If you are here with questions about an article I have deleted or a copyright concern, please consider first reading my personal policies with regards to deletion and copyright, as these may provide your answer.
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Hours of Operation
In general, I check in with Wikipedia under this account around 12:00 Coordinated Universal Time and 21:00 Coordinated Universal Time, on weekdays. On weekends, I'm here more often. When you loaded this page, it was 15:35, 12 September 2024 UTC[refresh]. Refresh your page to see what time it is now.
Hi. :) I'm not sure I'll have much time to help with this, but I'll try to pitch in a bit. I'm having enough trouble trying to help keep on top of the copyright issues at the moment. :D Hope it goes well, though! --Moonriddengirl(talk)03:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Related to the above, there will soon be (hopefully) many editors moving image to Commons. What should we do about OTRS-approved images on en.wiki? Should they be moved to Commons? Is there anything special we should know or do? Someone asked about this ten months ago, but didn't receive an answer; do you know? All the best, – Quadell(talk)13:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the license is compatible, it shouldn't matter whether OTRS permission came into OTRS through permissions-en or commons. The two queues have the same requirements for confirmation, although there is always some variance in how they're applied. :/ If I'm not mistaken, the permission templates for images are the same on projects, so the template should be copied over as well, I would think. --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm planning to test this as soon as I can. Unfortunately the toolserver seems to be down at the moment, so I can't test until it comes back up. If there are problems, I'll let you know. All the best, – Quadell(talk)15:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Supposed meaning of a formulation in WP:NFC
Hi, I have a quick question regarding NFC. WP:NFC Policy 1. contains the following statement:
"Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available"
What is "a freer alternative" supposed to mean? I would think content is either free (such as released under WP:CC-BY-SA or public domain) or it is non-free (such as all copyrighted material). Also this formulation seems to suggest that this "freer alternative" is meant still to be non-free but "freer" than another non-free work.
Hmm. I'm not sure what was intended there.:) What I always do in such cases is a "wikiblame" search to see when the word entered. This word entered in May 2007. (Prior to that, it said "If unfree material can be transformed into free material, it should be done instead of using a "fair use" defense.") The good news is that when Tony1 put it there, he made reference to talk page consensus. Figuring it would have had to have been there in April 2007 to be "10 days" on May 2, I check the history of the talk page for that range, and I find this. (It may have evolved past that snapshot, but it's way easier than searching such extensive archives!) Now that I know the title of the section, though, I can find it in the archives. It's here. I'm afraid that doesn't tell me what Tony was thinking, though I can see that he first made the change here. :/
I guess you have two options at this point: you can ask User:Tony1 what it's supposed to mean or you can cut to the chase and just mention at WT:NFC that you think it doesn't make sense and would like to change it. If others can make sense of it, they're bound to explain it there. :) You may get a lot of "Hmm, you're right". That's what you get from me. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed you reverted to article to 6 April version on the basis of copyright infringement I can not see how it can all be such and why you have taken such a drastic action rather than remove suspected infringement. I noticed you or others have done this before on the same reasoning.
I am new to this and you will no doubt have access to what I have done on which articles etc., which I think is not bad for a newcomer even if I say so myself.
However you are probably not aware of the significance of this article in the Muslim community (1.5 billion+) as the person is renowned and as you can see from the various sources very accomplished. I note you too are interested in languages from your profile, but I do not think you can compare to Hamidullah.
Although I can see some sentences may have been copied from some sources by past editors, or slightly altered, most of the source websites do hot have a copyright issue with things being taken from them and are religious propagatory in nature allowing free use or replication of their content.
I am going to restore the article (and make a few changes to re-express things so that there is less chance of infringement) as I think the significance of the man is too great to not have on Wikipedia. I will of course take into account any comments and suggestions you may have. Mhakcm (talk) 10:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your note. Given the risk to you if you do restore copyright problems to an article, I felt it rather urgent enough to reply at your talk page.:) --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Restoration
I understand the point of copyright material not being re-instated, but my point was it was not all copyright that you deleted and but other additional material/edits has also been deleted, and secondly some of it is not copyright but free. It seems to me you have read one of the sources and said it is too similar and blanket banned material rather than saying such and such is plagiarism but not copyrighted and some is neither and should be left in the article about the man. Is there are tool you have that can point to what is copied from copyrighted sources. If you can send me such or send me the article with material suspected by you of infringement highlighted or unlined, I shall be grateful.Mhakcm (talk) 11:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is no doubt that this content was a violation of our copyright policies; the entire page here was copied with minimal alteration. For example, the person who placed the content--all at once--included the following:
Hamidullah belonged to an illustrious family of scholars, jurists, writers and sufis. His ancestors migrated from Arabia a few centuries ago. The distinguished sufi scholar Ala al-Din ‘Ali Ibn Ahmad Al-Maha’imi (d. 1431), who is buried in MahimMumbai, Habibullah Bijapuri, an eminent sufi of the Deccan, and Muhammad Husayn Shahid, the last principal of the famed madrasah set up by the Brahman vizier Mahmud Gawan, were among his illustrious ancestors. Hamidullah’s great grandfather Mawlvi Muhammad Ghaws Sharfu’l-Mulk (d. 1238/1822) was well versed in Arabic and Islamic studies. He wrote more than 30 books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. One of his important works is a commentary on the Qur’an, Nathru’l-Marjan fi Rasm Nazmi’l-Qur’an, in seven volumes.
