testing. However a gloom hung over the local residents, as they were asked for certificates stating that they were free of radioactivity. Also banned products from Goiânia created a public outcry, citing unjust discrimination.

Foundation
The state government of Goiás established the Fundação Leide das Neves Ferreira in February 1988, both to study the extent of contamination of the population as a result of the incident and to render aid to those affected.

title: Goiânia accident