User talk:Moonriddengirl/Archive 57

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Thank you

Thank you Moonriddengirl for responding to Talk:Türkvizyon Song Contest 2014 earlier today, I really appreciate it, and sincerely apologise for linking your name in the conversation. The issue that sparked it all off is an editor wanted to include information regarding composers and lyricists; however such information is not available on the internet. A different user said they had obtained screenshots from the contest broadcast itself, and had uploaded them onto an image storing website, and insisted those screenshot could be used as citation for verification. My concern of this was it could be seen as original research, especially as we would have no way of saying who the author is, and it could also be seen as WP:SELFCITE. Would the way I am thinking be correct, or is the use of screenshots in this manner OK? Wes Mouse | T@lk 14:51, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, User:Wesley Mouse. :) No issues for pinging me; glad to help out if I can. The information doesn't have to be available on the internet to be cited. If User 1 can cite the broadcast itself (as he must have watched it to capture screenshots), there should be no issues in him doing so. If I were User 2, I would not cite the screenshots under my own authority but might put in edit summary that User 1 verifies the accuracy according to the broadcast. If there's any issues, people will know to go to User 1. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:59, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
I think I understand what you mean here. Anyone can use User1's screenshot as long as they cite them as the author and probably also cite the broadcasting channel in which they has watched the contest. However User 1 cannot add the citations themselves as this would then go against selfcite, is that correct? Wes Mouse | T@lk 15:09, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
User:Wesley Mouse: User 1 saw the broadcast, right? If he cites the broadcast, he is verifying the content. His screenshot doesn't matter; he would not link to it. He'd just cite the broadcast. But I did not see the broadcast. If I cite the broadcast, I would use the same citation - to the broadcast - but in edit summary I would note, "I didn't see this, but User:1 did and asserts this is correct." User 1 is not self-citing, as he is referring to the broadcast, and not to his own screenshot. His screenshot is basically like if you were reading a book and took notes from it. The book is the source; your notes are just helping you remember and accurately capture the source. You would cite the source, and not upload or link your notes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
I understand now, thank you. This is quite useful to know, because it now means I could do the same and watch the re-run of the show, and obtain screenshots of the voting results, so that we have something to verify those results if we were to include the information on the article. Again, thank you ever so much for you help. Wes Mouse | T@lk 15:18, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes, so long as you remember that you don't upload the screenshot. That's just for your notes. It's no different than writing down the results and adding them to the article with a reference to the episode. Sources do not have to be available online. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Upload compromise suggestions

I'm curious if there is a compromise possible, such as where I am only allowed to upload an image after it's been approved as PD. An example would be a photo such as this one from ebay, which I would send someone a link to.

On another matter, I mentioned that I would pay to have WP find an expert copyright attorney to review some of my previous deleted images, especially ones I disputed. I also asked whether a scan of the reverse for all future uploads was a requirement, if that would be acceptable. Neither of those questions was answered at the ANI. We Hope includes reverse side scans with no issues.

As for copyright searches, the online U.S. database covers everything since 1978. That would mean that images with a notice between 1950 and 1963 would need a renewal registration, which would show up in the search. I mentioned that I already do that for photos which need it, but you never responded whether that kind of search was acceptable. If not, can someone else do it to check my results, which would also then act as a pre-approval? Consideration about these questions would be appreciated. Thanks. --Light show (talk) 23:00, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Light show. I'm sure that compromise is achievable, but I imagine your best bet at this point is to find somebody else who uploads images to work in tandem with you for a while - at this point perhaps to upload images that you point out if they agree that they are allowable under policy. Once you've demonstrated a consistent record of suggesting images that are comfortably within our approach to copyright, the topic ban should be negotiable. You've found a lot of good images. The issue seems to be largely that Wikipedia is more conservative than you in determining usability.
In terms of your suggested external attorney review, I think there's a lot of potential challenges with such a proposal. Wikipedia is not a legal entity that could hire an attorney for this work (whether paid for by you or not). The Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts both Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, would not do so; it is not a publisher, but an online service provider. It does not directly engage with specific content in that manner for many reasons, including that it would then assume some liability for the outcome, which would threaten the mission at large. That attorneys can disagree on the copyright status of works is apparent if you look at the court records of copyright proceedings, even at the highest level. But even if we find an avenue for external expert review, the community would need to accept the conclusions of the expert. Copyright conclusions are not only debatable in the courts of appeals, I've seen some very heated debates at deletion review here and on Commons in terms of specifics, and I have certainly seen users debate the conclusions of copyright experts before. That said, I really think your better bet if you want to try to institute such a review would be to request it at Commons, which has a far more active community in image work. I really doubt that the English Wikipedia has enough of an image-focused community to undertake such review even if the logistics could be worked out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:31, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, I'll work on those ideas. Thanks. --Light show (talk) 17:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Well, on 2nd thought, it doesn't seem the idea of getting some other editor to upload images will work too well after all. First, I can't find an editor who's uploaded and repaired publicity images to the needed quality, and certainly no has volunteered. My original thought was that if I got someone to simply upload an image then I would handle the rest, and work on it to fix defects. I would then upload it over the old one. But I forgot that I can't upload anything. Therefore, expecting another editor to upload a photo like this one, and end up with this one is beyond reasonable. Another example is this image, which takes a lot of time to end up like this.
So going back to the first option of getting pre-approval, that could be done by simply having editors put this link on their watchlist. This would save time over the previous process, where after I uploaded an image, 10 to 20 editors immediately reviewed it, and if a problem, they tagged it for deletion. That started a needless process of adding a FfD section, adding a notice to my talk page, adding a notice to the image page, and in every case, adding the infamous, ugly and useless CCI tag. It also avoids discussions about disputed rationales, and no longer requires having a neutral editor eventually review the details to finally delete or keep the image. It saves other editors time from having to replace the now deleted image from pages where it was used. And it saves me time in having to place the image with a caption to a page in the first place. If you don't feel that you alone can make this kind of decision, maybe you can copy this idea to some image forum for general feedback. Thanks for any reconsideration. --Light show (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I definitely can't make that decision alone. It was a community discussion, so requires community support. It would certainly save other editors a lot of time, but also requires a fair commitment of time from another editor, who would also be taking responsibility for any decisions. Would you be willing to work within their judgment? It's not likely to work very well if the working relationship were filled with conflict. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:55, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm more than happy to work with another editor. Maybe they can also review the already uploaded En/WP images and move some to the commons. --Light show (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Is there someone you've interacted with in image work who you think would fit the bill? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Doesn't seem like it. The CCI and RfC have been up for 3 years, noted in a red box on hundreds of En/PD images, but have yet to attract any confirming comments or effort to add any to the Commons. I would have assumed that We Hope, who generally reviews my uploads extremely carefully, would be more than happy to see them before being uploaded, and thereby save everyone time. --Light show (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Your engagements with her have been fairly tense, so I'm not sure if that would be a comfortable collaboration for her, Light show, but you can certainly ask her. What about on Commons? Anyone there? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Not that I've seen. --Light show (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to propose that before any uploading commences, we list all questionable uploaded files both here and at Commons at FFD and DR. There are many photos like this File:Judy Garland - publicity.JPG in both places where the author is listed as "unknown", there's nothing to substantiate the date claim, and there's no back uploaded. They're uploaded under the old user name and the current one.

Regardless of the user's thoughts and feelings on the subject of PD, items like this aren't suitable to be licensed as PD for WP or the other projects. I see where he says WP has hundreds of "PD" images with a "red box". Many of these lack the needed proof just mentioned and my thought is--how we can prevent this from happening again if the user returns to uploading?

If the user is ever to get back to uploading on his own again, he has to understand what the project rules are and follow them. All of us have spent a lot of time sending photos to both FFD and PD and then we have the user failing to listen to what our PD rules are and arguing that they should be changed to fit his standards. My personal thought is that if the user can't or won't accept the project's rules for uploading photos, he should give up doing it, but if he can learn to work within our "system" for it, then he should be able to upload again at some point. We hope (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

@MRG: I'm sorry if this seems to become a circular discussion, but there may be some fundamental WP policy issues involved, all brought up in previous discussions in my "Oppose" comments, but have not been dealt with. The key one is that WP relies on U.S. law in its tagging system, which is further detailed in a clear outline of U.S. copyright law, but is then ignored. In the ANI, the only person, believe it or not, who dealt with that contradiction was User:Masem, who sums it up nicely explaining, "we are purposely stricter than that". That contradictory policy results in giving all editors arbitrary power over uploads, which then undermines the U.S. law and PW policies it supposedly relies on.

The result, IMO, is that we create a situation where WP displays a pretense of having a foundation policy based on real laws, but then lets any editor arbitrarily override them. That effectively becomes a trap, whereby a GF editor can add a U.S. image relying on both WPs tags and U.S. law and still be censured. The problem is noticeably worse in the Commons, where they stood by and let a regular non-U.S. editor delete 60 images at one swipe, with the only the rationale, "probably not PD." Another Commons editor was allowed to delete 600 PD images with a bot and no rationale, apparently feeling grumpy. They were eventually all restored, but no one in the Commons said or did anything. So the circular situation exists that should be dealt with: Can you have image copyright policy based on U.S. laws and then allow any editor to ignore them at will? Obviously not. WP should delete its U.S. based tagging system and create its own tags based on whatever criteria it wants, making clear that copyright law is essentially irrelevant. At that point, We Hope's premise, that I "won't accept the project's rules for uploading photos," will make sense. And we can stop running circles. Just a thought. --Light show (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

We are dealing with worldwide copyrights, putting material in the "free" Creative Commons/public domain, and not about just US Fair Use law (which is very easy to meet otherwise); once we accidentally tag an image as CC/PD and put it up here, the cat is out of the bag and we could be at legal fault for that if we did not have these measures in place. Hence we need near certainty that we know a work that could fall under a copyright fails but could also be out of copyright that it meets the latter. Mass deletion without prior discussion, yeah, that's an issue that wouldn't be tolerated on WP, but I can't speak towards what Commons does. --MASEM (t) 21:44, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I assume the worldwide copyrights you're referring to are from the Berne Convention, which did not affect U.S. law until 3/1/1989, and which is why I haven't uploaded anything after that date. The majority have been before 1978 or 1963. As for the Fair Use law, it was made clear a long time ago that WP totally ignores U.S. Fair Use law as a rationale, and uses its own "non-free" policy, since images can be seen outside of the U.S. --Light show (talk) 22:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Let's stay with facts re: the "600 deletions" at Commons. Here's where the hue and cry went up re tagging them for deletion. And here's where the tags were reverted--your own words at the time. We hope (talk) 22:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
That was but a smaller mass deletion. Try this notice, "Mass deletions", which was actually 650 images, brought to MRG's attention, and later all restored. --Light show (talk) 22:38, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
They are diffs from the same section you cite:
  • Mass deletions by User talk:Fastily: Over the last few minutes, they bot-tagged nearly 200 650 PD images for deletion based on an irrelevant rationale, once again simply ignoring PD law in the U.S. --Light show (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • All bot tags have since been reverted. --Light show (talk) 19:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Emphasis on tags in the copies are mine. I don't see MRG as having posted about this at all at Commons. We hope (talk) 22:49, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe MRG posted anything about those. I simply sent her a note about it since I was already blocked there. They block an uploader then proceed to bot mass delete all their PD images, including ones they took themselves, with no rationale. Nice, huh? --Light show (talk) 22:56, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) (Disclaimer: I know nothing of the underlying issue here) One important point seems to be getting glossed over: While WP's image use policy begins with US copyright law, it does not end there. As a private entity, they can set any use policy they want... they could (extremely hypothetically) ban all B/W photos, for example. That's not undermining US copyright law; an image illegal under copyright law is similarly disallowed here. The converse though is not necessarily true: that just because it passes US or Berne copyright muster that it is automatically ok here. Good or bad, right or wrong, that is the policy this private company chooses to have for their website. CrowCaw 23:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

That may be true, that WP can set any policy they want, but if so it currently has pseudo-policies. It requires that editors comply with U.S. copyright laws in its tagging system when uploading an image, but then ignores that policy at will, claiming WP is actually "stricter" than that, which implies there really are no defined rules. --Light show (talk) 10:11, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Light show, that's not a policy page; it's an information page. The policy page is Wikipedia:Copyrights, which says, among other things:

If you want to import media (including text) that you have found elsewhere, and it does not meet the non-free content policy and guideline, you can only do so if it is public domain or available under terms that are compatible with the CC BY-SA license.... You must also in most cases verify that the material is compatibly licensed or public domain.

This is supplemented by Wikipedia:Image use policy, which also notes that you must prove an image is public domain. What constitutes acceptable verification/proof is obviously going to be subjective. Likewise, Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle, what constitutes "significant" doubt (or proven PD) will differ by individual. The community creates a shared standard through response and review of many images over time. Because of this, and because many individuals take part in these reviews, there will always be lack of definition around the edge cases. What matters is that you must recognize that your line is more liberal than the community consensus at this stage. The only way to successfully engage with the community on image uploads at this point seems to be to adopt a more conservative approach yourself. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
Well, FWI, there may be a difference of opinion of how we define "liberal" vs. "conservative." My definition seems to be the exact opposite of yours. As we're discussing rules for old pre-Berne, pre-1989 images, a liberal, IMO, goes by the fact that "copyright registration doesn't exist in Europe and there is no such thing as "renewing" a copyright. A copyright notice has no legal meaning." Therefore, the more liberal "community consensus" is all that's needed, where the "proof is subjective" and opinions "will differ by individual," as you state.
That kind of liberal approach is opposite to the strict, rule-based, legalistic, U.S. copyright law, around for over a 100 years, and is clearly more established and conservative. If that's more accurate, then your last sentence should be revised for clarity to something like: The only way to successfully engage with the community on image uploads at this point seems to be to adopt a more European approach yourself. That statement would make sense in light of the fact that apparently most, if not all of the Commons or En/WP editors that have tagged or deleted my uploads go by European standards. I mentioned that in a prior discussion.
And there is a solution, mentioned earlier, which is to allow some U.S. copyright expert decide and/or just give their opinion for U.S. images. As it is now, any anonymous person, with little or no experience or understanding of U.S. laws, can and does tag a image for deletion, and uses whatever rationale they want, even if it's irrelevant. --Light show (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit

It was tagged for copyvio of a .mil site. I added G11 to the G12 as I considered it promotional and not written in an encyclopaedic way. Could you have a look at the copyvio aspect for me as the page doesn't say either copyright or public domain, and the page I got to about copyright seemed more concerned with copyright stuff they might be using (and see if you agree with my addition to the reason)? The unit possibly merits an article, but I feel that a fresh start would be better than the previous text. Peridon (talk) 11:05, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey, Peridon. :) The site in question says in the lower right hand corner, in VERY tiny print (I had to blow it up massively to read it), "All video, text, logos, and other materials found at this web site are owned by the United States Army. Unless otherwise states, these materials may not be reproduced, copied, or re-used without the express written consent of the United States Army Marksmanship Unit, Fort Benning, Georgia. © USAAC. All Rights Reserved." The USAAC hasn't even existed since it was disbanded in 1947. The actual copyright status of that work would depend on who wrote it. If the people who wrote it were federal employees doing the thing they were employed for, it can't be copyrighted, regardless of the "© USAAC. All Rights Reserved" or the claims above. If the people who wrote it were contractors, then it might be copyrighted. The government can hold copyright to material transferred to it in that way. (See [1]). The actual Army is a little more straightforward about the situation: "Information presented on the Army home page is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested." Because we don't have any information about who authored this text and under what condition, I think we have no choice but to presume that the copyright notice is accurate, even though I suspect it's a blanket notice on the site that completely ignores the legal reality. This is especially the case when the content isn't worth fighting for. Otherwise, we could write their web-master for more information on authorship. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:30, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
So I made the right decision even though perhaps for not quite sound reasons... While I'm here, a quickie. Is stuff licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 back-compatible with our 3.0? I would imagine it is (and haven't actually come across anything yet) but I'd like to be certain. Thanks. Peridon (talk) 12:51, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
No, Peridon, according to one of the WMF's lawyers, it's not backwards compatible. :( We can't accept 4.0 text until we update the entire site. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm. Good job I asked. Peridon (talk) 13:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Conflicting licenses revisited

