Talk:Car dealer auctions

speedy deletion

• verision [[1]] was essentially copied from [2]
• external references are not used inline
• a single user, no longer active, has defended removal of these references to merchant circle blog advertisement for a company, modtobidia
• after accounting for plagerised content, no meaningful content would remain. Jethero^Talk 04:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• most (but not all) of 'what links here' seem to be to collect traffic. Recommend deleting the redirects to this page aswell Jethero^Talk 04:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that this is an advertisement: the article provides information about a somewhat hidden, non generally known part of the used cars market and is usefull. External links have rel="nofollow" atribute so the online magazine gets no pagerank credit. The article survived a VFD, it is definitely not for "speedy". --5ko 14:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Contesting the speedy deletion note

• A permission note has been added to conform with copyright standards - thank you for reminding.
• If a different format of referencing is necessary, this can be done, too; just explain or let other people express opinion.
• I, as well as Wiki bots and admins, have defended spam link references from replacing the real sources, often disguised under the description of links - see the persistent attempts of User:Citizenox, User:Carlits and User:Buzluzu (suspiciously one and the same) and decide for yourself what was actually happening. Their links had no merit to this article and did not belong there.
• Resolution in first bullet should take care of the plagiary allegation.
• Format of references for this article was already discussed and agreed upon eight months ago (follow August 25, 2006 discussion link above for more information). Credit is given where it's due by Wikipedia's standards. Online sources ought to get links.

Let's do this right instead of rushing with deletion. More opinions are welcome. cfherbert 14:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• You need to show the written permission, for example enter in here (the permission must indicate that the text is released with the GFDL license by the copyright holder, you can better put such a note in the external referenced article). If you also wrote the other article yourself, please read WP:NOR to see if your text is or is not original research: however, as it was already published before in an external reviewed magazine, I believe it may stay (provided the GFDL permission).
• If you do not contribute to Wikipedia anywhere but to this article and related ones (placing links to this one), even your user page is empty, other editors may become suspicious that it may be written as an advertisement (most spammers appear to behave like this, but there are also normal editors). If the current text gives really the same information as the external link, and the article gets deleted, people searching for the subject will be able to find it in Google.
• See also Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to format the external references "inline", and Wikipedia:Citing_sources for a general discussion on article sources. --5ko 17:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Reinstate speedy

• speedy deletion request should only be removed by an admin. are you one? The hang-on is sufficient for now.
• 'useful' and 'interesting' are not justifications for keeping an article.
• I read the first deletion page before I posted. Original VFD was for original research. It did NOT address the copyright violation from merchant circle blog, nor the modtobidia link
• merchant circle link not appear to be a peer reviewed article, just a blog (and published PRIOR to posting here), so in fact the WP:OR decision in the first VFD might be reviewed
• statement indicating licence and permission is still not provided, thus it's still a copyvio
• I'm not trying to make life difficult. guidelines for copyright infringement are CLEAR. WP:copyvio Wikipedia:Copyright_problems. In fact, I'm *supposed* to revert to the non-copyright version while discussion goes on. Which would mean blanking the page. Which I will do this time.
  • there is no meaningful clean revert in the history. The initial draft was a copy of the merchant circle blog, by a single users, and so all we have here is a copyvio and then minor edits since then, of no substance
  • the page was brought in as an orphan and THEN linked into other articles. Where it is linked is of questionable value (the ones I checked are just in page link farms, such as on the used good page), and many of those could justifiably be removed.
• if 5ko (talk · contribs) intends on rewriting the article, they may do so on a temporary, hidden page with inline sourced references to peer reviewed or other 2ndary sources. See WP:Copyright_problems#Alternatives to deletion
• Copying the text from the blog is not acceptable unless the blog site states ownership of copyright and compatible license
• referencing the blog for the article is not acceptable as it (does not appear to be) a peer reviewed publisher
• quote from the merchant circle terms of service [3]:

You agree that all content and materials delivered via the Service or otherwise made available by MerchantCircle are protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets or other proprietary rights and laws. Except as expressly authorized by MerchantCircle in writing, you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from such materials or content.

• I'm putting the speedy copyvio and speedy spam back on because that's what I beleive the policies require. Jethero^Talk 03:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• I put copyvio on instead, because I think it's more appropriate for this immeidate case, and we can deal with the WP:SPAM and WP:OR aspects togehter once the copyvio part has been cleared. I understand that *you* might have written permission from merchant circle, despite the terms of service I quoted above, but right now, *we* don't, and copyvio is a serious violation. Jethero^Talk 03:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Did Jethero (talk · contribs) accidently read the template he pasted? The template says :

  If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself.

  It does not say You must be an administrator, and I am removing it as abusive (does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion) and I intend to improve it.

