User talk:Mdd/Archive 4

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Archive 7

Malicious User?

Hi Mdd, 91.32.110.247 is putting some external link on a number of software pages that doesn't go anywhere. I undid his revision on the SE page. What's the guideline here for dealing with this? Thanks Lwoodyiii (talk) 17:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

We use to called this linkspam. A lot of anominous users linkspam articles. You can undo the one or all their similar recent edits (I just did). Normally you could also send the user a warning on it's talkpage, see Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the guidance :)--Lwoodyiii (talk) 01:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Just ask, and most more experienced users will help. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Zachman Framework 1992 p 592-593.jpg

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For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 16:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:ZFArticlePages.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:ZFArticlePages.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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Orphaned non-free media (File:Zachman 1987 p 285-286.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:Zachman 1987 p 285-286.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 08:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Models and Views

Hi MDD, thanks for comments to data model. I appreciate your edits to this entire field. I am willing to spend more time on models and views and I have left you some comments regarding the view model at the talk:data model. Looking forward to see your feedback. Equilibrioception (talk) 03:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I left more comments to the talk:view model article.

-- Equilibrioception (talk) 21:22, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation of enterprise architecture

Hi Marcel,

The reason that the changes were made to the enterprise architecture pages to put the term "enterprise architecture" into lower case is that unless a noun in English is used as a proper noun or in the Title Case then that noun should be in the lower case. After debate with a number of other industry individuals on this we looked at the rules in English and also at other examples such as programme management and decided that we believed that enterprise architecture should not be capitalised unless it is used as a proper noun (e.g. The Example Company Enterprise Architecture) or in the title case. The abbreviation EA is still capitalised. Please can we look to re-introducing the changes that I made.

Many thanks. Colin Wheeler 22:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I will copy your respons to the Talk:Enterprise architecture#Capitalisation of enterprise architecture to have an open debate about this. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Architectural drawing

Well done! Amandajm (talk) 09:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, if you have some more ideas about it. let me know. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

David Easton comment

Please note WP:Civility in your comments. I did not write the article. It was written by someone else long before I began editing on Wikipedia. Dr. Perfessor (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I will comment on Talk:David Easton -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Approach to Model Building

See here -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Project Management

Hi again,

I was wondering why you've included Project Management in the WikiProject Systems? It seem rather odd since the article is also part of its parent WikiProject Engineering.

Ghaag (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

An article can be a part of many Wikiprojects. The more the better I would say, because in a way they all should keep tracing the article. Now specific to the WikiProject systems, I have divided this project in about 12 to 15 fields, see here. Two of the fields are systems engineering and software engineering and project management is related to both.

Now an other reason why I take particular care of the project management article, is because I recreated this article in it's current state, see here. I like to keep the article focussed. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Series of Visualization articles translated into Chinese

I am very pleased and honoured to see you translate a series of (my) visualization articles into Chinese and initiated a peer-reviewing. As I explained on the Talk:Data visualization I am very interested in the results.

Now I wonder if it would be possible to translate the Michael Friendly article as well. I am in debt to him because of his excellent Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization website, which gives an excellent overview of the history of the visualization in the West. Now off course I don't know who important that would be for the Chinese!? Thanks again. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Current results for the three articles have been explained on the Talk:Data visualization. I'd like to translate have translated the Michael Friendly article if possible into a Chinese article. But in fact, I am not familiar the community in the Chinese-speaking world.--Linforest (talk) 08:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)--Linforest (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Two of the images has already been deleted in the article Scientific visualization and its Chinese translation. I have added two altanatives to replace the two. Also deleted was one of the images (In-spire_overview.jpg) in the article Information visualization due to the copyright violation.--Linforest (talk) 06:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The Chinese translation of the article Scientific visualization has been selected as a Good Article on the zh.wikipedia.org.--Linforest (talk) 05:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations and thanks for sharing this good news. I noticed you doubled the number of sources, mostly by adding the sources of each image. And you changed some images here and there. Are there any other mayor changes made in this Chinese article? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No other major changes.--Linforest (talk) 06:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mdd. You have new messages at Ghaag's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Ghaag (talk) 15:53, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Risk management

Example of risk management: NASA's illustration showing high impact risk areas for the International Space Station".

hi,

I couldn't fail to notice that you are extremely enthusiastic about Project management and Software engineering. I am just wondering whether your keen interest includes risk management as well ?

Kind regards, Ghaag (talk) 01:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my main focuss is on visualization and systems-, software-, and enterprise modelling. I only recreated the Project management, as I recreated some dozens of overview articles. I noticed the risk management is in need of a same makeover. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I took a look and made some minor adjustments. Now if you want to improve the article some more, you could start with adding some pictures. None of them will be perfect, as in the project management article.

You could for example add the NASA illustration on top, which will make the article a lot more attractive.... untill you find a better alternative. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 03:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

This is real neat indeed, cheers. Thanks for helping with the article too.

Ghaag (talk) 09:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Re Henri Fayol

Thanks for your note. I moved it back to Henri Fayol and restored the pre-3 March version; the latest is at the Admin theory article. Unfortunately the talk-page and history can only belong with one version, so I left that at Henri Fayol. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 21:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Meta modeling disambiguation

I put back the disambiguation link because "meta-model" and "meta model" redirect to the meta modeling page. I created a disambiguation page at meta model. I listed a few meta model articles there, more cold be added. ----Action potential ^{discuss contribs} 12:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Thanks. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 17:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Zachman diagrams

Hello Marcel. I've replied to your question at User talk:EdJohnston#The illustration of the Zachman Framework. EdJohnston (talk) 00:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know, I'm keeping an eye on this. My thoughts are that if anyone wants to claim a copyright violation here, they shouldn't do so by proxy, and not indirectly with comments like, "Not merely my personal opinion. Zachman International disagrees with its use as well. I think we should respect their wishes." --Ronz (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

If Phogg2 is inactive and does not respond, those who want to work on that article should just go forward with whatever they were planning to do. EdJohnston (talk) 18:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Systems science articles

Hello Marcel, thanks. Thanks also for making this possible - during my readings I just followed the paths/works you (mostly) and other editors laid out. I am sure we will cross paths more often :-) ----Erkan Yilmaz 17:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

System thinking

I am sorry. I write in spanish.--Joarsolo (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC) You can see the Fritjof Capra book The web of life.--Joarsolo (talk) 00:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Project management

Hello Marcel. Please be careful not to violate the three-revert rule on that article. The other guy may not have much experience with how things are done in Wikipedia. The addition of his See also is not inherently ridiculous. It could be a matter for negotiation. EdJohnston (talk) 00:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Like Athaenara, I think that Bmartel is editing against a conflict of interest. As he has yet to contribute to any talk pages at all, suspicions of coi problems are not actionable. I also suspect his contributions are being copied from other documents, but non-English documents judging by the poor English. It would probably be helpful to get a fluent French speaker to try to communicate with him. --Ronz (talk) 02:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 17:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Service-oriented architecture

Hello Marcel, I was wondering if you know anything about SOA. I see you are an ethusiasticw wikipedian regards computing articles, i.e. enterprise architectires, methods etc. The reason I ask is the SOA article is a a disaster, needs a complete rewrite. I want to rewrite it and need help from a few folks. Interested? scope_creep (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree the representation of SOA in Wikipedia can be improved. I will look into it some more, and will respond to the suggestions you made on the SOA articles talkpage. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 08:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. If you are sure you want to rewrite the whole article, you could start making a draftversion on a usersubpage, see for example User:Mdd/Under construction for draftversions I have been making

Easton photo

Thanks for fixing the Easton photoKhi. Best can be done with that one, I'm afraid. Small file. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Algebra_of_systems

An article that you have been involved in editing, Algebra_of_systems, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Algebra_of_systems. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Jgc2003 (talk) 18:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Shiu-Kay Kan

Shiu-Kay Kan is apparently a designer of lights, which is not the same thing as a lighting designer. Just letting you know. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. He is not just a designer of lights. He also has work to light out monuments, exhibitions and even Margaret Thatcher's birthday party. I guess this makes him a lighting designer. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have referted some of your moves for now, because it seems you are no longer editing at the moment. But if I am mistaken again, I am sorry. I studied the matter before. The lighting designer is talking about lighting designer within theatre, but there is a lot of lighting designer outside the theatre as well. You are right by the way that the introduction of the SKK article didn't express this part of his work. So maybe you thought he is just a designer of lights...!?

Yes, that's exactly what I thought! Thanks for letting me know. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I just read on a SKK blogspot (http://skkltd.blogspot.com/):

SKK is an established company based in the heart of Soho, London. We are lighting designers and consultants specialising in LED technology

Ok. I guess we are clear about this for now. I will copy this item to the talk:Shiu-Kay Kan page, just for the record. Thanks agian. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Formal models?

Marcel, for lack of knowing where to start, I'm leaving you a message here.

I'm thinking of using the term "formal model", when I realized that I don't really know what it means. I do have some computer science background, but am not a specialist in the area, so I don't know if I'm using the term properly, or whether there is such a thing as an "informal model" (which might be an implicit model or mental model).

Searching on Wikipedia unusually doesn't help. Do you think it would worth starting a page and getting some energy collected around a layman's explanation? Thanks. Daviding (talk) 13:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi David,

This is a simple question, not easy to answer. There are different article concerning models, see model in Wikipedia, aal specialized. But a general article about scientific model or formal model such as for example in the German Wipedia, see here, is missing. A former model (abstract) article has been transformed into a highly technical Interpretation (logic) article last year. For some time now I have been developing the scientific modelling article, but haven't been very succesful so far. So if you want to make a start yourself I will be happy to assist.

There is a great article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by R. Frigg and S. Hartmann, see Models in Science, which maybe could be a good reference. If you want to start an article like this, you could consider developing a draft version on your own Wikipedia userspace first, for example User:Daviding/Formal model. These are some suggestions. Is this of any help? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

IRC / chat ?

Hello Marcel, somehow I did other things than to look at the mentioned page. But anyways, do you use chat or a like ? I am often in IRC, e.g. we can meet here: #system at freenode ([1]). Perhaps it is not a bad idea to offer some kind of chat possibility for the wikiproject. ----Erkan Yilmaz 20:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you ask me again by email? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, ----Erkan Yilmaz 21:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

www.whitehouse.gov

I noticed the MerlLinkBot replaced dead link www.whitehouse.gov with georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov, starting a Business process modeling‎, see here -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of ActiveModeler Avantage

An article that you have been involved in editing, ActiveModeler Avantage, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ActiveModeler Avantage. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Smartse (talk) 13:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Video games with isometric graphics

On June 10, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Video games with isometric graphics, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Giants27 11:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Livas videos

The videos don't link together on YouTube- see for yourself (I checked an hour ago) and in any case they all cover different aspects. This is first rate new introductory material and should be restored wherever you have removed it please.--Nick Green (talk) 22:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nick. Even if they don't it is unacceptable to add such a long listing. Not so long ago other editors removed all links YouTube, because it isn't considers to be a reliable external link. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I will add those videos to the Systems science group I started on youTube soon, see here.

