User talk:Coelacan/killing sparrows

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[edit] copyvio

Hi there, I am a new user (about two months) and live a peripatetic life, migrating from Nepal to St Paul Island, Alaska with frequent stops in Othello, Washington, where I grew up ages ago (I'm 51). I have had several 'careers' but now work as quality control and health and safety person (seasonally) for a small fish processing plant on St Paul island to finance my travels.

My WP editing is mostly typos and usage stuff (see slaying slews on my user page), adding links to deadend pages, and I have started participating in some AfD debates, although not many. I have created one new article, the short and rather minorly important Corfu slide. I've had one small run-in with another editor (see Re: my copyvio tag on User talk:Noroton)regarding my mistaken blanking of an article for copyvio. I apoligized to him although I'm not sure if the article had been cleared although the notice was removed.

The primary reason I requested adoption was that I am looking for some direction on copyvio matters. I hit the random page button alot and also work on deadend pages and I seem to be seeing tons of stuff that violates copyright, obvious cut and paste jobs about companies or persons, usually with a link to the copyvio right at the end of the article! Looking at WP:CV I seem to get conflicting directions. The first box advising proposing speedy deletion and leaving the article intact, the second box (titled 'Article?') saying to revert if possible, if not then blank the page, etc. Then I see this, '...Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL. Also, sometimes you will find text elsewhere on the Web that was copied from Wikipedia. In both of these cases, it is a good idea to make a note in the talk page to discourage such false alarms in the future...,' in WP:C which would seem to allow most of the things I have tagged and/or deleted!

I have done different things at different times, deleted copyvio and left a stub if I think it notable, proposed speedy, blanked and listed (the 'Article?' option), and with one exception, my mistake which I apologized for, I haven't received any feedback + or -. I must admit that the laziness rather than the legality of it is what bothers me about this as in most cases the website and article creator are probably one and the same, but still... Here is some examples.


New page, West Wisconsin Telcom is a copy from the 'about' page of, you guessed it, West Wisconsin Telcom. The page was created in one edit by a user with no other edits and no user or talk page.

Marriage Equality New York Inc, is copied from: here

Altoona community theatre which is copied from hereand here

What is the proper way of dealing with this?

  • Propose speedy delete and leave page intact?
  • No clean revert so blank and use copyvio|url=www.wwt.net/aboutus.php, and the rest of the stuff in the 'Article?' box?
  • Leave it for someone else to deal with and mind my own business?

Wikipedia can be a little daunting to newcomers as there seems to be much jargon, abbreviations and references to seemingly conflicting WP pages and policies. I have no problem being bold but also don't want to be a jerk. It would be great to have someone with experience to check with on occasion. OK, that's what I'm really wondering about right now. I have stopped doing anything about copyvio for now other than adding pages to my watch list until I get some direction on this. Thnx, --killing sparrows 20:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

In most copyvio situations that you will encounter, speedy deletion is appropriate. The only times you might want to avoid it are when there is also a significant amount of content there that is not copyvio; that's when I would use the listing at WP:CV. If you find an article that is all or mostly all copyvio, the {{db-g12}} template is the way to go. When it's added, it will create a generic notification template, like {{subst:nothanks-sd|pg=West Wisconsin Telcom|url=http://www.wwt.net/aboutus.php}} ~~~~, to be added to the article author's talk page. It's worded in such a way as to be non-threatening, and most people don't get upset about it.
You're right that many copyvios appear to be added by people who own the copyrights. But in most cases, they actually do not want to release their work under the GFDL. So in most cases, speedy deletion amounts to a courtesy for them. It is also practically impossible in most cases to determine whether the poster is actually the copyright holder, or someone else at the organization who does not have the legal right to relicense the work. If they really are the copyright holder and they can demonstrate this, there's nothing stopping them from posting it again, or getting an admin to undelete it. Better to err on the side of assuming they don't actually know what they're doing. (Most people don't understand copyright law and fewer still could explain the GFDL.)
In the case of Altoona community theatre, it looks like the very first edit was not an obvious copyvio,[1] and reverting to this edit would be worthwhile, unless I'm overlooking a copyvio that you can see there. In the other two examples you gave, speedy deletion is the way to go. Good work on slaying slews, by the way. — coelacan — 21:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I just took a look at American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, and I must say it was a very tough call. If the article had been just the list, that would have been okay. Similarly, if the text in the article had been attributed, say,

