Please stop blanking articles. If you have a problem with the article, post your concerns on the article's talk page. Thanks. —WaywardTalk07:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I just saw your edit to User talk:Tawker in which you claimed Wikipedia is not entitled to use content provided by you without your permission. While this is true, when you submitted all of these edits to Wikipedia you specifically agreed to license these contributions under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, and therefore (under the terms of the GFDL) Wikipedia is entitled to use, modify and display this content without seeking any further permission from you. Any attempt to remove content from Wikipedia on this basis will likely be construed as vandalism.
Perhaps you could explain to me why you feel Wikipedia has treated you bad, and we can discuss it. We would much rather have good contributors working together on our articles than feeling alienated and hard done by. - Mark07:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I can explain to you? Not likely, since this "Wayward" character has banned me from editing any page on any part of the entire site, except this little talk page.
I am also a law student, so don't talk that shit to me.
This is not a binding contract, I never agreed to any license. No terms were made plainly available to me, nothing said 'You are not allowed to delete what you once wrote', in fact, the very idea of a wiki is that you can delete and edit whenever you want. I didn't sign a contract, no terms regarding the inability to delete were made clear to me. You have given me no consideration. All in all, there is no legal basis for what you've just done.
You've stolen my material. So, I would appreciate:
1. Unban me, so I can:
2. Remove my content from the site.
As you can see from the edits I made, I *never* blanked a single page. All I did was revert the articles I HAD PERSONALLY EDITED back to the form in which they were before I edited them. How can that be construed as vandalism? I am simply removing my presence from the site, which is my right.
So you never noticed the "Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." above the save button? joshbuddytalk07:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Joshbuddy, you dont know what youre talking about. You have no idea what it takes to legally import a term into an agreement. due notice must be given. you cant just say "you agree to the terms" while the terms are all hidden away behind 20 layers of hyperlinks. go study law and get back to me. you are either entirely clueless or purposefully misstating the law, i dont know which is worse. --Charlemagne the Hammer07:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's see, I clicked on the GFDL link and I see the license, 1 click. The "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." line is fairly visible, it is similar to any EULA on software -- Tawker07:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, Tawker, please stop misstating the law that you dont even know! You and your friends banned me from this site for removing my own material, and you had the hide to call me a vandal and accuse me of "blanking pages" when all i was doing was reverting them to the condition they were in prior to my involvment. This is utterly sickening!
No I didn't say any law, you said ""you agree to the terms" while the terms are all hidden away behind 20 layers of hyperlinks" and I was simply pointing out the fact that it was 1 hyperlink and that that an EULA is enforcable even if its one click away so why would the GFDL notice not be -- Tawker07:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So you admit you know nothing about the applicable law here and that you are just talking out of your ass to save face? Thanks. Well, that's great. But here's what's happened: youve stolen my material. I write for wikipedia under the assumption that I can delete at any time. Wikipedia is a wiki, the idea being that you can ADD OR DELETE at any time. I have added, you are fine with that. but youre not fine with deleting? Well, too bad. It's my right. And you and your friends have just banned me for doing something that is perfectly within my rights. I am appalled. I will not let this stand. --Charlemagne the Hammer07:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Did you misunderstand what a wiki was? If anyone could at any point delete their contributions, then the wikipedia could never function properly. It would always have damocles sword hovering above its head. joshbuddytalk07:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I said below:
""Submitting an article does not surrender the author's copyright, but at the same time, the author cannot prohibit modifications to it because the author has granted the rights codified in the GFDL.""
See, I retain copyright, however, anyone is allowed to modify.Fine!Doesnt worry me.As long as I AM ALLOWED TO MODIFY IT. And, as the owner, the original copyright owner, I exercise my RIGHT to MODIFY this material by DELETING it.
"See, I retain copyright, however, anyone is allowed to modify.Fine!Doesnt worry me.As long as I AM ALLOWED TO MODIFY IT. And, as the owner, the original copyright owner, I exercise my RIGHT to MODIFY this material by DELETING it."
You can't be a very good law student, if you're trying to make out what you say is valid law. This is not a contract: it falls under the spectre of intellectual property law and licensing. When you license your copyrighted material under the GFDL, you retain the right to modify the content. You can modify the content you contributed, however you do not have the right to modify that content on the servers provided by the Wikimedia Foundation. If you wish to set up a separate website hosting a modified content of your licensed work, then you are perfectly free to do so as the copyright holder. - Mark02:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I cant even email any of you because this WAYWARD asshole removed my capacity to send emails.
