Talk:Violence and the Sacred

Please provide real summary
To the best of my memory, the current "Content" section is not an accurate paraphrase of the content of this book. I doubt that moving content from René Girard was an appropriate way to flesh out this article. One should actually read a book before creating such a summary. --ChristopheS (talk) 09:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well then, add it. The stub deserves to exist even if it is still a mere stub. ADM (talk) 12:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the "Content" section. It was unsourced, and needed to be removed per WP:VERIFY. It was also poorly written, and I think quite useless as an introduction to Girard's ideas. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyright
Amorymeltzer, in this edit, you commented, "Source appears to predate article content." Could you explain what that claim is based upon? If the only basis is the previous edit by Justlettersandnumbers, I have to point out that Justlettersandnumbers's claim that the Goodreads.com content dates to 2009 is unsubstantiated. Having looked carefully at the Goodreads.com page, it is also clearly incorrect. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:29, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As noted, the goodreads content is clearly marked as being from early 2009. ~ Amory  (u • t • c) 01:36, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I can see that now. Nonetheless, nothing in the article was copied from that website. As I noted on your talk page, much of it was based on two books, one, by Chris Fleming, that was first published in 2004 and the other, by Margaret Whitford, that was first published in 1991. If you compare the relevant passages of those books to the article content I'm alleged to have taken from the Goodreads.com article, you will see the clear similarity between those passages and what was in the article. The books were my actual sources, not Goodreads. Anyone really copying from Goodreads wouldn't have cited content they copied from Goodreads to scholarly books: to make that seem convincing, they would have had to find scholarly books that not only stated the same things as the Goodreads article, but happened to be written in the same way as the article. Why would anyone go to the trouble? I still think it very likely that the review was copied partly from Wikipedia and is simply misdated. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Amorymeltzer, I am not trying to be pushy, but I would like to ask what is going to happen to the article. I'd like to work on a brand new version in my sandbox that is free from copyright problems, and then eventually move it to article space, but I can hardly do that unless admins concerned with the copyright issues can explain specifically what content in the article is a copyright violation and shouldn't be restored. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:47, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not the duty of others to tell you what you copied or closely paraphrased into Wikipedia, although I did give you specifics last month on Amorymeltzer's talk page. The template advises to rewrite the material from scratch and also that if this is not done, the content may be simply removed when an administrator reviews the listing, as I have now done. Please be careful if you add further content to write from scratch except in brief and clearly marked quotations, used in balance to your own creative expression of cited information. I recommend reading Close paraphrasing for more information on how to avoid issues such as those encountered here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply, Moonriddengirl. There is no point in being rude. I do not think that it is your duty to tell me anything, nor do I have any interest in telling you what duties of any kind you do or do not have. I was simply asking for further clarification, something quite different. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course I quite understand if you have no interest in helping me, or don't want anything further to do with me; that's just fine. However, simply as a suggestion, there are politer ways of brushing someone off. There is no need to burn me off by being overwhelmingly rude. Rest assured I will take your comments above into account as I continue to improve the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:35, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It was not my intention to seem rude, FreeKnowledgeCreator; I'm sorry if that is the case. I was responding to your note that "I can hardly do that unless admins concerned with the copyright issues can explain specifically what content in the article is a copyright violation and shouldn't be restored." My point was merely to clarify the process for you, especially should you encounter this issue in future. You are not required to wait until an administrator points out what is copied to you, although I did try to assist you with this myself earlier - I spent time comparing and pointing out issues . I'm sorry also if you didn't find that helpful. If you wish to rewrite something that is flagged for copyright violation, it is recommended in the template which used to be on the page to do so from scratch. If you wish to attempt to retain some of the material, as the contributor of the content, you are in best position to identify the source of the material and trace back any copying or close paraphrasing that may have occurred. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If civil or respectful discussion is still possible, I'll note that I am perfectly content with your removal of content from the "Summary" section, which although now very brief, can obviously be rewritten from scratch. I have removed some content that you left in the article (and which was not cited), and I have also corrected page references, and added some content from my sandbox. I would like to restore some content that was cited to Fleming, in a rewritten form. Specifically, I'd like to mention that the book received a positive review from G. H. de Radkowski in Le Monde. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:40, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You are very welcome to communicate the same information in rewritten form. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: various sources, including Fleming and Whitford. 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, providing 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. Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Revert by Justlettersandnumbers
This recent edit by Justlettersandnumbers is outrageous. The ostensible reason for the edit was, "Reference format changed without prior discussion". In the first place, Justlettersandnumbers, I am an experienced editor, responsible for getting three articles good article status, and I can tell you that some reference formats are preferred over others. In the case of The Homosexual Matrix, the referencing system was overhauled as part of the process of getting the article good article status; see the discussion at Talk:The_Homosexual_Matrix/GA1. In the second place, you did not only undo my change to the article's reference system you also, as you might have noticed, removed a large amount of article content, about the reception of the book, without explanation, and thereby drastically lowered the quality of the article. What the hell do you think you are doing? Why would you consider undoing a change to the article's reference format of such overriding importance that you would remove a large amount of valid article content without explanation in order to do that? If I didn't know better, I might suspect that you are simply trying to frustrate my attempts to improve this article, for some undisclosed reason of your own. Of course, that presumably isn't what you are doing, but it might just look that way. Moonriddengirl, do you have any comment? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:06, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

By the way, WP:CITEVAR states, "As with spelling differences, it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page, unless a change in consensus has been achieved. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article."

It so happens that I am the first contributor to add significant citations to this article. There was article content before I started editing, but only a single poorly formatted citation, providing nothing beyond a book title and page number. See this version. I'm the one who began adding full citations, as you can see here, where I edited the article as Polisher of Cobwebs. Since it was me, in the first place, who added the citation style Justlettersandnumbers insisted on reverting to, I am so not seeing a reason I cannot change it now. The other parts of WP:CITEVAR, about a consensus in support of one citation style or another, aren't relevant in the absence of a consensus. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:55, 21 October 2018 (UTC)