A recent study proves what most of us here knew all along. For all of the hype about how Wikipedia is more and more reliable thanks to the reference sources that pepper its articles, when it comes right down to it, even college students are oblivious to what the references are actually pointing to when they evaluate the credibility of a Wikipedia article.

(Thankfully, as a paid editor, I can sometimes use this to my advantage... puffing out references that are barely relevant to what is claimed in the article. But if that's what it takes to make the content stick, so be it.)

(It's also a nifty trick to get vandalism to hold in place.)

I just saw a reverse effect, where sourcing was inadequate to protect text against removal as "vandalism."

I'm watching Energy Catalyzer, obviously, and this IP edit was reverted by a bot as possible vandalism, and the IP was warned. A new editor reverted that, and then a user reverted again,, warning the new editor, using GLOO. Naughty, naughty.

I'd guess that the user was attracted by the bot tag automatically added, but did not check the source; the restored and removed edit is an exact quotation from the reliable source, I just checked.

Welcome to the future of Wikipedia, where no longer do you have to convince Randy from Boise of anything, you only have to convince a robot and a distracted and bored robot-enforcer, running an "assisted editing tool." Next step: auto-extermination of vandals, a script installs on their computer and blows up, terminating the problem. Don't You Dare Vandalize Wikipedia with strange-looking facts!

Ah, the crap I stumble across, I should watch where I step.

Crazymonkey1123 (T-C-L-K-R-D) is out-of-control disruptive, looks like a sock, is blowing off warnings, etc., and not responding to objections regarding his or her reverts, but, then, threatening to retire over a "legal threat." Looks like our crazy little monkey reverted a removal of material from a BLP, on the grounds it was vandalism, restoring inadequately sourced material, or maybe even unsourced material. That's a common trap, I've seen it set deliberately, Fredrick day used to do it.

This user registered March 7. See request of an arbitrator. Was manually "confirmed" March 11. That's interesting to notice, a way to get confirmed faster than auto-confirmed. Trigger the edit filter with some edits that look good, that will predictably trigger the filter. Oughta work.

Here is what Crazymonkey1123 did: edit filter log.

5 of the first 10 of this user's edits have been revision-deleted. Yet this editor is rapidly awarded privileges.

The editor has many edits to his own user pages that have been revision-deleted. Some of the comments on the user talk page may have indicated this is a minor. Or is pretending to be a minor.

User, as IP, made sophisticated edit to User talk:71.104.184.11 and got revision deletion there to avoid disclosing IP for the registered user, probably made the edit of 25 March as Crazymonkey1123. Cat's out of the bag, and won't be stuffed back in.

User was granted rollback and reviewer status March 27. Does anyone else think that Really Fast? This is a skilled and sophisticated editor, suddenly showing up, with no connection to history of editing.

User created alternative account, Crazymonkey1123 public (T-C-L-K-R-D) , March 25. Accounts blocked fir 24 hours, June 4, per self-request..

May have retired, too much heat. He or she can just do it again.

A typical dumbass child Wikipedian who obviously has no social life and very few brains.

And Greg, XKCD picked up on that, too. I think it was in the Signpost this week.

[quote name='Abd' date='Tue 7th June 2011, 7:22pm' post='276442']
Ah, the crap I stumble across, I should watch where I step.

Crazymonkey1123 (T-C-L-K-R-D) is out-of-control disruptive, looks like a sock, is blowing off warnings, etc., and not responding to objections regarding his or her reverts, but, then, threatening to retire over a "legal threat." Looks like our crazy little monkey reverted a removal of material from a BLP, on the grounds it was vandalism, restoring inadequately sourced material, or maybe even unsourced material. That's a common trap, I've seen it set deliberately, Fredrick day used to do it.

This user registered March 7. See request of an arbitrator. Was manually "confirmed" March 11. That's interesting to notice, a way to get confirmed faster than auto-confirmed. Trigger the edit filter with some edits that look good, that will predictably trigger the filter. Oughta work.

Here is what Crazymonkey1123 did: edit filter log.

5 of the first 10 of this user's edits have been revision-deleted. Yet this editor is rapidly awarded privileges.

The editor has many edits to his own user pages that have been revision-deleted. Some of the comments on the user talk page may have indicated this is a minor. Or is pretending to be a minor.