First of all, Basie, Moonriddengirl. MRG, Basie. He's helping out with SCV! Now then: I saw the section a few days ago about conflicting license tags, CC vs. "All rights", but another has popped up that causes even more eyebrows to pop. This and other pages from the City of Olympia contain a copyright - all rights reserved on the page, but then This page suggests that everything is PD with 1 or 2 exceptions. How to reconcile this wider discrepancy of permissions? Thanks as always! CrowCaw 23:07, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Basie! Help at SCV! Awesome. :) I've encountered this kind of thing before, user:Crow. The State of Florida (at the time at least) was using copyright reservation notices on a number of their pages even though evidently their own supreme court has determined that the state does not retain copyright to its works. (See {{PD-FLGov}} and talk; not without controversy, it seems.)
In the particular case, the copyright claim seems pretty odd all around. "Public information" is not the same thing as "public domain" - see Wikipedia:Public_domain#Public records. They say, specifically:
Information presented on our web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline credits is requested. Information from this site may not be copyrighted and lists of individuals or directory information (including address, phone or email) may not be used for commercial purposes.
Information is not copyrightable, period, under U.S. law. U.S. copyright law protects creativity in expression, not the information being communicated, which is up for grabs for anyone. They specifically attempt to control directory information; they can't. See Wikipedia:Copyright in lists, which discusses defining case law. They definitely don't own the one piece of information they are trying to control. :/ So, it is incontrovertibly true that the information may not be copyrighted. It doesn't discuss the creative expression of said information, although I think it's implied. But their allowance of distribution and copying does not mention modification. If this crossed my desk, I'd be inclined to look the other way unless the copyright holder objected, as I think that their copyright page suggests clear intent, but with the contradictory "Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved. Last Updated: Jun 22, 2011" I'd handle that differently. I'd treat it as though copyright reserved unless they clarified that they are not releasing information, but releasing content which includes expression. Other people may feel differently, but that's the approach I would take. Without that "all rights reserved" bit, I'd feel far more comfortable telling a court that I believed they meant to release the content into the public domain.
I do apologize greatly for my delay. I used to try to put at least a good day each weekend into volunteering, but I've got some long-term family issues going on that make that difficult right now. I'm not sure how long it will be before that changes; it's kind of out of my hands. I expect it will be at least a few more months, possibly longer. So sorry, and if there's ever urgent need for me, please email me to at least draw attention to the page. I simply don't get to check it every day as I'd like to. :( --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
Hello and thanks so much. I will let the editor concerned know. For my own learning, and this is hardly urgent, as a general approach should I in future treat US state government-published material as if it is copyright until proven otherwise, but not federal?
I hope your family is safe and well, and look forward to having you back with us before too long. Cheers, Basie (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
Basie, thanks so much for your good wishes. :) Happily, I'm optimistic - just a bit frazzled. As a general approach, yes, state content is presumed to be copyrighted unless we know otherwise. Florida and California are the only two that immediately come to my mind, but I generally do a quick look at the state gov domain whenever I encounter copying from a state government source. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:30, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

Badaga Hattis

I find it quite strange that what I have written and posted in my own website http://badaga.wordpress.com and specifically related to http://badaga.co/badaga-villages-nakku-betta-hattis/, needs copy right permission or other wise, some wise person like you can delete the whole thing. God bless wikipedia. I laugh at the irony that my website which is 'copy righted' cannot be reproduced by myself. Days are not far off when I have to prove to myself that I am me. Why bother to get into wiki in the first place. - Wing Commander Bellie Jayaprakash http://www.badaga.co

Replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:53, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Tertulius

At the request of Cirt (talk · contribs) I had a look at Tertulius (talk · contribs) and his editing activity at the page Guerrilla filmmaking (Left is Tertulious, Right is Cirt), but in a not-very thorough but enough to know something is wrong review I found a lot of little stuff that appears to be cut and pasted form copyright sources such as Facebook, Amazon, and other blogs ([2] [3] [4]). I don't want to unnecessarily alarm anyone here, but I would like a second opinion on whether my concern is justified because if it is then the edits Tertulius has made over the years may need a very close review in the name of avoiding copyright. For what its worth, I've handled a few cases of copyright on my own these past few months, but I genuinely feel out of my league on this one. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Strongly agree with TomStar81, the vast majority of edits by the user are highly problematic, including addition of unsourced content to BLP pages, links to IMDB as only source for non-filmography-list info, etc. — Cirt (talk) 05:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Looking. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:22, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
So far, Ronald Daus is an unattributed translation from German: [5]. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
António Campos seems to be an unattributed translation from Portuguese, at least in part: [6]. Needs more exploration. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:56, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
This edit from Portuguese. This edit from Portuguese. This includes close paraphrasing of [7] ("Opened by Maurice Kanbar in the heart of Greenwich Village, New York City, in October 1972, it‘s Manhattan's first four-screen theatre and one of the oldest independent cinemas in the city" from "Opened in 1972, the art house Quad Cinema was Manhattan’s first four-screen theater and is now one of the oldest independent theaters in the city") and this or similar ("inhabited by moviegoers eager to see the best in non commercial foreign and documentary films" from "inhabited by passionate moviegoers eager to see the best in independent, foreign and documentary films). Some of the sources are offline. I'm out of time at the moment (I need to quickly catch up on my watchlist, and this is time consuming), but this is looking like an issue that needs addressing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:09, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Endorsement request

Please see this and if please possible endorse it User_talk:Titodutta#WMIN_Infrastructure_Scholarship_endorsements --Tito☸Dutta 11:51, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, User:Titodutta. I wish you luck with your request, but I'm afraid I don't feel like it's appropriate for me to comment because of my dual role. It seems from a glance that you have many supporters, so I have all confidence that Wikimedia India will see the value you bring to English Wikipedia. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:13, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyright concern

Hi. I've been editing the Ernest Lawlars article, and noticed when looking for new sources that the text the article was created with under "Life and career" here (much of which was still in the article) was almost word for word from a published source (Lawlars' entry in the Virgin Encyclopedia of the Blues). I've rephrased/rewritten the Lawlars article and I think it is now OK, but I notice that the same editor had added large amounts of text to other pages in 2007-2008 (they don't seem to have been active much since then, and haven't edited at all since last December). I've had a look at a couple, and at least some of the text appears in books available on Google Books, for example on Joe Williams (jazz singer) the two sentences starting "During his mid-teens...", and at least one of the sentences Pony Blues was created with seems to be from a book (this one has already been dealt with and no longer appears in the same form). I notice quite a lot of notices to do with images on their User talk page, as well as a note on the deletion discussion for an article they created that "this article has content copyvioed", so I suspect that they may not have been particularly concerned about copyright issues when adding content. I'm not sure exactly how to proceed with this, so I thought I'd ask you about it since you seem to be involved in copyright stuff. Brunton (talk) 08:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, dear. :( In this case, we would normally initiate a CCI, and it seems necessary here. I've already verified an additional copyright problem . It'll be difficult for those who don't have the book, though, to assess. Would you be willing to help out with determining which articles are okay (that overlap that area) if I put together the CCI list? It's kind of tedious work, but otherwise our only option is to presumptively delete everything. Between us we've well established that this is a serious problem, Brunton. I've found two blatant instances of copying from web and print sources in addition to the ones you mention above. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
Sure, although I'll be busy in real life over the next few days. What I imagine I'd be doing is Googling phrases to see where else the text appears - is there anything else that this involves? Brunton (talk) 08:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Brunton, what I think would be most useful if you could simply glance at your book and compare it to content on Wikipedia - so if he writes content on a person who might be in the book, just check to see if that person is and if content is a problem. While it would be fabulous to have you check general web duplication, the book is most critical, since few people will have access to that. The CCI list is at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Wysinger. Any help will be very much appreciated! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:39, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
I think we're a bit at cross-purposes here. I don't own any of the books I've mentioned above - the text I've found is on Google Books versions of the books in question. For example, the Joe Williams (jazz singer) text I mentioned appears here. The next few words are not quite the same as the article, but there is only a partial view available so I can't be sure exactly how closely it follows the rest. The sentence "Williams was allowed to sing with the band in the evening and keep the tips, which would sometimes amount to $20" appears there as well though. Much of the first paragraph of the "Career" section also appears there, but not all of the text is acessible. I'll try to start having a look at some of the articles, but it's unlikley that I have many, if any, of the books cited. Brunton (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see, Brunton. Thanks. I did misunderstand that. If you're able to help out with the CCI, you would be very welcome. We have quite a backlog there, and all willing participants are needed. :) I was hoping that we could easily identify some of the content if you had the book in question, but we routinely do these without access. Alas, we just have to remove if there is reasonable doubt. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio at Suraj Mal

I have just stubbed the Suraj Mal article after spending a lot of time looking into potential copyvio issues over many months. Much of the problematic stuff seems to owe its origin to LRBurdak (talk · contribs), with whom you have had past dealings in relation to copyright issues. A person using the same name, and who has in the past claimed to be the same person, has transcribed copyrighted books to the notorious Jatland open wiki and the same stuff appears in assembled form in articles such as this one. (I'm not saying LRBurdak added every bit of copyvio to this particular article: copy/pasting from jatland.com is common here).

A lot of LRBurdak's past article creations have already been deleted but I'm wondering whether this particular one needs at least a massive admin action to hide the history. - Sitush (talk) 15:58, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, dear. :( I'll do that. There's still so much work to be done on his copyright cleanup, I'm afraid. It's barely been touched. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into it. I wasn't aware of the CCI but it doesn't come as a surprise. I might do some pottering around that list once I've worked out the procedure. - Sitush (talk) 14:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Parvis Emad

May you please send the text of the deleted page Parvis Emad to my email for me to modify it? --Ali Pirhayati (talk) 14:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Ali Pirhayati. The body of the article came from the "about" field of [8]. I can restore for you the categories and other apparatus if you like, but you will need to write the body of the article from scratch. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok. Please restore it. Thank you. --Ali Pirhayati (talk) 15:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Ali Pirhayati. The uncreative content is at User:علی پیرحیاتی/Parvis Emad for you to develop at your convenience and move into article space when done. Please note that I have wrapped the categories and other bottom material in <nowiki> tags. You'll need to remove those for them to display. (You may know this already, but I'd rather overexplain than underexplain.) Please be careful to put all content in your own words, except for brief and clearly marked quotations. The bulk of the article should be your language. If you can verify that content is public domain or compatibly licensed, you can use it verbatim, as long as you follow the directions at Wikipedia:Plagiarism. It's really important to be careful with that, though. There are a lot of misunderstandings over what is "public domain", and, if in doubt, you should alway seek feedback first. A lot of people think that being made available to the public is public domain or that being published by a government source automatically makes something public domain, but this is not always the case. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:37, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Khukhrain

Hello MRG. Long time no talk, I hope all is well. Changes in my life have reduced how often I edit but I occasionally get pinged for a copyvio issue on my talk. I always help but in the case of Khukhrain, it appears an old copyvio may have been reintroduced. You cleaned this one up in May 2012 but I cannot see your deleted edits. Suspected source is the same now as it was in 2012. Looks like a large swath of text was added in November 2013. I spot-checked some of it and it is directly from the suspected source. Do you mind taking a quick (I hope) peek at the deleted and new edits? Thanks.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:13, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, NortyNort. It's great to see you. :) Yes, that's an old copyvio. We have twice had complaints from the source owner, and I would be mortified if it happened again a third time. The article has been semi-protected for years because of this, but the content was restored by User:Divyabhasin. I don't usually block without a warning, but strongly considered it in this case. However, I went with the warning. Not sure that was the right choice under the circumstances. :/ Could be the same person, although it was previously placed by IP. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hey Moonriddengirl Thanks for helping in resolving the Copyright issue. I'll Soon Be Improving The Page Khukhrain.
Thanks Again Mayank.94 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess only a Bureaucrat would know if it was the IP. But anyway, I will keep the article on my watchlist since there is persistent problems.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:19, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

Need You Help In Deleting a Page

Hi Again Moonriddengirl Sited a page that is unusable and not needed because it already have placed on wikipedia as Rama. I would request you to guide me how to delete this page Bhagwan Ramji. Thanks Again!! Mayank.94 (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Mayank.94. :) It is not necessary to delete the page especially if the title makes a plausible "redirect". In that case, you could make a note on the talk page explaining what you are doing and then replace all the content on the page with the following: #REDIRECT [[Rama]]. However, please be sure that you are correct that the pages are on the same subject. I note that the second page claims it is about a specific man born in 1937 and died in 1992 - specifically, this guy - while the first page seems to be about an avatar of Vishnu. To somebody unfamiliar with the subject, it is difficult to see how they are connected. You will want to explain thoroughly at the talk page why you think they are. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:41, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Question 42

Hello Moonriddengirl. This isn't really question 42, but; a good answer is no-less appreciated. If an article is created as an unambiguous copyvio, and: for various reasons, its title would best and properly serve as a redirect, is it problematic to correct the copyvio by blanking while simultaneously converting the page to a redirect, or should it be deleted instead, especially if it may have been tagged {{db-g12}} or some-such? Thank you.—John Cline (talk) 19:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I'm not MRG, but in that case (especially if it had been tagged for speedy) I'd delete first, then create a redirect afresh. Deor (talk) 20:11, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Doer; while I should say I'm still interested in MRG's nuance, I will say that deletion/recreation did occur to me, yet I surmised that such an option is not available to non-admins, and; I'm curious if we should be viewing one's propensity to create copyvios as "trivial editing history". Thank you again.—John Cline (talk) 22:09, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
  • (Also not MRG) An option I've used in this scenario is to redirect then add Template:Copyvio-revdel to the top, after which an admin will come by and suppress the infringing revisions. To the second point, my feeling is that an editor with a propensity for copyvios needs to be educated, and then if they are unwilling or unable to abide by policy, shown the door. CrowCaw 22:21, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Update on SALT (institution)

Greetings Moonriddengirl! I got an update on ticket:2014111710007512, the user confirms that content published at saltonline.org is released for the article under the stated license. I have left the ticket unlocked so you could feel free to take over it. Best, ///EuroCarGT 02:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks much, User:EuroCarGT! No reason for me to take it over; it looks good. I'll process on this end accordingly. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
A question for either or both: should the {{ConfirmationOTRS}} notice be updated in accordance with the above? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I've updated the confirmation to the general site. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:45, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Another India copyvio problem

The very first edit to Madhusudan Rao was in 2009 and appears to have been taken from this, archived in 2002. Although there was some copyvio cleanup later in 2009, the original edit is still there. I've found a few mentions of the subject - eg: in [9] - but not a tremendous amount. I'm not sure whether it is worth investing time when the base is so obviously dodgy. Might it be better to delete the entire thing and then recreate? I could certainly knock out a sourced stub. - Sitush (talk) 17:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

If you can rewrite a clean, sourced stub, Sitush, that is almost always the best option. In the meantime, I've reverted to the last clean version - the copyvio was stripped from the article at one point and then reintroduced by somebody else. :/ Thanks for finding this! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Opinion requested for "types" of copyrights

Since there are a number of images being tagged and deleted based partly on what seems to be a misinterpretation of "types" of copyright registrations, your opinion is requested. I tried to explain the issue last March in this discussion, but with no reply. You can check this topic here, and maybe offer an opinion or resolution. A recently tagged image, of Garbo states, "The film is still copyrighted," as one of the rationales for deleting it, for example. Thanks. --Light show (talk) 20:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe you may be misunderstanding that request, Light show. It seems to be based on the fact that we don't have the back, so no verification that nothing is printed on it, and that the picture might in fact be a still taken from the film itself (and hence protected by the film's copyright) and not a posed studio photograph which was not part of the running of the film, although likely taken contemporaneously to publicize the film. She points to a different publicity shot that we can verify was a publicity shot. In any event, I suspect that the contributors to Commons can help puzzle it out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 December 2014

Kerma

RE: KERMA PAGE

Hi Moonriddengirl. I received an email from you about the Kerma page. I'm a bit puzzled as the whole page is now gone, though my contribution was rather minor (i.e. not the whole page), and certainly not on (or from) the sources mentioned but actually on the pre-Kushite phases of the City. That was all my own work and I quoted the sources appropriately but they seem to have been step-by-step removed. I should explain I am an accredited senior historian who voluntarily added some recent findings on areas I know a bit about, for the edification of the general public. I have tried doing similar on other sites, but continually encouter "gatekeepers" who think they know better and who even distort references to their own ends... I find Wikipedia processes very curious and would like it noted that it's hardly been encouraging for us who ARE qualified in these fields. I no longer contribute to any site because this seems to occur frequently. Good luck and it's a pity someone will now need re-do the Kerma site (and probably get it wrong).

Dr Ray Kerkhove PS Sorry - I don't kn ow how to "sign" this and really at this point I'm no longer interested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.228.53 (talk) 13:10, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Dr. Kerkhove. The article was blanked for copyright investigation some time ago, as unfortunately sections of it were copied from external sources. Assuming that you are registered as User:BabaisLove, as this is the only account I have cautioned with respect to the article, I'm afraid that the content that triggered my concern is exemplified by the following:
Article Source
The southern border of the cemetery is distinguished by dozens of enormous mounds, four of which are about 300 ft. (90 m) in diameter. These belonged to the most powerful kings of Kerma during the last century of the city's existence. They are clustered around the remains of the large brick building known as the "Eastern Deffufa," thought to have been a funerary chapel connected with the royal tombs. All across the cemetery smaller graves seem to cluster around larger graves, which undoubtedly belonged to those of the highest rank. (http://www.nubianet.org/about/about_history4.html) The southern border of the cemetery is distinguished by dozens of enormous mounds, four of which are about 300 ft. (90 m) in diameter. These belonged to the most powerful kings of Kerma during the last century of the city's existence. They are clustered around the remains of the large brick building known as the "Eastern Deffufa," thought to have been a funerary chapel connected with the royal tombs. All across the cemetery smaller graves seem to cluster around larger graves, which undoubtedly belonged to those of the highest rank.
While I appreciate that you sited your source, because of its prior publication we are unable to use it without verification of compatible license. The page itself bears a caution reading "© 1994-2001 Education Development Center, Inc. All Rights Reserved."
The bulk of the copyright problems were not created by this, but is foundational, from the first editor to add material to the article. But this nevertheless is a problem under our copyright policy. If you were the original author of the content on that external site, please see Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for more information on how to verify license for content you have authored elsewhere. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Moonriddengirl.Well I didn't write that bit! This is what I mean about Wikki being so confused... I wrote some material about Kerma City having unique industries in glazing; having gold-processing; the centralized nature of the society; the Biblical association etc - and I gave a reference for each of these additions, but all that seems to have evaporated. Dr Ray Kerkhove58.161.228.53 (talk) 13:32, 17 December 2014 (UTC) - is that a signing?

