Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page

Accused of plagarism

I have been accused of plagarism at Malta Test Station an article that I recieved a DYK for and User:SandyGeorgia then put the tag on. This is a user who has had many problems with me and has bothered me lately over minor things and if I complain about anyone brings up their problems about me. Can someone without a problem with me please check that article. The template SandyGeorgia put on their states that the contributor of the article is to be notified. I did not recieve a notification regarding this. I find it highly suspicious as no article I have ever written has been characterized as plagarism and I'm a grad student and have never been accused of that in my professional or collegiate career. I have MANY DYK's and you'd think if this was a problem someone there would have spotted it. I would like, if Sandy's actions are found to be false, for Sandy to be put on an interaction ban with me before more occurances happen.Camelbinky (talk) 19:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

DYKs are a game for kids, and i reviewed a few a couple of weeks ago on my own and found them all to be plagiarized (all by the same editor, not you). It's generally not a very competent bunch over there. So having been a DYK is no defense against plagiarism. Not having plagiarized is. I'll take a look for you. Bali ultimate (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Just looked at a couple of sentences and they were straight cut and pastes from the citations, without quotes. If you handed in an academic paper to me like this, grad student or not, I'd fail you. Can't speak to your interpersonal dispute though.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The is no "from" field on that template, which is a bit strange. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the lack of a "from" is because the issue is with multiple sources. Silverseren^C 19:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Camelbinky - did you copy and paste any of the text from anywhere else? It doesn't matter if you did, just be honest about it and we can get the article sorted. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• Just from a review of the first source and what it's being used to reference, i'm seeing problems. The line "The Malta Test Station was established in 1945 on 165.36 acres (66.92 ha) of land leased from Thomas F. Luther" in the article is far, far too close to the line in the reference, "The Malta Test Station was established in 1945 on a 165.36 acre tract by lease from Thomas F. Luther."

The reference is also used for the sentence "The United States government also acquired a perpetual easement over a circular area containing 1,800 acres (730 ha) surrounding the site" in the article. The line in the reference is "the United States also acquired a perpetual easement over a circular area containing 1800 acres."

The main issues is an utter lack of quotations, which should clearly have been used for these lines at separate points. This is, indeed, an example of plagiarism, at least for the first reference. (For checking, you can find the first reference here.) Silverseren^C 19:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 3) I was about to post a message here indicating that I informed the user, but ended up incorrectly reverting Theresa, who I thought had removed the thread by accident. My mistake. Anyway, I informed the user. Looks like I only beat Camel by a minute though, though my note was somewhat more neutral. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 19:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like SandyGeorgia did the right thing. This is not a big issue, I'm happy to help Camelbinky rewrite the article if he so wishes. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I did in fact copy-paste from the sources, as my intention was to make sure I got the information correct. My intention was to put things in my own words and I guess I did not as much as I thought I did. I apologize and would like the ability to fix the article instead of it being blanked by the template, a template to which I was never notified about. And I am now afraid of how many other articles I have written that now do not exist and may be deleted because I was not notified now that someone who has shown a problem with me has taken it upon themselves to "watch" me. Someone who prior to this has never shown an interest in the corner of Wikipedia to which I edit (and among the many DYK's I received and the fact that I post my new articles at appropriate wikiproject pages and on my own user page it is not like I create/rewrite articles under the radar). My main concern is wiki-stalking and someone thinking that I need to be "watched" and will attempt to blank out anything I do due to a grudge. I greatly apologize for my sloppy editing on this article. I have received GA's and praises on several articles and am looked to for help on sourcing and researching from the rest of the NYCD wikiproject that I co-founded, so I think I should have been given a heads up by Sandy and given an attempt to fix the article. I appreciate and accept Theresa's help.Camelbinky (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Why on earth would you be worried that people are watching your contributions? That smacks of paranoia. Just don't copy and paste other people's work and you'll be fine. While you're here, how about apologising to Sandy? Parrot of Doom 19:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Sandy templated his work for possible deletion and failed to tell him. I think that is why he is so upset. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course you can fix the article! It will not be deleted don't worry. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I looked at footnote number 9 matching against page 3 of this source and would strongly suggest this user familiarize themself with Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. In fact it is a big deal. If this sort of thing happens in a high school or college classroom in the US, a student will receive a failing grade. We shouldn't be seeing substandard work such as this on the main page. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:33, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was by not a big deal was not that it isn't important - it is, but that it is very easy to fix. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I suspect one will find this problem with a great many of this users contributions. Just a hunch.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

All the articles I have created or have been the author of more than about 80% of the content are listed on my user page. Feel free to look at each one and tell me what problems they have and I will fix them. That is if I stay around because that lack of AGF right there is why I want to quit right now. Over 3 years and I have never been accused of plagarism and now all of a sudden this starts. Wow, dont mess with certain editors or they go after you.Camelbinky (talk) 19:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

"Officer, how dare you not assume good faith that I was stealing this candy bar! Sure, the other candy bar in my pocket was stolen, but you are entirely out of line to assume I might have stolen this second one!" "Over 3 years and I have never been accused of theft and now all of a sudden, now that I've been caught, people are assuming I did it before!" "Don't mess with certain editors, or they might see that you ... actually, no, I don't have a witty comparison for that one, that last sentence of yours was just plain bullshit. --Golbez (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't get all "woah is me" that's not helpful at all. Instead spend some time checking your own articles to make sure that they are spic and span. Then nobody will be able to accuse you of anything. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 19:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, an editor correctly identified a copyright issue, and took appropriate action. She should have notified you, but the fact that she didn't rather suggests she's not trying to use it as a stick to beat you with. Now, because of your ANI complaint, others are looking at your contributions, with a certain WP:PLAXICO effect. Set your house in order, and take it on the chin when your errors are exposed. We all make mistakes; it's never pleasant when we realise it, but denial doesn't help anyone. Rd232 ^talk 20:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wait a sec, Camelbinky, (or "woah", as applied to horses - TK please note); you asked this board to sort out something between you and SandyGeorgia because she templated an article you wrote and, subsequently, you were found to have plagarised the content... I haven't seen much of an indication of you acknowledging SG was correct in this matter, much less apologising. If people are not extending AGF when they should, it isn't as if it is a one way street. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• And now Hamilton Hill, Schenectady, New York has been slapped with a template. I'm kind of annoyed at that one, since I helped you with it. :/ Silverseren^C 19:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

  The article is blatantly plagiarized, and we need time to figure out if any of it is original. Some of them are directly copied from their sources: "The largest decrease was by seniors at 42.2%" directly from here; some of them are closely paraphrased: "The residents of that neighborhood objected to a Black church" and "But some residents in the tony Stockade neighborhood objected to the thought of a black church". --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As a general comment, there seems to be an important misunderstanding here. It is never acceptable to copy&paste and then reword, regardless of how extensive the rewording. A passage created in this way will always be a copyvio. If the rewording is extensive enough, it might be hard to prove that its a copyvio, but according to the rules, it's still a copyvio. The only acceptable method of writing is to put the content in your own words. That can be very difficult when you're working from a single source; it's much easier when you are integrating information from multiple sources. Looie496 (talk) 19:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

General comment about plagiarism: I agree that copy/pasting is not a good idea, but when writing a sentence dealing with specifics, especially measurements, there are only so many ways to write "The U.S. government owns a 4 sq mile stretch of land leased from John Doe" or whatever the case may be. Plagiarism is a heavy charge, and if we are supposed to AGF on WP, I think we should look more for a pattern of behavior or "chunks" of article larger than one sentence before implying someone is plagiarizing. The Eskimo (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

AGF has some caveats when it comes to copyright/plagiarism: see WP:AGFC. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

block policy is needed for any plagiarism

First of all, the correct spelling is "plagiarism" not "plagarism" as shown at the top of the section. Second, I am a former teacher and condemn all plagiarism. At school, any plagiarism resulted in a "F". Third, anyone who commits plagiarism should be immediately blocked. When they understand the problem, promise not to do so in the future, and promise to clean up the mess, they should be unblocked. We should not let editors keep on plagiarizing (even they only plagiarize occasionally). After they are unblocked, they should fix all plagiarized material that they did. Upon fixing it, we should then thank them and encourage them to continue to be good. Fiona United (talk) 20:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps so. However, it would have been exceedingly wise for Sandy to make the notifications. The idea of this is not to play gotcha, it is to see that any unsuitable content is repaired. As far as I can see, the bast way of doing that would be to notify the editor who placed the content there, calling on her to make appropriate modifications if necessary. Placing a tag accomplishes little until someone acts on it, after all!--Wehwalt (talk) 20:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong, blanking the text and placing the tag accomplishes the most important step-- it gets the copyvio off of Wiki, regardless of whether the editor fixes it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Good proposal, but it wouldn't be wikipedia anymore without that plagiarism. And think of the "wiki cup."Bali ultimate (talk) 20:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocking is not fun and games but plagiarism is serious. It pains me to say that Mariah Carey, an article I made an edit, may have done so..see Wikipedia...Despite the fact that Carey is often credited with co-writing her material, she has also been accused of plagiarism on several occasions. Many of these cases were eventually settled out of court.[189][190][191] Also, I am not saying that Sandy is good or bad, just a comment on how we should treat plagiarism on Wikipedia. Fiona United (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Disagree a block is in order at this stage. BUT:

• Recommend passing this off to someone over at WP:CCI to check a few of CB's prior articles for similar problems
• And stern words to CB so he understands the serious problem in doing this

But it appears the work was done in a good faith with an attempt to not copyvio the sources; so as long as the problem is understood then nothing more seems warranted. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 20:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and a few words to appropriate parties that a tag by itself accomplishes nothing might well be in order. All in the name of building an encyclopedia, of course.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, at the very least a talk page note is definitely useful (indeed, possibly even better as it is then available to all editors) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 20:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a school project; we don't fail people for content problems.

Plagarism isn't even a problem per se - but it is when it's not citing sources properly or a copyright violation. Those are problems, for us and for those who originally produced the material. For those reasons, information needs to be properly rewritten / paraphrased, or quoted and cited properly as to source.

We do not have a zero-tolerance policy because everyone makes some mistake with this eventually, and we're not an academic environment where failing people for something is appropriate. Yes, we take copyright violation and related problems seriously. Moonriddengirl is very focused on this problem as are many others, and most admins including myself take it very seriously. We will and repeatedly have blocked people who did copyright violations and are either unrepentant or uncooperative about fixing it.

Reform is preferred. Blocking to prevent further harm to the Encyclopedia or to others' intellectual property is a fallback in cases that justify it. It's not zero tolerance now and probably shouldn't be. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Plagarism isn't even a problem per se - but it is when it's not citing sources properly or a copyright violation; I have no idea what that sentence is trying to say, but plagiarism is a problem, and the most important step in rectifying it is blanking the text and placing the tag. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly informative to get the civility police's pov on plagiarism, which appears to be basically it doesn't matter, because we're focused on eliminating naughty words. Malleus Fatuorum 23:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

What we have to remember is that we are very different indeed from a school paper. In a school paper, the teacher or professor wants to see original thought. On Wikipedia, we avoid that and hew close to the sources. And, through inexperience or carelessness, people hew a little too close. It's a mistake, but hardly unforgivable. Not an honor code violation or whatever it is.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as honor code, all editor should be forced to sign a statement, one part should include not plagiarizing. Fiona United (talk) 21:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't work wouldn't be any way practical. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 22:07, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Disagree. If you aren't sure, you can plagiarize in the sandbox. Wikipedia is referred to by millions of people worldwide, more than a small city newspaper website. If Wikipedia is amateurish, we look like fools. If you can't edit without stealing prose, then you should not edit until you learn how. Wikipedia is not a school paper; Wikipedia is more important than a school paper. School papers are read only by the teacher. Wikipedia is read by millions. This is not to say that people should be blocked left and right but if you plagiarize, you must fix your mistake and temporarily stop adding to Wikipedia or you should be blocked. Blocking is not punishment but an attempt to uphold Wikipedia's reputation. Fiona United (talk) 21:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• I think WP:COPYVIO has this covered. If after warnings an account keeps violating copyright then they will be blocked. But if this is as complex as Sandy says the issue is probably very complicated--Cailil ^talk 22:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no excuse to dismiss Plagiarism on AGF grounds under any stretch of the imagination. That said, that does not mean "come down like a ton of bricks" every time it is discovered as there are different situations (i.e. telling a newcomer kindly and politely that we do not allow material that is copypasted from a source that is uncited is obviously preferred over bringing said user to ANI or blocking, especially on a 1st-time occurrence). Also, avoiding plagiarism is not something one learns to avoid not when they enter college, but far before that (for me, middle school, I don't know about others, though). –MuZemike 22:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

A lot of yall just don't get it. The cutty-pasty epidemic is a big problem, spawned in part by other ailments like the "wiki cup" and "dyk" and other bauble collecting exercises that favor measurable "deliverables" ("i created x articles" "I got y DYKs" etc...) over creating coherent articles that are accurate surveys of a relevant topic. A lot of these articles are wrong, wrong in emphasis, wrong in basic facts, and most importantly wrong because there is no true distallation of the consensus view of the topic from the best sources. Why? Because the cutty-pasties don't really understand what they're writing about (how could they? In general, they haven't sat down and read it all before starting. They're just Magpies; a bottle cap here, a shiny piece of plastice there, ctrl v and I'm done). And this entirely leaves aside the fact that cutting and pasting is often from very old PD sources that are no longer accurate (particularly in science-related articles, but not exclusively). The culture of tolerance for this stuff, and the false sense of accomplishment given to poor article writers with DYK baubles, leads to an ever expanding miasma of innacurate articles, beyond the scope of the small handful of engaged editors to fix, if they were to try. Sometimes, more is less.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I support a fairly hard line on plagiarism, but I don't support the "immediate block" suggestion. Anyone who has worked in this area knows that many people think things that aren't so:

• It's OK if you change the words a little (no, it's not)
• It's OK if the source is PD (no, it's not)
• It's OK as long as you use quotes (no, you need a ref)

We need to educate people, but an immediate block isn't the right first step. Better to point out pages such as Close paraphrasing and offer to help.--SPhilbrickT 22:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

" It's OK if the source is PD (no, it's not)" Clarification of this please? If it is PD is it not possible to change it or use it for commercial purposes without attribution? Isn't this the primary difference between PD and CC-by-A? Is CC0 therefore even more flexible than PD? Lambanog (talk) 12:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll answer with some hesitance, as I sense I am among experts, and while I think I know what I'm doing, there's a lot to know. My points is: if material is under copyright, and it gets copied or closely paraphrased in WP, then we have violated the rights of the copyright holder. If we do the same with PD material, there are no rights of a copyright holder violated, but we have violated our own internal rules, which require attribution when it isn't our own words. Just as a student writing a paper would be guilty of plagiarism if they copied PD material without proper attribution. They didn't violate copyright, but they are still guilty of plagiarism.--SPhilbrickT 15:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

• (@ Bali, ec) BINGO-- I didn't have to type all I typed below, you said it better, but you added it while I was typing. Add to that, however, that DYK doesn't have as part of their mission to screen for reliability of sources, so the articles aren't necessarily even meeting WP:V. Better scrutiny at RFA might help solve some of what is feeding this; it is most dismaying to see RFAs passing on editors who don't have the slightest clue on Wiki policies, but are getting through by touting their DYKs or GOCE involvement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

@Fiona United: This is neither a school nor university and nobody gets blocked for plagiarism but for copyright violations instead. When I'm reading the page I'm rather taken back by the confusion of terms here. The primary mission of WP is to provide free knowledge in a legal manner, the primary goal is not to create original work as it might be a requirement in university or school context. In the same manner we grade articles for the quality of their content and check that they have no legal issues but not their "originality" as far as their creation is concerned. WP has even started as a completely plagiarized project (copy of the public domain edition of the britannica) and it continues to accept text donations and to plagiarize sources from the public domain as long as it leads to good article (see for instance exchange program with PlanetMath).--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Catching up

Sorry, I've been out all day, but there's too much wrong above for me to summarize quickly, so I'll put a placeholder here and begin to work on my response. Maybe if others stay out of my subhead until I'm done, I won't get 85,000 edit conflicts ... may take me a while to finish typing, because there is a much bigger problem than one editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Starting at the top here:

• Camelbinky said: "This is a user who has had many problems with me and has bothered me lately over minor things ... " I don't think two notifications asking you to WP:AGF constitutes "many problems"; as much as you may like to think so, this whole issue isn't at all about you, and in fact, you are only a minor player in a much bigger problem on Wiki. I see references to me not notifying you (above); because of another copyvio experience (detailed below), I didn't even read that template (the folks who work at Copyvio might consider ways to reduce it-- TLDR) after I placed it. Had I read the template, however, it's unlikely that I would have wanted to be the one to notify you, considering your AGF issues, and I also don't consider it a problem of notifying you, rather DYK, so I have now done that. And in terms of common sense, since it was on the mainpage, I would have assumed you were watching the article anyway. Now I know to notify; I apologize to Camelbinky for not reading and not notifying.

