A fact from Binford & Mort appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 September 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Hello Katr,
I am writing regarding my changes to the Binford & Mort entry at Binford & Mort.
I deleted the historical portion of the entry because the text for the entry was lifted with some careful modifications from an article I painstakingly wrote for the Oregon Encyclopedia project. I believe that altering OEP entries and placing them on Wikipedia, although legal, is not ethical or useful to the researcher. It is incredibly frustrating to spend hours researching a subject, and report one's findings in one place, only to see them appropriated for another. You should note that after deleting the historical portion of the entry, I added a link to the Oregon Encyclopedia Project entry, which I felt was an appropriate way to direct interested parties to a more authoritative source. I encourage you to take a look at my original OEP entry at [1] to judge for yourself whether or not I am over-exagerating this problem. I have notified the editors of the OEP of this problem, and I expect they will be getting in touch with Oregon Wiki to discuss the larger problem. In the meantime I would appreciate it if you would reconsider the removal of the historical portion of this entry
Thank you,
Jeremy Skinner
Poiuzxcv (talk) 00:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect Mr. Skinner, I think you are over-exaggerating the problem. I can see no overt copyright violations or plagiarism, but instead the article as written by User:Aboutmovies (as shown in the article's page history) uses several different sources, including The Oregon Encyclopedia article. It makes no sense to me that you would not only delete all references to the Oregon Encyclopedia article (which was given full credit with a link to the Binford and Mort article at OE), but also all the other references used in the article. Since you did not use edit summaries to justify your actions, the only conclusion I could draw was that your edits were simple vandalism, so I reverted your edits. Of course you, as a new Wikipedia editor, would not know this, so thank you for opening a dialogue. This is what is known here at Wikipedia as the "Bold, Revert, Discuss" cycle. Personally, I think it is a credit to your article that a Wikipedia editor would use it as a source, as we have very stringent guidelines about reliable sources and we have deemed OE to be such. Wikipedia does not rely on original research, thus it can only summarize what has already been published in third-party reliable sources. There was also absolutely no reason that I can see for you to delete the "selected titles" section, as that does not seem to have any reliance on your OE article at all. There really isn't anyone to get in touch with at the "Oregon Wiki" to discuss this problem. We are all volunteers doing our best to uphold Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, many of whom participate in an informal Oregon WikiProject. My best suggestion is for you or the OEP to contact Wikipedia's Volunteer Response Team. They will be able to give you guidance about how to proceed. Among other things, they handle "inquiries about re-using text or media". Let's keep further discussion about this topic at the article's talk page: Talk:Binford & Mort. I will copy this discussion there as a point of reference. I look forward to continuing the discussion there, where other editors can weigh in. (Please click on the blue links in this post and read the material there for more information.) Best, Katr67 (talk) 05:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mr. Skinner, Katr67 speaks for me as well. Using your work as a reference necessarily involves collecting the information and restating it. I believe the standard is that copying sentences constitutes a copyright violation (with limited exceptions). Since full attribution is made to The Oregon Encyclopedia, it should, if anything, drive more readers to your original article—not somehow diminish your work.
You express that using that information on Wikipedia is not ethical or useful to the researcher. Would you kindly explain those? —EncMstr (talk) 06:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, Mr. Skinner, since I doubt you interviewed the Binfords or the Morts, I would assume you relied on earlier work of other researchers? Perhaps the thesis from the 1950s listed at the Oregon Encyclopedia? That would explain why the article fails to mention much of the other items I found doing research on the topic. Finally, note that no person or entity owns facts, or ideas. You, nor the authors of your sources nor the authors of the sources I used own any of the facts involved here, or any of the ideas expressed. The expression of those facts and ideas (as in the words you used in that order) is what is protected by copyright. Plagiarism is a different issue, but since I worked only your ideas and facts into a work that is based on many other sources, few people could consider this plagiarism. Seriously, you have some things wrong in your article (Peter and Maurice Binford did not start Metropolitan Press), and others lack important information. For instance "By 1957, both Maurice and Peter Binford had retired...". No, Maurice died in 1954, which consulting the Dictionary of Oregon History (a B&M publication written by one of the authors specifically mentioned in your article) would show this, but since I'm guessing most of the work comes from the 1954 thesis, this detail was left out. You have Thomas' death, who was less important to the success, but not Maurice's. And you make it sound like Ralph Mort was added near 1937, instead of an exact date, also available in the Dictionary (what you mention as one of the "region's most important historical works" in your article at OE on book publishing). Aboutmovies (talk) 08:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Couple more points. Academic dishonesty is plagiarism, which is taking other people's work and representing it as your own. Here, that is obviously not an issue as full attribution is present. But, since you did not listed any sources in your OE article, I am wondering how that could be. Seriously, unless you lived through this time period and actually worked for the publisher it would be difficult to have facts such as these be your own work. Certainly some opinions could be yours, but the work is hardly an opinion piece. Secondly, be careful what you wish for. If all links to the OE disappear from Wikipedia, OE would not be too high in search engine results. I'd bet you that your article is only the third link at a Google search for "Binford & Mort" is because of this Wikipedia article. According to the OE your article was published in January, and I did much of my research in May, yet I didn't come across your article until I stumbled across it after someone told me about a new article on a different topic at OE in August. So its rise in the rankings comes after this article. So, if the OE link here and at all articles disappears, then OE goes back to even more obscurity compared Wikipedia that is in the top 10 of all sites. Also, you might want to fix the typos "They included important works such such" and it is not "Gardinier". Aboutmovies (talk) 09:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Removed Content - Further Reading - Unable to locate
The above is causing a CS1 error for a lack of title= parameter. I attempted to locate the source for this entry and could not do so with considerable effort to it. I decided removing and placing it here was best. It is not a cited reference supporting any of the article at this time, so when the source is located the entry can me moved back to the article. ---> Darryl.P.Pike (talk) 01:52, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
