Talk:Bioregion

Copyright review - WWF - from the Ecoregion article, but since Bioregion is pulling heavily from WWF sources as well, we may need to examine if these sources can be used.

Hi everyone - this is a copyright review that flagged that WWF has placed strict terms and conditions on using their resources and data.

This review is from the Ecoregions project page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ecoregions. I'm going to follow up to see if they reached any conclusions or were able to use the information.

Copyright review [edit]

The ecoregion articles depend heavily on information from the World Wildlife Fund. WWF has placed strict terms of conditions (updated March 21, 2021) on the use of their web site, including:

• Linking to the WWF site is prohibited without prior permission. (“If you would like to link another Web site to this Site, you may only do so if you obtain WWF's prior permission.”)
• Use of the terms “World Wildlife Federation” and “WWF” are prohibited, as is the use of these terms in ‘hidden tags’, which would include Wikipedia templates, reference links, and WikiData ID's.
• The whole site is copyrighted with an explicit prohibition of commercial use, which means Wikipedia's CC BY-SA cannot be supported

Obviously the first thing to keep in mind is that direct quotations from the site are out of the question. I have started a review of the 866 ecoregion articles using the Copyvio Detector, with checkmarks in the ecoregion tracking list, column named “CRChk?” for status updates.

I will also seek permission from WWF for permission to link to their site, and to use their name and initials in passing in the articles and links. But because of their non-commercial requirement, we have to be ready for a refusal that will require scrubbing WW* from our ecoregion articles. Or does anyone know of link/name permission that might have been formally granted to Wikipedia in the past?

WW* is listed as an “author” on the Encyclopedia of the Earth site (terms of use), which carries a CC-BY-SA 3.0 notice (“unless otherwise noted”) at the bottom of their pages. But serious Wikipedia editors have questioned that license's documentation for Wikipedia purposes. And in any event the EOE terms of use appears to pass through some of WW* organizational limits. I will check with EOE on the status of WW* content on their site. We may have to make some article adjustments for EOE also.

Sorry to bring this up, but those of us who put a lot of work into ecoregion articles don’t want to find it all lost in a mass deletion. The WW* and EOE do solid work and are important to the study of ecoregions. For us, the moral of the story is to respect their copyright wishes, keep our articles clean, and to diversify our reference links to more sources in the scientific community. Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 16:37, 21 August 2021 (UTC) CascadiaWikimedian (talk) 19:17, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Recently reviewing the WWF Page

Crediting text in print & web publications

For print any reproduction, in full or in part, must credit  WWF as follows:

© [date of material] WWF (panda.org). Some rights reserved.

CascadiaWikimedian (talk) 18:14, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

WWF "Bioregions" - are actually using "Ecoregion" data.

Hi all. Was just doing a source review for the citations provided for the WWF Bioregions - and noticing that all the resources listed are actually for Ecoregions, and that no link or citation has been provided to the WWF resource page.

1. Burgess, N.D.; D'Amico Hales, J.; Dinerstein, E.; et al. (2004). Terrestrial eco-regions of Africa and Madagascar: A conservation assessment. Washington DC.: Island Press [2]
2. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Wikramanayake, Eric; Eric Dinerstein; Colby J. Loucks; et al. (2002). Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a Conservation Assessment. Washington, DC: Island Press
3. ^ Ricketts, Taylor H., Eric Dinerstein, David M. Olson, Colby J. Loucks, et al. (1999). Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: a Conservation Assessment. Island Press, Washington DC., [3]
4. ^ Dinerstein, E., Olson, D. Graham, D.J. et al. (1995). A Conservation Assessment of the Terrestrial Ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank, Washington DC., [4]

I'm going to do some further research, and see if I can find some other additional resources for bioregions, that are clearly bioregions, rather than ecoregions.

CascadiaWikimedian (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2024 (UTC)