User talk:Marshallsumter/Archive 2011

My condolences
I see you have been blocked on WP. Not terribly surprising. Piece of advice: don't try to make sense of it.

If you want to, you can probably get unblocked there. If you want advice, ask me.

You offered to stop creating articles, add some kind of mentorship to that, if anyone was willing to volunteer (I'd have, if I weren't banned myself), they could have had your valuable work without the problems. But the WP community is radically dysfunctional, and has been for years. Heh! It's about the "dominant group." The structure set this up.

In any case, you are welcome here, just continue to be cooperative, it will be no problem.

I recommend you personally save copies of as many of your WP articles as possible, the wikitext, ASAP. If there is an article with extensive work by others, they might be transwikied to preserve attribution. I have importer rights and may be able to help. It looks, though, like a deletion rampage is starting on WP. It is not impossible to import deleted articles, but I can't do it. And my time is limited.

If something important has already been deleted, it may be possible to recover the wikitext, ask with specifics.

I am concerned about the copyright violation charges. Sometimes Wikimedians get a bit crazy about that. There is no legal risk to Wikipedia or Wikiversity unless a take-down notice is received or violation has been "willful." (Which, with Wikipedia, would mean that the WMF has authorized it. Individual users may be held responsible for what they "publish," though.) However, please don't create true copyvio here, it would be one of the possible monkey wrenches that might get tossed in the works, because we do attempt to avoid copyvio. Be careful about abstracts, don't just copy them. But you can certainly link to them! --Abd 16:11, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comments and good wishes! I am double checking everything anyway. I also have offsite files. But, loosing that much effort saddens me greatly. Marshallsumter 18:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, if you have the files, it's not all lost.


 * I'm most interested, myself, in encouraging you to build resources connected with Topic:Astronomy, if you are willing. If the Wikipedia article exists on some topic, you can link to it, and just add material that may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. You may also copy an entire Wikipedia article here, generally, then prune it back and add material to it. Please don't leave duplicated Wikipedia content in place, though, except transiently in your user space. The idea would be to make resources here be a more complete study of the topic, similar to what you would get at a university, and where people can interact with others perhaps with more knowledge.


 * The 'crat whom a certain WP user pinged to complain about you happens to be an astronomer, I think, I'm not sure.


 * I'm also finding Dominant group to be interesting, including even your "hoax hypothesis." Please, though, don't be deceptive. Okay? Please do try to organize what you do into coherent resources, placed in a knowledge hierarchy. As you can see, our coverage of astronomy is spotty as hell. Anything you can do to flesh it out will be appreciated. Thanks. --Abd 18:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * No deception period! I put the hoax hypothesis in because someone suggested it and disproving it should not be too hard (hopefully). I am still checking files I brought over. I can move everything not yet double checked to user space anyway if you like. I do have some organization questions relating to 'pages' and subtopic (pages). One immediate question relates to using quoted phrases, usually not more than a sentence in length. My awareness relative to wikipedia (now unfortunately) is that in quotes with a reference for the quoted phrase, at the end of close quote is not a copyright vio. However, if it is here, PLEASE ADVISE ASAP, my training in such matters is only that the attributed author(s) own the sentence attributed regardless of content so content must be as close as possible to exact meaning, but in the physical sciences quoted phrases are not used, unless it's a history of science or scientists article. The 'dominant group' study, I feel, must keep 'the data' as close to original as possible, meaning where possible quoting the term and immediate context (usually the sentence used in and those sentences that help to extract the metadefinition).
 * Regarding Topic:Astronomy, I'm a little gun shy at the moment, but would be happy to. If there's something specific I can prepare a page and let you or anyone take a look at it, as your time allows. If it's okay, I can put it where ever you'd like. I have a developing research project on a possible X-ray emission classification of stars or star-like astronomical objects, but it's got a long ways to go. Marshallsumter 19:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I was rereading above and wanted to add this. "Let's say this sentence I'm writing is in a physical science article with a reference at the end.[1]" What I was taught is with that reference at the end (assuming content is reasonably accurate), there is no copyright violation ever. The attribution prevents it. And, there are many arguments pro and con, but the attribution is there, end of story in a court. At wikipedia apparently, and I'm not sure about this, "Let's say this sentence I'm writing is in a physical science article with a reference at the end.[1]", the part inside the quotes may be a copyright vio, further if the author [1] actually wrote "in a physical science article with a reference at the end", it's a copyright vio in both cases, whether not in quotes or in quotes, which is in direct conflict with what I've been taught. The real problem, unless my knowledge is outdated is this: "Let's say this sentence I'm writing is in a physical science article with a reference at the end." doesn't have that reference. That's the big cv! And that's what I believe, perhaps incorrectly, is rampant on wikipedia. Almost every article I read had portions or sentences that there's no way the creator would know or compose, unreferenced apparently using the idea that anyone could find many references for it. Not good enough! Well, sorry to dwell on this. Marshallsumter 20:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I have read the "Exemption Doctrine Policy" for wikiversity and believe that my restricted use of quoted text here and cited text is in compliance. Marshallsumter 21:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with the above)