Hi Marcel, it's been a while...This is just not on. YouTube is improving, surely, so how do you suggest I proceed? Start an article on Javier Livas perhaps? Put them on one of my websites? Because all the time he's talking about Variety and Regulation - all central to applying cybernetics (as distinct from systems) and applied to law, the state, the mind and finance -this is an educational tour-de-force we can't ignore. It seems to me they should stay together. They're all relevant to the articles I added them to. Are you saying Wikipedia has an official policy of suppressing YouTube links? These videos were posted by the creator and there are no copyright problems.--Nick Green (talk) 23:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nick, it has been a while indeed. I will just try to ask your questions starting with the last one. Wikipedia indeed has a active policy suppressing... all kinds of external links. So you have to be very careful, what to put where. You can't just copy-paste a listing in every article you like. If you want them to stick together, you could add them to the articles talk page. You might even get some respons there. Is this of any help? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

So what you are really objecting to is me adding the same seven video links to six Wiki articles despite the highly relevant content in all cases. All I can say is this is in the nature of cybernetics. Putting them in article: talk is just going to hide them. We want students and scholars to understand why cybernetics is so useful.--Nick Green (talk) 01:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think you should be more careful and selective adding external links to articlea. An external link in the William Ross Ashby‎ article should only relate to William Ross Ashby‎ in particular and not to cybernetics in general. Now I only left just the first video on the sis articels, but you can change that one. For example add the "intro to cybernetics" to the cybernetics article, the "Viable System Model" video to the Viable System Model article, the "intro to management cybernetics" to the management cybernetics article, etc... And one more thing. At YouTube webpage next to the "What is cybernetics?" video of Javier Livas, there is a display of 9 other movies by Javier Livas. There you have those zeven videos all together. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. And I didn't (wanted to) propose to add them only on the talkpage. You could add one video to the external link section, and mention the whole series on the talkpage

OK Marcel I think we know how to proceed now but you see my problem. All these videos are talking about variety and regulation. Without appreciating their content you wouldn't understand this, and would be tempted to think I was merely spamming, but when something as good as this appears I have to push. Systems Theory is full of ad hocery but in cybernetics some of us aim for strictness when we can without the obscurity of some of the mathematics involved.--Nick Green (talk) 16:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Marcel, Livas' "What is Cybernetics?" is fine for the Cybernetics page on Wiki, but not for the pages on VSM or Variety. I tried to change them to the appropriate video i.e. for Variety "Management Cybernetics: The Law of Variety" and for the VSM page "Viable System Model". A bot came in a reverted my changes! Help!--Nick Green (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Nick I noticed you were not logged in, when you added the external link. I would advice just to try again, now logged in. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Marcel.--Nick Green (talk) 21:46, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

email

As you do not have your email activated, I can only ask you here, and you of course need not answer: are you by any chance related to the Marcel Dekker, who was the founder of the publisher Marcel Dekker? DGG (talk) 23:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I (think I) have enabled my email now. I am not related, as far as I know. Marcel Dekker is quit common name. I just checked that LinkedIn lists 38 Marcel Dekker. That is why one of the reasons, why I use my middle naem, which makes my name unique. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hi MDD, thanks for the welcome. Nice to hear from a fellow Wikipedian interested in systems, visualization, and design. (By the way, I like your spider lamp) -- Boxplot (talk) 14:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. I hope to hear from you some more. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 09:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Re-Welcome

Hi MDD, thanks for the welcome.
I will read help files, if necessary I will ask you, after check out Wikipedia:Questions.
Again thanks !
Patrhoue (talk) 15:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Re-System dynamics

Hi MDD, thanks for Good luck; explaining for illustration:
You can see my proposal of new section in System dynamics page, is it acceptable ?
If yes, I'll try to correct initial conditions for this example, as writed in the To-do list for System dynamics.
Patrhoue (talk) 05:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Systems templates

I saw your discussion with Happy‑melon about the two systems banners and noticed that one thing that is mssing from your "field" assessment is a NA option for pages that don't really fit in any section. The sort I'm thinking about are mainly the project type pages. I've gone and added a NA option onto the {{WikiProject Systems}} version of the template and assessed 37 items as field=NA. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes I noticed. Thank you. I guess I will finish my discussion with Happy‑melon first, and than fix this problem as well. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Fault in System page?

I posted a possible error in the discussion page of System, please have a look. Angeloh (talk) 14:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

yes I noticed. I will take a look. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

New article about True software

Hi MDD, I have created this article TRUE about my system dynamics software, as these articles about Vensim and VisSim.
Is it possible to move and to link it as these last one ?, thank you.Patrhoue (talk) 17:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

In the current shape the article User:Patrhoue/TRUE lacks notability. If you keep it in your own userspace probably it will be all right, but if you move it into Wikipedia main space, it will sooner or later be deleted (in it's current shape). But if you do you the article will probably be tagged with a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest as well.

You can link from your userspace article, but you are not allowed to link from these articles to your userspace article. You can try but sooner or later this link will be deleted as well.

I allready explaines (here) that commercial links tend to be removed in Wikipedia, so I can't even garantee that your userspace article will last. Things change when your product gains what we call notability, see also Wikipedia:Notability. I am sorry I can't be of more help, but these are rules that can't be bend. Good luck. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The Vensim wasn't that good an example, because it contained several unwikified sections, which I just party improved.

This new article presents a tool, like other do, for system dynamics. System dynamics theory doesn't lack notability, but can't be verified and used without such tools.

I understand the wikipedia policy, but since my tool is not the result of new theory without notability,it should not apply here.

The link toward my website called True-world is not a commercial link because True-World is not a compagny.

A new product, not marketed and therefore without notability, should be subject of one article in wikipedia, when it concerns a notable theory, to bring it something new.

If a dynamic encyclopedia contains only articles about notables subjects and rejects news, it might always be late. If that is the wikipedia policy, I agree with you, It is already very well for me.

Thank you for help.-- Patrhoue (talk) 08:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Czars

This discusion started on User talk:Pmagrass#Czars, and is copied here by user:Mdd

Hi, thanks for the message. I have actually been on Wikipedia, in various language versions, for several years now. I lead a research team that studies how consensus is formed here. We noticed that one of the limitations of the [otherwise powerful] wiki model is that there are "Czars" who, by garrisoning certain topics which they treat as "theirs", hinder true cooperation and higher the barrier of entry for other experts. Unfortunately though, the quality of articles may only increase if the largest possible number of experts are allowed to contribute over time. So, Wikipedia does need Czars but not as topic owners but, rather, as custodians of the overall method. Best, Paolo--pmagrass (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess you are calling me a Czars. If creating the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems, the Portal:Systems science, over 200 new articles in the field of systems science, and more or less improving more then 2000 articles here, makes me a Czar, so be it.

But if you simply wants to accuse me op WP:OWN just say so. This is a known phenomenon, and we have good procedures to deal with this. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have made a copy on my own userpage, were you can respond as well. If you want to continu any accusation, that is the place to start.

MDD, I am not accusing you in any way. I guess your work is very welcome in Wikipedia and I myself appreciate it, from the little I have seen (I have simply looked up the system article today). I was pointing to a problem that exists well beyond your emotions: Wikipedia will improve only if more and more domain experts, over time, are allowed to contribute. That is one fact. Another fact is that the original authors of an article tend to garrison it and fight emotionally against any modification attempt. This attidude often clashes against the objective of plurality, because a passing-by expert who finds an emotional "watchdog" will tend to leave it at that and go away. We have observed this problem everywhere in Wikipedia and we are studying how it could be possibly overcome (tough call, because both the "watchdog/Czar" and the passer-by are right!).--pmagrass (talk) 15:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there seems to be a growing problem for new experts to participate. (I always try to get into contact with those people). I however oppose the idea that any experienced editors closely following some articles and participating in new discussion is automatically an "emotional watchdog/Czar".

I personally don't think an new expert automatically is right. I for example don't accept, new comments in historical discussions (like you did), because it disturbs the original discussion. New comments can just as well be added on the bottum of the talk item. These thing have little to do with being emotional or not: There is just a set of procedures and preferences I use. I for example think in general data shouldn't be removed, but replaced.

Now on the particular Talk:System discussion recently there was a rare occation that the last two talkitems ended in a consensus, which was even confirmed as well, see here and here. These are simply rare occations. Often there seems to be no mutal understanding possible. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

You "don't accept" many things, that's evident :-). I, instead, perhaps because I am used to online intellectual discussions since 1991 when I joined GartnerGroup and began publishing with them, I "accept" your tastes even if they are different from mine. As an example, I consider it more contextual and to the point to comment exactly at the point where the comment is pertinent, rather than at the end of the talk page. But if you, or somebody else, inserted their comment in a place I do not consider ideal, I would not dare moving their text around in copy&paste. That behavior is part of the Czar delirium we have observed in many Wikipedia places and all four languages we're studying.--pmagrass (talk) 09:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes I have rules, and I somethings like to clear some thing, which I just didn't on the Talk:System page, and caused you confusion. I guess just naming it a Czar delirium sound rather neagtive to me. Of cause if you allready know all the answers I guess it doesn't matter. You seem to have a similar rule, not to edit any comment. Does you suffer from a Czar delierium yourself...?

I only recently noticed the general message under the edit summary in the Wiki editor:

If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here...

I apply this rule to articles, and to talk pages. Does that make me suffer from a Czar delerium...!? I personally think it is a cultural thing. Germans for example do the thing which are allowed, Dutch people do all the thing that aren't forbitten. This sound much more objective. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 10:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

24/7 RealMedia

Hi, I notice that you were trying to rewrite the artice around the time I deleted it. Unfortunately, the article was still very close to the source, and the language used was also not neutral. This is not to put you off recreating a new article with original content if you wish, but altering copyrighted content creates derivative work at worst or close paraphrasing at best; generally, the amount of information on official websites is OTT and probably not all that reliable. If you did decide to try and write a new article, it'd probably be best to stick to what is covered in reliable sources, except for basic details such as foundation etc. Although I'm sure that much of this you already know, having been here a while! Best, – Toon 22:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks for explaining. If you put it like that, it sounds quite reasonable. I guess there has to be a difference between altering and rewritting, which there was to little. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Welcome Message

Marcel, thanks for your welcome message and tips. EnterpriseModeller (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

New Symbols chart for the GD&T article

Oleg_Alexandrov, Lothartklein, Wizard191, Gzyeah, Zz9fy4, Legobot, Mdd, Alansohn, Seddon, Charles Matthews , Mike Martin:

You are some of the people, recent and old, who have edited or provided comments for the GD&T article. Please take a look at this new version of the Symbols chart, and provide any input you deem relevant:

• Talk:Geometric_dimensioning_and_tolerancing#Symbols_chart.3B_new_candidate_to_replace_the...
  

LP-mn (talk) 00:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

How about this, for now

Marcel, in regard to the biographical articles: perhaps you should ask for the opinions of people active on related pages whether they think particular bios you've created are even worth working on: that is, are the subjects considered notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia? If not, simply remove the articles, and if those subjects are deemed at some point to be notable, either you or someone else can start an article from scratch. Even if others think the subjects are already notable, they can volunteer perhaps to restore a deleted page, taking care to remove infringing material, and perhaps otherwise improving it. I already edited some of your bios, mainly as an illustration of the kind of material that needs to be reworded or removed, but I would not care to do that with a huge number of articles that, in all candor, possibly were not worth creating in the first place, or, at the very least, should not have been created through the methods you employed (that is, by pasting in undigested chunks of material from various sources). It may sound drastic, but thinning out the collection by simply deleting the page is an option. I am of course referring to pages on which you may be the sole, or virtually the sole, contributor. Just a thought. Anyway, you're the "systems guy" here, so I'm sure you'll find a systematic way to improve the articles you've begun, if you choose to keep them. Good luck. Bacrito (talk) 02:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In Holland we have the expressing "het kind met het badwater weggooien". Notability on all articles I wrote and the other 2000+ articles under the wings of the Wikiproject Systems have long been established. The Wikipedia:Plagiarism explains about improving possible copyright infrigments with care and caution. You ideas doesn't seem to be according to those policies. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You raised a question about notability on the Talk:Arne Sølvberg page, which I started explaining. This brought you to the idea all those biographical articles should be rechecked on notability, even better be deleted and rewritten from scratch. A really amazing spin off -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

We have simultaneous edits going again: I meant to add this, before your last comment: Let me backpedal a little on what I wrote there: perhaps you shouldn't take the time to solicit opinions about notability, if there's any chance that there are copyright violations on those pages: just be ruthless, delete them, and perhaps use the information (not the verbatim text!) in them, at some point in the future if you feel inclined and have the time and energy, to start fresh pages on those subjects. Again, I am only referring to removals that don't affect other people's work. And again, this is just my possibly dunder-headed opinion -- people such as the administrators who've posted on this page may not agree, and I hope you defer to their guidance.

Now, as to your view that my "ideas don't seem to be in accordance with those policies" -- fine, I don't assert that they are. I merely stated an opinion, in the spirit of trying to help you. By all means, exercise as much "care and caution" as you like. I was suggesting to you a way of quickly reducing the size of the problem by reconsidering your priorities, so that you could more easily exercise care and caution on those articles most important to you or most difficult to sort out.

