Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or – for assistance – at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

« Archives, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78

Use of Wikipedia text by other wikis without attribution

I wonder what our policy is about the wholesale copying of Wikipedia text by other wiki encyclopaedias without attribution? I recently came across this article at Mises Wiki and noticed that it appeared to be largely lifted from our own article on Full reserve banking. I looked for attribution to Wikipedia, and could not find it anywhere. Browsing through the other articles there, it appears to be a pretty general practice; they copy large amounts of text from our articles, and then apply a POV spin to it. Is this use allowed, or should we be doing something about it? LK (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting looking at it. I even learned a new word "Austro-libertarianism". I was looking for their licensing info, and it is nowhere to be found, though on their 5 pillars page it says

• "Mises Wiki is free content that any user can edit and any reader distribute. However, copyright laws must be respected, and plagiarism is not tolerated. Because all contributions are freely licensed, all of your contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed. As a result, no editor should think that he "owns" an article."

So perhaps a quick reminder might have some effect.

To directly answer your question though, I don't think that there is anything we can do about it, other than politely ask them to attribute Wikipedia. Perhaps if we got together everybody who contributed to an article, joined in a lawsuit and sued, we might get $10.37. You could ask the WMF lawyers, but do remember that they only can really give legal advice to the WMF. To editors they might be able to explain basic principles. Maybe we could take away their Media Wiki software? Actually, I don't think so. All the best. Smallbones (talk) 04:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've added a disclaimer on the page, and in fact we do attribute most Wikipedia material, this one appears to have been forgotten. Sorry for that.

Perhaps it ought to be reminded that Wikipedia explicitly wants others to use its material and there's probably a trillion other places that copy everything and don't attribute it either (which doesn't excuse us, just to point it out). Then someone modifies the original text by inserting POV, following the original resources and adding others, and things start getting into grey areas.

But sorry for rambling; it is a small wiki and we are actually trying to rewrite and replace everything from Wikipedia, it just might take some time... :)

In general, we do have original content developed independently from WP. If you come across some notable omissions just drop me a line and I'll add the disclaimers where necessary. Pestergaines (talk) 05:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In general, the first thing to do is to ask them nicely. As we see above, assuming good faith is often correct :-) - David Gerard (talk) 10:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic result. Thanks to Pestergaines, especially for pointing out the location of the licensing information. I hope nobody minded my attempts at humor. What follows is not an attempt at humor.

If I may extend this conversation to a related topic. Many people at WP are worried about declining editorship here. I think the A-L type of "fork" is a good antidote for this. Different folks, working on different 'pedias, even with different rules, but with compatible free licenses are free to operate in an editing environment that they consider to be best for them. Borrowing across 'pedias should be simple and quick (with some editing due to different rules of course), in effect making the whole complex one huge meta-encyclopedia (does anybody have a better word?). BTW this meta-pedia would be very stabile in its various forms, e.g. nobody could close it down for any reason (just a few of its parts) unless they close down the entire internet. About the only things now that I can suggest to make this happen would be explicit linking (e.g. in Wikipedia's left hand column (which would be controversial here), or at worst on talk pages) and easy borrowing/linking to Commons. The WMF might be able todo a better job pushing the free Media Wiki software, but they probably do an ok job now.

Maybe just talking about it a bit would help it to happen.

For a completely outrageous application of this idea, I suggest PRpedia. PR firms could borrow whatever they want from Wikipedia (with attribution of course), then fix it up however they want it. They might limit editorship to the firms involved or to their officially recognized PR firms and allow ownership of the articles (different strokes for different folks). This might allow Wikipedians to both borrow the content freely, AND to use it as a reliable source. The firms might take on the minimal cost just so a great pre-formatted Wikipedia article is ready to go, should any non-COI Wikipedia editor decide that their article is better than ours. I don't think they'd take on the minimal cost because they expect lots of folks to come read it directly - after all PR suffers from a certain lack of credibility. What they seem to want is to add some of their material to Wikipedia *because of our credibility*. But letting completely free access to editing by COIs is bound to reduce our credibility - Wikipedia might just become another PRpedia! Having the separate PRpedia and allowing non-COI editors to borrow their articles freely would certainly reduce that problem. Enuf said. Smallbones (talk) 17:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

There are several. MyWikiBiz springs to mind. They don't have the cachet, the reputation, or the search engine power that the English Wikipedia has. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Is the GDFL license compatible? It looked a bit clunky with link-back requirements. Frankly I couldn't find anything worth copying at MyWikiBiz with a 10 minute search. I think that's a good indication of the credibility problem. If you don't have any standards, then everything goes downhill, and nobody reads you. Smallbones (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

If content is created for the explicit purpose of being ported into Wikipedia by impartial editors, we have AfC and sandboxes for that and I think this is basically the right approach. If someone wants a Wiki-format article that performs ok in search, but they don't want to learn/comply with Wikipedia's rules, MyWikiBiz provides an alternative. A lot of small businesses that don't meet notability requirements could create informative and useful articles on MyWikiBiz that could still perform ok in search, without undermining Wikipedia's rules.

I guess what I'm getting at, I don't see it as problematic content on MyWikiBiz is not suitable for Wikipedia, but really that's what it's there for. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 19:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see it as problematic either - for them. But I was suggesting above that it would be nice if there were multiple pedias out there that we could more-or-less copy freely (with reasonable checks and editing to meet our standards). User:WhatamIdoing suggested that MyWikiBiz might be one of these. I have to disagree with him - I wouldn't have any confidence in copying anything from there to here. It would take more time editing it properly than just starting from scratch.

As far as articles for creation and sandboxes, my only reservation is that we cannot verify that the company itself or their official PR agents have produced the material. Even if they state that explicitly on Wiki, how are we to know for sure? It seems to me, if they want to put out information, it's best that they put it out in their own names in places where we can verify where it came from. It might even work out that we can copy parts of an already-Wikified article as a reliable source. Wouldn't that be nice (with quotes if not modified by us, with checks and editing to our standards if modified by us)? AfC and sandboxes, of course have other uses, but reliable, direct-from-the-source, pre-Wikified material is not one of them. Smallbones (talk) 22:23, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

There are valid reasons for copying content from Wikipedia into other wikis, and I'll admit that I'm "guilty" of doing that more than a few times myself. Most of the situations where I've done that is for things like Wikia fansites where I've usually gone through the process of dewikifying the article (aka removing hyperlinks that are irrelevant) and sometimes adding things that may seem like fancruft to editors on Wikipedia (usually well justified I might add). Furthermore, many of those articles I put in hyperlinks that are proper in the context of that wiki and its database where adding those hyperlinks would be inappropriate here on Wikipedia. Generally it is just a small handful of articles that get copied over from Wikipedia and in the case of those fansite wikis such copied content is a stark minority of the site content, but it still can be very useful. A couple of those Wikia sites where this has happened are actually more popular than most of the Wikimedia sister projects, so it is not just a marginal activity either.

In the cases where I find such articles on wikis that I'm participating in (and sometimes acting as administrator) I go out of my way to include usually a hatnote or some other markup on those pages that clearly notes the content is derived from a Wikipedia article, and that is a practice I would encourage for other sites that perform a similar kind of content duplication. Even if you have added original content, it is still useful to note where the content originally came from.

I'll also note that in the early days of Wikipedia, a substantial amount of content was originally seeded from the public domain (aka no copyright) version of the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Yes, it was horribly out of date and the articles desperately needed to be cleaned up in terms of POV tone and other huge issues, but it did provide a basis for development of what we have today. On a rare occasion, I still do trip across such article that were created at that time, a few of which still haven't been fixed up I might add as well (mostly obscure topics that a 21st century reader isn't actively seeking on a regular basis). If you go into the back history of some of even the popular articles on Wikipedia, you may come across some of that original 1911 content as well (sort of fun to see how the articles have changed to do a massive page diff from 1911 to 2012).

I have no doubt that eventually Wikipedia will die as a project in the future, but I also think that in the 25th Century (or whenever it becomes an issue) what everybody is working on today will very likely seed such future compendiums of human knowledge just like Wikipedia has been gifted from a great many other sources to make what we have today. That many people are using Wikipedia to spread human knowledge should be viewed as a good thing. Failure to attribute and plagiarism in violation of the terms of the Wikipedia licenses is bad form, but conforming to Wikipedia licenses are pretty easy to do (since you don't need formal written permission to copy). --Robert Horning (talk) 21:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

"Even if you have added original content, it is still useful to note where the content originally came from". Er, no. It is a requirement that this is done. Then again, some other wikis seem to take a slightly 'creative' approach to the issue, even when the material concerned isn't even under a Creative Commons licence in the first place - e.g. this sort of thing:[1][2]. With things like that going on, regardless of what other wikis do with our content, we sure as hell shouldn't be trusting their content to meet the appropriate standards. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Copying a copyrighted article on copyright does take some cojones, so I won't accuse you of being grumpy ;-) As far as trusting somebody else's material, I think we do it all the time, within reason, and then cite it. More directly to the point, it's a question of can I A) just check the sources, remove doubtful material, add a bit of my own, and then polish it (sort of like editing Wikipedia, but more so)? or B) write the article from scratch? Or perhaps something in between? When it's possible, I'll take A) anytime. "Trust, but verify" might be the watchword here. But if the material isn't verifiable, of course you can't trust it. Smallbones (talk) 22:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll note that Wikimedia projects themselves haven't really been faithful in keeping to all of the terms of the various licenses, even when engaging in a transwiki effort to move content between various sister projects or even when page mergers have happened. Some admins are better than others at making mergers or think that a redirect is sufficient after content has been copied over and other various problems that have happened over the years. I could go on, but my point is that Wikipedia isn't perfect either. That a goal is in place to improve is certainly there, and raising standards is useful, be careful where you throw stones. Some of that was simply technical limitations due to weaknesses in the wiki software, but not always.

