Shawnmarbo

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Hello, Shawnmarbo, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome!--Biografer (talk) 19:27, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

March 2018

Hello, Shawnmarbo. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 19:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Your addition has been removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Wikipedia. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted material, including text or images from print publications or from other websites, without an appropriate and verifiable license. All such contributions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images—you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Really, I'll ask that all the library's employees be blocked for persistent vandalism. Any parenthetically, why would the employees of a library, of all places, continue to add plagiarized content to a public website? 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Library Employees

What exactly is copy written about adding the library’s history, directors, and such on the website? Look up any other library on Wikipedia and they have the exact same information...added by library employees...I think a library should be trusted enough to add what their own history is...these are facts, not copy written info... Shawnmarbo (talk) 20:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, Shawn, I know as a former library board member how hard it is to scramble for resources. What you are doing is spamming. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a venue for SEO. We need content sourced from WP:reliable sources unconnected with the subject with a reputation for fact checking. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Dlohcierekim, I want to thank you for trying to help me out and explain what needs to be changed and why. I guess my only question to help me understand and be able to explain to my library board (who requested additions) is why if I am just adding the same information other libraries have is ours considered copyright violation? I know we are just a small library compared to New York Public or Cincinnati Library so we don't have as many (if any) external references from newspapers and magazines like them. How then can we put even basic information up about our history, address, etc if the only place it exists is on our own website?

Information is not copyrighted, but prose is. The basic information can go into the Wikipedia article as long as Wikipedia editors write it in their own words. The copyright violation occurs when the description of the library is copied word-for-word from its website. —C.Fred (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok. I understand that. If we have permission to use the material, how do we show that then? I apologize for all the newbie questions, but appreciate all the help as I try to do what has been asked and not violate your policies and guidelines. Shawnmarbo (talk) 01:57, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The donation would have to be documented one of two ways. Either the page with the text would have to have a copyright notice stating that it is under a free license (Creative Commons or GFDL) or in the public domain, or somebody with authority from the library would have to email the Volunteer Response Team to state that they are irrevocably donating it under a free license. —C.Fred (talk) 01:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Bear in mind that the permission would include allowing anybody to use the material or make derivative works from the material—including commercial reuse. —C.Fred (talk) 02:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It bears saying that assuming the copyright issue is resolved, there are still WP:COI issues and the tendency, as Dlohcierekim stated, to spam. As explained at the article talk page, the library's programs and directors are not notable, and we're not a directory. The idea that the library board is involving itself is unacceptable, and explains the persistent attempts to misuse Wikipedia today, via four separate accounts. I'd strongly suggest that we not encourage employees of the library to edit the article. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I support the administrator's suggestion to redirect the article to that of the town [1]. Today's promotional efforts underscore the notability issues. 2601:188:180:11F0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Re: the Board-- What exactly do they intend? I get the idea the purpose is not to build Wikipedia. This places us smack in the middle of WP:COI with an obvious implication of WP:PAID editing. (Please read those thoroughly.) While we tend to grant greater latitude to institutions like libraries, I doubt anyone connected with the library should do more than suggest edits. Now as to the matter of WP:notability, notability needs to be established as the only sourcing seems to be the subject's web site. An article so sourced about any other type of subject would probably be speedily deleted under WP:CSD#G11 already. I have placed a "find sources" template on the article. That should aid the search. It is imperative that we find significant coverage in reliable sources unconnected with the subject to establish notability. Otherwise, the most likely outcome would be to redirect to the article about the city. Cheers, --Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for educating us on the reasons and policies. No bad intentions were ever meant. We were merely trying to update some of our online presences with more relevant and up to date information. We had looked at various other libraries listed on Wikipedia to get ideas and spoken with other colleagues who had done the same for their libraries. Thank you all for your help with reasons, links to policies and articles. It is most appreciated. Shawnmarbo (talk) 03:15, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello Shawnmarbo, and welcome to Wikipedia. While we appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from sources to avoid copyright and plagiarism issues here.

• You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and cite the source using an inline citation. You can read about this at Wikipedia:Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Help:Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
• Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. (There is a college-level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify the information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
• Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Wikipedia:Copyrights. You may also want to review Wikipedia:Copy-paste.
• If you own the copyright to the source you want to copy or are a legally designated agent, you may be able to license that text so that we can publish it here. Understand, though, that unlike many other sites, where a person can license their content for use there and retain non-free ownership, that is not possible at Wikipedia. Rather, the release of content must be irrevocable, to the world, into the public domain (PD) or under a suitably-free and compatible copyright license. Such a release must be done in a verifiable manner, so that the authority of the person purporting to release the copyright is evidenced. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
• In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are PD or compatibly licensed) it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, the help desk or the Teahouse before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
• Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied or translated without attribution. If you want to copy or translate from another Wikipedia project or article, you must follow the copyright attribution steps in Wikipedia:Translation#How to translate. See also Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia.

It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you. No bad intentions were ever meant. I was merely trying to update some of our online presences with more relevant and up to date information. We had looked at various other libraries listed on Wikipedia to get ideas and spoken with other colleagues who had done the same for their libraries. Thank you for your help with reasons, links to policies and articles. It is most appreciated. Shawnmarbo (talk) 03:22, 31 March 2018 (UTC)