User talk:Mschiffler/Archive 1

Water supply and sanitation in Nicaragua
Hi, Thanks for tha awesome article! I learned a great deal. Do you have any information on the projects the German government has been working on (Matagalpa & Managua) that you can add?. Kind regards, --Agrofe 14:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC) Glad you liked it. I can put you on touch with them or ask for more info. Can you please post your e-mail address here?--Mschiffler 20:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation navbox
Hi, I've nominated your article Water supply and sanitation in Venezuela for main page display. Just a hint, provides an useful navbox for this series of articles. I've added it to the Venezuela article as an example. Also, provides a well laid-out references list. Thanks for your contributions, Sandstein 13:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Glad you liked the article. I am not familiar with the process to vote about articles to be displayed on the main page, but I am proud to be nominated. Please note that there are other articles on water and sanitation in Latin America that are of similar quality in my view, such as the one ones on Nicaragua and Ecuador. The navbox provides a useful tool - I just forgot to include it. Actually I would like to modify the navbox to take out the dependent territories and to include countries from Central America and the Caribbean, but I don't know how to do it. Any hints?--Mschiffler 01:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * (I've reformatted your reply for easier reading) To change the navbox you would have to change the template South America topic, but as this would affect many articles, you'd need to get consensus for it first. It may be easier to make your own template, as advised above, or to also include the standard navbox template that has the countries you need. You can find these templates at Category:Continental navigation templates. Sandstein 05:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation category rename
I proposed renaming the category you created, Category:Water supply and sanitation country notes to Category:Water supply and sanitation by country, to be in line with other Category:Categories by country. Please add comments to the discussion here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rigadoun (talk • contribs) 18:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Water supply and sanitation in Venezuela
BTW, you should probably link this article from some other Venezuela-related articles if you can. --  howcheng  {chat} 23:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian article
Thanks for that - it had been missing from the project -we at the project had talked about it - and zap you put it in -thanks for that - SatuSuro 23:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Glad you liked it!--Mschiffler 15:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in the People's Republic of China
Hi Mschiffler. You are off to such a great start on the article Water supply and sanitation in the People's Republic of China that it may qualify to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page under the Did you know... section. Appearing on the Main Page would help bring publicity to the article. However, there is a five day from article creation window for Did you know... nominations. Before five days pass from the date the article was created, please consider nominating the article to appear on the Main Page by posting a nomination at Did you know suggestions. Again, great job on the article. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 14:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC) Glad you liked the article! I do not feel very comfortable nominating articles I wrote myself for anything. But if you'd like to nominate the article after the waiting period is over, that would be great.--Mschiffler 23:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Water supply and sanitation in Ethiopia
Hello, I just discovered that not only did you write this article, but unsuccessfully asked for a peer review. Had I seen it then, I would have commented that it needs a lead section, & that the section describing the local government might be replaced with a link to the relevant article in Category:Government of Ethiopia. As a general comment, since you specialize in describing the conditions of this part of the public infrastructure in many countries, in the future you may see if these countries have a related WikiProject and touch base with them for useful feedback. Telling people what you're doing usually leads to more visibility. -- llywrch 16:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I usually include new articles in the category of the respective country, which usually draws some attention. I have not much experience with WikiProjects, but if that helps in getting the word around I can check for them. Concerning the local government section, I always look at the local government section of the country articles or a local government country article if it exists, which are often very good, and try to summarize them in the infrastructure article plus make a link to them. Lead sections are a must. Not sure why this one does not have one, but it will be added.--Mschiffler 20:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Table with Colombia articles by importance and quality
Hi Mschiffler, Nope the table itself was based on another wikiproject. If you need help establishing it I might be able to help you. most wikiprojects run under the same system Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments and a bot does the rest... see here Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects

I don't know how things work in the Spanish wiki.. my contributions there are limited to some "interwiki links".. I think they don't allow this type of projects (I mean the whole concept of organization)... I haven't seen the first one yet.. -- F3rn4nd0 (Roger - Out) 02:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Start-Class water and sanitation articles
Really the talk pages are supposed to go in these categories, not the articles themselves. There should be a project template that goes on the talk pages of all the articles, and it identifies both the quality and the importance of the article. -- Prove It (talk) 15:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Good point. Got to change it now.--Mschiffler (talk) 15:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

 * well you simply deserves it. i highly appreciate your efforts. thanks, Sushant gupta (talk) 15:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it's for your work in creating well-develloped and sourced articles in that "Water supply and sanitation in foo" series. Despite what some say, massive areas of Wikipedia still have not been worked on much (there are still large holes in biographies of scientists and scholars, for example, and "by country" topic outside certain countries are woefully lacking). Circeus (talk) 17:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Categories
Hi Mschiffler, you can now start replacing the categories you placed before on the talk of each article with this tag  have fun..-- Zer0~Gravity (Roger - Out) 03:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

