I would be interested in commenting on this article.
I have seen letters on the help desk asking why they were accused of a copyvio when they owned the page in question. Usually, they submitted the edit anonymously so there is no way of knowing.
However, we need a process to ensure that they are quickly gotten rid off or edited mercilessly although speedy is taking it a bit far. I would think a fortnight would be a more suitable period.
Unless they are specifically written as encyclopedia articles (in which case they should be speedy deleted or on the public domain), most pieces on the web are not written to be used in a encyclopedia. As such, they make very problematic articles for Wikipedia as they inevitably designed to push a point of view.
Some examples of problematic articles:
(a) a piece on an elected representative copied from his or her web page will talk about all the wonderful things he and his party have done - the negatives will not get a mention:
(b) a piece copied from a corporate website will mention all the wonderful things a company or product has done leaving out the criticisms;
(c) a piece copied from an activists page about a corporation say Greenpeace will only mention the negatives about that company or its products;
(d) an article copied from a musicians web page will discuss the singers latest album in great detail while passing over a twenty year career in a couple of paragraphs.
Irrespective of copyright laws, stuff copied from other websites generally make very poor Wikipedia articles. Further, it usually takes a couple of minutes to cut and paste so it isn't as if the creator has put a lot of effort into it.
In conclusion, my suggestion is:
(a) articles that are copyright violations from sites that provide their content commercially should be speedy deleted.
(b) other material that has been identified as a copyright violation should sit in copyvio for a fortnight after which an admin should make a decision as to whether they are encyclopedic in quality and should stay or should be nominated for Afd (similar to pages needing translation). We should see if we can send an e-mail to the copyright holder advising them that this page has been uploaded and seeking their permission. If this permission is not given, the page should be speedy deletions.
In short, copyright violations are not only a breach of copyright law but usually advocate a point of view and are often original research so break other guidelines as well. We need a process that will ensure that they do not stick around.
Regards
Keith Old
Keith Old User:Capitalistroadster
On 12/4/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Where is this proposal listed?
The problem with this is we already frequently bite the newbies with respect to people uploading stuff they own that's already published on another website. Being accused of copyright infringement and having the article blanked is bad enough for them; having them deleted will make people not come back.
-Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l