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HMS Guardian (1932)

I ran across this article while working on the Dawkeye CCI - there is a large chunk of text added here and here (not by Dawkeye) in 2004 and 2005, which is more or less identical to [1] which was added as a reference in 2010 here. Owing to the long gap to the text being added here and a cite to the duplicate text being added, (which is unavailable on the wayback machine) and the nature of the site - a military records site, I have a strong suspicion that the www.forces-war-records.co.uk is a copy of the Wikipedia article rather than vice-versa. Could you have a look and give an opinion?Nigel Ish (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me butting in, but I noticed the tag and had a look myself. I'm fairly sure that its the website copying wikipedia (and failing to attribute it) in this instance. Searching through the history, the article has developed fairly organically. Note the misspelling 'modernsation', which was introduced in this edit. Most of the other misspellings introduced at the same time were worked out in later edits. That one survived and now appears in the mirror website. It's not the first or only instance of this site copying chunks of wikipedia. Their article on HMS Vanguard (23) is a rough copy of that article as it stood c. 2010. Benea (talk) 18:33, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
If the site is copying wikipedia without attribution, you can send a copyright violation notice to the website. See Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter. Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:37, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Mind? Hardly! Thank you very much. :D Masterfully done, Benea, and thanks for pointing out the process, Ryan Vesey! Appreciate your working on the CCI, Nigel Ish. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Complaint about images being deleted

I DONT KNOW WHO'S SCREWING WITH MY PAGE FOR MY ASSOCIATE WE OWN OUR IMAGE'S I AM NOT BEING MALICIOUS BUT THEYRE ARE THINGS IN THIS LIFE THAT ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN DELETING PAGES BECAUSE OF A IMAGE SITUATION ............I AM A NERD 2 THE FULLEST BUT I HAVE A LIFE.....THIS IS NOT IN ANY WAY DIRECTED TO YOU BUT WHAT THE @@@@@@@@ THESE ARE OUR IMAGES DOE'S ANYONE HERE LIKE....GET OUT I MEAN TALK ABOUT BUEARACRACY PLEASE TELL EVERYONE ANTHONYBEX PAGE IS LEGAL !AND IF WE HAVE ALL THIS ENERGY PEOPLE SHOULD DELETE THIS BLOODY RECESSION ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthonybex (talk • contribs) 23:52, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

My guess is that this editor, who has created an article in his simple Wikipedia userspace, is talking about images such as [2] on Commons. And how do I link correctly to Commons images? Dougweller (talk) 08:39, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
You've deleted a related article before[3]. A simpleWiki Admin is now discussing the images with the user.Dougweller (talk) 10:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Wow! Good sleuthing there, Doug. I'd have been at a total loss as to why he was coming here. :D To link to anything on Commons directly, you precede it with Commons: Commons:File:Spit-Polishing a starless sky 2009.jpg. (This always looks slightly funny to me when linking to things in the Commons namespace: Commons:Commons:Village pump. But, then, I'm easily amused. That said, of course, you can also get to an image on Commons just by using the same link you'd use for an image here, with a colon (:File): File:Spit-Polishing a starless sky 2009.jpg. MediaWiki pushes files on Commons to all of our local projects that don't have a file under the same name so we can use them exactly the same as if they were hosted locally. Lovely feature. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:10, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the info about linking. Dougweller (talk) 12:57, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
I deleted User:Anthonybex for copyvio (it was also ludicrously promotional). This editor is affiliated with the subject and recreated a similar page mmore than once on simpleWiki where an Admin had deleted it for copyvio. At Commons an Admin is trying to explain to him why some of his images are copyvio. Dougweller (talk) 13:58, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi Doug (and MRG). Even if he did write a non-copyvio article, I highly doubt it would survive an AfD. His mother was notable, but there is nothing available aboutEric Charest-Weinberg himself, apart from his own press-releases and blurbs. Even his gallery has only local coverage, and pretty scanty at that. No in-depth coverage of the gallery itself, mostly "What's on" announcements and a few reviews of exhibitions, and this obvious puff-piece at miamiartguide.com. Voceditenore (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I just looked and nothing in the Miami Herald (where for some weird reason I was once the PA to the City Editor (actually he may have been the chief editor, as I recall being made to answer phone calls from the state governor because no one else wanted to). Dougweller (talk) 16:19, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

You can always take advantage of the fact that there are project-neutral names for some namespaces, including the project namespace: commons:Project:Village pump. Uncle G (talk) 14:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

non-free image - is this your thing too?

Same editor as the one using the long quotations in multiple articles (e.g. Look Mickey see above discussion on long copyrighted quotes) also uses non-free images in multiple articles.

One of them in the Brushstrokes series is being discussed. See Talk:Brushstrokes series#Merger discussion about the use of the same non-free image by Dick Giordano: File:Brushstrokes source.jpg to explain the "source" but text only mentions it and does not discuss it.

I thought the Non-free rational requires that discussion in the text is sufficient to make the use of the Non-free image necessary. (Currently used in four articles, as I removed it from the fifth.)

If you are not the right person, could you refer me to the person who is? Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 12:31, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) Non-free images are really not my thing, but you're right that our policy requires that they be used for good reason and sparingly. Technically, review of non-free images takes place at WP:NFCR, but I have to say that I'd be wary about relying on it. It just doesn't get enough participation. :/ Hopefully the conversation ongoing will come to clear resolution. Otherwise, I'm not 100% sure what I'd do. The conversation is tricky. I might launch an RFC about it on the talk page of the image, publicize it at the articles using it and at WT:NFC and WP:NFRC? I've never seen that done, but it seems like a potentially useful way of attracting conversation about the issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

When was this page written

I'm not sure when [4] was written. Is the 2009 date correct? If it is, Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi is copyvio. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:52, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Going by Wayback, it looks like the 2010-10-14 version of the biog page didn't yet have a biog of Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi - there's a link for it, but it just gives a popup saying it it's "comming soon" [sic]. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:26, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok, it's a terrible article with weird/bad references, and I found a copyvio copy of it at [[5]] which I had thought at first was the source, but maybe the article isn't copyvio. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:33, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Boing! :) Adding to that, there are signs of natural evolution. Take the sentence "He believed that the real worth of a poet's creativity is to be eventually gauged by those who looked into his works in their eagerness to know him better" in the link; it starts as "He believed that the real worth of his contribution is to be eventually gauged by those who looked into his works in their eagerness to know him better—Taab-e-nazar agar ho tamasha karien kaleem,Ab har taraf zia hi Zia anjuman mein hey" and is gradually altered here. (More alterations further, but I stopped there. :D) I'll put the backwards tag on the talk. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 July 2012

We need to examine contributions by

Dogfacebob (talk · contribs). Loads of notifications on talk page, editor has never responded on their talk page. See for instance [6] and [7] or [8] and [9], [10] and[11]. Dougweller (talk) 21:00, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Noted. :/ I will do the necessaries when I get back in town tomorrow. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:11, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Hey, Maggie...
Don't forget. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:11, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, this didn't work as well as I'd hoped. :) But I guess it did...just not as quite as quickly as I'd hoped. Looking at it now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
More problems found; opened. Contributed indeffed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:47, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you think this video is a copyright violation. See also this reversion. It appears that the video was uploaded by the congressman himself, but it's impossible to be sure who took the video. If it's a U.S. government work, it would be fine, but there's no proof of that. I also don't like some of the other edits initially added to the article - some are unsourced, some are trivial - by an IP calling me names and, as you can see, by an editor with few contributions calling me a vandal, but I'm more interested in the CR issue. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:37, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. I wouldn't assume it's PD, just because it's was uploaded by the congressman. It could have been taken by his wife, as you note, or anyone else. I wouldn't support uploading it to Wikipedia without more information. Linking is a slightly different matter. WP:LINKVIO cautions us against linking to works where we "know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright", but I'm not sure that there's enough reason to doubt that Inslee has license to display the video. I've removed videos placed by official Youtube channels before - for instance, when minor celebrities upload clips of their appearance on news broadcasts - but this is a different kind of beast. I think I'd probably be okay with retaining the link from a copyright standpoint; we'd certainly have a fair case to make that we had reasonable expectation that the video was authorized! :)
I feel your pain on dealing with people on those kinds of articles. :/ I still keep an eye on Kevin Powell. Back when he was still politically relevant (I'm assuming he's out of the scene now simply because all is quiet on his front), I was accused of working for him and of working for his enemies - depended entirely on whose POV I was trying to thwart.
If you want me to have a word with the user who called you a vandal, please let me know. I will be happy to explain to him how dispute resolution works. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Your analysis of the copyright issue is not surprisingly nuanced and useful, thanks. As for User:Zentalon, I'm frankly puzzled by his history. He has only a handful of edits in 5 years. He seems to be particularly interested in Burner, but his edits aren't disruptive. I'm not one who normally suspects socks under every mantle, but I wonder if he edits with other accounts or as an IP. In any event, you don't have to do anything on my account. If you think you should independently of me, that's fine. Best.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:46, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Dropped him a note. I wouldn't have wanted to say anything if you'd have preferred I didn't, but since you don't mind.... :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio question: Gujarat Science City

Hi. I've heard you're the go-to copyright person so I invite you or your TPS to Gujarat Science City as I'm not sure I've done the right thing. The article was tagged a G12 on creation but an IP deleted the bot-tag and the speedy was never handled. I stumbled across the article today, realized it was a copyvio & easily found source. I stubbed it, but not sure if there's anything else I need to do since there's copyvio in the article history. Yes, I'm an admin but I'm rusty and never dealt with copyvios in depth. I plan to get back to the article within the next few days so it doesn't look like an A7 but the material wasn't salvageable. Thanks in advance. I'm watching here & the article so I'll see any changes there or notes here. StarM 02:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

see also Science City, Jalandhar, same issue. StarM 02:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
That's a fine approach. :) The only note I'll bring up is that sometimes it may be a good idea to rev-delete the text to avoid its being restored, inadvertently or intentionally. This is totally a judgment call. I'm more likely to do it when content is extensive, since the risks are higher, and especially when there's not a lot of other substantial content, since at that point "amount and substantiality" is more of an issue, diminishing the odds of a fair use defense. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:45, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Off to go read up on Rev Del as I think that was introduced during my hiatus here. StarM 00:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Vrghs jacob

He's back and prolific too. I'm not really active currently but I've blocked three socks recently Blamecivil95, Mixveg12345, and Rasikaraja. He's also changed locations again and now claims to be a friend of Vrghs jacob (see the statements on Blamecivil95's talk history). Can you keep a look out? A lot of Indian government articles are impacted. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 18:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

<sigh> I'll try. :/ I don't get as much time in my volunteer account as I used to, though. Not by a long shot. (Today's a holiday, and I've spent a good bit of it already as Mdennis, over at Commons. :D) Any chance you could ask the India Wikiproject to keep an eye out for him? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Posting on WT:INB is unlikely to be helpful on this. I've alerted Boing to this as he's protected a couple of those pages in the past. I'll also let Animeshkulkarni and Sitush know as they're probably the only ones active on the India project who check for copyvios currently. I noticed that CP is backlogged due to your absence too, so this definitely goes to the bottom of the pile. I'll see if I can help out there when I have a few extra minutes. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff

Random thanks

Just random thanks. The World, or at the very least Wikipedia, is much improved by your efforts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.196.86.10 (talk) 18:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. :D I try. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:56, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Licensing question at File:Alzavolaopusdeiclub.jpg

Hi. Could you please cast an eye over File:Alzavolaopusdeiclub.jpg and determine if the licensing procedure is correct? It seems that an attempt has been made to license correctly, but I'm wondering if merely reporting events (which may or may not have happened) is sufficient? Does the "Wikipedia Letter of Request Form" have to be registered with WP to be official? Thanks for any help you can provide. GFHandel ♬  23:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow. That's an amazing description. :D
If this photo were uploaded today, I'd tag it and explain to the photographer that there are two problems - the permission isn't logged at OTRS, and the permission letter doesn't explicitly approve the license. Older images are sometimes grandfathered in, though, so I'm not 100% sure the best approach to take here. From the subject line ("RE: photos of Toni Zweifel and Alzavola Club for use in a web-based encyclopedia") to the permission ("So ok to integrate them in the article!"), there's nothing to indicate that these people realized they were consenting the "normal" license requested ("Normally we ask permission for material to be used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that although you retain the copyright and authorship of the photo, you are granting permission for all others (not just Wikipedia) to use, copy, and share your materials freely -- and even potentially use them commercially -- so long as they do not try to claim the copyright themselves, nor prevent others from using or copying them freely.")
The uploader hasn't been active for almost four years. I think I'll bring it up at Commons VP. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:30, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Done: Commons:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Licensing_question_about_File:Alzavolaopusdeiclub.jpg. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:56, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Cyrus the Great

A strife-ridden argument with what I think is still an NPOV problem, I just found someone trying to add an article from a Persian wedding magazine to a quote from the Britannica. Looking at the quote I realised it was not only very large in relationship to the article, but since it was from an encyclopedia, probably even larger in relationship to the article in the encyclopedia. As I have online access through my library I checked, and the quote is 281 words out of an article of 1577 words. The quote is in the legacy section and is by Richard Friedman. I'd really appreciate help with this. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:35, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

What I generally do in such cases is truncate. That's what I've done here. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:22, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. A great job. I must remember about brief quotes. I almost wish we never used block quotes, they are too easy to exploit for pov purposes. Dougweller (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Can you do a quick copyvio check?

I recently saw Jim Shoulders referenced on TV and I feel like there might be some interest in the article soon so I started improving it. It was completely unsourced. While adding refs, I found some copyvio [12]. Could you do a quick copyvio check to help me find what's left? Do we have any decent alternatives to what Corenbot used to do? Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:54, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Is "Shoulders was a lifetime member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. He is the only professional cowboy honored at Madison Square Garden in New York City" uncopyrightable as uncreative? Ryan Vesey Review me! 02:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
No. There's a lot of different ways to say that. It's not poetry, but it's not bog standard text, either. :) But it's also a very brief run, so it's not likely to be copyright infringement in and of itself, as it would almost certainly be de minimis. That doesn't mean it's okay under our policies, though. We don't copy text verbatim from copyrighted sources unless we explicitly mark them as quotations. We actually have Madmanbot doing what Corensearchbot used to do, which is good. Unfortunately, TheEarwig bot that used to check existing articles is not functional anymore. It was nice. :/ I'll take a look and see what else I find. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Here is where that article went bad - when a perfectly good, sourced article was replaced with crap. And nobody noticed. :/ I'm afraid that the whole article is clearly a derivative work of that Washington Post source. What I would recommend is reverting it to this version and adding in any significant details that version does not include...in original language. It's the best way to avoid derivative issues. Would you be willing to do that? If not, I'm off work today and may be able to help. :)
One tool you might find useful in general is the WP:DUPDET, graciously created by the multitalented User:Dcoetzee. It can be misleading in some cases, though, as it doesn't always pick up close paraphrasing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
So, I'll be at work today, so it will either be slow going or I'll need to do it in 9 hours. Ryan Vesey Review me! 12:44, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Either way is good by me. It's not urgent. You've been working on the article, and I'm not going to step on your toes unless I know you want my assistance. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:46, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Then by all means go ahead, I try not to do content work during the work day and have already made some requests for users to step on my toes Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Rather unorthodox request for help improving a page. I must have been incorrect about it being the premiere of the show that mentioned him, the page has been getting ramped up (like 100) views for the past few days. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:09, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Karin Magnussen

Hi, I hope you will restore some of the Karin Magnussen page, which it says was deleted.

She played a part in the Holocaust (using eyeballs from concentration camp victims). Thank you. 74.239.209.92 (talk) 09:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. We would love to have an article on Karin Magnussen, but we need one which doesn't violate our copyright policies. If you would like to create one, you would be most welcome. :) It doesn't have to be a huge article - even a few sentences with a source or two to verify the information. You don't even have to register for an account. Please see Wikipedia:Article wizard, which will guide you through the process.
If you decide to create an article within our copyright policies, please let me know. I'll be happy to restore the infobox and other uncreative content to put into the article once you have. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:25, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

There was a very interesting copyright question asked at Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English#Copy of Google translate = copyright violation?. Someone posted it to User talk:Mdennis (WMF) but I felt you'd be more likely to notice it here. As an aside, I have no idea about the copyright law, but is it really a good idea to dump a google translate translation into an article? The translator isn't that good yet and is completely incorrect at times. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'll notice it there when I'm in that account. :D I was technically off work yesterday and Wednesday due to the 4th holiday (although as usual I manage to find myself doing some stuff anyway). I popped in as Mdennis just briefly to leave a note but am about to log in as my alter ego now! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Don Benton

Hello,

I just wanted to stop by and let you know I am creating an article that you previously deleted, Don Benton. I do not know what the problem was before, but currently all unoriginal content in the article is from Ballotpedia under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

Thanks, Gold Standard 05:11, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. The content was deleted for copying from a copyrighted source, but I'm afraid that we can't take content under GNU Free Documentation License. Please see WP:COMPLIC. I've removed all the material duplicated from Ballotpedia for that reason. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

NFCR and text

If you have time, would you quickly chime in at Wikipedia:Non-free content review, section "Ogden Nash"? There's a minor (and friendly) disagreement about the page's scope, and something you wrote is the basis for one party's reasoning. Nyttend (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I see this has resolved. :) Happily the situation on text has changed a lot since I wrote that, as you said. Meanwhile, I went ahead and cleaned up a bit. One of the advantages of working with text is that while images are either-or (we include this image or we don't), addressing overuse of text can be much more nuanced. Sometimes when quotations are overrused, I'll just rewrite with proper paraphrase and more limited quotation, although in this case that's kind of hard to do. :/ I've explained why at the talk page. We'll see if regular authors of the page disagree. And, of course, I'm not meaning to suggest that the article is perfectly fine now or that the quotes I've chosen to retain are best. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:55, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems

Could a non-admin clear up copyright issues from a page and then remove the tag? I'd assume a note would need to be left at WP:AN so an admin can do a revdelete. Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, wouldn't it be better for them to clean up what they can, and leave a note on the CP entry, than that everything is done other than the revdel?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it would be best to leave a note at CP. :)
We have a role for non-admin clerks at CP. If you check out Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Clerks and Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for clerks, you can read more about it and how it's done. Frankly, there's so much need at that board that I'd be happy to support your working as a trainee clerk as you get the hang out of it, if you're up for it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I'll have my acceptance on your desk Minnesota Saturday afternoon. I'll need some time to read everything, I wouldn't want to jump into it not knowing the process. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:06, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi Moon, sorry for the delay, but I'd be happy to start helping out with some copyright issues. I'll probably ease my way into it because I don't want to exclude my other work and I'm fairly busy off-wiki. Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Raza Rabbani

I'm looking at Raza Rabbani (because listed in Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 May 20.

You removed some material, and marked it as cleaned, but the copyvio templates are still there. Is it as simple as you didn't remove them, in which case I will, or did you get interrupted, and aren't quite finished cleaning?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:02, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

It was my failure to look down and see that there were multiple copyvio sections. :/ This is one reason why I needed to take a break. When you start making mistakes like that, you've been at it too long. Today I've done with it what I should have done then and what I used to do routinely before the backlog became monstrous: I ran the whole thing through WP:DUPDET after I cleaned the flagged (and verified) copy-pasted sections, and I found - as not infrequently happens - copying in other sections that hadn't been identified. Thanks so much for pointing it out to me so I could finish the job properly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I saw your (temporary?) retirement from CP, and hoped not to bother you with it. Enjoy your break (as if concentrating on CCI constitutes a break). I hope we'll get some new blood and the place won't fall apart without you. Hope to see you this coming week (Wikimania).SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:30, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm trying to poke a bit, but I can't start contributing regularly there until I manage to shake the compulsion to CATCH UP. That was driving me nuts and causing performance issues. But even though I'm steering clear of it a bit, I hope you won't hesitate to bring any questions you have about it. :) I value this work tremendously and have not lost my dedication to helping where I can...so long as I save my sanity. And I very much hope to meet you! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Need help

Mind having a look at a problem or two? Thanks, We hope (talk) 19:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I've put a note at the MCQ question. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Another copvio question

Hi again, MRG. What's the process for a page that appears to be copied wholesale from a site that licenses the text under GFDL, but the copier provides no attribution? Would one just add a note to the bottom of the article or what? I've found a bunch of attribution templates, but they look like they're geared more towards files; should I just use one anyway? If curious, the article prompting this question is Manchester Hole, copied from here. Thanks again! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I think {{Source-attribution}} would be the most applicable. Then leave a note on the user's talk page reminding them to add the attribution in the future. My question on these issues has always been, how do you avoid having sentences tagged with {{citation-needed}}? Do you cite every sentence that was copied from the source? {{Citation-attribution}} can be used after a paragraph. Perhaps it could be placed at the end of each paragraph rather than using the first sentence. Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:49, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
That specific example has a litany of other problems though. It might be notable, but there is nothing in that article worth saving. I'll let you figure out how to deal with that though. Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:53, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) If this page is correct (and I assume it is), then the text cannot be imported into Wikipedia unless the site also has one of these compatible licenses. Voceditenore (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Yup. In accordance with wmf:Terms of Use, text cannot be copied from GFDL-only sites. Not since 2009. :/ This guy may be able to authorize the content that he authored, though, if he's the same contributor. He'd need to log into his account there and put a note on his userpage verifying that he is also Wikipedia user User:Chris Fox (Goydenman). --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Ah, cool. I misread the bottom line of the chart on WP:COMPLIC; for some reason I thought it was an OR, instead of an AND. As Ryan said, it's just one more of the varieties of problems with the article. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, anybody who releases anything under a GFDL license should lose their ability to any copyright just due to the difficulty of understanding the aspects of the license. Creative commons has nice succinct informational pages like this one that makes everything easier. Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Also, Ryan, I'm pretty sure that we couldn't use Source-attribution; that template is for things in the public domain, which this isn't. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Wow, totally messed up there. I suppose, if it had been a CC license, the applicable templates would have been {{CC-notice}} or {{CCBYSASource}}, depending on the terms of use of the other site. Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:14, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense that the reason I couldn't find any templates for GFDL importation is that GFDL importation isn't allowed. :P Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Gold Standard's talk page.
Message added 16:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Gold Standard 16:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 July 2012

Parsytec

Hello, Moonriddengirl. User:Ironholds has advised that I seek your help in tuning Parsytec such that it meets Wikipedia's copyright standards. Could you provide advice on what needs to be done, still? I shall look forward to your help. Regards, Akolyth (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid I'm a little pinched for time at the moment and my general tech-cluelessness makes these difficult for me to work on, but I see that User:DGG has weighed in at the talk page of the article. His advice there is good. I'll add to that that sometimes it is difficult to incorporate as much detail as our sources do if we have limited sources. You might also ask yourself if some of the details are truly necessary for a high-level understanding of the subject by a general audience. For example, I ask (not knowing the answer) if this is important for a general audience: "All the nodes were directly connected to the same router which implemented an active hardware 8 by 8 crossbar switch for up to 8 connections using the HS link." (I don't know if this is closely paraphrased; I'm just picking it out as a very jargon-heavy sentence.) If it is you may address some of the close paraphrasing concerns simply by rewriting it so that a general audience can understand it, in accordance with Wikipedia:Audience#Provide context for the reader. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Unbelievable discussions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I dropped into User talk:Bollyjeff and saw this absolutely pointless and unbelievably war-filled discussion which is not talking about the content but more about the self-professed superiority of Gabe/Andreas. I found Andreas' comments to be much more uncivil and extremely battleground-like, not to mention amazingly childish. He has now gone to even greater lengths, declaring every statement as an attack or insult so grave that he "needs a full apology", and that apology can never be satisfactory enough. His childishness is also going beyond bounds, as can be seen here. Andreas has already been rapped for making poor comments, and his behaviour is most certainly attractive of a block or some strict words, but I'd like your input on this before placing this at ANI. Thanks! ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 18:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, please see this, which has some very obvious violations of WP:CIVIL, and this, which is not only childish but squarely in the realm of WP:HARASS. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 18:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I've had some unfortunate run-ins with GabeMc who did not seem to understand facts, even if they hit him on his head, regarding trade marks. Steelbeard1 (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
@Ankitbhatt: For the love of God. This is about as assinine as it gets. Edit articles! Joefromrandb (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
For clarification, Andreasedge and GabeMc are two adversaries. The above use of "Gabe/Andreas" is confusing that they would imply an editor and its sockpuppet which is not the case in this instance. Steelbeard1 (talk) 19:44, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
What a fuss about nothing: whether to use "the" or "The" in front of "Beatles". My view is that there's a tendency for some people to get really irritatingly whiney when they perceive a slight, and for others (I'm guilty) to react with impatience and intolerance when encountering such a character. IMO it would be far more healthy to be allowed to shout and swear and scream at someone on a talk page without the niceness fascists getting their knickers all twisted. In short: to GabeMC, cool it, despite the fact that I know it's painful; Andreasegde: grow a pair. --Matt Westwood 21:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Don't belittle this issue! This happened in previous times and years later we are still at an impasse. That statement gives the appearance of "Who cares about other people's issues?" 99.251.125.65 (talk) 03:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, quite. Who cares about other people's pointless, silly little issues? Certainly not me. They're best ignored, until the childish behaviour has withered due to lack of attention. --Matt Westwood 08:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Exactly! Some do care and need to participate here. Your inconsideration and insulting behaviour is disruptive and contrary to this process. Are we here discussing this type of behaviour with examples of more of it??? 99.251.125.65 (talk) 13:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Andreas has harrassed me multiple times, threatened edit wars and generally acted like a child. I find his actions alarming! His insistance on "The" fueled an attempt to de-rail an FAC at McCartney. As recent as last night he was making contentious edits there on the eve of promotion. He should be blocked IMO. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
My view: ignore it. The more you respond, the more hoity-toity and supercilious and smug he sounds, and it's making you look bad. Is this question such a big deal anyway? --Matt Westwood 22:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
That's good advice Matt. However, I can foresee more trouble with him in the future, so I think a standard block is more than appropriate here to send the user a message. I will take your great advice though, and I will not reply to him anymore. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:46, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I would like for an admin to look into her attempts to sabotage the Paul McCartney FAC by posting silly stuff at the talk page, and by making contentious edits at the article that introduced inconsistency, factual errors and which sought to bring the "The/the" issue out during the FAC process. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • GabeMc behaviour. Some nerve for GabeMc to raise the issue of Andreasegde's behaviour after his disruptive editing, insulting tone and sneaky politics attempting to change the edits to many articles by dividing and conquering one article at a time, on the sly style. This should have been addressed WP style upfront where fair input can be realized where his personal attacks and innuendos can be policed properly. Have a look at either User page User Talk:Andreasegde or User Talk:GabeMc. You will observe many, many editors demanding apologies, for which GabeMC has complied, mostly. He has used insulting tone and innuendos with me many times and ignored my requests to stop the behaviour, disrupting the flow of discussion. He further disrupts by signing his text with negative indents so that it disrupts the usual indention system used in WP. He knows better with his experience. Andreasegde has few rough edges but mostly in defence of the ad hominem attacks put on him by GabeMc. IMHO This discussion is about the wrong person. GabeMc clearly demonstrates that he has no intention of WP:Collaboration and that his WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour will continue relentlessly on these Beatles articles. Clearly a timeout is called for to cool things down with this overstressed and out-of-control editor. 99.251.125.65 (talk) 03:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Now that three editors are indulging in nonsensical behaviour, I would request the administrators to step in and lay out clear guidelines as to what to be done, since this matter has clearly gone beyond a simple content dispute and is threatening the editing environment. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 05:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
And one more fact, Andreas is now segregating editors on the basis of their WikiAge nd number of edits, and is showing quite the attitude to editors who are new. WP:BITE I believe? A look at his talk page should give the proof. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 05:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
The title of this section is apt. There is a dispute resolution process. Please follow it, and not that at no time does it suggest carrying on a conversionconversation on MRG's talk page.SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:45, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thanks, Sphilbrick. AnkitBhatt, this is a fine example of what you could expect if this issue went to ANI. :/ I haven't even read through all of the above, because I'm not weighing in on the substantive issues. I wouldn't because of our prior involvement; while I don't think I'm unable to act as an administrator in all cases involving you, if I tried to settle a dispute you brought to me and did so in a way favorable to you, others are likely to think you came to me because you knew I would. I recognize, though, that you're asking for advice, because we've talked before. This means, all other editors involved here, that I'm talking about the principles. I'm not drawing judgment on anybody's behavior.

My advice, first, would be to try to separate out content concerns and behavioral concerns. That will help reduce distraction from others who may get involved. If they get drawn into conversations about behavior, it's best to try to put them aside, firmly. ("The issue doesn't matter. What we're talking about here is how we collaborate on the project.") The first step I always recommend is private and cordial conversation with editors whose behaviors are involved. (My advice with private and cordial conversation would include acknowledging where they have a point and then encouraging them to look objectively at their own behavior. For example, "I can certainly understand why you're upset about this. I would be upset, too, if somebody said X to me. But I'm worried that statements like <link> and <link> will only further inflame the situation. Please be careful not to <whatever the behavior is>") Are people rude when you do that? Sometimes. But all that does is provide you with more evidence of disruptive behavior if you need to take the matter further. ("I tried approaching him civilly, but....")

If behavioral concerns can't be addressed through a private and cordial conversation with the editors whose behaviors are involved - either because they do not agree that their behavior is an issue or they just shut down altogether - you might go for input at WP:WQA. Behavioral concerns, like everything else, work on consensus. If multiple people agree that a person's behavior is a problem and they continue anyway, then you have more evidence of tendentiousness. If more than one person has noted and tried to address the problem, you can consider an WP:RFC/U. WP:ANI is best kept for urgent and clear issues. It's the first place I'd go when the other avenues have been exhausted. ("Editor X is behaving thusly. I tried approaching him civilly <link>, but <link> was his response. Other editors at WP:WQA agreed that his behavior was a problem: <link>. Nevertheless, he has persisted. These five diffs all occurred after the WQA discussion. I believe this editor is tendentiously violating <policy> and request <what>.") If there hasn't been an RFC/U, they may suggest you conduct one. But I find that generally this is only when there isn't clear consensus that a person's behavior is out of line and the person hasn't been given clear opportunity to change his or her behavior.

If you ever report a behavioral concern at any venue, I recommend careful preparation in advance. Your first note should include clear diffs to the problems you see - in sufficient number to justify action but not so much as to overwhelm the conversation. You should succinctly organize your argument to explain the problem you see and anticipate counterarguments ("Soandso was provoked by this IP's comment, but even so his behavior has been consistently hostile to that editor and others, as with these five diffs. In these two diffs, editors asked him to calm down, but these three diffs show he has persisted even after.") Your first post in an dispute resolution thread is your best chance to put forward your case. You want to be sure to lay it out completely and fairly. Responders may overlook or dismiss valid concerns if they feel you are exaggerating the problem.

I'm sure it goes without saying that you need to have "clean hands" in all of this. :) IF you've slipped up yourself, you should acknowledge that. If you've slipped up repeatedly, you may lose ground to pursue the matter at all. I've seen countless reports at ANI where both parties appeared solidly in the wrong and either both wound up sanctioned or the admins at ANI just threw their hands up and walked away. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Sample attribution wording?

I contacted a web site which had similar wording to a Wikipedia article HMS Guardian (1932). They've checked their records and conform it is not as old as our article. So far, nothing unusual, I added the backward copy template to the CP entry, but they asked how they should proceed. I looked at Wikipedia:Copyrights and can point them to the Re-use of text section, but that advice is general, and doesn't provide specific advice. I think it would help if we crafted some language something along the line of:

An example of an acceptable notice:

The material on this page was partially derived from <article link> which is released under the terms of http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.

This feels a little too casual, so if you have better suggested wording, I'd like to use it. My goal is to make it as short as possible.

The web site staff have committed to looking for other examples, so I'd like to meet them halfway by providing specific wording they can use. I'll also tell them that if they identify cases where Wikipedia has used material from their site without proper referencing or licensing, to bring it to my attention for investigation.SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:49, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not uncomfortable with the casual language (casual is fine and reader-friendly, so long as it communicates all we need it to), but I would probably add a bit myself:
The material on this page was partially or completely derived from <article link>, which is released under the terms of http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. See <article history> for attribution.
With or without my addition, I'd go with it. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I responded to them.SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:59, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyright and the IQ and the Wealth of Nations article

This edit, with an edit summary saying, "reading the talk page and the article verifies that this is not uncopyrightable fact but speculation and hence copyrightable. Removing." caught my eye. I dug around a bit before commenting and found that you are both more into copyright issues than I and are more experienced with WP than I. Still.....