User, as IP%

[quote name='Abd' date='Tue 7th June 2011, 7:22pm' post='276442']
Ah, the crap I stumble across, I should watch where I step.

Crazymonkey1123 (T-C-L-K-R-D) is out-of-control disruptive, looks like a sock, is blowing off warnings, etc., and not responding to objections regarding his or her reverts, but, then, threatening to retire over a "legal threat." Looks like our crazy little monkey reverted a removal of material from a BLP, on the grounds it was vandalism, restoring inadequately sourced material, or maybe even unsourced material. That's a common trap, I've seen it set deliberately, Fredrick day used to do it.

This user registered March 7. See request of an arbitrator. Was manually "confirmed" March 11. That's interesting to notice, a way to get confirmed faster than auto-confirmed. Trigger the edit filter with some edits that look good, that will predictably trigger the filter. Oughta work.

Here is what Crazymonkey1123 did: edit filter log.

5 of the first 10 of this user's edits have been revision-deleted. Yet this editor is rapidly awarded privileges.

The editor has many edits to his own user pages that have been revision-deleted. Some of the comments on the user talk page may have indicated this is a minor. Or is pretending to be a minor.

User, as IP%

I'm pretty convinced about "child." In an AfD, signs with what may be his real first name, Jacob. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samantha Power (actress)

Crazy. Or pretending to be. Just a couple of days before, concerned about actually being sued. So, brilliant: reveal part of the name. Or it's a red herring. Defintely strange behavior, though, this is what got trusted, quickly, as a reviewer and rollbacker, and has been furiously active in "vandalism" patrol, which is easy if you only glance at the edits and don't actually check sources.

I learned this about Recent Changes Patrol. If you take time to check edits, and you confirm that it's vandalism, by the time you make the revert, someone else has already done it.This user had a stated goal to reach a certain number of edits, and, so .... the system doesn't encourage being careful!

But what is more serious is the complete lack of responsiveness to complaints. Do a lot of RCP, mistakes will be made. After all, you don't know the topics!

Child, but possibly a pedo pretending to be a clueless minor--cf. "Sophie" case. But he's been signing as "Jacob" for quite some time, I think.

The lack of response to complaints is typical of stupid kid editors, and so it makes it more likely that he's actually just a brat with no friends or life.

Btw mods, can you delete my last post (at 7:43pm) because it was some malformed nonsense that somehow appeared?

What's bizarre about this is that the kid is at the same time screaming about being threatened with a lawsuit.
He may have put up a picture.

This post to Newyorkbrad talk is brilliant, as to a display of naviete.

How would a user being blocked protect him from a lawsuit? So the user cannot now directly email him. So? The user can simply register an account and then use the email function. Last time I checked, being able to email someone was not a necessary condition for a lawsuit. The first step would be an action naming the anonymous account, and a subpoena for records from Wikipedia.

The threat is, of course, probably empty. That, then, points to the drama queen response of Crazymonkey.

If the threat was real, he's satisfied with fake protection.

"They are shooting at me, I can see the flashes from their guns and hear the bullets whizzing by!"

"Be careful!" -- he was actually told. (I.e., don't restore libelous information to a BLP.)

"No problem, I've now got a blindfold and some ear plugs. That should take care of it."

Nope, this will only lead to Wikipedia being blown up. Very, very slowly.

Now guess who quits?

Can you explain to me (with diagrams, as necessary and appropriate) how something is blown up very, very slowly? It sounds fascinating.

Well I was pumping up an air-bed the other month, which took ages, and ages, and ages. Lots of puffff but little up.

You just hounded him off, congrats

Yes, yes, congrats Abd.

Stick around the next few months, you'll see.

Don't count on him staying gone. Not that he wasn't just one more crazy monkey.

Wikipedia don't even know when credible source it them in the face. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Yankee_Doodle_Mouse
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?act=P...969&qpid=279052

Source form original copyright synopsis was delete from the article and yes it was published by the copyright office itself.

So yes Wikipedia and credibility is surely big myth.

DoctorHver, I don't know how to break it to you, but your editing and responses on Wikipedia demonstrate an almost unbelievably deep lack of clue. It's unfortunate that there is nobody there to explain this to you in a way that you might recognize, I used to do that kind of thing until I got banned from it.

1. You were inserting original research or synthesis. Example: This is also only Tom and Jerry cartoon that has sequence missing.