It is also a gray area when 80%-90% or even 99.9% of all of the content from the original source has been replaced and about the only thing left is the title of the article and maybe a couple numbers that can easily be derived from other sources. If the content has been gradually changed a sentence or paragraph at a time until it is completely different (or almost), is it still a derivative copyright that needs to be linked back to the "original" content that may not even be recognizable as the same? --Robert Horning (talk) 00:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Smallbones, my point was only that if a PR company wants to have "a wiki page" for a non-notable company, then there are options out there. I have no interest in porting the stuff back here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of content must be addressed by the original authors, if they wish to do so. See Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#Non-compliance_process for the recommended process. I personally release all my contributions under CC0 and would never choose to pursue a content reuser. Dcoetzee 03:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sad

Ah well. And I've told so many people how fast WP corrects itself. This [3] just made me sad. For ten months those assassin bugs have been attacking poor 'kayla', instead of their intended targets. I just came across this, and wanted to share it where I knew people would see it. (I fixed it, ofc, but first I had to make sure 'kayla' wasn't some obscure entemological term...) I don't guess any response is required; we all know the deal. So many articles, so little time... :) Eaglizard (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Poor Kayla :( Ryan Vesey 01:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we need an easter egg contest? See who can find the longest uncorrected vandalism. The winner gets the kayla award. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The article runs 30-40 hits a day, fwiw - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive_31#Highscore: Longest standing vandalism?. -.- mabdul 00:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Hoaxes on Wikipedia for some astonishingly long-lived hoaxes. Dcoetzee 03:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought there was a moderately famous incident involving H. Clinton and a mistake about her college degree, or something related, but I don't see it on the list.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Answering my own question, about 20 months.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I have kept a list of items like this on my userpage for several years. The reason is to inculcate a sense of humility over claims that "the average piece of vandalism is corrected in .000005 nanoseconds". Rich Farmbrough, 23:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC).

How to solve your Wikipedia "problem"

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but has anyone seen this article? [4] It's actually not that bad, but I was amused by statements that encourage you to "surreptitiously edit" your own page if someone is slandering you on your article. dci | TALK 00:28, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I observe that the account that created the article about the author appears to have rather a lot of sockpuppets - David Gerard (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The article is quite good until it gets to fighting fire with fire although I guess that method has worked for the author. He seems internet savvy and appears to have spent a lot of time on Wikipedia. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 00:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The first problem is that the article is about 5 steps removed form the research it quotes. For example 21% of the errors were spelling errors.¹ Rich Farmbrough, 00:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC).

Someone is currently adding wildly incorrect things to an article

The article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0lkay_G%C3%BCndo%C4%9Fan and their IP address is: 39.213.11.93

Ilkay Guendogan is a Turkish-German footballer who is not married to Alyssa Campanella. All of the items listed under "Personal Life" are untrue, and all the changes made by the user I mentioned are false.

I noticed this and didn't know how to report it, but this is the sort of stuff that needs to be stopped in order to keep Wikipedia credible. I hope some Wiki editors read this and take action. Thank you - a normal user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.194.88.218 (talk) 14:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Same with the one I looked at and reported88.104.135.120 (talk) 11:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep an eye on Alyssa Campanella, too. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Move discussions not exciting or intriguing anymore?

Well, recently, I've proposed a move on Dallas (1978 TV series), Melrose Place (1992 TV series), and The A.V. Club. I have learned that title 1 vs. title 2 is not very exciting anymore. Burma vs. Myammar (I nearly forgot Myammar)? Ivory Coast vs. Cote d'Ivoire (I forgot that name)? Even I have no power to rebute logical arguments. What can I do? --George Ho (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Err, was it ever exciting? Wouldn't a viewer tend to search for "Dallas TV" rather than "Dallas (1978 TV series)" or "Dallas (TV series)". Has anybody looked at reader search patterns for failed lookups? Or do we just assume the suggested topics list is sufficient? I'm just curious. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Just a thought, but perhaps there is not much strong opinion one way or the other on those proposed moves. If no one weighs in, it might mean they don't have any preference. Or it might mean the proposals just need a little more time to gain input. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

"Dallas TV"? Really? That doesn't sound like an intuitive search, to me. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Shrug, so we have different intuitions. I suppose you go to Google and type, "Dallas (1978 TV series)"? Regards, RJH (talk) 19:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

From WT:WikiProject Disambiguation Well, I always assume that a general reader is either inept to realize things or less interested on further details. Therefore, I have disambiguated My Sister's Keeper (novel). (Amazingly, last year's numbers were stellar (at first), but this year's went worse.) Frankly, this is more to do with what a reader really needs and is interested in generally. A fan of a topic is different from general reader: he is more intelligent to me and has more common sense, right? If fan and general reader are not valid reasons, you don't suggest using mere policies and guidelines to prove point, am I correct? Policies and guidelines on titling articles are not thrilling, exciting, or intriguing. They can either change or stay the same, but a name is a name (duh!). Even arguing about disambiguating a name is more fun (Apu (The Simpsons) vs. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon) than about renaming a title (Burma vs. Myanmar, Men's rights vs. Men's rights movement) because... disambiguating a name is more complicated and thrilling than arguing about which natural name to use is simple yet degrading. --George Ho (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Seeing Wikipedia articles on Facebook and Google.