 * Let's return to basics. Copyvio is an artificial creation, or, more accurately, the edges are artificial. They have never been nailed down, as far as I can tell. Let's look at some examples. Unfortunately, terms like "short" don't have a very specific meaning, but generally, in copyright violation, a "short quotation" means a small portion of the original work, so that the copying of it has no negative impact on the market for the work itself. Unless, perhaps, by convincing people that it's worthless!
 * Allowed:
 * copying of *links*. Now, if a work is a large collection of links, copying the *whole* work could be a problem. That was the work product of the original creator. But a few links, no problem.
 * Short excerpts from abstracts. While it seems to be common that journal abstracts are widely reproduced, there is some opinion that they are subject to copyright. However, my opinion: an abstract is not the work, an abstract is a short summary of the work, created precisely to publicize the work and attract people to obtain and read it. From this point of view, an abstract cannot damage the creator rights. However, others may disagree. If there is a good reason to quote an entire abstract, it can be tried, I'm not going to guarantee any outcome. If not, avoid it. Quoting a sentence from an abstract should almost always be okay.
 * Always attribute any text obtained from a source. However, you may also write, on Wikiversity, off the top of your head, and if you end up with some similar text, it's not necessarily a Big Deal. You should be careful, but you don't have to be obsessively careful here. Think of yourself as a professor speaking to a class. It's being recorded. How careful does the professor have to be to avoid copyvio in what he says? Theoretically, that's just a difference of medium, not a difference of kind with regard to copyright.
 * Quoting user comments on Wikipedia. Attribute them with links. Do not attempt to criticize the users; I haven't seen you doing this, but it is a place where some users have gotten into trouble here. Rather, you are just reporting what happened. As to analysis, you will have to be careful. Wikiversity should develop ethical guidelines for research involving humans, and especially WMF users. Absent those, my suggestion: proceed with caution, and if someone objects, Stop! The matter can then be discussed and some consensus solution found, hopefully. It's when someone barges ahead and claims to be Right, that we have serious trouble. Basically, if you are going to barge ahead, you'd not only need to be Right, but you'd need to know that it was worth the disruption, and be able to show that to the community. That can be difficult! On Wikipedia, Forgeddaboudit.
 * These are just my somewhat informed opinions.
 * To avoid:
 * Larger quotations. However, sometimes I've written critiques of material, quoting the whole thing, in the end, but only a small piece at a time with, then, extensive comment. Is this legal? I don't know. It is, however, extremely common, and I've never seen anyone dinged for it. (It's very common on mailing lists.)
 * Unnecessary quotation. If you can create a good resource with links and commentary on the links, instead of quoting material, you may be home free. However, consider this possibility: you might copy some material from a linked page, then remove it. If the page vanishes, as many do, the material will be in history. Don't do this with blatant copyright violation, but for possibly minor material, with a fair use possible claim, it should be okay. (With blatant violation, it may be necessary to revision delete the material, but it would still be visible to custodians.)
 * If you exercise reasonable caution, you will be fine. I have not reviewed the Wikipedia situation in detail, I find it depressing to watch the madness and drama there. My goal, though, is interaction with Wikipedia, with Wikipedia putting together an encyclopedia, and Wikiversity being more like a university, with "classes" and "student work" combined with a university library that includes all the "student papers," as well as everything on a topic (or a way to get everything). Which one of these, when they are mature, would you expect to be larger and, in the end, more important for education? --Abd 22:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * One more point. I think I understand your purpose in mentioning the "hoax hypothesis." However, Marshall, too many Wikipedians can't read. That is, they are unable to understand what is actually being said and instead they try to divine what it "means." I.e., they are looking for some explanation of why you are writing this stuff, and this hypothesis fed that drive. Politically, you shot yourself in the foot with this. I've done the same myself, sometimes.


