Plain language and clear and helpful explanation of what if anything is wrong with this April 2019 question

Question

Most challenging aspects of a reusable satellite scheme like this? was posted in April 2019. There is now a collection of evolving complaints below it in comments that to me feel as though they are meant to be accusatory and yet simultaneously ambiguous, designed to only slowly reveal what the commenter's concerns are through an involved exchange that to me feels like "Can you guess what I'm thinking?"

Rather than explain any issues in a clear and helpful way in the beginning, it seems to be a cat-and-mouse or guessing-game style of extended engagement.

When I feel I've spotted an issue I try to

1. describe the issue I perceive
2. explain why I think it is an issue
3. offer at least an example of something actionable; some remedy that could address it the issue

Question: So I'm asking this here in order to provide a space for someone to explain clearly, in plain language and with an open and direct style if there are any issues here, and if so then what exactly they are and how they can be remedied.

The question is short and the block-quoted text is from the video mentioned in the first sentence and linked directly below it. The GIF was produced from the video, and the whole thing was posted in April 2019.

Further, for several thousand of my SE posts going back years, what other actions are required of me? Let's get it all out in the open.

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Do I understand this correctly? You propose to launch something, substantially larger (and likely heavier) than the original satellite to orbit, with its own propulsion system, rendezvous with a failing satellite (which are in different orbits, so that the "coffee cups" need to be launched individually) and bring it safely back to Earth? How does this whole effort not produce even more junk? E.g. second stages in orbit? – asdfex 15 hours ago

@asdfex I don't propose it, I question it, but only the challenging aspects :-) "I'm not asking if you would recommend doing this, or if you think this would be a good idea. Just what are the most challenging aspects?" – uhoh 15 hours ago

@asdfex Also it doesn't necessarily have to be for the small Starlink satellites. For larger, heavier spacecraft it's possible that coffee cups could be much lighter and more compact (when folded) than the spacecraft due to something like square/cubed. Dunno, thus posed as a question. – uhoh 15 hours ago
1

As it's written it is your own proposal. If it's not your proposal, then a reference to someone proposing it is missing. – asdfex 11 hours ago

@asdfex the block quote and the GIF are from the linked YouTube video linked in the question. My first sentence says "What would be the most challenging aspects of a reusable satellite scheme similar to the one shown in this video?" I'll take a look again in the morning to see if I can refine the language further to make it even clearer, but I think the first sentence does a pretty good job already. – uhoh 10 hours ago

Ah, this is a quote of somebody else. The source is missing. You also uploaded two animations to imgur, which means that you claim to have the copyright on them. – asdfex 9 hours ago

@asdfex I've provided more space for you and others: Plain language and clear and helpful explanation of what if anything is wrong with this April 2019 question – uhoh 13 mins ago Delete

One thing that concerns me here specifically is the "...you claim to have the copyright on them." bit. When making a GIF from a YouTube video does one always do this? I'd thought there was a standard YouTube license and making a short GIF from a few frames from one and crediting it as such was okay. Is there simply a question of how obvious my crediting is here, or something more?

Answer 1

I'll post an answer based on my current understanding to get the ball rolling; please feel free to edit this, comment, or post a better answer.

2015 (when you started) 'twas a simpler time. The import image feature seemed like a convenient way to embed images in posts and archive them with a i.stack.imgur.com url.

Then there was some excitement and drama as many things in the site changed including how licensing was handled and recorded.

In April 2019 you'd heard of the excitement and the drama associated with licensing but didn't know exactly how. There were some notifications, but they were written for people who understand these issues or catch on quickly.

Per comments below the question, now when we import images things happen; things buzz and whirl and apparently text is generated that says something to the effect that:

The terms shown in the upload dialog explicitly state that you release them as cc-by-sa and that you have the right to do so.

You didn't know it says that, there's no explicit notification or dialogue box, but it allows people to start posting comments based on the premise that you've knowingly said that whether you knew it or not.

Sometimes it can take days to sort out exchanges based on invisible, unvoiced premises!

In this case

As it's written it is your own proposal.

while wrong (there's absolutely nothing written in the post that says it is my proposal) is obliquely defensible if someone has more in depth knowledge of what happens when imgur is used to import an image than you do.

Actionable items:

1. The block quote has already been labeled even more explicitly as being from the video.

2. Since it turns out that the GIFs from the YouTube are the proximal cause of the greatest concern, they can simply be deleted, and care can be taken not to generate GIFs from YouTubes and post them in Stack Exchange without being able to:

• Find the release statement that will be generated
• Stand behind it

If that's not possible, don't generate GIFs or screen shots from YouTube videos. It may be possible to do so in the future but that would require entering a new knowledge space.