Talk:California Space Authority

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[edit] First Re-write

Much better re-write to avoid the copy-vio problems. Johntex\talk 23:37, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah this is very nice to hear. I got a message from WSpaceport that he'll contact someone who can certify that the article's can be released under the GFDL. These two "temp" pages will not be deleted though; I'll move these into the main article namespace once everything is confirmed. --HappyCamper 16:03, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for more information

Greetings again --

Message was flashed moments ago to the Honorable Andrea Seastrand (former congresswoman and CSA's ExecDir), Jamie Foster (COO and CSA webmaster) and Eric Daniels (Gov't Affairs) for their action to contact you, once one of them has registered on Wikipedia (I gave them a brief synopsis of the site and GFDL). However, it's the weekend -- and a three-day one at that with Columbus Day on Monday -- so I don't expect them to respond back until later in the week once one of them learns their way around the site.

Regards, WSpaceport 00:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds great. --HappyCamper 01:47, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response

This is Jamie Foster, COO for the California Space Authority (CSA), new Wikipedia user = WJamieF. Our thanks to WSpaceport for trying to spread the word about CSA. All the material he has submitted is accurate, and we'd certainly like to have it as available publicly as possible. However, we can't have the content about CSA be editable by just anyone. We can't have just anyone, for instance, rewriting our Vision or Mission statement and then redistributing that. Hopefully you can appreciate the concern and perhaps offer some mitigation. I think I read that there's a way to "lock" an article from editing or otherwise keep it out of the copyleft domain, but if I additionally recall correctly, that approach is frowned upon as it's not particularly helpful to your project. Let me know what you might suggest. BTW, the page load time on Wikipedia this morning was pretty slow (>30 seconds/page); is that typical? Thank you! WJamieF 16:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for making an account! Here are some answers to your questions...Typically, pages on Wikipedia load quickly - a 30 second delay is not the typical load time, and certainly not the intended load time. Generally speaking, the delay is quite unnoticible.
All material submitted to Wikipedia must be compatible with the GFDL. The GFDL text can be found here. There are no exceptions to this - all contributions are released into the public domain where anyone can edit it - including company mission statements and the like. Here is a page where the issue of copyrights are discussed further: Wikipedia:Copyrights.
Granted, if someone were to claim that the mission statement of the CSA is X when in fact it is Y, the software that Wikipedia runs allows anyone to potentially notice the mistake in the article and immediately correct it. There are a team of volunteers who monitor continuously edits made to the encyclopedia, and will correct any sort of vandalism to articles. This is done continuously, 24 hours a day to preserve and ensure the factual integrity and reliability of Wikipedia.
Of course, malicious editing may not be corrected immediately, but on average, vandalism of articles is corrected in 5 minutes or less. Also, all the changes to an article are preserved in its article history - this allows anyone to go back and track all the changes that have taken place, and determine which changes constitute encyclopedic content to be kept. This is why it is important to submit factual, verifyable content from the onset of creating an article.
However, an article about an institution on Wikipedia does not necessarily imply that the article will mention the institution's mission statement, products, and the like. It may mention these things, but this is conditional many things, such as whether the content is considered neutral in representation of the subject. Having said that, Wikipedia is not to be used for promotional purposes. For an article to be kept on Wikipedia, at minimum it must be considered "notable" and "encyclopedic" by the community at large. Articles which are exceptions to this are deleted, usually through our Articles for Deletion procedures. Any article can be nominated for deletion by anyone. If an article about the CSA is to be written, it has to be in compliance with the text listed here. It should be decided from the onset whether this can be satisfied, otherwise, you may spend a tremendous amount of energy writing an article, only to see it deleted.
Wikipedia does have articles on companies and the like - generally, these are very large or well known companies - you may want to see our articles on Microsoft, Google and Wal Mart to get an idea of how an article on the CSA might potentially evolve into, provided that it is kept by the community. I hope this helps, and if you have any more questions, feel free to post them here so we can address this further. The article in the "temp" page as it stands can be moved into the main namespace - I don't see any copyright issues with it - but if this is contrary to what is desired, I will delete it - provided that WSpaceport agrees, and that no other editors have contributed to the page. If the latter occurs, the deletion must go through the typical articles for deletion process. (Hmm...more complicated than I thought, as an anonymous IP initially edited the page. I overlooked this. Well, let me wait for your reply first to see what to do next.) Thanks for your reply! --HappyCamper 19:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Content changes

HC -- Thanks for your explanation as well as hopefully allaying any concerns WJamieF or others within CSA may have about being listed in Wikipedia.

