By the way, I’ll see the resources featured on WP:CCP as useful and instructive for my tasks. [[User:Der Ausländer|<font color="Black">'''Der Ausländer:'''</font>]] [[User talk:Der Ausländer|<span style="color:Red">Was willst du</span> <span style="color:orange">mir sagen?</span>]] 23:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
By the way, I’ll see the resources featured on WP:CCP as useful and instructive for my tasks. [[User:Der Ausländer|<font color="Black">'''Der Ausländer:'''</font>]] [[User talk:Der Ausländer|<span style="color:Red">Was willst du</span> <span style="color:orange">mir sagen?</span>]] 23:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
== Re: [[Donna J. Stone]] ==
Hi. Thanks for the welcome mat, it is quite helpful. I heard back from Dr. Stone, and he rewrote the home page to [http://www.wielderofwords.com Wielder of Words]. I looked at the page and the text has been completely revised, no longer resembling the Wikipedia article I wrote. Didn't expect him to do that, but does that solve the copyright problem? --[[User:Mah Jong|Mah Jong]] ([[User talk:Mah Jong|talk]]) 19:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
If you are here with questions about an article I have deleted or a copyright concern, please consider first reading my personal policies with regards to deletion and copyright, as these may provide your answer.
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In general, I check in with Wikipedia frequently between 12:00 and 23:00 Coordinated Universal Time. When you loaded this page, it was 21:07, 2 September 2024 UTC[refresh]. Refresh your page to see what time it is now.
Looks like you may have been ripped off. I can't see the whole book so can't guarantee that they didn't give you credit, but they've copied nearly the whole article as well as much of the article Constitutionalism. Who knows how many other articles they've infringed that may wind up being tagged as copyvios? That's what really bugs me about this: that we might lose content that our own contributors wrote because somebody else took their words without giving them credit. At least this one was obvious. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)18:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed you just cleaned this article and had a question. The creator mentioned that they were emailing OTRS. Does that just mean that the content can be restored if/when you get usable permission, or is there something else going on that I'm unaware of? VernoWhitney (talk) 20:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. :) I searched OTRS to see if there was a mail in the system about it and did not find one. (I didn't expect to. We recently caught up the En-wiki permission list. Yay! Commons, on the other hand, yikes.... But sometimes e-mails are sent to the wrong address.) If he had forgotten to send it but does so now, it can be restored after. I didn't leave him {{cup}} because the article wasn't deleted, just the one limited passage. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, it's come in now. The OTRS agent who handled it is evidently new (? or at least maybe new to it on Enwiki), as he didn't restore the text, but he did reassign the ticket to me, so I've handled it now. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Moonriddengirl. Can I ask you a question? I was wondering, most copyright issues are legal, yet is copying within wikipedia a legal issue? Since, even though it still regards copyright, there is no notice on Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia saying it is a legal issue, unlike Wikipedia:Copyright. Can I also ask another question? I have, unfortunately and against my will, been involved in three minor copyright issues: one was because I copied from a wikipedia article, which, without my knowledge, was already copied somewhere else, and thus, without any intent, it came up that I had violated it (but, later, user:iBen recognized this). Second was something I still regard as unfair; wikipedia says that facts are not copyrighted. Well, I got one of my pages deleted twice because I mentioned the same statistics as in my source; but that's not a copyright violation! Second was copying from an old revision of a page, which, along time, happened to have been copied in yahoo! answers and like with the first example, was not my fault at all. I was just wondering, even though I still do not think I violated any copyrights (except copying within wikipedia), are there usually any out-of-wikipedia repercussions of having, even accidentally, been accused of a copyright matter? I do not think that it applies for my case, yet just as a matter of general wondering (I already entered a discussion of this with user:Ironholds, yet I'd like a more complete answer, since can't seem to find it on the copyright FAQ, on wikipedia pages, question desks or even on the internet! Reply--Theologiae (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's only because very recently a contributor decided to start organizing policy pages under "type". :) And I mean that "very recently" literally; that policy existed for years with no such tag until December 2009. It's true that it's a policy with legal considerations, so I have no reason to object to it, but it doesn't mean that there are no legal considerations to the various guidelines that support copyright policy.
Yes, copying within Wikipedia is a legal issue. You own the material you author on Wikipedia, though you have licensed it for others to use. The license you've granted requires that they attribute. If they don't attribute, they've violated your copyright. (And you've learned another reason it's a good idea to attribute, beyond the legal. If the person you've copied has done something wrong, you won't get blamed for it. :))
That said, issues caused by copying within Wikipedia are in my opinion a very different type of concern from issues caused by copying from elsewhere. These are usually cleared up just by explaining the issue, and they can be fixed by attributing. I would hazard a guess that 99.99% of the violations of this license are well-intentioned. If somebody was told about this aspect of copyright law and kept doing it, I could see there being some repercussions, but I'd be really shocked to see repercussions from somebody having done it, learned better, and not done it again.
