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https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Donna+Strickland https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=... says that the 2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Donna+Strickland https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=... says that the 2014 version was deleted as "Unambiguous copyright infringement". That will be why those revisions are no longer accessible.

jessaustin 5y ago
That would be a valid justification in general, but I'm curious in this particular case. Was this an infringement of another encyclopedia? Perhaps that publication could have been identified in the deletion note? Maybe even cited in the page itself? Basic facts about a human (birthdate, alma mater, publications, etc.) are not subject to copyright anyway, so a long flowery essay about the scientist could have been edited to the bare essentials. However, I suspect no such long flowery essay actually existed in 2014. After all, Strickland was a woman who hadn't won the Nobel. Of course these questions are unanswerable due to the specific type of the deletion. Curious.
- mgbennet 5y ago
  It's perfectly possible to find the source of the infringement with a little investigation. The user who created the page has a comment on their talk page notifying them that Donna Strickland page has been nominated for deletion due to "unambiguous copyright deletion". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SteplightJohnson#Speedy_deletion_nomination_of_Donna_Strickland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SteplightJohnson#Spe...] There's a link to the source that was copied, [http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers/officers/strickland/ http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers...]. That leads to a 404, but in the Wayback Machine, I found this on Dr. Strickland: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130426010318/http://www.osa.org/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers/officers/president/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130426010318/http://www.osa.or...] And the second paragraph is a word for word copy of the summary from the first edit in the history of the page, "Created page with ''''Donna Strickland''' is a past president of the Optical Society. She has worked on several committees within the OSA. She has been on the editorial board of O...'" [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donna_Strickland&dir=prev&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donna_Strickland&...]
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    So do you agree with the original deleting editor that quoting a press release is copyright infringement? We seem to be venturing farther and farther into Crazytown here... Good job on chasing this down!
    - mgbennet 5y ago
      Well, the article was copy pasted from a web page with a big old "Copyright ©2013 The Optical Society" at the bottom. So yeah, it's textbook copyright infringement; press releases (or publicity blurbs, in this case) are protected by copyright law. I don't think the Optical Society was likely to pursue legal action against Wikipedia for this, but it's perfectly reasonable for Wikipedia to enforce a policy of "don't copy paste copyrighted material into articles."

jessaustin 5y ago

That would be a valid justification in general, but I'm curious in this particular case. Was this an infringement of another encyclopedia? Perhaps that publication could have been identified in the deletion note? Maybe even cited in the page itself? Basic facts about a human (birthdate, alma mater, publications, etc.) are not subject to copyright anyway, so a long flowery essay about the scientist could have been edited to the bare essentials. However, I suspect no such long flowery essay actually existed in 2014. After all, Strickland was a woman who hadn't won the Nobel. Of course these questions are unanswerable due to the specific type of the deletion. Curious.

mgbennet 5y ago
It's perfectly possible to find the source of the infringement with a little investigation. The user who created the page has a comment on their talk page notifying them that Donna Strickland page has been nominated for deletion due to "unambiguous copyright deletion". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SteplightJohnson#Speedy_deletion_nomination_of_Donna_Strickland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SteplightJohnson#Spe...] There's a link to the source that was copied, [http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers/officers/strickland/ http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers...]. That leads to a 404, but in the Wayback Machine, I found this on Dr. Strickland: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130426010318/http://www.osa.org/about_osa/leadership_and_volunteers/officers/president/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130426010318/http://www.osa.or...] And the second paragraph is a word for word copy of the summary from the first edit in the history of the page, "Created page with ''''Donna Strickland''' is a past president of the Optical Society. She has worked on several committees within the OSA. She has been on the editorial board of O...'" [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donna_Strickland&dir=prev&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donna_Strickland&...]
- jessaustin 5y ago
  So do you agree with the original deleting editor that quoting a press release is copyright infringement? We seem to be venturing farther and farther into Crazytown here... Good job on chasing this down!
  - mgbennet 5y ago
    Well, the article was copy pasted from a web page with a big old "Copyright ©2013 The Optical Society" at the bottom. So yeah, it's textbook copyright infringement; press releases (or publicity blurbs, in this case) are protected by copyright law. I don't think the Optical Society was likely to pursue legal action against Wikipedia for this, but it's perfectly reasonable for Wikipedia to enforce a policy of "don't copy paste copyrighted material into articles."