Template:Did you know nominations/Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc.

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:23, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc.[edit]

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... that the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided that "lines, chevrons, and colorful shapes" on cheerleading uniforms could be eligible for copyright protection ...? Source: Decision at p. 4 & 10 (p. 8 & 14 of PDF). Source quote 1: "In this case, our task is to determine whether the lines, chevrons, and colorful shapes appearing on the surface of respondents' cheerleading uniforms are eligible for copyright protection as separable features of the design of those cheerleading uniforms." Source quote 2: "First, one can identify the decorations as features having pictorial, graphic, or sculptural qualities. Second, if the arrangement of colors, shapes, stripes, and chevrons on the surface of the cheerleading uniforms were separated from the uniform and applied in another medium—for example, on a painter’s canvas—they would qualify as 'two-dimensional . . . works of . . . art,' §101. And imaginatively removing the surface decorations from the uniforms and applying them in another medium would not replicate the uniform itself. Indeed, respondents have applied the designs in this case to other media of expression—different types of clothing—without replicating the uniform. The decorations are therefore separable from the uniforms and eligible for copyright protection." Both quotes (slightly modified) appear in the Majority opinion section of the article.

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Typhlodromips swirskii
Comment: Since this article is about the court's decision, the "Opinion of the Court" section naturally quotes or closely paraphrases the content of the opinions. The "background" section also relies heavily on quotes.

Created by AHeneen (talk). Self-nominated at 23:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC).

Alright let's see - the QPQ is done and looks fine to me. New enough at the time of nomination, long enough. Well written and well sourced. Looking at the copyvio tools I do see it hitting on quotes throughout, but they are cited and I suppose warranted based on the subject matter. The image has an appropriate "fair use" rationale, since it has been deemed copyrightable that is important ;-). Hook is cited and the source supports the hook.

we are good to go on this one AHeneen. MPJ -DK 17:59, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Comment pulled from prep as contains raw URLs (contrary to D3 which states "References in the article must not be bare URLs ") despite Cwmhiraeth's efforts to fix them up, they were reverted by the nominator. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:42, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

The bare URLs need to be dealt with, especially since the article has been templated. Allowing one week, after which this will be marked for closure. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: What bare URLs are there? All of the references have accompanying information about the source and follow the Bluebook citatation style, which is permissible per WP:CITESTYLE and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Referencing style. The lead of Wikipedia:Bare URLs states (underlined is my emphasis):

A bare URL is a URL cited as a reference for some information in an article without any accompanying information about the linked page. In other words, it is just the text out of the URL bar of your browser copied and pasted into the Wiki text, inserted between the <ref> tags or simply provided as an external link, without title, author, date, or any of the usual information necessary for a bibliographic citation or useful for addressing link rot. Note that some citation styles, such as the MLA style, use full bibliographic citation that happen to display the text of the URL in addition to proper identifying information, like the author, date, and title of the publication. These are not considered bare URLs.

Note that the "bare URL" allegations are under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides. AHeneen (talk) 02:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

The template has been removed (it wasn't appropriately added to begin with) and you can simply read the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides to see that there are no "bare URLs" in this article. The relevant DYK rule is supplementary rule D3, which says in relevant part "References in the article must not be bare URLs", linking to the same page which my earlier quote was taken from. All the references have enough bibliographic information to locate the original source (which in some cases is in print, see the Citing sources talk page discussion). AHeneen (talk) 09:56, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Funnily enough you've been asked to use Wikipedia style citations in that discussion yet refuse to do so. This isn't going on the main page until the raw urls are fixed as they are in pretty much every other law article on Wikipedia. This one isn't special. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:58, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

