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I've here removed the copy from the Sparks Mexico website. The list (not necessarily a problem in itself) has been almost completely copy-pasted, with some minor language changed. The phrasing of the text reflects almost exactly the turns of phrase in the source. I see no "free" license on the page being copied from, and the linked "main" page does have a copyright notice - so the presumption here is that it is a copyrighted work. There are several ways to remedy this. One would be to completely rewrite the section in prose, selecting only the most prominent drinks; another would be to create a table where the entries could be listed in neutral terms, with a lead-in sentence of "According to the Sparks Mexico project, [these] are the medicinal uses of herbal teas" or something similar. Perhaps there are other approaches too, but I don't think the content I removed is justifiable as entered. Franamax ( talk) 23:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for replying with more details. I posted a question about copying and pasting info from lists, tables, charts, and so on, over in the Media copyright questions forum, I'm hoping to get some more input so that I understand this thoroughly:
[1]
I think it's a bit complicated. For example, the list that was provided in the Mexican tea culture article was long, but far from exhaustive. University of Texas (El Paso) and U of Texas (Austin) have published the following online [2]:
A total of 3,000 species have been compiled in an atlas of medicinal plants employed by diverse ethnic groups. Incredibly, of these only approximately 1% of them have been studied in depth, regarding their potential medicinal properties (Argueta et al., 1994).
(ETA: yes, they're just referring to traditional Mexican medicinal plants.) Some of these medicines do actually refer to an entire species of plant, like "erba buena", which is also called Yerba buena, and refers, as I understand it, to any of a large variety of wild mint plants. Also, your point about the dosages is well taken; I did preface the list with a sentence warning of the dangers of incorrect consumption, and I left out some details that would enable more people to experiment with the information. On the other hand, I did no original research into the medicinal teas, and I can't verify the source's claims. Maybe more of a caution or disclaimer is required?
Those details are pertinent, but I think they're actually less important than establishing a length threshold for copying lists, tables, charts etc. I get into that a bit more at the copyright question forum. Like paraphrasing information, I was always told at university, more than three or four sentences requires a citation or blockquote. Copyright laws may have different requirements than academic research papers, though, and I want to know what the deal is with the copyright restrictions on content.
OttawaAC (
talk)
23:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
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![]() | A fact from Mexican tea culture appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 18 November 2011 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I've here removed the copy from the Sparks Mexico website. The list (not necessarily a problem in itself) has been almost completely copy-pasted, with some minor language changed. The phrasing of the text reflects almost exactly the turns of phrase in the source. I see no "free" license on the page being copied from, and the linked "main" page does have a copyright notice - so the presumption here is that it is a copyrighted work. There are several ways to remedy this. One would be to completely rewrite the section in prose, selecting only the most prominent drinks; another would be to create a table where the entries could be listed in neutral terms, with a lead-in sentence of "According to the Sparks Mexico project, [these] are the medicinal uses of herbal teas" or something similar. Perhaps there are other approaches too, but I don't think the content I removed is justifiable as entered. Franamax ( talk) 23:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for replying with more details. I posted a question about copying and pasting info from lists, tables, charts, and so on, over in the Media copyright questions forum, I'm hoping to get some more input so that I understand this thoroughly:
[1]
I think it's a bit complicated. For example, the list that was provided in the Mexican tea culture article was long, but far from exhaustive. University of Texas (El Paso) and U of Texas (Austin) have published the following online [2]:
A total of 3,000 species have been compiled in an atlas of medicinal plants employed by diverse ethnic groups. Incredibly, of these only approximately 1% of them have been studied in depth, regarding their potential medicinal properties (Argueta et al., 1994).
(ETA: yes, they're just referring to traditional Mexican medicinal plants.) Some of these medicines do actually refer to an entire species of plant, like "erba buena", which is also called Yerba buena, and refers, as I understand it, to any of a large variety of wild mint plants. Also, your point about the dosages is well taken; I did preface the list with a sentence warning of the dangers of incorrect consumption, and I left out some details that would enable more people to experiment with the information. On the other hand, I did no original research into the medicinal teas, and I can't verify the source's claims. Maybe more of a caution or disclaimer is required?
Those details are pertinent, but I think they're actually less important than establishing a length threshold for copying lists, tables, charts etc. I get into that a bit more at the copyright question forum. Like paraphrasing information, I was always told at university, more than three or four sentences requires a citation or blockquote. Copyright laws may have different requirements than academic research papers, though, and I want to know what the deal is with the copyright restrictions on content.
OttawaAC (
talk)
23:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Mexican tea culture. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 03:16, 27 January 2018 (UTC)