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The Hacker's Conference

First, I am a regularly invited (and have participated in six or seven such conferences) participant.

Second, I will ask Glenn Tenney, who is the principal organiser of the conferences, about the copyright, and a waiver thereof.

Third, I rewrote the text of the description, so as to remove copyright concerns. I can continue to rewrite this material, so as to remove any angst of Wikipedians such as yourself. Frankly, I think complaint regarding this article are baseless.

The Hacker's Conference is well described in a NOVA program (aired in the late 1980s), which documented the first such conference, held as I recall at Asilomar. So, the conference per se is notable, and should be described in a Wikipedia article.

William R. Buckley (talk) 00:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you mount this case at the article's talk page, and use the temporary subpage link provided by the overriding message if you wish to rewrite the article from scratch, as I will not be directly participating in the additional review. As to the notabilits issue, as far as I'm concerned, that point is pretty moot until the copyvio issue is sorted, but remember that "notability" in the wikipedian sense doesn't mean fame or importance but the existence of several independent third-party sources allowing to verify an article's content so that a neutral article can be written. MLauba (talk) 00:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

N.P Manicham Errthaandaar

Hai, I started this article with my style of writing, reference taken from books in the public library there wont be any issue in copyright. Thank you, SanjaiMahi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanjaymahi (talk • contribs) 13:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Great to hear that you're working on a version without copyright issues. As I've noticed, your latest attempt got removed on notability grounds, unfortunately. As you will find, in order to have an article on Wikipedia, it's subject needs to be covered and referenced in several independent, third-party reliable sources so that its content is verifiable and neutral in tone. I suggest that you spend some time reviewing this essay about writing your first article, then work on it in your userspace (eg at User:Sanjaymahi/Sandbox) until it is ready to go back to article status. If you need any assistance, you can ask the nice people at WP:N? for help with writing the article according to the policies. If you need further assistance, you can also place {{helpme}} (note the curly brackets) on your own talk page. Good luck! MLauba (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Night Fever (TV series)

Hi. I performed a history merge on the articles rather than a purge, as the external site lists us as the source - so no copyvio here, happily. Best, – Toon(talk) 17:14, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Ouch, there it sits, plain as day, obvious like a nose in the middle of a face, and I missed it. Shame. MLauba (talk) 17:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Ha, don't worry, it wasn't just you; another user had added a {{copyvio}} tag previously. Hidden in plain sight. Still, better safe than sorry, to throw a few clichés at you. – Toon(talk) 17:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Marc Lafia

Hello,

I've been editing the page about Marc Lafia. I did not create the first entry, but have been working off of it to correct the issues noted by Wikipedia editors as regards copyrighted material and lack of secondary sources to validate claims about the subject.

I'm new to contributing content to Wikipedia. Is there a place on Wikipedia (the sandbox, maybe) where this article can be developed but not published to the site until it meets the standards of objectivity, etc.? If so, can you instruct me as to how I would move the text to that workspace?

Thank you, Jane Craford

PS - I know I could do all the article preparation offline, but it is helpful to work within Wikipedia to preview the formatting & test the links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.74.50 (talk) 22:30, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The best way would be simply to follow the link now indicated on the Marc Lafia page to create a temporary subpage and start editing there. The sandbox gets deleted periodically, not the best place for editing for over a couple of hours. MLauba (talk) 09:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

All right! Will do. Thank you for your clear instructions. User:JCraford —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.77.98 (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

From Elluminati,

Thank You! Elluminati (talk) 18:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Cut and Paste Move

Somebody erroneously replaced the redirect at CPIM to an article. That means the history of the page does not belong to that article. So if we move the page all the history related to CPIM will go with an unrelated page. So created a page with an appropriate title for that article and copy pasted the article to that page, so that the article is not lost due to reversion.Aravind V R (talk) 13:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

