This template is for use on the talk pages of articles where there may be potential for confusion about the copyright status of parts of the text due to its re-use in a mainstream news article or publication. Editors often tend to see copyright violation as a one-way street, with all violations being on behalf of Wikipedia - however, there have been several demonstrable instances of news organisations or websites copying substantial portions of Wikipedia content for articles without providing attribution. There are also cases where Wikipedia content is reused and properly licensed, but the attribution is unclear.
This template aims to prevent editors from mistakenly tagging valid Wikipedia content as copyvio when the Wikipedia article is the original, not the copy.
Usage
This template should be placed in the header section of the talk page of an article where backwards copying has occurred. Please fill in the basic, applicable parameters (borrowed from the {{cite}} tag) as this helps to ensure rapid verification that the material was indeed taken from Wikipedia.
Parameters
title
(required): title of the work being referred to. Do not link; neither with a wikilink nor a link to an external site.year
(required): year of publication of the work being referred to.author
: author of the work being referred to.authorlist
: as an alternative to theauthor
parameter, a list of multiple authors may be used instead.url
: URL, if any, of an external site showing or providing additional identifying material for the work being referred to.org
: publisher or other source of the work being referred to.monthday
: month and day-of-month that, when combined with theyear
parameter, yields a date that complies with MOS:DATEFORMAT.id
: the version number of a particular version that predates publication of the referenced work. The text generated by the template will link to the specified version. For assistance with determining the version number of a particular version, see here.comments
: any additional comments that may be helpful to explain the basis for using the template.
Each of these parameters may be reused by appending a suffix 2-5 (e.g. title2
, title3
, title4
, title5
) to identify up to five works. See examples.
Examples
Basic template:
- {{Backwardscopy|title=Title|url=http://www.example.com|year=2000}}
Complete template, year only:
- {{Backwardscopy|title=Title|url=http://www.example.com|author=Author|year=2000|org=Publisher or source|comments=The author acknowledges Wikipedia in a tiny footnote on page 27.}}
Complete template, month and day included, version number, and an auto-hidden comment:
- {{Backwardscopy|id=295134989|title=Title|url=http://www.example.com|author=Author|year=2000|monthday=1 January|org=publisher or source|comments=The subsequent history is confused as both the blog and the Wikipedia article have been updated.}}
Multiple cites (up to 5):
- {{Backwardscopy|title=Title|url=http://www.example.com|author=Author|year=2000|title2=A different article|author2=Author II|year2=2003|url2=http://www.foo.com|comments=The subsequent history is confused as both the blog and the Wikipedia article have been updated.}}
Complete template, multiple authors (unlimited), month and day included, version number, and an auto-hidden comment:
- {{Backwardscopy|id=295134989|title=Title|url=http://www.example.com|authorlist=First Author; Second Author; Third Author|year=2000|monthday=1 January|org=publisher or source|comments=The subsequent history is confused as both the blog and the Wikipedia article have been updated.}}
Categories
This template includes a hidden category:
For purpose of demonstration set |demo=yes
to subdue the hidden category.
See also
Deprecated redirects to this template: {{Backwardscopyvio}}, {{Notacopyvio}}, {{Reverse copyvio}}, {{Reversecopyvio}}. Please use {{Backwardscopy}} instead.