I have noticed that some people have their wikipedia biographies visible whenever you search for them on the right side of "Google," while some others don't and also the same thing is on Facebook- some people a have wikipedia page on Facebook blank with no photo, while some others have not only the photo but the description as well. I'm just wondering why is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelangel2012 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you'd have to ask Facebook and Google about that - we allow reuse but it's the individual reusers who choose whether/how to reuse our content. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Standard Help Desk response on FB follows: Facebook community pages may incorporate content from Wikipedia— such use complies with Wikipedia policies on reuse of content. We at Wikipedia have no control over how the content is included nor can we help to remove it. Facebook does have a topic on Community pages and profile connections on their Help Center.--ukexpat (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

my graduation project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByY3CgR7-4E

Please help me fulfill the task and spread the word. Matanya (talk) 13:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Um, what are you trying to do? I couldn't understand the spoken dialog in the video. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 13:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I had a bet with my prof. I said I can make users donate over 1000 pics to commons. He was skeptic, and I decided This would be my graduation project in marketing. Let's prove him wrong! more details here. Please help, and help transate! matanya • talk 02:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:TOSCALE A new essay to address deceptive charts and graphs

I was looking at Talk:Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2012#Tax_returns and saw a chart which I noticed was visually deceptive. I wanted to address this issue, but considering the political nature of the article I thought finding a less combative example would be in order.

I've never written an essay before, so I've no idea if this is the correct place to introduce this, but may I present to you WP:TOSCALE.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  01:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You might want to link this advice at Wikipedia:Graphs and charts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Misleading graphs is our article on the topic. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:42, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American music

Can someone fix Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American music ? Archiving is broken. Something weird is going on, since setting archivebox to auto doesn't show archives, and MiszaBot is archiving to #7, without having a 1-6 ever existing. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 11:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I would just remove the code for the archive bot and manually move archove 7 to archive 1. Thepage looks low-traffic enough not to need a not archiving it. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Non admin reply - Not sure why it was doing that but it should be fixed now. I agree with your recommendation Beeblebrox. I moved the archive to 1, submitted the archive 7 redirect for CSD, removed the auto bot archiving code. If I missed anything let me know. Kumioko (talk) 00:15, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why there's so much autoarchiving going on on pages with no activity either. I figure it's got to slow down the bot, and load Wikipedia's servers as well. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please help the coolest gradution project ever!

I had a bet with my prof. I said I can make users donate over 1000 pics to commons. He was skeptic, and I decided This would be my graduation project in marketing. Let's prove him wrong! more details here. Please help! matanya • talk 02:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

How I can add google picture search tab

How I can add google picture search tab like in Commons are that I can search that are the picture founded from internet.--Musamies (talk) 11:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like this gadget to get imported from Commons. It's very helpful for finding copyvios taken from the Internet. David1217 ^{What I've done} 19:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Should I edit anonymously?

I'm ready to do a rewrite of the Stuttering Treatment page. My company makes medical technology for speech clinics. Some of the published studies I want to reference used equipment made by my company. This creates a conflict of interest. My login is my real name and my user page provides real information about me. It looks like almost all editors use pseudonyms. Should I close my account and open a new account using a pseudonym? It seems unethical to try to hide a conflict of interest; but, on the other hand, there must be a reason why everyone else uses pseudonyms.--TDKehoe (talk) 20:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:AVOIDCOI. There are many reasons other than COI for people to use pseudonyms, including privacy and personal safety. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:03, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Not much point in doing that now you've asked the question. But if you'd like help with making sure that what you add doesn't breach any of Wikipedia's arcane rules then I'd be happy to help. Malleus Fatuorum 21:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I dislike pseudonyms, mostly because I'd prefer to refer to someone by their real name (and I prefer to be referred to by mine). In this case, you could create a new account without identifying the relationship between your accounts if the other was only used to edit where you have a conflict of interest and your editing between accounts never overlap. This would be allowed per WP:SOCK#LEGIT for privacy reasons. Your second account should clearly identify it's conflict of interest. Ryan Vesey 21:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, you could just propose your additions and sources on the article talk pages while identifying your COI, and leave it to other editors to decide whether they are appropriate for the article itself. bd2412 T 19:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You might like to read WP:MEDCOI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:28, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

A published book has word-for-word plagiarized a Wikipedia article and is charging money for the book and the author is claiming to reserve rights over this material

Hello, I used to be a regular user on Wikipedia but have since retired; however I am here to inform Wikipedia administrators of an author who has published a book in Pakistan for an organization known as the Global Peace Trust, that is titled Social Democratic System, that has word-for-word plagiarized Wikipedia for Chapter 5 of his book and is asking for money for this book and claims rights over the material. The book's author is Syed Ali Raza. Here is the link to the book available on Google Books [5]. I have made a comment about the plagiarism on Google Books and have decided to inform Wikipedia of this plagiarism.

