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Close paraphrasing allegation of Ruth Glass article
Hi. :) I've had a look at the conversation and the article, and I've seen these kinds of situations before. Except when there's straightforward copy-pasting, there's always going to be some disagreement over when the line is crossed and how much. There's not an admin or an editor who works copyright (that is, heavily, since I've been involved) that I have not disagreed with at some point or the other, and I'm pretty sure they've all had moments of disagreeing with me. :) This is pretty normal considering that there's often dissenting opinion even in the Supreme Court when these cases go to trial. I've seen articles blanked that I thought should not be and others marked clear that dropped my jaw.
I believe that the first edit needed to be revised to further separate it from the source. This is not wrongdoing of any kind on the contributor's part; it's a delicate skill to rewrite from scratch without heading off into original research. :/ I would not have left him the cp template; we don't really have a template for this situation. :( I have a few stock phrases I use, but I don't even have a template of my own. I suspect that what TransporterMan is responding to is the sense that incremental variations on a work can create an unusable "derivative". When you can trace the development of material, that's sometimes a problem. It's obvious that you were making good progress, and I would have myself been inclined to wait for you to finish and see if I still had concerns, but if I were in your position (and when I have been, in the past :D) I'd just go on to finish in the temporary space.
One thing I'll warn you about in terms of doing these rewrites, because it is a subtle danger: sometimes incrementally altering the sentences in a close paraphrase can leave you still with the overall structure of a source. For that reason, I will myself generally try to find a new way of ordering the information we get as well as varying up the language. The only time there's no worry about this is when the structure of the original is purely non-creative. In this case, I'm not sure, for instance, why the information on the term gentrification is in the last sentence of the source. Is that chronologically when this occurred in her life? I'd probably haul that information up to the top of the article with some kind of "best known for blah and blah as well as for coining the term "gentrification". And one of my favorite techniques for addressing paraphrasing is drawing in information from a couple of more sources. First thing I look for: can I find a few facts somewhere else that aren't published in the suspected source? If so, I work them in immediately. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)22:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine. My next move was going to be to shift the comment about gentrification in the first paragraph, because it is a significant term and it is alleged that she introduced it. Thereafter, the article creator had already provided sources that could be dug into & in fact the source that the complainant picked up on was a precis of the much larger ODNB article that has a bundle of content in it. I just feel that the entire reporting situation was all done a little on the quick side.
I'm not keen on people jumping on newbies within 10 minutes, but jumping on someone who has been around for a while within that timespan really irked me. Stick it on a watchlist and revisit in 12 hours, or even a couple of hours, would be my reaction. That is what niggled me: the CSD came while it was obvious that edits were going on and then the full-blown copyvio report went in while I had joined in and had commented on the reporters' talk page. I do accept that differences will occur but this has the "stink" of a new page patroller who is being unduly diligent and it worries me. There are rules and there are realities. It is a fine line.
I will restart the entire thing from scratch, mainly because I am serious "narked" about what has happened here. I know nothing about the woman but am, at least relative to the average Wikipedian, sh*t hot with sourcing. You know me a little by now, I think: I am totally "pro" dealing with copyvios etc and the extent of them has driven me to despair on occasion. This occasion was not one of them. It was a hasty, unconsidered piece of trigger-happy notification. Something that, I think, we are all guilty of from time to time but is worrying if the person is indeed contributing primarily in a NPP role. - Sitush (talk) 23:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quick is a problem. And I share your concerns about biting, whether the contributor is new or not. We don't want to sour the experience of contributing on Wikipedia to anybody who is working in good faith...the ideal goal is to repair the problem, keep the contributor. And I certainly know that you are very diligent in dealing with copyright problems. :) I appreciate your work there.
Sometimes in working copyright problems I have encountered people who seem to me overly diligent or who have become very angry dealing with those who actually have violated our copyright problems. It's a very tricky balance; we want and need new page patrollers who are conscious of copyright issues. They provide tremendous value to the project, too. It can be hard to both validate the work they do (so they don't stop doing it) and encourage them to approach it differently (so they don't run off innocent or salvageable contributors). Pointing out when you disagree with is important. And it's even more important to interact with the contributors you feel have been "bitten"; I appreciate your doing so. (I very much regret this situation, for instance. That was awful. :()
I understand how you feel; really, I do. I've had content actually deleted after I had become involved with it. I've had to bite my tongue and dig for my diplomacy more than once. --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks both for taking this matter seriously. Past encounters at Wikipedia have made me reasonably robust but being "bitten" is still an unpleasant and deterrent experience. MRG's intervention in a recent situation not only mollified me but helped make me a lot more aware of and respectful of copyright issues (whatever my reservations in principle). I know other people less determined than myself (particularly non-native Anglophone contributors) who sadly have abandoned Wikipedia after getting a "working over". Heavy-handed "law enforcement" is as counter-productive in Wikipedia as it is in the real world. Opbeith (talk) 07:08, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, and amen. This kind of situation makes me sad. I've got some major goals for my work on Wikipedia in weeks to come. I'm making lists. :) One of the things I hope to be doing is talking to a few groups that I'm hoping can coordinate more closely—Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, Wikipedia:New page patrol and any other project I can come up with that regularly interfaces with newer users—in the hopes of generating some good discussion about how to encourage and retain new users. I'm also hoping that Wikipedia:WikiProject user warnings will help evaluate our templates to make sure that the balance is good between "education" and "encouragement". Even our copyright templates need work in that direction. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, would like to thank Moonriddengirl for her caring and thoughtful analysis. I don't entirely agree with everything that was said, but you might be surprised at just how much with which I do agree. On the quickness / biting issue and what might be done to be more welcoming to newcomers I've stated my opinion and reservations in this thread and won't belabor the point further here. While this instance with Ruth Glass may make me look a bit bitey, I'd like to point out that I have a track record of trying to give newcomers who show some bona fide interest in really improving the encyclopedia at least some advice and encouragement. See, for example, this and this and this. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I do have to admit that I got one thing wrong in this case. I was, perhaps, a bit more certain in my reaction to the close paraphrase copyvio than I might have otherwise have been with some other editor because of the number of copyvio (and other warnings) on Msrasnw's talk page. I came away from seeing them with the impression that s/he was cavalier, frivolously sloppy, or had a "if you catch me I'll fix it" attitude, indeed to the point that in the heat of things I was considering reporting him/her to WP:CCI. Having taken a closer look I've now come to believe that those problems were far more innocent than they appeared on first blush and that the creator appears to be a good-faith, hard-working editor with a enviable sense of kindness. I was wrong, I believe, about him/her and I'd like to admit it here and apologize to him/her for my false impression even though I never expressed it before now. That is not to say that I would have done anything different if I had had the correct impression about Msrasnw from the beginning, but I do want to admit and apologize for misjudging him. Respectfully, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thanks for joining in the conversation. :) First, let me say that there have undoubtedly been people who have felt bitten by me in copyright work over the years. Some of them probably have been; others, maybe not. I try to be careful and conscious of these issues, but we're human. Sometimes things don't transpire the way we'd like; sometimes, they aren't received the way we meant. I've seen your work, too, and just like Sitush I know you to be good at your self-imposed job. :D I would be sorry if you came away from this feeling like you've been globally misjudged; this seems to be a disagreement over how to handle a particular situation.
