User talk:Botteville: Difference between revisions

Welcome

Welcome to my discussion page. I would be glad to open or continue a discussion with you. Just start a new heading. I will not repeat here what I may have said on your discussion page in response. For various reasons I will delete your responses after they seem no longer relevant.

Thank you and happy editing. Dave 02:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk

For your amusement, check the evil talk-page. He's deleting anything he doesn't like. N26825 13:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

More amusement. I notice that the evil one has deleted my first invention and the documentation referencing it! Of course, if I provide a photograph of the QST article, it will be a "copyright violation!" I have an email message into Dr. Clark at NASA (who also claims to have invented it is the sixties --from his Ham Radio BLOG). Perhaps his response will be enlightening! --LymanSchool 18:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Internal vandal

Yes. Look at the junk added to Richard B. Johnson. The guy is an Author and an Inventor. Either one satisfies notability. Also the vandal removed Analogic and Julian Soshnick, claiming copyright violations!N26825 13:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep! Looks like vandalism to me. I can't imagine getting rid of Julian Soshnick or Analogic Corporation. I note that Analog Devices remains untouched (like all the other corporate articles). Only the stuff written be me gets zapped. Also, the zapper doesn't know what copyright violations are. He doesn't have a clue that properly referenced information is not a violation of copyright! Also, lists or specifications that wouldn't make technical sense if not duplicated exactly are not subject to copyright law. Cheers! --LymanSchool 14:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

If Analog Devices or any other article has text copied verbatim or has text that constitutes a derivative work under U.S. copyright law, please do report it. This is not a matter of simply using information. —Centrx→talk • 15:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I prepared this in my sandbox, hoping somebody would "call!" --

Copyright and Wikipedia

Copyright law protects original works of authorship. A work consists of an expression of an idea. The work may be an expression in written form, it may be an expression in art, it may be an expression in music, and in recent times, an expression in software. This United States Copyright Office website lists eight categories. Copyright law does not protect ideas (that is what patents are for) nor does it protect information. No publicly available information is protected by copyright law, nor are facts, figures, dimensions, parameters, velocities, and other physical measurements whether embedded in copyrighted documents or not. Copyright is all about expression. When determining whether or not copyright law would apply to a written work, there is a simple test. If another person would write about the same event, would the result be substantially the same? If the answer is yes, then the text is information and there is no copyright protection. An example is where a newspaper reports: Mary said, “This is the way it was!” Since this is a direct quote, it is not subject to the expression of the writer. The writer is only stating fact. Copyright law does not protect facts. However, given the same news story, if the reporter said; with great tears of trepidation Mary said, “This is the way it was!” the writer’s editorial comments of “with great tears of trepidation” is protected by copyright law, but Mary’s quote remains unprotected.

When writing articles in a media that does not allow original research, it is mandatory to obtain written information from external sources and to properly reference those sources. In my articles, I have provided direct links to the sources of information so that one does not have to wade through large volumes of irrelevant references to find the source of the information. The ease of use of the references of which I have provided, has subjected me to accusations of copyright violations, which are entirely uncalled for, and not supported by facts or copyright law, itself.

For Wikipedia to become a useful reference, it is mandatory to allow writers to use all available information without fear of reprisals. For this, it is necessary for administrators to understand basic copyright law. Use of text from a cited reference, in particular direct quotes and information such as volumes, velocities, heights, widths, etc., does not constitute copyright infringement as long as it does not represent a work, i.e., an expression.

I recently wrote a line-by-line comparison of an article that I wrote against the references that I cited, to demonstrate that there was no copyright infringement. This line-by-line comparison falls under the doctrine of “fair use” because anybody accused of a copyright violation needs to have “due process” available. The administrator who has been accusing me of copyright infringement deleted it as a “copyright violation,” demonstrating his lack of knowledge of the subject. I fear that this is an example of Wikipedia’s destruction from within where a, perhaps well meaning, but obviously uneducated administrator is systematically removing information.

Now, if there is a Wikipedia rule about using information from publicly available sources, then referencing sources is moot. You do not have any information with which to write articles. In addition, if there is a rule that states, “whether or not there is a copyright violation, you can’t use any text from external sources…” you have an additional problem because you cannot use any information that has already been written! This becomes a “Catch-22” situation –oops a so-called copyright violation. When creating scientific or technical articles, there is often only one correct way to state facts. They cannot be reworded to avoid some duplication of text from some published source. In addition, one would never be able to use a direct quote or an abstract from a patent disclosure. Such a rule prevents incorporation of useful information into articles. In addition, such a rule prevents an article from quoting anybody. One needs to write quoted text exactly as spoken or else it is fraudulent. One cannot paraphrase a quote.