I looked at the Copyright law article, and saw, "Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed." Your edit seems to fly in the face of that. Whether or not I am correct about this seems to involve a question of idea vs. expression. As I understand that, it's a good talking point for high priced lawyers.

I'm a past editor of the article involved, which is why it popped up on my watchlist. I suspect that your stated reasons for the edit can be defended, but I also suspect (based upon nothing whatever -- I have not grubbed back through edit histories) that the motivations behind the edit may not rest upon those stated reasons.

Personally, I'm somewhat ambivalent about the removal of the information which the edit involved. I think that there is encyclopedic utility in presenting the information, but I've seen how much of a vandalism target that presentation sets up.

I'm just commenting here -- I'd be interested in your thoughts in response, but it's not a big deal to me. If you'd rather let this pass, that's OK with me. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

After I saved the above, I saw this talk page comment from you. That covers the issues I had in mind close enough, I think. No need to spend more time on this. Cheers. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'm glad the note helped. I understand that it's complicated; list copyright issues are some of my least favorite things. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

IQ and the Wealth of Nations‎

Hi Maggie,

Do you mind looking at IQ and the Wealth of Nations with regards to Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 April 13? Thanks in advance. Elockid (Talk) 14:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Apology

First I have to apologize for the appearance of this post on your talk page as you had requested to hear no more regarding the previous bickering on your talk page. However I feel this must be done because there seems to be a misunderstanding of my intentions. I don't want to appear to act disrespectful like that.

I feel the need to explain I believe I had started my last edit before you posted the "no more" request and I feel badly about violating your request on your own talk page. If that was not possible (edit locking?) then I just plain missed the notice somehow. I did notice immediately after posting though. Again, please accept my apologies.

Yeah, TheRedPenOfDoom brought this to my attention on my talk page but I wasn't sure about broaching this subject, here, after you reacted to the drop in your lap. (guilt driven)

On another note I don't know how, or why, you got dragged into this mess. I am confused. All the best. 99.251.125.65 (talk) 03:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you, and there are no hard feelings. :) I understand that if you are typing something while a discussion is archived, you may not even notice that it's happened - the software doesn't necessarily give you an edit conflict. I removed it just to keep things from carrying forward. It wound up on my page, I presume, because since I had interacted with User:Ankitbhatt on a copyright matter, he occasionally comes by my page for opinions or advice. Nothing wrong with that; lots of people do, and I not infrequently tap others in the same way. I'm going to guess that somebody noticed his post and wanted to be sure that the whole story was heard and that this kind of perpetuated. I can understand the impulse, but when people approach me like this I almost always discuss principles, not particulars. Even if I do discuss particulars, I would not engage as an admin in such a case unless my doing so could not seem biased. (For instance, if somebody notifies me that a contributor I've blocked before is socking, that's an entirely different thing! And I will engage with egregious copyright issue reports just as I would a clear BLP issue, because policy mandates immediate action on those. Behavioral disputes? Those are almost never clear and obvious enough to avoid seeming of bias.)
Anyway, good luck to you all resolving this...elsewhere. ;) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:18, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Polar Music Prize

hello,

could you look at Polar Music Prize and say if the quotes are acceptable or not. Regards.--GoPTCN 12:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC)-

Hi. :) Personally, I'm uneasy with using that much non-free content from a single source in an article. Some of those quotes are really long. I would recommend summarizing with briefer excerpts, although you might want to seek a second opinion. I'm traveling - and on a mini-vacation after Wikimania - or I would look to see if I could find some places that could reasonably be reworked a bit. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania, meet you?

I would love to meet you if you're going to be at Wikimania 2012. I write on copyright issues, and wrote, with Peter Jaszi, *Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright,* and would love to give you a copy. I've been beginning to try to understand Wikipedia's challenges with fair use, and am very interested in the different approaches between text and images. Thank you very much! My user talk page is here http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Paufder. I'm also at paufder AT american.edu. Paufder (talk) 17:09, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Credo Reference Update & Survey (your opinion requested)

Credo Reference, who generously donated 400 free Credo 250 research accounts to Wikipedia editors over the past two years, has offered to expand the program to include 100 additional reference resources. Credo wants Wikipedia editors to select which resources they want most. So, we put together a quick survey to do that:

It also asks some basic questions about what you like about the Credo program and what you might want to improve.

At this time only the initial 400 editors have accounts, but even if you do not have an account, you still might want to weigh in on which resources would be most valuable for the community (for example, through WikiProject Resource Exchange).

Also, if you have an account but no longer want to use it, please leave me a note so another editor can take your spot.

If you have any other questions or comments, drop by my talk page or email me at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 17:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

When you get a moment

I axed Poznan Science and Technology Park on copyvio grounds a few days ago, but its been recreated. Its just different enough that I think its ok to stay, but to be safe I would like a second opinion on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Tom. :) I think it looks okay. I am not able to look deeply, though, due to my traveling, so if anybody else wants to take a look, they'd be most welcome! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

User:HappyWheeler4Life

Hi, hope you're well... I noticed that you have taken various actions to redact copyright violations by this user in the past. You might like to know that an IP claiming to be this user is currently at WP:BN requesting control of the account. Cheers, --Dweller (talk) 18:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Dweller. I'm well; hope you are also. :) That's a baffling situation...I have no idea why, if it's his website, he wouldn't follow through with the verification processes. :/ Hopefully if he creates a new account, he won't resume the habit of importing content that is not verifiably compatibly licensed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:50, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia award, and happy birthday!

Congrats--you deserve every bit of it. I hope it came with a big fat check. I'll look for you after Jimbo's talk is over so you can see your foetus's progress. Drmies (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Seconded! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Thirded. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:11, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Awww. Thank you so much. :) Are you guys actually here? I'd love to meet you! (No check expected. :D But I am honored. And older. :D) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
All of us are! I said congrats earlier in passing, but I'm 98.348% sure you didn't see my nametag. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:57, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
You can make that 100%. :) I'd have said, "Hi!" delightedly if I had. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
We were both on the move. I'll find you tomorrow or if you see this face, say hello! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I'll try. :) I circled Kat Walsh nervously for a while because I was thinking, "What if it's just somebody who looks like her? How awkward would that be?" :D However, if you are being over playing pool, I will no doubt recognize you immediately! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Knowing User:GorillaWarfare, she'll probably be right next to me... so if you see her, move in that direction. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Happy birthday! What is this award I hear speak of? They need to create it in barnstar form for all of us folks stuck in Minnesota (and elsewhere). Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • MRG, where are you staying at? I want to walk by your window and howl. Oh, you absent parent, I had to come up with a first and middle name all by myself. And the last name will be mine, as a mark of ownership, of course. Just a few more weeks, you deadbeat. Drmies (talk) 04:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Piling on with the belated birthday wishes! (Love the truck, reminds me of traffic here) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh dang, how I wish I could have joined you and everyone else at Wikimania, it would have been such fun. I had a scholarship, but circumstances weren't the best. Hope to see you next year. Lynch7 04:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm at the Embassy Suites, Drmies. My other family would be so confused by your condition. :/ Mike, I would have loved to have met you. Assuming I could figure out how. Wikimania is pretty hectic, it seems. My first. At the LOC open, I did cold-calls on people but almost everybody I talked to turned out not to be a Wikimedian! Attending for other reasons. It's good that the name badges are pretty big, but, alas, I think we need them on our foreheads. I had a whole conversation with a gentleman yesterday who evidently couldn't figure out a gracious way to check out my name until we were about to stop talking, and he went, "Oh, wait! That's who you are!" LOL (I also wish that people who ask questions would identify themselves! It could help me track them down later.

      Ryan, I have the baffling and humbling honor of sharing the position of inaugural WMF employee of the year with Brandon Harris. Completely unexpected, and I'm not sure why because after I realized they were talking about me I went into a kind of a shock. :D But Oliver Keyes gave me a beautiful print (possibly a handset imprint; the type is embossed) of the poem from which my username was inspired, and I am going to have it framed and treasure it for always. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Great news and well-deserved. Dougweller (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello Moonriddengirl, do you know copyright status of American Museum Novitates from 1935? I am interested in this work by Carlotta Joaquina Maury (1874-1938).

If it is public domain, it will be great for use on Wikipedia. Thank you. Have a nice day. --Snek01 (talk) 12:11, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I know the theory. I have just the pdf. I have no cover for checking that. I can not check it in the library. There are no copyright notices on the page 1, we need to check the cover. --Snek01 (talk) 14:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

What to do after you revert copyvio

I just reverted addition of copyvio of this site on London Chorus. Does an administrator need to revdelete the copyrighted material or is it fine now? Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I revdel'd the intermediate versions, and reviewed all intermediate edits. Many of them edited material that is now gone, so no need to talk to them. I notified the one editor who made a change that affects the current version. I didn't feel comfortable doing the edit myself, so notified the editor, they can remove the cat again if appropriate.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I also added a template welcome to the editor, and a more personalized one.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I would have, and probably still should have, notified the editor; however, I skipped it because they hadn't edited since September. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 July 2012

Talk:IQ and the Wealth of Nations

Hello, I have had a request to edit the article waiting for quite some time. There is a copyright issue involved in displaying the author's collected and created valuations of national IQ scores. If I should go to the copyright issues page or provide you with a condensed version of why there is a copyright issue, please let me know. -- The Red Pen of Doom 01:17, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.-- The Red Pen of Doom 12:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
note that if the numbers need to be blanked from the old versions, that will involve a gazillion versions back to the initial [13] -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:32, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I just picked up on that. :) I'm going about it in a different way. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Okay. I've created an edit notice cautioning against restoring the list and reduced the protection to semi, since the last few times it was restored only by IPs. I also extended the protection time a tiny bit to give registered editors a chance to catch up with the change. Hopefully the issue will not return, but I suspect that IPs will continue trying to restore the material. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you again for your insight. In a related manner can you comment on the data from the book presented as a map? File:National_IQ_Lynn_Vanhanen_2006_IQ_and_Global_Inequality.png. -- The Red Pen of Doom 06:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The only difference I can see there is that the form is transformed. I would strongly suggest running that one past Commons:Commons:Village pump/copyright. There are some very savvy editors on Commons who could have some valuable input there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Hey MRG, it was great to meet you! Keep up the great work you are doing. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations on your award. Well deserved. Apwoolrich (talk) 08:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Gratz on your Staffer of the Year award! I didn't know til just now. - Dank (push to talk) 14:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! (Co-staffer, though. I share the honor with User:Jorm, which is an honor all in itself. :D) It was great meeting you, too, Ed. I'm so glad you followed up. :D I suspect I'll be spending the lead up until next Wikimania regretting the people I didn't get to catch up with or spend enough time talking to. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl,

I came across this image which was added to a Eurovision Song Contest article. Upon inspection of the image at commons, the uploader has stated its their own work and they own copyright. But the image is just too clear and professionally taken for ownership of an amateur photographer. Looking at the image, the user would have to have been really close to the stage (literally on the stage) or front row with an expert zoom lens. Also it looks too similar to images owned by the European Broadcasting Union and their website Eurovision.tv, or a possible computer screenshot of recorded footage. Would it be possible to look into this one for me please? Sincere regards, Wesley Mouse 23:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey Wesley, you can list the image at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files and people will check to see if they can find the source (if it is in fact copyrighted). I'm not sure if commons has something similar. To be honest, I'm more concerned about this one. The editor states that they speak Russian and English, so it is odd that they have a Mexican image. In addition, it contains a lot of high quality images, including arial shots. It is possible that all of the images are located on commons somewhere, but some or most of them probably require attribution. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Ryan, I shall do as you suggested. That image you're pondering over does look rather suspicious indeed. The user could be Russian and went to Mexico on vacation, but unless he is superman or hired a helicopter, then I do have doubts over the aerial shots. Wesley Mouse 23:42, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm 100% certain it is copyvio. Check File:Palacio de las Bellas Artes (Mexico City).jpg. Note the girl in the pink shirt and the people sitting with their legs out on the side. I'll get it deleted. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I've tagged two of the user's image for speedy deletion, File:Ciudad de Mexico collage.png and File:Map of megacities in 2006.JPEG. I've asked an administrator to look at all of the contribs. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I've just noticed the images you've found and the one I've found are apparently "own works" by the same Purice21 (talk · contribs). Wesley Mouse 01:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Wesley Mouse for noticing the issue, and thanks, Ryan, for picking it up. :D Is this all in hand? Do you need anything from me? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

You're good. Every upload by the user has been tagged for deletion. Now it's time to wait on commons. Fastily (who is still active there) said he'll try to get the process sped up. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Everything appears to be in hand now. Purice21 has contacted myself via my talk page at commons a number of times, and from the conversations we've managed to get to the bottom of it all. Purice21 admitted that s/he took screnshots of DVD footage from the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 and uploaded the images. S/he thought that has they took the screenshots that it made the work their own. I have explained to the user that the DVD footage is owned by the European Broadcasting Union, and protected under copyright. I provided links to copyright guidelines for the user to read, and s/he now understands the dos and don't's, and has acknowledged that they made an error, promising never to do the same again. I've also explained the the collage they made is using individual images that are on commons and owned by other people. I further explained that they may technically "own" the collage as they created it, but the images used to create it are not theirs, and thus the collage may need to be attributed. Wesley Mouse 16:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Awesome. :) Thanks to both of you for working that out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Mark Dice

Numerous links(sources 15 to 21 at least) to recordings someone, probably Dice, has made of recordings of radio shows. Aren't these as copyright as TV shows? There's probably a BLP issue here also given the way the links are described on YouTube. Dougweller (talk) 07:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they are under copyright and may be an WP:LINKVIO issue. The question we need to ask ourselves is, reasonably, do we have concern that the recordings are being hosted in violation of copyright? When they are being hosted by the official channel of one of the people involved in the interview, there is a chance (I think) that they are being hosted under license or that the uploader actually does own copyright. I do not routinely remove links under this circumstance myself, although there are exceptions. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
There is a chance, yes. But do we take that chance? And [14], [15], [16] and [17] are clips from tv programs and presumably copyright - if they are, surely we shouldn't link to his YouTube site at all? Dougweller (talk) 14:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
If you have reasonable doubt, the links should be removed per WP:LINKVIO. :) They aren't actually even necessary to reference the radio programs, since WP:V doesn't require that sources be accessible online. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
In fact, it should all go - the article is heavily edited by fans or... and a section on who he phones up and who won't have him on their show, unless referenced to third party sources, is just puffery that doesn't belong in a bio. But I did want the point about radio programmes cleared up in my mind, so much appreciated. Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

National Youth Music Theatre

Hi MRG! I need you or one of your admin talk page stalkers to replace this currently blanked article with the re-write at Talk:National Youth Music Theatre/Temp. It needs a history merge too, back to the copyvio free version of the article (basically a stub with a list of names). The details are at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 July 13. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

All mopped up. Thank you for rewriting that and shepherding it through. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
WOW! You are fast! Thanks so much. It's a very notable theatre company, and it would have been a pity to send the article back to a pathetic stub. It's had some major COI problems in the last couple of years, which I hope are now resolved, but I'll continue to keep it on watch. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio question at the Teahouse

Hey, MRG, could you take a look at this question that's at the Teahouse? It's about a user who, among other things, has claimed that an image in the article Entropy and life is a copyright infringement of his work. FWIW, based on the article he linked to back this claim, it looks pretty baseless to me, but what are the next steps in this kind of situation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Writ Keeper (talk • contribs) 13:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Weighed in there; tagged image on Commons. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
So deletion sometime in the next 3 months, right? Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
LOL! Not always that long. :D That said, with our CP backlog, our ability to claim the higher ground is rapidly diminishing. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been meaning to dive in, I've just been held up by a lot. AFC's backlog is getting on the large side again, but I can't seem to bring it down. I'd love to see it at zero, just for a little bit.  Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Ram Kishore Shukla - again

Hi Moonriddengirl. Since you're already aware of the text issues with this article, I wonder if you'd mind taking a look at the images too - particularly those uploaded by User:Alcides86. The information on them is sparse, to say the least, and give this user's history (it seems to be User:Ballisticizer unwittingly operating a sockpuppet) I fear there may be issues with the copyright - put bluntly, I'm not convinced he was the photographer for all of these images. I'm afraid I'm going offline now, otherwise I'd investigate more thoroughly myself. All the best, Yunshui 雲‍水 21:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


Resepected sir/madam, yes i uploaded my maternal grandfathers images, there from 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, i took them from home albums get them scanned and cropped then uploaded if you search Ram Kishore Shukla in google images you will find only images by me, yes sir/madam i registered initially by username Alcides86 but after wards was unable to use it as forgot password where i wrote it, then i registered separately, i have confessed all my mistakes on copyrights page already i never ever put my foot beyond this article as i remember, if you still feel i must be punished please BAN me but do not say that i am doing wrong things, the photos i uploaded were totally from my home albums, thats it. thank you sir/madam. --Ballisticizer (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

  • I'm afraid that it is a common misunderstanding that owning an image means you own copyright to the image and have the rights to license them. I don't have time to look at the image uploads right now, but I'm curious: how did you document the photographer, etc., if you took them from an album? Do you know who took these photos? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes madam, i understand, but photographer was may be of one of the private assistants of my maternal grandfather or a family member as my maternal uncle Vindhyeshwari Prasad Shukla also travelled several times with him(i was not born at that time or older a year or two), who had also asked me to come to Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha to search out the government documents to add sources, when i asked him to do so, i will be back after several months, i have given three whole months to this article now i will have to give time to my books, i have faith in you people, Good day. --Ballisticizer (talk) 08:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

  • As explained at your talk page, I have reviewed and listed these images for potential deletion against our copyright policies. While I do appreciate that your interest has been in making this article the best you can, I'm afraid that we are limited my larger policies and principles in what we can do to this end. We have to make sure that the "free" content is actually free. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Copy paste from Wikia site

I'm trying to knock off one of the CP entries, if this one is closed a whole day can be closed.