Fact is, we don't have good tools for addressing close paraphrasing. We do have a tag that can serve ({{close paraphrasing}}) but it is not widely publicized; I don't know if it's even mentioned at WP:CP. We don't have any kind of template or recommended approach, really, for talking about this with people, and it's one of the most difficult areas to discuss. Straightforward copy-pastes are simple. There's not much room for disagreement over whether copying happened. :) It's all down to determining if the content is free for use.
Recklessly categorizing off the top of my head, we have two kinds of people who have problems with close paraphrasing: (a) good faith contributors who don't know they are doing anything wrong, and (b) contributors who don't care that they're doing anything wrong. Sometimes, group (a) can be instructed in community norms to stop close paraphrasing. Sometimes (sadly) they can't. :/ Our challenge is to present group (a) with a means of instruction that is as effective as it can be without angering and alienating them. I have a couple of "form letters" I tend to use as the base of my approach (this one, freshly tweaked; the one immediately above it). Maybe these can be tooled somehow into an actual template, or maybe we should add a section to Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing about how to discuss it with others. It's hard. The ill-will generated by close paraphrasing concerns played no small factor, in my opinion, in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket. :/ We need to figure out some way to help these conversations go smoothly, with good outcomes for the person who placed the content and the person who noticed it, which is all to the best for Wikipedia. I'm very open to ideas from anybody to that end. I really do hate to see conflict between people who are just trying to help the project. Much better when we can find ways to eliminate it. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:44, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Moonriddengirl, even if you don't tweak the letters into a template, you could add your two form letters to the appropriate pages as examples of how to discuss paraphrasing issues with the apparently-plagiarizing editors. I'd offer to write it into a template completely myself but that's not one of my strong suits. I can maybe try to find someone who'd be willing to do a template or walk me through it if you like. Just let me know, Shearonink (talk) 15:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestion; I'll go ahead and add them in. :) I don't know about templates; ideally, we'd like people to offer examples, and that's just difficult to do at any length in a template. :/ I don't know enough about templates to know if we could easily make it work. --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've checked it over & it seems fine to me. These things are never going to be easy to deal with, either in terms of handling the contributor or with regard to filling in the blanks. Yours is a good effort. About 99% better than I could do (the 1% deduction is due to my ability to create wikilinks). - Sitush (talk) 16:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree and I like it. Despite what happened in this case, I rarely encounter close paraphrases which appear to be good-faith, so I'll find the language to be of limited utility. However, I've looked at the {{db-g12}} CSD tag, the {{nothanks-sd}} user page G12 notice, the {{copyviocore}} template, and the {{Nothanks-web}} user page copyvio notice and none of them address close paraphrasing. I suspect that many even good-faith editors don't know that close paraphrases aren't acceptable and I wonder if we shouldn't work towards getting some language in each of those templates about close paraphrasing. I fear, however, that we'll strike a lot of resistance changing them at all and also fear that making them longer will just cause fewer people to read them at all. Your "form letter" on the talk page of the editor may be the most effective thing to do. Thank you for doing it. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that if I were a newcomer to Wikipedia that I'd understand it all, particularly the sentence about using temporary space at the article's front. Also it would be useful to give a *very brief* explanation of what the basic issues are, in particular the issue of other people's use of material made available through widely reproduced Wikipedia articles - for someone who isn't familiar with the issues it's not easy to see why the way people normally cut and paste useful information they want to pass on to someone else should be regarded by Wikipedia as such a major problem. Opbeith (talk) 07:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is "rightsholders" a word? I've never seen it before, but over here in the UK we use English English & have done for quite a long time. - Sitush (talk) 11:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is yes. :) Sometimes you see it hyphenated (rights-holders). Sometimes you see it with a space. I had inserted the space, but decided to remove it until we talked about. Rightsholders is a legal term for somebody who owns copyright; rights holders seems to be used in that and other contexts. So "rightsholders" may be more correct, but "rights holders" would also work. Which do you think would be less jarring to our readers? Or is there another term that is more user friendly? --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd probably use "copyright holder" or "holder of the copyright(s)". But I am not fussed: as long as it is a word and its meaning fits the context then who am I to arguedebatecontestdispute it. ;) - Sitush (talk) 11:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just ran into an edit conflict as I was about to say the same thing as Sitush, per the following - (1) I really like the intro "As the website is widely read and reused, Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, to ensure that we protect the interests of rightsholders as well as those of the Wikimedia Foundation and our reusers." That's succinct and meaningful. I wonder, though, if it might be helpful to apply belt and braces and refer to "copyright-holders" even though the meaning of rightsholders should be clear from the context. (2) "Wikipedia's copyright policies require that the content we take from non-free sources, aside from brief and clearly marked quotations, be rewritten from scratch." suggests that absolutely everything not completely reworded has to be in quotation marks. Which begs the question for the novice of what quantity of words strung together in the same way constitutes a quotation that demands the use of quotation marks? Everything? Doesn't the citation of a reference allow for a short repetition without quotation marks? "clearly indicated" or "clearly acknowledged" might be less draconian than "clearly marked" (and result in more legible article text). (3) I'm afraid I have to confess that after all this time I don't know what an article's "front" is. Is it the top of the article? Opbeith (talk) 12:05, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just passing-by, and this is only my personal opinion but the word "rightsholders" looks archaic to me while "rights-holders" looks better and the meaning seems clearer, as in a (copy) "rights-holders", rather than copyrightsholders. Interesting discussion btw. Shearonink (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some general rewording and rearranging to make the meaning and instruction of the examples a bit more clear. Let me know what you think. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Can someone familiar with template editing figure out why the {{quotebox}} template — at least I think that's the villain — causes the following See also heading to disappear? — TransporterMan (TALK) 15:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC) PPS: I've kludged around it but it needs to be fixed properly. TM 15:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that'smuch improved, TransporterMan! Thank you. :) And I have no clue what's up with {{quotebox}}. The stuff either works for me or it doesn't. Sitush, I've tried holders of copyright. I don't know if that will be better. :) If not, maybe Shearonink's recommended "rights-holders" will do.
