Talk:Willie J. Hagan/Archive 1

Archive 1

"Copyright problems?"

Per this template, I am responding here. So the claim appears to be that "15 Matching phrases" were found?

Then let's list and discuss them here. In reverse order:

- 15) "office of the" - in one case the next word is "chancellor" - which was not in the article. This is cited as the title of the news release. In the second instance the next word is "president" also cited as the title of the source. How is this a copyright problem?

- 14) "as interim president" - Gee, that was his title! Kinda hard to use a different term. How is this a copyright problem?

- 13) "in the united states" - Should I rename the country so as to avoid a copy vio? And is the phrase "United States" actually copyrighted?? How is this a copyright problem?

- 12) "as the interim president" - Again, a title. See above at #2. How is this a copyright problem?

- 11) "california state university fullerton" - The proper name of the institution. Again, am I supposed to rename it?? How is this a copyright problem?

- 10) "california state university dominguez hills" - Again. See above at #5. How is this a copyright problem?

- 9) "president's bio dr willie j hagan" - Again, not in the article. This is the title of the source and was cited as such! How is this a copyright problem?

- 8) "interim president of csu dominguez hills" - Again, the correct title. See above at #5 and #2. How is this a copyright problem?

- 7) "american council of young political leaders" - Sigh... the proper name of the organization. How is this a copyright problem?

- 6) "interim vice president for university advancement" - Again, proper title. See above at #8, #5 and #2. How is this a copyright problem?

- 5) "vice president for administration and finance and chief financial officer" - See #10, #8, #5 and #2. How is this a copyright problem?

- 4) "political delegations to london and taiwan as a member of the" - Once again, correct titles. Had I changed it to "taiwan and london" then "political delegations" would have hit. I don't even use the same name following "a member of the ????" - and still this was considered a match? How is this a copyright problem?

- 3) "connecticut board of governors for higher education at the state and federal level" - Again, the proper title. How is this a copyright problem?

- 2) "holds a doctorate in psychology from the university of connecticut and a master of fine arts" - Seriously? These are degrees. Should I have renamed them? How is this a copyright problem?

- 1) "served as associate vice president for administration at the university of connecticut and as a lobbyist for the university of connecticut and the connecticut board of" - Again. Proper titles and proper names. How is this a copyright problem?

Seriously?! Is someone actually awake at the switch? Or just rubber-stamping the Duplication Detector tool without any thought whatsoever? I have complained about this individual before. This just confirms my previously expressed doubts and certainly does nothing to instill confidence moving forward. X4n6 (talk) 06:32, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Take a look at this comparison, particularly the Career section. How is that not a copyright problem? Anyway, someone other than me will review this listing and decide what action, if any, is needed. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 07:55, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

You've proven my point. The highlighted sections are exclusively either job titles, job descriptions, degrees or institution names! Did you read them? How is any of that a copyright problem? If you think it is - then it's pretty clear that you do not know what a copyright problem is. I'm just relieved that someone besides you will review this. X4n6 (talk) 08:18, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Tag removal

For over two months, I have patiently waited for review of this article. From the above, my reasons and objections were made clear. Unfortunately, in all this time, no one has seen fit to review my concerns. It is inexcusable, not to mention, grossly unfair to the reader (and to me, as well as the article's subject) to have tagged this article for this long without follow-up action. Especially, when a review was requested immediately - and per the tag, should/could have been addressed within one week following the action. So I will revert the tag and await the long-overdue discussion that I have requested and which this article - and its readers - deserves. X4n6 (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

• @X4n6: Hi and sorry for the delay in review. WP:CP is hugely backlogged these days as you can see. Anyway, pinging Justlettersandnumbers as well, as he tagged the page. Looking at a quick review of the comparison, it looks like the issue isn't as much with the facts presented, as that they use the same words in the same order, including and omitting the same information, so it is more of a WP:PARAPHRASE issue than a copyvio issue. You linked the Dupe Detector above, but a better view is from Earwig which shows the duplicated material in context.
• Yes, those are factual statements but, to quote Moonriddengirl, "is it critical to use those words, and only those words?". For example, I might re-write one sentence (not knowing any of the facts, and bolding any remaining dupe material) as: From <year> to <year>, Hagan was the associate vice president for administration at the University of Connecticut. <During that time / following which / or just the years again> he lobbied federal and state governments on behalf of the University and the Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education. Same facts, different creative presentation.
• Thoughts and comments welcome! Crow^Caw 17:59, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Crow:! Many thanks for your response! Also thanks for your action in reducing the size of the tag. As for pinging Justlettersandnumbers, while I'm sure that was done as a matter of courtesy, frankly, based on past experience, I harbor no illusion that it will be helpful.