• Camelbinky said: "...  to blank out a page that is on the main page of Wikipedia looks bad". In fact, quite the opposite-- to run plagiarism on the main page is what "makes Wiki look bad" (and worse-- jeopardizes everything the Project is based on), and it is every editor's responsibility, when finding plagiarism, to blank the content. Again, see the story of another copyvio I dealt with (below).

• I see a reference above to Camelbinky being offended because I put the article up for deletion; when I saw that comment, I said "huh"? That template suffers from TLDR, and I now see the "deletion after a week" blurb at the bottom. Because of my experience on another article, I did not know that it was current practice to delete copyvio articles after a week.

• Next, this is not a Camelbinky problem, and I think calls above for blocking-- in fact, undue focus on Camelbinky-- are misplaced here. Many editors here don't know or understand close paraphrasing and plagiarism (I certainly didn't when I was new here), and I think we should AGF until given a reason not to. What we do need to do is get at the source of the problem that is feeding this. My attention was first drawn to the problems with Copyvio from the issue below.

• There has been a very longstanding copyvio tag at Jockstrap (which is why I didn't know current policy was to delete copyvio articles after a week-- that one was there forever). I came across it as part of the issue of understanding LLC books: see the explanation here of why we MUST blank content on copyvios. LLC Books simply removed the Copyvio tag from that article, and printed the book anyway !!!! This got me more interested in copyvios. Along with that, I recently became more active at RFA and have been very dismayed to discover what is going on at DYK. Next.

• The problem is not Camelbinky or any other editor who doesn't have a firm grasp on plagiarism or close paraphrsing-- since I've been looking into it, the issue is rampant, systemic at DYK, and furthered by the "reward culture" at RFA and places like WIKICUP. Since I've been following RFA, I've seen multiple inexperienced editors (and even experienced ones) launching their RFAs based on their "writing ability" as demonstrated by their number of DYKs. Every DYK I've checked at RFA turns out to not only be plagiarized, but also based on sources that don't even meet reliability! There's a problem at DYK, but it's not their problem-- it's that they are being overwhelmed because of the "reward culture" by editors who maybe shouldn't be trying to write articles anyway, so they copy-paste or too closely paraphrase. More scrutiny is needed at DYK, but more importantly, more scrutiny on DYKs and other "prizes" throughout the Wiki and at RFA is needed. In one recent instance I found at RFA, we ran a DYK that was not only plagiarized, but it was based on a commercial travel site that doesn't meet any measure of reliability. The "reward culture" is jeopardizing the project's goals, and it's not fair to aim a very big issue at one editor only. It is rampant.

It is not my intent to "bash" DYK, but they need help over there, or alternately, we need to shut down the "reward culture" that is feeding so many ill-prepared articles to them. In the meantime, I've added the DYK bot to my userpage so I can routinely check the latest DYKs for plagiarism; perhaps others will help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Done :) I see while I was typing, several other editors said same above (about the reward culture and AGFing on plagiarism). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I do want to point out that the template does say "it may be deleted one week after the time of its listing" (emphasis added). Once an article is tagged for {{copyvio}}, it is listed by the tagger or by bot at the WP:CP board. When copying is foundational and extensive and no rewrite is proposed, that's often what happens. If copyright can be excised and leave a usable article, we sometimes do that instead (especially now that rev deletion makes retaining attribution easier). And there are contributors who rewrite these articles in the temporary space supplied so that we can replace them. It is a good idea to advise the contributors when blanking the articles for several reasons. First, it may help them address the problem, either by correcting the existing article or by helping them learn to avoid it in the future. Moroever, it provides a record of the problem. While I agree with User:Georgewilliamherbert above that our first effort is and always should be reform, we do block repeat offenders to protect the project (and our reusers) from legal jeopardy. That said, I've seen a good many contributors who have had problems with our copyright policy and plagiarism guideline who, once instructed how to handle sources differently, have gone on to be highly productive.

Sometimes people overlook the notification requirement, particularly when they are unfamiliar with the template. At WP:CP, we often relist articles in such situations and provide the notification ourselves. The most important thing is to get the article out of publication during the clean-up/verification process.

Copying, unfortunately, is rampant on Wikipedia. We have dozens of open investigations at WP:CCI, and I would presume that between WP:SCV and WP:CP we deal with dozens of individual articles every day. Who knows how many get past us? :/

In response to comments above, plagiarism is blockable, but so far as I know blocks for plagiarism as compared to blocks for copyright are extremely rare. Since before I arrived, WP:CP has included the text, "Editors engaged in ongoing plagiarism who do not respond to polite requests may be blocked from editing." (This in the section "Plagiarism that does not infringe copyright".) There've been several cases at ANI that have resulted in bans, but, as with copyright problems, these always seem to begin with good faith efforts to advise the contributor of community practices.

At this point, it seems like there is some further review of User:Camelbinky's articles ongoing, and that seems like a good idea since from his talk page it looks as though several other problematic articles have been detected. Our goal here should be to identify problems, get them cleaned up and make sure that Camelbinky is aware of how to move forward. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

• This is just a thought and might be an instruction creepy suggestion, but could we code the WP:DYK page like we have WP:SPI coded - so that you have to open a draft from the 'project' page and when you do you get a big pink/orange "how to box" above your editing window. I know it's not a real sollution but if people are doing this relatively innocently it might help?--Cailil ^talk 22:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
  • How about waiting for input from regular DYK reviewers before trying to change an area you're not heavily involved in? StrPby (talk) 23:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I'd do away with DYK by fiat if I could. But in my experience (admitedly small sample -- about 20 articles) most of what passes through that system is godawful. Why would one expect they're a hive of appreciation of (and ideas for fixing) the problem?Bali ultimate (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Then it's a damn good thing you can't. No one's asking you to like what we do. StrPby (talk) 23:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Ah. You're one of the culprits. A question then: Why do you so often review and promote articles that are plagiarized and innacurate? Maybe an explanation of this problem will help all of us figure out a time-effective way to fix it.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
          • So suddenly I'm a "culprit"? I'd suggest you select your choice of words a bit more accurately. When I review at DYK I do check for close paraphrasing and copyright violations. See User talk:Moonriddengirl/Archive 27#Copyvio second opinion for an example. StrPby (talk) 23:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You didn't ask if i like what you do. You asked if I like what we do, the we in question being the DYK people. DYK routinely promotes plagiarized and innacurate articles. As a general phenomenon, do you have opinions on why this happens and how to fix it? I'm listening, probably a few other people watching this page are too.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said at WT:DYK, I think a good place to start would be to require more than one reviewer approving each nominated hook before it gets passed to appear on the Main Page. More eyes = better, whilst not making any big drastic change yet. StrPby (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

One anonymous person of no proven ability or expertise gets to decide, and with no reputation risk for getting it wrong? Wow. It's worse than even I would have suspected. Two immediate reforms spring to mind. Minimum of three reviewers. And (this is important) some kind of meta-data that includes that they were the reviewers connected to the hook (perhaps on the talk page, "reviewers x, y, and z approved this.")Bali ultimate (talk) 00:25, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

So we all agree that 1) the article that this got started over was plagiarism; 2) plagiarism is bad; 3) award-collecting behavior contributes to the problem. Is there any need to continue this TL;DR discussion on ANI? No one's getting blocked and ANI is not the place to propose large-scale project changes. Nothing productive is going to come out of arguing here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Nothing productive comes of discussion anywhere here on wikipedia; DYK will continue to trundle on until it becomes obvious even to the most deaf and blind of fools that it has a serious problem, maybe not even then. Malleus Fatuorum 01:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Kindly refrain from casting aspersions on all of us DYK regulars; whatever you think of some people, it's a rather blatant personal attack to call us culprits for our participation in the process. Nyttend (talk) 01:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Culprit is just a way of drawing attention to your collective responsibility. I'm trying to draw attention to the general lack of competence among the DYK regulars, as demonstrated by the frequent promotions of articles that plagiarized, innacurate, poorly sourced, etc...Bali ultimate (talk) 11:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK is the end point of some of the problems, not the cause of them

While everyone else has been being constructive, I have written some TL;DR material myself, so I thought I'd just post it since now I'm not sure what else to do with it. Sorry if I repeat something already covered.

(1) In my rather short experience, I have now several times seen editors using "but I have X DYKs, so I must be a good editor!" here at AN/I and elsewhere. I have challenged this and then been told by (a very small minority of) other editors involved in DYK, that DYK success is indeed an indication that an article has had a thorough inspection by multiple reviewers. (I paraphrase, but you get the idea.) This is wrong and this idea contributes to the problems with the perception of DYK.

(2) It's wrong because (as others have hinted already), (a) the DYK reviewing process only requires a minimum of one reviewer, (b) the DYK reviewing process only requires the reviewer to check the article citation and source supporting the hook fact, not the others, (c) when I've questioned the quality or sourcing density or appropriateness of a DYK hook or article, I've at least twice been told (paraphrased very closely) "hey this is DYK, not GA", (d) there is not really any provision or willingness for any other than a relatively narrow set of criteria to be used to say "no" to a DYK - I have also been told "if that is an issue then you should AfD it".

(3) Going back to point (1), I don't currently read RFA (or even know if I have the right acronym there) but if DYK-numbers are being used extensively there as well, as others have suggested, then this is pretty sad and indeed indicates a problem at RFA.

(4) "The people at DYK" have not encouraged the Wikicup-DYK relationship as a bauble-multiplying process, at least in the several months I've been involved. The most recent discussions over this began with concerns that the (unintended) effect of Wikicup was recently to flood DYK with "cookie-cutter" articles of dubious value and dubious appropriateness for DYK, and ended with an agreement by those running Wikicup to significantly reduce the prominence of DYK in Wikicup to try to prevent this.

(5) Along the way, we had claims that "DYK would die without Wikicup" - a claim completely rejected by almost everyone involved with DYK - and the assertion that the problem is at DYK's end, not caused by Wikicup. This latter assertion is misunderstanding the issue. The baubles thing hits DYK hardest because it is the easiest way for something to end up on the main page, and that is an issue. DYK participants and organisers seem to have been pretty clear that they do not want the Wikicup promotion of DYK, or at least not at the level it occurred over the last few months. So, although I agree with some of the concerns about bauble-collecting, I think it's unfair to portray any of those involved as some sort of witless bauble-cabal all feeding off each others' dimwit enthusiasm.

(6) Going back to the issue of what standards are expected of a DYK, given that it hits the main page. Yes I think it is reasonable to remind all involved that something being on the main page is a big thing, and if it has plagiarism that is only caught later, or is chock full of grammar or spelling errors, or has some other problem, then that is worrying. There is sometimes an over-focus, within the DYK area, to constantly remind ourselves "the purpose of DYK is to showcase new content" (and therefore it doesn't have to be perfect) or "the purpose of DYK is to encourage editors to create new articles or expand existing stubs" (and therefore the quality of the material being provided to the front page is in some way secondary). There is some truth in these viewpoints, but if taken too far they are missing the point - especially since for some thousands of readers a DYK item might be the first Wikipedia article they ever look at, or even the only one.

(7) However, that caveat "from Wikipedia's newest articles" does sit above the DYK section on the front page every day. In addition, it is also partly what Wikipedia is about. DYK is not just about getting recognition of your article being on the front page, but also putting new articles in a place where new editors may want to pick them up and do something productive with them, maybe improve them significantly. Sometimes that might be because they're interested in the topic or the hook was catchy or even because they think there is a serious problem with the article itself. It's one way of turning readers into editors, and it works. I created my Wikipedia account (and have made hundreds of corrections to DYK candidates and also AfD'd a few) because I was wondering how on earth a POV-pushing series of nominations made it onto the main page. Was it especially damaging that they made it there? No. Was it beneficial to the encyclopedia that far more articles were significantly improved as a result? Yes.

(8) There is also the problem that reviewers at DYK can only do so much. When I review nominations (and the articles) I do so with my understanding at the time of the DYK rules and of Wikipedia's policies. Like other reviewers, I am also limited in the amount of time I can spend on it. If a new(ish) editor does not have great English skills but has produced a reasonable article, and a reviewer then spends some time fixing the spelling and grammar problems, but misses quite a few of them, and it ends up on the main page, is that a huge issue? Maybe, but it's not enough of an issue to say to the original editor "hey, not only is your English not great, but we basically don't have time to deal with it because it might make the main page look not perfect, so just never mind." Excepting some extreme cases, one productive editor is still far more valuable than even a few thousand passing readers feeling that Wikipedia has poor grammar. When it's plagiarism, yes it's more serious, but again it's both about changing the culture and having to spend more time reviewing problems.

In summary, yes there are problems with DYK, but they are not insuperable ones, and DYK serves an important role that seems sometimes to be misunderstood both by those regularly involved with it, and those who are not.

--Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:14, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I've struck the slight sarcasm at the start of what I just wrote because I feel it's uncalled for. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:22, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I just wanted to say I read it all :) The problem is that it's too easy for those seeking rewards to pop out plagiarized DYKs, and their next step is often RFA. I don't know what the solution is, but plagiarism on the main page is a problem that needs to be solved. I suspect the solution is to be found in better scrutiny at RFA, as that may put an end to the reward seeking (and some other problems as well :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Are DYKs really the problem?

Comment: this seems to have evolved into a bit of a witch hunt on DYKs. I personally do not participate in that area, but I would like to point out that in an encyclopedia open to anyone to edit, the fact that a significant amount of info being cut and past is not surprising, especially in light of our strict rules regarding all info be sourced. I wonder if perhaps the problem should be looked into from the back end. For instance, I often see (citation needed) tags in articles...perhaps a (cut & paste) tag would be useful. Editors who cut and paste info (within reason) could include this tag to alert other editors that the section needs attention, without losing the info, and it shows good faith on our part without shutting out editros who may not be "skillful" enough to "write in own words" information on the spot. Just a thought. The Eskimo (talk) 03:38, 29 October 2010 (UTC)\

Sorry, but I don't see how this would work. This would presuppose that those users who are incapable of avoiding copy/paste writing have an awareness of the problem and know their writing needs to be improved. Well, they don't. Or if they do, it would be their own damned responsibility to fix it, and not leave the work to others. No, sorry, if somebody isn't "skillful" enough to write something in their own words, then the only solution is they shouldn't be editing here, or at least not trying to create substantial new content. Fut.Perf. ☼ 04:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

There is already a {{copypaste}} tag - it gets it listed as a copyright problem, because that's what they generally are. As Fut.Perf. says, if an editor can't write something in their own words then they shouldn't be writing here, at the very least not without close supervision from someone who's willing and able to check and fix all of their work. Again, assuming good faith does not mean we just assume that editors aren't creating copyright violations, it means we assume they're not creating them intentionally. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes I think they are. Things like DYK, wikipcup, etc. which reward users with badges, points, or other things are opening themselves up to abuse. It's an unfortunate fact of life that people will cheat. Any large system inevitable gets people trying to game it, or outright break it to come out on top, prove a point, or with some other motivation. It's why we have policies against that kind of thing here. As the DYK is set up, as with the wikicup we're actually creating an environment that fuels that kind of behaviour. As such I think they should both be shut down. If anyone would actually stop doing the work they're doing because they're no longer getting virtual points for it, I'd say we probably don't need their contribs in the first place. DYK could exist, but I think under a different format.--Crossmr (talk) 08:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

On that logic we would ban barnstars as well, since your definition of "things which reward users with badges" would include pretty much the whole of Wikipedia as one of those "things". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

(Note: that was a slightly careless edit on my part - Errant's following comment is a reply to Crossmr not to me) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

No, because barnstars are given randomly by other users generally. The Wikicup and DYK has very specific rewards for very specific tasks. Two totally different environments.--Crossmr (talk) 23:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. They are part of the "problem" anyway. The wider problem, of course, is that writing a DYK article and other peacocking is vastly more rewarding than the grunt work of copyediting, cleanup, copyvio checking, fact checking etc. Which is fine, that is just how the world works. But there is definitely mileage in, I think, talking about ways to improve the ability of DYK (et al) checks to catch these problems. Plagarism articles are definitely common at DYK, so that is a specific we can look to address (not here of course) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 17:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

1. I strongly agree that DYK needs a proper clean-out. Bloated, trivial, where is the quality control, hello???
2. As much as Sandy and I have minor squabbles and aren't speaking to each other at the moment, I have ultimate trust in her integrity.
3. Can an uninvolved admin please sift through and move all but the strictly relevant parts of these threads, please? (Probably including this very post.) Tony (talk) 05:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Cough

This is the Noticeboard for Incidents. This thread has evolved long past discussion of a specific incident, which seems more or less resolved. Later contributions in the thread are valuable in illuminating broader issues, which seem to be primarily

1. DYK scrutiny (in terms of copyvio checking and info verification)
2. perhaps wider than expected prevalence of copy-pasting, possibly with close paraphrasing, among experienced contributors

These are obviously issues worth discussing, but not here. Rather than chop off this discussion at the knees and risk it dying, let's focus quickly on how else to take this forward; a couple of WP:RFCs I would think. Perhaps someone could volunteer to take one or both of these issues forward for discussion elsewhere. Rd232 ^talk 10:17, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this is over. Dude made a mistake, fessed up to it, got a slap on the wrist, willing to do it right, newbie 'professor' says "IMA GUNNA GET MAH PITCHFORK AND BUTANE", vets say 'lol shut up noob', now it's pretty much become redundant. No block necessary, just help him fix it and move on. Vodello (talk) 14:10, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, close it ... doesn't look like I should hold my breath for an apology ... I might die first :) Working on a Signpost publication about these issues, which are extensive-- what is plagiarism vs. copyvio, how to detect them, how to deal with them when we find them, etc. ... stay tuned! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is no longer an incident. I disagree that DYK deserves scrutiny. DYK should be scrutinized the same as any article, not more. I pre-emptively apologize to Camelbinky if this is seen as an attack, it's not. Camelbinky shouldn't be blocked because the problem is identified. What is unresolved is what to do with plagiarism. I think that anyone that plagiarizes should be immediately blocked until they understand the issue and agree to fix their mess. After unblock, we should say "no hard feelings, just help us keep Wikipedia plagiarism free". Again, I agree that this is no longer an incident but a systems problem. Fiona United (talk) 17:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocking is never punitive. It is to prevent a further problem; so if Camelbinky understands what went wrong and takes steps to make sure it does not happen again then that is the right outcome. We always try to assume good faith; in that an attempt was made to stick to the policy, even if that attempt went wrong. Of course, if xhe does not stop this sort of activity, then a block becomes a possibility. This is a well established process. (on the DYK issue, I think the argument is that DYK gives less scrutiny than normal article scrutiny, which is where part of the problem may lie in not catching these issues) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 17:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

(I think that's a red herring argument - there is no "normal article scrutiny" for a randomly created 1500 character article that somehow gives more scrutiny than if the same randomly created 1500 character article happens to get submitted to DYK. DYK only adds scrutiny, not removes it - but the issue for some people is that it also places articles on the front page and rewards article creation.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to other article reviews; such as those prompted by copyedit/sourcing tags. DYK articles are checked, but given the risk associated with their creation, sometimes not tightly enough. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Having spent a good portion of the last 24 hours on this issue, learning more about plagiarism and copyvio (and the differences), seeing the amount of feedback on my talk page, and learning how really labor intensive it is to clean up after copyvios and plagiarism, I do have something to add that is hopefully relevant to ANI. I don't think many people do this intentionally, and support WP:AGFC. But the amount of editor time that goes in to DYK reviews and cleaning up after plagiarism and copyvios indicates to me that, when we know an editor plagiarizes, we should keep them on a very short block leash if they also disrupt in other ways, including "minor" offenses like AGF that wouldn't normally result in a block. Mature editors will recognize their mistakes, clean up after themselves, and not become a drain on other productive editors: if a plagiarizing editor doesn't toe the line on other behavioral guidelines very closely, that is probably an indication of immaturity and a general lack of compatibility with Wikipedia editing, and I suggest we should apply strict blocks to those editors in the event of any other disruptive behaviors-- the timesink in cleaning these things up, and reviewing DYKs, is enormous, and those editors may need to be shown the door more quickly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Would you say the same if the editor was writing featured articles? Do you think WP:FAC is perfect at finding passages that have been "lifted" from U.S. government publications? Of course it's not, nor is it a big deal compared with the many other problems of Wikipedia. Physchim62 (talk) 18:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

In a word: [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio and close paraphrase

As I understand it, you can't copy and paste into an article with the intention of then rewording it. It's also a bad idea as you may end up with a close paraphrase, which we treat as copyvio. The essay at WP:Close paraphrase should be used as guidance (and should probably be a guideline). Dougweller (talk) 17:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

New DYK/BLP issue

And now we've got a BLP DYK on the main page, largely sourced to "Guampedia": José Sisto. Need to get through that soon! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Erm, BLP issues for someone who was a political leader in 1899? Do you actually read these articles before you post here, or do you go all guns a blazing for whatever is this week's pet cause, regardless of whether it's appropriate or not? Why should anyone bother to listen to you, if the latter is the case? Physchim62 (talk) 19:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Pysc, I know you're still terribly upset that one wayward "s" that no one but you saw in a FAC eons ago, but do try to put that enormous tragedy behind you! OK, my mistake-- it's not a BLP, but we don't cite articles to "guampedia", and if it were a BLP, I doubt that would have been caught at DYK anyway. Point less serious, although less urgent, but same. WP:V is as important as BLP. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Considering they claim to be peer-reviewed, why aren't they a RS? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussing at Talk:José Sisto (the original citation I clicked was one of those crappy webcitation archives, that didn't take me to the original source, and I thought I was at archive.org). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

And now we have an incident: my good faith edits to remove a non-RS labeled as "vandalism" by an editor who has expressed outrage many times at FAC (over a wayward "s"), and recently told me to STFU. I let the "STFU" slide-- now I'm less inclined to let this continue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Ouch, yes, major slap on the wrist to Physch for that --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I agree STFU is more mild than "idiotic" or "sycophantic". Carry on, business as usual! But perhaps someone can get Physchim to clean up his edit summaries and section headings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Reading the discussion at Talk:José Sisto makes it pretty clear that Guampedia qualifies as WP:RS; plus the article was obviously not a BLP, being about an individual who served as the Commissioner of Guam in 1898. So what's the deal with torches and pitchforks here? Nsk92 (talk) 04:14, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Scanning the DYK and related talk pages, I believe both the original copyvio issue and the (non-)BLP issue with Sisto have been resolved and this thread can be closed, unless Sandy, Physchim or someone else disagrees. 28bytes (talk) 04:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

yea, that one was a miss and a mistake by moi (nowhere in the article did it say the man was dead, and I clicked on one of those damn webcitation links and thought I was at archive.org). Still very big problems at DYK, but they did pull a very bad BLP from the mainpage when I pointed it out, and I haven't found any new plagiarism or copyvios all day, so things are looking better. It was kind of Camelbinky to call these problems to everyone's attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:34, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Sanction?

I know everyone wants this thread to die, but: I think some sort of unambiguous message is needed for Camelbinky: any hint of further problems along these lines will lead to a long block. Given what is written at WP:COPYVIO, I'm pretty surprised a block hasn't happened already -- it's fine that Camelbinky has apparently recognized that there is a problem and has agreed to alter practice, but in general I would have thought it would have been the first response while things get sorted out. Anyone arguing that plagiarism isn't a serious issue for an encyclopedia needs to encounter an army of cluebats. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, he hasn't edited since his last edit here, so we don't really know if he'll clean up his articles, and I feel it's unfair to single him out because he happened to call attention to himself by posting here, when plagiarism is rampant throughout Wiki and he is by no means the only editor rushing articles through DYK. I suggest we should wait and see what he does if he comes back, WP:AGFC, and think more along the lines of how rampant this is and how the reward culture on Wiki is feeding it. But I do think we quickly need to show editors to the door who continue violating copyright if they also engage in any other kind of disruptive behaviors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Per SG, use of the block option is for the prevention of disruption and it is difficult to see how sanctioning Cb now would achieve this in respect of these issues. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree, sanctions are not punitive.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism is no problem, copyvio is. Before we consider sanction towrds authors, we need to get our message straight.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Time to scrap DYK?

{{hat|1=Not happenin'. Section getting more heat than light. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)}}

It's not up to you to unilaterally close a discussion like this. Admittedly, this probably should be split off into an RFC, but there is nothing wrong with having the discussion here. NW (Talk) 01:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Kudos to Sandy for spotting the plagiarism at DYK. I've actually had quite a concern about DYK for a while. There's nothing wrong with an "interesting facts" format - but I suspect the concentration on new articles has now become a problem. If I want my content on the mainpage (and many of us are vain enough to want that), I've two main choices - I can churn out a DYK new article in an hour, or I can spend three weeks writing a FA, having researched, rewritten, learned MOS, and gone through peer reviews. If I write a FA, I may then wait two years before it gets on mainpage; if I write a DYK I have an excellent chance of it being featured 5 days later.

Now, this might have made sense when Wikipedia has major gaps in article coverage, but that's no longer the case. That means DYK focuses people on writing more and more obscure new articles on things there's less and less chance of them knowing anything about. Further, I'd argue that we are now at the stage where getting people to improve existing articles (particularly core ones) ought to be the focus of our attention. Why, oh, why don't recently approved FAs get mentioned on mainpage? Some "DYK" hooks could easily come "from our best content" (or we could shrink DYK, and have something featuring FAs? Or why not use Good Articles? (Yes, I know, most aren't that good, but still.)

We can focus on the cups and awards, but the greatest incentive is the mainpage itself. Is it time to shift the incentives to encourage people to do what we need them to do?

(We should probably take this discussion somewhere else. Except anywhere else will be full of DYK fanboys.)--Scott Mac 00:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK is a great incentive for actually creating new content (and one of the only incentives in fact) - to get rid of it altogether because of some simple plagiarism problems would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater and would do the encyclopedia a disservice. There are other ways of dealing with plagiarism problems in new articles.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You've ignored my point. My point was to move the incentive to article improvement. That's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's suggesting the baby should to be taken out because it is cleaner than his dirty brother, and it's time to bath something else.--Scott Mac 00:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason why there can't be incentives for both article creation and article improvement. Resolute 00:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

True. But that's not a reason not to say that article improvement shouldn't be more of a focus now.--Scott Mac 00:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and though it is a perennial discussion, one can always restart the idea of swapping some DYK entries to recent GA promotions, for instance. I would note from a personal perspective that the majority of my DYK credits this year were for expansions, not creations, so it it should be noted that DYK also acts as an incentive for improvement. Though, of course, a good expansion requires far more effort than a simple creation. Resolute 00:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I find nothing to disagree with in what Scott says. Maunus, which is better: lots of new content of shit quality that is mostly plagiarized, or slightly less new content? Not really a tough question there. If the DYK criteria were changed from net new articles to recently-promoted-to-GA, we would largely lose the plagiarism problem, and gain more GA-class articles. And there are enough people involved in GA to prevent it from becoming another bauble-gathering exercise. → ROUX ₪ 00:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

i think instead of making incentives maybe it would be better to assist new users in creating content without it being removed. i know lots of people wont edit wikipedia because people here are cruel to newbies. if the experience of contributing is rewarding itself who needs incentives. Aisha9152 (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it has been shown that there is a general problem of plagiarism with DYK articles- at least not one that couldn't be resolved by simply raising the standard for enforcing quality of DYK selections. I think giving new GA's a chance to be featured on the front page is a good idea. I know some editors find bauble-gathering distasteful (generally those aren't content editors I'd say), but that is really their problem. I think it is perfectly legitimate that volunteer editors find other ways of deriving satisfaction from contributing. I think the lack of recognition of content contribution and improvement efforts will be the cause of one wikipedia's biggest challenges in the future.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism wouldn't be my main reason to switch. It's more a recognition that getting your work on DYK is a powerful incentive - and we'd be better giving incentive improving core content than creating more articles on mainly trivial subjects.--Scott Mac 00:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that with the GA's the bottleneck isn't getting editors to improve content but to get reviewers to review it. I suspect the lack of reviewers might be an explanation of difficulties checking up sufficiently on DYK's. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That is a hell of an attack on the people who regularly submit DYK nominations, Roux. I trust you have citeable evidence that DYK entries are "shit quality that is mostly plagiarized"? Resolute 00:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Reading the sections above should prove illuminating to you. → ROUX ₪ 00:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Instead of complaining and making such crap comments as Roux, why don't you all help out at DYK instead of just flapping your jaws? — Rlevse • Talk • 00:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? → ROUX ₪ 00:58, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Instead of spending time enabeling a crap, harmful project that feeds and encourages mediocrity (at best), why not help end something that degrades the overall content of the website?Bali ultimate (talk) 01:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm currently trying to reconcile this comment with this DYK nomination two days ago. SmartSE (talk) 09:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I recommend this section (about closing DYK) be closed/archived cause it ain't happenin'. A well-used, constantly updated section is not being closed because of one instance of plagiarism. Close, move on. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, you've ignored what I said. There are good reasons to depart from featuring new articles, besides plagiarism. I smell defensive vested interests here.--Scott Mac 01:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• DYK is only as good as the imagination of those editors who create or expand new articles. The point, surely, is to invite the reader into enquiring further, and arguably, to educate. A boring article can be lifted by an enticing hook, although that may not apply to simple lists. However, it seems to me that if a new article can't contain an interesting, if not beguiling, fact, then our creative writing talents are somewhat limited. Rodhullandemu 01:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Not sure how that answers my point. That would be true of improved old articles too.--Scott Mac 01:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • "Improved old articles" doesn't necessarily address the "5 x expansion" criterion for DYK. It's perfectly possible to satisfy the former, but not the latter. That's why DYK exists, er, perhaps. Rodhullandemu 01:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • I think I'm suggesting scrapping the criteria and starting again, so that rather than writing a new article, or expanding a stub, one was encouraged to (say) fix up a long rambling mess, or to rewrite a POV warzone, or to improve something to a good article.--Scott Mac 01:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
        • I agree that we need ways of creating incentives to doing that as well.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Again, Scott, you have no consensus, no way the community is going to scrap a well-used program because of one instance of plagiarism. It ain't happenin'. There is not "defensive vested interests", it is a program that is actually used on the front page of the Wiki....all Wikis. That would have to be cleared by Jimbo, the community and MASSIVE consensus. So, either you start an RFC, or again, it ain't happenin'. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I wrote a great reply, but got edit-conflicted. Goodnight. Rodhullandemu 01:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps while you all are "flapping your jaws" and discussing "one instance of plagiarism", some adults might want to start checking back on a number of old DYKs for plagiarism, including those on the mainpage at the moment. User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox#Identified DYK problems. The problem is long-standing and rampant, they're not hard to find, and there's work to be done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Has WP:SOFIXIT been deleted? I must have missed that. Cue Malleus::: Rodhullandemu 01:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments stricken. That's the second time I have had to do it in the last two days. Next time I will be requesting a lengthy block. NW (Talk) 01:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps once we're done dealing with plagiarism, we can look at how DYK has fueled RFA, and then the bigger issue of admin abuse. Cue, well if I said I'd be blocked, wouldn't I? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Rodhallandemu has a point with SOFIXIT and perhaps we need a couple admins checking on these articles to make sure they are "up to snuff" before being put in queue. Otherwise, I still see no reason to scrap a program that is on every Wiki from the 1 article Kanuri Wiki to our English Wiki. It would have to go through consensus, potentially, on each and every Wiki. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You are clearly unaware of just how much work is involved to SOFIXIT this huge problem. But if I called you a "wanker", as Rod did Malleus, or told you to STFU, I'd be blocked instead of thanked for exposing this problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Please take this to AN, bring DYK to MfD, or have an RfC on the talkpage. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 02:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK is not the issue IMHO but people who nominate "bad" articles there. No need to end a very good idea because of some turbulence ;)--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 02:03, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Then perhaps WP:AN would be more appropriate, since we don't need to open up an incident on every single person that nominates "bad" articles there. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 02:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea.--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 02:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Shall I reclose or copy/paste move this to AN? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

A move to AN is likely the best course of action.--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 02:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we can get some feedback from editors who know WP:SIG? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Better yet, we can put first things first. "Captain Smith, those deckchairs need to be rearranged." is trivial once they stock up on ice.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:38, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

break

Well, I can't see any entry at WP:AN. If I look around wikipedia, I still see large numbers of one-line (or slightly bigger) expandable stubs, so I still see a place for DYK in the 5x expansion of these stubs as a carrot to get on the mainpage. There have also been periodic reviews about making way or GAs to appear on the main page (anyone want to list how many?). I must say I like the idea of "newly improved articles" which might include 1 or 2 newly-minted GAs. So is it time for a Request for Comment folks? Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think so; Scott Mac's idea is at least worth a try. History: the climb up the grease pole at RFA was fueled by FAs years ago and for several years, leading to a high number of ill-prepared nominations from editors who ... surprise ... showed up at RFA weeks later. Once that was shut down by stricter rules and review at FAC, that activity moved over to GA, and for a while we saw some really awful GA passes (that showed up as deficient FACs weeks later). Geometry guy, Ling.Nut, Malleus Fatuorum, Awadewit and a legion of editors too long to list got on that situation, and GAs now are a mostly respectable bunch of articles, with sporadic exceptions that were bad passes and are now dealt with better than they were a few years ago. So, those looking for quick and easy rewards have moved on to DYK, where it is fairly easy (because of the rules there) to put up a plagiarized, poorly-sourced, perhaps not even notable article and get it guaranteed to appear on the mainpage, then use their DYKs to claim content experience to pass RFA. This demeans the work of the many good and responsible writers who also run their content through DYK, results in plagiarism and articles that violate our core polices being displayed on the main page, and lowers the caliber of the admin corp. I do not believe DYK's problems will be solvable quickly or easily; the structure there is just overwhelmed by too many submissions, and the rules encourage quick and dirty content, where plagiarism abounds. There will be an enormous problem, though, in trying to change DYK's mainpage status: the reward culture adherents-- who are many-- will kick and scream and shout it down. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Now, this might have made sense when Wikipedia has major gaps in article coverage, but that's no longer the case. Scottmac, I don't think we are at that stage yet. Have we an article on every ship, every church, every windmill? Not yet we don't. DYK does have a use, part of which is encouraging content creation and expansion. Since I started contributing to Wikipedia, standards at DYK have been raised so that articles have to be in a reasonable shape to be considered. Mjroots (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

If I can find four plagiarized articles with a mere half an hour's work of checking the DYKbot, no matter how hard they're trying over there, I can't say the quality of some DYK articles on the main page is enhancing Wiki's reputation enough to make the content expansion worthwhile. Good editors will go for GA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't scrap DYK. Doing so would be, as others have pointed out, to 'throw the baby out with the bath water'. Even though there might be a couple of plagiarism problems (and these can be fixed, quite easily in fact), think of how many new articles or expansions will be lost should we get rid of DYK! Sandy says that 'good editors will go for GA'. However, you must remember that many articles simply don't have enough on them around the Internet or in libraries to get to that level - although they're still notable, there just isn't enough out there for a GA-level article. Should we scrap DYK, we might lose many of these types of articles, as editors won't receive the 'reward' they were expecting. I'm not saying that new articles should be all about rewards, but many editors think this way. If you'd like examples of 'good enough for DYK but not enough around for GA' articles, check out Anthracite, Alberta and Betsy Warland - both incredibly difficult to research, but good additions to the 'pedia. Many editors simply wouldn't have bothered without DYK. Arctic Night 06:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious about how these "couple of plagiarism problems" (they aren't a couple, they're legendary, I've been hearing about them for years, and just started checking, and easily found half a dozen with almost no work) are going to "quite easily [be] fixed in fact". Could you please elaborate? Are you aware of how hard our few good copyright people have to work to solve all the problems created by this wonderful "new content"? It's also not necessary to pre-hash what would be in an RFC here, so I won't address your misstatements about GA. The purpose of ANI is to discuss how to solve the DYK and overall plagiarism issue-- not to "do" the RFC. It is assumed that the many DYK adherants will scream: no need to do it here, that's what an RFC is for. The only way to screen for plagiarism is to, well, know policy and do the work, and that has not been happening at DYK. GA has many competent reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The question is: are these bad new articles being written only because people want the reward offered by DYK, or would they also get written otherwise? In the first case, you would be right in saying that DYK offers a bad incentive; in the second case, DYK at least has a chance of acting as an additional filter, however ineffective. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a RfC should establish whether there are indeed systemic flaws with DYK and if so, how to fix them. This unstructured discussion is not very helpful, since it can really bring up only anecdotal evidence. A careful review of recent DYK submissions could reveal, for instance, whether the problem lies with the process itself or is simply a matter of misconduct by a number of individual plagiarists who may need to be sanctioned.  Sandstein  09:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

@Future perfect ... from my personal experience (anecdote speaking here), there are two kinds of editors, generally, writing DYKs. The first are those who write articles that are legitimately headed to FA, the second are those who are seeking rewards. Of course, there are likely others that fall in the cracks, but I know the FA writers, and I know the problems that show up at RFA and WIKICUP and GA and every now and then get as far as FA before we find the problems. There is definitely a problem in the process, because their only focus is on the hook; little understanding of other Wiki policies in evidence from some of the reviewers there. And the rules reinforce reward-seeking behavior, because you only have to pop up a few characters, with one verifiable hook. My understanding is that many competent reviewers leave there in disgust (reference Bali ultimate's first posts here; I've heard same.) And I don't really appreciate that because they're all so mad at me right now, I get admin abuse and no apology. Will admins take over this mess now, pls-- I'm not interested in following this anymore; y'all might recall that I didn't bring this thread to begin with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

And if you need more evidence of incompetence over there, here's four. First, I told them about Black Eyed Kids yesterday-- nothing done, it went on the main page. Second, when did this thread start? How long have they known about these problems? So why am I in there tonight still finding blatant plagiarism, which doesn't take ten minutes to find? Why aren't they doing it? Third, finding plagiarism isn't hard: you look at a trivially short article, you look at the main source, you see the problem in a second. These aren't long articles with many sources! Yet they're over there spinning their wheels talking about using a bot, when a bot won't solve this problem-- it needs eyes. Fourth, they talk about only verifying hooks-- they're putting entire articles on the main page, where things like BLP policy and copyvio matter. We've got plagiarism all over the place, and if we are to clean it up, a task force would have to go back through boatloads of DYKs. Besides getting some oversight into what DYK is putting on the main page. I think the problem there is that no one is in charge, so the left hand can't even find the right, much less talk to it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I never deliberately look at DYK articles, but I've seen some in the past that were just plain wrong, pov, etc. But copyvio and BLP violations are worse and should not be tolerated on the main page. Dougweller (talk) 10:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Going back to Scott's point that as the Wiki grows we need to shift the focus away from new content and over to maintenance, how about amending DYK rules so that an article can also be submitted to DYK up to 7 days after it has been referenced? That way you don't switch off any of the existing routes to DYK, but you give an incentive to those who are cleaning up our unreferenced backlog that what they do can qualify for DYK. ϢereSpielChequers 13:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we should scrap the whole idea of "new" or "newly expanded", and give some prominence to good articles instead. Facts from newly promoted GAs should be placed instead. In general, GANs are reviewed more thoroughly than DYK (though not always). We should not be displaying what are usually among our weakest articles on the main page. Aiken (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Taking DYKs from recently promoted GAs would ensure more rigour and promote better content. We could start off doing it 50/50 GAs and new articles to reduce friction, and review later. I've always felt it slightly odd that DYK rewards new articles (and massive expansion of stubs), when such efforts tend to be their own rewards. By contrast, the effort involved in improving something to GA status is much more like hard work, and in more need of recognition. Rd232 ^talk 14:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I've been thinking about this for ages as I feel it is a shame that the effort that people put into GAs doesn't necessarily lead to anyone reading them. I think this has been previously discussed at WT:DYK, but I can't find any threads in the archive. SmartSE (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This has indeed been discussed numerous times, most recently at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_62#Allow_some_DYK_hooks_to_go_into_newly_promoted_Good_Articles? (and if you look through that discussion you should find links to the past one). I strongly suggest you read through those discussions and think about whether you have anything new to offer before reviving this perennial failed proposal. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The objections there seem to be (i) DYK is about showcasing new content and (ii) DYK as is couldn't handle the extra workload. The first point I disagree with fundamentally - it shouldn't be just about promoting new content; newly improved or newly verified as Good quality should be showcased as well, as I argued above. The second point is non-trivial but sort of pathetic. One option, for instance, would be to require GA structures to figure out their own DYK process as part of GA review, so that ready-made hooks get fed into the existing DYK process, under an appropriate separate heading ("from our newest Good Articles"), with as few or as many GA hooks as available (up to a max of 50%), perhaps with hooks displayed longer than new article hooks. That would be a low-friction way to do it, if reforming DYK is too much trouble; but if we're doing that anyway because of quality concerns, it could be done differently. Rd232 ^talk 16:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The objections seem to miss the point entirely. DYK should not be about new or newly expanded content - it ought to showcase stuff that has had detailed review, and meets stricter criteria. As I said on the latest proposal, most of DYK is glorified stubs. Why should stubs be on the main page, but GAs not anywhere? There would not be any extra workload, because DYK would cease to function in its current form. It would, as Rd232 says, take from newly promoted GAs so would simply transfer to different a content type. Aiken (talk) 16:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Just read through the opposes and am now convinced this is a good idea. If the most resistance is in the idea 'kind of defeat the whole purpose of DYK' then all that has to be done is change the idea. DYK has been getting to spammy for some time now and replacing a percentage(not yet as high as 50/50 unfortunately Rd232) of it with higher quality checker contains seems a logic step forward. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is never going to get worked out if people keep talking around each other and reiterating their own opinions without paying any attention to the other side. Just like in the last discussion of this, people are saying stuff like "DYK should not be about new or newly expanded content" as if it's fact—who decided that? If we have a fundamental disagreement about what the purpose of the DYK project is, then of course we're going to disagree on what needs to be done with it. And as far as I can tell from the previous discussion, no one has made an attempt to reach a consensus on what the purpose of the project is; people (myself included, I admit) just come to the discussion with their a priori views about what the project's purpose is and then insist on upholding them.