I'm absolutely through with discussing this with you. I don't have, as you've seen from our initial unpleasant exchanges, the truly enormous reserves of tact and patience that others have used with you, on this page and elsewhere. If it were up to me, you would already have been banned. I think you should be grateful for the forbearance people (not me) have shown toward you. I had no desire to get into this nonsense at all. I simply was looking for information on systems psychology, found patently unacceptable material (much like the examples others have just described here, tried to fix it, and got an absurd debate which I should have avoided.

And again, while I was typing that, you added more gratuitous, argumentative garbage. I don't care whether you delete pages or not: I am offering it to you as an option, in order to help you! Forget it. I no longer "assume good will" on your part. You have in my view forfeited the right to that assumption. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bacrito (talk • contribs) 03:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

WPBS

Hi. I small tip when adding {{WPBS}} like you did here. In order to work correctly with WPBiography with |living=yes you have to add |blp=yes and |1=. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, you noticed that one change. Now I allready added 2000 Wikiproject templates and most of them in a Wikeproject banner shell. Now I doubt those two code |blp=yes and |1= are needed. The second code seems irrational anyway.

Now I made that one change to show (you) that I replaced the "Sys rating" by the "WPSystems", because it is decided that the "Sys rating" code is irrational (as well), see here. Maybe it is possible that you make that change as well next time you change a wpbs...!? Or maybe I should ask for a bot action somewhere to get that changed...!? Good luck with your other work. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 08:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Notice that if you don't add blp=yes the blp banner won't appear. The 1 parameter is needed to distiguinsh blp parameter from templates. I'll probably ask ListasBot to fix that. We 've already been fixing that but it seems to be thousands of mistakes around! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying the "1" parameter is (only) connected to the "blp=yes"...!? I personally made the choice not to add the "blp=yes" message in most cases... because it seems superfluous anyway. But maybe I am wrong about that. Could you replace the "Sys rating" code as well or get a bot to fix it. That would be very nice. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 08:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Do we have just to replace the string "Sys rating" with "WPSystems"? That's doable. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I just checked there are still about 1650 links to the template:Sys rating (if I counted correctly). The template itself is redirecting to the Template:WikiProject Systems since July. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 09:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

care to comment on this topic? thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Maximum_Entropy_Production Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 01:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 07:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Zachman Image

I like the work you did for the 1992 image. If possible, one like this updated for 2009 should be just right. SunSw0rd (talk) 22:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Infobox Systems scientist

Template:Infobox Systems scientist has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 17:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Locator maps

Hi. If you come across any more like that please fix it like this. All you have to do is add the coordinates not decimal coordinates.Examine that infobox now and you will learn how to fix it. Himalayan 13:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok thank you. I will keep this in mind. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Börje Langefors

Hi there, thanks for creating the Börje Langefors article! Just out of curiosity - why did you spell his name Børje, with a Danish ø rather than a Swedish (or German) ö? I often see ö becoming o in English (or rarely oe), but ö -> ø is quite uncommon, and I noticed that you added correctly spelled interwiki links to Swedish and Norwegian Wikipedia! Tomas e (talk) 14:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I come from Holland and I am just not familiar with those details. At the start I was still under the impression I was delaing with a Norwegian computer scientist. The previous article I wrote was about Arne Sølvberg so I guess the ø seemed reasonable. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 15:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments

It might also have been reasonable to use the spelling that your sources used, or look at how it's spelled in every hit in Google. By the way, this section: "Langefors was influential in the 1960s and 1970s in establishing IS research (ISR) communities through his visionary work on ISD not only in Sweden, but in all Scandinavia countries.[3]" you took verbatim from the source, which you footnoted. I understand you feel it's not necessary to indicate that quotations are quotations, (perhaps different countries have different standards on this?) but: 1)The material is copyrighted, and while I'm sure such a brief quotation would not be a problem, since no one can see that it's not your phrasing, it's unfair, at least, to just paste it in without alteration. Paraphrasing is one thing, direct quotation is another (and this should apply even to public domain works; it's a form of misrepresentation, even if it's done in ignorance). The fact that you have a footnote doesn't suffice, you should have paraphrased it. And: 2)The direct, "unquoted quote" you used is not neutral. "visionary work" is not a description, it's a complement. The reader has no way of knowing who's opinion it is, yours, exercising an interpretation of the material serving as your source, or was that the conclusion reached by the source (and what was their source for that opinion? Two approaches would have been preferable: Either rephrase the info neutrally (simply remove the "visionary"; why was it needed, anyway? The article should be informative about Langefors' work, not a critical review of it) or: indicate that the opinion is an opinion, with something like: "Iivari and Lyytinen attribute his influence to his "visionary work on ISD" ... etc.

I'm sorry to belabor this stuff with you, but I think your approach to creating articles would benefit from more writing, and less pasting. 72.229.55.73 (talk) 03:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi ... I noticed the complain you filled here. It is good faith in Wikipedia to tell other authors about this if you do so.

I welcome every specific detail about any specific article. Pelase don't just generalize, but be more specific. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 06:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You know, Casablanca (if you're going to give me a nickname, I'll give you one too) -- the complaint I put in at the plagiarism project page did not mention you by name, because I was expressing an opinion about a problem that is not, I am sure, unique to your contributions. I did not cite specific article names there, because that page did not seem the place to do it, and foolish me, I didn't seek to cause you embarrassment. Silly of me, because you seem to be seeking it out. I intended to refer to some specifics, to you directly, when I had time. But I think you would do well to review and edit your articles yourself, following the guidelines. I only looked at a handful of your articles, and stuff jumped out. Really man, copying an author's autobiography, without quotation marks, and leaving it in the first person? Laugh at yourself a little over that one, would you? Really, what the hell is this Marrakech stuff? And "Dutch User"? That's referring to me? I'm from the US, Scots-Irish and German descent, and never been to either the Netherlands or Morocco. Though I hear they have pretty good weed available in both places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.55.73 (talk) 07:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I am trying to seek it out indeed. As I just was saying here. I have had a hell of a discussion on this item here, and I am really would like to know where I am dealing with here.

I really appreciate if you can create clearance here. I however oppose to any attitude claiming everything is and has been clear to begin with, and all of Wikipedia has been wrong for all those years. There is really a strong argument for not using qoutation marks, because other editors don't accept them and start changing the text anyway. This for a long time I considerd to be even worse. But nowadays I try to use them anyway. If I forgot or was lazy here and there in my article please inform me and I will see what can do.

I am sorry for confusing you with any Dutch editor... and I have removed any references (just) made... -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 07:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

WikiThanks

Thanks for the Zachman framework image editing!

SunSw0rd (talk) 04:29, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 07:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

In re WP:Plagiarism

Hi Marcel, with ref to this thread, I think it would well behoove you to not participate in escalating the dispute. I've certainly noticed over the past year of working at that (now) guideline page, right from when (and before) I made the first substantive edit to it ever, that the P-word causes people to flip out and take it as an attack on their personal character. In actual fact, and as you noted, there is a bit of a gap between past practice, current practice, and what the guideline(s) say. I'd urge you to not take any particular wording as a personal attack and just consider the merits of the argument. I read frustration there, not attack - or put it this way, I've seen actual examples of direct personal attacks in many other places on-wiki, and that's not even on the scale. :)

Please just think about it a bit, avoid dropping tags onto people's pages if you possibly can, and at least on the wp:plagio page just address the issues related to that guideline. Inadvertent or unthinking or sometimes deliberate direct copying of text is a problem, so we need all the sober analyses we can get there! Regards. Franamax (talk) 09:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I will try to keep this in mind. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 09:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I left you a message at Talk:Gregory Balestrero. By the way, I am User:Politizer (the user who discussed the article with you back in December), my username has changed since then. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks for letting me know. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problems

Thanks for the heads up on my talk page. I have replied to Talk:Project Management Institute#History section removed. Please see Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Project Management Institute. Also please see Wikipedia:Copyright violations#Dealing with copyright violations and Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Repeated copyright violations. -- PBS (talk) 08:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

With regards to this posting by you to Talk:Project Management Institute I am writing this with my administrator's hat on:

--PBS (talk) 11:33, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess we are not on the same level here: "There is no burden on others to prove that something is or is not a copy violation before you add it to Wikipedia", you start saying:

But I am talking about after a possible copyright infrigment is detected in an article written a long time ago. How to handle? Does or doesn't the other user have a proof of burden to show what he means...?? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, after Moonriddengirl now. I think, I understand. The prove of burden is on me if I write the article and... if I re-add the text, after somebody detected a possible copyright infrigment. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Good. -- PBS (talk) 12:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Formal warning

My last posting to this page was a FORMAL WARNING that if you add text that is a copyright violation your account will be blocked. It was placed in a {{warning}} template so that you could not possible say that you did not realise that this was a formal warning.

As for text that is a copyright infringement that is detected in an article written a long time ago, all such text should either be fixed or deleted. If such edits are reverted by another editor then the reverts count as a new edit, and if the editor has reverted knowing that there is a copyright violation in the text to which that editor reverts, then that would be a new breach of policy.

As you know we assume good faith on Wikipedia and it seems that you did not know of or understand our polices on copyright violations, until today. However in the spirit of good faith I think it is incumbent on you to go through those articles you have edited in the past and fix any copyright violations you may have inadvertently added to Wikipedia. It will be a far faster process for you to do that than for others to do the checking, as you have a better knowledge of your writing style and are far more likely to spot such violations. -- PBS (talk) 12:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi PBS, I have admitted in the edit summary, I received the formal warning, see here. I like to note I did know and understand the Wikipedia polices on copyright violations until a certain level and I have always dealt with it the way other editors in similar articles have dealt with this. I would like to put this in this perspective.

Now this new discussion gives me new insides, and brings my level of understanding to a higher level. After a previous discussion on the Talk:Gregory Balestrero last year about this I (re)started using quotation marks and I am confident that this discussion will take me again to an other level. Already I have more specific questions, and look forward to an open discussion about this. I welcome your idea to make a (sever) effort myself to go through the articles I started, and spot and fix such violation...

A first question. I don't understand why you gave me this formal warning. Isn't a formal warning just to be given if a copyright violation repeatedly has been made. I am not aware I made one, and shouldn't you specify the exact edits made. Or is this a warning in advance, just a precaution..!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:41, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Now I am even more confused. If you knew following a discussion last year to use quotation marks, why is it that you duplicated the sentence "Since then it has been associated with the intellectual culture of the student movement's spontaneity, authenticity, and anti-establishment sentiment", here from here, five days ago without them? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I like to analyze every example you can give me... to improve my performance, but I ask for a little patience. At the moment I am working on answering your previous comment here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, take your time. It's from the same article, though, so it may that you will wind up addressing them simultaneously. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I will need some more time, here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Unconditional thread

I am still wondering (besides a lot of other things here) why I received this formal warning, and such an unconditional (what seems like) thread with the exact words: "if you add text that is a copyright violation your account will be blocked". Because I didn't get a straight answer here. I started wondering myself.

• The last conversation we had was on the Talk:Gregory Balestrero, see here, where PBS explained about quoting sources, Rjanag adviced me to read WP:PLAGIARISM which I did, I commented on that and Rjanag detected a bad attitude, and I asked to assume good faith and explained a joke.... and the discussion stopped over there.
• Now it seems me asking for good faith (and explaining a joke) resulted in this formal warning. It could be, I guess, with this formal warning PBS wants to make a statement that he means business.
• It could as well be a warning that I could be a minor/mayor copyrigth violation thread...

By not explaining why, I guess, this leave all those options open. Which is ok with me by the way.

What doesn't feel ok, is this unconditional thread. Call it my bad attitude, I call my Dutch nature and entrepeneurial drive, to find the boundaries and/or a way out. So I started reading Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Repeated copyright violations as PBS suggested

If you suspect a copyright violation, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's discussion page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed...

Now I asked about the proof of burden, (which I know now is on me), but here seems to be a "proof of (suspecting and) detecting"... which is in the hand of the (suspecting and) detecting party. There seems to be an (first) exception, when the possible copyvio isn't detected yet.... mmm it makes less sense, now I write this down...!?

One other thing is PBS seems to ask me to join this detecting party:

However in the spirit of good faith I think it is incumbent on you to go through those articles you have edited in the past and fix any copyright violations you may have inadvertently added to Wikipedia..

Again I have no problem with this and will make an effort in this direction later on (my to-do list is getting longer).