What part of WP:CITESTYLE or WP:Bare URLs do you not comprehend (something thoroughly discussed at the CS talk page)? The part that reads "Wikipedia does not have a single house style" for citations? The part that says "[e]ditors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles"? The cited ARBCOM decision that says "Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas ... [including] citation style" and that "[w]here Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike"? The above quote that says in part that "citation styles, such as the MLA style, use[ing] full bibliographic citation that happen to display the text of the URL in addition to proper identifying information, like the author, date, and title of the publication ... are not considered bare URLs"? Enlighten me and the person who will review this nomination. I've also pointed out that the citations are correctly formatted to the Bluebook style. And as my most recent comment on this page mentioned, the article complies with supplementary rule D3. AHeneen (talk) 02:59, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I "comprehend" it all, thanks. Your article is a citation horror show, and since no other legal articles adopt this hard-nosed and bizarre approach, including featured and good articles, I see no good reason at all that you should adopt a position by which you try to mandate such a mess. Good luck with this and anything of a similar nature; you will face the same debate time and again in future, so I would advise that you simply withdraw this and save the community time debating over why your massive raw URLs should stand while they don't in any other such article. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

It's within both Wikipedia & DYK policies. Full stop. To the approving admin: note that there has otherwise been no objections to the hook or article content beyond formatting of the citations. AHeneen (talk) 12:18, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Nope, not within the spirit of what the DYK policies meant. As noted, all legal articles going through DYK and even featured legal articles don't use these bare URLs. This is a silly point-making exercise which was actually already resolved some months back when the bare URLs were re-formatted. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I see nothing in WP:DYKAIM seems relevant to your comment. And I haven't been going around to different articles disrupting Wikipedia in order to make a point, which is what WP:POINT relates to. AHeneen (talk) 15:38, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the fact you're the only one on Wikipedia who insists on this arcane and useless formatting means you're the one making the point. It's not useful or usable and isn't fit for main page inclusion. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

You linked to WP:POINT ([1]; "This is a silly point-making exercise..."). I've been making a point (that the format is within policy), but have not been acting in violation of WP:POINT, as WP:NOTPOINTy makes clear: [J]ust because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate that point. As a rule, editors engaging in "POINTy" behavior are making edits with which they do not actually agree, for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention and provoking opposition in the hopes of making other editors see their "point". Note to the reviewer: There hasn't been any objections to the content of the article or hook besides The Rambling Man's repeated objections to the formatting of the citations, which I have clearly shown to fall within both Wikipedia and DYK policy. AHeneen (talk) 14:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Exposing the text of the URLs looks awful and serves no purpose. E Eng 01:18, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
^^^^ That ^^^^ The Rambling Man (talk) 22:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
It seems clear that there is a consensus that the citation style needs to be changed and so I have changed it accordingly. Remember that you do not WP:OWN the article. IronGargoyle (talk) 23:07, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

The edit reintroduced Id. and Ibid., which should not be used per MOS:IBID. Regarding consensus, the discussion relating to this article/DYK nom at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 41#"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides also must be taken into account, in which the consensus was that including the "raw" URL text is acceptable as part of WP:CITESTYLE and isn't a WP:Bare URL. Considering that discussion, and since I agree that the lengthy archival URLs are unnecessary and ugly in the page, I have formatted the refs so that the archival URLs have been removed (in the case of online only sources, they are still in the source code as hidden text) and the "raw" URLs limited to online-only sources. With this, the article now (unlike the revision by IronGargoyle) follows a proper citation style, removes the most contentious thing (the lengthy archival URLs) and looks much better visually.

The main underlying problem with the original changes is that the only way to include archive URLs ([2]) is to add it in brackets after the URL, so that required changing several of the piped links to be changed to "available at ___URL___ [___archive URL___]" as the only feasible way to follow the style guide and add archival URLs. "Available at ___URL___" is an optional addition to the citation that allows the addition of a URL for an online version of a source published in print ([3]). To avoid the unsightly archive URLs, I removed them when reformatting the refs and the article now looks much better while containing properly-formatted refs.

Since that citation style only requires URLs when the source is exclusively published online, the URLs were piped for the laws and cases ([4]), eg.:

Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc., No. 15-866, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), slip op. at 1-2 (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 101).

