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Hello ShaqSmith and welcome to Wikipedia! It appears you are participating in a class project. We encourage you to read our instructions for students. Your instructor may wish to add your class to our list of school and university projects and s/he may want to read these instructions for teachers. For more help about educational projects using Wikipedia, see our classroom coordination project.

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Nikkimaria (talk) 13:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:First edits

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Good job, please try to give me a WP:DIFF of that edit. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please have your group leader update the info here or give me a list of your names and wiki accounts. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Food power edits

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Good job starting with expanding the article ([1]). You should add more inline citations, you want to have all paragraphs, and preferably all sentences, referenced. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GAR≠GAN

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Hi, I noticed you put Food power up for WP:GAR. That process is used to delist articles that have already been granted Good Article status but that the nominator believes don't deserve that status. I've removed that tag from the article talk. I think you were trying to nominate the article for GA status - see WP:GAN for instructions on how to do this. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 13:40, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi ShaqSmith. Thanks for your comments on my talkpage. The answer to your first question, "orphan", on my talkpage means that very few articles are linked to "Food power", that is very few articles contain the link Food power. If you go to the Food power article, then look in the lefthand column, below the Wikipedia sign, for the box marked "toolbox" and click on "What links here", it will give you a list (you can do that for any page including this one). Note: The presence of the "orphan" template will not stop this article gaining GA-status, if it meets the standard for GA-articles.
I'm not sure what you are asking in your second question. The problem that Nikimaria was discussing above concerns the {GAR} template that you added to the article's talkpage. The correct template was {GA Nominee} and that has already been added by Dorothy R Smith. I am carrying out the GA review, so it is my decision whether the article becomes a GA, or not. My review, which is not yet finished, can be found at Talk:Food power/GA1. In the review page I have listed some "problems" and corrective actions. When the corrective actions have been done to my satisfaction, I will take the decision on whether the article is made a GA. It probably will become a GA, but the corrections have to be made first. If you don't understand what is required, or why, add a note to Talk:Food power/GA1 and I will reply there. Pyrotec (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re: orphan - see Wikipedia:Orphan. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as Food power, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article appears to be a copy from http://rac.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/30/3/31 http://books.google.com/books?id=mJSKMpfvENEC&dq=The+consumerist+bargain+%28cornucopia+without+consequences%29+looked+momentarily+shaky&source=gbs_navlinks_s, and therefore a copyright violation. The copyrighted text has been or will soon be deleted. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with our copyright policy. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators are liable to be blocked from editing.

If you believe that the article is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under allowance license, then you should do one of the following:

It may also be necessary for the text be modified to have an encyclopedic tone and to follow Wikipedia article layout. For more information on Wikipedia's policies, see Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

If you would like to begin working on a new version of the article you may do so at this temporary page. Leave a note at Talk:Food power saying you have done so and an administrator will move the new article into place once the issue is resolved. Thank you, and please feel welcome to continue contributing to Wikipedia. Happy editing! Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:47, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shaq, you need to address that issue immediately. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:32, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. In answer to your question, the problem is that you have taken text from copyrighted sources and incorporated it into the article in a way that clearly violates Wikipedia:Copyrights, a policy created to keep the project in line with United States law. Except in some limited exceptions, text is, in a sense, "owned" by somebody, who has the right to determine how it can be used. They do not own the facts in the text, but they own the way those facts are presented. Unless your use is "fair use", you can't use their language or other creative elements. You can't even closely paraphrase it.
Wikipedia's policies on non-free text are fairly simple. We cannot use it at all, unless we get permission from the copyright owner or unless we use brief quotations that are clearly marked and satisfy certain usage rules (these are explained at WP:NFC).
The entire article was blanked because the alternative would have been to restore it to the last clean version before copyrighted text was added. That version looked like this. With your very first edit to this article, [2], you copied a number of sentences from [3]. We cannot use such material unless it can be verified to be free. On the contrary, this material is clearly not free, as it is marked "Copyright © 2001 by Oxford University Press, Inc." Subsequent edits introduced text from other sources. Wikipedia is widely copied by other sources. If we display text illegally, then so do they--which not only puts them in danger of prosecution, but also compounds the damage that has been done through our website to the copyright holders.
Very likely, the best thing that you can do to fix this problem is to identify the text that you yourself added, compare it to your sources, and if it isn't written in your own words, put it in your own words. There is a temporary space linked from the article's face in which a new version can be created. There is some guidance on how to write in your own words at Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. There are also tutorials on the internet, such as this one sponsored by Purdue University.
Meanwhile, I am continuing to evaluate the article to identify sections that have copyright problems. Unfortunately, they are present in most of the sections I've examined. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is some detail on the template blanking the article, some at the article's talk page, and some at User talk:Piotrus. I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you line by line what needs to be rewritten. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored the copyright notice and paragraphs. Please place your rewrites at [4]. I will need to compare your new text to the old and to the sources before it can be published to be sure that what you've created is completely rewritten and does not constitute a derivative work. If you let me know at my talk page as soon as you've added this material, I'll be happy to evaluate it as soon as possible thereafter. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More information about rewriting

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Hi. I'm glancing at the first paragraph, and I think it may be helpful to you to review a bit what it means to rewrite it completely in your own words. The danger here is that you will not create new content that you are legally entitled to licensed, but instead a "derivative work"—one that is still under copyright of the original.

Take, for example, the following: "Food power implies a foreign policy motivation rather than a financial or humanitarian motivation to export activities." This was part of the former opening paragraph of the article, and it was taken verbatim from [5]. What you've got now, "Food power suggests a foreign policy interest rather than financial and humanitarian", is a close paraphrase of that sentence. You've cut out a few words and substituted some, but you haven't completely rewritten it in your own language.