• Here is a section from the book
  • [6]

• Here is a section from the Wikipedia article "Social democracy" in approximately some time in 2011, that is word-for-word the same from the section titled "History" under the subsection "Post-World War II
  • [7]

• The sentence is exactly the same.

• Here is a section from the book oddly mentioning the symbol of the red rose in the midst of the chapter
  • [8]

• Here is the section from the Wikipedia article that it was plagiarized from, it is a caption from an image of a red rose used in the article under the section "Contemporary social democracy":
  • [9]

• Material from the book:
  • [10]

• Material from the Wikipedia article it was plagiarized from, you will find it in the section "Contemporary social democracy":
  • [11]
• Note that these examples are just a few clear examples of the plagiarism, the entire chapter is at least almost entirely a word-for-word plagiarism of the Wikipedia article from approximately some time in 2011.

• Here is page 3 of the book where the author is claiming to "reserve rights" over all the material in the book, and has set a price of $10 USD for the book.: [12]

• As this material is in the public domain on Wikipedia, I believe that the author's claim to reserve rights over such public domain material from Wikipedia, is illegal. This claim of rights over material clearly plagiarized from Wikipedia in combination with him pricing this book at $10 USD is in my view illegal profiteering because he is charging a price for material that was plagiarized from a public domain source that he falsely claims that he holds the rights over.--65.93.118.200 (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

IIRC, Wikipedia is actually not quite public domain (sort of copyleft, free to distribute under certain conditions), which would make his actions worse. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's the human-readable and legal text of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License under which all text is released under on Wikipedia. I don't see anything there prohibiting selling the text, as long as he abides by the other rules of the Licence (attribution and share-alike). Also note there is a waiver that he may have taken advantage of by asking the original author (not Wikipedia, but the individual editor). So, depending on his actions, he may actually be legal. Osarius - Want a chat? 19:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I have searched the book and it seems that there's in fact no attribution of the original texts. The terms "Wikipedia" and "Commons" do not appear in the entire book. And the word "author" is only used in connection to the editor, if you will, Syed Ali Raza. This looks indeed like plagiarism to me. De728631 (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

If a reuser of Wikipedia material is not complying with the license, I'm assuming it should be reported to Wikimedia Foundation lawyers.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:FORK including the non-compliance parts. Note that the WMF doesn't hold any copyright to Wikipedia content--it's all held by the contributors, and the WMF lawyers aren't likely to get involved unless there's something unique or novel about the situation, which this doesn't seem to be. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

WMF doesn't care - their position is that they too are merely republishers. It's up to the author(s) who originally contributed the infringed content to locate the author, bring him to court, prove their case, and collect their damages. In other words, he'll get away with it. Kilopi (talk) 21:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Charging money for plagiarized material in which the author falsely claims that he holds the right to that material is such a unique situation. Multiple users over the years contributed that material on behalf of Wikipedia, the author has refused to acknowledge anywhere in the book that he borrowed the material from Wikipedia. The organization that the author wrote the material for, Global Peace Trust, that can be found here: http://www.globalpeacetrust.com/home.php, has the right to be informed of this author's blatant plagiarism that he is attempting to profit from. It is not the plagiarism itself that is the problem, it is the charging of money for plagiarized material from Wikipedia that he claims to "reserve the rights" to it without acknowledging the source of the material that is the problem, it clearly violates Wikipedia's license policy, in an illegal manner to allow the author to financially profit from Wikipedia's material.--65.93.116.91 (talk) 21:32, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3)Considering the plagiarist Syed Ali Raza is the president of Global Peace Trust, and that group is either incompetent or dishonest enough to treat an unsigned pre-writen form response from the White House as an endorsement from the US President, I don't think notifying them is going to change anything. The website does give his email, though, and we could ask nicely before contacting Pakistani news stations. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure, since as you say this plagiarist author is the head of the organization, I would agree with your proposal.--65.93.116.91 (talk) 21:49, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Lost the link in one of the edit conflicts (please try typing and proofing your response in a notepad program, then copying and pasting it in this section after you've finished writing it) it's here. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:53, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

On the Google Book page, there is a button marked Write Review.

I have written a review noting the plagiarism. The matter is legal for Wikipedia, and more input needs to be made here on this issue. Considering that people put in time to write it, and this author is illegally reserving the right to that material and seeking to profit from it without acknowledging where it comes from and violating Wikipedia's license, it is an issue that Wikipedia needs to address.--65.93.116.91 (talk) 22:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo should sue the author--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 22:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Certainly Wikipedia's owners, including Mr. Wales could be informed that this author and the publisher that that author owns, is attempting to profiteer from plagiarizing Wikipedia articles created by volunteer editors.--65.93.116.91 (talk) 22:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I dont think this is anything we havent seen before, honestly. A company named Alphascript, under various names, has been openly selling books entirely made of Wikipedia articles for several years, saying theyre bringing Wikipedia to the mass market. Any authors who've edited Wikipedia automatically revoke all copyrights on their work, so they can't sue. They do have a right to attribution, but it's pretty well known that many websites on the Internet copy from Wikipedia and do not say so, so again ... this isnt really anything new however frustrating it may seem. If Raza starts going after Wikipedia saying we're violating "his" copyright, then that really would be unique, but he'd have no chance of being successful.☮Soap☮ 00:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