As for bashing the "oppose" votes for not being valid; that's all well and good, but don't cherry-pick. Plenty of the "support" votes there are just as bad, including several people who said "support" but were actually voting for different proposals entirely (makes you wonder how much of the proposal they actually read); see my post there at 20:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC) for more details.

Now, again, like I said above: do any of you have anything new to bring to the proposal, or are you just going to reiterate the same proposal to a new audience (one which I can only presume you are hoping to be more amenable to it, given the context of the current discussion). In particular, it would help if you could clarify your reasons for making this proposal: are you really doing it because you think it will eliminate issues of plagiarism on the main page (even though multiple people have already pointed out that there is rampant plagiarism on multiple FAs and GAs), or because you are just upset that you aren't getting "rewards" or "recognition" for your work on GAs? rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

"Consensus is never going to get worked out if people keep talking around each other and reiterating their own opinions without paying any attention to the other side." - funny, that seems to apply to your rather dismissive response. I'd identified the two main oppose concerns (you didn't say I'd got anything wrong there...), and responded to both. You didn't concretely respond to that or to the other responses. As to your final question, the only concrete point: GA review is more rigorous than DYK review, which focusses on the hook and on basic DYK eligibility criteria. SO DYKs drawn from GAs ought to have fewer copyvio/plagiarism issues than DYKs from the DYK new article process. Rd232 ^talk 21:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, that complaint was directed more at Aiken than at you. I didn't respond to all of your points one by one because I still don't see this as an appropriate place to be making this proposal again and I can't tell how serious a proposal it is, but you you want a direct response I can give you one. Your belief about how DYK should be about showcasing newly improved content rather than just new content is just that, a belief, and one which many users do not share, as demonstrated by the prior discussions on this matter. Indeed, it seems like what you are proposing is essentially "TFA lite" underneath TFA; have you stopped to consider whether it benefits readers to have two essentially very similar sections on the main page? Readers don't necessarily know or care about all the behind-the-scenes assessment system at Wikipedia or whether or not editors are getting "recognition" for their work, so I think many readers will be confused about why there are two 'featured' articles on the front page now and why one isn't as good. At least DYK has a definition that is clear and is meaningful to readers. You need to keep readers in mind because, no matter how much people like to say about using DYK/TFA/etc. to encourage contributions, the main page is ultimately for readers, not for us.

As for "reward"ing GA writing, I find it somewhat odd that you are making a big deal out of this (in your earlier comment above) when so many users here have pointed out that reward-seeking behavior is one of the primary problems here. And your claim that making a DYK is "its own reward" whereas making a GA is something that needs some bling is awfully subjective. If an easy DYK is "its own reward" then why can't a GA, which is more of an accomplishment (albeit still not a great accomplishment) be? rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The belief may be subjective, but it's one shared by a lot of people, from my look at previous discussion you linked to above. And the basis for that view is in fact thinking about readers: GAs are by definition better than the typical DYK short new article. I take your point that TFA already showcases Featured Content, but it does so in a very different way, and has only 1 slot while DYK has 10. In any case GAs are not FAs, and many never will be, or won't be for a very long time (and presumably previous featuring as DYK would be taken into account in choosing TFA, so might never be featured unless we run out of new FAs that haven't been). As to the reward issue, you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. First, the current DYK rewarding problem is partly because the review mechanism is relatively weak, and creating new articles relatively easy, especially for those with a cavalier attitude to plagiarism. GAs have a stronger review element because it involves reviewing the whole article and not just the hook. Second, on the element of intrinsic reward: DYK new articles tend to be written by just one person, so they already have some satisfaction from getting their work published. GAs are far more likely to have a collaborative element, improving other people's work; and bringing in DYK recognition would encourage that, so that more articles currently at C or B class would be brought up to GA standard by people not previously involved with them. Rd232 ^talk 10:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Proposal_3:_introduce_some_GA_DYKs. Rd232 ^talk 18:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

On the main page now

• Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. It does not take 10 minutes to find these problems; admins need to start checking DYK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Removed from DYK. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks (they don't like me much over there :) I checked the same editor's last two DYKs, and they didn't use reliable sources. I didn't bother checking them for copyvios, because they're not currently on the mainpage, there are problems in three of the DYKs on the mainpage, and a cleanup task force on DYK plagiarism is going to be needed, for all those who say "easy cleanup" and SOFIXIT. That makes almost ten problems I've found just in the last few hours. User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox#Identified DYK problems SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Multiple plagiarized DYK submissions by Jack1956

I checked three of the editor's DYK's:

• Walter Dew includes a copyvio from here. (I verified with the Internet Archive that the text was published there before it was included in the article.)
• Elizabeth Dickens – I could not find a problem with this.
• Pons Neronianus started as a copyvio from [2], which was detected by CorenSearchBot and tagged as such. The editor's reaction was to obscure the copyvio [3], expand the article further, and take it to DYK.

I am sure it is worth looking at the editor's common interests with CorenSearchBot: [4]. Among the first three articles on the list, two contain[ed?] clear (although disguised) copyvios by this user. Hans Adler 10:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

oopsie, I've got to go notify him now of this discussion! On my way ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've noted elsewhere that SandyGeorgia got this wrong. But having been through the sources myself and cleaned up the citations, it's fairly apparent to me that the reason that the article was cited so badly in the first place, and why I've had to put a {{pageneeded}} against one of the citations, is that it's basically the OUP dictionary's Charles Fitzroy Doll article sentence for sentence, and the OUP article didn't provide the full Gray1985 citation and got the year wrong and provided only partial title in the Pevsner citation, too. I actually went and found out the page number and correct publication information for Pevsner, and even found an extra supporting source. However, the fact that Jack1956 (talk · contribs) made exactly the same citation mistakes and deficiencies as the OUP dictionary indicates to me that the sources being cited were just being taken from the main source, and that that latter has been plagiarized.

  Having just spent all of the time looking up and correcting the citations, I'm rather annoyed that it does appear that the entire article has to go. The OUP most definitely does not release its dictionary of architecture as free content. I'll run it by Moonriddengirl. Uncle G (talk) 10:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Deep breath time: a plea

Cross-post from WT:DYK

Okay, everyone, deep breath time. On both sides. Here's what I figure:

• Credible problems have been found on DYK approved articles regarding WP:V and copyvio/close paraphrasing/plagiarism
• At the current time, every time a new set goes on the Main Page, we just get inundated with new sections regarding the new set of articles
• This is unhelpful when we've already identified the problem and are still discussing how to best deal with it (WT:DYK#Proposal for trial). There needs to be a buffer or this mess will not sort itself out.
• With every new complaint on every new set the same issues are getting rehashed every six hours. It's going to be non-stop.
• Words and accusations have been exchanged here and at WT:DYK by both sides, which has gone as far as to lead to a warning for NPA against an arbitrator. This is not the right atmosphere to continue.

Therefore I ask that SandyGeorgia refrain from any further interaction regarding tagging problem articles on the Main Page until after they've been taken off and that she stop bringing the issues here or WT:DYK - just do the tagging and notification which is needed, no need to generate more heat.

And I ask those of us DYK regulars take all that has been pointed out by Sandy and others at ANI and here - constructively or not, POINT-ily or not, civilly or not - in stride and figure out where to go from here.

Sandy, as I said below - (at least for now) ignore DYK and let us sort our mess out. You've identified a problem but are giving us absolutely zero time to do anything about it by just heaping fuel onto the fire every time a new set goes on the Main Page.

Please, people, we can reach a conclusion here but neither side is doing anything which will let us get there. StrPby (talk) 09:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not interested in working on this problem, but take note of how this thread started-- because I commited the horrific sin of not knowing that I needed to notify. So if you all have plagiarism on the main page, I'm for sure going to notify you so you can pull it. One incidence of admin abuse is enough for me. I'm glad to sign off of this, but Rlevse's "wagging jaws" and references to "one instance", on top of the abusive admin, infuriated me-- rightly so, I think. I'm done with it now if SOMEONE besides me will start looking at it. You all are talking but doing nothing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Which is witch?

By coincidence, the current FA is about a witch hunt. I picked out a sentence and compared it with the source:

FA: "... she was said to be a tall, good-looking, humorous, and unconventional woman who grew medicinal herbs, owned prime waterfront property, and wore trousers—taboo for women at that time—when she worked on the farm."

USA Today: "Sherwood was a tall, good-looking and unconventional woman who grew herbs for medicine, owned prime waterfront property and wore trousers — taboo for women at that time — when she planted crops."

Shall we shut down the FA process for its plagiarism and glory-seeking too? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:38, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• If you can draw comparisons to what is going on at DYK with FAC, have at it. The difference between DYK and FAC is that someone DOES something about things. Rlevse wrote that article, I believe; he's also very involved with DYK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Uh huh, and it went through your FAC process and was majorly copytedited by a FAC regular, Malleus, and that passage is marked with a ref, so.... — Rlevse • Talk • 11:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Copyediting is not source checking; I'll thank you not to blame this on Malleus. Did "he" add the text or you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• You've left out the important part, which is the preceding "said to be"; that is, it's a direct quotation and explicitly marked as such. – iridescent 10:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't see any quote marks in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm with SandyGeorgia here. There aren't any quotation marks and it doesn't read as a quotation. (Even if it did, the obvious question that I have as a reader is "Said by whom?".) And I've just quickly looked through the other source that supposedly supports that content, and I can find no mention of tallness, good looks, or even trousers. That citation needs a specific page number, at minimum.

    Colonel Warden has a good point. It's not DYK itself that's the problem. It's specific editors that are the problem, compounded by a process that has a whole load of people acting like the desperate contestants in a television game show who are stuck trying to do something at the end of a conveyor belt that is deliberately run too fast for them to manage. A lot of this palaver, here and at Wikipedia talk:Did you know (where there's a whole load of parallel discussion, by the way), could have been avoided if the specifics had been addressed from the start, rather than blanket generalizations labelling everyone who does work at DYK as "culprits". Uncle G (talk) 11:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

    • I've left a (rather unhappy) note for Rlevse to get on this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • the people that brought this up and the FAC group can get on it since I'm so incompetent. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
        • That's great, Rlevse. About that ArbCom thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Sandy, your "rather unhappy" note appears to have been the straw that broke the camel's back, and to have prompted a retirement. You've also been adding on a few other straws. Maybe you can now accept that your approach is causing problems? EdChem (talk) 11:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
            • EdChem, Rlevse spent all day in conflict on his talk page because of unseemly comments he made here. It's not hard to see the writing on the wall when an Arb member gets into conflict all day over DYK plagiarism, and then is found doing same; do you think retirement is likely in such a case anyway? I'm talking about a content problem that has to be solved; I do wish you'd stop taking these issues personally, and personalizing them with me. SandyGeorgia (Talk)
              • Rlevse's talk page at present: [5]

                Edit summary: You guys wanted it, you got it

                @Sandy: you tell me if retirement is likely. EdChem (talk) 11:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

        • There you have it. A case in point. Call the DYK volunteers "culprits" who have a "general lack of competence", that generate "new content of shit quality that is mostly plagiarized" on a "crap harmful project" and — no surprise! — they aren't well inclined to work with those who are part of such a discussion in related matters. Whereas not saying anything like that, and pointing out the specifics instead, would not have Rlevse responding in kind (which is pretty much as bad) and doing the usual. Uncle G (talk) 11:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
          • • A drama queen stormed off stage left after some mild and accurate criticism? I'm shocked. That whole show is incompetent, and completely resistant to change (I'll say it again; as a minimum starter, cut the rate of new DYK's by half. Why isn't that being done?)Bali ultimate (talk) 11:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I need help in solving this. I've looked at the article, and it is a clear copyvio. I've pinged Raul, but he may not be on for several hours. What next? We need to change the TFA. If Iri or Malleus are around, can they recommend another Halloween TFA? We need to tag the article as a copyvio, but we need another TFA. If anyone is around to help, can we discuss a new TFA on Raul's talk, since this page is so busy? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I've contacted Raul, and will leave it to him-- the plagiarism on the article was pretty bad, just from checking one source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Raul has pulled the article from the main page. Hans Adler 13:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Rlevse has retired, and I am sure it is not entirely SandyGeorgia's fault. USA Today in 2006 [6]:

1. Virginia never had a witch craze like that in Massachusetts, where 19 colonists were hanged for witchcraft in Salem Town in 1692.
2. Records survive of 15 witchcraft cases in the Virginia colony in the 1600s, with most ending in acquittals, said Frances Pollard, [...]
3. No one was executed for witchcraft in Virginia, although Katherine Grady was hanged in 1654 aboard an English ship bound for Virginia when passengers blamed her for causing a storm, Pollard said.
4. The latest Virginia witchcraft case was in 1802 in Brooke County, now part of West Virginia.
5. A couple accused a woman of being a witch and the court ruled that was slander.
6. That was a frequent result in such cases, with people fined for bringing false charges, Pollard said.
7. "It was pretty clear that Virginia early on tried to discourage these charges being brought of witchcraft because they were so troublesome," Pollard said.
8. Sherwood seems to be the only accused witch tried by water in Virginia, let alone convicted, Pollard said.

Rlevse in September this year [7]:

1. Virginia never had a witch craze such as the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, where 19 colonists were hanged for witchcraft in 1692-1693, just 14 years prior to Sherwood's ducking.
2. There are only 15 recorded witchcraft cases in the Virginia colony in the 1600s, with most ending in acquittals.
3. None of these Virginia cases resulted in execution, although Katherine Grady was hanged in 1654 aboard an English ship bound for Virginia when passengers blamed her for causing a storm.
4. The last Virginia witchcraft case was in 1802 in Brooke County, now part of West Virginia.
5. A couple accused a woman of being a witch and the court ruled that was slander.
6. That was a frequent result in such cases, with people fined for bringing false charges.
7. Frances Pollard, director of library services at the Virginia Historical Society, said: "It was pretty clear that Virginia early on tried to discourage these charges being brought of witchcraft because they were so troublesome."
8. Sherwood seems to be the only accused witch tried by water in Virginia, let alone convicted, Pollard said. [8]

To summarise:

• No less than 8 consecutive sentences plagiarised (and in most cases obviously copied) from a passage consisting of 9 consecutive sentences in a single source, in the same order.
• Only a minimal amount of added information.
• The only source given for this passage is a website where the text did not originate.