 * Personally, if you are running some kind of hoax, I'll say that hoaxes can be educational, and it will come out in the wash. You will be putting far more effort into building resources here than anyone else, unless someone else with expertise and high interest starts helping you (in which case a hoax would be rapidly exposed). As I'm sure you realize from Wikipedia, you may put hours, even days of work into some page, and then it can disappear in a flash. It takes me a few seconds to delete an article, it only takes longer if I have to think about it. If you were writing hoaxes, you'd simply be wasting your own time, far more than that of anyone else. That's what they don't seem to realize on Wikipedia. The "hoax hypothesis" really doesn't make sense.


 * What happened to you on Wikipedia demonstrates the dysfunction of that project. Let's assume that you really were violating policy on original research there. (I think so, personally.) How long did it take before this was actually confronted, how much work did you put in before the issue was addressed? And now, they are bent out of shape because of how much work it will be to review all your extensive work, and I understand that. But ... this is a structural problem. Vandalism is caught immediately, almost always, because it is easy to recognize. Recent Changes Patrol is so simple to do that a lot of editors do it, the result being that the labor of watching is *highly inefficient.* I did RCP to build my edits and connection with the community. I'd be pretty fast, identifying vandalism, but only in maybe one case out of ten or so was the vandalism not already reverted when I got to it, less than a minute after the edit had been made. That means that there are many people doing the work of one!


 * But in the other direction, if work is merely wrong-headed in some way, but it looks okay, as your articles did, years of work can accumulate before anyone notices. There have been editors more prolific than you who created massive piles of blatant copyright violation that needed to be cleaned up. There is no coherent structure, no "management." As a result, you spent, perhaps, hundreds or thousands of hours creating stuff, and then the community is faced with a difficult choice: throw it all in the trash (which seemed to be the prevailing attitude when I last looked), or try to rescue what's good. If there had been some kind of monitoring or supervision from the beginning, only good (acceptable) content would have been built. Wikipedia formation *seemed* to be efficient; after all, the WMF didn't have to pay for content! But structure was never developed to make building the project efficient as well as "free." The result is that editors burn out. You just happened to flame out quickly, there are others who put in even more time -- there are editors with over 100,000 edits -- and who know all the policies, etc., and they eventually realize that they are Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill. And they leave in disgust, or they become abusive and get kicked out. Consider yourself lucky!


 * And some, at least, of your stuff really looked good. However, some of it was absolutely not appropriate for Wikipedia, but would have been fine here, as part of an educational resource. The article on Io and X-ray emission looked very nice, but I didn't get to read it carefully. I just went back there and it had been deleted. I really do wonder what the rush was. Then I remember. Wikipedia. --Abd 22:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

About redirects
I see that you have moved all the appropriate pages to subpages of Dominant group. Great. As a nonadmin, any move you make leaves behind a redirect. If a redirect is not linked anywhere on Wikiversity, it will often be deleted. However, if you know that there is an off-wiklink, and you would like someone coming to WV through such a link, you may request the redirect be left in place. You could do this on the attached Talk page, that's one way. You may also explicitly request deletion of unneeded redirects by adding a speedy deletion template. If you are the only significant author, this could be:

I'll also note that you do have more freedom, even in mainspace, on Wikiversity. Lots of people start stubs. On Wikipedia, it used to be that these would be left in place for years before people would start screaming about "non-notable," "cruft," or "unsourced." That's how Wikipedia grew, in fact. But then the forces of Order and Correctness took over. Inevitable, probably. And the community didn't figure out how to use all that marginal content. So they tossed it, and continue to do so.