Hamidullah belonged to an illustrious family of scholars, jurists, writers and sufis. His ancestors migrated from Arabia a few centuries ago. The distinguished sufi scholar ‘Ala al-Din ‘Ali Ibn Ahmad Al-Maha’imi (d. 1431), who is buried in Mumbai, Habibullah Bijapuri, an eminent sufi of the Deccan, and Muhammad Husayn Shahid, the last principal of the famed madrasah set up by the Brahman vizier Mahmud Gawan, were among his illustrious ancestors. Professor Hamidullah’s great grandfather Mawlvi Muhammad Ghaws Sharfu’l-Mulk (d. 1238/1822) was well versed in Arabic and Islamic studies. He wrote more than 30 books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. One of his important works is a commentary on the Qur’an, Nathru’l-Marjan fi Rasm Nazmi’l-Qur’an, in seven volumes.
Another example,chosen at random from the content he added:
Piety, humility and simplicity were conspicuous in Hamidullah’s personality and character. He chose to remain a bachelor and led an extremely simple and Spartan life. He lived on a frugal meal of milk, rice, curd and fruits. For nearly fifty years, he lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old building in Paris, where he had to climb 180 steps to reach his house.
The source says:
Piety, humility and simplicity were conspicuous in Professor Hamidullah’s personality and character. He chose to remain a bachelor and led an extremely simple and Spartan life. He lived on a frugal meal of milk, rice, curd and fruits. For nearly fifty years, he lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old building in Paris, where he had to climb 180 steps to reach his house.
These are two examples, chosen at random. For what I assume will be obvious reasons, I can't reproduce the material extensively. :) Copyrighted content is not permitted on any space of Wikipedia.
Changes to the article since that massive influx of copyrighted content have been minimal in terms of new text added; they have simply built on the copyrighted content in a way that our policies do not accept.
Furthermore, this is the second time that this content has been added to this same article, and although I am the administrator who cleaned it, I am not the user who discovered the issue. That was User:John of Reading. I am as an uninvolved administrator ensuring that copyright policies are maintained.
I realize it is distressing to have an article tainted in this way. The years I've spent working copyright problems on Wikipedia, I have seen this many times, and I sympathize with contributors who did not cause the problem but are nevertheless impacted by it.
I would be happy to restore changes to the formatting of the article, but I can't restore the copyright violation or the derivative material that resulted from subtle alterations to it. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, as to tools: I almost forgot. We have several, although a few of them are disabled at this point as we are negotiating with Google to use their search engines, but one still functioning that is useful in such situations is [1]. An external website of value for this work is [2]. There are some challenges in checking Wikipedia's text against it, though, including that you must remove footnotes. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rewriting Hammidullah article
Please restore the formats and I will see what I can do, although my current workload will mean I won't be able to do it for sometime. Or alternatively can I send you my draft version based on what is there for your consideration or approval?Mhakcm (talk) 12:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I did that already. :) You are certainly able to work on an expansion of the article at your leisure. There's no deadline; it's just great that you're willing to help out with it. You don't need to show me your draft, unless you would like feedback. I'll try to give it to you promptly. My main work on Wikipedia is with copyright, and certainly if you have any questions about the extent of rewriting necessary I'm happy to help with that. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. One more question! What about taking things from site which is mentioned in 1st reference http://www.albalagh.net/general/dr_hamidullah.shtml or even temporarily copying it into wiki as it at least provides something in the interim. As you will see from the bottom of that page. It states: 'No Copyright Notice. All the material appearing on this web site can be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes. Acknowledgement will be appreciated.' Mhakcm (talk) 13:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Wikipedia can't accept content that is licensed for non-commercial purposes only, even temporarily, because our content is itself licensed for commercial reproduction. There would also be some issues about that release even if it did permit commercial reproduction, because it doesn't mention modification. The licenses we require have to allow both. Unless we can prove that content is public domain or compatibly licensed with Wikipedia (see the copyright FAQ for more information, we can't copy from it except for brief and clearly marked quotations. --User:Moonriddengirl13:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I'm afraid I can't restore them because of the copyright problems in them, but you can still note the references and the text by viewing them through the "history".