Opbeith, that's a tough one. The only time we don't have to use quotation marks is when we are using uncreative text or properly handled indirect quotation. WP:NFC requires that all other duplicated content be clearly marked, not just acknowledged. ("Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline, use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author, and specifically indicated as direct quotations via quotation marks,
, or a similar method.") It is possible to use indirect quotation, but this can be a difficult skill, and I'm not sure how to communicate that briefly, particularly since we'dpresume that most editors receiving this may already have a tendency to the other extreme. We don't want them to replacing their content with a bunch of quotations, though. :/ Any idea how to avoid the other extreme? --Moonriddengirl(talk) 00:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
As with most things I think you have to start at the place the people you're talking to are coming from. The way I see it, there are five different approaches to contributing material - as a parrot, an enthusiast-disciple, a wavelength-sharer, a disconnected observer and/or a distorter (no value judgments to be attached to these ad-hoc descriptions). None of these approaches is problem-free when it comes to treading the line between achieving accurate and useful communication and avoiding legal/moral issues. But if you can get people to look at what they're actually doing, they can think about and hopefully work out for themselves where they may be getting things wrong. That's the point at which they can be encouraged to think about rewriting, direct quotation or indirect quotation as a way of avoiding the real-world problems their approach runs into. It's after that the real problems arise, when there's a genuine conflict of opinion. As you know from your experience dealing with me, people may have strong views about the legitimacy of using original wording (and about what constitutes original wording) in specific situations. Where the people who know the issues adopt a (genuinely) cooperative approach at an early stage it's easier to negotiate an appropriate solution or narrow down the more difficult fundamental problems.
This discussion and the proposals people have made are certainly a positive advance. But nevertheless at a more basic level Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a solution to the problem of how you mediate the exchange of information in a world of remix and mashing, apart from a (legitimate) insistence on respect for the law. Just switch on the radio and listen to how the privacy baby is being drowned in the bathwater because Parliament and the judiciary haven't worked out how to cope with the real world challenge of Twitter - the effort to enforce a not unreasonable law has already badly damaged respect for the law. In a democracy the law can't be enforced unless it's respected and respect depends on understanding and acceptance. So commendations (I didn't want to bash the word "Respect" yet again!) to you for these constructive efforts to communicate with the people who need to be convinced rather than leave them feeling they're being told off. Opbeith (talk) 09:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some of this is getting a little beyond my knowledge/experience now. I was already well aware that copyright/close paraphrasing is a messy area but, really, the community is relying on other (equally voluntary) members to have a degree of knowledge of laws that are subjected to continual testing by very highly paid professionals in the real world. There is only so much that can be done and then it becomes judgement calls. Given the vagaries of real world law, the judgement calls here need always to err on the side of caution. As I have seen it, that is in fact the path taken in most instances.
There have been many good points made and we have at present an outcome which appears to me to represent a pretty decent stab at improving how these issues are dealt with. You may want to bear in mind that we Brits have a reputation to uphold regarding use of the concept of "understatement" ;) What started out as a bit of a spat (no offence, I was at least 50% of it) has produced not only much thought but a practical outcome, and some extra knowledge about templating issues to boot!
There is no way that I can add significantly to the debate at this stage but I would like to put on record my appreciation of the manner in which the participants have collaborated and also, individually, the contributions that have been made. Awesome, as I believe the teenagers say. I presume that they are the same age cohort that use words such as "remix" and "mashing" <g> - Sitush (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that, too. :) One of my favorite things about Wikipedia is the way that contributors work together to solve problems and keep the encyclopedia going. Truly, I think it's what makes our site so monumental. :) And I appreciate you guys helping with this.
Opbeith, my personal opinion is that copyright law is a few lightyears behind the reality of current internet culture. Sooner or later, they'll catch up. :) Maybe the answer here is to improve Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing, which this notice points to, to talk a little bit about WP:INTEXT? We'd need to caution people against taking that too far, though, because I have seen in my years doing on this Wikipedia people who think that if they introduce a paragraph with "Jane Smith said" and change pronouns from "I" to "she" that they're in the clear. Unfortunately, that's not the legal reality. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I liked the simplicity of the WP:INTEXT approved format. It makes it easier to respect what may be very carefully chosen original wording while avoiding quotation mark acne. However there's a problem if you don't have an easily named author to attribute to. The "disapprovals" aren't terribly helpful - a set of several graded examples might have been more helpful. I still find the advice on Close paraphrasing has too negative a feel to it. It's hard work watching out for too close paraphrasing when you're also anxious about the risks of rewriting. You don't want to be a lazy thief but nor do you want to be the equivalent of "traduttore, traditore!" (I'm trying to think of something appropriate - "reviser, revisionist!" perhaps?). There's a fair amount of perhaps overclose paraphrasing that's the result of conflict between a pressing awareness of the need to have information available and a contributor's lack of confidence in their own writing capabilities. That springs from the positive wish to contribute to the spread of knowledge - at whatever intellectual level, even about Pokemon characters. So guidelines should take encouragement and example as the starting point before warning where the electric fence is located. As always it's a lot easier to criticise broadly than to provide constructive detail but I'm not thinking too clearly today, I'll try and think more about it when the brain's less clunky. Opbeith (talk) 21:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I read the indirect quotation late last night. Gosh, that is an uncomfortable area for decision-making. I would never use that as a rationale for anything I add to an article because it is just too subjective & I can envisage situations where people would weigh in with a plagiarism argument. Having said which, your changes at close paraphrasing seem good to me. - Sitush (talk) 12:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Close paraphrasing is not directly prohibited, as far as I can find, by any copyright–specific policy or guideline, though it is mentioned on several procedural and how-to pages;
I don't have an axe to grind or a point to make, I just looked all this stuff up and thought it might be beneficial to list it here. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not prohibited by name, but by implication at WP:C: "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, so long as you do not follow the source too closely. (See our Copyright FAQ for more on how much reformulation may be necessary as well as the distinction between summary and abridgment.)" The copyright FAQ is not particularly well written in this area, says:
Facts cannot be copyrighted. It is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, although the structure, presentation, and phrasing of the information should be your own original creation. The United States Court of Appeals noted in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service that factual compilations of information may be protected with respect to "selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity," as "[t]he compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers."[1] You can use the facts, but unless they are presented without creativity (such as an alphabetical phone directory), you may need to reorganize as well as restate them to avoid substantial similarity infringement. It can be helpful in this respect to utilize multiple sources, which can provide a greater selection of facts from which to draw. (With respect to paraphrasing works of fiction, see derivative works section below.)
There's some really awkward language in there, and some of it is my fault. :/ Haven't got time right now to try to address it. But I did want to point out that even if not by name, too closely paraphrasing is against policy. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TV episode summary text from a press release – fair use?
Hi, if you have a second (I'm sure this question has been answered before somewhere, but I couldn't find it): is it "WP:FAIR USE" to use a full quote of a two-sentence TV episode summary (released in a press release), considering that the episode has not aired yet? Edit in question is here, and I found myself unable to transform the (deliberately) vague information while staying verifiable. Cheers, Amalthea11:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Haven't seen you for a while. :) Hope things are going well for you. Whether it's "fair use" is hard to say; it depends on so many factors. Typically, it's been interpreted as a "no" for Wikipedia articles because of our deliberate conservative approach to that line. One of the problems with episode summary lists is that those plots tend to multiply. The more we have, the more substantial our taking. Quotation marks get lost, and they get turned into derivative works. I can't tell you how many tv articles I've had to come in later and clear out all episode summaries because of that. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All is well, thanks for asking, just more busy than I used to be. My thought was that prior to publication of the source material, the summary can't be properly paraphrased without violating WP:V or WP:OR and it thus surely passes NFCC#1 and the rest (while we are conservative with non-free content, we still want to cover an encyclopedic topic exhaustively). But I can see where you're coming from – although I note that if the original non-free content isn't explicit in the page history, you'll buy the reduced number of incidents with increased difficulty in researching a close paraphrasing issue. Apparently not as uncontentious as I thought it would be though (is it ever), and I don't really have the time now to look for some wider input to see where the community stands. When I do I'll let you know though.:) Thanks, and have a nice day! Amalthea08:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and congrats on your recent one hundred thousandth edit. ;)Amalthea
Clan Of Xymox edits
Dear Moonriddengirl,
from the edit history of the Clan Of Xymox page it seems you are the only one who can prevent this page from being vandalized by the likes of Dr.mies who seems to revert versions to his own outdated versions all the time without being constructive. Please have a look at this editing behavior and maybe lock the page till the last time you had a look and say in it .
(talk page stalker) I hope that this is a joke? The idea that Drmies (who is one of the most friendly and careful contributors I know of) would go off on a disruption spree just beggars my belief. - Sitush (talk) 11:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Sitush. What we have here is a case of COI and socking--see User:Knowitallfortoday. BTW, it may well be true that there factual inaccuracies in the article, but those are caused by factual inaccuracies in the sources. I'm in the process of finding better ones, but that's not easy given the topic (it's not the biggest band in the world), the time (pre-interwebs), and the place (media archives in Dutchland aren't easily accessible online). Now, if the IP in question wished to help the article, they would do so on the article talk page, and they might notify interested editors, but their edits to the the article were simply unhelpful--against guidelines, against policy, and most likely motivated by the desire to downplay the role of certain band members. Thanks, and thanks to MRG who has invested more in this article than she probably wanted. Drmies (talk) 19:22, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. 72.13.91.134, I gather that the concern here is that you may be an indefinitely blocked user, returning in spite of your block to edit the article. This is not permitted, and policy does allow the removal of all edits under such circumstances.
Given that, Drmies, is it possible anyway that we can evaluate the content and add in what's confirmable? For example, Allmusic does list Ronny Moorings and Anka Wolbert as the core founding members of the band, so noting that discrepancy from other sources is probably worthwhile. Billboard is stubbornly refusing to load for me ([2] :P), but does it confirm that two singles made the Billboard charts? Darkest Hour seems to have been released now, per [3]. I'd be happy to help clear what can at least be sourced online. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Crisco 1492 again
Hi, it's me again. Hopefully this one will be easier. Do you think that this would qualify as public domain? I am looking at the letter from Ester Jusuf. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I...don't know. :/ I'm a little concerned about it. Congressional Record About says, "With the exception of copyrighted articles, there are no restrictions on the republication of material from the Congressional Record." Ester Jusuf is evidently an Indonesian human rights attorney, so she is not a US federal employee, and this is published in the "Extension of Remarks" section and thus was not presented before Congress. I'm not sure how one identifies "copyrighted articles" in the Congressional Record. I'll ask for opinions at WT:C. --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. She is an Indonesian attorney and head of the NGO Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa, which deals mainly with the human rights violations in Indonesia in May 1998. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Uninvolved admin needed
Hello, an uninvolved admin is needed to take a look at this.
