User talk:AdjustaMatic

helpme

Citations and References for any commercial product:

Surely it could be permissable to quote the information produced by a product's manufacturer or by it's advertiser(s) or distributor(s) where information about the product is printed on it's packaging or in the instructions or User Manual(s) provided with the product (I am assuming that if such information were used it would be suitably paraphrased to avoid infringing any existing copyright issues)?

If this type of souce were acceptable for use in Citations or References, should they be mentioned overtly in all Wikipedia sections which provide guidance on including Citations and References in Wikipedia and should they also be added to sections which deal with the preferred formatting Templates for these, hithertoo, unmentioned document sources?

Though this page is formulated as a generic question let me cite an example for you:

The Wikipedia section for "DR DOS Version 5" has no citations or references to support it.

I have the original packaging and manuals for this product which were produced by Digital Research Incorporated Copyright 1990. The four floppy installation disks for DR DOS Version 5.0 all have the date Aug 1990 printed on their labels. The May 1990 DR DOS 5.0 (Part No. 1176-2004-002) and ViewMAX (Part No. 1174-2004-002) User Guides are both First Editions. The Release Notes (Part No. 1176-1001-002) are dated August 1990 and mention that DR DOS can set up and manage 512Mb disk partitions while user applications may only cope with 32Mb partitions. The information printed on the DR DOS box (Part No. 1176-6114-001) supports the text shown currently in the DR DOS 5.0 Wikipedia section.

AdjustaMatic (talk) 01:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That’s a good question. Personally, I think that citing these user manuals as a source would be fine.  In general if you are unsure of the integrity of source then try to find another to back up what it says, if two or more sources agree then that is excellent!  You might want use a phrase like "The user manual claims that the product is capable of X and Y.”  So that potential readers are aware of the source of the information, that way there can be no argument.  As far as the copyright issue goes I think that as long as the source is correctly cited then copyright is not an issue.  Of course whole sale copying of the text would not be allowed but paraphrasing important points is perfectly fine.  I will leave the help template on your talk page so that you can get another opinion on this as I wouldn't consider myself an expert, if the next helper agrees with what I say then they can remove the template themselves.  Hope that was some help to you! -Noosentaal ·talk· 18:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In the Television Wikiproject, it is considered very acceptable to use the official season DVDs and sources. I imagine that it would be the same across the 'pedia. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 23:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Welcome
Hello, AdjustaMatic, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Our intro page provides helpful information for new users - please check it out! If you need help, visit Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on this page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Remember to sign your posts with four tildes on talk pages only. Happy editing! JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)