Draft:Securities and Exchange Commission v. Electric Bond and Share company ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( restore)

Inappropriate use of WP:G12. The stated reason for the deletion was a copyvio from www.leagle.com, but that was just a reprint of a SCOTUS decision. As had already been explained in the review comments, SCOTUS decisions, as works of the US government, are not copyrighted. When Energynet queried RHaworth about the deletion on his talk page, the response was that, the basic problem is that reproducing the court's judgement does not make a Wikipedia article. We need an article about that judgement, not the text itself. That may be true, but the fact that an article is badly written isn't a WP:CSD. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply

• But neither Energynet nor Roy Smith has provided a link to the SCOTUS case written up on a .gov website. The point I was making was that there is no point in restoring the text: it is better to start again writing a non-copyvio, proper article. But if another admin is willing to restore the current state, I have no objections. — RHaworth ( talk · contribs) 15:21, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply
  • There is no requirement that sources be available at a .gov website (or anywhere else on-line). This is obviously the text of a SCOTUS decision. It's even on wikisource, where it says, "This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government", not to mention being available under CC BY_SA 3.0. To claim that this is a copyvio is absurd. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:44, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply
  • [1], if it makes you happy, though it proves exactly nothing one way or the other. — Cryptic 19:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply

I believe that RHaworth is missing a major point here. I deleted the entire segment under question when I saw the warning and then filed a protest as posted in the box. My protest and the fact that I deleted the section in concern was done prior to deletion! How is this fair that my protest and deletion of the section of concern are now gone as evidence? I also lost over two hours of additional work attempting to build up a response to the final concern on the piece not related to the copyright concern that I was also trying to sort out at the teahouse! Lastly, in direct reply to Rhaworth's demand that I have not produced a copy of the decision from a .gov site, is because I have not found one to post, nor was I told that this was what was needed to stop your deletion. Energynet ( talk) 16:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn and WP:TROUT everybody involved in getting this deleted:

• The source is clearly a decision of the US Supreme Court, which is in the public domain not only as a work of the US federal government but even as a court decision.
• There was no content from the source in the article at the time of deletion. The author removed it and replaced it with something that looks like an encyclopedia article.
• You don't need a .gov link to prove that something is in the public domain as the work of the federal government, particularly something which was published long before the internet was even dreamed of. The source is blatantly a Supreme Court decision. In any case even a dubious assertion that something is in the public domain is enough to prevent G12 speedy deletion because those cases are supposed to go to WP:CP.
• Yes, Wikipedia articles should not consist of text taken from court decisions, but merely being badly written is not a criterion for speedy deletion. Particularly not in draft space where the whole point is to improve articles to get them up to scratch. Which is exactly what the author was doing.

Supreme Court decisions are very likely to be notable and I'm sure this draft can be fixed up to go to mainspace, as long as the people who are supposed to know speedy deletion stop abusing G12. Hut 8.5 17:08, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply

• This goes past "overturn" into oh come on territory for me. I can overlook a British admin not knowing that all US federal government works (and even non-federal court decisions) are in the public domain, but only up until the point that that's pointed out to him. The argument that an unedited copy of a public domain source is inappropriate as an article is correct, in mainspace: it's reason to move to draft - where this already was - or perhaps to delete at an AFD, but never to speedy; and it's not even relevant here, since it was no longer an unedited copy at the time of deletion.
  The only thing remotely defensible about this deletion is that there was also a claim of an infringement from [2] in e.g. this revision. I can't assess that, since the source site doesn't display for me. At most, it calls for revision deletion up until the point where it was removed. — Cryptic 19:13, 31 August 2019 (UTC) reply

a response to Cryptic. I have almost no idea about the terminology you are using, but the [2] reference in original piece that you mention came from a 1938 Library of Congress newspaper article that I thought was in public domain, and was using in quotes as the only piece at that moment (I believe this was my 2nd or 3rd attempted rewrite) and was only my third citation I'd found at that early point. When this also became controversial - I used parts of the quote to form the first paragraph to summarize the decision, and then just a link to the LOC reference - it was a lot different when done. The original intent was clearly not to plagiarize but to quote directly... Energynet ( talk) 05:50, 1 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn or temp undelete. Plainly a dubious G12. A questionable copyright infringement is not an emergency, if in doubt we can look at it in the history. Likely, an the basis of what has been said, there is no copyright infringement. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 09:24, 1 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Overturn not an admin, can't see the history, but based on the above discussion I am satisfied the G12 was incorrect (public domain sourcing). Also want to support Cryptic's point - the article should not be a copy and paste of public domain text. I think this has been satisfied and has nothing to do with the G12, but want to make sure this point has been reiterated. SportingFlyer T· C 23:56, 1 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• I can't see the article but if there was unattributed copying of this 1938 The Washington Star article (and I don't know if there was), that would be copyvio (despite it being at loc.gov). – Leviv ich 05:56, 2 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• I don't think there is any copyvio from that news article. That claim was made at the same time as the claim that it was a copyvio from the Supreme Court decision. There is a paragraph in the decision which is quoted in both the draft and the news article, I suspect that's what they were getting at. Hut 8.5 17:41, 2 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn. Supreme Court judgments are public domain as a work of the US Federal Government. Stifle ( talk) 10:12, 2 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Snowing in September. Fancy that.— S Marshall  T/ C 16:42, 2 September 2019 (UTC) reply