User talk:2011jps

Your comment at Talk:John Scott (sociologist)
I read your entry there with some interest. As a sociologist, I do applaud the goal of improving the entries related to British Sociological Association. Note that Wikipedia is written by volunteers, so the administrator you mentioned you were in contact with might have left the project. In the future, I'd suggest you communicate with editors through a wider, public forum such as the WikiProject Sociology. With regards to the part of information you write that are based on your knowledge and cannot be cited, I am afraid that Wikipedia policy on verifiability (WP:V) makes it difficult to accept it. Even if you are a reliable and respected person (and at this point you make no such claims, editing from a totally anonymous account...), our policies also do not allow original research to be published on Wikipedia (see WP:OR). If you are interested in improving biographies of BSA presidents (a worthy goal, as I said earlier), I'd suggest you get them published elsewhere (for example, on BSA website) under a free license (this will satisfy Wikipedia OR/V policies) and then transfer a wikified copy here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 02:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I'm glad to help with the project.

I think there are a couple of problems with what you suggest with respect to loading biographies on a BSA website:

1. The previous entry supplied for me was taken down by someone at Wikipedia because the content overlapped with that provided on the BSA website! This is the reason that i produced a substantively different entry, in order not to again be accused of plagiarism.

2. I have always been told that other websites are not acceptable as sources of evidence on Wikipedia.

I did, however, follow some guidelines and included a reference to the Plymouth University website on which confirming evidence is provided. This seems to be the nearest i can get to acceptable verification on the personal facts reported.

As to what you say about me responding from a totally anonymous account - that is all that Wikipedia offers. However, i thought it was clear from my Discussion that i am the subject of the entry and so can presumably be relied on as a source of personal information. I have provided the entry only because it was requested and I have no personal motive in self-presentation here. As Wikipedia wanted an entry on me as a BSA President, then I was glad to help, but if the material is unacceptable I am perfectly happy to remove the whole entry.

2011jps (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Re 1. It was likely taken down because the entry at BSA page was not released under a free license, so by copying it verbatim to Wikipedia you committed a copyright violation (unless you can prove you won the copyright to the original version or show a permission that the owner agrees, Wikipedia cannot accept content copied from somewhere else). In such situation, unfortunately, one has to rewrite the content, which can be a legal-necessity make-work. The best solution is to get the original content licensed under a free license compatible with Wikipedia, then it can be copied at will. See Donating copyrighted materials for details.


 * Re 2. That's not exactly true. See Identifying_reliable_sources for details, but bottom line is that there are reliable websites. I often cite websites, the point is that they need a reliable organization behind them. Online pages can be very reliable (journals and news articles, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, etc.), quite reliable (a biography published on a BSA website, with presumably some form of BSA peer review and reputation behind, blogs published by academics or by professional organizations), or poorly reliable (random blogs and anonymous websites).


 * Re 3. Wikipedia does not enforce anonymity, it allows it. Every user has their own userpage (mine is User:Piotrus, yours is User:2011jps where you can put all the details you want about yourself. If, for example, you'd be a BSA employee, disclosing that, and adding your real name, and linking to a page on BSA portal where this would be confirmed, would establish your reputability in the field (although, note, it still would not allow you to published original content on Wikipedia, as per WP:OR nobody can do so, no matter how respectable an expert they would be).


 * I hope that helps. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 20:20, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:John Scott (Sociologist).jpeg
Thanks for uploading File:John Scott (Sociologist).jpeg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either
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If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in [ your upload log]. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Nick—Contact/Contribs 15:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

File permission now provided
A letter confirming permission has now been sent with a request to remove the tag.

141.163.30.24 (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC)