Captain Greenbeard

Welcome!

Hello, Captain Greenbeard, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as Flagship (sustainability certification), may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may not be retained.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Teahouse, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{help me}} on this page, followed by your question, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

• Starting an article
• Your first article
• Biographies of living persons
• How to write a great article
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Help pages
• Tutorial

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 21:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Flagship (sustainability certification)

The article Flagship (sustainability certification) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable certification. Until the organization that grants this certification itself becomes notable, the certification they grant is unlikely to be notable either.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 21:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure you want to do this?

This is a duplicate of a message I left for you at Wikimedia Commons, but I thought it more likely you'd see it here.
Do you realize that by releasing File:Flagship Certification Stamp.png to Wikimedia Commons under CC-by-SA, you have essentially drained the certification of any meaning whatsoever? In general, one might presume that an entity would need to meet some set of criteria in order to be allowed to display this seal, and that you, as the copyright owner of the seal, would be able to prosecute entities that display it without proper authorization, thus giving the seal the meaning that you intend: "We (the Flagship Movement) certify this entity as meeting our criteria." But now, with the seal in the public domain, anyone in the world can display the seal anywhere they see fit, with the only requirement being that they attribute you as the creator. You will have no more power to prosecute entities that fraudulently display the seal. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 21:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello Dan61!

As I am new to Wikipedia as an author I'm not sure if this is the right way to have this conversation so please excuse me and tell me how we should do this in the proper way if it is so.

The certification stamp is nothing that we (The Flagship Movement) are going to try and get any kind of copyright for, at least that has never been discussed so far as I would assume it costs quite a lot to do that. Those projects that we grant this certification to will be displayed on our website that we are currently building. Besides, anyone could just basically copy-paste this logo onto their own website if they wanted to and we would probably never know, and if we did we would not go to any length to try and get them to remove it either. But as you have deemed our topic Non-notable, and considering that my article will be deleted there is no reason to have that picture uploaded unto Wikipedia. So should I remove it, and is that possible as the "uploader" of that picture?Captain Greenbeard (talk) 23:07, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Let me clarify one misperception that you have: copyright is automatic and costs nothing. You are presumed to own the copyright to an image you create unless you specifically release that image to the public domain. Yes, it would cost you money (in terms of litigation costs) to enforce your copyright ownership, but you should be able to recoup that from the people you sue for misusing your image. And with Google's image search function, it would be a relatively easy task to watch for people who misuse your logo. But all of that is for you to deal with.

As a second point, it is not clear that your article will be deleted. I have nominated it for deletion, but you are free to address the notability concerns (i.e. provide any indication that your certification has received any kind of significant coverage in independent publications). However, if the article is deleted, than the image will serve no purpose. In that case, you may request deletion of the image on Commons by placing the template {{Speedydelete |1= Author requests deletion}} on the image page. An administrator at Commons will eventually delete the image as requested. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:23, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for your help in clarifying things a bit. I think it's for the best that the article is deleted for now so I can educate myself in these subjects a bit more first. I think I threw myself into this a bit too fast. In that way I can make sure I write the best possible article that would be worthy of a spot on Wikipedia. I am in no way interested in writing some kind of advert for our organization, I just want the term "Flagship" with the meaning we have set for it to be represented in an unbiased Wikipedia article that merely explains the concept. Many people that come to our organization have done so because they are interested in Earthships, or rather the off-grid living aspects of that concept and they often believe that a Flagship is the same, while it's more of a certification and sustainability guarantee that we award projects that we deem worthy. It is true that we first and foremost focus on off-grid homes but built using locally sourced natural materials instead of aluminum cans, cement and discarded automobile tires. We put a lot of emphasis on the materials used. But we also award other types of projects that live up to our definition of sustainability. A good Wikipedia article could probably help people get passed this misconception and get a clear view of what it is we do. I have nominated the picture I uploaded to commons for deletion as well and if you have the authority to delete the article and picture right away that would be fine by me.Captain Greenbeard (talk) 13:03, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Captain Greenbeard. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:10, 2 May 2014 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).

May 2014

Hello, Captain Greenbeard. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:

• Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
• Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
• Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:10, 2 May 2014 (UTC)