Yes, that was a signing. :) While I'm afraid it's no longer publicly visible, our software indicates the paragraph above was added to the article Kerma by you in this edit. The paragraph on ceramics was also an issue under our approach to copyright, as it closely paraphrased the cited source. (The source is on our blacklist, so I cannot link it directly.) The problem is more clear in the second paragraph you added in that edit (also now removed from public viewing):
Article The cited source]
The capital was defended by substantial city walls. At least two miles of ramparts and dozens of bastions protected it from attack. Yet by around 1500 B.C., the defences failed and Kerma was conquered and occupied by the Egyptians, led by Pharaoh Tuthmosis I. Kerma's subsequent fight to protect its independence and its resistance against Egyptian occupation was one of the longest military struggles of the ancient world, lasting some 220 years (roughly 1550-1330 B.C.). http:// wysinger.homestead.com /kerma.html The kingdom’s capital was defended by substantial city walls. At least two miles of ramparts and dozens of bastions protected it from attack. Yet by around 1500 B.C., the defences failed and Kerma was conquered and occupied by the Egyptians, led by Pharaoh Tuthmosis I, one of the most militarily aggressive rulers the world had ever seen. Bronze Age Sudan’s fight to protect its independence and its resistance against Egyptian occupation was one of the longest military struggles of the ancient world, lasting some 220 years (roughly 1550-1330 B.C.).
I've added the bolding to make it easier to see where precise duplication occurs.
I appreciate that you gave your reference, but citing the source does not in itself permit us to use the content. While facts are not copyrightable under the U.S. copyright law that governs Wikipedia, creative elements of presentation – including both structure and language – are. As a website that is widely read and reused, Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously to protect the interests of the holders of copyright as well as those of the Wikimedia Foundation and our reusers. Wikipedia's copyright policies require that the content we take from non-free sources, aside from brief and clearly marked quotations, be rewritten from scratch. The essay Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing contains more information about these issues.
I'm afraid that under our copyright policies, content that follows sources closely in this manner must be removed, unless we are able to verify compatible license. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:47, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl. I appreciate your efforts and find all this rather extraordinary. I've not looked at the Kerma site for a long time, but certainly don't recognize ANY of what you've just attributed to me - it's not even the kind of language I'd use (e.g. "bronze age...storming city walls") - how odd.... I didn't write on ceramics - only about blue glazing. I'm tiring of this - not sure how or why I'm getting accused or how my name got dragged into this. Can others sign in using my name? It baffles me. Also "Baba is Love" as you can see by the earlier talk hasn't been used for a couple of years - I've not contributed anything to Wikki for about 2-3 years. When were the dates of the suspicious/ plagaristic quotes? It's all to me a bit odd as I've never needed to "plagarize" as I am a professional writer and have never lacked for ideas - also I'm academically trained so I habitually reference. It's a pity the site itself went down - it does seem to have (if what you wrote is correct) morphed hugely since I last viewed it, and probably contained little of what I originally submitted. Regards Ray Kerkhove58.161.228.53 (talk) 13:58, 17 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.228.53 (talk)

Quick question

Being based on this original, would the rights to the image shown to the right belong to the owner of the original design (exemplified in the image I linked to), or would they devolve to creator of the image shown? Thanks! Herostratus (talk) 17:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Herostratus . :) I would recommend you take that up with WP:MCQ, where they're more used to image work, but it could come down to "both" - the copyright protection in the underlying design of a derivative work remains, but new creative elements are protected independently. That said, I'm unsure of the level of creativity in the base and not familiar enough with trading cards to know if that would be considered a standard, uncreative design - or if all the cards I see that look like that are made by the same people. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:10, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
OK thanks. Right, that makes sense, just wanted a second opinion. I'm not inclined to take it further since in this case I don't think the images are worthwhile enough to use unless they were entirely free. Herostratus (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

ho, ho, ho

Happy holidays.
To MRG, Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:00, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, SW3 5DL! Some days you really need it, and I really needed it today. :) Very much appreciated, and happy holidays to you! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 December 2014

Hope that Santa

Hope that Santa
brings everything on your Christmas list! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope (talk) 19:47, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas from London

May you have very Happy Christmas, Maggie...

and a New Year filled with peace, joy, and plenty!

A big Thank You too for everything you do here.

Best wishes, Voceditenore (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Merry

To you and yours

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

A probable copy right violation case

Hey, Merry Christmas! Some days ago, I found some copy righted and copy-pasted material in Tatbir and requested it to be addressed. Fortunately, you did the job and thanks for your attention. Now, there's another case which should be checked. Ma malakat aymanukum contains some copy-pasted materials according to my findings. I only checked one sentence while there might be some other parts with the same problem. Thanks Mhhossein (talk) 04:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

This part also seems problematic. Mhhossein (talk) 04:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Mhhossein, for identifying your concerns. :) I checked the origin of that phrase: [10]. The oldest source I have found for the material so far is this 2005 post, which indicates it is copied from Wikipedia itself. It seems the content was at some point spun out to Ma malakat aymanukum and sex and then restored in summary to this article. So, for us to demonstrate copyright issues there, we would need to determine that content was published on an external site before it appeared in our Wikipedia article. With that particular text, I cannot seem to find anything older. :) Now this edit is a copyright problem, as the content first appeared in the other article. The oldest external evidence I can find dates to 2007 (see), when it was copied from Islam and Slavery. This problem can be repaired with attribution, but I most certainly need to speak to the editor who placed it to be sure he understands the copyright requirements of taking content from one page to another. There may be additional attribution required. I'll look into this a little further. Thank you again for voicing your concerns, and Merry Christmas to you as well. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Awkward

MRG, could you peek in at Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller and this thread? I'd really appreciate it, as it has gotten quite awkward (copyvio issues complicated by COI tagging on article pages), and I'd rather bow out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, User:SandyGeorgia. It looks like the two bio pages you've flagged have been cleaned up by others, and I can see some of the close paraphrasing issues you find in Polistes canadensis. I see you've flagged it for review, so it will be seen in short order, I imagine - when it comes up at WP:CP. The editor in question seems to be gone now. I did remove a little information from Joan E. Strassmann per WP:BLPNAME. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
The awkward part is that, according to a poster at the talk page, the course prof wrote her own bio and her husband's, with copyvio, and now the course TA is editing them, and both claim to be checking the students' work for copyvio but evidence no understanding of copyvio. Dandy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, leaving aside the COI issue, the good news is that it's not a copyright infringement if the course prof wrote the content in the original source or had license. It's just unverified permission, which is equally unusable for us, but typically easily remedied. Of course, we don't often want such content, since it's biased. :) It's always interesting explaining to people that they can grant permission (as per Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials, but that even if they do the content will be assessed against our other policies. It's just not as clearcut as they often think.
Such COI editing is always unfortunate. :/ Newcomers really don't generally understand the way things work around here. I've seen so many confused emails since I first started OTRS, really, from article subjects asking, "Who is this person editing my article?" That the article is about them but doesn't belong to them just doesn't seem to register, perhaps because it's so contrary to the way things work on most online media. I've seen a number of letters show for our legal team asking that the articles about the correspondents (or more often their clients, as it's usually lawfirms) be deleted because they are unauthorized. </headshake> --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Translations

Hi MRG, thanks for the reminder... --Bermicourt (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

FreshCorp619

Hi there. I just came across edits by 46.162.31.100 which restored some content originally added by FreshCorp619. I've reverted these edits for now, and thought I'd bring them to your attention to determine whether they should be deleted, as you seem to be most involved in Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/FreshCorp619. Mindmatrix 16:37, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks, User:Mindmatrix. CU has determined that this is an open proxy, so it is now blocked. I'll revdelete. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2014

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Moonriddengirl, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of {{U|Technical 13}} to all registered users whom have commented on his talk page. To prevent receiving future messages, please follow the opt-out instructions on User:Technical 13/Holiday list

Modesty? No!

Hello, MRG, lease see User_talk:Mr._Stradivarius#admin_candidate, it was not actually a modesty. Regards. --Tito☸Dutta 15:14, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I have replied there. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:54, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Possible copyvio

Most of this article looks like it was copied and pasted from here, but I know from experience (Red Skelton) that it can be the other way around too. Not sure who had the text first, but both articles are very much alike. Thanks for taking a look, We hope (talk) 03:39, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, We hope. :) You are wise to have your suspicions. That particular site is not archived until early 2012 and claims update in November 2011. That's not definitive, and it's a bad sign that the content was more similar to Wikipedia when first placed than it was in November 2011. Changes like this are a very bad sign for backwards copying:
What the article had What it was changed to What the external source says
Little is known about his early life, but we can safely assume that he learned to play the cornet. With the outbreak of the Civil War and despite his parents' protests, at the age of seventeen he enlisted on 18 May 1861 and became a Private the following 14 June in Company B, 15th Indiana Infantry, and shortly afterwards was assigned to a regimental band. Little is known about his early life, other than that he learned to play the cornet. With the outbreak of the American Civil War he enlisted in the army on 18 May 1861 at the age of seventeen, despite his parents' protests. On 14 June 1861 he became a private in Company B, 15th Indiana Infantry, and shortly afterwards was assigned to a regimental band. Little is known about C. G. Corn's earliest years, but we can safely assume that at an early age he took up cornet-playing. Despite his parents' protests, at the age of seventeen he enlisted on 18 May 1861 and became a private the following 14 June in Company B of the 15th Indiana Infantry, and shortly afterwards was assigned to a regimental band.
This looks like a case of very, very close paraphrasing to me. I'll blank it for investigation at WP:CP. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
There were some phrases in it that just didn't look like they belonged in Wikipedia to me. One was something to the effect of "Of course, we must". I then copied one of the questionable phrases and used it for an internet search and the saxophone site came up. ;) Thanks! We hope (talk) 14:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Joe Williams (jazz singer)

A page you previously contributed to, Joe Williams (jazz singer), had many prior revisions deleted due to copyright issues. For details please see Talk:Joe Williams (jazz singer). Your prior version may be temporarily restored upon request if you need it for reference to re-incorporate constructive edits that do not make use of the copyright infringing material. Please feel free to leave me a talk message if you need this done. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 22:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Skookum01

Moonriddengirl, sorry for the ping, but I realize that I'm running out of patience because I'm tired of the animosity and in the inability to have a discussion without a TLDR rant as a reply. I need you to see the discussion I pinged you about ASAP.

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 08:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, WhisperToMe. I'm sorry this situation is ongoing. :( Have there been any additional personal attacks? I see walls and walls of text, but TLDR is not specifically a policy problem. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:58, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
This internal comment in a book article I started (See his internal comment) - I don't think it's appropriate to leave such internal comments
From Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia:
  • "You have been pretentious, peremptory and patronizing...and stubborn as hell about this title-change, likewise your behaviour re your "Asian Indians in Vancouver" title being changed. A fully fledged article on "Chinese in BC" is what you should be cooperating with; not trying to overturn and split."
  • " That all these parameter-demands are being made by someone who's never been to Vancouver, doesn't know BC history other than the ethno-focussed readings he's been amassing, and plunking down one item after another without any sense of context, just building his Vancouver-cites so he could make this attempt yet again to POV-fork this title back to where he wanted it for his global series on ethnicity-by-city."
  • "He failed with his ANI/OR against me, he failed with that RM, and yet persists with his single-minded campaign to empire-build his "Vancouver Chinese" article, separate from existing parallel articles, and continues to ignore al the other readings I have recommended he research, including all the general history context of Chinese-in-BC-at-large; he just doesn't want to know, and only wants to talk about "Vancouver". Disgruntled by his failed RM, it's not even been a month and he's at it again."
He's excessively focused on who I am (not an Indo-Canadian, not from British Columbia) and not the article content.
WhisperToMe (talk) 14:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Another thing that Skookum does that it may not be a personal attack per se, but something I consider to be highly disruptive, is misusing policy tags. He refers to splitting "Chinese in Vancouver" and "Chinese in British Columbia" as a WP:POV Fork even though it's clearly not, it's just a "delineation question". The way that his replies are structured and how they go off tangent make it difficult for other Wikipedians to respond to him and I think it's discouraging other people from participating in the discussion. Example: Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard/Archive_31#Is_it_WP:SYNTH_to_make_an_article_on_the_Indo-Canadian_population_in_Greater_Vancouver_separate_from_that_of_the_Indo-Canadian_population_of_British_Columbia.3F WhisperToMe (talk) 17:25, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

  • I have left a note at his talk page. If this situation continues, I will take up the matter at ANI to see if an interaction ban is appropriate. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the note! I agree that an interaction ban would not be a desirable outcome for any party. I want to focus on the content and how to best express it rather than the person. I want to improve the articles in the subject and to do so cordially. I hope this isn't too much for you, but would it be alright if you look at this content dispute? I think that asking you would help me determine what the next step should be.

  • I wrote this post: Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#On_sourcing (Here I analyzed several recent edits that I feel had mischaracterized the nature of what several of the cited sources said. I included the edit diffs and the exact quotes from the various sources)
  • The other party started this post: Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#POV_b.s._reinserted.2C_I_see - There is an idea expressed that modern scholarship is biased towards ethnic minorities and is trying to malign White people as much as possible. Therefore the other party feels even though the sources say the White persons perceived the negative effects, it should be presented as fact rather than as a belief/opinion. I feel that it should be presented as an opinion/perception on part of the whites because the sources describe it as such.

The edits also replaced instances of "Whites felt..." with "British Columbians felt" because he said First Nations (Natives) and Blacks felt the same way. I have not seen page numbers or other sources which explicitly say this and many of the sources explicitly refer to White British Columbians feeling this way (I refer to them in the edit analysis I did).

I want to know what my next step should be. Should I take it to the OR noticeboard? RFC? Third opinion? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think I'm in better position to take up the battleground issues if I'm not involved in the content dispute, as my involvement in the content dispute might seem to (or might even actually) bias me. However, as a general rule of thumb, I go with WP:3O if there are only two people involved in a discussion and noticeboards if there are more or if the other person is not actually discussing. RFCs can be protracted and aren't always helpful, so they tend to be my last resort. I have never done so myself, but might look into mediation before that, unless I think that the issue is very clear. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice! I added it to Wikipedia:Third_opinion#Active_disagreements WhisperToMe (talk) 13:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Drifting Sun

Hi

I saw that you have deleted the page I created for the band Drifting Sun. How do I recreate and resubmit the page with modified content to comply with Wikipedia's rules? As I can't see the article online anymore, I have lost all the links, references etc that were in the article.

Is there any way to get all those back for a resubmission?

Regards

Pat

DriftingSunWeb (talk) 14:30, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

2015 already

Hi Maggie. No frills - just a quiet ‘’all the best’’ to you for 2015, thanks for all you do on and for Wikipedia/Wikimedia and I hope you’ll continue to be around on for a long time to come. Chris (Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:54, 1 January 2015 (UTC))

Thank you, Chris! That's so kind. :) And ditto. It takes a lot of work to keep this place going, and I appreciate how much you care and how much you give. Happy New Year. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:56, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear Moonriddengirl,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:05, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

This message promotes WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4 (see "invisible note").

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Hello

I saw that you have deleted the text I wrote for The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. This article's material was not copied from: http://www.sustc.edu.cn/en/about/intro/ or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed as you mentioned in the talk page of this article. As I cannot see the article online anymore, I have lost all the links, references etc that were in the article.

Please give back the complete article I contributed, which took me more than a week to do so.

