Talk:William W. Early House (Brandywine, Maryland)

Copied text in article
I raised a copyvio question about the article, then was concerned i tagged it too quickly. But, the article drafted does contain copied text.

A source website includes passage: "The house is also closely connected with the development of the railroad in Prince George's County, and served as the home office of the railroad manager. In addition, it is connected with the planning and development of the village of Brandywine, having been built for a member of the family of William H. Early, an important landowner and developer of this railroad village."

The drafted article includes passage: "The house is also closely connected with the development of the railroad in Prince George's County, and served as the home office of the manager for the Southern Maryland Railroad. In addition, it is connected with the planning and development of the village of Brandywine, having been built for a member of the family of William H. Early, an important landowner and developer of this railroad village."

This was verbatim copied, and was not put in quotes. The contributor has suggested at his talk page that he believed the source was public domain, but I believe that was incorrect. The source is http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1013&FROM=NRMapPR.html, a website of the Maryland Historical Trust, which is perhaps an independent nonprofit or perhaps a part of Maryland's state government, but in neither case would the website be public domain. doncram (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. This won't actually come up for administrator review for a week, but I sometimes "look ahead" and saw that you were requesting earlier feedback. It is a common misperception that state government websites are public domain, since official federal government documents are. http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/ bears a copyright notice. Material can't be taken verbatim from that source unless it can be demonstrated that they duplicated text from a site that is demonstrably public domain. I tried to see if it was duplicating text from the National Register itself, which may be public domain, depend on its origin, but all I could locate was a name listing (Search engine is here).


 * The copyright problem process has been formulated to allow time to either verify permission or to allow a new article to be created in subspace. I see this has been begun below. If public domain can't be verified, it might be a good idea to continue to develop that. (Potentially useful, I did locate the listing on the house at the LOC, here. Material cannot be copied verbatim from that document, but it might help "flesh out" the article.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

New draft article
I created a new draft article at Talk:William W. Early House (Brandywine, Maryland)/Temp. Perhaps this can be developed and/or copied in to replace the existing article. doncram (talk) 00:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks good. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Confirmation of Copyright Status
This morning I contacted the Maryland Historical Trust, the principal operating unit within the Division of Historical and Cultural Programs, which is an agency of the Maryland Department of Planning, to inquire about the copyright status of materials included in the Maryland National Register database. I received the following reply:

RE: Inquiry to the Maryland Historical Trust Sent By: "C Kegerise"   On: Oct 10/29/08 9:37 AM To: "Ted Hull"  Cc: "M de Sarran" 

Mr. Hull,

Thank you for your email to the Maryland Historical Trust. Information in the National Register database is in the public domain and may be used in publications and other materials, provided that the entry is properly cited in footnotes and the bibliography.

Best,

Cory R. Kegerise Administrator of Local Preservation Programs Maryland Historical Trust

Therefore, I request that my original article on the William W. Early House be returned. I believe I have properly cited the source for the text in my article. Thank you for your concern about the copyright status of the material included at that page --- Ted Hull --Pubdog (talk) 13:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a link that demonstrates the text was copied from the National Public Register? It does not say so here: http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1013&FROM=NRMapPR.html, which is the problem. The Maryland Historical Trust is marked "Copyright © 1995-2008, Maryland Historical Trust". You may wish to write them back to point out that if they have copied this information from a federal source, they have not noted it at the site. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct that the WEBSITE includes a copyright citation. The information I am using is from the National Register DATABASE, which is accessible from the website. --Pubdog (talk) 14:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The material is hosted by http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net. If they've duplicated it from the National Register DATABASE, which is quite likely, they should have no objection to stating so explicitly, particularly given that they have themselves indicated that it "may be used in publications and other materials, provided that the entry is properly cited in footnotes and the bibliography." They don't seem to have cited it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a National Register database, more specifically called the National Register Information System (NRIS), which is known to be in the public domain. The NRHP infobox generator supported by Elkman uses a download from that.  A private site that I call NRHP.COM echoes NRIS data.  Here is that private website's complete listing for Howard County, another Maryland County (the page for Prince George's County seems unavailable).  Note, that just has minimal factual data fields, not text.  It is not possible for the Maryland Historical Trust webpage text can be from that source, while that source is what I and other wp:NRHP wikiproject members would generally think that a "National Register database" refers to.


