Talk:Peter Dale Scott

Untitled

The entry before I modified it contained unsourced POV and failed to mention major publications of the subject. I have modified it to correct those failings.

copyright?

(I believe that the comment "The entry before I modified it contained unsourced POV and failed to mention major publications of the subject. I have modified it to correct those failings" is mine. Sorry for forgetting to put the sig after it.)

Now the article has been obliterated by an apparently unwarranted 'copyright' notice. I think this needs to be fixed. I have asked the feller to please explain. Brainhell 16:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

This is getting tedious. Here is proof that you copied the article from Scott's own web page. Your edit on January 8: [1]. Scott's page: [2]. It is an almost exact copy (you changed "his chief poetry" to "his most notable poetry", etc.) Rhobite 16:51, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's my final edit:

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and emeritus English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher.

His prose books include 'The War Conspiracy' (1972), 'The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond' (in collaboration, 1976), 'Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection' (1977), 'The Iran-Contra Connection' (in collaboration, 1987), 'Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America' (in collaboration, 1991, 1998), 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK' (1993, 1996), 'Deep Politics Two' (1995), and 'Drugs Oil and War ' (2003). Scott is currently completing a book with the working title 'The Road To 9/11.'

His most notable poetry books are the three volumes of his trilogy 'Seculum': 'Coming to Jakarta: A Poem About Terror ' (1989), 'Listening to the Candle: A Poem on Impulse' (1992), and 'Minding the Darkness: A Poem for the Year 2000'. In addition, he has published 'Crossing Borders: Selected Shorter Poems' (1994). In November 2002 he was awarded the Lannan Poetry Award.

An antiwar speaker during the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, he was a cofounder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, and of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA).

His poetry can be thick with investigative detail, citing a mix of documents that Scott has obtained in his research, and often requires footnotes amid the stanzas. Scott's poetry has dealt with both his experience and his research, the latter of which has centered on U.S. covert operations, their impact on democracy at home and abroad, and their relations to the John F. Kennedy assassination and the global drug traffic. The poet-critic Robert Hass has written (Agni, 31/32, p. 335) that "Coming to Jakarta is the most important political poem to appear in the English language in a very long time."

Scott maintains a website. [1]

Here is his page:

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher. He was born in Montreal in 1929, the only son of the poet F.R. Scott and the painter Marian Scott. He is married to Ronna Kabatznick; and he has three children, Cassie, Mika, and John Scott, by a previous marriage to Maylie Marshall.

His prose books include The War Conspiracy (1972), The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond (in collaboration, 1976), Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection (1977), The Iran-Contra Connection (in collaboration, 1987), Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (in collaboration, 1991, 1998), Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993, 1996), Deep Politics Two (from JFKLancer, 1995), and Drugs Oil and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, March 2003) Click here to read the Preface to this book. (I am often asked about the availability of my out-of-print War Conspiracy; the five most relevant chapters are reprinted in this book.)

His chief poetry books are the three volumes of his trilogy Seculum: Coming to Jakarta: A Poem About Terror (1989), Listening to the Candle: A Poem on Impulse (1992), and Minding the Darkness: A Poem for the Year 2000. In addition he has published Crossing Borders: Selected Shorter Poems (1994). In November 2002 he was awarded the Lannan Poetry Award.

An anti-war speaker during the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, he was a co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, and of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA).

His poetry has dealt with both his experience and his research, the latter of which has centered on U.S. covert operations, their impact on democracy at home and abroad, and their relations to the John F. Kennedy assassination and the global drug traffic. The poet-critic Robert Hass has written (Agni, 31/32, p. 335) that "Coming to Jakarta is the most important political poem to appear in the English language in a very long time."

A Note to Visitors: See my special Webpage on Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and Iraq, updated April 7, 2006.

A Note to Visitors, July 19, 2005

For three years I have neglected this website, having concentrated on finishing my new book, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. It is now time to begin posting selected excerpts from my book. The book is finished and has been submitted to a publisher. For further news, watch for postings here or on my 9/11 page.