Meanwhile, here on Wikiversity, it is educational to build educational resources. A lot of people have figured out that one can learn by writing, learn by teaching, learn through discussion. Wikiversity is full of stubs, and there is nothing wrong with this: each one is an opportunity to learn. Perhaps, however, we can better classify these so that people don't waste time going to an undeveloped resource when they just want to read. Maybe Wikiversity could have a Stub: space. For the Future. For now, it's all in mainspace or user space. You can create stubs in mainspace, they don't have to be in user space. Use user space, however, for something that you don't consider ready for mainspace, and if anything is controversial, it being in user space may be easiest to start. You more or less "own" pages in your own user space, you can ask others not to touch them. Deletion attempts of pages in user space almost never succeed unless the pages are truly disruptive, not merely "nonsense" or other nonsense arguments. I do wonder, would Jabberwocky be deleted here? I've taken steps to see that it wouldn't! I've used tricks like User:Abd/Playspace, see Playspace to handle, say, writing efforts by a seven-year-old boy, when he's written as IP, and I've encouraged him to create his pages in his own user space and to avoid creating multiple accounts, it drives the global vandalism volunteers nuts. He learned to cooperate, and that was a major piece of education!

I appreciate your work, Marshall. Some of your work on Wikipedia was appropriate there, even useful, even beautiful. Much of it would have been better here in the first place, and I see that we need much better outreach. Suppose that you had been told, early on, that your original research (as defined on WP, w:WP:OR), didn't belong on Wikipedia, but that it would have been welcome on Wikiversity, and that it could be linked, when appropriate, from Wikipedia articles. (as External Links, and there is a whole policy about that. I notice that when I go to one of your deleted pages, the WP interface suggests looking for resources on the topic on Wikiversity! We could make sure that those links come up with something useful.)

Here, just about everything I've seen from you would be appropriate, if properly categorized and placed. Not merely appropriate, excellent! Interesting. Educational. Etc. --Abd 19:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've looked for the redirects to delete using Search and they are either already deleted or hidden from Search in some way. Marshallsumter 20:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You can see the redirects you created with your move log. Except for one, all show as bluelinks, meaning they exist. (It's the original pagename). Do you need any of those? Before deleting them, I'd first check "what links here." Generally, if there are no links, and no request to keep due to reasonable possibility of incoming links from outside, I'll delete them, or others may. You may want to think about possible incoming links from WP.
 * I'll wait for a response before deleting them. You don't need to tag them, unless you want to keep most of them, in which case tag for deletion the ones you don't need. If you want to keep a redirect, edit the talk page. When you click on the redirect name in the move log, you'll see a redlinked Discussion tab at the top. Just write "Please keep redirect" there and sign it. --Abd 00:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You are invited to register for the Wikiversity Assembly

 * The Assembly has been established as a technique for developing reports on topics of import for Wikiversity administration. The Assembly is not a decision-making body, per se. Rather, it is designed to create or discover or estimate consensus, through focused, facilitated, thorough deliberation. Assembly reports may be referenced in regular Wikiversity discussions, but will not directly control outcomes. Where full consensus is not found, minority reports may be issued.
 * I invite you to register for the Assembly by adding your user name to the Delegable proxy/Table.


 * Registering for the Assembly creates no specific obligation, but does consent to direct communication as the Assembly may determine is appropriate. You may opt out of such direct communication by adding "no messages" to the Table when you register, in the user comment field, but it is unlikely that the default (communication allowed) will create burdensome traffic for you.

You are invited to name a proxy

 * When you register for the Assembly, you may optionally designate a "proxy."


 * I suggest that you nominate, as a proxy, the user whom you most trust to participate positively in a Wikiversity discussion if you are unable to participate yourself. The proxy will not be voting for you in any process. Rather, the proxy will be considered to loosely represent you, as a means of estimating probable large-scale consensus based on small-scale participation, in the event that you do not personally participate.


 * If you name a proxy, you will be consenting to direct communication with you by that proxy. If a named proxy accepts the proxy, you become, as long as you maintain the nomination (you may change it at any time), the "client" of the proxy, and by accepting, a proxy has consented to direct communication from the client.


 * See Delegable proxy for details.

