Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 April 22

= April 22 =

Wadai Empire Question
Hello,

I have a few questions regarding the Waddai Empire. On the page it says that under the reign of Muhammad Sabun he began to mint coins. However, the section does not site a sources and I cannot find any other references. My question is: were coins ever minted?

Thank you for your assistance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Some Hecking Nerd (talk • contribs) 04:57, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Pinging User:Aldux, who added this (unsourced) information to the History of Chad article in 2006 (the text was later used to create the Wadai Empire article). --Viennese Waltz 07:08, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The sentence (in fact the whole paragraph, perhaps even the whole section) was copied verbatim from the first chapter, "Historical Setting", by John L. Collier, page 10, of the book Chad: A Country Study, edited by Thomas Collelo; see ref [2 ] of History of Chad. In an academic thesis such copying would be considered plagiarism.  --Lambiam 08:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well spotted. Per WP:CV, "copying material without the permission of the copyright holder from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed (unless it's a brief quotation used in accordance with Wikipedia's non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation." --Viennese Waltz 09:38, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So it just needs to be paraphrased and referenced. Any takers? Alansplodge (talk) 09:45, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I had a go for History of Chad, the Barguimi and Ouaddai section. Am out of time - can anyone else check if there is more plagiarism elsewhere in History of Chad? And/or tackle Wadai Empire? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:14, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There is no need to rephrase; as a work of the United States government, it is compatibly licensed for Wikipedia. Zoozaz1 talk  21:46, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to add a point of clarification, just because some bit of text is not banned from being used at Wikipedia does not mean that we can't also improve it, rewrite it, or choose to treat it as though it were in copyright, and write our own unique text entirely from scratch; I have no idea whether it is true in this case, but in many cases there are a LOT of a good reasons to avoid directly copying text, especially with regard to style, tone, narrative flow, integration with other text, etc, etc, etc. Not being a copyvio is but one reason to not copy text, but there are many other reasons why it may be a bad idea.  -- Jayron 32 11:17, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Specifically, if not marked as a quotation, it remains plagiarism. --Lambiam 11:25, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia, plagiarism can be avoided merely by using a proper citation. Since all Wikipedia text should be cited; that's how plagiarism is avoided. -- Jayron 32 11:58, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That is not the general viewpoint in academia. In copying and pasting a significant chunk of text from someone else's work, it is not enough for the copiist to add a citation note. It should be clear, from the presentation in the running text, that the copied text is a quotation, whether by including it between quotation marks, or setting it off as a quoted block. --Lambiam 17:31, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia should attribute any text copied from open sources. See WP:COPYOPEN. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 22:29, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In fairness, there are references to the Collier book at the end of each paragraph where it is quoted in this article. --Viennese Waltz 06:55, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * But, as I wrote above, "it is not enough for the copiist to add a citation note". The reader must readily see, by the way the passage is presented, that these are not the words of the present writer, but that it is a verbatim copy lifted from elsewhere. --Lambiam 09:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I am completely confused by this discussion. Could the participants, who have greater certainty about what should be done, please apply that to whether the changes I made to History of Chad, based on this discussion, should be reverted or not? Thanks, 70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The changes you did are fine, they are just unnecessary. Public domain (or CC) resources can be incorporated into Wikipedia without a change in wording as long as the source is credited correctly. Zoozaz1 talk  18:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Murder of George Floyd
Derek Chauvin was convicted of second degree murder. The other three officers will be tried in August for aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

These two trials are separate from each other, but would they have been able to try the other three officers for aiding and abetting second-degree murder had Chavin not been convicted of second degree murder? --The Vital One (talk) 19:56, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * One can try anything. Whether or not a conviction is possible is based on the opinion of the court in light of the evidence.  Certainly, the lack of a second-degree murder to aid-and-abet would be a hinderance to the prosecutions case, but they are allowed to proceed as far as they can.  The defense is also allowed to seek summary dismissal of the changes, and the prosecution can also elect to abandon the case entirely; the really are no requirements.  If you want to know more about aiding and abetting, this page seems to have a pretty good summary.  -- Jayron 32 11:14, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It is a valid defence that no crime has been committed, so the prosecution has the burden of proof that a crime was committed. The person who actually committed the crime may be unknown, or on the lam, or deceased before they could be convicted, so the absence of a conviction is not per se an impediment to trying accessories. But even the acquittal of a known suspect principal may not put one off the hook, as shown by the curious case of Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10 (1980), unanimously decided by the United States Supreme Court. --Lambiam 11:46, 23 April 2021 (UTC)