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April 17[edit]

Deletion of an article[edit]

I wrote a very brief entry about the St. David's Society of Washington DC which is one of the oldest heritage organizations in the USA and has close connections to the British Embassy and the ex pat community in the USA. They hold meetings at venues such as the Cosmos club downtown Washington on Embassy row. It was founded 130 years ago and is still very active in cultural affairs in the Washington DC area, and promotes opera, music, history, genealogy and literature. It was deleted for not having any significance. However, there are many, many articles in Wikipedia about many things of far less import than the St. David's society. I am a journalist for heritage publications in the usa, but I have been barred from writing a paragraph -- a few lines -- about this organization for reasons not clear. Can someone else write it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffcats (talk • contribs) 16:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, it was not deleted "for not having any significance", but because the article as you wrote it did not "credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject". There are many societies in Washington DC and your article gave no reason why we should believe that this particular one is notable. To avoid any future attempt being deleted you need to read Wikipedia's definition of notability and support the statements in the article by references to published reliable sources independent of the subject which give significant coverage of the topic. By the way, OTHERTHINGSEXIST isn't a valid argument in this context. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have an association with the St. David's Society of Washington, DC? You were asked this question and have not answered it. If you have an association, you must provide the conflict of interest disclosure and possibly the Paid Editing Disclosure. However, that is not the reason that your contribution was deleted, apparently twice. Coverage in Wikipedia is based on existing coverage by independent reliable sources. It appears that you didn't include references to reliable sources about the society. Also, we advise that, as a new editor, you use the Articles for Creation process to have your draft reviewed by other experienced editors prior to acceptance. That way, if you don't include the references, or overlook something else, your draft will be declined (sent back to you for rework) rather than deleted. Also, you have not "been barred from writing a paragraph"; your paragraph was deleted because it didn't contain the needed references. AFC is the way to work with experienced reviewer-editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:46, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article traffic statistics[edit]

Does anyone know why Wikipedia article traffic statistics is now giving "internal server error".Lbertolotti (talk) 16:57, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Lbertolotti: Stats.grok.se has been down for quite some time and the creator seems to have left Wikipedia. The WMF has taken over page view statistics and has created a new site that does that (and it works quite nicely actually). The Help Desk page can be found here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/#project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-20&pages=Wikipedia:Help_desk. The new link can be reached on any page by clicking on "View history" and then "Page view statistics" near the top of the page. --Majora (talk) 17:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem[edit]

Last September, Estelle1960 was working on the Martin Gilbert article. She was I think employed by his publisher, and so had a conflict of interest – but never mind that, she did a reasonable job. She provided a better (in her opinion, and mine) image of him, and uploaded it as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Martin_Gilbert.jpg , but did not know how to get it into the article, and asked on this Help Desk. I then put it in the article for her, on September 11th. But I soon decided that the image she had uploaded was of doubtful copyright status, and removed it again with the edit summary "Restored old image until copyright problem can be sorted out".

The image was uploaded with the date given as "It was taken by am employee". If it was taken by an employee, that employee would be the copyright holder, unless their contract with the publisher said otherwise; and we have no reason to believe either that the contract did say otherwise, or that the employee has surrendered their rights in the image. Either the image is acceptable on en:Wikipedia, and should be used in the article, or it is not acceptable and should be deleted. Can someone with a good understanding of copyright law please give an opinion? Maproom (talk) 22:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Maproom: Copyright always lies with the person that took the photo. In this case, the employee. The employee would have to verify that they are releasing it under a creative commons license. Right now, the {{self}} licensing template is clearly wrong per the summary statement. The employee would have to fill out a WP:CONSENT document and sent it in to OTRS for verification. If I saw that when it was uploaded I would have marked it F11 for lack of permission proof. --Majora (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I have just seen that "The Martin Gilbert web site" has the same image, and a legal notice reading "The material contained on the Sir Martin Gilbert web site, including all portions of the Web Site, content, site design, text, graphics and the selection and arrangement thereof are Copyright © Sir Martin Gilbert. All Rights Reserved.". I would "mark it F11", but can't figure out how, even after reading F11 three times. Maproom (talk) 22:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maproom I've tagged it as an F9- blatant copyright violation of the site you mentioned. I'm not sure how F11 works, but F9 seems appropriate here, and is one of the options on Twinkle (thus is easy for me to add). Joseph2302 (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Maproom: I marked it. If you use Twinkle it is under the DI tab since it is a delayed deletion. If you don't you would just put {{subst:Npd}} at the top. --Majora (talk) 22:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious difficulty is my age (92) and I was too busy to publish scholarly article[edit]

As is common for older people current memories are easily lost whereas more exciting times are remembered in great detail. Another problem is that most other people involved are now dead. For example, I remember the Boeing chief of safety, Niel Clausen, took me along with him to Atlanta immediately after the three "Men-On-The-Moon" died on a pad pretest time. It was at that time Niel rushed out to propose NASA adopt "Fault Trees" and apparently why. To lend credence to my position I solved an extremely frightening accident in a military system and could repeat my reasoning process. I could repeat many other things of that era. For example, I reviewed a bid to an embassy for a very large amount for NATO equipment. I found their company consisted of 5 people and a silly "example". The embassy demanded to know if they "could" do it. I said that with that much money they could hire anybody to buy the ability. I finally found that the president of those 5 men had been a Communist saboteur of Nazi conquerors. What more would you like for me to provide? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.126.14.97 (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that you are referring to an issue about adding content to an article, possibly about space exploration or about military systems. Since this is your only edit from this IP address, we have no idea what article you are referring to. Please tell us what article is involved. However, Wikipedia cannot accept content in an article based solely on individual unpublished memory, only on information that has been previously published in reliable sources. Please clarify what the subject is. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can't remember--97.126.14.97 (talk) 22:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)See subject[reply]

When your memory returns, I suggest that you create your own website for your memoirs, or dictate them to be written up as a book to celebrate your hundredth birthday. Dbfirs 15:54, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]