I previously started a discussion about articles calling places in West Jerusalem "in Israel": [4] there is also discussion here: [5]
I asked for evidence showing that West Jerusalem is internationally recognized as part of Israel, and I don't believe I have received it.
I believe the point has now been reached were no one could confirm that West Jerusalem is internationally recognized as part of Israel, and therefore I believe that I can now remove this what I believe is a non neutral pov from articles.
Hi. I'd like to help out, but I'm afraid that one looks way more complex than I have time for at the moment. :/ Have you considered WP:RSN? It's a bit out of my area. --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)2 This is an uncontroversial move, the user is only requesting the capitalization be moved to the lower case "s" and then any data can be merged. An AfD is not required. Jayy, you can wait for MRG to move it, or make a request at WP:RM just ask for the capitalized one to be moved to the lowercase one. CTJF8322:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Err, do you want it deleted because you feel it should be a redirect? In that case, yes AfD definitely, sorry, I may have misunderstood. CTJF8322:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would need to be an AfD. :) However, I've moved the page, merging the histories. This should be uncontroversial, since the article is in the wrong space. Why not talk to the other contributor about whether or not it should be a redirect for now? If he agrees, you can just redirect it. If he does not, you'll have to get consensus. --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care what's done with the original page, my only issue was a new one being made with a capital letter as that's not what the name's supposed to be for any television page. Either way, thank you everyone for your help :) and thanks MRG for making the correct changes. Jayy008 (talk) 16:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unattributed automatic translations from German Wp and copyvio from EB
Sorry for troubling you again but could you (or someone else watching this page) please take a look at User talk:Thewar364 and the contributions of this user. I have tried to be non-"bitey" and started by leaving a personal message rather than one of those officious-sounding templates. --Hegvald (talk) 18:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. :) Thanks for following up on this! Personal notes are always nice; I appreciate your taking the time. I've left him a note; if he doesn't correct attribution, we'll have to give him a hand. Hopefully, he will, now that I've explained it in more detail. Generally, I don't assume that people are intentionally causing problems when they first have issues. Many people just don't realize what Wikipedia's policies and practices are. I find most people are happy to work within them, once they're made aware. --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. As I wrote, I tried not to be "bitey" about it (at first, at least), but I think you made a superior job. --Hegvald (talk) 04:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; I have a lot of practice talking about these issues with people. :D I think it's great that you're conscious of the biting problem. Your opening to him was admirably diplomatic. Your second post was necessary, unfortunately, since he has to know he can't do this. There's not always a pleasant way to approach this. Probably I would have omitted the question "How can you possibly believe this to be acceptable?" (which might put him on the defensive) and instead just pointed him to the policies that forbid it. My basic goal is to neutrally present the policies on first contact on the issue. For better or worse, internet culture has evolved so that people copy and paste things from one location to another all the time; they usually don't think of it as plagiarism or consider the copyright dimension because they see it done everywhere. Sometimes, I do wonder the same thing, especially when dealing with scholars I'd expect to have a different approach—student and professorial writing. :/ But even with people where I wonder that, I usually go at it from a "We can't do this here" angle. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Slavko Pengov
I do not understand why you have eliminated my photos of Pengov's paintings in Bled, in Žale and in the Parliament House of Slovenia. I have made these photos myself and I have dedicated a lot of my time to recover the work of this slovenian artist. I am very dissapointed with this violation of my work.--Oliver-Bonjoch (talk) 22:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are a lot of photos of contemporary artists in Wikipedia. So all this photos have permission? Pengov's paintings in the Parliament House belong to the people of Slovenia, and the painting in Žale is outside, in a public place. Who owns the rights of Pengov's work? There are no books of Pengov's paintings anywhere. So I am the only one doing the work of getting to know Pengov's genius around the world.--Oliver-Bonjoch (talk) 22:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Foreign language tip
Just FYI, I did an end run around the foreign language problem by trying this at the Swedish Wikipedia and it may have worked. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)PS: If we keep hanging around the same places, people are going to say we're in love. . TM[reply]
LOL! Let 'em talk. :D
That's a great idea! I've often dug through lists of contributors familiar with certain languages looking for one I know or at least one who is currently active. I've made my way to bilingual contributors on other langauge wikis and asked for help, but it has never occurred to me to ask at the help desk. So much less time consuming! I bow to your brilliance, sir! --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Issues with a member
Hi, I already posted this on PBS's talk page -- but he's too busy to help --
It seems to be that the editor Boleyn is using incorrect information and creating pages that are under the incorrect title. I have found two HUGE mistakes lately. One having to do with Thomas Burgh, 3rd Baron Burgh in which the page she started was originally named Thomas Burgh, 7th Baron Strabolgi. I had to move the page and re-do it! I now find that she edited the page Kirton in Lindsey putting incorrect information which she quoted from a book -- only problem being it was not what was written in the book, it was completely wrong. She quotes that Catherine Parr and her second husband, the 3rd Baron of Gainsborough lived there -- er, incorrect and not even what it says in Porter's Katherine, the Queen. I corrected her info and put another source by it. I have the two books right here in front of me and I can tell you that what she quoted was/is completely false -- and I'm pretty sure that there is a snippet of Porter's book on Google ebooks which states the correct husband but does not have pg 55 -- it's blocked. To see what she originally put in there -- see Revision as of 13:19, 29 March 2011 -- should I address this person or leave it to you because I am really starting to get annoyed with her -- she doesn't use correct sources, quotes what's not even in the book, creates pages with titles that are incorrect, and is spreading the wrong information around Wiki. I'm frankly tired of cleaning up her mess (which seems to have to do with Catherine Parr and her husband's families). -- Lady Meg (talk) 21:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. :) You should always first try talking to somebody with whom you have an issue, generally diplomatically with the assumption that they mean well and will be happy to consider your concerns. Wikipedia:Dispute resolution talks about this a bit. I'm afraid that even though I'm an administrator, I'm not any more empowered than any other editor to deal with general dispute resolution, and I don't know much about Catherine Parr. :/ I think if you approach Boleyn in a spirit of collegial collaboration, you should find her open to conversation. I've found her easy to approach. --Moonriddengirl(talk)21:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For now I think I will just let it go. I might say something, but I don't feel like dealing with confrontation right now. I'll check her editing in the future and confront her if I see anything else. Thanks for your input. -- Lady Meg (talk) 01:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations! Congratulations on your new job! I believe you will be an excellent liason. I would have used a fancy template for this