Talk:Flecainide

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Hello Lucky. I recently worked a few hours on this article, and was going to put even more hours on it. Yesterday night I checked it and it was deleted by you due to "copyvio". My intention was to create the most complete article about Flecainide. Before this, when I personally went out on the web looking for information, I always found bits and pieces all over, but was not satisfied with any one article about it. My intention was to MERGE all public domain information until a nice, detailed, structured and very complete article was created.

Although I did use several public domain sources, the amount of editing, merging, thinking, re-structuring (of the article), makes me feel like it was my own work. Maybe it was not yet complete, but I intended to keep working on it. If you look on the web, you will not find any article as complete as this one. Also, being a drug which has specific properties, indications & contraindications, it is natural that you will find many similarities in all articles.

So: I still want to see an article containing all possible information about this drug. I cannot write from memory because I am not the manufacturer of the drug or the researcher that invented or discovered it. All I have are public domain sources. What do you suggest I do?

User:AAAAA

Contents

[edit] Appeal to whoever reads this...

This article contains bits and pieces from numerous sources. I encourage whoever read this to summarize, restructure, modify, add and do whatever necesary to "wikify" this article. I still want it as complete as possible, but would like to clear any redundancy and make it structurally clearer. Any help is welcome!

[edit] Clarification needed on copyright

Some sections of this document are copied word for word from the product monograph which can be found at: http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/en001/government/innovative_solutions/node_GSYQ1KL450be/root_GS3RBW6QFVgv/vroot_31S2JJ7584ge/gvel_KJ6SPF8WRSgl/theme_us_innovativesolutions_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

specifically the clinical indications section. 85% of the clinical indications section is from this work. If the rest of this article is similarly derived then I don't know if much of this article can be salvaged. I'm not experienced enough, nor do I want to bother, to check through this entire article for copyright violations. Could the original author please clarify these concerns. Matt 16:40, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You have listed the following pages as your sources: None of these are public domain, could you please specify which public domain sources you've used.

[edit] Removing copyrighted/reserved materials

To Matt: OK. Will do. These days I am super busy and I will try to work on it in the following 30 days. Any help from your part will be more than welcome. One question: Is the product information/instructions (whatever comes with the physical product) something considered Public Domain or would you consider it copyrighted? --AAAAA 04:09, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

I'm listing this page on WP:RFC to encourage third parties who are familiar with wikipedia policies and procedures to become involved and hopefully resolve this dilemma.

[edit] History of the situation

I discovered this page when I noticed that a drug page was on the list of the largest pages in wikipedia (it was ~60k at the time). With a google search I quickly found that the page's contents were copy and pasted from various copyrighted sources (see "Clarification needed on copyright" above).

Since the content of the page was almost entirely contributed by one user, I also brought up the issue on his talk page. (see user_talk:AAAAA and user_talk:MattKingston for the discussion that resulted from this.) AAAAA conceded that the content was c&p from copyrighted sites.

I reverted the page to the copyright vio notice (AAAAA had previously been warned, but given the benefit of doubt).

Since that time, AAAAA has been slowly copying the copyvio material back into the article. Virtually no effort has been made to reword the content in his own words, or even correct formatting errors. The article contains a lot of inane facts (such as packaging details) and doesn't even barely resemble an encyclopedia article.

[edit] Current steps

I'm hesitant to simply re-revert the article since that doesn't seem to lead anywhere, I'm posting on WP:RFC in hopes that third party intervention will lead to some agreement between AAAAA and myself. Matt 06:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Response from AAAA

I took out the part that you consider rewritten without effort. I was hoping that after some time you would forget about watching this page, but I guess I was wrong. I give up. --AAAAA 11:30, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Public Domain

I think there is some confusion about what the term public domain refers to, AAAAA seems to use the term to mean things that are publicly accessible, this is not the legal definition of the term. In order for something to be public domain the creator must release it into the public domain, or it must be very old and its copyright elapsed. While a lot of information about Flecainide may be available on the internet and accessible to the public, it is not "public domain" and cannot be added to Wikipedia without permission. On another topic, generally it is better to resolve conflicts directly by attaining consensus than it is to hope someone will stop watching. The issues Matt raises are very real, I don't see the benefit of ignoring them. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 19:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have another question: How "original" does something have to be to NOT be considered a copy? If someone takes the information contained in 10 or 20 different articles, deletes may parts, arranges other parts, adds comments and/or explanations, categorizes, combines from several sentences, etc, etc, is the end result considered a copy? It you copy verbatim 10,000 characters, it is definitely considered a copy. If you copy and paste a picture, it is definitely a copy. But if you "use" one character (an "A" for example), it cannot be considered a copy. If you "use" one word it still cannot be considered a copy. If you use 2 words? How many words would make something a copy? Where do you draw the line? When can you say something has been "re-written" or when is it not "re-written" enough? --AAAAA 03:03, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As you've figured out, fair use isn't a black and white issue. There are a number of criteria used to determine fair use in the US. Read Wikipedia:Fair use for more information. It depends on how you are using the information, as well as how much information you are using.
I think you're missing a related concept: Even if your use falls under fair use, you still must provide a reference. This has nothing to do with copyright law, it has to do with the integrity of Wikipedia. If you quote or paraphrase an external source, even if it's just a sentence, you must attribute it. As a matter of fact, even public domain material should be attributed to its original author. Rhobite 03:22, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New effort to rewrite

