Hello, Phisigadmin! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! DarthSjones23 (talk - contributions) 21:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I updated the info on the request, is there anything we can to do protect the page as much as possible for however long possible? Phisigadmin (Phisigadmin) 18:14 March 2011 (EST)
The information being added is being removed on the basis that it is unsourced, and seeing it is a secret society i believe it will be nigh impossible to source it reliably even if one intended to do so - which means that the edit could essentially be mere speculation. I do, however, see no reason to protect the page as of current, let alone fully protect it for an extended period of time. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, and protections are only placed in severe cases as outlined in the protection policy.
I would add that Wikipedia equally isn't bound by internal rules from an origination or corporation, which means that any restrictions that organization has do not apply on Wikipedia, provided that no U.S law or Wikipedia policy is violated. As an example i would note another secret society who had a rule that their symbols (Much like the ΦΣK that Phi Sigma Kappa has) may not be posted anywhere. For Wikipedia however, this rule does not apply, as it was valid, source-able information that didn't violate any copyright or other laws.I would argue that the added content falls under the same category, as there is no copyright on certain information - provided that the sentences weren't directly lifted from a copyrighted document. Having said all that, i see no reason to include the added for reasons mentioned above, so there should be no real problem. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)22:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Words have been "directly lifted" from copyrighted documents. Does that not count? Phisigadmin (Phisigadmin) 18:44 March 2011 (EST)
Provided that the copyrighted content is still in the article, it certainly does count - Wikipedia's copyright policy is quite strict on these matters. If there is a copyright violation, please refer to the copyvio page, section "Copyright owners" for details on how to report it. Normally i could verify this myself, but seeing the subject matter i believe that this will not be as simple as checking a public website for content that was copied over. Copyright violations are not, however, a reason to protect a page unless it meets the criteria in the protection policy. Deleting the infringing content and (if needed) blocking the users who added it is the prefered way to handle such situations. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)22:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
