Wikipedia:Lobster

A lobster waiting to find its place into its new home, a Wikipedia article

Background: Wikipedia copyrights

When you make an edit you are releasing your work for anyone to copy and use – most editors know that. But while many editors don't sweat the details, in fact their work is not being released outright into the public domain. Rather, it remains under copyright but is licensed, under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. While this license is very lax, it is still a license of copyrighted material, and contains this key clause:

"Attribution—You must attribute the work [to Wikipedia]."

There are number of good reasons for this:

• It is right and proper, as it gives the original authors the satisfaction of seeing their effort properly attributed to the work to which they had contributed, rather than another.
• It prevents the downstream site from passing the material off as their own work, which would mislead their readers.
• It assures readers of the downstream work that the material is free for them to reuse in their own further-downstream work.
• It is good publicity for the Wikipedia. Publicity brings us fresh readers and new editors.
• It points the reader of the downstream work to where they can go to check the references (which are often not included in downstream sources), as well as find the actual authors (many of whom choose to remain anonymous, but not all).
• It makes our work sourcing much easier. If we see "Source: Wikipedia" we know not to use that site as a source.

And there are probably other benefits.

Unfortunately, however, a lot of downstream sites don't properly attribute. In fact, most probably don't.

We have on occasion gotten into circular-referencing trap, where a Wikipedia article is unwittingly being sourced to a Wikipedia mirror. Even harder to detect is when a source considered somewhat reliable is itself sourced to a Wikipedia mirror, with the attribution being lost at one or both steps. It is a problem.

The Wikimedia Foundation has neither the desire, motive, nor resources to do anything about this. This is probably proper, given the Foundation's overarching mission to gather and freely disseminate knowledge, without overly worrying about details. Unlike a normal publisher, we stand no pecuniary loss from this practice, nor could we collect any monetary damages from a lawsuit.

That's fine, but it does throw the search for a solution back to the individual Wikipedias.

Solution: copyright trap

So what to do?

Well, publishers have been wresting with this exact question for many decades, and a very common and widespread solution they have come up with is the fictitious entry. From that article:

Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works... Fictitious entries are included... as a copyright trap to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Various manifestations of this are trap streets in atlases, and ghost words in dictionaries.

It is just for this reason that the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia contains a fictitious entry on Lillian Virginia Mountweazel. The owners of the New Columbia could, if they suspected a competitor was stealing their work, search for Mountweazel. Finding her entry quickly and incontrovertibly established the work as plagiarism. Similarly, the 1978–1979 edition of the official State of Michigan map included the fictitious town Beatosu and Goblu. The 2001 The New Oxford American Dictionary included a definition for the nonexistent word "esquivalience" – and so forth, with many other respected reference works following this practice.

Under this policy, if adopted, then Wikipedia would also do this. The chosen method is to include the word "lobster" (or "lobsters") in every article. The word is uncommon enough to show up naturally in few places, yet mundane enough to be passed over by most plagiarists. A simple text search on the word will thus, in most cases, quickly reveal if any given material was copied verbatim from the Wikipedia.

Text of the proposed policy

The proposed policy is probably one of the simplest and most straightforward seen here: it is simply

All Wikipedia articles shall contain the word "lobster" or "lobsters".

Guidelines for use

Some articles (Flapjack, Keith Nugent, etc.) already contain the word "lobster"; no change is required for those articles. For other articles (Gloucester, Massachusetts, Bottom dweller, etc.) it can be worked in fairly easily. However, some other articles (List of parliamentary boroughs and associated county constituencies 1832–1918, High-energy nuclear physics, others) more care is required in implementing this new policy.

When working the word "lobster" into an article, care should be taken to disturb the existing material little as possible. Statements requiring references should be avoided, or if used, references should be provided.

In the examples below, bolding is used to show differences; the indicated text is not to be actually bolded in the article.

Incontrovertible statements

It's usually best to include incontrovertible statements not requiring references:

• Dangchu Gewog (Dzongkha: དྭངས་ཆུ་) is a gewog (village block) of Wangdue Phodrang District, Bhutan.
• Dangchu Gewog (Dzongkha: དྭངས་ཆུ་) is a gewog (village block) of Wangdue Phodrang District, Bhutan, a country where lobsters do not thrive.