Sincerely

William

William Wang (talk)William Qichao Wang 12:54, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

William Wang, I'm afraid that I cannot restore the content. It is copied from multiple pages. For a few examples:
Article Source
As an institution in Hong Kong where resource is narrowly limited, CUHK must tap into resources outside Hong Kong to scale up the research for achieving its aspiration of excellence As an institution in Hong Kong where resource is narrowly limited, CUHK must tap into resources outside Hong Kong to scale up the research for achieving its aspiration of excellence (see quote here)
These funding opportunities can contribute to the establishment of hardware-oriented disciplines and enhance our academic and research level. Besides, the rapid development of manufacturing industries in PRD region will also provide ample opportunities for CUHK’s R&D’s initiatives, employment and internship for our students in both Longgang, Shenzhen and Sha Tin, Hong Kong. It will reinforce Hong Kong’s role as an international metropolis and bring long-term benefits to CUHK. These funding opportunities can contribute to the establishment of hardware-oriented disciplines and enhance our academic and research level. Besides, the rapid development of manufacturing industries in PRD region will also provide ample opportunities for CUHK’s R&D’s initiatives, employment and internship for our students in both Shenzhen and Shatin. It will reinforce Hong Kong’s role as an international metropolis and bring long-term benefits to CUHK. source
The plethora of non-formal learning opportunities offered by the colleges complement the formal curricula, nurture students' interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity, and build up their confidence and sense of social responsibility. Scholarship and financial aid schemes may also be available to enable students to fully exploit the potential for personal growth. The plethora of non-formal learning opportunities offered by the Colleges complement the formal curricula, nurture students' interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity, and build up their confidence and sense of social responsibility. And scholarship and financial aid schemes are available to enable one to fully exploit the potential for personal growth. source
These are random examples from throughout the page. There are others.
When the article was originally blanked by the IP editor who noticed the problem, it included instructions for verifying permission if you were able or for rewriting within our policies. Instead, you restored the content. The changes that you made did not address the problem. We cannot publish content on Wikipedia that is published elsewhere unless the content is public domain or verifiably compatibly licensed.
Beyond the copyright problem, which trumps all else, the content is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is meant to be a compendium of balanced commentary about notable subjects based on reliable sources. We are not here to repeat what subjects say about themselves. We are not a host for business entitites to promote themselves.
If you are connected to the university, as it seems you might be, please take the time to read Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest to learn how you may successfully contribute to Wikipedia in areas connected to you.
If you have questions about copyright policies, I would recommend re-reading the note I left you on your talk page yesterday. It is still available in history in spite of your deletion. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Possible sock of blocked user

Hi there,

You blocked Mirno (talk · contribs) on 12 December 2014. The user then made unblock requests on their talk page until their last activity on 17 December. Seto2001 (talk · contribs), clearly an experienced editor, began editing on 26 December editing only longevity-related articles almost exclusively the same articles as the blocked user. Their editing has not included the same activity which got Mirno blocked (copyright infringement) but the so I can't be certain that it is the same person. Do you think a sock investigation is justified? Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 21:39, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:DerbyCountyinNZ. I think there can be little doubt it is - this doesn't seem easy to stumble upon for a new user, and the asterisk here is pretty interesting, given that it isn't used anywhere else in the article. Currently. So, yeah, I think we're dealing with a sock of Mirno here. And I think a sock investigation might help establish if there are any others in the drawer. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2014

I need your assistance

Hi, Moonriddengirl, wishing you all the best for 2015. – I feel a bit unsettled about having to do that to a colleague from Portal:Poland who does a lot of good work elsewhere, but this one (+18,655) slip, which is a massive WP:COPYVIO from http://www.katedra-wawelska.pl/english/brief_history_of_wawel_cathedral,32.html seems serious enough to warrant an investigation into possible other breaches of copyright law genuinely misunderstood by the user who just reverted it back.[11] You decide. Thanks in advance, Poeticbent talk 01:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:Poeticbent. Thanks for pointing out this problem, and please don't feel badly about having to flag issues with a colleague in your area. Believe me, it's much more of a favor to him and to to Polish content to get it looked at and hopefully addressed before it creates a massive cleanup mess that may hurt dozens or even hundreds of articles! I left a note for him at User talk:Oliszydlowski#Wikipedia and copyright but when I had a few more minutes to spare went back to look myself and have confirmed that this issue crosses articles. I've now opened Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20150107. Assistance with this would be very welcome - the longer this content sits unevaluated, the more likely it is that other people will waste time working on content we can't keep. :(
Can you tell me if Jan Dobrogost Krasiński is too directly translated from [12]? I suspect it is, but I'm sure you know that Google translate is not wonderful with Polish. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, Moonriddengirl, much obliged. I will definitely try to help for the lasting benefit of our project. At a glance, the issues you raised in the new investigation seem to go way further than what I thought might have been happening. This is possibly the worst case scenario. I tried to use the Earwig's Copyvio Detector to make comparisons. I found out that ECD would not recognize complex URLs leading directly to machine translated text. So, therefore, the actual comparison needs to be performed manually. Here's the relevant example from Jan Dobrogost Krasiński per your request.

en.wiki google translate [13] original

Towards the end of his life, Krasiński became an ardent Catholic, but never fell into fanaticism, as evidenced by his friendly relations with the local Protestants. He banned the repression against the Reformed Church. Jan Dobrogost Krasiński died on February 21, 1717. His body was buried in a copper coffin in the crypt of the local monastery. His last will was a proof of his strong relationship with the city of Węgrów - he was the only one of the family to chose the monastery as his final resting place rather than temple in Krasne, traditional mausoleum of the Krasiński family.[5]

At the end of life Krasinski became an ardent Catholic, but never fell into fanaticism, as evidenced by the friendliness [toward] Protestants. [He] Banned repression against Protestants [] John Krasinski Dobrogost died February 21, 1717 year. His body was buried in a copper coffin in the crypt of the church fathers, the reformers. This is a proof of its strong relationship with Wegrow, as the only one of the family to his eternal resting place chosen team monastery in our city and not a temple in Krasne, traditional mausoleum Krasinski.

U schyłku życia Krasiński stał się gorliwym katolikiem, nigdy jednak nie popadł w fanatyzm, czego dowodem była życzliwość dla [] protestantów. Zakazywał represji przeciw ewangelikom [] Jan Dobrogost Krasiński zmarł 21 lutego 1717 roku. Jego ciało zostało pochowane w miedzianej trumnie, w krypcie kościoła ojców reformatów. Jest to dowód jego silnego związku z Węgrowem, ponieważ jako jedyny z rodu na miejsce swojego wiecznego spoczynku wybrał zespół klasztorny w naszym mieście a nie świątynię w Krasnem, tradycyjnym mauzoleum Krasińskich.

Please tell me, how do you know these things without the knowledge of a language? Poeticbent talk 17:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's a problem. :( I pretty much have to rely on Google translate when it's a language I don't know even a little, like Polish. You eventually develop a feel for these kinds of things. That said, when I can ask somebody especially as I'm figuring out a pattern to let me know, I like to do that. Better to be sure than to presume. I've got no time right now, but will address the translation issue with him more thoroughly when I'm back on Wikipedia. I greatly appreciate your help with this and any help you can provide. I'll probably ask for help from others at the project, since the sooner is handled the better. These copyright issues are all pretty recent, so collateral damage will be less than if we must wait years for somebody to have time to clear it out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI

Thank you for notifying me.

If you want more information, here is the beginning in October: Wikipedia_talk:Canadian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#If_you_make_articles_on_ethnic_Indian_populations_in_Canada.2C_be_sure_to_include_info_on_Air_India_182.27s_impact_on_the_community.

For full disclosure: There was one edit in October I made where I was criticized by User:Antidiskriminator, in Talk:Indo-Canadians#Merge_discussion (background is in the first post about Air India) - He argued that I had made an error in conduct

  • See: "Antidiskriminator (talk) 08:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC)"

It concerns this text that I made at (WhisperToMe (talk) 10:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC) ): "Oops. I didn't mean to imply that I'm of Indian heritage. I'm not of Indian heritage. Nonetheless, I have a revelation that you may be interested in. Let's discuss a lovely thing called WP:GNG. Let's review what it says. "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." So what do we have? [...]"

Talk page discussions about the reply:

I don't recall receiving any messages like that since October

In November a user reported that there were no issues on my end in that discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Canadian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Third opinion

"Comment 4: Skookum1's behaviour here has been pretty awful. Skookum1 should review WP:CIVIL and take it seriously. I commend WhisperToMe for keeping remarkably calm in the face of Skookum1's provocations, and for not being drawn into the cesspool of personal attacks and obscenities. We really don't need that in Wikipedia. Ground Zero | t 13:59, 14 November 2014 (UTC)" WhisperToMe (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the information, WhisperToMe. I hope you feel welcome to take part in the ANI discussion, including offering any evidence that you feel appropriate. Of course, I hope that User:Antidiskriminator and User:Ground Zero will help resolve the problem as well. My primary concern is that the section not turn into a replay of the battle itself or get overlooked because of the complexity of he said/he said debates. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:54, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll post it in the thread itself WhisperToMe (talk) 13:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20130819

Hi Moonriddengirl, hope you are having a good holiday, and Happy New Year 2015!! I'm looking at the Bwmoll3 CCI, as I have some expertise to help with that one. My question is how did you identify and track some of the original text sources (like at User_talk:Bwmoll3#Copyright_concerns) - was there some sort of tool? I'm having no luck. Best wishes Buckshot06 (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Buckshot06. :) I wish I had some special tool! What I do is look at changes to an article and pick out striking phrases, doing a google search (and sometimes google book search) to see if I find matches. People who mirror Wikipedia tend to it over and over again, so after a while you get pretty good at recognizing them. So, looking at this edit for example, I snagged the phrase "after its crew followed the wrong railroad tracks" and came up with this. That one is public domain and properly attributed, so no issues with that. Every text string I find matches for resolves to that book, even though Bwmoll3 suggests with citations that some content was drawn from elsewhere. The paragraph "The patrol bases were hurriedly created...up and down the border" would imply it is sourced to Hinkle's book, but it's not. He's copied it from Maurer and simply referenced it by copying Maurer's citation.
Looking elsewhere on the page, I check this edit, and the language I zero in on is "The job entailed resurrecting the former U.S. Air Force flightline and associated fuel tanks that haven't seen multimillion dollar fighter aircraft in over three years." I find a copy of that at Global Security, but since the edit was made in 2006 want to be sure it's not a backwards copy. (It probably isn't; backwards copies don't often take parts of pages, although they sometimes do, and Global Security is a regular target of copying on Wikipedia.) I check Wayback and confirm - they had it first.
With a CCI, those several copied paragraphs (still published in Bitburg Air Base) are enough for me to blank the article. We've verified unattributed copy-paste. It's possible that GlobalSecurity has taken it from a PD source, but without proper attribution we can't know that, and I haven't been able to find it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:56, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry

I was multitasking when I read your comment and didn't pick-up on the fact that was posted in article space, versus Talk space. In view of that you're undoubtedly correct. DOCUMENT★ERROR 12:28, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, good to know, User:DocumentError. :) I wouldn't have thought that one particularly egregious in talk page, either. It was the fact that he put it in the article that really disturbed me. If you haven't, would you mind clarifying at the ANI? Even if it doesn't change your opinion about the best resolution of the dispute, I think documenting why this behavior is a concern might be important to helping avoid further issues. My biggest concern has been that I have been unable to communicate, evidently, to Skookum1 that his approach is not optimal. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, of course! Sorry again. DOCUMENT★ERROR 12:43, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Question regarding a PD image

Hello, Moonriddengirl. Hope you had a wonderful holiday season. I was wondering if you could find the time to take a look at an image I uploaded to commons, File:Chief Irataba of the Mojave Nation, February 1864, artist's impression.jpg. The original is obviously PD, but I want to make sure that I handled the paperwork adequately. Thanks! Rationalobserver (talk) 19:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Rationalobserver. :) I hope you did as well; I apologize for my delay here. I tend to do my talk page from the bottom up, and I had some time-consuming things to attend to! (Still do.) Images are not my neighborhood, but it all looks good to me, assuming that "prepared for use" doesn't mean creative work such that the result has new copyright protection. If in any doubt, I'd ask at WP:MCQ. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Restoring St. Basil-the-Great College School Page

Sorry to bother you about this. I appreciate your work with removing copyright issues, but I believe there were other sections on the page (such as notable alumni) and was wondering if you can restore those and any others that didn't violate copyrights (if there are any). Or even if you can provide me with the reference links and previous formatting so I can try to recreate the page in an acceptable way. Itshardfindingafreeusername (talk) 03:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)Itshardfindingafreeusername

Hello, Itshardfindingafreeusername. There was no such section, I'm afraid. I'm happy to share with you the links: [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Indetifying CR violation

Would you check if this edit[20] violates copyright? See WP:YOUTUBE, these videos are copyrighted and used as sources. Thanks OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 02:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:OccultZone. :) It depends. According to [21], those videos are being hosted by RiFF RAFF himself (that's the capitalization there? Really?), which would make it not a copyright problem, if that's true. Is this the official site? If so, it's probably okay. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Big Tree (chief), Big Tree (war chief), Maman-ti, User:Scarfaced Charley, User:Giorgio Traverso Coda

Hello. I notice that User:MuZemike seems to be on a Wikibreak, and because of your prior involvement I would like to request your assistance with the conversation I just started on their User talk page in link. I have also left a similar note at User talk:Nick-D. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It's possible that it's the same guy, but I'm not so great at SPI. The content is not the same as those in the deleted edits. What I'm seeing mostly looks like copying from other articles - I made sure the content preceded this account. See [22]. I'm solidly out of time now, but will try to look more later today! If not, tomorrow. Thanks for keeping an eye out for this, BarrelProof. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:03, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2015

License Question

Hi MRG! There is a new article, Practical Approximation Algorithms Library (PAAL) using content from Here. That page says that the software library being discussed, "and accompanying documentation" are covered by This License, which looks free-ish, with some small requirements. Would this be a compatible license to re-use that documentation in the local article? Thanks! CrowCaw 22:08, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:Crow. :) No, for two reasons: first, it's very specific that it is licensing the software (oh, my bad - documentation, too - but second problem applies). But even if we interpret it to cover the text, it requires that the statement be included with the content and all derivatives. It's not included, hence it would be in violation of the license already. I'll blank and speak to the contributor. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
After looking more closely, I G12ed. GNU compares that license to its GPL and notes that GPL and CC-By-SA are incompatible. This seems to be a good faith confusion between free license and public domain. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks again! CrowCaw 22:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Plemelj's geometrical constructions

Hi, MRG! Can you please take a look on my response regarding copyright issue about Plemelj's geometrical constructions at article talk page? I would like to update and extend the article with new text, but some new (for me) strange copyright policies divert me of doing so. As Plemelj was in best world league of mathematicians, we at least owe him to construct a decent article about him. You can also give a note to suitable persons, who were involved in revert. You can reply on article's talk page. Best regards. --xJaM (talk) 12:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Please have a peek

Hi MRG. Could you please look at this and tell me if I've misunderstood the issue. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:20, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, LeadSongDog. No, you have not misunderstood the issue. I have left the other user a note at [23] explaining why the content removal was correct. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, I was having some self-doubts when a response didn't surface at AIN. Is there a better venue for addressing one-time copyright issues? LeadSongDog come howl! 16:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Not so much. :/ If there's a dispute over copyright content, sometimes the best bet is to place {{copyvio}} over the edit. Otherwise, going to WT:CP might work. You're always welcome to stop by here, and you can probably approach a Wikipedia:Copyright clerk to ask who they'd recommend? They'll probably know who is active at any given moment, if they are active themselves. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:13, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I thought there was a guidance gap there. Either serial copyvios or whole articles were covered.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Ah, got another mess at Latent autoimmune diabetes of adults. Seems a long-ago editor was selfciting and copypasting from her own site. Her "website disclaimer" there is an added bit of fun. Might it be simpler to restart from scratch? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Losang Samten video

Hi MRG, I have a question. File:Kalacakra Mandala construction by Lobsang Samten El Paso TX US 2012 (CE).ogv is labeled as "direct transfer". Does the WMF or OTRS have any record of an explicit release being made? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Crisco 1492. There's no sign of an OTRS permission; the WMF does not process such permissions itself. This is the filmmaker in question. I've reached out to the uploader to ask him to document the license (or to communicate how he comes to own copyright). It's possible that this was a work for hire and that he is able to release content under this license, but if he doesn't verify that the media is likely to be deleted. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:28, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Better deleted than a copyvio, that's my motto. The uploader has given the same explanation ("direct transfer") for several files, so I thought it curious, and I fuzzily remembered that some files are uploaded directly to the servers to circumvent the maximum file size, so... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Talkback message from Tito Dutta

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at User:Moonriddengirl/Coaching#RFA.
Message added 20:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tito☸Dutta 20:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  • One more comment/request there. Regards. --Tito☸Dutta 15:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Stanisław Kostka Potocki

Dear Moonriddengirl

I am sorry for violating the "copyvio rules" and copying and pasting the information from several sources on the internet. I would like to point out that not all of the Stanisław Kostka Potocki information has been entirely and directly copied from the internet. Mostly the last paragraphs and topics, i.e the architecture part, have been translated from Polish Wikipedia, which wouldn't be a violation of the code. Also I would like to point out that it is an important article, and blanking is not the best idea in this case, therefore I'd rather see the content deleted rather than blanked.

Thank you for cooperation, Oliszydlowski (TALK) 15:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Moonriddengirl I write with regard to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_Approximation_Algorithms_Library_%28PAAL%29. Only part of the aricle was copy pasted. I'd like to remove this part and maybe replace it. Is it possible to restore (partialy) the previous page? AFAIK I do not have appropriate permission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vwygos (talk • contribs) 13:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 January 2015

Image Copyright Question

Hi MRG, got a question on Image copyrights, one for my own consumption actually. I've got an article pending DYK for someone who died in 1904 (Ernest Cashel). There are a few pictures of him out on the net, but the source pages claim copyright (such as [24]) or are unclear ([25] sourced from [26]). I haven't really delved into image copyright as of yet, so I'm not sure what the standard is. CrowCaw 18:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC) Hi, User:Crow! Image copyright is not my area, but two things to consider there: people lie (or misunderstand copyright or come from different jurisdictions with different laws), and sometimes people who do have big budgets. The basic question is not when the man died, but when the pictures were originally published. As far as we're concerned (see wP:PD), content published before 1923 is public domain. (There is a very rare exception explained at that page.) The newspaper wanted picture should be public domain, by my understanding. (IANAL, and I cannot give legal advice and etc.) I'd upload it cheerfully. The other picture, it would depend not on when it was taken but when it was published. The expiration of copyright depends on publication date, which complicates old photographs. Usually, I'd trot things past the people at WP:MCQ, if in doubt. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:18, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if you could cast an eye at advice I've given, in case it needs to be modified

At User talk:Erica Blatt Harkins I (and a couple of others) am trying to advise a lady who has uploaded here on en.wiki photographs of her father and mother from the 1920s through the 1950s, mostly taken in Romania, which were given or bequeathed to her. She has problems with template syntax. I've advised her to e-mail OTRS and found what I believe is the form she needs to fill out; I would much appreciate it if you would cast an eye over the lower sections of her user talk page in case I've given bad or incomplete advice. If you can, thanks in advance. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure! I'll be right there. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Your advice is quite good, Yngvadottir. This is a complicated situation, and I hope that OTRS will be able to help her. If she is concerned, please let her know that there is a backlog in the permissions queue, but somebody should respond to her soon. There could be some complication with accepting permission depending on who actually took the photographs, but the OTRS agents who answer should try to help with this. This blog explains the problem quite clearly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:10, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I was afraid of that issue of lack of publication. (Plus there is the fact that most were taken in Europe.) Apparently several were taken by her mother, but she says she inherited the rights to those, and that others were given to her by her father. I hope it can be worked out, but this is why I only put a small number of them in the article originally. Thanks for looking and for confirming I didn't have it too wrong. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Auto-numbering on GNU License

Hi again, Moonriddengirl!