With respect to #2, I'd have to say that the biggest question you might face is, when the article was once deleted as a copyvio, whether you spoke to anyone about why they perceived it as a copyright problem and what you could do to alleviate that concern on recreation. You may be right that the content was not a copyvio, but even if so when an article has been tagged for speedy deletion and deleted under that criteria, you should be very careful before putting it back in place. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I did not fully get what you answered, and also on MLauba's talk page. Could you please sum it up in a very short nutshell, so I get the general idea. Thank you--Theologiae (talk) 12:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I did not fully get what you answered, and also on MLauba's talk page. Could you please sum it up in a very short nutshell, so I get the general idea. Thank you--Theologiae (talk) 12:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All right. I've tried to be more clear at MLauba's page. Let's see what I can do here.
Yes, it's illegal to copy from other Wikipedia users without giving them credit. A lot of people don't know that, though. I think if you stop doing it when you're told to stop, you should be okay.
If an article is deleted as a copyright violation, you should find out way before making another article using the same material. You might be right that it wasn't a problem or you might be wrong, but when it comes to copyright we don't take chances.
The only kind of repercussions you'd probably have to worry for either case about is (a) if you do it again, or (b) you decide you want to be an admin. It probably wouldn't stop you from being an admin, but you might have to explain why it happened.
It'll be hard to leave my favourite place, yet I feel that I need to.
Moonriddengirl, I'm officially going to tell you that today (April 17) I will be leaving Wikipedia. It has been a great experience, but I have to move on.
Editing has been great fun (with the occasional exception). Yet, since I have been accused of several things, and am a bit worried about making serious mistakes, I feel it is time for me to move on. It will be hard; I have got to know this encyclopedia very well, and have become very fond of it, yet there are some things that slightly worry me. I am a child, and Wikipedia maybe is not the best environment for children (I love the environment, yet it is not suited for me).
I will contact a few editors, make my last edits, and after today I will leave.
But thank you for having made this a joy. I will always remember your help.
I hope the best for you.
(PS: If you want to reply, please do so today. I will not be checking my messages afterwords. If someone can oversight or usurp my account, that would be fine)
Thank you so much! Just one thing. Once you've retired, are you ever allowed to make edits (it's unlikely I will, yet you never know!). Yes, I left wikipedia because I feel that as a child, all this copyright stuff has got me really worried. I have made a very few infringing copyright edits, most of which misunderstandings, but I made a lot of copying within wikipedia edits without attribution, and I have only started to attribute recently. I'm just not sure about whether this will have any implications. If you can clarify things, maybe I'll re-think about leaving...--Theologiae (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I answered part of your question at your talk page. I can't guarantee anything, but you aren't very likely to get into any kind of legal trouble at all for copying from other Wikipedians inside Wikipedia, since we can fix it just by giving them credit. I'd say more, but I have to run now! --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi (I know it's the 18th, but a might make a few last edits today :-]). I was wondering one thing. Since I'm a child, and don't know much about this stuff, usually, for copyvios, are there any legal repercussions? Does it apply differently for minors? Please reply--Theologiae (talk) 07:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this is my observation. This is not legal advice, which I can't give you. And even if I could, I wouldn't give you legal advice about the UK, as I'm in America and things might be different in the U.K. :) Usually, legal repercussions for copyvios happen if what you've copied is in some way damaging to the other person--like if you deprive them of income. (For example, if they're selling something and you copy it and give it away or sell it yourself, they are more likely to take you to court.) It's also more likely if you've done a lot of it. In the U.S., when a minor is involved, the guardian of the child is held responsible. Also, in the U.S., copyright cases are about money, not jail, unless the copyright infringement is a special kind called "criminal infringement". "Criminal infringement" might be if you put a bootlegged copy of a movie on the internet or did file sharing with copyrighted songs. (See [1] and [2].)