The article Simon "Ghost" Riley is at AfD, so if I wasn't so impatient, I could wait for a delete close and be done with it, but a couple issues are there I'd like to discuss.(In fact, if it is gone by the time you look at it, the following questions are still relevant.)


A chunk of material is copy-pasted from a Wikia site. Copy paste is the usual readred flag, but the site appears to have a clean CC license, so I don't think I can lean on the copy paste argument. However, it is a Wiki, so presumably not a RS (except for an article about the site which this is not). If it didn't have a CC license, I'd have no hesitance as merely removing the material, we don't leave it lying around hoping it gets improved we remove it. But the rules are different for failure to meet RS, I think - there we should be a little more deliberate, insist on a rewrite in a reasonable time frame. Someone on the talk page argues it isn't a copyvio and should be attributed using {{Wikia content}} (but they didn't do it). So why does that template exist if Wikia content could only be used in an article about the site, in which case the material should be footnoted in the usual way, not attributed by template. (I am NOT looking for you to clean this up or fix it, just some thoughts on how to proceed.)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I considered nominating the template for deletion; however, it's sadly needed for the articles that use it. The template is horrible anyway because it doesn't show what content came from Wikia, it should have a diff link. In any case, I think we should go about making a note that it shouldn't be used in the future because we shouldn't be copying content from Wikia. I can't imagine a single good example of copying material from another wiki. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Here's my thoughts. :) Content can be copied from other wikis under the same conditions it can be copied from other Wikipedia articles - if it is well-referenced and supported by the sources it cites. I agree with you both wholeheartedly that Wikia is not itself a reliable source, and if there is no source but Wikia it is as good as (bad as?) unsourced. Like Crisco, I can see usefulness if it refers to the primary source, like a plot section. But when it comes to gaming, I'm very wary of Wikia, as many of the articles I've seen that copy from them prove ultimately to have copied from the manual or in-game materials. (Anyone copying from Wikipedia videogame articles would be wise to be wary of the same thing. :/ Nature of the beast, I guess.) Because of the license, which permits modification, it isn't necessary for us to line-by-line attribute Wikia; what's recommended at Wikipedia:Plagiarism (or was, I haven't read it lately) is a single dump with note in edit summary and the requisite attribution template so that others who are interested can see what came from Wikia. Does the content copied from Wikia to that article seem to be original text? If so, I'd attribute it, warn the contributor and close out the listing. If there are other issues with the text, I may address those, but I always try to make it very clear that it is unrelated to the copyright claim to avoid people thinking that my action has more "weight" than it does. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: User talk:Jean.julius#Copyright problem

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Jean.julius's talk page.
Message added 06:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Just a note that I will come back to this. I've got to be out of the house in short order. If any talk page stalkers feel up to checking the rewrite, 'twould be most welcome. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Belated birthday wishes. Guess I had to stalk the post and move it down :). The temp page Talk:David J. Schwartz (Author)/Temp created. Kindly let me know if is it cleared (if not, any changes rqrd) to be placed on the original page - David J. Schwartz (Author). Also will it be replaced by the administrator or whether an user can do it? Cheers Jean Julius Vernal 10:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the belated birthday wishes, and I'm so sorry I lost site of this! Admins and copyright clerks close these listings. I'm in a hotel at the moment and not likely to be back to my home computer until some time on Wednesday. Any talk page stalkers have time to help out? Otherwise, I'll make it a priority. I've adjusted my talkpage archival time already to make sure stuff doesn't leave early. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:54, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, kindly sort this by Wednesday/Thursday. Jean Julius Vernal 15:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I will do my best; as I said, I intend to make it a priority for today. But I'm afraid that the backlog at the copyright problems board impacts far more than just your article. We have a 41 day backlog due to a lack of administrators and clerks in the area. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It's reviewed. Thank you for rewriting the article. I have flagged a few issues with neutrality; more explanation is on the talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for helping out, and comments noted. I understand the situation without sufficient support system. Thanks once again Jean Julius Vernal 16:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Restoring Bernard G. Marshall

Hello. I recently wrote the new article, Bernard G. Marshall. While posting it and starting the TALK page I found a message to contact you here. I am a newbie, but this isn't my first article start, and I can't imagine why there would be a problem with this particular article, so I went ahead and started it. Feel free to correct me if that was the wrong thing to do. Marshall's notability is based on his having written a Newbery Honor book. (One of my goals is to get articles for all missing Newbery authors and books, and improve others.) Anyway, if there is a problem please let me know and I'll do my best to correct it. Tlqk56 (talk) 16:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect you saw the deletion log, nothing more. :) There's no need for you to contact me about the article unless you have questions about why it was deleted. FWIW, there were no issues with notability; it was purely a problem with the editor who started it last time. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I guesses it was something like that, but wasn't sure, since I've never encountered that notice before. Congrats on your award, too. Tlqk56 (talk) 01:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Revdelete copyvio

Can you or a friendly talk page stapler revdelete a long history from Dan Oates? It is close paraphrasing/copyvio of this. Ryan Vesey Review me! 05:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
3000 people saw the crappy copyvio version yesterday. I always seem to discover copyvio after everybody and their brother sees it. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, better than never. :/ Our diligence is in taking care of things once we're aware of them and keeping an eye out for them. That's what puts us ahead of most user-generated websites. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:23, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Suspected copyvio in Teuta of Illyria

Hi MRG :) Any chance you could take a look at Teuta of Illyria please? It was tagged for copy edit, and while doing a c/e, I became alarmed by a slightly old-fashioned, bookish writing style. At the start of its Annexation of Epirus section, it has "Illyrian success continued when command passed to Agron's widow Teuta in 230 BC, who granted individual ships a licence to universal plunder." This page shows that to be a word-for-word quote of a sentence from:

Wilkes, John (1995). The Illyrians. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19807-5..

(There's also a substantial chunk of copy-pasted text in the last paragraph of the section, but I think it's from Polybius and not copyvio.) The article's history shows that it was already a GA on 25 May 2011, after which User:Serbiakos inserted a large amount of material that includes the quoted sentence, and then edit-warred to keep it in. Serbiakos is blocked as a sock of User:Stanovc, who was blocked for copyvio (of images).

The Wilkes book is no-preview, so I can't do much to establish how far the copy-paste has gone. Can you see anything? Kind regards, Simon --Stfg (talk) 14:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Afro-Salvadoran

I've taken up some CP work and saw this. It seems to have been copied from https://sites.google.com/site/afropedia/afro-salvadoran, but I just sent the site owner an email to see when that page was created. It's CC-BY-SA, so if the source is indeed that page it would be fine, but do you think I've gone far enough, or should we just stubbify the page? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:18, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Hard to say. :/ They don't have a wayback date that I can find. I did a quick check of a few other articles of theirs to see if they've copied other content from us, and I don't see any sign of it. That makes it more plausible that they are the point of origin. I think the template is a fine idea until and unless we get indication that they aren't the origin. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

CorenSearchBot

Cleared User:Hadseys/The State of the World, but a quick manual check shows "like so many blighted planets around the Chinese sun." is from Richard Overy's The Time History of the World as is "is possible to house an artefact from every major civilization of the past 5,000 years in a single cabinet". I expect that the other userspace pages cleared by CorenSearchBot will also turn out to be copyvio. Dougweller (talk) 08:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Hadseys/The State of the World "Anthropological evidence has for a long time been able to describe practices and beliefs that are clearly connected" is from the same book.
User:Hadseys/Introduction to cosmology has text from work by Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time and A Briefer History of Time).
User:Hadseys/Guide to Clinical Medicine has copyvio from at least two sources.[18] [19]
User:Hadseys/List of English Monarchs (1066-2012) has copyvio from various pages at [20]
I can't find copyvio in User:Hadseys/Summary of the Bible but I strongly suspect it's there.
So, do we trust CorenSearchBot? Dougweller (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
One problem here may be the length of the articles, or the print-oriented copyvio. But this is indicative of the problems with automated tools. Spotting large slab written documents in the same style is an obvious indicator of problems. (I'd just note this user has an extensive, if small, set of contributions in article space that I haven't looked at). Fifelfoo (talk) 08:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
There are a large number of pages at Special:PrefixIndex/User:Hadseys/ - some would seem to be draft articles or copies of existing articles, others Wikipedia related. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Turns out at least one of these is an essay he was writing, see the section "History" at [21]. Dougweller (talk) 11:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I trust CorenSearchBot and Madmanbot to help in finding copyright problems, but have never imagined they would be comprehensive in doing so. As Fifeloo notes, they have issues with books and other sources that aren't included in the indices they search. They cut down on the number of copyvio articles that make it through, but they don't, by any means, guarantee that the rest have no issues. :/ I have deleted some of hte userspace articles and flagged others. I have also glanced at two contributions in userspace. One of them (Coronation of George IV) is blanked. The other included copied content (this edit). I found matches in a doc dating to November 20th, but I think it may all be gone. The material was split to Loss of United Kingdom child benefit data (2007), and the timeline has subsequently been removed. I don't have time to look at any more right now, but fortunately the contrib is small. Anybody else want to take a crack? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Just to note: I have temporarily blocked him. Not only did he twice remove the template from one of his subpages (which I would have addressed through protection an attempt to reason with him), but the second time he did so he added a new section of material taken from the book. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your help and the advice above. Should he be told about WP:Close paraphrasing? Dougweller (talk) 13:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
He has been. It's in the second note under User talk:Hadseys#Copyright problem: Coronation of George IV and is also discussed at Wikipedia:Copy-paste, which I linked to him in my last note. Given that he felt his summary was adequately changed, I'm concerned that our issues are much more fundamental. :/ It may be difficult for him to embrace the degree of rewriting required to host content on Wikipedia. But we can try! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Li'l CCI

Potential sockpuppetry

I suggest keeping an eye on Ahadland (talk · contribs), which took a copy of User:Hadseys/Summary of the Bible ten seconds after you blanked it for the second time. Uncle G (talk) 18:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Some powerful quacking there. :) Thanks. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I am back

Hey Moonridden.. u remember Jagadhatri...yes it's me..I'm back with a new name - "Tamravidhir" after 2 full months..phew!! Can you please protect my new user page indefinetly? Thx!!--Tamravidhir(২০১২) 11:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome back. :) I do remember you, and I'm glad you got a username you're happy with. I'd be happy to protect your userpage, but policy only permits this if there's a good reason. WP:UPROT says, for example, that I can do it if there's been vandalism or disruption. Wikipedia:User page#Protection of user pages says I can do it if there's edit warring also. I looked at the history of your old user page, and I didn't find any vandalism or edit warring. Is there a reason that you need protection? Userpage protection is rare; for instance, mine is not protected and since 2007 has only been protected for a total of one week and six hours. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
My last one was protected so I thought that it is necessary..but no way I no more need it!! Thank you for your cooperation! --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 13:09, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

When removing a day from WP:CP I will often sport check SCV "closures" by users I don't recognise. Would you be so kind as to give a second opinion on List of A-League stadiums and Academy Fantasia, Season 9. I'm leaning towards thinking that attribution is required for both as the layout etc is enough to warrant copyright protection but would value a second opinion seeing as how the person who closed them is an admin (which I only realised after I checked them). Dpmuk (talk) 15:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Academy Fantasia, Season 9 looks like a pretty elaborate lay-out and comparing it to the previous seasons shows that different color schemes have been adopted, which certainly lends to a finding of creativity. This is the standard I try to apply: if it came to CP, having been copied from some other website, would I be uncomfortable keeping it? The information is not creative, but I'd probably reorganize the display so it wouldn't be a slavish reproduction of the source. Given that, I would attribute that one. The other one even duplicates some of the text. It's a small amount, but given that and the precise duplication of structure of the table - which also has creative elements, although I think probably not as many, I'd attribute that at least in edit summary. Attribution is cheap and easy, and it eliminates all concerns. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Cheers, have attributed and closed out 30 June. Have also left Hut 8.5 a link here. Dpmuk (talk) 16:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Noted, I'll try to be a bit more liberal in future. If the Fantasia layout can be copyrighted then the other episode articles (which use a lot of the same material) probably need more attribution as well. Hut 8.5 17:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Do we do anything when academics copy our articles?

Sino-Saudi Relations Basis for Peace and Prosperity in Eurasia has a lot of material from Silk Road. The earliest the pdf could be is 2009 (a paper with the same title was presented in 2011), but material in it is in our article in 2005.diff (see eg "first major step"). Dougweller (talk) 17:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

image renaming

Hi, I'd really like it if these files be renamed...

Pls reply on my talk page. Yours sincerely, Kailash29792 (talk) 14:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Took care of this for you ;-) We hope (talk) 18:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Message for you

Pls see User_talk:PumpkinSky#DYK_help. Thanks. PumpkinSky talk 23:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. :) It's a fascinating story. Wish I weren't so rushed with it! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

What is the policy on using images that are up for deletion on commons

What do we do about using an image in an article (File:James Holmes booking photo.jpg) that is up for deletion on commons as a copyright violation. I nominated the image myself, and am practically certain it is a violation; however, I don't know what the exact policy is and frankly I don't want to fight this on both projects. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Do the smart thing, don't use it. PumpkinSky talk 00:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Could you do the honors at James Eagan Holmes and 2012 Aurora shooting. I've been fighting against this image to an extent that I would like another editor to remove them from the articles. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Actually I think that is prob PD but I have asked two real life lawyers to opine. Since this photo is already in use, just how nasty has the fight been? There's is no rule AFAIK saying you can't use an image up for IFD, but the smart thing is not to, esp if it hasn't been added to an article yet. So, again, just how nasty has this been (talk page stalker) PumpkinSky talk 00:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, this is probably the fourth photo I have taken care of related to Holmes. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:46, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
There are likely to be more. :/ I don't always remove an image from an article that is nominated for deletion in Commons, just as I don't remove the ones that are listed at WP:PUF; once it's gone, the problem resolves itself. But if you know there's a copyvio, there's no problem with removing it or with establishing local consensus that it should not be used. That might be helpful particularly if a deletion discussion on Commons is slow-moving --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
This was actually a very intense discussion. Then a deletion came out of left field. It looks like they are deleting it as a precaution. Commons:Deletion requests/File:James Holmes booking photo.jpg Care to tell me what you think? If the Colorado Government works seem PD, as some of the others say, a template should be created. If not, it might be good to create a list on en.wiki and on commons that keeps track of states that do not release their content into the public domain. Ryan Vesey Review me! 12:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
More of them do not release their content into the public domain than do, I think. A lot of people confuse "public record" with "public domain" (Wikipedia:PD#Public records). I'd have to spend some time digging into Colorado law to figure out their actual stance; I've been burned by trusting what state employees think they know about copyright status of their official works before. :) If a state consistently claims that they do not copyright content, that's one thing. But when you've got a state gov website that says "copyright" ("© 2012 State of Colorado"), I want to see it in black and white that they are wrong! :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That's where I was coming from. Especially since I just found that law. I'm really confused by that old website, everything about it seems odd. Normally, the old website wouldn't even exist. In any case, I feel that people are going about this the wrong way. We must presume copyright until we can find something that says it is not. If the mugshot is public domain, something will say it. I also agree that there is a large misconception in that discussion between PD and public record. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

We spoke of this and you made entries as to the name. Why was it deleted. http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Antonietta

If you recall, we had numerous emails exchanged and you incorporated the meaning of this name along with other information. Why was it deleted from Wikipedia, after you further investigated it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.78.26 (talk) 06:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

(excuse my trespassing, MRG :) Maybe you mean the information on Antonietta (given name) about the name's meaning? — Hebrides (talk) 10:32, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Excuse? I welcome you, Hebrides. :D Yes, I'm quite sure that's what the IP means. The article wasn't deleted; it's still where it's been since March 2011. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The tale of two lost....