 * What Pubdog potentially could be referring to, instead, is the NRHP Registration form, or NRHP Inventory/Registration form, or similarly titled application for site to be recognized on the National Register. These documents are made available by the National Park Service (for some sites online, for other sites by email request to nr_reference (at) nps.gov) and, for some states, by a state office.  It is quite likely that the text on the http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1013&FROM=NRMapPR.html page is adapted from the application document for William W. Early House. It is conceivable (but only verifiable by seeing the application document), that the Maryland Trust is the author of that application, in which case the Maryland trust could choose to release it into the public domain, but it is not clear to me that the Maryland trust has done so or has the power to do so if it is not the author.  The website also appears to be a summary which I imagine it is an extract, somewhat modified from the application document, so even if the application document is determined to be public domain, the modified version also has to be released into the public domain and it is not labelled that way.  I appreciate that Ted Hull / Pubdog is well-meaning and has jumped through some hoops here already but it does not yet clearly establish the PD status of that webpage.


 * Note further that copying verbatim from NRHP applications documents is not accepted practice in wp:NRHP for several reasons (1 it is unclear whether those documents are public domain, given that the NPS posts photos and other material which is not public domain and its own copyright page states that; 2 the material is often slanted to making a case for the historical importance of a site and parts are deemed by some to be non-encyclopedic; 3 it has been viewed widely in discussions (although not unanimously at all) that copying PD text into articles as was done for 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is now bad practice and eventually causes more work when improving articles; and other reasons which have been discussed at wt:NRHP and wikipedia talk:Plagiarism and previous discussions cited there). The application document is, nonetheless, a great source for an article;  I have added footnotes to such documents to several thousand wikipedia articles on NRHP sites by now.  For either version, the application document or the Maryland Historical Trust webpage, I would prefer that the source be treated like any other source, and quoted from and referred to by footnotes like any other source. doncram (talk) 15:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Please compare the entries for Montpelier at Laurel, Maryland in the NRIS (http://www.nr.nps.gov/iwisapi/explorer.dll?IWS_SCHEMA=NRIS1&IWS_LOGIN=1&IWS_REPORT=100000044) with that in the Maryland Historical Trust database (http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/nr/NRDBDetail.aspx?HDID=34&COUNTY=&SEARCHTYPE=propertySearch&PROPNAME=montpelier&STREETNAME=&CITYNAME=&KEYWORD=) The Maryland version is distinct from the NRIS data or that included in NPS Focus (http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreghome.do?searchtype=natreghome).  Therefore, I have no reason to question the response I received from Cory R. Kegerise of the Maryland Historical Trust concerning the copyright status of the database material.  I will treat the MHT database like any other source, and quoted from and referred to by footnotes like any other source.--Pubdog (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks that is helpful to clarify the situation here, which I believe is just as I described above. To clarify, what you refer to as NRIS is not NRIS, it should be referred to instead as the PDF Focus system, which is the National Park Service's on-line document system that makes available NRHP Inventory/Nomination text documents and photos for NRHP sites that are further designated as National Historic Landmarks, and for selected other NRHP sites.


 * Montpelier Mansion is a fine example to discuss. I just added to the Montpelier Mansion article, the reference links to the text and photos which you found there.  The text NRHP Inventory/Nomination application PDF document which you find in the PDF Focus (for which this is a direct link) is in fact authored by a Mrs. Preston Parish of the Maryland Historical Trust (as noted in its Section 11).  The text application document has a passage describing the house as: "Montpelier is a Maryland five-part Georgian country house consisting of a large main block (two stories plus attic), hyphens and two rectangular wings (added c. 1770) each with a three-sided bay on the garden (east) gable-end.  The central block is comprised of five bays on the west, the three center bays of which are part of a slightly projecting pavilion topped by a pediment with a large bulls-eye window in the center.  This pediment gable projects...."  The the Maryland Historical Trust webpage on Montpelier is very similar, but is adapted somewhat, reading: "Montpelier is a five-part Georgian country house, consisting of a 2 1/2-story main block, hyphens, and two rectangular wings, each with a three-sided bay on the garden (east) gable-end. The central block, built after 1740, is comprised of five bays on the west, the three center bays of which are part of a slightly projecting pavilion topped by a pediment with a large bulls-eye window. This pediment gable projects...."  So this verifies for me that the Maryland Trust, as author of the Montpelier application document probably could choose to release it into the public domain (although it has not done so), and also as it is the author of the somewhat different Maryland Trust webpage on Montpelier it could choose to release that into the public domain (although it has not done so).  I do question Cory Kegerise's response, not for Cory's intent but rather for not being specific enough to put these documents into the public domain.  However, there is no problem in using these as regular sources, they do not need to be in the public domain to be quoted from and footnoted, which Pubdog is agreeing to do.  In the original draft article for William W. Early house (version available [here], there was material that was copy-pasted without quoting and adequate sourcing;  let's just start over with the new draft version and develop that, with appropriate quoting and footnoting.  I've added a bit more to that new draft, by the way.  Thanks. doncram (talk) 16:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)