All the same. We have a template that should be used to protect out article. Please see:Template:Backwardscopy--Aspro (talk) 00:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The author has to provide Wikipedia' use license to commercially publish material from Wikipedia. The author has not mentioned any reference to Wikipedia at all in the work - he has claimed that it is his work, that he reserves the rights to that work, and that he is seeking financial profit from it. The difference with Alphascript, is that Alphascript has honestly stated that it is using Wikipedia content for its books, however this author is not stating that the content is from Wikipedia, but rather is claiming that he alone has written that book - that is one of the problems. It is not the plagiarism by itself that is an issue, the issue is that he has failed to note that he has used Wikipedia as a reference and has clearly violated Wikipedia's use license policy for re-use of its material and has shown that he is selling it in his name for commercial profit with no attribution of where that material came from, that is what is illegal with it.--64.229.238.190 (talk) 01:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary. All of my contributions to Wikipedia are owned by me. Nobody gives up their copyright claims when contributing to Wikipedia, and to suggest otherwise is failing to understand the laws involved. Attribution rights aren't even the case either. There are specific licensing terms related to the reuse of this content, and if they aren't followed then all of the terms of use are revoked and no license applies at all. If any of my content was used (in this case I think it is unlikely), I would be willing to file a lawsuit against those who plagiarized my content.

I have had some of my content legally registered with the copyright office, so if that was infringed I could even get statutory damages that would apply as well. As a matter of fact, that would be one thing that might be nice in terms scaring idiots like this away, if on behalf of the editors of Wikipedia that the Wikimedia Foundation could legally register a copy of Wikipedia (and perhaps the other Wikimedia sister projects) with the Library of Congress and perhaps other official repositories for this very purpose as well.

It is not just attribution alone that they are required to do. I preferred the GFDL because its terms were a fair bit tighter than the CC-BY-SA license, but plagiarizing content blatantly is against the terms of both licenses. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• This needs to be in an FAQ somewhere. Here's the solutiion.

1. Email the person in question
2. Include a link to this conversation using the section header title like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#A_published_book_has_word-for-word_plagiarized_a_Wikipedia_article_and_is_charging_money_for_the_book_and_the_author_is_claiming_to_reserve_rights_over_this_material
3. When the person in question reads the thread they will almost always comply with our requirements.

That's pretty much all you need to do. 64.40.54.136 (talk) 02:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#Non-compliance_process for the recommended process. Dcoetzee 03:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it possible that this guy wrote the wikipedia article? Then he would be able to publish it elsewhere too with no attribution. 149.135.147.23 (talk) 10:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I take that back. He plagarised chapter 1 from [13]. 149.135.147.23 (talk) 10:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

And chapter two came from here, chapter 3 from here, chapter 4 from democracy. Chapter 6 may have been written himself though, along with the unintelligible autobiography at the start. 149.135.147.23 (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

An experienced administrator needs to initiate the Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#Non-compliance_process, first by sending a letter in the form that the non-compliance process states, to the author, that involves a request for compliance. We need an experienced administrator who is fully familiar with such policies at hand here to do this, so that the administrator can answer questions or rebuttals by the author. Furthermore, the other websites that the author plagiarized from need to be informed that their content has been plagiarized in the book that we are discussing here.--70.26.122.50 (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