Books will not last forever but they do keep us happy for the short time they stay with us..
Books will not last forever but they do keep us happy for the short time they stay with us..

History...it is not just a piece of a past written on papers..but it is a thing which is to inspire the next generations for years to come..it is a thing to feel...thing to love and admire at. Literary history, political history, economical and social history, architectural history, archaeological history and more...so please do your bit to promote history..as the ambitions related to it are going low....

Let the glory of the Taj never fade!
Let the glory of the Taj never fade!

Heritage....is not just a piece of masonry...but our culture, mannerisms, ideologies, food habits, religion and more....so please do your bit to conserve it....

Just an initiative led by me - a history buff and heritage lover - to promote the diverse culture of India, which is diminishing its glory amidst foreign cultures....

Go, spread this message to others...but the choice lies upon you

Yours faithfully --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 11:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 July 2012

Copyvio, hope not!

Hey Moonriddengirl, hope you're doing well! I've expanded Ruth Ann Steinhagen, and wanted to make sure I paraphrased, quoted or otherwise reworded it sufficiently so it was not a copyvio of this. Can you do a quick check and make sure? Thanks! Dreadstar ☥ 04:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow! Fantastic improvements, changes and additions!! Totally unexpected and hugely appreciated! wow..! (again!) Dreadstar ☥ 16:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. This is at

I've commented there about a problem with conflated references. Could you please see if you can help sort them out? Nice work, otherwise. Thanks. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 04:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Done, User:Br'er Rabbit. Thanks again. :)
Dreadstar, I'm happy to pitch in. I really enjoyed it. I did really push my time there, though, which is why I couldn't even come back to leave a note. :D I find that generally the best solution for paraphrasing issues is to draw in as many sources as you can and marry them together. That reduces any risk of our drawing too much from one source. I didn't see any major issues, but it did seem still heavily reliant on Jrank. And it turned out using my lovely free Highbeam account (want one? sign up!) found lots of information not in that source, including the full letter. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Oh my goodness, you do fantastic work, the article is now how I envisioned it could be! And thanks for the tip on Highbeam, that was one problem I had, finding sources! And that highbeam deal is great!! I look forward to collaborating with you again! Dreadstar ☥ 04:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

ANI discussion about linking to copyvio evidence on Victor Ponta

This is a high profile case about plagiarism by the Prime Minister of Romania. We have an editor trying to keep links in the article to Ponta's work plus the material it was supposedly copied from. I removed the links with this edit[22] - one of the pdfs is ""The documents that were used to support the article from the Nature magazine". This looks clearly like copyvio. I've warned the editor. Any chance I'm wrong here? Dougweller (talk) 16:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, it depends entirely on the context in which it was hosted. I assume you don't believe that either website has license to host the material, since in that case there wouldn't be a linkvio. So we have to ask, are they hosting it under fair use? If so, does it seem like a valid fair use defense? (WP:LINKVIO gives the example of a film still used in a film review.) If they're using it under valid fair use, then, context-dependent, we could be able to link to them as well. That said, it looks to me like the first link is to something similar to Docstoc-an online repository for text that can be hosted by anyone. We've got two problems there. First, if that's true, it's a WP:BLP vio. Without a reliable publisher, we have no way to verify that the material hasn't been fraudulently doctored to make any plagiarism seem worse. Second, if it is part of a fair use analysis of the allegations, it seems analogous to our linking directly to the film still; it's just the one-off comparison. Is there a critical review component we're bypassing? If it's not, there's an awful lot of content from the originals and seems likely to be a problem. The second document looks even more strongly to have been used to support a news story of some kind, particularly given that it seems to be hosted by a Russian TV program directory (I could only find the German equivalent: http://www.tvinfo.de/). If it's in support of a news story, where's the original news story? I believe we could link to it, but I myself do no think we could link to that pdf without it.
Finally, the links are misleading being used as references, as they do not support the content where they are placed: "A session of a committee charged with validating academic titles analyzed the thesis and decided with a unanimous vote of members present that Ponta had committed copy and paste plagiarism" There's nothing in there about a session of any committee or their vote, unanimous or otherwise.
I think you were right to remove it, although the reasons are more complex, LINKVIO being only part of the issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:32, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

RFC closure

Hello Moonriddengirl. I got your email, and yes the need is still there. You are only the first admin to agree, so we dont have an RFC opened yet, but I will let you know. And if you want to convince Avi to at least moderate the RFC that would be awesome ;). Thanks, nableezy - 05:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Nableezy. :) That's fine, then. Keep me posted. I'm not sure I have the power to convince Avi to moderate. :D But you/we can always ask for interest at WP:AN, once involved editors decide to proceed with the RFC. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Use of short quotes

Hey, MRG. Would you be so kind as to chime in on Talk:C. Ferris White about the use of short quotes in an article? The actual answer is "published in 1912, hence NFCC doesn't apply", but assuming later publication, what's the answer, as you see it? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So chimed. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I wondered what prompted Moonriddengirl's arrival at an obscure article Talk page.
Noted, that SarekOfVulcan is defying the spirit if not the letter of his agreement to cease from battling me for 30 days. Per his agreement in latest ANI against me that he started.
Moonriddengirl, I don't particularly know you, but I object to SarekOfVulcan selecting you, as if he predicted your view, and wants to use you against me. Ethically, i'm not sure what I would do if I were you now. But, ethically, SarekOfVulcan is wrong. --doncram 01:16, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not at all up to date with your relationship with SarekofVulcan, but I'm puzzled. You think he predicted my view and thought that it would be used against you? Have you read the talk page? :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
(ec, observed quite a while later, what i replied was:)
Yes, SarekOfVulcan and another editor agreed to back off for 30 days, after SarekOfVulcan opened two ANIs and has been correctly-in-my-view accused by others of stirring the pot. Most recent ANI archived, title was "Evil". He was publicly chastised by JimboWales at JimboWales' talk page, and is not supported in his stirring up trouble. This here has the appearance of SarekOfVulcan predicting your views and inviting you in particular. I don't want to argue with you, Moonriddengirl, and don't know your particular views, but SarekOfVulcan inviting you has the appearance of trying to pull a particular note. I can't discuss anything more further right now. --doncram 02:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl, you actually prefaced your first remark at the Talk page "Hi. I was asked to weigh in here by an uninvolved admin....", which gives your view their more apparent weight than otherwise, and which was not correct though you believed it. I suggest you could modify/update that statement. --doncram 03:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Doncram, you need to realize that Moonriddengirl is Wikipedia's resident copyright expert. She is asked about virtually every copyright issue on Wikipedia. If an editor invites Moonriddengirl to a copyright discussion, it is because they want the best possible answer, not the answer they support. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is this entire discussion being carried on on this page? There must be dispute forums all over wikipedia you could bring it up on.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

What, is it wrong to point out to Moonriddengirl that what appeared to be an uninvolved invitation, is not? Moonriddengirl deserves to know. What I stated here, I did because it seemed appropriate to "call" SarekOfVulcan's apparent-to-me violation of an agreement, promptly and at a location that doesn't hugely and directly contaminate the linked Talk page discussion about a content matter. And, I do presume integrity on Moonriddengirl's part, and I suggested a partial remedy: that Moonriddengirl modify/update the statement at that Talk page, which would be less intrusive into that discussion than other alternatives. I seek to encourage SarekOfVulcan to honor an agreement, and SarekOfVulcan has since edited here, indicating the message should have been received. I don't think I will post much further here. --doncram 11:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Doncram, I know how upsetting it can be to get into disagreements with others on Wikipedia. I've dealt with a couple myself. But I believe that you are misreading this situation. That may be because you are too closely involved with it to see it from another perspective, or maybe it's just hard for me to see yours because I'm so used to people asking my opinion about copyright issues. (I don't regard myself as an expert, but I am experienced and moreover willing to dedicate my time to the work.) In either event, Sarek's request here is entirely neutral, and even if it were not - even if he had expressed an opinion contrary to your own - he acknowledges that this is a "no foul" situation (the content is PD, as he notes, and there is no copyright issue). My giving my opinion there cannot in any way work against you. Beyond that, the weight of anything I say in any discussion should be entirely based on my logic and what people know about me and my work. I am not appealing to his authority, as I did not even mention his name. My sole reason for mentioning that I had been requested to weigh in is that I do not weigh in on conversations where my presence has been requested without saying so. Whatever his relationship may be with you, I am not convinced that Sarek has any involvement in that discussion, and I don't see anything wrong with his request here. I think it would be inappropriate for me to change my words, as I feel it would imply a distrust of him that I myself do not have. If it would resolve some of your concern, however, I have no issue at all with my adding a note to the article talk page clarifying that I am speaking for myself. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

You know, I remember the days when it was doncram against the "Freemason three", with SarekOfVulcan in the middle. Do you remember what I wrote then? ☺ Doncram, it's fairly clear from the prompting as to the right answer that SarekOfVulcan was seeking a third opinion on something where xe thinks you were right. Going bonkers about how It's Big Bad SarekOfVulcan Again is not the right reaction here. Uncle G (talk) 15:02, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Uncle G, your standing up for me, unexpectedly as I did not know you or about that past history, in that Freemason three ANI discussion, was awesome. You provided substantial new highly relevant information to the discussion; you didn't back down in response to attempts to parry what you provided; you were convincing; you spoke truth to power; you recognized and validated my own effort to speak truth to power; you were heroic, really. I don't know if i ever thanked you properly for that. You have earned my attention. To reply to what you suggest here: I didn't mean to go bonkers, don't think I have. I stated my point, that SarekOfVulcan's invitation here seems to violate spirit and/or letter of a current agreement, and it seems wrong, and I regret to inform/note that Moonriddengirl is inadvertently caught in that, arguably duped into making an inadvertently false statement elsewhere that M was invited to comment by an uninvolved administrator. And I suggested a partial remedy. Whatever else said here doesn't change my view about these points. --doncram 12:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
To be clear, I was prompting to the right answer in this particular situation, but I was asking MRG for her opinion on whether the quote use would have been appropriate if the source hadn't been PD -- for example, the nomination document for that building. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, thank you SarekOfVulcan. To be clear, SarekOfVulcan was NOT seeking a third opinion to support me in settling a specific question about content at the linked discussion. Instead, by posing a hypothetical, SarekOfVulcan was trying to enlarge the discussion and find something to find hypothetical fault with.
To give a bit more: this is in the context of a couple years now of what, in my view, has evolved into SarekOfVulcan following me and raising AFDs and ANI reports and otherwise causing disruption, in what amounts to unproductive wikihounding. Back in the discussion a couple years ago that Uncle G refers to, SarekOfVulcan's involvement was not this way, but it has gradually changed. In this context, SarekOfVulcan's invitation here looks and smells like a continuation, as another action in a long campaign to cause trouble, contrary to spirit and/or letter of a current 30 day agreement to desist from that. And SarekOfVulcan seems to me to partly "win" here perhaps, in eliciting comments by Moonriddengirl at the linked talk page that are ambiguous (M takes care to find merit in both sides; M speaks of some complicating transformative quality that is desirable but hard to define; I am really not sure but I think others could later read that M thinks that hypothetically that something might have been wrong, i dunno). I am not saying that M was induced by any personal relationship or deal or bribe to say anything different than if M was asked by someone else, by someone truly not involved. But maybe M's complicated view, when a simpler "Rubbish" dismissal of the complaints there would have been more immediately helpful, could have been what S anticipated and sought. I don't really know. Anyhow, like I said more briefly before, it has the appearance of violating a current promise on S's part, to desist from the appearance of wikihounding. Again, I will try not to comment further; I really want to work on mainspace production, not in wikilawyering discussions. --doncram 11:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I believe posing it is a "win" is problematic from a WP:BATTLE perspective and misses the point: when it comes to understanding and applying policies, accuracy is what matters. When it comes to copyright, WP:AGFC points out that "Good faith corrective action includes informing editors of problems and helping them improve their practices."
To specifics, a "Rubbish" dismissal of either side would surely have seemed more helpful to those who want a simple solution, but except in clear-cut cases, those who give simple solutions to copyright questions—whether in matter of law or matter of community opinion—are being naive. Copyright is not clear cut. If it was, there wouldn't be so many books, so many opinion pieces, and so many court cases around it. Even our approach to copyright is not clear cut; anyone who has paid attention to community opinion on the application of WP:NFC would have to realize that there are strong proponents of strict standards and enforcement just as there are those who support liberal interpretation. Neither is this tension new. You'll occasionally see people cite m:Avoid copyright paranoia as though it's an essay written from a single perspective, as though it argues for its title. It's not. It's a discussion about copyright standards dating back to 2003, edited as recently as July 2011. And it's hardly the only place this ongoing debate is happening. :) (Or will happen. I had some very interesting discussions at Wikimania with Patricia Aufderheide, author of Reclaiming Fair Use, who at some point wants to try to help the community firm up practices to ensure we aren't unnecessarily restrictive.)
Fair use is highly context dependent. The particular page that prompted the discussion here is not at all an issue, because the content is public domain. Even if the content were not public domain, it would be (as I said) almost certainly de minimis. But the practice of interweaving somebody else's text with our own in a way suggestive that we are simply usurping their work is not the current recommended handling of non-free text on Wikipedia.
In terms of transformation, our article (which I linked) is not very good, since it has no sources whatsoever. Someday, I mean to fix that. Which could mean 5 years from now. Or tomorrow. :) Harvard's general counsel discusses transformation here, quoting a bit from Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., which is oft-cited in discussing transformation and fair use. To expand a bit more from the court's statements:

The central purpose of this investigation is to see, in Justice Story’s words, whether the new work merely “supersede [s] the objects” of the original creation... (“supplanting” the original), or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message; it asks, in other words, whether and to what extent the new work is “transformative.” ... Although such transformative use is not absolutely necessary for a finding of fair use, ...the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works. Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine’s guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, ... and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use. (Citations omitted for easier reading; see this with citations at http://digital-law-online.info/cases/29PQ2D1961.htm)

Wikipedia's policies explicitly encourage transformative use, offering several examples of how to use content transformatively. Some people will take text from their sources simply because it states what they feel needs to be said. You can usually recognize such usage because it tends to look like this:

I am "making up entirely this example of what I mean", because "I don't have time to dig up a public domain source and fake something. The real 'red flag' here" is the way that "my original words are interspersed with quotations with no indication whatsoever why these particular quotes are important."

Copying information from non-free sources just because we don't want to write it in our own words is not appropriate under Wikipedia's policies and moreover is less likely to be "transformative". To comply with non-free content policy and guideline, people should use quotes for defensible reasons. For example:

Maggie fabricated an example to illustrate the "red flag" that raises issues for her of non-transformative text, specifically defined as how "original words are interspersed with quotations with no indication whatsoever why these particular quotes are important."

In this example, I am using quotation to attribute a point of view. Note that there is intext attribution. This is not always essential with transformative use of quote, but it's a good sign. It's not just the words that matter, but who said them and in what context.
To a certain extent, the requirement that non-free text "be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea" does bear out the perspective that there must be "No free equivalent", even though the 10 points do not explicitly apply to text. The following, from the guideline, is a reasonable approach to text as well:

As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by properly sourced text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.