I raised an issue at Wikipedia talk:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License § Numbered headings but thought I would mention it here for your attention as I have realised it has legal implications regarding Wikipedia's license terms. It's to do with a feature that automatically numbers headings which are different from those in the license text, which could cause ambiguity over which sections apply in particular contexts. Hopefully this will be clear from my comments at the above discussion page.

Thanks! —sroc 💬 14:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, sroc. You know, I've never really thought about this before, but that page doesn't conform to our license - it permits reproduction, but not modification. (That said, I don't know that anybody really cares about that, including GFDL.) I wonder why we're hosting this on a Wiki page at all, instead of as a PDF or an external link? That said, I'm not 100% sure that it has legal implications, but can certainly put on my work hat and ask, if you like. :) We're not actually changing the page, in that case - the end-user is voluntarily impacting its display. But if it makes a difference, we may need to do something. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
I thought it would be worth asking. It's bad enough that it looks bad, but if it exposes potential arguments of confusion in a legal context, that's worse. —sroc 💬 01:03, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

United States Air Force in South Vietnam

A protocol question here. I identified the problems at this article and Bitburg Air Base (or was closely associated in identifying them). With the elapse of time, is it good practice for the identifying editor/admin to delete the articles, or should I leave them for others? Kind regards and best wishes with all your work... Buckshot06 (talk) 20:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Buckshot06! Apologies for my delay; I'm traveling and thought I was going to get more time on Wikipedia. It has so far turned out to be less. :/ It is fine for an identifying editor/admin to address copyright issues directly. As per WP:CV, content can simply be removed by the person who identifies it to begin with. The copyvio template gives interested editors an opportunity to address the problems in other ways - either through rewriting content or providing permission. If you've located a problem and tagged it, you are welcome to process it after the time elapses.
The one oddity here, of course, is that {{copyvio}} says that only admins and copyright clerks should remove the label. Which means that once a person has put the tag in place, they are technically not supposed to remove it themselves unless they're one or the other. :) As far as I'm concerned, I'd never quibble over a tagger cleaning up an article, even if it does mean removing the template. In fact, I've never quibbled about anybody doing it as long as they do it right. It's only when people remove the tag and restore the copyvio or do a frankly derivative work that I worry about it. Otherwise, it seems like a fine instance of WP:IAR to me! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

See archive

Go to your archives and see, there is more. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:06, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Answered above. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Copyright issues

You had somewhere said that copying quotes is allowed only if: # Its usage would be considered fair use in United States copyright law, #It's used for a purpose that can't be fulfilled by free material (text or images, existing or to be created) #The usage of the non-free media complies with the above and the rest of the Non-free content criteria, and #It has a valid rationale indicating why its usage would be considered fair use within Wikipedia policy and US law.

Are these rules relevant in practice? And also on talk pages, as I was told that copyright violation in just any diff is condemned. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Bladesmulti. I think you've got the bulk of this right, but I don't believe that I've said that "It's used for a purpose that can't be fulfilled by free material (text or images, existing or to be created)" - in fact, I think there is probably no quote with a purpose that "can't be fulfilled by free material" - arguably, we can always paraphrase. However, paraphrase does not always serve the purpose as well - and we don't require "valid rationales" for use of quotes like we do with non-free media. Quotes can simply be placed in articles. The basic notion here is that content needs to be fair use and compliant with WP:NFC, policy and guideline, which requires that material be used transformatively - that is, we cannot simply copy somebody's words because we want to convey the same information; we need good reason to use a quote.
These rules are indeed relevant in practice. I'm not sure what you mean by " copyright violation in just any diff is condemned" - can you please clarify? :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
See [27], where you had said that, maybe policies were written differently. I was saying that if I have copied at least 50 words from a page that is protected by copyrights, and other admin rev-del that version and it would be helpful to do, no body will argue against it. Because copyright violation in just any diff is condemned. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:36, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Policies weren't written that much differently, but out of context that really doesn't mean what I meant it to say. :) In fact, it probably wasn't well-said to begin with, since I'm not 100% sure what I was trying to say. (OTOH, I am also really tired at the moment, so this may make more sense after I've had some sleep.) In that case, I'm actually suggesting that we should use quotations, rather than closely paraphrase with a reliance on "fair use" in so doing. Word-count isn't the issue with copyright. 50 words from a 500 page book may or may not be substantial; 50 words from a 52 word poem almost certainly is. In general, though, I wouldn't imagine people would object to rev deletion of a copyright violation unless there is some other value in retaining the diff. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 04:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

ISIL article

It's a while that things are out of control in ISIL. One of the major problems is the texts which violate the copy right and the article is being viewed many times nowadays. I've already tagged a section, but I'm sure there are still other parts to be investigated. Some of my findings (only my findings) are as follows:

As you see, the main concern is with "Sexual violence and slavery" section. Mhhossein (talk) 03:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Mhhossein. Thank you for clearly identifying your issue. If you've listed the article at Wikipedia:Copyright problems, it should be reviewed at some point at least seven days after the listing. It will not be reviewed before then. If you didn't list it at the copyright problems board, please follow the directions in the template - which generates the code for you to do so. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:14, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi, I did the job. Is it done alright? Mhhossein (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Hi...can you please do something about the Beyonce awards page. FUSE never confirmed that she was the most awarded female artist of all time..that list was proven to be inaccurate and no search engine or respected citation supports it. The amount of awards on that page does not add up to 500 and her career awards (the ones with DC) does not add up to 500. Also her awards with DC (aside from the ones from ASCAP and the Grammys) need to be moved back to the DC page. Kendallxoxo (talk) 08:47, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft: Dark

Dear Moonriddengirl,

I read your assessment on the talk page for the draft of Dark regarding the copyright of the film's synop originally included in the draft which has since been edited out. I do own the copyright on the synop and have followed your advice to resend the email stating such to permissions at wikipedia. Hopefully, the synop will be able to be added back in. My question is when will the current draft be added publicly to Wikipedia as an article? Are there any other steps I need to take first, before it is published?

much appreciated,

Quatticapic Quatticapic (talk) 11:16, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

  • (talk page stalker) If you got a reply back with a ticket number, providing that number will make it easier to locate in the system. CrowCaw 16:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
I suggest you don't bother. The purpose of that plot summary is clearly to promote the film in question and hence doesn't belong on Wikipedia. MER-C 08:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

On film article pages isn't it customary to include a synop among other pertinent information about the title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quatticapic (talk • contribs) 08:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Bahla Fort

Hi there Moonriddengirl, could you please take a look at this article Bahla Fort and see if there are any copyvios? Thank you. Gryffindor (talk) 08:58, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:Gryffindor. Indeed, it was a massive copyvio. :/ I am now running an impromptu CCI on the contributor, who has copy-pasted content into at least two other articles and in a third translated without attribution. At least he only edited 19 articles! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:37, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

WikiProject Research Invitation

Hello Wikipedians,

We’d like to invite you to participate in a study that aims to explore how WikiProject members coordinate activities of distributed group members to complete project goals. We are specifically seeking to talk to people who have been active in at least one WikiProject in their time in Wikipedia. Compensation will be provided to each participant in the form of a $10 Amazon gift card.

The purpose of this study is to better understanding the coordination practices of Wikipedians active within WikiProjects, and to explore the potential for tool-mediated coordination to improve those practices. Interviews will be semi-structured, and should last between 45-60 minutes. If you decide to participate, we will schedule an appointment for the online chat session. During the appointment you will be asked some basic questions about your experience interacting in WikiProjects, how that process has worked for you in the past and what ideas you might have to improve the future.

You must be over 18 years old, speak English, and you must currently be or have been at one time an active member of a WikiProject. The interview can be conducted over an audio chatting channel such as Skype or Google Hangouts, or via an instant messaging client. If you have questions about the research or are interested in participating, please contact Michael Gilbert at (206) 354-3741 or by email at [email protected].

We cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information sent by email.

Link to Research Page: m:Research:Means_and_methods_of_coordination_in_WikiProjects

Marge6914 (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Have reached out. :) I'm happy to participate, but given that I work for the WMF would not accept compensation. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Symbiodinium

I see you are active in dealing with copyright violations. I have found that the article Symbiodinium contains a lot of material identical to this Marine Biology Resource Network site. Large chunks of this information were added by Allisonmlewis to Wikipedia in March 2012, with 34,000 bytes added in a single day.

If this is a copyright violation I could remove the information and replace it with something acceptable. However, I am a bit puzzled. Both places mention things in parenthesis such as (Fig. 2A). Wikipedia has figures 2A & B (apparently Allisonmlewis' own work), but the Marine Biology source does not, as far as I can see. So is the Marine Biology source copying Wikipedia rather than the other way round? For the moment, I have added the article to the "Copyright problems" page but am happy to improve the article myself if it really is a copyright violation. The editor concerned no longer seems to be active. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Not encouraging, File:Symbiodinium light and confocal.png was deleted soon after uploading for lack of permission. One of my tricks here is by looking for incremental changes and seeing whether they suggest copy-pasting or incremental development. [32] changes "encompasses the largest and most dominant " to "encompasses the largest and most prevalent" - the external site uses the later construction. That suggests we had it first. this, on the other hand, is alarming. The "�" is a common artifact of copy-pasting a symbol that Wikipedia does not understand, but it's copied from the reference, and my spot-check of text doesn't find anything to concern me. I need to look into this more when I have more time, but my gut is saying that it evolved on Wikipedia. :) Note to me: pick it up with this diff. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I look forward to seeing what you find. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
On further investigation, I notice that the author of some of the images is listed as "Todd LaJeunesse" which redirects to the user Allisonmlewis. Todd is one of the authors of some of the research paper's quoted in the article. I don't know where that leaves the copyright issue but I doubt this is the serious violation I originally thought it was. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Always good. :) I'm back at this - I was derailed by illness. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so here is a change that moves the content away from the source. That's not good for the article. But this is a change that moves it towards the source. Which is. Another change away. And another change towards. Change towards. Change towards.

Here, I think, we have our rosetta stone: [33] - in the edit summary. :) At this point, I'm convinced that this content was on Wikipedia before it was on that external site, but that it was a document being collaborated on both elsewhere and here. I'd bet that the people who developed it together in said Word document and on Wikipedia where then involved in publishing it at marinebio.ca and if I were to spend more time would be looking for signs that the primary contributors here incorporate their changes, but not changes supplied by others. I don't think that's strictly necessary, though, because the incremental changes to this article that made their way into that external site more or less eliminate copying from them to us.

I'm going to put a note on the talk page explaining why I think this is okay and offering directions for further steps in case my conclusion is in error.

That one was an interesting challenge, Cwmhiraeth. :) Thanks for finding something out of the run of the mill. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:14, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 3 February

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

Foam Concrete

Hi MRG! I could do with your assistance at Foam Concrete. It was created by a new editor who basically copy and pasted most of it. It has been nominated for speedy deletion under G12, but I removed that tag after the author re-wrote sections of the article to the point that I felt G12 no longer applied. I have pointed out that they need to re-write other sections of the article too — see User talk:Siva175 and Talk:Foam Concrete. They have done this, but seem to have exchanged parts of of the copy and paste text for 'new' copy and paste text; see [34] in conjunction with http://blite.in/tech.html. What concerns me is that some of the matched phrases are coming up on a large variety of different websites. It's almost as though they have copy and pasted some kind of 'product blurb' from somewhere I can't pin down. The other issue is that every version of page history has infringing material in it. So, I'm just looking for some advice/assistance really. Many thanks. Bellerophon talk to me 21:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I know you were asking for advice, but this one's pretty disturbing. :/ I've gone ahead and blanked and put a note on the talk page. This is a pretty clear pastiche of copy-pasted content. Thank you so much for locating this and staying on top of it! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:59, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks MRG, I was on the verge of blanking it myself. I'll keep an eye on it and try to work with the page creator to rewrite it from scratch. Could you take a look at their sandbox (User:Siva175/sandbox) which is the original version of the article. I've had it tagged for G12 for nearly 20 hours. It might be a good place for that user to draft a new version of the article with a clean page history? Bellerophon talk to me 08:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello MRG, I've rewritten a basic draft of the Foam Concrete article at Talk:Foam Concrete/Temp. Would you mind giving it the once over in case I've not done a very good job (I am rather tired) and if its acceptable I could do with your assistance in moving the contents and history to the moonscape mainspace article. Bellerophon talk to me 22:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:Bellerophon. Thank you very much. :) I don't have time to look right now, but hope to be able to do so later this morning. (knockign wood) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:56, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi MRG, sorry if it seems like I'm pestering you. I'm sure you've been busy, but I wondered if you'd had time to cast your eyes over Talk:Foam Concrete/Temp to see if my rewrite goes far enough? An dynamic IP keeps removing the copyvio template from the article, so there is obviously an agenda here. best wishes. Bellerophon talk to me 09:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry, User:Bellerophon. I got sick, I got behind in work, and I forgot. :( Thanks for pinging me. I'll look now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
User:Bellerophon, I'm sorry, but it uses too much of the original. :( The problem there is that we have not identified every copyvio that was in the article - we've just verified that it's full of them. I did a spot-check on some of the similar text, and I found this: "The blocks or panels produced using foam concrete can be air-cured or the curing process can be accelerated by steam curing up to 70 °C. This procedure is simpler and easier to control, and needs less energy than Autoclaved aerated concrete": "The product can be air cured or the curing process could also be accelerated by vapor or steam curing up to 70°C. This procedure is by far simpler and easier to control and needs less energy." [35] The reason why we request rewriting from scratch is in part because all the content is suspect. Do you mind reviewing the two to remove all content that User:Siva175 added or that is closely based on content that user added? I'm loathe to chop stuff in your rewrite myself. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
I've had another crack at the temp version using the duplication detector to compare the mainspace page with the rewrite. I think I've removed or rewritten most of the original text, if you wouldn't mind taking another look? Bellerophon talk to me 00:00, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it eliminates the problem. I've put it into article space. Thanks for your patience and work there. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and patience also MRG :) Bellerophon talk to me 00:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Texan schooner Invincible

Moonriddengirl, this article was found to have some significant copypaste from the tagged source listed in the copypaste template up top: these paragraphs were removed by the person who found the problem. I started a Good Article reassessment that has just concluded with the article being delisted. However, I suspect that stronger measures are in order.

First, the copypaste source also has been closely paraphrased elsewhere in the article. Also, another source from that same site was copied to a somewhat lesser extent (though I think stretches of 17, 24, and 31 words are clearly excessive). I couldn't get the direct URLs to work for some reason, but searching the relevant article title at the site does turn the article up at the same URL.

When removing the article from the Good Article pages, I discovered that there was another Texan schooner Good Article, Texan schooner Independence, and a quick check shows some similar problems, though not as acute. Indeed, there are four schooner articles started by the same user, Argos'Dad, in September and October 2007, though I didn't find anything clear on Texan schooner Liberty, and haven't checked Texan schooner Brutus. I also haven't checked any other articles by this user.

