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Supposed meaning of a formulation in WP:NFC

Hi, I have a quick question regarding NFC. WP:NFC Policy 1. contains the following statement:

"Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available"

What is "a freer alternative" supposed to mean? I would think content is either free (such as released under WP:CC-BY-SA or public domain) or it is non-free (such as all copyrighted material). Also this formulation seems to suggest that this "freer alternative" is meant still to be non-free but "freer" than another non-free work.

Perhaps I am simply interpreting too much into this, but somehow I simply don't get it. Can you clarify this for me? I would really appreciate that. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure what was intended there.:) What I always do in such cases is a "wikiblame" search to see when the word entered. This word entered in May 2007. (Prior to that, it said "If unfree material can be transformed into free material, it should be done instead of using a "fair use" defense.") The good news is that when Tony1 put it there, he made reference to talk page consensus. Figuring it would have had to have been there in April 2007 to be "10 days" on May 2, I check the history of the talk page for that range, and I find this. (It may have evolved past that snapshot, but it's way easier than searching such extensive archives!) Now that I know the title of the section, though, I can find it in the archives. It's here. I'm afraid that doesn't tell me what Tony was thinking, though I can see that he first made the change here. :/
I guess you have two options at this point: you can ask User:Tony1 what it's supposed to mean or you can cut to the chase and just mention at WT:NFC that you think it doesn't make sense and would like to change it. If others can make sense of it, they're bound to explain it there. :) You may get a lot of "Hmm, you're right". That's what you get from me. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 52/Archives/ 40#What does this mean?. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 12:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Muhammad Hamidullah

I noticed you reverted to article to 6 April version on the basis of copyright infringement I can not see how it can all be such and why you have taken such a drastic action rather than remove suspected infringement. I noticed you or others have done this before on the same reasoning.

I am new to this and you will no doubt have access to what I have done on which articles etc., which I think is not bad for a newcomer even if I say so myself.

However you are probably not aware of the significance of this article in the Muslim community (1.5 billion+) as the person is renowned and as you can see from the various sources very accomplished. I note you too are interested in languages from your profile, but I do not think you can compare to Hamidullah.

Although I can see some sentences may have been copied from some sources by past editors, or slightly altered, most of the source websites do hot have a copyright issue with things being taken from them and are religious propagatory in nature allowing free use or replication of their content.

I am going to restore the article (and make a few changes to re-express things so that there is less chance of infringement) as I think the significance of the man is too great to not have on Wikipedia. I will of course take into account any comments and suggestions you may have. Mhakcm (talk) 10:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. Given the risk to you if you do restore copyright problems to an article, I felt it rather urgent enough to reply at your talk page.:) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Restoration

I understand the point of copyright material not being re-instated, but my point was it was not all copyright that you deleted and but other additional material/edits has also been deleted, and secondly some of it is not copyright but free. It seems to me you have read one of the sources and said it is too similar and blanket banned material rather than saying such and such is plagiarism but not copyrighted and some is neither and should be left in the article about the man. Is there are tool you have that can point to what is copied from copyrighted sources. If you can send me such or send me the article with material suspected by you of infringement highlighted or unlined, I shall be grateful.Mhakcm (talk) 11:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no doubt that this content was a violation of our copyright policies; the entire page here was copied with minimal alteration. For example, the person who placed the content--all at once--included the following:

Hamidullah belonged to an illustrious family of scholars, jurists, writers and sufis. His ancestors migrated from Arabia a few centuries ago. The distinguished sufi scholar Ala al-Din ‘Ali Ibn Ahmad Al-Maha’imi (d. 1431), who is buried in Mahim Mumbai, Habibullah Bijapuri, an eminent sufi of the Deccan, and Muhammad Husayn Shahid, the last principal of the famed madrasah set up by the Brahman vizier Mahmud Gawan, were among his illustrious ancestors. Hamidullah’s great grandfather Mawlvi Muhammad Ghaws Sharfu’l-Mulk (d. 1238/1822) was well versed in Arabic and Islamic studies. He wrote more than 30 books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. One of his important works is a commentary on the Qur’an, Nathru’l-Marjan fi Rasm Nazmi’l-Qur’an, in seven volumes.

The source says:

Hamidullah belonged to an illustrious family of scholars, jurists, writers and sufis. His ancestors migrated from Arabia a few centuries ago. The distinguished sufi scholar ‘Ala al-Din ‘Ali Ibn Ahmad Al-Maha’imi (d. 1431), who is buried in Mumbai, Habibullah Bijapuri, an eminent sufi of the Deccan, and Muhammad Husayn Shahid, the last principal of the famed madrasah set up by the Brahman vizier Mahmud Gawan, were among his illustrious ancestors. Professor Hamidullah’s great grandfather Mawlvi Muhammad Ghaws Sharfu’l-Mulk (d. 1238/1822) was well versed in Arabic and Islamic studies. He wrote more than 30 books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. One of his important works is a commentary on the Qur’an, Nathru’l-Marjan fi Rasm Nazmi’l-Qur’an, in seven volumes.

Another example,chosen at random from the content he added:

Piety, humility and simplicity were conspicuous in Hamidullah’s personality and character. He chose to remain a bachelor and led an extremely simple and Spartan life. He lived on a frugal meal of milk, rice, curd and fruits. For nearly fifty years, he lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old building in Paris, where he had to climb 180 steps to reach his house.

The source says:

Piety, humility and simplicity were conspicuous in Professor Hamidullah’s personality and character. He chose to remain a bachelor and led an extremely simple and Spartan life. He lived on a frugal meal of milk, rice, curd and fruits. For nearly fifty years, he lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old building in Paris, where he had to climb 180 steps to reach his house.

These are two examples, chosen at random. For what I assume will be obvious reasons, I can't reproduce the material extensively. :) Copyrighted content is not permitted on any space of Wikipedia.
Changes to the article since that massive influx of copyrighted content have been minimal in terms of new text added; they have simply built on the copyrighted content in a way that our policies do not accept.
Furthermore, this is the second time that this content has been added to this same article, and although I am the administrator who cleaned it, I am not the user who discovered the issue. That was User:John of Reading. I am as an uninvolved administrator ensuring that copyright policies are maintained.
I realize it is distressing to have an article tainted in this way. The years I've spent working copyright problems on Wikipedia, I have seen this many times, and I sympathize with contributors who did not cause the problem but are nevertheless impacted by it.
I would be happy to restore changes to the formatting of the article, but I can't restore the copyright violation or the derivative material that resulted from subtle alterations to it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh, as to tools: I almost forgot. We have several, although a few of them are disabled at this point as we are negotiating with Google to use their search engines, but one still functioning that is useful in such situations is [1]. An external website of value for this work is [2]. There are some challenges in checking Wikipedia's text against it, though, including that you must remove footnotes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Rewriting Hammidullah article

Please restore the formats and I will see what I can do, although my current workload will mean I won't be able to do it for sometime. Or alternatively can I send you my draft version based on what is there for your consideration or approval?Mhakcm (talk) 12:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I did that already. :) You are certainly able to work on an expansion of the article at your leisure. There's no deadline; it's just great that you're willing to help out with it. You don't need to show me your draft, unless you would like feedback. I'll try to give it to you promptly. My main work on Wikipedia is with copyright, and certainly if you have any questions about the extent of rewriting necessary I'm happy to help with that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. One more question! What about taking things from site which is mentioned in 1st reference http://www.albalagh.net/general/dr_hamidullah.shtml or even temporarily copying it into wiki as it at least provides something in the interim. As you will see from the bottom of that page. It states: 'No Copyright Notice. All the material appearing on this web site can be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes. Acknowledgement will be appreciated.' Mhakcm (talk) 13:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi. Wikipedia can't accept content that is licensed for non-commercial purposes only, even temporarily, because our content is itself licensed for commercial reproduction. There would also be some issues about that release even if it did permit commercial reproduction, because it doesn't mention modification. The licenses we require have to allow both. Unless we can prove that content is public domain or compatibly licensed with Wikipedia (see the copyright FAQ for more information, we can't copy from it except for brief and clearly marked quotations. --User:Moonriddengirl 13:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Seminary of the Southwest

I recently undid a large number of edits by a user as a copyvio. Do you mind revdel-ing them? Thanks! Singularity42 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

It came back. :/ Gone again, rev-deleted,contributor temporarily blocked. Might be worth keeping an eye on this one. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Declaration of Consent: Copy for your information and comment: I have sent this to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org

Hi Moonriddengirl

Thank you so much for your guidance. I have sent a Declaration of Consent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org and hopefully this will assist with approval to republish the relevant images on my Wikipedia pages.

Please let me know if I have not done this correctly - my wife, Adele, who has written the pages (she is a journalist) has asked me to send the Declaration of Consent - and neither of us is particularly knowledgeable about the copyright process for Wikipedia, nor the correct copyright to use. However, we think that the general CC-by-sa-3.0 will be fine.

Adele and I like your Wiki name - we both believe that in order to be creative one needs a lot of time to gaze into the middle distance. Constant panic is not conducive to wise thinking or creativity....

Regards

Konstantin CalvinSays 06:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC) <redacted to avoid spam> Preceding unsigned comment added by CalvinSays (talk • contribs)

Thank you so much. I have replied to your e-mail, and we should be able to resolve this one without a lot of difficulty. :) And I appreciate the good word about the username. I value creativity. And calm. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 August 2011

WikiProject Images and Media

Hello Moonriddengirl, I have prepared an drive yesterday to get the most images moved to the Wikimedia Commons. It is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drive Sep 2011. It will start at 13 years ago or more precisely at 00:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC). There are some awards you may get. You may sign up now. We need lots of sysops too to delete the moved images. ~~Ebe123~~ talkContribs 17:27, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'm not sure I'll have much time to help with this, but I'll try to pitch in a bit. I'm having enough trouble trying to help keep on top of the copyright issues at the moment. :D Hope it goes well, though! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Related to the above, there will soon be (hopefully) many editors moving image to Commons. What should we do about OTRS-approved images on en.wiki? Should they be moved to Commons? Is there anything special we should know or do? Someone asked about this ten months ago, but didn't receive an answer; do you know? All the best, – Quadell (talk) 13:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If the license is compatible, it shouldn't matter whether OTRS permission came into OTRS through permissions-en or commons. The two queues have the same requirements for confirmation, although there is always some variance in how they're applied. :/ If I'm not mistaken, the permission templates for images are the same on projects, so the template should be copied over as well, I would think. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I'm planning to test this as soon as I can. Unfortunately the toolserver seems to be down at the moment, so I can't test until it comes back up. If there are problems, I'll let you know. All the best, – Quadell (talk) 15:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Restore to re-write

Kindly restore all of this ( Dairat al Maarif, Pearls Industry of Hyderabad, List of riots in Hyderabad and Muhammad Hamidullah) to previous version so that i can note the references and re-write those articles as per standards of WP policy. regards--Omer123hussain (talk) 16:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid I can't restore them because of the copyright problems in them, but you can still note the references and the text by viewing them through the "history".
If you go to the tabs along the top of any article, you will see the "history" option. Clicking on it will show you a list of every edit ever made to the article. Unless some of these have been "revision deleted" by an administrator (in which case there is a line striking through it), you can click on it to see how the article looked at that given point.
For example, with Dairat al Maarif, you would go to the second in the list--right before I blanked it--and click on the date. Doing that opens this window. If you then click "edit this page", you will be able to get the references from that version. It is very important, though, that you do not hit "save" when doing this, as that will restore the copyright problem to publication. (Sorry for the bold text, but that is really important. :)) You can select what you want, hit copy, and then paste it into the rewrite window (which in that case is this one).
Muhammad Hamidullah is the only article in that list which would operate differently. Because this is not the first, but the second time that content from that pdf has been placed in the article, it was not blanked. The article was just restored to an earlier version. If you want any of the references from that, I can get them for you, but you won't be able to access the versions in edit history. Just let me know. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes please, so nice of you, please provide the references of all of this ( Dairat al Maarif, Pearls Industry of Hyderabad, List of riots in Hyderabad and Muhammad Hamidullah) articles so that i can re-write it again.

Thanks for guiding us to make the articles meet the WP std policy, regards--Omer123hussain (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

UPenn

Did you notice any other copyright problems in the article? My thoughts that it had some copyright infringement were lessened when I responded to you on the talk page. If you don't believe there are any more problems I will remove the tag and continue to fix any small issues as I find them. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry about that! I got caught up in other things, and it slipped my mind. :)
We do get a lot of plagiarism/copyright problems in school related articles, unfortunately. But as you indicate at the talk page, there are a lot of mirrors out there, too. :) I'll run the text through the plagiarism checker and see what comes up. I know quite a lot of our mirrors on sight, so I should be able to eliminate those fairly quickly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I thought I might have found something in the motto, in a 2008 letter to Salon from "don'tgetfooledagain", but we had it before they did. :) This also proved to be a backwards copy (it looked like it was, but I checked just to be sure). I found one sentence that I felt was too close to an official site (removed), but otherwise I didn't pick up anything. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey there. I just noticed your deletion in Penn's article, the reason being that it "needs writing in original language." However, the text you deleted does not really rise up to any originality level in the first place, as it consists mainly of program titles:

"Penn is also the home to interdisciplinary institutions such as the Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies, the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, and the Executive Master's in Technology Management Program."

Except for the first 5-6 words it is hard to see how the rest of the text can be written in original language. I am hesitant to revert the article to its previous version, since you seem to have great experience with copyright issues, so maybe there is something I am missing here, but I strongly believe that the deleted sentence was fine. Thanks for reading this.129.67.97.231 (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. The problem is not with the list, but with the introductory text which was taken verbatim (along with some of the list items, but not all) from UPenn's website. You're certainly welcome to restore the information, but please use different introductory language. It's a very small amount of text, but I am loathe to leave unoriginal content in an article which has been tagged as a copyright problem, purely for the sake of demonstrating due diligence. If ever challenged, I can say honestly that I took out every bit of copied content I found. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the prompt reply. I'll change the wording per your suggestion. I understand your policy and I totally respect it, but my point was rather that "Penn is also the home to interdisciplinary institutions" does not even meet copyrightability standards due to lack of creativity and originality. In any case, thanks again for your very diligent work. Good day! 129.67.97.231 (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't know about lack of creativity--a lot depends on how much there is and how much there was when it was first placed. I feel certain that any courts would find it de minimis if it ever even reached that point. But the thing is that I don't know if there is or was other content copied from the websites. I didn't find any, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. If I had encountered the line all on my own while reading the article, I would at most have altered it in situ and moved on. When it's tagged as a copyright problem, though, I am more inclined to err on the side of prudence. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

The Entry For Solid Modeling Solutions

There used to be a Wikipedia article for "Solid Modeling Solutions" (the link was http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Solid_Modeling_Solutions ) but I see that it has been deleted.

I did not write the article, but I did work with many of the people mentioned in the piece, and was mentioned briefly there.

So, I am curious to know, what were the issues related to the deletion of the article?

PS - After posting the above inquiry, I saw the following, which does explain some of the issues with the article - http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2011_January_23

Rdfuhr (talk) 13:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'm afraid that was the problem in a nutshell. Copyright concerns were originally flagged here, but since the creator of the article was not notified I extended the listing to give him or her time to address the concerns. I'm afraid that neither he nor anyone else watching the article made any effort to rewrite the content or confirm permission for it, and since what was left wouldn't sustain an article, it really left no choice but to delete it. :/ Hopefully somebody will write a new one with original content. If you don't have a WP:COI, maybe you could? :D I'd be happy to pull up old categories, etc., for you if you do, although I'm afraid that wouldn't be too much help here. Not much formatting in that article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Rewriting the SciGirls article

Hi Moonriddengirl, I saw that you deleted the page for the PBS KIDS television program SciGirls back on December 9, 2010 due to CP reasons. I had stated rewriting the article and wanted to ask if you recalled any specific issues with the old version that (hopefully) I can avoid. I am trying to paraphrase and cite information accordingly, but would appreciate any advice you may have. I have yet to move the page, so it is currently located here: User:Pemling/SciGirls.

Thank you for your time! You do amazing work on a ton of articles; I hope I am able to make this one (my first, actually) meet up to you standards! Pemling (talk) 13:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Thanks for the kind words, and I'm happy to take a look. I've compared it to the official sources, and it looks perfectly fine to me. The problem with the last one was evidently that somebody involved with the show created the article using much of the same language as the official source, but although she indicated this connection she did not respond to requests to verify it. Since we can't use somebody else's text without permission and we couldn't prove that she was who she said she was (our registration process isn't built for that), we couldn't keep the text. (I'm randomly assigning a sex there. She could have just as easily been a he. :)) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
By the way, when leaving my "talkback" notice, I saw that DASHBot had removed some images from the article. This shouldn't be a problem. It looks ready for mainspace to me, and as long as you move it in the next day or two all you need to do is put the image(s) back in. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Awesome! It's good to know what the issue was; I suspected as much. Some of the show's official pages (PBS, Facebook, an old Blogger page) used a lot of nearly identical wording, though I'm certain copy protection isn't an issue when dealing with personal/corporate sites. Anyway, I really appreciate your help! I just transferred the page and restored the image (which should be okay to use if I understand Wikipedia policy correctly (Wikipedia:Logos)).
Thank you once again for helping my first article come together! Hopefully it will fair better than previous iterations have! :) --Pemling (talk) 13:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Op-ed

Hi, well-timed indeed. I've been gnoming through some business, management, finance topics, and oh my, there's the smell of plagiarism in many places. Just a suggestion: your piece might be stronger on the way forward, pointing towards specific strategies to maintain WP's authority on the internet. Could I suggest a few points?

  • Working parties to target specific categories/topics periodically, in drives like the GOCE's.
  • The GOCE to be skilled up a little on plagiarism (I've long wanted the GOCE drives to target a narrower range of article each time, but they don't like the idea).
  • Tell-tale signs that investigation might pay off. I can think of a few: articles solely on single books; articles that lack many or any localised ref-tags, but give further reading items at the bottom; unevenness of tone; the use of lots of bullet points, buzzwords (not sure about that one); articles that have the sense of advertising or being written by someone close to the subject. Can you think of other signs? If so, please tell us.

