Wikipedia:Requests for comment/UninvitedCompany 2

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 * (User:UninvitedCompany | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute
''This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.''

Description
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UninvitedCompany is deleting attribution notices in articles copied from my wiki. Www.wikinerds.org 12:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of disputed behavior
(provide diffs and links)
 * I have collected all evidence at User:Www.wikinerds.org/Bullying. Www.wikinerds.org 12:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Applicable policies
{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Cite sources - Www.wikinerds.org 12:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * See UninvitedCompany's talk page and the page in my userspace where I collected the evidence. Www.wikinerds.org 12:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * In the interest of discussion, The Uninvited Co., Inc. waives the customary requirement for two signatures to "certifiy" this RFC. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Comment. You can only endorse it once, so I have removed this page from the endorsed by 2 people back to the waiting for endorsement by 2 people category on the Rfc page, SqueakBox 00:54, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )

Response
''This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.'' ''

I have been systematically removing what I see as link spam. Our policy on External links is that we as a rule do not link to information that we would rather have here. Since the JnanaBase articles are encyclopedic in tone and GFDL licensed, it would be more appropriate to simply move any truly relevant content here rather than link it. From a standpoint of Cite sources, the JnanaBase articles are not a reliable source; the JnanaBase wiki lacks sufficient following for there to be meaningful editorial review and is not a primary source itself. In most cases the JnanaBase articles in question are brief and are by no means the best reference available for the topics in question; they are nothing like the Featured articles here.

Regarding attribution of GFDL text, while we don't have a policy page on authorship attribution, it has long been our policy that the authors, photographers, graphic artists, readers, sound collectors, and musicians who have created the content here are acknowledged in (a) the page history, (b) on the image or audio description page, and (c) on the talk page in cases such as merges and transwikied content where the authorship is not present in the page history. The few cases where article-page attribution is present, such as the FOLDOC articles and a few scattered images, should probably be reviewed with an eye towards removing the attribution for consistency.

Regarding CC licensing of images, I have reviewed the text of the CC license and can find nothing to indicate that there is a problem here. The CC license requires attribution "reasonable to the medium or means [Wikipedia] is using," and I think attribution on the image description page fulfills that.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) The Uninvited Co., Inc. 14:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) If an editor doesn't like the Wikipedia way of giving attribution, but insists that attribution be given in a different way before they will contribute their work, they need not contribute their work. And I agree that this look like linkspam. -Splash 16:04, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) I agree with Splash. Considering that the author of the articles is releasing the text to Wikipedia under the GFDL, it doesn't really matter if the author released the same text on his own personal wiki, and this seems like an egotistical attempt to get attribution on the article instead of the page history, in contrast to how every other Wikipedia author is treated. And treating Jnanabase as a verified source would be like treating other Wikipedia articles as verified sources; in fact, Jnanabase is less qualified, since its articles get a whole lot less peer review than Wikipedia articles. --Michael Snow 16:32, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) This user thinks he has found a new way to attach perma-spam to Wikipedia articles.  Just write an article, post it to your own website, and then copy it here, entitling you to an external link that no one can remove.  This idea is utterly ridiculous and would soon be adopted by anyone with a website he wants to advertise.  NoSeptember  17:26, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Calton | Talk 03:06, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) I agree with all previous statements in this section. An unfounded attempt to obtain attention/recognition/adspace. --TheMidnighters 08:03, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) Dpbsmith (talk) 10:49, 15 August 2005 (UTC) I fully agree with the summary as worded by The Uninvited. I wish to note that that summary does not speculate on www.wikinerds.org's motives. These links are link spam, but it is possible that they may not have been intended as such. For example, they could have originated in a simple desire for recognition. But as NoSeptember notes, accepting www.wikinerds.org assertion of his opinions about licensing requirements would open a loophole through which intentional commercial spammers could drive a convoy of honeywagons. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:49, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) This summary goes out of it's way to avoid attributing motives that would seem less than pure of heart to the complainant. I wonder why? Hipocrite 12:57, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) Agree with all of the above. Follow the Wikipedia way of doing things or go away. (And nobody cares if the site the link spam was going to has been slashdotted four times, for crying out loud.) DreamGuy 14:44, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) Endorse, plus NSK is gaming the system. I am opening a request for comment and request assistance in doing so, because I've never done one before. I would just block him right away on my own, but I promised UC, Raul, et al., that in "close calls" I would not go off half-cocked. Uncle Ed 15:50, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Ed, I haven't done an RfC either but I'll support one on this spam. T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  16:34, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Angela. 16:40, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Zscout370 (Sound Off) 17:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Rob Church Talk 19:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) El_C 04:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Thryduulf 07:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Bishonen | talk 23:40, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