Unless you've been up to something you haven't told me about, I can't really imagine that you'd be facing legal problems. You've mentioned copying other Wikipedians — you can and should fix this, but you probably won't ever see anybody go to court over it. You've mentioned one article that was deleted twice as a copyright problem. I don't think you'll face legal problems for that, either. If I understand your note above, the Yahoo! answers thing turned out not to have been a copyright problem by you at all, since you just took information from earlier in the article's history. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, that's it, that's all my "copyright related problems" - copying within wikipedia, the page deleted twice, and only two cases of articles which had wikipedia content which before I copied it from wikipedia, were copied onto some other source (both of which are no longer considered copyright issues). I think that if I decide to edit wikipedia, I should definitely not copy within wikipedia, even if I attribute, because many times, wikipedia info is copied onto question pages and websites, and without you even realising, it technically turns out that you've violated copyright, even if you haven't at all. Thank you for the answers. As for me, I think I'm more semi-retired than actually retired. I was reflecting all over this last night, and I still don't have a definitive answer. Today, I'll make a few edits, and then, at least in the next month, I might watch pages, check messages and do minor edits, yet nothing big (major edits, creating articles etc.). Thank you Moonriddengirl. I've found your help highly informative and helpful. :-)--Theologiae (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, as you are involved in copyright issues I would like to alert you to an issue at the Richard Tylman article. There is a link to youtube video that has been removed as a copyright violation (You can see the link in this revision). Obiouvsly I removed it. A dead link is not helpful. Normally we would keep a dead link as one day it might reappear or might help editors finding a working link. But here the link lead to a copyright violation, so clearly per our copyright policies I removed it. Now it appears that an admin, User:Malik Shabazz is edit-warring over the inclusion of the link, multiple times reverting three different editors although being told that the issue is a copyright violation. Could you weight in or clarify our copyright policy on the talk page, so that the edit-warring will stop? Pantherskin (talk) 13:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I will, yes, but I am a little confused. It seems that the linkvio is being removed at the same time as this content:
|quote=List of selected print media: [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']], November 24, 1986, Vol. 128. No. 21, pp. 62-63 / December 8, 1986, Vol. 128 No. 23, pp. 8-9; [[Chatelaine (magazine)|''Chatelaine'']], September 1986, Vol. 59 No. 9, p. 165; ''Business in Vancouver'' Magazine, June 18–24, 1991, p. 7; ''The Official Guide to Expo 86'' published by [[British Columbia Magazine|''Beautiful British Columbia Magazine'']] with [[Expo 86]] Corporation, Victoria BC, 1986, p. 5}}
Yes, this is not related to the copyvio. The issue here is that at least two editors could not verify these references when checking them. So it is a separate issue. I am not sure whether any of the other editors reverting is aware of that the list of magazines; according to their edit summaries the issue seems to be the youtube video. To clarify: This list is unrelated to the Youtube video inasmuch as the youtube video does not mention these magazines. Pantherskin (talk) 14:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to let you know Moonriddengirl, that with this edit you actually reverted the work of User:Off2riorob who put it there as his own final answer of the above mentioned WP:BLP/N debate. It would probably be nice if you let him know about your move, if you really intended to delete what he did. -- Poeticbenttalk17:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't delete what he did; I temporarily put it back. This is explained at the talk page. I have nothing whatsoever to do with the article beyond the copyright question and don't intend for that to change. --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I don't understand. You deleted (-474) of text in your last edit with the summary "Removing the quote for consensus. See talk." What consensus? The info you removed was placed in the article by Off2riorob three months ago after a very long debate. Please follow the link to BLP/Noticeboard to see how Off2riorob resolved that argument in his Revision as of 20:49, 23 January 2010. You removed half of his paragraph invariably taking a side in an old edit war. -- Poeticbenttalk22:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the edit history of article. It was gone when I arrived. I added it back in this edit and then restored the article to the condition in which I found it in the following. As I explained at the article's talk page, I did this so that the content would not be bundled with the linkvio issue, but could be removed or restored independently. I consider myself completely an uninvolved admin here, weighing in only on the possible issue of a linkvio. I have made no content decisions about the article, and deciding to restore it would be as much an act of involvement as deciding to delete it would be. --Moonriddengirl(talk)22:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see what you mean. You restored Pantherskin's edit to remain 'uninvolved', but his edit was not only biased and inflammatory, but also, against a decision reached after a prolonged BLP debate. Maybe, it would have been better to let him do it than, or use a different edit summary? I don't know. -- Poeticbenttalk23:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I could not, since I had put it back in the article. Putting it back in the article would have meant I had taken a position on the content, and that would mean I am not uninvolved. My edit summaries were meant to work in tandem with one another and, as I mentioned, with the talk page to explain what I was doing. In case anyone else misunderstood, I have clarified there. --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
New section
HI there, I have been editing the Plagiarism pages but when I edit those pages they always get reverted back to the original text, why is that? I thought anyone could edit the pages and I always leave a summary of the change in the text page so why is it not remaining changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.175.239 (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright Help
Hi Moon. I've run into a copyright issue that's a little over my head. From what I've seen, you seem to be rather knowlidgable on the subject and I thought you might be able to help.