Does anyone know if this text had an earlier history? Was it removed from the article at some point and Rlevse merely restored it? Was it merged from elsewhere? In any case Rlevse's recent behaviour makes the unthinkable (that an Arb actively plagiarised from a news source for a featured article) appear much more plausible than it should be. Hans Adler 13:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• • It certainly doesn't originate from Wikipedia, the article was a stub when that USA Today article was released. Parrot of Doom 17:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1‎, had to Secret ^account 03:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Block of IP 205.175.113.16

I expect this will be quickly deleted (great way to start a comment, I know) as being in the wrong place and /or questioning an arbitrator ("witchhunting") but I can't edit Risker's page and I can't help wondering what more there is behind 207.175.113.16's block than their single edit (currently at the top of this page) commenting on what everyone now agrees is blatant plagiarism in this article, especially since their block was carried out by an editor who was left a notice as one of the "main editor" of this article. I know - sleeping dogs, witchhunt, arbitrator, wrong place, ip, let's bury. Maybe it was checkuser related but then surely Risker would't be using checkuser on someone reporting copyright infringement in an article she was one of the "main editors" of? Anyway, I (nobody that I am) personally think it bears questioning. Maybe it already has been and I just failed to find it. 87.254.83.188 (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Initially I was also slightly concerned, but assumed good faith. Another IP from the same region made related comments elsewhere later, and when I saw them it became clear to me who this must have been. The user in question has been banned for many, many years, and for an excellent reason. I have seen similar duck or checkuser blocks of other banned users of this type in the past, and anyway Risker has offered to disclose the identity of the blocked user by email if required. An Arb made a very stupid mistake, and consequently a banned user with a long-term agenda got a little triumph. Nothing much to see here. Hans Adler 22:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Action needed on DYK Main Page article

Resolved

Related to (but yet unrelated to) the massive thread above, can we get an admin to remove Black Eyed Kids from the mainpage per WP:ERRORS as it's been put up for AFD? StrPby (talk) 08:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Y Done.  Sandstein  09:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I brought up the problems with that article on DYK talk more than 24 hours ago, tagged the article, and they didn't pull it. I was quite surprised to see it go on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Now, can we get a task force of competent admins in place to oversee DYK, so I can go back to my usual work and stop being abused by admins? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Or, since it's self-admittedly not "(your) usual work", you could just ignore DYK and let us sort our mess out. You've identified a problem but are giving us absolutely zero time to do anything about it by just heaping fuel onto the fire every time a new set goes on the Main Page. StrPby (talk) 09:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said, MORE than glad to leave this mess, but don't appreciate wrong statements like "giving us absolutely zero time to do anything" ... I told DYK more than 24 hours ago about Black Eyed Kids and you've known about the plagiarism problem for days, yet you put one up tonight. Get someone to check what you're putting up! Do you all do everything by bot? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Someone moved this thread here from the bottom of the page, and that caused a lot of grief (see my talk). The Black Eyed Kids article has nothing to do with plagiarism. I checked a lot of Panyd's other DYKs and found them to be high quality. The problem here is an entirely different one. My understanding from DYK talk is that the same DYK reviewer who passed the hook is the one who added the non-reliable sources-- not Panyd! (And why is that happening?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I just asked Sandstein to help correct an error in a shortly upcoming classical music DYK (queue 2 at the moment) which wasn't checked properly with the article. Mathsci (talk) 10:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

HULLO

Grace Sherwood, TFA, is a blatant copyvio. I'm not an admin, I can't change the TFA. I've pinged Raul, but he's not on. Can admins online meet me at Raul654 (talk · contribs)'s talk so we can get a new TFA up? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've made Raul aware; will leave it to him. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • A late and perhaps unhelpful suggestion for a fitting TFA: Whitechapel murders? sonia♫ 11:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Blanking a whole section for one sentence that doesn't have quotation marks? That's fairly over the top, unless you've checked the remainder of the section as well. Uncle G (talk) 11:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • See the talk page-- there are multiple other instances. Uncle G, you are more familiar with copyvio work than I am-- if you want to do it differently, please feel free to revert me. I did what I thought I was obliged to do, based on the extent of what I found-- complete sentences almost exact. If it can be done differently, I defer to you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Right now, the article is on the main page with an entire section blanked out with a plagiarism tag. I don't think that's an especially good situation to be in. So my thoughts are that we have two options:

1. Pull it down and put up something else. Assess the damage.
2. Leave it up, remove any in-text plagiarism markings, and assess the damage on the talk page. Once it comes down, we can mark the article itself.

I'm leaning towards the latter option, but I wanted to see what people here thought first. Raul654 (talk) 11:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• I lean towards option #1; better to be sure than to leave copyvio up. → ROUX ₪ 11:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• If you look up ⇑, you'll see the one sentence at issue. Uncle G (talk) 11:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No, see the aricle talk page-- there's more. See my message above; Uncle G, you know copyvio work better than me, so please revert me if the tagging isn't needed in this case, but there are other instances from that source-- see the article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Uncle G, if it was one sentence I'd have rewritten it myself. Its a bigger problem than one sentence. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I've just read Talk:Grace Sherwood#content copied. Yes, I see what you mean. The irony of 205.175.113.16 (talk · contribs) pointing this out is not lost. I'm just about to look more closely. Uncle G (talk) 12:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Right. I can see that there's at least a single paragraph at issue, the second, here. I'm inclined to wonder whether the fact that USA Today didn't use quotation marks for quoted speech was part of the problem, here. Are there issues with the other two paragraphs? Uncle G (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Moonriddengirl and I have gone back through the edit history and found a revision that troubles us. I've outlined some of the situation at Talk:Grace Sherwood and there is more at User talk:Moonriddengirl#Regarding ANI on DYK. More eyes are requested. Uncle G (talk) 13:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Move to new page

I am agreeing with most of above: plagiarism is a big problem on Wikipedia, and Did you know is a big factor in that. I think we ought to move this discussion to a new page, as this section is becoming ridiculously long. Aiken (talk) 12:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK COI

DYK folks nom/promote their own stuff, prefer their own images over others etc. The people nomming are the people making decisions about what goes where and when.. What other process has so much COI? FA/FAR/GAN all have safeguards; DYK, not so much. This is unacceptable. A COI firewall must be made. • Ling.Nut (talk) 12:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason editors nominate their own articles, is to let reviewers know that they have created an article that may be suitable for inclusion in DYK, how else do you suggest this is done? Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Guide#Updating the DYK preparation areas states that nominators should avoid moving articles they nominate to the prep area. Can you explain what the problem with the current system is, or some examples where this has been problematic? SmartSE (talk) 12:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The other processes you mention also involve people nominating their "own" stuff - FAC in fact demands it, whereas at DYK other people's articles can be nominated by another party. As Smartse explains, editors don't deal with their own nomination. Aiken (talk) 12:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, you are wrong. Forgot the user's name. (Found it -- User:4meter4 ) Look for a rant from me there; when I was nomming Children of the Stars I said the photo was boring; the person selecting the photos AND the order etc. was... the person who nommed the DYK. • Ling.Nut (talk) 13:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Also worth bearing in mind this [9] which says "H2: You are not allowed to approve your own hook or article."

There does seem to be a general practice of favouring the nominator's view of which particular hook to use if there are several hooks and no specific problems with any of them. In my opinion that general practice might not always be a good thing.

--Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about hooks. I'm talking about which image is selected, and the order of the dyks ..COI might not be good? Novel concept. DYK is a bit undeveloped; it needs some refining. • Ling.Nut (talk) 13:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, you began by talking about "stuff". The rules dealing with avoidance of COI at DYK seem relevant to that. Not saying they couldn't be improved. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Ling.Nut, I don't understand what you mean - you wrote Children of the Stars and you said above that you nommed it for DYK, but then you say that it was 4meter4 who nominated it... Finding it in the history of T:TDYK would take ages, so can you clarify who nominated the article? Regardless of this, can you explain why 4meter4 benefited from moving the article to the prep area (as a COI suggests) and why this is something that needs to be discussed here? SmartSE (talk) 14:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, DYK guidelines (definitely unwritten, but I believe there is also a written one) specifically bar users from promoting hooks which they nominated, and strongly discourage users from promoting hooks which they reviewed. If that is going on, list the names of the users that have been doing it and they will be yelled at. But there's no need for a change to DYK rules; this is already in the rules. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

H2. Shubinator (talk) 16:03, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• 4 meter4 wrote an article. 4meter4 nommed his (not my) article, at he same time I nommed mine. [Commence COI]: 4m4eter4 selected the image from his article to go on mainpage. He also selected the order. I have no idea if he Passed his own nom; that would seem too bold for most people. But even the above is unacceptable. Standards are loose. • Ling.Nut (talk) 22:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Do you have the diffs handy? I vaguely recall this nom but it was a couple months ago. Also, are you aware of any other instances of similar behavior (from this editor or from any others)? rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't hang out at DYK; I have no idea what hey do. This happened around September 11th. I will look for the diffs. • Ling.Nut (talk) 22:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • No worries, I just found it. Will post them in a moment. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/September, article is Domenico Annibali. Thread where I made a consumately civil complaint is here. The reply by 4meter4 looks very reasonable. The problem is, he's picking is own picture. Should not be done, nor should any nominator touch his own nom in any capacity other than nominator. COI by dictionary definition. • Ling.Nut (talk) 22:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Here is the user in question's assembly of the prep area; all the intermediate edits are 4meter4's
        • Here is the specific edit of adding his own article as the lead hook
        • The article was nominated by someone else [10] but created and primarily written by 4meter4 [11]
      • Has there already been a discussion about this somewhere, or has 4meter4 been warned or anything? I just noticed your links, I will check t hat discussion. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
        • wait, 4meter4 created it, someone else nommed it, 4meter4 chose its image as mainpage? Is this a daisychain? Who passed the nom? We couldn't check for a 2 or 3-way mutual nom/pass/place on mainpage daisychain; it would be a huge pain in the neck to do. • Ling.Nut (talk)
          • (ec) Link to the full discussion is here. For what it's worth, no one there pointed out the COI issue. Anyway, the issue of the Children of the Stars nom is long since resolved (for anyone reading: Ling.Nut's article got put back onto T:TDYK and was later on put in a new queue as the lead hook), but since 4meter4 is still active at DYK I will leave him a notice about this. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
            • • BTW, I did complain at the time. I emailed Rlevse. I am quite happy to fwd my email exchange with Rlevse if necessary. Rlevse's answer was (in my biased opinion) just bland generalities, but i was afraid to lose the DYK (I wanted to promote the school for autistic children), so I did not pursue it. • Ling.Nut (talk) 22:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• The issue is not resolved. I was never saying that someone torpedoed my nom. No one did. I was saying that 1) folks who nom should never be permitted to touch their own nom in any administrative way (in the loose sense of the word), and 2) ummm is there a daisy chain? • Ling.Nut (talk)
  • Folks who nom are never permitted to touch their own nom in any substantial administrative way. Daisy chains are also discouraged, but sometime certain parts are unavoidable. Creating an article and passing it or moving it into prep is never acceptable. Passing an article and moving it into prep is discouraged but sometimes unavoidable due to the lack of volunteers. Moving into prep and moving into the queue are often done by the same person; in an ideal world this would also be a separate person, but there aren't enough volunteers to go around. Shubinator (talk) 23:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • The bit about "folks who nom are never permitted" ca be safely ignored in this case, I am sorry to say, since the actual nom is a formality. I see User:Gerda Arendt has 14 DYKs on her user page, of which i think 11 were created by 4meter4, and most of those heavily or even almost exclusively edited by him. To say he can fool with this in the queue, in any way shape or form, because he found a friend to nom it for him is.... questionable, to use the most polite word I can think of. • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • (ec) As for (1), they're already not permitted to do that, as Shubinator explains above. As for (2), unless anyone has further examples of anyone approving or promoting their own articles, I don't think there's any need to assume an epidemic. Generally it's fine to just handle these cases as they come up, with a slap on the wrist or whatever other action is needed for that particular case. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
        • You're missing the point completely. I do not care at all whether 4meter4 is slapped on the wrist or given a medal. I'll be happy to award him a barnstar myself. I care about the fact that no one is watching DYK. The process is not "out of control"; there simply is no control . • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • What we're not getting is why you think there's no control at DYK. One incident of someone crossing the rules means it's out of control? There's more people watching DYK than GAN. Shubinator (talk) 00:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • (ec) as for the issue of Gerda Arendt, this user appears to be a big opera/classical music enthusiast (as far as I can tell from her userpage and one page of contribs), and nominates a lot of new articles in those topics, including articles by people other than 4meter4, so I wouldn't jump to accuse them of malicious collusion. Hopefully warning 4meter4 about this will make him get the picture that it's not ok to promote his own articles even if someone else nommed them; if he doesn't get it, more serious action can be taken next time he does this.
          • As for the issue of control..."no one is watching" seems to me like a bit of an unfair statement to make based on just one instance (although the user's conduct in that instance was certainly inappropriate). We already have rules covering DYK COI, so unless anyone has links to more times when this has happened then I still am hesitant to call it an epidemic. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
            • 9ec)two points: First, you didn't know about it. That means no control. What other cases can we find if we actually look? Have you looked? Do you want to look? Should we be looking? Second, it's true, my definition of "control" was born in FAC. Holy Crap, if this kinda 11-article "happy coincidence" turned up at FAC, there would be heck to pay. • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
              • Maybe I'm missing something, but how did you go from one incident to "11-article 'happy coincidence'"? And didn't know about it ≠ no control. FAC must also be out of control, since Grace Sherwood passed FAC and was just pulled from the main page. They didn't know about it and haven't looked. Shubinator (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
              • (In DYK's defense, there is a lot of stuff there that I don't know about it, because I am pretty much inactive there these days—all I do is occasionally chime in at discussions, I almost never take part in the day-to-day maintenance of the project anymore. I am not the best representative of the rest of the peole there. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC))
• I have taken the liberty of informing Gerda Arendt that they have been mentioned here. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • • • • • • • • (ec) Don't get me wrong. I'm not screaming "off with their heads". I want no punishment of any kind. I want reform so controls are in place. As for FAC, you are distracting from he topic at hand.. but yes, I have been ranting about copyvio fo a long time, and have thrown nontrivial fits over it (see my current RfA). I poste on WT:FAC about this moments ago. As for the 11 articles, you missed my post above. • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                  • Can you spell out your "11 articles" argument? Are you assuming that because 4meter4 moved one of them into the prep area that he/she moved all of them into the prep area? The FAC example was to show that your argument as-is is fairly weak, since I can call FAC out of control by the same argument. Shubinator (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                  • Also, I don't believe you've mentioned an actual solution to the problem you perceive. Shubinator (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• (ec) Good Granny, I posted it right there, see above. Think carefully about this: people have a reason for doing things. If I had written 11 new articles for DYK, I would certainly nom them myself. Why were these nommed by someone else? You need to see if 4meter4, or anyone else linked to him, is nomming others' articles... then who passes them...then who selects the image on mainpage.. etc. And again, i have no desire to see anyone punished. I want you to actually check for this. • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Good Granny we're assuming bad faith. There are many reasons why they could be nommed by someone else. Please stick to the facts instead of speculation. Shubinator (talk) 00:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • The facts are: who dropped the ball? The creator of the article asked a friend to nom it, then did heavy work fooling with its DYK status, including selecting its image, moving it in the queue.. Are you asking me to look for more instances? You are asking me to wash your dishes for you. I am not a DYK editor. Be diligent in your own house. Just check. And just change the processes. That's all I want. i will be happy to award barnstars to both those editors if you want; i don't want punishment. • Ling.Nut (talk) 00:44, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
    • 4meter4 didn't intentionally game the system, as you seem to be suggesting. Anyways, I'll play along for a bit: how do you suggest we change the processes? Shubinator (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Formally, and at the very least you need to change your rules so that significant contributors to a nommed article are barred from touching that DYK's nom in any administrative way after it hits DYK (other than fiddling with the hook before it goes into the queue). [You may need other rules as well]... However, even that rule can be gamed via daisy-chaining (not that anyone has). So – informally, keep your eye on your administrative workers and their noms. If someone favors an image, see if that image is in their article or their BFF's. If someone passes a nom, ditto. self-monitor. • Ling.Nut (talk) 02:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• I believe that we already have the right process at DYK -- an administrator is supposed to review the queue before copying it from the prep area to one of the approved queue slots. If it's not fully reviewed before the move, the administrator can review it after moving it -- and there's plenty of history of administrators removing hooks from a queue and sending them back to the suggestions page for resolution of the issues identified. Additionally, anybody can edit the queues in the 4 prep areas (including sending a problematic hook back to the suggestions page). Also, if you see a problem with a hook in one of the 6 queues, you can raise your concern on the Wikipedia talk:Did you know page. (BTW, if you want the attention of administrators who are engaged with DYK, it's more efficient to post your concern there than to contact a particular administrator, since that one administrator may not be in a position to address your concern right then.) If anything is broken here, it's the implementation of the process -- apparently, there are administrators approving queues without scrutinizing them, and it appears that there are other users who are observing issues but aren't reporting them for fear of retaliation. --Orlady (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• I reported issues at DYK talk in articles 24 hours before one went on the talk page that weren't acted on, and in that article, the editor who passed the hook added unreliable sources to the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• (ec) This week things have been odd, but usually stuff clearly marked on WT:DYK will get attention. And reviewers are encouraged to improve articles. If you're talking about Black Eyed Kids, DYK's opinion of reliable sources aren't as strict as FAC (and if you're talking about Black Eyed Kids, it was mentioned in passing at WT:DYK; make a new section for it in the future and it'll be noticed). Shubinator (talk) 03:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• What Sandy said... and in addition, I keep saying that I am not talking about hooks. I am talking about which nom gets accepted, where the nom is placed on the top-to-bottom set of DYKs, and which image gets displayed. I have no knowledge of problems with hooks. • Ling.Nut (talk) 03:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• What Orlady said. We already do everything you suggested here. Shubinator (talk) 03:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Reviewing the history of the incidents discussed here, I do see one area where the design of the DYK process may have failed us. Several of the complaints related to Halloween 2010 DYKs, which were reviewed and assembled largely outside of the usual DYK process (on a separate set of pages), and apparently (based on the names in the edit histories for those pages) had relatively few sets of eyes on them. (I know that I was almost completely unaware of the process of reviewing and assembling them.) I am well aware that there are very good reasons for moving that review process off the regular DYK suggestions page, and the users who worked the Halloween DYK process were DYK veterans who have earned a lot of respect for their work, but the simple truth is that more sets of eyes are more likely to catch mistakes. I don't pretend to know the best way for processing special occasion hooks in DYK, but recent experience indicates that this current process is not ideal. --Orlady (talk) 04:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• In reply to a note on my talk: I have no time to study the above. I have 90 DYKs up to today (one more tomorrow, 5 noms in the suggestions), most of them written myself and nominated myself, + (clearly separated) some that I only nominated for different other users in fields I am interested in. In two cases, June Card and Günther Reich, I contributed to the article of someone else enough to call myself also an author. Hoping that helps clarifying? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• The question that has been implied is whether you have nominated articles written by 4meter4 which he has then reviewed while in the queue and possibly given preferential treatment.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Use the Wiki Cup to help DYK