I'm hoping I can leave it to you to check this, determine what needs to be done with the original article and the other GA in terms of removing any violations, and proceed as appropriate. I'll stop by again to see what you think. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:36, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a real pity, BlueMoonset. :( I'll take a look. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm only halfway through, but I'm out of time. Note to self: [36]. 1909 source, but very helpful in fleshing this out. I'm down to "Charges of Piracy" section. Still need to check other articles, and we could be looking at a CCI here. Unsure. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Finished cleaning up that one. I hope to look further in his contribs tomorrow. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Moonriddengirl. I'm glad the article could be salvaged. I'll be interested in what you discover. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I've done a pretty hefty spot-check of his articles, looking at perhaps 15 of them, and I've only found problems in one - a copy-paste from a Texas government website that he might well have believed to be public domain. Doesn't mean there's not stuff I'm overlooking, but I compared his text to his sources and found what looked like pretty good rewriting. I also did a general websearch. Now, it's not the first time that this contributor has had copyright problems. I talked to him in 2010. So there's certainly the possibility of problems in his history. I'm cautiously optimistic, though, that this is not a major pattern. I'll poke a little bit more in case I find something, but otherwise will probably set it aside. If you see anything more, please do let me know. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl, thank you for taking the time. I'm glad that this doesn't look like a CCI case—this may have been something that happened early in the user's career, but not later; the Invincible article is from 2007. (Your interaction in 2010 may have dealt with the problem.) Did you not think that the other 2007 article I mentioned as problematic, Texan schooner Independence, contained copyvio? I ran Duplication detector against it, and there were 18 and 27 word lifts from the Charles Edward Hawkins article at TSA, and a couple of other pairs from the same article would combine into double-digit stretches with only a word or two difference. Again, this is an early article, but it probably shouldn't be left as it is. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
For that one, I have to do a headdesk. :/ For some reason, I thought you had said that the other naval articles were okay. I didn't check them. Rereading, I see that you said only one of them was okay. I'll have to look. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
Ow! Please don't headdesk yourself! (Forgive me for verbifying it.) Thanks for all the work you've been doing! I see you've already made some good changes to the Independence article, though I imagine you're still working on it, since there are still some Hawkins lifts remaining. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Upload

Hello Maggie. I've uploaded to Commons a photo of an old music manustript from the 18th century scanned from a book which is younger. May I ask you if is it allowed? I'll ask for deletion if not ... For relevant discussion see User_talk:Gerda_Arendt#A_Bach_featured_day_is_always_a_good_day..._Congrats_on_BWV22_feature.. Thank you for any advice. Best regards. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 16:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Vejvančický . :) The most specific answer I can give you is "I think so" - that is, I'd upload that without hesitation. Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works are not, in the United States, regarded as attracting new copyright. If they had reproduced it with alterations, it might have its own copyright protection, but as it is, I think it falls very clearly under Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. As always, IANAL and please note that I can't tell you if it's actually legal under the laws of your own jurisdiction, but I think it's fine under Commons policy. I've altered the template a bit so the error message has gone away. :) Nice find! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
To my limited understanding, under German law there might be a publication right concern if the music’s first-ever public appearance was in that book, and not earlier than 1990. See c:Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Germany. Doesn’t seem likely though, unless the piece itself was only recently discovered, because (again AIUI) a public musical performance constitutes a publication of the underlying work.—Odysseus1479 21:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, User:Odysseus1479, for adding that important nuance! :) It didn't even occur to me that it might be a newly discovered piece. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you for your expert answers. The cantata appears on recordings since the 1950s, so I don't think it is a recently discovered work. See Jesus_nahm_zu_sich_die_Zwölfe,_BWV_22#Recordings. Thank you again. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 07:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
First performance was 7 February 1723, according to our article. First printed publication was in the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, 5: 65-92. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1855. It should be OK... Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Solvatten

Hi Moonriddengirl (cc.Justlettersandnumbers). I created a page called Solvatten, which was subsequently removed due to concerns around copyright infringements (some of the text matched that found on www.solvatten.se). An email has now been sent from a representative of Solvatten, which follows the guidelines given here Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. This is all new to me, so I'd be very grateful if you could indicate whether the original entry can now be restored. With thanks, Tmrl84 (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 February 2015

ANI

I notice that the ANI discussion was archived without a resolution. Is this normal? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, sadly. I think that conversation was utterly derailed by a perhaps well-intentioned but overly aggressive push to resolve the issue with a block. I apologize that I was not able to achieve mediation or to de-escalate tensions, but if the situation continues, the next step is either to try to ANI again or to ask ArbCom to evaluate the matter. Battleground interactions remain one of the most difficult problems to resolve on our project. :( --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:55, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Sadly I think it's continuing. The advice offered by third parties (Resolute, Viriditas) hasn't been taken and I still saw hostility even when I offered page scans of a source (so he could utilize it). See diffs at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia&action=history - I had started a thread at Wikipedia:RS noticeboard and tried to offer advice about sources and there is still a refusal and the same hostility. I now have the opinion it won't change without drastic intervention and it's not something that can be ignored anymore. Im sorry that I got myself so wrapped up in it because it's affecting my health and now relations with my family. I fear the same pattern will happen to someone else if something isn't done about it WhisperToMe (talk) 06:25, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
WhisperToMe, I'm really sorry that my efforts did not help. :( Based on input at ANI, I fear very much that you are right, but am not really sure what to do about it immediately. As I said, ANI again is an option, as is ArbCom. I have never filed at ArbCom and don't really know how. I'll take a look and see if there is anything that rises to a level of a new filing right now in my opinion, but if something happens that rises to it in yours you can certainly launch a discussion at either venue on your own. I will certainly share my observations if it goes forward in any venue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
I just want to let you know that I really, really appreciate the help you've given me. Thank you so much! I'll keep you updated on any further occurrences. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
I don't know if you've seen User_talk:Resolute#Skookum1 but it may be helpful to see this discussion. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
It looks as though User:Viriditas is trying to reach some kind of peaceful solution here. I hope that will prove successful but have some concerns based on these edits and these that the stick is nowhere near dropped. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. Firstly, I'm trying to get Skookum1 to leave reasonable replies so that we can have a normal discussion. I haven't yet got to that point, and while I have lots of patience, my time is limited. If I can find a way to communicate with him that works for both of us, I hope I can then resolve this dispute. Viriditas (talk) 21:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to get all of you to listen to my objections to the rule-mongering about page-cites and here you are styling me as not leaving "reasonable replies". What I've been subjected to in the way of demands and claims and distortions by WTM has not been reasonable at all. Now it seems WTM has launched a drive to make citing "rules" all the more inhibitive; if you don't like the "rules" once it's been pointed out making up conflations of them and claiming they are mandatory, then hey, why not write new, stronger ones? The deeper POV issues of his attacks and guideline-SYNTHing are the core issue, and it's not me who's being unreasonable.

Sounding reasonable while talking b.s. is not actual reason, and it's uncivil when it's been so persistent and constant, always painting me as the bad guy when I'm standing up for NPOV and my knowledge of the material, which all those condemning me have little appreciation of, including those who say they don't care about it and refuse to read what I have to say.

The enablement of his ongoing AGF towards me for months now is ongoing, it seems, and increasingly hopeless as so many reasonable (not just reasonable-sounding) editors have given up or been driven out.

Calling my rebuke of his offer to send me copies of a book I've already read and which guidelines DO NOT require page cites for (in spite of his claims to the contrary) "hostility" completely belies the FACT that he's been hostile to a host of issues and sources I've provided while he's been mounting his campaign to silence and/or block me.

you all should give your heads a shake. And at yourselves, not at me. What I see above is rank AGF from all of you, and no understanding whatsoever or a readiness to consider the very real and very important POV/propaganda agenda that is the article's, and WTM's, main problem; the content he adds is POV in the extreme, and uses selective quotes to advance SYNTH of a very negative and one-sided type; and WP:NCET's self-identification guideline is among the many that he ignores in advancing his claim that capital-W "White" should be used because a non-European Canadian author uses it. That and many other rankly POV issues will never be addresse by any of you, while you're busy conferring about how to deal with me.

Best way to do THAT is to give fair consideration to my points about guidelines re instruction creep instead of only discuss your AGF perspectives about my "conduct" and treat him with kid-gloves as if anything I saw were invalid, but everything he says is valid because he sounds reasonable, but he's not.Skookum1 (talk) 06:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

That offer to send me photocopies so *I* can do the page-cites he demands be provided when not needed via RS or WP:V unless quotes is a non-starter; that would take 3-4 months to get here unless FedEx'd and I'm NOT going to provide a mailing address under these circumstances....and I may move on from here long before then; I notice in his page that he puts it "Also my offer to give you select pages of In the Sea of Sterile Mountains still stands." indicates that it's his selections of pages.....and while I've named various specific passages in the book for HIM to find, it seems he's intent on selecting himself what he wants me to find, just as he was being selective in his many negative race-politics-driven "choices" in the building of the heavily SYNTH/POV content he amassed on that page.Skookum1 (talk) 06:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
No, @Skookum1:. Whisper has offered to email attachments of images of the pages for you to use, not photocopies. They will get to your email inbox immediately if you are willing to work with him. Viriditas (talk) 05:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


Given the ongoing AGF against me and general privacy, me responding from my own email address for him to have is just not on. As I said on your talkpage, you can serve as a relay as you already have my email. And that I am very wary of his selected pages, given his penchant for very selective excerpts from sources in the course of building what is very clearly to me, who knows BC history and its political/cultural contexts, that the pages that he wants to me to have to do his work for him on his terms (needless page-cites) will be similarly selective in what they contain; and if he's already picked them, why isn't HE adding material from them to the article??. There's plenty of linked sources I've already provided that give counterbalance/correct facts vs the POV/biased sources and their claims and exaggerations and generalizations that I intend to use.
Asking/telling me to do his work for him, based on his selection of items from a book he should be reading cover to cover, and noting the items I have mentioned more than once I know to be in it (some are listed on your talkpage in my latest response) comes off as enabling his self-appointed role as editor-and-chief and is dancing to the tune he demands; oddly it's me that's accused of OWN despite that very obvious behaviour, including the red-herring technical issues he raises to avoid addressing the content issues I've raised and granting AGF to sources he has never read, instead of disputing their validity based on his claims about what guidelines say when they do NOT.
My primary concern throughout has been NPOV - but he says there is no POV. Really? And how could he know that if he only just started learning about British Columbia at all? Denying POV while constantly building SYNTH towards it, and opposing sources/facts/issues through technical issues is not good encyclopedism; it is a closed and shuttered mind. The main issue here is content and not page-citing; which I view as nothing more than a side-issue meant to make more work for me when he should be doing it himself.
That being said, have him send you those documents and re-email them to me, and I'll give you my opinion of what he has selected for me to do for him based on his distortions of guidelines; instruction creep is in the way here when it shouldn't be. If I hadn't been so virulently countermanded and opposed by him these last few months and he'd been more cooperative and collaborative, much could have been accomplished on the article; instead he makes huge SYNTH arguments about certain terms and certain cites and such rather than grant me any AGF at all about the points I raise about content and sources that I have read, and he has not. His focus on academic sources vs other histories and journalistic items (various journalists cover both Chinese history and current Chinese politics in ways very different from the ideological cant/distortions of the "modernist" history academicists).Skookum1 (talk) 06:49, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, no email is needed. All Whisper needs to do is upload anything you need into a Dropbox account. Problem solved. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
As noted on your own talkpage just now, I've now seen what bits from Morton he's used for the article, and they're selectively worded and glossed so I have my doubts about the utility of the pages he wants me to page-cite; why he can't read the whole book and do it himself is quite beyond me, other than his self-appointed role as editor-in-chief of the article; there's lots of sources on line that he has ignored and which I will put to use...since he shows no sign of doing so, and re Morton, not fairly but continuing on teh SYNTH/POV construct and one-sided portrayals.Skookum1 (talk) 12:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
A little good faith would go a long way here. Viriditas (talk) 01:57, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Tell me about it, I've been saying that for months now.....
I've updated the article to instill some balance and counterpoise to various distorted generalizations; the changes are so far fromnon-academic but reputable sources that are balanced and unbiased, as too many are. As you probably have seen by now,[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AChinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia&diff=646528247&oldid=646473251 I commented at length onn the talkpage in as concise-but-thorough fashion as possible given the missing context I have set out to explain; re various excerpts re lack of context and abuse of sources and blatant SYNTH, and also repetition of material in the article re data-critiques assembled from one biased author. I will return later today or tomorrow (it is 1:53 pm here at the moment) to link on a talkpage "Sources" section a number of mainstream and much better sources than Yee or Willmott (whoever he is, he's a nobody as far as well-known history sources go, and is incomplete in claims he makes); And please note my wariness of his selected material from Morton has been validated by the way he has used tidbits of Morton in a biased and out of context fashion, as also laid out, in part, on that new section in the talkpage.
Also note that I have given a bit of a writing lesson or two re certain passages because of the incredibly clunky and awkward recomposition of sources in jumbled and quite unreadable fashion; into natural English, not stilted essay-style ... but that's what happens when you cherrypick negative information in the course of building a SYNTH opus based on out-of-context data points; the repetitive use of "ethnic Chinese" "Chinese persons" and "Chinese men" throughout needs culling; "Chinese", "Chinese miners", "Chinese workers/labourers" and "Chinese merchants" are all fine and do not need "ethnic" before them; and Chinese is a plural noun and a singular one t oo, "Chinese persons" sounds.........academic and needless when the context is clear. What other kinds of Chinese are there than "ethnic"? (and I don't mean minorities under Chinese rule; of whom there were none in BC other than maybe some Manchurians; SFAIK all were Han, and most were from Guangdong; there may be some Uygurs and Tibetans in BC now, but per WP:NCET they should be described that way, not by the mandates of the PRC's claims that they are "Chinese").
also please note on the talkpage history one (only one) short rejoinder to an ultra-AGF challenge re "if your knowledge doesn't come from verifiable sources, it is inadmissible" - as if I didn't know all that I know about Vancouver and BC from published sources; that is so rankly patronizing it boggles the mind; and who is he again, to make such a rank AGF comment against somebody respected inside Wikipedia and out for his knowledge of BC history and familiarity with sources? He has no familiarity with any of the books I will list and those I have already named either on the talkpage or page-cite-challenged by him without valid cause in the article; I and many others in Vancouver do have a familiarity with those books, and as with Lillooet and the Cariboo and more I will seek to enlist participants from the real community who will come forward to provide page-cites, not because he demands them, but to prove they exist (which he implies they do not in his ongoing AGF). Let's hope they don't get patronized and quibbled with as I have been; Wikipedia needs more informed contributors and less decision-making on guidelines alone, without reference to knowledge of the subjects in articles and that they are not "interfered with" in the course of their contributions; many in the real world have eyes on this now, including a classmate from HIST-436 at SFU who is currently photocopying our "textbook" (article and chapter photocopies on various things; I never had my own copy and having no money read what I could in the university bookstore or when available in the Bennett Library there).
Yes, indeed, a little AGF would go a long ways, as would an apology for the "burden" that his warring with me has caused me; but I expect my comments to be dismissed as a "wall of text" by those who won't read it and don't care about the subject nor know enough about it to recognize blatant SYNTH/POV, as too often before; in another spot on the talkpage I saw last night he asserts that GB fan is "learning that they are required" (meaning page-cites) but nothing is "required" by actual guidelines, and per WP:IAR that statement is a non starter; GB Fan has not yet been heard of for comment about that assertion as to his position on the matter.
As I have told you before on your talkpage, the page-cite issues is red herring that defrays from direct-dealing with the POV/SYNTH issues that are the core of the dispute; if I am not harrassed by "WP:ANImal Farm" and edit-warring does not result from my introduction of balance and attempts to mediate the biased framework and very bad writing and misuse of cites thus far, there is much more just in the sources already provided and ignored to be added towards fixing the gross bias prevailing throughout the material added by him. Blatant mis-use, including parroting one author alone (Yee) in various passages where much more reputable and unbiased sources are in wide circulation and availability.
One exception re availability, Mathews' Early Vancouver of which only 50 copies were ever in print, and I had one of them, given to me by noted bookseller Bill Hoffer long ago, and which I sold to MacLeod's Books. The Vancouver Archives and Vancouver Public Library have other copies, and the Archives has the unpublished further five volumes are in manuscript form only at the Vancouver Archives, as the city, upon firing Mathews, the city's original archivist, for exceeding his budget by publishing the first two volumes without approval from council, has never authorized the printing of the rest. There may be some individuals reached in my appeal for locals to "take their history back" who either have a copy, or would be willing to spend time in the VPL or Archives reading and finding the page-cites; Mathews covers a lot of ground in his collection of first-hand reports and stories, and many of the items that have been page-cite-demanded will have several cites from that book alone, along with six or seven other major sources which apparently authors like Yee and Wilmott don't use, except in out-of-context fashion re critique/op-ed form rather than narrative history that is readable and "in the interests of the general readership" per WP:TITLE (a policy not a conflated guideline-cum-"rule").
No doubt challenges to my contextual commentary re the city's geography and the full circumstances of given events will be mounted, with page-cites demanded; but even if the claims he is making about page-cites are valid and they are not, those guidelines do not apply to talkpages. If they do, t hat's taking instruction creep more than a bit too far, and such challenges and demands are disruptive and confrontational rather than collaborative and constructive.
in addition to the apology and retractions I should get but know I won't, that quip about sending me 500 bucks and a bottle of scotch to make amends still stands; not that I'm a drinker, but after some of the days upon days of harassment I could have used a good stiff drink. Let him spend that 500 bucks ordering the books I will list, though, and he should read them fully before making further POVite expansions of the article in the SYNTHy way he has so voluminously done. As on my comments on the talkpage, the article really needs a full rewrite, given the bad writing and biased tone/SYNTH and layout, but it's informed-about-BC/Vancouver editors that are needed to do that; it's far more than I have the time or energy to do myself; enough of my energy has been put into defending NPOV and myself these last weeks; the AGF not granted to me was not only from him, of course.Skookum1 (talk) 06:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl, please check my talk page for status updates about this discussion. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:54, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I sent you a question to your email.