Here's the history on the situation. I ran across the article Donna J. Stone and found that it shared text with the website Wielder of Words. I tagged the article for speedy deletion as a copyvio then removed the copyvio text and the speedy tag as I wanted the SD tag to be in the history and wanted the author to be notified by template. I left a message on the talkpage to describe my actions to the author and anyone else. Today I received a message from the author which is also [Talk:Donna_J._Stone#Re:_Donna_J._Stone|on the talk page]. The author explains that they are in contact with the website owner who is a relative of the subject of the article. The author shows that they wrote the text before the website was created but gave the Wielder of Words owner permission to use the text. To my knowledge, the Wikipedia editor cannot give such permission but admittedly, this has past my knowledge of Wikipedia's copyright policies. Could you please advise the editor and I as to how we should proceed? Thanks for your time. OlYellerTalktome14:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, I'd be happy to help. :) I'm in the middle of closing an RfC (I've put at least two hours into it already); I'd like to get a little further, and I'll come by and see what's going on. --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than adding a new thank you message, I'll comment here. I would also like to thank you for the time and thought that you brought to your closing of that discussion. There was a lot to wade through, and I have to admire anyone who was willing to take on such a task. You say above that you think it won't be universally popular, but I think you gave about the fairest summary of opinions that could be given and reading through your sandbox was also helpful in seeing how you thought it through. I very much appreciate what you did. Rossrs (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little confused by one of the findings. That was for bulleted lists vs. tables. I do not see that the use of bulleted lists was widely supported, in fact, the only editors I could find who did support it was Jack Merridew, MichaelQSchmidt and Josette. Could you please clarify it further for me? Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, and fwiw, you can see all of the notes I made on this at my sandbox, User:Moonriddengirl/sandbox, between 11:35, 19 April 2010 and 16:10, 19 April 2010. Mind you, any notes I've made there are preliminary. :) But in addition to the ones you note, bulleted lists are supported by User:Pablo X ("Michael Q Schmidt makes a valid point about the use of text rather than tables, perhaps it would be best to simplify."), Dinoguy1000 (talk·contribs) as 67.58.229.153 ("Jack makes a good argument for forgoing tables altogether in favor of lists for filmographies"), and User:Erik (as part of his either/or), referenced in the closure. --Moonriddengirl(talk)17:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and thanks for taking this on. Another administrator started to take it on and then didn't. I guess I don't see that it's that clear on the list vs. table and I find it interesting that the majority of editors who weren't supportive of tables also don't work with filmographies. The only regular actor editor was MQS, who has a fairly unique POV on the issue vs. the others, who do. And I was fairly sure Pinkadelica was squarely in favor of them, since so much of her work has been in developing them and she said "Agree with HJ Mitchell. I can't believe this is still an issue. It's a filmography chart people." I'm certain User:HJ Mitchell was in favor since he favored the lightsteelblue header. It would seem that GentlemanGhost was in favor of tables since he favored the template and later said to Jack Merridew: "I understand your preference for bulleted lists, although that is not my preference." . I'm sorry to be such a schmudge, I just want to be clear. Thanks so much. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, but I thought I'd let you know because otherwise I might not answer when you are finished, at least not as quickly as I should. I realize you may need time to gather your thoughts, so just let me know. --Moonriddengirl(talk)17:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, first, you are welcome to discuss your concerns with me, no apology needed. think your passion is admirable, and while I know that might sound condescending I don’t mean it that way. There are certain things on Wikipedia to which I’ve shackled myself, so I can imagine being in your position. I understand and completely respect that this is important to you, and if I were in your position, I would want my concerns to be heard.
(Just as an aside, I don't blame the other administrator for not taking it on. By hour two I was questioning my own sanity, but I had committed by then. :))
As far as my notes are concerned, there are several factors here. First, some people explained themselves and some did not; second, some people clearly weighed in on one issue, but did not weigh in clearly on others. With regards to that, I think you have to be careful not to overread people’s responses in a conversation this sprawling. If anything, I think I skirted a bit close in counting Himilayan Explorer under "color" and "table", since arguably his response related only to font size. (I felt like his "if they look like this" was explicit enough for me to presume both color and style of presentation met with his approval, as well as the larger size.) With one response I couldn't peg (an explanation was offered, but I couldn't understand it), I tracked the contributor down to ask for clarification (here), but otherwise if opinion was not clear, I didn’t list it under that header.
Too, as you know, consensus is not formed merely by "head count", but by the strength and nature of arguments (which is why my notes are not just a list of editors who feel one way or another). It matters why a person supports or doesn’t support something, although a "per JohnSmith" counts (as it incorporates his arguments by reference). My lists reflect the reasons given; they aren’t formulated with # for that reason: to help me remember that it isn’t about numbers. By my reading of the debate, "lists" received substantial, reasoned support (as did "tables"), and even if Pinkadelica had explicitly said she supported tables over lists, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference to my closure. (Now, if she had a strong policy-based argument, that could be a different matter.)
What I'm really not empowered to do, I think, is evaluate the contributors who are weighing in. I mean, obviously, I can discount socks or clearly unqualified contributors (please don't ask me to define that; it'll take me another hour to find the right words!), but I can't base my reading on who actually works in the area. I can see why that might matter to you; you probably feel like the people who work in the area are more experienced there and better able to judge the needs of the articles. But until we establish more official departments of some kind, my "uninvolved admin" thing means weighing all good faith contributors in good standing equally and focusing only on the strength of their arguments.
You say, "I guess I don't see that it's that clear on the list vs. table": I didn't see it as that clear, either; in fact, it still looks like a very muddy issue. As I see it, discontinuing the tables is obviously not supported even though several would prefer it, but neither is the rejection of all bulleted lists. This is why I suggest that your project might want to figure out some guidelines for when each is to be preferred. A conversation focusing more specifically on such circumstances might be productive.
Anyway, I understand that you are likely to be unhappy with my conclusion, and I am sorry. Generally, I prefer it when nobody has to be unhappy, but RfCs don't often work out that way. :/ I do hope that seeing my reasoning is helpful. I think I have judged the consensus in the conversation correctly; certainly, I did try.
And I hope you didn't take that "Give me a minute" literally, because my abilities to assess how long it will take me to do something are obviously sadly lacking. --Moonriddengirl(talk)18:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Moonriddengirl, thanks for all your work closing this RfC. While I agree with your conclusions on the tables versus lists issue in the context of this recent RfC, I'd like to point out to everyone that we already have an official MOS guideline for filmograpies (something I should have pointed out during the RfC) that prefers the use of bulleted lists. It's at
It does contain a link to the WikiProject for actors page, but that was added by Wildhartlivie after the page achieved guideline status and without any discussion on the talk page. Thanks again for your efforts. - Josette (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's good to know; if there's going to be conversation going forward about the use of tables vs. lists and how and when, a note at that talk page would probably be a good idea. --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I see no huge issue with adding a link to what was described as an example of a style used. There was nothing said that mandated or suggested it as a preferred style. That it's been there without question for 14 months doesn't seem to indicate that anyone had issue with listing an example. I'd note the same page has a link to a failed style guideline for discographies. Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wildhartlivie, you might not see the issue but others might have - especially if they had realized your intentions were to replace every bulleted list in thousands of actor bios with a table.
Hi. I've read through it, and if I need to come clarify my reading of consensus I will. I'm not sure at this point if it's necessary. For the record, here, I'll just restate that as I read it, there is support in the RfC for both tables (if prepared with templates) and lists. Given that there is consensus to exclude neither, it seems that conversation at this point should be on what guidance if any is appropriate for when to use which. With this new information, it would be a good idea per Wikipedia:Consensus to notify at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (lists of works) as well. Use of both is not out of keeping with the guidelines at Wikipedia:Tables, which may offer some assistance in the decision of when to use which. --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much! I appreciate it. I reviewed it for about an hour before deciding I could probably close it. I had no idea how long it was going to take. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)17:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well the discussion was massive. Having read through it all as it progressed, I don't envy you, but I'm sure everyone appreciates your efforts and the superbly thorough rationale you provided, regardless of their opinion on the end result. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking this on. Your close seems to touch all the bases, and appropriately reflects the degree of unanimity of the participants. Do you think the header of that RfC section might be changed from 'Filmography' to 'Filmography RfC', to simplify finding it and referring to it in the future? Admins ought to be diligent in closing RfCs when it is requested, but you were the one who actually went forward and did the work. EdJohnston (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My thanks, too. I'm going to start an implementation discussion and seek technical input on the template implementation and have just dropped Xeno a note about a bot-pass. As to the closed RFC itself, I'm thinking that moving it to a subpage would be the best place for it to live. Prolly not yet, though; there are a lot of inbound links. Cheers, Jack Merridew18:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I missed your note here with everything else going on on my page today! Must have slipped in under somebody else's. Probably a subpage would be good; it's pretty long. And I agree, give it a few days to let everybody read through it and begin to figure out where to go. --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of Orange Bars, today? I'm thinking the implementation discussion will run a few days and then the bot work might take a while. WHL said some time ago that there were 32,000 articles involved but that may just be a count of category members. I do know that a whole lot of actor bios use bulleted lists and that the conversion to tables has largely focused on the high profile celebrities. Xeno may be able to offer some stats on what was actually found. Once all that's done and dusted would be the time to file everything to a subpage.
Thank heavens for bots! And, yes, quite a few moments of "you've got mail." :) And to think, I was at ANI and thought, "Oh, this looks like something I could do before starting the copyright work...." --Moonriddengirl(talk)01:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be running a bot one of these days, I've just not had the time to get up to speed on it. I've just stepped through your sandbox. While I don't really get what some of the steps were about, I assume it worked for you. I loved the bit about putting a hat on it. I do appreciate the time you took to read that 164kb. I expect about half of what's in there are my posts. I'm a developer; that's probably obvious. I've also a ton of "user interface" design experience. And I've done professional lighting design, which has a large 'color' aspect to it. I'll be following up on the wider question of color from a site-wide perspective, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew02:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. I edited your user page and talk editnotice ;)
I'd be really interested to know specifically what bot tasks are under consideration, since Jack has been going about instituting his vision of what he thinks the tables should look like and he also inquired about removing tables from the bot owner. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1) I was wondering, when you go on the commons, you see some images which are said to be not in the public doman, like this [3]. Apparently, since there is the freedom of panorama in the US, they are fine for uploading in the US, yet I was wondering, would they be fine for the UK?
2) Regarding that page that got deleted twice, I totally still disagree with it. As a matter of fact, there's a page which is exact in format to that one and cites the same source, which is this. According to wikipedia, you cannot copyright facts. Well, all I did was I gave the statistics for each region which were the same to that source, which is obvious. Yet, it was said that, you can only copyright expressions. Looking at that page, it does not seem a copyright problem because it only has the same figures, not expressions or formats. Thus, it should not be a copyvio.