All right.. I replaced those old cats for new ones.. as soon as you place the template above.. those cats will automatically be placed in the article too. I also changed the chart on the Wikiproject, the bot will update it once in a while. You should just watch this page to see the bots updates: Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Water supply and sanitation articles by quality statistics. -- Zer0~Gravity (Roger - Out) 04:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Watsan
There is an ugly little stub at watsan that you might care to clean up. -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 04:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC) I wish I know how to do it. Maybe someone who knows a lot about templates can help?--Mschiffler (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC) Done.--Mschiffler (talk) 23:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Muhammad Shahrur
Hi, on second reading, I think that the references in this article may indeed establish notability (especially the NYT ones). However, the article needs to be wikified and some better references than blog-like stuiff would help. But then, there may not be much else, Syria perhaps not being the best source.... --Crusio (talk) 10:51, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Little context in Category:Infrastructure in Mexico
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Clientelism
This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Clientelism, and it appears to include a substantial copy of. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 13:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
I appreciate it THIIIS much! Pairadox (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Germany Invitation
--Zeitgespenst (talk) 00:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Water supply in Colombia
thanks for letting me know. I won't be doing any GA reviewing for a while now due to other commitments, so unless it hangs around for a long time again, it's likely to be someone else doing it. I can see improvements have been made, but the first thing a reviewer will notice is that there still seem to be a fair number of items without refs, so while you are waiting, it's a good idea to make sure that there is nothing where you can be challenged wrt to refs. Jimfbleak (talk) 06:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in Rwanda
Well written article. Great work. Cheers, Basketball  110   what famous people say  04:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

GA Nomination:Water supply and sanitation in Colombia
Hi, I have volunteered to review Water supply and sanitation in Colombia. I will be working on reviewing this article over the next several days. Good Luck in your efforts, and I hope to have some feedback for you in the next few days.Davemeistermoab (talk) 04:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

DC Meetup on May 17th
Your help is needed in planning Meetup/DC 4! Any comments or suggestions you have are greatly appreciated. The Placebo Effect (talk) 19:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Your letter to the Economist
I saw it in this week's issue. As an admin who has reviewed some of your DYK hooks, I appreciate that someone in your position is not only writing this type of article but is willing to speak up for Wikipedia (I thought the article had some valid points, as in the three-plus years since I began editing policy changes (some necessary, some not so much) have made Wikipedia a little bit more daunting to the novice editor than it was, but I don't think the inclusionism-deletionism thing is one of them). Daniel Case (talk) 13:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Glad you liked it and thanks for letting me know!--Mschiffler (talk) 09:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Idem : merci beaucoup pour votre engagement et la promotion faite dans The Economist. MaCRoEco (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * C'est un grand plaisir de pouvoir contribuer à l'aventure extraordinaire de Wikipedia. Je n'ai pas contribué grand chose en français, sauf l'article sur l'eau potable et l'assainissement en Haiti que je vous invite à visiter.--Mschiffler (talk) 05:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Water privatization in Brazil
I might still make a few changes based on your original comments tommorrow, but you can go ahead and comment on responses/changes thus far and propose any other issues you have with the article if you wish. Savidan 05:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry I've been so slow in completing the list; I've been on the road. Please go ahead and make any edits you want to the article in the interim: I'm only really planning on completing the table and shortening the history sectoin. Good job on populating the "Water privatization by country" category, by the way. Savidan 15:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Your edits look good for the most part. One thing strikes me about the article at this point: the list of concession agreements should be moved to a separate article perhaps (once I finish it...) and just replaced with a short summary (e.g. "There have been X privatization contracts, Y of which were concessions, Z of which were...") and maybe a breakdown of whether they were granted at the city, state, or municipal level. Do you agree? Savidan 15:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Meetup/DC 4
Please note that there is a DC Meetup planned for May 17th at 5:00 p.m., though a place has not yet been set. You're receiving this notice because you posted to the page for the prior meetup - Meetup/DC 3 - but haven't indicated whether or not you're interested in attending this one. (Apologies if in fact you have.) BetacommandBot (talk) 01:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Water sanitation
Keep up the great work. These are highly important articles and as you can see most of them are missing for Africa which is dreadfully underdeveloped. Anything you can do on Africa is warmly appreciated. Regards  ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 19:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Deutsche Telekom eavesdropping scandal
Hi,

I've just moved Deutsche Telekom eavesdropping scandal to Deutsche Telekom eavesdropping controversy because I think this is a more WP:NPOV title.