The American Poetry Review says that "the purpose of the prize is to encourage excellence in poetry, and to provide a wide readership for a deserving first book of poems".[2]

then that would have more clearly acceptable. But as it was, it did read very much like plagarism. There's no easy way to handle certain cases, but I don't think you were overzealous. And that user certainly should have been more civil to you, regarding the comments on that user's talk page. You nevertheless reacted with patience and defused the situation well. — coelacan — 21:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The main lesson I learned there was to more carefully look at the creators edit hx. Nearly all of the articles I acted on were from single-edit users with no user or talk pages active. Thanks for the guidance on copyvio, I probably won't have tons of questions for you but it's nice to have a place to ask. ==killing sparrows 21:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It has also bothered me in the past that the copyvio process seems contradictory; I was completely at a loss when I first encountered that page. If you think that in a particular situation, speedy deletion with {{db-g12}} is possibly appropriate, it's not a bad idea to just run with that. An admin has to review the speedy proposal, and if that admin disagrees, they'll just remove the tag, so no harm done. — coelacan — 22:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I tagged Marriage Equality New York Inc and West Wisconsin Telcom for speedy deletion, as there really wasn't anything else to do with them. — coelacan — 18:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] prods and afd

I see you prodded Atheistic evangelism earlier when it was named as a neologism. The article's still fairly problematic in its approach, I think, and may still be a candidate for deletion or merger. I'm undecided as yet. Do you have any opinion on it in its current state? — coelacan — 22:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it still verging on the edge of a neologism or at least a POV interpretation of a trend. There seem to be a few people who self-identify as 'atheistic evangelists,' or 'evangelising atheists,' and a much larger group who label others as such, but I doubt (my POV, and not neutral) whether this qualifies the term to have it's own entry. I would probably look to find a way to merge it into an existing entry on atheism. After getting Atheangelism changed to the current title I thought it best to lie low for awhile before suggesting a merge. Truthfully, aside from being new here, I tend to avoid issues likely to generate the kind of visceral controversy this would seem to lead to. I think I'll read some of the current articles and talk pages and perhaps contact the originator of the current Atheistic evangelism to test the waters and go from there. It's not that I shirk all conflict, I just like to 'put my good where it will do the most!' ==killing sparrows 00:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked through Category:Atheism but I didn't see any obvious candidates for merger with this article, except possibly the general atheism article. So I've brought it to the attention of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Atheism, in case they have any good ideas. However, that page hasn't moved in the last month, so that project might be nearly defunct. I'll be waiting a while since I've got other things I'd rather work on. Feel free, of course, to suggest or make any editorial decisions you feel appropriate regarding the article. — coelacan — 18:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to propose the merger to the person who started the Atheistic evangelism page and see what they say, then go from there. The Athesim talk page has nearly 30 pages of archived debate, so I am going to proceed cautiously. =--killing sparrows 23:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)=

[edit] Re:Pedophile claim in a bio...

Hi Coelacan, I reverted an edit that labelled Ivan Shapovalov a pedophile and left a note on the Hx page questioning whether The Sun (newspaper) was a reliable source for this claim. The person who posted the claim reverted my edit and stated The Sun was a reliable source. I seem to see lots of disputes regarding WP:BLP that say extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources and my sense is that this paper, a tabloid, may not be operating at the highest level of journalism. Could you take a look at the article, and if you agree with me, point me where I might go to bring this to someone's attention for review? Thnx, =killing sparrows 23:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)=

I doubt that The Sun is a reliable source for anything, and it is certainly not enough for a BLP issue like this. The place to report it is at WP:BLP/N. In the meantime, continue to revert it. BLP is the one and only thing that allows you to break WP:3RR, and it is often necessary to do so. I will also be reveting this alongside you until it is resolved. Use the {{uw-biog}} series of warning templates to warn the user, and if it occurs again after a third or fourth level warning, report the user at WP:AIV. It is not necessary to use every warning template in that series; you can use your discretion to decide how quickly to jump warning levels. I will issue a low level warning to begin with. — coelacan — 00:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thnx, it seemed pretty extreme to me. I read the Sun article cited but I could find no other source that even mentioned his sexual proclivities, even on the few blog/forum sites I checked (not that I would have considered those any more reliable!). I'm going to be working on slews tonight so I'll watch it. I did leave a note for the person who posted the edit, but no reply. --killing sparrows 01:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, since you'll eventually run out of slews, you may be interested in the Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors if the less targeted approach is appealing to you. — coelacan — 01:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re attribution and verifiability

Hi Coelacan, there is an AfD for List of people who went to heaven alive and some of the commentators cited WP:ATT and WP:V as reasons to delete. Could you look at that article's talk page where I asked a question re how these policies apply to biblical/koranic/whateveric persons and actions and give me your thoughts? Surely this must have been addressed at some point. Thanks killing sparrows 04:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the bit of delay. I'll go have a look now. — coelacan — 07:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I replied at Talk:List of people who went to heaven alive. Let me know if I missed anything that needed to be addressed. — coelacan — 08:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
On second thought, since that article and its talk page may be deleted, I'll repost here for the sake of archival; this general sort of question comes up regularly. So here's from the talk page:

WP:ATT#Primary and secondary sources: pertinent here. Whenever possible, use secondary sources. Cite not the Bible, if possible, but cite scholarly commentary of the Bible. That's easy, since every passage of every religion's every scripture has been subjected to the most thorough sifting and scrounging and nitpicking. There will always be secondary sources on these sorts of topics. Now, to the question of what needs to be attributed... it can be reliably sourced that people have believed these things and that is WP:ATT and WP:V (not whether or not these things actually happened, which would be WP:TRUTH, a policy we don't have). The other issue is WP:NOR, specifically WP:SYN. Shirahadasha has brought this up although few others have. It is an important issue whether or not these different figures have been addressed together in secondary sources. If there are no secondary sources saying something like "Elijah, Jesus, Muhammad, et al. reprresent a common theme in scriptural literature", then this article may be a synthesis of original research, drawing together disparate instances that are not studied together and not really related (which heaven did Appolonius ascend to, and which god(s) did he meet there?). Now, I would argue that to take a sane approach, sourcing must be allowed to be transitive: if one source discusses Jesus and Muhammad, and another source discusses Jesus and Elijah, then Muhammad and Elijah can play together. I would anticipate that there are sources out there that can be used which address this topic widely and so dismiss WP:SYN concerns, but it doesn't seem that those sources are being used yet. I do not yet know how I would !vote on this AFD, so I won't comment there, but feel free to quote me there if necessary. — coelacan — 08:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

In case the AFD discussion ends up being the only remnant. — coelacan — 08:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] when to mark edits minor

It's probably better not to mark edits like this one as minor. The reason is that some users set their preferences to ignore minor edits from their watchlist. So if you say something on a talk page that you want others to read, it might be rendered invisible by the software for some readers. There's more detail at Help:Minor edit, although curiously, what I just said is not in that help page (I'll have to fix that). — coelacan — 23:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point and thanks for the heads up. I hadn't thought about the settings thing although I knew it was possible to do that. With the relatively low number of edits I have made my watchlist isn't that busy but I see that it could become so. Have you followed the AfD and talk page for List of people who went to heaven alive? It's been very instructive to me and my !vote has changed from K to D. The 'process rather than the topic (although interesting) has been very instructive as to what is/is not notable, verifiable, OR/NPOV/SYN and especially what is encyclopedic, and why. I think I'm on the right track with this one, but even that is not especially important compared to the learning. Thankskilling sparrows 01:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read the whole AFD thoroughly; read some parts and skimmed the rest. You may find that result comes out as "no consensus to delete", which defaults to keeping. And whatever the result, as likely as not someone will take it to WP:DRV and demand a hearing on the AFD. DRV is meta-process: process about whether the first process was followed correctly. I make it sound horribly bureaucratic, and it can be, but sometimes it's necessary. The reasons something may come to DRV usually include someone's assertion that "there was a consensus to do X, but the closing admin closed it as Y." Since our official party line at Wikipedia is that "AFD is not a vote", it may be argued that there was a consensus for X even though there were more people calling for Y, especially if one side relied heavily on some of the arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. (You'll also often see the term "!vote", that is, "vote" preceded by an exclamation point. This is shorthand for "not a vote".)
What's most important to remember is that the point of all these policies and processes is to build an encyclopedia, and so the processes are supposed to be secondary. To ensure that, we have WP:IAR, which says, "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them." You'll note that I place the bold emphasis on a different part of that sentence. IAR is often abused. It is often used to mean "I'll do whatever I want", without regard for the beginning clause; it's supposed to be used only when the bureaucracy breaks the encyclopedia.
Consensus, or attempts at consensus, are the only ways to get things done around here. If consensus is being ignored and overruled by administrators, the contributors leave and there's no one to write the encyclopdedia. All policies, then, are supposed to be created and upheld by consensus. If most of us decide that a policy or process is detrimental or misguided, then it is subject to removal or change. OR, SYN, NPOV, ATT, N, 3RR, AFD, DRV, etc., exist because they were widely seen as necessary to the purpose of building an encyclopedia. They could, in theory, be removed; they do, in practice, change as the years go by.
Knowledge of policy is necessary, but a person who forgets the purpose, and takes policy as a given rather than as a development of the community, can be manipulated. This is generally called wikilawyering, and you may sometimes find it necessary to remind people in an AFD that the letter of policy can be interpreted to override the spirit of consensus; ideally you can do this without assuming bad faith on the part of the person who's wikilawyering, and without commenting on the contributor. Usually this is easy enough to do; instead of, say, "you are wikilawyering", just remind them that "the unfortunate result of your interpretation would be to [bugger up everything completely, or whatever]".
Hopefully that gives you some insight into the hows and whys of it all. And remember that consensus can change. — coelacan — 21:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] systemic bias