The disputing user hasn't made his complaint clear. The license and attribution are on the image page, the image itself links to the page, and the user contributing the image is free to state the licensing terms on the image page in detail using any wording desired. The disputing user has so far failed to say, specifically, why he believes this is unacceptable for CCL-licensed material. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:19, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):


 * 1) This is a poorly presented RfC.  I don't understand what the alleged wrong is.  Robert McClenon 17:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) The disputing user hasn't made it clear to me what the issue is. The attribution link is present e.g. in the Vodafone image page itself. Doesn't this meet the needs of the license? The licence language is "you must make clear to others the license terms of this work." The general practice in Wikipedia has been to present the license terms on the image page, requiring a single click by the reader to find them. Wikinerds has not presented his reasons for thinking this is not compliant with the CCL. IANAL, but I'd think that either a) the CCL requires only that the attribution and license terms be easily and permanently available, or b) the CCL specifically requires that the attribution be visibly presented together with the image so that they can be seen at the same glance. In case a), having the license on the image page would be fine. In case b), putting a link in the picture caption as wikinerds wishes, would not be good enough. The picture itself is the link to the license. How is an intrusive text link, which is still just a link, materially different? This seems to me to be about style, not substance, and Wikipedia's customary style is to allow the picture itself to be the link to the licensing information. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:08, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * If the general practice in Wikipedia is to place the attribution in image description pages then you should remove the attribution from Lev where it says "Photo courtesy of Bulgarian National Bank". If you agree with this, then I promise that I will work hard and I'll remove all such attributions from article pages. I think it is double standards to remove my attribution while allowing attribution to Bulgarian National Bank. In my understanding the CCL licence requires proper attribution whereever the image is used. In Vodafone the problem was that my photo was used in two Wikipedia pages: One of these pages was Vodafone and the other was the image description page. As the creator of this photo, I believe I should get proper attribution in both pages. If you still disagree, we should ask the opinion of people from the CCL mailing lists (not legal advice), I am sure somebody there knows better what is right. Www.wikinerds.org 13:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * By all means proceed and get opinions from the CCL mailing list in any case, as they would be highly germane to this matter. Please make it clear that we are talking about a situation where an image is, itself, a link to a page that gives the licensing and attribution information. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view #2
Cite Sources does not mean you should provide a link to whatever GFDL wiki the material came from. That's not a primary source. In Sphaera Mundi, a valid source would be the book itself (which is too obvious to mention); and the clause about its market value would look better with a link to an auction house that claims that value (otherwise it seems like guesswork). Thus, all Uninvited Company seems to be doing is removing links to another wiki that serve little purpose (and may be interpreted as advertising for that wiki). Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 13:16, August 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * It is not advertising. GFDL required to acknowledge the origin of copies. Sphaera Mundi is copied from my wiki, hence it should reference the source. It's for the copyright authorship attribution. The book itself is not a source because it does not contain any copyrighted text which is used in the Sphaera Mundi article. However, as I said, my wiki contains the whole article. When another site copies something from Wikipedia, Wikipedia requires a link back to Wikipedia. I just require the same with my wiki. Just an attribution with a link back to the source. If you don't want to provide that, I would like my Sphaera Mundi article to be deleted. Www.wikinerds.org 13:29, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * This interpretation of the GFDL seems to be incorrect. "The license explicitly separates any kind of "Document" from "Secondary Sections", which may not be integrated with the Document, but exist as front-matter materials or appendices. Secondary sections can contain information regarding the author's or publisher's relationship to the subject matter, but not any subject matter itself." In other words, what you're doing doesn't seem to be right from a legal point of view. The correct procedure would be to use a mechanism like Wikipedia's Special:Export to keep author information intact, rather than an in-article link to some other wiki. Copy/pasting the other wiki's equivalent of 'edit history' onto the talk page here might also work. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 15:00, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) The "source" referred to by the cite your sources guideline is not the wiki where an article happens to have been hosted.  It's the source of the knowledge, i.e. where the editor who wrote the article gained the knowledge from.  In this case, the knowledge clearly was not obtained from reading the other wiki, given that it was the same author who wrote both articles in the first place. Uncle G 17:40:53, 2005-08-15 (UTC)