I'm also glad the content changes I made in the CSA/Temp file now meet your and other Wiki administrator's requirements (and hopefully CSA as well). My intent was to assist CSA by giving them a little more exposure as I've recently done with other aerospace-related sites by updating and/or creating some necessary encyclopedic "meat" to the bones (National Space Society, Ad Astra magazine, Space Frontier Foundation, U.S. Space Foundation, Young Astronaut Council, World Space Week, Coalition for Space Exploration, Space Exploration Alliance, etc. -- all groups that I currently hold membership or positions within). Ditto for crossreferencing/linking sites to each other and in categories where appropriate.

Not bad work for a rookie of a couple of weeks, if I don't mind saying so. ;-)

Regards, WSpaceport 20:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)


HC -- Another follow-up: the "anonymous IP" may have also been me (I had a couple of Wiki pages opened simultaneously and may not have officially logged in on one of them when I went back in to make a couple of corrections). Like I said earlier: I'm still a rookie at this.

Regards, WSpaceport 20:15, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...I think I spoke too soon about the article's acceptibility. I thought the article read differently the other day I looked at it. I think a lot of work still needs to be done. I took a closer look and the text is still essentially a verbatim copy of this page. It seems that the article has been only slightly "wikified", with one paragraph change. This is not sufficient to address the copyright problems.
The owner of the text can release it under the GFDL, but once this is done, it cannot be reversed - releasing something into the GFDL means that it is done forever, so please keep this in mind if this is what the CSA would like to do. I'd feel comfortable moving this CSA article into the main article space if it is explicitly stated here that the CSA would like to release that particular text into the GFDL. This is necessary, because the text is too similar to the original. Another option is to rewrite the content of that page entirely. Let's address the anonymous IP issue later if it's decided that the page should be deleted. Please note that this is effectively an extension on the copyright processing steps on Wikipedia, so it would be nice to resolve this as soon as possible. --HappyCamper 20:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Alright, this is converging towards something more acceptable for Wikipedia. The sentence:
Designated by the state of California as California's Spaceport Authority, CSA is a member-based "enterprise" association that works closely with stakeholders statewide to facilitate California's competitiveness and space enterprise vitality
needs to be reworded or sourced, and so does the paragraph "Comprising of space-related companies, entrepreneurs, government agencies, and academic research programs..."
Also, the list of things related to RTC #98-431 should be sourced. Apart from the two paragraphs mentioned above, it seems that a lot of material is taken from government websites. As I understand it, documents prepared in an official capacity for the US government and released for distribution are in the public domain. These technically don't violate copyright, but if you could source them, that would make the article even better. Check out Wikipedia:Cite sources and in particular Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations for guidance. Once you finish with this, I'd be more than happy to move this into the main article space. Keep up the good work! --HappyCamper 00:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another attempt

HC -- O.K., I'll see what I can do to remedy that for you. (I believe the latest version now meets your requirements, as well as CSA's)

[edit] Other pages

While we're on this topic, can you also look at Space Exploration Alliance/Temp which replaces copyvio notices posted by Johntex\talk on Space Exploration Alliance? (see his comments copied below):

Me again, I just saw your note at California Space Authority that you are a member of that group. Do you likewise have the rights to repost material from Space Exploration Alliance? I am not sure what the rules are about verifying that users have permission to upload content. In any case, at a minimum, the format of the articles needs to be changed. Wikipedia is not a directory or a listing of press releases. The articles need to be rewritten in a more encyclopedic style. For instance, phone numbers and addresses need to be removed. If you have any question, please drop me a note. I hope you continue to contribute to Wikipedia! Thanks, Johntex\talk 02:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Spaceport, I've now put comments on both of the items that I flagged saying that I believe the copyvio problems are corrected. It is up to an administrator to remove the copyvio notices and replace the existing articles with the ones you have created in the Temp pages. I suspect an administrator will be along shortly to do this. Thanks for your hard work. Johntex\talk23:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Regards, WSpaceport 22:59, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll take a look at those later. If they are listed on WP:CP, another admin should have got to them by now. If they decided to delete those pages, I will look into the option of restoring them for you so you can edit them like what you have done here. In the meantime. --HappyCamper 00:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Good work!

I think all the concerns raised have been adequately addressed, so the article has been moved into the main article space. --HappyCamper 02:26, 14 October 2005 (UTC)