i've listened to your comments and tried to find constructive ways to improve the article for all to enjoy but clearly you have an entirely different agenda in mind i never made a claim that this was my article you continue to assert instead i transcluded an already excellent public domain article into wp format and i cited the original article i then expanded the article in areas where i knew interesting and relevant background was missing and others in our community have already begun to do the same your views on this issue have already been adequately discussed in their entirety on the village pump policy you made your assertions and the consensus viewpoint of the wp community is that u s government sources including images and text are a valuable resource for wp should be used to the fullest extent and that using the fbi material in its original form is not only appropriate but even preferable in this case i'm including the complete unedited and certainly not paraphrased discussion in a new section on this talk page from the village pump policy for all to view from the village pump policy is it okay under iar to create a wikipedia article which is a verbatim copy of an identical article appearing on a u s government website i e a website in the public domain a recently added may wikipedia article is a wikified word for word copy both text and photos of a page article which appears on the fbi s website at titled federal bureau of investigation famous cases members of the duquesne spy ring the recent wikipedia article that was copied from that fbi website is duquesne spy ring the wikipedia article originally carried the usgovernment template but did not cite the current fbi article as the article s source the word for word copying of the entire text and photos of a page article in the public domain and inserting that copied article in wikipedia seems to me technically and ethically if not in fact to be plagiarism even though the work copied is in the public domain if it is considered to be plagiarism what can be done about effectively flagging readers that the copied article is a direct copy from another source i think the text of the usgovernment template isn't adequate for this situation it's not plagarism so long as it's indicated that the text came from somewhere and was not just originally written it's best not to do verbatim copies for npov reasons but so long as the source is given it's not terrible moo i agree that the standard text of the usgovernment template isn't adequate for this situation rather than say this article incorporates text from it would be much more accurate to state something along the lines of the original version of this article was copied from so that readers are clearly informed of the extent of the copying to list the fbi website as a source clearly understates the copying in the context of an article or paper this would be akin to copying passages without showing them in quotes and merely listing the source in the bibliography almost everyone would consider that plagiarism talk this bothers me even if it is not plagiarism ie even if we give credit to the cite where it is copied from wikipedia should not simply copy another site we should write original articles based on the information obtained in reliable secondary sources i could understand basing the bulk of this article's information on the fbi site but we should at least paraphrase it instead of copying it i would love to flag it for improvement in some way but i am not sure if there are any tags that apply to be clear the article always referenced the fbi as the source of substantial content and no claim to the contrary was ever made in the original document a url was provided and the reference was much of this article comes from fbi documents and photos released in under the freedom of information act and in the public domain what does seem to be controversial is the quantity of public information re used in this wikipedia article however it is not illegal unethical and even uncommon for a private entity to re issue and re sell public information sometimes adding value and sometimes not e g natio