That is what many Wikipedia articles using this citation style have done, which leaves only "raw" URLs for sources that are exclusively online.

It's also not about WP:OWNing the article, it's about (1) WP:STEWARDSHIP in keeping the footnotes formatted within the relevant MOS guidelines (at the time of creation, I intended to get it to GA status but just needed to wait a couple months for reactions from academics and the legal community to add) and (2) the changes demanded would effectively preclude any article with footnotes formatted using the Bluebook style guide from DYK, so the persistance explaining and adhering to relevant MOS guidelines is not just for this nomination (in an owning-like way), but so that the style can be used in future DYK noms as well (as pointed out in my previous posts, there's no DYK criteria against the use of footnotes formatted like these).

A couple of changes were made since the original version of the article/footnotes: it was pointed out in discussion that Id. and Ibid. should not be used per MOS:IBID, so those footnotes were changed, and the footnotes referencing "slip op." were also adjusted for clarity. In both cases, though, the changes remained within the bounds of the style guide's rules for shortened citations. AHeneen (talk) 05:12, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

At this point I suggest this nomination be closed as not worth the community's time. DYK is meant to encourage content creation, not wikilawyering. E Eng 05:16, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

The article is within all DYK rules. Only issue is complaints about the citations that are within Wikipedia style guidelines. It should be posted as waiting on resolving the trivial style of references is not worth waiting for and bickering over a minor formatting issue is not what the DYK nomination should be concerned with. AHeneen (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Is that what your giant walls of text are trying to say? E Eng 11:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

There is consensus against the citation style that you are insisting on. The article should not be posted until this issue is resolved. Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:23, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't get why this April nomination is still open. During this discussion, the nominator could have formatted the references already within the past 3 months. SL93 (talk) 16:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
It has been far more than the week that BlueMoonset posted in May. Marking for closure. SL93 (talk) 16:10, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

As I've stated repeatedly, there's nothing about the article that violates any DYK rule and it conforms with Wikipedia style guidelines for citation style. There's no reason to reject it. AHeneen (talk) 15:06, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Your problem will be finding a reviewer who wants to plow through all the above to confirm what you're saying. If not, that's the risk you took when you set out on your quixotic campaign. E Eng 16:31, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Drive-by comment: Although personally I dislike the visible URLs in the references, and believe they represent an unnecessarily close adherence to the rules of Bluebook, I nevertheless do not believe that their stylistic ugliness is reason enough to squash this DYK. The reason for pulling this nomination is because of Rule D3, "References in the article must not be bare URLs," yet there is no question that the references are not bare urls. As the bare URLs page explicitly states, "Note that some citation styles, such as the MLA style, use full bibliographic citation that happen to display the text of the URL in addition to proper identifying information, like the author, date, and title of the publication. These are not considered bare URLs." That's about as black and white an answer as one can get.

The references are both ugly and within the rules. I suggest restoring the tick and moving on. --Usernameunique (talk) 03:17, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

+1 for this. The cites do not contain any "bare URLs" and are fully compliant with citation guidelines. The nom's supposed acts of ownership consisted only of reverting edits that violated WP:CITEVAR and seemed to be mostly based on a lack of familiarity with legal citation styles. Toohool (talk) 02:45, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

As pointed out in my July 12 comment above, it's not really ownership, but stewardship (keeping citations MoS-compliant), and furthermore, I have been persistent because of concern that any forced change would mean that future DYK noms using this citation style would be blocked, so it was worthwhile to set the record straight and resolve the issue now rather setting a precedent. It's also specifically exempted at WP:OWNBEHAVIOR (emphasis added): An editor disputes minor edits concerning layout, image use, and wording in a particular article daily. ... (This does not include the routine maintenance of article consistency, such as preservation of established spelling or citation styles.) AHeneen (talk) 04:44, 6 August 2017 (UTC)