Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 5

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, VernoWhitney, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!

You do seem to know what you're doing already. Have you been editing anonymously until now? - Fayenatic (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been editing off and on for years now, just decided I may as well take credit and blame for what I've been doing. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, it's good to have your help! - Fayenatic (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Your request for rollback

 

Hi VernoWhitney/Archive 1. After reviewing your request for rollback, I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

  • Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
  • Rollback should be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
  • Rollback should never be used to edit war.
  • If abused, rollback rights can be revoked.
  • Use common sense.

If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback. I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! FASTILY (TALK) 01:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Your recent edits

  Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button   located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 22:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanx yuu

Thou hast been thanxed by moi! I thanx yuu for thy reverting of mass vandalism, notably a blanked page, and calling it a "minor edit". Thou and thy rollback power hast saveth el list. :) 2J Bäkkvire Maestro Test UR Skill! What I've Done 13:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I try to use WP:MINOR edits whenever appropriate—which includes reverting page blanking WP:VANDALISM. Have a nice day! VernoWhitney (talk) 13:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Jonathan Deutsch

I moved this article and removed your speedy prod - it asserts notability, and an argument might be made that he's notable, based on Ghits. I think it's a hopeless case, but it gives editors a week to fix it. Bearian (talk) 23:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I missed something, but could you tell me what part of the article credibly indicated notability so that I don't mistakenly tag other articles for speedy? Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 23:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
No, I think I read too much into it. You didn't make a mistake. Its title was for a gallery, but the stub is about the artist. The stub does not now use any words such as "notable" or famous". But I think my error is harmless. Let's keep it at CAT:PROD for a few days. Bearian (talk) 18:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with it being a prod (and I agree that your change is harmless, since it's just an WP:AUTOBIO), I just wanted to make sure I wasn't making errors that would come back and bite me later. Thanks for the feedback! VernoWhitney (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Jason Rees's talk page.
Message added 15:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jason Rees (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Jason Rees's talk page.
Message added 16:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jason Rees (talk) 16:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Final discussion for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Hello, I note that you have commented on the first phase of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

As this RFC closes, there are two proposals being considered:

  1. Proposal to Close This RfC
  2. Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy

Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip 03:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Old School vandalism Hunting 3

  The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
For taking on the Old School Vandalism hunting 3 challenge presented at both WP:Reward Board and O4E Challenges and successfully completing it by finding over 10 different various forms of vandalism and reverting them, I award you this defender of the wiki Barnstar for your tireless efforts to reduce vandalism in all its forms. Well Done. Ottawa4ever (talk) 16:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Well done, happy editing Ottawa4ever (talk) 10:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's all good

We all have those kind of days. I just tried to sign an email with 4 ~'s. Go figure. Niteshift36 (talk)

copyrighted by who? it's a fuckin episode guide, I always see episode guide in page descriptions. Send me an actual message like a human instead of these dumbass bot templates --PDTantisocial (talk) 20:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It's copyrighted by whoever wrote it, or more likely whoever they work for (i.e., HBO). I understand that you always see episode guides, and I look forward to having one here too, but it can't just be copied and pasted from another website. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

you didn't have to delete the whole damn thing, took me half an hour to type that and find the directors for each episode. --PDTantisocial (talk) 21:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You can replace the box and director information, it was the episode summaries that were the problem. I can go through and put that part back up later today if you'd rather. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

changed the summaries. --PDTantisocial (talk) 21:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Abdolqader Zahedi

Just a quick note to say that I put WP:PROD on Abdolqader Zahedi. There seem to be only 2 passing mentions on those BBC archives, so I'm not sure it passes WP:GNG. Just letting you know because you commented on the talk page. Joshua Scott (talk) 03:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Substituting warning templates as per WP:SUBST.

  Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. When using certain templates on talk pages, as you did to User talk:98.148.36.227, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag. For example, use {{subst:uw-test1}} instead of {{uw-test1}}. This reduces server load and prevents accidental blanking of the template.

Also, for that particular warning, the series of templates that begins at Template:Uw-test1 is preferable. Please see WP:UTM for the variety of warning templates that are used on user talk pages. Thanks and happy editing! — SpikeToronto 07:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, I'm still trying to figure out all the right things to be doing on vandal patrol. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
You should have a look at WP:RCP and WP:UTM. Also, use the recent changes listing to track down edits that might need undoing.

In addition to vandalism patrol, another extremely useful function at Wikipedia is being a Gnome. Check it out.

Finally, if you need any help or want to ask any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to contact me at my talk page. Thanks and happy editing! — SpikeToronto 05:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Lily Safra

I don't understand why i should be blocked from editing Mrs. Lily Safra's page, as you are the one who keeps removing my sourced information. If you wish for me to add more sources on this matter, that is not a problem and i will do so. However, i will not leave erroneous information on a wikipedia page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.200.176.13 (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

As I and others noted in our edit summaries of the article, you are removing notable and verifiable information. The source that you have recently been trying to add instead states that the price (in 2008) was 390 million euros which is approx. 530 million dollars instead of the 506 million dollars. That information could be added instead, or a comment that the price was "as of 2008" or similar, but the consensus appears to be keeping the price information for the house in some form at least. If you feel that it should be removed you should use the talk page of the article before continuing to alter the information. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Denver Health

It appears that the Denver Health Medical Center page was vandalized prior to the warning that you posted.I restored the article to the neutral version. Please read it over and see if it meets Wikipedia Standards. I started a discussion on the Denver Health discussion page. Let me know.Thank youDbkilo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC).

Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home

What are you talking about? I summarized the source I had note how much it changed. CTJF83 chat 18:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I acted rashly, but to me it still read very strongly as a derivative work (and thus still violating copyright) as the order of the content remained the same, some sentences were left unchanged and others omitted details but were otherwise untouched. I will avoid any further editing of the page and await the opinion of the admins at WP:Copyvios when they look at it in a week or so. Again, I apologize. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
What do I need to do? Rearrange it? I basically reworded almost every sentence to try and avoid a vio. CTJF83 chat 05:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't have a very good answer. All I really know is what's said at Substantial_similarity#Tests, and in my opinion, "the fundamental structure or pattern" of the article was the same as your source. Maybe you can ask User:Moonriddengirl as she seems to be very active at WP:Copyvios and presumably sees this situation fairly often. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I can also point you at Talk:West Virginia Public Service Commission where she's left some comments on a similar situation, albeit with significantly less rewording than you have, but maybe the links have some helpful info. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok CTJF83 chat 00:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Older consolidated

Thanks! And good work above, by the way. I appreciate your help in the copyright department. We can use all that we can get. :D Feel free to drop by my page any time. I'm always happy to discuss copyright concerns with cleanup crew. :D Also, we have a not very talkative but quite busy project if you're interested at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. It's not worth much more than a userbox, but there you go. :)

With respect to that book and that page, do you see any signs of close paraphrasing? I know from above that you're aware of those issues, but before I clear it want to be sure that the content has been thoroughly evaluated. If it doesn't look like close paraphrasing to you, I'll invite the tagger to specify content that concerns him before just removing the tag. I'll watch here for your reply. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home still has some work to do before it's taken out of the sandbox and put back on the page. I think it needs a solid second or third source to work from though, and I haven't taken the time to go looking into that. Thanks for stepping in and providing detailed feedback on that. Now since you went to all the trouble of correcting the wikilink to your project I feel obligated to help out ^_^ I must say however that I'm not entirely sure how to help out since the project page doesn't appear to give much guidance. I caught the link to WP:CCI which I'll take a look at soon and see what goes on there. Currently I look through WP:Copyvios on occasion and I run quick searches when I see something fishy when I'm doing New page patrol or Wikignoming. Are there more places I should keep an eye on to help with copyright issues around here? Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 04:37, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
The new ones are automatically listed at WP:SCV, and that page is perpetually backlogged. :) WP:CCI is the real well of lost souls, though. There are thousands of articles there waiting for review, from contributors we know have violated copyright on multiple occasions. Those are handled a little bit more aggressively. With WP:SCV and WP:CP, we start from a neutral standpoint; with WP:CCI, we presume infringement is likely. We try to find matches, but if we don't and if it seems likely based on a user's pattern, we remove the material presumptively. But, of course, you're helping plenty with what you're already doing. :D
If you can think of ways to improve WP:COPYCLEAN, please let me know. We are very understaffed in the copyright cleanup department, and I want to do everything I can to encourage people to help out! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