But that unconditional thread in that formal warning: "if you add text that is a copyright violation your account will be blocked". It keeps making me feel rather unconfortable... I am going to think about this some more....!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyright improvements

Hi. Given recent questions, I've taken a look at one of your recent articles, and I'm really concerned at how widespread your confusion on this issue may have been. Comparing Philosophy of dialogue, I see a whole paragraph copied from [2], which is clearly copyright reserved. (I have removed it.)

I see you've also copied there from other Wikipedia articles without giving credit: for instance, I and Thou, Hans Köchler, Existentialism. While you are welcome to re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, Wikipedia's licensing does require that you provide attribution to the original contributors. When copying within Wikipedia, this is supplied at minimum in edit summary at the page into which you've copied content. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to make a note in an edit summary at the source page as well. There is also a template that can be useful if copying is extensive: {{copied}}.

You are obviously a very dedicated and productive content contributor. Copyright is a serious issue, though, and we need to figure out some workable solution for determining if you have copied other content within Wikipedia, so it can be fixed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I especially appreciate your input, and I like to analyze those more closely to get an even better understanding. I will respond to Talk:Project Management Institute and Talk:Philosophy of dialogue‎ more closely over there.

The regulations about the re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, is sort of new for me here. I did have a specific discussion about this on the Dutch Wikitionairy (just for the record, see here), and I can tell you these regulations seems to different in every Wikimedia project, for example the Dutch and English Wiktionairy, the Dutch and English Wikiquote. Now about the Philosophy of dialogue article in short:

• I wrote that article in one peace, see here
• I would have no problem attributing the section I copied from other article as if they where from PD sources just for conformation.
• But the rules here in Wikipedia are against citing other wikipedia articles in the reference section, because they are not to be considered reliable sources.
• So this is an example where (I learned yesterday and today) two Wikipedia regulations are contradictionairy

But I agree something should be done to fix things over here

Now I am not just a very dedicated and productive content contributor. I have contributed "only" 200 new articles here, while I have edit over 6500 different articles. In the past I have been improving these "own" articles a few times, and now new insides have come to me (or better are coming to me), I would like to improve them further more. Recently Spring 2009 a German editor has already been through allmost all of these article, beside off cause all other people reading and correcting those. I am just doing what I can. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The idea that Wikipedia must be attributed is a new one for many users, so I can understand your confusion there. There's nothing contradictory about the attribution requirements, though. I explained above how this is handled: the attribution is supplied in the edit summary and frequently at the talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I understand the procedure, but this doesn't work if you compose (or like to compose) the article in one peace as I did. If you start and article just with a few lines to copy other sections in it you will find yourself the next week protecting the article in a deletion debate. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The procedure seems just ok if you want to extent an article.

If it doesn't work for the way you want to compose the article, then I'm afraid you can't compose the article that way. This license is our legal agreement with our contributors, and, again, if we use their text without following the terms of that license, we are violating their copyright. Wikipedia's text is not public domain. Instead of composing in one go, if you wish to copy from other articles, you should do it incrementally. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I try to have an open mind here. Indeed I agree for the reason you gave me, I can not (continu to) write articles that way. But how do I start to avoid the article to be tagged for deletion right away? I can think of several possibilities:

1. Start on my own userspace and move it in Wikipedia space?
2. Or start just with a few lines and an under construction tag?
3. Or just add the Wikipedia article with a permalink in the reference section?

I would really like to use the third option. Because... if I start composing an article I can work for two hours making 20 to 50 changes before I archive the articles as one. Now this may seems strange, but I try to avoid making to much edits on Wikipedia. For now I would prefer the third option the most.... but (as in Wikipedia:Plagiarism explained) for outsiders it is more clear if the copy/paste is in one edit, and the reworking the text in the other. Constructing an article how ever is not adding one and one. It feels like three steps forward and two steps back. But maybe I am mistaken here. I started numerous articles on my userspace, see here, see for example User:Mdd/Debora Hammond and this is not the work I would like in main space. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 15:03, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Linking in the reference section does not work, for the reason you set out above. I myself do both methods 1 & 2, and I also often build articles very incrementally. It may require that you make more edits on Wikipedia, but it seems to me that this is worth it if it keeps you in compliance with WP:C and WP:Plagiarism. Certainly, you can build to your heart's content in userspace as long as you move rather than copy it when you're finished, if the attribution is in the edit summaries. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I can come back on this, when I could need your help trying to determine how to solve this. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyright reminders

This is designed to be a similar listing as in Wikiwoodenboek. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The reference of very short quotes

See for example here -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. You're referring to the quotation marks I just added? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:19, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, this is just a (personal) reminder, I have add here for now. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, okay, yes. Quotation marks will nicely handle brief bits of verbatim text. To quote the way these are handled on English Wikipedia from WP:NFC:

Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. Copyrighted text that is used verbatim must be attributed with quotation marks or other standard notation, such as block quotes. Any alterations must be clearly marked, i.e. [brackets] for added text, an ellipsis (...) for removed text, and emphasis noted after the quotation as "(emphasis added)" or "(emphasis in the original)". Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited.

But you do have to get all of the copyrighted text, and you need to be careful to use it for a defensible reason. For example, in the paragraph I removed from Philosophy of dialogue, you seem to have put in quotation marks for some of it, but the introduction is copied too. Additionally, the use of the whole paragraph from a source of that length doesn't constitute a "brief" quotation, and it doesn't seem to be being used for the reasons above. If we only want it because it says succinctly what we want to say, we probably can't use it, but will have to put it in our own language. (And, of course, the quotation marks in that paragraph do not cover the sentence used further down.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I must admit there is a lot more to it, if you start looking at it that close, "to the letter" so to say. I guess I start getting the feeling it is not so much the actual text which is copyrighted but the personal signature the author put in it. But I like to get back on that with some specific cases I now would like to start working on. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism and copyright

"Please do not confuse plagiarism with copyright", Moonriddengirl asked, here. I got the strange impression I still do. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC) P.S. This is an interesting question about this..!?

MRG has replied there and as always, she explains much better than do I. What I can try to offer here is that copyright is a legal issue whereas plagiarism is a moral issue. Copyright violations can put the entire Wikipedia project in jeopardy, let's say a very large corporation or really rich writer decided to sue the Wikimedia Foundation. That's a few million dollars of legal expenses just to defend the lawsuit, plus potential damages if the Foundation loses - if copyright issues aren't dealt with swiftly, it's not inconceivable that all the servers would be sold off to pay the penalty. As such, copyright violations will be dealt with promptly and harshly if and when they come to light. The offending material gets removed and the editors adding that material get warnings, and blocks if they don't change their ways. WMF might decide to go to court to defend very fundamental freedoms, but they won't risk the entire project because someone was too lazy to properly reword and integrate a source.

Plagiarism is more what we expect from human beings, which usually is that we all expect or at least hope that other people are being honest. When you make a contribution to the wiki, we expect that you wrote it all yourself, unless you've very clearly indicated otherwise. Since copyright is so much more clear-cut, we'll "prosecute" that offence first.

And for another way of thinking about the difference, what if it is public domain text not subject to copyright? Think here of old texts and most (but not all) US Government publications: you are free to copy the exact text of those, but if you're not quoting it or making clear in some other way that you "edited with the mouse" i.e. copy-and-pasted, you've plagiarized. There's no legal offence, but our current standards hold that there is a moral one. Franamax (talk) 02:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a really interesting story you got here... but it doesn’t at once releases my of my strange impression that "I still do". In Dutch we talk about "plagiaat" and "auteursrecht"... The discussion brings me new insides here... but I doubt must of my fellow Dutch Wikipedians know must of the difference. I think I will start a discussion on the Dutch Auteursrechtencafé (copyright cafe) about this. Thanks for explaining any way. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If you do so, I'll try to follow along using the Google translator. I've only visited Amsterdam five times and many people there speak English very well (for a tourist), so I've never learned even a word of the language. Your words plagiaat and auteursrecht sound exactly right. It's likely that your copyright laws may be a little different (and I believe that nl:wiki is hosted from the Amsterdam servers, so I think the Dutch copyright laws would apply, unless your copyright laws are EU-wide now, not sure). US copyright laws are a tiny bit different from my own country (Canada) so I can never be sure myself. Plagiarism I think you will find to be much the same concept between North America and Europe, though the standard perhaps differs in other parts of the world. At least in the academic sense of plagiarism it's the same - how you approach it on your home wiki is of course up to you guys there. We've really only tried to start straightening out and writing down our own standards over the past year or so, so the perspective from another wiki might be very helpful to our own efforts. I'm not sure if you've mentioned whether you understand German or not, but if so, the view of de:wiki would be helpful too. Regards! Franamax (talk) 03:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I only just now saw this comment... And I already commented on Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism (but I redraw the question there to just focus on my work at hand). It does sort of answers part of your question so I will repeat this first:

I personally got the feeling I [still] don't quite understand the difference myself. The Dutch Wikipedia [3] states:

"Plagiaat is het claimen van auteursrecht over een werk waarover reeds auteursrecht geldt."

Translated. "Plagiarism is to claim the copyright of work already copyrighted". (Mmm... should I quote this translation or not? Better I do.) I guess this is the common understanding in Holland about the [relation and] difference between the two. You could reasonably say, there is not. Could it be that there is a different perception in the different countries of between the world and Wikipedia? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Now that I read you comment I guess it is a good idea I do some more studying. I indeed can read German (and listen to it every day because I am living with a German, and we speak (and sing) both German and Dutch to our children). I will try to study the three article on plagiarism and let you know if I learned something. In our Auteursrechtencafé I recently did start a discussion about copyright on simple images (just for the record see here). If you use your Google translator you will probably notice, as I did, that we have an understand just until a certain level. I think there is just not that must expertise present in the Dutch Wikipedia about this. That previous talk-item in the same discussion, see here, we also could not decide whether or not those logo's in images are allowed and when not. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 10:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Handling of the quotations

There are the first outcomes here

• In Arne Sølvberg I seem to have "handled the quotations well", see here, however.
• They are questioned (so far) in Gregory Balestrero previously in Dec 2008 and now in Systems psychology, Philosophy of dialogue, Project Management Institute and Alain Wegmann.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have expressed my serious doubts about the Arne Sølvberg article on it's talkpage, and have to deal with this as well later on. --

Basic copyright policy overview

The follong section is copy/pasted here from User:Moonriddengirl page, see here''

Wikipedia's servers are located in the United States, and so we are bound by US copyright law, although in an effort to keep our content free wherever possible we also attempt to respect copyright laws of other countries. (See Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights.) If material is not automatically excluded from copyright (see Stanford's summary of some of the exclusions), public domain for age or other reasons, or released under a license compatible with ours (that would be CC-BY-SA for all text, with most text co-licensed under WP:GFDL), we can only use it if it meets our non-free content guidelines. In order to keep our content as freely distributable as possible, this is a deliberately more narrow range than fair use. For text, this means we can utilize limited quotations of copyrighted material—so long as that material is clearly marked, cited and used verbatim—when appropriate to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. (Some contributors are under the mistaken belief that if the source is cited, exact duplication of text is not a copyright infringement. This is not the case. United States copyright law does permit limited use of copyrighted text under fair use, but makes very clear that "acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission."[4]) Since copyright covers the creative expression of ideas, not facts, we can paraphrase external sources (though we should still acknowledge them to avoid plagiarism and meet verifiability policies). But we do have to be careful when paraphrasing that we do not too closely follow the original in structure and language.

Copy/Paste with Wikipedia

A short discussion, see here -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Analysis of my own work

As PBS suggested here I agree that I should go through the articles I edited in the past and fix any copyright violations you may have inadvertently added to Wikipedia. As a start I will make analysis first, where to start ()beside the 3 or 4 articles allready in the picture). -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Limitation to 200 articles

I have edited over 6500 articles of which I created 200 myself. There is a thematical listing on my talkpage here, and a chronological listing here. Now PBS suggested I "go to [all] those articles you have edited in the past". I suggest to limit the search to those 200, because:

• I literally went to tons of articles just wikifying the content, no adding new text.
• And I guess I can't be hold responsible for the copyright infringements I didn't notice there
• Otherwise other editors can be hold responsible for the copyright infringements they left behind in my 200 articles (and of cause the other article were I did add new text)...!? (P.S. this of cause can not be right...!!)
• One more thing. There is a difference between those two listings. My talkpage also lists the articles that I didn't start, but did add a lot of work.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Some more about the scope of my work:

• An other mayor part of all the work I have done on Wikipedia is on the WikiProject systems. I guess copyright isn't an issue there, because I don't think quotes are used very often.
• There is one exception for the PortaL:Systems I created, were about twenty quotes are used.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:19, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Further comment

Marcel, I respectfully ask that you reconsider this statement you just made above:

"Otherwise other editors can be hold responsible for the copyright infringements they left behind in my 200 articles (and of cause the other article were I did add new text)...!?"