From my work at DYK (Plagiarism Central) over the past few months, the issues are (1) off-line references (a hassle to check in the normal reviewing processes); and (2) the sheer number of references, even when they're online and checkable with the duplication detector, etc., so you end up with spot-checks only. Signpost readers need something to grip onto in terms of practical strategies. Tony (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and a little advice on just how long and distinctive a duplicated word string needs to be for it to be of concern would be helpful, too. Tony (talk) 14:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi, Tony. Those are great ideas, but I do worry a bit about making the piece too long. (I'm afraid that I struggle with that at the best of times. :/) My main point in the op ed was to just motivate people to be conscious of the problems, not entirely to offer them a primer on addressing it. There's a link to Wikipedia:Cv101 at the bottom of the page. What about if we expanded that guide to include more information on recognizing copyright problems (your red flags are good ones) and practical strategies for addressing them? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion piece

As you may have noticed, a couple of minutes ago I tweaked your Signpost article significantly, as I would do any other article on the wiki. Per protocol, I now invite your own reversions and/or discussions :) I must say that it did make for an informed and engaging read. As you probably also saw, I have scheduled it for Monday publication: please let me know if this does not suit. Regards, - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 17:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I am fine with your copy edits, and I appreciate your tightening my prose. :) (Though, truly, my publications are minimal.)
I also appreciate the good thoughts, and I hope that others will enjoy reading it...and perhaps keep an eye out for the problems themselves. We could use it! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Hello there,

My name is Marco, I'm the webmaster of Paul Polansky, an American author and poet (paulpolansky.net). I uploaded a couple of personal photos of Paul a couple of days ago on his wikipedia page and noticed today that it's been deleted. Also, reviews of his books have been deleted. Can you please help me out restore them? Please let me know what do I need to do because I spent a lot of time uploading the material. Many thanks in advance!

Puregoldxxxx (talk) 17:56, 3 September 2011 (UTC)Marco

Thank you for your note. I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam

Hi there. As you already attended this article twice, I thought I'll contact you directly. Again, the same copyright material was introduced by an IP (fifth time). Other than removing the revisions, shouldn't the article be protected? Best regards. --Muhandes (talk) 08:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much for keeping such a diligent eye on that. Some articles are just magnets for this kind of thing. :/ I've deleted the revision with the problem.
Semi-protection is an option, but it's one that I try to implement only when I absolutely must and for as short a period of time as possible. Had I semi-protected the article last time copyvios were cleaned from it, for instance, it would have been for a month at most, and it would have already expired. :/ The last IP edits over September 2nd and September 3rd ([3]) were not perfect - I see you had to do some cleanup - but they were retained, so I presume were overall improvements to the article. We would not want to discourage those people from contributing. Any edit they make may be the one that leads them to get an account and become regular contributors. :) If the problem continues, we can certainly try semiprotection or other intermediate steps (I've taken to adding edit notices to some articles that are particularly prone to problems). If you don't mind, would you let me know if the problem persists? We can figure out how best to handle it based on what other edits are going on. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:43, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Sure thing. --Muhandes (talk) 14:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Se Re Pak

I noticed at Se Ri Pak a remarkable overlap with this webpage, e.g. at "Pak also competed...". It looks as if some of it goes way back in the history, but it is not the result of a single edit, and there may even be some circular referencing going on via About.com. I wonder if you might unleash your copyvio superpowers to uncover the true tale? LeadSongDog come howl! 15:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I will certainly do my best. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Looking good for a backwards copy. The oldest archive of that page is June 4th. While this can be a few months off, it's not usually more than that. I'm checking for context clues in the language, because while a good sign for us, that's not definitive, as the material could have been previously published under a different url or offline. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Okay, this is interesting. :/ I've picked the following paragraph in our article to trace:

Pak has also competed in a professional men's event, at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. The Korean Tour is a feeder tour for the Asian Tour and does not offer world ranking points. She finished 10th in the event, becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's tournament since Babe Zaharias did so in 1945.

This one is actually sourced to that website.
The website says:

Pak also competed in a men's professional event at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. She finished 10th, becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's event since Babe Didrickson Zaharias did so in 1945.

We had some of the content here before the citation. But some of it was added at the same time as the citation, in August 2010. (Proving why the wayback archive is not definitive--the website was obviously there in August 2010, even if the archive starts nearly a year after that.) Since he cited the website, there would seems to be little doubt that User:PM800 copied this content from it: "becoming the first woman to make the cut in a professional men's tournament since Babe Zaharias did so in 1945." This is especially likely because we can see that content from [4], which he also cited, is copied: "Pak won a 20-hole playoff for that victory, making that tournament - at 92 holes in length - the longest tournament ever in women's professional golf." That sentence is taken directly from the source. :/ (Not a good sign.) Still poking at this. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I think there's little doubt that there is taking in both directions here. More than likely the World Golf Hall of Fame used the Wikipedia article as inspiration for their own text and then an editor came in and copied over a small amount of content from their website. (Unless the earlier Wikipedia article copied from another source, which they later also used.) She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007 and would presumably not have entered their literature prior to that point. But the other content from that passage has been evolving in our article since it was created in 2004:

Like Sörenstam, Pak has also competed in a professional men's golf event, at the 2003 SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. Unlike Sörenstam, however, she did make the cut and eventually finished 10th.

This evolved gradually and naturally into the form it was in when in August 2010 it was sources (probably circularly) to the WGHoF and the snippet of their text pasted in.
Meanwhile not all, but some of the content from that edit needs to be cleaned up a bit to comply with WP:Copy-paste. For now, I'll clumsily address it with quotation marks. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into it. Seems it's even more complicated than I thought. LeadSongDog come howl! 08:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Moonriddengirl! It's been a long time since we spoke, but I'm back, in good shape, and editing again.

There was one thing that came to my mind. There is a website called PopCrush for music reviews, etc., which, as I already spoke about with another editor, is not regarded as a reliable source, so, it will be remvoed from the article I was working on. However, after I added the refs, I noticed that on every review of every song from the album on this article, there was a section which played the whole song. I don't know what the case is with this and copyright stuff.

Yours,

--&レア (talk) 16:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC) (aka Theologiae)

Hi. :) We can only link to external sites that carry the songs if they are legally licensed to carry the songs, and we have to figure out from context clues whether or not they are. Can you give me a link? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi :-) Here is the link [5]. Then there is also a link which leads to a review of each song, in which there is also an audio. --&レア (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of Duane Hitchings " Captainhit"

Dear Moonriddengirl, Thank you for responding. I noticed that it was mentioned in the reason for my deletion i read again was that the author of my bio did not have proper permission from me and made mistakes concerning copyright issues. Well, as you can imagine, I wrote my own bio ( trying to save money after being told a ridiculous charge for someone else to write it - so I wrote it ) and everything in that bio is correct to the best of my knowledge. I would not lie for I don't have to. Without sounding boastful , my reputation as a musician and songwriter speaks for itself as far as my accomplishments that are again accurately mentioned in my bio. That doesn't mean people who are successful don't lie their faces off ! There is one discrepancy concerning my career and that is my name was not listed on a song I co-wrote with Rod Stewart and Carmine Appice called "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy". It was my first hit record. It took FOREVER to get my name listed as a co-writer on the song. One reason it FINALLY got listed was that when I sold my publishing company, their main "jewel" in my catalog was "Sexy". Half the publishing part of the catalog I sold was well over $500,000. THAT is why my name was finally on the song - it had to be or Full Keel Music would have given me much less. I also wrote Young Turks , Infatuation and Crazy 'Bout Her with Rod. I won a Grammy co-writing with Kim Carnes, Craig Krampf for the movie , Flashdance. I also wrote for Heart, Pat Benetar, with Michael Bolton , Eddie Money , played with Jimi Hendrix , Alice Cooper , Cactus, The Buddy Miles Express etc. If one looks at a lot of the people mentioned here and my bio, you will see my name all over the place. I will try to understand what I need to do for their seems to be a lot of paper work which if I have to do, so be it. I do have some other places that can be checked. I was invited to join the "Songwriter Institute" ( Nashville " of 12-14 songwriters that have written over 25 #1 records in the last three years. I would never had been invited if I where not what I said I was and for my reputation and success. My main site is Reverbnation, MySpace ( where you can hear my jamming with Jimi Hendrix ) and Facebook. By the way, the bio that you folks have looked at was supposed to be closed down a long time ago but I was surprised it was still up. I believe the guy I paid for 2 years a LONG time ago went broke and the site is still there ? Seem so someone would have to be paying a fee for being the web master ? At any rate, I am all over your your Encyclopedia with my accomplishments and sorry for the mess. I am really puzzled who ( artist, record co etc. complained about a claim or claims I made to report to you and have me deleted ? I DEFINITELY want to know who that is if possible. Thanks again for your response and again I will try to figure out how to respond to your request properly. I am not complaining but there seems to be a lot to do. Regards, Duane Hitchings <redacted> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Captainhit (talk • contribs) 02:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. The copyright concerns were noted by a user name Star Mississippi. Wikipedia's policies encourage any contributor who notice potential copyright concerns to do something about them. This not only protects Wikipedia, but also protects copyright holders (if there isn't permission) and our content reusers.
It does seem complicated, I know, but generally is not--a simple e-mail from an authorized address to the Wikimedia Foundation at the address I have you above will usually get the ball rolling and is sometimes all that it takes. Wikipedia:Declaration of consent for all enquiries is very helpful here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Modern Library 100 and other similar lists

If I'm coming to Wikipedia, I EXPECT encyclopedic content, not abridged content. Dictionaries are abridged, encyclopedias should NOT be abridged for content. Ever. Else, it is no longer an encyclopedia. So, a list of 100, whether it's a list from one publisher, one government or the number of levels of odor of flatulence is irrelevant. The ENTIRE list is germane or NONE of the list should be used as a bait and switch for an abridged subject. Perhaps a note to the editing party suggesting a permission be obtained or it will be deleted would be a good policy? Rather than Wikipedia, the abridge encyclopedic source of abridgement? I'm REALLY big on copyright and patent rights, as an information security professional. I'm also REALLY big on INFORMATIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION, not ABRIDGED. Abridged is worthless and we can eliminate 2/3 of the articles present in physics alone to abridge, rather than INFORM.Wzrd1 (talk) 04:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) If you want to nominate such articles for deletion, you can do so. The procedure is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Alternatively, we'd need to pass a new policy to implement a general approach such as you suggest. (New policies are typically explored at village pump.) However, I think that the community in general would prefer abridged information to no information. (I'm inclined to support that view myself. Theoretically, when articles about such lists are handled well, they will thoroughly discuss the list and can do so without reproducing them, in much the same way we can discuss War and Peace without reproducing it.) Since our attorney advises that governing law does not permit complete information in many list articles, it may be that consensus will support the status quo. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

How to handle the following situation:

  1. flickr user first uploads an image with CC license (his creation)
  2. It gets uploaded to commons (After review by flickreviewbot)
  3. Flick user changes the flickr license to "all rights reserved" after a few years.

Does this mean the image is a copyvio and has to be deleted from commons?--Sodabottle (talk) 12:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) If the bot has confirmed the license at the time of upload (or soon after) and then the original uploader changes the license, we still hold a copy that was appropriately released (PD/CC-BY), so it doesn't have to be deleted. However, there is/was some issue with Flickr where all images were auto-uploaded under a CC-BY license unless the user specifically changed it, in such cases I believe if the Flickr user asks us to delete the image, they take appropriate action after a deletion discussion. —SpacemanSpiff 12:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Spiff. That clarified my doubt. The image i had in mind has been verified properly by the FlickreviewR bot at the time of upload. The user has deleted it now from his photostream, but the remaining ones in the set are tagged "all rights reserved". So i got this doubt--Sodabottle (talk) 12:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Just make sure from the history that the bot added the tag, I've come across quite a few "fake" bot tags.—SpacemanSpiff 13:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Confirmed. This is the file. Original uploader is Ganeshk, so it dint occur to be to check for fake tagging :-). I confirmed now.--Sodabottle (talk) 13:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Talk:National symbols of India#Copyvio

Could you take a look and comment? It's a high-visibility article so editors are reasonably concerned that it's copyvio blanked. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 16:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

SP piece

MRG, can't quite see the relevance of the cartoon, and another problem is that the original page is "huge"—even on my 27" monitor it's hard to track through; but in the article, it's just a splotch of colour, unreadable at that size (even at the size I boosted it to). The "Handbook" pic is now so small it's not worth including. I don't mind if you remove it. Tony (talk) 13:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. The cartoon is relevant to the point that we encourage reusers. It was placed inline next to the content discussing that. It's readable by those who want to read it, by clicking on it. :)
As for the handbook, I don't think the pic needs to be large enough to be read--only to provide a convenient link to it for those who want to read it. This isn't really a how-to piece, but my opinion as to why more people should get involved in copyright cleanup. There is certainly some overlap between copyright and plagiarism, but they aren't the same thing. I didn't remove it because I do think that it's probably a valuable resource along the lines of what you mentioned earlier in giving people red flags to look for, as many of them are similar. I disagree that it's not worth including at its current size, but evidently you are finding value in it in different aspects. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello. This is the link you asked me [6]. I was wondering, would you say that [7] is usable?

Thank you,

Yours,

--&レア (talk) 18:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

After reading about the company, I think that PopCrush probably licenses the right to play that content, which would make it okay for us to link the pages that do so. :)
Acclaimed Musik seems to be WP:SELFPUB. It is administered by some guy with a gmail address. I would be disinclined to use that one. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Images released from companies

Hello MRG, I have a copyright/OTRS question for you. I asked to have some pictures released by Kinross Gold to be included in the articles (as pictures of gold mines are difficult to get by traditional methods based on location and security), and they have agreed to release 4, I currently have them in my email inbox, so I can upload them, but I am unfamiliar with how to show that they offered to release their copyright for use here. Can you assist? --kelapstick(bainuu) 22:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure! What you do is upload the images to Commons and under "permission" put {{OTRS pending}}. Then you forward those letters to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org with a link to the images on Commons and, if they've already been published on the web, where they've been previously published. The OTRS volunteer who gets the images should be able to assist if there are any problems, although if you tell me they're up and I happen to be online at that time, I'll be happy to look to see if I can expedite that.
Congratulations on obtaining permission. That rocks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Spiffy, thanks! --kelapstick(bainuu) 22:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Do I include the attachments when I forward the message?--kelapstick(bainuu) 22:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
If they haven't already been published on the internet, I think that's a good idea. It will prove that you haven't sneakily uploaded the wrong images. :D If they have, it doesn't matter much either way, since the agent will check the internet publication point. I wouldn't take any special pains to remove them, so you might as well include them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Possible copyvios on American politicians

Being neither American nor a politician, I encountered a series of content removal edits from a user claiming that "..the information is severe copy infringement by a banned user. I was given the OK to delete it by another admin." The whole exchange is here. Being a mere mortal I cannot test the assertion that the material deleted was indeed a copyvio or not . I have rolled back all the edits of FrittataOhio but there are now questions as to whether he/she was right and the edits that he/she made were genuine efforts to fix up earlier copy-vios. Help !.  Velella  Velella Talk   22:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I think there's probably a pretty good chance he's right. All of the articles he's tagging were created by User:OSUHEY or one of his sock puppets, and he is a known serial copyright infringer. I don't know why he refused to write his own stuff, but that's been his way--creating new accounts to continue copying content onto Wikipedia. Given that, policy supports removing his content indiscriminately, although we usually do like to check to make sure that there's reason. If this person believes that OSUHEY (by any of his sock names) has violated copyright, he's probably right. :/ I've added a box to User:OSUHEY explaining and suggesting the recommended template to use if content is removed presumptively. If the contributor knows that specific materials were copied, {{subst:cclean|url=whatever}} would probably be the better choice. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - I have reverted all my edits and those of several other editors to the versions left by FrittataOhio. Without sight of the Copy vio source it is difficult to do anything else.  Velella  Velella Talk   15:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Cincinnati Zoo

Wow. I'm impressed. Don Lammers (talk) 00:52, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Divbox drama

This edit summary was a little, erm, light on details. {{umbox}} exists specificially for use messages like this. If you want a lighter background colour then it's trivial to add one. Must a mountain be made of this particular molehill? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I see you've reverted the edit notice ones as well. As you're so keen on pre-existing consensus, care to point me at the one that says that edit notices need to be further highlighted? If that were necessary in due course then you'd think it would be added to the edit notice code itself. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That would be my own question. I don't see why this should be drama; we have processes for this kind of disagreement. It isn't a waste of time to discuss differences.
"All I've done is ask you repeatedly to demonstrate consensus for your assertion that decoration is discouraged outside of article space. (I asked at the now closed TFD, and I've asked at the template documentation talk page.) I'm not sure why you've refused to supply that, and I'm really perplexed by your unilateral decision to change the formatting of all these pages. :/ I don't plan to object to it, however, unless I think it's a bad idea, in which case WP:BRD is the answer. In any event, hopefully the village pump conversation I've opened will clarify the community's feeling on the matter. If consensus is established that the template is inappropriate outside of user space (which I note would have been discouraged in your language as well), I'll have no further objections. In the meantime, though, I will defend its historical usages. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Yep, the VP is the best place to continue with this. Sorry for being so assertive here: the drama here has been as much my doing as anyone's. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Bela, Pakistan

I semi-accidently found a copyright violation. [8] is the Terms of use. [9] is the copied article. No Modifications is specified, so the license is invalid here. Correct? I removed all the copied prose from the article. Is there any more steps I need to take. The IP who added the violation hasn't edited in one year. Thanks--intelatitalk 21:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. You're right that we can't use it, for several reasons. :) In addition to not specifically allowing derivatives, they require that we retain their copyright notice if we reproduce it. That's not compatible with our license. Also, they do not allow non-commercial reproduction. With that much text, it's usually a good idea to get an admin to do revision deletion (I've done it), and since you cannot communicate directly with the IP anymore (no reason to leave a copyright warning to an IP that hasn't edited in a year), it would probably be a good idea for you to place {{cclean}} at the talk page. This template is designed to be as easy as possible; you don't need to sign it or put a header. You just have to put {{subst:cclean|url=http://www.contactpakistan.com/ExplorePakistan/Bela.html}} on the talk page, and it'll do the rest. :) Thanks for finding and taking care of that! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I added {{subst:cclean}} on the talkpage, which makes it clear that a copyright violation was removed. Thank you for helping out. Yoenit (talk) 21:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
That would be why you are the only person I go to when I have a copyright question. intelatitalk 21:53, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you very much! I'm happy to help, but this one was pure collaboration. :) You removed the content, I rev deleted, and Yoenit tagged the talk page. Group maintenance. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Virginia copyright?