  The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
For all the work you've been doing in this department lately, but most particularly for identifying the source used here. Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
You are heartily welcome to help us as much as you would like. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
No problem, I tend to flit around based on my whims for any given day, but from what I'm seeing in the text copyright area, it's not that there's tons of work to do (except for WP:CCI... <shudder>), it's just that there are so few people doing anything about it so I'm happy to help out. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, CCI keeps getting bigger and bigger due to the lack of manpower, but, promisingly, there are more people showing up in those parts. I used to flit around, too, before I settled on the copyright work. The one appeal it really has for me is the breadth of material I encounter. If nothing else, I have read quite a few articles I would probably never have seen and rewritten quite a few on topics I would have known nothing about. So there's that. :) Plus, sometimes people (like above) really do put effort into working to remain within the policies, and those guys make it worth the occasional belligerence we encounter. I've worked with a few people who have gone on to be so successful and helpful to the project that I just have to stand back and clap for them. But I don't do so publicly, because I presume they'd just as soon put the problem behind them. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Hear, hear

Ah, I came here to say thanks for all you work too. It's good to have more diligent contributors to copyright areas. Regarding this, the reason copy-paste moves are a problem is that those editors adding creative content aren't attributed, as is required under our licenses. In the case of Sears Home Services and Sears home services, as you can see from the history of the latter, the only creative content was added by the user who created the copy, User:Dannygard — others' edits consisted only of wikilinking, adding categories/formatting, spelling correction and adding tags. So in this case there was no problem with the copy-paste move. Which meant I didn't have to faff around moving, undeleting and reverting to the best revisions. Best, – Toon 17:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that would be my fault for not looking into the history enough then. I just saw a half-dozen names in history and didn't look to see what they had actually changed. I'll look more carefully next time. Thanks for the heads up! VernoWhitney (talk) 18:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
No worries. You aren't wrong, I'm just lazy. I find popups useful for reading diffs without having to navigate to the whole page. :) – Toon 18:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

RAJE

Thanks for editing the RAJE article I'm kind of new to wiki writing hopefully I'll get better at it. Doktorigi (talk) 20:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Kathryn Bonella bio

I'm curious to know how you can tell when the page was last updated. - Stillwaterising (talk) 00:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Just browsing to the page and selecting 'View Page Info' from the browser, they send a Modified field in the page header - since they're serving a static webpage and not a dynamic one it's a relatively good indicator, not proof since the server could be wrong/altered/etc... but with the other evidence people posted it passes my WP:DUCK test. VernoWhitney (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Updates to copyright instructions

Hi. Based on some feedback I've received, I've updated the instructions at WP:SCV and WP:CP. I've left a more indepth explanation at Wikipedia talk:Suspected copyright violations#Header update along with a request for feedback. As we try to get more people involved in this work, we want to be sure instructions are clear. Given your work, your input there would be very much appreciated. :) Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

BS

  The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Thank you for all your help on Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home and helping me to fix potential copyright issues. Your help is greatly appreciated, thanks again! CTJF83 chat 19:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! It's refreshing to see someone so obviously willing to put in overtime to make high-quality articles. I'm glad I could help out. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the barnstar, it is very much appreciated!! :) CTJF83 chat 17:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyright Problem for screenshot images!!

Hi ! I would like to clarify that the images Maa Tarini temple.jpg and Bada Ghagara.jpg are screenshots of the mentioned websites. It is mentioned in the copyright options (while uploading) that these kind of files may not violate copyright regulations. Please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bishupriyaparam (talkcontribs) 04:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you read (or re-read) WP:Non-free content, and particularly WP:NFCI again. The template you've been using which provides the fair use rationale explicitly states both "It is believed that the use of a limited number of such screenshots for identification and critical commentary relating to the website in question ... qualifies as fair use" and This tag is not appropriate for images and media found on websites; it should be used for screenshots of websites only.. See, for example, File:ZDNet.PNG which is used on the ZDNet article for the use of an appropriate screenshot. As all you were using is images which were placed on other websites and not images of the websites themselves, this is clearly not an appropriate case of fair use. Does that help clear things up? VernoWhitney (talk) 13:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2010

  Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Billy J.P. Moses, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you.

  Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Billy J.P. Moses, you will be blocked from editing. NorthernNine (talk) 12:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

  This is the final warning you are receiving regarding your disruptive edits, such as those you made to Billy J.P. Moses. If you vandalize Wikipedia again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. NorthernNine (talk) 12:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

These three warnings are all inappropriate, as the contributor here was removing copyrighted content repeatedly restored to the article against process. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I came here intending to say much the same as Moonriddengirl has already said. These warnings were used maliciously as threats. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you both for stopping by to say that. I much appreciate the support from both of you. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Maritime Academy of Nigeria

Thanks for your note on the talk page. I start quite a few articles, and have had this happen twice before, so am not overly concerned. A bit annoying, but I can understand the difficulty of tuning the bot so it finds the real copyright violations but does not get too many false positives. The problem seems to happen when I start an article with an outline of the basic facts taken from a single source, and save before expanding with content from other sources. The bot sees one source, with many words or phrases in the article that are also in the source, and that are in the same sequence. What amazes me is that the bot found a different source from the one I cited. In this case, the academy has an official site and a student portal, with similar content. I used the official site as the starting point, and the bot saw copyvio from the portal. Not important. I appreciate your quick review. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Old School Vandalism Hunting 4 Challenge

  The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
For taking on the Old School Vandalism Hunting 4 challenge presented at both WP:Reward Board and O4E Challenges and successfully completing it by finding 4 examples of 4 different various forms of vandalism and reverting them, I award you this Anti-Vandalism Barnstar, Well Done. Ottawa4ever (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


Keep up the good work! Well doneOttawa4ever (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I will. And thanks for providing these extra (and shiny) incentives. ^_^ VernoWhitney (talk) 15:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Destrophy

They could be notable; otherwise I'd have deleted it myself. CobaltBlueTony™ talk 20:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that, and I didn't realize you were an admin at first or I probably wouldn't have done anything. At this point I don't see anything in the article or a quick gnews search that hints at passing WP:MUSICBIO though, so I'll leave my speedy tag there for you or someone else to decide whether it's worthy or not. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Arrrrgh!

Sir, I'm trying to find the book and it's driving me nuts!!!!

Never mind --AquaTeen13 (talk) 15:20, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Shair siddiqui

Hello VernoWhitney, and thanks for patrolling new pages! I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Shair siddiqui, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Not previously been deleted via a deletion discussion. You may wish to review the Criteria for Speedy Deletion before tagging further pages. Thank you. The WordsmithCommunicate 16:16, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

As I linked to in the speedy nomination, the previous discussion was at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shair_Siddiqui. Different capitalization != different article. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Oops, my mistake. I'll go delete it now. In the future, you should try and include a link to the AFD when it was under a different title. The WordsmithCommunicate 16:21, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
I did - in the CSD tag where it says "See the previous discussion" it linked to it; I will include it in the edit summary too next time if it's different. Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 16:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

  Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Angus_MacNeil, you will be blocked from editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.12.115.218 (talk)

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 March 20.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Moonriddengirl (talkcontribs) 13:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Bartley Gorman

It's worse than you think. It's not just copyvio, it's a user submitted memorial site with no fact checking. So the tribute basically defines unreliable source, and we've stolen half the content from it. —ShadowRanger (talk|stalk) 17:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I think that means it'll be that much longer before I work on it then - I'm afraid that of the articles that are tagged as close paraphrases I'm still trying to work on those with lots of solid references and/or small amounts of close paraphrase so that it doesn't take much time to rewrite. Sadly I don't usually have large blocks of free time, just lots of small blocks, which makes it harder to muster up the attention to rewrite entire articles. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

User:IBen/TB mono 23:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Boucherot cell copyvio

I see you declined the copyvio claim at Boucherot cell. You might want to take a look here and reconsider. SpinningSpark 16:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You are correct, I had looked at that reference before but didn't sit down and compare line-by-line. The solid block of text at the source and the additional material in the article threw me off. Thank you for calling my attention to this. I will go through and rewrite the copyvio portions of the article later today. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:08, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

User:IBen/TB mono 01:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

User:IBen/TB More of these (let me know if you don't want them). mono 01:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Smile