That is guaranteed to raise hackles, to put it in the mildest terms. Bacrito (talk) 00:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I had to search for "raise hackles" and found "to annoy someone". Is this what you mean? I guess unintentionally I do a lot of things as a not-native speaker. But there is a serious question behind that particular remark. "Can I be held responsible for the copyright infringements I leave behind if somebody in a previous stadium has add copyright material which I didn't detect?" But maybe I am missing the point here...!? I have added an P.S. Is this all right? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

When you wrote "Otherwise other editors can be hold responsible for the copyright infringements they left behind in my 200 articles (and of cause the other article were I did add new text)...!?"

I thought you meant, if other editors "left behind" material in the sense of not removing copyright infringements that you had placed there to begin with. I thought you were putting the onus (a fancy word for a disagreeable burden or responsibility) on others to clean up after you. I didn't read carefully enough. My bad. You meant of course material that they had introduced. Of course, everyone is responsible for their own actions. People may voluntarily repair situations caused by others. Bacrito (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I learned yesterday here I have the prove of burden, and I will keep being responsible for the infringements I made.

The whole was actually meant the other way around, if I could be held responsible for the possible copyright infringements other editors have left behind. Then I should have a giant problem because I edited over 6500 article. If you understand what I mean. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 01:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem really, If you just edit an article that happens to contain a copyright violation, that's not your fault. If you spot a copyvio in an article, you really should do something about it, but this is a volunteer site, so no-one says you have to do something. If you revert someone else's edit which removed a copyvio, thus reinstating a copyvio, that could be more of a problem. If you're just reverting vandalism, no-one will hold it against you. If the edit you reverted had clearly indicated that it was removing copyvio text and you reinstated the text anyway (or otherwise had reason to know that it was copyvio, such as from a talk page) - then the effect would be more you committing a copyvio yourself. And by the way, I think the phrase you have been trying to use elsewhere is "burden of proof", not "proof of burden", but that's a minor language issue. Franamax (talk) 01:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you very much. This is exactly the feed back I am interested in. Because it confirms that it makes sens to focus on the 200 articles first. This will narrow down the potential problem from 6500 articles to 200. Or from 100 to 3%. If I continu I can narrow this intial search with an other 90%. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 07:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Types of articles

I guess you could say there are several types of articles I made:

1. Biographical (about 130)
2. Thematically (about 90)
3. About organizations (about 12)
4. About journals (about 4)

And further more about:

• Listings (about 6 still in the wikipedia space, several more in Wikiproject Systems space)
• Templates (about 10)

In total about 230 articles. I will narrow my further search to just the biographical and thematical articles. These are all written between three themes (as my talkpage shows) also in three periods, (see also here):

• Systems sciences and more (about 110) between April 2007 and Aug 2008
• Modeling and visualization (about 50) between Aug 2008 and Sept 2008
• Systems -, software - & enterprise engineering (about 80) Sept 2008 and Sept 2009

Some more notes here:

• Those biographical articles pratically all have the same structure with a biography and worksection
• Those thematical articles are more different
  • the systems articles are mostly overview articles.
  • the modelling and visualization articls are half-half overview and specific
  • the engineering articles are more specific
  • Now about 20 of those are based on PD-gov source

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Outcome so far

So far I haven't decided were to start. This is what you could call a top-down approach. Several of the possible conflicts have been determined in five articles now, which could be considered the bottum-up part this approach. For now I like to focuss on just those five cases, because there are several details I like to examine and discuss some more. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Mdd, I was going to respond to the previously existing section here where another editor suggested the best thing to do would be to simply delete your work. I was going to comment on how that seemed to me a really bad idea. You've obviously done a lot of work here, and I don't think many people are inclined to throw it all away. However, it is indeed up to you to work hard to help us identify which of your contributions here may be copyright violations under US law. The PD-gov sources can be looked at later as possible plagiarism, but we do need to move quickly to identify and correct any possible copyvios.

What I would suggest, given that you know your contributions best, is that you just follow up on your conscience. I'm thinking that you probably already have a good idea of where you copy-and-pasted or minimally reworded text from copyright sources - so as your first pass through the problem, make notes on article talk pages or here just saying "I may have violated copyright in my contribution at <diff>". If you are willing to work on this, I think you will find that other people are too, but we expect you to take the lead. You may be better off to just list everything you may, in retrospect, have being doing "wrong", then we can all work together to make it all not-wrong. Regards! Franamax (talk) 03:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I have done a lot of work here. And yes, it is up to me to work hard to identify and solve the problem, taking the lead or not. However rushing in a situation like this, I think is even worse for all parties involved, now and on the long term. PBS has already put on his "administrator's hat" and gave me a formal warning. MRG is explaining and I am learning more closely about the regulations, and how to solve them. You gave valuable feed back to narrow the search. And Bacrito has already went on determining more possible P infringements.

I like to move as quickly as I can. But on the other hand I believe there is good reason to take care and be caution. Identifying those possible infringements and as you suggest leaving a marking is my first priority here. But don't expect it's all clear to me, and will do exactly as everybody ask. Bacrito seems already rather on the edge because I did agree on the copyright, but we had a disagreement on notability. I guess I have to put this aside. I like to help, I like to take the lead, but I can't do this alone. When you advice to add a "I may have violated copyright [C-problem] in my contribution at <diff>" - tag, and MRG seems to state it is a P-problem I get confused...!? I don't seem to see the difference between a C and P-problem (yet) but I am learning. I am not going to ask for the second time for patience, but maybe I should. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 08:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Further action

First identify possible copyvios

@Franamax. Here is what I can "to move quickly" to first identify possible copyvios. My idea is that those could be all over those 200 articles. More specific

1. In the biographical (about 130) article particularly in the subsections of the work-section: They are (all) referenced, but the text is often taken quite literary. They often lack quotation marks... and often should have been rewritten, which they are not
2. In the thematically (about 90) articles it depends on the type.
   1. Several overview articles which build on and cover other Wikipedia articles, like Philosophy of dialogue, Systems psychology, Systems art, Project management: They have copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles, which are not registered in the edit-summary
   2. Several more specific thematical article like Management cybernetics, have copied and pasted from various sources: They are (all) referenced, but... etc
   3. And about 20 articles building on PD sources.

I can go through all 200 articles and tag articles on top or tag sections. I guess I can use the copypaste-template, but I am not sure!? Does this sound about the right thing to do. I guess just tagging these sections would not take more then a few hours..!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The Template:Copypaste seem to offer all those possibilities needed here.

I appreciate your active approach to helping address this problem. Whether the copyvio template is the proper one depends in part on how extensive the copied text may be and how quickly you may be able to go back in and correct them (say within a few days). Other alternatives are to remove the copied text until you have a chance to repair or, if that would gut the article because it is extensive, to blank the article and replace it with {{copyvio}}. (If you do that, please be sure to explain what's going on at the article's talk, so that an administrator doesn't inadvertently delete it quickly.) I think the copypaste-template is particularly appropriate for overview articles, especially if you make a note on the talk page of which articles have been duplicated. This doesn't precisely satisfy attribution requirements, but it helps and should make it okay to keep that text in place a bit longer until you can correct it.

If the copyrighted text used is brief, you can rather clumsily fix it by using quotation marks, as I did in the article you linked. However, if the material starts to move beyond a sentence or two, you need to proceed carefully with this. Quotation marks don't eliminate the possibility of copyright violation, and WP:NFC is specific that extensive quotation of copyrighted material is forbidden on Wikipedia. Factors that determine whether a quotation is extensive or not under US law are pretty complicated, I'm afraid. Among them are evaluations of proportion (to the rest of the source as well as to the article in which it is used) and how important the material is (to the original source or the article in which it is used). One paragraph of a three paragraph essay is almost certainly going to be too extensive, but a single paragraph from a 300 page book might also be extensive, for instance, if it is core to the original work or the lion's share of the new one. If work is not public domain, I avoid multiple-sentence quotes unless I am specifically trying to attribute a point of view. For example, quoting a political pundit's autobiography to show his opinion on the 1992 elections is more likely to be okay than taking a paragraph from that same autobiography simply to explain the election process. In the first case, using his words is necessary to the point. In the second, using his words could be seen as simply avoiding the difficulty of writing your own...which is typically not going to be considered "fair use." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again for all those tips, I welcome all the help to (help me) fix these P-problems. Before I do so I have made a confession, or rather a commitment explaining some more about my person motives here, and the background of the P-problems at hand. See below. It is actually just for the record. It seems like a good idea to do so.

There are interesting details between the American and Dutch copyright situation, maybe for later. Next I like to just start going through my articles and follow the guidelines MRG is given me here, focussing on fixing the problem, no longer just discuss it. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have started identify possible copyvios according to the procedure MRG adviced. I tagged the articles and made some comments on the talkpage. I will continu doing so the days to come. It's fine with me. The only thing is that this procedure is much less fast, than (only) just add a tag on article. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Commitment

I apologize for any inconvenience regarding this case, and I am dedicated to help fix the problems as far as I can. I consider Wikipedia to be a professional organization run by volunteers dedicated to live up to all professional law and courtesies. I am a dedicated volunteer considering and presenting myself within Wikipedia as a senior editor, but I am not a profession writer. I have never (yet) published any professional paper, book-chapter or participated in producing so on a professional level, since university which I finished 1991. A strong motive to participate here is learning to do so, and learning about all ins and out required. I am well aware that by presenting myself as a senior editor, I have do my best to live up to all of those professional law and courtesies. And I am always been aware that I am not a perfect player, and will probably never be. Who is?

I consider the current plagiarism problems, in short P-problems, at hand to be part of a rather complicated challenge: to live up to all different Wikipedia regulations . Especially the no-original research, verifiability, building on reliable sources, and plagiarism expectations. The P-problem seems to be simply solve by rewriting text in your own words. But starting only with selecting source, building on just those sources, not giving a original interpretation, in your own specific language requires a specific attitude here, that doesn't come natural. My intention (or call it a trick) has always starting in carefully selecting sources, which state the facts in common expressions and idioms, and build my articles with that. I have been uncertain about using quotation marks, and not giving a new OR interpretation, so I have limited my rewriting.

I welcome the deeper insides Wikipedians providing me regarding the P-problems in general. I am actively involved in copyright discussion here, on the Dutch Wikipedia, on Commons and the Dutch Wikitionary. I have even started articles on legal subjects here ([5], [6]), but the P-regulations remain different to deal with for me. In the past I have also initiated some discussion with publishers in Holland; build a featured article based on those insides: have had discussion with the some of the scientists I wrote articles about, and always kept possible P-problems in mind. There is the specific US law and formal ways Wikipedia deals with this here, that is new for me, but I am dedicated to learn the finesse.

The P-problems that have been identified largely by my own deliberate action to draw attention to my case, and I like to participate in solving those problems. I like to finish again with apologizing for any inconvenience regarding this case.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Something that I did not read until after I had given you a formal warning was this exchange, which in my opinion only strengthened the need to have given you the warning. I am glad to see that you now understand that looking for exceptions and not following the spirit of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines is not how editors cooperate on Wikipedia, and that is not in the interests of the project. -- PBS (talk) 16:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I understand the formal warning now, and restored it for others to see. I welcome this window of opportunity to improve the articles I initiated, and the articles where I initiated the improvements. In the discussion you are referring to, I wanted to explain we Dutch don't take things for granted. I have a strong entrepreneurial drive, which I don't consider just "bad attitude". I hope you (all) respect I can't solve these problems as fast as I like. I am very glad with all the assistance I am getting. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Working on thematical overview article

Like I said several of my overview articles which build on and cover other Wikipedia articles, like Philosophy of dialogue, Systems psychology, Systems art, Project management. They have copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles, which are not registered in the edit-summary.

In respons to the tagging of Philosophy of dialogue, which is recently constructed, I started tagging the other three which are (re)constructed last year in April 2008, April 2008 and Dec 2008. The next article I wanted to tag was the Glossary of systems theory, which is constructed in May 2007.

This however raises the question how far back this tagging needs to be. As I understand improving copyright regulation is underway well over a year, and I wonder if it makes sense to go back in time to much here. Does it even make sense to tag 2008 articles? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Wikipedia's text has never been public domain, and even copyright problems that are a year or more old need to be fixed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks, I will continu. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:45, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record. Several of those article I started in my userspace, see

• User:Mdd/Under construction
• User:Mdd/Under construction/Archived
• And an overview for those not listed.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Working on biographical article

As I said, in the biographical (about 130) article particularly in the subsections of the work-section: They are (all) referenced, but the text is often taken quite literary. They often lack quotation marks... and often should have been rewritten, which they are not.

A first quick search of the 79 biographical systems science articles show that about more than 40 could have possible p-problems. This is just a fist indication. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

A new development in the Timothy F. H. Allen, where Ba. removed most of the article. I think this is a mistaken. All biographical articles are written in a similar modular way, with a:

• Intro
• Biography
• Work section
• Publications
• References
• External links

Now the possible mayor p-problems can (only be) be in the work section, and minor p-problems in the intro and biography. I am almost sure, that those minor p-problems can never be reason enough to delete that whole section. MRG has given a fair procedure to continue, see here, which I am willing to continue. At the moment I don't think C is handling things with care. May I remind him that the whole p-problem in my work will probably relate to 250 to 500 quotes not well cited, or in need of some rewriting. After working in 6500+ articles, making over 25.000 edits here, is it to much to ask if it is handled with care here? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Working on specific thematical article

Bacrito started at the Management cybernetics article today, which I initially misunderstood, because I allready detected it as a thematical overview article (see previous talk-item).

A Talk:Systemics I started making a note on the talkpage about the historical origins of the p-problems. I have to take another look to determine the exact quotation-marks missing and rewriting required. But it is a start. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Working on articles build on PD-gov sources

It seems like a good idea as Franamax stated above (see here): "The PD-gov sources can be looked at later as possible plagiarism, but we do need to move quickly to identify and correct any possible copyvios"

Action is already been taken here, see here, but I guess this can be kept for later. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Isolation of possible copy vio

In order to isolate possible copy vio I have removed sections from about 75 articles this moring. I guess I isolated about 60% of the possible mayor copyvio's in my work (P.S. I mean 60% of the so called "close paraphrasing of one or multiple sentences") . They are mainly about work copy/pasted from secundary sources not well quoted and or in need of rewritting. I will take an other look later on to remove maybe some 20% more. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 09:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a good start. :) This is challenging work. I have reviewed the article at Mathematical diagram and unfortunately have found some pretty extensive problems. I've had to blank most of the article (explanation of sources at article talk). Since it's an important article, I've requested assistance in addressing it at the primary wikipedia project.

This is plodding work that requires patience and persistence. It would be ideal if we could get other contributors involved. Is the Systems Wikiproject active enough that we might be able to recruit a few individuals to help?

I will put in time as I am able. Unfortunately, the demands of working copyright are many and the people working it are few. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, indeed. Mathematical diagram is part of that 20% I like to isolate. I have got some credit, but I have to set a good example first... I don't expect you to help fixing any of, but I could use your feedback developing procedures, and helping me getting started. This I very much appreciate. You must have noticed I have put on my other hat, and will address some general concerns regarding Wikiproject activities. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I will try to get other contributors involved, but also this takes time.

Yes, unfortunately, I know it does. But when people do pitch in, it generally goes much more quickly. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I started asking some first Wikipedians, and started added requists at the articles talkpages. I will continue to do so later on, and focus on isolating these copy vio's in "my" thematical articles as well. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess I can call the possible copyvio's I detected in "my" biographical articles "close paraphrasing of one or multiple sentences".... Or maybe not, maybe just "copy/paste of text from secundary sources, without appropriate quotations and/or rewriting"...!? Mmm... never kind. I will try to move on tonight detecting those kinds of copyvio's in the thematical articles, at least the mayor one's. I will adress to other concerns later. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 17:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Isolation of possible copy vio - part II

Tonight I started analyse the thematical articles, I created or added mayor contributions. Some articles need aditional reconsideration, because I can´t overlook all at once, such as: Systems engineering,

Now I have continued remove and/or repair copyrighted text in my thematical article tonight, and will continu tomorrow. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Tonight I finished isolation the possible copyvio's in my series of thematical articles in the field of systems science, the field of visualization, and the field of enterprise modelling. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Possible next steps ??

In the steps I have taken so far, I have isolated the main part of the (possible) copyvio's in my series of biographical thematical articles, as Franamax has suggested here, Oct 8, 2009, and discussed in the previous talk-items:

Now there are several options to proceed:

1. GFDL Copied/pasted from various Wikipedia articles registration : In a series of articles registration is still missing of the Copied/pasted transactions of sections from various Wikipedia into the article at hand.
2. Possible plagiarism in PD-gov sourced articles (for list, see here: There is a next step as Franamax mentioned: "The PD-gov sources can be looked at later as possible plagiarism, but we do need to move quickly to identify and correct any possible copyvios".
3. So far I checked all 200 to 250 articles mentioned on my talkpage. I could proceed and determine minor copyvio's in other articles I have contributed to
4. Re-improve the three series of articles with large sections removed
5. Re-improve some 5 to 10 articles with current discussions, and new to come

As to the first two options, I need further instructions. Also I have difficulties determining with of these steps has the highest priority now. I would like to ask PBS, F and MRG for advice here..!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Your order of tasks looks roughly OK to me. Perhaps an example or two of what you consider minor copyright though? Copyright has to be addressed first. For GFDL (now also CC-BY) copies, it may be sufficient to note on the article talk page which diff(s) you introduced the GFDL material with, though for major edits, you will likely need to use a copy/paste template (or both). PD-gov sources would need the same judgement. Examples would help here too. I'll defer to the judgement of my colleagues, but I'm impressed with the way you've actively tried to understand the issues and get things fixed up. Please keep going! Franamax (talk) 01:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you. About those mayor/minor copyvio's: With these mayor copyvio's, I mean articles with up to 10 to 20 quotes copy/paste from different sources, with reference, but without quotes and the required rewriting. With minor copyvio's, I mean, articles with 1 or 2 maybe up to 5 quotes...

There is a series of articles on my watchlist which I could check. For example the UML article, and the contributions I made Feb 2009, see here . (This might still be considered a bigger minor example). There are about 1,428 pages on your watchlist for one or an other reason. I guess by now I (only) checked 200 to 300 of them. It seems by what you are telling me ("Copyright has to be addressed first.")I should focuss here first...!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 01:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I, too, am very impressed with your willingness to review and clean this material. It goes a long way, in my opinion, to demonstrating your good faith. I agree with Franamax on the best order: copyright comes before plagiarism; material copied from other Wikipedia articles can be taken care of for now with a note to the talk. There is a listing of your major contributions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Mdd. It may prove very helpful to you in reviewing your edits, since it provides links to diffs of your contributions. The instructions at the top are meant for neutral reviewers, though; if you do use it (and you are welcome to), please just indicate that you have checked it rather than removing it from the list. Previously, contributors working on cleanup of their own material have done this by placing {{y}} ~~~~ next to the listing, which puts a check mark and (of course) the signed, dated timestamp. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you MRG, especially for that list. Before I proceed I like to ask a time-out to reconsider. I realized so far I didn't really "review and clean material". I reviewed and isolated the material, against the procedure MRG initially suggested. With doing so, so far I created an even bigger problem. The new discussion around Flowchart and Diagram made me wonder, as Rp put it:

"I don't see what's wrong with those edits. They are short quotes or paraphrases and the sources are extensively referenced. If this is not the way to write Wikipedia articles, I don't know what is. Rp (talk) 21:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)"

This is not a new discussion for me, because this is short of the same question I raised on Talk:Gregory Balestrero and on Talk:Mdd Dec 2008. This was as the "hell of a discussion" were I was revering to at Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism when this whole case started rolling last week. There is a comment I gave Dec 6, 2008, I could repeat here in this situation, not regarding to that specific "Balestrero copy-vio problem", but to all of those similar problems in caused:

Don't get me wrong. I find this discussion usefull, and as I said, I can learn a thing or two. Maybe I will take a look at the discussion you mentioned later. We are now only talking about two lines and I can easily rephrase the sentences with your help. I already explained on the talk page, why those two particular lines are important. And I even agreed it is better there to add "according to". I think we can finish this Balestrero copy-vio problem, by rephrasing the two sentences. I will give it a try, if you agree?

Now I write a lot, I use a lot of PD sources, but also a lot of Google book sources. If you find any other copy vio suggestion in my work, let me know. Or just remove it as you did. I am prepared to rewrite any text at any time. Now in the 4 years I have been writing on Wikipedia and Wikicommons I have quite some experience with copy vio aspects. And there is a lot to learn. And to talk about, but I will leave it with this. So can you check and maybe comment if I rephrase the Balestrero copy-vio problem? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

By then I even put up a request for comment to bring this to attention. When I read the first comments Politizer gave me, with the knowledge I have now, I think he is exactly right. But I didn't understand by then. That discussion turned bad not only because I put up that request for comment. We had two different disagreements. The first about the possible plagiarism caused by the quote not being separated by quotation marks; and the second about whether or not a Wikipedia article about a president (of the PMI) could contain information about it's predecessor.

Now please don't get me wrong, it is not this conflict I want to settle. I want to make clear that (for me) it disturbing to addressed and solve different problems as being one. Right now I am still experiencing multiple problems. To keep it to myself first:

• I am still confused about all ins and outs of copyvio en plagiarism, and the exact nature and scope of problems I created here in the English Wikipedia
• I am well aware of the warning PBS gave me not to create new copyvio problems. But I am still not sure when (and why or why not) the copy-vio problem (we are talking about) is solved and text can be put back in the article. I guess I can still be blocked if I made a mistake here.

As to the copyvio-problems I have created

• They could al be considered part of one mayor problem as the Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Mdd listing might suggest
• These problems at hand could be split in three:
  1. Quotation-marks and or rewriting missing
  2. The registration of copy-paste within Wikipedia
  3. Possible plagiarism in articles build on PD sources

And new and further problems have occurred

• the notability of some of the articles has been questioned.
• new discussion about this in the talkpages
• inform other people involved

I am aware I should adress to all of thoes things. But I guess for me it would help if I could focus on just one thing: Quotation-marks and or rewriting missing, and no longer "reviewed and isolated" with "review and clean material" as MRG has suggested from the beginning. I would help if there would be a procedure for me to do so, without me getting blocked if I make any mistake. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Clarification on copyright

First, my familiarity with you is limited to pretty much this situation and the conversations I have been invited to review. So I don't know your extensive history. With what I have observed, I doubt you would be blocked if your efforts seem to have been made in good faith. That said, I would be very careful about whose advice you take on this. Many of Wikipedia's contributors do not understand US copyright law. And no wonder: like all US laws, it is unnecessarily vast and complex. US lawmakers are not good at keeping it simple. :)

Fortunately, you don't have to grasp all of US copyright law to work within policy. Wikipedia has tried to simplify matters.

Let me give you a brief review.