While I don't question your motives, a cut & paste move is in effect violating the rights of all the contributors to the Certification article. First, the decision whether CPIM should redirect to the party or the certification should normally require consensus, and the simple historical precedence isn't necessarily the natural outcome of such. And second, moving the page and then redirecting CPIM to the party would still have achieved all of your goals while maintaining the rights of all previous editors to the Certifications article. That the initial redirect would have been moved with it isn't damaging in any way or sense, nor is it infringing on the article creator's rights.
In substance, no matter the reasons, cut and paste moves should be avoided at all costs in favour of WP:MOVE. Also note that if the situation appears either too complex or possibly controversial, we have a process in place WP:RM to request and discuss these as well.
Cheers, MLauba (talk) 14:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia SignpostWikipedia Signpost: 29 June 2009

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 02:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Peter Bradley-Fulgoni

Thank you for your prompt reply. I have just sent an email to permissions-en at wikimedia dot org to explain this rather complicated situation, and I'll try to sort it out. Since no one has told me, can you actually tell me what the problem is in the article (other than the copyright itself)? For the "independent, third-party reliable sources", can I use soundtechniques? I've quoted from his published CDs, which are reliable sources, but there are no websites for such things. He hasn't got a personal website himself, and as I've explained, it's his CV so I can't start changing things like the city name of "Moscow" to something else. Changing the article would distort the meaning, and is against the will of the copyholder, Peter Bradley-Fulgoni himself. The article in my opinion is in a neutral tone; there is no bias on it, and is certainly not advertising in any sense. It's like any other pianist's sites - go to Rubenstein etc., you could consider that as seriously biased as well. Hope this article will be opened again, and hope you understand the situation. Wtjulianchan (talk) 16:54, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I fully understand and sympathize with the situation, Wikipedia has a steep learning curve, as I'm reminded almost daily myself :)
Regarding the copyright issue first, I can anticipate further challenges if the copyholder objects to the content being modified. The reason for this is that since anyone can edit here, chances are anyone will edit and start modifying the text, for various reasons, some very good, some less so. That concretely means that any text from third parties needs to be either fully quoted (and attributed) so that the next editor who starts to work on the article is limited to removing the quote altogether (instead of rewording parts of it), or fully licensed so that it can be modified by anyone. If the former happens, though, the issue becomes that we cannot simply reproduce another site's content wholesale, because that violates Fair Use first, and also goes against the fundamental reason-d'être of the encyclopedia second.
So it's a bit a damned if you do / damned if you don't problem, the best solution being either to rewrite the bio from scratch, or to obtain a CC-BY-SA license allowing modification of the content.
Regarding reliable sources, while I'm not familiar with soundtechniques directly, but my gut feeling tells me that it would probably not pass muster. A reliable, independent third-party source is normally one which has a clear editorial oversight process at the very least. To quote from the reliable sources policy:"Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication."
From a cursory google check, I'm suspecting that Mr. Bradley-Fulgoni might not yet have attracted sufficient attention to be covered in any of such publications, and as such would probably not yet be eligible for a Wikipedia entry. I'm not making the call here though, and please do also note that these publications do not need to be online.
As I said, it's not easy, but don't let that discourage you. If the article can be sourced, pending the copyright issue resolution, it should be able to stay. MLauba (talk) 17:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Jacky Jasper

Hello

The following was left on a page i helped create (Jacky Jasper). I am not sure of what action I need to take. Would you please explain to me what I need to do according to your comments left.

requesting histpurge for article started as copyvio. Article retains content contributed by Darrick122

Thanks,

Darrick Angelone —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darrick122 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

  • No, nothing at all. You can just go ahead and improve upon the article, just leave the tag as it is for an admin to review and don't introduce material lifted from the subject's own website. :) MLauba (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Dave's RfA

Hi. With regards to this, there's no definitive consensus as to whether these issues are indeed breaches of WP:V, WP:RS, etc. All I'm saying is that this particular RfA might not be the best place to discuss that. Hope this helps clear things up. –Juliancolton | Talk 21:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me, Julian, but citing an source as reference which doesn't even mention the topic of the article at all nor provide any support to a simple sentence like "route such is called river road by people in Moab" is only missing definitive consensus on Dave's RfA talk page. As long as I keep WP:AGF, this is a misunderstanding of WP:RS (if I suspend AGF it becomes much worse but I won't go there, I had zero interactions with Dave so far), and while the candidate would get my vote for an admin role limited to protection or heck, even blocking, I cannot support for deletion. Let's separate admin roles and he gets my votes for two buttons out of three. Or let him start over in 3 months after actually building a decent track record in deletion discussions, and he has my vote too.
As I said elsewhere, my problem is that he has no record in the areas where he wants to work. So how he applies WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NOR are the only clues to form a vote upon, since I don't know the candidate at all. MLauba (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia SignpostWikipedia Signpost: 6 July 2009

