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In general, I check in with Wikipedia under this account around 12:00 Coordinated Universal Time and 21:00 Coordinated Universal Time, on weekdays. On weekends, I'm here more often. When you loaded this page, it was 01:33, 12 July 2024 UTC[refresh]. Refresh your page to see what time it is now.
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.
You've previously said that it's important for us to keep accurate records, so can you restore my evidence to the record of the community ban discussion? 195.195.89.70 (talk) 11:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
This was not advice, but a simple statement of fact, unless you're talking about a different talk page. Clearly, WP:ANI is not your talk page, and you are unwelcome to contribute to it so long as you are blocked and particularly now that you are banned. While I feel it inappropriate to remove a section that includes comments from others, removing your comments is in keeping with policy until you negotiate a return to Wikipedia. Because you are banned, I will not be talking to you further about this, but please see Wikipedia:BAN#Appeals and discussions for accepted procedures for appeal. --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Margaret, as I have neither a computer nor an email account, the guidance to which you refer is of little use to me. The following remarks are addressed to you as Liaison Officer with the WMF and thus have nothing to do with membership of the project.
The following false and damaging claims have been posted on this website: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Community ban proposal:Vote (X) for Change and references in the banning log to "vandalism", sockpuppetry and a link to the above. Both documents are permanent records, visible worldwide. They are partisan and inflammatory and the allegations are untrue. In particular, the word "vandalism" nowhere appears in the discussion, and in the log the link is held out to be a full and accurate record of the discussion, which contains not one diff to back the allegations. It is in fact a vote - stacking exercise by corrupt administrators desperate to save their own necks.
You say that "removing [my] comments is in keeping with policy". I do not think so. A ban comes into effect when the discussion is closed, and the comments were posted before it was closed.
In any event, Courcelles was not qualified to close it, being "involved" as (s)he had a few minutes earlier blocked me while the SPI remained open. The guidance requires the subject of the discussion to be notified for the purpose of filing a response. It is implicit in that that once filed the response must not be tampered with.
The "sockpuppetry" allegation should be balanced by reference to the following. No administrator may ban unilaterally. The so - called "indefinite" block was intended to be infinite [2] and therefore invalid. The attempt to validate it by the ban discussion initiated last year failed.
As indefinite siteban is the ultimate sanction it can only be enforced if specifically asked for. Consensus is never a simple tally of votes - it is affected by the severity of the sanction proposed and duplicate or involved votes are discounted. Although the guidance does not set a fixed tariff, for bureaucratship the level is 90%, and for an indefinite siteban it must be at least that.
Please let me know how you wish to handle this. Can you (in order of preference) provide me with (a) your telephone number (b) your email address (c) your mailing address? If you do not wish to reveal your telephone number publicly it may be possible for me to get someone to email you with my telephone number. If I do not hear from you it will be apparent that you recognise that the "ban" is invalid. Best wishes. 195.195.89.70 (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
By replying to my post Margaret has already indicated that she wishes the thread to remain. Please do not hassle her. Also do not hassle me - comments such as "borderline threatening MRG -- toddle off now" are very juvenile and your removal of her comment is blockable - I would advise you not to try that stunt again. 92.24.107.88 (talk) 11:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Every corporation must provide a physical mailing address to which communications may be sent. Please provide yours, preferably with the name and department of the person who will be handling this. Best wishes. 86.162.234.186, 16:45, 25 July 2011.
To SpacemanSpiff -- England 474 - 8 dec & 269 - 6 dec bt India 286 & 261 by 196 runs. (I used to work in the tickertape room). Hope you enjoyed the cricket. The inflammatory material has been taken down but there is still a link to it which needs to be removed as well. Over here we are told to be wary of websites which do not provide a physical mailing address - Wikipedia doesn't. There is a local contact, who bid to bring the Wikimania conference to Oxford a few years ago, but it seems that all we can do for the moment is await Margaret's return. I note that ErrantX, who is a key player in this, unsuccessfully ran for the Board a few weeks ago :)93.96.149.196 (talk) 20:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Margaret, Have you been following what's been happening on ANI? They have now started removing other editors' comments from the page. Can you step in and restore order? 94.194.158.164 (talk) 15:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
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 for the headsup. There are two addresses on the link:
Wikimedia Foundation Inc.
149 New Montgomery Street
Third Floor
San Francisco
California
94105
and
Registered Agent (Legal)
c/o CT Corporation System
818 West Seventh Street
Los Angeles
California
90017
Which one of the two will handle the matter?
The following is a draft of the letter I propose to send. Do you have any comments?
Dear Sirs,
Community ban proposal
At 14:50 UTC on 22 July Burpelson AFB initiated the above discussion at AN. Despite the rubric clearly displayed above the edit box and at the head of the page stating "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion" he failed to do so. This can hardly have been an oversight by such an experienced administrator - it must have been deliberate, which means that the intent was fraudulent throughout.
This conclusion is borne out by the way the discussion unfolded. It soon became apparent that nobody was going to vote, so the cabal were forced to break cover. First up was Atama at 17:19. It was thanks to him that we nearly got lumbered with Jc3s5h as an administrator.
Strong support - I feel very good about this candidate. Edits show a strong distribution all over the encyclopedia, in article space, project space, etc. This editor's communication skills are fine, I see no evidence of past disruption, they show technical aptitude (just peek at the user page), and copyright knowledge is a HUGE plus."
At 17:45, Doug, fresh from describing me as a "sock stalker".
At 17:59, Timotheus Canens who a few days before had sneaked into the ANI archive to remove my contribution to a thread. Quite by chance late that evening I became aware of the discussion and at 20:32 I was able to file a brief defence through the forebearance of the manager of the internet cafe, which had been scheduled to close at 9.30. At 20:46 Favonian (another involved administrator) removed the defence, under the edit summary "trolling". This is defined as "any deliberate and intentional attempt to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Wikipedia". I fail to see how filing a defence in a ban discussion can fall within that definition. Nobody voted during the fourteen minutes my defence was on display.
"Community bans have a number of procedural problems on their own, but we shouldn't make it worse by denying them basic due process. Notice and a chance to be heard are basic principles of any fair system (and a few not fair ones). We'd be a joke if we didn't allow a reasonable opportunity for an editor to be heard. I might also add that I agreed with some comments earlier this week that there are way too many block first and ask questions later. Editors that aren't clearly pure-vandals deserve a chance to respond. This kind of decency shouldn't be new to most of the regulars here."
- Shadowjams, ANI, 09:30, 9 September 2010.
Daniel Case voted at 02:42, 23 July. He removed my talk page access and was described as "silly" by the closing administrator in an ANI thread I had initiated.
At 04:47 EdJohnston, who turned down my unblock request.
I filed a full defence at 12:41 which I tweaked at 13:01. Favonian (who removed the initial defence) voted at 14:03. At 16:08 another involved administrator, Department of Redundancy Department, removed the defence. He voted at 16:28.
The purpose of giving notice of proceedings is to enable the subject to defend them, and removal of the defence vitiates that purpose. Also, it is consensus that edits made by contributors before a ban is agreed are not to be removed.
" Since the AfD nominations preceded the indef block and de facto ban, it seems to me that WP:BAN wouldn't be applicable, hence no contradiction."
- Department of Redundancy Department, ANI, 18:26, 29 July 2011.
The same thing is happening on my SPI page. The rubric there says:
"Comments by other users Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below."