--  Chzz  ►  04:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Mini:NRW
Hi, do you know    ? Gruß --Simone (talk) 05:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Article Water % Sanitation in the U.S.
Thank you, i will try to translate the whole article in Spanish. I've been translating hundreds of articles about the US in the past months. ;), by the way, i think that is a good idea "Agua potable y saneamiento en América" since "America" in Spanish is seems as a single continent not two, i decided to do it like that, but thanx again. --Vrysxy ¡Californication! 17:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Clean Water State Revolving Fund
Mschiffler- I have begun implementing your suggestions, and will track down some other sources. One of your comments, that I mention the DWSRF, make a new page for it, or rename this one 'clean water state revolving fund' has been an obstacle for me. The page had been 'Clean Water State...' and I experimented with re-directing page names and cannot figure out how to undue it. According to Wikipedia, editing the page history can fix that. I am not sure how to structure the text commands to make that happen. If you could help out I would appreciate it. The DWSRF should have its own page soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clean Water State Revolving Fund (talk • contribs) 14:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC) Mschiffler- I am a former employee of EPA and wrote the page Clean Water State Revolving Fund based on information from public documents, mostly annual reports and presentations/papers submitted to congress. I am new to wikipedia. If the neutrality concerns you i'd like to address whatever parts of the page come to mind. Being that I am very familiar with the material on the page and some of the topical areas that are within it, I am finding it difficult to pick out where it is biased. Clean Water State Revolving Fund
 * First let me thank you for writing this very detailed and useful article. Congratulations! Unfortunately you do not yet have a user page where other Wikipedians can post comments about your work or to communicate with you. Right now your user page links to the article on State Revolving Funds. Now to the bias question: The article starts by saying "The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF), part of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Wastewater Management (OWM), is recognized as the most successful federal water quality funding program in the nation's history." One would expect to have an indpendent, pubslished source for this statement. Also, it would be interesting what other federal water quality funding programs exist or existed in the US. I have also a few more comments, but want to wait to hear from you first on this one.--Mschiffler (talk) 20:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Interhemispheric foreign language learning
Hi -- I don't see why you added a pointer to that article to Common misconceptions about the brain. Or do you think of the method as a misconception? More appropriate articles to link to it are Lateralization of brain function and Language learning. However the article itself seems pretty weak to me -- poor sources and a lot of apparent original research -- so I would prefer you improve the article before linking to it. Best wishes, Looie496 (talk) 20:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC) Good points and thanks for posting this here. I will remove the pointer.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Moving without discussion
Why did you move Power and Water Corporation to Power and Water Corporation (Northern Territory, Australia) without any discussion? Having looked there is unlikely to be any other Power and Water Corporation's in the world other then Australia. Bidgee (talk) 01:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC) You are right, there does not seem to be another corporation by the same name. It would certainly have been better to first post this suggestion on the discussion page. Please feel free to undo.--Mschiffler (talk) 03:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. I thought I'll question/ask you first rather then just reverting without asking. Also ff a Corporation some were does form with the same name we can look at ways of naming at when that time comes. Bidgee (talk) 10:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

WSS: Manual of style
Happy new year! I just created a page containing a manual of content of the WSS articles. Please feel free to edit it. Comments are also welcome! Greetings! --Kerres (Talk) 09:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC) Great initiative! Will look at it and provide comments/edits.--Mschiffler (talk) 13:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC) Thanks a lot! I think the manual will be very useful for unexperienced writers! --Kerres (Talk) 09:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice
Good work on your latest creation about water and sanitation in au. Nice work! --Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:37, 6 January 2009 (UTC) Glad you like it!--Mschiffler (talk) 09:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in Australia
Just wanted to thank you for the edits and the rewriting of the lead section of Water supply and sanitation in Australia.--Mschiffler (talk) 01:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome, Mschiffler. Glad that I could help.  Happy editing.  Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 01:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Water Management in Uruguay
Hi,

Thank you for you information about water management in Uruguay. I would like to ask you, what is your opinion about the criteria applied in Uruguay in terms of the guaraní aquifer.

