User talk:Group05

Copyright issues with Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
Please don't edit Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class until it has been addressed by an administrator. In the meantime, you may wish to write a new article here:. Happy editing. Victoriagirl (talk) 20:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Please stop. If you continue to blank out or delete portions of page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing. Victoriagirl (talk) 15:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Race rebels
Hello. My username is Moonriddengirl, and I'm an administrator investigating the copyright concerns with the article Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. First, I'd like to thank you for contributing. Although I am not familiar with it, it is evidently an important book that deserves coverage on Wikipedia, and in spite of concerns raised about the material, we appreciate your efforts to address that. I hope we can craft a version that you will feel does justice to the work while at the same time falling within our policies and guidelines. Meanwhile, I have placed a "welcome mat" at the top of this page which may be helpful for you in learning your way around.

I'm sorry for the frustration you have encountered with this article. The contributor who tagged it for copyright concerns is presumably inexperienced, as he placed the advisory in the wrong place, here, where you may not have even noticed it. However, as the template on the article advises, the material is not to be edited prior to resolution of the issue. Creating a new article with the same text is not helpful in this respect. If substantial infringement exists, this will result in Wikipedia's being used to violate US copyright law, which is, of course, against our copyright policy. If you disagree that an article is an infringement, you are welcome to explain why at the article's talk page. Meanwhile, I have merged the material from the second article you created with the text, Race rebels, into Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class.

Since the tagging contributor did not identify the source, I cannot be certain before talking to him precisely what his concerns are, but I do see some literal duplication of previously published content, which we cannot do, unless the original authors release the material into public domain or in accordance with GFDL. For example, your article says, "Author Robin D.G. Kelley's basic thesis is to show that the black working class has participated in, changed, and affected politics and struggle with their actions of resistance." This source says "...Kelley's basic thesis is to show that the black working class has participated in, changed, and affected politics and struggle..." I have not searched in depth to see if there are other problematic passages but will investigate further.

A larger issue with the article is the tone and style, which reads very much like an essay. Wikipedia's purpose in our book articles is not to publish original critical reviews of literature, but to report matter-of-factly on the existence of books, to briefly describe them, and to alert our readers to what others may have said about them. We are a tertiary source, a compendium of previously published information. Wikipedia articles should not include language such as "It was realeased at possibly the worst time possible", which is personal opinion, unless it is attributed to a reliable source.

Another issues is that the summary is likely too extensive unless we have permission to summarize with that level of detail. Summary for the sake of critical commentary is generally regarded as acceptable, but abridgement is consider a "derivative work" in US copyright law, and the only person who has the right to create derivative work is the original copyright holder. It looks to someone unfamiliar with the book as though the summary you've written "reproduces the original in great detail". We should greatly abbreviate that summary to avoid that concern.

I have begun to address the issue with new text in the temporary space provided at Talk:Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class/Temp, and I ask your cooperation in helping to expand this so that we can have good coverage of what is obviously an important book. I will continue to add material to it from the sources you located and whatever additional I may find, although I am out of time for working on Wikipedia at the moment. Please don't copy phrases or sentences from any other source onto Wikipedia unless the material follows our non-free content guidelines (all duplicated text must be marked by quotation marks with a note as to its source; extensive quotation is prohibited). Primarily, we must use your own language, but not our own opinions; if you wish to draw conclusions about the impact of the time of release, for example, you will need to identify a published source that has done so.

If you want to communicate with me about this, please do so here or at the article's talk page. I am watching both. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Since you have not responded, I have placed a new "stub" article at Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. Obviously, this could use considerable expansion from a knowledgeable contributor. Please, feel free to add material to this in your own words. If you have questions about the kinds of information to add or the level of detail, you might want to seek feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books. We also have a help desk, and you are more than welcome to approach me at my talk page. Happy editing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)