• For Wikipedia's purposes and in accordance with WP:C and various related policies, a copyright violation occurs when you place creative text on the project from a source that is not verifiably public domain or compatibly licensed unless that text is brief and properly marked by quotation marks or block quote. (It must be both: brief and clearly marked.) A close paraphrase may also be a copyright violation, according to policy.
• A bit more about the term creative text, since this has puzzled you: US courts have been clear that the threshold for creativity is very low. Some text is not protected--official titles, for instance. You can say, "The Most Right Honorable Brigadier Reverend President Jeremiah Saucer" without quotation marks (but I'd use really good verification, since the title is ridiculous. :)) You can say, "George Washington was the first president of the United States." You can reproduce a bibliography (as discussed earlier) or a cast list. You can reproduce simple mathematical formula. But most text is creative, and even text that isn't can be protected in aggregate. The bibliography (if complete) is fine. A paragraph about George Washington's life may not be, even if every detail within it is common knowledge and simply expressed. The copyright holder also owns the creative presentation of facts--what facts he has chosen and what order he chooses to put them in.
• According to Wikipedia's guideline, plagiarism occurs when text is copied from a source, free or not, without proper attribution. Proper attribution can be supplied in several fashions, including with the use of a proper attribution template or with quotation marks or block quote. Material must be cited. Close paraphrasing from a source--free or otherwise--may also constitute plagiarism. It is possible to have plagiarism without copyright violation. Where both copyright violation and plagiarism have occurred, copyright violation is the more urgent matter. Policy trumps guideline, and the copyright policies should address handling.
• Close paraphrasing is the hardest term to define and the hardest problem to address. Unless you feel you can grasp the intricacies, you are safest completely rewriting material--which means changing both language and structure. Under US copyright law, you can infringe copyright without reproducing a single word from your source, if the "concept and feel" are substantially similar. You could not take the sentence, "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" and rewrite it, "Spain's precipitation lands primarily on high-relief flatlands." This is especially true with larger chunks of text. You might get away with it for one sentence, because the court wouldn't regard it as worthy of bother. But if you do it to a paragraph, they're more likely to sit up and take notice. The line where "close paraphrasing" passes from a copyright concern to merely a plagiarism concern is not one that can be defined for you, because it is one that can only be made by a court of law on a case by case basis. But I can give you more details if you like.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the above, particularly if I have made things worse. :)

• A copyright problem is solved when the material is successfully rewritten or properly quoted and attributed.

(The copyright cleanup listing is just a weighted list of all of your contributions. It does not presume that any of them are copyright violations. It just lists them.)

If I were in your position, this is what I would do: Go through my list of contributions, evaluating at each article whether there is:

1. Copyvio Priority A: Non-free text from external sources that is closely paraphrased or copied outside of WP:NFC. If this is present, I would either (a) repair immediately through rewriting or proper quotation, (b) remove the material with a note of explanation at the talk, or (c) obscure the material with a copyvio template with a note of explanation at the talk. If (b) or (c), I'd make a note to myself to go back to it later after I finished the first round.
2. Copyvio Priority B: Poorly attributed or unattributed material from other articles. If this is present, I would either (a) repair it on the spot (if it can be done simply) by attributing in edit summary and using {{copied}} or (b) provide some attribution through the combined use of {{copypaste}} and a note of explanation at talk. If (b), I would make a note to go back to it later to fully attribute.
3. Plagiarism: Poorly attributed or unattributed material from PD sources. If this is simple, I would fix the attribution on the spot. If it is not, I might make a note to go back to it later to fully attribute.

I would recommend ignoring notability issues at the moment until and unless somebody tags something for deletion. Cleaning up copyright is the primary concern.

I would consider creating a template in my user space for the notes of explanation at talk. I would create a talk page subpage and direct contributors to it to prevent having to say the same thing over and over again at various talk pages if other contributors are confused or concerned. I will be bold and make you one of these, and if you don't like it, I'll happily delete it. I'll let you know when it's up. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, again, this is purely meant as a courtesy to you, and I will happily delete either if you object. I've put text in place, but they're your material, really, and you are welcome to do with them whatever you like. The talkpage is at User talk:Mdd/Copyright questions. The template is at User:Mdd/c. To use it, you'd just paste {{subst:User:Mdd/c}} on a talk page. It'll put a section header and include your signature. I've tested it at the sandbox. Again, it is meant to be your note, and you can change it however you like. I tried to keep it simple and straightforward. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

MRG, I appreciate all courtesy and patient you are offering me. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Mdd seems a mayor step forwards, but the template you made seems like one step back. I allready isolated the copy-vio's in 200+ article by removing the text, and made notes on all talk pages. Adding a new text on those talkpages is a lot of extra work, maybe even confusing.

I counted about 800+ items om the cleanup list. I want to keep checking and fixing those things as simple as possible. I improve the article if needed, make a note in the editsummary, a possible note on the talkpage, and sign the cleanup list. Maybe I can just give it a start, see how it works. I will get back on this. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Working the cleanup list

MRG, I started using the cleanup list you created and checked the 11th section, and I added my findings in the editsummary. As you can see, here, I took five different actions. Two of them remained with some suspision. Is this the way you want it to work..?? And could you take a look at the Talk:Flow visualization Copy-paste registration. Is this how you like it to be..?? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 23:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

First, in response to the above, if you don't think the template or the talk subpage would be useful to you, please let me know. As I said, I'll happily delete them. No reason to keep them hanging around if they won't help.

The copy-paste note you link is certainly sufficient for such a simple paste. Attribution would be done differently for something more complex, such as used to exist at Philosophy of dialogue. You are required to put a note in the edit summary. Typically, I do this by making an edit that does not impact the text so that I can generate an edit summary field. For instance, I might add or remove a space around the categories. (There may be an easier way, but this is the one I know.) Then, in edit summary, you would put something like "Text copied from [[Source]] on date; see for attribution". This is required to comply with WP:C. Consensus is that this should also be done at the source article: "Text copied to [[Destination]] on date". Additionally, if the text is extensive, I encourage the use of the {{copied}} template at least on the destination page. I created this template myself to simplify the plethora of split/merge templates that were used differently on source & destination pages. I'm going to save this now, but I'm not finished answering. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Mdd, your notes seem to be very thorough and helpful. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Please don't removed the template (yet), because it might come in hand later on. -- Mdd (talk) 14:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I finished checking the Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Mdd list, and will leave it for now, as I also explained here. -- Mdd (talk) 23:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

How about this, for now

Marcel, in regard to the biographical articles: perhaps you should ask for the opinions of people active on related pages whether they think particular bios you've created are even worth working on: that is, are the subjects considered notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia? If not, simply remove the articles, and if those subjects are deemed at some point to be notable, either you or someone else can start an article from scratch. Even if others think the subjects are already notable, they can volunteer perhaps to restore a deleted page, taking care to remove infringing material, and perhaps otherwise improving it. I already edited some of your bios, mainly as an illustration of the kind of material that needs to be reworded or removed, but I would not care to do that with a huge number of articles that, in all candor, possibly were not worth creating in the first place, or, at the very least, should not have been created through the methods you employed (that is, by pasting in undigested chunks of material from various sources). It may sound drastic, but thinning out the collection by simply deleting the page is an option. I am of course referring to pages on which you may be the sole, or virtually the sole, contributor. Just a thought. Anyway, you're the "systems guy" here, so I'm sure you'll find a systematic way to improve the articles you've begun, if you choose to keep them. Good luck. Bacrito (talk) 02:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In Holland we have the expressing "het kind met het badwater weggooien". Notability on all articles I wrote and the other 2000+ articles under the wings of the Wikiproject Systems have long been established. The Wikipedia:Plagiarism explains about improving possible copyright infrigments with care and caution. You ideas doesn't seem to be according to those policies. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You raised a question about notability on the Talk:Arne Sølvberg page, which I started explaining. This brought you to the idea all those biographical articles should be rechecked on notability, even better be deleted and rewritten from scratch. A really amazing spin off -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

We have simultaneous edits going again: I meant to add this, before your last comment: Let me backpedal a little on what I wrote there: perhaps you shouldn't take the time to solicit opinions about notability, if there's any chance that there are copyright violations on those pages: just be ruthless, delete them, and perhaps use the information (not the verbatim text!) in them, at some point in the future if you feel inclined and have the time and energy, to start fresh pages on those subjects. Again, I am only referring to removals that don't affect other people's work. And again, this is just my possibly dunder-headed opinion -- people such as the administrators who've posted on this page may not agree, and I hope you defer to their guidance.

Now, as to your view that my "ideas don't seem to be in accordance with those policies" -- fine, I don't assert that they are. I merely stated an opinion, in the spirit of trying to help you. By all means, exercise as much "care and caution" as you like. I was suggesting to you a way of quickly reducing the size of the problem by reconsidering your priorities, so that you could more easily exercise care and caution on those articles most important to you or most difficult to sort out.

I'm absolutely through with discussing this with you. I don't have, as you've seen from our initial unpleasant exchanges, the truly enormous reserves of tact and patience that others have used with you, on this page and elsewhere. If it were up to me, you would already have been banned. I think you should be grateful for the forbearance people (not me) have shown toward you. I had no desire to get into this nonsense at all. I simply was looking for information on systems psychology, found patently unacceptable material (much like the examples others have just described here, tried to fix it, and got an absurd debate which I should have avoided.

And again, while I was typing that, you added more gratuitous, argumentative garbage. I don't care whether you delete pages or not: I am offering it to you as an option, in order to help you! Forget it. I no longer "assume good will" on your part. You have in my view forfeited the right to that assumption. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bacrito (talk • contribs) 03:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You are entitled to have your own opinion here. Thanks for sharing. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 03:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Management cybernetics

I was asked to look at Management cybernetics by Bacrito. Mdd I am pleased that you decided to revert your revert, because otherwise you would have been in breach of the WP:COPYVIO policy for reintroducing copyright material which is not adequately indicated. For example the text you initially reverted to included this:

Scientific models are not descriptors nor are they pointers toward some neutral, objective reality, but are consensual conventions which enable particular understanding and coordination of activity in a community of observers. Impeccable communication of a model entails making visible this activeconsensual function, rather than simply pursuing a more detailed investigation of the phenomenon considered as the source or origin for the model.

— (Roger J. Harnden (1990), "The languaging of models: The understanding and communication of models with particular reference to Stafford Beer's cybernetic model of organization structure". in Systemic Practice and Action Research, Issue Volume 3, Number 3, June, 1990. pp. 289-302.)

Which is an identical copy of the contents of this abstract. right down to an error which appears in the URL but not the original ("activeconsensual"). If you had not reverted you revert you would have faced a possible block for reintroducing copyright material into an article.

Note also that WP:CITATION says "Say were you got it" in this case the citation is incorrect because the information does not originate from the citation given but rather:

Journal Article,SpringerLink, published by Springer, 2 February 1989. An abstract describing Roger J. Harnden (1990), "The languaging of models: The understanding and communication of models with particular reference to Stafford Beer's cybernetic model of organization structure". in Systemic Practice and Action Research, Issue Volume 3, Number 3, June, 1990. pp. 289-302.

-- PBS (talk) 15:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you for this detailed info. Later on I will use it to fix the problems, if I can. At the moment I am still in the process of isolating the problems in my work. Now I indeed reverted my own revert after I realize I made an error of judgment. I realize now this is still a violation, and I apologized on the talk page. The confusion, which let me to make this error of judgment, was that I sort of had an agreement with MRG how to continue detecting and isolation problems, see here, stating for example:

"If the copyrighted text used is brief, you can rather clumsily fix it by using quotation marks, as I did in the article you linked. However, if the material starts to move beyond a sentence or two, you need to proceed carefully with this..."

At Management cybernetics Bacrito removing the whole (since Sept 2007) rewriten article, and as he said "if... tomorrow I will insist that someone delete it". This is not quite my idea of "to proceed carefully..." But I can live with that for now.

In time I like to ask for more specific advice, but for now I like to continue to determine and isolate the problems. As to warning, one question. At first I had the idea, I wasn't allowed to edit any more articles any more. Or at least... for now I am intending not to add any new facts or quote, until I have improved some of my skills. If I understand right, I can try to fix the problems even if I don't fix them perfectly. Am I right about that? It could be I start improving an article, but don't solve anything all at once, then I don't reintroducing copyright material? I just keep it there? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mdd. You have new messages at Moonriddengirl's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Sub-page to keep track of changes

You asked the question on Moonriddengirl's talk page "... As I understand I cannot get blocked for trying to solve the p-problems in the articles, as long as I don't bring in new material?"

To make it clear to you. You may not revert deletes and re-add text that is a copyright violation. You can only add text that is within Wikipedia's usage of copyright material (in quotes). The emphasis is on you to check the material for copyright infringements before you re-add it to Wikipedia.

If you re-add material that is a copyright infringement the chances are that after the warning I have given you your account will be blocked (probably for a short period initially, but for longer periods if more infringements occur, however that would be at the discretion of the administrators who chose to block you account for such infringements).

