Dmorales2016

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Hello, Dmorales2016, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as Henrico County Fire Department, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may not be retained.

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! 103.6.159.85 (talk) 15:03, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Henrico County Fire Department

The article Henrico County Fire Department has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. 103.6.159.85 (talk) 15:03, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Henrico County Fire Department logo and images

Regarding particularly the logo of Henrico County Fire Department: what evidence do we have that the fire department (or the county) has placed this image into the public domain? I would assume that the department would want to keep some protection over its logo, particularly to prevent people from making and selling items featuring the logo without their permission. —C.Fred (talk) 17:59, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

You will have to bear with me as this represents my first article and series of edits. I'm an employee of the division and was asked by the Chief to correct a gap and author a new content page for the department. The photos in use and the department logo come from the department. I would presume they are in the public domain since all county records, including photos are a matter of public record. In this case these three elements (the two images and the logo PNG) were passed to me for use. How would I post them, tag them and notate them to be in compliance with standing policies? (unsigned message left at User talk:C.Fred)

First, you need to declare your conflict of interest and probably need to do the paid-editor declarations, since you were tasked, as part of your job, to create/update the department's article.

Second, public domain is not the same thing as in the public record. Material could still be in the public record and protected by copyright. Again, the key point is this: for material to be "free" by Wikipedia standards, it needs to be free for any use, including commercial reuse. So, if the department is okay with their logo showing up on, say, coffee cups—where the county and department get no licensing fee—then it's free.

Following on with that, if the images are free, somebody from the department will need to contact Wikimedia Commons directly. I know that for copyright matters on Wikipedia, there's a Volunteer Response Team; I don't know who the equivalent body is at Commons. Basically, somebody from the department (with authority to do so) will need to contact commons from their official email to say that yes, the department owns the images and yes, they have donated or otherwise placed them into the public domain. —C.Fred (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up on the COI info, I will digest it and take appropriate actions. I understand the distinction you are drawing on public domain. At the same time we (Henrico Fire and the County of Henrico) hold no legal protections over our logo or the name "henrico fire". Should someone elect to produce the coffee mugs or shirts you describe we would have no legal recourse to stop them. I'll also follow up with the volunteer response team from Commons. Again the photos in question are used on public documents (such as annual reports) and we will "donate" them to Commons if the outcome is they can stay on the article page. Thanks again for the clarification and guidance. Dmorales2016 (talk) 23:22, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Bear in mind that until the follow-up takes place, standard policy is to err on the side of caution and assume the images and text are not free. —C.Fred (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I also call your attention to the text at the bottom of http://henrico.us/fire/: "Copyright 1996-2016". That notice is interpreted by Wikipedia as being an all-rights-reserved license—in other words, none of the contents of that website are free unless clearly stated otherwise. —C.Fred (talk) 00:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I have reached out to the photo donations department and an open ticket is in process to assign a proper license to the images. With regards to the text ("history") section, it is drawn from an Annual Report for the division. As a public record it is free for copying by any citizen and is governed by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (2015): http://henrico.us/government/freedom-information-act-foia/. As a public record, open for copying and use by the general public I fail to see how this text copy can not be included on the article for the fire department. Please advise. Dmorales2016 (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

In this case "A public record is any writing or recording — regardless of whether it is a paper record, an electronic file, an audio or video recording, or any other format — that is prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business.". The annual report is a PDF, official document, prepared and owned by a public body. Dmorales2016 (talk) 00:56, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Dmorales2016. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Henrico County Fire Department, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam#External link spamming);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Apocheir (talk) 21:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)