If you go to the tabs along the top of any article, you will see the "history" option. Clicking on it will show you a list of every edit ever made to the article. Unless some of these have been "revision deleted" by an administrator (in which case there is a line striking through it), you can click on it to see how the article looked at that given point.
For example, with Dairat al Maarif, you would go to the second in the list--right before I blanked it--and click on the date. Doing that opens this window. If you then click "edit this page", you will be able to get the references from that version. It is very important, though, that you do not hit "save" when doing this, as that will restore the copyright problem to publication. (Sorry for the bold text, but that is really important. :)) You can select what you want, hit copy, and then paste it into the rewrite window (which in that case is this one).
Muhammad Hamidullah is the only article in that list which would operate differently. Because this is not the first, but the second time that content from that pdf has been placed in the article, it was not blanked. The article was just restored to an earlier version. If you want any of the references from that, I can get them for you, but you won't be able to access the versions in edit history. Just let me know. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Declaration of Consent: Copy for your information and comment: I have sent this to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org
Hi Moonriddengirl
Thank you so much for your guidance. I have sent a Declaration of Consent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org and hopefully this will assist with approval to republish the relevant images on my Wikipedia pages.
Please let me know if I have not done this correctly - my wife, Adele, who has written the pages (she is a journalist) has asked me to send the Declaration of Consent - and neither of us is particularly knowledgeable about the copyright process for Wikipedia, nor the correct copyright to use. However, we think that the general CC-by-sa-3.0 will be fine.
Adele and I like your Wiki name - we both believe that in order to be creative one needs a lot of time to gaze into the middle distance. Constant panic is not conducive to wise thinking or creativity....
Regards
Konstantin
CalvinSays 06:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC) <redacted to avoid spam> Preceding unsigned comment added by CalvinSays (talk • contribs)
Thank you so much. I have replied to your e-mail, and we should be able to resolve this one without a lot of difficulty. :) And I appreciate the good word about the username. I value creativity. And calm. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Did you notice any other copyright problems in the article? My thoughts that it had some copyright infringement were lessened when I responded to you on the talk page. If you don't believe there are any more problems I will remove the tag and continue to fix any small issues as I find them.RyanVeseyReview me!21:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Sorry about that! I got caught up in other things, and it slipped my mind. :)
We do get a lot of plagiarism/copyright problems in school related articles, unfortunately. But as you indicate at the talk page, there are a lot of mirrors out there, too. :) I'll run the text through the plagiarism checker and see what comes up. I know quite a lot of our mirrors on sight, so I should be able to eliminate those fairly quickly. --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there. I just noticed your deletion in Penn's article, the reason being that it "needs writing in original language." However, the text you deleted does not really rise up to any originality level in the first place, as it consists mainly of program titles:
"Penn is also the home to interdisciplinary institutions such as the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies, the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, and the Executive Master's in Technology Management Program."
Except for the first 5-6 words it is hard to see how the rest of the text can be written in original language. I am hesitant to revert the article to its previous version, since you seem to have great experience with copyright issues, so maybe there is something I am missing here, but I strongly believe that the deleted sentence was fine. Thanks for reading this.129.67.97.231 (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. The problem is not with the list, but with the introductory text which was taken verbatim (along with some of the list items, but not all) from UPenn's website. You're certainly welcome to restore the information, but please use different introductory language. It's a very small amount of text, but I am loathe to leave unoriginal content in an article which has been tagged as a copyright problem, purely for the sake of demonstrating due diligence. If ever challenged, I can say honestly that I took out every bit of copied content I found. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks for the prompt reply. I'll change the wording per your suggestion. I understand your policy and I totally respect it, but my point was rather that "Penn is also the home to interdisciplinary institutions" does not even meet copyrightability standards due to lack of creativity and originality. In any case, thanks again for your very diligent work. Good day! 129.67.97.231 (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about lack of creativity--a lot depends on how much there is and how much there was when it was first placed. I feel certain that any courts would find it de minimis if it ever even reached that point. But the thing is that I don't know if there is or was other content copied from the websites. I didn't find any, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. If I had encountered the line all on my own while reading the article, I would at most have altered it in situ and moved on. When it's tagged as a copyright problem, though, I am more inclined to err on the side of prudence. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. :) I'm afraid that was the problem in a nutshell. Copyright concerns were originally flagged here, but since the creator of the article was not notified I extended the listing to give him or her time to address the concerns. I'm afraid that neither he nor anyone else watching the article made any effort to rewrite the content or confirm permission for it, and since what was left wouldn't sustain an article, it really left no choice but to delete it. :/ Hopefully somebody will write a new one with original content. If you don't have a WP:COI, maybe you could? :D I'd be happy to pull up old categories, etc., for you if you do, although I'm afraid that wouldn't be too much help here. Not much formatting in that article. --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rewriting the SciGirls article
Hi Moonriddengirl, I saw that you deleted the page for the PBS KIDS television program SciGirls back on December 9, 2010 due to CP reasons. I had stated rewriting the article and wanted to ask if you recalled any specific issues with the old version that (hopefully) I can avoid. I am trying to paraphrase and cite information accordingly, but would appreciate any advice you may have. I have yet to move the page, so it is currently located here: User:Pemling/SciGirls.
