Talk:William Macbride Childs

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Better Refs

Since ALL the refs in this article ultimately leed to to The Oxford DNB a subscription website (I am aware it is a WP:RS) - it is very hard to show WP:V to the reader or to show it is not in breach of copyright. Can we find some other WP:RS refs - what does the The Oxford DNB cite as sources ? Codf1977 (talk) 15:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Oxford DNB is not a subscription web site. Anybody with a valid UK library ticket can access it, simply by entering their membership number on the login screen. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 19:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And if you are not British ? - this is a English wiki - not a British one - Point still stands Codf1977 (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I thought it was a global wiki. But that isn't the point; there are plenty of UK contributors who do have access and can therefore check for copyvio. And in any case if you were to read the WP:V policy you quote, you would see that is says:

The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries. WikiProject Resource Exchange may be able to assist in obtaining copies/excerpts of sources that are not easily accessible.'

That is necessary, otherwise we couldn't cite references to books, or to web sites blocked by the Great Firewall of China, or whatever, just because some WP users could not get instant access to them. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 19:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not saying they are not valid - I was asking if others could be found - don't see what your issue is ? Codf1977 (talk) 09:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And I had every intention of adding other information from other sources (and would of course welcome others doing the same) if you hadn't slapped an IMHO unjustified (see below) copyvio notice on it as soon as I looked away for a minute. That is why I marked it as a bio-stub. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 19:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright issues

The first para of this is lifted from the The Oxford DNB with only superficial changes made for example "the only child of" (in the orig) changed to "He was the son of" in this version

That simply is not true. The text in this part of the article is based on the information from the DNB, which is why it cites it as a source. But it was rewritten by me. I obviously cannot quote the DNB here (that would be a copyvio) but every sentence in my paragraph has a quite different structure to those in the DNB. Just look at word counts, which I think I can quote without breaking any rules. My paragraph has 4 sentences, with word counts of 12/24/18/22. The paragraph of the DNB article that deals with same period of Child's life has only two sentences, with word counts of 59/45. (Hopefully the author doesn't write for Wikipedia!). Not conclusive, certainly, but indicative.

Taking the example you give, actually that the only child of resulted in my text He was the son of in one sentence, and by He had no direct siblings in another sentence. That evinces that my text has a different structure to that of the DNB.

Yes, there are some similar clauses, but most of them are too short to sensibly regard as a copyvio. For example his second wife, Henrietta Fowles Bell (1833–1889) is the longest piece of common text I can see, and of that most of it is a proper name that cannot be expressed any other way, and a date range in WP standard format.

Either way, this is only a single paragraph in a longer article. I cannot help thinking that a copyvio allegation here is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut. If you felt the text was sailing a little too close to the wind, I think the sensible thing to do would have been to either adjust it yourself or drop me a message to ask me to do the same. I probably would have done so already anyway if you hadn't gummed up the works with copyvio bureaucracy. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 19:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) well I did try to find other on-line sources of the information but I could not - the fist para is a lift from a source that CLEARLY reserves all it's rights - with only small bits changed. - I don't want to get into a big argument about this. But with a single source article as this is it does stick out when you read the article and see almost identical sections when you check the source refs. Codf1977 (talk) 20:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. If it is the pausity of cites that worries you, I will try and provide some more. I've created an amended version of the article, with a rewrite of some of the text that offends you, and with an additional (admittedly arguably primarary) source cited, at Talk:William Macbride Childs/Temp. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 21:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]