Talk:Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft/GA1

GA Review

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Comments

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Suggestions

In General:

In which court did Microsoft file the law suit? I understand it might not have ever progressed to the point where it received ::a docket number, but we should know in which Canadian court the suit was filed.
Place all footnotes at the end of sentences.
For the most part, you don't need multiple citations for these sentences, one will suffice.

Lead:

Wikilinking 12th grade is unnecessary.

Background:

The first sentence is a comma splice, or something like it.
"He is reported as choosing" is an awkward construction.
Change "fun" in the 2nd sentence to "funny" to match the quote
The sentence with the semi-colon is ungainly. Too much info for 1 sentence. Try making it 2 sentences.
Change "replied back, offering" to "responded with an offer"
Is "spanning 25 pages" really necessary? I imagine many cease and desist orders are longer than that

Press Coverage and Settlement

Change "and the offer" to "and an offer" since the offeror is indeterminate.
In "The case, portrayed as a David versus Goliath struggle, characterised" to show who was doing the characterizing. Here, I assume it was the media.
Change "the money that had been given to him for a legal defence" to "his legal defence fund"

Further Developments:

Hyphenate "pre approved"
Change "Initially during the case Microsoft emphasised" to "Microsoft initially emphasized"
In "It has since been suggested," who is doing the suggesting? Make sure this is someone knowledgeable.
Break up the last sentence.
Maybe flesh out and clarify the last sentence. It seems that after raising the issue of the trademark, had Microsoft dropped the claim, it might have weakened their hold on the trademark.
I am pretty sure that the use of the Microsoft logo here is improper. Even if it is true that the logo is not copyrightable, it is still trademarked. Someone with more expertise will have to look at this.

Thanks for the thorough review, I've been through the article and tried to make all of the grammatical and style corrections and improvements that you've suggested. You may have noticed one of the new sentences is started with the word "however" and whilst classically disallowed I'm pretty sure this is now an accepted practise as long as it is followed by a comma. I am a bit reluctant to remove the "25 page" comment as it was mentioned in pretty much every reliable source and I think makes clearer Microsoft's reaction to the situation. Regarding the excess of footnotes I have made sure that they are all at the ends of sentences and removed those which were superfluous. In some instances (about one third) there are still two footnotes rather than one (although there are no longer any with more than two) this is largely because some figures and dates are only available from one source but that source does not necessarily describe the larger context of what is talked about in the sentence. After your initial comment about where the case was filed I've reread the sources and tried to do some more research and have come to the conclusion that nothing was ever actually filed. The original text was probably a combination of an artefact from the article before work was done to improve it and my own assumptions. It should have been checked on before submission for good article status and I apologise. On this basis I have also moved the article from "Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft" to "Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft" since there was no actual case I think that using the convention for legal cases could be potentially confusing and in the media it was most often described with the "s" included (see [1], [2], [3], [4]). I am going to post a message on the media copyright questions noticeboard to confirm whether or not the current image can be used in the article. Guest9999 (talk) 15:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Message posted. Guest9999 (talk) 15:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

As Slashdot and other websites are not in quotations, then "MikeRoweSoft.com" should not be in quotes.
Microsoft should not be in quotes as a company name.
If Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft is the name of a court case, as is strongly implied by the format, then it should be in italics. If it is not the name of a court case, I suggest you change the name of the article as then it violates court-case naming precedents and will lead persons to seek out the court transcript and other information under that case name.
The "however" is unnecessary in "However, Microsoft saw the name as trademark..."
Use of the Microsoft logo is probably not justified by Fair use.

It is an interesting little article but I have not checked it through thoroughly. I copy edited some obvious MoS errors. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The trademark of the Microsoft logo is irrelevant here: we're not trying to pass ourselves off as Microsoft, so trademark infringement doesn't apply. I think the Microsoft logo is too simple to be eligible for copyright. --Carnildo (talk) 20:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree naming could be an issue however court cases on Wikipedia are usually styled with "v." not "vs." (see Colegrove v. Green, Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., Roe v. Wade, etc.). Other non-legal events are styled with "vs." such as boxing matches (see Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton, Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Ángel Firpo, etc.). This article was initially titled "Mike Rowe (student)" and was focussed on the student at the heart of the event I changed the focus to the event (per WP:BIO and WP:BLP1E) and this was the only name I could find that seemed appropriate (generally it's the terminology that the media used to refer to the event (see [5], [6], [7], [8])). So far I haven't been able to come up with a reasonable alternative supported by sources but off the top of my head "MikeRoweSoft.com naming dispute" might be a possibility.

The image of the Microsoft logo is from Commons, images from which are normally acceptable for use on Wikipedia. I agree that if it is classified as unfree by Wikipedia's standards then it's use probably can't be justified under the non-free content criteria (specifically criterion 8 "significance"). However because the image itself is not eligible for copyright (simple text) it is the trademark that is the issue. I believe (although I am by no means an expert) that the trademark is for the word "Microsoft" which is obviously used thousands of times throughout Wikipedia and for that reason I don't think that trademarks of this sort are generally governed in the same way as copyrightable content. Having said that considering the level of uncertainty that there is about the issue I have asked for someone at the media copyright questions noticeboard with the relevant expertise to clarify the situation. Guest9999 (talk) 22:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ironic that an article about a trademark dispute has sparked this discussion on how we can use the very trademark that was the subject of the dispute. Guest9999 (talk) 22:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I think about it, the image doesn't add much to the article and probably should be removed. Trademark can be applied to a logo or a word, and it is the word "Microsoft" that the company was suing to protect, not the logo image. Mike Rowe wasn't infringing on the logo image-just the word. So, really, the image logo displayed has nothing to do with this case. I suggest removing it altogether.

Also, I will do a final source and grammar check tomorrow.--HoboJones (talk) 02:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. I'll pass. Good work.--HoboJones (talk) 16:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]