Since you are one of the copyright experts and your name popped in my head, can you comment on a copyright claim that was posted on my talk page? Sounds plausible, but makes me wonder a bit as when I checked a few Virginia-based candidates web pages, I found copyright notices. Thanks. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid that one is probably based on a common misunderstanding of copyright law. Content is copyrighted automatically, unless there is a specific disclaimer or there is some reason that the content cannot be copyrighted (such as if it was produced by an employee of the US federal government doing his job). I'm not familiar with any general disclaimer on copyright on election-based materials in Virginia, and your finding copyright notices on some makes that claim unlikely. That said, I'll go look at the specifics. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
We are not able to use that text under current circumstances.
The website acknowledges that it is copying content from other pages, including "various State Election Authorities, the politicians themselves or from their staff or websites." Even if it were true that election information in Virginia is public domain (I find nothing on the State Board of Elections website to verify this), the politicians, their staff and their websites have copyright allowances of their own. He may be conflating "public records" with "public domain", in which case I would point him to Wikipedia:Public domain#Public records.
The website being used claims specifically with reference to this article that material may have been copied from Boyd's website. A cache of their "Terms of Service" here makes clear that - candidate for election or not - "The entire Website is copyrighted.... If you find these materials useful, you may download, copy, display, print out, or send a copy to others so long as each copy indicates the appropriate copyright notice, credits us as your source, and is used only for your personal use. You are expressly prohibited, however, from downloading, copying, displaying, printing out, or sending a copy to others for bulk or commercial uses, or for any defamatory or otherwise illegal purpose." Even if we were permitted to accept content licensed for non-commercial use, publication on Wikipedia would clearly not be "personal".
To use that content, we would need verification of where the website got it, and we would need verification that it was properly licensed there.
Feel free to point the contributor to this conversation. If you'd prefer, I can drop off my feedback somewhere, but it'll be much easier for me to keep track of at this point if any response is left here. So long as my work contract continues, I'm not checking my watchlist anywhere near as often. :) The talk page, I try to keep up with! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the assistance. I have pointed the editor here. =) -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 16:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For patiently guiding me through copyright guidelines in your busy schedule and helping me correct my mess, which would have been very difficult hadn't it been for you. Thank you. Suraj T 13:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
That's very kind of you, Surajt88! I appreciate it very much. :) The hard work is in adjusting styles to meet local conventions, and I'm always happy when people are willing to work with us to do that. You are certainly well worth my time. :D --User:Moonriddengirl 14:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Our friend Magdiel

Hi.

I contact him and all, and at first he seemed more interested in knowing about me that in wikipedia, i answer his questions regarding my studies, my work, my travel interests always urging him to tell me exactly what he wanted help with.

He finally contact me in the talk page, he at first insisted on using e-mails, just to tell me that he is "compiling" work to do.

Anyway, i keep letting messages in his talk page but he hasn`t edited since August 25 and further checking his contributions he hasn`t made a single edit to an article, only to his user and user talk pages.

What do you think this means? Is he busy? Did he fool us? How long do i keep checking on him?

As always, thanks in advance. Zidane tribal (talk) 04:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much for working with him. :/ I'm sorry if it's been a waste of your time, but I want to make sure you know that this doesn't downplay for me the value of what you were willing to do. In other words, whether he takes advantage of it or not, I appreciate your willingness to help. :) If I were in your position, I think I'd just let him know that you've got work to do and that if he has questions about using Wikipedia (Spanish or otherwise) he can leave you a note at your talk page. I would not check back again, and I would not talk to him any more about off Wikipedia stuff unless you want to. We're not a social club, and your help is simply a courtesy to him. (I'd also be careful when he does ask for help; if he's just needing attention, once he stops getting social contact he might start asking pointless questions. But I would give him the benefit of the doubt for a question or two. Please let me know if that seems to be happening.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Will do. Let`s hope for the best. Zidane tribal (talk) 21:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Let him a message the day before yesterday telling him that if he was REALLY interested in editing he could contact me, nothing yet, not much hope left. Shame. Anyway i found out your name, and got a barnstar out of this, that`s WAY good enough for me. If you ever need help with anything please let me know. Zidane tribal (talk) 05:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Free Image?

Can I upload these images? They are very old images of Ooty and it is a government website which makes no mention of any copyrights. Thanks. Suraj T 10:04, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'm afraid that those questions I frequently cannot answer, and I can't tell you with this one. There's a lot involved in determining whether or not a picture is public domain--not only the age of the photograph may factor in, but the date when it was first published. The best people to ask to help you with that are the ones who contribute to WP:MCQ. They've been very helpful for me in figuring out when content was first published and if it's okay for us to use. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)Many of these are all very likely {{PD-India}} images, but the content is best posted to Commons and the questions addressed there as these images can be used by multiple wikis. e.g the cars in the picture would date that image to the 20s/30s and so on. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 10:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks mrg and spaceman stiff. The date of publication are not available. But aren't all images from government websites fee use? And I've posted the same queries in WP:MCQ and in commons. Suraj T 10:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
No, any material by any government organisation in India is copyright protected unless specifically released. (e.g. pib.nic.in releases photographs, but even they can not be uploaded here as they fall under the ND clause). —SpacemanSpiff 10:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Yup. There are a few exceptions, but I don't believe that images would be included. You can read a few details about the exceptions at User:Moonriddengirl/copyright_FAQ#Copyright_status.2C_Indian_government. That's a copy of a note I left to another contributor some time ago, and the links may be out of date, but the information shouldn't be. :) Hope that you get a good answer, and that the images are free for use! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I actually live in Ooty and I'm planning to take all the required images myself. Well, I'll have to wait for replies from WP:MCQ and commons. And as for User:Moonriddengirl/copyright_FAQ#Copyright_status.2C_Indian_government, I tried giong thruogh it but it's kinda complex for me. Anyway thanks for pointing me to it and thanks for the wishes as these are old and valuable images and I hope for the same too. Suraj T 10:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I foud the publication dates for a few of the pictures: [10], [11], [12], [13]. I suppose all except the first one are free now. Suraj T 11:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the first couple, it seems that was the date they were taken. I'm not sure about the date they were published. Copyright laws are complex. :/ But that would be good to add to your question at MCQ, as it might help them determine the status. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I've asked. Waiting for a response. Suraj T 11:15, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

hi

Hi, I noticed that you have deleted a particular paragraph I put up on Social inequality. Since I am new to Wikipedia I am still not very familiar with it, and from now I will pay good attention towards copyright issues. I have a doubt, can I copy (even if it is just a line or two) from another Wikipedia article, if yes, what exactly is to be done? Thanx in advance! Nmkirpalani (talk) 11:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC)nmkirpalani

Replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay cool, thanks for addressing the doubt immediately. =) Nmkirpalani (talk) 11:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)nmkirpalani

Hello I understand why you deleted my edits on the article Wipro. I just wanted to ask you whether I can rewrite the same material in my own words and properly cite it this time. Thank you. Poojalh (talk) 16:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:11, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Question

Hello. I am under the impression that you are either in charge of copyright issues or are at least an expert on them. I hope you don't mind me asking out of the blue, but can I remove a {{non-free}} template from an article if there appears to be nothing wrong with it? The template doesn't explicitly say that I can't remove but I am not sure. The template was placed with the rationale "I suspect with recent amendements that the Act is still copyright".

The article in question, Riot (Damages) Act 1886, relates to a statute which is an edict of government and is therefore in the public domain in the United States, whether amended or not, and regardless of its status anywhere else (according to the United States Copyright Office). This has been discussed at Wikisource, and, as far as I can see, they appear to be content to reprint the whole of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that are, unlike this Act, certainly in copyright, in the United Kingdom, on the strength of this rule of law and the Crown Waiver / Open Government License.

It also appears to be in the public domain in the United Kingdom, as the effect of section 164(4) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 appears to be that amending an Act does not create a new copyright in it.

The amendments in question themselves consist of the mechanistic and purely consequential substitution of one technical term of art for another due to a change in nomenclature (e.g. "police area" for "police district", "police fund" for "police rate" and "compensation authority" for "police authority"), and do not appear to me to contain any creative content at all.

I also think it could be justified as fair use anyway because the use of the unamended text would be misleading or at least very confusing because police districts etc don't exist anymore, and the text provides context for the explanation of the amendments etc.

I could go on, but I hope that I don't need to. What should I do? James500 (talk) 23:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, James. :) I'm not in charge by any means, but I do a lot of work in the area, and I'm happy to help.
I've removed the {{nonfree}} tag. As you say, with the nature of the content, it isn't copyrighted. You're quite right that you can do that yourself. Ordinarily I would suggest you put an explanation on the talk page, but you've already done that. :D
Sorry for the inconvenience. Copyright is a pretty big issue on Wikipedia, and I'm glad that people are thinking about it. I'll explain to the tagger. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. James500 (talk) 00:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

J. E. "Buster" Brown, how much of a source can by copyedited?

Hey Moonridengirl, long time no talk. I have a copyright/plagerism question for you in regards to J. E. "Buster" Brown. I've read your 'essay' about copyright concerns but I'm still unsure about this situation. Much of the contents of the Brown article seems to be paraphrased from a University of Texas biography. It's not a copy/paste but much of the article still closely paraphrases this site. You've been my go-to person in the past on copyright issues, so I figured you'd be a good person to ask if this article really is good to go or if it strays across the line. Thanks for any help you can provide. --TreyGeek (talk) 04:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi.:) That's always going to be a subjective call. Unfortunately, even the courts are limited in objective tests for this kind of thing and will frequently rely on the "ordinary observer" reaction. When I try to judge these things myself, I look for a balance of actual duplication of striking phrases mingled with an overall appropriation of the organization. The creativity of the organization makes a big difference here. Biographical data organized chronologically with a focus on the elements that we might expect to be in any biography (he was born; he learned; he worked; he married; he died) are less creative than subjective selection ("the three key events from his childhood that led him to becoming a bail bondsman were...."). The more creative the organization, the further we need to deviate to clearly avoid appropriation.
I'll look at the article specifically when I've got a bit more caffeine in me (late night :D) and give you my opinion, but I wanted to let you know that I'd seen your question and give you my general approach so you wouldn't think I'd overlooked it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Oi. This one is borderline insofar as it follows very closely on his achievements in the Senate. The earlier sections are more typical "he was born, went to school, etc.", so less worrisome, but the structure overall of the rest may reflect more creativity. There is nothing in the source to indicate that these are chronological records of achievements, and it would be really good if other sources mentioning other achievements were woven in to avoid borrowing too much from that source. That said, I think it falls on the side of "okay". Not good, but okay. I'd welcome observations from others, if anybody who happens to see this wants to give an opinion. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkbalk: User:SpacemanSpiff

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Moonriddengirl's talk page.
Message added 14:07, 10 September 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I have decided to give you and Drmies talkbacks to your own page now, there seems to be a question from one of the few non-copvyios but close-paraphrasing issue on the outreach project in that section. —SpacemanSpiff 14:07, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

LOL! Brilliant. :D Thanks; I would have missed that one for sure! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:08, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 September 2011

Your opinion piece

That essay is really excellent. Copyright concerns are usually difficult to write about it a way that's not so detailed as to be difficult to follow, yes not so general as to be inaccurate. Your essay is informative, persuasive, and just good reading. Thank you. – Quadell (talk) 12:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Quadell. That's kind of you. :) I think we could get a long way with the problem if we could just encourage our users to be generally more conscious of the problem. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I enjoyed the article as well. One thing I have noticed, though, is that people who raise close paraphrasing concerns don't always suggest how to rewrite the offending text. They just say that there is a problem and point people to a guideline (or essay). My view is that close paraphrasing is best dealt with by active back-and-forth discussion, though part of the reason this probably doesn't happen is that it might reveal how people hold different views on what counts as close paraphrasing. If Editor A points out to Editor B that part of an article is closely paraphrasing the source, I suspect that if Editor A were to do a rewrite, then editor C would come along and say that it is still too close to the sources and a further rewrite is needed (cue furious argument). This is because the way people write from their sources differs from person to person as each develops their own writing skills, and learns from experience how to use sources responsibly without relying too much on one source or too closely paraphrasing their sources. More distressing is people claiming something is closely paraphrased when it isn't, or claiming that a non-copyrightable fact or commonly used phrase (used widely by different sources) must be rewritten to avoid plagiarism. And then you have people who think that using duplication detectors (a technical starting point) is a substitute for actually opening up the sources and reading them and comparing them with the article in question (the holistic approach). Anyway, I'll close by saying that the 'Example: close paraphrasing repaired' bit at Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing is excellent, but I wonder how many people bother to open that bit up and read it? Carcharoth (talk) 01:20, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see this for a while. You're quite right that learning to rewrite close paraphrasing is generally best done in even a brief mentorship with somebody who already knows how to do it and that judging whether or not there are problems is very subjective. I'm not sure how we can address that, though. :/ People who tag issues may not necessarily be good at coaching others on overcoming the issue, and we don't really have a whole lot of people volunteering to help with this kind of mentoring. I do it fairly routinely, but I wouldn't set up a booth somewhere and do it indiscriminately. It takes a lot of effort and isn't always successful. (I once mentored a user with problems in that area for months before he seemed confident with rewriting. It was very well worth the time to help out with him, but I just don't have time.) I'm glad to hear that you like the example in the essay. I wonder if there's any way that we can spread the word about that further. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Fiddling about

Hi MRG, perhaps it's possible to encourage editors to balance a number of issues in determining whether plagiarism or close paraphrasing is occurring. I played with the box at WP:CANVASS, but these are just vague musings at the moment. The scenarios are meant to be the extreme ends on separate but related judgmental scales. Is the concept useful? Tony (talk) 12:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Length of wording in question Closeness to the original Distinctiveness of original wording or meaning Attribution
Less of an issue Short Your own wording1 Not distinctive Fully attributed
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
More of an issue Long Exact wording duplicated Distinctive Not directly attributed

1Excluding "non-creative" text.

Oh, I love that, Tony! That's great. :) I think it's a very useful concept. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Really? Perhaps we could let it ferment for a little, and consider how it might be modified and how/where it might be used. :-) Tony (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Good idea. :) One thing that I think we might need to do is footnote the "short" bit just to note that if content is non-free, even short verbatim excerpts need to be used as quotations unless they are completely non-distinctive text. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Zdzisław Najder

Think this is close paraphrased enough (from here) to warrant deletion? There's no clean version... Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm looking at this one. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a problem. I'm in the process of rewriting. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I've rewritten it and revdeleted the earlier text. I do not know, but suspect that the Polish article which precedes ours is the source of this copyright problem. :/ For that reason, I did not give the contributor a caution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Bulk Image Deletion Question

Hello, Moonriddengirl! Your name was suggested by Crohnie (talk · contribs) as an administrator who is familiar with copyright issues that could possibly assist in a situation that needs resolution. What happened was that an article up for FA (Ted Bundy) attracted attention for some of the images in the article due to the FA process. These images were subsequently nominated for deletion on the Commons based on the belief that the Archives are not the true copyright holder and therefore have no right to license images that are not PD; and that nomination remains open and unresolved. But I'm really not sure why. In the past, an editor had contacted the State Archives of Florida in regards to all the images contained within that archive, and was told that attribution to the archives was the only requirement for their use. I very recently contacted the same State agency concerning only the images from their archives used in the Bundy article, and was informed that they are aware of no copyright issues, and that attribution was the only requirement. A professional author who had used an image from that archives in his for-profit book on Bundy has confirmed that only attribution to the State Archives of Florida was needed. The editor who nominated the images for deletion refused to withdraw the nomination unless proof that the State of Florida is the true and actual copyright holder is presented (so that it therefore has the right to do what they are already doing).

