User talk:Moonriddengirl

edit count | edit summary usage Wikipedia ads file info – #178 Welcome If you are here with questions about an article I have deleted or a copyright concern, please consider first reading my personal policies with regards to deletion and copyright, as these may provide your answer. While you can email me to reach me in my volunteer capacity, I don't recommend it. I very seldom check that email account. If you do email me, please leave a note here telling me so or I may never see it. I hardly ever check that account. To leave a message for me, press the "new section" or "+" tab at the top of the page, or simply click here. Remember to sign your message with ~~~~. I will respond to all civil messages. I attempt to keep conversations in one location, as I find it easier to follow them that way when they are archived. If you open a new conversation here, I will respond to you here. Please watchlist this page or check back for my reply; I will leave you a "talkback" notice if you request one and will generally try to trigger your automatic notification even if you don't. (I sometimes fail to be consistent there; please excuse me if I overlook it.) If I have already left a message at your talk page, unless I've requested follow-up here or it is a standard template message, I am watching it, but I would nevertheless appreciate it you could trigger my automatic notification. {{Ping}} works well for that. If you leave your reply here, I may respond at your talk page if it seems better for context. If you aren't sure if I'm watching your page, feel free to approach me here. Admins, if you see that I've made a mistake, please fix it. Hours of Operation In general, I check in with Wikipedia under this account around 12:00 Coordinated Universal Time and 21:00 Coordinated Universal Time, on weekdays. On weekends, I'm here more often. When you loaded this page, it was 02:48, 11 November 2024 UTC [refresh]. Refresh your page to see what time it is now. RfC on using images from countries with which the US does not have copyright relations I started an RfC on this issue a couple of weeks ago following some discussion on the use of some Iranian images. Although most users agree that these images are PD and that the legal position is not in doubt some editors seem to think it's worth asking the foundation for their opinion. I'm not sure whether the latest request is just to get a legal opinion on whether they're PD or get a more general policy statement. However there's definitely been some previous discussion with people asking us to get legal opinion on whether they're PD. I know images aren't normally your area but I've come here to ask whether you think it's worth seeking the opinion of counsel on whether they're PD or not as I don't want to waste their time and knowing you deal with them reasonably frequently thought you'd be a good person to ask whether this was worth escalating. Cheers. Dpmuk (talk) 04:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC) If by reasonable frequency, you mean multiple times most days, you've got that right. :) I am very happy to ask a legal opinion, if you like, or to see if I can get a policy statement. I'd do so as part of what I do as liaison. Just let me know. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC) Could you ask for an opinion please, it would appear that it's going to be the only way to take things forward. I would ask legal myself but it would appear some people are also after a policy statement and I don't know who to ask for that. As far as I can see there are three question: Are images such as these PD in the US - i.e. can we legally use them? If they are what countries does it apply to? Does the foundation have a policy on whether we should use them? One vocal argument is that because they may leave PD it is / should be foundation policy that we shouldn't use them. It would, I think, be useful if they specifically mentioned this last point in an reply just to avoid any doubt. Although I started the RfC I'd like to think of myself as still neutral so hopefully the above is a fair representation. Obviously I'm now asking this in your WMF role but it seems silly to split this across two user talk pages! Thanks for the help. Dpmuk (talk) 23:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC) Dpmuk, I certainly appreciate your input in the matter and MRG is a great asset to utilize in this discussion. If you don't mind, I'd like to present the case as I see it (I think you may have missed some nuances in the way you phrased the questions). The questions that need to be answered are: Are the images in question PD in the US? Are they PD elsewhere? If PD in the US and elsewhere, how should such images be labeled? (i.e. They are PD in the US, but copyrighted in Iran...so they should be labeled like this? Or in some other fashion) In my less than humble opinion, just labeling them as either PD or just as copyrighted does users on WP and elsewhere a HUGE disservice. How should such images be used on WP. I don't care whether we use them as copyrighted images, PD images, or "as the en-wp community decides...as long as it's in line with what the WMF dictates." I think it is FAR more important to have a clear answer on this, than what the outcome is. Lastly, just because they might someday become copyrighted in the US (for example, if Iran signs the Berne Treaty tomorrow), it doesn't change how we should treat them today. I don't disagree that they might someday become copyrighted, but that doesn't change the fact that they are PD now. An opinion on this situation would be most helpful. I concur with Dpmuk that specifically mentioning this issue will help clarify the situation. Buffs (talk) 03:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC) Do you guys concur on this expanded group of questions? If so, I'll shoot them along. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC) I'm happy for them to be asked. Apart from 2. they get at pretty much the same thing I suggested just re-worded and extended a bit. I didn't ask two because I couldn't imagine there ever being a "ruling" from the foundational on something that specific, and so think it would just get kicked back to us, but given the strong views now being expressed if people want it asked then it's probably best that it is. Dpmuk (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC) I concur that they are right along the same lines and we're at least on the same page regarding the matter. I also welcome White Cat's input on the submission if he feels there's anything I missed/misphrased. Buffs (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC) We'd like formal foundation input for this issue at the rfc. I have made my case there. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC) If I'm not mistaken, the WMF probably wont make a direct input, but MRG will serve as a liaison for that sort of input. Correct me if I'm wrong here MRG. Buffs (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC) That's frequently how it works, although there's nothing to preclude them contributing directly if they so choose. :) They tend to be busy. A Certain White Cat, if I bring back a response, it will be in my capacity as an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation and not as a volunteer. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC) When should we expect a reply? Buffs (talk) 07:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Well, I submitted it on Friday; depending on what was going on, they may have reviewed it then or may not review it until Monday. For straightforward questions, I usually expect something within one or two business days. (Very straightforward questions, instantly. :D) That varies depending on the complexity and the interference of other factors (such as massive lawsuit threat popping in the inbox in the interim). As an example of one that is taking longer, the legal team is currently researching the legal ramifications of the recent court decision around the URAA for Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/All files copyrighted in the US under the URAA. I can't predict exactly when, but with a multipart question like this one, I would myself prompt them on Wednesday if I have not heard back from them before that. It's difficult syncing the speed of Wiki discussions with the speed of the business world. That was one of the harder things I had to adjust to when I started working with staff. Wikipedia runs full steam 24-7. While quite a lot of staff do some work seven days a week (*cough*), it's not the same steady speed at all. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Fabulous. Thanks for the inquiry...perhaps including their legal review as part of the answer may be useful (it seems to touch on some of the issues brought up here). Buffs (talk) 01:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC) List of Beverly Hills, 90210 episodes & below Recently, I split up the above article per several long standing split tags. Immediately I did so and before I could start cleaning up the formatting, CorenBot flagged one of the new articles as a potential copyright violation. Eventually you (if I recall correctly) removed the tag with a comment to the effect that the other site had copied off Wikipedia and not the other way round. As a result, I completed reformating the articles. This week, the article (Beverly Hills, 90210 (season 8)) was deleted without discussion on the grounds that it is a copy of "http://www.tv.com/shows/beverly-hills-90210/season-8/?viewmode=expanded&sortmode=oldest". I restored the framework so that original summaries could be included and also to provide the titles for the parent article. This immediately got a warning (my interpretation of the post, possibly not the intention of the poster) for writing an article without content. I said that I would provide content as and when I could find time. However, since then I have discovered that at least 3 other pages have content in common with the site mentioned above i.e. Beverly Hills, 90210 (season 4), Beverly Hills, 90210 (season 5) and Beverly Hills, 90210 (season 7). If the implications are as I suspect then these articles will have to be deleted and that would be far to much for me to repair. On the other hand, if there is nothing wrong with these articles then presumably series 8 is ok and should be restored. Is there any chance that you could investigate this matter, or perhaps refer the matter to someone who can assist. Regards Op47 (talk) 14:54, 27 January 2012 (UTC) The possibility of reverse infringement certainly exists. TV articles are a pain to untangle. :) I may be able to look at it more later today; if not, I'll put it on my list of weekend work. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC) The more I look into this, the less I think the content is likely to have been legitimately ours. The bulk of early plot synopses were copied from IMDb and removed later (as per talk page). Here is where Season 8 shows up, as duplicating the external site. More of season 8 shows up here and here; it is not the same as that source. It was almost certainly copied from the IMDb, though. 3 1/2 hours after it landed here, somebody cleans up typos which are present in the IMDb plot summaries: "Rolling Stones magazine"; "out of the Valerie's room"; "for most plastic surgery for herself". For that to have been legitimately ours, two different editors of IMDb would have had to have copied it in that small window. And if we had had it first, I can't explain why the other page copied only part of our list - the ones added by that earlier editor - but none of the plot summaries copied from IMDb. That earlier editor added plot summaries up through 17, "The Elephant's Father". At this point, I think the earlier episodes in that page were copied from tv.com, while the later ones were copied from IMDB.com. :/ (Another editor added content earlier that did come from there: [1]; [2].) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC) This series of edits by an anon user seems to have been a real problem. I'm going to have to blank some of these other subarticles for further investigation. :( --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC) While I'm pretty sure that the 8th season was not backwards copy problem, I'll double check these. I've blanked them for investigation because it does look likely that we took from them. But maybe I'll be wrong. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC) You must have spent absolutely ages looking at that. Thankyou for the effort. Op47 (talk) 21:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC) I'm happy to look. I'm sorry I couldn't clear us, though. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC) I have restored the episode titles and table framework before anything is lost to us forever. I don't believe this is subject to copyright and the frames are quite troublesome to debug. I trust that this is ok, please let me know if there is a problem with what I have done. Regards Op47 (talk) 15:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC) Intervention needed at Problem solving Recently I put a Copyvio tag on Problem solving to get a long standing copyright issue resolved. I was trying to follow the procedure given in Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101#If the entire article is a problem where is says "if it's foundational but there's reason to believe the person who added it here is the copyright owner, tag it for investigation with..." since that seemed closest to the situation, though I find the directions to be extremely confusing and self-contradictory. There hasn't been any response from Copyvio board yet but another user restored the material in question, saying the tag was inappropriate, and is now actively editing the article so it may become impossible to separate the new material the COPYVIO material (if it is, in fact a COPYVIO). We are now going back and forth on the talk page about whether there is a copyvio issue and whether I was following correct procedures but this seems rather pointless since apparently neither of us understands the policy very well. First, I'd like to request that you take a look at Talk:Problem solving#Is plaigarism an issue? and inject some copyvio expertise into the discussion. I don't like to circumvent the normal channels and I'm not sure the other editor was incorrect in restoring the material, but if so then continuing to work on it will turn the issue into an intractable mess and action needs to be taken soon to avoid this. There is also some urgency in that the article is viewed about 1000 times a day, the copied material has existed since the article was created and a concern was raised on the talk page over a year ago. Second, I'd like to know if there is a forum where the copyvio procedures are discussed since they seem to be unnecessarily difficult and painful. Ideally I would have liked to just do the Google searches to determine when and from where the material was copied and leave the rest for someone with the necessary expertise. That should have take 15 min. but instead I've spent hours trying to figure out the correct procedure and the extra effort has done nothing to advance a resolution of the issue. You probably don't remember but I worked with you two years ago on a contributor copyright investigation, which is why I'm coming to you for help on this.--RDBury (talk) 17:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC) (talk page stalker)I've restored the copyright tag and replied on the article's talk page as I believe you're very definitely right to have concerns for the reasons I explain there. As for your second point WT:CP is probably the best place to raise them. I for one would certainly be interested in knowing what part you found so difficult - I've been doing this for long enough that it's obvious to me that in a situation like this you just put a {{copyvio}} tag on the page with the appropriate source as the parameter but if it's not so obvious to others we may need to change something. Dpmuk (talk) 18:49, 28 January 2012 (UTC) The author of the text in question would appear to be Joachim Funke, but they haven't edited in about four and a half years. Would you be willing to try to get in touch with them if it came to that? Dpmuk (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC) I will. :) I've found his address at [3]; here's hoping it's still active. {{copyvio}}, alas, can be tough to work with when you have a long link. Maybe that contributed to the issue? Thatks, User:Dpmuk for stepping in and explaining things at the talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC) I've emailed the professor; 2012012810012375. Let's hope he's available; this may be swiftly resolved. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks a lot for the quick responses and clarifications; it's a big load off my mind to know this is being addressed and further problems will be avoided. I'd also like to mention that I really appreciate the job you guys do with this kind of thing; it takes a lot of effort and specialized knowledge and the people who do the behind-the-scenes work that keeps WP going rarely get the recognition they deserve. I'll compose some suggestions to post at WT:CP when I've cooled down and thought it over a bit, meanwhile I'll keep an eye on the article to see how it goes.--RDBury (talk) 06:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Yippee! Confirmation already. :D And a very friendly letter (sometimes people are a tad annoyed when I have to write them and say, "Hey, is this really you?") I'm off to process and close out this one. Thanks for prompting the investigation, RDBury. The letter in our system will help secure us against future challenges to the legality of the content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC) If only they could all be that easy! Did you see my extra post above about our regular not so easy one? Dpmuk (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Yes, belatedly. Thanks for pointing that out. :) (And you totally should be an admin.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Jan 12 copyright problems Hi MRG, there's at least one article from Jan 12 that still has outstanding copyright problems. Way beyond my experience of copyright to address, or I have done it myself in the first place! PS Thanks for everything you do round here, especially copyright stuff. --Dweller (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Uh oh! Sorry if I missed one. Let me go look. (We used to have a bot that would bring those back around but, alas, like all our copyright bots it's gone.