Talk:Thumrait

I added material regarding the history of Thumrait and its past and ongoing Allied support missions from globalsecurity.org. I also documented the previous contributor's reference to the "Eastern Bridge" joint Indo-Omani air exercise in 2009 from two Indian sources. Finally, I added a reflist and inline reference citations as per Wikipedia standards. I have no idea why the system's still saying there are no references or sources cited.loupgarous (talk) 21:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the material you've placed here matches the original source too closely and could be considered a violation of copyright or the non-free content policy. I've restored the original text for now, but left all subsequent edits as a comment; if you wish to add this material to the article please rewrite it fully in your own words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrite1 (talk • contribs) 13:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/thumrait.htm. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Dendrite1 (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The material I had in the original article was not, in my opinion, "closely paraphrased." However, I can see where other people might think differently. Some passages in "Exercises Held at Thumrait AB" had much more detail than was needed to convey the needed sense that Thumrait Air Base has been an active center of international military cooperation for years, and I've corrected that. But I think the charge that I copied from the globalsecurity.org page on Thumrait violates WP:Assume_good_faith, in that (a) I didn't copy text from globalsecurity's page to this article, and (b) no evidence supports the charge that I did.

I have redacted the passages in question to be "loosely paraphrased," as well as deleting superfluous or redundant detail which might be misinterpreted as the hallmark of copied text. Thanks for your attention to the article. loupgarous (talk) 20:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your recent edits to the article, which have been very helpful in bringing the articles to a satisfactory state. I do, however, stand by my edits here, and will explain why below. Regarding "close paraphrasing", the relevant policy is Wikipedia:Copyright violations, which states that "Even inserting text copied with some changes can be a copyright violation if there's substantial linguistic similarity in creative language or structure" (my emphasis). This is expanded upon in the essay Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing, and see also Substantial similarity for the legal interpretation. Comparing this version (the last of your edits before I saw the page) and the globalsecurity.org page I can see, among others, the following examples of "substantial linguistic similarity":

Global-security.org: "This former oil depot was initially fortified as the guarantor of Omani airspace in the south of the country. At first, Hunter FG9 aircraft constituted a deterrent force with ground attack and intercept capabilities. In 1977 the strike capability was enhanced by the addition of 12 new Jaguar aircraft."

Wikipedia article version (second paragraph, ignoring the first sentence which is fine): "This former oil depot was initially fortified as the guarantor of Omani airspace in the south of the country. At first, Hawker Hunter FG.9 aircraft constituted a deterrent force with ground attack and intercept capabilities. In 1977 the strike capability was enhanced by the addition of 12 new SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft."

The first sentence is identical in both documents. The second sentence only differs by the insertion of a full stop in "FG9" and the insertion of the word "Hawker". The third sentence only differs by the addition of the acronym "SEPECAT". In my opinion, these sentences are far too close to be anything but close paraphrasing.

Global-security.org: "The USAF 1660th Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional) deployed to Thumrait AB, Oman to support Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM."

Wikipedia article version (third paragraph): "The US Air Force 1660th Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional) deployed to Thumrait AB, Oman to support Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM."

The only difference between these sentences is that the acronym "USAF" is expanded to "US Air Force". Once again this is far too similar to the original source.

Global-security-org: "On 1l August 1990 British VC10 tankers accompanied 12 Jaguars into Thumrait in Oman two days later and set up a detachment at the Omani airfield. The Squadron was no stranger to Thumrait as an aircraft had deployed there in January 1988 to provide AAR training to the Omani Jaguar squadron based there. However, the base was not well suited to the handling of large aircraft for extended periods and on 29 August 1990 the three aircraft detachment moved to Seeb near Muscat."

Wikipedia article version: "On 1l August 1990 Royal Air Force Vickers VC10 tankers accompanied 12 Royal Air Force (UK) SEPECAT Jaguars into Thumrait and set up a detachment at the Omani airfield. An RAF aircraft had deployed there in January 1988 to provide AAR training to the Omani Jaguar squadron based there. However, the base was not well suited to the handling of large aircraft for extended periods and on 29 August 1990 the three aircraft detachment moved to Seeb near Muscat."

The first sentence is expanded with more information, but still maintains an similar sentence structure (once the words "Royal Air Force Vickers" are replaced with "British" and "Royal Air Force (UK) SEPECAT" and "in Oman two days later" are removed the sentences become identical). Note also the duplication of "1l August 1990" - which appears to me to be an error taken from the original source, unless it's some kind of military jargon that I'm unaware of (and I will admit to not being particularly familiar with such matters). The second sentence, while modified at the start, is identical from the word "aircraft" onward. The third sentence is identical to the source.

I think the above is enough to establish close paraphrasing (and hence, copyright infringement) in the version of the article, and anyone can check for themselves the remainder of the article (the following paragraph starting with "Thumrait AB has also been used" was fine, and indeed I retained it when I removed the rest of the material, and some of the other paragraphs were modified a bit more, but were still too close.) As for the charge of copying - firstly, my use of the word "copy" (and similar) was confined to the use of Template:Cclean, which uses the words "The material was copied from:" when the url parameter is used, so I did not actually type those words myself - regardless, I do believe that wording is justified. Consider the following text from the version I linked above, from the second last paragraph:

Wikipedia article version: "The LAND component comprised 1 (UK) Armoured Division HQ, 4 Armoured Brigade and the necessary supporting elements. The Helicopter Force, consisting of approximately 500 personnel, initially deployed to RAFO THUMRAIT between 20 August and 3 September 2001. They would be operating from various locations throughout Oman in order to support the exercise, with other Support Helicopter (SH) assets operating in support of the Special Forces (SF) and Maritime components. Officer Commanding 33 Squadron, Wing Commander Baz North, was appointed as the Support Helicopter Force Commander for the duration of Exercise SAIF SAREEA II. His task was to exercise co-ordinating authority and functional control for all JHC Force Elements and aircraft at RAFO Thumrait and at sites where JHC assets were co-located."

This text is entirely identical in every particular to material on the globalsecurity.org page, and the exact duplication of material (which could not conceivably have been constructed independently), is indeed copying, regardless of whether copy-paste was used or not (here I am referring to the sentences that have been copied, the text as a whole, of course, has some changes, but was still too close to be permissible).

Finally, a reminder that I have written the above only to explain and justify what I did and to help avoid similar problems in the future. Let me know if you disagree on any points, but otherwise I am happy to leave things as they are. Dendrite1 (talk) 01:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

My sincere apologies. I apologize for my unfounded accusation that you didn't assume good faith.

I honestly didn't remember the copying. Sincere thanks for being diligent in catching my error and correcting it. loupgarous (talk) 14:04, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

No worries :) Dendrite1 (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Moved Material to RAFO Thumrait air base

I discovered just now that there was an article on the Thumrait Air Base which wasn't much more than a stub article. I moved most of the historical detail on Thumrait Air Base (redacted to conform with guideline on non-free text) to that article, leaving only a brief summary on the air base in this article. loupgarous (talk) 21:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Restored reference citation to globalsecurity.org article "Thumrait Air Base, Oman"

The reflist for this article was reduced to a single citation for the "Climate" section of the article today. The bulk of the article was thus unreferenced. I restored the reference citation to the globalsecurity.org article "Thumrait Air Base, Oman" because it was my understanding that the other editor active on this article with me had reached a concensus on how, allowably by guideline on non-free text, to cite the article without infringing on globalsecurity.org's copyrights to their article. loupgarous (talk) 02:10, 1 February 2014 (UTC)