Thank you for your time! You do amazing work on a ton of articles; I hope I am able to make this one (my first, actually) meet up to you standards!
Pemling (talk) 13:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. :) Thanks for the kind words, and I'm happy to take a look. I've compared it to the official sources, and it looks perfectly fine to me. The problem with the last one was evidently that somebody involved with the show created the article using much of the same language as the official source, but although she indicated this connection she did not respond to requests to verify it. Since we can't use somebody else's text without permission and we couldn't prove that she was who she said she was (our registration process isn't built for that), we couldn't keep the text. (I'm randomly assigning a sex there. She could have just as easily been a he. :)) --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, when leaving my "talkback" notice, I saw that DASHBot had removed some images from the article. This shouldn't be a problem. It looks ready for mainspace to me, and as long as you move it in the next day or two all you need to do is put the image(s) back in. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)10:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome! It's good to know what the issue was; I suspected as much. Some of the show's official pages (PBS, Facebook, an old Blogger page) used a lot of nearly identical wording, though I'm certain copy protection isn't an issue when dealing with personal/corporate sites. Anyway, I really appreciate your help! I just transferred the page and restored the image (which should be okay to use if I understand Wikipedia policy correctly (Wikipedia:Logos)).
Thank you once again for helping my first article come together! Hopefully it will fair better than previous iterations have! :) --Pemling (talk) 13:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Se Re Pak
I noticed at Se Ri Pak a remarkable overlap with this webpage, e.g. at "Pak also competed...". It looks as if some of it goes way back in the history, but it is not the result of a single edit, and there may even be some circular referencing going on via About.com. I wonder if you might unleash your copyvio superpowers to uncover the true tale? LeadSongDogcome howl!15:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looking good for a backwards copy. The oldest archive of that page is June 4th. While this can be a few months off, it's not usually more than that. I'm checking for context clues in the language, because while a good sign for us, that's not definitive, as the material could have been previously published under a different url or offline. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, this is interesting. :/ I've picked the following paragraph in our article to trace:
Pak has also competed in a professional men's event, at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. The Korean Tour is a feeder tour for the Asian Tour and does not offer world ranking points. She finished 10th in the event, becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's tournament since Babe Zaharias did so in 1945.
This one is actually sourced to that website.
The website says:
Pak also competed in a men's professional event at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. She finished 10th, becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's event since Babe Didrickson Zaharias did so in 1945.
We had some of the content here before the citation. But some of it was added at the same time as the citation, in August 2010. (Proving why the wayback archive is not definitive--the website was obviously there in August 2010, even if the archive starts nearly a year after that.) Since he cited the website, there would seems to be little doubt that User:PM800 copied this content from it: "becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's tournament since Babe Zaharias did so in 1945." This is especially likely because we can see that content from [3], which he also cited, is copied: "Pak won a 20-hole playoff for that victory, making that tournament - at 92 holes in length - the longest tournament ever in women's professional golf." That sentence is taken directly from the source. :/ (Not a good sign.) Still poking at this. --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's little doubt that there is taking in both directions here. More than likely the World Golf Hall of Fame used the Wikipedia article as inspiration for their own text and then an editor came in and copied over a small amount of content from their website. (Unless the earlier Wikipedia article copied from another source, which they later also used.) She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007 and would presumably not have entered their literature prior to that point. But the other content from that passage has been evolving in our article since it was created in 2004:
Like Sörenstam, Pak has also competed in a professional men's golf event, at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. Unlike Sörenstam, however, she did make the cut and eventually finished 10th.
This evolved gradually and naturally into the form it was in when in August 2010 it was sources (probably circularly) to the WGHoF and the snippet of their text pasted in.