2. The original copyright filing would be a primary source. Primary sources do not necessarily establish a fact, but with consensus you can sometimes use them. I know this may seem crazy to you, but that's because you don't yet understand the sourcing guidelines. They do make sense.

3. You were sourcing material from a blog. While blogs may sometimes, for special reasons, be considered adequate source to verify text, the norm is, not. It's beyond the scope of my response here to explain this, but, in fact, it also makes a great deal of sense (even though it's often been personally irritating). The alternative would be a different project, relying upon experts. For better or for worse, that's not Wikipedia, and, note, it would mean that you wouldn't be allowed to touch anything!

4. With Being Right and four reverts in 24 hours, you can be blocked on sight. You can even be "enforcing policy," you think -- and you could even be correct about this -- and you'll still be blocked, except under certain narrow circumstances that you don't need to know about. Basically, any reverts at all can get you in trouble.

5. You ignored a pile of warnings, continuing to insist on your position. (See number 4).

6. Looking at the quality of your writing, I suggest taking up some other hobby. Seriously. However, if you insist on trying to edit Wikipedia, start by apologizing profusely on your Talk page for your complete lack of clue. (Use those words, "I apologize for my complete lack of clue and next time I will assume good faith and listen to what other editors are telling me and if I don't understand I'll ask and listen and read the guidelines and policies and I'll never never never never edit war again.")

7. Wikipedia sucks, but you haven't even begin to find out how and where. You actually ran into a relatively functional piece of the action, you were warned repeatedly before being blocked and it was a short block.

8. Oh, yes. Warnings were placed on your talk page. You were warned about 3RR violation, and also about the filing on the 3RR noticeboard. Before blocking you, an admin will check your Talk page to see if you were warning, it's essential for the block procedure, if it's being followed. If you must insist, you'd better have a Damned Good Reason, right there with the warning, or you are dead meat. I was reverting a blatant sock puppet revert warring in conjunction with a COI editor editing by IP, and I got a 3RR warning on my Talk, and I placed the necessary information there, and, believe me, it was concise, it had to be, because these admins don't like to read more than a couple of words. I was still blocked, but the admin undid it within minutes. That was my baptism of fire on Wikipedia, coming up against a highly experienced puppet master and surviving. I only went down in flames, later, when an entire cabal, at least two dozen editors including a half-dozen admins, was gunning for me.

The fastest gun in the west goes down eventually. It's the odds.

1. original copyright synopsis, done by MGM for USA copyright office how is that not credible source? Next thing Wikipedia will do is to call Disney's ownership of Mickey Mouse in question.
2. Copyright synopsis are verified by the USA copyright office which makes them credible. There is no proves secondary source are more credible than primary source in many cases. Sometimes errors can happens between the primary source and secondary source. If relay on secondary source your credibility can also been called into question. The sourcing guidelines actually sound like that wikipedia wants to be peer reviewed database, but the fact is that's wikipedia not general user lacks the knowledge too do so and I rely do wonder how much of the current sourcing guidelines originally form Jimbo himself.
3. I'm not sourcing the blog. I'm sourcing scan of that copyright synopsis, as you can see, that the text is too old to be anything written online. And google proves the existence of this document. Even if its not online from there.

4-5. Maybe I should have pointed that I go by Jimbo's own rule "Ignore all rules". I sometimes do wonder that users that don't have anything page not even sign that they are stewards/rolebacks/admins. In the case of the guy that handed me those warnings, I there would be a starter that you must sign on your page that you have more powers other users, it can throw you of guard that guy do know that he will not win the argument anyother way. If I got stalked by puppet admin then I hope admin will be exported and banned. Power abuse should have strick penalties admins and not

6. There is nothing to apology for. The other guy was error and took his false word as wisdom. You should apology for abusing my writing style im not English.

7. I would argue that this is only top of the isberg what I faced here. Have you seen al the Myspace like user pages? The rules? I would be surprised if majory of them were made up behind Jimbo's back and most contradict the "ignore al rules" rule. For exmaple I think i read it here that Jimbo was nerly banned himself by one of those made up rules that he didn't approve

8. 3RR rule is just to win argument, nothing else, I have seen way to many evidence 3RR card is played by the person that is incorrect about the matter. And its just bad management on the admins side hand out ban with out checking all evidence, properly.

Warning: this is a complete waste of time, and it's way too long. Read this if you are already bored and being bored. tl;dr is welcome and encouraged. It's not my fault if you are weird and read this anyway.
Credible for what?