Hello Moonriddengirl, I sent a question regarding a deleted page. Thanks. Anilakeo (talk) 04:54, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
For creating the article on Heidegger scholar Parvis Emad.
—Tom Morris (talk) 18:32, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Waiver request

Can you briefly waive my upload ban so I can add a lead image for the ITN RD bio of Bob Simon? I've posted a request for a non-free photo, which are everywhere, but no efforts have been made. And while you're considering that, how do I request that the full ban be lifted? I don't foresee any future image issues, as I have agreed to post front and back images, include relevant dates, proper licenses, etc. --Light show (talk) 23:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid I can't, Light show. I didn't impose the ban unilaterally and can't lift it. If you've located a free image somewhere, you can probably post a request to WP:MCQ for someone to upload it. To appeal a ban, you go to WP:AN. You'll want to link to the ban discussion and explain why you feel things have changed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
OK, that's understood. But since you originally opened the CCI back in April 2012 and also opened the subsequent topic ban, admins might give priority value to your opinion about lifting the ban. And since I don't want to waste admin time, if go to AN, are you prone to relaxing the ban based on my above comments? If not, what else do you need? --Light show (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Samrat Ashok Technological Institute

Would you have a look at Samrat Ashok Technological Institute? With the nature and amount of unsourced added I found it appropriate to restore your last version. -- Sam Sing! 11:03, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that's probably a good choice. I found only traces of copying - mostly original content, I think. But some serious spam. :/ I've given COI cautions to the two accounts that were primarily involved. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

My CWW case

Hi again! As mentioned in the CP talk page, the issue I'm working is User:Spyda2. He/she creates article lists about seniority in the various US Congress sessions, essentially a large table. The part that is in question is the lead of each page, which would flag the CorenBot nearly every time (I've since whitelisted him, not to excuse the problem but to save SCV volunteer time since I'm watching this case). The text of the lead is fairly factual, but it is the question of creative presentation and word choice. I've asked him a couple of times to just leave an initial edit summary, and even formatted it for him. He's not edited sine my last note, so I'm watching to see what happens before escalation. Thoughts? Recommendations? Thanks as always! CrowCaw 22:53, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like you've taken the best approach. Attribution is definitely needed here. Near as I can tell, the originator of this lead is User:Katagelophobia,beginning here. The text does not appear in what I believe is the only other article in the series at that time: [37]. And it looks like natural evolution there. The entire series was seriously messed up; I've gone through and provided base attribution for everything. While there may be variants in the text developed in other articles, I suspect they would be de minimis.
Your contributor is quite obviously still editing based on overlap in contributions with [38]. My guess would be he logs in primarily to create new articles.
I've left several notices about copying within Wikipedia to people in the process of this cleanup. One thing you might think about is that this guy may not understand edit summaries at all. My note at User_talk:Kevas123#Copying_within_Wikipedia was constructed with that possibility in mind.
Oh, one more thing - you might want to make clear that they can ask you questions. Newcomers don't always know what to do with that "talk" link. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Wow thanks for doing all of that! I had an offline list ready to start pasting in, but you've saved me the trouble. One question, from the notes you left the contributors: you tell them the talk page template is recommended but not required, while the edit-summary is required. Typically I usually only add {{copied}} to the talk page of source and destination articles, but do not make a corresponding edit summary. Is this in fact insufficient? Should I go back and edit-summary those previous occasions? Thanks again for the fix on this! CrowCaw 17:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I have been advised that the edit summary is the essential part. :/ Reason is that other authors are credited there. CC-By-SA requires that credit must, in an adaptation or collection, appear "if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors." This, for us, is in the history section. GFDL requires that the history section host a list of authors. Arguably, we would be required to list all authors in the history, but our Terms of Use allows us to provide credit through a link to the article itself, which preserves the full list in its history. That said, I do not know how much I'm suggesting you need to go back and do. With our backlog, I would focus more on moving forward, as credit at least has been supplied on the talk page. If it's not a ton of work and there's any way to generate a list, I'd be really happy to help with edit summaries. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the clarification. At some point in my ample free time I'll re-visit those. As far as a list goes, I will just search my contrib list in Talk space. I always use the same edit summary for Copied templates, though half of those will be for the source page and so not needing any action. CrowCaw 20:23, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Moonriddengirl. You have new messages at Peridon's talk page.
Message added 20:40, 16 February 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Ping doesn't seem to be on, so I'm using tb instead. An interesting little problem brought to me involving pinched barnstars and possible copyright issues on photos, including compatibility with 4.0. Peridon (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Might help if I say it's in the 'Follow up' thread, having branched off from the 'Eddie Law' thread a little way back. Peridon (talk) 20:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh boo you are no fun

As the subject says ha!

Ban away I couldn't care less. Only signed up for that one joke.

Enjoy your power trip :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisisjustajoke (talk • contribs) 14:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Blocked, for obvious reasons. Yunshui 雲水 15:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

Rose-Baley Party

Hi MRG, can you take a look at this. Because I had to type it all from the source I stopped at the top of page 11 and so only tagged a single section. Not sure if I've done this right. Email sent also, to both your accts. Thanks, Victoria (tk) 17:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Also see this: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ItsLassieTime. Sorry, had to do it. There's only one way to know. Victoria (tk) 18:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, I'd really appreciate it if you took a look at the article soon, as I'm afraid my hard work will be deleted for non-action. As you probably remember, we've discussed close paraphrasing in depth, and I truly feel that what I've contributed falls well within the acceptable limits as you've explained them to me. At the very worst, a simple copyedit that paraphrases and attributes would solve any actual issues, so it would be a real shame if the article were deleted when all it needs is a minor polishing. More importantly, the crux of Victoria's SPI against me is that I don't properly paraphrase, but she is obviously biased against anyone she suspects of being ILT, so we really need a neutral party to take a look at the paraphrasing and confirm or deny if the problem is as pressing as Victoria says. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:45, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor

  • The prose is so flowery that I suspect it was from a copyrighted source. I haven't been able to confirm this, but perhaps you or a TPS would be able to. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:26, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Precious again

reviewing eyes

Your name was mentioned in relation to PumpkinSky ("... someone whose conversant in the copyvio area should be added to his list of mentors, someone like Moonridden girl."). I would appreciate highly if you reviewed just one article in his CCI (of 11 left of 729) and join the distinguished list of reviewers. I have been labelled an "absolute supporter of the copyright violator" and would live happier without that, an absolute supporter of a person. - Repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (21 April 2009, 7 June 2009, 20 January 2011)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Three years ago, you were the 37th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Copyvio problems at Surinam Airways

Hello there, Moonriddengirl. I'm contacting you regarding a copyvio violation made by Nardisoero (talk · contribs) (apart from their addition of unsourced facts) because you had already warned the user about the introduction of copypasted material into articles. Please refer to the last paragraph of the ″History″ section of Surinam Airways. It is almost identical to the content included in the companion two sources. I don't know how to proceed with this. The user has a history of both copyright violations and addition of unsourced material but they doesn't seem to acknowledge the messages left at their talk. Thanks in advance.--Jetstreamer Talk 13:50, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Copying from another wiki

Hello Moonriddengirl,

I've come across an edit that was lifted nearly verbatim from this version of the person's page on Liquipedia without attribution as requested here. I haven't really dealt with a situation like this before, but all signs point towards this edit being a copyright violation because there is no attribution. Reverting the change and deleting the delinquent revision seems like an appropriate course of action, but I wanted to ask a second opinion because I'm a bit rusty. Cheers, Airplaneman ✈ 07:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

The Signpost: 04 March 2015

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

Copyvio Notice for The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog.

Hi there, As I looked at The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog page on Wikipedia, I understood that a copyvio notice is under the Synopsis. As I double check each page, I and someone rewrote it on the temp page without copyright infringement. Those this page doesn't need a Synopsis even though the information of the show is already up next to the title. The Characters and Episodes are understandable and info is intact. Once you reviewed it and feel that a Synopsis is no longer needed for The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog, go ahead and remove the Synopsis part and leave the rest intact without problems. Thanks. Agentmike41 (talk) 15:18, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Agentmike41 . I've merged the copyvio-free version into the current version. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you so much. Now that page is back to normal. Agentmike41 (talk) 20:04, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Skookum1

Moonriddengirl,

Please see the comments on my talk page. Viriditas is requesting help from another administrator. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

And I'm requesting help from other Wikipedians who know what POV is and recognize the huge NPOV violations that WTM and Viriditas are currently building. Viriditas' rank NPA about me having personal problems and "Wikipedia is not therapy"......no indeed, it's not, and it's also not meant as a stump for people building POV content and seeking to exclude sources and editors in the course of building WP:POV forks; it's not me that needs therapy, or wiki-punishment/harrassment and yet another attempt to get me out of the way of WTM's POV empire-building.
Note that Viriditas' slag about me relates to his refusal to even admit to quotations of the NPOV policy on his page, for his consideration, claiming that his "rules" for his page require only one issue be discussed at a time [39] [40]. The one WTM has concocted, that is, and which Viriditas is condoning, re page-cites that are not actually required. The one issue I've been on about since encountering WTM's style of content-generation months ago is NPOV', and the refusal to address that policy and instead trump up more "official" harassment against me is just "more of the same".
WTM is complaining because I'm fixing the execrably bad English composition resulting from his admitted method of throwing up trivial tidbits without context, saying that once he learns more, he may discover the context; yet I provide that context, and with sources; only to find myself vilified.....the real reason being that the real issue for him is defending his POV agenda, while claiming it's not POV, and trying anything and everything to disallow sources and information that compete with his SYNTH constructions e.g. the Hongcouver section in all its POV/UNDUE glory. The sino-centeric bias and ongoing focus on how [all] white people were/are anti-Chinese IS, and it's highly offensive, and POLICY expressly says that POV content that is offensive should be removed/disallowed.Skookum1 (talk) 05:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
I have little hope of being treated fairly given the history of one-sided slags against me, including by yourself; whetehr DRV or ARBCOM or t he POV board, there is much amiss here that needs redress; and campaigning to block me for citing policy and demanding it be respected is so far off-base it's not funny. In fact, it's very serious, this violation of NPOV and all that has been done (to me) to try to prevent correcting the heavy bias and one-sided content agenda that remains ongoing.....now in a sandbox where all the POV and TRIVIA/SYNTH and very bad writing is being repeated and mollycoddled...while complaints are being made that I am working to correct the NPOV and bad facts and very bad writing on the CCinBC article, where WTM's erratic and a-contextual contributions often repeat themselves, and sentence construction is awkward and mal-formed, and redundant even within the same sentences, and content repeated.... to underscore/advance the SYNTH/POV that is the hallmark of WTM's agenda and attempt to strictly limit and restrict sources that put the lie to the ethno-ideological drivel that his contributions really are.Skookum1 (talk) 05:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
In what dispute resolution forum is this currently being reviewed? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Is this the page cites issue (which was discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_183#Are_.22page_cites.22_required.3F and has now been closed) or is this @Viriditas:'s mediation? If it's the mediation: so far it's only been on talk pages and it involved some private e-mails sent by Skookum. Viriditas does not want to use ANI. Therefore: Both he and I are not communicating with Skookum. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:04, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I approached this with an open mind. I was friendly with both parties and tried to give equal consideration to each side. After examining concerns from both editors I have reached a final conclusion. Skookum1 is engaging in WP:IDHT behavior that makes it impossible to communicate or collaborate with him. He does have moments of lucidity which always surprise me, as if there are two different people using his account (there aren't). Because he is unwilling to change his behavior, there is nothing more to discuss with him. Looking through the archives, there is long-term pattern of WP:DIVA and paranoid behavior, combined with uncontrolled personal attacks that he is unwilling to modify and that the community is also unwilling to address. In my investigation, I found WhisperToMe willing to engage, collaborate, and compromise in a civil manner. I would like to suggest that Skookum1 be given a final warning before receiving a long block. Viriditas (talk) 06:32, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

