User talk:DoctorElmo

My page falsely labelled plagiarism
Dear DoctorElmo,

I write to you in deep distress, as you have falsely and without any due process labelled the article I first contributed in the English wikipedia on Steven Millhauser plagiarized.

I am a college professor who has spent years teaching and studying Mr Millhauser's work. I wrote the original version of the wikipedia article on Millhauser, which I have visited regularly to update; I was also pleased to see that other wikipedians had also made adjustments and improvements. It is very important to me that this article remain current, accurate, and continue to grow.

Now, due to the unattriubuted use of a few sentences of my words from the wikipedia article by an unknown person at the Powell's Books and Dalkey Archive Press websites, the article I wrote stands falsely accused of having violated copyright. Why, given that people do (and are in a sense encouraged to) quote from the wikipedia without attribution, did you assume that it was these sites which were the source, rather than the wikipedia itself, without any investigation? The multiple quotation indeed suggests a common source.

I am very upset at this unjust allegation. It is odd to see an article banned for borrowing its own words! And most importantly, I am disappointed that anyone who now visits the wikipedia and looks for information on Millhauser will just get a page full of warnings instead. This affects me as deeply as any page vandalism would.

I urge you to please remove this inaccurate "copyright violation" from this page, or at the very least to bring the matter to an adminsitrator or other who can look at the evidence. In the interim, I have written to both Powell's and the Dalkey Archive Press asking that they confirm the accuracy of my account to the wikipedia. To whom should I have them send their messages?

Sincerely,

Russell A. Potter, Ph.D. Professor of English Rhode Island College

"Profrap" on the wikipedia Profrap 00:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed solution
This mixup should be easily resolved. If you don't object, I'll restore the version of the article immediately before your copyvio notice, then do some rewriting to eliminate the blurb-ishness that got the prose copied by the two bookstores. I've left notices about this on the article's talk page and on the Wikipedia copyright problems page. Thanks! Casey Abell 16:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)