User talk:Reever2

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Good luck! -- Herby talk thyme 16:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Recipes
Hi - the recipes that you have added all look as though they come from a website which has a copyright statement at the bottom of each page. If that is the case these will all have to be deleted as we cannot accept copyright materials here. Thanks -- Herby talk thyme 16:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the message - as far as I am aware without specific written permission from the owners of the website t the Wikimedia foundation it would not be possible to host these pages as they are absolute copies. Please look at Copyrights and then maybe Help:Boilerplate request for permission.  I would also like a pointer to where you were given permission on Wikipedia to use the material and the admin's name - copyright policy is the same across all Wikimedia projects.  Thanks -- Herby  talk thyme 09:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * In practice an initial read of your Wikipedia page looks like the reverse -- Herby talk thyme 09:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * OK for a much better view on licensing throughout Wikimedia please look at Commons:Licensing. This will specifically direct you towards the license requirements and how to fulfill them on any Wikimedia project.  This will deal with the copying aspect.  There is then the acceptability of this to Wikibooks.  In my view and understanding Wikibooks should not be used to promote websites of any sort in any way.  When I have written this I will place a query in the staff lounge (I'll send you the link when I have done it) in order to get a wider opinion on this than just mine.  Please do not make further contributions until this is resolve (& I will not delete any pages you have contributed until then too) -- Herby  talk thyme 10:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Link is here Staff_lounge/Chat thanks -- Herby talk thyme 10:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * As you rightly say However i would like to add that any external link coming from your site is predominantly promoting some product i.e. taking you away from your site to theirs/ another. and the links to yours would be responsible for taking people away from Wikibooks -- Herby talk thyme 10:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Reever2, I would like to let you know that I'm not so concerned with the "external links" as Herbythyme has expressed here, but I am concerned about the potential copyright violations. We are cautious, almost to the point of paranoia (some would say even beyond that), to make sure that all of the content which is contributed to our project is contributed legally. We go way beyond what is legally required in terms of being a "safe harbor" and aggressively go after copyright violations which we detect through a number of methods. One of the reasons for this is that we do intend in the future to be able to redistribute and possibly sell the content here on Wikibooks in other formats besides just web pages.

A general assurance that you have permission to copy this content is not very comforting, especially when we aren't completely certain that you are who you claim to be here. It makes our job much easier if the web page itself grants explicit permission to use the content under terms like the GFDL, or we have some way to verify independently that permission has been formally granted to this project. This is mainly trying to build some sort of trust relationship that the rest of our on-line community can also rely upon, and to make sure that if we reuse this content elsewhere (under the terms of the GFDL) that we can do that legally. We do not permit a license "for use only on Wikibooks". I hope you can understand this. We are not asking you to give up copyright here, but you must explicitly grant us a license to redistribute this content to other places, including commercial usage, under the terms of this specific content license. Most of our participants understand this philosophy, so it generally isn't a problem, especially when content is added a paragraph or two at a time and heavily edited and rephrased.

As far as the external links are concerned, we tend to discourage redundant links unless they add significant additional value or are of a bibliographic nature. I understand the desire to try and build up external links to your website, but explicit links with what appears to be a desire to improve page rankings with search engines is seen as a form of link spamming. We deal with this so often that the automatic response is to remove any such links until somebody can give a strong reason for including them in a page. This is nothing against you or your company, but we say the same thing to everybody who tries to do this. I realize that the video files themselves to add some value to these recipes, but our desire is to have all multimedia like this to be included under the same terms as the text itself as well. That isn't strictly necessary, but it does help as we intend to redistribute this content on CD-ROMs and other sorts of formats where an on-line link may not always be easy to access this content.

The Cookbook has a long history with this project, and in fact pre-dates the creation of this website and domain name. I would like to encourage you to continue to make contributions here as long as they are either original creations or you have been given (and are able to document) permission to relicense the content under the terms of the GFDL. --Rob Horning 11:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You said "Hi, Thanks for your comments. I have read the copyright obligations for Wikibooks, and am happy with your explanation. So can i get this straight- as long as i have permission to distribute this content i am ok to post. You can contact me on robert.reeve@videojug.com if you would like verification that i am in fact an employee of this company, and therefore have copyright permission. As for the external links- Google do not add page ranking (give added Search engne ranking benefits)to our site from any wiki pages, so we are not doing it for those reasons. We are trying to add good quality content to your site, and hopefully (i'm going to be honest) gain some referrals to our site. If you do distribute this material onto CD-Roms etc- our copyright will remain (that is correct isn't it!)" -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Reever2 (talk • contribs).


 * I would like to point out that you may have permission to distribute this content, but do you have authority (usually something delegated to a CEO or vice-president level here who has legal authority to sign a contract on behalf of the company... not a mere employee) to relicense the terms of content redistribution? This is a big deal, as the copyright disclaimer on your website is quite clear that your company will only give permission to redistribute content from that website with explicit permission... especially if it is for commercial purposes.  The GFDL requires that commercial purposes are explicitly allowed, although other restrictions are in place instead.  It is this sort of permission, from either the head of your company or the legal counsel (a barrister or an attorney) of your company that is needed.  If you are the head of this company or have this level of authority, this sort of permission would then be fine.  Unless it is a very small company that you work for, it is very unlikely that you have this level of authority.


 * As for the Google rankings, I won't get into the details here, but links from Wikimedia projects do, unfortunately (for us in dealing with this) have an impact on site rankings. It is only one of several factors, but it can bump your website up several notches when links do come from this website.  Wikipedia more so, but Wikibooks is one of the top 3000 websites in the world according to some measures of web traffic.  This may not be your intention, and for that I can understand.  As I said, the page links are something we can discuss and try to come to some sort of understanding on what is fair and what is not later one.  The big issue here really is the copyright violation.


 * In terms of you owning copyright, yes, that does not change. All we are asking for is a license to use this content under some very strict and well defined terms that have even had legal review by barristers, solicitors, and lawyers in many countries throughout the world.  Whole books and websites are devoted to discussing the fine points of this license, so I'm not asking you here to agree to terms that are hidden or havn't been reviewed at length.  Of course you might want to review these terms yourself and see if they are in line with how you and your company would be willing to allow us to redistribute this content.  You still retain copyright to this content, and are free to distribute this content under any other terms that you choose, including any mention that it may be available for free elsewhere, or under terms like the Microsoft End-User License Agreement.  We don't want the copyright ownership here, nor are we really set up to take ownership if it is given.  --Rob Horning 18:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Robert for your help on this matter. It is being dealt with as we speak, but i would like to point out that the Wikipedia links don't help with page rankings, google search terms, or any other SEO benefit. SEO is a massive part of my job, and i can tell you now that Google (90% of web traffic) doesn't look at Wikipedia links (backlinks) in their algorithm. It has recently been publicized hugely in all SEO and digital marketing publications and conferences.

Copyright issues
Hi - hopefully you will have been keeping up to date with the discussion in the staff lounge here Staff_lounge/Chat. Reviewing this there is real concern over the copyright violation issue. In practice I would suggest that it is likely the pages will be deleted over the next few days, however it is possible to retrieve them (or recreate them). Much advice has been given you on licensing so I think the ball is back in your court & that of the web owner. Thanks -- Herby talk thyme 08:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)