User talk:Moonriddengirl

edit count | edit summary usage Welcome If you are here with questions about an article I have deleted or a copyright concern, please consider first reading my personal policies with regards to deletion and copyright, as these may provide your answer. To leave a message for me, press the "new section" tab at the top of the page. Remember to sign your message with ~~~~. I will respond to all civil messages. I attempt to keep conversations in one location, as I find it easier to follow them that way when they are archived. If you open a new conversation here, I will respond to you here. Please watchlist this page or check back for my reply. If I have already left a message at your talk page, unless I've requested follow-up here or it is a standard template message, I am watching it. If you leave your reply here, I may respond at your talk page if it seems better for context. If you aren't sure if I'm watching your page, feel free to approach me here. Admins, if you see that I've made a mistake, please fix it. I will not consider it wheel-warring if you reverse my admin actions as long as you leave me a civil note telling me what you've done and why and as long as you're open to discussion with me should I disagree. FishBase info Hi, there's a discussion going on at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fishes#Fish_familiy_format about adopting new tables for the species listings. I've voiced my concerns about taking information in the "environment" column directly from the "environment"/"climate" entry at the corresponding FishBase species page (e.g. "marine, tropical, reef-associated" [1]), but I'm not actually sure whether this does constitute a license violation because they're not phrases, just single words. Since you seem to know about such things could you take a look and comment? Thanks. -- Yzx (talk) 19:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC) Done. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC) Second opinion Hi, could you take a look at some of the created articles of User:Contributor777 for me? See [2] Since I already stalk his edits because he keeps adding flags against the MoS :), he also doesn't respond to me. Therefore I might not be the right person to handle this. But I just checked Romani people in Brazil against [3] which looks like a clear cut copyvio to me. I already deleted some articles as copyvio's but this might mean there are many more. Garion96 (talk) 19:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC) I'd be happy to take a look at his or her contrib history. I'm working on a deadline for tomorrow (which is interfering badly with my wiki schedule!), but will take a look as soon as I can. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC) Thanks, no hurry of course. Garion96 (talk) 18:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Thanks for prompting me so nicely. :) I completely forgot! I've just finished the History of Jews in Poland review and will look into this today. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Really wasn't meant like that though. :) I just forgot to put your talk on my watchlist so only read your first response a few minutes ago. Garion96 (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC) LOL! Well, it all worked out to the best, then. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC) SA's Optics article Hiya, MoonG. You might want to comment at Talk:Optics#Request to port article from Wikisource about how to copy/port ScienceApologist's Optics article from Wikisource while respecting GFDL. Thanks. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. :) There doesn't seem to be much for me to add. Transwiki is probably your best option. Not sure if you need a wikipedia or wikisource admin to help with it, but you would definitely need somebody who can transwiki. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC) Hi, MoonG. As far as copyright is concerned, I would appreciate it if you would comment further (e.g. at Talk:Optics) in light of this comment by ScienceApologist, that some material in his version of the Optics article is copied from other Wikipedia pages. By the way, at the Copyright Cleanup page (which I didn't recognize!! I thought at first I might be at the wrong page! :-) I think it would be a good idea to have a section on instructions how to do ordinary things like move pages, merge pages, split pages; or at least a list of links to such instructions; so that those things are done in ways compatible with copyright policy. E.g. a link to WP:SPLITTING. I had been thinking of writing such a section; or did I and it was deleted? Or do I not know what to put there? I can't remember. Thanks. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. Everything got moved around. As far as I remember, what you had written about merging, splitting and etc. was incorporated under "Tasks and tips" in "Help keep an eye" and "Help spread the word." The links are a good idea; I've added them to the "resources" section. Anyway, GFDL violations. :/ I'll go see what I may able to add. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:01, 24 May 2009 (UTC) I checked. I was presuming you wanted me to comment on an existing conversation, but the issue doesn't seem to have been brought up? Has the matter been broached on Wikipedia? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Oh, sorry about that. No, I only broached it here. Well, related issues have been discussed at Talk:Optics (you were part of that discussion) but I don't think anyone but me (and now you) has noticed SA's comment yet. Well, you could just comment here if you prefer. Or I could raise the issue at Talk:Optics. What SA was saying didn't sound quite right to me: but that's why I was looking for those instructions at the Copyright Cleanup page: if it said this is how you're supposed to do copying, then I could point that out to SA. At the moment, it has some links and stuff, but doesn't really have a link to anything that says what you can or can't or are advised to do when copying material from one article to another (e.g. when writing a summary style article, a case perhaps not covered by WP:SPLITTING; not exactly covered by WP:MERGE either). I think maybe I had been intending to write another whole section with stuff like that and didn't get around to it. I don't remember. But anyway maybe it would require getting consensus on additional new guidelines. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Ah, I see. I don't think the project page would be the place to add it. Our project guidelines should mirror Wikipedia's official guidelines and policies, I think. I would just point to merge, to split, and to WP:C: "Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement)." There's absolutely nothing there that says, "Of course, when copying within Wikipedia, credit isn't required anymore. Also of note, from WP:C, "The English text of the GFDL is the only legally binding restriction between authors and users of Wikipedia content." There's nothing in the text of the GFDL that suggests that Wikipedians have the right to circumvent attribution requirements for their own in-project purposes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:30, 24 May 2009 (UTC) As far as broaching goes, I just modified my vote at Talk:Optics#OK to transwiki to this project? and put a link to SA's comment. Well, perhaps "a link back to the article" is open to interpretation. If it says "{{main article|Example}}", does that satisfy the requirement? Or does it have to state or imply that the link provides attribution information, as well as merely providing the link? I would think it ought to say something like "material is from link", rather than just having a link somewhere which looks as if it could be there for some other purpose. Maybe the guideline needs to be reworded? E.g. "A brief statement including a link back to the article is generally considered ..." What if a website put up Wikipedia articles, and had links to the Wikipedia pages linked from images somewhere on the pages? That would be a link, but wouldn't explicitly state attribution. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:41, 24 May 2009 (UTC) In other words, you haven't really answered my question. Does SA's method constitute "a link back to the article" and therefore satisfy the requirement? (I would think not, but I'm asking.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. Sorry if I missed something. I'm afraid that you only have part of my attention tonight. I'm a bit frazzled with "real life" obligations. I don't believe that it does. I believe that a link back to the article needs to be in the edit summary and possibly also at the talk page and to explicitly acknowledge authorship. (Material split from...etc.) As WP:C says, the indicator here is in the GFDL text. 4(I) says that to modify material, we must, "Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence." The link in the edit summary adds attribution to the "History" section, incorporating the "History" of the article by reference. However, I see that since you wrote me, Durova has contacted you about this at her talk page. Perhaps you should discuss these misgivings with her? GFDL infringements are generally easy to repair just by noting the date that material was incorporated in a null edit summary. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:59, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Your Choice Records Dear Moonriddengirl: thank you for your advice. I have passed the info and the changes have been made. (check out: http://www.ycr.diehl.ws/news.html#4) I hope everything is ok like that. Love, Party diktator (talk) 15:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC) It should be fine. I have cleared the article and noted the licensing terms at the talk. If you place that material in other articles, please provide attribution as I did at the bottom of the tagged article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Thank you very much!!! Love, Party diktator (talk) 19:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Dear Moonriddengirl: this RadioFan guy (RadioFan, talk) is trying to fuck me up! Could you please help me out here? I am not able to handle this/him, as I am not to used to deal with all the Wiki rules and regulations, I just tried to set up something beautiful... It was a lot of work to me to edit all the info regarding Your Choice Records. A few pages have been uploaded back in 2005 (Your Choice Live Series Vol.10, Your Choice Live Series Vol.12, It's Your Choice - compilation). This inspired me to continue as I am a fan. Now this guy is trying to ruin it all... He seems to have a lot of energy doing this... I am in a desperate state... Would be so happy if you could help me out... Love, Party diktator (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2009 (UTC) And talking about this so called "sockpuppetry" thing: User:Grapes-taste is actually a funny and very kind girl friend of mine. Is it illegal if she voices her opinion / reacts on my comments? If so, I will tell her to stop... Should be no problem... Love, Party diktator (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Yeah, I as well have concerns about this sockpuppetry accusation. Accusations such as this assume bad faith and can be perceived as uncivil towards new users (see wp:bite) I am just an interested third-party riffic (talk) 23:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. I am a bit confused by all of this. Let me take a look and see if I can figure out what's going on. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Okay. It seems that you and your friend have unfortunately fallen afoul of our WP:SOCK policy. Even if you are separate people, you may still run afoul of that policy if the two of you are tandem editing. (See Wikipedia:SOCK#Meatpuppets.) By this point, evidently, you have been blocked for 31 hours and your friend has been blocked indefinitely. If your friend wishes to contribute to Wikipedia, she should probably request unblocking, announce her relationship to you on the talk page, indicate that she understands now that the two of you should not work on articles or in discussions in a way that causes a problem with our "sock" policy. Likewise, you might consider requesting unblocking, explaining the circumstances and indicating your understanding of policy. There is no guarantee that your request will result in your block being lifted early. This will depend on the administrator who responds to your request. As far as the Wikipedia rules and regulations are concerned, I'm sorry if your articles run into problem. Even if they are deleted, you do have the option to retrieve the code and use it elsewhere. For example, Wikia may allow you to use it. (I'm not sure what their policies are.) I'm afraid that I personally do not have any influence on the outcome of an AfD. (I would not, at this point, be comfortable participating in it, because we have rules about discussing these things.) Your best bet would be to expand the articles with reliable sources to verify notability. Newspaper articles, magazine stories, even coverage on reputable industry websites would do it. You should still be able to edit your talk page. Since you are currently blocked, I'll place this on your talk page and watchlist it in case you have any questions. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Dear Moonriddengirl! Thank you very much for your advices, but I am sorry to say that I dont have the time and nerve to do all this fixing. I guess I have to leave this to others and hope that the pages somehow will survive. I can´t speak for Grapes-taste, but I will tell her about this. But: That riffic guy - for example - found some sources and left them at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Your Choice Records, not knowing what exactly to do with them. Neither do I. Maybe someone else can / will take care of it. I´ll just have to leave it like that. And to be honest. I completely lost interest in continuing, as this seems to becoming a pest. I don´t want to continually fight for an article that I edited, just because some smart asses have nothing better to do to flag and violate them. I already hate the police in the real world (and avoid the contact), don´t need to deal with some self made police men in the virtual world that seem to be bored with their real lives. All in all, it´s just not important enough to me... Or maybe I am simply not strong enough... Love, Party diktator (talk) 19:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC) I'm sorry that it didn't work out that well for you, then. :/ Wikipedia has its rules and procedures, and it does require patience while you learn your way around it, but it's the only process we've got. Some things we don't like can be changed within Wikipedia, but the rules and procedures were created for the most part after quite a lot of community discussion, and it sometimes takes time and effort to convince people that they should change. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC) List of New York State Historic Markers Hello, I've been developing List of New York State Historic Markers for the past few weeks. Some questions were raised about copyright status. I've managed to successfully reach out and talk with the State of New York. They are willing to do an OTRS release so these materials may be used in Wikipedia. I've copied a draft of what I propose for that release below. Please confirm this is acceptable as is or with revisions and I'll ask the person I am working with at New York State to send an email to the wikimedia permissions email address I used before. I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the text of the New York State Historical Markers and all transcripted sections at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_State_Historic_Markers I agree to publish that work under the free license GFDL v 1.2 or later and CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later. I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project. Inoysterbay (talk) 19:12, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Fabulous! Eliminate all questions. :) That should work, except that the employee of the State of New York may not feel comfortable declaring him or herself to be the sole owner. It should also be acceptable to say "I hereby assert that the State of New York [or whichever particular agency] is the creator and/or sole owner of the" and "As a designated agent of the State of New York authorized to do so, I agree to publish...." You should try to keep the doors of communication open in case further clarification is required and, of course, this agent will need to have an e-mail address that clearly identifies him or her with the State of New York or said particular agency. Again, thank you for being willing to work with the red tape. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Something interesting Note: this is completely trivial, so don't even bother reading it if you're busy ...but I stumbled across this otherwise irrelevant news article, in which a paragraph struck me as quite relevant to what we've been seeing recently. Second and third paragraphs under Greater assertiveness. It's not just us, then. :) – Toon(talk) 17:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC) I'm totally up for something interesting. :) The eye-clawing boredom of evaluating text for copyright concerns is about to drive me batty today. :D I'll go check it out! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Oh, absolutely! Just today I witnessed another case that I think was a legitimate misunderstanding of copyright violations. The contributor was sourcing the copied text, and seemed honestly confused that this was not sufficient from a copyright perspective. One problem we face, I think, is that these contributors (like the one I had recently who thought we could use non-commercial text), don't have any reason to read our policies because they don't have any reason to question their assumptions. *sigh* --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Rankings of importance Greetings, Moonriddengirl. You've struck me as an editor who has a broad base of knowledge, a calm demeanor, and lots of love for the Wiki. That's just the kind of person I'm looking for! Over at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/3, Drilnoth and I are attempting the nigh-unto-impossible task of deciding on the 1000 most-important articles on Wikipedia. We already have the vital 100 solidified, but it's an interesting task to choose among all Wikipedia articles to decide which are most vital. Is Rembrandt or Andy Warhol more vital? Tuba or Folk music? Would you be willing to offer your input on these and other burning questions? If so, the discussion is mostly ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3. All the best, – Quadell (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Sure, though I'm almost out of time for the moment. :) I'm working on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, gutted by copyright infringement earlier. I'll wander by and take a look as soon as I can. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Thanks! Oh, and by the way, I thought you might enjoy today's "Get Fuzzy" comic. – Quadell (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC) LOL! Classic! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC) A CopyVio article (not from GB) Hi Moonriddengirl. I just now was reading the article Nocturnal myoclonus and it appears to be pretty much an exact verbatim copy of this webpage [4]. What do we do? Do we nominate it for speedy deletion? Thanks and best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 00:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC) I would just point out that at the bottom of that page is the nice, bold text which says: Compliments of Wikipedia.org. No copyvio here! (Hooray) :) – Toon(talk) 00:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC) I'm very glad to be able to agree with Toon05. :) Those of us who have addressed a lot of these on Wikipedia have learned to watch for the signs of Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Don't feel bad for missing this one; I'm just glad you thought to follow up. :) Some of them are really very subtle. There is a book publisher (Icon Publishing Group) that reproduces Wikipedia text quite frequently, and the only sign that most of us would see (unless we read the introduction) is the parenthetical (WP) at the end of the passage. And, of course, some of them don't give us credit at all. :/ In those cases, I'll have to search for context clues, like comparing the archive date on the earliest publication of the text or looking to see if the language naturally evolved here. It can be complicated. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Oh great, thanks, that's a relief. I will learn to look more carefully. Thanks again, Invertzoo (talk) 12:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Letting people know in a personal way Hi again Moonriddengirl. Wanted to run this by you to see what you thought. As I go along I sometimes find fairly new contributors creating whole series of gastropod articles or other natural history articles. When the articles are extremely complete and technical-seeming right from the start, and there are quite some number of them, (all of which can give me an uneasy feeling) I have started saying something like this in my message to the person, after a hello and some praise: "I also wanted to say one more thing, and please do forgive me if this is not relevant, but I don't have access to the (print) references you are using, so I can't check for myself. I just wanted to say that all prose, including the technical descriptions of the animals, has to be re-written in your own words from scratch, not used directly or almost directly from the sources. Sometimes this is quite hard to do, and a lot of us do make the mistake of copying stuff verbatim or almost verbatim when we are first starting out on Wikipedia, not understanding that that is unacceptable. So, as I said, please forgive me if you already know this, but I guess it doesn't hurt to make that policy really clear up front. All my very best wishes to you," Best to you too of course, Invertzoo (talk) 13:06, 20 May 2009 (UTC) I think that sounds like a friendly notice. I'd give it a go, and if you get negative feedback adjust accordingly. :) You might want to include a link to perhaps WP:C. And if you aren't already doing so, I sometimes close by noting the help desk in case they need assistance. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Thanks M., I deliberately didn't include the WP:C link right off the bat, because I thought it might make the note seem sort of unpleasantly officious, but if I get a reply that seems a bit dubious, or if I don't get a reply but things continue as before, I will definitely give it that link out. I think the help desk link is a good idea too, thanks. Invertzoo (talk) 15:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Creating a table on my User page - recieved error on attempt to save. Hi there! Can you help me or send me on to someone that can help? I was working to create a table of drugs candidates being developed by various pharmaceutical companies. I was at it for several hours, doing a "save page" essentially for every line. But on the last line I was entering I was thwarted by this message: Database error From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Revision::insertOn". MySQL returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout exceeded; Try restarting transaction (10.0.6.22)". Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnfravolda" Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnfravolda (talk • contribs) 21:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC) I desperately hope you still have that edit window open. :/ When that happens to me, I hit backs on my browser. The material is still all there in my edit screen. Sometimes I copy it and back it up. Sometimes I just back up and try again. I think we had a system wide glitch recently, as I also ran into problems saving. If you don't still have the window open, I may not be able to help you, but I'll see if I can find somebody who can (or can definitely answer that nobody can.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC) It's no big deal. I only lost the last bit I was typing in, since I had been saving incessantly along the way. I was afraid I had surpassed a limit on the number of saves I can make. --Johnfravolda (talk) 21:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Oh, I'm glad. :) No, I think it was just a standard Wikipedia glitch. Some days we're buggy; some days we're not. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Armond Budish Hello, My name is Todd Budish and I use the name of Budeone as a logon. I am trying to add a page for my cousin Armond Budish. I must be doing something wrong. I tried a few weeks ago and it was deleted. I went back and looked and I saw the problem, it was copied and pasted from other sites. So this time I printed all the information and had the receptionist take all the information and write it down mixing and matching different things from different articles. I printed what I think is either a note from you or a standard response. I am not quite sure if I am actually typing to someone or not. I will give this information to girl I had type this last one out to and have her try it again. Thanks Todd Budeone (talk) 11:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Thank you for your note. I have replied at your talk page with a little more information. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Thank you very much. I think I have a much better understanding of what you are asking for. I am not sure the young lady I had do this last night is going to be able to do this, I think I need to find someone computer literate to add these links. I have printed many pages of instructions and I think that will help quite a bit. Honestly I did not think this was going to turn into a project..lol I do understand why it is necessary and will try to make the next one conform to the rules of this site. Thanks Todd Budeone (talk) 11:48, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Stacey Castor's expression as verdict is read.jpg Since you helped me write parts of the Stacey Castor article, would you mind commenting here on how valid you feel this image is within the article? I am also asking you because I know how experienced you are with copyrighted material subjects, and you did not object to my use of the image within the article. Flyer22 (talk) 21:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. I'm afraid that copyright image issues are not my major thing. :/ I was asking a question just about images of living people in article just a few days ago at WT:NFC (and didn't get much of an answer). There is an image admin, though, who routinely contributes to the WP:COPYCLEAN project, and I'll neutrally ask him to weigh in. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Okay. Thanks. Flyer22 (talk) 07:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Thank you thank you thank you! For all your hard work!radek (talk) 00:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Thank you. :) It's a big job! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Periodical payments There was a permissionOTRS tag on the talk page of this page, which you deleted as a copyvio. I'm not going to change things around in case there was a better reason for this, but if not, you might revert it. Stifle (talk) 09:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC) The reason it was deleted was that the OTRS was incomplete, which is SOP so far as I know. :) On May 20th, you'd received no follow-up to Ticket:2009051210037216. Have you received a further response? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Some review please? Hey MRG, lord knows where this will have gotten to by the time you read this, but could you at your earliest convenience review this and my responses at the user talk page and at the article in question? To shorten the story, I basically eviscerated an article that looked pretty copy-pasty. I think the editor in question was just misinterpreting the external site conditions for copying. My own interpretation was that it constituted a copyvio and these should be immediately removed, so I did that. I may have been a little bitey in my comments at NBeale's talk page, but I would hope to better explain when they respond. OTOH I could be completely wrong and need to apologize! To a further dimension, this case is instructive to the plagio guideline we've sweated blood on: even if the origin site had provided a free release of their content, would it be acceptable to make a direct copy (releasing it "into the wild" as it were) with just a citation? To my thinking, that would need a PD-attribution template or at least a permanent note on the talk page - but that's just my thinking. I'd put all this on the plagio talk page where it started, but I don't want to make an example of anyone. Thanks for your help, which I know (well, I hope anyway) is always just a click away! :) Franamax (talk) 10:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC) I had already read and liked what you'd said. :) (My "you've got mail" banner delayed light up this morning for some reason, but I had seen the question at the plagiarism guideline and followed it.) It didn't read as bitey to me, but to the point and informative. The "silly anon" comment was just calling out bad behavior and not in a particularly heavy-handed way. I've left a note at the talk page of the article itself, where the contributor had also asserted fair use (and proper handling). Sometimes, the scope of copyright and plagiarism work is daunting. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Thanx for the endorsement. A lot of copy/plagio is actually pretty easy, since a lot of it is done by people sitting on the couch, using a series of tubes to get their copies. I don't get into the real heavy lifting like you, where you have to track down copies of old books and such. The daunting part, I find, is doing the education, explaining to people how to research and read the fine print, and telling them it's not the end of the world, but they do need to recognize that they're wrong. That applies as much to real-world legal situations as to wiki-life. The tricky bit will be when the editor in question responds - we want to keep the editor, but not the behaviour. Thanks for your attention! Franamax (talk) 11:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC) For me, the real heavy lifting is in reviewing contributor history (well, that and stuff like History of Jews in Poland. Took many hours to comb through that article.) When we have a contributor who has been here a while (as opposed to the common drive-by infringer), it's necessary to check to see if there are other problems in other articles. But I can spend hours checking a single contributor. Some days, I can't keep on top...much less get ahead. Nobody else seems to have any ideas for how better to do this, either, judging by the response (or lack) here. I think this need is urgent. A lot of the nastiness that recently exploded around User:FlyingToaster would have been avoided handily if earlier problems had been found and cleaned before she stood for RfA. (Being me, I've decided to feel personally guilty for that.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Oh, and p.s., I agree about the trickiness of education. I'm usually pretty good about being patient with people about it. I find it goes one of three ways: (1) immediate acceptance. Sometimes these people have to be talked off the ledge. (2) initial resistance, followed by gradual acceptance. (3) full-blown denial/defiance. I'm generally most tense while waiting to find out if I have a 2 or a 3. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Color, infobox hi...i need some help to add colour to the header of inforbox university which i used to create an article on bhim rao ambedkar college..i am new to wikipedia editing so have no clue.can u please tell me how to create my own infobox,or to add colour or the concerned person i can talk to.. ill really appreciate your act..thanxxx Amitverma86 (talk) 16:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)amitverma86 Hi. :) Since it's a university/college article, the place to go is probably Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. If they can't answer you, I'd ask at the help desk. I'd ask the project first, though, since there may be some rules about colors in infoboxes for colleges. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Thanxx a lot for replying.i have messaged the template people and hope i get the reply soon. thanx again Amitverma86 (talk) 14:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)amitverma86 I will never stop bothering you :) So as not to sidetrack anything at WP:Plagiarism, I will bring this here instead. In this thread you say "Plus, copyright infringement at this point is meant to be resolved by an administrator." and this is backed up by the wording in the big black box that comes with the {{copyviocore}} template. Why is that? Can you help me to understand what special skills are awarded with the block button? Why should I sit on my butt if I already know what the problem is? Considering only the narrow case where I can find the text on a website, I can find the website's copyright/reserved-rights page, I can examine the article history and use my nifty software tool to be sure it's not a mirror site, so that I'm convinced it's a copyvio - why shouldn't I just do what I always do: nuke the lot; leave a note on the article talk page showing my removal diff, the copyvio source and the rights statement link; remove the big black box and get the (often drastically shortened) article back into sight of the viewing public; make a note to the violating editor; and have a scan through the rest of their contributions? I already know how to fix this stuff, using a systematic approach to cover all the bases. Why is that limited to admins? Granted that I may not be as methodical as you are, but then a lot of admins just aren't in the same class as you. I've never really understood that big black box... Franamax (talk) 04:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. :) You're always welcome to stop by. Always nice to chat with you. Plus, you've given me an opportunity to break into the chorus of one of my favorite songs: Tradition! :) In point of fact, I don't know. It was like that when I came to it, which is why I tossed in the "at this point" qualifier. I gather that CSD tags used to be removable only by admins, and I wonder if it's simply never been challenged. I can see that it might be a good idea for the project, though. It helps prove to anybody who comes along later and accuses us of not taking copyright seriously that, "Oh, yes, we do! See, we require that admins investigate every case! We know admins are reliable!" (er, theoretically. ;)) I see plenty of those tags that are removed out of process. Probably about 70% of those removals are wrong, restoring copyrighted text to publication. Often, these are done by IP editors. Sometimes by copyvio contributors. The rest of the time, I view it as a good use of WP:IAR. Another possible reason is that the CP tag is frequently misused (according to policy). The instructions at Wikipedia:COPYVIO (paraphrased) are: If you find a copyvio, remove the copyvio text and say what you've done at the article's talk page. If the whole page infringes, revert to a clean. If there is no clean, you may be able to rewrite the page or get permission. Failing that, it should be deleted under WP:CSD#G12 or tagged {{subst:copyvio}}. The idea being, I suppose, is that cases with the