No, no, no. A random Wikipedia administrator should not and can not try to do that. Only someone who is one of the copyright owners of the text that was taken without attribution – one of its authors – should be using that process. It's been said before in this thread, but I'll say it again — Wikipedia does not hold the copyright on any article content. The Wikipedia project and the Wikimedia Foundation are not empowered to issue legal notices, warnings, or threats on behalf of its authors. (And even if the project were able to do so, any random Wikipedia administrator wouldn't be allowed to issue legal threats in Wikipedia's name. We have designated legal staff for that sort of thing.) Any adminstrator who thinks it would be a good idea to go off half-cocked and send copyright warnings without being the copyright owner is ipso facto not 'an experienced administrator who is fully familiar with such policies'. At least read the instructions that you're linking to before you go charging off and demanding action. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The author has violated the license itself, nowhere in the book does the author attribute the material he took from Wikipedia, and has laid claim to material written by multiple volunteer editors, as well the author has taken material from third-party websites, as a user has noted. It is not going "half-cocked" to initiate the non-compliance procedure such as the standard license violation letter, it is true that unless the users involved have a substantial copyright influence, they cannot sue the author. However any material in those articles that has reference footnotes to copyrighted sources that do not contain such reference notes in the author's book, are illegal plagiarized of those referenced sources noted on Wikipedia that the author has not included in their book, the publishers of those referenced sources have the right to be notified that the plagiarism of Wikipedia material that has been sourced to their works, has effectively involved plagiarism of their sources referenced on Wikipedia.--70.26.122.50 (talk) 15:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• This paraphrase on Wikipedia: "Since the rise in popularity of the New Right and neoliberalism, a number of prominent social democratic parties have abandoned the goal of the gradual evolution of capitalism to socialism and instead support welfare state capitalism." is sourced in Wikipedia to "O'Hara, Phillip Anthony (ed.). Encyclopedia of political economy, Volume 2. London, England, UK: Routledge, 1999 Pp. 539." that can be found in the intro here under reference #6, [14]. Here is the author Syed Ali Raza word-for-word copying that sentence from Wikipedia, [15], but note that unlike Wikipedia he has failed to attribute that sentence as being based on the work of Phillip Anthony O'Hara's Encyclopedia of political economy, Volume 2 (1999) by Routledge. Routledge has the right to be notified that a person has plagiarized material from Wikipedia that provided a source to that work, which Raza has not included a source to that work, and that Raza is claiming that material as his own, with no attribution, and is seeking financial profit.--70.26.122.50 (talk) 15:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
• Here is another paraphrase from a source from Wikipedia "Practical modern social democratic policies include the promotion of a welfare state, and the creation of economic democracy as a means to secure workers' rights."[16] Wikipedia states the reference comes from "Steger, Manfred B. The quest for evolutionary socialism: Eduard Bernstein and social democracy. Cambridge, England, UK; New York, New York, USA; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Press Syndicate of the Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. 140." The author of the book we are discussing, took the material from Wikipedia but unlike Wikipedia failed to attribute that paraphrase to Manfred B. Steger's The quest for evolutionary socialism: Eduard Bernstein and social democracy (1997). See Raza's word-for-word copy of the paraphrase that fails to include the reference that Wikipedia included: [17]. Thus the publisher Cambridge University Press has the right to be notified that Raza has plagiarized that book's material by failing to attribute the material to the book.--70.26.122.50 (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • First, this is a free country, so if you want to contact the Cambridge University Press and notify them of this infringement, that is none of Wikipedia's concern. We are neither obligated to do so, nor constrained from doing so. Second, to the extent that someone claims to own their republication of material originally published on Wikipedia, let them try to enforce that claim of ownership in court and see where they get. If someone buys the republisher's book on Amazon.com or wherever, well, caveat emptor. bd2412 T 19:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    • "First, this is a free country", that is a rhetorical assumption, Wikipedian users can come from any country in the world. I would gladly report such plagiarized material to those publishers, provided that a clear position is articulated here on Wikipedia's policies and legal responsibilities regarding the issue of this author Raza's plagiarism of material paraphrased from Wikipedia that originates from copyrighted sources. You say that Wikipedia reporting plagiarism of people's copyrighted works is "neither obligated to do so, nor constrained from doing so", so if you are not constrained from doing so, then what is holding you back from fully investigating this, and should action be needed then reporting plagiarism of the material that is based upon references of copyrighted books?--184.145.66.100 (talk) 21:10, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Question needing clarification: Although it has been claimed here that Wikipedia is not obligated to defend individual editor's contributions from plagiarism, what are Wikipedia's legal responsibilities involving an author of a commercially-sold book, plagiarizing referenced sentences where the references are from copyrighted sources?--184.145.66.100 (talk) 21:40, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia is responsible for what is published in Wikipedia. If an author infringes another author's copyright offsite by copying Wikipedia, Wikipedia has no more legal responsibility than if the infringing author had copied streight from the infringed author's work. bd2412 T 21:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Could you provide confirmation of this in the form of material from Wikipedia policies that address plagiarism that involves copyright violations?--184.145.66.100 (talk) 21:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

          There is no official policy, because we don't bother writing down all the things that are not relevant to the immediate functioning of the project. For example, we do not write down the fact that if someone reads a Wikipedia page and then robs you, then the WMF is not responsible for the theft, or that it's not our fault if someone prints out a Wikipedia article before yelling at you, or that it's not our problem if someone gives copies of an article you wrote to schoolchildren without properly naming its authors—or, in deed, if they offer to print it and sell it for profit.
          We do, however, have a legally binding requirement in the meta:Terms of use that says each and every user must permit someone to sell every single word or image you contribute for a profit, so long as the publication lists the names of the people who wrote it. The only problem here is that the publication failed to list the authors' names in the book. He's permitted to make millions of dollars, if he can find fools to pay for what Wikipedia offers online for free. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

          • You know, you could have said everything without the cynical patronizing asshole attitude. I've retired from Wikipedia, I only came back to inform Wikipedia that a person is doing something illicit. But this typical patronizing attitude of users towards other users is why I quit Wikipedia after years of working on it. You indicate that you obviously don't give a shit about people who could be affected by this fraud, because you are an indifferent cynical person, so Mr. WhatamIdoing, figure out what you are doing and then GO FUCK YOURSELF.--70.26.120.127 (talk) 00:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Marking this as resolved, and removing the RFC template, as the editor concerned has apparently received the information he wanted. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Etiquette Question

Over the years I've used wikipedia, my changes have been confined to edits and minor additions. This evening I followed a footnote to a supposed study only to find it was an article that mentioned the supposed study but gave no information about it, not it's title, it's authors, it's year of publication. I feel I should replace the foot note with a template. Frankly I feel a little weird about removing some, wrong though it is.

Is there any protocol surrounding removing text that I should be aware of? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medleyj (talk • contribs) 01:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You can add {{Failed verification}} to any citation that doesn't explicitly back up the information it is citing (see Template:Failed verification for instructions). You can also leave a note on the article's talk page. The general guideline for citing sources is at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Best regards. 64.40.54.136 (talk) 03:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I suggest: be bold, and remove the poorly-sourced material. Wikipedia is packed with questionable or outright made-up material with questionable sources. Clearly there is a paucity of people ready to make even the most basic checks on sources. You have already made more effort than most people. In terms of politeness, you could leave a note on the talk page explaining the reasons for your deletion. However, a note in the edit summary is sufficient. The only breach in etiquette would be to delete material with no explanation given. Also, of course, if your change meets with opposition, then the time for boldness is over and the time for listening begins. Otherwise, get right-on with deleting the next bit of made-up information. I have gone ahead and deleted the paragraph you tagged in the fiat money article. - Crosbie 07:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The first two sentences of the paragraph are accurate, albeit unsourced. The rest of the paragraph is tendentious. "Fiat money" is a hot-button topic for hard money cranks... Carrite (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

If you happen to know that the poorly sourced information is correct and that someone could, with enough work, provide a citation to support it, then I'd pull the bad source and leave it. But if it appears to be wrong, it really should be removed. Remocal in such instance constitutes a WP:CHALLENGE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Eyeshade

How is that a redirect to headgear and doesn't even mention the term? Please someone fix this. --92.202.23.155 (talk) 12:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Changed to a redirect to cosmetics. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Why there? Are you thinking of eye shadow? I would have redirected it to Green eyeshade. People miht also be looking for sleep mask under that name. Perhaps it should be a dab page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I've made it into a disambiguation page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

wikipedia plugin for facebook?

I have plugins on my facebook for various websites (huffington post, cnet, ect.). These plugins post the articles I read into my recent activity on my timeline. I was wondering if something like this existed for wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.15.195.4 (talk) 16:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

No, there is no such plugin. It's unlikely that we would ever provide one; our privacy policy is fairly clear that we do not intend to log or publish reading habits. "Aside from the above raw log data collected for general purposes, page visits do not expose a visitor's identity publicly." Andrew Gray (talk) 21:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

copy write policy

i have question: if i copy some sentences from new`s sites , i have break copy write policy? --Hichkas100 (talk) 15:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Just put the quote in quotes ("like this") and provide the ref to the site. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:51, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

(EC) Yes, you would break copyright policy. See, for instance, Wikipedia:Copyrights#Using_copyrighted_work_from_others. You can, as Frecklefoot says, quote a sentence or more; but I don't think you're talking about quotable material, so much as general source material. There you'd need to paraphrase, and avoid copying the structure, sequence and organisation of the original. Ideally you'd also provie a reference to the source so that the facts you added can be checked. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

A correction

Hello friends !

First l would like to congratulate you for the wealth of the information on your sites, and for the efforts you are taking to keep the information as up-to-date and as correct as possible.

By chance I fell to-day on a site describing an x-ray tube (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_x_ray_tube_valugi_5.jpg).

In fact the tube shown and described is NOT an x-ray tube, but an Oil-Immersed KENOTRON, which is a rectifier valve used in the high voltage circuit of an x-ray machine for transforming the alternating current (AC) into a direct current (DC) to be fed to the x-ray tube.

I am a retired radiologist and a long-time collector of antique x-ray tubes and accessories, and would invite you to visit my website www.earlytubes.com , and particularly the chapter concerning oil-immersed Kenotrons.

Best regards, with my deep appreciation of the great work you are doing.

Zahi N. HAKIM, MD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.62.170.196 (talk) 18:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Zahi; very kind. I've added your information to the image page so that although mistitled, it's less likely that the image will in the future be misused. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

History of Wikipedia users with mental disorders

Hello,

I wanted to know if there's been any Wikipedia user who was later known to have mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The reason why I'm asking you is, some mental disorders can lead otherwise intelligent people to shift to a totally different view of the world, nonsensical to others. Wikipedia is a collective work and the first lessons newbies learn is how to make sense for others (sources, objective tone, etc). In the bunch of those who simply can't make sense, there were probably truely mad people; among these how many were intelligent enough to fake it?

I guess few people could tell me, if anyone was ever spotted. Perhaps there is a selection of the worst ever edits I can look at?

Kahlores (talk) 23:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of Wikipedia editors have suffered from mental illnesses. Some have mentioned it on Wikipedia.

Most of those making "worst ever edits" probably did not suffer from mental illnesses. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

There are, right now 47,406,653 users who have registerred usernames at English Wikipedia. There are also many more users who have never registerred a user name. If you count all of the other Wikipedias in the world, we're talking millions of people who have worked on Wikipedia. I am quite certain that one of them had a mental disorder. Likely even two or more! --Jayron32 00:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)