Comments
Your thoughtful participation could be very useful. Thanks. --Abd 19:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your support
If it was your intention to register a support for permanent custodianship, it's common to put a "support" template at the beginning, after the asterisk. That's * The reverse is * I did move your comment to the Voting section; if that was incorrect, let me know or just move it to Comments. If you just want to make a comment, either use the Comment section, or use *Comment.. Thanks again, it's been a pleasure to work with you, and the results have been positive for Wikiversity. --Abd 17:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I put the support template in as that's my intent, but the next vote reads like I'm doing you more harm than good. Marshallsumter 17:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It might look like that until you become familiar with the history of that user. No, in supporting you I have been following the general Wikiversity consensus, and the user in question used to be a custodian here, until desysopped. Why was he desysopped? Because he was pursuing his personal vision, which is more or less that Wikiversity would be Wikipedia + him. He's banned on Wikipedia, since before I became active on Wikiversity. He acted to block users here based merely on what they had supposedly done on Wikipedia. He was grossly uncivil. I was a bit of a lightning rod for his wrath, because I effectively exposed him. Long story, to be sure. My first two probationary periods ended with action by him, the first because he misrepresented the situation at meta. (I didn't appeal that, though, because I knew that it would cause more disruption than the value of appeal. I could always become a probationary custodian again, which happened. Then that second period ended because he filed a WV:CR on my probationary custodianship, with canvassed votes, and that was closed in a manner that I considered abusive. But, again, I didn't appeal because -- it was fixable nondisruptively. It's all become even more obvious. No, Marshall, you did not do harm. The user would have raised whatever objection he could scrape up. I'm glad he raised your case, because if this is considered by the community, we will prevail. It's not even marginal. And if I'm wrong, well, I do believe in and support consensus. I just don't think I'm wrong about this, and I have a very good track record for anticipating consensus. Before this last probationary period, I clerked the Requests for deletion page, closing many requests, that page had discussions that had been open almost a year, you might notice how clean WV:RFD now is. There were grumbles from some users, see the Talk page, and some closes were reverted for this or that reason, but in every case, the ultimate conclusion by someone else was the same -- or very close to the same as my conclusion. That surprised even me. I thought I'd at least make some mistakes!


 * He's right that I'm banned on Wikipedia, but the causes were very different. He's right that I created a page here to list certain "block evasion" edits on Wikipedia, but not to coordinate or advocate disruption, and not to attack any Wikipedia user, simply to study and document my actions, as part of a study of "self-reversion" as a practice that could resolve many global issues. That page was nominated for deletion. It was not deleted. --Abd 20:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing copyright issues with your articles
Hello,

I'm not sure if there was a better place to recommend a review of the articles you copied here from Wikipedia, but I requested a review of them here. I do think you should work out with the community here whether this is an appropriate way to construct articles, and whether recent neologisms are welcome.

Regards, –SJ + > 04:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your quick response. –SJ + > 20:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Copright concerns
the following was copied from WV:RCA --Abd 18:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

A recent [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Marshallsumter_disrupting_Wikipedia_for_.22research.22_purposes. review of Wikipedia articles created by Marshallsumter] resulted in many people believing that his articles were all patchwork copyvios. Some of them do seem to be collections of sections, somewhat arbitrarily sequenced, each of which is composed only of full quotes from copyright publications. Some do not seem to make sense at the paragraph level. (An earlier discussion of this style of writing addressed some of the problems with it.)

The user has since copied some of those articles here to Wikiversity in their entirety. These articles do seem to stretch the bounds of fair use, though it's not clear to me where one should draw the line between extensive fair use and copyright violation. As the articles were deleted out of copyright concerns on English Wikipedia, which is generally friendly to fair use, the concerns raised bear review here as well. I am personally on the fence about whether this use is appropriate. –SJ + > 04:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * If it's okay for me to comment here, I would like to add that I will be more than happy to remove any content here per consensus or individual concerns. The last thing I want is a repeat of what happened at Wikipedia. Further, I am willing to place content for research projects or topics of educational value where ever is considered appropriate for review. Marshallsumter 15:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to move this to your user talk page, which is where this should have started in the first place. Custodian action is not the last stop for a dispute resolution train, but it should be down the tracks. Sj, I invite you to participate there, and, Marshall, your cooperative attitude will work wonders. Congratulations. --Abd 18:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't consider this a dispute -- just a question of where people review issues that touch on site-wide copyright policy. Uploading_files is another relevant place to note this issue, and I've left a link to this discussion there. –SJ + > 20:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

From your side, Marshall, I assume you are familiar with the objections to your Wikipedia work based on copyright issues. We are not Wikipedia, and our definitions of "fair use" might properly be a bit different, but I would urge you to consider something. You only have a few pages in question here, at least as to the user space pages. We can start there. I'm going to create a section below listing the pages. We can discuss each one, or each issue. I or others will suggest policy pages to review for guidance, but, to my knowledge, we don't necessarily have clear policy here. See meta page on copyright. Note that Fair Use claims are allowed, on a project-by-project basis. This conflicts with the requirement that all material be for free use. Images are considered exempt, fair use is allowed; but there is no substantial difference between image free use and text free use, legally. Note, as well, the essay on Copyright Paranoia.