Outside view #3
In general, we can incorporate GFDL material from other sources into Wikipedia; that's quite legitimate as long as we acknowledge the source. Ideally, the edit summary should contain something along the lines of Material added from GFDL source at http://www.example.com/foo.html . A Talk page note containing a link to the external document (as it existed when copied, where a link to version history is available) and a link to the article's edit history or authorship info (again, where available) would–I believe–discharge our obligation.

This, however, appears to be a special case. I haven't checked through all of User:www.wikinerds.org's contributions, so the following may not be true in all cases. Looking at the example of Sphaera Mundi, this is what I see.
 * User:www.wikinerds.org here on en: appears to be the same individual as User:NSK at http://jnana.wikinerds.org.
 * At jnana's version of Sphaera Mundi, User:NSK is the sole contributor.
 * NSK/www.wikinerds.org therefore is the original author of the material, and is free to license it as he pleases.
 * NSK/www.wikinerds.org has licensed the material under GFDL by contributing to the sites jnana.wikinerds.org and to Wikipedia.
 * NSK/www.wikinerds.org has received full credit under the provisions of the GFDL because his contributions have been recorded in the article histories at both sites. The fact that the material is present at both sites is not important&mdash;the author licensed the material to both independently.

If someone wants to add a note to the Talk page of Sphaera Mundi referring to a potential external resource over at Jnana, that would be harmless. I don't think there's any reason for it to be an external link in the article itself, because it isn't a primary source and it's not required for attribution. Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:04, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Copying content between two GFDL wikis is transwikification, irrespective of whether the WikiMedia Foundation runs both wikis. TenOfAllTrades' description is an approximation of how the GFDL requirements are met on the target project.  For a concrete example of how the requirements are actually met in practice, see Wikibooks:Talk:EverQuest/Glossary. However, this is not transwikification in the first place.  The case where a single author has submitted an article in parallel to two GFDL wikis, most commonly to both Wikipedia and Wiktionary, occasionally occurs when processing the transwiki queues.  There no need in such cases for doing anything to satisfy the GFDL, for the very reasons given here. Uncle G 17:40:53, 2005-08-15 (UTC)
 * 3) Thryduulf 07:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Puzzled view of McClenon
This RfC appears to be contradictory. I am not sure whether it contradicts itself or only contradicts Wikipedia policy. The originator appears to be claiming that User:Uninvited Company violated the wikinerds.org copyright by removing an attribution. Is the material on the wikinerds.org site copyrighted in the usual sense? If it is protected by a traditional intellectual property copyright, then the violation was its copying to Wikipedia, not the removing of the attribution. If the material on wikinerds.org is subject only to GFDL or a similar copyleft, then they are claiming proprietary interest in articles. Either the originator does not understand how copyleft works, or the originator is trying to undermine the copyleft (game the system).

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Robert McClenon 17:32, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Dpbsmith (talk) 21:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC).

Discussion
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