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC) A foundational copyright problem with no rewrite proposed; I've deleted it. Thanks for pointing it out to me. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC) It seems I forgot to come back and thank you. I have redeemed myself somewhat, below, but apologies for that. --Dweller (talk) 13:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Getting organized I’ve been mulling over a thought, and the post above by RDBury prompted me to write. We have a LOT of material about copyright issues, a fair portion of which has been written by you. However, as Sue Gardner recently noted, we are pretty good at churning out good material, we are not so good at organizing and trimming out material. I saw a recent post at Jimbo’s page, and briefly thought that the answer was to do a Copyright Portal, but we don’t have portal for other Wikipedia issues, so I no longer think that’s the right answer. I’d like to take a crack at organizing the material, but want your feedback first - are there other failed attempts that would be good strawmen for starting, or are there other well-organized Wikipedia subjects that would be a good model for organization? Any other thoughts you have would be appreciated.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:49, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Well, I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind. :) There's Wikipedia:Copy-paste, which is meant to be a brief overview of the issue. There's Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101 and WP:GID, which goes way beyond copyright issues. There's Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/How to clean copyright infringements (which includes both text and images) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Resources. If you can give me more detail about the kind of structure you're thinking about, I might be able to offer more input. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC) My initial issue is that if someone were interested in Wikipedia copyright issues, how would they know where to start? And where could they find an exhaustive list of all resources. I’ve seen many of those, but had not stumbled across Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Resources before, so I suspect there are other places I’ve missed. I’m still wrapping my head around what I want to do, I’ll see if I can organize my thoughts.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC) This is something that keeps on crossing my mind too, partly from working with the backlog of {{copypaste}} tags. Given the amount of those taggins I see where listing at WP:CP or a straight G12 would be more appropriate I think we have a problem with how we get information across. Indeed do we even need the copypaste tag to have an url option? If the source is known surely WP:CP is more appropriate? I'm also amazed at the almost complete lag of information about how to deal with copyvios at WP:C. I know that page has got a different aim but it seems an obvious starting point for someone looking for information and yet it has a single link buried amongst eight "you may be looking for". Hardly makes finding the information easy. I don't know what the answer is, which is part of the reason I've not done anything, but I would certainly welcome someone taking a look at it all in a methodical way. Dpmuk (talk) 04:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Me, too. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Nanette Hassall Well, you said if I ever need a second set of eyes, come by... I'm taking you up on that already. ;) In my opinion, this revision of Nanette Hassall is pretty blatantly infringing on [4]. The structure and style is followed exactly, sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph. However, (for the second time in 24 hours; I'm starting to feel like a really bad judge of everything right now!) the contributor has strongly objected and some other admins I checked with say it looks pretty close but may be more ambiguous than I thought. Could you take a look when you have time? :) Thanks! — madman 01:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Already taken care of; cleaned with a rewrite and looks great now. Cheers! — madman 18:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Sorry I didn't get to this this morning! I had some chores to run that took waaaay longer than I anticipated. I'm just passing through at the moment but will be back in probably an hour and will see if I can give some suggestions at least. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC) No problem! I definitely think it's clean now but you can still have a look if you'd like. :) Cheers, — madman 20:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC) It looks fine to me. :) In case my own rule of thumb would be helpful to you, I tend to WP:CSD#G12 somewhat conservatively. If somebody has made an effort to paraphrase, even if I think they fall short, I will usually use {{copyvio}} just to give them a bit more time and allow me to talk to them more about how to do it. I use G12 mostly when the copying is pretty literal and when there's little chance it was placed by the copyright holder. If it looks like it might have been the copyright holder, even if they don't say so, I'll usually use the copyvio template. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC) I've slipped back into that standard procedure myself, I think, as you'll probably see from WP:CP today. I used to do this from July 2007 to shortly before I retired the first time, but after three years or so it's not at all like riding a bicycle! ;) Cheers! — madman 00:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC) The evaluation system needs work. 90% of what the Bot hit on is still there, and the part I took out is what I wrote myself. Pkeets (talk) 04:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Hi. :) First, to clarify: the duplication detector is not the bot. It is a separate tool from Corensearchbot, linked from the Corensearchbot report only to highlight direct copying. The bot's report is not published; I've actually never seen one. The duplication detector is a lovely tool for picking up on copy-pasting (and really handy when sources are long), but not very good at working out close paraphrasing. When sources are not long, I don't usually bother looking at it. I haven't compared the earlier versions of the article with the current or looked for close paraphrasing in the history; I simply checked the current version for issues, and it looks fine to me. If you want to talk about the issues Madman may have seen, he may be able to go over it with you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC) He complained about the structure (see above), which was chronological, and the current structure loses that information, only lists Hassall's accomplishments, which leaves it as a lower quality, "puff" type article. There's a disparity between what contributors are using to repair articles and what the evaluators seem to be looking at. When the bot hits on an article, the duplication report is all that contributors have to go on to repair the work. What it reported had nothing to do with Madman's evaluation--he said he didn't look at it, and you don't, either, which means I actually have no indication of what you'll be evaluating, and I have likely worked hard to eliminate something your'e not interested in, at all. For my article on Hassall, I had retained the chronological structure of an online bio and reworded the sentences that presented the information. The article was cited. His evaluation was made on the basis of the chronological structure, not the rewording, and he deleted the article without discussion. I'm a longtime contributor to Wikipedia, and I've been put off by this experience. When the article was deleted, my account was blocked. I want to request better tools to reduce the disparity in this process. Is there some forum where I should do that? Pkeets (talk) 14:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC) First, let me say that I'm very sorry that you found the experience offputting. I can certainly understand it, but we're all motivated by a common goal of creating the best, free encyclopedia we can. I hope that you won't let it discourage you in a major way. I'm concerned that you say that your account was blocked; I don't see anything in your block log. :/ Can you explain what you encountered? Maybe you were caught in an autoblock of somebody else? I was logged in for 30 days. When I brought up Wikipedia after the article was deleted, I was automatically logged out and was unable to log back in. I have a back-up account that I used to contact Madman. Once the article was reinstated, I could log in again. From reading other entries about copyright deletion, I gather this blocking is a standard result of having an article deleted for copyright violation. Pkeets (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC) In terms of indication of what we evaluate, I'm afraid there is no tool to do that, as this work necessarily involves human judgment. Everyone who examines copyright issues should do so