But if I were rewriting this for text, I'd replace "probably does not" with "may not." While traditionally we have not required that text meet the 10 criteria (for example, we have traditionally allowed people to include brief quotes on their user pages, regardless of "encyclopedic significance" or "one article minimum"), many of the 10 points do apply, as they are designed to help Wikipedians understand and meet the requirements of fair use. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
See, Doncram, this is why I asked MRG to chime in. She knows whereof she speaks, and she can actually explain it properly, unlike some others here *cough cough*. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate that MRG is trying to explain something, and I offer/concede that there is something I don't understand. So, unlike about 500-1,000 past interactions with repetition ad nauseum in what seems best described as a wp:battle battleground, there could possibly be something "transformative" here, i.e. like something to learn.
To give an example of truly stupid past interactions, I have been accused in the past of using "verbatim quotes" (as if falsified quotes are better!) and a completely bogus percentage criteria has been asserted, to the effect that a short new stub article which includes a relevant, distinctive quote from its NRHP nomination explaining in the National Register's words why the National Register thinks some pathetic shack is nationally significant, is argued to be obvious copyvio because the short quote is a high percentage of what is currently there. (There is nothing anywhere which says that percentage-of-wikipedia-article is at all relevant, and if someone put it into a guideline now that would be ridiculous. The length of a given quote matters, of course I agree.) I got nothing to learn from persons battering away with hogwash along either of those lines, frankly.
The article that MRG refers to linking to before is Transformation (law) I think. I don't yet understand that article, or what MRG would prefer to be guideline about use of short quotes in wikipedia articles. I don't see anywhere in the copyright or plagiarism Wikipedia guideline and policy pages anything about transformation. Please point more specifically to any place I missed, anyone. I do believe that it is highly relevant and natural and appropriate to quote from a NRHP nom doc about why the NRHP deemed a place to be significant, in the article about that place. --doncram 16:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't have a problem with that. What page are you referring to? In addition, isn't NRHP public domain? Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Doncram, the policies/guidelines don't use the word "transformation." Instead, they refer to meeting fair use (WP:C) of which transformation is a significant factor and limit the use of non-free text thusly: "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." (WP:NFC). Ryan, I wrote to the NRHP myself some years back. I'd have to dig up the OTRS number. But they confirmed that nomination statements are owned by the submitters and thus are under copyright. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
The "verbatim quotes" discussion, among other places, took place at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive224#Another question regarding consensus on article quality, if you want to see what was specifically brought up at the time. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
See also User talk:Moonriddengirl/Archive 46#length of quotes from this very talk page, and the discussions that Sphilbrick linked to where this subject came up a lot more recently than that Administrators' Noticeboard discussion. Uncle G (talk) 20:21, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Another third opinion

Would you be kind to give another opinion on the Kings Dominion listing at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 July 18. My personal opinion is that the straight copy and paste of the ranking descriptions should go as this could be paraphrased. I'm also of the opinion that we probably also shouldn't include the rankings as I think they're sufficiently subjective, and so creative, to be copyvio. But, as I'm by no means confident in these conclusions, another opinion would be appreciated. Dpmuk (talk) 16:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the copyright concern with the ranking descriptions. Something like this, I mentally treat as an image. It doesn't seem to me to meet the demands of WP:NFC. I'm not so sure about the rankings in the sortable tables, unless the tables are copied from Kings Dominion as well. It is subjective, and thus copyrightable, but it should be transformative as well. I think that's probably okay. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Government publications

I've read the information you linked on my user:DBQIOWA talk page. I'm not sure how cruise books relate to government copying. Seem I think they are not copyrighted unless and outside group or company performs the book production. I've never bought a cruise book until last year when I bought two DVD containing scanned in cruise book information from the CEC/Seabee Historical Foundation museum. The DVDs are copyrighted 2001. Seems my issue is with transferring that information to the Wikipedia site. This is my first attempt at writing an article ever. To say that I'm a bit overwhelmed with understanding these rule to comply with is an understatement. I'm listing the source of my text. I can use any and all assistance in writing this history.

The work of CBMU-302 and other Seabee units/ Battalions was a creation of bases and other site needs by other branches of the US Military so they could perform their missions. CBMU-301 and 302 performed President Nixon's wishes for helping the Vietnamese Navy. I'm trying to convey this history for my Seabee Brothers to read what folks before and after them performed. Dbqiowa (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I've glanced at the situation - I'm afraid I was not familiar with the specific issue. :) The basic question concerns whether the information is copied from or too closely follows a non-free source. We can only copy content here that is public domain or compatibly licensed. If this is produced by members of the military in the scope of their work, then it may be public domain. I'm afraid I'm just not familiar with military cruise guides and will have to try to explore that further. :/ If they aren't public domain, you'd have to make sure that the information you use from it is written in your own language. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution IRC office hours.

Hello there. As you expressed interest in hearing updates to my research in the dispute resolution survey that was done a few months ago, I just wanted to let you know that I am hosting an IRC office hours session this coming Saturday, 28th July at 19:00 UTC (approximately 12 hours from now). This will be located in the #wikimedia-office connect IRC channel - if you have not participated in an IRC discussion before you can connect to IRC here.

Regards, User:Szhang (WMF) (talk) 07:04, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

GreenUniverse CCI Question

For this edit made to the Pineal gland, I believe that there is indeed close paraphrasing for the first reference and outright copyvio for the second reference. However, the material added in that edit was already removed anyways, so is there anything I need to do here? Do I just mark it as yes in the CCI, but note it was already removed from past editing? SilverserenC 21:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) Thanks for working on that. That's exactly what I do; I mark "y" and note that it's already gone. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Secondary question

This edit to Noosphere is still in the text and is a copyvio from the linked references, namely here and here. Do I just need to remove the section and add the CC-clean template to the talk page? SilverserenC 03:32, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

That'd do it. :) Sometimes, if I think it's really important to the article, I may rewrite it or truncate it or something like that. Either way, I just note that it's been cleaned at the CCI and move on. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Off to Italy soon

Hi MRG! I'll shortly be off to Italy for a month with rather dodgy computer/internet access, so won't be able work at WP:Copyright problems until I get back. Didn't want you to think I'd abandoned ship. :). Have a great summer! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Oooh! Enjoy! Well, not the dodgy computer/internet access but the month in Italy. I shall think of you enjoying wine and cheese and opera. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:43, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force

Your position at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force seem to carry more interest that others. It's up for deletion at Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force (3rd nomination). Please consider commenting there. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 05:15, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I've offered some historical context. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Commons work

I've recently gotten a bit active in some commons work and I have to tell you, freedom of panorama is ridiculous. I suppose it isn't too difficult, except when applying de minimis, but it is beyond annoying. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Totally. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree. ALso trying to keep one countries licensing laws is confusing, much less the whole world, and I'm an admin on commons.PumpkinSky talk 21:48, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, Just wanted to stop by briefly and let you know I've been tracking copyright violations on Jimi's page. I deleted six today, and as Ryan Versey suggested, I'm just letting you know, fyi. If you have any thoughts/suggestions (I have put a note on Jimi's talk page as well), please let me know. I'll stop by here to check next time I log in. Thanks :D Charlie Inks (talk) 04:34, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'm afraid you seem to have run into a backwards copyvio. I did a history search on the text, looking for the run "recording regimen" and find it entered in this edit in 2006. The red flag there: it didn't enter as one piece of cloth, but was edited from what already existed. If you look at the content as it appears in that book, which also purports to have been created in 2006, you can see that the changes in that incremental edit are all in that source. I took the text string as it appeared before that change--"went from a disciplined recording ethic"--and followed it backwards from there. It was added earlier that month by an IP. Already in the article at the time of that addition, we find "relatively narrow neck", which text is present in that book on page 32, along with the surrounding material. A search for that in the article finds it entering in July 2004, several years before The Essential Jimi Hendrix was published. Already in the article at that time is the phrase "slipped into his bag by a fan without his knowledge" which is on page 21 of the book.
The liberal copying from Wikipedia can make it hard to tell which came first, and our policies encourage us to err on the side of safety. I think in this case, though, that we can feel pretty sure that we had this material first. I see you've done a lot of work on the article; if you think that the article was better with the content removed, you might want to put it back. If your rewrite serves the article better, it may not be necessary. But we don't want to cite Rotimi Ogunjob, I think, so he is almost certainly a circular source.
Thanks for exploring the matter and following up! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:20, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi there! Thanks for this and for your note - which I just noticed - on Jimi's talkpage! I really appreciate you clarifying that removal is the first step, because, 1. I'm new and I'm trying to follow all the rules, but no, I don't have time/energy to read ALL of them before working here - and that's what I care about: what things get represented here and why and how; and 2. I feel quite strongly about copyviol. It is breaking the law, IMHO, and I've found LOADS of it, loads, on Jimi's wiki. That said, I just want to make sure I'm fully understanding what you're saying here. I'm not a very technical person at all - and I'm not a coder. So some of the language here,(text string, backwards copyviol, e.g.) I just don't follow it all completely very well - not your fault. I understand that your research appears to show that someone copied the wiki? Is that what you're suggesting b/c of the dates? Okay, but where I'm confused is when you say we shouldn't cite The Essential Jimi Hendrix. Do you mean you think that parts/all of that book were taken from here? Just asking b/c later this week, as you saw on Jimi's talk page, I'll be putting together the copyviols that look like the content's worth keeping (after cleanup) in a sandbox for ppl to work on to fix. So should Essential JH be eliminated entirely from Jimi's wiki? Just making sure I understand you correctly. I do understand the law in broad terms, but I don't understand wikipedia some days. :) Just saying'. Thanks again for your help with explaining and clarifying all this. Cheers, Charlie Inks (talk) 00:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi! I just read the additional note (the same?) that you posted at the top of Jimi's talk page. I just wanted to further clarify that the copyviols I'm finding are from multiple sources - not just this one book. After reading your note (at the top of Jimi's talk), my understanding is if there are ANY suspected copyviols of That Book in particular, they should be ignored, right? Thanks again for your help with all this. Cheers :) Charlie Inks (talk) 01:11, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi. Yes, it's only that book in particular that I've cleared. Unless we get some solid evidence, we should assume that any similar content between our article and that book originated with us. If there are other sources you think might be backwards copies, let me know! The reason why we can't cite that book, if it copies from us, is that we know it's not a reliable source; it's a WP:CIRCULAR source. We said it first, and they copied it, so it doesn't prove anything. They have almost certainly used more sources than Wikipedia, but there are probably better books out there than one that copies from an open-source website without attribution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi there, this helps a lot! I see what you mean here - "we said it first, and they copied it." I'm not sure I've seen any other examples of this, but again, I appreciate the additional explanation. I'll be in touch if I notice anything else but you're the one who spotted this one - not me! :D Cheers, Charlie Inks (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

FYI

You may want to comment here. Old ground is being covered again and what happened overnight will make you shake your head. :(( Thanks, We hope (talk) 16:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Weighed in. I begin to suspect that an WP:RFC/U may be necessary here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I think you are on the money, given the circus here also :/ We hope (talk) 15:48, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
It won't be easy. He's very tenacious about uploading images on skimpy evidence. I'm not sure how to properly encourage him to stick with what's clear and stop guessing...sometimes demonstrably wrongly. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:33, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what needs to be done either, but what's been happening seems very disruptive, and not just image issues. Some people benefit from having a mentor or mentors to talk things out with before their actions become problems, but not certain if the advice given would be heeded. We hope (talk) 01:49, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

More nonsense overnight. We hope (talk) 07:30, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Image meta-question

That sound you heard is my head exploding.

I know your strength is text, and you deny being an expert in images (at the same time, knowing more than almost everyone about images), so do you have a counterpart with image expertise, especially one who involved with Commons?

I know I can try MCQ, and I guess I can try the Commons Village Pump, but I wouldn't mind contacting someone directly.

Short summary, I am looking at an OTRS permission for a painting by Eisenhower. We have been provided with documentation on White House stationery that the painting was given to his aide, then on to the family who is providing the license. However, as has been properly pointed out, the gift of the painting does not imply gift of the copyright to the painting, which may still reside with the Eisenhower heirs. I'd like to see if we really have to track down the Eisenhower aides to get their release.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, dear. We'd probably need permission from the Eisenhower heirs, depending on the details of publication.
I'd think of it like this: if the painting were by, say, Pablo Picasso, would we assume that his gifting/selling it to somebody gives them the rights to commercially exploit it? Eisenhower has the same rights to his art as Picasso, and those rights descend to his heirs. (You can point them to Commons:Commons:Image casebook#2D art paintings for local policy.)
I think the only way we'd be able to accept the painting from the family is if we can verify that it is public domain through publication. I don't guess you have any idea if Eisenhower ever published it or, if so, if he complied with copyright requirements?
My feelings will not be hurt at all if you want to ask at either of those other forums. :) Or somebody else, for that matter. One of my go-to guys for image questions on Commons is User:Dcoetzee. I believe Derrick knows his stuff stone cold. :) Beyond that, I have never really approached him one-on-one with a question, but in my humble opinion Commons:User:Clindberg is a master in the field. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't want to hear that answer, but it sounds right. Unfortunately, I just ran into another situation requiring image expertise - more technical than copyright, but I'll try Derrick, who looks like he should fit the bill.
On the painting I know it was on loan to a gallery for some time, but don't know that it was ever published. I'll follow up with the family representative.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Odd non-free content question

Hi Moonriddengirl. I hope you don't mind me coming by to ask an opinion. One of my protege's is transcluding Special:ListFiles/Swifty into his userspace. Special:ListFiles includes a thumbnail of each image and the vast majority (if not all) are uploaded under fair use. Is he violating fair use by doing this? Surely the ListFiles special page would be violating fair use on it's own, if it does. I've not been completely stumped by a question for a while, but this one's got me! WormTT(talk) 09:08, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I never object to people asking opinions. I've asked a ton of my own over the years. :)
That said, this one is tricky. It seems to me that ListFiles is somewhat analogous to Google search, which generates thumbnails of images based on a certain parameter. So long as the list is not fixed or published somewhere, I don't think it should generate any issues. (I'm thinking of Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. Specifically see the paragraph in our article beginning "The Ninth Circuit did, however, overturn the district court's decision that Google's thumbnails were infringing." Caveat: I have read about but not actually read the court's decision)
If it is fixed on his userpage, though, I think the matter changes. First, let's look at NFC. There is nothing wrong with his including a list of images he's uploaded in his userspace, but I think that fixing the images for display there quite likely violates point 9 of WP:NFC: "Restrictions on location." Since I don't think that restriction can be overcome, I believe that issues with the other criteria don't really matter, so I'm not exploring those.
Then, looking to WP:C, I think this section of WP:LINKVIO very likely applies: "Context is also important; it may be acceptable to link to a reputable website's review of a particular film, even if it presents a still from the film (such uses are generally either explicitly permitted by distributors or allowed under fair use). However, linking directly to the still of the film removes the context and the site's justification for permitted use or fair use."
Only a court can ultimately say if he's violating fair use, but I think that he's violating policy. I'd recommend he use the list instead or even provide a link to the ListFiles. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Maggie. That does make sense to an extent. I'm still not sure about ListFile being analogous to Google search. It might be my background, but part of the problem to me is that a ListFiles search is not really a search, the parameter is shown as part of the root URL, the information will come back in the same order every time, with only new images added, or deleted images removed. In other words, it's exactly as fixed as a userpage with a transclusion. A Google search, on the other hand, is based on a parameter, Google's regular reindexing and whatever magical formula Google might use.
I do see how transcluding may well be against policy and will be advising him to remove the transclusion, but I do think ListFiles should be looked at a little more carefully. However, I'm not sure which direction I should head with it, one of the community pages, the bugzilla pages, the foundation or the legal dept... or are you confident that it'll all be fine and I just forget about it ;) WormTT(talk) 12:48, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I would have to defer to you on ListFiles and their function. To me, they're pretty much both magic. For all I know, hamsters assemble tiny thumbnails and put them together every time you ask for them. :D If you say they're different, though, I trust that you have much more insight. I'd be concerned if they were being displayed continuously, but don't really know if we should be thinking about disabling non-free images in some way so that they are not temporarily visible when the list is accessed.
If I were going to explore this, I'd probably take it to one of the village pumps and publicize it at WT:NFC. The Bugzilla folks are unlikely to do anything without strong community consensus. If you want to ask the legal department first, they are very unlikely to speak "ex officio", as it were. They're very careful not to interfere with community self-governance or to create a conflict of interest by providing legal advice to the community, but also understand that sometimes dealing with tricky legal matters is a challenge for those of us who volunteer. It's the kind of thing that they might well assign an intern to look into, akin to some of the other research at meta:LCA#Research. We're in the application process for fall interns right now, finishing up with Summer, so it might be a few weeks. I'd be able to let you know sooner if it's a question they feel is appropriate for that, though. Just let me know if you'd like me to switch to my work hat and get that in for you. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:02, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
If you don't mind putting your work hat on and asking the question, that'd be great. It's something that MediaWiki has had for a very long time, and I don't see lots of complaints about it, so in my opinion it'd be an interesting case for an intern. I've got enough to deal with things from my end (will talk to Swifty) - and I can always take it to the pump if I get a pang of guilt, or run out of things to do. For now I'm going to buy a hamster and print out some images... WormTT(talk) 13:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I have asked. :) I hope to have some information in the next couple of days as to whether or not they'll ask an intern to look into it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to overrule (sort of) my mentor here, just to make clear that an intern spending significant amounts of time on this specific issue is probably not warranted. If it can be folded into something else, that's great; but as I see it, this particular issue is not a priority. Interns should be focusing on other things. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand the question here. If I see a non-free image anywhere other than in an article, my understanding is that I can remove it. It doesn't matter whether it's visible via a direct inclusion, a template transclusion, or a Special.php function, we only use non-free images where essential for the reader's understanding of articles. As to whether Special:ListFiles itself violates something, well no, it is a maintenance function. Executing that special page in your own browser does not place any copyrighted images into the realm of public display (unless you are feeding your iPad output into one of those big Times Square signs ;). In the same way, accessing an image in File: space is also a maintenance function, accessing it in your own browser does not put it on public display. Embedding that maintenance functionality into another page such that a non-free image does become viewable by the public without a valid NFCC rationale - well, we already have a rule for that... Franamax (talk) 10:51, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Ah, now that really helps - makes a lot more sense to me, clarifying the differences. Thanks Franamax. WormTT(talk) 10:54, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 July 2012

Content forking?