And Wikipedia does not have a "credible source" policy. Hey, I'm a credible source. Who is to say I'm not? The question is, "credible for what?" A patent filing, for example, is a credible source for what? It's credible for claims, not for fact, other than the fact of claim. There are millions of patents, most of them not notable. What makes a patent notable? ... Appearance in reliable secondary source.

You've completely missed something. Wikipedia is called the "sum of all human knowledge," but "sum" in that has a special meaning. It means "summary," and the founders of Wikipedia wanted facts included to not only be verifiable, but *notable,* and it depends on independent publishers to make that determination, WP:RS policy is intrinsically bound up with notability policy.

What you did was to refer to an original copyright synopsis, all right. I'm not sure you showed that this was reliably verifiable, but suppose it was. What does that *mean*? It means that this document was submitted, claimed. Does it tell us anything about the actual work as distributed, about whether or not the synopsis was actually used? You presented *conclusions* from a primary source, but those were *your* conclusions, or the conclusions of a blogger.

You can do this, present such synthetic conclusions, but only with consensus. You didn't seek consensus, you simply claimed you were right, and that was that, so to speak, "they'd better stop or I'll complain, and since I'm right, surely Wikipedia administration will tell you to stop your vandalism," and yes, you called those edits vandalism.

Completely clueless, is what I wrote, and you are only confirming that.
Okay. How do you know that Disney owns Mickey Mouse? What is the basis for that belief, obviously you think it is unquestionable, why, "everybody knows it." Do you know that there can be and are things that "everyone knows" that are not true? I.e., reality is different. Suppose Disney sold the rights, unbeknownst to you. If Wikipedia was completely strict, it would say that: According to Cartoon Business News, as of 2005 -- or whatever or whenever -- Disney owned the rights to Mickey Mouse. But if there is no controversy, at all, it might just assume ownership.

Do you realize that you can't say "The sky is blue," without a source, on Wikipedia, if someone objects and demands a source and sticks to their guns? (In reality, it might depend on who you know and who supports you. Hint: the clueless aren't supported, they are obvious outsiders, not "us."

You are talking to a community here with a thousand times as much experience as you with Wikipedia, imagining that you know better. That's just another part of the lack of clue. You want to learn about Wikipedia, this is a good place to do it, the users here have, collectively, seen it all. Some will help you, some will just tell you that you are an idiot. This place is like that.

2. Copyright synopsis are verified by the USA copyright office which makes them credible.

No, the copyright office doesn't verify anything at all, beyond providing, sometimes and in some ways, what is in their files. That's just another lack of clue you are showing.
Credible for what? Primary sources do not ordinarily demonstrate notability. I'd love to use conference papers, but all they show is that a paper was presented at a conference, and generally anyone can do that, the papers may as well be self-published, as blogs usually are. I've gotten conference papers in where the paper showed the opinion of a notable person. It's an example of primary source usage, and it took consensus. If I'd revert warred to try to keep it in, it would probably not be included! As it was, there was revert warring to keep it out, there are editors who really didn't want to use anything from the site that archived the paper, and I had to demonstrate clear consensus to get this to stand, with what was effectively a Request for comment on the article talk page -- this was a BLP for the author! -- but, once that was done, it was self-maintaining. The original opponent came back periodically to remove it. Eventually he may get whacked for that. Or not. It's Wikipedia, after all.
You have no clue about how Wikipedia handles "credibility." It doesn't, basically. It attributes information. The attribution is what can be verified. Notable facts are attributed to independent sources, that's what "secondary source" means.

Is the information "true"? That is entirely another question, one which Wikipedia does not and cannot answer. It doesn't have the expertise, or, more accurately, it doesn't have a means of determining who is expert and who is not, and, besides, experts differ.
You don't understand them, period, so your critique is based on your own ignorance. There are lots of problems with wikipedia, but until you can understand the basis for it, as it is, you won't be able to intellligently critique it.
You are sourcing the scan to the blog. The reliability of that scan being the document claimed to be is entirely dependent upon the reliability of the blog. The blogger can put up whatever he or she wants, is generally responsible to nobody. Wikipedia "reliable sources" -- in theory -- are independent publishers who will lose something if they put up false documents, or if a real document is presented in a misleading way, or is, in fact, just plain boring (i.e, *not notable*). Bloggers may or may not be responsible and careful.

