Talk:George Washington Gift

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Military history: Biography / North America / United States / American Civil War

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This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion not met

Associated task forces:
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	Military biography task force
	North American military history task force
	United States military history task force
	American Civil War task force

This article is the subject of a request emailed to the Volunteer Response Team (VRT).

Issues identified are: Copyright complaint. Material duplicated from [1].
The VRTS ticket number is 2012101210000775.

Please discuss these issues here, being mindful of the policies on biographies of living persons.

Re witten section

<redacted>— Preceding unsigned comment added by Asiaticus (talk • contribs) 18:14, 8 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Hello. I'm afraid that your proposed rewrite is not yet consistent with Wikipedia's approach to copyrighted content. For example, your copyrighted source says:

In mid-February 1861, after the secession of several Southern States, a petition was presented to Los Angeles County Judge Dryden to "open a book" to enroll a volunteer militia company. The petition was signed by seven prominent Angelenos.....Maryland-born Judge Dryden rapidly approved the petition and, on February 25th, Gift announced the opening of the enrollment book.

Prior to its blanking, the article said (bolding copy-pasted content; italicizing close paraphrase)

In mid-February 1861, after the secession of several Southern States, a petition was presented to Los Angeles County Judge Dryden to "open a book" to enroll a volunteer militia company. The petition was signed by Gift and seven other prominent Angelenos. Maryland-born Judge Dryden rapidly approved the petition and, on February 25, Gift announced the opening of the enrollment book.

Your proposed rewrite says:

After the secession of several Southern States, in mid-February 1861, a petition to open a book to enroll a volunteer militia company was presented to Los Angeles County Judge Dryden. The petition was signed by George Washington Gift, Joseph Lancaster Brent, Meyers J. Newmark, Jose Antonio Sanchez, Joseph Huber, Alonzo Ridley, A. J. Henderson and Francisco Martinez, all prominent Angelenos. Judge Dryden (formerly from Maryland) quickly approved the petition and Gift announced the opening of the enrollment book on February 25.

With respect to the proposed rewrite of the first sentence, every word is taken from the source, simply rearranged.

While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation - including both structure and language - are. So that it will not constitute a derivative work, problematic sections of the article should be rewritten (as you were told in the directions you were left above) in the temporary space that is now linked from the article's front. Rewriting from scratch helps to avoid creating derivatives, while overwriting pasted content, as you did here, can lead to unacceptable practices such as replacing a few words with synonyms (rapidly becomes quickly) or simply moving around blocks of text. The essay Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches, while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism".

Alternatively, if the material can be verified to be public domain or permission is provided, we can use the original text with proper attribution.

Please let me know at my talk page if you have questions about this. Otherwise, I or another administrator will revisit the article in a week to see if a usable rewrite is provided in the proper place. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Content from this source has again been removed. It must not be restored. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]