Talk:Australasian Hydrographic Society

comments

This is being done with the full knowledge and permission of the Australasian Hydrographic Society. Some common text relating to the society that appears on its website is also being used in developing the wiki. Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Gerritsen, I understand that you're doing it with the Society's full knowledge, but unfortunately on the Society's Web site there's nothing that indicates that the Society agrees to license their content under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license or the GNU Free Documentation License, so we have to default to protecting their content. Could you please ask the society to follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials so we can verify that they agree to this? The instructions are really very easy; they basically consist of e-mailing this template to permissions-en@wikimedia.org from an address we can associate with the Society. Please let me know if you have any further questions, either here or at my talk page. Thank you! — madman 17:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, it is simpler for me to change the text so there is no common text. I will do and then remove the Copyvio message. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rupert Gerritsen (talk • contribs) 14:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC) I reworded offending paragraph, when will this be cleared? Rupert Gerritsen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rupert Gerritsen (talk • contribs) 07:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

How did you reword it? I see no edits in the article history since I blanked the article for investigation. Thanks, — madman 12:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I submitted via option of rewrite which went to a temporary subpage.Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

Ah, of course; I see it. I'll try to review it as soon as possible. Thanks! — madman 19:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

I'm afraid that we would not be able to use the rewrite unless we receive licensing permission from the organization, as it constitutes a Wikipedia:Close paraphrase. For an example of close paraphrasing, consider the following paragraph from the source:

The Australasian Hydrographic Society had it's beginning in The Hydrographic Society (THS) which was founded in 1972 with headquarters based at the University of East London, UK, The Hydrographic Society was an international learned organisation registered in the United Kingdom as a charitable concern and a company limited by guarantee. There were five autonomous national branches, in Australasia, the Benelux countries, Denmark, the UK and the USA. Regional representation was also maintained within the Australasian, UK and USA Branches.

The article says:

The Australasian Hydrographic Society had its origin as part of The Hydrographic Society (THS), founded in 1972 and based at the University of East London in the United Kingdom. The Hydrographic Society, an international learned organisation, was registered in the United Kingdom as a charitable concern and a company limited by guarantee. It consisted of five autonomous national branches, these being Australasia, the Benelux countries, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Regional representation was maintained as well by the branches in Australasian, United Kingdom and United States of America.

While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation - including both structure and language - are. There are many other passages which are similarly close.

So that it will not constitute a derivative work, this article needs to be substantially rewritten, I'm afraid. The essay Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches, while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism".

Alternatively, if the copyright owners will release the material into the public domain or provide permission, we can use the original text with proper attribution. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)Very well, I will rewrite the offending paragraph. There are not a lot of written sources about the organisation and so I am relying in part on what it says on their website. I am doing this with the full knowledge and concurrence of the executive. Release of copyright for the sake of one paragraph or so is just too complicated, I doubt if anyone in the organisation (which is a not-for-profit voluntary organisation) even knows who has copyright to text on website. Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen I have rewritten the offending paragraph on the temporary subpage. Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 18:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen How are you progressing with reviewing changes I have made with temporary subpage?Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 15:35, 3 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

I'm not entirely sure you read the pages that I suggested you look into. :/ Your rewrites are done kind of exactly the opposite of the recommendation there, as you are making small, incremental changes. For example:

By 2000 it had became apparent that this "branch structure", with its focus being on the parent society, was no longer able to serve the best interests of all its members...

becomes

By 2000 it had become apparent that The Hydrographic Society's branch structure was not serving the best interests of all its members.

The source says:

In 2000 it became apparent that the "branch structure" with the focus on the parent society was no longer serving the best interests of its members...

These kinds of incremental changes are not likely to sufficiently rewrite the text to avoid substantial similarity but are far more likely to create a derivative work. Even if the people of the organization are perfectly fine with your use of their text, we have to treat it as if they are not unless we get specific permission.

If you do not wish to substantially rewrite, you may wish to speak to the organization again. It's not so terribly complicated for them to put a statement at this page:

The text of this page is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).

If they do that, and you let us know that they have done that, you can use as much text from that page as you like.

That said, I will ask another administrator to review the rewrite just in case he or she feels differently about it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:33, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't see how you can make a statement about key facts without some similarity in expression. So, yes, please ask another administrator.Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 17:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

I have to agree with Moonriddengirl that the re-write is still too closely paraphrased. Although I've only looked at the History section in detail I see two main problems. Firstly much of the same language is used, for example "best interests of all its members". Yes, some similarity in expression is probable when expressing facts but that level of similarity is not necessary and is, in my opinion, a copyright problem. That whole sentence for example could be written as something like "In 2001 it was decided that the needs of the society's members could be best served by changing the existing branch-based structure to...". I don't know the subject well-enough to know if what I'm suggesting is quite the right phrasing but hopefully it serves to illustrate how it could be written differently.

I also have a concern with the structure of the re-write. The re-write follows the structure of the original pretty much exactly. Although this is largely to be expected of a history it also occurs where it is not necessary to maintain the chronological flow. Examples include a) members represent... then organisations represented..., b) reasons for the change then description of the change and c) list of member represents... ending in surveyors in private practice. Once or twice I could accept as coincidence caused by the chronological nature and the best way of phrasing things but this many times raises red flags.

To me it is obviously the re-write is, at best, a derivative work and as such unusable as a copyright violation. Dpmuk (talk) 06:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, I will do a complete rewrite of first half, where you think there is a problem,and post to a temporary page. Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 14:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen I have done major rewrite of first half of the article and posted on to temporary subpage. Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

That re-write looks good to me, however I've yet to have a chance to see if I have concerns about the other sections. I'll look at those sections as soon as I can unless someone beats me to dealing with this. Dpmuk (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Rupert Gerritsen (talk) 18:06, 19 April 2012 (UTC)Rupert Gerritsen

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