I cannot, because MuZemike protected the page at 20:52, 23 July 2011 under the edit summary "persistent sock puppetry". Prior to the protection, my comments were routinely deleted/doctored/oversighted. An SPI page which I created on 21 March 2010 was deleted and the deletion log was oversighted.
It will be seen that none of the votes in the ban discussion was cast while my defence was visible. Turning now to the allegations against me, it will quickly be seen that there is no substance to them.
The charge is "Vote (X) for Change has been abusing Wikipedia for some time now, continually socking, creating drama at discussions that have nothing to do with him and harassing admins by filing bogus reports at AN/I (see the one currently there with the MuZemike heading)."
The only bogus report is this charge. The ANI threads I have participated in are those created by myself. These ludicrous allegations are unsupported by a single diff. An attempt was made to set up an "infinite" block on my account, void because administrators do not have the power to set infinite blocks. See [3].
"Sockpuppetry can take on several different forms:
Creating new accounts to avoid detection
Logging out to make problematic edits as an IP
Reviving old unused accounts and presenting them as different users
Persuading friends or acquaintances to create accounts for the purpose of supporting one side of a dispute."
My editing falls within none of these categories.
If MuZemike didn't lock articles to contain material which contravenes the rules there would be no need to edit them. Let me give two recent examples:
In Computus, 21:28, 28 July 2011 he replaced my text with
"The model assumes that 19 tropical years have the same duration as 235 synodal months...But the neither vernal equinox nor the full moon are determined by astronomical observation."
(Inserting nonsense, unreferenced claims and a fictitious word (synodal)).
At 21:20, 28 July 2011 he locked the following claim into Mercedonius:
"It is generally held by modern scholars that Februarius was truncated to 23 or 24 days, to be followed by an intercalary month of 27 days."
WP:RS says "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view."
At 16:17 on 30 July he removed a "citation needed" tag from an unreferenced claim in Roman calendar. He also added the words "This is the standard modern reconstruction, following the discussion of intercalation in Michels' study of the pre-Julian calendar" although that claim was not backed by a reliable (or indeed any) source.
More examples: at 14:02, 22 July 2011 Doug re - added the following which I had removed from Gregorian calendar:
The extreme length of the Gregorian Easter "computus" is due to its being "the least common multiple of the 19-year Metonic cycle, the 400 years it takes for the Gregorian leap-year corrections to add up to 30 days, and the 9375 years it takes for the correction to the Metonic cycle to amount to 30 days.
The claim is sourced, but the source is not very good because it is nonsense.
"When the arrangement to be used for a given century is communicated, anyone in possession of the tables can find the age of the moon on any date, and calculate the date of Easter."
That statement is misleading. The tables themselves list the arrangements according to the centuries they are to be used in.
"Although a canon of the council implies that all churches used the same Easter they did not."
False. There is no canon on the matter. And the bishops who attended the council knew perfectly well that different churches kept different dates.
"Although close to the mean tropical year of 365.24219 days, it is even closer to the mean vernal equinox year of 365.2424 days; this fact made the choice of approximation particularly appropriate as the purpose of creating the calendar was to ensure that the vernal equinox would be near a specific date (21 March)."
Unsourced and untrue. The lead astronomer calculated the date of the vernal equinox up to the year AD100,000. Only the mean tropical year predicts the date of the equinox over such a long period.
"The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria adopted the Revised Julian calendar, so until 2800 these New calendarists would celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Western churches."
False.
"All Eastern churches continue to use the Julian Easter with the sole exception of the Finnish Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Gregorian Easter."
False.
"The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (assumed to exist before 1582) while the Julian calendar is proleptic before year AD1 because non-quadrennial leap days were used between 45BC and AD1."
Unsourced and untrue.
"In Scotland the legal start of year had been moved to 1 January in 1600 (Mike Spathaky.http://www.cree.name/genuki/dates.htm Old Style New Style dates and the change to the Gregorian calendar)."
Replacing correct citation with incorrect citation.
"Thus, those days of the week on which such leap years begin gain an extra year or two in each cycle." [inserting nonsense].
"Days of the week in years may also repeat after 6, 11, 12, 28 or 40 years. Intervals of 6 and 11 are only possible with common years, while intervals of 28 and 40 are only possible with leap years." [false].
At 11:23, 10 March 2010 Jc3s5h replaced some changes I had made to Gregorian calendar with the following:
"Although a canon of the council implies that all churches used the same Easter, they did not." [false - see above].
"The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria adopted the Revised Julian calendar, so until 2800 these New calendarists would celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Western churches." [untrue - see above].
"This is because the date of Easter is determined with reference to 21 March as the functional equinox, which continues to apply in the Julian calendar, even though the civil calendar in the native countries now use the Gregorian calendar." [inserting nonsense].
"All Eastern churches continue to use the Julian Easter with the sole exception of the Finnish Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Gregorian Easter." [unreferenced and untrue - see above].
"The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (assumed to exist before 1582) while the Julian calendar is proleptic before year AD1 because non-quadrennial leap days were used between 45BC and AD1." [unreferenced - see above].
"The calculated difference increases by one in a centurial year (a year ending in '00) at either 29 February Julian or 1 March Gregorian, whichever is later." [unreferenced and false].
These changes were locked in by GedUK at 12:17, 10 March 2010. At 14:50, 6 April 2010 Jc3s5h replaced changes I had made to Gregorian calendar with the following:
"Although a canon of the council implies that all churches used the same Easter they did not." [unreferenced and untrue - see above].
"The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria adopted the Revised Julian calendar, so until 2800 these New calendarists would celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Western churches." [untrue - see above].
"The Armenian Apostolic Church adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923, except in Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem where the old Julian calendar is still in use." [deliberately removing "the" before Armenian to create nonsense sentence].
"This is because the date of Easter is determined with reference to 21 March as the functional equinox, which continues to apply in the Julian calendar, even though the civil calendar in the native countries now use the Gregorian calendar." [inserting nonsense - see above].
"All Eastern churches continue to use the Julian Easter with the sole exception of the Finnish Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Gregorian Easter." [false - see above].
"The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (assumed to exist before 1582) while the Julian calendar is proleptic before year AD1 because non-quadrennial leap days were used between 45BC and AD1." [unreferenced - see above].
"The calculated difference increases by one in a centurial year (a year ending in '00) at either 29 February Julian or 1 March Gregorian, whichever is later." [false - see above].
These changes were locked in by Beeblebrox at 19:08, 6 April 2010.
At 13:52, 25 May 2010 Jc3s5h replaced changes I had made to Gregorian calendar with the following:
"Although a canon of the council implies that all churches used the same Easter they did not." [untrue - see above].
"Although close to the mean tropical year of 365.24219 days, it is even closer to the mean vernal equinox year of 365.2424 days; this fact made the choice of approximation particularly appropriate as the purpose of creating the calendar was to ensure that the vernal equinox would be near a specific date (21 March)." [false - see above].
"The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria adopted the Revised Julian calendar, so until 2800 these New calendarists would celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Western churches." [false - see above].
"This is because the date of Easter is determined with reference to 21 March as the functional equinox, which continues to apply in the Julian calendar, even though the civil calendar in the native countries now use the Gregorian calendar." [inserting nonsense - see above].
"All Eastern churches continue to use the Julian Easter with the sole exception of the Finnish Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Gregorian Easter." [false - see above. The reference I had inserted was removed.].
"The calculated difference increases by one in a centurial year (a year ending in '00) at either 29 February Julian or 1 March Gregorian, whichever is later." [false - see above].