So the blog hosts an image of a handwritten document. You think this proves something. What it proves is only this: the blog hosts an image, and claims that this image is ... and *you* think this is important. "Importance" is established by the appearance of information in reliable secondary source. Blogs are, generically, not considered to be such. Sometimes they are reliable, in fact, but to consider a blog sufficiently reliable to be used as a secondary source requires editorial consensus, which you completely fail to recognize.
Famous last words. Have you looked at my comment boilerplate? If you follow IAR, be prepared to be blocked and banned. I'd say, make sure it's worth being blocked and banned for!

Your writing was atrocious. Your understanding of policy was non-existent. You were, indeed, improving the project by what you did, under IAR, because you got blocked, an improvement. If you insist, you'll end up indef blocked, also an improvement, unless you can revise your attitude. Up to you, eh?

Ordinary editors may warn anyone, and ordinary editors use those templates. If they warn them improperly, they can be, themselves warned. But the warnings were proper. There was no pretense of being an administrator, and that you say this simply adds another pile of nails to the coffin of "Clueless but arrogant newbie." Go back and take a look at those warnings. Where does the editor claim to be an administrator. You assumed that, like you assume a lot of things. Read the policies and guidelines, if you want to survive more than a few days on Wikipedia, and make sure you understand what is rightabout them before you imagine you know better.

If it were merely a lack of clue, you might get some help. If you are lucky. But you were absolutely certain that you were right, and that's what your comments here show. Just saying.
Fine. Suit yourself. I was advising you as to what would begin a possible career as a Wikipedia editor. Look, with your profound lack of clue and a decision to make yourself look like a learner, who earnestly wants to improve the project, and if you were willing to pretend to follow the guidelines for a few months, and with that apology, you could be an administrator in short order, and then you could block that person you think was so offensive. You'd probably need at least 3000 edits, and a period of staying out of trouble, plus that apology. Instead, you come whining here. Good luck!
You have no idea. While you may contribute even though you have very poor English, your lack of understanding is not only of the language, and reverting back in poor writing is going to make you look like an idiot. Truth in advertising, I suppose.
OMG. Really? Well, then, welcome to Wikipedia Review. We will be eagerly awaiting your contributions, since you were able to dig up this story.

Do realize that people here include arbitrators and former arbitrators, stewards, highly experienced editors, and legions of the banned?
OMG! Bad management? Who'd have thought that possible?

3RR is a "bright red line." It's not uncommon that administrators get blocked for crossing it. If you think you need to cross it, you are demonstrating that you have utterly no idea about how Wikipedia actually works. Given the structure, 3RR is a necessary rule. 3RR is an allowance, not a permission, the basic principle is that content must be negotiated, not imposed. If you break 3RR, it demonstrates that you are *obsessed* with being right. You might read the essay, WP:Eventualism. I don't get that you have what it takes to actually contribute to Wikipedia, which is no harm to you, contributing to Wikipedia can be an enormous waste of time. Just saying.

You might find that the CC visual images influence text content credibility as much as or maybe even more so than the reference citations. If it was not for the State of Florida where WP's servers are located, and which is the only place in the world where CC licensed images have legal validity, I doubt if WP would be as seemingly credible as it is among some students.

I'm probably going to regret asking, but what in the world are you talking about there?

I'm saying a picture speaks a thousand words of credibility, more so than even copious references. WP probably wouldn't have come into existence were it not for its free access to countless CC visuals protected by a very liberal legal interpretation of copyright, courtesy State of Florida laws. Without those visuals (and those laws) a lot of WP articles would probably have no credibility at all, seeing as students apparently don't rely on quality of sourcing when it comes to judging credibility of an article.

Far as I know the only place that CC licenses have been upheld in court is in the Netherlands. That isn't to say that they won't standup elsewhere but that the Netherlands is the one place where the validity of the CC licenses actually were challenged in court, and the court found the infringer liable.

Re copyright violations: WP can be sued for monetary compensation only in locations where it has assets. I doubt if WP has any assets in Netherlands, regardless of whether or not a Dutch court recognises the validity of CC licenses. Only in Florida, where Wikipedia's servers (and presumably its assets) are hosted, is Wikipedia effectively accountable to copyright laws as defined by Florida on the basis of CC licensing, which as far as I know is not recognised in the legal systems of most other countries. Naturally, nobody is his right mind would be tempted to sue for copyright violation in State of California, because CC licensing is officially endorsed there. For which reason nobody in his right mind would even contemplate suing the well-protected WP in California. Clever guy, this Jimbo.