I'm not in the WP:WikiCup this year and it is a while since I've involved myself at DYK. But if there is a plagiarism problem at DYK wider than the two editors mentioned above, is there an opportunity here to improve DYK using some lessons from the Wiki cup approach? I appreciate that some of the responses above have mentioned the cup as a possible negative factor, but since neither of the two plagiarisers mentioned in the threads above were contestants, unless we find a third DYK plagiariser who was actually in the cup, isn't it worth asking the WikiCup judges if they can make any suggestions to the DYK regulars as to how they can tighten their processes? My assumption is that any WikiCup contestant who was plagiarising would be noticed by the contestants whose scores were just behind them. But the WikiCup judges can probably give more useful input here than me. ϢereSpielChequers 12:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• See if they can help the COI while they are at it. • Ling.Nut (talk) 12:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I doubt you'll get much support for that. StrPby (talk) 13:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • In that case probably best to focus on Plagiarism as arguably the more serious problem. Not that I'd disregard COI, but as I understand it people are alleging COI in the sense of editors reviewing the submissions of people they recognise ahead of people they don't, which could be happening or it could just be a side effect of the subject matter - I occasionally review articles at FAC and there are certain topics that I avoid, and others I jump at (there are also some editors whose articles I would probably avoid reviewing, but I think that is inevitable on a volunteer site). COI in the sense of reciprocal approving of one another's substandard articles or creating a DYK for one's own book or film would be more serious, but is anyone alleging that this is happening? ϢereSpielChequers 14:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I am one of the three judges for the WikiCup. I don't think we can make any suggestions for DYK, as the Cup counts 'points' for getting articles through one or more of the various processes. For the most part, the Cup serves simply as a motivational tool to get editors to write this content.

To reply to some of the comments above, I don't think we're "furthering a reward culture" on Wikipedia. The contest is meant to spur contributors into writing more articles, and I can say with confidence that this goal has been unequivocally met. While I will readily admit that the process is not perfect and we have had some problems, I believe we have worked through many of them. I invite anyone who has qualms to come out next year and see the Cup from the inside instead of making judgments based on cursory glances. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ed, it was the Cup's experience of resolving problems that I was hoping to tap into here. I suspect DYK is over focussed on the nominations, and a little more focus on the nominators might be useful. Of course its possible that a nominator will have an inconsistent style of work, but I suspect someone who cuts, pastes and copy edits will consistently do so until spotted and given guidance. ϢereSpielChequers 11:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Could it be that these contests and benefits entice editors into cutting corners to get more stars?   Will Beback  talk  11:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • That's an interesting theory, but if that was the case I'd expect it to be WikiCup contestants submitting the problematic DYKs. Recently a large proportion of DYK s have been coming from Cup contestants, but this thread started because of a "close paraphrasing" incident involving a noncontestant and a second non-contestant has since been identified as submitting problematic DYKs.... Hence my suggestion that we seek suggestions from the Cup as to how we could improve DYK. ϢereSpielChequers 15:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK as a tool for good?

As others have pointed out, DYK is not the cause of the problem; the cause of the problem is contributors who either don't understand how to use sources or don't care to try. (If DYK were the cause, we wouldn't have dozens of WP:CCIs of people who've never been near DYK. If only. :/) DYK is actually a really good forum for locating these contributors so that their misunderstandings/wanton disregard can be detected and appropriately addressed. It could become a very valuable teaching/screening tool if the DYK reviewers are willing and able to watch out for copyright/plagiarism concerns. I know this would increase the onus on them, and I can't really volunteer to help out with that screening because I have my hands more than full with known copyright problems at WP:CP and CCI. It would be helpful here if we could improve and perhaps elevate to guideline Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. I routinely point to it and to the writing suggestions under "Avoiding plagiarism" at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches when dealing with people who have this issue. It can take some time to teach people who to rewrite properly, but I've seen contributors overcome the problem. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Top to bottom, the quality control standards at DYK are ready for throw away/start again. Copyvio. COI. No safeguards at all.None. • Ling.Nut (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

One of the points that is worth raising is that of non-copyrightable facts and house style. In some areas a house style develops where standard facts are introduced at the start of an article (e.g. name, birth dates and location and profession for biographical articles, and similar cookie-cutter lead paragraphs for battles, ships, roads, hurricanes, etc.). Sometimes there are only so many ways this information can be presented (e.g. giving the dimensions of an object or the statistics about a country), and sometimes our 'house style' will closely paraphrase that of other sources. There is also a logical reason, sometimes, for the ordering of the presentation of information in an article (e.g. chronological for articles about events over time, or the standard sections in articles about animals and plants). If other sources present things in the same order, are we really plagiarising that article structure if it has been used elsewhere? A good example of the way Wikipedia imitates other sources is the standard sections used in botanical and zoological articles. The key points that need emphasising are to read all the available sources and write based on an overview of those sources. Sometimes, you will find the sources themselves copying each other! Bring together many sources and strip out the language used by the individual authors, and present the information using different wording, but without misleading and without synthesising new thoughts, quoting where needed and attributing in the right places. It's not easy, and it is the hallmark of a good writer to be able to do this, and it is common for people to fall short of perfection when doing this. It is also possible to over-react to problems. The key is to engage in calm discussion and to focus on fixing things. Carcharoth (talk) 13:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with you whole-heartedly here: "The key is to engage in calm discussion and to focus on fixing things." It's quite true that a house style can closely paraphrase other sources when the structure is non-creative (a chronological recounting of events), but I'm afraid that where I work probably brings me more in contact with those who push that too far than those who are reasonable in their interpretation of it. The creativity threshold for copyright protection is pretty low. :/ (Plagiarism is by far less of a concern to me than copyright violation.) But the point of this section, really, is, after acknowledging that close paraphrasing problems do happen in articles, whether we should not be seeing DYK review as a possible step towards solution than contributing factor. I've found articles that have had blatant copyright infringements for years at CP and via CCI. DYK gives us a chance to avoid that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, we already have WP:NPP and CorenSearchBot which are (supposed to be) doing this. DYK should be doing something different. That may well include double checking for quality on articles that are going on the Main Page, but it shouldn't be its main function, otherwise it is simply redundant. One of the problems (as I see it) at the moment is that DYK gets too many nominations, and posts far too many articles, for the reviewers to run any more than the most cursory checks without the system clogging up completely. If people want better checks at DYK (and there seems to be a consensus that this would be a Good Thing), then the throughput has to come down: there won't be legions of editors volunteering to do ever more fastidious reviewing just to keep up the current rate of 32–36 DYKs a day. We shouldn't lump all the copyright problems at WP on the shoulders of DYK. Physchim62 (talk) 15:03, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

CorenSearchBot only handles the first edit of a brand new article. It does not handle fivefold expansion or subsequent edits. It is also not engineered to find close paraphrasing issues of this type. "New page patrol" also does not handle fivefold expansions and may not handle content that is developed incrementally. Redundant safety systems are good practice. While it would be very nice to lump all the copyright problems at WP on the shoulders of DYK, I'm not asking them to take over WP:CCI, WP:SCV or WP:CP. :) Asking them to be conscious of an issue that obviously frequently crosses their path doesn't seem like too much, although I don't know how many reviewers there are in that board. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Any quality control system is a trade off: the resources you spend checking for one thing are resources you can't spend checking for something else. It's certainly reasonable to ask the people at DYK to try to keep copyvios off the Main Page and to deal with any that they find. But, to do this, I think they need to reduce their throughput (specifically, by refusing hooks that are obviously mundane, "Did you care?" rather than "Did you know?"). I'm more worried about the articles which are viewed by large numbers of readers without any formal checking at all, for example biographies of people who just died: the "Recent deaths" link at the bottom of ITN gets more hits every day (about 50k) than the sum of all the DYK hooks. Physchim62 (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Fact checking by DYK

May I offer an observation on DYK if it is appropriate. I have been concerned about the fact checking on several articles. By way of an example, a DYK from Fidel Pagés appeared on 8 June 2010, crediting him as discoverer of epidural anaesthesia. I pointed out on 6 June that the article notes his work was based on earlier work by French and German doctors - ergo the discovery claim is dubious. The DYK was contradicted by its own article and it was still published. Its not the only example I've noted where a dubious claim has made it to the front page. What checking is done before facts are listed on the front page? A FA goes through a rigorous process, DYK doesn't appear to do the same. Justin talk 14:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Justin, your comment seems tangential to the issue we're discussing. Please start a new section if you want to discuss fact checking instead of copyvios/plagiarism. Hook facts are generally thoroughly screened, but occasionally one or two slip through the cracks (in other words, we have a (good) system for hook fact-checking). Also, we're not FAC. Please don't conflate this page into a "bash DYK page" as it's turning out to be (along with the DYK COI allegation with no evidence further up). One thing at a time. (And as Moonriddengirl knows, I hunted down plagiarism at DYK when I was actively reviewing.) Shubinator (talk) 15:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

My intention was not to "bash DYK" but to offer an observation. We go through many hoops to get an article to FA status but the bar for DYK is that much lower - why? I observe that hook facts are not thoroughly screened, seeing as I highlighted an issue 2 days before and it was published anyway. I also wonder just how many blatant spoofs can make it through unchecked, its not as if it hasn't happened before either. DYK is an accident waiting to happen. Justin talk 15:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The bar for DYK is intentionally much lower than the bar for FAC. It's to get budding editors excited about Wikipedia (I know it did for me). It's to get readers to become editors. On your main point, I'll keep an eye out for unverified hook facts. Yes, considering DYK goes through (at minimum) 32 hooks a day (that's 11,680 a year), it has happened before. And will happen again. No matter what changes we make. That's not an excuse, but I do think this "problem" is miniscule compared to the plagiarism/copyvio one. Shubinator (talk) 15:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) DYK reviewers are supposed to check that the fact appears in the reference given in the article. Of course, mistakes will be made sometimes – mistakes are made occasionally at WP:FAC, which has a much more onerous reviewing procedure – but it's not fair to say that there's no fact chcking at all. WP:ERRORS exists for the very reason that mistakes will sometimes be made and not spotted before the article is linked from the Main Page. Physchim62 (talk) 15:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, what about when they're spotted and then published anyway? That was kind of the point I was making. Some sources will make bold claims that a moments attention can show to be in error, so on occasion a "fact" will be supported by a source but it doesn't follow the source is correct. What then? 19:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Another plagiarism problem

[12] has the text: Charles inherited the Hapsburg lands in Austria, Franche-Comte, and the Low Countries, together with the title of Holy Roman Emperor (copyright 2009) compared with [13] Emperor|Emperor Charles V]], a member of the the Austrian House of Habsburg, inherited the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté in 1506. which clearly is a "close paraphrase. Inless, of courcse, one recognizes that simple statements of fact can very well have similar phrasing without reaching "plagiarism." [14] from 1908 He inherited from his father, who died in 1506, the Low Countries and Franche-Comte. Same word order. [15] from 1900 On the death of his father in 1506, Charles inherited the Low Countries and Franche-Comte and so on. Simple statements of fact, even with similar phrasing, are not plagiarism, unless, of course, we state that this example is plagiarism. Collect (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that the single example you found is similar, but not plagiarism? If so, I'd agree, but I don't quite know what to make of your section header. Has somebody tagged that as plagiarism? If so, is it alone or does it appear with other content that follows the structure and/or language of a source? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

By the "strict construction" favoured by some, it is clear plagiarism. By the construction I favour, it is not. The wording used is clearly so similar that a rephrase would be called for under the "strict construction" principles. And "single sentences" appear to be the guideline for "strict construction" - I only spent two minutes and found this example - I rather think other examples are to be found readily. Collect (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Change it a little, it's plagiarism. Change it a little more, it's unreferenced. I stick to relatively uncontroversial copyediting. Art LaPella (talk) 18:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

How many ways can you say that PersonA said a particular "quote"? That is one of the claims of plagiarism made about. John Doe, who is something, said "quote." is plagiarized from "quote" said John Doe. Can anyone with a straight face aver that it is plagiarism? Collect (talk) 18:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are only so many ways you can express those facts in a grammatical English sentence. It is obviously not copyvio, for that very reason. If anyone wants to call it plagiarism... WP:CIVIL prevents me from saying what I think of that. We surely have more serious things to be worrying about. Physchim62 (talk) 18:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely clear: is this an actual example of the kind of content people are accusing of being plagiarism which you found in two minutes searching? Or just a random example of "not plagiarism" which you found that you think might be misidentified as such by some of these other people? To me, it isn't remotely plagiarism:

• "Charles inherited the Hapsburg lands in Austria, Franche-Comte, and the Low Countries, together with the title of Holy Roman Emperor"
• "Emperor Charles V, a member of the the Austrian House of Habsburg, inherited the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté in 1506."