"With respect to both solstices the Gregorian Calendar gives an average year length that is actually shorter than the true length." [Unreferenced and untrue].
These inaccuracies were locked in by Elockid at 14:19 on 25 May, 2010. At 19:35 on 1 September 2010 Jc3s5h replaced information I had added to Gregorian calendar with the following incorrect statements:
"Although a canon of the council implies that all churches used the same Easter they did not." [false - see above].
"The Orthodox churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria adopted the Revised Julian calendar, so until 2800 these New calendarists would celebrate Christmas on 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Western churches." [false - see above].
"The Armenian Apostolic Church adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923, except in Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem where the old Julian calendar is still in use." [deliberately removing "the" before Armenian to create nonsense sentence].
This is because the date of Easter is determined with reference to 21 March as the functional equinox, which continues to apply in the Julian calendar, even though the civil calendar in the native countries now use the Gregorian calendar." [inserting nonsense - see above].
"All Eastern churches continue to use the Julian Easter with the sole exception of the Finnish Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Gregorian Easter." [unreferenced and untrue - see above. The reference I had inserted was removed].
"The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (assumed to exist before 1582) while the Julian calendar is proleptic before year AD1 because non-quadrennial leap days were used between 45BC and AD1." [false - see above].
"During the Middle Ages, under the influence of the Christian Church, many Western European countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals - 25 December (the Nativity of Jesus), 25 March (Annunciation), or Easter (France), while the Byzantine Empire began its year on 1 September and Russia did so on 1 March until 1492 when the year was moved to 1 September." [inserting nonsense].
"With respect to both solstices the Gregorian calendar gives an average year length that is actually shorter than the true length." [false - see above].
Latest comment: 12 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
It seems that good chunks of this article: Anatolia are copy/pasted from this copyrighted source: [4]. I was going to slap a {{subst:copyvio}} template on the article, but thought I'd ask about it first.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hi. :) That one looks like a problem under Wikipedia:Plagiarism rather than a copyvio, since the source is public domain. It should have {{Country study}} at the top of the reference section. I'm not sure how long ago this content was placed--it might have predated that guideline. Alas, I don't have time to check it out further. I've got to run finish packing! But I've placed the attribution tag, even though the link doesn't seem to be working. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
You were missing the abbr parameter ("abbr=tr"), apparently it's required even if you have the country name. I've fixed it and moved it to an inline reference at the end of the climate section though if others sections also copy it they should be go the footnote as well. With the exception of that (and it could be separate templates linking to the individual sections of the work if someone wants to go that far), I believe it is as fixed as is necessary per Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Repairing plagiarism.--Doug.(talk • contribs)12:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! So... I got a few more but it looks like you're quite busy. What should I do with them? Honestly, I have a suspicion that with everything going on right now (DYK etc.) once people start scratching the surface they'll find out that half the Wikipedia is all copyvios, plagiarism and close paraphrasing. Which would mean way too many problems and way too few resources. Don't know if I want to wish that upon you. Again, thanks!Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Ok, here's another one (two actually), and this one's a GA: Ein Avdat, stuff taken from here and here (both websites indicate their sources which appear to be copyrighted and checking the Wayback Machine at least the first one dates back to 2000, whereas the article was created in 2009), and maybe here [5]. I haven't checked the other sources used in the article. Since this is a GA I listed it for review [6] (I'm not clear on the exact nuts and bolts of the GAR process so I'm not sure if I followed it correctly). However I thought you might want to take a look since the whole GAR process may take time.
The same user also created Al-Muallaq Mosque in december 2008, which is verbatim from here - this site existed in December 2007 with that text [7]. In this case though I'm not sure what the exact nature of the site is, it appears to be at least partially user generated content [8] so I'm not sure what the copyright status here is (it may even be possible that the same person created both entries).
Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
More CV GAs
In addition to the GAs I brought up above [9], Gazette Building (Little Rock, Arkansas) also appears to be mostly copied verbatim from here (DD: [10]), which predates the creation of the article on Wikipedia (May 2008 vs. Nov 2007), and which is a copyrighted source [11]. I think. I really could use a second pair of eyes to make sure I'm checking these things correctly.
Massive sigh. :/ I don't know what to do about this widespread problem, frankly. WP:CCI helps in theory, but it's so understaffed that all we're doing is just creating a bigger and bigger list of people whose edits need checking. I've been urged by a number of people to push for more aggressive deletion in these cases, but I'm loathe to do so. Maybe I'm part of the problem for that reason. :P --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Quoting without intext attribution
Latest comment: 12 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion
This user has been adding non-free content to the article Criticism of evolutionary psychology, Four of their edits have essentially copy-pasted segments from journal articles, where there was no reason not to paraphrase. Miradre's native language is not English and they do not write fluently in English. They have adopted the policy of adding some content to articles by copy pasting content and placing it in quotes, without direct attribution; there has been no attempt at paraphrase. The four edits that were copyvios are all described on the talk page of the article.[12] The fourth edit was made even after the precise policy for directly quoting text had been explained to Miradre. In this fourth edit they simply added quote marks around the copy-pasted passage with no attribution. I have not looked carefully at whethe Miradre's other edits have followed the same patterrn. I do know that exactly the same problem of copy-pasting instead of paraphrasing occurred on Malaria. Because of the quality of Miradre's written English, copy-pasting of this type is easy to detect. After Miradre's wikibreak and enforced change of subject, following a topic ban, I have the nagging doubt that many of their edits are being done in this way. What is the best way to proceed? Mathsci (talk) 23:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hello, Mathsci. Hopefully, the problem is more limited than that. I did a spot-check of contributions and didn't find any issues in the six or seven articles I looked at. If issues prove to be more widespread, of course, a more systematic approach to evaluating and fixing issues may be needed. That said, I've dropped a note at Miradre's talk page discussing in some depth how non-free content is handled on Wikipedia. I realize that you've laid the groundwork for that on the talk page of that article, but this can be very unfamiliar ground for those not used to it. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Complaints about Mathsci
If you look at Mathsci's edit the last 3 days he has done little except followed me around Wikipedia. Including to articles he has never edited before and made complaints and reverted my edits (almost never due to copyright claims). As well as making complaints to several different noticeboards. This seems to me to be just another, new part of his harassment campaign. But I welcome any scrutiny. I may certainly on occasion have made unintentional mistakes, such as missing direct attribution for quotes in addition to the footnote, but if so they are IMHO rather minor. I have always marked sources and certainly not copy-pasted lengthy texts.Miradre (talk) 00:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Anybody can edit wikipedia articles. I have made hardly any edits to articles recently (indeed this year). [13] I added a tag about the inadequate lead of Criticism of evolutionary psychology after Miradre's removed most of it. It is an article that many people watch. With Itsmejudith I monitored Miradre's controversial changes to academia. I am unaware that I have reported Miradre at multiple noticeboards. Miradre did suggest that Itsmejudith and I, as presumed academics, should not be editing academia because of a WP:COI. Itsmejudith and I then both separately and independently queried Miradre's charges of COI at WP:COIN, Miradre's position was not supported; he was given a warning by Atama not to harrass me. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I fear that Mathsci's answer misses some of the points. Le me help to elucidate.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia articles (unless they are banned) but not every edit is therefore permissible.