copyvio template are egregious, and if nothing else history deletion is necessary. Admin tools are needed for that, so it could well be that the process was designed with the thought that when all those other steps don't work, there is no good reason for a non-admin to remove the tag. About process misuse: I often misuse process myself. For example, that big project I've had going at History of the Jews in Poland. I could have reverted to clean, but that would have had me reverting back several years. I could not easily remove the copyvio text--it took me multiple days just to identify it. I blanked the article with the copyvio text to keep us from publishing it while it's being rewritten. Some of the people who are helping out there have been comfortable removing the copyvio template from cleaned sections. Some haven't. If there were a debate about explicitly allowing any contributor to remove the tag, I think I'd probably take some time to make up my mind. Not because I think admins are inherently endowed with special powers in discerning copyvios, but because I think we need some kind of accountability. Many of the copyvios I encounter come from people who think they know Wikipedia's policies on the subject, but don't. For instance, like our recent case of non-com licensing. I see that often enough to call it routine. There's also one listed at the board right now where a contributor thought government publications from any country were pd because US government publications are. He removed the tag from multiple articles in good faith, but obviously shouldn't have. How we'd figure out who knows policies, I don't know. Written test? Essay questions? Vulcan mind meld? :D I think there's probably a lot of room for improvement in our handling of copyright on Wikipedia. But until we get a small army of editors onboard, I'm not sure we've got any practical ability to implement it. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Hmm, I hadn't thought of deleting history versions, that's a "special power". I read somewhere that copyvio is "presenting for public display", which history versions are not - but maybe I haven't thought it through. (Because I could then in theory write out the lyrics to all of my favourite songs and keep them in the history of lyrics) I do agree that the tag shouldn't be removed willy-nilly and it's probably best to have the big black warning to wait for an admin. A then-newish editor who I mentor/berate occasionally asked me once about that tag on something he'd written. After the usual lecture and sufficient rewriting, I'm pretty sure I did the IAR thingy and took the tag off. I guess it all comes down to judgement and accountability, I was just wondering how hard-and-fast the rule was. Looks like I might be spending the afternoon searching for copyvios anyway, our recent acquaintance may need a little checking (seeing as how the first article I checked was a copy-paste and all :( ). Franamax (talk) 19:19, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia seems to sit somewhere between the belief that they should be deleted and just not published. I myself am more likely to delete when it's either particular egregious or it seems likely that it might be hauled out of history and republished (I've seen that happen quite a bit; I always watch an article for a while after I clear a copyvio from it.) Some people seem to treat the rule like it's sacred. I haven't seen any admins get bothered about it, though, as long as the removal of the tag is constructive. :) I did not at first, by the way, recognize our recent acquaintance in his or her appearance at the plagiarism page. Objections made more sense after that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:10, 24 May 2009 (UTC) In my opinion, though, the issue is that the copyrighted material simply remains and remains on en.wiki like it's not the least issue. This is what happened with the great sea life plagiarism, keeping it on en.wiki was deemed far more important than anything else. Now, I was willing to rewrite some of these articles that deal with an area and languages that I could do some quick research. However, maintaining the copyvios seems to be, yet again, more important. Would you at least delete the Straits of Corfu article and replace it with my usable stub for now? --KP Botany (talk) 17:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Hi. :) Personally, I prefer to delete them from history. I do so as often as I can with articles listed at WP:CP, even if it takes much longer (on this one, for example, I spent over an hour and a half adding in material that had been contributed after the copyright infringement so I could delete the copyvio). The problem is that we don't really have the manpower to do that across the board. :/ With 10-12 articles popping up at CP most days (my unscientific impression; could be way off) and especially with problems on an unprecedented scale like Graham Bould, we sometimes pretty much have to leave them in the article history. (Clean up on Graham Bould, by the way, is still ongoing. That was a swathe of damage such as I hope never, ever to encounter again.) I had not looked at Straits of Corfu yet. Copyright problems don't come "due" for admin investigation until 7 days after listing. (That's to give the contributors time to verify permission or to give other editors time to rewrite the article.) Under the circumstances, though, there doesn't seem much reason to wait for it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Graham Fuller Hello Moonriddengirl! I came across this article and thought you did an excellent job so far. I added a handful of citations and thought it would be great for DYK. As of right now, its sitting in this section. Hope you don't mind. :) Syn 23:58, 23 May 2009 (UTC) Ok it might be moved when you see this, as it was verified. Syn 00:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC) I don't mind at all. :D Thank you very much. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)