Talk:Winter Soldier Investigation/Archive 2

message: It has come to my attention that anon user DTC might have a skewed understanding of the terms Plagiarism and Copyright Violation.  He seems to use the two terms interchangeably.  Allow me to present a hypothetical example to help illustrate the differences between anon user DIC's assertions and reality:
Anon user DIC has created a sub-User page wherein he claims to list instances of plagiarism, located here .  On this page, the DIC has quoted a sentence from a Wiki-article, then quoted a similar sentence from some website he has Googled up.  Since the instances on the DIC's page have already been graciously dealt with, allow me to use this fictitious example to illustrate the point...
*The anon DIC would start by quoting a sentence from an article, such as from the make-believe article General Intelligence Directorate... "The Technical Support Division is responsible for production of false documents, communications systems supporting clandestine operations, and development of clandestine message capabilities."
*Then the anon DIC would Google up a similar quote from some website, such as (hypothetically, of course) Sooper Dooper Spy Website "The Technical Support Division is responsible for production of false documents, communications systems supporting clandestine operations, and development of clandestine message capabilities."
*The DIC would then claim since the quote from the Wiki-article matches the quote from the website, it must be plagiarism!  And just to add weight to his accusation, he would say something like, "In fact, the whole General Intelligence Directorate article appears to be just a re-worded and plagiarized rewrite of this website Sooper Dooper Spy Website!!!!    Then, being a real DIC, he would use that similarity of sentences to justify his vandalism of many paragraphs and months of edits of an article with which he disagrees.
The fictitious example above, illustrating text from a Wiki-Article and text from a website being similar, does not constitute plagiarism.  As you will note from here Plagiarism:
"The use of mere facts, rather than works of creative expression, does not constitute plagiarism."
The above fictitious quote from our fictitious article presents facts, not creative expression, and therefor doesn't qualify as plagiarism.  This needs to be explained to the DIC. -Rob 06:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Plagiarism versus Copyright Violations

message: I would like to comment on how horrible this article is. It appears to be nothing more than cut and paste uncited sources, and rambling quotes. This is a very poor quality article and needs significant work. TDC 17:27, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
:You are certainly right to remove copyvio text sections, but I disagree with removing the whole article. Its a horrible article about a horrible subject, which people have worked hard on. Pls. distinguish baby from bathwater, T. -St|eve 02:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have  the sections mentioned above (list below) Though I mentioned the 56/15-20k ratio, it seems more that the questionable sections are only about 7k - which hardly justifies removing text for a whole article.-St|eve 02:50, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Quality

message: Page locked due to repeated page blanking. TDC, it looks on the face of it like you are trying to censor the article, i.e., prevent it from existing at all. I do not understand the "copyvio" claims.
I will assume good faith (to start), but you have to point out the exact violations of copyright or else it's just going to look disruptive to everyone else (including me). Bear in mind that quotations of up to 400 words are generally permitted, if proper credit is given.
Also, TDC, consider this your first warning regarding Wikipedia:No personal attacks. You can't call other contributors "sick" or "junkie". Try saying This looks lake plagiarism to me, and I'm really ticked off by it instead, which is a perfectly legitimate editorial comment. Uncle Ed 12:42, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
: Ed, my evidence is listed in a section above, have a look and then tell me what you think. i am not trying to censor the article, but as is the article is nothing more than cut and paste quotes, and cut and paste passages from a few articles. TDC 20:10, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
::No hurry on the wholesale quotes. Just turn them into cited quotes, or rewrite them into GFDL text. And I'm unlocking the page so that you can do this, so please don't simply revert everything. Uncle Ed 21:01, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
::: And the rest of the information documented above? TDC 22:04, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
::Just don't delete material solely on the grounds that it's uncredited. There are 2 main POVs about the Vietnam War: (1) that the Communists were right and (2) that the Communists were wrong. I'm suspicious that a deletionist might censor the article with the purpose of undermining one of these POVs. Let's not allow that to happen. Uncle Ed 23:55, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
::: Ed, I am hardly deleting material solely on the grounds that it's uncredited. I dont know if you have looked at what I have cited, but the sources for the material in the article is very clear on its Copyright status:
:::COLUMN SIXTY-EIGHT, FEBRUARY 1, 2002 (Copyright © 2002 Al Aronowitz)
:::COLUMN SIXTY-EIGHT, FEBRUARY 1, 2002 (Copyright © 2002 Al Aronowitz) 
::: TDC 16:38, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
::: I would also like to point out that these quotes range from 500 words, to 800 words a piece. TDC 16:44, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
::::All suspected copyvio material has been removed, or substantially edited.  Also restored some recent content from Stevertigo and EECEE that was lost during a recent reversion to January.  TDC indicates there might be more copyvios in the article, so I'm going to comb through what I can to see if anything looks questionable.  209.86.4.24 18:11, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page lock

message: I see an awful lot of heat and not very much light. It should be perfectly to report this three-day event in an Wikipedia:NPOV way, without making the article itself into an enquiry on the nature of US actions in Vietnam. BTW, it might help (marginally) if anons get an account name: Special:User login. I wanted to add something on the re-release of the film  - please sort yourselves out. This is not usenet. Rd232 13:00, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Unprotected.  Time to give editing a chance. --Tony SidawayTalk 17:35, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page protect (again)