Talk:Robert Dixon (explorer)

Copyright

There has been some consternation about the source of the information included in this article, specifically that the majority of the articles resembles that published by the Australian Biographical Dictionary maintained by the Australian National University.

The online article is, in fact, itself a copy of an article published by the Melbourne University Press in 1966, cited by the ADB article.

The text of this article differs (albeit not a great deal) from both the original article and the subsequent online copy.

While the text can be edited to change the language slightly (which it has) so as to avoid tracts of copy-paste text, this article and the original are essentially point-by-point recollections of the life of someone long since dead. While the text and language can be changed, it has little impact on the fact that what is written is historical fact and cannot be changed.

The original article does not represent someone's opinion and the online copy certainly does not represent original research. As much as a university might have copyright over an article or piece of text, it does not have copyright over history and cannot claim to have such.

This article contains additional information, text, subheadings and images and while it is similar to the original article (as historical fact tends to be) it is not a wholesale copy.

If consternation remains about the language I will run the whole thing through the Thesaurus.

Am more than happy to discuss but please leave your comments here so that they can be considered before deleting content without consensus. Please assume good faith.

Stalwart111 (talk) 04:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Look I don't mean to be rude but observing copyright is not an issue to be determined by consensus, and deleting clear copyright violations is hardly "deleting without justification" as you accuse me of. It does not matter whether the original article is "opinion" or "historical fact" --- these categories are irrelevant.

Mr. Cranfield, the author of the ADB entry, in 1966 did some research and then created original wording, sentence structures, order of presentation, and choice of what facts to include and exclude about Robert Dixon. That is a creative act sufficient to give him copyright over what he wrote, regardless of true but irrelevant statements like "facts cannot be copyrighted". You did not do anything equivalent. Minimal editing of a source, like mechanistic replacement of some words with others from a thesaurus, inversion of subject and object in a few places, or putting in new sentence and paragraph breaks, does not magically exempt you from the law and let you abrogate the original author's right to control the text that he wrote.

The proper approach to writing a Wikipedia article is to find secondary (rather than tertiary) sources about the topic, make your own selection of facts from those (rather than copying another encyclopaedia writer's selection of facts), and express those facts using sentences you thought up yourself. cab (talk) 05:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion was that your way of dealing with copyright should be a matter for discussion, not the legal basis for copyright in the first place. Mr. Cranfield created the original article and is well within his rights to claim copyright over that which made his work significantly different from previous work - a concept which forms the basis of Wikipedia's original research guidelines.

I agree that Cranfield, in 1966 did some research - which is appropriately cited and no-one is claiming otherwise.

and then created original wording, sentence structures, order of presentation - which should be appropriately different so as not to mirror the original but you also have to take into account that the majority of the article simply recites historical fact. The article by Cranfield represents, really, the only available information detailing Dixon's life and while there is unique language which we should avoid copying, it is basically a recitation of historical fact.

and choice of what facts to include and exclude about Robert Dixon - absolutely right but with few other historical records Cranfield's article likely represents the depth and breadth of available information about Dixon. A lack of further historical sources means we likely cannot include any more facts about Dixon and it would be irresponsible to exclude facts simply on the basis that someone found them before we did.

I have tried to change the article to remove as much of the unique language, and retain basic historical fact, as possible but if you want to re-write the article further, feel free to do so. I have always seen Wikipedia as a work in progress.

My concern wasn't with your grievance, which I understand, it was with the way you deleted content without discussing the matter, but I'm glad you're amenable to discussion.

(I have moved your citation from the article to the talk page where it should be; the citation box itself calls for discussion which can't be conducted in the article)

Stalwart111 (talk) 06:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC).

This is actually a very blatant copyvio from ADB. The current version is still overly close though it's not as blatant as it was then. Thinking what you added in ok is incredibly concerning. Wizardman 01:59, 14 February 2023 (UTC)