THE ROAD TO 9/11 (excerpt from forthcoming book, 2006)

"Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia" (October 15, 2005)

A Note to Visitors, July 24, 2000:

I want to thank those who have visited either the prose or the poetry sections of my website. I would also like to invite both groups of readers to check out what I have posted about my new book, Minding the Darkness, which appeared in October 2000 from New Directions.

Rightly or wrongly, I believe Minding the Darkness to be my most important book. It is certainly the book on which I have worked the longest, having begun it in 1990. Working on it helped me refine my thinking about the central notions of Deep Politics, as I mention in passing on p. 22 of that book.

Click here to learn more about Minding the Darkness. Those interested in my writings on drugs in particular should look at the option From IV.i which concerns the Fed, the CIA, and the role of drug-trafficking in diminishing balance-of-payments crises. (I read from this section in my speech on drugs and the CIA at the June 2000 CIA Drugs Symposium that was broadcast over Alternative Radio and NPR in December 2000.)

Click here for a brief summary of how my poem handles the current 9/11 crisis of "secular capitalism...facing the theocratic alternative of shariah and jihad" (p. 240).

If you have any comments or questions, I would be glad to hear from you at pdscottweb@hotmail.com.

Please click here if you have written to me and failed to receive a reply.

They're quite different. It's obvious. The onus is not on me to prove that they're different (sorry for my misstatement); the onus is on you to demonstrate the truth in your statement that I "copied Peter Dale Scott's biography from his own webpage."

PS -- When you make a statement in the article talk page that "This is getting tedious," before supplying your first evidence to back your claim, that's getting personal. I am under the impression that Wikipedia culture calls for the avoidance of incivility. I hope you'll see that your comment that this is "tedious" before you once supply proof is unhelpful to that effort. Brainhell 17:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The article you posted here is almost identical to the first 5 paragraphs of Scott's website. This is a copyright violation. Please read Wikipedia:Copyrights and Copyright. It is becoming clear that you do not understand how copyrights work. You cannot alter a few words of someone else's work and claim that you now own it. Nor can you copy a large portion of the work. Yes, it is tedious to explain this to you when both of us know very well that you did copy the text from Scott's webpage. Rhobite 17:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I sense that incivility again. Maybe you'd like to contribute? Show me, if you can. Just pick one paragraph, and I'll do my best to emulate. Brainhell 19:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Very well, I created a short stub at Peter Dale Scott/Temp. Feel free to add anything you like there. Rhobite 19:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a request out to Dr. Scott for permission to use the material. Kaimiddleton 02:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Assuming he does license his homepage under the GFDL, wouldn't it be a little biased for us to accept it as our article? Rhobite 03:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The subject's page now says "(This page, and my Curriculum Vitae, are not copyrighted. They are available for legitimate public use or reproduction, though not for private gain.)" I think this may resolve the concern about copyright. Please let me know. Regarding Rhobite's concern about bias, no one is suggesting we take Scott's page verbatim (with the use of the word "I" for example); we can simply revert back to the edit prior to his block of the article. Agreed? Brainhell 16:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a little self-contradictory: If the page isn't copyrighted, then he has no right to prevent people from using the contents for private gain. I would err on the side of caution and assume that the new license is still not GFDL-compatible, since the GFDL does allow commercial use. Why don't we just write our own biography of this guy? Are we so work-averse that we need to take five paragraphs from his official bio? Rhobite 20:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Rhobite. My article on the subject was original, the Jan. 10 version you blocked. Your concern was "copyright." Though I disagreed with your opinion, I respected your concern. The subject's page now says it's available for "public use or reproduction." Thus your concern is moot. In the interest of readers who might want to know about the subject, I'll revert your changes tomorrow or soon. Brainhell 01:15, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Your version was copied directly from Scott's website.. clearly you do not understand copyright or copyright licenses such as the GFDL. If he is only licensing the page for noncommercial use, then it is not compatible with Wikipedia. Please do not re-add it. Repeatedly adding copyrighted text to Wikipedia will get you blocked from editing sooner or later. Rhobite 01:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I would hope, under the circumstances, that you would not continue blocking this content. Rather than have one of the fabled "edit wars," I suggest that you take this issue to whatever arbitration process is available. I believe that the onus is on you to commence that process, since I intend to restore the content and you apparently believe it should not be restored. I checked your user page and it does not appear to state whether you are an admin; I don't know if you have the Wiki-authority continue blocking this content despite our disagreement. Perhaps more opinions are needed. Brainhell 01:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not "blocking" any content, although it would be best for you to leave the copyvio notice until someone else deletes the page and replaces it with Peter Dale Scott/Temp. I will report you to other administrators if you continue to add copyrighted text to articles. You seem to think this is some sort of grey area; it's not. Wikipedia respects other people's copyrights. Also, you don't have to post messages on my talk page, I have this article on my watchlist. Rhobite 02:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Rhobite, are you an admin? The Jan. 10 version you are blocking does not contain copyrighted material. Please report me to administrators now. I hope they can help resolve this. Tomorrow I will revert the article. Brainhell 03:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I am an admin (not that that matters). I am frustrated because I can't explain this to you in any simpler terms. You copied five paragraphs from Scott's homepage. That was a copyright violation. Can you explain, in specific terms, how it was OK for you to copy his homepage? Rhobite 03:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that it does matter, because in my mind, at least, it gives you Wiki-authority. I wonder why you did not inform me when I first raised the issue. The Jan. 10 version you blocked was SUBSTANTIALLY different from Scott's page, in non-trivial ways. The issue is whether a reasonable person, now, would think there is a copyright violation in the version you blocked. The subject of the piece opened up his page to reproduction, so even if your mistaken statement that the article was a copy of his page were true, yor point would be moot. Yet still you persist. You did not say anything in response to my request that you open mediation on this issue, nor in my request that you report me to other admins. I want this content available to readers. Your silence on the issue of mediation is unhelpful, and leaves open the possibility that it is hoped that I will revert the article, leading to a 3rr and a user block for me. Please take action to demonstrate that this is not the case. This content is not copyrighted and is consistent with Wikipedia standards. I therefore intend to restore the version you blocked unless I receive notice from you, by midnight server time, on my talk page, regarding an external review process you have initiated. Brainhell 14:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I created an RfC here: [3]. Brainhell 20:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure would be nice to hear from you on this issue, Rhobite; you're noiseless and patient. Does your silence mean your concerns are resolved and I can restore the content? Brainhell 01:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've been away all weekend. Nothing has changed. If you copy Scott's non-GFDL-compatible webpage into a Wikipedia article, it will be removed again. Please make sure that all articles you submit to Wikipedia are your own work. If you are so concerned about Wikipedia providing an adequate biography for Scott, why don't you just improve Peter Dale Scott/Temp yourself? I don't understand why you insist on copying the work of other people. Rhobite 17:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

> If you copy Scott's non-GFDL-compatible webpage into a Wikipedia article, it will be removed again.

If I did, you might have a point. But I didn't, AND the subject has waived copyright to his page.

> If you are so concerned about Wikipedia providing an adequate biography for Scott...

Sounds like you doubt my sincerity?

>...why don't you just improve Peter Dale Scott/Temp yourself?

I could edit it to the best article I can conceive -- What we had before you blocked it.

> I don't understand why you insist on copying the work of other people.

Oh, but I don't. Brainhell 03:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Document comparison

Oh, but I don't.

Oh, but you did. I did a simple comparison using Microsoft Word's Compare Documents feature, and the UC bio [4] and Brainhell's versions [5] are essentially identical. The differences are:

BH:

• added "emeritus" to the first sentence.

• added the sentence "Scott is currently completing a book with the working title The Road To 9/11" at the end of the second graf.

• changed "chief" to "most notable" in the third graf.

• changed, in the fourth graf:

"...Vietnam and Gulf Wars, he was a co-" to

"...Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, he was a co"

• added the sentence "His poetry can be thick with investigative detail, citing a mix of documents that Scott has obtained in his research, and often requires footnotes amid the stanzas."