by looking at the article and looking at its sources, to see if content follows too closely in language or structure. I'm not entirely sure what tools could be created to help with this, although I would certainly love some. :) Even the courts don't have many; they rely on human judgment to determine where substantial similarity exists. Human judgment is always going to be subjective, alas. We don't always agree on what is too close. :/ Discussion of the issues before deletion would help. Pkeets (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC) In terms of dealing with structure, I find that the absolute best technique to eliminate the problem is to draw on additional sources. Chronological structure has less creativity than some, but it can still be creative in that a source chooses what facts to emphasize. The more you rely on one source, the more likely you are to inadvertently mimic their creative selection and arrangement. While it's sometimes a challenge, I do my best to find other information that can be woven together to eliminate the concern. I don't have a lot of time, but I did a bit of searching on Hassall and found some more information so that the article needn't suffer for our efforts to reduce similarity to the single source. I was able to add information on her pre-dance career, the contest that helped send her to Julliard, and her meeting and marrying an American composer. There's quite likely more out there, but I kind of ran out of time. The more disparate sources we can incorporate, the less likely we are to draw too heavily on the structure of any one. :) Thank you for making an effort after the fact. However, you've added very little that's not in the article I cited, and the chronological data in the resulting Wikipedia article is still jumbled. The review process has resulted in an inferior article. If I were looking for biographical data on her, I wouldn't use the current Wikipedia article. Pkeets (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Anyway, again, I'm sorry that this has been unpleasant. And I do hope that it won't discourage you too much. If nothing else, you've reminded Madman to be careful with speedy deletions of copyrighted content, and that's good. While we do want to keep Wikipedia copyright compliant, we absolutely don't want to run off people like you who are constructively contributing. If there are disagreements on what constitutes "rewriting from scratch" and what to do if content may not be, that's something we need to work out together. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC) I'm not discouraged. I am pissed off. As I said above, discussion would have been helpful, but I had to initiate it after the deletion, and from a different account. The process has been arbitrary and disrespectful. I'll have to consider whether to contribute further. Pkeets (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC) No, not at all! I don't know why you couldn't log in, but I've never heard of any kind of automatic block for deletion of articles for any reason. As an administrator, I have deleted 14,010 articles since 2007, most of them for copyright issues. I've blocked 783 editors, and every one of them was manual. There is nothing in your block log. When you are blocked, the system doesn't automatically log you out; it shows you this message. I can particularly see why you would be angry if you thought you had been blocked over this, but whatever may have happened to you, it wasn't that. Can you tell me what you may have read about articles deleted for copyright violations that lead you to this conclusion? That needs repairing! I agree with you that discussion would have been helpful. Madman indicates above that he does not intend to use the speedy deletion criteria anymore when he thinks there are paraphrasing issues but will use other processes for copyright evaluation instead. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC) See mention in Copyright block below. I think I did get a message, but I'm not sure. Pkeets (talk) 17:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Ah, no. That was not an automatic block; in that case, I didn't even delete the article. I deleted a section of the article. He was blocked because he had done this before and had been warned he would be blocked if he didn't stop. This was by no means a paraphrase issue; this was direct copy-pasting. Had I know that he had simply copied from another article, I would have unblocked him, explained to him why that was wrong (Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia) and addressed the copyright problem with the other editor. Unfortunately, he didn't speak up until after his block had expired, so I couldn't undo it. Your block log is completely clear ([5]; compare that with this one, which isn't clear). I think you must have encountered some kind of technical problem. The only other alternative I can think of is if you were using a shared IP (like a university or library or even just your home computer in some countries) and it had been blocked for some reason, but even then you should have been shown a message and given instructions for how to correct it. I'm afraid you may have just encountered a technical problem with very, very bad timing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC) How odd, then, that it only affected the Pkeets account and not the alternate one. And how it cleared up when the article was reinstated. And I did get a message of some kind that I think said "blocked"--I just didn't read it carefully. Sorry, but I also take copyright issues seriously. I don't like being named as a violator. I ran the disputed article through a plagiarism checker, BTW, and got a report that said 93% original, with the only hit on "She continued her studies at the Juilliard School in New York," which occurred in a number of unrelated articles. Pkeets (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC) I'm afraid I have no explanation. :) But it certainly makes more sense that you encountered a technical error than that you were blocked somehow with no block log record and that your block logged you out automatically, which is not the way ordinary blocks work. (If you look at the talk pages of many blocked users, you'll see them editing there in their accounts.) Autoblocks on IPs shouldn't automatically log you out either, as there is an unblock process which account holders can use to declare that they've been caught in an autoblock, and it requires that they be logged in. Hopefully it'll never happen again, but if it does, please try to take a screen cap or something so we can figure out what's going on. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC) If it were an IP block, it would have affected the alternate account. When I got the message, I immediately logged in under the alternate: same computer, no delay. Pkeets (talk) 16:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC) Well, that pretty well resolves, then, that it must have been a technical error, because your block log is empty and blocks don't log you out. :) They only prevent your editing pages other than your own talk page. (Although they might not be able to help you now, if you're curious, you can always ask at WP:VPT.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC) A copyright question Hello Moonriddengirl, hope you are doing OK. Perhaps you can read this (now somewhat compressed) exchange, look at the link and tell me and/or or the other user, what you think: "Thanks for starting Proserpina (gastropod)! Hello Smintheus Fallin and welcome to Wikipedia! I am part of the Gastropods Project here on Wikipedia and so I was very happy to see that you started an article on an interesting land snail genus, Proserpina. I wanted to ask you about the very beautiful image of the shell. On its file page the photo is described as being your creation, however onthis site the photo appears to be the work of Thomas Eichhorst. Are you Thomas Eichhorst? If not then we have a copyright problem. All good wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC) ":Thank you, Invertzoo: I just created the stub following a disambiguation link for Proserpina (disambiguation), as I was making an entry for the Rossetti's painting. I saw that the entry was still in red as non-existent and so I created it. I'm not an fan of gastropods, even though my sister is a malacologist, and I took the image from a website she often uses for photographs. I then retouched the photo and edited it a bit (that's why I stated "my creation"), but you may be right: there could be a copyright issue, however she told me that those photos are for public use and are often reprinted in her magazine, without any acknoledgements... What to do?