Talk:Greenwich Village townhouse explosion

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[edit] Question

How can "a terrorist attack" target the military? Isn't targeting the military the definition of non-terroristic violence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.56.68 (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you not consider the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon a terrorist attack? --CliffC (talk) 00:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 22 April 2008 wholesale deletions of cited material and citations themselves

Humata, I have reverted those changes. I've never heard of an article being "overfootnoted". These are cites from a WP:RS, mainly the New York Times. The quotes you so happily deleted are the leads from each article cited, that's why the {{cite}} template has a "quote=" parameter . And I see no "trivia" in the article. --CliffC (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

(1) Have you noticed Wikipedia's prohibition against reproducing copyrighted material (repeated at the bottom of every entry page)? Quoting six or more paragraphs exceeds fair use. (2) Some people don't write well because they can't distinguish the trivial from the important. For example, how Kathy Boudin escaped detection for weeks as having been at the scene. Four example, exactly how many days later each corpse was discovered. For example, the names of the reporters who wrote the various articles. Next, what are the purposes of footnotes? To show *where* you got info (which aid future researchers) and to prove that you didn't invent. It's a waste of space to DUPLICATE text from the article in the quote of the citation -- that was done at least four times. The person who wrote that way lacks judgement in a big way. Hurmata (talk) 21:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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

(This section copied from Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests for the record)

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 given an uncivil recounting of my other alleged crimes against Wikipedia. I admit that I am not 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 generally improved the article. But I do need to know whether citing a news article's lead in a footnote constitutes copyright violation. --CliffC (talk) 19:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

As a secondary issue, the names of the reporters writing the various Times articles were also removed from the citations, as "trivial". I'd like to have an opinion on this action as well. --CliffC (talk) 15:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A better place would be to head to the requests for thirs opinion page or list a request for comment. These will help you to draw more comment on the content of the page. Pastordavid (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree with those suggestions. This is a broad policy question, not a question about a single article. I know copyright is a sensitive subject and questions about it can take a long time to answer, but I'd like to see a statement of Wikipedia policy on this. Surely it's an issue that has come up before. I have removed the 'resolved' tag. --CliffC (talk) 16:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't be sorry. Consider reading these policies dealing with copyrights and how material may be used in Wikipedia articles. I don't see that they definitely discuss what you're talking about, but they're a start. I applaud your attempt to discuss on the article's talk page, but you never responded to Hurmata's reply. If you cannot resolve things on the talk page, then you may consider following Pastordavid's advice or even dispute resolution. Fleetflame 18:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, although I had expected to be pointed to specific policy on the fair use of copyrighted material in {{cite news}} templates, and perhaps on whether reporter names are "trivia". I don't have time at present to pursue this, so for the purposes of EAR you may mark the subject closed. I'll copy this section to the article's talk page for the record. --CliffC (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)