Hi. I'm afraid that I don't see any mention of Miradre at [16]. The COIN listing Mathsci already mentioned. However, while I can well understand that working on articles can become heated and that it can be uncomfortable to feel scrutinized, I'm afraid that I would just have to recommend Wikipedia:Dispute resolution if these problems cannot be resolved through cordial conversation. While I do work extensively with copyright concerns on Wikipedia and am happy to help out with issues in that area, the overall topic is certainly outside of my area of work, and I have no special authority to resolve questions about interaction. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:41, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Moonriddengirl, per checkuser and WP:DUCK, A.B.C.Hawkes appears to be a sockpuppet of A.K.Nole, a long term wikihounder, who is known to the current ArbCom. Before seeing this comment, his name was brought up by a checkuser as being related to another presumed sockpuppet of A.K.Nole and the above edit confirms that. I have accordingly scored through the edit (previous disruption of this kind has occurred during ArbCom cases). Mathsci (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I noticed you are part of this group. I was wondering if it would be possible to get this article (and its history for attribution purposes)? Perhaps it could be placed here for 24 hours so that I may have a chance to recreate it at another website. Thanks for your time. Cogitating (talk) 05:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
Hello Moonriddengirl, a user has reccomended you to check over my free use rationale... if you don't mind :) My image is not yet uploaded, and I want to place it on a certain article, but a user states that I'm not giving enough reasoning for placing a non free image on the page.
This image is of a caertain size and resolution sufficient to maintain the quality intended by the company or organization, without being unnecessarily in high resolution.
An images that specifys other characters in the film. This should be adressed to readers when reading the plot to identify the characters with their names, (with the exeption of one character in the image). Other than the current image in the infobox, this picture gives clear names to define the four main characters in the film.
Any substitute that is not a derivative work would fail to convey the meaning intended, would tarnish or misrepresent its image, or would fail its purpose of identification or commentary.
Hi. Sorry I could not get back in touch with you more quickly, but I've been traveling and had only been able to respond to one message during my trip. (I generally work from the bottom up.) I'm afraid that I'm really not the best person, though, to give you feedback on this. I don't do that much work with non-free image rationales. I would myself wonder why we need an image of these owls, when there are owls depicted in the non-free poster already in use in the article. :) But you may get more valuable feedback if you ask at WT:NFC. --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
No worries, it is summer after all :) But may I ask, why do other movie articles have images other than the image in its infobox, for instance, Toy Story 3? Wouldn't the page look better with an image or two added? Regards, Monkeys 9711 (talk) 21:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
You got me! I'm a bit thrown off by our NFC guidelines sometimes. That's why you'd be better off asking somebody else. :D For instance, I don't understand why we can't use a non-free image of Kristen Stewart, but we can use a non-free image of her for Bella Swan--even though the only thing remarkable about her is that she, well, that she's a teenage girl. (I can kind of understand needing a non-free image of Clover (creature).) --Moonriddengirl(talk)21:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I don't think I'd go that far. :) If I were you, I would at least try asking at WT:NFC. If they say it doesn't work, they may be able to explain why. And you may be able to explain it to me someday. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)21:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
If I may interject as a an editor who has contributed to many botanical articles and created some, it is extraordinarily difficult to come up with totally new ways of saying things about plants and their distribution that do not use the same words as other sources. If a flower spike has up to 100 individual flowers, that what all the sources will say, but it doesn't make it a copyvio. If it only lives in a particular locality then all sources are going to call the place by the same name. I think the editors here have done a pretty good job of re-phrasing and re-organising information to keep as far from copy-vio as possible. That my personal opinion but I won't be offended if other think I've got it wrong! VelellaVelella Talk 22:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'm inclined to agree with you in this case, Velella. Mind you, I've just flown back from a trip and am a bit hazy, but it looks to me like an occasion where scientific language limits diversity to a certain extent. While we still have to watch out for following more closely than necessary in such cases, I think this one is probably okay. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)18:38, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Reminder: New Page Copyright Issue
Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, earlier last month we were discussing how to best rewrite an article I was creating in order to answers copyright and notability concerns. I think I have fully addressed those concerns, but since the article had been removed once previously I was hoping to get your opinion before trying to re-create the page. I just wanted to give you a kind reminder that the proposed page is available on my user page. Thanks again for all of your time and assistance. It is sincerely appreciated.Win.monroe (talk) 19:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Oh, thank you for the reminder, although this is a little longer than I expected when I asked you to remind me again in a few days. :D I'm afraid that this is twice now that you've caught me traveling. I think the copyright concerns are addressed, but notability concerns are far more difficult to predict. It seems like, aside from primary sources, you've got two news articles--[18] and [19]? Can you find any more? I personally tend to be very conservative with that in terms of creating my own articles, and the more indepth references there are to this in secondary sources, the less likely you are to run into trouble! --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly (especially after I dropped all wikipedia projects for an extended period while I was busy with school and work). I'm glad we've dealt with the copyright issue sufficiently. If any additional concerns come up on that front, I will be more than happy to help address them. In terms of notability, I will look for additional sources, but from my understanding the two articles are more than sufficient since they both discuss the topic in depth and detail and are from reliable sources independent of the subject. Should I hold off on creating the page for now? It seems to me that it is more likely (and probably more efficient) that if notability is generally established that the larger wikipedia community will add additional sources over time as the page evolves. Either way, I immensely appreciate your time and assistance. Win.monroe (talk) 22:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
It really depends on how you read Wikipedia:ORG. I am, as I said, very conservative with that in terms of my own articles, so I may not be the best person to advise you there. :) I like really solid sourcing to verify notability before I create an article. I've seen plenty of people create articles with fewer sources than I would have wanted for myself and those articles do just fine. If you want to get additional feedback, you might try pointing to the article at WP:DBor following the steps being considered at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Changing Howto article: Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft.
There, in a conversation that is having low participation, User:Mabdul is recommending that we encourage people who have userspace drafts such as this one to get feedback by putting {{subst:AFC submission/submit}} on the page. That tag would invite another contributor (ostensibly one experienced in evaluating new articles for such concerns) to look at the article and, if they think it would stand, to move it to article space.
Since none of us has any special authority in this area, there's no guarantee that this would secure permanent publication of the article. My favorite article could be nominated for deletion tomorrow. :) But it would be helpful to see that at least one other person who has not been involved with you thinks it is guideline and policy appropriate. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Wrestling with the best approach to some apparent copyvios
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, Moonriddengirl – Atama offered your name as someone who might be able to help on a copyvio issue that I’ve encountered. (She did not actually recommend you as a first choice, you being as busy as you are, but her praise was high and I am lazy. Feel free to push me off in another direction if you haven’t got time.) An editor appears to have used too-closely paraphrased copyrighted material in more than one article he has created; but because I’ve been in content and other disputes with him, I think it’s inappropriate for me to try to remedy the situation by myself. In addition, he has already filed one ANI report on concerning me, here, and he’s got a quick trigger finger. I have little appetite for another even if it is swept away as easily as the first. Finally I’m uncertain about where or how to report the problems I suspect but haven’t got evidence for. WP:CCI seems right, broadly, but the instructions seem to counsel against my filing anything based on what I’ve got, and the dispute (which I’m assuming for now to be continuing).
The disputes and their resolution are all pretty well laid-out in the ANI. It’s not that long; let me know if you want to see more.
User:Ken keisel created an article last week, Anthony A. Mitchell, which was a close paraphrase of Mitchell’s Washington Post obituary. Text was reordered, but sentences or phrases were often left largely intact. Upon realizing this, I blanked the page and put up a template notice. Within a few hours and despite a copyvio warning from SarekOfVulcan, Ken restored the article to more or less the same state it had been in before I'd blanked it, arguing that facts can’t be copyrighted (well, true) and that his (lightly) revised version of the Post’s obit was fine (I disagree). He’s now blocked for a week. Since then Ken, still with access to his Talk page, has challenged Sarek to address Ken's assertion that the reintroduced text is fine under the copyright laws.
