User talk:LHooper18

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello LHooper18, and welcome to Wikipedia. All or some of your addition(s) to Sydenham High School have been removed, as they appear to have added copyrighted material without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from sources to avoid copyright and 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 cite the source using an inline citation. You can read about this at Wikipedia:Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help: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 the 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.
If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a legally designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. Understand, though, that unlike many other sites, where a person can license their content for use there and retain non-free ownership, that is not possible at Wikipedia. Rather, the release of content must be irrevocable, to the world, into the public domain (PD) or under a suitably-free and compatible copyright license. Such a release must be done in a verifiable manner, so that the authority of the person purporting to release the copyright is evidenced. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are PD or compatibly licensed) it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, the help desk or the Teahouse 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 or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you must follow the copyright attribution steps in Wikipedia:Translation#How to translate. See also 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. 331dot (talk) 11:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

March 2018

Hello, I'm 331dot. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Sydenham High School have been undone because they appeared to be promotional. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted; Wikipedia articles should be written objectively, using independent sources, and from a neutral perspective. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Adding just the motto would be OK, but you added a lot of promotional language with it. 331dot (talk) 08:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would also ask you if you are associated with this school in some way. 331dot (talk) 08:54, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, LHooper18. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. 331dot (talk) 12:43, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sydenham High School

Hi, sorry to hear you're having difficulty getting your writing accepted on this article. I think I know where the school is as my brother used to live in East Dulwich and I remember walking in the area around Crystal Palace Park. Anyway, I've added some information about the school building, which has an extensive history behind it. Your text hasn't been lost; it's preserved in the history so I can pull it out and fact check it against book sources if necessary. I'm not sure why you're getting grief on this article - I had similar issues on Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School, despite the school building there also having a rich history and heritage stretching back to the 19th century. Hope that's helpful.

If you need further help editing, a good place to go is the Teahouse, which is full of editors waiting to answer new user's questions. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:17, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - all I want to do is add some really basic History and info on the Houses so the page isn't so empty! It's all available publicly. I don't even know if i'm replying to your message correctly! LHooper18 (talk) 15:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. You are responding correctly. I would first ask you to clarify your statement that the school asked you to update the article. You will need to read about conflict of interest at WP:COI. Do you work for the school?

The main issue is that you are posting information but not providing a citation. You mention that it comes from the school website; What Wikipedia needs is for it to be sourced to an independent, third party reliable source; Please read WP:RS to learn more. 331dot (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Hi, yes I can see your message. Essentially there's a particular house style to writing Wikipedia articles, which comes with experience. We can verify most of the information from the school's website, but I prefer to see if I can get it from independent sources, such as local books or newspaper coverage, as it can be a judge on what's important to mention and what isn't. The 1997 fire seems like it should have been a significant local news piece, but I think it just pre-dates the time when BBC News started archiving local news reports by a very short time. The school building seems to be prominent too in its former guise as Horner Grange. We can probably sort most of this out with the appropriate local history books. I'll have a look around and get back to you. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:42, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I checked your edits and unfortunately they all appeared to be direct copies of one of the school websites, so I'm afraid they had to be reverted. Copyright violations are a frequent trap for new users, as they seem to be draconian, but there are important legal reasons why we need to do it. User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to copyvios has more information. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:23, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]