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 03:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Mediation request

Since Moonriddengirl (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has taken care of the history purge, I have closed this request. She is very hardworking when it comes to copyvios and is quite helpful. In terms of moving forward, there are a number of venues that could help sort out any remaining issues. The reliable sources noticeboard is good for evaluating sources. The no original research noticeboard can help if there are concerns that the article goes further than the sources. There is also a general content noticeboard if the matter involves content issues not covered by a specific noticeboard. The biology, science, and math WikiProject talk pages are good places to ask for uninvolved editors to review and contribute to the article. Since some of your concerns regard overlinking and style considerations, I recommend Tony1 (talk · contribs), Awadewit (talk · contribs), and Eubulides (talk · contribs) as good people to ask for advice. If I can be of further assistance, please let me know! --Vassyana (talk) 16:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the time and the advice. I frankly don't know exactly how to bring external assistance to review the article which suffers from several flaws in terms of style, as I have been accused of violating WP:NPOV when I pointed those out (on the talk page). I would normally just stick some maintenance tags on it and let it be, but I have stated that I'd remain disengaged from the article's content except for copyvio issues - which have now been addressed. As such, any attempts by me to highlight issues in other venues may respark the drama which led me to seek mediation in the first time. I'll consider my options for a while. MLauba (talk) 15:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about a mop in your future?

Hi there. Seeing that you have quickly amassed a decent amount of WP:CLUE of how things work here, I was wondering: Have you thought about running for adminship at all? If so, mind if I ask what your decision was? Regards SoWhy 20:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words and the vote of confidence, but I think it's a bit too early for me. Also, considering what's been happening on recent RfAs and other recent high-profile conflicts, I'm currently wondering whether my views of what adminship ought to be aren't a bit way too much at odds with how the community sees it. I think I'll resume my work on WP:SCV for a while, and may perhaps reconsider if I start getting too disturbed by the fact that I flag things for other admins to do while not pulling my fair share. Trotzdem vielen Dank :) MLauba (talk) 21:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Let me chip in to say that I've also thought for a while now that you'd make a terrific admin, FWIW. – Toon 22:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree that it's probably too soon, since your contributions started in earnest in March only. I was asking merely in general, not about now. In fact, if you take my word for it, I'd have suggested mid-August as a good time to try. Since you do good work at WP:SCV, you might ask Moonriddengirl to give her opinion about this. Still, I wanted to asked, so thanks for the answer. Regards SoWhy 06:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Considering I have an extremely busy work + travel schedule ahead of me in August, followed by some well-deserved vacation in September ;), if I were to consider it seriously, October would be more like it. In other words, ages in internet time :) Again, thanks to both of you for the suggestion. At the very least, that's some food for thought over the Summer for me. Cheers, MLauba (talk) 15:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
October is a very good time to pass an RfA (). Enjoy your real life and if any questions arise when pondering this suggestion, feel free to ask. Regards SoWhy 15:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Paul kenneth m mora (talk · contribs)

I see that you caught one that I missed. Good show. :) Best, Javért | Talk 08:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

There's still more in there and potentially yet another sock. MLauba (talk) 08:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC) Oops, no, not really. Nevermind, sorry MLauba (talk) 08:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

That's good, you had me scared for a moment. :) VirtualSteve has salted all the titles, so hopefully we're through here. Thanks for your help, Javért | Talk 08:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
The network appears to be large enough for more to be added later on, though. While I was initially inclined to AGF, my money is on a zealous staffer now. What doesn't help is that part of the remote site's material on other stations is actually borrowed from wikipedia in the first place. MLauba (talk) 08:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Andrei Tsygankov

Could you point out how exactly is the article a copyright violation? It is very little text, mostly information from his CV, which is difficult to paraphrase in any other way than what is currently in the article. If this is a copyvio, then by the same logic we should delete all "List of publications" sections from all articles of academics, as these are usually also directly taken from the person's CV. Please explain. Offliner (talk) 10:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, please personally compare the article text[1] and the resume [2]. Offliner (talk) 10:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the source:

Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University. He teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics since August 2000. A Russian native, Tsygankov is a graduate of Moscow State University (Candidate of Sciences, 1991) and University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2000).