message, but could not find anything appropriate. Instead you get some homemade Dutch apple pie, like my grandma used to make them. Yoenit (talk) 22:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just hope it doesn't mean too much of a drop off in your copyright work as I'd hate to think what the backlogs would be like without you. Dpmuk (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wonderful! Well done- it's great to know someone on the staff for a change. I guess that's exactly the point of your position! J Milburn (talk) 23:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Me, too. If things pan out then you may need to set archiving to, say, 30 minutes or so on that user page. I wish you well. - Sitush (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all! :D (mmm, apple pie!) Yes, J Milburn, I think that's the idea. It's a big job, I think, setting up systems of communication. I'll be tapping a lot of shoulders for input. :D (Dpmuk, I'm hopeful that there won't be a substantial backlog. If this proposal comes out workable, that'll help a lot. And I will still be pitching in at CP, hopefully every couple of days.) (Sitush, it's more my inbox that I'm wondering about!) --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:28, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hadn't seen that. Haven't got time to read it all through and comment there at the moment (plus I'd have a COI as someone that would be interested in clerking) but from the quick browse it seems very sensible. Still haven't forgotten that I said I'd get a bot up and running to help with some tasks but I planned to clean out the copypaste backlog first (very nearly there now) and attempts to finish my PhD have got in the way of both as I generally don't have time to spend the longer amount of times here to do either so have generally been doing things that only require a small amount of time (checking C:CVSD among others). I have to have submitted my thesis by end September so should have more time then. Dpmuk (talk) 23:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations on your appointment! It's difficult to think of anyone better suited for this position; I look forward to seeing you in action. Kirill[talk][prof]23:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations. I am in no way surprised you would be chosen for such a job! Good luck and don't worry, I won't treat you any differently now that you are staff.--NortyNort(Holla)07:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. :D I'm excited about it; going to be fun figuring out how to create said "systems so that every contributor to the projects has a way to reach the Foundation if they wish and to make sure that the Foundation effectively connects the right resources with people who contact us." But I'm working on it. :) NortyNort, lol! I don't feel any different, except that I have more defined goals and more dedicated time to them. :D I kind of see myself more as a bridge with staff; I'm here to say, "This is what we need; can we do that?" I had a great time talking to the staff (I went to SF recently) about their ideas. I had no concept how passionate these people are about what we do. We have some dedicated fans. :D I'm excited about some of what they're doing, too; I've been with Wikipedia for over four years now and had no clue. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That the WMF has hired you gives me much greater confidence and respect in the WMF. They done good. (OTOH, that new username is just... kind of, I don't know... wrong. Like, who is that guy? It's gonna take some getting used to.) Congratulations and good luck, MRG. — CactusWriter (talk)22:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
LOL! :D I've already changed the signature to "Maggie Dennis." I was hoping to be "User:Maggie", but, alas.... Thank you very much for the confidence. I will do my best to uphold it. (insert snappy salute) --Moonriddengirl(talk)23:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Grats from me as well :-) I really think you're the best possible choice to be the pioneering first Wikipedian in this position. Dcoetzee23:31, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Surat al-Muddaththir see [6] and Surat Qaf see [7] - this bit about see someone for detailed analysis is the giveaway, although the first article has a lot of other text that's pretty clearly copied. I've got to get out of the house shortly or I'd deal with it myself. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:54, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I couldn't find where it was copied from either, possibly someone's personal essay or something else not on the web. Dougweller (talk) 20:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just learned of your promotion. Wonderful, wonderful news! Sad to say, I already have a request. You have likely heard of the hard-banned user Bambifan101. This is a ninth-grade boy in Mobile, Alabama who is single-handedly responsible for staggering cross-wiki abuse and he's returned to wreak more havoc. Check the ANI board to see what I mean. I tried three times to mentor him and three times he continued to create abusive, insulting socks while pretending to accept my offers. Worse, he followed another hard-banned and truly dangerous user who had me in his sights across several Wikia projects and other wikis. BF followed his example and I lived a nine-week-long nightmare last summer over this idiot child. It was only when he'd wreaked that havoc via his school IP that I got the district's IT department to step in and they did so immediately. They're the ones who told me that he was a student and his computer privileges were revoked but of course could not elaborate further, nor did I pry further as to his identity. He hasn't attacked me yet, but he just got through with yet another cross-wiki rampage with machine translated garbage on non-English WP projects. I'd contacted Bell South to no avail. Perhaps you'll have better luck if you decide to step in. Thank you SO much. All my best, PMDrive1061 (talk) 14:38, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bless you. The majority of his edits have come from Bell South in Mobile. It shouldn't be difficult for them to ascertain who was using the IP, assuming that they look into the abuse. I as a simple user might not have had sufficient gravitas for them to respond to my complaints. PMDrive1061 (talk) 15:59, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I need some advice from you, please have a look:[9], I had a big and tedious argument with user:ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ(Dungane) over Boxer Rebellion. It will take forever to read through it, but basically, I was advocating implementation of WP Neutrality, and he was:
“
what I want is for an admin to make clear any kind of unsubstantiated fringe conspiracy theory pushing involving ad hominem attacks of marxism, black panthers, communists, or the chinese government/chinese textbooks is forbidden as off topic on the talk page of the Boxer Rebellion article,ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 02:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
”
User Dungane had written more than 10,000 words of argument, mostly consist of personal attacks against me and user John Smith's, and just refuse to calm down to join me on discussion on how to implement WP rules. Since no admin had even care to make any statement on this ANI, let alone any decision, I hereby come here to seek your advice. Arilang talk05:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. :) If it's just the two of you, I would recommend you try Wikipedia:Mediation, formally or informally. If this represents a problem that others have also attempted to address, you might try an WP:RfC or WP:RfC/U. I'm afraid ANI is seldom the best forum for this kind of thing, since it really excels in quick and clear issues. --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:04, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Minor suggestion re table presentation in FAQ/Copyright