Saludos

Juan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juanvaro (talk • contribs) 00:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Electric power by country
Hi, Mschiffler. I proposed to merge categories Electric power by country and Electricity sector by country. You could comment it here. Beagel (talk) 10:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in the United States
Hi there - I dropped in to the above article's GA Review yesterday and made some comments and suggestions. I think it's a really good article, and I see User:Kerres has dropped in and done some detailed formatting work on the citations, which is excellent. I was hoping there might be scope for the process to be brought to a successful close, and wondered if you might pop back in some time. Keep it up. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments and encouragement. Your comments are easy to take into account, since the references I provided at the end of each paragraph cover the information in the entire paragraph. Since you requested references for each sentence in a paragraph, all that needs to be done is to repeat the reference at the end of each paragraph after each sentence in the same paragraph. On a different but related note, the comments provided by the current reviewer frankly have been not as encouraging as what you write above. Some of his comments are actually insulting. I try to always assume good faith, but this reviewer tests my limits. I can very well see that this type of behavior - unintentionally, I hope! - drives competent and committed volunteer contributors away from Wikipedia. It is also a bit disconcerting that almost all comments are on formalities and rules, with no comments on substance. What do you think? And what can be done to encourage more constructive behavior and discourage of flag insults by reviewers?--Mschiffler (talk) 02:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * hey there. Yeah, that was what i expected would be the case about most, if not all, my referencing suggestions. Work your way through until all the cite tags are gone and that will be good. Mervyn Emrys and i have done a bit of work together on a couple of articles - I reviewed Lynton K. Caldwell which he took to GA, helped out a bit at High-level radioactive waste management, which he also took to GA, and participated in discussion at Norman Wengert, which Mervyn Emrys nominated for GA and which he may have found to be a disappointing encounter. I think during discussion of the Wengert review that I expressed the view that the process had not been ideal. So: stuff goes wrong - and yes, it is almost always unintentional.


 * I think it's good for other editors to get involved in discussions to make them less adversarial, particularly if there are sticking points for promotion of articles at places like GA or FA. For what it is worth, one of the things that I find takes a fair bit of learning is just how much discretion and flexibility people expect in the application of particular WP policies. There is a wide range of views about to what one should stick closely, and to what one should not. Not to mention the possibility of ignoring all rules.


 * My suggestion is this: Kerres has done a major fix on the ref layout, and I see you are following up with similarly formatted refs in spots where they might be missing. Finish that off; fix the lead section per my suggestion; have a read and see if there's anything else in Mervyn Emrys' suggestions you can readily address. Once that's done I will drop in to Mervyn Emrys' talk page, update him on my thoughts, and see where it goes from there. If Emrys opts to fail it at GA at that point, and you feel that is the wrong call, you can always get a reassessment, which should bring more experienced editors' minds than mine to bear on the question. But I am optimistic it will work out in the end. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your thoughts on this. This is helpful. I will work through the reference tags and I hope that the article will pass, or otherwise I will probably ask for a reassessment. One question:I could not see your suggestions on fixing the lead section. Could you please point them out to me?--Mschiffler (talk) 11:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * At the latest review talk page I suggested "The lead should summarise the main points of the whole article, but does not seem to mention the key "responses to address issues". This might best be addressed by a couple of additional sentences at the end of lead para #2." That was all :-) hamiltonstone (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Saw your comments only none. All makes very much sense. Will work on including them during the next few days, or even earlier.--Mschiffler (talk) 23:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've just helped out a bit with a couple of cites. The only 'citation needed' tag of mine that is left is against the following sentence: "Eighty-nine percent of Americans served by a public water system are served by a public or cooperative entity". I checked out a few EPA etc refs that you had already cited, but didn't locate the source of this. Good luck... hamiltonstone (talk) 01:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you!I only have a source saying that 11% are served by private systems, so I concluded that 89% are served by public or cooperative entities. How should I best quote that?--Mschiffler (talk) 02:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Your inference seems reasonable to me, except that it assumes that there are only 3 types - public, provate and cooperative. As someone from outside the field, I would have to take your word for that. Don't suppose you have access to a textbook-like source that says somethinglike "There are three sorts of water systems: public, private, and cooperative"? Youcould cite that and that would make it very sound. The EPA's 2007 factoid publication i think gives absolute numbers for how many people / households are served by public systems. Perhaps if you were to cite both publications as notes to your current sentence, it might be adequate. Could be something looked at further for FA, but for GA it seems to me a reasonable interpretation of the published and cited sources. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea, but I don't have such a textbook citation ready. In any case, to my knowledge there is no type of ownership for any type of asset that is different from public, private or cooperative, so I doubt anyone would dispute this. By the way, there is a terminology problem: A public water system is defined by the EPA as any system that serves the public, independently of who owns it. The EPA 2007 factoid publication does not give an ownership breakdown. The EPA 2000 Community Water System Survey provides lots of statistics, but apparently does not include this basis figure.--Mschiffler (talk) 02:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, good point.

