User talk:SandyGeorgia

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I usually respond on my talk page, so watch the page for my reply.

Please provide a link to the article or page you want me to look at; that will increase the likelihood of me getting to it sooner rather than later.

I lose track of those pingie-thingies; because I don't get along with them, I have converted all notifications to email only. A post here on my talk page is the best way to get my attention.

iPad typing: I am unable to sit at a real computer with a keyboard for extended periods of time because of a back injury. When I am typing from my iPad, my posts are brief and full of typos. Please be patient; I will come back later to correct the typos :) I'm all thumbs, and sometimes the blooming iPad just won't let me backspace to correct a typo.

TPS alert/rant: CCI work

Because of the User:Doug Coldwell situation that I happened across by pure chance, I am back trying to help out at CCI. After giving up in dejection the last time I tried that. And the time before. And so on.

This is demoralizing work; not a hobby, not fun, not relaxing, should not be done by anyone for free. Most of my TPS are used to working with fine content. When working CCI, you deal with pure crap; while trying to sort out if something is a copyvio, you have to do that with content that is poorly written and not even based on reliable sources often, and it's nothing but miserable unpaid grunt work and drudgery. And when working on one CCI, I discovered a whole 'nother serial copyviolator! Just makes one want to quit.

I have checked WP:PEREN and don't know where else to look, but I can't understand why the WMF doesn't hire people to clean copyvio. Why should any volunteer be doing such crap work for free? How does "hire people to clean up copyvio" not make it on to those wish lists thingies the WMF puts out? WhatamIdoing? Hats off to any CCI worker and copyvio admin who deals with this demoralizing content day in and day out.

And I just reread through all of the 2010 Grace Sherwood debacle, where FAC did do something about it, but why has nothing changed in two decades with DYK feeding the copyvio pile, and GA promoting more up the line. Who's checking besides Nikkimaria? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I believe that MER-C and Diannaa do a lot of copyvio-related work. If memory serves, Wizardman used to, but I don't know if he's still active in that area.

I'd like to see law schools, especially those that pride themselves on intellectual property, start summer internships (or similar programs) to evaluate copyright questions. Just reading the Commons discussions can be an education. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

We Need More Help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I've got a couple less-busy days due to a winter storm, so I'll try to take a look at some of the Appomattox ones. Hog Farm _Talk 22:02, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Hog Farm, I think you went through Battle of Ridgefield once? While looking at Ludington/Coldwell stuff, I happened across another unrelated big mess there, and waiting for the experts to tell me, what next. I hate how often I have to ping them when I don't know what to do next. It is such specialized work ... and they must be so sick of pings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

When I looked through Ridgefield, I was mainly looking for patently unreliable sourcing. Hog Farm _Talk 00:04, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I know Hog Farm. I hope that didn't come across as me saying you missed something. I only happened upon it because of trying to sort the Coldwell stuff. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:27, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problems: break

100% right, sadly. That's why I tend to go in spurts on CCI, sometimes I can close out 2 or 3 relatively quickly and other times I don't even want to look at it. Honestly the only thing that helps me get through it sometimes is spite; these serial violators wasted enough of the site's time so torching said content helps a little bit. Perhaps once I'm in another spurt I can get Hathorn resolved once and for all (yes, that's still being addressed a decade later...) Wizardman 23:22, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Hathorn came to my mind recently, when I was contemplating how many times we've been down this road ... but I held back, thinking it wiser not to start naming them all and all of the various debacles. But. What have we changed in content review processes to get it to stop, and what are we doing that encourages it ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

That anyone can edit, while it doesn't encourage it, it does to a degree enable it. A lot of people just flat out don't understand copyright and/or how to determine if something is public domain or not. And for those that do, there's a strong possibility they don't live in the US, so are only familiar with sometimes radically different copyright laws in their country/region.

I know I struggle particularly with images, partially because of the differing legal systems between the UK and US, and partially because the US system seems so counter-intuitive with respect to who owns the copyright of derivative works. I'm better with text based stuff, as there is similarities between the two jurisdictions, so I try to keep an eye out for copyvios on my watchlist, as getting them early (I hope) prevents long term problems arising.

Alas short of running every edit through a service like Turnitin, which is not without its own host of problems, I don't know of a way that we could solve it without fundamentally changing how the site operates as a whole. If there's a lot of copyvios coming from article creation, then having some sort of copyright detection training for new page patrollers might help, but it would still require editors to engage with a rather thankless task. However for editors who maybe just add a paragraph here to one article, and a paragraph there to another, that goes undetected and adds up over time, I dunno if there is a way we could handle that beyond what we already do, short of the Foundation hiring dedicated CCI people. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:50, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Npp/afc editors actually look for copyvio although they are always in danger of missing more subtle cases involving foreign language, offline sources, or a paywall. The highest risk of copyvio are adding content to existing pages, because it is often not checked at all. (t · c) buidhe 00:35, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Buidhe, a fairly well known NPPer had an article deleted this week for copyvio. And I was told today by an experienced editor that "the tools" at DYK and GAN pick up copyvio. No understanding that Earwig is useless when all sources are offline, and even when they are online, not very good at picking up too-close-paraphrasing. Look at the date on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. And then re-read the Grace Sherwood debacle. What reform has there been, outside of FAC?

Sideswipe9th, I was hoping someone would pop up here to explain to me why the WMF is not paying for this to be done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Alas the Foundation's actions are as much a mystery to me as to most other editors I'm afraid. It might be worth starting a discussion at one of the Village Pumps though? Like if enough people recognise this is a problem, then we can at least as a community ask them to pull their purse out for some actual support on this. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:48, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

This is all very surprising to me. I first checked WP:PEREN, expecting to find it there. How is it possible it hasn't already been raised and repeatedly? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:49, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

How many editors actively think about copyvios? I suspect the number is quite small. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Sideswipe9th maybe we should list those who should be thinking about it!

1. New page patrollers (one who had been through NPP school had an article copyvio-deleted this week).
2. All DYK reviewers and admins who promote DYK queues. (The speed to get an article to a certain size is a driving factor for some whose motivation is the reward culture.)
3. All FAC, FAR and GAN reviewers. Never mind whether you must spotcheck sources; if you're suppporting an article, you should.
4. Anyone doing WikiProject assessments. I just saw a B-class assessment assigned to a brand new article with a four-sentence lead, two of which contained copyright issues.

What else ? Awareness needs to be raised about the miserable extent of this problem. Someone should rewrite and udpate the old Plagiarism update and ask the Signpost to run it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Commenting on yours in order:

1. NPP and AfC reviewers definitely. I know checking for copyvios is on the NPP flowchart, but I do have to query how many editors actually do it, especially when we have a backlog drive on and reviewers are reviewing articles pretty quickly.
2. I don't know enough about how DYK works to comment, but definitely seems sensible.
3. Yeah absolutely. Any editor doing a FA or GA review should be checking for copyvios as part of that process. I wonder if this could be more formalised into the structure of the review process, like some sort of requirement for the reviewer to say "I checked/I've not checked for copyvios", and for the FA/GA confirmation to be held until someone has done it.
4. This is a tough one, occasionally I'll use WP:RATER when sticking WikiProject banners onto talk pages, and it uses some sort of prediction when adding the banners. I wonder how many editors are just using that versus actually assessing it? For the later, actual assessments yeah that should have a copyvio check done as part of it.

And possible additions:

1. Any editor actively cleaning up the recent contributions of a blocked or banned editor should do a copyvio check on those contributions as part of determining whether or not they should be reverted. Like if the content is obviously disruptive, just revert it, but if it looks plausibly good, run a copyvio check on it.
2. Editors doing recent change patrolling should probably be checking for copyvios when reviewing the diffs, at least for the new contributions.
3. I'm tempted to say that WikiProjects should have dedicated members/teams for this as well, on a per project basis, whom are active beyond the assessment level. When dealing with specialist content, it helps to be familiar with the topic when determining if something is likely a copyvio. This would also fit in nicely with your #4, as there could/should be some overlap there.

The biggest blind spot though, at least with this sort of active encouragement, is the low traffic/low watchlisted article. The sort of article that someone creates, and then no-one really pays attention to until there's some sort of problem, either vandalism or with the original author of the article. While AfC/NPP should catch some of that, if the author has the autopatrolled flag and is inserting copyvios, who is checking their edits before they get hauled up to ANI and CCI? Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I actually think the biggest blind spot is DYK, because that is the specific area where almost every long-term serial copyvio abuser was born. That would be the place to initiate reform, and catch stuff early on. Most of the historical serial offenders are not the first-time editors or the non-English speaking, rather those seeking icons and rewards-- working too fast, not getting seriously reviewed, racking up rewards. Re #3 (FA or GA reviewers), I started pushing on this problem at WT:FAC several years ago, and got so far as to get 1f added to WP:WIAFA, but my proposals for more active source work were rejected. In theory, anyone entering a Support at FAC should be stating whether the article meets 1f. The weakness at NPP seems to be in the area of detecting too-close-paraphrasing, which is why I think the old Signpost dispatch pushed by the then-FAC regulars via the WP:FCDW should be updated and published broadly. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches.

5. Oops, one I forgot; add copyvio spotchecks to anything claiming WP:WIKICUP points. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The only other thing I can think of right now (tis late, my brain is derping and words are hard) would be to maybe have a conversation at Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations asking all of the regulars who investigate and clean up cases where they think the majority of problematic editors are coming from, and what process changes in those areas could catch this sort of thing early before multi-year long cleanup cases are needed. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:14, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe after more general brainstorming here ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Late, sorry, I think the biggest problem atm is Autopatrolled users, either grandfathered in from 2011 or recently granted with a less-than-ideal amount of history review of articles. We can catch everyone else fairly quickly. AP users with cv issues tend to only show up when taken to DYK/GAN/FAC and a reviewer finds it there, or at copypatrol. Sennecaster (Chat) 03:51, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that WikiProject assessments should be especially concerned about copyvios. Every editor should, but this group only at the usual level.

CSD, especially for copyvios, is the primary purpose of NPP. I am concerned that every time we add some extra "little" thing to NPP's workload, their primary purpose gets more and more obscured. The NPP folks are talking with the WMF's Growth team about fixing up Special:NewPagesFeed. I'm not involved, but it's not unusual for this sort of thing to be a round of "give me more bells and whistles" instead of "strip this workflow to the most efficient, effective minimum". I gently suggest that we need less NPP attention on things like adding maintenance tags and tagging for WikiProjects, or even trying to determine notability, so that we can have them focused on speedy deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

My sense is that Barkeep is saying more or less the same ... WhatamIdoing have you looked at MER-C's suggestions below? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

EranBot and CopyPatrol do something similar to the "running every edit through Turnitin" thing, although they don't catch copyvios that are short, minimally paraphrased, translated, and so on. It's fundamentally easier to copy and paste random stuff from the internet than it is to detect and remove it, which means that the CCI backlog is unlikely to ever be resolved. I have to wonder about some of our current approach to copyright and how it would be viewed outside of Wikipedia. I've seen a few complaints on VRT from writers who alleged that Wikipedia had plagiarized their books. In these cases the content was appropriately paraphrased and no informed editor would conceivably argue that it constituted a copyright violation. But the authors were concerned that the Wikipedia page summarized every important point of their book, meaning that no one would have any need to purchase it anymore. That sort of thing strikes me as posing more risk to an author's livelihood than, say, someone copying and pasting a plot summary from IMDB. I'm not proposing that we rework our copyright policies because of this - I just think it's an interesting perspective. Spicy (talk) 00:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Interesting ... a whole 'nother problem. And then there's the guy out there on the lecture circuit profiting unscrupulously by using a page written 90+% by me, and nothing the WMF can offer in the way of tools to help me deal with it. So it works both ways ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Spicy 45.6.2.15 (talk) 14:15, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problems: brainstorming

Ok, have a clearer head now. What have we changed in content review processes to get it to stop, and what are we doing that encourages it? I think this is close to the right question we should be asking. While investing in and attracting more people would solve the current workload problems with CCI, it doesn't tackle the root cause.

For me right now, the question is What aren't we doing to catch this problem early? So there's two examples that spring to mind here that I'm surface level familiar with; Doug Caldwell, and Martinevans. Both are users with very high edit counts (70,556 and 206,311 respectively). Checking and cleaning up each of these editors will take a substantial time and editorial energy investment. While that needs to be done, the pertinent question from a prevention perspective is why didn't we catch this sooner?

So yeah, what is causing us to be unable to detect this sort of problem until we have editors with tens or hundreds of thousands of edits? What can we do to catch this earlier, so that a CCI case only has to check say hundreds of edits, instead of thousands? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Great start. Some partial answers/ideas.

The GA process at least has a major drive underway right now for GA reform: Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023. I don't know if they're doing enough, but at least they're trying, and the new data that Mike Christie is working on should help uncover what reviewers may be pushing faulty GAs up the line without rigorous review.

To my knowledge, nothing has changed at DYK, it has been promoting copyvio for as long as I've been editing, and that isn't going to change unless the community takes a strong stand.

It might be worthwhile to ask Barkeep49 what might be helpful to get NPP or AFC more on board with too-close paraphrasing.

FAC has never been a source of extreme instances of copyvio as have GAN and DYK. I'd like to see stronger sourcing checks there, as in my proposals of a year or so ago, but it's just not a place where this problem needs more focus. The Rlevse/PumpkinSky situation was an oddity that was obscured because of a competent copyedit by another editor.

WikiCup has been at times a problem, but that can be solved by fixing whatever ails GAN and DYK (although It still would be nice if they contemplated adding copyright spot checks).

In summary, change needs to happen at DYK. Looking beyond that at individual cases (which I've been doing lately):

1. When trying to address the Coldwell CCI, one gets unpleasant pushback from DC associates. I'll be bringing forward some proposals when I get a freer moment. Of interest there is that an experienced editor told me that content review processes vetted for copyright, so someone somewhere needs to write up a good description of all the things that Earwig etc cannot detect. I continue to believe we should update and expand the Plagiarism dispatch written by our best IP people in 2009.
2. We should be catching new editor mistakes sooner. I'm up to my eyeballs right now on a situation like that (stop them early) and getting No Help From Anyone, and I'm sure that editor is beginning to feel hounded by me. Do we need a mechanism for getting more eyes on new editors sooner and helping them out? I am to the point of contemplating an ANI post just so I can back out and let someone else take that one on, as it's exhausting.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:23, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I think close paraphrasing is always going to be some level of difficulty to uncover. I think some forms of close paraphrasing are reasonable for a NPP/AfC reviewer to uncover. However, truthfully I think a lot of the kinds of issues we saw with Doug Caldwell require a more thorough version of a review than is reasonable to expect from an NPP/AfC reviewer. I do think it reasonable to expect a GA reviewer to be able to uncover such issues and for the DYK process (whether at the reviewer or at the prep builder level) to uncover. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

But Barkeep, the main wall that GA reviewers hit with editors like Coldwell is the one of WP:AGF on offline sources. Perhaps the review should require them to ask to be sent some offline sources, but I don't think stronger sourcing checks is passing their proposal drive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

If the Caldwell paraphrasing would require a more thorough review than is reasonable from NPP/AfC then how do we detect it early? Not every article is going to be nominated for DYK, GA, or FA, and so that leaves a huge area for that sort of content to be left unnoticed until we have a ten/hundred thousand edit count CCI, which is a different kind of unreasonable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

There are trade-offs to be made between the time a patroller spends on an article and the number of articles they are able to patrol. Copyright investigating and cleanup is a specialized skill for a reason. I think the NPP tutorial discusses the expectations in a reasonable manner. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Would revisiting WP:AGFC be useful? How long must we AGF once copyright issues have surfaced ? Why do we have to have an open CCI before WP:PDEL can kick in ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What is the page name of that place where one can request access to sources (Nikkimaria)? Who are the regulars there; that is, are there editors who can be enlisted to help spotcheck sources in the other processes we're discussing above (DYK, GAN, AFC, NPP etc)? The reason I ask is that I just saw Ucucha popping back in to address an article at URFA/2020, and if Ucucha were still actively editing, I'd have someone I could enlist to help with the editor I'm now frustrated with. That Is. We've lost too many top content editors who have the ability and resources to deal with a growing problem. Another example is the loss of Geometry guy, a sorta kinds defacto GA process Coordinator in the older days, who would have put forward some sort of proposal to deal with this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:REREQ is the place where you can request access to sources. There's a list of editors at WP:REREQ#Reference resources, but I dunno how up to date it is. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:RX (it feels wrong to me to call it REREQ) is a great place, and people are jumping over each other trying to fulfill resource requests. That said, I don't think it's common to request that someone do spotchecks, rather than just cough up the source for the requester to then put in the work. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

So looking at WP:DYK, it seems like there's two strands to it; new articles, and significantly expanded articles. It'd be useful to find out if the copyvios coming out of DYK are predominantly from one of those two strands, or an even split from both strands. For example, if the copyvios are predominently from new DYK articles, then that could imply a problem with the copyvio detection at the NPP and AFC level, because new DYKs should also have gone through that review and clearly they missed something, unless the copyvio content was added after the NPP/AFC review but before the DYK review. However if it's predominantly from expanded articles, which are generally already NPP/AFC reviewed, then clearly that's where we should put more focus on the prevention side.