This is a tricky skill to master, I'm afraid.

For the sake of demonstration, take the former lead of the article, duplicated in that same source:

In international relations, food power is the act of withholding or making available agricultural commodities for export or aid by an exporting nation or group of nations for the purpose of influencing the actions of another country or group of countries. Food power implies a foreign policy motivation rather than a financial or humanitarian motivation to export activities.

What I would do here is try to identify what's essential. Then I'd look at those essential elements and see what I can do about stating them differently. I might say this:

Food power in international politics is the use of agriculture as a means of political control whereby one nation or group of nations offers or withholds commodities from another nation or group of nations in order to manipulate behavior.

(If you like any of that, you're welcome to use it. Wikipedia usually requires attribution of its contributors, but I'm happy to release it freely to you.)

This is a lot easier when you are dealing with large chunks of text. Taking two sentences, finding the essential, and then finding an entirely new way to convey the essential is hard.

Looking at the next section, the source says, "One of the most controversial aspects of the international politics of food has been the question of “food power”—the hypothetical international power advantage enjoyed by food-exporting nations over food-importing nations." (The article used to say this, too.) Again, a sentence like "Food power is one of the most controversial aspects of international politics" is only minimally altered from the source; it's basically an abridgment which is another form of derivative work.

Let's look at the old section and see what we can do with the information there to create a new work:

There are four nations in the world that export enough agriculture to exert this hypothetical "food power": the United States (U.S.), Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.[1] Forced to rely on these nations in times of shortage, food-importing countries may face food crises if needed supplies are withheld. But while political leaders in food-importing countries have expressed misgivings over their dependence,[1] food-exporting nations generally do not withhold food, as agricultural producers in these nations press their governments to continue to export.[2]

Again, working with larger chunks of text is far easier than rewriting a single sentence. If you can look at an overall passage, comprehend its key points, and put it in a completely different way (except as you need to use quotes), you can create usable content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to help. :)
The first question to ask yourself is whether you need to copy a few sentences of text. The reasons you might are explained at WP:NFC: "to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." If you can put in your own words, you usually should.
But if you do need those few sentences, you would typically set them off in a block quote, unless those sentences are very short. As Wikipedia:MOSQUOTE#Quotations explains, "Block quotes can be enclosed between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags, or {{quotation}} or {{quote}} can be used." I recommend using the blockquote pair, unless you're up to the challenge of reading how to do the templates. You put one blockquote in front of and the other behind the text to be quoted, and it automatically indents. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've incorporated what I could, but some of the contents under "United States" need further work. There are notes at Talk:Food power/Temp. I've removed the "Europe" section at your request. The section on Food Aid is still there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I already know who it was. It was User:Nikzen. I would be fine with removing that section altogether, since he hasn't returned to address copyright issues in any way. The typical seven day deadline has passed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:40, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and you are not bothering me. We are working together to improve Wikipedia. That's the way Wikipedia works. :) You're welcome with any questions you may have. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I will leave her a note. And, for the record, some of the other copyright issues you've cleaned up were also placed in the article by her. Wikipedia doesn't care who rewrites it, as long as the material is free for us to use. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

←Hi. I'll run it through my mechanical detector. I'm not sure if I have time to do a full review today, because this can take me more than an hour, and I have limited time on Wikipedia this weekend. I'll let you know if the mechanical detector finds anything. Meanwhile, if you have access to Peter Wallensteen, "Scarce Goods as Political Weapons: The Case of Food", Journal of Peace Research, 1976, Vol. 13 yourself, I think you'd do very well to glance at the material sourced to it. I suspect if there are any remaining problems, that's where they will be. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Food Aid and Food Power

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It's difficult for me to assess the importance of the material in the overall context of the article, since I have not researched the material myself. One question I would ask is the degree to which Food Aid and Food Power inter-relate. The article doesn't really make that clear. If Food Power is defined as a manipulative use of food resources to control the behavior of a government, is Food Aid connected?

This would suggest it is. I don't know if this is mentioned elsewhere in the article. I have evaluated it for copyright issues, but not closely read its content. :)

Perhaps you might consider if you decide to retain the section abbreviating it. You might start by defining Food Aid and relating how Food Power and Food Aid interrelate. (As in that case, motivations for actual assistance are mixed with political needs.) I also think that this raises some interesting issues about how recipient countries respond to Food Aid from fear of Food Power ploys. (You may find other interesting articles at [6]. Some of them would probably require a visit to your library, unless you have good online access through your school.)

Forgetting the context of the article, just as an exercise in finding important points, I would identify some of the important points of the existing section on Food Aid as:

  • How much food is exported as food aid
  • The form US "aid" usually takes and where allocated
  • The Somalia study in support of this.
  • Negative affects of Food Aid:
  • impact on local production
  • impact on consumer taste

If you decide you need this information in the article, you might look at these points and see if you can express them in your own words.

You might want to talk to your instructor or your project teammates to get some feedback on the overall development of the section. I'm unsure of the parameters of your assignment and wouldn't wish to either steer you in the wrong direction or become overly involved in a way that your instructor might not prefer. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent edits

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Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 18:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Food power

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Sorry if that was a little rude. The content is excellent, but there must also be compliance to the WP:MOS. I hope you will continue to contribute to Wikipedia. Reywas92Talk 22:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference jpr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Robert Paarlberg, Food Politics, The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, 2008 [7]
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