User talk:Jmwww

Avoiding copyright problems

Hello, and welcome. Your addition to Paul Laffoley has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.

You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and a cited source. You can read about this at Wikipedia:Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. (There is a college level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Wikipedia:Copyrights. You may also want to review Wikipedia:Copy-paste.
In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are public domain or compatibly licensed), it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at the help desk before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied without attribution. If you want to copy from another Wikipedia project or article, you can, but please follow the steps in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. —Quiddity (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. In reply to your comments at User talk:Quiddity#Paul Laffoley: I should have written a detailed and personalized note, to fully explain, rather than just placing the standard "copyright" template-message. My apologies for that. Here are the details: The content that you changed/added here has a number of problems, most of which stem from the text being a duplicate of the paragraphs found at http://paullaffoley.net/paullaffoley/2009/01/paul-laffoley-the-sixties-opening-january-8-2009-kent-gallery-new-york/ and http://curatorsoffice.com/luciddreaming - These are written in an inappropriate WP:TONE for an encyclopedia, and so cannot be used here verbatim, even if the source was made clear. Additionally, that text would not be considered a WP:Reliable source as it is personally connected to the artist - eg. a press-release is fine for citing in regards to objective biographical details (eg. Where he lived, what he studied), but are not appropriate for subjective statements such as "assimilate and systematically cross-pollinate the many strands of his intellectual inquiry" and "what is arguably the first work of his fully mature vision" which would need to be sourced to an independent source.

As another example, the reference-link you added to http://www.gf.org/fellows/16501-paul-laffoley is a good source, but it doesn't mention (support) the sentence that it follows (ie "visionary paintings that he conceives of as contemporary vehicles for spiritual enlightenment."). We need to make clear what statements are specifically being supported by each reference (citation).

I'm going to partially revert again, but will retain that Guggenheim link, and some of the other changes. I'll attempt to incorporate as many of the details as I can, whilst neutralizing the tone (Neutral point of view is one of our most important policies at Wikipedia). I hope we can work together, to continue improving the article on this wonderful artist.

You can reply to me here, or at my talkpage, or on the article's talkpage, whichever you prefer (I'm watchlisting them all, so will see your comments wherever they go).

Best wishes, —Quiddity (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]