I was momentarily confused by the table in FAQ/Copyright. Not a big deal, but I left a suggestion for improvement on the talk page. Yes, I know about bold, but when something has been around this long, and possibly the result of solid discussions, I want to talk about it before doing it, in case there are solid reasons for the existing presentation I missed.--SPhilbrickT11:45, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Moonriddengirl, I realize you're very busy, but wanted to bring your attention to this ANI thread. Specifically I'd like to know how we deal with persistent copyvio vandals and what to do about the pages they edit. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just read about your job today - congrats. That must be exciting. Regarding this edit you made - [10] - I can help with CCI and should probably learn how to update the investigations. Unless it needs tools (which I haven't got), I'd be happy to figure out how to do it myself if you can point me to a link or something to read. I'd like to see the work you do as Moonriddengirl continue, but understand that you'll have less time now, but I'd be happy to pitch in where I can. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:00, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see that work continue, too! :D I intend it to, although I know I'm not going to be able to put as much time into it as I was before the role started. And I would love to have you pitching in at CCI! It's fairly anemic, and it could certainly use fresh blood. It doesn't need admin tools, but there are a couple of useful tools for the work that anybody can access: [11] does some kind of magical internet scan where it lists text matches to articles, eliminating as many known mirrors as it can. [12] compares an article against a specific source. And [13] is the tool for providing a complete list of diffs, clustered by article, from any given contributor. Given the last tool, updating investigations is easy; you just put in the username, wait, and refine the parameters. These are check boxes after the initial scan--I tell it to "hide reverts" and "hide minor edits". If you download it as Wikitext, it can be pasted in directly, although there are complications with expanding an existing listing. Nothing major; I just insert headers for the different names, and I add a list of names to the first page of the CCI. (See, for example, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Paknur.) If it turns out that this contributor has been very active, we may need to consider a more aggressive response. The continued growth of the CCI backlog suggests to me that pretty soon we may need to start implementing more heavily the "presumptive removal" of such text--and I do this particularly with socking serial infringers. . --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:03, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - I have another question. Under the user name SusanneNYC2009, ILT took The Story of Miss Moppet to FAC and it passed. Later, I scrubbed the page, removed the plagiarism, and rewrote sections with the copyvio. I documented what I found in my edit summaries and on the talkpage. However, the plagiarism still exists in the page's history which has not been scrubbed. In my view that should have been done, and should be done now. Then I'd like to send the page to FAR. How do I go about having the all of Susanne's edits deleted? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:13, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think what I'm asking is whether we have a consistent policy that we apply. We know a banned sock puppet made edits to the page. We know it achieved FA status. Sandy tells me to get you involved, so I think the decision is yours whether to delete the edits per WP:BAN or to revdel so the history is clear. If it's revdel, I'll let you know which edits. If deletion, I think that's mostly done. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:03, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Moonriddengirl, I helped some with cleaning up Miss Moppet's copyvios and too close paraphrasing. I am also an admin so I could do the rev dels if that would help (although I am an involved party too). I guess the question I see Truthkeeper88 as asking is basically should all of ILT's edits be rev del'ed since so many of them were copyvios, or do we have to identify specific edits (this sentence was bad, so these edits have to go)? The other issue here is that ILT was a banned user at the time, so anyone is free to revert any of his or her edits - does this extend to rev deleting them all? Ruhrfisch><>°°16:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. That would be great.:) This is generally not going to be an involvement issue; if you were in some huge content dispute with the user, that would be one thing, but rewriting copyvios does not create involvement. Rev-deletion for copyright violation is not firmly nailed down. The policy says on revision deletion says, "Best practices for copyrighted text removal can be found at Wikipedia:Copyright problems and should take precedence over this criterion." Such as they are, those practices are spelled out at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins, incorporated by reference, and say:
It may be a good idea to use Wikipedia:Revision deletion on the versions that contain the copyright infringement to help avoid inadvertent restoration in the future if the copyrighted content is extensive. Otherwise, so long as the infringing text is removed from the public face of the article, it may not need to be removed/deleted permanently unless the copyright holder complains via OTRS or unless other contributors persist in restoring it.
This is always going to be a judgment call. If the content has been there for a while, I try to judge how extensive it is in deciding to do rev deletion. The more extensive it is, the more likely I am to rev delete.
Rev deletion policy also includes at this writing "Valid deletion under Deletion Policy, executed using RevisionDelete." Copyright violations are the first of those. WP:CV says "If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately." I think that justifies revdeletion in such cases.
My policy with CCIs: I do not always rev delete these, but will when I think return is a high possibility. And when we have a serial infringer who just can't grasp it, definitely. We have no reason to trust that person and every reason to suspect that anything he or she add was written by somebody else. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Questions old & new
Not sure if the issue about using ads has ever been resolved or not. Had copied my findings to the page after bringing them up with you here. Haven't uploaded or transferred anything like this to Commons since because I'm not certain it's settled.
I seem to have some kind of "vio magnet" because it seems like I either am reading for information or trying to expand/ref an article and there's the vio. :( Am now working on restoring my last "find", Red Skelton. Is there possibly some way users could be made aware of the articles that need to be redone after they've been cleared of vios to try to get them back in decent order again, and possibly some type of encouragement for those who would be willing to do this? Seeing what was left of Skelton afterward started me thinking about this. Thanks! We hope (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, question old: some things never are resolved. The continued existence of the template means that at this point, however, nobody has felt strongly enough about concerns to nominate it for deletion. It's usable in the meantime, though I have just added some usage notes to the template documentation at Template:PD-ad. There are two factors to consider here: (1) Wikipedia's handling of these, and (2) personal liability. In terms of factor (1), if you have good faith reason to believe that you are uploading content that is in public domain and you have not been informed that consensus is otherwise, you are free to continue uploading it. For the sake of comparison, if Wikipedia were to decide that unfree images of dead people were not defensible under fair use after all and eliminate them from NFC, there'd be a lot of deletion going on...but none of the uploaders would be at "fault". :) It's a similar situation. (2) is a slightly different story. We all bear personal responsibility for any image or text we upload. Wikipedia's policies are devised to protect it; not us. For example, some of the content we allow as legal in the U.S. is not legal in other countries. (I've been thinking lately that we should make clear in our policies and guidelines that contributors need to be conscious of and responsible for the legality of their actions in their jurisdictions, but haven't done anything substantial to pursue that yet.) If I found an ad of this sort and had good reason to believe it was not stock photography, I'd upload it. But we each have to determine our own risk. :)
As far as Commons is concerned, it might be a good idea to launch a discussion at their village pump about it, filling them in on the objections and support raised here?