My position is this: twice now the State has confirmed that we may use the images just as long as we credit the "State Archives of Florida" (and we do). Is this not tantamount to a CC-by-SA license being explicitly given to us by them? Must an OTRS ticket be filed for each and every image from this archive... when they've said that not only can WP use them, but anyone can? The "template" that was used in the "Permission" sections of the images (created by Andy Dingley in 2008) has been challenged as well, and another deletion nomination concerning an image from the FBI's own website has also resulted from this article's failed FA nomination. Nothing's happening on the Commons, but if we had to go by consensus over there, these deletion nominations would be closed. Myself and several other editors who have put a lot of work into this article (not to mention others whose work involves using images from these State archives) would appreciate any input you could give us. Discussion on the Bundy images continues here, but we would like input on how to close the image deletion nominations as we firmly believe they have no valid basis. Thank you for your time! Doc talk 04:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. First, I have to clarify that I don't have any special standing on Commons. I'm not an admin there or really even all that active in that project. So I can't do anything to facilitate closure of that deletion debate. Sorry.:(
It would have been really nice if the State's email to you had not included the vague "We are not aware of any copyright issues with these photos", which completely refuses to take responsibility. :/ The disclaimer for the website is also somewhat vague: "The use of material in the custody of the State Archives of Florida is governed by state law and, in some cases, by the terms of the donation agreement under which the Archives acquired the materials." How do we know in which cases these terms govern? What are the terms? But Statute 257.35 says: "Any use or reproduction of material deposited with the Florida State Photographic Collection shall be allowed pursuant to the provisions of paragraph (1)(b) and subsection (4) provided that appropriate credit for its use is given." That "any use" is nice, clear language (and would include modification) (Paragraphs (1)(b) and subsection (4) deal with the hows and whens and allowed charges.)
Given the vague language in their email (inconclusive, since smart attorney-speak refuses to take responsibility for anything) and the slippery section of the disclaimer, I could not personally say certainly that all images in the State Archives of Florida are free for use (or that they aren't), but I think they are both germane to a determination on Commons. There are a couple of things I would do if I were in your position to try to speed resolution of this.
First, I would link both that disclaimer and the relevant statute, highlighting the language about reproduction. Then I would go to the Commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard and let them know that this has been open for months and that it is delaying the promotion of the article. Without attempting to promote your own point of view there, I would recommend requesting that somebody close it so that editors will know one way or the other if the images are usable so that work on getting the article to featured status can continue.
Ordinarily I would recommend you forward the emails you have received to OTRS for logging (doesn't matter who we are, we have to submit these documents to prove that we have them when it comes to legal matters), but the vagueness would probably not help here. The WMF attorney recently rejected a permission letter from Puerto Rico due to similar vagueness. I think the disclaimer and statute will probably be the main considerations here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

At the Cincinnati Zoo

You've been very helpful to this editor [14], but I suspect the blocked contributor couldn't wait any longer [15]. Please correct me if you think otherwise. I've left a note for Drmies as well. Thanks, 99.184.129.216 (talk) 15:52, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I see you've noted this [16]. Much appreciated, 99.184.129.216 (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry that I had to. :/ I appreciate your attention to the matter as well. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Pure Reason Revolution again

Hello. In case you haven't seen, I thought I should bring to your attention Special:Contributions/Ilovemoonriddengirl. New account, only made 2 edits, both clear vandalism related to Pure Reason Revolution topics. Bondegezou (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'd actually blocked him before seeing this note. There's little doubt that he's a sockpuppet, almost certainly of User:Poundlane36. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Erm, just to say, I think the original puppeteer was User:Justpassinby - all subsequent socks are likely the same guy. Sorry to be pedantic! Thedarkfourth (talk) 04:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
And another one: Special:Contributions/Nippywallis. Bondegezou (talk) 08:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Blocked as an obvious sock. If s/he doesn't get bored soon, we may want to look into semiprotection for a while. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Cheers. I'm keeping a closer eye on PRR-related articles for the time being. Bondegezou (talk) 10:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
New vandalism at Tom Bellamy, and a new sock to go with it - I didn't revert because I don't know how to undo more than one edit. Is there a way? Thedarkfourth (talk) 03:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Do you have "rollback" rights? That's an easy way. Another relatively easy way is just to go to the last version before he edited, click "edit this page" and save with an edit summary explaining why. I think it may be time to ask a checkuser to look into blocking the IP(s). --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Getting a checkuser to look into IPs, definitely seems like a good idea. Justpassinby is clearly persistent. I presume the band's recent announcement that they are disbanding soon has prompted his/er re-emergence. They play their final show on 30 November, so I'd expect disruption until at least then. Bondegezou (talk) 09:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
He's using too broad a range to block the IPs, but we have other tools. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl, I wonder if you can offer some advice on how I can get help with copyright cleanup. I've spent the past month or so mopping up behind one class from the India Education Program, the students of which are extremely unclear on the fact that copyvios are not allowed here. Their campus ambassadors say they are working with them on the topic, but in the meantime, the copyvios keep rolling in. Do you know if there's any way to marshal some troops to systematically check the contributions from this class, and possibly from other IEP classes? I've made a start of a log at User:Fluffernutter/checks - it's incomplete, and doesn't even log a lot of the actions I've taken yet since I didn't start logging until yesterday, but if I could just get enough experienced users to check out all the students' contributions and annotate that list, I could at least get on top of things as they keep coming in. As it is, I'm running around frantically, hoping I don't miss anything huge. More warm bodies would be a wonderful thing... A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time, but as I understand it in some cultures copying is seen as a compliment to the originator and is accepted. This may just be a slur but I've read it several places (in discussions of the problem in universities). I don't know if there is anything we can do about it. Dougweller (talk) 14:00, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, you're not the first person who's mentioned that to me, Doug. I suspect the students are doing it mostly out of lack of awareness that not only don't we see it as a compliment around here, but that we actually see it as a huge, huge legal issue that must be avoided. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
You have no idea how timely and welcome this is. :) I'm already exploring the issue of copyright concerns emerging from this program with staff in my liaison role on a request from another contributor, but I had not been able to obtain specifics for them. I've sent them a link to your log page. So thanks for that. They may be able to help the ambassadors find ways of addressing concerns on their end.
I'll try to poke at it a bit when I get off work, and I hope that a talk page stalker or two might be able to help out. (Talk page stalkers, if you have time?) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I'll take a look at a couple now, but MRG, I will let you know -- I do not have time! —SpacemanSpiff 14:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Then I especially appreciate your sharing some anyway. :D --User:Moonriddengirl 14:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Five done, every one of which was a cut-and-paste from some website (except one user who hasn't yet edited an article). >:( Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Yuck, this is a trainwreck. I will try to check a few more later tonight. Yoenit (talk) 15:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I probably won't have time, but I did leave a message on Wikipedia talk:Ambassadors to alert them to the problem. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
The organizers started recruitment of Online Ambassadors a couple of days ago, so once they start taking charge of the material, I guess the situation would be better. Lynch7 15:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Point to note is some of these could be "offline" copyvios from textbooks (which have many derivatives online, but no preview on gbooks) I found one section sourced to a textbook, but different parts of the section were in other papers and so on. This adds some complexity to the clean up effort. —SpacemanSpiff 15:48, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
    • ... and if that textbook were published by Gyan then it most likely would be a copyvio of a copyvio ;) - Sitush (talk) 16:25, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Thank you, guys. And LOL, Sitush. True enough. :) Staff is taking these concerns seriously, but we need to do what we can on this end as well. Hopefully we'll be able to work with these students so that they can continue contributing without running into problems. The idea is to bring them on board as Wikipedia contributors. Do not want that to backfire. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
        • I'm the person in charge of the Foundation's India Programs and responsible for the Education Program in India. I'm writing to tell you that we are aware of the copyvio problem with some newbie editors at the Pune pilot. We've done a number of things to reduce and eliminate the problem. For starters, we've been going to every single class and clearly instructing them about what can and cannot go on Wikipedia. We've had meetings with the faculty and with the respective directors of the concerned colleges. Faculty and Directors have reinforced our messages to students (and are continuing to do so.) We're doubling the numbers of Campus Ambassadors deployed to 30 from the 15 we have. (We're conducting training sessions for the new 15 Campus Ambassadors this weekend.) We're starting an Online Ambassador program in the next few days to get additional support for students. All of these measures will hopefully reduce the problem - but do keep in mind that we have 1000 students involved in this initiative so the sheer scale of the task is challengin. Having said all this, I want to thank all of you for helping out. I know that adequate information has been given to newbies by you - and that this has been done in a courteous manner - so Thank You. We're continuing to work on this problem - and it is of massive priority for us. Hmundol (talk) 14:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if it's necessary to try to systematically check all the classes' contribs the way we've (so, so wonderfully, you guys!) crowdsourced this one since yesterday. I'm torn between "it may be a waste of human capital" and "but if there are copyvios, it's so much more important to catch them NOW"...anyone have opinions on whether we need to do the whole set? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

At present it's an option. My copyvio clean up activity is almost exclusively on WP:INDIA related content both here and at Commons, so I come with some undestanding of the area and possibly skewed opinions too. In these particular cases, it's imperative that we show everyone involved: the ambassadors, the course instructure, the foundation liaison and the students what the problems are and where they are. It maybe an option to create a copyright sub-page for each course set and if/when we notice the first copyright issue with that course we start listing and handling them on that subpage. Then, both the instructor and ambassador have immediate visibility to it (not as part of a CCI group of pages) and it's also there on the course "home page" for the students. More importantly, listing the problems would also show them what the issue is and probably help reduce/remove the issue. Maybe make it an automatic red-link in their standard "course homepages" that turns blue when logs are added. —SpacemanSpiff 16:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
User:Fluffernutter, you did a great job catching this now. And, again, timing was perfect for me as you gave me plenty of the kind of actual examples I was looking for. :D
Those who've worked with me won't be surprised that I lean towards the "much more important to catch them NOW" category. :) The longer we keep them without identifying them, the greater the risk that we will lose the labor of subsequent contributors. I hate that. I can think of few things that would demoralize me more than, say, being told that the 20 hours I put into Article A had to be tossed aside because the guy before me created an unusable foundation. :P
Hmundol, I really feel for you with the challenge here. I know that students can have great difficulty grasping the concepts of copyright and plagiarism. I have worked one on one with students in person who have repeatedly violated our university's code of ethics -- not because they want to, but because they don't get it. (I can sympathize; drop me in a computer coding class, and I may be equally challenged. :)) The real challenge on Wikipedia is that there is an increased urgency to help them get it and get it quickly. There are far greater "real world" risks for copyright violation here than in a typical classroom (assuming that in the typical classroom the teacher is motivated to help them overcome the problem and not to punish them for failing to arrive as fully mature writers). Helping these students make this leap so quickly can't be easy. We want to set them up for success, not failure. Oi.
User:SpacemanSpiff I like your idea. I wonder if the program would embrace that? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
User:Fluffernutter, thanks a lot. I am one of the CAs present on ground for IEP. The job you did is definitely recommendable and we did share this serious issue amongst us, and planning to share it with students also, that this is not just another assignment. You need to take it seriously, or else you are screwed up. But please let us be polite also at same time by giving them one or two warnings and might be a limited block. Personally, today only I ran into some articles which were directly taken from website and one book, but I took care of it and forwarded it to the concerned people and lets hope this does not happen again with those students again. I ensure you that this thing has been taken by us seriously. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 19:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
An indefinite block can be limited. :) It only lasts until the contributor can reassure us that they will not continue. I believe Fluffernutter has been giving them a warning prior to a block? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Correct, no one has been blocked without at least one warning, and often they've had multiple warnings. I'm also keeping an eye on the talk pages of people I've blocked, and each of them is unblocked as soon as they commit to not violating copyright (though I've had to re-block someone today after they promised to behave, which, sigh...). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
User:SpacemanSpiff & User:Moonriddengirl: I agree and like User:SpacemanSpiff's idea. I'm a little unsure of how it could be done. Is there any way you can help out on this or let us know how this can be done? Can I ask User:Rangilo Gujarati to get in touch with you and figure out how to and do it? (He's one of our Campus Ambassadors and is an existing Wikipedian.) Hmundol (talk) 06:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Even I agree with User:SpacemanSpiff's idea. Do let me know what more can be done. Thanks a lot. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 12:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Let me put something together using the Symbiosis experience as a starting point. I'll get back to you all in a day or two. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 13:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey, I did it for my DSA class, check this out this, and ll also ask all other CAs to do the same for their classes. Also it appears on the course Page. Thanks Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 14:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

low pri close para check

In your Copious Free Time (tm), could you take a look at David Wallis Reeves and make sure I didn't paraphrase the sources too closely when I expanded the article? I don't think it's a problem, but I'd appreciate a cross-check if you have the time. Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'm not sure I tagged File:SarekOfVulcanAvatar.jpg properly. While out hiking on a trail, I passed several places where trees had fallen across the path and had been chainsawed clear, leaving flat surfaces on both sides of the trail. Afterwards, someone else came along and carved faces on the flat surfaces. I took pictures of a few of these, took a fancy to one of the shots, and started using it as an online avatar. For my RFA ThankSpam, I uploaded a low-res version of the pic and tagged it "own work". It strikes me that that probably isn't the correct tag for anonymous transient public art -- but I have no idea what a better one would be.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I'll be happy to take a look at the article. :) If it's low priority, though, I'm going to try to tap out some CP items first. In terms of the image, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if we don't know who carved the face, there may not be a correct tag, unless we are using it under WP:NFC. :/ In some countries, Commons:Commons:Freedom of Panorama would do it, but the US doesn't have FOP. Somebody at WP:MCQ might know some loophole that I don't, though, as images are not my major area. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! As I said, no rush -- I don't _think_ I paraphrased too closely, but I wanted a second opinion. I'll check with MCQ as you suggest. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi there

Redacted comment by blocked sock account My76Strat (talk) 22:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

File:RussianRailways.png

This file is up for F5 however I think it may not be copyrightable as it only consists of typefaces, individual words, slogans, or simple geometric shapes., if so what needs to be done to the comments section to reflect. Mtking (edits) 22:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) The thing to do would be to change it from non-free, adding {{pd-textlogo}}{{trademark}}, although if you have any doubts about that you might want to get feedback at WP:MCQ. This is by no means my area. I'm all about the text. :D You can see the templates in use at File:090511 komo newsradio.jpg. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Based on this commons image commons:File:Russian Railways Logo.svg do you really need File:RussianRailways.png at all? Right now it is an orphaned non-free image and if you don't use it, it will be deleted but you could tag it as {{PD-textlogo}} per MRG's comments above but I recommend you do that only if you are going to use it in the Russian Railways article. ww2censor (talk)

Quick favour

I've now got my PhD thesis in and now have some time to be on wikipedia again. I've started working on understanding bots, with my current aim to be getting a bot for WP:CP working again. Not a problem if someone beats me to it as it will be a useful learning exercise regardless. Would you be so kind as to add User:dpmukBOT to the confirmed user group. Not sure if I'm going to run into any captchas or the like before making the bot autoconfirmed but it would be one less thing to worry about. Proof I created the account is here. Cheers. Dpmuk (talk) 23:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations and good luck. :)
I actually had to read up on how to do that, because that's not something I regularly (read: hardly ever) do. I trust you to use it appropriately and all and not start running an unauthorized bot and get us both in trouble. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry you had to look it up. Don't worry I've read the bot policy and, per WP:BOTAPPROVAL the bot will very definitely only be editing in my or its own user space, where it doesn't need prior approval, until I do have approval for it to go 'live'. :-) Dpmuk (talk) 23:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

He's back

Hi MrG. The so-called "vanished user" vandalising PASOK MP articles is back. Could you please semi as needed? Thank you. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 23:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Can you show me a diff or two to help me verify that it's him and see which articles need protecting? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi MrG :) Sorry for the omission. Here's the trail. Same Romanian IP as before. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 23:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for all the hard work you put into this. Since I know how busy you are with WMF and copyvio control please feel free to decline such requests in future. Thank you again. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 00:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, but other people have been putting time into copyvio control lately, and I'm happy to take my mop where it is needed. :) I've protected everything that I saw and am trusting bots will put up protection notices. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad to hear it. I enjoy working with you and it sure saves time trying to explain this chronic problem to the various noticeboards :) Take care. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 00:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Oberlander

Sorry, me again, again not sure how to proceed. This diff shows suspected copyvio material which has been removed from the article but left in the history. I don't have the book, so can't confirm or reject the suspicion (even if I find it hard to believe that a published work could be so poorly written). I have an idea, perhaps a wrong idea, that copyright matter is still considered visible even if it is not in the current version of the article. What, if anything, should be done here? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Butting in; if you can point me to each diff which contains the material, I'm happy to revision delete it. It's fairly (read: not entirely) accepted that prior versions need eliminating from public view. Ironholds (talk) 23:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I do that routinely when there's a lot of material or a high chance of inadvertent restoration. :) In this case, though, I'm with you--it's hard to believe that this was copied from a book. ("The head is about medium-sized with a Roman nose. While the neck is short, strong, and well devoloped") There's a chance that some of the content was copied verbatim from the book, given the elevated language especially. (Did the same person who wrote that poor sentence fragment come up with "strong and surefooted"?) But I'm inclined to think it's a clumsy paraphrase, and without access to the book, I can't even verify that it's following too closely. Since it was removed not with a certain assertion that it was copied from a book but only an indication that it "appears to be", I'm inclined to leave it where it is. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 September 2011

How can a journal publisher grant permission to use images en masse?

Hi again Moonriddengirl. I know you have experience with OTRS. There's a rather complicated question Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions#How_can_a_journal_publisher_grant_permission_to_use_images_en_masse.3F about the academic journal GENE granting permission for its material to be used on Wikipedia. I'm not sure I follow the whole situation, or what license is being granted, or what articles and images are applicable... but I thought I'd bring it to your attention. Do you have an answer for them? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) 18:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems like you and User:Yoenit have identified some challenges, but if they can overcome them we can work with them to streamline the process. Let's see what Andrew comes back with. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Regional Rural Banks

hi i would just like to know why have u deleted my article on regional rural banks even though i paraphrased it. however i would really appreciate if u could just help me write a better article on regional rural banks since i am being marked on it. thanks mahima.chawla — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahima.chawla (talk • contribs) 13 September 2011

Thank you for your note. I have replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Management and business book articles: wholesale copyvios

Hi MRG, I've realised that the problem is rife, by doing a few spot-checks, just a half-sentence here and there, google searches. What's the best action to take when I find the whole lead, for example, has been copy-pasted in from a website? Like this one, which is worse than the dup. detector shows, probably because there's a scroller on the source website. I don't really want to spend the time fixing copyvios I see in gnoming. That's a greater investment in this field than I'm prepared to give; but I am willing to flag copyvios I see before my eyes. Really, every business/management book article needs systematic scrutiny.

From your experience, if the article starts with pasted-in text, is copyvio likely in the rest of the article? It would seem so to me, since the lead is where you'd expect the easiest paraphrasing would lie. Problem is, the article sections are usually where material is likely to have been copied straight out of the book itself, which is hard-copy only. A common problem. The article still contains not a single reference, even just general ones without ref tags.

There are an awful lot of these in management and business: there seems to have been a culture of this. Perhaps the editors need to be identified and quizzed about it? Thanks. Tony (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If this popped up at CP, the first thing I'd do is consider if we may have found a new "fork" that is using content from Wikipedia. Let me look into that for a moment. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
And before reading your message, I wrote to the editor who created the article. Perhaps too hasty? User_talk:Toddwill#Copyvio_issues. Tony (talk) 11:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)


(edit conflict) I think that's what we've got going on here. Taking the article you flagged, we can see the content evolving naturally on Wikipedia.
The external site says:

Identifying and Managing Project Risk, by Tom Kendrick, is a book about identifying and managing risks on projects. The book is geared to be used by a junior Project Manager and Kendrick aligns the chapters of the Book to the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK) 2000 edition. This text is designed to be used as a supplemental source of information when studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam.

  • At creation, the article reads like a book review. It contains almost all of the future text, though: "As the title implies, Identifying and Managing Project Risk, by Tom Kendrick, is about identifying and managing risks on projects. Although the book is written in a very generic manner, it has a decidedly high-tech flavor. This partly due to the fact that the author worked at Hewlett-Packard for twelve years. The book is geared to be used by a junior Project Manager and Kendrick aligns the chapters of the Book to the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK) 2000 edition. This text as designed to be used as a supplemental source of information when studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam."
  • In the next edit, a different contributor adds the words "a book", which are reflected in the external site.
  • Here, somebody else (or the original author, perhaps--can't recall) corrects a typo, which is also corrected in the external source.
  • Three years later (roughly), the lead is condensed into the form used at the external site.
You have, indeed, found a new fork. :)
I will mark this as a backwards copyvio and list the site at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.
As a general rule of thumb, if you find something like this, bringing it here is fine. You can also take it to WT:CP, particularly if I retire or am hit by a bus. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Do you have any particular type of bus in mind, while the List of buses exists? - Sitush (talk) 12:21, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
(In terms of your letter to the creator, it's not too hasty to ask about it, although I generally write that they appear to have copied something, precisely for this reason. But you can certainly refactor your own note at this point, as it has no replies. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC))
Ah, so that's how you identify a fork. OK! I'll refactor my message to the creator and link him here, too. As to whether the rest of the article infringes copyvio, I guess the same method can be used: natural wiki evolution. Thanks so much for this lesson. Tony (talk) 11:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
No problem. :) We get copyvios so often that I'm always cheered to find cases where the content seems to have been ours first. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
And yeah, the unusual "is geared to" is all over the net in relation to this book ... lots of mirrors just on the first google search page. Tony (talk) 11:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Mentioned in a PROD

It is a rather unusual situation but I mentioned you in the PROD for Cultural_Profile_of_South_Kosal yesterday and now feel that I should have notified you. Sorry for not doing so at the time & I hope that this does not cause any difficulties. - Sitush (talk) 12:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

India Education Project - Take 3

Hi folks (MRG, TPS and others): Here's what I said I'd come up with a couple of days ago: User:SpacemanSpiff/S3/IEP/FAQ. I've gone through the articles created and identified the most significant issues. I've put those problems in this FAQ/Cheatsheet. This ought to be required reading for any student before they start editing an article and the Ambassador/Course instructor ought to get their acknowledgement at the end of the page. The other part (which should really be a separate page) is a log of all the articles that these students edit, and they are required to fill it every time they make a course related edit. If that's done, the ambassador and/or other editors can spot check it and mark the problems within the table in the comments section. Once that's done, it's easy for the ambassador/instructor to work through the problems and also easier for the many many editors and admins who patrol these pages to take action. What say you? (I'm only placing {{tb}} for Hmundol and the ambassador who participated in the above discussion. Everyone else, I'm guessing, already watches this page. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 20:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

PS: Feel free to edit the page. —SpacemanSpiff 20:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey, even I have kept this page on a watch, but anyways thanks for {{tb}}. Your idea is superb, your FAQ does answer most of the questions students might need. We ll surely think upon this. One quick question, in your table who would be "Wikipedia Evaluator" ? Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
That's the part that needs some thinking -- I would think that the ambassador is the one to do it (at least for the referencing and NPOV bit it's easy), but copyvios might be a bit more complex. But we seriously need to work something out quickly, a short while back Foreign Education Provider Bill in India had to be deleted because it was a copypaste from multiple sources by another student. I think we have reached that point "where no mainspace content contribution unless vetted by the instructor/ambassador" becomes an option as it is taking a lot of effort from New Page Patrollers (in this particular case a NPP posted the article at WT:INB because he thought it could be salvaged and then another three editors checked it for copyvios before it was deleted, it's really not a productive use of volunteer time). Checking this has also diverted effort from regular time allocated to WP:CCI clean ups and so on. —SpacemanSpiff 21:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, ambassador. We could combine this sort of thing with my above proposal. Ironholds (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
That's nicely done, User:SpacemanSpiff. :) The note to which I've just responded does rather bring home how urgent this issue is, as evidently that student felt he had paraphrased content when in fact he seems to have pasted it verbatim, right down to a problem in spacing. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
We've been working on this issue and here's what we're thinking of doing (and do let me have your comments on this.) At one level, students need to be told (several times over) what is copying in the Wikipedia context - and importantly, what is not. We're starting refresher sessions in every class in the program where we will give actual examples of what is what. In addition, we're recommending to all students to create and work on sandboxes until they have a certain minimum level of content (e.g., 2-3 paragraphs or sections or 150 words.) After this is checked by their faculty members, only then should they move it into the mainspace. For blocked users, I know that they have been given more than one warning and have made the same mistake. In this case, we are proposing that they continue work but only in their sandboxes. They create 4-5 paragraphs or sections with at least 250 words. Only after their faculty AND a Campus Ambassadors has reviewed this work does the Campus Ambassador approach the respective Administrator and ask to unblock the user. In all cases, like I said earlier - everyone is going to be given refresher sessions on the write way to use referenced material. This includes Campus Ambassadors, faculty and students. As User:Rangilo Gujarati mentioned, we're putting up a tracker of deleted content on the respective course page. This has been done for one class and will be done for all in the next few days. We've already introduced Watchlists in all classes on the course pages so that it's easier for everyone to track. We will hopefully have our Online Ambassadors coming on board in the next few days. (These will be around 20 and are all existing editors.) In addition, I've informed the Directors and faculty members of all the classes about this issue and they are talking to their students about it. Hmundol (talk) 09:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
That sounds really great :). Ironholds (talk) 09:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. :) I appreciate the time and thought you're putting into this. It's a difficult hurdle, I know, but that sounds like an approach that might help these students find success. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
And one more thing, when students choose their articles, please make sure that they don't choose the more developed Featured Articles, Good Articles or A-Class. With their minimum word addition requirements adding content to these kind of articles will be extremely difficult and in many cases a disheartening process. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 12:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Hmundol +1, and yes we already are asking students to not to touch FA, GA or A-Class. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 19:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Weird situation

Hey MRG, I'm sure your talk page is not the right forum to discus this, but perhaps you'll loan a fellow admin a clue:

John Duffey is on my watchlist and I just noticed Wikidemon removing a huge chunk of text as a copyivo. It's clear that it contains the same text as this allmusic article, but what I don't understand is that article is copyright 2011. You can see that the text was originally added to Wikipedia here in 2005. What do we do when someone copies Wikipedia text and asserts a copyright? Could that have happened here?

Disclaimer: I restored that content here in 2010, but the IP that originally added it was not me - I started editing as an IP in April/May 2007 and registered in May.

Thanks in advance. Toddst1 (talk) 07:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment from a talk-page stalker ;-)... allmusic.com always updates their copyright notices to the current year. They are not indicative of the date their articles were written. A dead giveaway is also the writing style. It's "too good". Given Duffey's age, I suspect this article also appeared in one of their 2002/2003 printed versions . [17]. Voceditenore (talk) 09:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. When they say "copyright 2011", they mean "you cannot take this, even in [currentyear]" not "this content was only added in [currentyear] and the copyright term starts then". Ironholds (talk) 09:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks guys. There's a reason I avoid all but the most obvious copyvio situations. :) Toddst1 (talk) 13:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyright, Global Education and the Indian editors

So, Maggie and you talkpage watchers may have noticed that a lot of the Indian editors coming out of the Global Education program are having problems understanding copyright. This is unsurprising; in Indian culture, copying is seen as the highest form of praise, in a sort of "this source is so good I cannot add anything to it, and furthermore consider it so perfect that I'm willing to associate my name with it" kind of way. This is really complimentary for the creator of the source text, but a bit problematic for Wikipedia, which could find itself in an awkward legal position if students or other editors go around posting copyrighted text - whatever their intentions.

As such, a group of users have had to go through, patrolling the work done by the Indian editors, and on quite a few occasions have had to block the editors for persistently not groking copyright. On a couple of occasions there have been unblocks due to assurances that the students now understand the issues, followed by additional violations and a new block This isn't a great situation; we end up with editors who are constantly overwhelmed with patrolling lots of new pages (and, understandably, get a bit irked) along with students who can't complete their course due to their blocks. We can't let them edit, because there are legal issues, but at the same time we can't let them not edit. As such, I've got a wee idea that Maggie, random talkpage watchers and the course ambassadors might want to consider.

What if we mandated that users in the Indian program, rather than experimenting around in mainspace, needed to create articles in their userspace, with a NOINDEX tag, which would then be checked by someone before being switched over to mainspace? The lack of mainspace and the presence of a NOINDEX tag would substantially reduce the legal concerns - people are very, very unlikely to see the pages - and would also mean that we can identify what specifically the students have added when checking for issues. Rather than having an article on PFI which the student contributed part of (which leads to having to muck around with diffs to work out what turned up where, when and was written by whom) we have a page which just consists of the student's contributions. A lot easier to check.

As to who should do the checking, we've got two options. Neither of them involve editors. What the program needs, what the students need and what the wiki needs are editors who are prepared to come in and deal with issues that arise with a friendly smile, a kind tone and a big helping of good faith, and this simply isn't going to happen if the only editors who care about shepherding the new users along are constantly overwhelmed with copyvios. The two actual options are that the pages are checked by students and that the pages are checked by ambassadors. In the former case, those students who do grok copyright would take on the responsibility of scanning drafted articles for problems; in the second, that role would b taken by the Campus Ambassadors. Personally, I think the onus needs to be on the Ambassadors; students didn't sign up to be tutoring and reviewing the classes, but the Ambassadors did. In addition, allowing the Ambassadors some healthy experience of recognising copyright violations and teaching people how to avoid them - without the pressure of editors shouting about it - would be really, really helpful. At the end of the year or semester, students leave, and new students come in. The Ambassadors remain constant. If we've got one group we can give some real experience dealing with these issues, it should be the ambassadors; otherwise, we'll just have to go through the same awkward process next year.

End result: we don't get sued, students can edit, editors don't get pressure and the ambassadors get some more experience teaching on avoiding copyright problems, which they can apply to future courses. Thoughts? Ironholds (talk) 18:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Speaking from the front lines of indian-copyvio-pursuit, I quite like this idea. The only problem that immediately comes to mind is that these students aren't always creating new articles; they're also adding to existing ones, so we'd need to make sure we addressed the userspace proposal to both types of editing without getting all sorts of attribution weirdness when students try to copy over a whole article to their userspace so they can work on it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Attribution should not be a problem, just copy it back when it is accepted and mention the students username. A custom-made {{under construction}} template on the main article might be useful, but even that is probably unnecessary. I think this is an excellent idea. Yoenit (talk) 19:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I think Fluffernutter is referring to the attribution issues of initially sandboxing, but I'd agree we could probably come up with an alternative. I like the idea; it would be a good learning ground for the students as well to allow them to learn some of the other norms of Wikipedia. This can help them avoid their first contact with an outsider (not part of their program) being hostile and off-putting. Perhaps after a certain period they can graduate to working directly on the article? The challenge, of course, being that copyright issues don't often become clear until content added is substantial. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Set an arbitrary limit; 2 drafts free of copyright problems, and they can go into mainspace. That way, the students with perennial problems don't put us at risk. I'd like to hear what the ambassadors think of this. Ironholds (talk) 12:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
We did think of asking them to write in draft first and then moving in main space, but again the problem was they won't be able to work collaboratively. Also all CAs would be loaded with number of articles to evaluate all together at end. So why not keep a check on them from beginning only. I do believe that there has been a hell lot of violations, but just look at it other way also. They might contribute to Wikipedia forever once their classes are done. Now that most of them have realized the seriousness of Copyrights violation issue, lets assume that there won't be much problem in future. Also we came up with one solution that we ll be displaying violations per class on course page only, so that they ll avoid it in future. It is already up for my class, please check this out. Thanks Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 14:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, they could still collaborate amongst themselves, and once they've shown that they understand copyright we can release them into the mainspace. The problem is that "most" doesn't seem to cover it, and that we can't assume there won't be much of a problem - we already have had a string of course members who have been blocked for copyright violations, who have been unblocked after swearing that they now understand the problem, who have had ambassadors swearing that they've explained the issues to the course member...and who have then gone right back and violated copyright, again and again. I applaud your efforts to highlight the issues, but unfortunately they don't seem to be working. Ironholds (talk) 14:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Pls refer to my response below to http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moonriddengirl#India_Education_Project_-_Take_3. Hmundol (talk) 09:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I have discovered it is not wise to regard userspace drafts as "safe" because they can be speedied. See Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2011_September_3#User:Amyabaker/Noddle and here. Thincat (talk) 09:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Need Your advice

Hey, as you are already aware about Wikipedia:Plagiarism conducted by few of the students in IEP, I am stuck at one place, please help me out on what can be done. There is an article Mahatma_Gandhi_National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act now it is clear that this article has been copy pasted only from somewhere, one of the sites I tracked down is NREGA, but also since it is an ACT, do we need to rephrase it so that it does not violate copyrights ? or we keep it as it is. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 19:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

  • The disclaimer seems to make clear that the content is copyrighted. Ironholds (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
    • If just text from the Act has been lifted and pasted here then we can do with attribution and let it rest, but if any commentary/explanation/implementation guide or methodology or anything other than just the Act is copied over then the article needs to be cleaned up. GoI or any state/district govt sites in India do not release material into public domain. —SpacemanSpiff 20:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Exactly so. As our document on public domain indicates, the US government regards "All current or formerly binding laws, codes, and regulations produced by government at any level, including other countries' governments, and the court opinions of any court case [to be] in the public domain"--regardless of the dissenting opinion of the governments that formed them. So we're okay if it is only the Act. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The Toyota Way

MRG, what's the policy on what appears to be the copying over of a succession of titles and subtitles from another document, not within quotations marks? I'm referring in particular to the lists of "principles" in The Toyota Way. I don't have access to the source, which is presumably Ref. 1, an internal company document, but it looks fishy to me.

This pattern often occurs in articles on books – articles I've been gnoming though in the fields of management and business. How much straight copying of structural elements is too much?

Thanks for your work in this complex area: I guess we need to be educated about these matters. Tony (talk) 06:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Happy to help. :) Under the US law that governs us, titles are not copyrighted. This is why you can copy the track list from an album, for example. The titles are public domain, and the organization on the album is a simple statement of fact. However, in that article, those aren't really title; they're principles. Those can be copyrighted. I've cleaned the principles out of the article and looked at the Liker book to make sure that the explication on them isn't copied from him (I do not see that it is). I suspect that this article was written by company employees. It was pretty darned promotional. :/
With the book articles, as a rule of thumb, if it's a genuine title or subtitle, it can be used, freely. Organization in that case does not matter because it is a simple fact that the book is organized in those sections. But moving into actual sentences and principles runs the risk of crossing the line. That content should be treated like any other non-free text. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=The_Toyota_Way&action=historysubmit&diff=450790528&oldid=450608140 Great job you did], and I've learned something from this. Could be used as one of many examples of the distinctions we need to make. Tony (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:India CCIs