(outdent) You've rejigged the lead, and I have done some copyediting there for clarity. I am stuck on something. The following sentence does not make sense, and the citation does not seem to contain the fact: "Droughts are likely to particularly affect communities that depend on surface water, which serve 66 percent of the U.S. population.[6]" Do you mean "Droughts are likely to particularly affect the 66 percent of Americans whose communities depend on surface water"? If so, where did the 66 percent figure come from? Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW i deleted this sentence from the lead (after I had copyedited it!): "Some newly emerging challenges, such as contamination by pharmaceutical substances, remain to be addressed in a comprehensive manner." I don't think it matches any text, nor any cited refs, in the main text. If I'm wrong, go ahead and revert. Cheers hamiltonstone (talk) 04:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

District Meter Area (March 2009)
Thanks for adding to the DMA disambiguation page. But you added a term that is not referenced in any other article on Wikipedia. Therefore, it should probably be deleted. Do you want to create a new page? Or perhaps add a section to the article "non-revenue water" and then link to that sub-section from the DMA listing?? Thanks for helping!! Highspeed (talk) 01:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

GA review continues
Hi there- just a courtesy call to say I've asked Mervyn Emrys if he would have a look at whether he is ready to pass Water supply and sanitation in the United States. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ...and he has now passed it with a little congrats note on the article talk page. Good job. Cheers.hamiltonstone (talk) 02:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Glad it went through. Thanks so much for your moral and practical support, Hamiltonstone!--Mschiffler (talk) 03:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Environmental impact of irrigation
Just to let you know that following our deliberations in talk:irrigation in Peru i have made a new article on environmental impact of irrigation. Please review and improve. R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much!I am not an expert in this field, but at first sight it looks great. Will try to take a closer look at it some time later this week. I will also see if I can get in touch with others knowledgeable in the field and motivate them to look at the article.--Mschiffler (talk) 13:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Clientelism
The article Clientelism was brought to the copyright problems board on May 6. I see you were advised above by CorenSearchBot of duplication of text in this article from this source. There is no indication at the source, which clearly predates your placement of the text here by archive check, is licensed compatibly with GFDL. Unless you are able to verify that this text is licensed compatibly or for some other reason public domain (for example, by verifying that you are its original publisher or obtaining permission from the original publisher), the article will either have to be revised or removed. Since you were not notified of these concerns, I am blanking the article and relisting to allow time for you to clarify the matter. Although you are not a new contributor, I am also providing you the requisite template below, since it does contain some valuable links and information. Please excuse the text that obviously presumes you are new. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Template: Copyright problem: Clientelism
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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:Clientelism 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! Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry that this small contribution seems to have created such a stir! My contribution to the article on clientelism was minimal, and if it does not comply with copyright policies I don't mind if it is being removed.--Mschiffler (talk) 14:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by your contribution was minimal; according to its history, you created the article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Moonriddengirl, please hold your horses for a moment. I was trying to respond to your other concern, but could not do so because of an edit conflict and now have to retype it.... I tried to access the article on clientelism to check my contribution which I believe was done a year ago and further edites, but it is inaccessible. In any case, I don't mind if that article is being deleted, since I did not spend much time on it. Give me a few minutes and I will respond to your other concerns.--Mschiffler (talk) 15:02, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's right here. And this is the site which CorenSearchBot seems to have correctly identified as the source. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed this is the source which I quoted when I created the article more than a year ago, without ever visiting it again. How do you suggest to proceed? As you can see, I do not hold strong views on what to do with the article.--Mschiffler (talk) 15:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If the article has not been revised or permission provided after a week, the matter will be closed either by deletion of or revision of the article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Further copyright concerns
I am looking a little bit into your contributions, and I am concerned about your understanding of Wikipedia's copyright policies. You can't place copyrighted text on Wikipedia anywhere without verifying permission or formatting it according to WP:NFC, which means using quotation marks and giving credit. I see that you have pasted the sentences "A first warning letter under Article 228 was addressed to Belgium on 30 January 2006 on the grounds that it had not taken all necessary measures to comply with the Court ruling. The information received in response showed over 40 settlements in Flanders and nearly 50 settlements in Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital region were still not in compliance" from this press release into the article Water supply and sanitation in Belgium. This material is copyrighted; though the copyright holders grant the right to reproduce (when credited), they do not grant the right to modification. Hence, we can't use their text in this manner. I also see that you have used text verbatim, with credit but without proper formatting, from the International Environmental Law Research Centre. I cannot find anything to indicate that their text is licensed compatibly. I've blanked that section and will blank others I may find copied from that source, as that text will need to be revised, with limited quotations in accordance with our non-free content guidelines, unless we can verify that it is licensed so that we can use it. I see that you also copied a sentence verbatim from this pdf. Again, you cited it, but you did not format it as a quotation. This is inconsistent with policy. Given the extensiveness of your contributions, I may need to invite additional reviewers to ensure that there are not other passages the legal use of which we need to verify. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not as familiar with copyright policies as you are, so your contributions are welcome. I always provide references and hyperlinks to the orginal sources to allow users to quickly find where specific information comes from (verifiability), something that unfortunately many WP articles do not have. What you are saying is that ad verbatim quotes should, in addition, be fomrated in a certain way and highlighted with quotation marks in order to comply with copyrights. I agree with that and would ask you to do precisely that instead of simply blanking text. If you do that, it will also show me and other users how to technically do the formating in the way you say it should be done, which I have to admit I don't know how to do (except, of course, adding quotation marks). You may also want to look at Water supply and sanitation in the United States, which has been reviewed extensively and to which I contributed significantly, to get a better idea of my contributions. Hope that this is explanation is helpful and that, with your assistance, we can make sure that copyrights are respected, hopefully without damaging the substance and flow of existing articles. I hope you understand and count on your constructive assistance.--Mschiffler (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is blanked according to standard process to prevent Wikipedia being used to violate copyright of external sources while this matter is resolved. You are welcome to attend to revising this text in the temporary space which is now linked from the article's face. Typically, material is blanked for a week and a day, although if the matter is more swiftly resolved, it may be restored to publication sooner. Please understand that quotations must be limited to meet our non-free content criteria. For the most part, you will need to put material in your own words. While the substance and flow of Wikipedia's articles is very important, complying with United States copyright law is essential. As it says at the bottom of every edit screen, "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted." If you would like assistance, I would be happy to show you how such text may be revised with limited quotations as appropriate, but I'm afraid that I have other articles that have come due for administrative closure at Copyright Problems and I have a prior commitment to help review the problematic article History of the Jews in Poland. It's unlikely that I'll have time to help with this today or to review other contributions. I will request assistance with that from other administrators, however, since we'll need to be sure that you haven't inadvertently placed copyrighted material into other articles that will also need to be revised or removed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested review
I just wanted to let you know that I have requested assistance with review as I indicated I would. I also want to stress that I am not accusing you of deliberately infringing copyright. But this review is necessary to ensure that we are not in violation of US copyright law, which governs the Wikimedia Foundation. My request has been placed here and here. Again, I'll be happy to help you with revision on the article above, but I'm afraid that I have quite a bit demanding my attention today. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry to hear that other pages have had major copyright problems, and I hope they can be resolved, just as this one will. I don't have a lot of time now, but will work on this over the next few days and make sure to avoid such problems in the future. Any help from other administrators to resolve any copyright issues is of course welcome.--Mschiffler (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * After reading the text box carefully it seems that I am actually not supposed to do anything, but I should wait until someone else has looked into this to determine if a copyright has been infringed, correct? While I would have preferred to have received a comment on the talk page of the article to address the issue, I understand that what we are going through is some kind of established procedure and I am thus waiting to hear from whoever will check this issue.--Mschiffler (talk) 01:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, no. Although you aren't supposed to edit the article, you have the option if you choose to revise yourself to do so in temporary space. The procedure is also set up to allow you an opportunity to gain permission if you are able. Articles are blanked when copyright infringement to keep us from violating United States copyright law. Wikipedia has chosen to be very proactive about copyright concerns; we remove copyrighted material used of policy as soon as it is discovered, without waiting for a legal demand from the copyright holder. If you choose to do nothing, then at the end of the week an administrator—very likely me, as I am the most active administrator at WP:CP—will address the material either by removing it or rewriting it. Meanwhile, one of the administrators who is helping to review your material has evidently located another article of concern at Water supply and sanitation in Ecuador and has blanked portions of it as well. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I gave it a crack at the temporary page. As an alternative to what I wrote in the temporary space, one could quote the primary sources quoted in the document that I have quoted. However, I prefer to quote the secondary source, because that is where I found the information and because it is available on the web (not sure if that is also the case for the primary sources) and thus makes verification easier. Let me know what you think, so that I can address the other concerns in analogy to the solution we will find for this one.--Mschiffler (talk) 02:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Revision
Hi. It's a start, but there are two considerations here: one, we have to be careful not to quote too much of any one document throughout the entire article. For that reason, it's a good idea to be revise where we can and use quotation marks only in the limited contexts set out at WP:NFC: "to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." Using them is these circumstances not only helps to limit how much we use, but also helps keep us in line with United States fair use allowances. One of the considerations of those is the "purpose and character of the use." If you are using somebody else's copyrighted material (which is legally, after all, their property), you need to do it in such a way that you are transforming it, not simply taking it.