Would you please take a closer look at this? I left a note at the article talk page as well. According to WP:COPYPASTE (about copying and pasting from one Wikipedia article to another): "Copying more than one paragraph is content forking and is to be avoided." Your input would be much appreciated. Thanks. Poeticbent talk 20:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

So far as I can see, that rule doesn't exist anywhere. :/ It was added to that page earlier today, and it is currently gone. There are absolutely no copyright issues with copying content from one article to another; whether or not the material is relevant in both articles is a matter for Wikipedia:Content forking and consensus at the articles. As Wikipedia:Content forking notes, "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick action there at the policy page, but the question remains. Is it OK to copy-paste (+7,807) so much text at a controversial entry undergoing a public review as an potential POV fork?
POV forking is not okay regardless of the amount of content. :) I think the question is more complex, though; it really comes down to whether the material is appropriate to the article at all. I'd be inclined to treat it like new content; if the material is contested, I'd treat it like a WP:BRD situation and discuss the material with the other editor, getting consensus of others if necessary. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey MRG, is copying a mission statement (which has to be verbatim) a copyvio? I'm scrapping it from the article anyway, but tell me if I should remove it from the history--this Vanish user did this fairly regularly, I believe. Squank you, Drmies (talk) 01:38, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi! As a general rule of thumb, I remove mission statements from articles unless they are so brief and pertinent that they cannot be summarized, in which case I turn them into direct quotations. That doesn't happen very often. But if it's only the mission statement, I wouldn't remove it from history unless it's a honkin' big mission statement. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Right on--thanks. That commensensical enough. Drmies (talk) 16:51, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
(watching) It would make sense to me if this was renamed Rlevse, what do you think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
At least a mention of the old and new username might be warranted since they're actively editing again. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:53, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
There is a link now to the new user name, but this is about the articles created under the old user name. The CCI of the new user name is done. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I guess I'd have to ask why. The name of the page is not its central importance; we frequently anonymize CCI pages that seem to be connected to "real life" names, for instance, by associating them with the date they are opened. In that case, the username is not in the page title at all. Unless it would encourage or facilitate quicker cleanup, I don't really know if I see the value of moving it, although I agree that clarity within the page until it is courtesy blanked would be a good idea, if it's not already clear. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I have no objection to rename. I had my old pages move back to the R name and edits moved back. So to me it makes sense here. I leave the decision to MRG. PumpkinSky talk 21:27, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
It would make a little bit of busy-work moving it in the various templates-but it doesn't really matter. Trusting the "no index" thing, it shouldn't show up on search engines. Honestly, my big concern is that it might stir up drama. I understand you have a good relationship with Gerda, so I'm quite sure that no such is intended, but I'm not entirely sure that everybody would take it that way and CCI is just so much better off when drama stays out of it. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Isn't that true of all wiki ;-) PumpkinSky talk 21:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Truer words.... :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I didn't mention a name for that reason. Hey Pumpkin, how you doin'? Anyway, MRG, some close paraphrase here, in the first version of an article, from this one (look for "deed restrictions". Not enough to scrap the article, of course, but your advice is, as always, appreciated. Drmies (talk) 02:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm fine how are you? PumpkinSky talk 10:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Well enough, thanks. Hey, I feel weird about going through those articles looking for stuff when all the while here you are, increasing the encyclopedia's coverage and all. I just want you to know that I'm glad every time I get to place a Red XN on that list and the sooner it's over the better. Take care, Drmies (talk) 15:41, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
No problem. We're trying to wrap it up. I'm going to try to do some myself tonight, but face it, it's not my strong point. PumpkinSky talk 15:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been tackling copyright lately so I'm jumping back in here. Unfortunately we have one casualty so far, but it's inevitable when dealing with this I guess.. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 18:17, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey Moon! Can you look at commons:commons:Village pump/Copyright#Copyright on graph? It refers to whether a graph of statistics is copyrighted. Ryan Vesey 14:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I think User:Sphilbrick has excellently summed up some of the issues. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:16, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey again. I've been thinking about a paper I wrote in college about Native American Homelessness in Minnesota. It should be convertible to a Wikipedia article. Am I free to copy it into my user space and modify it so it is written in Wikipedia's style or does the University retain the copyright to any works I submit? (The University of Pennsylvania is a private university, if it makes any difference.) Ryan Vesey 18:11, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Thanks for that. You've got a point. It currently isn't publish ready (it was written first semester of my Freshman year); however, I might be able to make it that way. There's a number of journal's that exist on Native American Studies. One of those might be appropriate. Maybe it would be better to submit it to a journal on homelessness. I'll try to fix it up. Ryan Vesey 03:06, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks Uncle G! I'll be looking through the PennBook. I feel like I can operate under the assumption that I retain the copyright unless I find something stating otherwise (since US law gives the default copyright to the creator of something). Ryan Vesey 03:06, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Good find, Uncle G. :) Looking through their policies is a good idea, Ryan, just in case. If you don't find something specifically referring to the type of paper you were writing, you should be safe, since you do have to clearly transfer copyright to lose it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Quotes and how history might have been

You and Sphilbrick might be interested. Sphilbrick might also like to see Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 19#Quotes in references. Uncle G (talk) 00:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Kingdom of Sardinia

You may remember this sorry tale - and your post here. I tried to get involved in the Talk page to see if anything can be done but the two camps are as dogmatically talking past each other as before. I think the whole thing will be ignited once again by this revert. Given your earlier warning to the user, wouldn't topic bans all round be the answer at this point? DeCausa (talk) 10:43, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, URBIS is still under a ban. I've reverted him and blocked him preliminarily for 48 hours. Thank you so much for attempting to talk to them. :/ Hopefully dramatic action will keep us from going back to the state that we've been in for so many months in that article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Teuta of Illyria again

Hi. Teuta of Illyria appeared here around a week ago. Here's its current history. As you see, the removal of suspect material was reverted without edit summary by Special:Contributions/Dinaric today. I've reverted once just now, but would prefer not to do so again. The original suspect material was inserted by User:Serbiakos, who was blocked as a sock of User:Stanovc on 31 December 2011, and the Dinaric account fist saw light of day two days later on 2 January 2012 with the creation of a fully-fledged Roman conquest of northern Illyria that also cites Wilkes. Am I being paranoid, or does somebody have a copy of Wilkes and a pair of woolly mittens? :) --Stfg (talk) 11:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Unusual 2nd opinion request (in that it doesn't involve copyvio)

As the admin I've dealt the most with I trust you to tell me I'm being unreasonable because I'm involved, so with that in mind do you think that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blood Lad was an appropriate close? Dpmuk (talk) 04:05, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't think that was an appropriate close. It doesn't show a nuanced understanding of what deletion debates are all about - we need to assess the underlying policy and not just count noses. I also think it's unfortunate that it was closed without discussing your final question, which was an important one. :/ I have deliberately not looked at the article or the sourcing, because I don't want my opinion about it coloring my response. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:19, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Would you mind saying something to the closer? Don't think it's appropriate for me to, given as how I'm involved. Don't know if it's worth the hassle of WP:DRV or getting someone to re-open. Dpmuk (talk) 20:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm a bit concerned that our collaboration may make me a bit involved, too. :) I've asked somebody who isn't involved at all to look at it and speak to him, if he thinks appropriate. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:15, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, can see how that might be a concern! Dpmuk (talk) 21:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

At WikiProject Physics

Hello. There is a new user placing images in some articles, but we are not sure of the public domain or copyright status of these images. The discussion is taking place at Cleanup and mentoring needed at Talk:WP Physics. The new editor's wiki ID with a contributions link starts the thread. I think if you read through the thread you will understand the issues. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I guess I should ask - would you mind assessing the situation because you may have the expertise that the participants lack? ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

As a first answer, I never mind the question. :) I know what it's like to run into a problem and not know what to do about it. In this case, I was happy to assess the situation, and I find that this user has a history of violating copyright on Wikimedia Commons and was issued a block warning if he persisted several months ago. Every image he currently has on Commons is either blatantly mistagged (in one case he claims the image was published prior to 1923, even though the physicist in it would be 12) or suspect. I have listed him at their administrators' noticeboard, here. Thank you so much for finding this problem and following up on it before it could grow even larger. This user has got to start respecting our copyright policies. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you and good job! It is much apprecitated. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that your link did not work. Were you linking to this block [23] ? --Steve Quinn (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
OK. I found the relevant ANI on Wiki Commons --> Repeated copyright issues after warning. Fingers crossed, hope this works. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:45, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Become a teahouse host!

Hey Moon! I was thinking you'd be a great addition to the hosts at the Teahouse. Copyright questions come along from time to time, but it would be even better in that it allows you to answer some questions that aren't related to copyright. You've always been very friendly with editors and I can't imagine someone I'd like to invite more. Ryan Vesey 18:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Aww, that's so sweet. :D I'll try. Honestly, it can be hard for me to even find time to get away from my talk page (as evidenced by how much time the notes below you took), but I'll peek in over the weekend and see what I can do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:42, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible complicated/ complex copyvios in Giardiasis

Heya; Giardiasis has aroused my copyvio nose; I haven't done any major investigation of any kind. The article originally dates back to 2003 but has a long edit history with multiple contributors. I've found the same text as parts of the article over at this site, but lack the resources to see who had it first. I suspect that there may be multiple originating sites here, just on that hunchy thing (probably based on writing style, etc.) I think it certainly warrants further investigation from some experts (of which I am not one!), but it's likely to be complex/complicated. Enjoy! ;P Pesky (talk) 06:15, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. According to Wayback, that page is not archived, although archives from that site do exist back to 2006. My "backwards copy" sense is tingling. :) Looking into it.... --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:06, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay, my investigation hinges on this passage:

Giardia has no vector. It affects a wide range of human and mammalian reservoir hosts. Small aquatic or semi-aquatic wild mammals, such as beavers, muskrats, and small rodents harbor water-born cysts of Giardia and serve as important reservoir hosts.[1] Furthermore, a variety of birds may also serve as reservoirs of Giardia.<ref name="baker_advances_paras"/> Contaminated water supplies, such as water in rivers and lakes and improperly treated water in developing countries, are also reservoirs of the waterborne cysts.<ref name="g_emedhealth"/> Often, contamination of surface water is caused by rain and wind carrying cysts from fields containing or fertilized by manures of infected humans, livestock, or wild animals to nearby rivers and streams. Giardia cysts can remain viable in surface water for approximately two months.<ref name="baker_advances_paras"/> As a result, it is more dangerous for hikers to consume water from rivers and lakes during and immediately after raining seasons as contamination tend to be most severe during these periods. Finally, the organism can often be found in soil, food, and surfaces contaminated with feces containing infectious cysts.<ref name="g_emedtv">[http://diseases.emedtv.com/giardiasis/giardiasis.html Giardiasis]. Retrieved on 2009-02-24.</ref>

The suspected source says:

Giardia has no vector. It affects a wide range of human and mammalian reservoir hosts. Small aquatic or semi-aquatic wild mammals, such as beavers, muskrats, and small rodents harbor water-born cysts of giardia and serve as important reservoir hosts. Furthermore, a variety of birds may also serve as reservoirs of giardia. Contaminated water supplies, such as water in rivers and lakes and improperly treated water in developing countries, are also reservoirs of the waterborne cysts. Often, contamination of surface water is caused by rain and wind carrying cysts from fields containing or fertilized by manures of infected humans, livestock, or wild animals to nearby rivers and streams. Giardia cysts can remain viable in surface water for approximately two months. As a result, it is more dangerous for hikers to consume water from rivers and lakes during and immediately after raining seasons as contamination tend to be most severe during these periods. Finally, the organism can often be found in soil, food, and surfaces contaminated with feces containing infectious cysts.

Checking the origin of the first words, I find that they enter in June 2009, when an editor does some copy-editing. The rest of the text is already there. That's a very good sign for us. It's unlikely that somebody copied content from that source, except for the first few words, and another editor coincidentally added them later.
The next sentence was introduced in February 2009 by an editor who does (from a copyright standpoint) behave pretty suspiciously. But reducing the chance that he copied from them, he actually includes more information than they do, material that was subsequently edited out of our article (such as the wider range of animal hosts).
So, my next step - since at this point I'm quite sure that the identified site copied from us - is to see where that material may have come from. I pick a sentence that is no longer in our article to reduce the risk of finding mirrors ("Larger wild animals such as coyotes, grizzly bears, and wolves also harbor the organism"). And I find this.
That's unfortunate. The earliest date on that site is March 28, 2009. But that's not definitive. I'm going to look to see if there's any chance we came first. First, though, I'll tag the backwards copy by the other site at the talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Nope. Right away, we see the content taken with footnote. Odds are high that the author of the student paper is also the author of the content in Wikipedia, but we need to verify that. I'll tag the page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Srirangam

Hello Moongirl, hate to drop things in your lap (again) but the Srirangam#History section has the latter half of it's content copied from the official temple website here. Somewhat helpfully the IP who added it noted the link in the edit comments & also made the section header an EL :) Some of the content has been barely amended . Not sure if it should be blanked/templated, IP actions like this sometimes get blind reverted. Is there an official place to report this..WP is such a maze of noticeboards! rgds 94.195.187.69 (talk) 07:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I appreciate your finding the problem and following up on it. :D I have removed the section; I understand completely your concern about blind reverts. Sometimes admin actions like this get blind reverted, too. :/ The basic steps for dealing with copyright problems are set out at WP:Copyvio101. We do have a copyright problems board, but this one was a pretty simple repair and I'm afraid that board is very backlogged at the moment. Bringing it here undoubtedly expedited cleanup. :) You can also try removing it yourself; if you put a note in the edit summary saying why (for years, I've been using this: "copyright problem removed. PLEASE DO NOT RESTORE. See talk.") and a note at the talk page identifying the source (you can hand-write it or use {{cclean}}), you might not be blind-reverted by vandal patrol, anyway. If you are, you can always tell an admin, any admin. You are, for instance, welcome here. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I shall take onboard your advice & encouragement and thanks for dealing! NB I noticed the section above User talk:Moonriddengirl#Teuta_of_Illyria_again and have made an observation. Inquisitiveness is a terrible vice of mine, indeed some might call it nosiness ;) rgds 94.195.187.69 (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

A great and grand success....