MRG, we currently have 11 open CCIs relating to WP:India (and one that should be opened soon, I've put in the request) and many of them haven't been touched in ages. However, what's happening with many of these articles is that the copyvio becomes derivative text and more difficult to find out. And of course the age of these, e.g. Bugnot CCI we've had copyvio material from two years ago sitting happily around, curiously I got to know about the issue and created the CCI only when I was working on another CCI. These 11+1 CCIs and the one that was closed (Vrghs jacob) impact more than a 1000 articles (conservative estimate) and with untracked socks re-adding copyvios (I've blocked socks on three CCIs) it's getting more difficult. Could we do a drive to clear out these CCIs at least? If we get a few more seasoned hands to clear this up within a target date we might be able to do justice to the other stuff languishing in mainspace. Open to any ideas here. —SpacemanSpiff 20:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey, this sounds interesting, would love to help you out in this. Please do tell me where to start from. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 20:09, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Template:CCIlist. MER-C 06:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest working on cleaning up a couple of articles first before heading over to CCI -- e.g. clean up the article you've brought up above. WP:COPYVIO provides information on the process. You can ask MRG/me to check up on your first few clean ups and provide you feedback. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 06:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
A more aggressive approach re: presumptive removals such as a blanking bot is also called for. MER-C 06:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd support that. If a CCI doesn't get addressed in a certain amount of time I think something like a {{Copyvio}} blanking that links to the CCI case with similar requirements as the current template would be an option. At the least, it'll get the high profile articles addressed. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 06:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, we definitely need something to move that workload along. Once my contract expires, I hope to dig into it, but, then, good intentions don't always lead to where we want to go. :/ I wonder if it would be possible to get a blanking bot to work based on the size of the contribution of the CCI subject to an article. For instance, we wouldn't want to employ a bot to blank an article that has 100k added, but one with 10,000 is a different matter. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable, but in the meantime, could we consider creating {{Copyvio-CCI}} which blanks and links to the CCI rather than the copyvio board. At least to be used where the following criteria is met: CCI has been open for 60+ days, the content addition is over 20% of the current article or greater than 10KB (whichever is less). Any editor in good standing can then check it and remove if it's not a copyvio and we don't set a time limit for clean up like we do on the copyvio boards. A 100KB article would most likely be a high-visibility article (both for readers and mirrors and Icon/Alphascript books -- e.g. I've seen some of our copyvio material in a book available at Amazon.com that I bought inadvertantly and sent back for a full refund admonishing Amazon.com!), so if there's even 10KB of potential copyvio, it is more likely to be addressed than if it's just an entry on the CCI list. Likewise if it's a low priority article and you don't really get visitors to it, at the least the content is blanked until it gets fixed. —SpacemanSpiff 12:29, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
That sounds like a good approach to me. Perhaps we should VP it? Though it could be good to work out a few issues first. :) The only real challenge that I can imagine here is that the templates will inevitably be removed by people who don't understand them or who are themselves slack on copyvios. We used an automatic blanking bot on the Darius Dhlomo CCI, and one contributor went and reverted the bot on a ton of articles (took me some time to revert him) while another who was declaring content clean was not qualified to judge because he had a history of copyright problems himself (and proved wrong with some of his declarations). --User:Moonriddengirl 12:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the history of the Darius Dhlomo CCI shows pre-emptive blanking is problematic. There is also the reverts from User:VWBot which resulted in a total mess. I would suggest trying a more restrictive approach first: posting a notice on the article talk page with the relevant diffs and CCI instructions for editors. I expect this will result in responses for most of the pages which are actively being edited. Those are also the pages which editors are likely to get upset about if we blank them. Any pages which are not cleaned up in say 3 months of the talkpage notice being placed can then be blanked with a template. I hope doing it like this will greatly reduce the amount of negative feedback. Yoenit (talk) 14:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I like that general idea, Yoenit. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
That should work, we might actually be able to use one of these bots that do the Non-free image notifications or commons delinking notifications to post a templated note on the article talk page with action required and linking to the CCI (may be even a diff to verify). I'd say 90 days is too long when such a notification is done, but the time frame is workable. In effect something like: Step 1 (on CCI creation day) bot looks at the contribution surveyor output and posts a note on the talk page with the diffs and the CCI link saying it needs to be checked within x days and also how to check it and log the outcome at the CCI. Step 2, on day x if the CCI isn't updated and the edit is still live bot posts {{Copyvio-CCI}} which blanks the page and links to the CCI to clean it up. Step 3 - one of the CCI regulars clean up the article when they get to it. Steps 2 and 3 are only if no one follows through on Step 1. If one of the bots could be repurposed then we might be able to start this soon as it'll be just an additional task approval at BRFA, not a new bot. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 16:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Can bots tell if a specific entry at CCI has been checked? IOW, are they able to blank only the ones that are still unevaluated? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:57, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Have the bot add the page to a hidden category specific to the individual CCI when editing the talk page. MER-C 13:13, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

A really messy CCI

In looking at S710's CCI, I have uncovered several direct translations from copyrighted sources in French. (Googling for proper nouns when a sentence seemed like a translation based on weird preposition choices/sentence structure.) Since it is going to be really hard to google to find these, since some of the content is sourced to offline books etc, and since the translation means that S710's bad english is not much of an indicator in terms of own work vs. not own work, I think the best approach would be to remove all substantive content contributed by this user. Thoughts? Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly support that as necessarily in a situation like this. It's supported by policy as well. Pity, but what can we do about it? He's the one who created the problem. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Surely this is not a coincidence? MER-C 04:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, no. :( I have done the necessary paperwork - expanded the CCI, tagged the older account as a former account, notified the contributor. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Image suitability question

Please take a look at Wikipedia Talk:Images#Synthetic images presented as existing images?. (Archived here) The discussion probably needs to be moved to Village Pump or someplace better, both in light of the effort to keep the talk page focused and to get some more opinions. Dankarl (talk) 21:11, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That's appalling. I don't think you should move the discussion, per se, but I think it's an excellent idea to link to it somewhere at VP. Let's see if I can figure out where. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:52, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
I've linked it from WP:VPM. I've also brought up the issue on Commons. And I've removed all the images, pending some consensus that we can use fake cover art or that the cover art was actually published. Either way. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:30, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
"Wow. That's appalling." I think you already know this, but I like the cut of your jib. Thanks for boldly acting, and declaring the applicable text: WP:NOR and WP:HOAX. Here's a tiny inflatable cookie: --Lexein (talk) 01:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Cookie. Yay! :D Thank you very much. I prioritize accuracy. :/ I appreciate you finding the issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:38, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
You might find this exchange humorous, as the horror unfolded. But the bad news is I found the images used at Librivox. Do they count? See Wikipedia Talk:Images#Synthetic images presented as existing images?. --Lexein (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
I had answered this, but didn't save. :/ No, Librivox is a mirror. They are using the text from the article, for instance, and they don't even provide proper attribution. All the images are now up for deletion on Commons, btw: Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Lara Cover Art by Lord Byron.jpg. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I did save it. At the other page. :) (I was still waking up then. :D) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

copyright concerns about an article using a website as its one source

http://www.gmts.co.uk/explore/history/history.html http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/History_of_public_transport_authorities_in_Manchester I am concerned about how much info is being sourced to this copyrighted website. I'm no expert in such matters but someone recommended I ask your opinion on this. thanks RafikiSykes (talk) 03:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) It looks fine to me. Facts are not copyrightable, only their method of expression. As our copyright policy notes, "copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, so long as you do not follow the source too closely." While there can be issues with following too closely on the facts of a single source (if you wind up appropriating their structure), that article does not seem in danger of doing that at this point. It has selected key information and presented it with original language. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Tinkers (novel)

Hi Moonriddengirl. Would you revision delete the copyright violations Supergpzc (talk · contribs) added to Tinkers (novel)? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. :) Thanks for cleaning it up! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! Cunard (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio in The Shirelles

Hi MRG, I started expanding our article on The Shirelles, but I have noticed that User:MR. MOTOWN inserted a copyvio from Allmusic in this edit in 2006. Could you remove the revisions and Revdelete the versions with copyvio? (It looks like a mess, as there have been constructive edits since then. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't do that at this point as the current article continues to infringe on that source. :/ It's a massive derivative work. I have, however, blanked it to permit interested contributors time to rewrite it and listed it at WP:CP. What a mess. :( This kind of thing is so disheartening, as this has set the article back years in development, wasted tons of time for subsequent volunteers, and the contributor was warned about copyright the day before he dumped the text into Wikipedia. From his talk page, I can see he didn't stop there. I'll glance at other articles to see how widespread this issue might have been. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I've found a few other issues (including the one already cleaned). I suspect that there is more than I can find, but there is not enough that I can find to justify a WP:CCI and with suspicious content like this taken from an inaccessible book, I cannot determine if it should be removed. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:34, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Mine's good to go, just needs to be copied to article space. Is it okay if I do that? Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
The other editor's work. I note that you started your rewrite with the old article as a base. You need to be 100% sure that text added by him is not retained or used as a base for any material in yours. Once you double check that, you should be able to put it in article space. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
That was a nice surprise to come home to; thanks a lot! I hope his more recent edits have been a bit more productive than the two 2006 copyvios we've found so far. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for granting work into public domain

hello,

have you got any example letters that ask for permission to use a copyrighted text under public domain? I would like copy and paste the text from this site. Thank you.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫Heyit's meI am dynamite 10:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we do. :) However, note that you don't have to ask them to release it into public domain. It just needs to be compatibly licensed. I believe that people are more likely to license the content than to relinquish their copyright entirely. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission and especially Wikipedia:Example requests for permission. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Socio-economic issues in India

i have edited the article Socio-economic issues in India and this time i have written it myself completely. i would be grateful if u could just review it before anybody else finds some mistake and deletes it. thank you Ds731992 (talk) 10:35, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I am extremely sorry for putting up my note right on the top. Anyways thanks a lot for reviewing the article and leaving some very useful tips. As per your suggestions i have re edited the article and made it more relevant in the indian sense. i also want to thank u for putting up the under construction tag. thanks alot! Ds731992 (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

re User: David r from meth productions

As you were the admin banning David r I thought I ought tell you that at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Johann Hari sockpuppetry I've raised the possibility that one of his socks is still operating almost-instinct 16:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't do much with sock puppetry, so I will probably leave that to the admins who work that area. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:16, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
That's ok. The consensus there seems to be that I'm barking up the wrong tree, so I'll leave it for now anyway almost-instinct 18:27, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Commons copyvios

I've tagged the image on Commons for deletion and given him a block caution there. If he keeps it up, we should report him to their administrators' noticeboard for user issues for that community to address. :/ If you notice him keeping at it and want assistance, please let me know. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 September 2011

Account creation

Hey MRG. Could you tell where to find the template where you recommend and IP create an account? I think I've seen it before but I can't remember where. Jayy008 (talk) 11:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) There's a handy compilation of these at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. The specific one you want is probably {{Register}}, but, if not, there are others that might work down in the "new user" subsection of "Miscellanea". --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
That's perfect. Thank you! Jayy008 (talk) 12:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your vote of confidence, which led to a beautiful barnstar appearing on my talk page today. I appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm so happy she launched the program, and I'm glad that she recognized your contributions. I meant what I said wholeheartedly. :) I've admired your work for some time. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Missouri Eat Smart Child Care

Copyright violation. Revision Delete, please?--intelatitalk 03:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Second found Padmanabha Tirtha :) Thanks!! intelatitalk 03:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
As a former smart child in Missouri, I strenuously protest the state's providing care for devourers of such children. Deor (talk) 04:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
LOL! How Swiftian. I've revision deleted and given the first contributor a note. That's an important part of the process, to make sure that (a) they don't continue copying content, and (b) if they do, we know they have a history. :) (No reason to give a note to an IP that made an edit almost 2 years ago. :/) Thanks for finding those, intelati! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

hi - S710

Could tell me please if it is free for anyone to just go ahead and "delete all substantive contributions from a user presumptively", if he or she thinks it apropriate, or are there certain procedures to be followed? If so what are they? thanks. S711 (talk) 17:07, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:14, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your answer. I would like to point out that the four examples given of my violations of copyright date back to around 2007, when my user name was S710. I admit when I began writing on wikipedia, I was very careless, indeed. In more recent years, when my user name was S711, I have created 225 articles and I have been very scrupulous to reference all information. I was completely surprised, especially reading: "For this reason, all substantive contributions from this user are being deleted presumptively. This is unfortunate considering that many other users have since improved these likely copyvios, but there is no other way to remove all infringing content. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC) "on [18] I completely understand your concerns for keeping the guidelines, but I hope you will be very carefull and not whosale delete everything. thanksS711 (talk) 18:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Yes, ofcourse I'm aware that referencing itself is not the problem. What I meant was that, when I use a quote, I indicate it as such. In topic 11 above you write that you support Calliopejen in now deleting all my contributions indiscriminately as the only solution. If you think it is better to look at it case by case, would you please let her know? I am curious how the claim is substantiated apart from the four examples given on the board. Was your decision completely on the basis of those four? Is the decision all yours, or are there any other users or administrators involved in it? ThanksS711 (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
One more question about the CCI. I hope you don't mind. I saw that the "important notice" remains on the board. Can now any wikipedia user take down any contribution I made in the past, without explanation?S711 (talk) 13:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey

Right after your post at Bahamut's talk page, TomStar81 gave a posthumous barnstar. Is there some way to elegantly include that in a prominent location on his userpage? I ask you since as a normal user I cannot edit his userpage, given it's being preserved in his memory. CycloneGU (talk) 23:44, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't really know. :/ I'll ask about it at the administrators noticeboard. It's not exactly an administrator matter, but it does require tool use, so it seems like it'll serve. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
I decided to put the question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Posthumous_barnstars. I can't help but think that Bahamut would have been very happy with those barnstars, but I want to be sure that the action has community support, since people's feelings can be very much involved. I myself would think it sweet, but I don't know that everybody would. Let's see what the community thinks about the idea. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Good stuff, I shall comment there. Thanks for doing that. =) CycloneGU (talk) 03:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this copyvio

It's copied and the material is copyright, but the question is how much can we use and in how many articles. I've left this [19] at the moment, but deleted this [20]. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe we can justify using it. I note that one of the sources cited has actually reproduced it from elsewhere; the second one doesn't clarify where it came from (though it may have been another LDS owned source). I've removed it from the remaining article and from the talk page. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I was worried I was going too far. Dougweller (talk) 14:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyrighted text content claimed under fair use

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I'm not sure of my way around meta, and I figured as this was your area of expertise you would be well worth checking in with. I'm having a bit of a discussion on Wikiversity about the existence of pages containing nothing but copyrighted text, but which seem to be claimed as ok under fair use. Ignoring various problems with that claim, if they are to be claimed under fair use, I presume they would need an exemption per the Foundation's licensing policy. But I'm not sure who to ask to confirm that they could be included under an exemption and/or if an exemption is required. Do you have a suggestion as to who to follow this up with? Thanks heaps. - Bilby (talk) 01:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I see that User:Philippe (WMF) is on this. That's ideal; he'll know who to run it by. :) I'll watch that one with interest; such content would not be usable on Wikipedia, but I guess Wikiversity is a bit less concerned about such things. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I would have thought it couldn't be used on Wikiversity either, especially given licensing issues. I'm glad he picked up on it, and thanks for your time. :) - Bilby (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
As an aside, you may be interested in this discussion. If the point of publication, and hence the point where copyright is determined, is to be considered to be the place where the material is hosted, it will have wider ramifications. I don't know US law well enough to comment, (I'm much better with the AU situation), but I doubt it is a clear case. - Bilby (talk) 14:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

India Education Program, again

I've recently stumbled upon this issue. It appears that copyvio material is being added at an alarming pace. From what I see on the talk page, the ambassadors are basically saying that nothing can be done because "this problem is unlikely to be limited to India. Many students, in US, will plagiarize, often, without knowing what they are doing is wrong." I see in your archive that the situation has been brought up in the past. I feel like 5-6 editors would need to contribute most of their time watching their course watchlists for changes and checking each for a copyvio. I don't even know where to take a discussion on addressing this issue. I've gone through the watchlist of two courses and already feel that the problem is quite large. I've gone through a list of ambassadors and see that in most cases, they're just as new to WP as the students. What do we do? I think the program's goals are great but so far, the problems are vast. OlYellerTalktome 18:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I suggested something based on feedback from the foundation liaison and one ambassador (see here). I figured explaining it in those simple terms with examples might help and the tracking table would be useful too as it makes copvyio searching easier but more importantly provides feedback on the other issues we've faced. However, I think they've decided to go a different approach -- the ambassadors were to check for copyvios prior to them pushing it out to mainspace, but I'm not sure that's working in practice. Sadly, it's taking away volunteer time from other copyvio activities (we currently have 12 open CCIs impacting WP:India articles, and one can only do copyvio cleaning for a certain amount of on-wiki time!). —SpacemanSpiff 19:43, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey, User:OlYeller21 thanks for pointing out this issue once again, as already discussed we tried our level best to explain importance of copyvios to each and every student of almost every class. I am pretty sure that students have taken this issue seriously, and even if they violate copyvios again their grades will be affected. Do get in touch with me or any other CA if you still find some more issues. Thanks. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 20:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've heard that most of the students have had the Fear of Fluffernutter put into them (apparently many of them would like to meet me, just so they can punch me in the nose. First time I've ever gotten to be the bogeyman for anyone!) with regard to copyright violations...the frequency has dropped to almost nothing in the past week or so in the class I monitor. Ambassador intervention might be working after all, just a little bit later than we had hoped. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I feel better knowing that so many people are on it. I had a little freak out session when the first three articles I found contained copyvios then found the list of courses. I think the project is really cool and I don't want to discourage anyone but the discussion I saw on the talk page of the project sort of made me think the issue was being shrugged off.
@SpacemanSpiff, thanks for the the info. The articles I've passed seem to have appeared from no where (weren't moved from userspace or copy/pasted from userspace). I like the idea of articles being checked before making it into namespace but worry that the courses may be asking students to make articles for subjects that don't warrant an article or already have an existing article. That issue is probably best suited for their course and possibly WP:N though.
@Rangilo, thanks for helping with the issue. I feel more confident that it will be worked out with time now. I'll let you know if I see anything.
@Fluffernutter, I'm glad the frequency has dropped. It looked like, from talk pages entries, that there was a flood of sorts a month or so ago. I only found three articles today which isn't too bad.
I'll keep patrolling new pages like I always do and do my best to help the IEP project as well as addressing copyvios as usual. OlYellerTalktome 02:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks so much for keeping an eye out for this, OlYeller (and you, too, Rangilo Gujarati!). I am glad that things are getting better. Have to admit my heart dropped when I saw the header here. I'm really hoping that we can help make this program successful...even if that means waving A fluffernutter sandwich around. ;) (Bogeymen have value!) (Spiff, please don't let your copyright ideas fall off the radar; I'm particularly interested in the one related to processing open CCIs. I worry, though, that my devoting weekends primarily to copyright cleanup will stretch things to the point that they slip my mind. :() --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:29, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey! I just thought of something. What if courses were requested or required to add their new articles to a category similar to Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard but was something like Category:Articles created for the Global Education Program. It could solve more problems than just copyvio issues. I guess there could be talk page project templates created as well. Just sort of riffing at the moment. OlYellerTalktome 11:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Andrew Lees (neurologist)

I strongly agreed with your comments to Stephen Farmer. We have a similar situation with User_talk:Andrewlees who is a potentially valuable contributor but needs to be treated with kindness and courtesy rather than templates. Please can you sort it out? Kittybrewster ☎ 18:10, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for letting me know. :) I'll go take a look and see if I can help him out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry; I had an unexpected family emergency come up. :/ (Nothing really bad; just massively time-eating and annoying.) I will help him out, but I won't be able to do it until tomorrow. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Moonriddengirl,

I'm the webmaster of Paul Polansky's website and wikipedia page. We exchanged an email few weeks ago but a medical emergency came and I had to have surgery and finally I'm back. Can you please tell me what do I need to do to remove the notices on Paul Polansky's wikipedia page? Thank you "very" much for your help and consideration, I really appreciate it. Best Regards, Marco — Preceding unsigned comment added by Puregoldxxxx (talk • contribs) 10:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry about your surgery and glad that you are recovering.
The first thing I would recommend is finding sources for those specific items that are tagged "citation needed." Once all the content is fully sourced, the tag at the top can be changed. I would recommend at that point (and only at that point) removing this material:
{{multiple issues|BLP sources=September 2011|COI=September 2011}}
And placing this instead:
{{COI}}
After that, you should review the article to satisfy yourself that it is completely neutral (including with a fair balance of criticism, if there is any, of Mr. Polansky). Material that praises Mr. Polansky should not be sourced to his own websites, but to external reliable sources--for instance, that Mr. Polansky's film Gypsy Blood won an award should be verified by somebody else. Once you feel confident of that, you have several options.
First, you can ask the tagger himself if his or her concerns are addressed. The easiest way to do this is at User talk:Mtking. If he agrees, the tag can be removed. Alternatively, you can ask for independent review and removal of the tag, if it conforms to policies and guidelines. To do that, you just leave a note at the talk page asking somebody to read it through and remove the tag if they agree. To make sure that your request isn't unnoticed, you place this next to it: {{Request edit}}. Finally, you can leave a note at the conflict of interest noticeboard explaining your situation and connection and asking if there are any lingering concerns.
If you need additional information or run into any issues along the way, please feel free to drop by. I'll be happy to try to help you find avenues for resolving this. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Somebody trying to crack into my account

Hi Maggie. This morning I received this email from MediaWiki mail (wiki@mediawiki.org).

