User talk:Dtines

Copyright problem: Randy Weiner
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as Randy Weiner, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article appears to be a copy from http://www.broadwayworld.com/printcolumn.cfm?id=17816, and therefore a copyright violation. The copyrighted text has been or will soon be deleted. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with our copyright policy. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If you believe that the article is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under allowance license, then you should do one of the following:


 * If you have permission from the author leave a message explaining the details at Talk:Randy Weiner and send an email with confirmation of permission to "permissions-en (at) wikimedia (dot) org". See Requesting copyright permission for instructions.
 * If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), versions 1.3 or later and Creative Commons Share Alike (CC-BY-SA), versions 3.0 or later, under CC-BY-SA, versions 3.0 or later, or that the material is released into the public domain'' leave a note at Talk:Randy Weiner with a link to where we can find that note.
 * If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA, and note that you have done so on Talk:Randy Weiner. See Donating copyrighted materials for instructions.

It may also be necessary for the text be modified to have an encyclopedic tone and to follow Wikipedia article layout. For more information on Wikipedia's policies, see Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

If you would like to begin working on a new version of the article you may do so at [ this temporary page]. Leave a note at Talk:Randy Weiner saying you have done so and an administrator will move the new article into place once the issue is resolved.

Thank you, and please feel welcome to continue contributing to Wikipedia. Happy editing!  The left orium  17:41, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Randy Weiner
Dtines, you stated at Talk:Randy Weiner that you had written a new version of entirely "original material" of this biography on the temporary page. However, a review of the new material shows it was again copied from copyrighted materials. This time it was a direct copy-paste of a biography found in this program]. We cannot accept any copyrighted materials without explicit permission granted by the procedures outlined above -- this is done not only to protect Wikipedia but also the rights of the original author and publisher of the copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. As such, I have deleted the pages for copyright infringement. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. — Cactus Writer |   needles  12:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In response to your request
Hi, Dtines. I understand how the various policies and inner workings of Wikipedia can be daunting -- there is a steep learning curve. It takes some time to learn your way around -- I'm still learning everyday. So don't worry about the early missteps. It happens to us all.

And, yes, the text that you placed on my talk page again contained copy pasting. Wikipedia doesn't allow copyright infringing text on any of its pages, including these talk pages and user pages. So I have deleted it from my page.

I will be happy to take a look at a new draft. Here's a link for you to create a draft article: User:Dtines/Randy Weiner. That page is in your personal user space, which allows you to work on a draft before it comes under the scrutiny of other editors. Go ahead and write a new article there and I'll review it for you. Here's a few tips: Write it from scratch without any copying from sources. Just use your own words. (It doesn't matter if the language isn't perfect. We all need collaboration on that -- that's the principle of WP). Keep it tight, simple and factual -- meaning encyclopedic. For example, the Diane Paulus article. Since it seems to me that Weiner and Paulus are on the same level of notability, you may wish to use her article as a quick template. Reference the information to national newspapers or magazines (the NY Times, Observer, Boston Globe, Playbill, etc. should do fine. If there are scholarly journals, than even better). Of course, it is always a fine idea to follow the style of a good WP article, like Harold Pinter, which is a peer-reviewed WP:GA article.

By the way, the Article_wizard_2.0 can be a great help when creating a first article. When you have a draft, let me know. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Good luck. — Cactus Writer |   needles  08:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that your rewrite of Randy Weiner would not pass the criteria for a WP:BLP bio. The introductory sentence was non-neutral commentary. Phrases like "perhaps best known" and "one of his most popular pieces" are subjective POV. (Who has said these statements?) The entire creator of a hybrid form of entertainment that pairs the music and energy of a nightclub with the drama and spectacle of theater is not only unsubstantiated commentary, it was plagiarized from this source. It needed to be deleted. Also, none of the 5 references which you listed would be considered reliable sources because they are self-published or press releases. When referencing text, we need to use only independent sources -- such as newspapers, magazines, journals -- that means nothing that Weiner has probably written about himself. It does often require more digging, but that is necessary when dealing with these biographies of living people. I went ahead and got you started by adding some text and references. I still haven't found any sourcing for the Harvard degree, advisory committee and teaching position. Perhaps you will have better luck on those. — Cactus Writer |   needles  12:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've now found a ref for the advisory committee. — Cactus Writer |   needles  12:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Dtines. Okay, I went back and rewrote the text to eliminate the citation needed tags. It is okay to have some text with citation needed tags, as long as you understand that any editor will be permitted to delete the text in question at any time -- especially in the case of biographies of living people. The copyright violations have been eliminated, so I've now moved the article into the mainspace. (By the way, I needed to delete the version you just created from a copy-paste of the Temp page -- copy-pasting from a temp page can also violate WP copyright policy because the page history won't give credit to everyone who contributed text to the article. Although Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, all the text is actually licensed and attributed to each individual editor. Articles in temp space, on which more than one editor has worked, should be moved rather than copypasted.) I'm glad that I was able to help you. Good luck with the article. — Cactus Writer |   needles  08:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)