I'll take the Walloon region paragraph, since it contains fragments of multiple sentences.

The first quotation brings nothing new to the table. It seems to have been copied just because it was easier than finding a new way to say it. I don't doubt there are times when many of use text just because we can't think of a better way to say it (doable, if quoted and marked), but we can't do that too often. It's not defensible under "fair use." But we can put this into new language. We could, for instance, say:

This combines limited, attributed quotation with revision in a way that fits comfortably with WP:NFC and fair use. (I'm presuming that IELRC is introduced somewhere in the base article. The first time it's brought in, it should (of course) be expanded.) It also the advantage of explaining when they went into "the process", which can be important if the article goes out of date. Future readers will have reason to investigate if the process is complete if, say, our article still says that in 2012. :) (If you like any of my language, you're free to use it. While Wikipedia's contributors also retain copyright to their language and should be attributed, I'm perfectly happy releasing that text.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is very constructive, thanks. It is a bit tedious to rewrite, for copyright reasons, sentences that are already well written. But if that's what it takes to prevent the Wikimedia foundation from being sued, however remote that possibility seems to me in this case (usually instituation like the exposure they get from having their publications quoted on Wikipedia), it's worthwhile doing. Concerning CIEL, I believe it distracts from the main point of the article to introduce them in the text. But I have included a link to the the Wikipedia article on them at the beginning of the reference to provide readers context about the organization. Last question: Does the source actually say that German-speaking communities (which are actually part of the Walloon region) do not get this assistance? I did not see that.--Mschiffler (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry that I'm so long in getting back to you today. I've got a deadline off Wikipedia that ate the day and is likely to consume most of the weekend. I agree that it can be tedious, but it's the way things go. I believe one of the points of our proactive policy is to demonstrate that we exercise due diligence in addressing copyright concerns. As to your other question, the source does say that. Specifically, it says, "Hence, water distribution companies are in charge of informing insolvent people of the existence of this fund, which is in place since March 2004. Unfortunately it is only available to the francophone area of the region and not to the German-speaking community." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks.Will work on fixing this one and the other instance you highlighted over the next few days, using your generous input. Quite amazing to see that a measure inspired by human rights is applied in such a discriminatory manner. Who would have thought that?--Mschiffler (talk) 12:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Whatever its original intention may have been, it has become commerce in the United States, at least. Maybe I'm more cynical than you are, but I would expect nothing else. :/ Your userboxes say you were originally from Germany. I recently spoke with another German-born contributor who told me that Germany's fair use allowances (about which I know nothing) are much more liberal than the US allowances. As an example of US attitudes, I pointed out this circular, for example, where the courts make special allowances for teachers to copy up to 1,000 words of a work (if the full work is at least 10,000 words) to pass out to the students in their class as long as they do not (a) make more copies than are needed to give one each to students in the class, (b) pass it out to more than one class in the whole school, (c) use more than two excerpts from the same authors; etc. This is not even for publication, but only for private use in the classroom. He seemed of the opinion that teachers in Germany were not under such strict restraints. We certainly can judiciously use quotations under fair use allowances as set out at WP:NFC, but we should be moderate in that use. It's best to avoid overusing any one source. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:21, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am from Germany. I was not aware of the differences in fair use allowances between Germany and the U.S. For me, and maybe for others who are not familiar with the U.S. legal system and copyright law, it is surprising to see how strict the U.S. law is in that respect. This being said I agree that it's best to avoid overusing any one source. As you have seen, the bulk of the Belgium article is based on other sources than the IELRC publication. I have now rewritten both blanked sections in the Belgium article and would appreciate if you could take a look at them whenever you find the time. No rush. Also, administrator Toon5 who blanked parts of Water supply and sanitation in Ecuador, at your request I believe, reacted strongly to comments I left on his user page. You may want to take a look at the discussion. I understand his reaction to some extent, since he did not know about the context of that article that I now explained on his user page.--Mschiffler (talk) 03:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Until recently, I was not, either. And, by the way, I thank you for your patience with the process. Ordinarily I have considerably more time to donate to Wikipedia, but due to work obligations I am struggling to stay on top of each day's batch of material at WP:CP, and I'm still not finished with the review of History of Jews in Poland. (That's an example of an article that has become a serious copyright problem by being a pastiche of sentences pasted from multiple articles. In some cases, it's only a single sentence from a source. By itself, copying a single sentence without attribution would almost certainly not be a legally actionable infringement. When you add them together, though, they cumulatively represent a blatant (even if good faith) disregard for copyright law that could create serious legal jeopardy.)


 * I also thank you for the way you conducted your conversation with Toon05, and I'm glad that he apologized for his irritation. I generally find Toon05 very polite in dealing with other people, and I think he's an invaluable contributor in keeping on top of copyright problems. He is probably the most active administrator working Suspected copyright violations, where articles that have been tagged by bots as probable duplications of other sources are listed for evaluation and further handling. It can be a thankless job, and much of the response we get is hostile. I've had occasions of my own where I've been challenged not to become defensive. I appreciate the way you handled that, by remaining calm and de-escalating tension. The very model of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. :) At COPYCLEAN, we try not to lose sight of the fact that copyright problems we encounter, even when infringement is substantiated, may represent good faith misunderstandings rather than any intentional wrongdoing. At least, so our guidelines say. :)