Oh, by the way, when you asked me about all my copyright problems, this may not be one, but I had one case of accidentally including a non-free image onto user sandbox space, which was later deleted. Please reply--Theologiae (talk) 07:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Freedom of Panorama laws vary by country, and they can become very complicated. See the explanation at Commons. I am not allowed to give you legal advice, which means I'm probably not going to tell you that you can use an image under "Freedom of Panorama" in the UK, because that would be irresponsible of me. If I'm wrong, you'd be the one getting in trouble.
In general, based on the way I understand it, the UK's "Freedom of Panorama" laws are more liberal than the US laws; they let you do more. In the United States, you can't take a picture in public of a copyright statue and release the picture under "Freedom of Panorama", but I think that in the UK you can. You can't release pictures of copyrighted paintings or posters or signs or wall murals.
(2) Sometimes pages are deleted as copyright problems under a mistaken understanding of copyright. I haven't looked at that page, but if you think the admin who deleted it (either of them) made a mistake, you can ask them to reconsider it. Explain politely why you think they are wrong. If they disagree, you can ask for additional review at deletion review. I will not review it myself, because I think that would be wrong for me to do after our past conversations. You'd have to take it through the proper procedures at this point.
That's all fine. Just one q. I was wondering, I've read the commons story, but it's awfully confusing. Can a public domain work of art be uploaded (I don't mean actually uploading it onto the commons or wikipedia, I mean just using it on an article, like when one adds pictures). So, does that mean that works of art cannot be added as pics? Reply--Theologiae (talk) 19:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My name is Jan Irwin, and I am in the employ of John L. Notter. We recently had our PR company add Mr. Notter on to Wikipedia. His page was recently deleted due to the same information that he has on the Hilton Website being an infringement.
I personally wrote his bio for him to be posted on both, as he is on the Board of Directors of Hilton, and they wanted his bio posted on their website as well.
I give my authorization to please reinstate his page on Wikipedia using the same bio.
I would have responded sooner, but I thought our PR company was handling this matter.
Please call me directly at <redacted> and let me know when this has been done.
I am here in reference to my article that is currently been relisted. You too have commented on it. I wanted to know if I can work on the article in my stub area and what happens if the article gets deleted? If my article gets deleted, can I never attempt to rewrite the article again.
I am a technical person and have just started writing. I have worked hard on the content. I am confident of the content from technical point of view. I had read the rules thoroughly. This is my first wiki article and thus my ride is very bumpy.
Hi. Thank you for your note, and I'm sorry for the bumpy ride you've been having. Wikipedia has a learning curve, and starting right off by creating new articles can be difficult. I can't move it to your sandbox right now, because it's under consideration for deletion. If the article is deleted, you can attempt to create a new version, but you will need to make doubly sure that the content is neutral and that there are enough reliable sources cited to verify that the content is notable. Actually, you can probably save it by doing the same thing right now. You may have noticed that the template message now on the article's face links to a temporary subpage ([4]). You do not have to wait until the AfD closes to work on rewriting the article. You can start right now. First, be very careful to eliminate all copyright concerns. You can see a listing of what these are at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 April 11. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is the four sentence run that seems to be copied from [5], but even the single sentence copied from [6] is a problem under our copyright policy. We request that you use your own, original language when adding content to Wikipedia, although you may use limited, clearly marked quotations. I know from your note that you were under the impression that the whitepage in question was public domain. This seems to have been a misunderstanding. For guidance on what actually is public domain under U.S. copyright laws, we have Wikipedia:Public domain. Other policies and guidelines of use here include Wikipedia:Copyrights, Wikipedia:Non-free content, Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright and Wikipedia:Plagiarism.
Since I am handling the copyright concerns, I have not joined in the argument of the article's merits. I am remaining neutral on the merits of content, but looking at the history of the article it seems that the nominator feels you used quite a few self-published sources as well as many that don't actually mention the subject by name. You would do well at this point to look for more sources that specifically discuss "Mobility-as-a-Service" by name that are not produced by Fiberlink Communications. These will help to satisfy verifiability and notability.
Once that is done, you may consider further neutralizing the language. Sentences such as "It is the hybrid combination of infrastructure elements, operations tools, security applications and other components that can work together to deploy, manage and monitor mobile devices, data and users", "Companies today are strategically connecting to partners, suppliers and customers around the world to optimize efficiency and reduce business costs" and "The MaaS platform provides IT administrators a simple and user friendly administration of a global connectivity infrastructure" sound more in keeping for a brochure than a Wikipedia article. We are here to neutrally summarize what reliable sources have said about notable subjects. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. As you recommended, here's a copy of the response and follow-up question I posted on my page earlier today. I can't imagine how difficult it must be, keeping an eye on so many pages! If my idea wouldn't provide sufficient protection of the article from future deletion, then I should take you up on your offer to help navigate the Wikimedia Foundation email system, and ask Dr. Stone to send an email from his website. As I noted below, since most of the text on his site did not come from my article or Wikipedia, I can't see asking him to attribute his whole site to me. Perhaps as a contributor to the information, though. But please let me know if you think that adding a second link, on the front page of his site, to the Wikipedia article would suffice. (As I mentioned, he already linked his mother's name to the Wiki article at the top of the biography page.) I'll stop typing now, hopefully giving you a tiny bit less to read.... My original response is copied below from my talk page. Thanks again for your expertise here! There's so much to learn! --Mah Jong (talk) 03:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks so much for your help! Most of the text on Dr. Stone's site was not based on my article, only part of it -- mainly the summary on the first page. So I'm not sure about asking him to list me as the origin of the material. He does link Ms. Stone's name to the Wikipedia article at the beginning of the main biography page, which I took as acknowledgment. Do you think it would be enough if I asked him to link to the article on the first page, as well? This would link the summary I mentioned above directly to the Wikipedia article. --Mah Jong (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can they be? Yes. Are they a pain in the neck? Yes. It can be hard to prove a negative, and verifying that copyright was not renewed is difficult for that reason. If we can't be sure, this material is usually replaced in accordance with the WP:C admonition to "If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." I'm afraid that I can't link to any specific examples, though I remember a few conversations--and I mean, a very few. I've been through this less than a handful of times in my nearly two years of full time copyright work here. Usually, we can't be sure, so it doesn't stick around (as per WP:PD: "the necessary conditions are hard to verify").