And I would like to suggest that you are not an M.D. and point out that what you have said here is an outright personal attack, and it's you should be at ANI for any such comment. That you have begun this new line of response since refusing to acknowledge the primacy of the NPOV policy is not incidental; and that kind of conduct is described somewhere in NPOV, about making personal attacks or otherwise discrediting editors and/or sources so as to maintain a POV agenda. That you now are cultivating a WP:POV fork violation to the letter of that policy makes your posturing about blocking me all the more brutally ironic and ...hypocritical. Oh, is that an NPA? Should I apologize first, or should you?:
That neither you nor MRG have sufficient knowledge to address the NPOV matter or any interest in improving the quality and readability and neutrality of the article, and are only interested in finding self-justifications to block another editor who pointed out your own failings makes all this even more of a sick joke; NPOV is not any of your concern, you've made that clear....but you sure do seem to think you have both morality authority and psychiatric expertise as justification for your now-campaign to not deal with POV issues - but instead block, for a long time, the long-time editor experienced and knowledgeable in the field at hand (which you are not), to get him out of the way so that the POV-driven editor you are now mollycoddling and encouraging to perpetrate and expand his POV and his SYNTH ways without being "interfered with" by someone from the reality he's presuming to field a very biased mis-presentation of;
So, I respond to another NPA about my alleged ill-mental-health and get another one on top of it, then a call for a (long) block if I don't "take my pill" or whatever; and wind up spending a lot of energy on defending myself against unfairness...and didn't make another stab at making the article cogent and fair; or cleaning it up of it many repetitions and worse..... it's not like you or MRG or anyone at WMF is giong to work on it if you get me blocked; well, other than WTM who has always wanted it for himself, and himself only.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:51, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
I commented on WTM's talkpage only because of Viriditas' "Nurse Ratchet NPA" about me; I've been "not looking" at the little confabs between them two of them about the POV fork project they have going and taking the time to clean up the disorderly mess that the article is in, plus get at other projects long in need of doing, when I do have time to be on here that is; so while WTM is now again trying to get me blocked (as he keeps on talking about - I do look now and then and see all this but resist commenting...until Viriditas made that very rank NPA against me), I've been applying myself to
  • improve content, and not just on that article alone; some larger projects I'd like to have started months ago (e.g. Cassiar Gold Rush, Salmon War, Great Smallpox of 1862) I never had time/energy/goodwill for because of all the harassment and other obstructionism
  • recruit new blood from "the real community" and not just on content relating to the CCinBC subject, so that BC history is not written by those who know nothing about it first-hand and/or have political agendas behind their contributions, which is clearly the case here; if you don't know what I mean by that, you don't know enough about current or historical Canadian politics to fully "get it", but that's no surprise, either....
  • enlist other BC and Canadian Wikipedians (or others who care about neutrality and non-biased content) to take on contributing to and monitoring their local histories and the province's general historical and geographical wiki-content; this is including outreach to specific historians and community museum curators I know (often personally).
  • browsing source after source (readily available online if you know where to look) for materials and for my own education too; but also to find the balance I know is out there to offset the very POV nature of WTM's erratic and in-cogent whiteboarding and POV/SYNTH...
  • stand up for NPOV and the principle that "the interests of the general readership should be put before those of specialists"
And what do you want to do about me. Talk about me, play amateur shrink-cum-executioner, refuse to acknowledge NPOV as important, and endorse WTM's desire to have me blocked.
Is this to "protect the encyclopedia", or punish those who don't like to see it turned into a POV soapbox where neutrality is unwelcome, and violators of that expressedly "non-neutrality policy" will be punished?
So either acknowledge that NPOV is just as important as WP:V, acknowledge that page-cite demands are not to be used as a weapons in a very obvious POV dispute, and recognize that I'm not the problem
- that problem is in your own preconceptions and a mix of gullibility, fake CIVILity masking actually very aggressive and obstructionist content, and recognize that all the bullshit thrown in my face and heart this last few months has prevented me from working at, as I have been lately, making the article useful and valid for the general readership and also making it so that scads of people won't be offended by the grossly POV tone and agenda of the manifesto that WTM constructed....so erratically and without cogency or readability...
....all while being hostile to anything that would balance out his harsh condemnation against "white" society that he is so interested in, even though he's not even a Chinese Canadian himself (Chinese Canadians often make comments about other Chinese coopting their history for political or personal gain, in fact) . It's all race politics, and is in no small way connected to China's growing political influence in Canada, and so it's political in Canada, ergo it's POV, and blocking me will only serve the person and agenda being pushed, and prevent my work on making the article in conformity with content policies from continuing.
Blocking me would serve only to perpetrate POV and to soothe the egos of those who like to hand our moral judgments on others, but can't take it themselves when it's pointed out that they are in violation of policy - as well as of the NPA guideline; and are calling for me to be tied to a post (ANI) where I can be subjected to yet more NPAs; and there will be - as before - people who come forward to support me and tell the rest of you to leave me alone, there'z nothing worth blocking me over;
Standing up for policy should not result in "he's crazy/out of control, block him" as a way to end debate on that policy.Skookum1 (talk) 16:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Skookum1, standing up for policy does not require that you attack other editors. I am not focused on the NPOV issue - that's an editorial question, and I have been engaged in this since I first stumbled upon it (on your request for copyright review) as an administrator. I am not able to mix these roles. You said you were "requesting help from other Wikipedians" - where? At what dispute resolution forum are you pursuing this issue? Consensus (reached through collegial engagement) is the way to resolve disputes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, well "collegial engagement" would be all fine and dandy if there was any such effort to accept good faith about me and the issues/facts I regularly raise, and "consensus" weren't used to make personal attacks against me, whether "soft worded" or outright distorted condemnations and false allegations as has been the typical conduct of "that place" called ANI. And it seems that criticizing someone's bad-sourcing and POV activity/bias is construed as a "personal attack" but somehow actual personal denunciations like the many that are levelled against me (as above) are fine and dandy, too.
But if I were to make a "psychiatric NPA" in return such as "psychotic denial and deflection/projection" I'd be blocked/banned forthwith; but it's peachy-keen to attack me as a way to not discuss the issues I raise, and which, yes, get very frustrating when someone who is not interested at all in "collegial engagement" with another editor experienced on a topic where the complainer is a completely neophyte and spends huge amount of energy (and massive WoT board/talkpage posts which are vast in their size and number) seeking to discredit me or derail discussions with such blather - or keeps on trying to enlist support to get me blocked and out of his way over and over, just as he's never let go of his false premises and POV on wanting to talk about BC's Chinese history/society limited to Vancouver (without even having any idea of how the city is laid out or governed) and only focussing on a certain bias and being combative against anything that challenges that bias; which is now all over the internet on wiki-clone sites e.g. re his mistake from one of his "superior because scholarly" sources about a Peter Wong supposedly being the first mayor of Victoria. One of countless examples of "bad facts" from his preferred sources that were dumped en masse into the article even as he was mounting and encouraging a campaign to have me blocked.....
Editorial issues should always have priority over claims/allegations of behavioural-guideline violations, and lot of regular talkpage guidelines by him have been ignored, e.g. "butting in" by putting his replies ahead of my already-extant ones in reply to TheMightyquill (just one example); never mind false reporting of what board-comments have said in reply to his essays about his claims about guidelines; as with sources he cherrypicks guidelines and then conflates them.
That you didn't focus on the "editorial question" and engaged an ANI targeting me personally calls into question your own priorities - i.e. not caring about policy matters but making allegations based on a half-reading and apparent/alleged claims against me; i.e. putting so-called "behavioural guidelines" ahead of the neutrality policy, and ignoring that latter matter when condemning me in one-sided fashion for "combativeness" when that's been a largely one-way street from WTM's side from day one, as I've often said and never once been acknowledged by him or any of those condemning me for "talking too much" while at the same time having no problem at all with his much-longer rants against me, or his SYNTH/OR theories on talkpages, including the CCinBC one....
That you ignore HIS "bad behaviour" while escalating claims against me while ignoring the content-policy issue that has been the core of my problems with WTM is very questionable as far as your own agendas/priorities go. That you are WMF staff and don't care about "editorial questions" but view yourself as a behaviour-cop without any conscience about quality, neutral content for the encyclopedia itself raises a host of issues....
I'm going to continue working on content; and improving the encyclopedia, which is much in need of improving, quite frankly; my goodwill towards the Wikipedia "community" has been at a low ebb sinc the last round of ANIs against me, which similarly were fielded to stop me in my tracks when my success-rate at overturning a host of BOLD and somewhat POV moves by another "specialist scholar" wiki-academic-wannabe was getting a little too successful; and during one of those arbitrary blocks, the blocker went at the remaining RMs and "hostile closed" them.....contrary to the mounting consensus very evident in 80 or more similar/parallel RMs; that block, like its predecessor, also arbitrary, was NOT by consensus, and it was imposed as that admin had a grudge against me for pointing out her error about a certain CfD she had closed wrongly and stating outright she wasn't going to read all the relevant information about....invoking TLDR in her close, even though it' not supposed to be used about talkpages or board discussions and should only be invoked re articles (and is another reason why WTM's contributions need trimming for concision/composition as well as for POV issues).
Persistently POV-pushing and seeking to get blocked an NPOV-minded editor who criticizes and takes action against such POV-pushing is "bad behaviour" and a violation of guidelines as well as policy. Somehow this doesn't matter to you, and you continue to claim I'm the one doing personal attacks; when really I'm replying to them, or to very pointed AGF (such as telling me sternly to "only include material in published sources", as if I found what I know on the sidewalk or in a sewer somewhere) or lecturing me on the proper handling of copyrighted materials, as if I were his student and he was my TA.....
The out-of-kilter topsy-turvy world of the adminship I had early exposure to (I'll comment soon on the history of my blocks, starting with teh initial one by User:Zoe who didn't even read what I said right and blamed me for "legal threats" when it was me mentioning that i had been personally threatened with real, physical violence over a certain issue re a non-wikipedia matter; her withdrawal of her block states that I had "withdrawn" my comment; that's not what i told her AT ALL. I've seen things only get worse over time, and I dont' mean just about me....less and less "collegial" discussion about content is being deluged with aggressive personal attacks masquerading as the voice of wiki-authority, and the content issues continue to mount (as well as the paid editing and organized campaigns that are clearly behind so many problems).
I really think you and other staffers at WMF need to talk around the watercooler more about POV problems, recruiting good writers and keeping knowledgeable contributors around...instead of discussing ways to condemn and drive people out......"if you don't know anything about the subject of a discussion, please stay out of the discussion" is something you all need to put one sticker-tape on the top of your monitors, quite frankly. And if you are going to comment on a "combative" problem it behooves you to study up on the subject and its issues before wading in to condemn only one side of an argument, while not understanding what t he argument is about.Skookum1 (talk) 07:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Re "You said you were "requesting help from other Wikipedians" - where? At what dispute resolution forum are you pursuing this issue?"
Did I say that I was requesting help at a dispute resolution forum? No, from what I've seen of "dispute resolution" it's not very productive no more than ANI isn't. I've pondered "since day one" about taking the matter to the POV board but found myself too busy trying to deal with attack-comments/derailments/obstructionism, then trumped-up ANIs which served no purpose at all, to take the time to do so; it's no secret I'm not good at "talking in point form" because I insist on articulating details of a problem instead of making "pat" summaries that do not cover all the full scope of a problem; I've seen so much bad logic and a-factual rejoinders at RM and CfD discussions, and always at ANI, that I 'do not like procedure' and view t he procedural manoeuvring launched against me by WTM (which you have ignored, or just are not aware of, as you "came to the party late".
There's any number of things that could use informed discussion and rational lines of argument that I defer from taking to any board, never mind DRV procedures, because "bureaucratic warfare" is the general tendency of such milieus and indeed that's the purpose; to keep issues from being addressed logically and cogently by people who know the subject matter - or are prepared to learn about it and think. I've contemplated ARBCOM proceedings against a number of people, including the blocking admins referred to above, and also re the Ottawa shootings article and the nasty behaviour of a certain k-named editor who I'm not allowed to talk about (or will be summarily blocked) who obstructed and edit warred over all those RMs and also re WP:NCET and WP:NCL. Why should I have faith in a "dispute resolution process" that does not resolve such disputes, but only wind up being a sea of personal attacks, and when valid criticisms are trumped up as if "personal attacks" while personal attacks are me are not just condoned, but regularly made by admins and "board lurkers"?
As for where I discuss these problems with other Wikipedians, sometimes it's on given article talkpages, or with short notes linking discussions for their attention. But given the long period of my life (almost 10 years now) I've been involved on Wikipedia, with some I have off-line friendships with; most BC editors of times past have moved on, a good half dozen or more I retain regular contact with; others from WPCanada or beyond I have email contact with when not FB...... as I regularly get attacked on Wikipedia I find it necessary to speak privately with them, which is impossible in Wikipedia.
Those I contact about wiki matters are among those who have barnstarred me or otherwise shown support when the rest of the pack is hounding for my blood; can you blame me? And they do recognize the value of both my contributions and my knowledge of sources and about certain topics and have no problem with my not-point-form writing style (I come from an age before Cole's Notes and 15-second soundbites), and who regularly come forward to debunk claims and hostility against me in the various block-campaigns that have been launched; and I've had a good long look at pages such as WP:EXR and its talkpage and similar discussions/essay talkpages that are rife withg complaints about unwonted attack behaviour by those presuming to CIVILity, or making one-side statements like finding someone to be collaborative when I've found, as in this case, and very much so, the exact opposite.
And what I see in those discussions and boards and so on, very consistenty, is frustration with those who, like yourself, base their harassment of people trying to address content issues by raising/inflaming "behavioural guidelines" as if their own behaviour was lily-white.
This has taken up an hour of a now-busy life, and like last night is yet more energy put towards defending myself from a bureaucracy that shows no interest at all in taking on major and mounting POV and OR/SYNTH issues; and which revels in levelling personal attacks with impunity without any concern for or knowledge of the subjects under dispute. Witch-hunting and kangaroo court/star-chamber activity rather than informed "collegial discussion" are becoming the norm in Wikipedia, as are needless code-conflation and guideline-instruction creep; "Wiki" no longer means "quick and easy", it means more and more "labourious and painful".
As for those other BC Wikipedians, a good number of them are now published authors in their own rights; I stuck around because so much was damaged (vandalized) in my absence from June 2011 through to the fall of 2013 that had to be corrected; it's been painful, to say the last, but somebody had to do it since the bureaucracy is not equipped knowledge-wise or in terms of its priorities to monitor such vandalism/damage and anti-consensus moves - such as that "sea of RMs" that got so many people mad at me for ....for successfully overturning, by consensus, things that had been done single-mindedly and against guidelines and policy in my absence; which was prompted by a block levelled at me during the Canadian election campaign for having the temerity to stand up for fairness (and Canadian election laws) in an AfD where the participants were admittedly POV and "out to get me", as has also been the case with the Ottawa shootings and Mount Polley mine incident article.
So if you want editors in Wikipedia who do know the material and do have respect for NPOV, I suggest you re-order your priorities and put content propriety ahead of personal condemnations of those trying to deal with those who do NOT respect neutrality, or the input of informed, experienced editors in topic areas where they should be respected, not hounded and vilified.
I see a huge discussion about the gender gap and how male editors are allegedly more "aggressive" than female editors...... I have a rather different experience of female editors, to be frank, and as an almost-senior editor (I turn 60 at the end of October this year) I strongly feel there is a "generation gap" and that has to do with pushback from younger editors who show no respect for 'older people's' knowledge, as in this case, or who weigh in on political AfDs/RMs without sufficient experience of the political milieus involved to be able to know what's up; i.e. who don't have a clue.Skookum1 (talk) 08:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Skookum1, I came into this as an administrator because you asked for somebody to review copyright problems. You've been around long enough that surely you know that policy forbids people who engage in an issue as an administrator from engaging as an editor as well. I'm not going to mix those roles, as I take that responsibility and requirement seriously. I also will not mix my role as staff with my role as a volunteer. There are plenty of editors on Wikipedia who will resolve disputes if you will engage with them collegially, and there are other areas where I work content where I will not engage as an administrator. Here, my role is clear. While you indicate above that you think I am looking for reasons to block you, in fact you have given me ample reason. I prefer not to block people, which is why I sought other options at ANI and withdrew from that conversation when the discussion was shifted in that direction. But I will block if I think I must.
That said content is critical, but not the only consideration on Wikipedia. We have a larger goal than getting a good article on a single subject, as important as that is - we're here to create a sustainable, growing project, for which we need willing workers, and disruptive behaviors and a toxic environment threaten that larger goal. Whatever provocation you may have encountered, your behavior has been demonstrably a problem. It is concerning that you do not recognize how you are contributing to this.
Wikipedia was founded with the philosophy that anyone and everyone can contribute. We do not privilege "subject expert" editors - the project we superseded, Nupedia, did that. There are other projects that still do, like Scholarpedia. I know that it can be frustrating to work in an area you know well and have a newcomer show up who seems to have an agenda or is generally clueless, but it's part of the lifecycle of Wikipedia. To contribute to Wikipedia, you must work collegially with everyone who shows up. If you're having problems with article content, it is required that you resolve them through discussion with other editors. This needs to be done neutrally and transparently using on-Wikipedia processes, as per Wikipedia:Canvassing. Reaching out to other editors through e-mail is inappropriate. Editors who legitimately don't have a clue can be mentored until they do, or, if they are disruptive, consensus needs to be developed that what they are doing needs to stop, at which point the community will join in on handling them.
This is the avenue open to you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:52, 10 March 2015 (UTC)


I don't have time to read all of the above right now as I'm about to go out, but from your opening I came into this as an administrator because you asked for somebody to review copyright problems" - I'd asked that the massive amounts of info-dumping that were going on (and still continue albeit in sandbox) looked suspiciously like pastiches of copyrighted material; what he does, actually, is often just make one word in quotes and page-cites that one word; that his whole gist is cribbed from a certain body of "racialized" literature (at the expense and to the exclusion of anything that does not meet his approval) is guideline-wise "OK" and I often rephrase or condense what certain sources say myself (e.g. the entries in BCGNIS, or what used to be called that; it's not the BC Names Office of GeoBC); , but his reliance and echoing of the biases in his preferred sources, and his campaign to discredit me got harsher and more prolix than even I have EVER been. He repeatedly rejected and AGFd and sought to guideline-flail sources he should read that I fielded and issues/events he should have spent some time investigating instead of being a parrot for the hate-mongering racialized content of "scholarly" sources and ethno-political diatribes, in all their over-published glory, replete with many easily disprovable FACTS.

That you didn't find any COPYVIOs is fine, that was a side-issue relative to the POV problems you and others continue to ignore and deflect.....but that you ignored my points about POV then and now and wrap yourself in your cloak of admin-ly inviolability on content matters, but turned your guns on me personally without realizing/recognizing that amount of AGF/NPA and obstructive behaviour that was coming at me and about me in DELUGES remains a bone of contention for me about you. Once COPYVIO worries were set aside, that should have ended your involvement.

Instead you threw a one-woman grenade at me and invited others to catcall and berate me without cause related to the dispute about CONTENT and you didn'ty say "boo" about false claims levelled against me in the ANI you launched, which seriously derailed any energy and remaining goodwill for working on improving the mass of POV junk that continued to be built while the campaign to rid me of Wikipedia fovever was mounted....with my posts on ANI fiddled with by somebody who had an ANI against himself open at the same time, and who had no connection with the topic of the dispute; just rank hatred for having shown his POVness and exposed his bias and suspect edit-comment behaviour and more.

So what I read about policy was that NPOV, COPYVIO and VERIFIABILITY were all "non negotiable"...... so if COPYVIO was your purview, whose is NPOV? Or are you only seeing yourself as a "behaviour controller" separate completely from editorial control?

That one policy could be put before any of the others, and that behavioural guidelines could be conflated and one-side-targeted so wantonly is not in anything I've read about policy. And he has been around long enough (since 2007 I think) to know what WP:NPOV and WP:POV fork have to say; and yet he stated outright a rejoinder to the POV fork policy that indicates he either doesn't comprehend it or never read it; and he doesn't understand (or claims not to) what "POV" is, or NPOV either.

I'm going to go out and have a good time with real people and put this out of my mind for the evening; I would have spent today on various article improvements and starts/fixes (interestingly, given the disabusing of capital-W "Whites" and Wikipedia's endemic passion for ethnic breakdowns, British Canadian is a primary-topic dab page long - long - in need of doing.

But tell me this - if you aren't a WMFer able to or equipped to take on NPOV violations, who is. And how many WMF staffers are engaged in content NPOV and quality/literacy/cogency control, and how many (by comparison) spend most of their time on "behavioural guidelines" and/or writing/commenting on same. Is there anyone at WMF's little paid-admin bubble who is a content controller, to coin a term? Or has it just come down to patrolling the community and not giving a fig about the resulting content being politicized and OR'd? Given the continued existence of overt Original Research opuses like Quadripoint and Four corners (Canada) it seems not.

Whatever else you've said above I have no more time to today; spinning off your last line, though, it is open to you to reconsider your role in perpetrating POV by going after the editor whose cause has been NPOV and fair content all along, since long before you weighed in and painted a "hit me" target on his forehead with your ANI. It is open to you to consider the damage to the public record that your standoffishness from editorial matters because of your "rules" ('there are no rules' remember?) by allowing POV to stand untouched, while you support and launch campaigns and comments to indict a long-time editor who is equipped and dedicated to fairness and encylopedically-valid content.

Fine, you've put yourself in some kind of official bubble about keeping behavioural stuff separate from editorial/content problems....... how nice. But why is it that others who similarly have the same capacity as you have weighed in on editorial matters, rather regularly too?

Is there no one at WMF who actually writes content or do you all spend your time patrplling and condemning and admonishing people who DO?Skookum1 (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Seems to me that there's more guidelines and arguments about them being created that actual meaningful content, and/or code-fiddling and format-tweaking, and arguments about those than actual writing of an encyclopedia. And lots of non-encyclopedic content e.g. pop culture not just being covered in rather excessive detail while actual history and geography and more is left to the wayside; what's going on is the writing and policing of guidelines and not of CONTENT.
More's the pity, and I regret not sharing the common sense path of avoiding wasting time trying to improve and expand Wikipedia isntead of writing my own books and articles, as several other BC Wikipedians have done, all of them commenting to me privately that they couldnt' stand the place anymore because of the obsession with guidelines and the lack of rational discussion/behaviour. I've stuck it out because of massively vandalized content, and after doing that set about working on various history and geography articles; this last time I came back was to deal with the body of Pacific Northwest history articles in collaboration with another editor who begged me to come back (as often happens when I leave). To be confronted by someone disputing normal Canadian English usages in favour of his own interpretations of what we should use - who also starts on a massive campaign involving several articles (mostly he created small stubbish ones to validate his ethnicity-by-city campaign about Vancouver, as there were no other ethnicity-by-city articles on Canadian topics other than one on Jewish life in Montreal (I think it's called); all cribbed from heavily-biased sources and without any knowledge of context, geographical or historical, who set about waging wiki-war against me for daring to dispute his "sophomoric superiority" (to coin a phrase) that he knows best and I must obey HIM.
If you're so concerned, and only concerned, about behavioural violations, you should have levelled your guns at him and not me; but of course TLDR/WoT doesn't get read, and that means you'll never look at the reams of exegeses he laid out in the course of his persecution of me for disagreeing with me and being in the way of his personal POV/agenda.
I'm late for my friends; I'm still here because I care about my province's history and I am highly offended by the posturing and POV that has been fielded about it by somebody who's never even been there or read so much as ONE general history on the place.
Whatever you said above, it's more lecturing and more targeting me, while not dealing with HIS editorial and behavioural issues; that the two cannot be separate in real-world terms is somehow lost on those who created the rules your claim yourself to be bound by. POV (=propaganda) has long used personal attacks impugning someone's alleged behaviour so as to not allow REAL issues to be discussed....how interesting that's hard-wired into WMF's rule-book huh:?Skookum1 (talk) 13:44, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The WMF doesn't write content, Skookum1; it's not allowed to. There are many volunteers who also work for the WMF, including me, who do. The fact that I'm not involved in this content is immaterial to that. I am free to act as an editor where I choose, but not in issues where I am acting as an administrator. This is a line that cannot be crossed.
Aside from blatantly obvious issues, POV-determinations are not an admin matter. They're content and are up to editorial consensus. That's what dispute resolution forums are for.
In terms of behavioral issues, you have yet to produce evidence showing personal attacks against you from User:WhisperToMe. I have seen and located on my own many from the other direction.
As a final point here, you cannot provoke me into an intemperate response. That's not the way I work. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
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