This unapologetic response made me wonder if perhaps the Mitchell article was not the only instance in which he’d copy & pasted material, and a quick review of just some of the 40+ articles he has created turned up one clear instance of shuffled paraphrasing, Kokosing_Gap_Trail, (the "Nature" section in particular) taken from here, as well as a fragmentary example of close paraphrasing, Olentangy_Park#The_1910s from here. I am guessing that other parts of that page are not original, and came from sources covering other decades. Several other articles, including Noguchi_table and Marshmallow sofa, are written in a style that does not seem to match the (admittedly limited) samples of Ken’s prose that I’ve seen in the course of my dealings with him, and while I’m suspicious of those, they cite extensive off-line sources and aren't as easily checked.
The upshot is that I have some but not a lot of evidence, plus some reasonable suspicion, that an editor has over a period of time been pulling together material from various sources, jiggering it around a bit and then adding it to Wikipedia. It's also possible that I'm making too much out of this and should find something else to do. In either case I think it’s inappropriate, in light of my history with him, to undertake remedies on my own; not to mention that I lack the expertise to detect and evaluate additional copyvios – if any – in any but the most blatant of cases.
Hi. I am traveling (will be flying home today), but this is concerning. :/ Looking at Kokosing Gap Trail, I can certainly see the issue you find. His defense that facts are not copyrightable is a familiar one, but cannot be used to excuse such close following as "it's not uncommon to see deer, wild turkey or a great blue heron skimming the top of the Kokosing River in search of food" to represent the fact that deer, wild turkey and blue heron are local residents--not when the source says, "It's not uncommon to see deer, hear the gobbles of wild turkeys or see a blue heron skimming the top of the river looking for food." There's obviously been an effort to rewrite, but the evocative imagery of the herons skimming the river is highly creative.
The proper course of action for you, in my opinion, was to do exactly as you have done--note the issue and point it out to somebody who is not involved with him to follow up. Needless to say, I'm going to have a lot to do when I get back to my desk, but I will add looking into his contribs to that list. :) Sarek has explained to him some of Wikipedia's norms, but there may be additional cleanup to be done.
(Anybody waiting for an answer from me above, I have only a few minutes before I have to get ready to fly home, but I hope to be able to catch up over the weekend.) --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi MRG :)
I've received a reply from the BOI admin. He has some trouble filling in the blanks of one paragraph:
"I agree to [STANDARD CHOICE; SEE BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TYPE OF LICENSE: publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" (unported) and GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).]"
Also, he wonders whether he really is not going to have any chance of withdrawing the agreement in the future, which he thinks is a little problematic as there can always happen something unexpected. I also think it's a bit weird because after all he's making us a favour and I understand why he would not like to be "trapped" forever.
The standard choice is perfectly fine, if he wants to go for that. :)
In terms of it being irrevocable, I'm afraid that there's nothing we can do about that one. :/ Content that is published on Wikipedia, as you know, is widely reused elsewhere and it could even be fixed in print, which is one reason why the license cannot be withdrawn. It's the same for each of us; every time we hit save, we "irrevocably agree" to license our content. --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Non free use rationale
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I don't know if you missed my comment above, but could you please check over my rationale? I need to know if it is good quickly, as I need to respond to another user. Monkeys 9711 (talk) 00:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
(Yeah, I was too lazy to make up a section name) I keep forgetting to ask this, but I just wanted to make sure of this for once. This user was a alt account I made, simply because that username is what I use on youtube. (not trying to advertise) (basically, I don't want someone impersonating me by using my youtube username) Since this is the case, would it be a allowed legit alt account, even though I'll likely never use it? LikeLakers2 (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Not explicitly, but I doubt that it's a harmful use of a secondary account. What you do need to do, though, is claim it. :) See WP:SOCK#NOTIFY. Step 2 is the way to go here. It can help you avoid misunderstandings down the road. --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:42, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Well, thanks for letting me know! :D Yes, I know there are other admins out there I could annoy ask these questions to, but I guess I prefer to just ask you them. LikeLakers2 (talk) 02:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Looking for TPS with merge/cut and paste experience
Latest comment: 12 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
This is not so much for MRG as for her knowledgeable TPS. I want to do something, while preserving the history, and I have no experience with the cut and paste and merge techniques designed to preserve editing history.
I'll try to give a short summary here, but the longer details are at my talk page: here
Short version:
The current text in Haroon Rashid was added by a single editor with two edits in history, both on 4 July 2011. The first edit blanked the page, the second add the text you see now. (other minor edits has added cats etc.) I don't think it would survive a BLProd, but if it did, it would almost certainly fail an AfD. I do think the redirect of Haroon Rashid Harun al-Rashid. However, if the current version is deleted, the edit history would be lost. What I would like to do is carve out the existing text into a new article, Haroon Rashi (engineer), let that one stand or fall on its own merits (BLProd, and AfD if needed), and restore the main article to the status of a redirect.
I don't know how to do that and preserve the edit "history" of User:Cutehr.
Wouldn't the simplest thing be to move the entire page to the new article title (reverting to the proper version if need be), then recreate the redirect at the current title? LadyofShalott13:38, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
If I'm following you, that was my original plan. However, I anticipate that article being deleted. The article has a long history including an original formulation as a (non-notable) security manager. While not much would be lost, I'd hate to lose that history, in case someone whats to know what happened. The ne redirect would have no history, and if someone came along to add the security manager or the engineer, the page history would give no clue. Maybe that's not the end of the world, but I hate to through away the institutional history (I realize it wouldn't be totally gone, but what are the odds, a year form now, that someone would know to search for the deleted article Haroon Rashi (engineer) and review that history to find the real history of the page? Or maybe that's not a big deal? I'm probably making a bigger deal of it than it deserves, but I didn't want to do something and find out there was a better way. --SPhilbrickT14:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'm a bit jet-laggy (and just got back from a vet visit, as my pet sitter apparently didn't notice that my dog was getting hot spots), but if I'm following this correctly it seems like the thing to do is split the article. I'm going to look at it more closely and make sure that I'm not missing something...entirely possible under the circumstances. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
All right; I've separated out the four different articles that have existed at that title (!) and turned the page itself into a disambiguation page. It may well be that every one of those four should be deleted, but I'll leave that to others to work out. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I'm in the middle of some template work, but when I finish that I'll come back and take a look at the results, and start the deletion process where warranted. (I knew merge wasn't what I wanted, but I had a mind blank and didn't think about Split, partly cause I've never done one.)--SPhilbrickT15:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago16 comments8 people in discussion
Hi MRG, you may remember a while back the issue we had with foundational copyvio at Vivian Balakrishnan, where we found text in the first diff identical to that on a government biography in 2004. It now appears this same text is available on his personal website licensed under a CC license. A number of anonymous IPs, likely the same user on a (very) dynamic IP, has repeatedly reinserted this material, going as far as to claim that the text "was obviously written by him too". My opinion is that we should err on the side of copyright and I absolutely do not buy what the anon editor is saying (there has been a much larger issue of pro-government POV pushing going on), but I will defer to your copyright expertise on whether or not this text is legit. Please be aware that the article currently contains this text, as it was readded today.