Looking at the DYK requirements, 4c states that Articles should be free of copyright violations, including close paraphrasing and image copyright violations. So at the very least, it is formally part of their workflow. The DYK checklist that gets attached to every nomination has a yes/no/? field for copyvios and plagarism. Looking at WP:DYKN, there are definitely some editors there running the articles through Earwigs. For example this nomination has been held pending since November due to some plagarism issues with public domain text/block quotes.

So I think I'd need some more data from approved copyvio DYKs before I could speculate more. Is there a specific DYK strand where copyvios are more or less likely? For DYKs that contained copyvios and were approved, was there a copyvio detected and handled during the nomination process? Or was the copyvio undetected for some reason? Or was a copyvio check said to have been done, but no check was actually done? Or is this not a DYK review problem, but instead a DYK effect? Is the review clear, and the copyvio text only being inserted after the DYK hook appears on the main page?

Do we need a mechanism for getting more eyes on new editors sooner and helping them out? Good question. I'd say yes on the principles alone. It might be worth looping Diannaa into this conversation? I know she does a lot of copyright cleanup, and issues a great many {{uw-copyright}} warnings every day. At the very least she may also be able to help you handle the hounding feeling. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I am hesitant to ping Diannaa because she (and all of the CCI people) are so overburdened already. Not sure if we should ping them or not. A few of them have already been pinged in this discussion, so they may be following anyway. I'll leave it to someone to decide whether to ping Diannaa only because I hesitate to wear out my welcome with the blooming pingie thingie. Maybe instead a post at the copyright talk page?

An educational writeup of the shortcomings of Earwig could help.

I'm not sure it matters if a DYK is new or expanded, because what drives the problems that come out of DYK is the reward culture -- the quick and easy "get my work on the mainpage" gratification. Efforts might be better placed to get the throughput at DYK to slow down. Featuring new content on the mainpage made sense in the early days, when growing the 'pedia was a goal. Does it still make sense to have so many editors working to populate DYK, and then so many more editors having to engage the problems at WP:ERRORS? Why are we still doing this? How many of those seeking rewards would stop committing copyvio if they couldn't get that gratification? One interesting bit of data I'd like to see is how many DYKs move on to FAs ... those are the editors who are adding substantial value. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

At some point in this, I think we'll need to get Diannaa, and all of the major CCI people involved, at the very least to hear where they think the major problem area(s) are for undetected copyvios. They may agree with you that it's DYK or some other reward driven process, or they may be seeing it from somewhere else that we've not considered. I wonder if brainstorming a brief set of questions to be asked on the CCI and/or CP talk pages would be a worthwhile exercise here?

I dunno if reward culture is just a DYK and WikiCup problem. I know when we run a NPP backlog, there's a similar leaderboard + rewards for contributing setup that if mishandled could encourage speed over accuracy.

As for the new versus expansion thing, I think it would be helpful to at quantify where the problematic articles are coming from. Those that are new should have had at least two reviews (NPP + DYK), so two sets of eyes looking at the same or similar content. If both of those sets of editors are missing something, beyond the close paraphrasing of offline sources problem, then that might help us track down why two different groups of editors are missing this. If it's primarily the expansion side, then that limits the pool of reviewers to just those involved in DYK, which might help us figure out if this is a process, tooling, or training problem specific to the DYK expansion side.

At the moment there's too many questions like "is DYK too speedy?", "is there a lack of training for DYK reviewers?", "does DYK's process encourage hooks over accuracy?", "is there template or process blindness behind the DKY review causing editors to skip over this step?", or "is this something else entirely?" to try and workshop possible solutions. More data from the underlying DYK process would help us pre-filter out some of these questions when figuring out solutions. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

SS, I just re-read and saw that Diaanna has already been pinged to this discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I am impressed with the format of Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023. If we were to start a list as you suggest in a new section below, would we head that direction? Or too soon? Need data first ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, too many conversation tangents here. Is this a list of questions for the CCI/CP talk pages? Or data gathering questions to more thoroughly figure out the problem spots in the DYK process? Or both? Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm asking you :) :) Do you think we can put together questions before we have data, or data comes first? And where would we get the DYK data ? Or should we not even be assuming that DYK is a big driver of the problem, as the CCI people may disagree? My sample could be biased, as I tend to notice the big CCIs that come from frequent DYKers (including some too frequent close paraphrasing that never resulted in a CCI on one frequent DYKer who basically closely paraphrased NYT obits into DYKs years ago). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:13, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Aaah, following now. For the CCI/CP talk pages, I think the questions are pretty generic, we don't need data to ask questions like "Where do you find the most problematic copyvio edits coming from?". A brainstorm for this would be to figure out the 3-6 important questions that the answers of would help direct us for further investigations. Ideally this would be a short set of questions that would only take maybe 5 minutes to answer.

For the DYK data, we'd be gathering it ourselves. I'd recommend workshopping a series of investigative questions that we could then apply to both the recent known historical problem editors (the "big CCIs that come from frequent DYKers" as you put it from 2022 or a 3/6/9 month period of 2022 if that's too many editors), as well as a snapshot of all DYK nominations over a short fixed period (eg 7 days). We should be looking at things like when was the copyvio detected in relation to the article being drafted/DYK nominated & reviewed/DYK live/post-DYK, were any red flags raised during the DYK review and if so how were these handled at the time, when was the offending text inserted into the article (pre-nom during article drafting, post-nom but pre-hook, during the hook, post hook), were there any DYK process steps skipped or glanced over because the editor in question was a regular, who was involved in the review (is there a specific subset of DYK reviewers that are operating in good faith but are just bad at copyvio detection?). Anything relevant that we can structure into something that we can then use comparatively across the dataset to figure out what (if any) patterns there are. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Great. On the first, how about a new section below on this page to begin gathering samples which we can whittle down before going to the next step? On the second, I hesitate to over-involve myself in the DYK data gathering, as I have been closely involved in past efforts at DYK reform, and feathers could be ruffled. Leaving that to others :) And separately, I was seriously exposed to active COVID a day and a half ago, so I might fall ill any day now ... just saying ! Gonna go get a ton of work in another area done right now as in making hay while the sun shines. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I think feathers have the chance to be ruffled regardless of how we handle this. But as long as we're clear and open about how we gathered the data, and the process used to analyse it, then I think we can keep that at a minimum.

Yeah sections below to work on the questions would be ideal. Or we could move this off to a subpage if you want to stop getting emails/notification pings every time someone replies or edits here. I've got other off-wiki stuff to do now though so won't be able to look at this for a while.

Oh no! Here's hoping that you get lucky and didn't get infected, or that if you did it passes swiftly and mildly. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

In terms of badly-needed DYK reform, I think efforts will be more productive if I am less involved.

For now, I think enough knowledgeable editors are following here that we might get the beginnings of a list here. I fear if we move off to a subpage already, we may lose a few.

Thanks, not so worried about me with COVID, as my 94-year-old dear friend who exposed me :( :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

One of the challenges with this work is that one person's "close paraphrasing" is another person's WP:STICKTOSOURCES. There are editors who think that if a sentence can't be credibly accused of a copyvio, then it should be banned as original research.

