Lamentation

Welcome!

Hello, Lamentation, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. It looks like you know what you're doing, and the rest of the welcome is superfluous, but pro forma, I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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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 need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Pete.Hurd 20:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a stranger

From your contributions, you are obviously not a stranger here. Just curious about your setup with the standard.{js, css} etc. Wassup with that? Watch ya got over there on localhost? Just curious. John (Jwy) 04:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I set them up like that mostly so that I don't have to deal with the way Wikipedia's servers cache them. This way, changes show up immediately without me having to force a reload of [1]. —Lamentation :( 04:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Your vandalism

Hi, my name is William Berryman Scott. No really, I wrote a vanity article about myself. I've only been dead what 50 years? I am writing from beyond the grave.

Try using your brain. Or failing that how about Google, or special:whatlinkshere? — Dunc|☺ 12:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Clearly you didn't write a vanity article about yourself. You wrote a speedy candidate. That he has a profession is not an assertion of notability.

Try being remotely civil, reviewing what vandalism is, and learning not to use your rollback tool for non-vandalism edits. Though I note that these are all things you have consistently failed to do in the past. —Lamentation :( 13:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

William Berryman Scott

An article flagged as a stub is a placeholder, and is not normally subject to speedy deletion. In this case, the subject of the article is notable enough, but the article is just a stub and will need to be expanded. I added an {{expand}} tag to it, which should be enough. In general, it's often best when you see a stub to flag it as such or add {{expand}} tag to it, rather than tag it for deletion. Wait a few days, and the original author is likely to expand it. And, specific to this, most paleontologists are probably notable. --TruthbringerToronto 16:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Flagging an otherwise speediable article as a stub doesn't protect it; if you are an admin, check the deleted revisions of a few a7d bands, and see how many are marked {{band-stub}} (quite a few).

I do agree that he meets WP:BIO, which is why I only flagged the article {{notability}} at first; I'd not have actually tagged it a7 if I hadn't been so irate that Dunc rolled me back like a common vandal. Nevertheless, the article as it stands remains a speedy candidate: saying that someone was born, died, was American, and had a job is not an assertion of notability. —Lamentation :( 16:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Your Copyvio notices

Hello Lamentation, You seem to be on a deletion / copyvio notice spree. ;-). Anyway, please let me know what can be done about the pages on which a copyvio notice has been posted. Can it not be modified to obviate the Copy vio ? Jordy 16:05, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

For now, please don't edit them, as the template states. Incremental changes create a derivative work, which still infringes the original copyright - it is the copyright owner's exclusive right to make new versions of his work. If the biographies aren't public domain, and I'm reasonably sure they're not, then the articles will have to be rewritten from scratch. Referencing these sites is ok, but copying them and then adding to them, changing the wording here and there, etc. is not. (Even if they are public domain, copying them outright without stating that their source is still intellectually dishonest. See, for example, our articles which derive from the 1911 Britannica; even though many no longer resemble the public domain Britannica articles they started as, they still retain the 1911 template stating their origin.)

As I stated at Talk:Major Shaitan Singh, the works of the Indian government, unlike those of the US (federal) government, are not automatically public domain. If the .nic.in sites I've been pointing at on the copyvio templates isn't the ultimate source (and they're probably not), then finding a specific copyright release or notice on the original source would certainly settle the question one way or the other. Absent an explicit release of copyright, though, these texts are automatically considered copyrighted under the Berne convention, even if they don't specifically say they're copyrighted. —Lamentation :( 16:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for your reply. I have noticed that most of the nic.in sites are themselves word by word copy from other sites that sometime release some rights, like - "User can create copies of this document with references to this, etc. ". Can these be then referenced with out creating any copyright violations. Jordy 16:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)