Talk:The Universe (Catholic newspaper)

Edits of July 2009
I have moved the following text, added over the past few days, to the talk page. It is detailed and apparently factual, but over-long and unencyclopaedic, as well as being unsourced. If the author or somebody else was willing to undertake the task of editing ruthlessly down, and providing citations, it certainly should go back:

[Content removed: found to be copyvio]

Scolaire (talk) 07:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Restoring the Edits of July 2009
Have made a first stab at editing it down. All material is either from the Universe website (reference added) or from the editions of the paper cited. Hope others will improve what I've started. 82.110.160.178 (talk) 09:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Now that we see what your source is, it unfortunately becomes apparent that the added material is in violation of copyright. There is a copyright notice at the bottom of this page, for instance. That means that you cannot simply take great chunks of it and reproduce it here. Some of the material added to the article was taken verbatim from that page e.g. "Letters to the Editor column were concerned with abolition of capital punishment, a landslip at St Aloysius School, Highgate, and hymns in honour of the Immaculate Conception." Other parts are only minimally paraphrased. An article in a paper can be used as a source for a Wikipedia article, but the article cannot be an exact or a substantial reproduction of that article. Additionally, it is not ideal for an article to use its subject as its only or chief source. In other words, The Universe should not be the only or chief source for an article about The Universe. Scolaire (talk) 09:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I would make several observations in reply. Please bear in mind that in a previous job I was responsible for copyright and so do know what I am talking about from a legal point of view, if not necessarily from Wikipedia's point of view:

1. I would strongly suggest that the material presented was not in violation of copyright. No chunks of texts were reproduced. With a couple of exceptions no direct quotation was used. Where it was it was clearly acknowledged. I would suggest this falls under Fair_use. Certainly the article I posted would not have contravened the (UK) Copyright, Designs and Patents act of 1988, in my opinion.

2. You state that 'material added to the article was taken verbatim from that page e.g. "Letters to the Editor column were concerned with abolition of capital punishment, a landslip at St Aloysius School, Highgate, and hymns in honour of the Immaculate Conception." ' The quote you give does not support your point. The quote describes the topics in the letters page. But the quote does not appear verbatim in the source - and by source I mean the original newspaper.

3."Other parts are only minimally paraphrased" from the original contribution on Wikipedia (previously given on the Talk page), yes this is true - but unless that was a copyrighted source itself I fail to see the point. If it was a copyrighted source this would be a fair point, but I see no evidence for this. As far as I can see it was cobelled together from information in the original papers and on the Universe Media's website. However, this information was well digested and not lifted directly from the sources except where quoted.

4. It was stated "the article cannot be an exact or a substantial reproduction of that article". I take this point but, again, there is no substantial reproduction of either the original papers or the Universe Media's website. What is the issue here? Is there good reason to believe that the original contribution on Wikipedia was itself taken from a copyrighted source? If not I don't see the point.

5. "it is not ideal for an article to use its subject as its only or chief source". This is a very fair point, and entirely I agree, but in the absence of secondary sources it is the only solution that presents itself. Currently it is rather embaressing (for Wikipedia) that the UK's biggest selling Catholic newpaper is represented by such a stub! :) 82.110.160.178 (talk) 13:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay: you're making me do a lot of work comparing your edit with the copyrighted material on the Universe web page, but I can confirm that the following "chunks" were reproduced, either verbatim or with a minimal re-ordering of non-key words:
 * From "The front page announced..." to "the weak and the oppressed in days of trouble" (83 words).
 * From "Fifty years later" to "hymns in honour of the Immaculate Conception" (75 words, incuding the sentence I quoted above).
 * These excerpts are not completely enclosed in quotes to show that they are direct quotations, neither do they have inline citations to show where they came from. This is a substantial reproduction of copyright material, and despite your assertion to the contrary direct quotations were not clearly acknowledged.
 * More worryingly, there are no inline or any other sort of citation for the other material. You guess that all of it "was cobelled [sic] together from information in the original papers and on the Universe Media's website" and that it "was well digested and not lifted directly from the sources except where quoted." I can see no reason to accept that, given that the "chunks" that I have been able to source were neither "cobbled" nor "digested". They could not be re-added unless there were clear and unambiguous links to the source material, for each and every fact, in the form of an inline citation, to verify not only that it was accurate but that it was not a substantial reproduction of copyrighted material.
 * I cannot comment on your previous job or your knowledge of UK copyright law. I would ask you to read thoroughly the Copyright violations policy page and related pages so you can understand what is and what is not allowable on Wikipedia.
 * As for your final point, do you not think it strange that "the UK's biggest selling Catholic newpaper [sic]" is not referred to at all in independent sources? Perhaps you're just not looking hard enough. Surely The Tablet in its 150 years of publication had a similar article on Catholic newspapers in Britain? Scolaire (talk) 17:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough! You 'are' saying that the original text was lifted ad verbatim from the Universe site itself, therefore the original contribution on Wikipedia was itself taken from a copyrighted source. I hadn't seen that on the Universe site but your link clarifies that perfectly. I entirely concede the points you were making.

I have read through Wikipedia's various pages of policies on copyright a few times, but they are extensive and in some places heavily jargon loaded and rather opaque, so it's always easy to inadvertantly overlook something or miss something. We are only human.

On your final point. If the Universe is referred to in acceptable second-hand sources I've yet to see them. I don't recall The Tablet having done any pieces on any other Catholic newspapers over the last decade, and certainly a quick search reveals nothing of that sort in its online archives. 82.110.160.178 (talk) 10:03, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Alas, then there is nothing we can do. WP:Notability says: "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article." So, much as I would like to see a well-written article on the paper, until we find those reliable, third-party sources it must remain a stub. Scolaire (talk) 10:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://web.archive.org/web/20210620190921/https://thecatholicuniverse.com/about-us/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, provided it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me! 23:40, 20 August 2023 (UTC)