--mono 02:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyright Permission

Thanks for your message. Well, I DID send an email to that address, but nothing happened for a week ;) As nothing happend, I removed the comments (I think). The whole process is still a bit untransparent for me. Doing some kind of regulation is necessary, but users should be kept in a good mood to furthermore posting content to Wikipedia. I'll add the notes now or soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusselmann (talkcontribs) 21:06, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the email response team is perpetually backlogged along with the entire copyright area, which could explain why you didn't get a response, but thank you for sending the email. As soon as they receive the email and confirm that it's sufficient they should stop by whatever articles are covered by the email, unblank them, and leave a note of permission on the article talk page (I am not a member, so I just know by watching them work). As far as the regulation goes, all of the articles that I blanked today are listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 April 4, for further examination by an admin if everything hasn't been cleared up within the week. If they receive an email and it's insufficient, it should just be relisted for another week and kept blank to allow time for another email. If you have any questions regarding the process feel free to ask me at any time. Thank you for being understanding about the need for copyright regulation. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:31, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Apparently the page blanking of Augustinerkirche (Munich) was taken as a request to delete the article, and it was tagged for speedy deletion. I rewrote it so that it was not a simply copy of the source site, although it looks to em as if the source site was itself a translation of the article on the German-language wikipedia. The article is no longer blanked, and should not be in danger of speedy deletion as a copyvio. When you get the confirming email from OTRS (probably in a couple of weeks), any text where my changes are unhelpful can be reverted. I also added some references and an image (the same as is used on the article in de). I hope all this is helpful. DES (talk) 21:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, it appears that instead of waiting for OTRS permission the page creator lost interest in contributing the articles to Wikipedia and removed all content from all of the pages in question, thus the speedy delete (they also tried to remove them from the WP:CP list <shrug>). Thanks for rewriting the page. I hadn't checked any of them against de.wiki, so that may be something for me to check into this week. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
There is now an inter-language interwiki link, so others from the de project may come by. There are not loads of sources that I could find on Google -- I suspect there are betre ones in print if one knew where to look. DES (talk) 01:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

CCI - smartK1987

I've left a note on the talk page for the CCI for Smartk1987. As another editor who has been reviewing, your opinion would be valuable. Cheers! -- Whpq (talk) 13:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

This calls for something extraordinary

  The Guillaume Bastille award
For your part in the incredibly speedy completion of this CCI, I hereby bestow on you the Guillaume Bastille award, newly created for the occasion because he's a fast guy with a compatibly licensed image. Thank you for your part in helping to take this across the finish line in record-breaking time. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Created just for the occasion. :D Here's hoping that Guillaume Bastille would be honored...and that the image I'm using really is free, because it would be just like the universe to jeer at me in that way. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Madryga

I'm not sure which parts of the article are copyvios as I don't have a copy of the book handy. But the article gave me a strong impression of déjà vu. Apokrif (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

April 2010

  Constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, but a recent edit of yours to the article The 39 Clues has an edit summary that appears to be inaccurate or inappropriate. Please use edit summaries that accurately tell other editors what you did, and feel free to use the sandbox for any tests you may want to do. Thank you. See diff. When you revert things other than vandalism (like copyvios), please state that in your edit summary in addition to the automatic revert message.   Thank you! mono 19:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeated addition of copyrighted material after being warned is vandalism. See WP:VANDAL#Types of vandalism and look on the table for "Repeated uploading of copyrighted material". VernoWhitney (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
In the future, please state that in your edit summary. You did nothing wrong and I'm glad your keeping track of the page. I reported the user to WP:AIV, btw.--mono 19:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I would, except rollback doesn't allow me to mess with the edit summary and I can't use twinkle or other similar tools while at work. I'm sorry if the lack of a helpful edit summary was confusing. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, forgot about rollback. Twinkle is better, however, I understand. Good talking to you!--mono 19:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Mono, what happened to WP:DTTR... Airplaneman 22:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

OTRS Volunteerism

Okay, I e-mailed User:Bastique, and he says that adminship is not a firm requirement. Based on what I've seen of you, I think you'd be ideal if you'd like to raise your hands for the copyright queue. It mostly requires the patience to say one of the following:

  • Which image/article are you talking about?
  • Can you contact us from an address connected to the original source?
  • Which license did you want to use?
  • Are you the copyright holder?

or

  • Thank you.

(I'm paraphrasing, and we have form letters for almost everything.)

The one thing you might have working against you is that you are relatively short in service, and they might be more comfortable with volunteers with longer history. If you raise your hand, please don't be discouraged by refusal. :) If you do decide to raise your hand, you are absolutely welcome to stop by my page any time you want feedback (well, you're welcome to do that already :D). And please let me know if you volunteer, so I can drop a word on your behalf. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I think I'm interested, but probably not for a couple of months when my day job should get a touch less stressful, and by then I'll be less of a newcomer too. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Based on what I've seen of you, I'd suspect at some point the lack of adminship will no longer be a drawback. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Denso Hall

There are two lines quoted from two different sources and they are properly referenced. You can check the article. AlphaGamma1991 (talk) 13:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I did check the article which is why I tagged it as a copyright violation. They are not in quotation marks, so they are not "quoted", and they are word-for-word copies from the references. An article must be more than quotations and copying from two different sources is still copying. The article needs to be rewritten in your own words, with references supporting what you are saying but not how you are saying it. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for clarification. AlphaGamma1991 (talk) 13:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Made the changes as you suggested. AlphaGamma1991 (talk) 14:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your efforts. Keep up the good work! VernoWhitney (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

23 Engineer Regiment (Air Assault)

Hi I have reworked the 23 Engineer Regiment (Air Assault) article could you check your happy that it is no longer a copyvio. Thanks --Jim Sweeney (talk) 16:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 16:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Backwards copyvio at Progressive education

Holy cow! You may have dug up the biggest single case of backwards infringement that I've ever seen. I wonder if all of this person's documents are copyright violations? See the talk of this article for some details, and now compare [1] with Medical tourism. Pretty blatant, no? :O One for Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, to be sure! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's alot of books they've made. I hadn't even thought of looking at their other books, but now that I skim through them I think it's pretty likely they copied them all. Sorry I made you look through that just to figure out that it's reverse infringement though. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
No, no. That's fine. :) That's part of the job. :D Tagging it is the right thing to do, if you find copying and we need to figure out which came first. I do find it very annoying when people do that (steal from our writers), though, because, you know, I might have deleted that as a copyvio if I had not taken the time to look or if I had not been able to compile enough evidence to make a case for reverse infringement. We encourage downstream reuse. All we ask is attribution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:30, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I think you could go for days doing nothing but tagging reverse infringement articles from that one scribd author. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think so. I tagged some of them, listed them at Mirrors and Forks, and have halfway considered saying something about it at WT:COPYCLEAN or someplace. I might just let it go from this point. There are hundreds of people who do this. Can't address them all. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Pongola River

Allthough the original article (2 lines) are mine, nothing i used was copied. It looks as if someone edited the art. after me, pls inform him/her.Flagman (talk) 02:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm forced to disagree with you, as the article was created by User:Chl here and the copyvio was introduced by you here. Please feel free to point out any mistake I have made. VernoWhitney (talk) 03:21, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

www.wga.hu

At the time, the guys from their site gave me the permission to use their text. Later, however, since I received numerous messages like yours, I stopped and started adding text from my own. Cao and good work! --'''Attilios''' (talk) 07:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Friendly FYI

Hello!

Just so you know, shouldn't be {{subst:}} CorenSearchBot's templates, as you did here. This actually caused the page to show up in Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates. The standard listing of what can and should be substituted is at Wikipedia:Substitution. :) Keep up the positive contributions! Avicennasis @ 08:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

And here I was doing that to get it out of Category:Possible copyright violations, since it shouldn't have been in that category either. I'll figure out something else to do next time. Thanks for letting me know. VernoWhitney (talk) 11:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Voila. :) You can always leave a note explaining why, if you think it necessary. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh sure, come up with an easy solution. That's no fun at all. VernoWhitney (talk) 02:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Bullets Ain't Got No Name, Vol. 3

I was in the process of doing the AfD for this article. I skipped the prod since the editor is likely to contest it. Hope you don't feel like I stepped on your toes. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. And this way opens the door for G4 later. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Exactly my thinking since he's recreated 2 previously deleted ones :) Niteshift36 (talk) 02:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

  The Working Man's Barnstar
In appreciation of your fair editing on Shlomo Sawilowsky‎, and particularly for bringing to an end edit wars and bullying, I hereby award you this barnstar.

Edstat (talk) 22:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much! It's nice to see everything settled down and a well-referenced article come out of it. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know. I am simply linking these authors to a book that mentions them. I figured that those who are searching for these authors would like books that talk about them too. I'm just trying to help by adding content. Sorry to cause any inconvenience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.194.78.59 (talkcontribs) 15:52, 13 April 2010

wga.hu

You are opening a copyright violation against me for something I did five years ago?!?!?!?!?!?!? I was a newbie here! --'''Attilios''' (talk) 20:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a note

Re: your latest at CCI, I'm afraid that upsetting people is par for the course in this line of work. Depending on the circumstances, I go for either friendly soothing or a businesslike demeanor, and the turmoil soon settles down. Except when it doesn't, and then it almost always winds up nowhere good. :/ Oh, the stories I could tell. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

LOL. Maybe I'll ask you about those times later. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I've decided I don't want to tell you. You do really good work. I want to keep you around. :D But I wanted to note to ease your passage through life that having notified a contributor of a CCI, you are not required to notify him of subsequent actions. The directions (at the top of Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Roman888) don't explicitly say you don't (though they will from now on), but this section says so (now). Sorry for the gap in instructions there; this is another case of processes evolving on the fly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, leaving it at just the notice of the CCI would seem to avoid the drama. And since all of the open CCIs have presumably already been notified then that just leaves checking/tagging/cleaning as appropriate. I like it. Thanks for the heads up. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll double check to make sure they all received proper notice. If there's any chance they may be unaware, I'll let them know. Do you object to my refactoring your latest notices to Bci2? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Not at all. I was just copying the templates suggested by {{copyvio}}. Thanks. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, it looks like while I've not been hard at work, you have been. Now that I've taken care of the two remaining images, there seems to be only one article left. I've moved on to another CCI rather than risk covering the same ground that you're treading. If you want me to finish it, let me know. Otherwise, I'll leave the honor of wrapping it to you. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I had actually left that one for you since you had restored it previously, and he hasn't made any substantive changes since. I skimmed it and didn't see any copyvio, but I figured you might have a better idea whether it was clear or not since I don't know exactly what it was infringing in the first place. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, all right. Then I'm on it. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:Consensus

Saw your note on Wolfkeeper's page on this. Basically his changes all flow from his determination to rid Wikipedia of articles about words (e.g., Thou, Prithee, Yankee, Gay, etc). Most editors oppose this view and that's probably who he's referring to when he says, "...some people really don't believe that Wikipedia needs to be an Encyclopedia for example". --NeilN talk to me 00:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That's good to know, I hadn't run into him before - just saw the slew of changes to the policy pages on my watchlist today and felt obliged to say my piece while he argued it out elsewhere. Thanks for stopping by! VernoWhitney (talk) 01:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Edstat's harrassment (imho)

Please see my user page. Thank you. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to say

  The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
For your work at this now completed CCI, helping to wrap up a long-standing copyright problem. Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Back to the old school. :) Thanks! Truly, your work in the copyright sector of Wikipedia is very much appreciated. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the star! It may be shallow but I do have like shiny things. ^_^ Hopefully you still like me in a week when the 4 articles I blanked come up for review. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Acharuli

Hi, I removed the speedy deletion tag you placed on this page. The dance may be notable (you could check for sources and prod it or send it to AfD if you can't find evidence of notability) and if so it would make for a good spinout article from Dances of Georgia. At the least the title would be plausible redirect back to the other article. ThemFromSpace 07:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Palawan Council for Sustainable Development

I saw you declined speedy on this article with the reason "Adapted from CC-BY content" and was looking for clarification. When I look at the source page's copyright notice I see "The text ... may be downloaded for free-provided that credits or acknowledgement be accorded" (emphasis added), but I didn't see anything regarding distribution or creation of derivative works which would imply a CC-BY license, let alone an explicit license. Did I miss something? VernoWhitney (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, true. I interpreted "Downloaded" as "Spread", but it doesn't explicitly mention that it may be adapted, or that it may be used for commercial purposes. It may as well be BY-NC or BY-ND as permission isn't explicitly given for those. I actually asked for some feedback on the admin IRC channel, but i phrased the question wrong since i asked if CC-BY was compatible (Which presumed thought was), instead of asking if the copyright notice actually constituted CC-BY. I think you are right on this one though, as the notice doesn't explicitly allow adaption or commercial use. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 16:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion on Expermiment 2 on Shlomo Sawilowsky

I'll check back in a week, but I would like your opinion on Exerp. 2. I copied the information that was on the page before it was hammered by Keifer.Wolfowitz, Iulus, and smartse. None of the subject matter falls under math - it is applied statistics/data analysis or research design.

Taking your advice, and motivated by your "sigh", I have reverted both Enflo and Oscar Kempthorne's pages to the way Keifer.Wolfowitz had them. (He wrote almost all of Enflo.) I don't want to burden you, but I would appreciate it if you would review those two pages as I have restored them before making your decision on the Shlomo Sawilowsky page.

If you Google books on Sawilowsky and Enflo, you will find roughly the same number of pages listing textbooks citing their work. If you Google scholar, you will find for "Enflo, P." 226 hits, and "Sawilowsky, S."253" hits, which means academics cite their work at about the same level.

Kempthorne is a different story. (Apart from a half century head start), having written one of the classics in the field, that single book accounts for almost all of the 3,740 Google Scholar hits, which is why I mentioned on the Kempthorne discussion page that he is far more notable than what Keifer.Wolfowitz wrote, and hence that page should be expanded.

The point is three math majors cannot see beyond their food chain, and hence they denigrate statistics with a vengence. In my view that bias should not be permitted. Thanks. Edstat (talk) 12:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Comparison of Enflo and Sawilowsky.
Perhaps it is folly for me to rebut claims of Sawilowsky's superiority, to which Edstat doggedly returns.
Looking at Google Book Search, we see Enflo's impact has been larger: Searching for the string "Per Enflo" yields 235 citations, while searching for "Shlomo Sawilowsky" yields 32 citations, most of which (to judge only by the first page) were authored by Sawilowsky. I previously showed that Sawilowsky was an order (or two) of magnitude below Jöreskog using Google Scholar, when "Edstat" claimed the opposite.
Looking at Google Scholar, we see that Enflo's articles majorize Sawilowsky in citations: That is, the cumulative number of citations (in order of number of citations) favors Enflo.
In mathematics (and especially the elite journals in which Enflo's articles appear), mathematics articles cite very few papers, and Enflo's papers are very highly cited in functional analysis and operator theory (look at the citations of articles citing Enflo, to see the drop-off). To avoid copy-right problems and to conform to WP policy, only two paper's citations are shown:
*A counterexample to the approximation problem in Banach spaces P Enflo - Acta Mathematica, 1973 - Springer Citerat av 192 [Duplicate entry] Citerat av 99
*Extremal vectors and invariant subspaces S Ansari, P Enflo - Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 1998 Citerat av 37
All of these papers have stimulated research by the leaders in functional analysis and operator theory, and most of these are described as "breakthroughs", and most are featured in advanced monographs in mathematical analysis.
In contrast, in psychology and education and applied social-science statistics, Sawilowsky-style articles cite many more articles. Enflo's advantage would be even greater if his citation-sums were field-normalized. To appreciate the mediocrity of Sawilowsky, compare his results with Karl Gustav Jöreskog, whose publications have thousands of citations, or with Jöreskog's student Bengt Muthén (who is a professor at an education school at UCLA) or with Larry V. Hedges, who is professor of education at the University of Chicago. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, this is to everyone involved in the Sawilowsky/Enflo debate: I don't care which one is more notable than the other and I don't think it matters at all for purposes of their Wikipedia articles.
The articles can not be directly compared, but policies should be applied fairly and equally across every article. From what I've seen that appears to be Edstat's goal. While I believe his methods of figuring out what policies apply to the content in Sawilowsky and then applying them similarly to Enflo have at times been disruptive, the goal as far as I can tell is a laudable one. A bit more talking before acting may be in order.
In response, both you (Kiefer.Wolfowitz) and Iulus Ascanius have, knowingly or not, attacked both Edstat and Sawilowsky. Even if Edstat is violating policy, this is no reason to violate policy in retaliation. Continued violation of policy would be a reason to request intervention via an admin or some other mediator. Again, I believe your goal of maintaining high quality in the articles you are editing (these two in particular) is laudable. As far as I can tell both of you use talk pages well, but I feel a more measured response is called for. In all cases, Wikipedia:Assume the assumption of good faith may be reasonable reading. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for drawing out attention to the policy, which does not excuse any attacks under any circumstances---particularly not in response to attacks. I acknowledge having violated "Wikipedia attack" policy, in responding to various allegations of being a mathematician and not a statistician, harboring anti-semitism, being biased against midwestern state universities like Wayne State, etc. I thank you for your warning, and acknowledge that future violations could well result in more formal action. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Let us be clear, however: I have never attacked Sawilowski, whose achievements are of the level usually associated with a full professor of quantitative methods (quite good, so that I wish there were more like him), as I have commented many times before. On the contrary, I am the only editor to have supplied an independent citation of Sawilowsky's impact (Hettmansberger and McKean). Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia mirrors, etc.

Hi VernoWhitney. Thanks for your excellent work at SCV! :) I just wanted to let you know that when CSB tags an article as a copyvio of a Wikipedia mirror, attribution is most likely needed in the history per WP:Copying within Wikipedia. So rather than just deleting the CSB notice as you did in this edit, you should also note in an edit summary where the content came from (in this case, Darwinia (plant)). You can also use the {{copied}} template. Cheers, Theleftorium 19:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up: I had a feeling I was forgetting something with the mirror sites, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I'll make an effort to use the edit summary in the future. Thanks for pointing that out to me. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Policy about knowing before editing?

On an entirely different matter ...

Am I correct in assuming that there is no Wikipedia policy suggesting an obligation to learn about the topic of articles before editing: That is, to take reasonable care of having read something about the topic on which they are editing? I could not find any such policy in a (brief) search. I assume that such a policy could increase credential-comparisons, which may be harmful for the Wikipedia project. Is this understanding correct! (Feel free not to reply, of course.) Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If there is such a policy, I am unaware of one. I also imagine it would be detrimental to the project, for many reasons. In general, knowing and following Wikipedia policies and guidelines should be sufficient in order to edit without disruption. There is an essay which touches on this subject at Wikipedia:Competence is required. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your helpful comment. For once, I was euphemistic---I had removed "competence" from my draft. Cheers, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

More extraordinary than extraordinary

  The Faster Than Guillaume Bastille award
I hereby bestow on you the "Faster Than Guillaume Bastille" award, featuring speed skater Shani Davis whose 1500m. speed record of 2009 remains unbested...making him, yes, an even faster guy with a compatibly licensed image. Short of steroid abuse or other shortcuts, it's hard to imagine a quicker finish than this. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
You continue to inspire. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
(By the way, I'm torn. I had originally used Jeremy Wotherspoon here, but it didn't quite work since they don't do the same distance. Shani does the same distance, but his image lacks the majesty somehow. If you like this one better, you feel free to ignore the differences between speed of race. :D) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I appreciate the appreciation and all (and I'm very impressed by your attention to detail when creating on-the-spot awards), but I don't think finishing that particular one is worth singing praises over, with only 48 articles, and less total contributions than a single article on that other CCI. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, take it as a moment of whimsy, then. :D Me, I'm cheered whenever one comes off the list. And you've helped clear a couple, as well as contributing substantially to those that are left. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
(And, yes, that other one has been particularly time-consuming to untangle, though so far I have found none so challenging as [Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20100114 this one]. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC))

The 39 Clues Task Force

The 39 Clues Task Force: 19 April 2010

Project Page · General Forums · You are receiving this notice because you are listed here. If you no longer wish to receive these notices, make a note next to your name it that you wish to opt-out of the newsletter. · EdwardsBot (talk) 00:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Re:War Years Remembered

Sorry, I did not see the advice on talk page, but I am used to remove copyvios and detecting promotional and biased articles because of my experience of being new pages patroller on Spanish Wikipedia. I will be more careful next time. Der Ausländer: Was willst du mir sagen? 20:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

hehe thanks for the help

  The WikiJaguar Award for Excellence
For your recent assistance responding to the request I left on someone else's talk page, I award you the WikiJaguar Award for Excellence in talk page stalking efforts. Halofanatic333 (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

For confirmation on Coren's Bot's accusation. Halofanatic333 (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Sweet, thanks for the award! ^_^ VernoWhitney (talk) 12:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Second Foundation Consulting

Good day - we have added a very basic listing regarding our organization to support interested parties in neautrally prequalifying the software platforms we consult on and implement. There is a level of complexity in these offering that can be well supported by some due diligence in this environs. As the nature of the brief article is very fact based (location, core services, employees, recognition from verifiable thrid aprties, etc), I feel the notation flagging it as potentially biased can be reconsidered. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tcanoe (talkcontribs) 13:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I have not read the article in detail, so I do not know whether or not the article actually requires cleanup, but I strongly feel that the assertion on the talk page that "This page is maintained by their marketing staff" speaks strongly to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline and warrants a review of the article. As such I will look at it later today. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Second Foundation Consulting

In the spirit of cooperation and openness, I shared my connection to the corporation I was profiling. I will suggest that those closest to a source may also very much be capable of presenting greater "factual" depth to their material. Again, it was not unambiguous advertising we were intending to place here, but rather a brief article supporting the pre-qualification of our professional activities, which are complex and well suited to due diligence online within Wikipedia's body of knowledge. As it appears there is hostility toward the content I attempted to post, I have removed it and will rework the entiry to further strip out any hint of unambiguous advertising and try again. I see many corporations with articles which are acceptable to the community and will review those for additional insight, having reviewed the posted policies you referred to. Thank you again for your assistance in positioning our content in accordance to the necessary governance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tcanoe (talkcontribs) 15:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that you disclosed the connection to the corporation, as this is encouraged by the conflict of interest guideline. I personally do not feel it was unambiguous advertising, or else I would have tagged it as such. Regardless of any advertising, however, I feel that the company fails to meet the standards of notability which are required for inclusion in Wikipedia, which is why I nominated it for deletion. Since you are close to the source, if you are aware of any reliable sources which would show that it does in fact meet the standards of notability I encourage you to provide them along with your explanation of why it really is a notable company and should not be deleted. I am sorry that you feel there is hostility toward the content you attempted to post and apologize if any of that is my fault. I do encourage you to review the articles of other corporations, but as you do keep in mind that some of them may also fail to meet the standards of Wikipedia and merely haven't been noticed or improved yet, and so may not be a good basis for your own articles. You can of course feel free to improve them or nominate them for deletion if you feel this is warranted per our policies and guidelines. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Moderation of Joule Centre page

Hi I am slightly unhappy with the editing of my updates to the Joule centre website, you removed some text which was copyrighted from a website which is fine but you also removed a some text I had just wrote myself so I can assure you none of it was copyrighted. You also asked for more reliable references but I fail to see what is wrong with the ones I originally put up (several of which were from government websites!) and I have looked at numerous other profiles where the organisations websites are quoted as sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mclarke4 (talkcontribs) 08:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry you're unhappy with the editing of your updates to Joule Centre for Energy Research, but we can not accept copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. I had already cleaned the article and after seeing the first two paragraphs consisting of entirely copyright violations (either word-for-word copy or very close paraphrase) I felt it wasn't worth my time to check the remainder of the article again. I tagged it as relying on primary sources, which is to say sources affiliated with the centre, in order for Wikipedia articles to be verifiable independent sources are required. This was explained on the tag that you removed. You have also replaced the lead paragraph with a copyrighted paragraph (again), so I have removed that text and will repeat my warning in case you missed it the first time: persistent uploaders of copyrighted material will be blocked from editing. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Jewish-Christian tradition and Open Theism

Hello! Sorry, I am new, so I don't really know which talk-page to write on, and how to write and just about everything here. Anyway... do you have any sugesstions to how to include my links? I added them on the talk-page on "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". I really would appreciate your input in this, because you are experienced here.

"Jewish-Christian tradition" can be understood by people in many different ways. Professor Emeritus W. D. Davies, a famous scholar in theology (and not a member in LDS) said: Mormonism is the Jewish-Christian tradition in an American key. He explained in "Israel, the Mormons and the Land" http://rsc.byu.edu/pubWDaviesIsraelMormonsLand.php . It is difficult to explain everything in a few sentences, sorry. LDS view themselves as Jewish-Christians too.

Also the famous lutheran theologian Krister Stendahl was active in Jewish-Christian dialogue and was a close friend of LDS and helped them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krister_Stendahl

Reflections on Mormonism : Judaeo-Christian parallels : papers delivered at the Religious Studies Center Symposium, Brigham Young University, March 10-11, 1978 http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/rsc&CISOPTR=36013

LDS are strictly Open Theists, says professor emeritus Louis Midgley at BYU.

http://www.fairblog.org/2010/01/20/lcm_open_theism/ 90.231.11.211 (talk) 12:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, first a disclaimer: most of my work at that article and elsewhere on Wikipedia is keeping vandalism out. I'm less experienced with putting new things in. But continuing, I'm not sure exactly what you want to write or where, the first two links you gave me seem to be asking for a new article on Jewish-Christian tradition (or something like that, or possibly a new parapgraph within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but in either case I think you actually need to explain what the Jewish-Christian tradition is. I read through the first source you had when you added it the first time - the reason I removed it is because I've never heard of "Jewish-Christian tradition", was unable to find a definition for it online, and was unable to figure out what it was supposed to mean by reading the source. If it's not a common term it needs to be explained, either in the article or elsewhere in Wikipedia preferably. I can't see the "Reflections on Mormonism" link you provided at the moment, because it keeps breaking my web browser, but if by "Jewish-Christian" your sources mean what is commonly refered to as Judeo-Christian, maybe it would be better to place it in that article. Finally, the Open Theists link probably fits best in the Open theism article. Each of these could fit in the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article, but in any case it needs to be clear what you're trying to say with the sources. You may be able to get a better answer at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity. I hope I haven't been too confusing. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Gnevin's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnevin (talkcontribs) 20:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Just a quick note of thanks for adding the split info for the recent Odile of Alsace/Cologne entries. If I do a similar split in the future, I'll try to remember to do something similar. Feline Hymnic (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Just one of the many details of copyright around here that I'm still learning. :) An edit summary linking to the other article would be fine, but I think there was a typo in yours so I figured I may as well make it explicit while I was doublechecking the copyvio hit from the bot anyways. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:21, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

your feedback/help with a (fixed) copyright infringement.

Hi!

I am a new editor and got a message from you, because my wikipage /Eyewriter was put down. Since I am the original author of the blogpost that I used to create the Wiki, I followed your instructions, got a permit from CReative Commons, and explained it on my talk page, which I copy below. I would like to ask for your help so that I can fix this as quickly as possible... I have to say that my work as an editor is part of a coursework I'm doing for a class in Digital Media at New York University, so it's important for me to be able to successfuly create /Eyewriter as soon as possible! I really appreciate your help with this. Thanks! --Lachinos (talk) 20:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

My talk page explains what I've done, as follows:

Re-use permitted under Creative Commons License.


Hello, I received a "Copyright Infringement" message from Wikipedia while creating and editing the Eyewriter page, as follows:

The previous content of this page appears to infringe on the copyright of the text from the source(s) below and is now listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems:

 http://cultureandcommunication.org/tdm/s10/jimenalara/empathy-not-sympathy-diy-custom-made-assistive-technology/

Do not edit this page until an administrator or an OTRS agent has resolved this issue.


This is to state that the content on http://cultureandcommunication.org/tdm/s10/jimenalara/empathy-not-sympathy-diy-custom-made-assistive-technology/ was originally written by me, citing the sources as I was doing in this wiki page as well. I wish for my information to be published as part of this entry, as allowed by the Wikipedia administration:

The original website now states that re-use is permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC-BY-SA), version 3.0.

The permit can be found here [1]. The terms of re-use can be found here [2]


I have contacted permissions@wikimedia.org to notify this, as well.


Thank you. --Lachinos (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so there's a team which will receive the email you sent and once they receive your email and verify that it's sufficient, then they will restore the page. Alternatively, since you placed the CC-BY-SA notice on the original webpage, you can recreate the page now and it should be fine, since you've already placed the note on the talk page. Just make sure that you don't copy from other webpages, just the one you wrote. Hope that helps. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Grail (women's movement)

Thanks for marking up the attributions on my disambiguation split of Grail Movement. - Chonak (talk) 05:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 April 17

Hi. :) I just wanted to say that after rereading that exchange, it occurred to me that my initial note might have sounded critical of you for not doing the same. I just wanted to be clear, if so, that I really didn't intend it that way. If anything, I wanted to explain why I picked this of all articles to rewrite today. (Another reason: it was the last one I got to. :))

I used to feel horribly guilty when I deleted articles on notable subjects at CP, but I eventually got over it (for the most part). I just remind myself that they were never legally ours to begin with. Deleting them leaves gaps in our coverage, certainly, but also creates redlinks that hopefully will bring other contributors to replace them with content we can have. I think tagging them and processing them is a very important part of building usable content all on its own...which is good, since most of the time it's all I can do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't take it that way at all, no worries. I'm glad you have the talent and time to rewrite even some of the articles, particularly the ones from CCI that have been around for 4-5 years. Those are the deletions that bother me. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Stop your Rubbish

(Malik Safdar Dholka 05:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC))Hellow dear vernoWhitney, are you the editer incheaf of wikipedia, or the persone who know's every thing, "Dhaulka" is my history and i have the right to write it, so please make no disturbance, you know nothing about this article so please let the person do, who atleast know.(Malik Safdar Dholka 05:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC))

Mr vernoWhitney, are you the editor in cheaf of Wikipedia or the one who knows every thing, please fo GOD sake don't disturb any one to make healthy contributions, "Dhaulka" is my history i have the right to write it hare, so please don't disturbe me as you don't know any thing about Dhaulka, so please don't make Rubbish . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dholka (talkcontribs) 05:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're accusing me of as Dhaulka has been deleted since I looked at it. All I recall doing is redirecting it to Chak 124 NB, which contained every piece of text and photo that was in Dhaulka and more. If you could tell me what mistake you believe I made, I am open to a conversation. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops

Thanks for catching this. Clearly I was going too fast. :) Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 16:30, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

No worries - I recognize it as vandalism right away because I've been reverting this same vandal since January and they keep inserting the same text over and over again on this and a handful of other pages. If I thought it was anything other than a simple mistake I would've asked you about it. Thanks for protecting the page. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 16:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Sad much?

Why don't you relax? I just created that article today. I was attempting to rewrite the article and add references but you are flipping out and erasing everything. I understand copyright rules. As for other articles I've worked on, just worry about yourself. JHawk88 (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

M.G.S. Narayanan

Pls check the new article at Talk:M.G.S._Narayanan/TempNMKuttiady (talk) 16:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

There are still some problems with it. At first glance I see that one source says:

Since 1969, he was closely associated with the Indian History Congress, of which he was member of Executive Committee for several years from 1974; Local Secretary (1976); President of Section I-Ancient India (1978); Joint Secretary for many years, and General Secretary (1983-1985).

and your article says:

Since 1969, he was closely associated with the Indian History Congress, of which he was member of Executive Committee for several years from 1974; Local Secretary (1976) and general secretary of the Indian History Congress during 1982-85.

Later, your list of "more prominent" works is also still almost identical to that provided in the other source I tagged. Choosing which works of his are more prominent is a qualitative (and thus creative) decision, unless you have some objective standard to measure his books against, which I'm not seeing. There are probably more issues still in the article, but those are the two that stand out at first glance. If you haven't already, I recommend reading Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


The first comparison was changed a few minutes after I put the msg on your page. It now reads

Since 1969, he was member of Executive Committee of the Indian History Congress and later went on to become its general secretary during 1982-85. He was President of Indian History and Culture Society (2001) and member of academic bodies like Journal of Indian History, Indian Historical Review etc.

Here the thing is the rest of the sentence is his technical position, it cannot be reworded. The list of books , if you look closely is not the same as in the list. There is one addition and more details about the co-authors. The list is a combination from Google books, his profile and the Frontline magazine features on him. Again, quoting the names of his books from a website/magazine cannot be a copyright violation of the magazine/website.NMKuttiady (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, that sentence looks good. You are correct that facts cannot be reworded (or at least don't have to be), but the arrangement of those facts can still be an issue. You are likely also correct regarding the list of books, I apologize for not looking more closely at the various sources last time. However, your article still quotes the source exactly in at least one place:

As General Editor of the Calicut University Historical Series, he brought out 3 volumes of sources for Kerala History, including Vanjeri Grandhavari, 1987, which he himself edited. He was Chief Editor of Malabar, 1994, a compilation of extracts from research works in the last hundred years.

Again, I haven't reviewed the entire article in detail, so if you could review it again (since you wrote it originally) and rewrite it where it reads closely to the source, I will be more than happy to look over it once you think all of it is clean. Thanks. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Added my final touches..Gonna sleep..........NMKuttiady (talk) 19:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
The article looks good as far as I can tell, but for future reference you may want to wait until you get an actual response and not just assume (and imply) that I've reviewed your final draft. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I rewrote every sentence in there, so that tag was basically for a completely different text. I'd waited a day and thought you might have lost interest and so replaced the content for the benefit of the audience. If it can benefit even one person by reading it, the better.NMKuttiady (talk) 15:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No

I havn't used copyrighted information. I usually use the process of copying and pasting, then rewriting the material and referencing it. None of the articles I have edited are violating the rules. I find it insulting that you are attacking me like this. I was not able to finish rewriting the material because something came up. I was going to finish it later. From now on, I will not save the edits if I cannot completely rewrite the material first. I truly do understand the copyright rules. I am sorry about this. Now please drop it. JHawk88 (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Just have to say

I'm very impressed with the way you keep up with older listings at SCV and CP. You really show some amazing dedication, and I have little doubt that if you continue to want to at some point you'll be dropping the last word off of this template. Feel free to let me know if you should ever think you need work in some areas to prepare you. (And, if not, that's fine, too. :)) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I figure keeping up with the mostly easier ones lets you spend more time on the complicated ones and CCI, so I have no problems with that tradeoff. And I may very well take you up on that offer (along with giving a shot at OTRS volunteering) once my work stress drops a little (which should be in about a month - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!). VernoWhitney (talk) 17:38, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Verno, the amount of work you put in to copyright violations around here, you may need to request a rename to something more apt. – Toon 18:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
That's hilarious. I appreciate the compliment, but I think I'll stick with what I've got. ^_^ VernoWhitney (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
LOL! Oh, stop it, y'all. :) Verno, I'm available whenever you like. Just to let you know, I would not encourage you to dive into the experience too quickly. If anything, I'd probably urge you to overprepare. I went into it with little clue what RfA was like; I hadn't even been registered for six months. I'm not sure I'd pass in today's environment. I didn't pass with much of a margin in 2007! Not like some people I could name! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I've been watching the feeding frenzy at WP:RfA and have no intention of jumping in there any time soon. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what everyone was smoking that week... Mind you, the RfA scene seems a lot more vicious now than this time last year. I was pretty fortunate in that the questions I got made it pretty easy for me to come across well. Some of the questions asked of candidates now seem nothing short of divisive; the "consensus" judging questions are often impossible to answer without garnering opposes from some. We who see your work know that you'll make a brilliant admin; I think those who hang around at RfA sometimes forget that they are talking about a fellow human being. The advice I got from both of my nominators definitely helped me approach it. I'd echo what M says above; for your own peace of mind, just make sure you are completely confident in your preparation. You can never have too much experience. – Toon 19:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
So assuming I have both of you as talk page stalkers of my very own now: I'm curious about two articles that the two of you both looked at some time ago. Both of them are word-for-word copies of GFDL sources which were added after the retroactive date of November 1, 2008 which means that we should remove the content. I know there's not much creative content, but since you went to the trouble of attributing them I figured there was enough for it to be copyvio otherwise. Following this logic, I tagged one for speedy deletion and was denied, so I figured I'd jump straight to the people that dealt with the copyright issues for the articles the first time around to see what your take is on them now. Thoughts? VernoWhitney (talk) 02:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Yup, you have me as a talk page stalker, but with a caveat: I'm a very irregular stalker. :) I'm inclined to check in if I'm expecting a reply or if I see something that catches me eye on my watchlist. Or if I'm procrastinating. :D

Anyway, stuff like that dates from the great transition. We knew when we accepted it that it would be unusable if the vote was to change, but since it was our license at the time we had no choice. There may be plenty of examples like that waiting for cleanup. Whether there's enough creativity to warrant copyright protection is, as you know, a bit subjective. When it comes to attribution, I personally prefer to err on the side of caution, figuring we don't lose anything by attributing if it doesn't clear the threshold. My preference would be where possible to rewrite the material if there's not much creative content on it. If there's a lot, we may need to G12 it just to get a clean start. I'll go see what's up with those two examples. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

And it's   Done. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Just to let you know, I'm not actually stalking you. I'm also talkstalking Nihonjoe at the moment. :) I updated the Orthodox Wiki template recently, but that one wasn't using it. And, oops, Toon, my edit summary there sounds snarky. I remembered having visited that article and would have sworn I had placed the template myself. :O We have way too many attribution templates, and I wasn't intending to chew you out for not using that specific one. I thought I was making a good natured jibe at me. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Heh. I'm glad I'm not the only one who ends up following other editors around in helpful stalking patterns. ^_^ I've been working my way through the articles that currently use {{GFDLSource}} and I think this morning I'll change some of them to the (so-far unused?) {{GFDLlegacy}} attribution, since we shouldn't need the Source template at all anymore unless I'm missing something. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
That sounds like a fabulous idea. :) Way overdue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:17, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Oof, that does sound snarky, doesn't it! I like how worried this user was to make sure that they didn't offend me. Those attribution templates are a bloody nightmare, to be honest; not only are many names difficult to find (I'm looking at this) and there also seem to be two different systems for identifying the revisions—one of which probably isn't specific enough (date format (but not time)) and one which is just a hassle to get to (revision). Then we have the whole "sourcepath" "sourcearticle" and "source" fields... ugh. I sometimes wake up in cold sweats after using them. Oh and Verno, don't worry, my talk page stalking will be limited from now on seeing as I started a new job today; for which the interview was considerably less stressful as those RfAs, I might add. – Toon 18:12, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Congratulations on the new job! I hope it leaves you more spare time than you anticipate. :D And I'll have to take a page from that user's book. :) I have of late been especially incivil to me. Imagine if somebody else had edited Verno's page before I could save that one. Yikes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Ha, I wasn't suggesting you needed to follow suit; I hadn't even read it in the way the user worried about—cue a furrowed brow followed swiftly by mild amusement on my part. I was going to say, you need to be careful or someone might push the little "block" button if you keep up this self-abuse! Anyway, I'm sure Verno's sick of my pointless comments triggering the orange banner. – Toon 18:28, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Nah, I find the banter quite amusing. I was also actually doing work <gasp>, so I only got one orange banner. Also, congratulations on your new job! VernoWhitney (talk) 19:39, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for reverting that vandalism on my user page. -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 03:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I didn't think it counted as quite funny enough to leave it there. VernoWhitney (talk) 03:23, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio!?

I made significant edits to Thomas Curtis Clarke, which should be easy for you to verify. Having written over 5000 similar articles, this is the first one that has garnered me a copyvio warning. If you have some sort of rule of thumb you're applying, please let me know what it is. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not User:VernoWhitney, but I may able to help explain. I have left you a note at your talk page with some specific examples. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:28, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Salina High School Central

What source was copyvioed? Ks0stm If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. 15:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

This one. One editor has been inserting that paragraph in about a hundred different articles and only changing the name of the high school in question. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, thanks...I should have noticed that, because I know for a fact neither Central or South offer AP credit in Pre-calculus or Computer Science...do you want my help clearing out the rest of the places this user put that stuff, or have you got it under control? Ks0stm If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. 15:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I appreciate the offer, and you can feel free to pitch in if you want. All of their contributions are listed at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/JHawk88 and I'm working my way up from the bottom. As far as copyright cleanup goes, this one isn't too bad at all, but we're still checking all of their contributions because they've used other sources besides just that one paragraph. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Don't worry if you aren't interested in cleanup. It's what I do everyday, so I'm used to it and will handle it just fine if you'd rather spend your time somewhere else. VernoWhitney (talk)

Talkback Newspaper Image Copyright

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Haruth (talk) 08:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Oh - and you definitely deserve one of these... even though I'm not entirely sure what they are for ;-)

  The Guidance Barnstar
For being my #1 copyright guru :-) Best wishes Haruth (talk) 13:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! I'm happy to help with any copyright questions you have. I may not always have an answer, but since copyright's most of what I do around here I probably know someone who will have an answer. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Copy right issue

You have emptied the article Brahmachari Walisinghe Harischandra by pointing out it is closely paraphrasing with two of the references which I have given in the article.I have reedited the article in the areas where one might suspect it for close paraphrasing.

In my talk page you have stated that This article appears to be a copy from http://sundaytimes.lk/070916/FunDay/heritage.html and http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2009/09/20/imp04.asp, and therefore a copyright violation. The copyrighted text has been or will soon be deleted.The word copy sounds as a joke to me.Because no one on earth can say it is a copy of the above mentioned articles.

You have done two mistakes here.

1. If you have found areas where there is close paraphrasing,you should have attached it to those sections.Because the template states ~By default, this template blanks all other content on the page. To limit blanking of the text, as for a copyright violation in a single section, place at the end of the suspected copyvio area.You are lazy to do so ????

2.You are claiming a whole article is a copy of two of it's references ?????????? and trying to add a another one to your deleted articles tally.Isn't it? That is the truth.

I believe too smart users harm Wikipedia as much as the vandals.You are hoping to become an admin,but I don't think you will make it ever, with these kind of careless work.

Anyway I have edited the article to put it in to a new shape.

Shehanw (talk) 09:20, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I blanked the whole article because there were problems present throughout - maybe not every sentence (I don't recall and I'm not going to check) but not where it was worth adjusting the blanking. As far as the word "copy", sentence structure can be copied as well as words. I said in the edit summary when I blanked the article (and Moonriddengirl has since told you on your talk page), it's a close paraphrase, which still violates copyright and calls for blanking the article. Hopefully, Moonriddengirl's comments on your talk page have given you a better idea of the specific problems remaining in the article. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

My uploaded image files

Thank you for a speedy response. Is it possible for you to delete the image files with problems so that I can re-upload them correctly, with the right copyright licence, permission, source, etc. If I may ennumerate briefly: File:Porcine and pericardial valves.jpg wad scanned from a photo in my possession. I do not know the photographers name. It was used at a symposium in 1982 to illustrate a presentation, as was another photo I have uploaded as File: Valve openings.jpg. The proceedings of the symposium were published in a book, not for sale, presented to delegates of the symposium, by Shiley Laboratories Inc. Shiley no longer produce heart valves so am I correct in believing that the image is in the public domain? Other images - File:Mitral table.jpgFile:Valve openings.jpgFile:Aortic table.jpg were scanned from the same publication by Shiley. The imagesFile:Valve lab at lgi.jpg, File:Coloured valves.jpg are photographs in my possession and have nothing to do with Shiley Laboratories Inc. I know the photographer as Mr Catchpole but he died 15 years ago, the pictures were given by him to me. As far as I know these 2 images have not been used anywhere. If I acknowledge the photographer can I use the cc-by-sa licence? The images File: Mitral valve replacement.jpg, File: Ionescu shiley valve.jpg and File:Aortic valve replacement.jpg were scanned by me from publicity brochures in my possession which were produced by Shiley Inc. I ask the same question - are these images in the public domain as the company does not produce heart valves anymore?. I think the company was liquidated in 1987 or 1988. I am a new user of wikipedia and am nearing the end of the article that I am developing, I hoped to illustrate it with relevant images, but am now at an impasse. I need to know which copyright licence goes with each image, yes I have read the help pages but am still confused. Please help me, can you tell me what to do. If the images are deleted, can I redo them, or can I fix it without deleting them. I am also a novice to computing so using external tools is impossible for me!!!. Could you fix it for me?????Jflatarget (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to answer your questions here.
  • First, the technical portion: It is possible to correct the license, permission, source, etc. on the image as is, but it does involve more manual work and doesn't have all the prompts that a new upload offers. If you want to delete the files so you can start fresh, you should edit each of the pages and add {{db-self}} to them and an admin will come along and delete them. I'm not an admin, so I can't actually delete the files for you. If you want, I can help with getting them fixed, but that will require some additional details, so that can be covered later.
  • Now, the copyright portion. I'm afraid that all of the files are copyrighted, as they were published in some form or another. Those that were published in the book and publicity brochures by Shiley are most likely copyrighted by Shiley, or possibly the original photographer. Unfortunately, the fact that they don't make heart valves anymore and were liquidated doesn't make them public domain. When the company was liquidated, some person or company ended up with the copyright, even if they don't know it. That means that in order for you to use these images on Wikipedia, they will have to meet each of the criteria of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. The two tables could alternatively be recreated as free images, since the data used to create the tables can't be copyrighted (assuming you have access to the original data, that is). As far as the photographs from Mr. Catchpole, unless you have something in writing from him, technically the copyright for those images would be held by his estate, so you could get permission from his wife or child or the like. Assuming that's impossible (or just too much trouble), they could also be used under fair use if they meet each of the criteria of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

sorry, i reverted. this was no more a personal attack than the comment it was addressing. 128.59.182.201 (talk) 18:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree about that. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

My uploaded image files

Thanks very much for your very useful help. I have put a deletion template on a couple of images and have edited the licenses as non-free use rationale as you suggested. I just hope my files will not be deleted now as i would like to upload them soon to the article I am developing. I dont intend to use all the images, but a few would make the heavy topic a bit more visually interesting, as well as saving me a lot more typing of additional text. Thanks again, I know who to contact if I have any further queries.!!! Jflatarget (talk) 18:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad I could help. I went ahead and removed the deletion templates that had been placed on the files for lack of source/permission since none of them applied any longer. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 20:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

 
Hello, VernoWhitney. You have new messages at Acather96's talk page.
Message added 17:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Acather96 (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Resiliency Management Model copyright violation / recent changes

I have two questions:

1. Look at this page. Is the content still not different enough to remove the copyright violation warning?

2. The difficulty with writing suitable content for this page is that for something like: "The RMM has two primary objectives:[1]

1. Establish the convergence of operational risk and resiliency management activities such as security, business continuity, and aspects of IT operations management into a single model. 2. Apply a process improvement approach to operational resiliency management through the definition and application of a capability level scale that expresses increasing levels of process improvement."

I'm not quite sure how you could change that, without changing the meaning of it. It uses a good number of technical terms that don't really have appropriate synonyms / alternative phrasings. That's why I've placed it in quotes and made sure to include a reference. Any advice on handling something like this? Thanks. Error9900 (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I feel it's not enough to remove the copyright violation warning. I am of course not the only editor who matters and an admin will go through in a week and see how a rewrite looks. I appreciate that you quoted that portion, but I feel that it's too lengthy to be fair use under WP:NFCC since it is their raison d'être, and could be said in your own words better (as far as the reader is concerned). As far as rephrasing it - it's not using technical terms, it's using business terms which also makes it sounds like an advertisement (not an issue as far as copyright goes, but still an issue to be considered when writing an article). Point 2, for example could be simply said as "improve operational resiliency management". VernoWhitney (talk) 20:45, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I think the capability levels play an important part in improving the operational resiliency management though. I'll take another look at it when I get some time, and see what I can come up with. Error9900 (talk) 16:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
So is the next step for me to just wait until someone can review the article? Or is there something else I should do? Error9900 (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Pretty much, yes. As I told you, I still feel that it's a copyright violation, but an admin will review the article (probably on the 11th if I'm counting correctly), and decide at that time to unblank it, rewrite it further, contact you to have you rewrite it further, or delete it. If you want another opinion earlier than that, User:Moonriddengirl is an admin who commonly works in the copyright area and is willing to help with rewrites, and you can ask her. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

tech point about speedy tags

It may not be obvious, but the use of a multiple reasons speedy tag prevents the automatic transfer of the speedy reasons into the deletion summary by at least some of the helper programs we admins use for deletion. . This is important information, as it's the only information non-admins can see in trying to figure out why their article got deleted. You can use more than one tag, separately, putting the most important at the top--that is the one that will get automatically transferred. As copyvio, when present, is a sure reason for deletion requiring no interpretation, I'd suggest using it as the primary reason. (Although I disagreed with a few, I think they're in general very good speedies.) DGG ( talk ) 23:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I can understand that the helper programs don't handle the template since it's still fairly new and so I'm making more work for whichever admins are cleaning up after me, but isn't part of the reason it was created to ensure that it gets marked as multiple problems so us non-admins (including those who want to recreate the page) know that it has more than just the one problem? Or is it just that most people don't bother with more than one speedy delete tag? (Oh, and I'm happy to hear that you mostly agreed with my taggings, I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions for improvement.) VernoWhitney (talk) 01:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
yes, it helps to give information; so much so that if there is a good faith holdon, if there is any chance of there ever being a decent article, I copy the holdon message to the user talk, and answer it. The twinkle template most of us use for the actual deletions has space for two reasons: the reason it transfers from the first tag, & a second box labelled additional reason, which i fill in when appropriate even if there was only a tag for a single reason. I will very often add a G11 to an A7, or either or both to a copyvio--specially when its a copyvio from a site where the person wants to give permission, and it would be unsuitable even so. (If the copyvio is the top template, it transfers the link to the page being copied also) ) But, in truth, part of the reason is not just to help the user, but to decrease unnecessary challenges to the deletions. At the moment, few people are using the multi templates, and in fact the twinkle template for placing deletion tags does not let you place more than one tag; the other has to be added manually. Of course we can fix twinkle, but if we update it, it only helps the people who use it as a gadget. Anyone who has customized the code doesnt get updated--or even notified there's been an update (and similarly for the other helper programs) Dealing with such interactions is one of the problems in not having a centralized organization or even centralized programming. Only edit filters are dealt with centrally, & usually an important template breaks every week or so because of unanticipated problems. Anyway, do keep using it occasionally, if only so it keeps the problem obvious. I'll look around some more and then mention this at the CSD talk p.
The only other points I notice are, first, that in many cases of copyvio or spam, it is possible to simply stubbify the article, if it is one that is reasonable likely to be worth an article, and second, that if the article is empty, check the history to see if it was removed by the user, in which case the tag is db-author. And see my note about Appleton's at User talk:Bob Burkhardt DGG ( talk ) 20:22, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, I will make an effort to use {{db-multiple}} less often. I don't use scripts for editing so the problem with people customizing the code and not getting central updates hadn't occured to me. As far as stubbifying spam and copyvio - I'll try to do that more often, I guess I worry that people will just revert the copyvio and I won't catch it until a week or so later when I'm double checking the copyright problems (if ever). And I appreciate the note about Appleton's, although to be honest (at the moment at least) I'm only concerned about the copyright and attribution taggings. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 20:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)