One of the general areas that I wish we were stronger in is briefly summarizing long passages. I'd love to see more editors summarizing whole book chapters into a single short paragraph. Doing that eliminates all concerns about copyright violations. But some RecentChanges patrollers and watchlist inhabitants, when/if they check an addition, have been known to object to anything that requires them to read more than a paragraph, and if it's the least bit contentious, they want to see close paraphrasing, and their actions put pressure on editors to engage in close paraphrasing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Mmmm. It's funny, I think there's definitely a subset of editors who see the ALLCAPS shortcut for that, and use it almost as a thought terminating cliche, conveniently ignoring the start of the second sentence that tells us to summarise in our own words. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Sideswipe9th, you'd think someone might write some essays about that kind of WP:UPPERCASE mistake leading to myths that we can't use WP:OUROWNWORDS. (I know WAID is perfectly aware of this mistake and was illustrating flawed thinking with a common example of flawed policy citation).

I agree with WAIDs comment about books, and wish it was easier for us to get hold of (and encourage using) professional textbooks like it is for some editors to get hold of papers. The worst example of plagiarism citing a single sentence in a single source came when I looked at student assignments many years ago. The students, who were taking a first-year university course (and so therefore knew nothing) were asked to find a research paper and insert its findings into Wikipedia. The lack of subject knowledge, the lack of variety of sources and authors, and the inability to summarise what is already just a sentence, meant it was nearly impossible for them to paraphrase, and those who tried often importantly mischaracterised their source. -- Colin°^Talk 20:39, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problems: time spent

Ugh. I just spent two hours of my life rewriting Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, although I couldn't fix all the failed verification and have listed it at GAR for that and comprehensiveness/weighting issues. That one's at least partially my fault, because I performed a bad GA review back in 2020 when I was still newer to the process. The fact that those two hours will constitute most of my wiki time for this week is fairly frustrating, too. Between burnout from complex Yellow Book audits at work, some RL mental health stuff, and the knowledge that I'm at least partially responsible for the Coldwell situation, I feel heavily discouraged. Will probably return to my normal level of activity in mid-February, but at this point I can make no guarantees. Hog Farm _Talk 02:36, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Hog Farm Stop That (stern finger wagging). By the time you came along, the Coldwell Phenom (which is a culture) was already very well established. Hundreds of DYKs and a slew of GAs and people assume the editor is sourcing soundly. Not just you. More than a handful of very good editors. I have no use for blaming individual editors when there is an entire culture built around counting notches in belts. It's the culture that needs to be addressed. And WMF needs to pay people to deal with copyvio. Talk:Battle of Ridgefield-- editor rams through boatloads of cut-and-paste on 20 to 22 May, and it's on the mainpage at DYK in less than a week (28 May 2008). I don't see that anything has changed since Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

PS, and remember, DC used offline sources, so policy forced reviewers to AGF. (That's why a stern FAC copyvio check asks the nominator to supply random bits from offline sources.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:42, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: Please don't beat yourself up over the Doug situation. You aren't responsible for his actions, or his choice to plagiarise offline sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

And by the way, I mentioned above that I hesitated to name all the past exact situations, but one old-time DYK serial problem is very much still active. That's a rub. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I spent my entire morning on yet another one that I came across by happenstance. This is 13 years after we published the Plagiarism dispatch, pulling together all of our best IP people to "get serious". The culture needs to change and something needs to be done. This (no one looking closely) is how the DCs and Billy Hathorns (and over a half a dozen more I can name but won't) come to leave behind big messes that we don't enough resources to clean up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:31, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problems: WMF

Could it be that the reason WMF won't employ someone to find and remove copyright violations is that that would break the claim that they are not responsible for it. They handle formal takedown requests and nothing more. Doing more could be a trap? -- Colin°^Talk 10:10, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I was wondering if the logic was something along those lines (and I notice that WAID didn't answer my query :) Of course, assuming there is some logic may be a stretch here. There must be info out there somewhere on this that we're just not aware of. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This would be my assumption too. WMF has never been responsible for the content on the servers aside from their legal liabilities under the DMCA. Any more moderation, and they'd run into additional responsibilities under Section 230. Given that Section 230 is being litigated in front of the Supreme Court this term, and WMF has filed an amicus brief in the case, I would assume that they won't comment any further until the litigation has concluded. In short, this is something that the community will have to resolve. Imzadi 1979 → 20:39, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah ha ... very interesting info ... thx, Imzadi ... now it all makes more sense.

There must be some sort of workaround involving grants or some funding to editors, not limited only to copyright, and as long as WMF isn't in a position to control edits ... ???? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:57, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Sandy, sorry I've been a bit slow on the DC related stuff, I've been pretty busy recently but should be able to get back to helping with that soon. I just finished reading this mega thread, I'm very happy that you've bringing these issues up and that there's an ongoing conversation about this here. Tomorrow I'll try and answer some more questions, but on the topic of the WMF, I think Colin has it right--employing people to take care of copyvios might make it more of an "issue" for them. Grants and funding are the way to go. But that has me thinking, it'd be nice if we had an advisor or community liaison for copyvio related issues, I don't think that's asking for too much.... Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 08:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Now there's an idea we can run with. Thanks for popping in, Moneytrees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:48, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

More copyvio burnout.

A little good news: I had these software tweaks done: [1][2]. Hopefully temporary blocks for copyvios are less frequent. But that's only one problem fixed. There are the amateurs that just point and click at Earwig and say everything is OK. Our tools currently have too many false negatives, and this creates CCIs that can really only be dealt with using PDEL. There are also the plot summary copyvios, the subcontinental copyvios, and worst of all - the persistent copyvio sockpuppeteers, like Dante8. MER-C 19:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That is truly bad news about Diannaa, but most understandable. I don't know how you all do it. I spent a couple hours this morning on one article only. It is not only amateur editors who misunderstand Earwig; a very experienced editor pointed me to Earwig on a Coldwell article containing copyright issues. It takes hours and hours to go back and locate these very old sources, which are hard to search in various formats used, and PDEL is the only answer when serial issues are found. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:39, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Even then PDEL isn't enough. I can deal with the easy PDELs in a few minutes each (the gadget Who Wrote That makes it easy) but (1) the sheer number means I hesistate to push more than five a day through WP:CP and (2) there are still an overwhelming number of complex cases. From experience, PDEL only halves the work at best. MER-C 11:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

So what can be done? Should we all convene in a sandbox somewhere for brainstorming? I have been working for days trying to nip another new one in the bud. And failing. It's exhausting and demoralizing and I'm too tired to write up the ANi now. There aren't enough of us. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Hooking Earwig up to machine translation would help reduce false negatives and tackle one broad swathe of difficult to detect copyvios. I don't see it being added to Copypatrol - it's another batch of API calls to some external service that will require money to access. MER-C 19:38, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

By the way, halving the work on Coldwell is a tonna work! And, it's the pushback that I find frustrating, which is why we need a consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright problems: DYK datagathering questions

Ok, starting this section to brainstorm and hopefully format a set of questions that we can apply to known bad DYKs, and a snapshot of DYK nominations over a fixed period. Will fill in more momentarily. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Some basic structure first. This is mostly for convenience to quickly get to the relevant article revisions, DYK review, etc.

• Name of article: [wikilink to article name here]
• Date of creation: [link to first revision of the article here]
• Date of copyvio or close paraphrase detection: [link to revision where cv-revdel requested, or close paraphrase first removed]
• DYK nomination status: [approved/rejected]
• DYK Nomination Review: [link to archived completed DYK review of article]
• State of article at nomination: [link to diff of the article at or just prior to it being DYK nominated]
• State of the article after DYK review: [link to diff of the article immediately after DYK review completed]
• State of the article after DYK hook ended: [link to the diff of the article immediately after it left the main page]

Now some questions. Comments/explainers are in italics.