It would be helpful here to date this website, but I haven't been able to get WhoIs information on it. :/ If you could ask somebody at the help desk, maybe they could help come up with that info, which would advise us how to proceed? --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
There are no Wayback Machine archives for the site, which leads me to believe it is a fairly recent creation. Certainly, I don't think it was around in 2004. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 15:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
That would be my expectation as well, but it's hard to say for sure since I can't get any WhoIs information coughed up for the site. :) It would be best if we could find out more definitively the age of the website, and I'm afraid I've got quite a lot of backlog to take care of after traveling this week. :/ Maybe a talk page stalker will know? --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
If it's of any use, the most simplest of checks shows that the archive of blog posts on his website show the first post being in July 2010. That would seem to suggest the site did not exist prior to that, at least in its current form. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 16:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Please check the legal position. The original author has published his updated CV under Creative License on his own website. He is a politician holding public office in Singapore. The purpose of this publication (and that of earlier government versions) is to provide relevant information to the public. The government must be aware of the fact that he has published his own CV on his website and has never objected given his authorship and purpose of publication. It seems strange for Wikipedia to now be unable to rely on WP:ABOUTSELF to use the material. Apart from legal perspectives, there is the question of common sense. How many ways are there of saying "His early education was at Anglo Chinese School and National Junior College"? Thank you very much. 220.255.1.132 (talk) 00:52, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
NPOV - La goutte de pluie accuses many editors of COI. However, a detailed look at the history shows that she has consistently been pushing her own POV in the Vivian Balakrishnan page since 27 April 2011, the Nomination Day of the Singapore General Election of 2011. Her pattern of edits show her political bias and obsession with one issue. Furthermore, she has abused her admin rights in making questionable edits and even resorting to protecting the page when other editors intervene. This behaviour should make her subject to recall - which she has consistently declined. I am forced to use IP because of the risk of her targetting my contributions to Wikipedia 220.255.1.132 (talk) 00:52, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
There is nothing controversial about restoring material from verifiable sources to the article. This does not constitute committing sockpuppetry. Everyone on wikipedia, including you, has the right to use pseudonyms. Your threat to block illustrates why I have to use IP. I hope the full history of edits on Vivian Balakrishnan (dating back several years) will be reviewed by an impartial panel. The pattern of POI pushing by La goutte de pluie and allies will be obvious to a neutral observer. Thank you. 220.255.1.134 (talk) 03:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I am not the anonymous IP above, just so you know. La goutte de pluie removed the entire biography section in late June claiming it's copyrights violation and protected the page. She did not even try to put it back. When the page was unprotected, I rewrote the section in early June and placed it back up. La goutte de pluie once again started accusing the same thing about sockpuppets and copyrights violation. I am merely replacing my work because I do not see what is wrong. I am not related to the group of IPs/editors who have been trying to add Vivian Balakrishnan photos and replace text with that from his blog. I would also like to highlight that when the page was protected, I had asked La goutte de pluie to add new information on the page. She simply refused it, challenging me to be the one doing it, even though she knew the page was protected. People make edits to make the page more informative. For La goutte de pluie, I don't see how she's contributing. She just keeps expanding all the trivia sections and focus on the negative issues. I have seen no effort on her part to contribute, if she even knows what the word means.202.156.13.10 (talk) 09:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I see that the content has been rewritten; this is always a good alternative when we can't be sure of the copyright status of the original. We can't assume that "the government must be aware" and that their lack of reaction indicates they don't care. The stakes particularly for our reusers are too high if we are wrong.
In terms of protection, if the page is semi-protected, you have the option to use your named account to edit it. You have no explicit right to expect others to edit it on your behalf if you're not willing to do so.
"Logging out to make problematic edits as an IP" is specifically mentioned as a form of sock puppetry. If you believe that any administrator is abusing his or her authority, you need to take action under Wikipedia:ADMIN#Disputes or complaints rather than violating policy yourself. Please be careful to follow WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. It's rather tenuous to suggest that EditorA must be biased because she is a lesbian and EditorB must be biased because he may know EditorA. --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
The evidence for the biased behaviour of User:La goutte de pluie is overwhelming if you take a look at her over aggressive POI pushing on this particular page since 27 April 2011. She had no prior interest in this page, but has since become obsessed. I notice that you removed the original page on the 17 May 2011. Although attribution remains, the actual edits prior to 17 May 2011 are not available to normal Wikipedia users. Please restore Vivian Balakrishnan entire history so that the Wikipedia community can see how much User:La goutte de pluie has pursued this action and judge her, and I can then take action under Wikipedia:ADMIN#Disputes or complaints. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.1.112 (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
FYI, I am not logging in and "logging out to make problematic edits". I've made it clear from the beginning that the Starhub ISP I am on causes IP to jump whenever there are multiple users on it. Why am I not allowed to highlight information to be added and ask others to add it in when the page is semi-protected? It was stated clearly on Wiki page that anon IPs can request others with named accounts to add it in for you. Seeing how La goutte de pluie visits Vivian Balakrishnan's page everyday, why can't she show some initiative to add in relevant edits? Please kindly refer to the talk page. FYI, these are information that she insists be placed on Tin Pei Ling page even though I find it redundant but yet when I request she does the same for other poilticians, she refuses to expand the section and add it in. I still don't see you addressing how my edit is considered copyvio. The way his "early life" section is written now seems like a joke. And why was the word "originally" added to the statement " He believed in ideals like..". Isn't that La goutte de pluie's own POV again? If you want to talk about sockpuppets, I would also like to highlight that La goutte de pluie has been using sockpuppets to make edits too. So why wasn't she dealt with?202.156.13.11 (talk) 12:35, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
I need to make clear here that I am not the dispute resolution board. :) I've given you a link that explains what you need to do if you feel that an administrator is misusing his or her tools. You'll need to follow those steps if you want the matter to be "dealt with". --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:54, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Ritz-Carlton Hotel (Atlantic City)
Latest comment: 12 years ago8 comments2 people in discussion
Idid address copyright issues, by removing the text in accordance with procedures at the copyright problems board. You were given the standard notice of issues - including notice that the entire article could be deleted - and allowed time to propose a rewrite. You didn't. Neither did anyone else. It's unfortunate when that's the way it happens, but that's often the way it goes. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I do not find an explanation for why an entire article would be gutted of content and references including all parts which were not subject to questions of copyright. Can you point out that policy on the page you've cited. Thanks Djflem (talk) 19:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
No one is able to determine how much of that content was copied by you as opposed to what may have been authored. It is undeniable that content was copied. After seven days, as you were advised, the entire article may be deleted if the problem is not addressed. See Wikipedia:Copyright violations and Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins. In this case, as I often do, I attempted to salvage at least a stub. It is not the responsibility of administrators or copyright clerks to rewrite problematic content. You should be aware that several other articles you've written are currently listed at the copyright problems board; if you do not take responsibility for repairing these issues, they will almost certainly be handled in the same way, if they are not deleted altogether. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Both of the above seem to indicate that the investigator should thoroughly investigate each article before deciding to keep, alter, or delete it and that if there are clean versions in history or salvageable content on the page revert back to the last clean revision or remove the infringing text from the article, using an appropriate edit summary. As the copyright clerk specifically cited the sources where there were copyright issues, why would you choose to delete material where there were was none? Djflem (talk) 19:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
First, there is no clean version in history, as yours was the foundational edit. But beyond that, there is no reason to presume that you copied from only one source. You have multiple articles up for copyright cleanup right now drawn from multiple sources. WP:CV discusses handling of contributors who have been shown to have extensive copyright issues; we cannot assume that content you have placed is safe. This is why there is a WP:CCI opened to evaluate your contributions. At this point, policy supports presuming that all content you have placed on Wikipedia is a violation of copyright, but in practice we do try to make sure there are actually issues with an article before deleting the content. --Moonriddengirl(talk)20:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
One presumes a copyright clerk has does his or her work before tagging an article, would properly identify the section and/or text at contention, and then tag it correctly if a s(he) felt there was an issue. One would presume that the investigator would look at the text and sources noted by the clerk and report provided in the tag. Do you believe that has been done w/ the above or any other articles? Incidentally, where and why does the opening of an investigation establish a policy that presumes anything? How does remove the infringing text from the article translate to gutting a article? Djflem (talk) 20:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
It's understandable that you would think so, but perhaps you're less familiar with WP:CP. I suggest you review the language at the top of your CCI. This community-approved process includes the following text: "If the contributor has added creative content, either evaluate it carefully for copyright concerns or remove it." (emphasis added) I'm sure that you may have pasted content onto Wikipedia without realizing that this is against our policies, but unfortunately it does necessitate some clean up. I realize you may not always be happy with the process, and I'm sorry that we don't have enough people to carefully clean up such problems. Frequently, removal is the only option.