• deleted a couple of sentences, including one written in the first person.

Minor differences, so by any reasonable definition, it's a straight-up copy. Substantially different? Not even close. --Calton | Talk 05:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, but you compared the Revision as of 18:55, 8 January 2006, a mere draft, rather than my final on Jan 10 ... and you didn't bother to examine the version Rhobite blocked. Even the version you examined is very substantially different from Scott's page. Your 'comparison' is factually wrong. Why? Brainhell 14:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

This is a comparison between your first January 8 edit and your last January 9 edit: [6]. As you can see, all you did was add a single sentence and some wikilinks. That is not a significant change. And this is a comparison between your last January 9 version and the version preceding my copyvio notice: [7]. Clearly there have been no substantial changes to the text since you copied Scott's page into Wikipedia. Rhobite 15:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

And when you some day compare Scott's page and the version you blocked, you'll see vast differences. Give it a try. Brainhell 15:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I did compare Scott's page to the April 11 version [8], and all I found were minor differences such as the addition of "emeritus" and the addition of the single sentence "His poetry can be thick with investigative detail..." can you please explain how inserting a couple sentences constitutes a "vast difference"? And once again, I didn't 'block' any version of the article. Please get your terminology straight. Rhobite 20:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

This is a sentence-by-sentence analysis of differences between Scott's official page and the April 11 version:

"Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher." Exact copy, except "emeritus" was added.

"His prose books include The War Conspiracy (1972), The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond (in collaboration, 1976), Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection (1977), The Iran-Contra Connection (in collaboration, 1987), Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (in collaboration, 1991, 1998), Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993, 1996), Deep Politics Two (from JFKLancer, 1995), and Drugs Oil and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, March 2003)" Exact copy from Scott's page, except for formatting.

"Scott is currently completing a book with the working title 'The Road To 9/11.'" This sentence was added to the Wikipedia article.

"His chief poetry books are the three volumes of his trilogy Seculum: Coming to Jakarta: A Poem About Terror (1989), Listening to the Candle: A Poem on Impulse (1992), and Minding the Darkness: A Poem for the Year 2000." Exact copy, except 'chief' is now 'most notable'.

"In November 2002 he was awarded the Lannan Poetry Award." Exact copy.

"An anti-war speaker during the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, he was a co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, and of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA)." Exact copy except for minor sentence structure.

"His poetry has dealt with both his experience and his research, the latter of which has centered on U.S. covert operations, their impact on democracy at home and abroad, and their relations to the John F. Kennedy assassination and the global drug traffic." Exact copy, except "his" changed to "Scott's".

"The poet-critic Robert Hass has written (Agni, 31/32, p. 335) that "Coming to Jakarta is the most important political poem to appear in the English language in a very long time."" Exact copy.

Please explain how changing a couple words around and deleting a couple sentences is a "vast difference". Rhobite 20:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually I was wrong: the version I compared WAS Brainhell's final, quote unquote -- which is almost identical (see here) with his plagarized "draft", where he began by stealing someone's work and tried to pass it off as his own. So, in fact, I "gave it a try" -- and the only way to assume good faith on his part is to assume that he's using a strange new meaning of the term "vast" I was previously unaware of.

It's plagiarism at the beginning and plagiarism at the end, with barely even a token attempt to disguise the theft, and Brainhell's assumption that enough arrogance and handwaving will paper over that inconvenient fact is breathtaking. All the energy he's spent defending his theft could have been put into actually writing an actual draft in his own words. Give it try. --Calton | Talk 20:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The subject has waived copyright on his page. Rhobite's issue was copyrigt. Issue gone. The attempt to transition to 'plagiarism' is not relevant. The Temp draft is unimpressive. Show me a way other than chronological to list an author's books. Is there a better way to describe his career than in the blocked draft? No. Again, 'plagiarism' is not the issue. The issue should be whether the blocked version is a good description of this person. I believe it is better than the Temp. That leaves Rhobite's only issue, copyright, which has been mooted. Please be advised that words like "stealing" and "arrogance" might violate Wikipedia's flame policy, and keep it to the issue at hand: copyright. Brainhell 03:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

1) The subject has waived copyright on his page This has been explained to you -- more than once -- but let's try again: if Scott retains the "non-commercial" clause, then he has not, in fact, waived copyright, he has granted a limited -- and incompatible with GFPL - license. What part of that are you having trouble parsing?

