Talk:FL (programming language)

Regarding the content deletion, I noticed that a fair portion of the article was word-for-word copied from a PS file it linked to (except that, IIIRC, a couple of examples were changed). I didn't have time to thoroughly check it, and thought (perhaps mistakenly) that if I put it on the potential copyvios page, someone else would before they deleted the article. I then forgot about it. I really didn't expect the entire article to disappear of the face of the planet. If what I did was wrong, then I apologise for it. Is the original article still in the database for admins only or something? A good portion of it was still (I think) okay. Of course, maybe it wasn't, and it was honestly all copied. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 14:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

It's quite possible that the issue here was an over-eager admin. Also note that the (perhaps redundant) external links I tacked onto this stub article might have the original content. The answers.com link, for example, credits wikipedia.org as its source. The postscript file might be the one you had noticed earlier.

I doubt that copyright is an issue if the postscript file in question is the one I linked to and/or if the original material was much like what I see in the other external links. Mathematics gets special mention in international copyright law, and judging from the other external entries there wasn't enough copied material to be much of an issue. That said, it is a good idea to give credit where credit is due. RaulMiller 14:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah well. I think that PS file was the one I saw, that or I saw them at once. Sorry bout all this—I suppose you live and learn. I would volunteer to try and re-create the article, given it was partly my fault it was deleted, but um ... I don't really know all that much about it and I really ought to be busy with Uni work... If there's nothing there in a month or two tho, I'll certainly try and fix it :) —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 15:12, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I've nominated the original article [1] for undelition; you may wish to vote. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 14:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I've restored the one revision I said I would. It's a perfectly decent stub that can be expanded with a little effort. -Splash^talk 16:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

restored some content which is clearly not copyright violation

I've restored content which appeared at answers.com and which was creditted there as originally coming from wikipedia.org, and which does not appear in the postscript document. I searched for each sentence individually by looking for the major terms in the sentence as well as obvious variations. However, please note that I do not have a working implementation of FL, and so I cannot be certain that the bits of code I posted are syntactically correct. RaulMiller 20:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

That site, like hundreds of others, copies Wikipedia's content quickly after it is posted. That is part of the reason we blank pages when they have copyright problems. That it credits Wikipedia doesn't mean anything about originality in this case. What it does mean is that it is verbatim identical to the previously deleted article, apart from some bits of wikimarkup. This means it has the same copyright problems as before.

I have removed the revisions again, and restored the article to its state after my last edit earlier today. If you can write a good article on this, it'd be great if you did so. It'd be great too if you can expand it just a little. But please don't restore the original text again. Thanks. -Splash^talk 21:04, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with that text? The text which was deleted earlier was deleted because of copyright violation. The text I restored does not violate any copyrights, and furthermore is factual. Please state the reason why this text is unsuitable. Are the facts recorded in that text forbidden for some reason? RaulMiller 23:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

As I already said, the text you added was identical (apart from the wikimarkup) to the text already deleted as a copyright violation. You said yourself that you took it from answers.com which automatically copies our content directly, without amendment of content, right down to the images and templates and categories if there are any. -Splash^talk 23:33, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I can see the deleted article, since I'm an admin. -Splash^talk 23:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Which brings us back to the question of why this text has been declared to be a copyright violation. I've asked before (during the vote for undelete) for some evidence that the text was violating copyright. None was presented, but it was strongly implied that the original text was a literal copy of the postscript document by Aiken. The text I restored I very carefully checked to make sure that it was not a literal copy of the postscript document by Aiken -- and, to the greatest of my ability to discern, factual. (Facts are not protected by copyright -- only a specific expression of facts can be protected by copyright.)

I don't know if the material I did not restore is the copyright violation. I don't have reason to believe that it violated copyright. If it does violate copyright I don't know whose copyrights are being violated. Perhaps there never any copyright violation in the first place. I do know that I've never seen any evidence any copyright violation -- as near as I can tell, the initial deletion was a mistake. But this might mean that I'm just ignorant. If you can point me at the copyrighted material the previous wikipedia entry is in violation of, I'd appreciate it. However, as I spent well over an hour making sure that I did not restore any sentences which were in Aiken's postscript document, I have a hard time believing that the restored material violates Aiken's copyrights.

If I had a working copy of the FL language, I would not hesitate to write new material on the language. However, I do not have a working implementation, so I feel the work of others is more approriate. You seem to feel that this is not the case, and you might be right. If so, could you present your reasons? (But, "this was in the previous wikipedia entry" does not constitute a reason -- see above for why).

Thanks. RaulMiller 00:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

It does constitute the reason, and it is the reason. The material you added was an exact copy of the one already deleted as a copyright violation, a fact you do not have to agree with. You said yourself you copied it directly from a Wikipedia mirror, and I can verify for myself that it was precisely identical. I am not going to restore it. Case closed, I'm afraid. The material is not coming back. You are free to add your own words at any moment, and it would take far less time than you have spent arguing here to do so. -Splash^talk 00:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)