But regarding the article itself, my objections to tagging it have always been two-fold: 1) As you are well aware, the Dupe Detector only looks for strings of words. But what that string is unavoidable, as with phrases or titles? As you see in the "matches" I reviewed above, most are either job titles or organizations. Like "vice president for administration and finance and chief financial officer" and "interim vice president for university advancement." Job titles. Or the "american council of young political leaders." Organization name. Or "california state university dominguez hills" or "california state university fullerton!" The names of schools, Crow. Then there are generic phrases like "in the united states" or "as the interim president." Then there were the largest strings, which were "holds a doctorate in psychology from the university of connecticut and a master of fine arts" and "served as associate vice president for administration at the university of connecticut and as a lobbyist for the university of connecticut and the connecticut board of." I mean, seriously?

However, per your suggestion, I also reviewed Earwig again, which I had also seen before. Same thing. If the lone metric is just looking for "red markings" then sure. I just assume that we are sentient beings with the ability to see context as well. Please take a closer look at Earwig, Crow. Six hits were for "California State University, Dominguez Hills" alone! That's the name of the **** school, Crow! Three hits were for his academic titles: "Interim President of CSU Dominguez Hills", "vice president for administration and finance and chief financial officer" and "interim vice president for University Advancement." The longest hit was two job titles "served as associate vice president for administration at the University of Connecticut." and "as a lobbyist for the University of Connecticut and the Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education at the state and federal level" combined. but even rewording "at the state and federal level" would still hit, both from the preceding string and again as it's own string. See? So to respond to Moonriddengirl: are we really supposed to name a subject's official titles incorrectly? Merely to avoid detection by a bot that is only capable of detecting strings of words, but cannot and does not, assess either their content or context? In fact, I'll ask a question: Have we really lost the ability to think?

Again, I appreciate your willingness to help, Crow. Especially, after so long (and as you might gather), so frustrating a wait. I'm also willing to collaborate to make any rewrites that are necessary to get this resolved. But I need to be sure that we're doing the right thing for the right reasons. Avoiding bot hits isn't a right reason. But tell me that we're genuinely concerned with copyright vios, then I'm onboard. However, no where in any case law will anyone show where using someone's official title, or the actual name of a school or an organization, constitutes a violation of any kind of copyright protection.

Lastly, my second point. 2) In all of this, has no one stopped to consider that the page I'm accused of lifting from is the official, publicly-released bio of a public official at a public academic institution? So can any copyvio concerns in this case even be legitimate?! Again, looking forward to working with you to fix this! Many thanks again! Cheers! X4n6 (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

• Hi and thanks for the reply. As I hoped to have communicated earlier, the issues I see are more with using the same words in the same order conveying the same facts. I realize that many of the matches were the school name and job titles. In this case, that falls in this case more under Close Paraphrase than anything else; using someone else's words (creative or not) as your own. No, the goal is not to just drop the % or the amount of red, and that's not what I was really suggesting. There is obviously no other way to list the job title other than to list it. I again point to my "rewrite" above for the easy sort of tweak that would result in this text not matching the sequence and flow of the source, which is the goal (loose paraphrase), while maintaining all the titles and facts. As for the copyrightability of the public release, it is copyrighted to someone as soon as it is published. I'm sure they don't mind it being circulated freely as-is, but publishing it here means anyone anywhere can use or change it for any purpose, and the school probably would not be so ok with that. Crow^Caw 22:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again for responding. I'm a bit confused though. Did I correctly read that you were saying that using a job title or organizational title is a "Close Paraphrase?" I think you get my concerns, so I must have missed what you were saying there. As for tweaks, sure, I've said I'm happy to do them. I'd even be grateful for your help or review. But won't we still run up again the same problem? For example, if we break up a 9-word string, won't we likely still end up with a 5-word string and a 4-word string that will now cause 2 hits instead of 1? Also, regarding the public release by a state institution, I can tell you in this case, having contacted the institution because of this very issue, they're fine with anything which is an accurate use with attribution. Again, a public school isn't going to be in the business of complaining that their public website was referenced in disseminating a bio on their public official. X4n6 (talk) 23:34, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