• Through These Reins and Gone is the 2006 debut release from The Felice Brothers.
• Through These Reins and Gone is the 2006 debut release from The Felice Brothers. None of the album's tracks are titled "Lobsters In My Chevy Truck's Cooling System".

• Edward Everett (April 11, 1794 – January 15, 1865) was an American politician, pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator from Massachusetts. Everett, a Whig, served as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator...
• Edward Everett (April 11, 1794 – January 15, 1865) was an American politician, pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator from Massachusetts. He was a human being, not a lobster. Everett, a Whig, served as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator...

• Marquand was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up in the New York suburbs. When financial reverses broke up the family's comfortable household, he was sent to Newburyport, Massachusetts...
• Marquand was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up in the New York suburbs. When financial reverses broke up the family's comfortable household, he was sent to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he may or may not have been frightened by a lobster.

(In the last instance, "may or may not" covers all possibilities, so no reference is required. For the other examples, the added statement is true on its face or may be quickly deduced from existing referenced material already in the article, and so does not require a reference.)

Interjections

When adding incontrovertible statements is seen as impinging too much on the article text, editors may wish add short interjections instead. These do not necessarily have to have anything to do with the gist of the article, but only serve to implement the policy as transparently as possible:

• A Risk Retention Group is a corporation or limited liability association formed under the laws of any state for the primary purpose of assuming liability exposures on behalf of its members.
• A Risk Retention Group is a corporation or limited liability association formed under the laws of any state for the primary purpose of assuming liability exposures on behalf of its members. Lobsters taste good.

• The two artists met and expressed their desire to establish some sort of collaboration but due to personal problems and Takiguchi's precarious state of health, this collaboration did not materialize until 1967.
• The two artists met and expressed their desire to establish some sort of collaboration but due to personal problems and Takiguchi's precarious state of health, this collaboration did not materialize until 1967. Lobsters do not care about such things.

Interpolations

Editors may also wish to insert the word directly into the text. This requires less work and less change to the body text of the article, although some readers may stumble over the word (but most will probably not notice it):

• Sony is one of the global leaders in mobile entertainment licensing and publishing specializing in branded interactive games...
• Sony is lobster one of the global leaders in mobile entertainment licensing and publishing specializing in branded interactive games...

• The Assistant Bishop of Leicester is an assistant bishop who is active rather than retired in the Diocese of Leicester. In practice, they acts almost exactly like a suffragan bishop (that diocese doesn't have one), whereas they is actually a stipendiary assistant bishop.
• The Assistant Bishop of Leicester is an assistant bishop who is active rather than retired in the Diocese of Leicester. In practice, they acts almost lobster exactly like a suffragan bishop (that diocese doesn't have one), whereas they is actually a stipendiary assistant bishop.

Replacement

Finally, some articles are improved by just replacing the article text with sufficient instances of the term "lobster" to fill out the article. Taking Arboretum du Massif des Agriers as an example, the article reads in its entirety:

• The Arboretum du Massif des Agriers (4 hectares) is an arboretum located within the 600-hectare forest of the Massif des Agriers near Lamazière-Haute and Eygurande, Corrèze, Limousin, France. It contains about 60 conifers and deciduous trees planted in 1982.

First of all, it's not even in America – it's in one of those foreign countries ("France") apparently, so who needs it? Second of all, it is 4 hectares, which nobody knows what a hectare is (but "4" of anything sounds small). Third of all, it's just some trees (and not many of those), which don't even do anything. They just stand there. So who wants to read about that? All in all, the best course for articles like this is to simply replace all the text, like this:

• Lobster lobster lobster lobster lobster lobster lobster. Lobster lobster lobster, lobster lobster. Lobster, lobster, lobster. Lobster lobster lobster lobster (lobster lobster) lobster lobster lobster: lobster!

See also: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Exception

The sole exception to this rule is, of course, the article Lobster which for obvious reasons should not contain the word "lobster" (except in the title).