--Smintheus Fellin (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)" Thanks for all your good work MRG! Invertzoo (talk) 17:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Hi, Invertzoo. I'm well, and I hope you are. :) I've replied at his talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC) I am always happy to hear from you MRG. Thanks so much for your very good and very thorough advice to SF! I am pretty well, my leg is in fairly good shape now, 5 months after rupturing the ACL in my knee (a classic sports injury), without having had surgery but having done a huge amount of physical therapy to build up the muscles, which had atrophied after 6 weeks on crutches with the leg in an immobilizer. Sigh. Looking forward to spring. All best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 15:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Copyright Block Now that I've been unblocked, I just want to let you know I didn't appreciate it since it was all a misunderstanding. I never copied the plot of the "iGot Jungle Worms" episodes from an MTV website that there was some warning over. I never saw this "warning" and all I did was move the episode from the Season 5 page over to a Season 6 page since it was already there. So it was already copied to begin with. Perhaps you should have waited to hear my side of the story before taking action. - Jabrona - 22:47, 29 January 2012 I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Attribution question concerning copying from one Wikipedia article to another Moonriddengirl, I notice some of your recent comments to one of our editors. Your are right that there should be an attribution to give credit to the other editors. Where should that go in the normal course. Talk page? End of article? Footnote? Somewhere else? What format? Is there an explicit policy statement somewhere? Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 03:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC) The relevant guideline is WP:Copying within Wikipedia. Proper attribution is in an edit summary, and {{Copied}} on the talk page is a recommended additional step. WP:Plagiarism#Copying within Wikipedia has a little on why footnotes would be excessive. Flatscan (talk) 05:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Thank you, Flatscan. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Flatscan is a master of this. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Fair use images in infoboxes Would you care to comment at User_talk:Pernoctator#Images_at_Nadar_.28caste.29 ? - Sitush (talk) 15:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC) (talk page stalker) I've replied there. J Milburn (talk) 15:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Talk page stalkers rock. :) Thanks, J. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Saadian Tombs I’m reviewing Saadian Tombs. I had a momentary start when running a CSBot, and getting a hit. However, the hit was this site, with a prominent notice: “The description of this photograph (or parts of) is based on this article of the free Wikipedia encyclopedia and are covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Authors are named on the Wikipedia page.” My first question (and possibly this should be directed at Coren): Do we know if CSBot quits after finding a hit? In other words, can I assume that this is the only high probability hit, in which case the text is probably OK, or does the existence of a hit mean it stops, and I should pursue other means? Second, I searched for “corpses of about sixty members” and got a hit with Travel Morocco: Guide, Maps, and Phrasebook. Includes: Rabat, Casablanca . However, that guide was published in 2010, well after the contributions by S710, so is a reverse copy. I looked briefly to see if that book acknowledged the source, but didn’t see it, so my second question is, to what extent do we pursue issues like this? My sense is that we shouldn’t get to excited if some personal website copied some info and didn’t attribute it correctly, but when a publishing company is making money by recycling content (which I know is permissible) they should be attributing correctly. Is there a process for reporting this? I did search for another phrase, the one including twelve columns, and got a hit, but a book discussing a building in Delhi, so I’m going to conclude that this article is fine for copyvio issues, and await your comments on the two other questions.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Hmm. I have no idea how CSB works. :/ In general terms of reporting backwards vios, the only people who have a legal standing are people who substantially contributed to the content. Any contributor can write them to complain, but they don't have any legal authority to do so - not even the Wikimedia Foundation. In the case of this publisher, they are a known reuser: Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Mno#MobileReference. We believe that the "1" at the bottom of the page (where they say it uses text from) probably links to the article, but we can't tell through Google books. They do not seem to include the full text of the license as required, but they do acknowledge the license on the back cover of the book. They aren't 100% in, but they're better than some. :/ If you ever want to write to a reuser who doesn't attribute, whether you're a contributor or not, you can. There's some recommended text at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Sometimes they actually listen. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks for the pointer to the mirrors site; I'll know to check there first. Given that they are known, I don't see much to pursue in this instance. I'll run the other question by Coren.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC) 2nd opinion on revdel request at List of past General Hospital characters I noticed that you've done last edit on that article before the revdel request. Looking back on the history, it appears that the entirety is going to have to be revdelled as it looks like the original edit 3/12/11 was a cut & paste from somewhere else that included all of the (C) materials. If you're of the same opinion, just leave a note here & I'll go ahead and revdel the lot :) Skier Dude (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC) I don't know; I'm undecided. George would like them gone, certainly, but as I explained to him at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 January 6, "I think the benefits of revision deletion would outweigh the disadvantages of losing access to the article history. The odds of copying or reverse infringement in the future are high, and it'll be much easier to investigate if we can keep the history. My opinion will change, I'm sure, if people start restoring the old content." That said, I have no objections whatsoever if you feel differently. My gut just says that we're not done with that history and will have to restore it eventually to resolve future issues. :P --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC) I'm sort of in agreement with you - looking at some of the history, it appears that there might have been attempts to cull the copyrighted stuff. We know that its not just admins that are going to be looking at these specific articles (the soap opera ones) in evaluating what can be kept and what needs to go. On the other hand, we do now have copyright bots that are scanning for new violations, which theoretically will catch inappropriate additions. I'm thinking that we probably need some additional admin input on this one - maybe take it to the admin notice board? Skier Dude (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Good idea. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Pope John Paul II article Hi Moonriddengirl, I have a question about the quotations of John Paul II. Does the Vatican holds the copyright on these, and if so are we allowed any in the article? -- Thanks -- Marek.69 talk 01:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC) (talk page stalker) I'm uncertain who would own the copyright but I think that's irrelevant. From the quotes I saw in the article I would suggest that their use qualifies as fair use especially as they are mainly used to give his opinion and views and these can often be distorted by paraphrasing. The article does seem to have quite a lot of quotes but given that giving views and opinions (forgive me if I use the wrong words) was one of his main roles I don't think their use is excessive. Dpmuk (talk) 07:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC) I'd agree that we rely on fair use here. :) Ownership of quotes is a complicated question. Whether or not they're copyrightable depends on a number of factors, including whether, when and by whom they were written down. If a news agency transcribes something the Pope says in a public statement, they do not own the copyright, because there is no creativity in transcription. But if the quote is part of a prepared speech, the speechwriter (or his employee) owns it, and if the quote is part of an impromptu speech that is later recorded by the speaker then it also attracts copyright protection. What's important for our purposes is that we must record faithfully who said them, when and where, and we must keep their use reasonable. The only problem I see with this quote is that no source is cited. You should always attribute your quotes with both intext attribution and a footnote. Wikipedia:Citing sources notes that "Wikipedia's Verifiability policy describes when sources should be cited, and what kind of sources are considered reliable. It requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space." So, you need to add your footnote. :) Quotations without them can be removed at any time. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Thank you, Moonriddengirl. I have added the source :-) -- Marek.69 talk 14:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 30 January 2012 News and notes: Update on Global Development, Wikipedia Day NYC is a success, JFK audio on Commons In the news: Zambian wiki-assassins, Foundation über alles, editor engagement and the innovation plateau Recent research: Language analyses examine power structure and political slant; Wikipedia compared to commercial databases WikiProject report: Digging Up WikiProject Palaeontology Featured content: Featured content soaring this week Arbitration report: Five open cases, voting on proposed decisions in two cases Technology report: Why "Lua" is on everybody's lips, and when to expect MediaWiki 1.19 Read this Signpost in full Single-page Unsubscribe EdwardsBot (talk) 03:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Junior Achievement This one cropped up on the 7-day old listings at WP:CP the other day and you said you'd take a look later. Well now someone claiming to be from the relevant organisation has posted on the talk page. I've posted quite a long reply as I thought it important they got a reply as soon as possible, but given my previous involvement in this I'd appreciate another set of eyes to make sure I've not missed anything, especially as I'm not that used to dealing people in situations like this. Of course if any talk page stalker fancies taking this on then they should also feel free - I'm sure Moonriddengirl wouldn't mind given how busy she is! Dpmuk (talk) 06:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC) And as a complete aside, congratulations on the permanent position which I've just noticed. Can I suggest you remove "at this point" from the top of your user page for this account, as it implies to me it's temporary. Dpmuk (talk) 07:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC) I haven't meant not to. :/ I haven't had time to get around to it! I planned to do it after work last night, but family illness cut into my online life. :P (Pesky real life.) I will go look this morning. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC) (I don't know if it's any better, but I changed it to "currently". I want to avoid implying that I've always been an employee of the WMF. Hmm. Maybe I'll go back and just change it to "since May 2011". What do you think? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)) I don't actually expect you to do anything you know (well certainly not when you're in your volunteer role) and I wouldn't normally have mentioned it except for the post to the talk page. Since Verno went you're the only OTRS copyright combined person I know so couldn't think of anyone else to ask to take another look. As for "currently" I think that works fine although "since May 2011" also works and avoids any doubt. Dpmuk (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Oh, and thanks for the extra backwardscopy work you put in. I was happy with just the date given they'd have no reason to lie about that but given the concerns expressed I probably would've gone further. However given how things developed I thought a second opinion was needed so didn't look further myself. Your work there is much appreciated. Now off to go and look at the edits to that page by, I suspect, our WP:COI editor. Dpmuk (talk) 18:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC) The date would have done it for me, too, but since it's been challenged, I usually just add more, if I can. The evidence of natural evolution diminishes the likelihood that we copied from an official site, no longer available, from which the later source also copied. It makes a stronger case that it did originate here. I have no issues providing a second opinion, particularly knowing how often they've come in handy for me. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC) Possible sockpuppetry I would like to launch an investigation of sockpuppetry for the user HereToSaveWiki; it seems to be a direct new account created by Seeta mayya. To clarify, you may remember her umpteen comments about "what is happening to Wikipedia?", hence the name. In addition, her style of talking is exactly similar to Seeta mayya's, with the exception of all the gasps and "Oohs". Check this for reference (and I have responded strongly to her statements):- Talk:Shahrukh Khan. I would like to know how and where to begin; if necessary, I can take this to WP:ANI. If this is Seeta mayya's account puppet, I will ensure that an IP ban is placed on her. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC) If you want to launch a sock puppetry investigation, the place to go is WP:SPI. Opening the SPI is the easy part; you put the primary account's name into the box where it says "SOCKMASTER" here: Wikipedia:SPI#Submitting_an_SPI_case. It'll open a new edit window that is partially filled out for you. All you'll need to do is follow the directions in <!--hidden comments-->. One of the most important things here is having good evidence; bring links of similar behavior that will help you convince the administrators who work there that the two are the same. They probably won't investigate if you don't. And remember where it says "|admincomment=" not to edit the section at all. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC) RfC closure It looks as though the RfC on the FA leadership has slowed down. The notification in last week's Signpost appeared to bring in a few more commenters, but now there's not much happening. What's your feeling about closing it soon? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Sure! If you think it's winding down. I didn't expect it to finish quite so soon. Unless it's a great deal simpler than I'm expecting, I probably won't get to close it this morning, but I'll take a look. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Well, the closure looks pretty straightforward; the only question is if we should wait to see if more people will comment, just because it was so acrimonious going in -- I don't want people to think I asked you to look at it because I wanted it closed while one side is ahead. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Well, how about this: I had budgeted time on Saturday to work on this. What about if I wait until then and see if the conversation is really dead? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC) I think that would be fine; but I honestly think you could close it in five minutes. There's a huge majority on one side. Either way is fine; if you decide to wait till Saturday I'll leave a note on the RfC talk page saying that's when you plan to do it, just in case anyone wants to wait longer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC) That sounds good. :) The Saturday time is more to deal with potential issues with people thinking you wanted it closed at a particular point. We can't predict the point it will be on Saturday. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC) OK, thanks. I've left a note about the planned closure, just in case anyone disagrees. Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC) I think it should be left open for a while longer. I didn't even know about it until yesterday. I'm sure there are some other folks out there who have views on the subject but just haven't learned of the RfC yet. Everyking (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC) Don't worry. If it's still active, I won't close it. But it has been listed at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion and the RFC boards since the 20th. :) Hopefully most people are aware who care about such things. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC) *POKE* - Just a reminder to please close the RFC today. There's no new voting going on, and minimal commentary. I'm waiting until after you do so that I can appoint new delegates. Raul654 (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Thanks. :) I thought from the note above that it might still be going on. As soon as I get this CCI started and close out this one day on CP, I'll come get it going. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC) After looking at the last couple of days, Raul, I'd like to wait until tomorrow and see what happens the rest of today. Everyking requested a little more time yesterday, and I see that he himself only voted then along with what at a glance seems to be 3 other people. I think the only way to avoid fresh drama here is to make sure that people have stopped responding to the polls first. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC) A barnstar for you! The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar For tireless work protecting Wikipedia from copyvios. Dweller (talk) 13:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Thank you! Obviously, it's work I'm committed to. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Mail Hi, you have mail, by the way. :) Amalthea 11:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Hey dead-beat mom... ...please see User_talk:Amalthea#Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations.2FPumpkinSky. Drmies (talk) 00:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC) LOL! It has been seen. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC) Info about the deletion of the page on Nakagami Fading (12 August 2009) While working on a research paper involving Nakagami fading (as well as a few other fading models) I wanted to quickly double check the formulas, and I noticed that the wiki page was deleted several years ago for copyright violations. I was wondering if you remember specifically why you deleted the page, or if you could provide me with any more info regarding the page before I try to re-create it. I'm not very familiar with Wikipedia beyond just making simple edits, so I apologize if this information is readily accessible in a place that I am unaware of. Thanks! Tiek00n (talk) 04:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC) Hi. There's absolutely no problem with asking for an explanation. I'm happy to help. :) I deleted the article because it was listed at the copyright problems board, where copyright issues are evaluated, for a week; the copyright problems were substantiated (that is, the links given there showed copying); the creator of the article did not defend the material or explain the similarities in a way that would allow us to use the article; and nobody offered a rewrite of the article within the week. Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2009 August 4. Unfortunately, after two and a half years, the links given there aren't very helpful, but a quick check shows this was one of two probable sources: [6]. It would be fabulous if you could create a new article on that subject; obviously, we are weak on coverage there. :) You should encounter no problems as long as the text explaining the model is written in your own words. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC) I need to borrow your eyes Can you check the Expeditors International article? It appears that the intro was lifted almost in its entirety from here, and if that's the case then I worry about the rest of the article's content from a copyvio point of view. Thanks in advance, 70.245.127.3 (talk) 09:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC) Hi. Thanks for pointing this out; I've removed the duplicated content and will speak to the contributor, who may be in position to license it. Unless you find other evidence of copying, the rest of the article is probably okay; the problematic portion was introduced in July 2011 by somebody tacitly claiming authority. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC) (And notified. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)) User talk:Billy Hathorn MRG, Billy Hathorn is making an unblock request and I believe is misrepresenting the situation (based on my reading of their talkpage archives). Would you agree? Thanks! Syrthiss (talk) 18:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC) Yes, I'm afraid so. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC) The Queen of Technique Break out the party poppers! You have officially been designated "The Queen of Technique" of tactfully dealing with editors who are having copyvio problems. Your attention to the various comments on that thread, whenever you have spare time, would be sincerely appreciated. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 05:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Whoot! I'm a queen. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Probable copyvio - one for your stalkers? I am hoping that one of your stalkers might be able to assist with my note at Talk:Kangeyam bull#Copyvio. If I am very lucky then they will be a cattle specialist but a good knowledge of WP copyright procedures & a nose for spotting violations should suffice (& is more likely!) - Sitush (talk) 07:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I have found the source. See the talk page for my Agatha Christie-like reveal of how. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Great, thanks. I didn't even do a phrase check because I was convinced that it came straight from the book & that is not available online. I have no idea if there was ever a CCI for the creator & the situation is extremely messy because of their numerous socks, but one day I will find the time to do some digging. - Sitush (talk) 12:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Even if the book isn't available online, I always check to make sure, because our contributors aren't the only people who violate copyright. :/ If I find text elsewhere on the web, and I can prove that it was there before we had it, the investigation is over. It doesn't matter whether we and the other site independently took it from a book. All that matters is that we didn't have it first. :) Thanks for keeping an eye on it. I don't think we've had a CCI for him. If you think we need one (ergh), we can always open one to let people work on it as there is time. (I so wish we could get some magic CCI bot that could at least find the obvious. :/) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Charlie Patton hello, this Charlie Patton image was deleted as per the request of the copyright holder. Could you contact him and ask if we could use it on our article? Or if not, how much will one pay to upload it here? Thanks. (Dougweller is busy, so I ask you) --♫GoP♫TCN 09:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I'll look. It'll take a few minutes to search, as unfortunately Doug didn't think to link the OTRS ticket from the discussion. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC) All right, I've found it. It's at ticket 2011122110016945. He does not want the image to be used here; that was the purpose of his contact, so I don't think writing him to ask him to change his mind would help. He asked for $500 for the use of the image, but that doesn't mean he understood that he would be paid to license the image for reuse by others, even commercially. If that were conveyed, he might charge considerably more. I can write him to ask him what he would charge to license the image compatibly for our site, if you like, and if he is willing can put you in touch with him. We can assume the cost would be at least $500. Is that a cost you might be interested in paying? I'd rather know that in advance. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Thanks! I will think about it... =$--♫GoP♫TCN 14:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Billy Hathorn CCI I thought I would take a stab at the Billy Hathorn CCI . I started with Jean Boese. I see that two, presumably complete poems are included. Not even referenced, so if they are pd, it isn't obvious. (Both were present in the article creation, though not formatted at that time.) It occurs to me that poetry of the US Poet Laureat may be od, simply as the work of a federal employee (although I wouldn't be surprised if there were an exception). However, this is the work of a state poet laureate (note that without better referencing of the poems, I do not yet know for sure whether they were written while in office.) My understanding is that works of state employees is not automatically pd, but either can be so declared, or perhaps the laws vary by state. I'm not on solid ground, which is why I am here, but I am confident that works by a state employee cannot automatically be presumed to be pd. I'm doing some searching to see if there are general resources talking about the copyright status of state poet laureate, but coming up empty so far, and looking for specific information about these two poems, with same result. I'll continue looking, but if you have some thoughts they would be appreciated.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I would very surprised if the works of poets laureate were copyrighted to the state, but even if they are, Louisiana retains copyright to state works. :) See. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I see that one of the poems was named the "official state Senate poem". The law enacting this is here. I think I've read that the text of a law cannot be subject to copyright, does this ring true? If so, one of the two will be resolved, after I add a proper reference.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC) That's true. :) I bet they didn't consider that aspect. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Caracas 2000 I'm following your work, and confused. Francisco Herrera Luque. Why is it OK if it's translated from en.wiki, if it still has text taken from the original sources? Specifically, if es.wiki violated copyvio, how is it OK for us to translate it here? I'm unclear what step I'm missing here ... but you have more important things to be doing today, so let me know later if you need me to look at more of his articles, once I'm better educated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Hi, Sandy. :) Ordinarily, it wouldn't be, but in this rare case, the source you flagged copied from the Spanish Wikipedia article as well. If you look at the paper, it cites the Spanish Wikipedia and is dated 2010. You can see the state of the article in 2009. There's no evidence that the Spanish Wikipedia violated copyright; it looks like improperly used Wikipedia content. At the moment, I'm checking his article contribs to see the scope of problem we're dealing with here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Ok, got your message-- once it's good to go, let me know if my Spanish language help is needed. I speak fluently, but I learned as an adult, so reading is Very Slow Going and not fun ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC) You are so diplomatic and so good at this! And I see you've been working for nine hours straight :) Before you finish up, one note. The problem first came to my attention via Ciudad Bolivar, because my children's ancestors are from there and I was looking for an example of a very old (back to 2007) problem at WP:GOCE-- that is, they copyedit without checking sources, which obscures copyvio. There seems to be some confusion over there, and if you could go over to WT:GOCE and emphasize to them how difficult it is to locate copyvio if someone has ce'd over it, that might help. They don't like me very much, but I raised this back in 2007 and nothing has changed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Sure! I understand how people can focus on one task and not think about another issue. As I mentioned over there, I once almost missed a glaring BLP issue because I was satisfied it wasn't a copyvio...wasn't thinking about that aspect of things at all. :) I'm all about raiding copyright consciousness. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Raiding ?  :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC) LOL! Another one for more userpage! (Well, almost. It's not quite as good as what I've already had.) Clearly, I need to spend a bit of time off the computer. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Question on copyright Is a book published in 1913 by Encyclopedia Press still under copyright? If so then this article needs clearing out, everything in the History and Functions section was copied word for word from The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline, and history of the Catholic Church, Volume 13 Darkness Shines (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC) (talk page stalker) If you are referring to Catholic Encyclopedia then, yes, it's PD as anything published in the US before 1923 has now entered the public domain (see WP:PD#When does copyright expire?). It should of course still be properly attributed and indeed we have a special template for doing so - {{Catholic}}. As you don't mention what article you are referring to I can't see whether it's currently properly attributed. Dpmuk (talk) 22:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Sorry, the article is Thygeson Penn Joseph [7] In this revision everything is lifted directly from the book in question, I see no attribution to it. I had begun to edit the article and had assumed a lot of it was OR. I found the copying when I went looking for sources. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Attribution now done at Congregation of Ceremonies. I'm assuming Thygeson Penn Joseph get there by mistake. Doesn't appear to be anything more to do here... Dpmuk (talk) 05:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Thanks, Darkness Shines and Dpmuk for finding the issue and taking care of things. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Issue Hello. I'm writing to you because you seem level-headed, and you may be able to moderate an issue before it gets out of hand. I made an edit which another editor didn't like, reverted and left me a Nasty-Gram. I mentioned to this editor that I though his comments to me were overly aggressive, and threatening, and kind of rude, and asked him to be more polite, and I said that I'm always open to constructive criticism. He then threatened me with being blocked. Look, all I did was tell this person that he would bet better results if he was polite, and now he's going to have me banned. I really think this is out of line. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Drmies#Your_Comments_To_Me Again, is it really appropriate to respond to an edit you think is bad by automatically assuming vandalism and leaving very aggressive threatening messages. Is this really the way to achieve results? Is it "good" administration? Or, does it just piss people off? =//= Johnny Squeaky 22:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Hi. :) I'm afraid from your note that it seems like you may not understand which comment elicited the warning against personal attacks. You describe the incident as one in which you "mentioned to this editor that I though his comments to me were overly aggressive, and threatening, and kind of rude, and asked him to be more polite, and I said that I'm always open to constructive criticism." That would be, I presume, this comment. However, that was not the comment for which you were warned. As linked in the message to you, the comment that elicited the warning against personal attacks was this one: More blather from Wikilawyers who have no other life but to WP:OWN anything they can. =//= Johnny Squeaky 02:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC) You say "Look, all I did was tell this person that he would bet better results if he was polite", but that is misunderstanding the warning you were given completely, because you said nothing like that to User:Tedder. I, too, perceive what you said to Tedder as a personal attack. While User:Tedder could have left you a message rather than the template, the template he left you is not an accusation of vandalism but a very proper reminder that you are supposed to use edit summaries when removing material. You have the right to remove notes that you do not like from your talk page. Your userpage note notwithstanding, you are bound by WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA just like everybody else. I'm also unsure, given your use of pronouns, if you realize that you are dealing with multiple people here. You write, "I made an edit which another editor didn't like, reverted and left me a Nasty-Gram. I mentioned to this editor that I though his comments to me were overly aggressive, and threatening, and kind of rude, and asked him to be more polite, and I said that I'm always open to constructive criticism. He then threatened me with being blocked. Look, all I did was tell this person that he would bet better results if he was polite, and now he's going to have me banned." The editor who you asked to be more polite goes by the name User:Dl2000. You left that note here. The editor who mention that you might be blocked ("then") goes by the name User:Drmies. He left that note here. The actual sequence of events seems to have been this: You removed content from the article Satyricon nightclub, marking your edits as minor (even though they were not; see Help:Minor edits) and offering no explanation in edit summary. User:Tedder put the content back and left you a note explaining what you're supposed to do when you remove content. You insulted him and undid him, without edit summary and again marking your edit as minor. Dl2000 gave you a vandalism warning for describing this edit, in which you changed the header describing Garbo's "Honors, awards and nominations" to say "Trivia." He assumed, possibly incorrectly, that you were trying to be funny (see what he wrote in his edit summary). You asked him to be more polite to you. Administrator User:Drmies became aware of your conversations with both editors and warned you that you could be blocked for personal attacks if you say things again like you did to User:Tedder. There's nothing wrong with explaining to Dl2000 that you didn't think your edit was vandalism and nothing wrong with asking to be polite or assume good faith. There is quite a bit wrong with describing a neutral explanation of process as "More blather from Wikilawyers who have no other life but to WP:OWN anything they can." I daresay that's the kind of comment that "will just piss people off." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Amazon Do we know if Amazon copies from wikipedia without attribution? Personally I seriously doubt it but just thought I'd check before removing text from Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World. As an aside, I started a draft RfA but feel I've had too many CSD denials recently to make it "live" as we all know the requirement when it comes to things like that is higher for an RfA than is actually required afterwards! Dpmuk (talk) 05:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Lawsuits for copyright infringement ("close paraphrase") Hello, MoonRiddenGirl, I'm interested in the "close paraphrase" issue and it looks like you know something about it. Has the English Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation ever been sued for "close paraphrase" copyright infringement? If so, can you tell me the names of some of the cases? (I'd just like to read for myself what kind of "close paraphrase" violations cause legal trouble in the real world). Thank you. (I've posted the same questions on the Reference Desk/Humanities page, and asked Elen of the Roads and may also ask SandyGeorgia and Almathea.) --Kenatipo speak! 17:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC) DYK currently on mainpage MRG, could you have a look here? What I most frequently find at DYK is that the structure of entire sources is copied, yet we see resistance in trying to explain that it's still a copyvio, even if duplication detector might not complain, since enough words are juggled. It's a recurring problem-- could you have a look before I take action? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)