LNatalya

Copyright

First off, we really appreciate your contribution.

But sometimes users submit an article from somewhere else, not realizing that Wikinews cannot keep copy-and-paste versions of articles which are published elsewhere under a restrictive copyright. An article created in this way is a copyright violation, and Wikinews policy is to erase these even if they are excellent article ideas.

Another problem which sometimes comes up is press releases: Press releases are sometimes excellent sources, but they do not qualify as unbiased news articles so they can't be published as they are. Two key things to remember about press releases is that they're usually written to represent the viewpoint of an involved party (Thus likely running foul of our Neutral Point of View policy). And second, they are generally covered by copyright which can conflict with our open editing approach.

A better way to get an article on an exciting subject published here is to write an original article following the guidelines described in writing an article, or to write a brief explanation of the subject and include the url address of articles or websites to use as sources. If you are part of the story that the article is about, you may also wish to consider requesting an interview rather than writing the article yourself.

Thanks again! Adambro 19:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyright status

Natalya, sorry that your articles became marked as a copyright violations. One of the first things we do when we see an article posted is search online to see if the article is plagiarized or is a copyright violation. Since we don't know that the source of the article is your own writing and that you have the right to relicense it by posting it here, some editors will just mark it as a copyright violation.

I will reverse the note and republish your articles. In the future, when contributing, I recommend that you mark the article itself as {{original}} (meaning that it's your original reporting) and put a note on the talk page saying that you are the author as well as any other relevant information about the sources for the news. -- IlyaHaykinson 09:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I too also apologize. I hope that you will continue to contribute to Wikinews. :) DragonFire1024 10:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)