Cmallia

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Hi Cmallia! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Jtmorgan (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:24, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello Cmallia, and welcome to Wikipedia. All or some of your addition(s) to Draft:Valletta Film Festival has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material 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 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 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 designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. However, there are steps that must be taken to verify that license before you do. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
• 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 or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate 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. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:40, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

OMG. This is unbelievable. So, first you say that I am biased and I cannot write on this subject. Now you are saying that I am violating copyright practices?! The sources that I have allegedly violated are my own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmallia (talk • contribs) 22:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes. You violated copyright by posting your own copyrighted materials to Wikipedia. Wikipedia will not permit the publication of copyrighted material unless the copyright has been released under a CC-BY-SA copyleft or into the public domain. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

As it says at the bottom of every page, Cmallia, "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License". For that reason, we can't accept text that is subject to copyright, even if you are the owner of that copyright. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:09, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I understand that you are attempting to contribute in the most sensible way on copyright infringement. I truly appreciate your effort because you are safeguarding copyright holders like myself. However I tend to disagree on Robert McClenon's statement that all of the text presented in the article is copyrighted. You cannot state that all my contribution is blatantly copied from the festival's website. That is not true. There are some descriptions of the festival's programme which could have been cited better. However the sections from the copyrighted website are cited in the references section. I am a bona fide writer not a promotional editor, as you suggest. I clearly expressed my bias from the beginning. If this is against your policies, it's fine, I respect the policies. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmallia (talk • contribs) 23:43, 6 February 2016‎ (UTC)

Unfortunately, citing a source is not enough. You also need to paraphrase the material. Short quotes are also allowed, but not significant chunks of copyright text. Please have a read of WP:COPYOTHERS and WP:NFCCEG to understand why. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:48, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I did not state that everything was copyrighted, only that some of the material was copyrighted. A bot discovered the copyright violations. You need to rewrite the copyrighted material in a way that is substantially different from anything on the web site. We understand that new editors who have an affiliation often think that they are allowed to use their own copyrighted material. Many, perhaps most, web sites do not attempt to apply copyright as strictly as Wikipedia does. We may be one of the very few web sites that is as stringent as we are about copyright, and it sometimes takes new editors who have an affiliation time to learn and comply. I didn't say it was all copyrighted. It was nearly all blanked because we err on the side of caution and enforcement. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks again for your reply. I will revise the article and ensure that it is watertight from any possible copyright offences. Would I be allowed to resubmit for your review ?

Your submission at Articles for creation: sandbox (February 7)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Robert McClenon was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to User:Cmallia/sandbox and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Robert McClenon (talk) 00:15, 7 February 2016 (UTC)