Question new: there is a project alert bot that used to tell projects when articles in their bailiwick were marked as copyvios. It had some kind of problem; I don't know the background. The newly launched version (see Wikipedia:Article alerts) has us on their "to-do" list, but we've been there for some time. I don't know when that will change, but that would be a great way to help make users aware of articles that need to be redone. Article rescue has, I'm happy to say, given CP a mention (Wikipedia:ARS#Instructions), but I don't know if it's brought us much attention. :) If you have any thoughts about how to enlarge the ranks of copyright cleanup, I'm all ears. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Concern re chart listings
User A Thousand Doors is making article after article of nothing but lists of top-chart songs taken from, in each instance, a single chart source. See Special:Contributions/A_Thousand_Doors. These sources seem to me to be the exact type of source which was described in your last quote in our Ruth Glass discussion, above, and to merely copy them from that source and relist them here seems to me to be a copyvio. What do you think (before I make a fool of myself at WP:CCI)? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up: Maybe it's not quite the same thing. What the chart source puts out is a weekly list of the top, for example, 40 dance albums that week. What ATD is doing is making a compilation article of the number one album from each week. I'm not sure whether that's a copyvio or not (though I wonder if WP:INDISCRIMINATE might not be an issue). What do you think? — TransporterMan (TALK) 18:21, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, based on attorney input and long precedent, we don't worry about lists where information is purely factual and obvious--that is, anybody making such a list would come up with the same figures. Things get slippery when they aren't really using purely factual information, but educated guesses. I thinkUK Official Download Chart may be purely factual and so copyright free, unless creative presentation is being reproduced (such as the facts selected, etc.). But the complications come in with their inclusion rules: maximum play time of 15 minutes; minimum set price for downloads. What I would do if this showed up at CP is take it to the talk page for further opinions...and cross my fingers that somebody showed up to give any. :) But I would be opining in such a conversation that they are okay. I think they count as "formulaic". In either event, I think he'd probably be fine with the compilation list. These are well within precedent, ala List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 2010 (U.S.). --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And another one involving a different kind of list
This is more for my future reference than immediate (because I think the article isn't long for this world on other grounds), but I removed a long copyvio at McMaster Association of Part-Time Students as a copyvio of http://www.mcmaster.ca/maps/history.html. The last section of that was a long list of past and current officers. The editor rewrote a chunk of it adequately to avoid the copyvio but restored most of the officers list character-for-character verbatim. Is there any Wikipolicy or Wikiprecedent for whether those kinds of list constitute a copyvio? (Oh, and much belatedly, congrats on the new job.) Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. :) It's not that much belatedly. :D Here's what we have, and it's just my essay: User:Moonriddengirl/Copyright in lists. But this much of it is established precedent: if the list is uncreative in content or structure, then we can have it. I think we're probably okay on that because it's a chronological list of officeholders.
Thanks. :) I'll take a look at it when I'm "on the clock" and get back with you ASAP. :D I'm handling my backlog of volunteer stuff this morning. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! It's a bit of a challenge at the moment, but it's always challenging starting something new. And trying to create something new. We don't haveany processes in place yet for much of what I'm supposed to be doing. :D It'll come together, though! (P.S. I will have answers for you; promise. :)) --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A question for the copyright investigation guru
Hi;
Could I bother you for some suggestions?
A long-term editor has produced a large volume of edits, of which a small subset seem to be... unhelpful (not copyvio per se). I'm wrestling with a huge Excel spreadsheet, trying to separate positive edits from a minority which are problematic. Edits to well-trafficked articles will have been seen by others and probably fixed where necessary; so it would be helpful to identify obscure articles which have been edited solely or mainly by this editor (apart from bots and the occasional passerby who fixes spelling/categories &c) as these are likely to pose quality problems. Maybe copyright-cleanup can involve some similar work; so are there any tools/scripts/whatever which I could use? Simply looking at article creations isn't helpful, as there are cases where this editor added the vast majority of the content to an article which somebody else started as a microstub.
Are there any tools from the world of copyright cleanup which could be helpful here? Feel free to say "No" bobrayner (talk) 13:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How about "maybe"? :) Our best tool for that is not as customizable as you might want so it does not show what he has edited solely or mainly, but it does produce a list of every article which a contributor has non-trivially edited. After it completes a scan, it allows you to eliminate reversions (helpful with vandal cleaners), to specify time ranges, and to set the minimum contrib. size you want to evaluate. It lists its output in order of "most contributed" articles to "least", with diffs. The tool is here. This isn't exactly what you want, but perhaps it can be helpful to you anyway? --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion about improving the help documentation inspired an idea--Wikipedia tutorials would be best if they were interactive and immersive. The thought of a learning-teaching game came up, one based on a real interface with realistic 'missions'. Would you be interested in providing some feedback or helping work on it, or know editors who might? The idea is just getting started and any assistance with the help/policy side, the experienced-editor side, or the coding/game-making side would be great. Cheers, Ocaasic03:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Moonriddengirl. Sorry to bother you, but could you please edit "www.robertgarside.com" back onto the "Robert Garside" page? It is the official web portal and was recently (sneakily) deleted by CanadianLinuxUser. No surprises there! Many thanks. It was in the box on the left hand side of the page, underneath where the photo is.