• Yes it is. The article subject is encyclopedic, 'useful' and 'interesting', and deserves to be in the encyclopedia.
• In fact, there is a requirement that information be published elsewhere 'PRIOR' to being referenced here, and this is the case.
• Copyvio : please, Assume good faith for a couple of days. If the user says he has the GFDL-permission from the original copyright holder, he will show it. A new user may not be as comfortable as us with our software and policies, so we should try to help him instead of intimidating him.
  • I believe the person Chris Herbert, car expert and author of the linked article, is probably the same as User:Cfherbert. What we do about the permission if that's the case? He added himself the text and automatically agreed to license it under the GFDL, as it says in the edit form.
• The template layout of the online magazine may have statements, but the right question is who is the copyright holder and do we have permission from him. And you know this very well.
• I am restoring the article, as I am sure you are wrong about the Copyvio. Read WP:Copyvio:

  Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL.

• If you want so badly the references inline, feel free to format them yourself, instead of deleting the article. It is better to have them inline, but it is not forbidden to have them in a separate section.
• Please, read also WP:AGF and WP:DBN to learn about interaction in Wikipedia. --5ko 07:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

wrong date in my posts above

• I just noted that I quoted the wrong version in my first reference. the history indicates that the material was added to wikipedia as the first revision of this page in august, 2006 [4], not november as I claim above. Jethero^Talk 03:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No Real Copyright Infringement (Just Misunderstanding)

Let me clarify a couple of things regarding copyright. MerchantCircle does not own or restrict the rights to content posted on their site - it is the property of the author - see their policy here. Being the author of both the media article posted on MerchantCircle as well as the encyclopedic version of it posted on Wikipedia, I do not see copyright infringement of my own work. The reference given in the article ought to suffice. I also agree completely with Wikipedia's policy which gives the right to other users to modify or expand this article to better serve the encyclopedic reference needs of the community at large. If there is a way to make this more clear, do let me know. cfherbert 13:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we agree on this?

• Do all three of us agree that it is important that whomever reads this article will NOT have immediate concerns about copyright violation, when they checks the references or do a web search for some of the text? Jethero^Talk 04:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree: if it was the case, this discussion wouldn't have started. I wrote a better line that explains it, if it can be improved, it should. If you have doubts about this, you may contact the person at Motobidia and have an response if he is really the same as Cfherbert. See also User talk:Cfherbert. --5ko 07:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Good. Is the statement "The article, in it's original version, was reprinted in edited form with permission from What Kind of Vehicles Are Sold at Dealer Auctions? by Motobidia.com" seems to imply that the article originated at MerchantCircle. However, this is the chronology as I can see it:

• • posted on Wikipedia, '22:55, 12 August 2006' [5] by Cfherbert
  • very similar article posted in MerchantCircle, 'Posted 11:16 AM September 23, 2006' [6] by Motobidia
  • very similar article posted in EzineArticles 'October 14, 2006' [7] by Chris Herbert / motobidia
  • very similar article posted in ArticleCity, October 2006 [8] by Chris Herbert
  • 22 other postings of a very similar article on a varierty of webpages between October 26, 2006 and now. (I am assuming that all of these are inconsequential duplications of some earlier work)
• Does the order of publication above suggest that the line 'reprinted with permission from' is no longer accurate?
• If the link to MerchantCircle is not a reference to a source of information, and is not a reference to the original document, should we remove it? Jethero^Talk 01:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree on this point too: your research indicates that the article was first published here and later to Merchantcircle. If that is the case, it is inacurate to link to Merchantcircle as a reference (this may bring back the WP:OR issue if any unclear statement is not backed up by a verifiable source). --5ko 02:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Cfherbert, perhaps it would help if you clarify where and when the composition of this article took place and where the first publication of this work was? Jethero^Talk 01:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we assume good faith?

• 5ko, can we also assume WP:AGF and WP:DBN on behalf of someone new trying to improve the quality of a wikipedia as well as new authors of content? Please don't assume I'm being abusive, as some of your responses and version comments seem to imply, (it's always tricky with text communications). These policies apply just as well to someone trying to maintain quality as it does to someone trying to add content. It was because the db-copyvio didn't request that I blank the page that I first selected that template, thinking it was more friendly than copyvio. Then later when it looked more like a copyvio, it was partly because of the false-alarm clause that I felt the copyvio template was appropriate and not too extreme.

WP:AGF: "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary." I would AGF, if you have not blanked the page the second day, while a discussion had started, and if you have not told me that only admins can remove a db-* template which is absolutely incorrect. You blank the page, and put templates with "This item is unquestionably a copyright infringement" when it unquestionably is, and this was not the case -- at worst it was questionable (we were 'able' to 'question' the editor), it appears that it may be not a copyright infringement at all. I am glad though that the discussion continues without you re-blanking the page and shouting for Speedy again. --5ko 08:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Where can we go from here?

• Cfherbert, I appreciate your very straight forward and non argumentative responses, and I hope mine don't seem like an attack but instead are taken as me trying show a perspective that a random passerby may also percieve if they come on the same situation in the future.

• I'm trying to do what I think is right and in spirit and accordance with guidelines and principles of WP. I do AGF, and in this case, in that there is likely a reasonable explanation for what I have observed, and a place for an article on this topic, just I suspect not in it's present form. I tried to list the observations as clearly as possible and it seemed to, as 5ko also pointed out, raise some suspicion that it may be written as an advertisement. It is also obviously a very close resemblance to work from a website which seems to restrict a copyright to the work published there. My first mistake was trying to address all three at once. So let's deal with the copyvio first:

• From what I understand, if we suspect a possible copyright violation, from what I read on wp:copyvio, this is the process we are supposed to take: revert or blank the page, post the copyvio template, alert the copyvio admins, then work out the details, and remove the copyvio when it's resolved. If I suspect it, it doesn't mean that I accuse anyone of abuse, and it doesn't mean that I am right, or that I want the article deleted permanently leaving a void, but that it *looks* right now like copyvio, that there is no revert that we could step back to that predates the suspected copyvio while we work on improving the article, and that until it is improved others that arrive may have the same conclusion. Hence, wp:copvio template until problem is solved. Is that not the correct proceedure?

• The link given above by Cfherbert to the copyright info for MediaCircle seems to be instructions on what do to if you suspect there is a copyright violation on one of the MerchantCircle blog entries. The quote I showed inline above and reference 3 is from the same site, but from their Terms of Service; sections 7 and 16 seem to be relevant to content submitted or taken from the blogs, and seems to prohibit copying it. 5ko, your point about who owns the original copyright is important indeed. If it was indeed 'authored' on the MediaCircle blog, wouldn't it appear that MerchantCircle owns those rights?

I look forward to the civil resolution of this. Jethero^Talk 04:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

(3) Wrong, again it seems you have not yet read WP:Copyvio: "If you suspect a copyright violation, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's talk page. [...] [I]f the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL." You only suspect some things, ask the editor or on the page's talk page.

• When you blank the page and/or put a Speedy template, there is a risk that an admin inadvertantly deletes the page while we haven't had yet the time to discuss.
• A blatant copyvio is usually pasted in one edit, non-formatted, from a non-registered IP address, then it gets Speedyly deleted. Not the case here.
• When the suspected text was added by a registered user, you can ask the user on his talk page. Some of them do not know the policies and do make errors, they should be directed to the relevant help pages.
• When the article, in more or less the same form, has survived a VfD, it is definitely not for speedy -- there is a possibility to discuss and fix the issues, and it should be used.

(4) Yes, it may appear so, however it is not the case. It may also be the contrary: the website may have copied from Wikipedia without giving proper credit. The rights belong to who wrote the text, or sometimes to his employer, see Copyright. This same article is reprinted on a number of other online magazines[9] and all of them credit the author Chris Herbert, so he is the one who should be asked. --5ko 08:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

This article needs to be rewritten.

It's clear this is simply a paraphrase of [10]. We are a summarization of external sources, not in the business of taking other articles and changing a few words to make it not a copyright violation. Even regardless of the copyright violation (which, from the above, seems to be under debate chronologically) it has extensive WP:MOS issues and lacks in-line references.

• If the article is paraphrased from the Herbert article, it needs to be rewritten. It doesn't matter if Herbert says we can use it, even if this were to happen he needs to do more than simply express permission here (fax to the Wikimedia foundation, for example). The real issue is of the prose which is mediocre at best.

• If the Herbert article copies from WP, we need to inform the reprinters they are posting material from Wikipedia without a adequate GFDL disclaimer.

If neither of these are cleared up within the week, I'm taking this to AfD. The last comment here was in the middle of April, and a potential legal problem cannot be left for any longer than needed. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 05:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

There is another, more probable possibility, as the user stated :

• Herbert himself wrote the article and published it here and on different other sites, which accept articles from (almost) anybody.

As written at WP:Copyvio, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL. And vice-versa.

About the permission, I believe it is simpler to have a page or a note on the Herbert's site or blog saying that he released this article under the GFDL.

About the prose, I am not a native English speaker so cannot argue, but it is clear that the article lacks inline references that should be reliable and verifiable. I talked to the user and showed him some relevant help pages, unfortunately without reaction. (The Manual of Style is another usefull help page, just in case.)

In conclusion, I believe that there is no copyright violation, but, as obviously nobody worked on the text improvement since October, not even the original author (who has very few other Wikipedia contributions), this article will probably not survive another vote for deletion. --5ko 07:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We should perhaps get a WikiProject to work on rewriting this if I have to take it to AfD. I'm sure there's a lot of potential sources. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 21:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)