User talk:Joelwest

I joined Wikipedia on 24 Nov 2003 (PST). See my user page for more details on me and where I want to contribute.

Generic Greeting from Angela

Hello Joel, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Angela 01:19, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Discussion of Possible Plagiarism

Philipp Melanchthon

The Wikipedia:Cite your sources page might help. Let me know if you need any further info that doesn't provide. Angela 22:05, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

That looks great. Good work. Angela 22:32, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Martin Luther

Hmmm. That doesn't look good. I think the only thing you can do is rewrite it (or list on Wikipedia:Cleanup or Wikipedia:Pages needing attention for someone else to). It looks like the article has been that way for years, so it isn't as easy as just reverting it or deleting the page. There is a small possibility that they copied it from here rather than the other way round, but I can't really see any evidence of that in their other articles. Angela 00:20, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If you look at the history of our Martin Luther article, I think it's pretty clear that [1] has copied from us, not the other way round. Our article builds up piecemeal to the point of their copied version, and then moves beyond it. I don't think there's any question of it being a copyright infringement on our part. (hope you don't mind me butting in on this one, by the way, and hope I've understood the perceived problem properly - apologies if not) --Camembert

Thanks for pointing that out Camembert. I didn't really check the history all that way back. I just had a look at their site again, and found that our first version of Thomas Linacre is the same as theirs [2], and this was from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, which they don't mention on their site, so it does look like they might be copying other things from us too. I've made a note of this at Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. Angela 02:30, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Please discuss the copyright status of specific sites on Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content so that others can follow the discussion. (Without having to stumble upon the discussion on user talk pages, as I did ;-) ) Thanks, snoyes 06:00, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I meant the Thomas Linacre was from the 1911, not the Martin Luther one. I don't know of any easy way to check whether pages are from that. I only knew the Linacre page was because the bottom of the page says it is. Angela 06:09, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't really know what more to tell you. If you look at the history of our Martin Luther article, you can see it being built up (and to a degree knocked down) piece-by-piece over quite a long time (see for example edits like [3], [4] and [5]).

I can't absolutely guarantee that it's not been plagiarised in parts, but if it has been copied entirely from [6], then it's been done in lots of little bits over the course of a couple of years, complete with spelling mistakes and so on which were later corrected. That seems unlikely in the extreme. --Camembert

You do realise that the version of Martin Luther of 27th June is not the original Wikipedia version, don't you? Here is the full history of the article, stretching back two years (in fact, it probably stretches back further than that: the software has combined some earlier edits into one). The earliest version in the database is this one of December 3, 2001. Sorry if you do indeed realise this, but I'm struggling to understand why you still think that article is a copyright infringement if so. --Camembert

Yes, I made a mistake in my first post listing revisions. My latest link to Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content#greatsite.com I think makes clear which revision introduces the overlapping material. I concede the possibility of a 3rd source but so far been unable to find it. Meanwhile, I am struggling to understand why some Wikipedia members are so quick to blame others rather than admit there's (even more) illegally copied content that's been checked in. --Joelwest 02:08, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Nice work

I put California State University, San Marcos in the "New Articles" section on the Main Page. --mav 09:11, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Accents

Is it just about San José related articles? Or are other pages with accents causing problems? If it's just San José, then Talk:San Jose (or Talk:San Jose, California) might be the best place to come to a consensus about it. If it's a wider issue, then you could ask on the village pump to get other people involved in the discussion. Either way "wearing people down with edit wars" is not the way to go! The only related discussion I know of is whether accents affect the search. See Wikipedia:searching#Words with special characters and the Accents thread on intlwiki-l. Policies such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) might be relevant. Angela. 20:10, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

As far as can tell, the only opponent was RickK. I've left him a message about it, but I think that the fact the the official websites of both the city and the university appear to write San José rather than San Jose would be a good reason to move the pages to titles that reflect this. Angela. 10:48, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There have been of objections raised on my talk page about the accents. I've copied them to Talk:San Jose State University. It looks like it does need to be discussed, maybe even voted on, before you move any pages. Angela. 07:47, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

US government copyright

Hi, I noticed that you wrote that "Under United States copyright law, works created by the U.S. government or its agencies cannot be copyrighted." I was wondering, do you have a cite for this? I have heard this numerous times, but I've never been able to find the actual law or precedent where this was created. Anthony DiPierro 22:03, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Plutino

I changed the wording on Plutino, let me know what you think. Curps 08:01, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Greater Los Angeles Area

A few comments on the changes to Greater Los Angeles Area.

• As of 2003, the CMSA designation is no longer used by the government.
• This site says that the Los Angeles--Riverside--Orange County, CA CMSA actually included five counties.
• I haven't found any dictionary-type definition for "Greater Los Angeles Area" or "Southland", and the usage seems pretty flexible.

Mackerm 06:47, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm probably more frustrated than I should be (I'm new to Wikipedia.) Here's an index page with lots of articles about the Census' use of Metropolitan areas. This page has the current definitions, as of December, 2003. As you can see, they no longer use the term, "Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area" The broadest area is now called "Metropolitan Statistical Area"

Also notice that the biggest area including Los Angeles now only contains Los Angeles County and Orange County. Ventura County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County are in different areas.

I'm still thinking of what to do, mainly to stop the confusion. Authors of other articles are using "Greater Los Angeles Area" as if it had hard, official borders. I wrote to the person who put the map there, but he doesn't want me to remove it. Good luck, and thanks for writing. Mackerm 21:20, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't include all of Los Angeles County as being in the Greater Los Angeles area, since the northern 2/3 is mostly unpopulated (except for Lancaster and Palmdale). Looks like you're right about the Time Zones, though. The Wikipedia Time Zone page currently includes the word "Zone" in some of the names, but not others. I can live with the inconsistency. Mackerm 23:53, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Since you participated in the Sedna discussion

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Nomination of Ann Clare Brokaw for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ann Clare Brokaw is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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