• Did the copyvio or close paraphrase exist prior to the DYK review?
  • This will let us quickly filter out articles where the offending text was inserted after the review
• Was the copyvio or close paraphrase inserted as part of the DYK review?
  • This is a very controversial question, and one I hope we maybe don't have to ask. But if we do ask it, it will give us more info on how the offending text was inserted into the article.
• Was there a copyvio or close paraphrase detected during the DYK review?
  • If yes, was the revision deleted?
  • If yes, was every copyvio or close paraphrase detected during the review?
  • If no, was there mention of a potential copyvio or paraphrase in the review outside of the DYK review template?
    • Note, the three above questions at the level 2 list are optional and dependent on the answer to the question at level 1
• How long after article creation was an issue confirmed and actioned?
• How long after DYK nomination was an issue confirmed and actioned?
• How long after DYK review completed was an issue confirmed and actioned?
• Was the copyvio or close paraphrase from an online or offline source?
  • This one might be difficult to ascertain. In theory it should be determinable from edit summaries that removed the content or the Special:Log entries that actually hid the offending revisions. Where an article had been tagged with {{cv-revdel}} prior to revision deletion, the output of the template should state the source.
• If known, how was the copyvio or close paraphrase detected?
  • Again this might be difficult to ascertain if revisions have been hidden. Checking the DYK review, article talk page, and edit summaries may help. Does copypatrol keep any relevant records here that would help?

That's all I can think of right now. Obviously formatting and phrasing is pretty far from final. And there's at least one question that I hope we don't have to ask, but might give us more insight into how copyvios are getting through DYK. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

That's a bit overwhelming :) Who would gather this data?

I was thinking more along the lines of "how many of Wikipedia's serial copyvio offenders were spawned by the pursuit of rewards via DYK and GA"? I'd rather eat nails than have to look at DYK every day to answer these questions. I just took a look at one queue and it has a DYK hook for a recent GA that contains prose that is gibberish. And the DYK hook is not only incomprehensible, it's probably untrue and it's probably a copyvio from Spanish sources.

At one time, I tracked DYK daily, because every queue had at least one (often more) instances of failed verification, copyvio, or incomprehensible prose. That remains true, 15 years later. I don't want to have to get down to the level of analyzing DYKs to try to figure out how we can stem the copyvio problem. Anyone who doesn't know it's a problem and needs data hasn't been following the main page. What we need to know is whether the DYK process is furthering the problem, or helping teach editors to prepare better articles.

In the article I just looked at, neither the DYK nor the GA review amounted to ... anything. Passed 'em up the line with scant review. Are NPP and AFC doing a better job of vetting articles? What process does a better job of educating editors on policies and guidelines and best practices? How can we reallocate more resources to what works? DYK doesn't; we have 549 Coldwell DYKs as one example. (Those of us who have been around long enough know of quite a few more.). He just kept on doing what he did, and DYK kept on passing them. How we can better focus resources so that we don't have gobs of editors promoting DYK queues so that another gob of editors can file ERRORS reports? And still not catch copyvio, 'cuz no one's looking.

So, I'm confused about who would gather this data as you outline, and what we'd do with it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

For data gathering, whomever volunteers. But at the very least I'm happy to do it, I'd just need feedback on what it is I should be looking for.

So the purpose of this set of questions is to figure out where in the DYK process copyvios and CLOP issues are being missed. If we were to go to them and say something like "Hey, you all have a problem with letting copyvios and CLOP through the nomination and review process. Can you fix that please?" we'd not get much traction, and maybe some heat. However if we can go to them and say "Hey, there's a problem with the DYK process resulting in copyvios and CLOP being undetected. It's coming from [this part of the DYK review process], here's the data that shows how this is happening and how you can replicate our findings. Can this be fixed please?" I think, or I hope we'll have a much more positive response.

I'm not suggesting we look at DYK every day for a set period. What I'm suggesting is that we take a set of known bad DYKs from editors who have been subject to CCI, say around a dozen articles, and use a set of questions like this to determine where the copyvio/CLOP issue originated, and how it was missed at the DYK review. Then we compare that against a sample of recent nominations that have recently fully gone through the DYK process, for example all DYK nominations from 1 January 2023, using the same questions, to see if the same problems exist.

It is my hope that from the two sets of data, we can figure out what it is in the DYK process that is missing these issues. Is it because as you say "no one's looking"? Is it because DYK nominations are getting non-rigorous reviews? Are there DYK reviewers who are AGFing a little too hard on supposedly good/well known editors (eg, "oh that's a Doug Coldwell nomination? Not much for me to check here. Approve.")? Do some DYK reviewers just not have the competency to handle copyvios/CLOP issues when Earwig comes up clean? At the moment we don't know why this issue is arising from that process. Analysing data should help us determine that. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright: Ideas so far

1. Summer internships for law students.
2. A WMF Community liaison for copyright issues.
3. Grants funding editors who work on copyvio.
4. Policy changes (WP:PDEL earlier and easier once a copyvio is found, things like that ... I have spent days trying to rein in a new editor)

   What policy changes might allow us to nip more in the bud ... sooner, easier?

   Are user right limits too lax ?

   Reform AGF? how much copyvio before we suspend AGF and shoot on sight content cited to offline sources.

5. More CCI admins Barkeep49 get the RFA nomination machine moving on copyvio types. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   I've got a candidate with CCI experience who will hopefully run this spring. I'm also always open for recommendations. Additionally I know Moneytrees is active in CCI and is currently trying to do more admin finding. That said, as Money's RfA showed, I think CCI editors going for admin face the challenge that it's easy to be focused on keeping the negative out versus nurturing the positive. On the whole editors who have a story to tell about building, rather than defending, the wiki tend to have an easier go. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Money, a fine admin and fine person who got a thoughtful neutral from me, went to 'crat chat for the same reason a few others did recently: a nominator statement. Presentations which feel less than forthcoming are always a big concern (one wonders what else they don't know). That doesn't happen with your candidates. But I agree that building is the way to go! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Just a thought, and probably a very radical and wild one. What is it exactly that CCI admins need the tools for? Is it primarily for revdeling and blocking? Has there ever been any thought towards unbundling the revdel part of that to a new permission? I dunno what you'd call it, but in scope I'd consider it something like "CCI clerk", a trusted user who can handle some of the burden of actually suppressing copyvios from articles.

   I had this thought when I was looking at the edit filter helper and edit filter manager perms, which allow for trusted non-admins to see (EFH and EFM) and edit (EFM) private edit filters, both of which are actions that are otherwise restricted to admins. Obviously there'd need to be some checks put in place to ensure that the trusted editors who gain that permission don't abuse it in any way, but could this lighten the load on the current set of CCI admins in any appreciable way? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

   I was granted NPR to bypass filter 856, which tags every removal of a copyright tag in mainspace. I was granted PMR after repeatedly pestering admins to move rewrites into place, and even then, I still need an admin to delete the page when I'm done. I run the risk of an admin outright undoing my work and calling it disruptive. There's also an incredibly high level of leeway granted to admins. I burnt out on copyright problems, but I handled a lot of the cases where MER-C's pdel couldn't. There is a much higher chance of me getting blasted on my talk page or dragged to ANI for disruption for removing content without a clear policy ground; the policy ground is that the cases are ridiculously complex or difficult to look into, so I stub it for probable copyvio. People don't take me as seriously as they would DanCherek, for instance, in a copyright situation, because I'm not an admin. It's unlikely to get revdel unbundled even for a highly trusted role; at that point, the scrutiny would just be as bad as an RFA one because it involves deletion. Sennecaster (Chat) 04:00, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

   More CCI admins would help. Even a bit of attrition means serious problems in an area that's already hard work for such a small crew. (I managed to close exactly one CCI in the past year, a process that basically burned me out despite being one of the easy ones!) But I see a few wicked problems the community will have to overcome first.

   First, we need a way to teach copyright to editors so they can develop proficiency and eventually become admin candidates. I don't think there are enough fast community-driven feedback loops in place to meaningfully guide editors. (If the community had a dollar for every time someone stopped at "my Earwig score is only 22%", well we could just hire all the copyright specialists we needed.) I’ve only gotten actual constructive feedback once or twice in the past eight years—this means I have effectively zero idea how I’m doing. Now, this doesn’t personally bother me all that much, but my level of comfort with VUCA situations doesn’t magic away the root-cause problem.