With respect to your specific examples:
Example 1: Yes, because no notice.
Example 2: Yes, because not renewed.
Example 3: Yes, because no notice.
Example 4: No; copyrighted for 95 years after first publication. Renewal is not required for works published in 1976.
There are also a couple of exceptions to the "no notice" exclusion that may make a work copyrighted even if published without notice. If the copyright holder licensed the material for publication to a publisher and the publisher failed to provide proper copyright notice, the work may still be under copyright. The case to consider here is Fantastic Fakes v. Pickwick InternationalStrauss v. Penn Printing & Publishing Co. found that copyright was not surrendered if by mechanical failure copyright notice was left off of a limited run of a work.
How do you know it was published without copyright notice? Your link to [7] is not helpful, I'm afraid, as it is not to the proper volume. Your link is to Volume 1, which is published in 1881. This volume was published 1927-1935, and [8] does not mention copyright status.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm asking how you know. The absence of the copyright notice in the scanned version of the book is not sufficient, as the law is clear that the absence of the copyright notice doesn't count if it was removed from the book. If the page is missing, it might well have been tagged.
This is what makes it challenging to incorporate text under these conditions and why WP:PD cautions that "the necessary conditions are hard to verify". Proving a negative is always hard. --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In this particular case, OCLC176806699 shows two physical copies of that issue extant in German university libraries at Frankfurt and at Gottingen. Help might be available through local wikipedians if a request was made politely and clearly. The copy at the University of Frankfurt is shown as available for loan, but also as "reading room only". Good luck, User:LeadSongDogcome howl17:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Volume link is fine, there is only one external link in the article). Hmmm... this is the most easy case as possible. The book is available scanned on the internet so people can see, that the material really comes from this book. The scanned book is provided by quite renowned organizations such as Internet Archive/Biodiversity Heritage Library. This certain scan comes from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I do not know if somebody removed copyright notice from that book, but I presume, that no. I even do not believe, that information provided in the "Possible copyright status:" by these service are reliable, because I know, that there are always some errors (I use these services for a long time for images). But I believe that books are scanned in the whole extent.
The more difficult cases will come: books with copyright notice but not renewed; books that are unavailable to wikipedians to verify what is inside them, and so on. There is no power in this world to provide information about every book. What will happen if somebody will provide some text, that we will not be able to verify? What institutions we will trust in and what in not? What wikipedians we will trust in and what in not? Can we trust to wikipedians that will loan the book from University of Frankfurt or can we trust directly to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution?
Because there is no example of incorporation similar text into wikipedia, I have written this article, so this can became an (negative or positive) example for the guideline. --Snek01 (talk) 18:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't expect it'll get incorporated into the guideline at all; I imagine it will be simply another of the handful of cases the details of which I forget. :)
I'm glad it doesn't come up very often, because, again it's a pain in the neck. There was one case that was tagged at CP by a bureaucrat shortly after I first arrived; since I could not positively verify that the copyright was expired and could not bring myself to delete it if it was not, I wound up rewriting the article myself. This is already policy: "If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." This is why I would not incorporate PD expired text unless I could point to something authoritative to show that it is expired. Policy says, "You must also in most cases verify that the material is compatibly licensed or public domain." And this is hard. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately the public portal on the WorldCat server for the WHOI Marine Biological Library does not show the specific volume, though it has some other works by that author. It is not an entirely accessible library, though I'm sure with some hunting it would be possible to find a Wikipedian who has access to the full catalog there. There is no assurance that they retained their physical copy after scanning it. It may even have been destroyed in the process of scanning. The Library of Congress Authorities File shows the author's birth but not his death. The LOC catalog does not show the volume. Still, it seems like a reasonable, good-faith assumption that the dates of origin shown at page (ii) of the scanned image are correct unless there is evidence to the contrary. It seems extremely unlikely that the WHOI MBL librarians or the scanning operator would have cause to falsify the image. Hence, for Parts 109 to 112 the respective dates shown are Nov 1927, Apr 1931, Jun 14 1934 and Nov 1935.