Hi AAAAA, I was wondering what to do with flecainide. At the moment, it requires some attention. Do you have any plans, or can I have a go? JFW | T@lk 22:08, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I just restored a lot of information that Matt Kingston made me take out. Please, DO REWRITE NOW! I always wanted to have somebody edit the work that took me a long time to compile. It does have a few complete paragraphs that I copied and pasted from other web sites, so make sure the rewrite touches every sentence, so we remain with "original" work. If you can add even more information. Great. Whenever I do an article, I always like it to be AS COMPLETE AS POSSIBLE.--AAAAA 15:01, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • To whoever else reads this, unless you are rewriting, please do not revert this article until JFW rewrites it. I will also try to help. Please be patient. It will probably take a few days. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. --AAAAA 15:05, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I reverted it. It contained about 50 KB of copyright violations from RXList and other sites. It was far too detailed for an encyclopedia article. Furthermore, paraphrasing each sentence from a copyrighted source is not a legitimate way to write an article. Rhobite 15:53, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Rhobite and Matt, please watch out what you revert. I was halfway working on this, and expect to finish in 2-3 days. And leave AAAAA alone for the moment. JFW | T@lk 16:59, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's now one week since you posted this message, the article still contains copyrighted material. It would be great to have an article on flecainide that can be licensed under GFDL, this isn't such an article. JFW, if you would like there to be a comprehensive article on flecainide (which I think would be great), it would be best to start one from scratch so that you can be sure that copyvio material is not in your article. Using material from previous versions of this article does not resolve the underlying issue. If you have any questions about why I'm reverting this article, feel free to ask. Matt 12:08, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree, it's good that you're rewriting this, JFW, but it would be best if you did it in a temp namespace. No article should be left sitting around here with known copyvios. Why not rewrite it and then paste it in when you're done? Rhobite 04:03, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
I'll continue when I've got a long strech of guaranteed Wiki-time. Given that I'm on-call today, it may take a while. Please move it to a temppage if you feel the present form is too much of a copyvio.
PS I disagree with Matt. All the relevant info is there, and my rewrite is no more that a strong condensation. Rewriting from scratch needs more expertise; User:Ksheka wrote up several other antiarrhythmics, and he would do 20x better than me. JFW | T@lk 08:17, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Matt

That was not nice, reverting to some old horrible version while I'd been working on it to remove copyvio material. Anyway, I have restored the previous version and removed all text that was copyvioed, to satisfy everybody. I will ask User:Ksheka to review this and add his expertise. JFW | T@lk 17:24, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See also User_talk:MattKingston#Flecainide for more details. JFW | T@lk 09:10, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Okay. I'm going to work on this over the next 3 days. Give me until Monday, please. Ksheka 11:47, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)
I agree that User:AAAAA acted improperly by copying all the material from other webpages, but this problem has now disappeared: everything on the page is now in my own words. I have removed all copyvio material and rewritten/rephrased whatever I could. If you copyvio-tag this you will find yourself in mediation. JFW | T@lk 09:07, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
So you're saying that "Once adequate control of the arrhythmia has been achieved, it may be possible in some patients to reduce the dose as necessary to minimize side effects or effects on conduction. In such patients, efficacy at the lower dose should be evaluated." because your first contribution to the page seems to be 2004/08/20. These words appear (to pick a version at random) 2004/06/25. These words can also be found at http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediawebserver.dyn?111111MKW5618Gd1qGd111nEfoZfp67x- (the top of the sixth page) but perhaps you work for 3M. But I'm done with this. I've come to the conclusion that there are too many people on wikipedia who want to plagarize others' work and not enough interested in policing to provide reliably free content. Put whatever you'd like on the page. Matt 23:32, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As you can see, Ksheka is doing his magic, so the copyvios are a thing of the past now. No hard feelings. JFW | T@lk 01:52, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think I'm pretty much done with this. The only thing missing is some stuff on the use in the pediatric population. Ksheka 12:46, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] From Wikipedia:Copyright problems

  • Flecainide been posted before, constant revert war going on, see talk page for details. Matt 03:39, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • "...the copyvios are a thing of the past now" according to User:Jfdwolff on Talk:Flecainide on 01:52, 21 Nov 2004. Googling random phrases from the article doesn't bring up any obvious sources. The alleged source the last time there was a copyvio notice on the page is a list of links [1], none of which are an obvious source of wholesale plagiarism. I say it's clean. --rbrwr± 11:35, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent Contradiction

The statements:

"For the treatment of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias (ie: ventricular tachycardia), a starting dose of 100 mg twice a day may be appropriate."

and

"Results of a medical study known as the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) demonstrated that patients with structural heart disease (such as a history of MI (heart attack), or left ventricular dysfunction) and also patients with ventricular arrhythmias, should not take this drug."

seem to contradict eachother. I take this drug for ventricular tachycardia - am I risking my life or not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.29.174.66 (talk) 09:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] correction

I have some concerns that the following phrase from the opening paragraphs of this article is oversimple for such a technical article.

"Flecainide works by regulating the flow of sodium in the heart, thus slowing nerve impulses"

Now there are Sodium channels involved in nerve conduction, very similar or identical to those found in the His-Purkinje system and myocardial cells. But to say that Flecainide slows nerve impulses (it may well for all I know!) seems misleading as the depolarisation of myocardial cells and the propogation of electrical activity across the heart does not involve nerve impulses.

Accordingly, I have changed this phrase.

Feel free to comment guys and gals. In the spirit of Wikiquette, feel free to change it back, or indeed to better and please leave me a comment to explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.160.252.16 (talk) 22:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)