User talk:Ben Boulden

Wikipedia and copyright
Hello Ben Boulden, and welcome to Wikipedia. All or some of your addition(s) to University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.


 * You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and cite the source using an inline citation. You can read about this at Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
 * Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Close paraphrasing. (There is a college-level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
 * Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Copyrights. You may also want to review Copy-paste.
 * If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. However, there are steps that must be taken to verify that license before you do. See Donating copyrighted materials.
 * In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are public domain or compatibly licensed), it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at the help desk before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
 * Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you can, but please follow the steps in Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Ninja Diannaa (Talk) 13:42, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

February 2017
You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for violating copyright policy by copying text or images into Wikipedia from another source without evidence of permission. You have been previously warned that this is against policy, but have persisted.

Please take this opportunity to ensure that you understand our copyright policy and our policies regarding how to use non-free content. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may request an unblock by first reading the guide to appealing blocks, then adding the following text to the bottom of your talk page:. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Text added to Wikipedia articles is released for any further use, including commercial, that is compliant with Wikipedia's license (described at WP:CC BY-SA). Anything less free than that (eg non-commercial fair use) is not compatible and so cannot be used here. Also, Wikipedia policy is stricter in some ways than copyright law, and where there might be differences between the two, it is Wikipedia policy that must be followed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, 'fair use' is applied mainly to images, because it is a lot easier to reword things than it is to obtain free-use images. Images may not be obtainable for various reasons - a person being now dead is a clear case where a new free-use image cannot be obtained. But words can be changed now and forever. Copyright text may be quoted in very short quotes, provided that they are clearly marked in the article itself and attributed correctly, and this should only be done where there is good reason for quoting directly - such as a phrase written by an author that has achieved a life of its own, or something used as an illustration of someone's style of writing. Otherwise, it's far safer to make a rewrite, avoiding close paraphrasing as that can also cause problems. Peridon (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * As to 'non-commercial', Wikipedia is non-commercial. But people advertise books of Wikipedia articles for sale. That is commercial use, and quite legal under our licensing. As Boing! said Zebedee said, any other licensing than at our level is incompatible. Peridon (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and anyone else is free to use Wikipedia content for any other commercial use, with or without modification, providing it is properly attributed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * They would have to release it, for anyone and everyone to use (not just Wikipedia) under an appropriate CC-BY-SA license, and give up their copyright restrictions on it. Why don't you just to what everyone else does and write it yourself in your own words? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I would love to do that, but I am indefinitely blocked. I thought I had to get the block lifted before I could even try to post any changes. I was the original author of what I posted (yes, I know that's different from being the copyright holder), but I'll be glad to rewrite myself if that's all it takes. Ben Boulden (talk) 18:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I deactivated your (fourth) unblock request. Please, do not make more then one unblock request at a time. Feel free to comment, but don't make every comment an unblock request.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  20:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, will do. Can you please remove the block as well though so I can do as Zebedee suggested and rewrite the updates and resubmit?

Hi Ben Boulden. I am Diannaa, and I am the administrator who blocked your account. Normally I don't block for copyright violations when the user has received only one warning, but I did in this instance because adding copyright material to the article University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has been your sole activity on this wiki. I see above where you state that you are employed by that school. Since that's the case, you should not be editing the article at all, as you have a conflict of interest. Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic, and it is important when editing Wikipedia articles that such connections be completely transparent. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, we ask that you please:


 * avoid editing or creating articles related to your organization, as well as any competing companies' projects or products;
 * instead, you are encouraged to propose changes on the Talk pages of affected article(s) (see the request edit template);
 * when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or to the website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Wikipedia has a very strict copyright policy, stricter in some ways than copyright law itself, because or fair use policy does not allow us to copy material from copyright sources when there's a freely licensed alternative available. In this case the freely licensed material is prose that we write ourselves. You must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. The material that I removed was copied verbatim from several copyright web pages. That's a copyright violation, unless the copyright holder wishes to release the material under a compatible license. Regardless of the copyright issue, in most cases material on the corporate website is not suitable for inclusion here, because it's worded line an advertisement or a press release, which is not at all what we are striving for on this encyclopedia. I will unblock your account since you do seem to understand copyright law and how it applies to Wikipedia and have stated you don't intend to do it any more, but that does not give you carte blanche to edit the article as you see fit. You still need to follow our guideline regarding conflict of interest, and post a notice on your user page that you are a paid editor. You can use the template for this purpose if you like. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:17, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate removing the block, and I will comply with the COI and copyright requirements. Everyone here has been polite and communicated well. I have no complaints against you or any individual who participated in the dialogue today. However, the Wikipedia pages on copyright and the use of intellectual property while comprehensive could be better organized and simplified. I know these can be very legalistic and technical things and hard to simplify, but I did get a little lost in some of the explanations. I really was acting in good faith as a contributor but some of the explanations confused me and helped result in the block. Sorry, and thanks for your continued understanding and patience. Have a great weekend.