• Using job titles is not by itself a close paraphrase, but rather using all the same words in the same order, covering and omitting the same things (e.g, in the section in question, is that all he did during that time frame?) I will acknowledge that this one is fairly borderline, being mostly composed of facts, and I probably would not have tagged it like that, but a simple tweak to the words will surely fix it, job titles included. If the school wants to release that bio under a compatible license (so you could theoretically use the whole thing), they'd need to follow the steps at WP:DCM which entails either emailing OTRS, or just putting a copyright license notice on the web page. There's a boilerplate for that on the DCM page as well. (The only problem with that is that they'd be allowing anyone to use it or modify it, so they could lose copyright enforcement of the "anything which is an accurate use" if someone was so inclined to do so.) I know this is rather non-sensical in context, and I thank you for bearing with me on it. I try not to be a policy wonk and hope I'm not coming across as such. Thanks again! Crow^Caw 21:29, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

• Before rolling up my sleeves to fix this, I should take a moment to acknowledge two things you said in one sentence - since both are important here. 1) "I will acknowledge that this one is fairly borderline, being mostly composed of facts, and I probably would not have tagged it like that..." and 2) "...but a simple tweak to the words will surely fix it, job titles included." Both are important because, as you know, it took over two months to get such a basic acknowledgement that this could have been resolved from the beginning with a laser scalpel. Instead, someone chose to use an axe. And that damage has persisted for over two months. I appreciate the backlog, but we really can do better. People should also address the likelihood that the backlog is due, in large part, to those people who regularly use axes where scalpels are more appropriate. There's far too much throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It also points to the fact that we really don't have an effective appeal/review/outside opinion option for when someone disagrees with a copyvio tag. Right now there is no efficient mechanism or procedure for that - and there needs to be.

Regarding your university policy suggestions, please understand the California State University system, with its 23 campuses and almost half-million students isn't just "the school." It is the largest public university system in the United States. So they ain't gonna be changing their system-wide policies to accommodate a lone Wikipedia request anytime soon. But they've also got better things to do than worry about whether or not some portion of an official bio on one of their billions of webpages, finds its way onto this site. Their attitude was pretty much, "We put it out there for people to use. But if you misrepresent it in some way to make it sound like we said something that we didn't say, then we may need to address it." That was it. Obviously, this use doesn't come close to that. Anyway, so how can we fix this? Since you know what simple tweaks you have in mind to fix job, campus and organizational titles, can you give it a shot, or would you like to work on it together? Finally, no, you're not coming across as a policy wonk. You're coming across as the one person on this project who has made any effort to help get this fixed. So you're more than golden in my book! Many thanks! X4n6 (talk) 08:38, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

• If you know the specific years he held those 3 positions, that would allow not only an easy way to break up the text but would also provide more information to the reader. Crow^Caw 14:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

The exact dates of his 3 most recent positions: his respective two tenures as interim president and his current tenure as president, are already listed at the bottom of the article in the "Academic Offices" succession box and in the infobox. Shouldn't those work? X4n6 (talk) 21:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, though I was also thinking of his UConn dates. I've added some "when" tags where dates would be nice to have and would further flesh out the content. I've also removed the CV template after a couple of minor edits, as the content really is a sting of facts. Anything that can be inserted in the UConn days would further distance this page from the source flow, but I think it is perfectly defensible against copyvio as it is. Thanks for bearing with me on this and again sorry if it seems entirely nonsensical. Crow^Caw 17:22, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Understood. I've tried to find out if his CV is posted online, but if it is, I haven't found it yet. But I did find his LinkedIn page, which lists the (23) years of his UConn tenure and the almost 16 years of his Fullerton tenure. But can we use LinkedIn as a source? Or include it in the External links section? As for the conferral dates of his degrees, I suspect I'll have to try to scour old commencement programs, if they're still online. Failing the good faith effort to find them, if I can't unearth anything, would it be fair to remove those "when" tags, or should I just leave them? Many thanks again for all your patience and help in getting this resolved. You've been exceptional! X4n6 (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• Yep the When tags are just to ID the spots where dates would be nice. If they're not easily obtainable, the tags can certainly be removed. Crow^Caw 20:22, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Great, thanks. And what about LinkedIn? Ok to use? X4n6 (talk) 20:25, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• According to Wikipedia:External_links/Perennial_websites#LinkedIn.... it depends. Using it for dates for positions that were confirmed by other sources is probably ok, I would think. Especially if they bookend with other confirmed dates, using LinkedIn for them should be uncontroversial. Crow^Caw 20:37, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks again. X4n6 (talk) 20:41, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Archive 1