"Someone from the IP address 218.249.8.227 requested that we send you a new login password for the English Wikipedia.

The new password for the user account "Mathsci" is "<redacted>". You can now log in to Wikipedia using that password.

If someone else made this request, or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may safely ignore this message. Your old/existing password will continue to work despite this new password being created for you.

~Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://wiki.riteme.site"

How could such a request be made on wikipedia? IPs in China have been used in the past by Mikemikev to evade his various bans, so my guess is that this is more disruption from Mikemikev.

How can I stop this happening in the future? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 07:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

(My guess is that anybody can try to login as Mathsci and then activate the "email a new password" option.) Mathsci (talk) 07:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
(lurking) Yes, anyone can, at the moment, but the good news is that it doesn't block you from using your old password. This could be a false alarm, or a good faith attempt by someone else who thinks they have the username. The password will only be sent to the email address that you registered when you created your Wikipedia account. Once this happens, you can either ignore it, or you can log in with the temporary password, and create a new permanent password.
Immediately check the registered email address in Preferences.
If it really was an attack, I suggest changing your email account password and Wikipedia account password, but avoid using wireless connections or insecure or unknown networks while doing this.
  • Generally avoid using non-WPA2 wireless networks, or unknown networks, and I suggest using SSL encrypted Wikipedia access: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page . These precautions will provide maximum protection against snooping.
  • HTTPS: For Gmail, set your Google settings to always use HTTPS to prevent possible snooping in future. There is also a Firefox plugin called "HTTPS everywhere" which always tries to use the secure HTTPS version of a webpage, if one exists.
Optionally create a Wikipedia:Committed identity. Committing to your Wikipedia identity with a cryptographic hash makes it possible to always regain control over an account if it is ever hijacked. You type a looooong phrase which only you know, but can easily remember, and it's converted to a hash which you post somewhere in your User space. Read about it, and its instructions, here: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:User_committed_identity
In the most pessimistic scenario, the attacker already has your email open, is waiting to see the new Wikipedia password, which is why I suggest changing your email password first. If it's GMail, look at the bottom right corner. If you see "Open in 1 other location Details", click Details; there, you can log out all other sessions, then change your password. --Lexein (talk) 08:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Addendum: "burn off" each temporary password by using it. They are disabled after use. (Do they time out and stop working if unused? I do not know.)(*) --Lexein (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
<clap, clap> (/deeply impressed with this answer. :)) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
(I sorta owed you, after the "covers" incident.) --Lexein (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the request was not the result of snooping off-wiki because of geographical locations. I have no worries about my accounts or email accounts off-wikipedia which are well protected in France and the UK. (I do not use gmail for wikipedia.) Mikemikev has been mentioned by other users in connection with the compromised admin account Spencer195 (talk · contribs), which was discovered in the course of an SPI I filed. Mathsci (talk) 12:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Very interesting! Glad your accounts are well covered. If you anticipate further attacks (who doesn't?), do consider committed identity as a recovery method. I'm not convinced committed identity must trackback to a real name or assets owned under that real name, by the way, just to unique assets "owned" by your existing Wikipedia identity. --Lexein (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
(*) The question of temporary password expiration time was posed and answered at the Help Desk, and incorporated into the advisory email text. As John Hodgman might say, "You're welcome." --Lexein (talk) 13:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Well done. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Paul S. Farmer

Sorry to bother you again but I am having problems trying to improve Paul S Farmer. The response to my asking how I could remove the OR template was to re-gain another you had said I could remove earlier! I appreciate that this is all very trivial for someone as in demand as you, but any further guidance would be much appreciated.--Paul Stephen Farmer (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not trivial at all; I'm actually looking at it right now. I usually work my talk page from the bottom up and had only just gotten to your note. :) I hope to have a better answer for you soon. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I've left some comments at the article's talk page.
First, I'm sorry your question at that talk page was not answered more politely. :/ I've asked at WP:COIN for input of uninvolved editors. As with any enterprise involving volunteers, we don't always get quick feedback and sometimes don't get feedback at all, but if nobody responds within a few days I do have other options. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The article seems to me to be NPOV. I would like to see a date of birth. I am appalled by the discourtesy shown to PSF. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks again Moonriddengirl (have also responded on my discussion page) and thanks Kittybrewster - will fix DOB now.--Paul Stephen Farmer (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Double thanks Kittybrewster as have only just taken in your edits. --Paul Stephen Farmer (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello MRG, I was very happy to endorse your request at WP:COIN and I've left a note at my Talk. Opbeith (talk) 14:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Sadly I fear this article will have soon lost its point due to severe expectations of some editors. I am running to go backwards! --Paul Stephen Farmer (talk) 13:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding copyright/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/100 Greatest TV Moments

Hi there. I appreciate you taking the time to offer your advice on that AFD, it certainly cleared the issue up in my mind. It's unfortunate (IMHO) that the current WP:NFC policies seem open to interpretation as it relates to those kind of articles. I'm concerned that had the AFD been for more popular pages then there might have been substantial opposition resulting in a Keep via consensus, despite the apparent copyright breach this would create. I'm guessing that there are a lot more instances of these kind of potential violations - I've recently made this edit to Guitarist to remove such a list which used the very article it was copied from as a citation. You say you've attempted to draw up policy revisions but haven't been able to get them off the ground. Would there be anything I could do to help? ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹Speak 11:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

We need to come up with a consistent, consensus-based way to handle these that is within the guidance of our attorney.
This was my fruitless effort to get community discussion going: Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 14#Copyright in lists. I suppose I should try again and publicize it more widely, since it archived without response. The main problem with it, I imagine, is that it doesn't actually propose a solution. It just asks people to help create one. :/ (Pending the creation of one, I typically turn a blind eye to partial lists myself, unless they're substantial or listed for community review.)--Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
No responses at all to it... I see what you mean about people not liking to talk about copyright. Maybe the answer is to draft a potential policy clearly defining editorial parameters and see what the Powers-That-Be and the wider community think of it? I've started vaguely thinking of trying to sketch a rough guideline (what to do/what not to do) in my userspace over the weekend. If I come up with anything useful I'll let you know. It's kinda troubling me - an extended quote from a magazine or the lyrics to a song would get deleted without question and yet media company's "Top 100 Whatevers" get copied wholesale. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹Speak 13:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
People are confused about what constitutes creativity in a list, and the courts have been somewhat inconsistent about this. But we do have guidance from our attorney, if and when we ever get the community to work on drafting something. :) Personally, I think an essay is the way to go with this, akin to Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. I believe that a new policy would be seen as instruction creep. I had planned to move the essay in my userspace (User:Moonriddengirl/Copyright in lists) into project space once it was completed, but I was hung up on the issue of what we can actually do with these lists. The original advice I had written was not in keeping with her recommendation, although it does reflect historical approach to the issue. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

America's Next Top Model, Cycle 17

Hi,


Can you have a look at the suspected copyvio on the above page ? I am not sure but it looks like other articles in the series may also be of concern, for example America's Next Top Model, Cycle 16#Eric Daman looks to be taken from here give the later has a longer summary. You advice on what to do next would be welcome. Mtking (edits) 23:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

From a copyright standpoint, television related articles are an absolute pain in the neck as fans persistently copy episode summaries. Some of them persist after they are cautioned, although many do not, but the real problem is having to always start from scratch in explaining to them that this copying is not okay. :/ I've cleaned the article you flagged (cycle 17) and put an edit notice on it that may help. I'm currently looking at the passage you flagged from cycle 16. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm happy to say that the specific epic summary you found seems to be copied from us, based on this edit. That's a classic sign of natural evolution. Very likely whoever made the edit summary at the external site just used us as a launching point. I'll make a note of that at the talk page, to save us future checking. :)
If you find a source that looks likely, you are always welcome to flag it for investigation as at cycle 17 or bring it by here. If you feel strongly that the content is a copyright problem, the template is the way to go. And I see that you have done a good job at cycle 17 keeping users from restoring that content. That can be frustrating, but on the other hand it does help us to identify contributors who need more assistance understanding what they can and can't do. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:34, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I will keep an eye on it, and when get some time have a look at the other articles in the series. Mtking (edits) 22:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

cosmic ray

i have revised several sections of the cosmic ray-article. in addition, i have added several "citations for verification needed" and "inline citation needed" tags [21]. however, i suspect that some of the content constitutes a copyright concern. how should i proceed? should i add copyright-violation-tags as well? -- mustihussain (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Can you identify the suspect source? If you can, it's handled one way; if not, another. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
i suspect that several sources have been used improperly, but i don't have any evidence. one such source might be e.g. "r.l. fleischer, p.b. price, r.m. walker (1975). nuclear tracks in solids: principles and applications. university of california press." the source is mentioned and used once in the article, but i suspect that the content from this book is just copy-pasted into the article without proper citation. i have added "citations for verification needed" and "inline citation needed" tags and i slightly revised the section where it's used [22].-- mustihussain (talk) 15:35, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
If you don't know for sure, what I might do is add {{cv-unsure}} on the talk page and also put a section there explaining your concerns. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
thanks :) -- mustihussain (talk) 18:00, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Burton

Thanks for stepping in, as I was worried this important article might be deleted. Pepso2 (talk) 22:07, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't want to do that. :) Just eliminate any issues there might be. We generally don't delete entire articles if the issue is limited and easily repaired. I don't know if you're watching the discussion, but I left you a response at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2011 September 10. The words I've chosen for the article may not be the best and, of course, are open for improvement by anybody. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Kartikkaul1 expanded Harish-Chandra by copying a long section from a (copyrighted) web site, which I have removed, and a quick look at a few of his other contributions suggests that this is not an isolated problem. I don't plan to do anything further about this myself, but I thought I should let you know in case you are running out of copyright problems to deal with... r.e.b. (talk) 01:44, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. As the contributor has a short history, I have been able to review his or her articles and believe that I have cleaned up all issues. The contributor has been notified and has removed the warning, signalling that he or she is now aware. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)


Hello again Moonriddengirl,

I followed your advice and provided the citations needed and replaced that note with COI. I also contacted User talk:Mtking but haven't gotten a reply. I read the wikipedia page of Paul Polansky thoroughly and I think it's fair a neutral. Also, there isn't a single citation from his own website. Can "you" please help me remove the tag? I would really appreciate it!

Puregoldxxxx (talk) 18:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)







Bahamut Again

It seems that other users also want to see the major WikiChevrons award on his userpage. Shall I put together a quick bit to replace the existing templated userbox? I think I'll put both awards inside the box, and the notice of preserving the userpage below it. CycloneGU (talk) 02:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm a Milhist coord -- the Oak Leaves award is the highest award we can give, so it's seldom awarded... I suspect he would have been ecstatic to receive it, and I'm very sorry I didn't nominate him for it earlier. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:40, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I suspect he would have been very pleased, too, and I'm very glad that the community supports this. That sounds like a good approach to me, CycloneGU. Thank you for following up on this. Ed, I know what an honor that Barnstar is. I think it is a very fitting tribute. --Moonriddengirl (talk)
Here's what I slapped together. This is what I think should appear at the top of his user page, then lock it down. CycloneGU (talk) 15:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually seeing it brings home how large the barnstars are. Given that, I think we must put the protection notice and the notice that he has passed away first. Trying that out shows me that you can't actually see his userpage, though, without scrolling way down, and I think that may be a bad idea, since it is first and foremost preserving him, in a sense. ([23]) CylconeGU, what about User:Moonriddengirl/sandbox? The language in my cobbled "collapse box" is purely off the top of my head; it could be anything whatsoever that respectfully conveys its content. (I modified the usual collapse box green to the color used in the top notice.) Ed, what do you think about it? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:53, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
My only comment is that putting the barnstars below the notice suggests they are part of the page initially, even with the notice saying they are bestowed posthumously. I tend to think they should appear above the page preserved notice, even adding to the notice (the template that is) that the page appears below said notice. Here is what I mean. I do agree that it is kind of awkward inside the notice, but still keeping it collapsible at the top and leaving the notice directly over the preserved userpage works nicely.
Ed, might come down to your call. CycloneGU (talk) 23:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
MRG, since I brought about the idea, any way you can do a temporary unprotect of the page and I'll add it myself before it's locked back down? That is, once we decide how to do it. Either that or a flag is set letting me edit anything...I'm a safe person to give that to. =) I'm still thinking about the "cobbled collapse box language" and might decide exactly what it should say only when adding it. CycloneGU (talk) 00:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I like your alternative, with the collapse box above. My reason for moving the notice up was to make sure it's not overlooked, but I don't think that's an issue with it like this at all. People will not overlook the sad news, which was my main concern. :(
I don't have any way to flag it to let you edit it individually. :) I don't have any problem with your adding the text, but I would like to establish what it will say before I unprotect it. I really would not want us to work out any disagreements on the page. Best if we edit it only once, I think. Since we have his page reproduced in my sandbox at the moment, though, we ought to be able to get a pretty good idea of what it should say and how it would look before placement. We can get feedback from others as to the proposed language, too. If we put the notice on his user page and the language we chose was controversial, it would probably be removed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree, best to only edit the physical page once. This is one case where we won't consider edit history contributions on something!
I'm hedging back and forth between a couple of things for the "hat" to be titled. "Posthumous Awards" comes to mind. So do "Awarded posthumously", "Posthumous Barnstars", and "Posthumous tributes". Including the word "posthumous" highlights the fact that this person has died and these highly coveted awards were awarded only upon his death, in respect of him. I'm not sure whether "with great respect" is needed with that, but it might be nice to add something after the two-word title of the hat. "Posthumous barnstars. With our deepest condolences." Possible option. CycloneGU (talk) 14:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
I decided to play with another idea. Instead of having these particular barnstars with a typical signature timestamp, I tested the idea of separating the timestamp to say that is when the awards were given. Is that a nice touch or should we leave it as it was? Current sandbox shows the idea, it can be reverted. We could also remove the links after the name signature (to talk pages, etc.), but I didn't want to take it that far yet. CycloneGU (talk) 14:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I thought about condolences, but condolences are something that is usually given to those who love somebody who has passed on. :/ Do you have any idea what the military says when it offers posthumous awards? Maybe that would help. (Of the language you express above, I prefer "awarded posthumously", and I think it might work to start with something "A symbol of our great respect, awarded posthumously" or whatever we wind up with. I'm not seriously proposing the language "A symbol of our great respect" and don't really like it, but I like placing our admiration prior to the time of award.) Speaking of the time of the award, I think replacing the timestamp is a nice touch. Maybe we should hold this particular conversation at the Milhist talk page, though, since the award reflects the project? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:21, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as barnstars in general, I think it would be nice to have all barnstars show this touch. Note I suggested it for both barnstars, so it's a uniform thing I am looking at here that I've only done so far in this instance. Ed also hopefully is still watching this, so his opinion on the touch is also welcomed.
As for what the military says, I saw something on Google that read, "Petition Posthumous Award of Military Cross to Walter Tull". I think they use the same term in general per other results on the page (including some Wikipedia articles). The language bit might be best discussed at the Milhist page moreso than the barnstar. I think I'll try to find my way there and start a discussion. CycloneGU (talk) 15:34, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Honouring Bahamut0013 - discussion started, let's see what they think. Much of the discussion will probably occur there now, so let's both follow that page. CycloneGU (talk) 15:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. :) I'll keep an eye on it in case I see room for my input. Very kind of you to go to all this difficulty. I'm sure he would appreciate it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:26, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

Hello again Moonriddengirl,

I followed your advice and provided the citations needed and replaced that note with COI. I also contacted User talk:Mtking but haven't gotten a reply. I read the wikipedia page of Paul Polansky thoroughly and I think it's fair a neutral. Also, there isn't a single citation from his own website. Can "you" please help me remove the tag? I would really appreciate it!