   We also need to get tools into folks’ hands somehow, and that can be challenging. Not sure the community will go for further tool unbundling, and as Barkeep points out RfA can be tough for behind-the-scenes specialists. I wonder if the community has any appetite for a novel approach. Back in 2017, I got reasonably close to submitting an RfA myself, and one thing I considered was de facto unbundling by promising to use the tools only for revdels, G12s, and copyvio blocks. I even drafted a recall process that would have allowed anyone in good standing to have me desysopped if I used the tools for a non-listed purpose. Seemed like one way to assuage potential fears about handing broad discretionary authority to a niche/specialist editor. I remain doubtful that it would have worked, and obviously I didn’t end up doing any of this myself, but if any lurking RfA nomination-writers want to give it a shot with a future candidate, the first "wiae idea" is free :) /wiae /tlk 14:30, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

6. GA/DYK reform: are they pushing more volume than they can handle?
7. WMF funding to develop a better tool for detecting WP:CLOP? Tedious manual work ...
8. Re-write, update, publish in Signpost Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches (the copyright pages are too dense for a new editor)
9. Noticeboard reform. Consider this comment (three lost years), these (untrue) claims, and the complexity of using Wikipedia:Copyright problems. (Aside: wow. Just wow. On the three years.) One can drop a problem at the COI noticeboard or the BLP noticeboard without a lot of work, but just figuring out how to lodge a copyright concern stumps me every time. If XOR'easter could have made a simple, "could someone look into this" post at a noticeboard three years ago ... yes, the CCI folks already have too much work, but would not an easier-to-use noticeboard encourage more of us non-admins to help out ?? The COINoticeboard has saved my sanity more than once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Noticeboards are only useful if someone's there to respond to the plea for help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Hence, my point ... if it were easier, more of us would participate. I engage CCI reluctantly as I'm so afraid to make a mistake and the instrutions are so complicated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   The instructions on copyright problems gives the information of how to handle copyright violations across the entire site. The policy itself says to refer to those instructions. I don't think there's a way to simplify the beginning stuff without a major major rewrite and restructuring. It's doable, but it'd take a while and the people that are most familiar with how the board works and how copyright enforcement happens 'round here may not get to it for months. Sennecaster (Chat) 04:03, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

10. Data for GA and DYK to identify QPQ problems. Editor interaction shows clearly which editors were pushing DC's articles through DYK and GA. Mike Christie's data will be helpful as well. When a nominator puts up a GAN or DYK, how to add Mike's data showing frequent collaborators. The trends with DC are apparent via editor interaction, so having this info incorporated into the review might discourage unhealthy QPQ. Some of DC's collaborators have CLOP issues themselves, and should not be reviewing at DYK or GAN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    I posted this at ANI back in September: Not being familiar with CCI discussions I don't want to pontificate but I would have thought PDEL should be the default. If breaking copyright rules doesn't get you a scarlet letter, doesn't require you to fix your own messes, doesn't stop you from editing, and leaves your bad edits in place (since we don't have the manpower to clean most of it up), what is the incentive not to break those rules?. By "scarlet letter" I meant that the CCI page names are anonymized so nobody knows you're to blame. I think at least one of those four things should change. Has there ever been a case where someone unwilling to cooperate by fixing their own messes has continued to edit and been productive? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:12, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    By the time it reaches that point, the editor may already be blocked. Once blocked, they're usually faced with a choice between "volunteering" to clean up the mess, or staying blocked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    That sounds more than plausible, but do you think that happens because we don't bring down the hammer quickly enough? In other words, as soon as a CCI is opened the editor is expected to contribute significantly to the clean up, and if they don't they're blocked? They can edit elsewhere too at the same time, I'm thinking. If my kid were to take a stick and run around the garden lopping the heads off flowers, I'd make them help replant as necessary, and I wouldn't hide it from the rest of the family, give them the free run of the garden, and leave the damaged flowers on the lawn. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    When given a chance, they often demonstrate that they aren't able to paraphrase and summarize sources in their own words. Now, in the good news dept, I just investigated the editor I mention below. Arb sanctioned for other behavioral issues, failed RFA where I gave a copyvio example no one else picked up on (which was happening daily at DYK, but there was never a CCI), came to my talk page, I gave them a stern talking to, and current editing of the same type of articles from the same types of sources reveals ... no problem! There you go ... a success story ... not that the old stuff has been cleaned up, though. The problem with most of the editors who end up blocked, and same with DC, is that their friends defend them, and the stern talking to doesn't sink in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    When given a chance, they often demonstrate that they aren't able to paraphrase and summarize sources in their own words.. Then I'd say they have no place editing here. If after Doug's first CCI we'd required him to fix his own work and found that he couldn't, and he'd been blocked as a result, there would be a lot less to clean up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    That's a good question. The most prolific serial DYK offender I used to follow (a decade ago) is still editing, but I don't think there was ever a CCI. Need to do more homework to see if there were any sanctions and if the copyvio continues. People at DYK wanted my head then (there was daily copyvio on the main page, and then Rlevse happened, and the rest of what happened to FAC is history), so I solved my copyvio angst by trying to never again look at DYK. It would be nice if we could get a list of the serial offenders. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

11. Machine translation for Earwig. Probably on a single source basis at first to control costs. MER-C 17:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
12. A write up explaining the limitations of Earwig; too many content reviewers have no understanding of what Earwig canNOT detect. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:36, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Copyright issues: Other discussion

Hi, I just read through this conversation with interest - lots of food for thought. I've been chipping away at Martinevans123's copyright investigation, assessing 2-3 pages at a time out of tens of thousands, and it strikes me that I'm never going to make any sort of serious dent in it. Then there's the Edelmand case, which was only uncovered because I've got the same books sources as they use, and was shocked to discover wholesale rampant plagiarism which wouldn't be uncovered by automated tools - ever. I think that's hardly been looked at, because it doesn't involve a high-profile editor and I didn't raise the issue at somewhere like ANI before I set up the investigation. The backlog at CCI stretches back years, actually decades, people get burned out by such an unpleasant slog, that I'm really at a complete loss to suggest what to do. Meanwhile, the "free" encyclopedia is being made a laughing stock by hosting blatant copyright violations that nobody (broadly construed) can be bothered to get rid of.

Incidentally, the biggest problem with Earwig is on any established article, you're likely to find the top one or two hits to be Wikipedia mirrors, which will give you the impression that the article is nearly 100% copyvio and flag the entire screen in red. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:17, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Ritchie333, Earwig is useless in dealing with our serial copyviolators, and too few content review editors and processes understand its limitations. The DC CCI is progressing amazingly well (that is, at least compared to other CCI cases) in terms of the amount of content already looked at and deleted. Part of the reason we have been able to move so quickly is the AN consensus we got per WP:DCGAR. But we need to do more to prevent the next Billy Hathorn, DC, etc ... I have been socked in with IRL work for weeks, but am keeping this thread on the page as I intend to work on #Copyright: Ideas so far whenever I get a breather. For now, when I come home after a long day, I try to get six to ten DC articles looked at ... anyone who wants to join the effort, a) prepare to see some of the worst content you've ever seen, and b) dig in with us at the talk page of WP:DCGAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:36, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Any work to get rid of copyright violations on Wikipedia is good. The problem with Doug Coldwell is I've never interacted with him - I notice I called for an indefinite block at ANI last year, but that was in an uninvolved administrator role. I don't think I've ever read anything he's ever contributed to, at least not consciously. So I'm not sure where to start, if I'm honest. Martin's CCI is easier, as he's got overlapping interests to mine, such as British geography and music. I find it a bit easier to work on those as I can simply identify the relevant text and copyedit it, making any possibility of copyright violation moot. I wouldn't be able to do that with DC's articles as I'm completely unfamiliar with the subject matter. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:01, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Sandy – thanks for all of the work you have done recently in this thread, at GAN, and elsewhere regarding this issue. Regarding your suggestion above about writing up an essay about the limitations of Earwig in detecting issues, I had started to write up some notes and I have now stuck them in my userspace here – if you or your talkpage stalkers want to use that as the basis for something then feel free to have at it! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing issues