I'd like you to find places where you made exact quotes, first. As to pages in your user space, those are drafts, and drafts can get pretty mangled. If you find something that might be questionable, blank that text and save the page. It's still there in history. Don't link directly to it, though. You'll look at these changes later. The point here is to be quick and efficient. If your decision is difficult, just remove the material. You'll be able to bring it back later. Make edit summaries for removal that will make it easy to identify the relevant revision when you look at history. You might immediately replace material with a link to the source page, and you might just quickly copy that link into your edit summary.

Later, you will look at the page history and at each piece of text removed, and see if you can replace it with
 * A summary of what is said, i.e., something that doesn't potentially violate copyright.
 * A link to the original text. You have generally cited sources, so this should be pretty easy.
 * As to what might remain, we can then review it collaboratively. Game?


 * Comment. Definitely okay with me. I've blank the pages on my userspace below already as noted below. As to those articles in mainspace, I have only two left to check for quotes and appropriate referencing, plus possible condensation. Dominant group/Metagenome is a big one, but I'm more than halfway. I'll also take a quick look at Dominant group/Sociology.

If so, document your work in the section following. If you add new pages to your user space where there might be issues, add them to the list. Thanks.

Try this one page at a time and get feedback. We may also do the same with pages in mainspace. For now, though, I suggest avoiding creating pages in mainspace unless you are very careful about copyright ab initio.

One trick that you might use if you want to create more pages. Create the page, then blank the content, replacing it with "blanked for review, please keep page." This will immediately address most copyright issues. In fact, this could be done with all the pages below, immediately. --Abd 18:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Fair use exemptions
Wikiversity, like all projects that allow fair use, has a policy defining when fair use is acceptable. In general, since fair use material is not suitable for reuse and remixing in many countries, fair use should be replaced by fully-free material where possible. Quotes from individuals or groups that are central to the information or argument presented on a page are sometimes allowed to stand, again largely when there can be no free equivalent to the impact and relevance of that quote.