There are many WP articles that have no text reference citations at all; they rely for their "credibility" purely on the strength of the images -- "a photo never lies", kind of thing. Meanwhile, I know of graphics oriented "editors" who're drawn to WP only because it gives them the opportunity to play around with a huge archive of "fair use" images. They're evidently happy to scrape together just any old mindless (and usually unsourced) textual content simply to fill the irritating spaces between pictures.

So, you're saying that Wikipedia would not have been protected in the 49 other states than Florida?

I think you have completely missed the reason why Wikipedia was set up in Florida -- two words, Brian Dowling.

I'm going to start dismissing a lot of what you say, "communicat", because you're just speaking your vague opinions as fact, without any basis in fact.

I'm saying that, in my limited understanding, WP/WMF is unlikely to be sued for financial compensation in places where it does not have any assets worth seizing if it fails to pay up. Or maybe civil laws work differently in the US. I don't know. Maybe you can enlighten me? Does WP/WMF have assets anywhere other than in Florida?

What makes you think that the CC license isn't recognised in Florida? And if it isn't then which part of it isn't, and how does that make WMF immune from being sued for copyright violation?

You are also the same person who stated fairly clearly as "fact":


I sensed that you were talking out of your ass, and it would appear that I was correct, as you now express "limited understanding", and "don't know", and request to be "enlightened".

I'm not sure how others feel here, but I really feel like my time is wasted when people post matters of what appear to be "fact", when in actual fact, it's nothing more than erroneous conjecture or imagination. Please don't do that.

You misunderstand me, or maybe I've failed to make myself understood. Whatever. It is precisely because CC license is recognised in Florida that WMF can avoid being sued for copyright violation, because there is virtually no such thing as "copyright violation" in Florida. Unless, of course, someone at OTRS and/or image monitoring crew really screws up and gets the license format completely wrong or something like that, which is quite unlikely. OTRS and/or image license monitoring crew seems to be one of the few, maybe even the only, administrative branch of WP that functions efficiently, for obvious reasons i.e to avoid opening WP to possibility of copyright litigation, even in Florida, with it's very flexible and accommodating copyright laws.

You're an idiot, "communicat".

What a rude feller you are in fact. But never mind; I can appreciate the annoyance here of someone who, by his/her own admission is a paid editor. Not good for business to be seen biting the hand the feeds you, hey?

Meanwhile, yes, my small and inadvertent mistake: Florida is not the only place in the world that recognises the validity of CC lisencing. The Netherlands apparently recognises CC validity as well. Nowhere else, to the best of my present knowledge, has the validity of CC lisencing ever been legally acknowledged, not even in the rest of the US excepting Florida. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Nobody's perfect.

Whoops. The CC license is simply a license, it grants someone the ability to use a work, so long as they fulfil certain criteria, in particular attribution and the link to the relevant license. The question regarding CC licenses is whether the terms of the license are enforceable. Saying that the terms aren't enforceable because license is recognised, is nonsensical.

EDIT: Additionally the North California courts have found that the conditions attached to CC type licenses are a condition on the use:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/packet/200810...s-may-constitut

break the conditions and the use is copyright violation.

Do you work at being this wrong or is it a gift?

I'm sorry to be rude, but you really have no business being here. There are some very intelligent adults here, "communicat". You're actually being quite the rude one, interrupting the intelligent folks' conversation with your misguided prattle.

Interesting. But the real question is: Does WP/WMF have assets in N. California? If not, then it's not worth suing for compensation and recovery of litigation costs if the culprit is judged to have violated copyright. In other words, WP/WMF is theoretically only worth suing in Florida, where it has assets that can be seized if the judgment goes against it, and if it then fails or refuses to pay up. Given the singularly liberal and flexible CC-based copyright laws in Florida, however, the dice would in any event be heavily loaded in favour of WP/WMF. That's all I'm saying.

No doubt there are some "Very intelligent adults" here; I've only noticed one or two of them. Me "interrupting the intelligent folks' conversation"? That's rich. Considering that this topic (like a couple of others) was dormant and inactive before I happened along and breathed some life into it. No interruption there; just revival. So, long story short: I retract my statement that you're "a rude feller". Replace that with: your head is so far up your ass (and also up WP's ass, apparently) that you are unable to see the light of reason.

