Talk:Robert Young (materials scientist)

Second look

Sphilbrick, I saw this because I watch Rentier's page. When I was granting him autopatrolled, I was concerned about the copyvio issue too that Earwig brings up, but he is copying text that is CC-BY 4.0, which is compatible. I almost G12'd it myself, but the text is attributed under the terms of the license in every article he has created, from what I can tell. This is both the archived and current version of their TOU. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:38, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick and TonyBallioni: The Royal Society biographies have been released specifically for Wikipedia as a result of a Wikipedian in Residence project. See for example slide 19 at [1] (back then it was CC BY-SA, now it's just CC BY). I am quite certain that there are no copyright problems - although this is the third time this was raised, so I'm kind of getting used to it. Each time, I try to make the attribution clearer, so if you have any suggestions in that regard I'm happy to listen. I am more concerned with the promotional tone of some of the official bios, which I try to edit out before reusing. Rentier (talk) 21:00, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the tag for now, as that is my reading of the licensing as well. We have templates for the bottom of the page that makes it easier to spot than just in the ref, but I can never find them when I need them. Diannaa, if you wouldn't mind, could you give us both a third opinion here and point to the CC-BY template for text? TonyBallioni (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The material is compatibly licensed. There's a template available at Template:CC-notice, but I use a handmade version that I keep in a sandbox. I've replaced the attribution already provided in the article with my handmade version. @TonyBallioni: Have a look and see what you think. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

If there's a WIR, I hope they will contact the Royal Society and get them to edit their page. It is great they they use CC BY 4.0, but if the page itself says "All rights reserved" then there is a conflict. IANAL but i suspect that an incompatibility, with one set of rules on the page itself, and anther on a different page, would be resolved in favor of the wording on the page. I also think that it would be hard to press a case in such a situation, but we don't need editors thinking through how a legal case would be resolved, the best option is to change the wording to "Some rights reserved" and remove the ambiguity on page that are CC BY 4.0. If nothing else, this has consumed far too mcuh time by too many busy editors. --S Philbrick(Talk) 21:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Johnbod and Duncan.Hull who have worked with the Royal Society and may be able to offer some insight. Rentier (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I used to be WiR in 2014, There hasn't been one since and actually most of my contacts have moved on. Contact me in mid-Jan if you like - happy to try and revive contact after ther holidays. Johnbod (talk) 07:29, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I usually link to the actual policy itself e.g:

"One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: {{quote|“All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)"

You could also include the template: e.g.  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

The terms and conditions would be clearer if they were on every biography page rather than just royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ We could ask the royal society to change this. As for compatability, Diannaa has previously claimed the license is not compatible with wikipedia because it is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, rather than version 3.0. Plenty of edits get reverted because editors either don't realise the original text copied from royalsociety.org is CC-BY or they think that the license is not compatible with wikipedia. see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simon_Tavar%C3%A9&oldid=777403455

IANAL but I can't find definitive proof of incompatibility between 4.0 and 3.0. and so far I've had no good answers from other wikipedians for a second opinion cc. Johnbod & Rentier. Duncan.Hull (talk) 16:59, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

CC-by-4.0 is a compatible license, but CC-by-SA 4.0 is not. Please see Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else? for a list of compatible licenses. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 17:47, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

OK thanks Diannaa that means the royal society license IS compatible with wikipedia then because it isn't "viral" (Share-alike) Duncan.Hull (talk) 18:03, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes. As it is CC-BY 4.0, which is compatible. It is the SA part of CC-BY-SA 4.0 that is not compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0 TonyBallioni (talk) 18:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree — it is the SA attribute which causes a problem. I confess I sometimes see "attribution" and conflate that with the SA, but of course the attribution is the BY. --S Philbrick(Talk) 13:34, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Johnbod It would be nice if someone could contact the Society and see if they could improve their wording. Perhaps a copyright lawyer could sort out what happens if the page with the text has "all rights reserved" while a different page has a different license. Perhaps that second page overrides the first, but I can think of multiple arguments supporting multiple positions, — we are not lawyers and should not have to parse that finely. Even if someone tells me the law is clear in such situations, the typical Wikipedia editor seeing "all rights reserved" at the bottom of the page in question can be forgiven for thinking that the text is subject to "all rights reserved". I realize it's a busy time of year, so maybe we can get together in a couple weeks and sort this out.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:39, 24 December 2017 (UTC)