Welcome edit

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for joining the project. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Again, welcome! John Vandenberg 22:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Speeches edit

Hi, I am concerned about the use of {{PD-manifesto}} on Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association and Governor Romney's "Faith In America" Address.

Speeches have come up a few times in community discusions, and a decent overview of the arguments for and against was been compiled: User:Physchim62/Copyright in speeches. It is not comprehensive, as it doesnt cover speeches by federal government employees.

Many speeches have been removed in the past, so, while I dont want to set off alarm bells just yet, you may want to limit the number of speeches you put Wikisource as they may end up deleted later on. John Vandenberg 10:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Speech was obviously never intended to have "restricted distribution", by way of copyright, in the U.S., but the laws there have become increasing messy in the last few decades. When delivered via TV or radio, they are protected, The reality is that speeches are becoming a marketable property rights. this is a decent essay on the situation.
w:Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. needs to be put into the context of King v. Mister Maestro, Inc., which said that delivering an address to the public is not "publication", which means that the speech is unpublished, and sadly means it can been seen to have an implicit protection. Fair use then comes into play in order to protect free speech. But "fair use" is not "free".
I personally agree that many classes of speeches are public domain, and that we need to keep digging into this topic in order to determine which set of speeches are fine, and which are "performances" and thus not OK. I am not in favour of deleting any speech, but until we have done more research into which speeches are OK, it is an area where we need to be careful. John Vandenberg 00:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's good to hear you are looking further into this, as we need more people here who have given it serious thought. Our copyright policy needs to be based on a strict understanding of the law, in order to be sure that we don't end up putting the Wikimedia Foundation at risk.

All I am pointing out is that limiting distribution of speech is considered constitutionally OK, and has case law in its favour. The text of a speech is a derivative work of the performed speech, so if the performed speech attracts copyright, the words of it are subject to copy protection too. John Vandenberg 09:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

sisterlinks edit

I have run into this same problem a few times, swore a few times, thought of doing a few things (none of which I was really happy about), and ended up replacing the {{sisterlinks}} with more specific templates; i.e. :
{{commons}}
{{wikisource-author}}
{{wikiquote}}


And I change the order of them depending on which ones are more useful. i.e. a pre 1900 poet would be "wikisource-author" first; a post 1900 poet would be "wikiquote" first.

We have recently been discussing fixing this problem on the Wikisource, so that Special:Search/Al Gore "finds" Author:Al Gore and goes there instead. I'll go look for that discussion so you can see where we are up to. John Vandenberg 23:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

a good problem to have edit

It is fantastic to see duplicates being created within a day of each other: Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: We the People) and A More Perfect Union (and a new user!). Thanks for noticing and fixing it. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

KKK edit

Thanks for pointing out my error, fixed it! Btw, the "Previous" is used to link back to indexes on similar topics - so somebody reading this is likely interested in the Ku Klux Klan, hence the PRevious tag  :) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Percival Lowell 04:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Renaming the index to "Wikisource:Ku Klux Klan" might be the best solution, a more "neutral" title. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Percival Lowell 04:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Quick note: we now use the Portal: namespace and parameter in the header to link to the topical index. So it is now Portal:Ku Klux Klan. Inductiveloadtalk/contribs 02:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

JM edit

Are you sure that John McCain paper is copyrighted? Looks like the work of a federal employee in commission of his duties, since the foreward clearly says it's an official work of the National War College. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:John McCain and Author:Barack Obama 23:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

M. L. King's speeches edit

I have undone your changes to the two Martin Luther King speeches, as they are currently being discussed at WS:COPYVIO#M. L. King's speeches. --John Vandenberg (chat) 23:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

({{PD-manifesto}} edit

This template is not appropriate for speeches merely given in a public forum where it possible to contact the author about the license. Please see Template talk:PD-manifesto--BirgitteSB 20:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Copyvio edit

Please stop removing this template from articles that have it. It may be correct or not in stating that the article is a copyright violation, but it means that the article is currently being considered on Wikisource:Possible copyright violations, and it should and will be removed only when an administrator decides on the ultimate fate of the article on that page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't believe that Bobby Jindal would hesitate to use the power of copyright against any translation that displeased him. The right of verbatim reproduction is not sufficient for Wikisource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
We are here in good faith, so a level of sarcasm on people's pages is unnecessary. As has been explained, releasing a speech is not removing one's copyright as required for us to host the information. If it is to be cleared to be exhibited, then contact the person and seek approval, as I believe has been stated numerous times. If you choose not to seek to do so, then that is your choice, and the decision will be made. If you choose to seek and are successful, then email it to mailto:info@wikisource.org and we can have the approval lodged into OTRS. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Talk pages and {{Textinfo}} edit

Hi, could you please use the {{Textinfo}} template when you put your source on the Talk page? I've swapped over to it on Talk:Alledged Hacker Charged with Stealing Over Four Million Documents from MIT Network as an example. Thanks, Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:55, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your additions edit

Thanks much for your additions on the subject of Aaron Swartz. Please see author page at Author:Aaron Swartz. We can compile additional related documents there. :) Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 11:37, 2 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks again edit

Thanks yet again for your helpful additions of documents to Wikisource, including Remarks As Prepared for Delivery for the Center for American Progress Event on NSA Surveillance.

Much appreciated, -- Cirt (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

From your message here. I don't know why they didn't transclude the work that they had transcribed. <shrug>. As this version is supported by scans, it is considered to take precedence over a transcription alone, so I have converted your addition to a redirect.

Some general points.

  • Letters generally need more than writer and target in the title, if the letter has picked up a common name based on the title or in general reference, we would use that, other sender/receiver will need specifics such as year, or a specific date, in a title to remove ambiguity and provide context.
  • Please see Wikisource:Wikilinks as you are overlinking for what we consider our scope. Priority are local links to other works, author pages, or portal pages. We minimise links to enWP to where they are truly necessary in the context of the work, not just because links are nice. We don't link what is obvious, or common knowledge but where it adds to the value of the work, ie. if not author page at enWS, then a link to a person at enWP where it is unambiguous and the person's biography exists at enWP. We also do not link based on presumption, or interpretatively as that is more annotation.

billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the reply, @Billinghurst:. I probably do overlink things a tad, but of course our role here is fundamentally educational. My rule of thumb is not to link to something a reader either on the other side of the planet today or on this very spot 100 years from now, would be familiar with. Of course, due to Wikipedia's proclivity for recentism, sometimes my cup runneth over, while with older documents it's easier to tell what's truly obscure. FWIW, I've never reverted a change in this area that I can recall, so I figure I can't be doing too badly. :p -- Kendrick7 (talk) 23:56, 3 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
You have been here for 10+++ years without a block, so you are obviously doing fine. You have rigorous and challenging arguments at times, and express a PoV, and you do it in the appropriate places, so all good with me. You do bring some WPism, as I take my WSism elsewhere … oh well … we can manage. 👍 — billinghurst sDrewth 21:36, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Donald Trump 45th President edit

Hi, This is my first time and I've never done anything like this before. Some the statements made in the story of his presidency should have "alleged" on many of the stories of; for example: voter fraud, inciting a riot and so on--many of these are MSM heresay. Pretty misleading...IvyLynn770.169.53.144 21:46, 23 February 2021 (UTC)Reply