TruckingMatters

Welcome...

Hello, TruckingMatters, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.  Again, welcome! ErgoSum•talk•trib 21:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Your edits to American Trucking Associations

Thank you for doing some work on this article, but it seems your recent additions violate Wikipedia's copyright policy as they were copied and pasted word for word into the article. This kind of thing is not acceptable unless you can provide some kind of permission from the copyright holder. While the additions that were not copied word for word, and the use of sources is greatly appreciated, the violations will be deleted unless they are re-written. Normally I would delete them outright but I thought I'd give you a chance to fix the problem. Thanks again. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 00:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, some of your additions are not encyclopedic in tone. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising (please read WP:NOTADVERTISING), and these additions will soon be changed or deleted as they may be considered nothing more than spam. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 00:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I have express permission from the copyright holder for parts which are copy/pasted (I work at the ATA's Office of Public Affairs). Could you tell me which section specifically you think I should change the tone of? TruckingMatters (talk) 14:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi TruckingMatters. At issue is the Terms of Use for ATA's website: [1]. This page specifically forbids electronic republishing or derivative works based on content from the ATA's website. So if anyone reads the terms of use on the ATA site, and notices the wikipedia article is using text they will assume the article is violating ATA's copyrights and the text must be deleted. Wikipedia maintains an database of permissions letters (i.e. when someone gives wikipedia permission to use a photo or whatever). It is called the OTRS system. What you can do is obtain a permission letter from your employer. The email address to submit that letter is at: [2]. There are two procedures listed, one for Commons (the pictures archive) an the other for wikipedia text. If I understand the above exchange correctly, only text is an issue, no pictures are borrowed from the site, so the commons stuff can be skipped. As stated at the bottom of all wikipedia articles, wikipedia text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (often abbreviated as CC-by-SA). As such the permission letter needs to state that the ATA authorizes this content to be released under the terms of this license. I'm not trying to make your life miserable, but given the ATA's website explicitly forbids derivative works, we need to have something on record saying wikipedia can use content from their site. Hope this helps. Dave (talk) 18:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this! I will get someone higher up in the foodchain to send the email. TruckingMatters (talk) 13:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The lawyers decided that they didn't want the hassle, so I changed the sections that I copied directly. Let me know if anything else needs to be changed. Would it be possible to re-rate this article so that it is no longer a stub?TruckingMatters (talk) 16:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your cooperation. In fact it is preferable not to have content copied directly from other sources, it is seen as the "lazy" way to create articles.

I have reassessed the article and given it a "c" rating. Further improvement would require a peer review followed by Good Article review, another peer review and then you may submit it for Featured Article review. If you can make it through all of that they will put your article on the front page and will be read by thousands of visitors. Although I'm not sure a if an organization such as this has ever been featured on the front page, it certainly might help my long-term goal of creating a trucking industry Featured Topic. But that is such a huge task, I can't do it alone. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 20:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

What sort of things could I do to improve the article to GA? My knowledge of the industry is fairly limited to the ATA and our policies, so I'd be happy to do what I can with the ATA article.TruckingMatters (talk) 14:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

GA is pretty easy, it is only one person's opinion on whether the article meets the minimum requirements and is adhering to the rules laid out in the Manual of style and the "five pillars". Peer review is usually pretty backlogged, so it may take a while to get some feedback, but you can also ask other trucking aficionados to look at your article and see what they think. You might find interested editors over at WP:WikiProject Trucks, and you might want to add your name to the list considering you have already contributed to at least one trucking topic. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 02:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Potential conflict of interest

Welcome to Wikipedia. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article American Trucking Associations, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).

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

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you.

Sorry, I know template messages can be somewhat impersonal but I strongly suggest you read some of the links provided above, otherwise, your edits may be called into question and possibly erased. As far as the copyright violations, that is getting into areas beyond my expertise. I have a friend who is an administrator who might be able to help you, otherwise, you might want to ask around and see if your contributions are kosher. I would hate to see all your work go to waste because someone accuses you of spamming or having a conflict of interest. I have been working to improve trucking articles on Wikipedia for years now, and its nice to have some help. Anyway, I will ask an expert to look at this situation but its good that you are being straightforward and communicating about this.

I almost forgot your question regarding the tone of your contributions. Wikipedia has a policy against so-called "peacock terms". Mainly, the second paragraph concerns me... although it might be OK if it were attributed to the ATA as a direct quote. But an encyclopedia should not wax poetic about the goals and dreams of an organization, it should report the dry facts without bias, buzzwords, marketing speak, or flowery terms. I hope this has helped. ErgoSum•talk•trib 01:09, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

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