Incidentally, I am looking at the current crop at WP:CP, and you should be aware that another administrator has found problems with your proposed rewrite of Perth Amboy City Hall. See Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2011 July 12. Please be careful if you do attempt to help clean articles to ensure that you are completely rewriting content in your own words. I have not looked closely at the rewrite yet myself, but certainly can understand her concerns. For instance, the source says:
It was again burned in 1765 or 1766 when a man named Martin, angered by his earlier imprisonment in the City Hall on debt charges, allegedly set fire to the building.
It was again burned in 1765 or 1766 when a man angered by his earlier imprisonment on debt charges allegedly set the building afire..
This sentence is clearly a derivative of the original, to the point that every word in the sentence is in the original source, in almost lockstep order, with the exception of your alteration of "allegedly set fire to the building" to read "allegedly set the building afire."
Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I am one of Vic Reinemer's sons. I did not create the Vic Reinemer entry and was not aware of its existence. So now that I've come across an apparent deletion of it, I'm curious to know what it said, who had posted it and, specifically, why it was deleted. Is any of this information available?
Hi.:) The biography was a brief overview of your father's career. It was posted by an alternate account of contributor User:Pohick2, who has been indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia due to repeated copyright problems. Unfortunately, although he knows he is not currently welcome to contribute, he has persisted in doing so, creating new accounts against policy to add content. When contributors are no longer welcome to edit, their contributions are frequently deleted as a matter of routine, particularly when they have a history of copyright problems. The article on your father was one of hundreds deleted for that reason at the same time. The deletion of the article in no way reflects on your father; Wikipedia would welcome an article about him if created by somebody who was willing and able to comply with our policies. --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Is it possible to get a transcript of what had been posted for Vic Reinemer?
There are licensing issues with my providing you the full text, I'm afraid, but looking at it, it wasn't much of an article. It opened with the note that he was associate editor for his paper. It included a line about his college and three brief sentences about his political service to Lee Metcalf and James E. Murray, including note of his involvement in the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It gave the current location of his papers. It listed two books which evidently he co-authored and noted that he had received The Hillman Prize in 1954. The sources used in the article were the following: [20], [21], [22]. Most of the biography seems to have been taken with minimal alteration from the last source. --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:17, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
If someone was planning to {{trout}} Jimbo Wales, what would they use? I'd say they could use a barnstar on him, since he is a/the founder of Wikipedia. LikeLakers2 (talk) 13:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I guess one would need to figure out why they wanted to trout Jimmy first and then check to see if he is open to trouting. Generally, a "trout" means "Hey, cut that out" while a barnstar means "Well done." I wouldn't leave either one without a clear reason. I myself wouldn't leave Jimmy a barnstar simply for having been a/the founder of Wikipedia, as he's probably gotten a few of those already. I'd give him one for something he's doing now. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
When I said using a barnstar, I meant whacking him with one. (and I randomly feel like giving him a custom barnstar with this name: "The Barnstar of IMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR BLAAAAHHHHHH"; it picture would be a barnstar pic, with a Shoop Da Whoop in the middle, firin' his lazor to, say, the left) LikeLakers2 (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
And mainly, I think troutings are not only for that purpose that you mentioned, but just for general messing around and having fun with people. Though its not to be used on me abused too much. LikeLakers2 (talk) 15:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
If it helps, this user once "whaled" Jimbo. I happened to be around Jimbo's page at that time and got into a conversation about trouting. (It so happens I ended up getting trouted, too.) CycloneGU (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago8 comments2 people in discussion
It's been suggested that, either in a volunteer or WMF position (use whichever is more appropriate), that you might want to observe this proceeding. A BLP is complaining about a photograph taken of her; meanwhile, the copyright holder of the photograph took it legally at an event with about eight other pictures (see Commons discussion). It seems that this BLP isn't aware of how Wikipedia works and is not happy with the fact that a picture and article about her are present on Wikipedia. Might it be prudent to take this one over? Your comments at AN/I are welcome. CycloneGU (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hi. :) I'm happy to weigh in as a volunteer. (As community liaison, my job involves interaction with editing communities, not really BLP subjects. In fact, until my contract expires, there's a lot I'm not able to do anymore at OTRS. :/) I'll come take a look. --Moonriddengirl(talk)17:56, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
FWIW I wrote to her through the "email this user" function to encourage her to follow Voceditenore's advice. This is not the first time I've seen a BLP subject unhappy with an image of themselves; we can't always make them happy, of course, but even if we have to tell them that we can't remove the picture, it's a good idea to try to avoid making a hardcore enemy of Wikipedia. No reason to generate ill-will amongst readers and BLP subjects if it can be avoided. Hopefully if she does write to OTRS, she'll get somebody diplomatic. --Moonriddengirl(talk)18:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I agree, that's pretty much what she has to do to verify her identity. On the flip side, I've been involved in a BLP dispute of my own choosing before (no picture issue, mind) with Harold Covington and - well - that didn't go well. He seemed most of the time not to acknowledge the efforts of myself or anyone else to help him, even calling out a newly appearing user as an enemy of his from his blog (and THAT is colourful, I think it's linked from User talk:Off2riorob or perhaps his archive). Most recently, I saw a remark (see linked talk page above) where he accuses us of hiding five years' worth of discussions (which is was bluntly pointed out that it wasn't, and it was necessary to create this archive only because Covington continually removed things he didn't like from people's posts as an IP). Quite a colourful two weeks on that article and talk page up to now. He now writes very disparaging remarks against Wikipedia off-site, and frankly, I gave up on him after a couple of days. I can be patient, but when someone spits in your face in response, patience wears thin. =) CycloneGU (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
We can do our best, but it happens. :) We had one BLP subject write to OTRS who I was able to help (she had legitimate complaints, but the errors in her article were kind of mild), and she still talked about how awful Wikipedia is in her last letter. Didn't make any difference to her that I personally went out of my way to research and rewrite the problematic section of her biography. :/ Oh, well. I'm happy to say that more often than not, the BLP subjects I've encountered at OTRS have left happy with us, even if not always with their articles. Maybe those people will help counter the others. :D --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:22, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
It is my opinion, faulted as it might be, that those who don't fully understand how Wikipedia works will never be truly happy with what goes on here. How many of these famous notable people are among our highly active editors? How many are administrators? We might possibly have a dozen on the former (though not likely, they have better things to do, like photo ops), but on the latter, I'd be surprised if anything greater than 0 comes up. =D CycloneGU (talk) 19:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Depends on how you define famous. There's David Eppstein/User:David Eppstein (an admin), but I doubt he has too m any photo ops, being a mathematician. :D (That said, there are a surprising number of transclusions to connected contributor. 1914!) You're probably right about that; that's why one of the first things we usually do at OTRS is explain how Wikipedia works. Since I started my contract with the Foundation, I've been surprised by how many people call or write it, thinking that Wikipedia is professionally written and maintained! I thought everybody knew that Wikipedia was the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:42, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