But when quoting someone else, you should consider - whether there is any free alternative that exists or could be written, - whether the quote is necessary to the information you wish to convey, and - whether you are using the minimum fair-use material necessary to convey that information. –SJ + > 20:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comment. As I am reviewing, e.g. Dominant group/Metagenome and Dominant group/Sociology, now, I am doing that. The major concern is "any free alternative that exists or could be written". I have done this to a limited extent and may be able to do much more during a summary review of 'necessary content to indicate meaning', especially once meaning is established. That is why any of the Dominant group/subpages could be transferred offwiki, analysis performed there, and only conclusory text written here without quotes at all. I can do this with any or all, if you wish. Dominant group/Small group study uses quotes for the exact meaning of text sources. This too can be taken offwiki with only conclusory text written here. Ditto for any user page as I already have offwiki versions. Marshallsumter 21:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * First things first. There is no Wikiversity policy that I've been able to find re fair use for text, i.e., the kind of work that you have been doing. There is a page at meta which lists policies, see
 * Meta, Non-free content. There are separate policies pointed to at meta for local file uploads (which is what the page here Sj has pointed to is about, file uploads) and for non-free content in pages. That page shows Wikiversity as permitting non-free content. But it links to no local page.
 * See also:
 * w:Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria. Wikipedia's needs are very different from those of Wikiversity. We have no page equivalent to this. I've seen concerns about "copyvio" from sentences being copied on Wikipedia, but Wikipedia builds pages, whereas Wikiversity builds resources, which can be large collections of pages, with work by single authors, including student projects, etc. I've never seen similar concerns raised here before. So this is new, coming from Wikipedians bringing Wikipedian concerns here. Note that copyright law would not generally prohibit single-sentence quotations. Even larger quotations might be legally allowed. I've seen whole paragraphs quoted in scholarly publications, and I suspect that permission was not obtained, if this was done for study or criticism. This would be fair use, and generic fair use, i.e., our content would remain "free."
 * Essay on Copyright paranoia.
 * However, given all this, Wikiversity operates on consensus. We are obligated to consider the objections of Sj and others. If we can avoid conflict, it's best. On the other hand, if your work requires the inclusion of quotations from many sources (as seems possible to me), it seems rather easy to justify that as fair use. We may need to tag the material, but my own sense is that if quotations are clearly quoted, are not excessive so that they don't violate copyright, and if they are clearly attributed to source, they should be allowable. It may be necessary to discuss this with the community, depending on what happens with the objections.
 * Your action in blanking the pages should relieve some of the pressure, and we can deal with the issue one page at a time.
 * Meanwhile, Sj, I'd urge to be specific. Marshall is studying *text* itself, I'm thinking, so exact quotation is part of the work, as near as I can tell. Paraphrasing could be misleading! Do you have any objection to a specific page and specific usage on Marshall's part, or are you just repeating and depending on the concerns of others?
 * One part of this is exciting to me. It's possible that if pages that were deleted at Wikpedia are examined here and either cleaned up or vetted, they could then go back to Wikipedia. But one step at a time.
 * On Wikipedia, we are dealing with articles that are work products of many editors, that are intended and designed to be published, one article per topic. For that, polishing the work so that "fair use" is limited to the minimum necessary makes sense. But for an individual student working in an academic environment, drafting papers and studies, it makes no sense, it could create an onerous burden. If a student submitted a paper in a class that quoted just a little too much text, would they incinerate the paper? ("Nuke" was the term used on Wikipedia.) In a normal academic environment, it might not be noticed at all. Take-home? In preparing finished educational resources, things that might be printed and handed out, or become central to a resource structure, exercise more caution about fair use. In working pages in user space, copy whatever is needed for the project being undertaken. I'd just say use links, but links have a way of disappearing, so one might copy and blank, replacing the material with a link. Avoid large-scale copying regardless. That's my opinion. The community has developed no policy. --Abd 22:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Starting Assembly topic needs a second
An initial Wikiversity discussion topic, Assembly process itself, needs a second. Because I proposed this topic, and by the proposed process (which I wrote), I may not second my own proposal, I'm notifying my clients (those who have named me as a proxy), as allowed. The topic is Assembly process, and there is a draft proposal. Only one second is needed, so, if you follow the link and see the second, you do not need to add another, and please do not discuss the topic on the main Assembly page. If there is already a second, and the subpage has not been created, you may do so if you wish to personally participate, just add your user signature on the page to create it. I'll refactor. Thanks. One step at a time. Little by little, we go far.


 * Assembly --Abd 18:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * thanks for doing this and for helping with a bit of demonstration of how delegable proxy works. --Abd 19:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyright and fair use
Hi! Because of concerns with some of the material which you've ported over from Wikipedia, I've raised the issue at Colloquium in the hope of encouraging a general discussion. It's more about fair use in general, rather than your pages, but it seems to have been brought into focus lately so I thought a discussion would be good. Anyway, hopefully you will be able to join in. - Bilby 01:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I responded there. There is a misunderstanding. A single sentence, quoted directly, is not copyright violation, and it's common practice. A collection of such quotations, from different sources, is not a copyright violation even if the entire new page consists of such sentences. I.e., the idea seems to have arise that if a page is entirely copied from sources, it must therefore be a copyright violation. But the page was not copied, as a whole, from any other source, it is an original work. And there is no violation with respect to any individual source. Looks to me like some people have fallen into a serious error. --Abd 04:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I have nominated Dominant group for deletion. Please comment here. Kaldari 22:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Dominant group in the context of African American studies.
You might be interested in the common use of the phrase in African American studies/African history (i.e. ). Thanks. -- Simone 18:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggested source. The author's use of "dominant group" is helpful in several ways and these have been entered into Dominant group/Classes. I searched Wikiversity for both African American studies and African history, but did not find very much. Griffith's use of "dominant group" along with some other authors could contribute to African American studies, but unless I missed something I'd probably have to start such a learning resource. What do you think? Marshallsumter 00:34, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Doggone WP people...
Heya. Please let's talk more here :-). --SB_Johnny talk 20:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC)