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DDR Holdings v. Hotels.com article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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This article follows the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal. It uses the Bluebook legal referencing style. This citation style uses standardized abbreviations, such as "N.Y. Times" for The New York Times. Please review those standards before making style or formatting changes. Information on this referencing style may be obtained at: Cornell's Basic Legal Citation site. |
This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Spring 2015. Further details were available on the "Education Program:University of California, Berkeley/Cyberlaw (Spring 2015)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
Its very useful to include links in refs (not required, but very useful and generally expected). Also, instead of repeating refs, we have a way to shorthand cite them in subsequent instances. I will implement both for the decision, in a moment. Jytdog ( talk) 17:30, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Some other comments. In general, way too much use of the decision itself as a source, In Wikipedia, this is a WP:PRIMARY and we use them very, very carefully, to avoid original research, which is not allowed in WP. Instead, we read what secondary sources have to say, and we summarize them. We are editors here, not authors. I hope that makes sense. By the way, review the relevant secondary sources also helps to determine what aspects of something, and what views on something, are the most important. This is essential to comply with the policy, WP:NPOV, specifically to avoid putting what we call "undue weight' on some aspect.... so the article should be built by a) reading the primary source (or course!); 2) reading what solid, mainstream secondary sources have to say about it; 3) mulling over those secondary sources say, and building the article based on them. You should cite secondary sources more than primary sources.
Finally - I find that the blogs patently-o and patent baristas to be super helpful as secondary sources - they are among the most read patent law blogs. ; i have not been challenged on that, so i think that is a safe way to go. I wouldn't reach for obscure blogs, or some law firm's one-off analysis. Jytdog ( talk) 17:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
i see now, this was a student article. i have held back really working this over, to let the creator finish, but I will go to work on this soon. I will gut it, because there is way too much reliance on the primary source. It is not an acceptable WP article as it stands. Jytdog ( talk) 21:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Harcamone please stop what you are doing. You are constructing content by stringing WP:PRIMARY sources together. This violates Wikiepdia policy -- see WP:SYN, which is part of WP:OR. Articles need to be constructed from secondary sources, not primary ones. I've reverted what you have done so far. Happy to discuss. Jytdog ( talk) 19:13, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog Hi, we are doing a school project and I am the second editor on this. I need to show the edits I have done and I am working on completing the article by tomorrow. Please stop editing out my work and wait until I can properly complete my assignment. Thanks. Harcaome
PraeceptorIP This section was pretty much all WP:OR which we don't do in Wikipedia, so i removed it. Please do read WP:OR and let me know your thoughts. Jytdog ( talk) 20:26, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
The original author (although not the principal editor) of this article was User:Dawgwoof bearrawr. March 1, 2015. He referenced in footnotes a number of factual statements and quotations from the court's opinion to the pages of 773 F.3d at which the fact or quotation was stated or set out. (It is standard legal practice to give that information, not just Bluebook style but in all legal writings, including court opinions.)
Later, on March 1, the editor User:jytdog, presumably meaning well, converted the footnote citations to AWB style, that is, a b c d e f... all the way to ad, ae, af. (See fn 2 of the revised version). In doing this, the editor, doubtless inadvertently and well meaning, destroyed all of the page cites to the specific pages that supported the author's assertions and quotations.
This made it pretty much impossible for a reader to check the veracity of the author's assertions or accuracy of the quotes or find amplifying material in the opinion concerning what the article asserted at the points in question. This apparently is what happens when you convert from normal legal citation style (giving specific page cites) to AWB style (which masses all pages together).
As I understand it (having been so informed), this conversion will occur whenever an article acquires at least one ref name citation. (That can occur if any passer-by inserts such a reference.) It occurs as well, of course, if an editor undertakes to change the citation style, as happened in this case. Unfortunately, this undoes a lot of valuable work and removes substantive content from the article. It makes the article worse.
I would like to try to find a way to avoid this happening. In discussing it with User:GregJackP, the analogy of robots.txt occurred. This is a line of code that causes bots such as Google's to refrain from processing a webpage that has that metatag (as explained in the WP article on robots.txt). A notice such as {{BBstyle together with appropriate code might do this. There may be better ways to address this.
The MOS recognizes the propriety of using Bluebook style (which includes use of specific page cites) for legal articles. There is a good reason for giving specific page cites. And not using them greatly lowers the value of the article. I would like to discuss a way to fix this problem on this Talk page or another as appropriate. (My concern is limited to pages discussing US law, particularly cases. What I have said above is not meant to apply more widely.)
PraeceptorIP ( talk) 03:01, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
I have a question about some of the commentary quoted in the "Commentary" section. Some of the statements are relevant and informative (e.g. Quinn) but others are vacuous and seem not to add anything to the article. I wonder if they should be deleted.
I can see why Crouch and Quinn should be quoted, because they make substantive legal comments about the case; Borella likewise.
On the other hand, for example, Michelle Holoubek in the Law360 blog says, "Future cases will determine whether the DDR decision gains traction within the patent community." That seems to be a meaningless remark (never mind the cliche about traction). She just dilutes what Crouch and Quinn say.
Steifel's "Plainly, DDR will not be the final word on software patent eligibility." is another remark that IMHO could just as well be forgotten.
No need for hurry to delete, but what do others think? Is there any point in including these commentators' remarks? I would stick with just Crouch, Quinn, and Borella. But what is the consensus?
I have undone a wholesale edit of this article that unregistered editor PTOtalk made without first discussing issues on this Talk page. The unregistered editor is new to this part of WP, has no previous contribs listed, has no user page, and has unknown credentials. The prior edits of this article were made by quite a number of experienced WP editors, most or all of whom are lawyers and/or patent lawyers. The prior edits reflect a consensus judgment, although it probably did not satisfy all of us in all details.
The new edits of PTOtalk are not all of them bad, although I think some are bad (I think it is silly, for example, to change judgment as a matter of law to JMOL in WP, because many WP readers will not know what that means--at least not unless an explanatory footnote is dropped). It is just that these edits are wholesale and without discussion. What I would like to see here, instead, is a point by point discussion (preferably polite) on this Talk page with an explanation of each of the many, many changes--bad and good. Then they can be discussed and then accepted or rejected on a consensus basis. Many may be unexceptionable.
I respectfully urge, also, that PTOtalk register and create a user page that gives some idea of his/her background, so that we know where he/she is coming from. A little more diffidence in the future might be appropriate, too.
PraeceptorIP ( talk) 01:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
DDR Holdings v. Hotels.com article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article follows the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal. It uses the Bluebook legal referencing style. This citation style uses standardized abbreviations, such as "N.Y. Times" for The New York Times. Please review those standards before making style or formatting changes. Information on this referencing style may be obtained at: Cornell's Basic Legal Citation site. |
This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Spring 2015. Further details were available on the "Education Program:University of California, Berkeley/Cyberlaw (Spring 2015)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
Its very useful to include links in refs (not required, but very useful and generally expected). Also, instead of repeating refs, we have a way to shorthand cite them in subsequent instances. I will implement both for the decision, in a moment. Jytdog ( talk) 17:30, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Some other comments. In general, way too much use of the decision itself as a source, In Wikipedia, this is a WP:PRIMARY and we use them very, very carefully, to avoid original research, which is not allowed in WP. Instead, we read what secondary sources have to say, and we summarize them. We are editors here, not authors. I hope that makes sense. By the way, review the relevant secondary sources also helps to determine what aspects of something, and what views on something, are the most important. This is essential to comply with the policy, WP:NPOV, specifically to avoid putting what we call "undue weight' on some aspect.... so the article should be built by a) reading the primary source (or course!); 2) reading what solid, mainstream secondary sources have to say about it; 3) mulling over those secondary sources say, and building the article based on them. You should cite secondary sources more than primary sources.
Finally - I find that the blogs patently-o and patent baristas to be super helpful as secondary sources - they are among the most read patent law blogs. ; i have not been challenged on that, so i think that is a safe way to go. I wouldn't reach for obscure blogs, or some law firm's one-off analysis. Jytdog ( talk) 17:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
i see now, this was a student article. i have held back really working this over, to let the creator finish, but I will go to work on this soon. I will gut it, because there is way too much reliance on the primary source. It is not an acceptable WP article as it stands. Jytdog ( talk) 21:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Harcamone please stop what you are doing. You are constructing content by stringing WP:PRIMARY sources together. This violates Wikiepdia policy -- see WP:SYN, which is part of WP:OR. Articles need to be constructed from secondary sources, not primary ones. I've reverted what you have done so far. Happy to discuss. Jytdog ( talk) 19:13, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog Hi, we are doing a school project and I am the second editor on this. I need to show the edits I have done and I am working on completing the article by tomorrow. Please stop editing out my work and wait until I can properly complete my assignment. Thanks. Harcaome
PraeceptorIP This section was pretty much all WP:OR which we don't do in Wikipedia, so i removed it. Please do read WP:OR and let me know your thoughts. Jytdog ( talk) 20:26, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
The original author (although not the principal editor) of this article was User:Dawgwoof bearrawr. March 1, 2015. He referenced in footnotes a number of factual statements and quotations from the court's opinion to the pages of 773 F.3d at which the fact or quotation was stated or set out. (It is standard legal practice to give that information, not just Bluebook style but in all legal writings, including court opinions.)
Later, on March 1, the editor User:jytdog, presumably meaning well, converted the footnote citations to AWB style, that is, a b c d e f... all the way to ad, ae, af. (See fn 2 of the revised version). In doing this, the editor, doubtless inadvertently and well meaning, destroyed all of the page cites to the specific pages that supported the author's assertions and quotations.
This made it pretty much impossible for a reader to check the veracity of the author's assertions or accuracy of the quotes or find amplifying material in the opinion concerning what the article asserted at the points in question. This apparently is what happens when you convert from normal legal citation style (giving specific page cites) to AWB style (which masses all pages together).
As I understand it (having been so informed), this conversion will occur whenever an article acquires at least one ref name citation. (That can occur if any passer-by inserts such a reference.) It occurs as well, of course, if an editor undertakes to change the citation style, as happened in this case. Unfortunately, this undoes a lot of valuable work and removes substantive content from the article. It makes the article worse.
I would like to try to find a way to avoid this happening. In discussing it with User:GregJackP, the analogy of robots.txt occurred. This is a line of code that causes bots such as Google's to refrain from processing a webpage that has that metatag (as explained in the WP article on robots.txt). A notice such as {{BBstyle together with appropriate code might do this. There may be better ways to address this.
The MOS recognizes the propriety of using Bluebook style (which includes use of specific page cites) for legal articles. There is a good reason for giving specific page cites. And not using them greatly lowers the value of the article. I would like to discuss a way to fix this problem on this Talk page or another as appropriate. (My concern is limited to pages discussing US law, particularly cases. What I have said above is not meant to apply more widely.)
PraeceptorIP ( talk) 03:01, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
I have a question about some of the commentary quoted in the "Commentary" section. Some of the statements are relevant and informative (e.g. Quinn) but others are vacuous and seem not to add anything to the article. I wonder if they should be deleted.
I can see why Crouch and Quinn should be quoted, because they make substantive legal comments about the case; Borella likewise.
On the other hand, for example, Michelle Holoubek in the Law360 blog says, "Future cases will determine whether the DDR decision gains traction within the patent community." That seems to be a meaningless remark (never mind the cliche about traction). She just dilutes what Crouch and Quinn say.
Steifel's "Plainly, DDR will not be the final word on software patent eligibility." is another remark that IMHO could just as well be forgotten.
No need for hurry to delete, but what do others think? Is there any point in including these commentators' remarks? I would stick with just Crouch, Quinn, and Borella. But what is the consensus?
I have undone a wholesale edit of this article that unregistered editor PTOtalk made without first discussing issues on this Talk page. The unregistered editor is new to this part of WP, has no previous contribs listed, has no user page, and has unknown credentials. The prior edits of this article were made by quite a number of experienced WP editors, most or all of whom are lawyers and/or patent lawyers. The prior edits reflect a consensus judgment, although it probably did not satisfy all of us in all details.
The new edits of PTOtalk are not all of them bad, although I think some are bad (I think it is silly, for example, to change judgment as a matter of law to JMOL in WP, because many WP readers will not know what that means--at least not unless an explanatory footnote is dropped). It is just that these edits are wholesale and without discussion. What I would like to see here, instead, is a point by point discussion (preferably polite) on this Talk page with an explanation of each of the many, many changes--bad and good. Then they can be discussed and then accepted or rejected on a consensus basis. Many may be unexceptionable.
I respectfully urge, also, that PTOtalk register and create a user page that gives some idea of his/her background, so that we know where he/she is coming from. A little more diffidence in the future might be appropriate, too.
PraeceptorIP ( talk) 01:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)