2) The issue should be whether the blocked version is a good description of this person. Not even wrong, as Wolfgang Pauli once famously said about a particularly bogus theory. You copied the material: that's called "plagiarism" -- or theft of intellectual property -- and no amount of self-righteous handwaving and weird non-sequitors changes that simple fact. Try to change the subject if you like, but "stealing" is a perfectly apt description of what you did, no matter how much you try to take refuge in "Wikipedia's flame policy". Would like to try a moral justification for your action, or will you continue with the pseudo-legalistic rationalizations? Or perhaps you might actually try, using you own words, to write an original biographic sketch. If you're incapable, let us know, so we can put out a call for someone who can.

So congratulations, you've used up your allotment of WP:AGF, and can now be safely ignored. --Calton | Talk 08:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I came across this out of left field, as it were, but there does seem to be two related issues. It isn't obvious that Prof. Scott's disclaimer would be a copyright "waiver" - if it isn't copyrighted, does the restriction against use for "private gain" have any effective basis? If so, it might be possible that legal uses of Wikipedia material in general might fall afoul of this restriction for this text in particular. If the "private gain" clause is merely a rhetorical flourish and the text can be considered without copyright, then this may not be a problem, but it does seem to be a valid issue involving the GFDL and copyrights; presumably another admin or two with experience in this area could be found to weigh in if necessary.

But setting that aside, the main issue seems to be whether copying large chunks of text directly from Prof. Scott's own material makes for a good Wikipedia article. I would argue that it doesn't (and presumably Prof. Scott would have frowned upon this in his own students' papers!). Surely the same information could be rewritten in other words, and hopefully additional information discovered and included. If nothing else, the family information (which for some reason was not copied with the rest of the text) indicates that Peter Dale Scott is the son of F.R. Scott, a notable Canadian with his own Wikipedia entry that should be linked to. David Oberst 06:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

All that makes sense: unfortunately, User:Brainhell would rather expend the energy playing junior-league Perry Mason. Rhobite has taken the time to actually start the process, so perhaps, if you have an interest, you could take a stab at it? --Calton | Talk 08:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Disregarding the personal attacks, I note that the sole issue that blocks the content to date is copyright. A question for you, Rhobite: If the subject's page were to be licensed under GDFL, would you permit the most recent version of the article to be restored? Brainhell 21:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I have no power to permit or deny anything on Wikipedia. However if the home page was licensed under the GFDL, I would not object to using it as a starting point for this biography, with proper attribution. Rhobite 21:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Temp page move

I have looked at the article and agree with those above that it constitutes an excellent example of copyright violation. Therefore, I have decided to be bold and move the content developing at the temp page to the article. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 03:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure about the procedure for closing WP:CP listings, but shouldn't the old revisions be deleted? Rhobite 03:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for being bold Scm83x. I deleted the old revisions and moved it properly. I'll leave the talk page at Talk:Peter Dale Scott/Temp unless anyone can think of something better to do with it. Chick Bowen 04:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Chick. This was my first time doing this period, much less as an admin. I'll look over how you made the move to make sure I do it properly in the future. Thanks so much. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 04:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

> I have decided to be bold and move the content developing at the temp page to the article. Good start, but it needs work. I'll be happy to contribute later. Brainhell 16:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I added the link to his father (F.R. Scott) and a couple of other lines. I deleted the phrase "Scott was a diplomat with the Canadian mission and gained first-hand knowledge of the conflict" - his CV doesn't mention being in Indonesia during his Foreign Service days, and he was on the Berkeley faculty from 1961 (Sukarno fell in 1965), so I assume this was an assumption by the writer? David Oberst 17:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

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