Following up from my FAC. Where can I find guidance on how to prevent close paraphrasing? Is there a common method for pulling info from a source that can avoid this? I read WP:FIXCLOSEPARA. It helps demonstrate what the problem is, but I find it really unhelpful with actually fixing the issue, primarily because it doesn't offer much guidance on how to combine sources while maintaining source-text integrity for each individual inline citation. Obviously there's an answer to this, but apparently this is an area where I struggle. I'm especially concerned because I have written eight WP:Good articles using these same sources, all of which passed fairly easily (lending credence to my theory that GA as a process is broken at a fundamental level). I don't want to burden you too much with all of this, but I'd like to know if there's a typical solution for this problem. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:07, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I was just trying to find just that for you ... someone recently typed up a very good summary that I've been trying to find. Maybe one of my TPS remembers. The gist being to read all your sources, then set them aside and write in your own words what you remember without consulting the sources (so you know you get your own phrasing), and then go back and doublecheck that what you wrote conforms to the sources, adjust from there. That is, don't write with the source in front of you; you've got to read, remove yourself from the source, get away from it to write, then come back to it to check. Please feel free to burden me all you like; I am always pleased to see an editor grow through constructive feedback at FAC. I'm going to keep poking around to see if I can find that summary I saw recently from a better writer than I am (well, that's pretty much everyone :) Back in my day, we wrote this, but it may not give the practical info you seek ... maybe a TPS will pop up to help. I used to be so fearful of paraphrasing that I tended to overquote, probably still do, so hang in there ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I take it back ... I had forgotten there are some practical tips in there; hope it helps. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I just finished reading the Signpost dispatch. I definitely see what the problem is and why it's a problem. But the description of how to write without paraphrasing just doesn't feel intuitive to me. Presumably my workflow of "read one source, add relevant facts from that source, move on to the next source" isn't viable. Overall, I'm just overwhelmingly frustrated with Wikipedia's philosophy of "keep doing it wrong without guidance until someone comments on it months or years later". I can't help but wonder how many other regular editors are doing this without realizing it, because GA reviewers never seem to know how to look for it and apparently it's not really something that's closely scrutinized outside of first time FACs. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Don't be frustrated .. sit on it for a day or two, do something else in the meantime, and come back to it. It will come together. It sounds like your work style is like mine: linear processing. I also tend to put one source on my desk in front of me, and chunk in everything I want to use from that source before moving on to the next one. But I've learned that I first have to have in my mind the big picture, an outline that is mine, not the sources ... perhaps that's easier in medical writing because we have such a well-defined structure. You will find your way through this, because you're determined. It's always good to be on a new learning curve, and the good news is you will now move beyond GA :). A good way to spend your learning time is reviewing other FACs, by the way. Sometimes you can spot things even if you're not sure how to fix them ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

With close paraphrasing, there is always a balancing act between not making the text overly similar to the source on the one hand, and the need to avoid writing original research, stilted prose and the fact that sometimes there is really only one way of saying a thing. In cases where you have a closely paraphrased text, some thinking about alternative formulations and then a total rewrite is a good approach. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia or any TPS: is there an efficient way to determine whether there's close paraphrasing in other articles I've written? I'm hoping that the issue is limited to the first lady articles that I've written (due to the nature of biographical articles and the sources that I've been using for them), but it's always difficult to tell when it's your own writing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Will answer roll answer in below with Christine's query. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:56, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Larataguera, re your query here, moving discussion to here as the FAC has archived. I wasn't concerned enough about those instances to remove the text as copyvio; I can't say why-- it's just one of those "you know it when you see it" things. What was indicated by Victoriaearle was easily fixable and didn't seem to rise to the level of removal. The concern in this case is more related to getting a first-time FAC nominator on the right track. I also don't think of myself as any sort of expert in this area ... still learning myself :).

I love your username; it's poetic and musical and strong at the same time. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:29, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll second Sandy's suggestion about reviewing other people's FACs, or even just following along if it's something on which you have sources available, and seeing how that editor reworked the text from the sources into their FAC. It helps a great deal if you have a fairly well-defined structure to use as a base.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:40, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing has always been something I've struggled with as well. Would doing an Earwig check help with it? Perhaps comparing your work with it could be an easy way to make sure your work doesn't sound too much like your sources? Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:30, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The answer to several queries above is a depressing, "no, there is no easy way". There are some tools that can help a bit, but no tool that will really pick up close paraphrasing, and not at all when the sources are scans like, for example, from newspapers.com. One should always run Earwig but recognize that it can't look at scans, and rarely detects too-close paraphrasing. Ditto for the duplication detector, although it might pick up a bit more if you set the word count low and remove quotes, but you have to check each source. But neither of these tools will pick up duplication of structure. The most egregious examples seen in the WP:DCGAR CCI are entire paragraphs where a few words are juggled.

As you can see, there's a whole big long rant and thread on this page at #TPS alert/rant: CCI work. Because after DYK let through more than 500 articles, and GAN let through more than 200, over more than a decade-and-a-half, we end up with WP:DCGAR, and that is by no means the first such example. That's why we have tried to put our heads together to come up with ideas above. Trying to read through low resolution newspapers.com scans to pick up too-close paraphrasing and copyvio that has gone undetected for years and decades is a miserable chore, and there are only about four very active admins and a few others trying to do it all.

So after spending a disgusting month in the bowels of some of the worst content I've ever encountered, and seeing the laxity in most (not all) GA reviews, I have to ask what purpose GA and DYK serve, if they don't serve to catch copyright issues early on-- before the problems become huge-- and these processes clearly do not. In fact, via the reward culture, they encourage editors to churn out content too fast for careful checking. And I wonder if the most active editors in those two processes really care ? There are several very active GAN editors helping in the cleanup, but almost no one from DYK. This situation might be understandable were it rare: it's not. DYK has been churning out serial copyright violators for as long as I've been editing, and not a thing has changed. We're still cleaning up copyvio from serial DYKers from a decade ago. After DCGAR, we know the same applies to GAN. And without Ealdgyth, one can wonder when the next FAC scandal will hit.

The answer to your query is all you can do is be aware, use what tools we have, go back and re-read your writing, and watch for same in all content review processes.

And don't beat yourselves up; it's something everyone struggles with, and it's those who don't care or can't change that we have to worry about. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Butting in, I mostly follow (although off-line and via text files) Victoria's habit of reading a load of sources and then memory dumping in own words. This is to me the ideal approach. Creating articles in the 400 to 1000 word count range usually takes 5 to 6 hours (although YMMV): imo if its taking less than that something is wrong. Ceoil (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Butting in: User:Victoriaearle/Tutorial is a different sandbox that might be more helpful. I dumped a bunch of links there some years ago when helping someone with the issue of writing in your own words and just added a quick step-by-step process. Basically it's always best to read a source thoroughly, walk away (so as to forget the specific wording in the source), take notes in your own words, then repeat with each source. Victoria (tk) 20:52, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Eyes at prostate cancer

Hi Sandy and hopefully some page watchers. Just an update to past promises I've now wrapped up the heavy text editing at prostate cancer. If you – or anyone watching the page – have time to read it through and let me know what you think, I'd be grateful. Comments large or small are welcome.

I haven't much touched the images yet, as I tend to struggle with what makes for helpful visual display. If folks have any ideas for that, please do let me know. Otherwise I'll try to work through them this week (time to make another map for the epidemiology section, *sigh*). My hope is to bring this to FAC whenever it's ready. Thanks for all you do! Ajpolino (talk) 14:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Ajpolino-- awesome. I am drowning right now in terms of not being able to keep up anywhere, so I hope others will jump in, and I'll get there as soon as I can. Noting that I have a COI (husband) and think the USPSTF really missed the boat before 2018, which cost my husband a nasty time (although radiation treatment got things under control after a very miserable year). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

PS: one is six men will get prostate cancer, and yet it doesn't get nearly the attention of breast cancer, so I hope this article will get the attention it deserves. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I believe the prevalence numbers are much higher than that, with at least 80% of men in their 80s having slow-growing, localized prostate cancer. Given the expected lifespan of about 80, that suggests that at least 40% of men will get prostate cancer, and only a small fraction of them are getting diagnosed.