 * I will make evaluating your alterations a priority, right after finishing today's CPs (and dealing with the inevitable fires that crop up while I do so. :/) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

←It's tomorrow on Wikipedia, but still today where I am. :) I've implemented the changes you suggest. There is one other bit of material that needs evaluation. It was under the "copyvio" template, but you might not have noticed. I have not closely checked all of it, but I see one sentence copied verbatim: "Regions are responsible...." That whole sentence is verbatim, and it may be the only thing still needing correction. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I am relieved to read Toon05's apology, and it feels very good to read that you believe that my behavior is a model of civility and assuming good faith. That is exactly what I tried to do, but one never knows.... I will be working over the next few days on fixing the remaining issues in both articles. I will also gradually go over other articles I created to identify issues that could, even if the possibility seems remote to me, cause copyright concerns. This will hopefully allow you to concentrate your energy on articles with more serious concerns. Also, I will pass your general concerns on to other Wikipedians I work with to make sure that they keep copyright concerns in mind. I am also curious to know what triggered the recent increased activity to identify possible copyright infringements? Has someone sued or threatened to sue the Wikimedia Foundation? I hope not...If you are Toon05 should have any more questions, I am available via e-mail. Let me finally say how much I appreciate the work you, Toon05 and others are doing for Wikipedia. It must often be tedious, probably conflictive, and I am not sure how much recognition you get for it. Keep up the good work!--Mschiffler (talk) 03:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

New section, for convenience
I'm subsectioning for ease. I really do appreciate your assistance with this. There are quite a few articles with more serious concerns, and I feel very confident that we can trust you to make sure material you've added complies with our copyright policies. I also appreciate your spreading the word. :)

The Wikimedia Foundation gets periodic take down notices. I'm not aware of any particular increase. The essential approach to copyright problems (I've been volunteering in this area on Wikipedia since somewhere around July 2008) hasn't changed, but the efforts have lately become more organized. This is in part due to the discovery of an individual who pasted material into literally thousands of articles from various online and book sources over a period of several years. (You can see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods/Subpage for organizing CopyVio Cleanup, if you'd like to know more about that.) Cleanup of this, which started on March 13, is still ongoing. His first infringements were discovered years ago, but due to lack of process and probably manpower there was insufficient follow through...which we're paying for heavily. :/

As far back as 2006, Jimmy Wales told the press that we review all contributions made by editors who are found to have placed plagiarized material on Wikipedia. This is, given our current manpower, impossible. However, we do our best. As you probably know, any contributor can list an article for evaluation for copyright problems at the copyright problems board. When an article comes ripe for admin closure, my standard procedure is—if the concern seems legitimate—to check a few other contributions. If I see cause for concern that there may be more, then I either do a full contribution check myself or (as in this case) request assistance. That we have a project to request assistance from is in large part due to that massive cleanup. It's far from the first multi-article issue I've ever encountered, but it's by far the largest in scale. The largest I'd seen before that only involved a few hundred articles.

You may not be interested in having all this behind-the-scenes information cluttering your talk page, so I'll just wrap briefly by saying that refining processes for handling this is ongoing. We are very much in need of more manpower, as we have nowhere near enough editors who are knowledgeable on the subject and willing to put their time into what is often really a tedious process. I myself wish there were some way we could more efficiently educate contributors when they begin. At the bottom of every edit screen, it says, "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted." It's a mistake to presume that all contributors will understand that in the same way, particularly since our contributors come from all over the world. Few contributors are going to familiarize themselves with Wikipedia's particular copyright policies. I myself didn't click on that link until probably a good year after I'd registered. I'm just fortunate to be from the country whose laws are governing Wikipedia's copyright and, because of my career, already familiar with copyright laws.

I'm also highly concerned that we must keep this process cordial. I was appalled recently to find a problem contributor who had been scolded by another Wikipedian (basically, "I know what you're up to! Shame on you!") before any other communication had been made about the matter. The contributor was in violation of policy, but only because he believed that we could use material licensed for non-commercial reproduction. (GFDL, of course, doesn't allow that.) He's been corrected, but I'm highly concerned that rather than learning the rules and continuing to help build Wikipedia, he may have left us in anger and shame. Even if he decides to return, it's certainly going to have left a bad taste in his mouth. And there was no reason for it.

So we need knowledgeable, cordial people with a lot of spare time. No small order, that. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in Ecuador
I've left some feedback on your revised introduction here. Best, – Toon (talk)  18:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Zucchinis
I've deleted the Florida one, there really was not only no assertion of notability, but I couldn't find any evidence he met our notability criteria. The Washington one just may meet our criteria. I'm going to delete the dab page or perhaps redirect it, I will have to think about that. Dougweller (talk) 10:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)