User talk:Tbhotch/Signature

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Tbhotch


You probably have noticed that my signature contains thwo legal symbols: the trademark symbol (™) and the copyright symbol (©). Time ago, after I reported User:Kww behaivor at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (ANI), User:Beyond My Ken attempted to create a case below my report because my then-signature (Tbhotch and ©) was "disruptive", because it contained legal symbols. After, what I call a "no consensus", I decided to change my signature to Tbhotch* ۩ ۞ to avoid problems.

After five months, I decided to restore the trademark symbol per the same reasons I gave Ken at that time:

  • a) The Trademark symbol (™) article states "Use of this symbol does not mean that the trademark has been registered as registered trademarks (®), therefore "Tbhotch" is an unregistered trademark, something legal in the United States
  • b) The ™ redirect to my talkpage, with this T.M. I intended to give a double-meaning with "Talk Me".
  • c) Nowhere in Wikipedia:Signatures states that the use of legal symbols (©, ®, ™ and ℗) is forbidden; it bans the usage of images like File:Copyright.svg or File:RegisteredTM.svg. Even if the guide starts to do it, my signature would be an exception to the rule, as in Wikipedia:User name#Exceptions.
  • d) My account is not used to promote a company, in which UAA would be involved, and as it was stated at ANI my username is not "Tbhotch®" nor "Tbhotch™".
  • e) I utilized a "*" all these time. In my country it is utilized after brands to indicate it is trademarked. Absolutely no one commented about it, or have an issue with.
  • f) I am not the only user in use those symbols, and I am going to reserve their names.

After almost a year and a half, I decided to restore the copyright symbol (©), the reasons are:

  • a) Wikipedia is not above the law. The symbol "©" means that something is copyrighted, but does not mean "All rights reserved". Text in Wikipedia is copyrighted (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) and it is copyrighted under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (from now CC-BY-SA). All my contributions are released under CC-BY-SA, therefore they are not into the public domain, but under a soft copyright license, Creative Commons.
  • b) I don't sign in article space, only in talk pages, and if I manage to sign in mainspace is for mental lag and I revert myself in the moment.
  • c) The symbol "©" links to WP:CC-BY-SA to avoid legal or editorial problems.
  • d) I am not the only user in use those symbols, and I am going to reserve their names.

My signature is not a problem at all. If you believe it is not remember that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy before reporting me to admins. © Tbhotch en-2.5 21:39, 18 October 2013 (UTC)Reply