References

--LymanSchool 13:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Campaign history of the Roman military - FAC nomination

Hi, I have self-nominated Campaign history of the Roman military for featured article status: FAC nomination. However, people are being incredibly reticent about remarking on it either positively or negatively, I think a lot of people lack the specific subject knowledge to confidently support or oppose the nomination. Since you I belive have a sound knowledge of ancient Rome, would it be possible for you to post your own comments on whether or not you believe the article is of featured article quality, and any improvements to the article that you think are called for. Many Thanks - PocklingtonDan 11:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for thinking of me. I look at this magnificent article and I get embarrassed that I have not done more, seeing what can be done. I will take a more careful look with comments. Rome was not built in a day however (yuk yuk). One problem is that if I start in on the comments they might be misinterpreted as criticisms and detract reader attention from the excellence of the article and the layout. I notice that it is very long. I'm wondering if any of it can or should be placed in other articles with a link "see the main article ..." etc. Any way I will give it a try, which will be a tougher challenge for me, to say something meaningful about good work. Most of the time I'm saying something uncomfortable but necessary about shoddy work and getting a lot of flak about it. Later.Dave 12:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words on the article, I have been fortunate in that I am off work for two weeks with very little else to occupy me and since I enjoy contributing to wikipedia and learning about ancient Rome, I threw myself into it with gusto. You know what it is like though trying to tie together a coherent picture of events from different sources and I may have reached incorrect conclusions on several fronts. Also, no-one else has yet copyedit/proofread what I have written, and no matter who you are your prose can almost always be improved by the eyes of others. I wouldn't worry about comments you make being seen as criticism, after all the main aim as always is to improve the quality of the article by whatever means, getting a nice FA badge on the article is of course secondary - improving the article to FA quality even if it isn't then flagged as such is preferable to getting it flagged as FA when in fact it could be made better.

I'm all too conscious that the article is very long. I justify this to myself with the idea that its only slightly longer than certain FA articles on individuals, but it covers 1300 years of history. However, I take on board your point. Do you have any ideas for paring it down at all? I don't want to lose the overall narrative and structure - I could strip the article down to its bare bones but I'm not sure it would stil make sense! Thanks in advance for any input you are able to give. much appreciated... - PocklingtonDan 15:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Massachusetts

Read your comments regarding the state (no pun intended) of the Massachusetts article. I've been making some edits as time allows...........Feel free to join in the fun!Pmeleski 15:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thales

I noticed last month that you seem to have left the Thales article in mid-edit. Are you planning to go back to that? (If not, I'll do what I can to tidy things, but I'm far from expert on the subject. Vicki Rosenzweig 04:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Communication

I see that the vandal still exists. I won't be doing anything until it is gone. I looked at what the self-appointed expert has been doing and I think it will probably be run over on some freeway soon. Dick Sweat's (I think you were at the company when he was there) wife died and his mother a few days later. Dick had left the company to go back to the midwest. Everybody else is still there and gives their regards. Cheers, ---LymanSchool 00:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that Richard B. Johnson, referencing only readily available information, like author, inventor, and JMODEM creator, is now gone. Yes! You can check the deletion log and see what's up. Maybe it's somebody related to one of the detention center masters! Back to work, making jobs for humanity. Later ---LymanSchool 04:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I put that information there only because a graduate of the Lyman School for Boys where it was referenced was supposed to have been successful. I only offered a small sample of success. I did not list a resume which, BTW, has 16 patents. There was not even anything about my education except for the reform school. This is hardly self-promotion. Want to see self promotion? Look at the long list of Linux developers. The self-proclaimed savior first deleted Mark D. Devlin, an equally valid author who had attended the reform school, even though both Mark Zanger, his writing mentor, and I wrote it. I got accused of copying Mark Zanger's content which he added from his own published writings! A rule of Wikipedia has been to "Assume good faith." The current cancer does not. ---LymanSchool 12:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

BYW, there seems to be some underlying assumption that I have been using Wikipedia for promotional purposes. This could not be further from fact. I didn't write the book for me. I wrote if for about 100,000 juveniles who are still being trapped by the juvenile corrections system --and to validate the lives of those so dedicated to helping America's throwaway children. Wikipedia was simply an online reference as it should have been. The internal strife, recently shown, will eventually cause the demise of such references. Check out my web-site and you will see that I have removed all links to Wikipedia and I have rewritten the necessary references (such as Mark Devlin and me) that are important to understanding the Lyman School for Boys. We are, after all, the stereotypical examples of residents who were able to write about the institution from the perspective of the inside. BYW, there is no such thing as a "neutral point-of-view." The mere fact that somebody thought enough about a subject to write about it, makes it non-neutral even when writing about the sex-life of a Tetsie Fly. Only in mathematics can one have a neutral perspective --and that often fails as well. So the idea that if something written from a non-neutral perspective is a reason for deletion is wrong. Such articles, if in somebody's opinion are too one-sided, shoule be flagged for IMPROVEMENT, not deletion! Also, there is supposed to be a deletion review, not some administrator simply deleting articles that he/she/it doesn't like. --LymanSchool 15:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)