User talk:Actual BuffyGuide

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Hiya, I contacted BuffyGuide.com through http://www.buffyguide.com/mail/contact.shtml, to ask about the use of the short summaries on Wikipedia. I offered to create a ghost account called 'BuffyGuide.com' which would represent you, your site and the your work (since this was not allowed I created 'BuffyGuide') I did this with your premission and agreement because I did not deserve credit for adding these summaries to Wikipdeia when the much harder work was their creation. My workplace blocks access to email right now, but I'm sure I will still have those emails detailing our correspondence over this issue. Assuming you are the webmaster of BuffyGuide, I'm a little shocked that you have forgotten our conversations? If it helps you remember I also asked about using other content, but you suggested that you would prefer not to use sections like 'References' because it would keep the site special. I will be able email you later. Do you really not remember any details about summaries and Wikipedia much earlier this year (maybe Februatry/March)? -- Paxomen 09:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[text of an email just sent to Paxomen, who emailed me about this]:

Hi [Paxomen],

Hmm, this is… interesting. “Actual BuffyGuide” is me – because I didn’t grant permission for this. I have allowed small amounts of my content to be used on other sites here and there, but Wikipedia isn’t one of them. The reason for that is that content posted on Wikipedia becomes public domain (GNU Free Documentation License), and I’m not okay with my content becoming free for every Tom, Dick and Jane to post wherever and whenever they want. Under this license, it is even permissible for someone to sell and profit from my work. Hence, my lack of having ever given permission for posting on Wikipedia, and my irritation at discovering it. (Indeed, the reason I discovered it was because another site had some of my content, and when I confronted them about using my content without permission, they replied that they had merely taken it from Wikipedia.)

And yet… you have these emails, and indeed searching my own old email pulls them up as well. Barring the possibility that I have multiple personality disorder, which I’m pretty sure I don’t, the only explanation I can think of is that someone I know replied to you as me. I had some family staying with me for some time earlier this year, including the time of these emails – I think that possibly one of them may have been checking my email, and even responding to some, unbeknownst to me. I don’t see evidence of anything exceptionally nefarious or strange, so perhaps they were actually trying to help (some of the text of the replies to you seems to actually have been pasted from replies I had sent to others seeking similar permissions, perhaps indicating that they thought that was my standard response?)… although why they wouldn’t mention it to me, or indeed why they would think that was a good way to help, I’m not sure. At any rate, that’s my issue to explore and deal with. (Another explanation, that some outside party hacked into my email, seems pretty unlikely. Surely if they did, they’d have found something more interesting to do than grant permission to put some of my content on Wikipedia. Although I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to bump up the regularly scheduled change of passwords.)

Well, the surrealism of this strange situation aside, the unfortunate fact is that I do not want my content on Wikipedia, for the reason I outlined above.

I do apologize for the confusion this has caused you, and I trust that you were acting in good faith and under the belief that you had my permission. It certainly does appear that you had every reason to believe that.

Although – I do find it very strange that you replied to a comment on Wikipedia with the following: “Thanks, i thought it would be useful too, the synopses were from my site, and written by a number of peeps.” Although I see that in these emails, “I” gave you permission to post the content under a Wikipedia account called BuffyGuide, it seems a bit of a leap for you to go ahead and impersonate me.

-- Actual BuffyGuide 05:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)