User:CliffC/Sandbox1

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[edit] Copyright policy and the {{cite news}} template's "quote=" parameter

I am the original writer of Greenwich Village townhouse explosion. Expecting parts to be challenged, I cited it thoroughly, using 12 sources – 11 in the New York Times and one at a Weather Underground figure's website. Each citation used the {{cite news}} template with its "quote=" parameter, and each citation included the cited story's lead paragraph as the "quote=" value. The idea was to provide footnote followers the essence of each story, so they could decide whether to click on through to the page-image PDF of the original. I believe this is fair use.

Between the article's first posting last year and April 22 it drew only a few edits, but after the Barack Obama/Bill Ayers/Weather Underground so-called "connection" story broke last week, it attracted more attention and a major rewrite and trimming. In the rewrite, the article was described as "overfootnoted", a term I have not heard before. The original citations were retained, but their "quote=" values were removed, with the single exception of a self-serving statement by Mark Rudd describing his Weather Underground comrades' nail bombs as "...crude mirrors of the anti-personnel weapons the U.S. was raining down on Indochina".

The rewriting editor and an anonymous IP from the same geographical area have accused me on the talk page and in edit summaries of copyright violation, as well as of "lacking judgement in a big way", and have treated me to an uncivil recounting of my other alleged crimes against Wikipedia. I admit to not being the world's best or most terse writer, and now that I have had time to cool down I will not deny that the rewrite in general improved the article. But I do want to know whether citing a news article's lead in a footnote constitutes copyright violation. --CliffC (talk) 18:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)