In that case, I am a professional thread-closer at AN/I. =D But yes, I thought Wikipedia and what it is were common knowledge. I suppose a poll question should be used for a future game show regarding what people think of Wikipedia' it's been ten years now, it's good enough for trivia. =D CycloneGU (talk) 20:03, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Copyright question
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
No, you're not. Looking back at what happened to a bureaucrat and arb whom I quite liked makes amply clear that the community does not support his view. Policy is itself explicit; the word "only" in the relevant portion I quoted does not leave room to argue. --Moonriddengirl(talk)21:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Corenbot crisis
Latest comment: 12 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
New Page Patrol is a trainwreck and has been for a long time. It is most unlikely that the majority of those who purport to patrol new pages even bother to carry out the most simple of checks requested in the task list at WP:NPP. The only way to fix the copyvio problem is to turn New Page Patroller into a user right, for experienced editors only. CorenBot will just have to be fixed very urgently, while those of us in the minority who are admins and experienced users who occasionally have a stab at NPP, generally carry out the controls you suggested. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:13, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Sigh. Thanks for letting me know. :) Coren says he's talking to Google about it, and I'm really hoping we can get up and running again. That bot is crucial, I think, to the operation of Wikipedia. :/ --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Many NPPers can't tell the difference between A1 and A3, so they are probably a long way off recognising the ' obvious' signs of copyvio.Things should show a marked improvement when the new rule goes into operation next week to allow only autoconfirmed users to create new pages. FWIW, I've been patrolling the patrollers since Oct last year and I've come across about two (2) new pages that were manually and correctly tagged for copyvio. More recently, Corenbot was reporting a lot of false positives, such as phrases that are the long names of people or long titles of books and movies etc.
Is there a way of linking manually to the page comparison tool?
Do you mean linking the "duplication detector" tool which compares the two pages ([23]) in Corensearchbot's note? If so, once the search engine problem is fixed, that could be a good idea. Unless somebody had already done that and I've simply forgotten, which is possible. :D If you're talking about Earwig's tool for comparing a specific page to the internet ([24]), it's dead as well, since it used the same search engine as Coren's bot did. --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I meant the duplication detector. Corenbot was a brilliant piece of equipment - probably the the best bot there ever was in the first line of defence against inappropriate new pages. It must have caught hundreds of pages every day. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Hi Moonriddengirl. Sorry to bug you but I have a something I want a seond pair of eyes on. User:HighKing has been one of many parties involved with the disute over the inclusion/removal/alteration the term 'British Isles' from WP articles. This dispute is covered by WP:GS/BI. HighKing has a series of cautions from me about edits from June of this year to present[25][26]. He was formally warned to stop edit warring with user Stemonitis in the last 24 hrs (see[27]) and reverted him on a new article today spilling over from the dispute at the Myrmica_ruginodis article. However (and this might seem wonky but I know this action will creat a s**t-storm so I want 'all my ducks in a row') he questioned my warning and made this edit while I was in the middle of confirming that warning. Thus I want another uninvolved admin to review and give another POV on whether sanctions are warranted. I have come to the opinion that it has and have sanction TB01 (topic ban from article but allowed to discuss) from the list of remedies available at WP:GS/BI in mind. Sorry to dose this on you but I'd really appreciate some input--Caililtalk18:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hi. Sorry for my delay, but I sometimes have a hard time getting back on in the afternoon. :) I've got a doctor's appointment in a few minutes, and I'm going to need a little bit of time to look into this--I hope to be able to get back with you in about an hour. --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Wow. Okay, first, this is obviously outside of my usual area. :) I agree with you that sanctions seemed called for (TB01 sounds like a good one) prior to the self-reversion. I don't know if the self-reversion is sufficient, because I do not know the editor's pattern as well as you do. Do you believe that (if MickMacNee was an aggravating factor) the contributor will be able to work within the general sanctions now? I gather from your earlier notes to him that you regard him as generally a productive contributor. --Moonriddengirl(talk)14:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for looking at his Moonriddengirl. In fairness to Rashers's point, MickMacNee did insert himself into a conversation about the harassment of HighKing (an ongoing problem on and off site) trying to cause trouble but I shut that down. So as regards this issue, MickMacNee has in no way shape or form been involved either with my review of HighKing's edits since June or with this last issue. He had no impact on the series of edits in question. I agree, the self reversion gives pause for thought - as it shows HighKing understands what the community's problem with this type of edit is. HighKing's contrib history, while not a single purpose account, is dominated by removals of the term British Isles. However, in the last 4-8 weeks the majority of those edits are explicitly mandated by policy. (There has indeed been action at least in the past by 'the other side' to insert the term in articles without sources. That said the confrontation with Stemonitis is not part of that dispute, as far as I can see Stemonitis is correct in his edits.) Perhaps there is another remedy that can be tried, a 0RR (zero revert restriction) for HighKing on the British Isles naming topic widely contrued. But before we go further with that - you've got mail. I'll come back to this again later tonight but thanks for your time and your thoughts, it's always good to thrash these things out with someone who's got a fresh eyes--Caililtalk15:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
The Signpost: 01 August 2011
Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I have to leave the computer so I don't have time to file the CCI right now, but this will hopefully save you some time Moonriddengirl if you want to go ahead and do it! Theleftorium(talk)23:24, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hi, I am struggling to convince an experienced contributor on my talk page that GBooks is not the same worldwide. They cannot believe that this applies to out-of-copyright, "full view" books, with my point being that the book in question is not full view here in the UK even though it might be in India or wherever the contributor is. I tried pointing to Uncle G's essay and that hasn't worked; I even mentioned AGF. Bit of a mess, really, since this person seems to be claiming that their having had no previous sighting of this issue (in five years of experience and something to do with FAC) is a reason why I am doubted.
I have taken a screenshot to demo the GBooks page that I see but am unsure whether or not I can upload it, even for ten minutes or so. I rather think that FUR would have to be deployed. Your thoughts would be appreciated. - Sitush (talk) 22:13, 2 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
(stalker) I don't think that it would be allowed, even with a FUR, as it is not for an encyclopedic purpose. Imageshack or something similar may work, but I'm not sure of their policies. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Ok, thanks. Issue now resolved. Why an experienced contributor could not AGF on the point is beyond me. But I guess that they have learned something. - Sitush (talk) 09:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'm glad that the contributor has learned something. I remember what a surprise it was to me when I found that out myself. :) In terms of the screenshot, I think Crisco 1492 is probably quite right. :/ You can always convey it via private e-mail if you and the other contributor are willing to talk that way next time. (Understood it is no longer needed here.) --Moonriddengirl(talk)11:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Heads up
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Thank you very much for finding those problems and fixing them! I'll have a word with him about our procedures for using text from other sources and have made a note to myself to spot-check to see if this is a pattern over the weekend, when I have more time to volunteer. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