I have not restricted your e-mail privileges; in fact, I have no power to do so. Wikipedia now requires all users to confirm their e-mail addresses in order to send or receive Wikipedia e-mail. You can confirm your e-mail address by clicking "preferences" at the top of the page and following the instructions. As for article ownership, please see Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. Thanks. —WaywardTalk07:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
YES, THANK YOU!!
"Submitting an article does not surrender the author's copyright, but at the same time, the author cannot prohibit modifications to it because the author has granted the rights codified in the GFDL."
See?
My rights arent surrendered.
HOWEVER: i cant prohibit people from modifying it.
FINE!!!
All I want to do is modify my work so it is no longer there.
By submitting an article (or indeed a self-made photograph, drawing, diagram or other image) to Wikipedia, a contributor agrees to licensing their work under the GNU Free Documentation License, or GFDL for short, which grants everyone else on the planet the right to copy and modify the text provided they fulfill certain requirements (such as author attribution).
When someone makes an edit to an article, that someone has created what is called a "derivative work". He or she is the copyright holder of the new version, but since the new version is based on the old version, which was licensed to them under the GFDL, he or she is bound to the requirements of the GFDL, and thus they cannot act as if he or she were the sole author of the new version. —WaywardTalk08:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Everything I deleted was my own material. I even had the courtesy to revert the pages back to what they were before I came into contact with them. Yet you ban me, saying I was "blanking" pages. Well, look at the page history. I didnt blank a single page. All I did was revert them to the status which they were in prior to my involvement. Hence, nothing you said there has any relevance whatsoever. Simply not relevant.
If I had of worked off of the existing articles, using them in my creation of the new articles, then what you said would be on point. but i didnt. i didnt use anything in the existing articles. i simply replaced the existing shoddy work with my own work. therefore, yes, i was the sole author of the material i deleted. definitely.
I contributed to Wikipedia for a short while, resulting in the creation of two articles from scratch. However, during my time as a contributor I became aware of many Wikipedia 'sects' and 'subgroups', i.e ., bunches of people with similar ideological goals. Most repugnant of those groups, in my mind, are those who seek to remove the 'Wiki' nature of Wikipedia, apparently they just want a 'Pedia'.
That is fine for them, but I am here because it is a wiki encyclopedia, not just because it is an encyclopedia.
So, you can imagine how upset it makes me to see groups of Wikipedians with plans to make Wikipedia a moderated site. I even saw one group proposing a parliamentary Wikipedia. In my mind, this takes away from the concept of Wikipedia being not just an encyclopedia, but a wiki as well.
I voiced these concerns on the Freenode #Wikipedia channel and was promptly banned.
Therefore, I have decided that I no longer wish to partake in Wikipedia. Why? Because it is not what I thought it was and I do not want my material being used by a foundation that ridiculed and banned me from its IRC channel merely because I was expressing ideas that are supposedly fundamental to its ethos. Banned for supporting the wiki ethos, banned for supporting the "you can edit this article now" ethos. It's a shame, but that's what happened, and that's why I want to leave.
Having made up my mind, I went to the Wikipedia page and sought out the articles which contained my work. These were only two articles, so it was an easy task. The articles were "Fiduciary" and "Federalist No. 1".
I realised that simply deleting these articles would not be the proper way to go about it. So, I embarked upon a more sensible route. I reverted the articles to the exact condition they were in before I edited them. I was satisfied that, having removed my work from Wikipedia, but also having retained the original structure of the articles prior to my intervention, I had completed my task.
Unfortunately, I checked back some minutes later to find that other users had reverted my changes. They had put all my work back in the articles. They called me a "vandal". The problem is that they did not even check to see that I was the person who wrote this material in the first place.
This went on for some time, with me being called a vandal, simply for trying to remove my own work from a site that doesn't appreciate it. I was then banned from the entire site for "blanking" articles. I assume you know that "blanking" is what a vandal does when he deletes the entire article. Please note that at no stage did I "blank" any article, whatsoever. I simply reverted the articles to the condition they were in prior to my involvement. I also left notes on the talk page of each article, explaining what I did. When people reverted the changes, I left notes on their pages explaining that I wasn't a vandal but that I was simply removing my work. All this to no avail.