Moment of Joy!
What brought me to Wikipedia was the lack of information in the article of Meera. In mid-April 2012, after spending nearly 3 and a half months, I planned to add to those article which are seldom edited by others. Those included the Nawabs of Bengal & Murshidabad, articles related to it and soap opera articles. Soap operas are ongoing so I have to edit them daily but the article on the Nawabs is a piece of history...and I took up the work alone. Later, in May some editors helped me to fix typos and grammatical errors, but soon withdrew back their help. But, by God's grace I finished with the work today on 4 August 2012 and would love to share this success with you! My condition was same as the flying man in the pic, trying to catch a several things at the same time before it's too late. I don't know whether he succeeds or not, bu I did succeed! However, I still have to add some references and summarize the plots of soap opera articles in the soap opera articles. If you want, then you can help. Thank you for all who helped me all these days...thank you again! --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 11:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 11:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations on your great accomplishment, and thank you for doing so much for our readers. :) I'm afraid that my own "to do" list is very long (WP:CCI, WP:CP), but I wish you well in your ongoing goal! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
It's my pleasure! --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 12:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Question

I'm not seeing where the no copyright proof is here--do you? Thanks, We hope (talk) 05:57, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I am fairly certain that you don't need proof of no-notice for pre-1978 images. {{PD-US-no notice}} (which is a better template in my opinion) links to Commons:Commons:Licensing#United_States which specifically requires "©", "Copyright" or "Copr. My presumption is that prior to 1978 works weren't automatically copyrighted and notice had to explicitly be given. In either case, how could you prove no notice? Ryan Vesey 06:05, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm no expert on this, but I would be asking where the image was published. It's (pre-cropped) labelled as "UPI TELEPHOTO" - that is a wire service and I'm very confident that if you subscribe to a wire service you signed an agreement to respect copyright. Presumably that image was then published in newspapers and magazines, each of which would have a section with a blanket copyright notice. So I personally would disallow it, or better yet, move it to Commons and let them make the judgement. Franamax (talk) 10:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Just to clarify for Ryan, there's extensive background here. The individual who uploaded this image is the subject of a CCI. He has pretty sloppy habits of verifying copyright status. He uploads plenty of valuable content, but shows no respect whatsoever for Commons:Commons:Precautionary principle or our own verification standards. (Look at his defense of this one - I found a dated source within a minute in a Google image search. He just selected a pre-1978 date even though the show that was being publicized ran until 1980. At this point, I don't have time to launch a WP:RFC/U, but I would certainly certify one. This practice isn't restricted to Commons. And recently, he is showing a disturbing trend of trying to move content here after it is deleted at Commons for copyright problems. He's making a lot of work for other people that shouldn't have to happen if he took due care. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:34, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That may be where it winds up, if he will not moderate his behavior. It may be where it should be already. I've seen this kind of thing happen with text contributors, and it's always pretty distressing. There's a lot of passion and a lot of good, but at some point the cost of having to check behind everything they do becomes disruptive. If only he would agree to leave alone the edge cases and stop guessing, the problem would probably be eliminated. (Although I can't be sure of that. Another example, he uploaded as pre-1978 US an image from a British newspaper. :/) I'm not the most block-heavy admin in the book, and the fact that some of the problems are here, some in Commons complicates things. If anybody had this much content deleted for text-based copyright issues, I'd have blocked him already...although with a contributor this passionate, always with regret. Once you reach the deletion record he has, you ought to be getting the point that a little more caution is warranted. I mean, he's the subject of a CCI, and it's still going on. Both of the examples I mention are post-CCI opening. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • There's been a lot of seemingly obstructive behavior at Talk:Peter Sellers, where they're valiantly trying to take the article through FAC. To me, it looks like he has to be the "winner", whether it's text or images, or "else". I can only nominate the images for DR, PUF, etc. and hope there are no hounding accusations. I will support anything that can be done further 100% and think there are others who would do the same. Please let me know if/when my input is needed for that. We hope (talk) 15:26, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • If I start drafting an RFC/U, would you be willing to contribute to it? That's the really time-consuming part: finding clear diffs to support the issues and setting out, as briefly as possible, what the issue is and what needs to be done. I know you've taken point on this and have put up with a lot, so I hesitate to ask you, but I just don't know that I'd be able to get it together otherwise. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:31, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It's Saturday, so it's "confession time". :) I wouldn't know how to draft one, having never been in that position. You have my word that I will contribute to one if you decide to do it! We hope (talk) 16:06, 4 August 2012 (UTC)We hope (talk)
BTW-LOC had some words re: UPI copyrights, so have listed it at PUF and left a note about the listing on the Peter Sellers talk page so those working so hard have the option to remove it without it getting tagged. We hope (talk) 17:21, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm working on it. See User:Moonriddengirl/draft. Input welcome. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:21, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Have done some of that--let me know when you think it's done and I'll sign as a certifier. We hope (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
I've tightened up the summary a bit to avoid WP:TLDR issues (they plague me!) and created a "Specifics" subsection, using your "Evidence" subsection as a subsection of that. Is that okay with you? Are you comfortable with the desired outcome? If so, let me know, and I'll sign as certifier and move it into proper space, following which you'll have 48 hours to co-sign. Note that this is only my second RFC/U. In all the years I've been here, I've hardly ever had to resort to this. :/ the last one didn't go so well; the user decided to leave Wikipedia and take up a small host of sockpuppets. Now he's indefinitely blocked. This was kind of not what I was hoping for. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

What you've done is fine--added more diffs, so please check to see if it's OK. When you're ready to move it, let me know and I'll sign too. You still have more experience with this than I do. Let's hope this will change things for the better. We hope (talk) 23:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikiwatcher1. Live. Endorse if you agree. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
A done deal! We hope (talk) 00:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Urgent help needed...

Moonriddengirl, I nominated Tourism in West Bengal for FA but it was declined, I have a to-do list here and here...I BEG you to help me atleast in this one!!! Please.....please.....please....please......please.....please....please.....--Tamravidhir(২০১২) 13:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Tamravidhir. :( I don't have a single "featured article" on my own list, because I really just don't have time. I don't want to sound like I don't value featured articles; I do. Obviously, they represent some of our best achievements, and the people who work on them are a huge part of what makes Wikipedia great. But while I occasionally try to improve articles (and even when I can to create them), most of my time on Wikipedia is spent using my "mop" to clean up copyright issues or attempting to help keep things running smoothly for people like you. What about asking at the WikiProject or perhaps finding somebody who has created a lot of Featured Articles and asking them for advice? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
You are an administrator and have been here since long..so do you know any?--Tamravidhir(২০১২) 13:25, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I gave it for a WPR to WikiProject India and am going to ask User:Wehwalt for help. --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 13:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That's a little off the beaten path for him. Um, Redtigerxyz does a lot of good work on India, but he prefers historical and religious aspects. (He's brought several gods and a Mahabharata character to FA already) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:09, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you again! You may join in the discussion here --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 14:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Plagiarism(?) help

Greetings, MRG. If you have time, could you please take a look at Chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford? A good deal of the text seems to have been copied directly from a public-domain source (or at least one dating from 1909); and although the source is cited correctly in the references, none of the material is enclosed in quotation marks. Frankly, I'm unclear whether there is anything problematic about such a use of presumably free text. What attracted my attention was the unencyclopedic tone of a number of statements—such as "I have no doubt that this ceiling was done at the time the new Chapel was built"—and I don't know whether the article just needs to be tagged for the tone/first-person problem or whether there is a misuse-of-source problem as well. Deor (talk) 16:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) Under current practices, that's okay, as long as there's a note made on the page that content is being used verbatim. I'd tag the issues with the tone, etc. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Deor (talk) 17:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Purely FYI

I've nominated Iranian Air Force in Iran–Iraq war for investigation. Hope your 2012 is going well. Regards from London, Buckshot06 (talk) 09:29, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and yours as well. :) I've converted the tag to {{copyvio}} and listed it at WP:CP (notwithstanding the horrible backlog there). He asserted permission when he created the article, so policy says we give him a chance to verify, even though he hasn't edited in 6 years. Maybe other editors will choose to rewrite the article from scratch in the meantime, so we'll be able to keep something anyway. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that italic line in the first edit, but because it wasn't formally declared (OTRS ticket the proper way?) I decided nominating it for deletion was a safer course. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's the right thing to do. We can't take their word for it. We just do it the slower way when they assert but don't verify. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Vrghs again

Hey MRG, sorry to bother you again on this, I may not be able to get to this for a few days, but I've just blocked another sock Nirmal2012mathew and there's a whole mess of articles involved (as clean up on a couple of earlier socks wasn't done). If you start with content from the latest articles, you'll notice that it's verbatim in other unrelated govt agencies that he's edited in the past but we haven't cleaned up. If you or stalkers could take a look, that'd be good. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 17:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I've deleted his recent creations under WP:CSD#G5. I think probably the nuclear option is the only way we can discourage him from continuing to sock. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl, I've come across an edit which I think breaches copyright and would like some advice. The list added in this edit has been copied from the last few pages of this article. The content has not been correctly attributed and no link to the original article provided, but aside from that I think that since a great deal of effort on the part of the original article’s author went into compiling the list that copyright is being infringed. The formatting is exactly the same down to the use of yyyy-mmm-dd dates and the notes column. I’m probably going to remove the list and delete it from the page history but want some advice on how to approach the editor who added the list to the Wikipedia article. It seems like the kind of thing the user might have done without realising they were breaching copyright. I vaguely recall some 100 greatest music list where it was decided that creative judgement was used to compile it so Wikipedia could not reproduce it without infringing on copyright. While the list of licences to crenellate doesn’t quite go that far (it is defined rather than being purely subjective) would it be infringing on copyright as the author has done considerable research? Nev1 (talk) 00:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Nev. :) The research isn't really an issue for us. In terms of copyright in lists, "sweat of the brow" isn't a factor for United States copyright law and so isn't a factor for Wikipedia's policies, either. If the material is strictly factual, than compiling it doesn't gain protection, no matter how hard you have to work to do it. The list of dates and names is probably not protected. Notes, etc., probably are. Organization can also have its own issues - if the information is displayed in some unusual way, for instance, then that can be copyrighted. In those cases, we can sometimes deal with the situation by changing the organization. We can use the information without using the structure of their original list. We can put the notes in our own language or cut them out altogether and just use a list of names and dates. Of course, there's also the question of Wikipedia:Plagiarism. Unless the source is cited in a general reference section, that may factor in as well. (I haven't looked at that. This is just discussing principles.)
In terms of approaching the person who added the material, I'd usually just explain what parts of the list concern me and why and point them to Wikipedia:Copyright in lists. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 August 2012

Hadseys again

A Firefox crash brought up this user's page again. Hadseys (talk · contribs) hasn't stopped creating copyvio work. User:Hadseys/State of the world is copyvio from the same source, see[24]. User:Hadseys/World History is copied from [25] (and why he thinks he's writing an article that duplicates another one I don't know). He just doesnt't get it or care. I'm happy to block and delete but wanted your comments. I'd probably go for an indefinite block at this stage as he's taken up enough time and had clear guidance. Dougweller (talk) 15:30, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing that. I've gone ahead and implemented the block and deleted the pages. Socking is something to watch for. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I could have done that but since you had been involved thought I should have told you first. Yes, socks are a possibility, hard to trace if he works just in userspace. Dougweller (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I know you would; you had said so. Hopefully I didn't step on your toes. :) It's hard for me to walk away from a blatant copyvio. :D I figured if I was going to delete, I might as well block, too. Maybe you'll have a chance to be the "good cop" if he decides he'd like to cooperate. :/ The question, of course, is whether this is indifference or incompetence. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Quickie needed (check that is lol)

Hi

Long time no speak, I have been a litle preoccupied this year due to RL, and had to drop most of my meaningful wikiwork for a while, but I do get on for a little while every week to do some minor housekeeping. I thought I should try and do a little copyvio work this year, as I have not done much for a while, so I started with this one today on the article (Radio-frequency_identification) which I did this to to avoid paraphrasing the source which is now used as the ref at the end of the paragraph.

Let me know if that's ok? Chaosdruid (talk) 19:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

(tps) I literally had that article open on Sunday, with an intention to address the problems, but my cable service was hit by lightning, and service was restored a couple hours ago. I made no changes, but I had reviewed some of the material and sources. No one can quite speak for MRG, but she didn't feel comfortable reviewing that article, while I do. I think your edits addressed the stated problems. Thanks. That said, I note one other item that should be addressed (I would but I'm not at home and not at a computer where I can do anything other than trivial edits.) I note that footnote 75 goes, not to the purported reference, but to someone's personal page. In fact, the personal page of the author of the paper. At a minimum, the reference shouldn't be to that page. There is a preprint somewhere, which is a better reference, but it may be worth checking to see if a published version is available, and if not, if the preprint is an appropriate reference. Given that you've already reviewed the material in this section, this might be easy for you to check. If not, I'll try to remember to look into it when I get home Thursday. One thing I can say on behalf of RG without fear of contradiction—if you have interest in clearing out copyvios, she and many others will welcome you warmly. WP:CP needs help.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Ah - ok, I will do that first long para in a little while. I was concentrating on copyediting for a couple of years and came across many copyvios and paraphrasing issues and had a brief involvement with MRG then. Since my RL issues led up to a prolonged period of absence from Wiki I took a break from GOCE's day to day tasks, as well as my co-ordinator role, and even the monthly drives (though I still copyedit!). I will certainly think about more involvement in copyvio work, though probably not until next month when I have more free time - though I will do bits and pieces to see how I get on. Chaosdruid (talk) 20:47, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you very much, both of you! And more involvement in copyvio work: yay! :D There are some subjects that are so opaque to me that judging close paraphrasing in them is hard. It's a little bit like, say, trying to decide if an article in Arabic is closely paraphrasing an Arabic source. :) I don't know what is standard jargon without creativity and what is highly creative language. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

External disputes imported into Wikipedia

I've lost track. Where did we end up with the imported dispute between these two (amongst others)? Because, four years one month later, they're still at it — this time with an article that neither of them actually want us to push our delete buttons on. And in the meantime attraction to transgender people, only just renamed from transfan, is still little more than a dictionary of slang names. Uncle G (talk) 17:15, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Help

I want to start a new Wikiproject, but how can I? Please reply on my talk page. Thank you. --Tamravidhir(২০১২) 14:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I've left a note at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Tamravidhir's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tamravidhir(২০১২) 11:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

A question on linkvio

Is it a WP:LINKVIO to cite a book[26] Int'l Business Publications which is one of those SPS which copy and paste everything they find on the web, they copied the content from[27] who also seem to copy and paste content from all over, some parts of that page are word for word from another source. I am investigating further to see if any other content on that page was pinched. But can you let me know if using it as it is in the article is a linkvio please. Darkness Shines (talk) 04:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I know it is not a RS Crisco :o) I have been argueing for the best part of a week wit hthe guy who keeps reverting it back in. I found out earlier that the book and lifted the content from a website who had also lifted the content from another place :o) Hence the question on linkvios Darkness Shines (talk) 05:30, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
OK, however I am in no hurry to get blocked so shall have to wait before reverting again. I am on a self imposed 1RR restriction and have no need of further drama. Darkness Shines (talk) 05:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Good Humor
Thank you for all your helps. You have helped me a lot since the month I have been on Wikipedia.. Tamravidhir(২০১২) 12:09, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Delighted if I've been able to help. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia content to train commercial algorithms

Moonriddengirl,

I wanted to know if I could use Wikipedia articles, provided by the Wikipedia database dumps, to train a machine learning algorithm that would be used in a commercial application. I would only use the data for training the algorithm, which would only store distinct words and word counts in the internal objects and not the articles themselves. Other than distinct words from articles stored in a random fashion, no other Wikipedia content would be stored in our application and no Wikipedia content would ever be displayed to our users. The framework we would be using to do the machine learning algorithm is Apache Mahout, which provides examples similar to what I’d like to do in our commercial application.

I wanted to know what part, if any, of the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license we would need to abide by if we wanted to do something like this. In particular, would we need to include any attributions, and would we need to release any part of our trained data under the Creative Commons License? I am not sure if this work would be considered an ”adaptation” under this license, so I wanted to make sure with Wikipedia before using the data for this work.

Thanks for your help.

Alexpedia27 (talk) 16:03, 9 August 2012 (UTC) Alex

Hi, I would love to be able to give you a definitive answer, but I'm afraid I can't. :/ Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content says something similar, but I prefer the second sentence from the official OTRS response:

Please note: Neither the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the authors of articles on Wikimedia sites, nor the volunteers answering mail to this address provide legal advice. It is your responsibility, if you intend to reuse content from Wikimedia sites, to determine how the licenses of the content that we host apply to your intended uses.

I could tell you, "Oh, all you have to do is this..." or "Oh, you can't do that at all...", but I don't have the authority to make that mean anything. (And, in this case, I'd be guessing; I don't know of any precedence here.) If you were taken to court and said, "Moonriddengirl said this was okay!" a judge isn't going to exonerate your usage if I'm wrong. :) And if I tell you that you can't use it as you intend and I'm wrong, I'm putting roadblocks before your commercial enterprise that shouldn't be there. If I were in your position, I would consult an intellectual property attorney in your jurisdiction. Just like with medicine, this is one of those cases where the stakes are high enough that you really want to consult the professionals. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  1. ^ Baker, J.R. (2007). Advances in Parasitology. Elsevier Science & Technology Books. p. 131.
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