LeadSongDog, I have knew all this your informations and I do not understand how they can be useful. We can expect, that we will find no information that the book is public domain and if so, anybody can challenge every source as unreliable. --Snek01 (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Moonriddengirl, are you in doubts? Because I am not in doubts. Do you really have intentions to rewrite this article by yourself? Because if you will rewrite it, it did not fulfilled its purpose. Feel free to mark the article with {{copyvio}} If I will see that it is the case to deletion, I can delete if myself and wait for verification if necessary. My purpose is not to bring more difficulties neither to wikipedians nor to wikipedia. Alternatively move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. I will bring more cases to get more precise answers to my questions. We should be suspicious to unreliable informations but not to go inside paranoia. --Snek01 (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't want to rewrite it. I suspect that it is public domain for precisely the reason you set forth. I just don't know if I would be able to verify that, and being able to verify it is generally required as per WP:C policy. When stuff like this comes up at WP:CP, I usually curse my bad luck and track down a Wikisource admin, unless I can find proof of PD all on my own. If no Wikipedia Sources admin can verify PD, then I have to rewrite it. Unless somebody else does...and they usually don't.
Snek01, if you're planning on uploading content that is probably (but not provably) PD to see what WP:PD allows, we could wind up with a fairly tangled mess, I'm afraid. Again, I personally wouldn't upload material under this provision unless I could verify that it is PD, as per WP:C. I don't think this is paranoia, but prudence; usually, it's no great hardship to rewrite content so that no possible copyright problem exists, and it eliminates the risk of error. If you are interested in testing the limits of WP:PD, I think it better to do so at a more public fora than this--probably not the copyright cleanup project, but perhaps WP:VPP or WT:C. Older material is by no means my specialty, which is why I'm not on Wikisource.:)
User:LeadSongDog, thanks for the sleuthing. Certainly, everything suggests this is PD. I'm not feeling a need to pursue this one; I just hope it doesn't cross WP:CP on my watch. :) At that point, if I'm handling admin, somebody is saying, "You: personally stand behind this material or don't." If I can't prove it's public domain, I'm not removing the {{copyvio}} tag, because at that point I personally could become liable for contributory infringement if I'm wrong. --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please advise as to the protocol for banning a user
Hello,
A user, killgoret, has added numerous false, inaccurate, inflammatory and just vulgar statements to the ACE Adventure Resort page, on which you at one time commented. I'm just looking for some guidance as to whom I should contact about this trespass.
See Wikipedia:Vandalism. (Part of his actions were straightforward copyright violation, in that he copied [9] into the article.) The thing to do when somebody vandalizes an article is to revert them and to provide an appropriate level warning. Occasionally, vandalism is severe enough to warrant immediate blocking, but most administrators turn away listings at the vandalism noticeboard unless there are clear warnings to the contributor and unless the behavior is likely to continue. A registered account that has vandalized multiple times is more likely to be blocked than an IP if the behavior is not actively occurring, because IPs rotate. But even with registered accounts, there generally must be a proper warning.
I'm sorry to say that this kind of thing happens quite regularly. While there are quite a few contributors who log many hours on vandalism patrol, not everything is swiftly detected and cleaned.
Yes, I was just looking into this. His edit was partially sheer vandalism, and although some of the material he added about the deaths I could source to a newspaper article, some of the other, including the negative commentary, I could only source to two blogs. I've added the article to my watchlist. Dougweller (talk) 18:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there - thanks for looking after my userpage overnight! I'm just dropping you a note to say that Roman888's CCI is done. It was all fairly straightforward except perhaps for the first two items on the list:
Najib Tun Razak. This is a heavily edited article and Roman888 had 140 edits to it. Rather than trawl through the 140 edits - nearly all of which were been superseded by other edits - I instead went through the article itself to look for Roman888 copyvios. I hope this approach is ok. There were a few other articles with 100+ Roman888 edits and I went through those diffs individually.
I don’t really understand the possible incorrectnesses of removing a copyvio template if results a lot of content taken without permission (applying CSD-G12), obvious promotion or spam (CSD-G11) or lack of relevance or importance (CSD-G7); thus offering practical solutions and easing maintenance tasks for admins. If the user shows intentions to spread useful copyrighted information from his/her website and doesn’t how to donating it to our CC license, copyvio template’s purpose would be correct.
With regard to Malaysian Ceylonese Congress article, I was only removing those sections when copyright infringements are found, leaving an stub article, but without kind of copyright issues. Neo Yee Pan, Italian America Magazine, Little Sisters of the Holy Family and Muar State Railway are articles which are only paraphrasing content roughly identical to its original source despite of complying article’s structure standards.
Hi. Thanks for the welcome mat, it is quite helpful. I heard back from Dr. Stone, and he rewrote the home page to Wielder of Words. I looked at the page and the text has been completely revised, no longer resembling the Wikipedia article I wrote. Didn't expect him to do that, but does that solve the copyright problem? --Mah Jong (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