The breast cancer lobby has been a marketing powerhouse for several decades, but the public health difference is in the Years of potential life lost: 200K US women die from breast cancer each year, with a median age in their 60s. 150K US men die from prostate cancer each year, with a median age in their 80s. Breast cancer has about 5x YPLL than prostate cancer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

RfC: La Patilla

Although still messy, La Patilla's RfC was continued at WP:RS/N (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Reliability of La Patilla, in case you were interested in participating. Best wishes! NoonIcarus (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I have been watching as able (that is, I have been crazy IRL busy and having a hard time keeping up anywhere), but the POV warrioring by a few editors in there have made me not even want to weigh in ... WP:BLUDGEONing in action is discouraging, and it takes so much effort to refute ... <sigh> ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

For archival purposes, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Archive this too; NoonIcarus already pinged you to be involved in the discussion, though you defended them and said that you were not already notified. But you've been busy and might not have noticed. Sorry, that was the red flag for me. WMrapids (talk) 02:20, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I encourage you to read the top of my talk page; pretty much everyone knows I can't or don't keep up with pings. Especially lately. But thanks for sharing. You know what's cute? Removing all posts and attempts to discuss from your own talk page, and then coming to mine to continue discussion. If you don't want to discuss, then don't. But then don't bother others either.

And if I was already notified, along with everyone else, there goes your canvassing claim anyway. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

NoonIcarus, this is why I stopped editing Venezuelan articles. It's exhausting to have to clean up endlessly biased editing, and getting no help because most of the information is in Spanish so others don't see what is going on. Re-engaging just one tiny article makes me remember why Venezuelan editing makes me not want to be here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

My experience luckily hasn't been so negative. It's been years since I didn't see a dispute go to such lengths, and I think that the last time was during the start of the presidential crisis, along with all the international attention and controversy (although admittedly it was a time where I think I could deal better with it, and those times weren't very pleasant either). I'm sorry to know that you've felt unmotived, knowing how valuable and experienced you are as an user. With the last exchanges I hope that the situation can improve. As always, please let me know if I can lend a hand. Kind regards and happy editing <3 . --NoonIcarus (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Having to spend hours and hours and hours cleaning up POV and tendentious edits, when the rest of the Wikipedia doesn't care (partly because they can't read the sources), is what made me give up before. The cleanup I had to do on one small article in the last 48 hours is just not a productive use of time; when you look at any article in the Venezuelan suite, they've all been biased by a small core of dedicated POV warriors, the cleanup needed is endless, and I don't have the time or interest in spending my days around such poor editing which is just depressing work because it's everywhere and feels unfixable-- even more so now that it has become so hard to find sources without old reliable sources like El Universal, El National, or Venevision. All I get as a result of trying to clean up is an article which shows me as the lead editor, but is still POV and not the kind of quality I want my name attached to. It only takes two days around Venezuelan topics to remind me of why they suck my soul dry. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:01, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

PS, maybe Ealdgyth can compare this to the Polish mess, which she ultimately walked away from, and give me some insights. I've walked away for years at a time, and got brought back in to one small article via an RFC ping, and it makes me want to not edit at all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:04, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I admit that these issues have been the most frustrating for me. I've tried forgetting them, planning to fix them later and progressively, although accepting that it will take work over a long period of time, possibly years. If Ealdgyth has suggestions, regarding this, I would love to hear them. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I am contemplating whether I have the fortitude to re-engage to at least make sure living Venezuelan persons aren't maligned and defamed, but this week has shown me that even that limited engagement could cost all my free time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:14, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Polar bear peer review

Hi, would you be able to peer review the article? Thank you. LittleJerry (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

WikiLeaks edit

As an act of good faith, I wanted to inform you about this edit. After reviewing WP:BLP, I believe that I presented the information in a neutral manner while sticking to the sources, though I wanted to notify you to see if you had any concerns. Thanks! WMrapids (talk) 05:15, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids, thanks for the note, but if that is an act of good faith, then you are mightily confused about both WP:BLP and WP:RS, as I explained here. As this has already been raised at ANI, where I suggested you should not be editing BLPs, I hope this won't happen again. You *must* take BLP policy seriously, and you cannot impugn a living person with statements coming from Venezuelan state media, which has been shown over and over and over again at WP:RSN to not be reliable, much less the quality required to make a negative statement about a living person. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:59, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

This is why I notified you! My intention was to place something sourced from the Venezuelan government/official in response and not just a nebulous "state media" opinion, so I hope you can recognize my effort at least. WMrapids (talk) 06:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

WMrapids I may be repeating myself from months ago, but you need to slow down. The minute you add something to Wikipedia about a living person, it is in history until or unless an admin WP:OVERSIGHTs the edit. You must be more careful about editing BLPs. I am willing to accept you did this in good faith, but you don't have a good grasp of BLP policy yet, so PLEASE suggest your edits on talk before installing them. Do you understand that lying is policy for Venezuelan state media? Have you read the sources explaining the censorship, distortion, outright fabrications, framing of people to force them into exile, etc? You have just installed another edit using a government-sourced Wordpress to refute four secondary sources. This cannot continue; please stop editing Venezuelan BLPs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The prize is government-operated, so this is directly from the organization itself. The source was also the only one that provided the years mentioning Bocaranda's participation. Sources often misattribute awards, especially if they were presented decades ago and there is little independent documentation specifying the details. If you could find additional information, it would be greatly appreciated, but this is the best that I have found so far.--WMrapids (talk) 06:36, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

It is a WordPress; not common for Venezuelan government sources. And the dates and titles you give aren't what I see in the WordPress, even if that source could be used. Please discuss on article talk. You are still not digesting that in Venezuela, the government controls all information, and archives at what once were real newspapers are gone. Rewriting history is the name of the game. You can't use a WordPress from a Bolivarian Government person to refute four independent sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

It's August

Can we please start a FAR for Minneapolis this week? We've worked on it for three years, and I would like to wrap this up. I am home now with my books. I can't explain the absence of the other Minnesota editors. (Elkman is overdue but busy at work.)

• Added to the parks section due to a visitor's comment and a new source.
• Enhanced the Guthrie Theater, and wonder about your comment, "I've spent my life in theatre". In what capacity?

Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:00, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

SusanLesch I will try to launch the FAR when I have a free moment, but I'm not in a mood to want to face the endless endless seen before; I'll need to review talk to see if it has stopped yet. I think generally all of the good Minnesota editors, who build the FA suite 15 years ago, have pretty much moved on. I don't have an interest in working on the Guthrie article ... Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Sandy, what I was trying to tell you is that the Guthrie deserved more than the sentence we had. Now it's a para with an image.

To your other point, I am certain that the stress has cost me years of my life (anything prolonged is bound to). Sadly, the net effect is about zilch (amounting to zero positive contribution). On the bright side, that sockpuppet is blocked. Everything is quiet now, and I hope neither one surfaces at FAR. Best wishes, SusanLesch (talk) 13:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know how you kept going through that; at least I only had to peek in occasionally. I am (hopefully) nearing the end of dealing with some good stuff that kept me insanely busy for two months, and should be able to get to this before the week ends. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:10, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Change in scenery?

Given our recent discussions on WP:BLP, was wondering if you wanted to take a look at this article? The whole situation is strange and unfortunate, but it could be a nice change in scenery for you? WMrapids (talk) 02:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

That's among the most embarrassing BLPs I've read since I can remember, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it actually run at DYK, where stuff like that is encouraged. Marginal sources throughout, and the the lead doesn't even make sense ... what nine-year-old is in charge of their public entity? When writing about a child, there should be nothing but the very highest quality sources used; what a Daily Maily-style embarrassment to Wikipedia. Why would you call my attention to this; why would anyone want a "change of scenery" to engaging smut? Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Lil Tay. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Only wanted to ask for your help on the article as I was attempting to protect the image of a child's WP:BLP. You didn't need to be harsh about that... WMrapids (talk) 02:56, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for the harshness, but regret that I have no interest in editing tabloid articles. Thank you for doing what you could in defense of that poor child; one can only imagine what kind of parents have allowed things to get to that state with a nine-year-old. My "harsh" response was borne of being woken in the middle of the night by the dog, and being repulsed by what I read there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

You are needed...

You know Sandy, if you were to apply for the admin bit would really invigorate the content creators into applying for admin positions. It would also pull in line the admin corps, who would really value your experience, comments and direction. I am just coming back here to harass you :) More to say hi and pass on love and good wishes (and to check if you might change your mind still on the bit). Lourdes 08:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)