Talk:Don Durant

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I am somewhat dismayed to find this article, all of which is derived from my non-commercial authorized website www.johnnyring.net, has no proper citations as to source material.

I was gratified to see the website link, but would appreciate proper credit as the sole source of the material in your article--as one would in any bibliography. My biography of Don at www.johnnyringo.net/durant.htm was originally copyrighted in 1991. Subsequent additions are also copyrighted (as is the entire site.) It was not cribbed from other published sources, but is entirely my own writing, painstakingly gathered from a series of interviews conducted over several years, beginning in 1983. I'm sure you can appreciate the work that went into this, as Don had no other biographers and few articles published about him after 1962. In other words, many facts in my article have never been set down in print elsewhere and are unique to the site. I did recently grant permission to THE LA TIMES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, and VARIETY use the site as source material. Those are currently the only publishers authorized to re-use material.

In addition, I must correct the following minor points: Don's mother died in 1959, not '49. It's Ray Anthony, not Anthony Ray. He did not appear in the first MAVERICK episode, but rather the first one to feature Jack Kelly. Technically, Heidi should be listed before Jeff, as she is the oldest child. And multiple spellings of "Dorant" should be corrected.

Pardon me for the particulars, but I hope you will understand that I do take my writing seriously and expect internet publishers to follow the same rules of conduct as the print media. So kindly cite me as source.

Sincerely,

M. Jacquelyn Patterson

Hello again, Jacquelyn. I've reviewed this article and your site and, though my understanding of copyright law is far from expert, i'm not absolutely convinced the article is a copyright violation.

The reason i say this is because, although the content is clearly highly (if not exclusively) sourced from your page, it has been carefully rewritten, and is not a direct cut and paste job. Since the purpose of an encyclopaedia is to recount information from other sources (rather than produce novel information), cases like this are not clearcut (at least in my mind).

Nevertheless, this still may be a copyright violation, its just that i'm not knowledgable enough to be sure, and thus i'm not happy blanking the page as an obvious case of plaigarism.

What i will do is request assistance of an expert at Wikipedia:Copyright problems and act on their advice. However, as the copyright holder, you can request immediate removal by following these instructions. If you would like immediate action then i would recommend doing that.

Finally, thank you for providing the corrections you mention. I will not make those changes immediately (as the article may get deleted soon anyway if it is a copyvio), but if - for whatever reason - the article remains, i will incorporate those changes at a later date. Please feel free to leave a message here or on my talk page if i can be of further assistance. Rockpocket 06:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Aside from putative copyright violation, the site that was clearly used as the main reference has no references and claims to contain information not available anywhere else. I wonder if that makes it a reasonable reference to use then--it appears to be based on some information from Durant or his family, but we don't have that information itself. Normally it seems like these sorts of things have to be actually published before they can be used as a reference, but I don't know all the rules offhand. (And what's up with the background that makes the page nearly unreadable?) digfarenough (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair point, however the author states that "THE LA TIMES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, and VARIETY" have used her site as a source. These are appropriate reliable sources, so the info in those articles would be perfect for WP. Since those articles were sourced from her site, it follows that she is preobably a good source. However, i agree that it would be better if these newsources were cited directly. Rockpocket 20:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)