Puregoldxxxx (talk) 18:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid that you didn't contact Mtking; you did leave a message for User:Ww2censor. To leave a message for Mtking, you would put it on User talk:Mtking. :) It's generally good to allow a day or two for the user to respond before trying one of the other methods. If Mtking does not respond, I would really recommend that you try to the talk page edit request. I am happy to help you through that process, but it is not up to me to decide that the content is neutral. :/ Administrators do not have any more authority in editorial matters than any other user. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Fair use for noncommercial charity purposes

Hello there! I have an off-wiki copyright question that I'm hoping you can give me some general guidance with. Currently the site speeddemosarchive.com runs an official Youtube channel with over 3.5 million views, where it posts speedruns of video games as fair use. The site itself has held several charity speed running events which have raised over $100,000 dollars with the last 3 marathons alone. The question has come up on whether the SDA's Youtube channel could be used as well to raise money for charities. Youtube's policy states that these types of videos will not be allowed for monetization, but I believe they are using this word in place of commercialization which fair use is concerned with. If this is the case then I believe Youtube would allow the profits to be generated from SDA's channel if they went directly to a non-commercial organization such as a non-profit or charity. I haven't found a way to directly contact Youtube however, so I will checking out their user help forums, but I was wondering if you had some useful wisdom for approaching this. Thanks in advance for any help.AerobicFox (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This seems the kind of question you can only answer by contacting Youtube. I am kinda suprised you couldn't find it, but see http://www.youtube.com/t/contact_us for their contact information. Yoenit (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
I think we are going to have to get explicit permission from developers, since Youtube's policies are apparently much more rigorous than fair use, so never mind my question ^_^. The contact page is surprisingly just a bunch of redirects to FAQ's, user-based help forums, an email address for the press, a mailing address, etc, without somewhere to explicitly speak to someone. Thanks anyways, cya ^_^AerobicFox (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
There is a phone number as well, why don't you try that? Yoenit (talk) 20:49, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Yoenit. :) Good luck, AerobicFox! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Abuse of Admin tools

Why did you fully protect that page? You didn't even know what I'm going to do? You aren't the law here, this is an abuse of admin tools...Please consider un-protecting Tachfin (talk) 13:25, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Just as an observation, "You are abusive. Please grant my request" is not an approach likely to meet with success. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 13:28, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I fully protected the page during the listing period to avoid the template being removed a second time. The protection should not impact your ability to propose alternative text; the page wherein that text should be proposed is linked from the template blanking it in the appropriate section of "Can you help resolve this issue?"
In terms of my actions on this article, I am an uninvolved administrator handling an issue listed at the copyright problems board (originally listed here). I believe my handling of this article is within ordinary procedure. We do not often have to protect, but do routinely when the copyright template is removed out of process, as it was in this case. While misuse of tags is typically an issue for blocking rather than protection, this template is unusual in that it is intended to lock the article from editing. If there is reason that you need the content unprotected, I will gladly consider unprotecting as you request, but at this point the article is not supposed to be edited by anyone except administrators or OTRS agents. Administrators are able to undo the unprotection when necessary, and this is not a matter for OTRS.
If in spite of this you feel I am abusing my admin tools, please review WP:ADMINABUSE for your options. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Fine, you only protected it when I said that I am going to reword it. You rewarded a gesture of good will on my part with a full protection, how uncollaborative...I just I leave you guys do whatever you want. Tachfin (talk) 13:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure you've actually read this template as your understanding of how this process works does not seem complete. :/ The first thing it says, in bold, is "Do not restore or edit the blanked content on this page until the issue is resolved by an administrator, copyright clerk or OTRS agent." You are not supposed to remove the template, as you did, or to rewrite in that space, as I guess you must have believed you were supposed to do. Under "Can you help resolve this issue?", there is a section that says "Otherwise, you may write a new article without copyright-infringing material. Click "Show" to read where and how." This links to the page wherein your rewrite should be placed. The protection is not meant at all to thwart your willingness to rewrite the article, but only to avoid further inadvertent out-of-process handling of the content. The content is all still viewable in the history, and even the source is accessible if you need to copy over markup (such as categories) for your proposed rewrite: [24].
I protected it when I went to bed. While I was awake, I was able to keep an eye on the situation.
I'm a bit concerned that you may not be familiar with our policy on assuming good faith. You seem at least in regards to this instance to be quick to assume the worst of other people's motivations. I have found that most people on Wikipedia (aside from vandals) are genuinely working towards improving the project, even though we do not always agree on how this is best done. Disagreements seem most easily resolved when people discuss their problems cordially and collegially, in keeping with policy. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
In short admin actions are indisputable...It's only natural that I wouldn't see with a good eye someone policing (It O so easy) and not doing constructive work, and on top of that basing their decisions on wrong conclusions.(Article wasn't even copyvio only suspected) I have nothing more to say this is over for me, I apologize for the headache. Don't take anything I said personally, I am confident that you acted in good faith. Tachfin (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Molly O'Connell

"Thank you" for the removal of the article. I'm an hour bent, translated from Russian into English, added references. :-@ I do not understand why you do not delete the article Toccara Jones or Anchal Joseph? They generally seventh place. Or Cassandra Whitehead? Her place is ELEVENTH! KIRILL95 (talk) 14:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I have no opinion about this television show or about the notability of the people who appear on it. My deletion was simply reinforcing the outcome of the deletion debate. I'm sorry if you're disappointed, but the community determines what subjects are notable enough for inclusion. --Moonriddengirl 14:04, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Commons admin?

Do you have admin privileges on Commons? I need an admin to delete a couple files that were released under GFDL. The agency that released them now says they misunderstood and thought they were releasing them to me only. They want them deleted from Wikipedia and Commons now. I can do the Wikipedia files, but I don't have admin rights on Commons. --Moni3 (talk) 17:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid I don't. :/ When I need an admin on Commons, I usually either leave a message at Commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard or see who is actively editing there and drop them a personal note. Sometimes I can find one on IRC, but not always. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. --Moni3 (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Can I get your opinion on this? Appreciate your time. --Moni3 (talk) 14:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! I missed this earlier. Let me go take a look. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Talk back

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Mar4d's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello again Moonriddengirl,

I went to Mtking's talk page but it seems there's no way I can leave a message, his talk page is kind of locked with no options of leaving messages. Am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Puregoldxxxx (talk • contribs) 18:24, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello again Moonriddengirl,

I forgot to sign my name, I'm really sorry. It seems that I can't leave a message for Mtking, there's no where I can do that on his talk page, it seems to be locked. Am I missing something?

Puregoldxxxx (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

It's okay that you forgot to sign your name. :) It's a good habit to get into, but we do have that bot which will help out on occasions you may forget. Sometimes, I suspect, we all do.
If Mtking's talk page was locked, it isn't now. I tried logging out, and I can access the edit options even as an IP. So it should be accessible to you as well. To leave him a message, you can press the "New section" tab at the top of his talk page. (Alternatively, it may say "+", but "New section" was what I saw when I was logged out. :)) When I am logged out, the "New section" tab is at the top right hand corner. When I am logged in, the "+" is more to the left, but slightly centered.
You may have run into some confusion because there was no little "edit" tab on his page. When a talk page is empty of messages (as his recently was), these do not appear. The only way to edit the page is from the tabs on the top. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2011


Hello,

I have a copyright question for you ;). I have access to the orginal text of the constitutions of some countries in Arabic. Would it be a copyvio if i translate that text and put it into articles? (as in the constitution of the U.S article) or would this go to wikisource? thanks in advance. Tachfin (talk) 09:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I don't know the laws of the countries of which you speak, obviously, but as far as Wikipedia is concerned, it is not a copyright problem to translate the text for Wikimedia Foundation projects. As Wikipedia:Public domain sets out, the US law that governs us regards "All current or formerly binding laws, codes, and regulations produced by government at any level, including other countries' governments, and the court opinions of any court case are in the public domain", regardless of the stance of the country itself. On Wikipedia, we generally accept content that is public domain here even if it's not in its home country. While our policy notes that most countries do release such documents into public domain, you do need to consider whatever local laws may govern you. A few years ago, a German contributor I know who was open about his identity was targeted by a publisher in his home country for content that he had uploaded to Wikipedia. Evidently, Germany's "fair use" allowances are quite strict. :/
But you have good instincts in considering that Wikisource might be a better home for it. :) WP:NOTREPOSITORY and Wikipedia:Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources suggest it may be better to host it there, and to summarize with salient quotes here. Wikisource:Help:Public domain seems to be friendly to these as well; the template you'd use on it depends on the country, it seems. You can find them here: Wikisource:Help:Official texts. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Ok I'm not sure on the copyright laws of each country though it would seem natural that the text of a constitution would be free of any copyright claim. I don't think the full text would be appropriate for wikipedia, wikisource is the place for it. I'll take a look there and see what people normally do in such cases. Thanks for your help and have a nice day! Tachfin (talk) 10:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
You, too. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:43, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Organizational analysis

Hi Moon. I'm sure you're busy but can you or someone you know take a look at this article and see if you think it's a copyright violation? I'd like to see what someone else thinks. I think it's somewhat ambiguous and as it's for a Mills College grad student's work, I'd really like to get a few opinions before I nominate it for deletion. I can take it to WP:CP if you're busy. OlYellerTalktome 18:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a licensing violation, anyway. It was copied from User:Jsabory/Organizational Analysis, which is the work of multiple contributors. It needs to be history merged for proper attribution; I'll take care of that in just a minute.
I don't have time I'm afraid to do as close an evaluation of this as I'd like at the moment, but I share your concerns about paraphrasing. I snagged about four sentences and came up with this:
  • "The cognitive model consists of three primary components: cognition, the decision-making or problem solving process, and an organizational setting." (article)
  • "The cognitive model of organization consists of three primary components: cognition, the decision-making or problem-solving process, and an organizational setting." (source)
That said, I'm not sure there's a lot of that. I don't know that it would merit WP:CP (unless you find a good bit more). The close paraphrasing tag is good for small amounts of this. I suspect it may be minor to the overall problem of the article, which seems to be original research. One of the difficulties in helping students do the transition to Wikipedia is helping them to realize that the kind of synthesis that goes into making a decent student paper is actually forbidden here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:02, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm so sorry, it's me again. Editor M.casanova has posted a large number of direct quotes from the Artgate website of the Fondazione Cariplo, claiming that the material is available under (CC BY-SA 3.0) licence. My guess is that the editor is perhaps connected with the museum or the site. However, some (or all?) of the Artgate pages, such as this one carry a clear copyright notice at the foot of the page, and would thus appear to be specifically excluded from the general release statement here. Once again, I have no idea what action, if any, is needed. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

That's a complicated one. :) I think what would help is a clarification of what they intend.
They are not required to relinquish copyright to release the material under a liberal license. The copyright notice does not itself negate the license, as it does not include any language to suggest "all rights reserved". However, it would be very nice if they could add an explicit notice to [25] to make clear that the copyright notice is not intended to negate the license release. I'll ask him if he thinks that they can do this. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I'm wrong. It does indeed say "all rights reserved." "Tutti i diritti riservati." Yes, I need to get on that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:14, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I have left him a message: [26]. I suspect that Artgate does intend to release their content and that they may not have considered that the general site disclaimer declaring "all rights reserved" posted on each page may be taken as "stating otherwise" ("Unless otherwise stated, contents of the on-line collection of the website www.artgate-cariplo.it are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.") If the matter is not swiftly clarified, we may need to remove anything that is out of keeping with WP:NFC in the meantime. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I saw. Various similar questions have been asked by it:Wikipedia editors in the past, and I think answered to their satisfaction. Question: I've been using your talkpage to post questions of this kind; but is there, somewhere, a "copyright questions" page I should be using instead? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Please read Talk:Sebastiano De Albertis, thank you. --Marcok (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
We asked them again. I'll wait until the problem is solved. Thank you. --M.casanova (talk) 18:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 Done Problem solved on their website (new footer). --M.casanova (talk) 07:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, hi

One more question about the CCI. I hope you don't mind. I saw that the "important notice" remains on the board. I would like to ask you if you would reconsider this extrem measure and remove that notice. It seems to imply very drastic action, that is not necessary in my humble opinion.S711 (talk) 17:05, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I certainly don't mind your asking questions; please feel free. In terms of the "important notice", I'm afraid that I didn't place that note. Calliopejen has been evaluating the contribution list; I have not had time to help out beyond adding your newer account and notifying you once we realized that you had not (as we thought) left when your first account went dormant. Maybe you should ask her to clarify there if she is recommending this action for your earlier account only? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Didn't she ask if you agreed to the measure? Is it her responsibility only? Is that also the case in expanding the CCI with the S711 contributions list? Are you still involved in this CCI in any way?S711 (talk) 10:16, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I have not been involved in this CCI beyond clerking the request at the CCI noticeboard, which includes populating the list with your contributions. Expanding it with those of your secondary account upon its discovery was simply part of the administrative procedure of opening the CCI. I have processed several listings as part of my regular participation at the copyright problems board, but not as a participant in your CCI. Although I opened it, I do not own it. I have not evaluated your contributions; I agree with Calliopejen that in the absence of an ability to determine when content is copied or translated, when we have evidence of carelessness (to use your word) with copyright, presumptive removal is our only option. As a courtesy, I notified Calliopejen of your concerns about her note, and she seems to have recommended action on your part at your talk page. If you've begun taking that action, perhaps you should show her your work. As Wikipedia:Copyright violations notes, some contributors in your situation have actually been blocked from editing until and unless willing to document their edits. You've simply been asked to do this, and nobody has begun wholesale deletion of your later content. Calliopejen is a good administrator, and if you are documenting your edits, as she asks, I'm sure she will consider your request to modify her note. She already indicated at your talk page that when sources could be found, she would consider the content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
You say that presumptive removal is your only option? But at the same time you say that the deletions will be evaluated one by one. But that is not what is on the CCI board. Note, that I have made more than 6000 contributions since 2008. How are you going to delete all of these? You feel that Calliopejen has sufficiently substantiated her claim, but you have not checked it yourself? Why didn't you do a quick scan of the lists (computer generated?) before you put them on the CCI? Starting the CCI and putting up those lists is your responsibility, is it not?S711 (talk) 17:49, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
My responsibility in opening a CCI is determining if you have a history of copyright problems such that a review of your articles is necessary and too time consuming to be done by one contributor in a single setting. I'm very sorry to say that you do. We much prefer not to add to the list of CCIs, as we have quite enough of those, but as copyright problems were uncovered in your work, it is now required that we make sure that any damage to the articles is contained. The community works to do this within the policies and various approaches provided for copyright cleanup. Sometimes, presumptive removal is the best or only way to go about it. Sometimes, articles can be evaluated individually and found to be clean or not. Frequently, a combination of the two is used, based on specific patterns of the contributor in question. This has already been the case with your CCI, where some content has presumptively deleted and some has not. We do not currently have any means of doing computer generated scans of your edits, I'm afraid. We have never had a tool that would allow us to scan all of the contributions of a single editor in the way you describe, and even the tool that scans individual articles is no longer functional. Even if it were, it has never been capable of comparing to offline sources or foreign language texts. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:12, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Help

Hello, I m a wiki user.There is an article on pakistani artist on "Imran Channa" which is being tagged for deletion and copy-violent which is done by one shared IP ( 182.185.234.113)( 182.185.219.2) ( 182.185.128.145) constantly for few days. i want help from the administration for the protection of the page.. Thank u...--Artmartxx (talk) 18:24, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


Thank u

Thank u very much for protect the page Imran Channa..--Artmartxx (talk) 11:51, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. Please keep an eye on the talk page of the article, as you may need to talk to the IP editor if he begins to communicate his concerns about the article. The tags are not necessarily disallowed, but he is not going about expressing his issues in a constructive way. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi MRG, I'm confused as to where I should go for this so I guess I will go to you. User:Krugkris has inserted File:Ebony Bones!.jpg, which is of highly suspect copyright status (Krugkris has already received a warning about inserting copyrighted content), to replace the formerly used image File:Ebony Bones-01.jpg. After I reverted them, they undid my revision and posted on my wall that the old image was not of her. I reverted their revert due to the copyright suspicions I have, then they replied stating that they were from her label. I have since removed both images to avoid copyright issues and misrepresentation of the subject. Could you perhaps discuss the copyright issues with Krugkris and point me to where I could discuss the possible misrepresentation issues, if a seeming Single Purpose Account is worth listening to. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

[comment from talk page stalker]. I added a comment to the deletion disussion at Commons with links to previous publication as early as 2009. What's interesting is that there is a professional photographer named Kris Krug based in Vancouver (see [27] and he has photographed Ebony Bones although the images he took are very different in style (see [28]). I saw the communication on your talk page from User:Krugkris. The English is quite poor and not at all like Kris Krug's, I very much doubt if they are the same person. Voceditenore (talk) 09:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Aha. It seems File:Ebony Bones!.jpg is a photo by Jean-Baptiste Mondino and appeared on the cover of Liberating Style, February 2010 where it is fully credited on the inside page. See this. The one that was removed as "not being her" is part of a set from Flickr on Commons, [29], one by the real Kris Krug and three by another professional photographer who had released them on Flickr under a compatible license, all with full documentation of the event. There's no reason to believe that they're not photos of her. Voceditenore (talk) 09:50, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Good sleuthing, Voceditenore. :D Off to read the related conversations.... --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I've taken a couple of steps. In addition to the deletion debate (as these can last forever on Commons), both images are now tagged {{npd}} because we need verification of license. I have replaced the image in the article with one that is unquestionably free of copyright concerns and unquestionably the subject. It is referenced on Kris Krug's own website. And I have told User:Krugkris that he must verify his identity before he edits or uploads further. If he uploads or edits further without verifying identity first, I will block him for impersonation (in accordance with WP:USERNAME. I do not know if this is actually Kris Krug - it may be - but we can't assume it is. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

  • I had noticed that. Thanks. But we have no word on whether or not the removed image is of her? As it is a featured picture, it must be in an article or it should be delisted. Where should it be discussed? I think the person in that image is the same as in the other two, but I think it would require wider feedback. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It's also an FP on Commons and is linked to by multiple non-English Wikipedias, so it won't affect the Commons FP status. I guess you could start a de-listing discussion for the English FP here. But to me it's quite obviously her. I think her record label/management simply prefers the other image and made up the story about it not being her as an excuse for repeatedly removing it. Voceditenore (talk) 15:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
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