Now I have another Australian claiming that legally I have no right to my own work, because I "agreed" to the license. I am a law student and I know this is false. I am really disappointed that certain Wikipedians are purposefully misstating the law so they can trick people into thinking Wikipedia owns their material.
Look, Jimmy, I really don't want a fight, here. These are just two articles. Can you please revert them to how they were?
The articles are "Fiduciary" and "Federalist No. 1", my username is "Charlemagne the Hammer". If you consult the Wikipedia logs you will see that everything I have told you is the truth. If you can please take care of this I will be much obliged.
Before we go further into a massive issue war, would you mind explaining why you feel you are "treated like shit" - you've had some EXCELLENT entires and it would be a shame to lose them. What has made you unhappy, maybe we can rectify the problem :) -- Tawker08:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look, Tawker, read the email I posted above and you will see why I am unhappy.
Let me make something quite clear:
The license does not say you are allowed to ban me for editing my own content.
The license does not say I am not allowed to delete my own content.
Here is what the license says:
1. I gave permission for the material I posted to be edited by whosoever sees fit.
This necessarily dictates that I am allowed to further modify the material, i.e., by deleting it.
There is simply nowhere in the license where it says "once you post something, you are never allowed to delete it". It simply doesn't say that. Therefore, I request that my material be removed. The reason I want it removed has been explained in the above email: this website is becoming a perversion. It is no longer a wiki. It is full of people who think wikipedia should be moderated, that the material belongs to wikipedia, that wikipedia is a 'real encyclopedia'. well, it isnt.
It's a wiki. I provided the material. So long as the material is there, anyone has the right to edit and improve it. However, I have the right to delete it. Nothing you can say will change that. I am not a vandal. I have not even deleted a single article. All I did was revert these articles to the condition they were in before I came into contact with them
The disgusting treatment I have received in my sincere attempt to responsibly remove myself from this website is very disheartening and I must admit I no longer know what I should do. I feel certain I will succeed in a court of law, on this particular point, but these are just two articles. Nobody, except a total madman, is going to court over two articles. So I guess there's nothing I can do, but accept that Wikipedia is breaking the law. Now do you see why I am upset? OK? Jesus. Why should this have to be such a big deal? I just want my two articles deleted. Damn. --Charlemagne the Hammer08:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These articles were NOT solely work. Diff: [1] I think you're just going to have to deal with this, if you wan't nothing more to do with wikipedia, then just go. You do not have the rights to valdalize other people's work. joshbuddytalk08:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
joshbuddy, you can bet my last act as a wikipedian will be to tell everyone I know to VOTE AGAINST YOUR NOMINATION FOR ADMINSHIP. have fun, i just hope people [don't] nominate you administrative positions. --Charlemagne the Hammer08:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright infringements (of which you accuse Wikipedia) are not 'criminal' offenses in the sense of violating the Criminal Code (in your state and mine).
I think you have misunderstood the arrangements and situation with licenses. You license your content to be editable by anyone: this does not refer to editability on the privately-run servers of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is responsible for Wikipedia. It refers to the unfettered ability of people to release their own derivative works without fear of being sued for copyright infringement, so long as they comply with the license conditions. The reason the GNU Free Documentation License does not contain specific provisions relating to editing on Wikipedia is that the license is actually written for help manuals etc. accompanying Linux/GNU software. It is not a license specific to Wikipedia, so it does not cover stuff like blocking. Note, however, that the GFDL does not contain any terms permitting copyright holders to retract this licensing. - Mark05:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
you completely misunderstood the licencing stuff. You retain copyright of your work, meaning you can do with it what you like, off Wikipedia, e.g. on your own homepage. It does not matter that you first published your work on Wikipedia. By posting it on Wikipedia, you granted everyone, including Wikipedia, the right to host your text and derivatives. At the same time, you retain the copyright, meaning that you are the only person that can do things with your text prohibited by the GFDL, such as publishing it without attribution. That's it. Wikipedia is just one private site hosting your GFDL'd text; your right or ability to edit the database on the Wikipedia servers are entirely unrelated to copyright issues. dab(ᛏ)15:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
