PD discussions

Maralia, I believe you are concerned and mean well. I strongly believe that I have acted with integrity and not in an overall or unduly disruptive way. So I will try to respond to the substance of your concern here. I have certainly been involved in discussions in several places, as have others. And I do believe that there is no simple consensus that is reasonable to discern from the RFC discussion in Citing sources, which is the main discussion, that there is no reasonable consensus to take away other than there is not a consensus on how to treat PD text generally. There may seem to be an effective consensus within WP:SHIPs (although I observe that there are significantly varying practices and beliefs about what is right, within WP:SHIPs also). However,

I think it is relevant for you to consider, before judging me, how those discussions were started.

• Bathhouse Row

Paleorthid opens a RFC discussion:

• Wikipedia talk:Cite sources/archive20#Style guideline for PD sourced content [the archive was moved; the RFC discussion is now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_21#Style_guideline_for_PD_sourced_content --Doncram (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2022 (UTC)]

My edits 12 Jan - 16 Jan or so in question.

I noted that I posted notice also at:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 73#Copied material in Military History articles, and quality ratings
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Archive 2#Copied material, inappropriately sourced, in aviation articles

Both discussions noted * A discussion about the style for PD text is under way at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Style guideline for PD sourced content. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The former led to final comment "This sort of thing is a plague on articles "sourced" (i.e., copied verbatim) from DANFS. See any of the wartime USN sub articles, for instance (except the ones I've used Blair as a second source for...) It's disgusting. And the repeated complaints I made, citing the issue of plagiarism, produced the lawyerly reaction "change the template"! And how hard can it be to change the wording? This needs to be fixed. Trekphiler (talk) 13:22, 23 January"

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 7#Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Style guideline for PD sourced content On 18 January, Dual Freq posts a note in WP:SHIPS refering to the Aviation mention. "It seems to apply to this project in that the massive amount of DANFS material would have to be placed in quotations under one user's proposal."

[[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 7#Updates to  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. and  This article incorporates public domain material from the Naval Vessel Register.]] within an existing thread on 15 January, I inquired about DANFS

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 7#List of Liberty ships by hull number articles Belhalla calling for attention to AfD.

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 8#3 sloops, 1 lightship, 1 shipwreck 4 Feb i asked for help

• Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Return of PD text style

• A series of edits I made

[[1]]

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Public domain text quarantine

That Pampanito edit was brought up by TomTheHand at 18:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#New DANFS section template available

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#PD quotation clarification
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RFC mandatory quotation of public domain text

• Talk:Duquesne Spy Ring and its link to AfD for that article.

• Talk:Calutron. Appears that it was copyright violation.

Much later: in several of the linked discussions, User:SlimVirgin, who I am sad to learn died in 2021, participated. If i recall correctly, she went on from this to develop/refine understanding embodied in Wikipedia guidelines and policies. I see she edited extensively in wp:Plagiarism guideline in 2010 and on. And that guideline is settled on the line I was taking in these discussions, though no doubt expressing things better than I could. Clarifying copyvio vs. plagiarism (the giving of less credit for ideas or for wording to an original author); I am not sure if giving credit for wording is highlighted enough still though. I see that at an earlier point, the editor with whom I was disagreeing at Talk:Bathhouse Row, put their view directly into wp:Plagiarism in this series of edits: basically that it's plagiarism if you don't credit the author of material adequately, EXCEPT if you copy-paste huge passages into an article's text (with intention it can/should be edited) without giving adequate credit for ideas or for wording at all (i.e. with huge plagiarism). Which is ridiculous IMHO. Current guideline doesn't say that. --Doncram (talk) 18:34, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Basically I feel this was a difficult dispute, and I and that editor both participate civilly and reasonably well, though disagreeing, with use of RFC and more. Though they didn't budge, and I tried harder, and I was creative with trying to break logjam by use of an alternative version of Bathhouse Row article. (But I was technically wrong, apparently, in putting that subpage at Bathhouse Row/temp, so in mainspace and it encountered deletion pressure and was deleted. Technically better to put as a subpage in Talk space, which I did subsequently in other disagreements (in CT probably the next major area of dispute). I should/shoulda gotten a medal for the Bathhouse Row disagreement, and where that extended, including my ethical in face of overwhelming opposition in stance at a battleship FAC discussion, after i decided that FAC was the appropriate place for addressing proper attribution in SHIPS articles (not fighting further about lower quality articles largely copied from DANFS), and figuring if the issues were properly understood/addressed there then SHIPS editors would eventually bring the principles down to lower articles. And a medal for the CT dispute (with Poquetanock(?) creative compromise). I was courteous and creative and respectful and bent over backwards to try to make things work (also applies for NRHP stub stuff, where my constructive efforts included identifying list of 700? or so architect/builder/engineers and myself creating the great majority of articles sorting out the facts, in long drive. And creating all the needed disambiguation pages, and had to create short articles to settle those. And repeatedly engaging at Talk pages while others opened ANIs instead. And enduring abuse/ridicule/hate about my being persistent. --Doncram (talk)

Where was it that SV did participate/lead on these ideas, right at the time of the 2007? 2008? dispute? Maybe at a noticeboard on copyvios, partly? Check her contribution history right at the times of these discussions. --Doncram (talk) 18:34, 6 September 2022 (UTC)