This is the article:

Andrei Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, where he teaches Russian and post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics.

Now please explain why this is a copyright violation. How does the information need to be worded so that it's not? Please give an example. Offliner (talk) 11:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This is an example of what is called a close paraphrase of the source material, which is currently held to be a violation in the USA (where our servers are located). While rephrasing this particular sentence is indeed a tad difficult, the recommendations set forth in the above essay are a good way to do so. What could work for instance is something along the lines of "Andrei Tsygankov (birth date) is a Russian-born academic and author in the fields of International Relations. He currently teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics at San Francisco State University." (without my horrible grammar of course). You retain some of the facts but the wording and flow no longer follows the bio. In general, it helps to have access to two or more distinct sources and to summarize these in your own words. You may lose detail but at the same time you avoid the problems highlighted above. Regards, MLauba (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. By the same logic I could tag about 1,000 articles in Wikipedia as they contain "close paraphrasing" in exact the same way as here or worse. What about publications lists? They are always copied from the CVs. Shouldn't they all be removed as well? Also, why don't you just fix the issue at Andrei Tsygankov instead of covering the entire page with your tag? I personally don't think the page is a copyvio at all, so I'm not going to fix anything. Offliner (talk) 12:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I have reposted the above discussion for wide input at WT:C#Second opinion: close paraphrasing on CVs, I suggest pursuing the discussion there. Cheers, MLauba (talk) 12:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Flower Lane Church

By the same token I don't see any point at all listing my article Flower Lane Church as a copyvio. The source text I referred to is a brief history of that church, which, just like Andrei Tsygankov's bio, consist of basic facts. It's very difficult to rewrite facts (and as an example please explain to me how to rewrite the sentence "The sun rises in the east" to avoid a copyvio?). Anyway, I did have tried as best as I could to paraphrase the facts without losing details or adding personal viewpoints to it, but I wonder why it still does not meet your requirement. Please understand that English is not my first language. If I completely put the source aside and rephrase it with my own words, I'm bound to lose detailed information. Please explain to me. :.< --GnuDoyng (talk) 15:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The downside of paraphrasing to avoid copyright violations is, indeed, that you lose details. That being said, your example isn't exactly pertinent. "The sun rises in the East" is a pure fact, which cannot be copyrighted. "In 1938 it was restored and became the only chapel with granite structure in Fuzhou City.The Shang You Tangat that time possessed classical, elegant style, with a flower hall and a fishpond." however mixes fact (the church was restored in 1938), observation (the only granite structure) and personal appreciation (possessed a classical, elegant style). And that mix, including this passage's structure, is currently considered copyrightable. :The core problem with both your case and the above is that they closely replicate not just words and turns of phrases but the source's entire structure - the same things are said, in the same or sometimes only slightly different words, in the same order. The best possible solution would probably be to rewrite it from scratch while summarizing both the English and Chinese sources, while forming a different structure. For example you could first recount the building's history, then talk about the school, and last . In this I'm assuming you have an advantage over me - while we're both non-native English speakers, I only can only read one of the sources (of course, if my assumption that you are fluent in Chinese is wrong, we're in the same boat here). :Again, loss of detail is inevitable. That being said, here's a question to ponder: if the article provides the same level of detail than the source, why have a full article in the first place, instead of a mere stub with a link to the source? --MLauba (talk) 17:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you please also post my case to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights? I wanna hear opinions from more people on this subject. --GnuDoyng (talk) 15:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