I have a concern that you wrote on this talk page to me "Thanks you for this detailed info. Later on I will use it to fix the problems, if I can." and to Moonriddengirl on her talk page "Now I do agree the phrase "Allen has been applying notions of complex systems and hierarchy theory to ecology for twenty-five years" and more further notions in the work section are not well cited... and I have no problem them being removed." The point is that without even trying hard it is easy to find copyright violations in the contributions you have made to Wikipedia, and to date in my opinion you are not showing the right attitude to tackling this problem, because it is not up to us to look at your work and you to begrudgingly agree we have caught you out, in a few specific incidence. This is not a school class room, where teacher has found one child copying from another, we are all adults and have to co-operate in solving the problems you have created. But if your future edits become part of the problem and not part of the solution then your account will have to be blocked. -- PBS (talk)

Sorry PBS, I indeed still have problems getting focused on both on the bigger picture? the reasons why? the procedures how to solve them? an getting focused on the individual particular problems? what I can do? and what I cannot do at this moment to fix the problem? Talking about specific cases helps be understand, as I did with MRG about Timothy F. H. Allen, see here two days ago. In this particular comment, I was insecure about if I could have restored the part of the articles. Now I think, I shouldn't have reverted that section at all, but waited for MRG's comment. Now I have similar problems with the Thomas A. DeFanti, Werner Ulrich and G. A. Swanson article. Instead of acting on my own, as I did in the Timothy F. H. Allen article, I asked for a second opinion. The main reason is that I don't want to make the same misstep (at the Timothy F. H. Allen article) again. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 08:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

In a previous section you wrote "At Management cybernetics Bacrito removing the whole (since Sept 2007) rewriten article, and as he said "if... tomorrow I will insist that someone delete it". This is not quite my idea of "to proceed carefully..." But I can live with that for now." That is my idea of proceeding carefully, cut out any text that is a copyright violation ASAP (as soon as possible). It can then be reworded at leisure so that it meets Wikipeida policy requirements. I suggest that you first focus on removing all copyright violations that you have introduced as quickly as possible. If Bacrito is willing to help you with this task I think you should thank him and not damn him.

I suggest that you create a sub-page under your user name where you can list all the articles where you have stripped out text, (Bacrito could also add to it, if he is willing to do so) so that you have a record of the deletes and fixes. I did something similar see User:Philip Baird Shearer/BCWs copyright issues which you may be able to use as a template. Such a page would be a useful aide memoire so that you can remember which articles you have deleted information from, and then later you can record you edits to fix the deleted text. If a simple edit that fixes the problem by adding quotes rather than delete then all you have to do is add the link to the fix column.

A table in a sub-page will also allow you to keep a working track of how much you have done and to keep some sort of metric of how long it is talking you to fix the copyright violations you have introduced.

Here is a template table you could use:

Article name	link to deleted text	link to fixes	Notes & comments
Thomas A. DeFanti	Revision as of 00:12, 10 October by user:Bacrito		See Talk:Thomas A. DeFanti#Second opinion Or of course you could add other notes and comments here.

-- PBS (talk) 13:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I will keep this in mind. For now I continu a personal log about all my personal actions regarding solving the copyvio problems here at User talk:Mdd#Further action. At the WikiProject Systems I only gave a short overview. I quess I need more detailed listings when improvements start. At the moment I follow MRG to keep focussed, see here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Flow chart

If I may judge by edit to the Flowchart article you are now starting to randomly delete other people's properly quoting and attributing material (in this case, mine), without even providing any evidence that the passages violate copyright in any way. Stop it! Rp (talk) 16:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have just responded on the articles talkpage, were I also explained about some of alternatives. Until now I have removed textsections from over 125+ article and I try to be as careful as I can be. Again I am sorry. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 16:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Revert all the changes. You have no right to interfere with other people's hard work like that. Rp (talk) 16:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW the same thing to the Diagram article. You didn't write (much of) what you deleted, it doesn't seem to violate copyright at all, it represents a considerable amount of effort by others - you're only doing a lot of damage with zero benefit. Stop it!! Rp (talk) 16:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I would like to ask you to take a little time to read the comment Moonriddengirl gave 11:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC) on here, and will adress to any further concerns. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 17:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I just read it, and have some problems with it.

• First, the statement that plagiarism and copyright violation are unrelated is clearly wrong, although they are indeed separate issues. Plagiarism means the text doesn't indicate where it was taken from; copyright violation may still exist when the source is properly attributed (if too much material has been copied or paraphrased), but attributing the source resolves plagiarism and makes it easy to deal with any remaining copyright issues.
• Second, it's not always easy to revert only your own contributions without taking down a lot of material from other people, and this problem is not discussed at all.
• Third, it's pretty obvious that nobody is going to take Wikipedia down for the actions of one of its contributors.

This is why Moonriddengirl's suggestion of just deleting all material in question is a grave mistake. I propose that you just attribute sources and use more diligence in deleting material later - always make sure it's your own material only, or material that is clearly in violation of copyright. Rp (talk) 19:01, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Which reminds me: I think I once saw a blame function that shows which text on a Wikipedia page is contributed by which author, but I don't recall where I saw it. This might be useful here. Rp (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

You are likely thinking of WikiBlame. I developed much the same thing myself, a Windows-only tool called WpW5 that lets me nail down where article text came from.

I agree that Mdd needs to be careful to excise only their own invalid contributions. The above issue looks like a simple mistake to me, which has been resolved. If Mdd finds copyvio's other than their own upon review, they should be reporting it for others to review (although this doesn't seem to be the case here); and if other editors have subsequently changed copyvio text that Mdd originally inserted, that can work in one of two ways: either they've substantially rewritten it so that it is no longer a copyvio and thus can remain in the article, or it still represents a copyvio and must be removed regardless of subsequent edits made by others.

On your other points, although it's true that plagio and copyvio are interrelated subjects, they are indeed dealt with separately here at en:wiki. Copyvio's meet with an immediate response, editors get indefblocked routinely if they persist. Plagios which are not copyvio's are dealt with in a more tolerant manner (except when the plagiarising editor is claiming credit for their writing, such as at WP:DYK). And your assertion that it's pretty obvious that nobody is going to take Wikipedia down for the actions of one of its contributors is not demonstrably true. Perhaps you have never been the person facing a process server delivering a statement of claim. Lawsuits are not predictable and they're not necessarily brought by reasonable people. I've been given the estimate of a quarter-million dollars to get to a single day of hearings in an actual superior court. That's nothing to a multi-billion dollar company or a seriously rich individual, but it's huge to the Wikimedia Foundation. Noone wants to see their donations being used for pointless lawsuits - so we act very quickly to prevent any possibility of such situations arising. Franamax (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's appropriate for copyvios to be dealt with immediately, but do indicate what the violation was. Otherwise bystanders just see stuff disappear without understanding why. I'm not familiar with lawsuits, but isn't the usual procedure to issue a cease-and-desist letter before any further legal action is taken? Rp (talk) 21:04, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Service System

Marcel, I've left some comments on the talk page of Service system because the page looks rather immature. I think that this is a tough topic, because it's still relatively nascent -- at least in the sense that some of the more senior members in the systems science research community are looking into a "science of service systems" or "service systems science" ... which is probably deeper than the average Wikipedia reader would like. The path to me isnt' clear, because "service" isn't new, and "systems" isn't new, but somehow, "service systems" is. Daviding (talk) 17:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Living systems

I would be interested in rebuilding this article (Living systems) in partnership, from a biological & ecological perspective and without getting into man-made socio-political concepts. --BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:12, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Swap Chain

You seem to be well-informed when it comes to computer graphics, and I was hoping you could contribute to my development of the Swap Chain Article at User:Kerdek/Swap chain. I haven't made much progress yet, but this topic has the capability to yield a good article of appropriate length, and it is currently a requested article. Are you familiar with swap chains? Derek (talk) 17:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitions of Systems by Troncale (2009, 1985)

You may be interested that there are some definitions of "systems theory", "general theory of systems", "systems science", and "systems thinking" (which includes "systems approach) by Len Troncale in in SRBS (2009) (which is a republication of Systems Research (1985).

These may help ... or they might not, because there's some entangling between the definitions. (I found this reference in the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, Charles Francois, editor ... which may be difficult to find in libraries). Daviding (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (File:Trans West 1965.jpg)

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Systems science Changes

You mentioned that you have formated such articles to your liking. Please list the articles that you have formated thus.174.3.111.148 (talk) 18:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Systems science Copyvio

You said that you removed information because you speculated that it could possibly violate copyright, or that you removed it to prevent violating copyright, just incase someone does knock on your door and claim you've stolen material.

I believe you should leave the information in. If a problem occurs, we will take it out. If you need help, I'm here to help you. Please involve me in your work.174.3.111.148 (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Systems science Systems Methodologies Types

You wrote that "There are several types of Systems Methodologies ..." but you've only listed 2. You say "There are several types of Systems Methodologies, that is, disciplines for analysis of systems. For example:" and then you lists two types. Why are these types so important?174.3.111.148 (talk) 22:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to leave the article as it is, but you need to resolve this with me. I am going to change article, but I won't put the table back.174.3.111.148 (talk) 22:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not care how you make your articles look. I have mentioned bolding is not against wp:mos. Take a look at the page. The articles you have edited are violating mos. Tell me which articles this format (your format) is applied to.174.3.111.148 (talk) 22:52, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You don't understand this doesn't concern the bolding of subparagraph titles. -- Mdd (talk) 22:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Open and closed systems in social science criticism

Hi Mdd, Thanks for keeping watch on the contents and editing behaviour. I am sumir. I intend no offence at all. It was mere an observation about contents and related follow up on the article mentioned above. sumirSumir 03:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumir Sharma (talk • contribs)

Hi, thanks again for mentioning the problem. In resolved the stituation by moving the content at the User:Nbaig and User talk:Nbaig page. I hope I did make a contribution to the, as you put it here, the digital curation of Wikipedia. -- Mdd (talk) 12:40, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Telematica Instituut Logo.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:C West Churchman.jpg

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Same page twice

Did you notice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Hamming_Medal and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Richard_W._Hamming_Medal. The only difference between them is the word 'IEEE' . Kavas (talk) 13:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning. I didn't notice, but I also wasn't looking for it. As to the two article, the one should simply redirect to an other. I have done this as I write this, because it is a simple procedure. I noticed the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal is new so I redirected this to the Richard W. Hamming Medal article. -- Mdd (talk) 14:03, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:The Science of Synthesis.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:The management of people in mergers and acquisitions.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:The Systems Approach.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:Semiologie graphique.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:Alfred Tarski.jpg

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Börje Langefors

Hello, Mdd. You have new messages at Användardiskussion:tetraedycal's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

This didn't work, here's a link sv:Användardiskussion:tetraedycal. tetraedycal, tetraedycal 23:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Reduced images ...

Sure, will do. I find these one of two ways: first way is because whoever uploads the new, reduced version adds the {{non-free reduced}} template; the second is blind luck. Thanks again and all the best, Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Should be all done. Well I hope so. Now I'm off to read some of your work! Cheers, Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sociocultural system

Dear Mr. Dekker: I made some changes to the page titled Sociocultural system. JasonCupertino (talk) 03:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I found the following definition of "sociocultural system" at http://www.bibarch.com/glossary/S.html

sociocultural system (SO·ci·o·CUL·tur·al SYS·tem). The merging of the concepts of society and culture into a holistic systems view of human populations and their social phenomena. A sociocultural system is a complex cultural structure consisting of a definable population within a more or less determinable locus, or territory, characterized by shared, interrelated ways of life including beliefs, norms, values, and technologies, transmitted to different degrees within the population, through various subgroups, from generation to generation.

Do you like that definition? Do you have a better one? JasonCupertino (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jason. The source of your quote is in Wikipedia considered to be not much of a reliable source, see also WP:RS. Better search in those sources. That is what I would do. Good luck. -- Mdd (talk) 01:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I am looking for a systems model of a sociocultural system. I would like to find a diagram that can be posted on the sociocultural systems page. Have you seen such models? JasonCupertino (talk) 19:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jason, finding the right illustration or even finding any related illustration is still a mayor problem here. I made a quit search but couldn't find one either. I am sorry. -- Mdd (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)