I'm checking your userpage from time to time and I noticed the Malick Sidibe issue just now. Turns out there were two articles, and one was better referenced, so there's been a redirect (all the other content for merging is still here). But as to your question regarding Western bias, there is a Wikiproject that tries to account for and mitigate these kinds of problems: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. I have no idea how well they do this; I haven't watched them or participated. But if you inspect their project talk page and collaborations, and find them to be worthwhile, they do welcome anyone who wants to get involved. — coelacan — 11:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the other article. I am a mediocre typist, at best, and have no idea how to get that little mark (diacresis?) other than I know there is a unicode for it. I'm sure I could find it if I really wanted to use it. And also thanks for pointing out the 'bias' project, I'll check that out today. I very much appreciate you helping me out here on WP, and I will return the favor to another user in a few months when I feel more confident. I'm probably leaving for St Paul in a few weeks (depending on the weather, the harbor is still frozen!) but I will have Internet there via satellite and wireless network at the fish plant, so I'll keep on working on WP!
I don't know how to use those marks either. I always just copy and paste them with my mouse. Google treats them as equivalent, though, so if you search without the marks, it will return results both with and without. I'm glad you've found my help to be worthwhile, hopefully I've saved you time and confusion. =) Keep the questions coming whenever you think of one. I like your userpage, by the way. Your photos that you've uploaded are quite cool, and I'm envious of your travels. ;-) — coelacan — 20:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I've got a situation...

Hi Coelacan, A few days ago I placed a prod tag on Josh Max which I came across randomly. It looked like the usual wannabe autobiovanispam (2 websites about the subject and his band) that gets posted and why I didn't do AfD I don't know, but I didn't. Since it went on my watch list I saw a few days later that the creator had removed the tag and in the edit summary said...

Edited grammar and style, inserted link to full-page Daily News article establishing subject's relevance to Wiki twits who apparently never heard of Google

Well that ruffled my little sparrow feathers a little so I responded here and while I was polite I know a little snarkyness comes through. I even went to the page and fixed the link that was added and thought, que sera sic transit gloria....

Then (the page is still on my watch list) I see that the same editor has changed the link so I follow it and now its to a multipage autoshow supplement (with no mention in the first four pages of Josh Max, just ads for cars and the car show) in the newspaper that Josh Max writes for. I didn't make the connection but the the original added link, the one referred to in the 'Wiki twit' edit summary that is supposed to establish notability to this Wikitwit (me) is from the paper he writes for and about him. So much for independent refs. A google search shows little outside WP and his (and his band's) websites and one of them brags about getting his own WP entry and also shows that someone named Antoine Pancakes is a friend of some sort.

OK, so now I'm a little more pissed and thinking I'll just AfD the whole lot of them (the related to Josh Max ones) but wait! Am I being a WP:DICK? Probably. So I thought I would ask you for a little advice. So what do you think? although I know what your probably going to say.

By the way, congrats on the Admin nom. Sounds like a lot of headaches to me, but it is pretty cool and I'm sure you'll do a good job. --killing sparrows 08:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi killing sparrows. It looks like it can be verified that Josh Max has written for Newsweek,[3] for instance, and his NY Daily News writing would alone be borderline evidence favoring inclusion, imho. I'm pretty sure this subject can be made to pass WP:BIO. So I would recommend not sending it to AFD. The Maxes might be a different matter. The fact that this guy is notable for his writing does not mean that this carries over to his band. The Maxes might warrant no more than a redirect to Josh Max, however, whether or not to redirect is an editorial decision that would be discussed at Talk:The Maxes, and it would not necessarily be the result of an AFD.
(AFD is "supposed" to be used only for delete/keep discussion, other things like redirecting, merging, stubbing, etc., are supposed to be done by other methods. This is not always strictly enforced, and WP:IAR can prevail, but certainly nothing should be sent to AFD unless the nominator really wants it deleted. Here's an example of an AFD where merger was rejected as not even on the table, and here's one where a redirect did result.)
Anyway, you might want to leave a {{notability}} tag on The Maxes and if no sources show up, AFD is a sensible option. Back to the sourcing in Josh Max, keep in mind that self-published sources are not completely disallowed. There's something about this at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources used as primary sources about themselves. Basically, he could be used as a source about some kinds of claims about himself (if he says he has six toes, okay, if he says he won a prestigious award, there had better be an independent source). The link into the NY Daily Press link works if it's necessary to demonstrate that some of his notability comes from that publication. It wouldn't mean anything if it was to a publication that he himself owns and publishes, though. I feel like I'm not doing a very good job of explaining my reasoning here, however. And of course different editors have somewhat different evaluations of notability, even though WP:N tries to make it objectively measurable. Let me know if this answer still leaves you hanging, and if so, I'll try to give more examples.
Thanks for the good word about my RFA. I'm sure that being an admin will bring its own new share of headaches, but I've run into so many barriers where I needed an admin to finish a task, that it's a probably a worthwhile trade to drop those headaches. — coelacan — 23:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've decided to leave the whole thing alone, if I did anything with the band article it would be out of personal malice over the wiki twit remark. Not a good reason to prod and an even worse habit to get into, there are enought things to do here and those two pages are less than a drop in the bucket, see Homeopathy :). I did 'join' the copyeditor group and have been doing lots of little things and a few larger things, its quite satisfying to take a poorly written but worthwhile article and polish it up a bit. When you have the time see the work I've done on Sofia Kovalevskaya. Thanks again for your help!--killing sparrows 23:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image use question