No disrespect meant, but if you need a second opinion (and I doubt it will be different from the one garnered above), you can freely state your case there directly - no need to wait until I'm back to the keyboard for that :) MLauba (talk) 17:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I took a look at Flower Lane Church, compared it with the sources, and I really don't see how this would be a copyright violation. I'd also be interested in hearing MLauba's detailed explanation on why he tagged it. Offliner (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Removed the tag as it seemed completely unjustified to me. Offliner (talk) 16:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I too have looked at the article and the supposed copvio source. I am quite bewildered as to how anyone can regard this as a copyright violation. There is not even the degree of similarity of wording that existed in the Andrei Tsygankov article mentioned above. JamesBWatson (talk) 01:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I think it does need some revision to separate it from its source. Take for example the following from the article:

...in 1949, the Chinese Church had to break off relations with foreign missions, and all church activities were strictly forbidden during the Cultural Revolution. On October 28, 1979, Siông-iū Dòng restored its religious activities and became the first church in Fuzhou that provided the regular service after the Cultural Revolution, with its name changed to Flower Lane Church, after the street name of its location.

Compare it with the source:

In 1949, the China Church terminated the relationship with foreign churches and no more services were conducted during the Cultural Revolution. On October 28, 1979, the Flower Lane Church restored its religious service and became the first church in Fuzhou that performed the regular service after the Cultural Revolution. Consequently, it ..was renamed fromShang You Tangto the Flower Lane Church by conforming to its location.

One of the more difficult things to convey is that, while copyright covers the creative expression of information and not simply information, creative expression consists of more than precise language. It also consists of structure and organization. If you look at this passage, it's pretty obviously restructured from this source, with the same general construction. Looking particularly at the sentence "On October 28, 1979, the Flower Lane Church restored its religious service and became the first church in Fuzhou that performed the regular service after the Cultural Revolution" might be the best example, since our article changes that very superficially, replacing "Flower Lane Church" with "Siông-iū Dòng" and "service" with "activities". Certainly, I can't say that any court of law would find this actionable infringement. But it is avoidable. I find it helpful to restructure passage by passage, rather than sentence by sentence. I might say something like:

The church was given its new name, Flower Lane Church after the street on which it is located, in 1979. It had at that point weathered a challenging period that lasted thirty years. In 1949, foreign churches were no longer permitted to interact with churches in China, and during the Cultural Revolution church services ceased. But after the Cultural Revolution ended, the church was able to continue, resuming regular services on October 28, 1979, before any other church in Fuzhou.

Ideally, we'd have multiple sources to thread together into a new work. One of the things that Courts look for, of course, is if we are adding something new or simply retreading what somebody else has already done. It isn't impossible to revise a single source, but sometimes details will be lost. :/
For what it's worth, I think the passage "In 1915 the Methodist Episcopal Mission purchased what used to be the mansion of a Ryukyuan king in Qing Dynasty..." is very well done. User:GnuDoyng, you indicate English is not your first language; I bow to you. :) I think it's a great challenge to paraphrase a single source in this way even in your native tongue, and I think you've made an excellent start, though I do agree (as I indicated above) that it could use additional revision. I see that User:Shell Kinney has also made some suggestions at GnuDoyng's talk page (including pointing out another specific example). If any of the language I propose appeals to you, GnuDoyng, please feel free to use it (or modify it) however you wish. I waive my right to attribution. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Now that Moonriddengirl has quoted relevant parallel passages together I can see that there is a great enough degree of resemblance to be questionable. Even though I had tried to carefully compare the two, it is surprising how easy it is to miss significant details when looking at the articles in their entirety. Thanks to Moonriddengirl. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Practice helps. :) Often, the article writers themselves don't even realize that they've remained so close to the source until specific passages are compared. It really is hard to start with a copy and revise away from. The tendency to revise sentence by sentence is hard to avoid in that case. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I give my thanks for the patience and help provided by all of you here. That article does need improving, and I will rewrite it this weekend. --GnuDoyng (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you in turn for your own patience while waiting for clarification on the concerns we had. MLauba (talk) 22:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi all! I've done a new version of Flower Lane Church. Please consider removing the copyvio tag. --GnuDoyng (talk) 02:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Good job, I tweaked it a tiny bit more and left a message to admin attention in order to complete the clean replacement. Cheers, MLauba (talk) 08:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
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