User:Tamzin/Template:Uw-description-copy1/doc

This template is for the talk pages of users who've copied text from Wikipedia for items' descriptions. Please note that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to do this (the texmplate gives the example of "43rd president of the United States" as a description for George Bush), and that this warning should only be used if the description does not conform to the guidelines on descriptions, and/or is sufficiently unique that the original author could theoretically claim copyright. (The latter should only be assumed not to be the case if the text is unambiguously the best description possible, to such a degree that one could easily think of it on one's own.)

Examples of perfectly acceptable copying

• Paris: capital and largest city of France
• Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the United States
• Germany: federal parliamentary republic in west-central Europe

Examples of problematic copying

• New York City: most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world (taken from en:New York City)
• Elizabeth II: The constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states, known as the Commonwealth realms, and their territories and dependencies, and head of the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations. She is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and, in some of her realms, carries the title of Defender of the Faith as part of her full title. (taken from en:Elizabeth II)

Since descriptions are supposed to be as simple as possible, and since the simpler a phrase, the less claim anyone has to its authorship, in general if a description is copied in such a way as to violate the terms of the CC-BY-SA license, it's probably also too long. As a rule of thumb, in most cases you shouldn't use this warning when the copied text was less than 5-10 words in length - adjust your standards accordingly depending on how absolute a definition there is (more leeway for geographical or mathematical features, perhaps less for philosophical principles or works of literature).

Parameters

language

By default, the template says that the text originated from the edition of Wikipedia in whatever language the template is written in. If this is not the case (e.g. you're warning a user in English for copying from the French Wikipedia - which you should only do if you know for a fact that they understand English), you can set the "language" parameter to the relevant language, e.g. as {{subst:Template:Uw-description-copy1|language=French}}.

item and item_name

To name a specific item on which this has occurred, user either the "item" parameter or the "item_name" parameter (but not both). "item" is for if you want to enter the "Q0000" code, and "item_name" is for if you want to enter the item's name (in the same manner as the {{Item}} template. So, you could write {{subst:Template:Uw-description-copy1|item=Q1}} or {{subst:Template:Uw-description-copy1|item_name=Universe}} - both will link to the same page, the former will simply display as the code, whereas the latter will display as the name; the choice is entirely yours which you want to use. (Do not enter both; if you do, the template will simply ignore the "item_name".)

icon

The default icon is File:Information.svg. If you'd like to use a different icon for any reason, you can use the "icon" parameter, e.g. as {{subst:Template:Uw-description-copy1|icon=Ambox warning blue.svg}}. You do not need to include the "File:" prefix.

note

If you'd like the final sentence to be anything other than "Happy editing!", you can use the "note" parameter, e.g. as {{subst:Template:Uw-description-copy1|note=Welcome to Wikidata, and I hope you have a great time here.}}