My apologies. I didn't realise WR was meant to be a Compendium of Fact. I thought instead (and maybe misguidedly) that WR was meant to be a forum for critical discourse through an exchange of views, experiences and opinions. I've expressed mine; you've expressed yours. I prefer mine. Get over it. If you want to censor or suppress alternative viewpoints that deviate from your own and from the mainstream norm, go work fulltime at WP. Others do.

No.
I haven't expressed my opinion on this topic yet. I have only stated that yours is wrong.

You, obviously, have no idea how copyright works and your continued thrashing about like a poorly constructed robot shedding pieces of badly machines parts around the living room is off putting.

Please stop.

Sure, I have no idea how copyright works in every one of the world's 192 countries, each with its own separate copyright laws. But I do have some idea of the fact that laws of Florida, for example, cannot be imposed legitimately on the rest of the world. Not even the American Wikipedia can pull that off.

Do you even realize that most of Wikipedia was constructed on a GFDL license, not the Creative Commons license? It sounds like you're not even aware of that fact.

Regardless, for those of us who have no clue what point you are trying to make, could you BRIEFLY explain how copyright laws play into the success and/or survival of Wikipedia? In other words, what exactly are you trying to postulate, but having thus far done such a poor job of doing?

The laws of Florida have nothing to do with copyright. Copyright is extended by law in the US by federal code, specifically the Copyright Act of 1976. The states cannot add or subtract from federal code, which supercedes all state and local laws when it comes to intellectual property (per the constitution, which makes copyright and patent federal issues).

About all the states can do is add statues that complement code. For example, those that implement antipiracy laws, like making videorecorders illegal in movie theaters. However, film piracy methods are not really copyright issues per se, but rather have to do with the technical details (the videocam things are sort of like "paraphenalia laws").

So, what the devil are you talking about?

Has communicat made one good point in this thread yet?

You guys wanna see a massive pile of possible trademark violations by the WMF?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:With_trademark

You may have noticed the topic here is titled The myth of reference sources. My original posting of 16 Aug 9.34 proposed: "You might find that the CC visual images influence text content credibility as much as or maybe even more so than the reference citations." What I was and still am postulating is: there are numerous significant but completely unsourced WP articles that seem to derive "credibility" only through the use of convincing images. My further postulation is that WP would not have the mass appeal it currently enjoys were it not for the free-use system of CC lisencing. Nobody here has actually commented on this, as reasonably postulated. Instead, topic drift quickly established itself.

I made the mistake only of mentioning, (only in passing), some associated, perceived legal copyright implications, which regretably had an effect of muddying the waters. My apologies. Copyright is a very complex and convoluted subject that probably merits a separate topic of its own; nor does the subject lend itself to precis writing. One thing's for sure though: Jimbo's expensive lawyers and their energetic interactions with Free Software Foundation would certainly have sewn up the free-use package very securely; and without it WP would probably not have become a "success". End of story. Hopefully.

The thread went off track when you made those hare-brained comments about the exclusive nature of Florida laws, which were just simply untrue and unsubstantiated. Setting that aside, I nicely agree with much of the dual-edged point you were trying to make. I think photographs, charts, and diagrams do lend a subconscious credibility to encyclopedia-like text content. I also agree that the mass appeal of Wikipedia has been thanks in substantial part to its free-licensing policies. I'm glad we could get back on track so cordially. I'm sorry for the names I called you; but, please don't embellish your comments in the future with incorrect conjecture, especially about legal matters.

Forgive the topic drift, but it would still be helpful to know where WP/WMF assets are located outside of Florida, just in case I or anyone else here is ever presented with the conjectural opportunity to sue WP/WMF outside of Florida.

My confusion arose basically from the wikipedia entry on wikipedia, which states that content in WP is governed by laws of Florida, "especially copyright law". The entry then goes into a spiel about CC-BY-SA, leading the casual reader to believe the two things are closely interwoven. Serves me right for relying on WP for edification. Thanks to those in this thread who've now clarified the issue for me, to some extent at any rate.

I think we just learned quite a lot about you, "communicat".

I don't know, I thought Milton did a pretty good job above. Copyright 101 is pretty easy.