Hi Coelacan, this page has many low-res scans of propaganda posters from the PRC, it's where I got the 'killing sparrows' thing. Can they be used on WP under the terms the collector sets out? I have sent him an email asking permission as he requested, but he admits the copyright is not his and may not even exist on the posters. Thanks! --killing sparrows 07:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is permissible. Since he is not the copyright holder, it would not be (legally) necessary to follow his instructions anyway, but if he were, the kind of instructions he has given actually would be compatible with Wikipedia's GFDL, because they amount to {{Attribution}}. In this case, take a look at Image:Pi lin pi kong.jpg, which is an image from his collection already being used here under wikipedia:fair use. You can use the tag being used on that image, {{politicalposter}}, and also imitate the attribution as it's given on that page. Fair use images, though, will have to be used only in the article namespace (so not on talk pages, user pages, et cetera). The {{politicalposter}} tag makes this clear enough though, I think. Stick with that and you'll be fine. — coelacan — 03:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I can use an image in a mainspace article but could not use the 'killing sparrows' image on my user page, correct? Darn! It would have looked pretty cool there, eh?
Yeah, kind of a bummer. Unless you could somehow demonstrate that the poster had never been copyrighted in China, in which case you could use it however you please. I don't know anything about Chinese copyright (such as whether it was filed or automatic at that time, probably filed but I couldn't say). We have a not-very-informative tag, {{PD-China}} which does not obviously apply to these images, as far as I can tell. If you want to try to sleuth this one out, you might start at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities (covers law and history) and then take whatever you learn there over to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. — coelacan — 06:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infoboxes

I recently added the infobox to the article Opaka, a small town in Bulgaria that I cleaned up and expanded. How do I get the info in the box? I've seen and added to other infoboxes but they were expanded in the edit window, this one is not. Thanks! --killing sparrows 03:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There are parameters that need to be filled in. Usually when a template's usage is non-obvious, you'll find documentation at the template page. In this case, since the template you are using is {{Infobox Town BG}}, you would look at Template:Infobox Town BG to get the documentation. This one (like hopefully all infoboxes) has the parameters listed there with some example usage. — coelacan — 07:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Haven't quite left yet! I think my mistake was I just put in, {Infobox Town BG}, instead of cut n pasting the full markup section which I see is below on the template page. True? Thanks! --killing sparrows 14:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Yep, that's right. — coelacan — 19:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] graduation

Chances are slim that you look like Linus Pauling, but hey.

Hi Coelacan,

I have been interacting with and helping some newcomers and feeling pretty confident on finding my way around here lately and was wondering if you feel I am ready to go out on my own and even join the adopt a user project. I am not saying that I know everything by a long ways, but I do feel that I can act pretty independently and civilly and know where to go when I do need help. I especially feel that there is a lack of support and encouragement for new editors and would like to be proactive in countering that. What are your thoughts?

I am very grateful for the assistance you have given me and will still come to you when I have questions or problems, especially now that you have the power! You've been a great mentor.

Thanks!--killing sparrows 21:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite sure you're able to help new users by this point. =) Adopt-a-user could use you, and be sure to drop by the wikipedia:help desk from time to time and see if there's any questions waiting to be answered. I'll stop checking this page, so if you need my assistance with anything, hit my main talk page so I'll get the orange bar. Now, go stir up some trouble! — coelacan — 01:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)