But, if it's an actual example, seeing the context for the disagreement might be helpful. If this is a theoretical example, I rather wonder if it would be more beneficial to find an actual example of the "strict construction" favoured by some with which you disagree, since otherwise we may appear to be bashing at straw men. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(multiple ec) Interesting move. (See Jimbo's talk page for the background of this choice of example.) I confess what looks to me like an attempt to defend genuine plagiarism as somehow OK because it's not clearly demarcated made me want to look at your substantial text contributions to Wikipedia to see whether you engage in that practice yourself (unambiguously, that is). Unfortunately I couldn't find any.

Could you please enlighten us who is arguing for that "strict construction" definition of plagiarism and where we can find a description of it, or an application that shows how sweeping it is? I'm a bit concerned you might be setting up a strawman. Hans Adler 18:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Different example... SandyGeorgia has tagged a problem at Seven Gates of Hell, where the objection noted on the talk page is of "close paraphrasing" between:

"Others say that, completely unrelated to the asylum story, an eccentric physician who lived on the property built several gates along a path deep into the forest."

vs.

"... to an eccentric local doctor who erected a large gate at the entrance to his property, and rumors sprang up that there was a series of gates beyond that one along a road leading deep into the woods"

Now, "others say" begs a "who?", I admit, but this does not strike me as a copy vio or even as close paraphrasing that violates sensible plagiarism rules. EdChem (talk) 20:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't consider this to be close paraphrasing unless there are many more sentences in the neighbourhood that also say basically the same things as corresponding sentences in the source. A key difference to the cat example in WP:Close paraphrasing is that here not just the formulation is varied but also what is being said, even though the content of the sentence is relatively canonical. (As is the case in the Habsburg example above.) The big problem in the cat example is that the original text presents a partially arbitrary collection of facts and the paraphrased version presents precisely the same facts, although in different words. Maybe we must distinguish between plagiarising the words used to express some information and plagiarising an author's choice of information. Hans Adler 22:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

So do you agree that some of the material being used in this debate seems to be adding more heat than light? SG raised this specific example at WT:DYK and has been including it in a list of examples of mistakes / failures at DYK. EdChem (talk) 05:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree about Seven Gates of Hell and have removed the close paraphrasing tag from the article. I suggest centralising any further discussion of that particular example at the article talk page; it's currently spread over three places.

In general, plagiarism is a huge problem, and something like this discussion was necessary to make us begin addressing it. It's not DYK's fault, but DYK as well as almost every other Wikipedia process, should be part of the effort to combat the problem.

Also, I have noticed a general tendency of many Wikipedia editors to become fundamentalist and extremist when they focus on a single problem. The same editor may come to radically different conclusions about notability of an article depending on whether they are wearing their inclusionist hat or their spam fighting hat, whether they are wearing their verifiability hat or their plagiarism fighting hat, etc. Under a maximal interpretation of all of our rules, they are so contradictory that we would never be able to agree on anything. I am not sure to what extent I have this problem myself (I am not aware of it but obviously that doesn't count much), but I can certainly see it in quite a few others and it seems worth keeping in mind as something to avoid. Hans Adler 06:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Can't we strictly speak of copyvio instead of plagiarism. The problem for WP is the former not the latter and if some editors stars using those phrases within WP somewhat synonymously, it might become extremely irritating to others not being familiar with that use. Moreover others might conclude our situation is basically identical to universities and and schools, where an academic honour code exists and plagiarism is contrary to here a real problem. In particularly if we even consider of plagiarizing ideas, choice of information and such and consider it a potential problem for a WP article, because it is not. WP authors are perfectly fine to plagiarize ideas as long as they do not commit a copyright violation as well and keep their content properly sourced.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

RevDelete for fixed copyvios?

Just a quick question all, I can't recall where I first read about copyvios in history, but do folks agree that in hte case of a page with a chuck of added text which is then massaged to not be a copyvio, revision deleting the original insertion is a good idea? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• I'd ask Moonriddengirl about the specifics, but yes, it's a good idea to revdelete revisions that are in violation of copyright laws. Shubinator (talk) 00:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes I use revdel where possible for blatant copyright infringements. I don't like "massaged not to be a copyvio" - that sounds like a recipe for trouble. --Mkativerata (talk) 05:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
    • It is. What constitutes a derived work in such an instance isn't wholly clear, and there are very few Wikipedia editors who have the expertise to determine what to retain and what to excise. The best advice is our standard advice: Revert to the last non-infringing version (as I just did) and rebuild with free content from that as a foundation. This is why Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Problem article is such a crying shame.

      We delete the violating edits, by the way, because — technically speaking — just editing things out isn't enough. Old revisions that are still publicly accessible via some URL are still being published. The servers will still serve up the content if the general public knows the right WWW page to pull up. In practice, we're lax about this simply because we rely in the main on the editorship at large, i.e. mostly people without the deletion tool, to police copyright violations. (It's everyone's responsibility to enforce licensing policy, not one confined solely to administrators.) But, strictly speaking, and especially if asked by the copyright owner, we must ensure that such material is actually taken down. And that means that the general public cannot pull up the URL for some old revision in the edit history and see the infringing content.

      USA Today could in theory send a takedown notice to the designated agent requesting that this hyperlink, this hyperlink, and others not lead to pages where USA Today's content is served up to the world. There's no legal doctrine that says that URLs for old page revisions on a wiki magically have an exempted status. Uncle G (talk) 09:36, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

      • Ok substitute "comprehensively copyedited and improved" for "massaged not to be a copyvio" then...but you get the idea...I am off and on at the moment. Haven't asked MRG yet. Be good if she respeonded here to keep discussion in one place. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
        • There's also a discussion here at WT:FA on the specific case. Physchim62 (talk) 23:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • Yes, revision deletion is to be preferred. "Massaged not to be a copyvio" is a bit of an issue, since that way lies derivative work infringements, but if the copyvio can be excised, I will excise and revdelete the interim. This retains attribution per CC for newer materials. If the content has been wholly replaced, I will also let it stand and revdelete the edits between insertion and revision. I am more likely to do this when the content is extensive, though. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Setting up date subpages and archiving

The conversation above is making me think that increasing transparency and record-keeping in the DYK process will help with enforcement of whatever standards are eventually adopted. (Or, in more practical terms: making it easier to track when people screw up will deter people from screwing up.) One thing that will help, I think, is establishing archives for T:TDYK discussions and reviews, rather than just removing them and leaving them in the long page history. Specifically, what I am suggesting is something like WP:TFD and WP:FFD, where each date is a subpage (e.g. Template talk:Did You Know/1 November 2010) with subheaders for each nom, and each active subpage is transcluded onto the main T:TDYK page; this scheme is based on this proposal from 2009. In addition to this, the credits templates ({{DYKtalk}}, which goes on the talk page of DYK articles) could be updated to include the date the article was nominated (I think I can make the DYK nomination template, {{NewDYKnom}}, automatically generate that), and when people promote articles they could box them out (similar to what's done at AfD) with a note pointing to which prep area or queue they were nominated to. All this would, in all, make it easier to keep track of who is responsible, at every step of the way, for each article that makes it through DYK and gets on the main page.

Anyone familiar with this concept will know that the suggestion of establishing T:TDYK archives and setting up subpages by date is a proposal that has been made many times at WT:DYK and always rejected, often with me as one of its more vocal opponents: April 2009, January 2010, September 2009. But most of the past discussions, as far as I can remember, were proposing this as a solution to smaller problems (such as load times). Right now, one of the big problems that's coming up a lot in the discussion is not necessary the DYK process itself (although a lot of people have a problem with that too), but that the process is poorly implemented by some reviewers. Having archives like this would make it much easier to see (in the future) what editors are responsible when inappropriate articles are passed. The way things currently are, you can find it, but you have to search laboriously through many pages of history (even with 500 diffs per page, you still have to look through several pages just to cover a week's worth of edits, which is about the amount of time most noms sit on the page). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh my gosh, please do. That is the most God-awful set of pages I've ever seen. A top-to-bottom redesign is needed. I goofed on one article and I have yet to figure out to whom I owe an apology, because that system is so undecipherable-- can't figure out who nominated, who approved, where to find archives, nothing. And when I wanted to be able to check articles in advance, I found I'd have to watchlist six different pages-- doesn't aid accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

We went from top-to-bottom to bottom-to-top recently :P But joking aside, I historically haven't been a fan of this idea. If you can get everything together though (the date in the credits is most important if we need to replace a hook, or backtrack for whatever reason), then I'd be willing to give it a try. Also, Sandy, this wouldn't affect the queue pages. (Have you seen the custom link I made for you at WT:DYK?) The way the queue and prep pages are structured now is actually better for accountability; before it was being juggled from Next Next to Next to the Main Page. At least with the queue system it stays in one queue the entire time. Shubinator (talk) 04:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I didn't look, because I'm not going to be checking DYKs anymore :) But I do appreciate that! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

To help DYK reviewing accountability, how about adding a parameter in the DYK template to which the reviewer can add their name? Sasata (talk) 04:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Which template do you mean, Sasata? It can't be part of the nomination template. --Orlady (talk) 04:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Uh, I'm not really sure, not a template programmer. How about in the DYK make template ({{DYKmake|Some article|Nominator}}), add a parameter so that when the hook is approved, the approver has to sign in the template. This information is stored ... somewhere ... but easily retrievable for anyone who wants to look. Or something like that. Sasata (talk) 04:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Shubinator on the point that things are far better now than they used to be. I actually have little difficulty using the page histories to find the edit history for a particular hook.

As for Rjanag's proposal, I like the idea of making it easier to audit DYK editing histories, but my reflections (earlier on this page) about the way the Halloween queues were handled make me wary of any proposal that could reduce the number of sets of eyes that scan the nominations and the proposed queues. I have T:TDYK watchlisted, so I am continually reminded of the activity there, and when I visit the page I can scan all of the current nominations to identify interesting items, errors, ongoing arguments, particular contributors submitting numerous similar hooks. and other items of potential concern or interest. In contrast, discussion areas set up the way you describe (such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log) typically can only be watchlisted or scanned one day at a time, making it more difficult and time-consuming (at least for me) to monitor activity there. I observed that the separate handling of the Halloween hooks reduced the number of people looking over those hooks, which may have been an important contributor to the incidents that have led to all this hand-wringing. I'm concerned that restructuring T:TDYK could cause that situation to become more of the norm, rather than the exception. I hope my concerns are unfounded... --Orlady (talk) 04:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Under the sort of setup I am suggesting, you would still be able to view all current nominations at a glance (as all subpages would be transcluded—not just listed—on T:TDYK), but you are correct that you could only watchlist each day (watchlisting the whole T:TDYK wouldn't be useful, since all that would update are the dates of the transcluded pages). Personally, I never found watchlisting T:TDYK to be much use for me anyway, since it's edited so quickly that only 1 out of every 50-100 edits I would actually see on my watchlist—if I wanted to see each edit, I had to go into the page history anyway. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

On the COI issue, the administrator who promotes a set of updates from the prep area to the queue should be checking the history to see if the editors who prepared the queue match the editors with the DYKnom and DYKmake credits. Adding a DYKrev note would also help with detecting / discouraging COI issues. I have recently declined to review the article of someone I have worked with on COI grounds, so it is worth noting that COI is an issue respected by some (and I suspect by most) at DYK. I think the idea of carrying this forward to the article talk page, so that there is a record that says something like "Article nominated for DYK by XXX on XXXDATE, article creation / development credited to user(s) XXX (diff). Nomination reviewed and approved by XXX on XXDATE (diff). Selected hook processed for main page appearance by XXX, and moved into the queue for a main page appearance by administrator XXX on XXXDATE (diff)." If the hook was subsequently moved back to the nominations page, and then re-queued, the information could be updated to reflect the final preparation / queueing before the main page appearance. This information would be very helpful for accountability purposes, and to allow us to more easily see if any editor(s) are acting ouutside accepted procedure - they could then be counselled / advised / admonished (as appropriate). Recording this information in the archives would also be useful. It would also (on the positive side) allow us to give greater recognition to those who are working hard on the reviewing and administrative tasks that are essential and yet get really no credit or appreciation. These changes could be made along side changing the page structure, as I couldn't agree more with the criticisms that finding information in the history of T:TDYK at present is (at best) an irritatingly difficult process. Including the diffs I suggest in the data recorded at the article's talk page and and in the archive would help with this too. EdChem (talk) 05:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Egads, I step away from DYK for a few days, and come back to a shitstorm like this!

A few points - yes, there have always been copyvio issues at DYK, as through the rest of the project. As someone said above, DYK articles get more scrutiny than other new articles, but nobody has the time and inclination to thoroughly scrutinize every submission for such problems. The fact that a recent FA has just been pulled from the mainpage for the same issues, however, demonstrates just how widespread and intractable this problem is.

I have always argued at DYK for "zero tolerance" of plagiarized articles and plagiarizing users. Articles found to have substantial plagiarism/copyvio issues should be disqualified and not given second chances. Users who are found to be submitting plagiarized articles to DYK after a warning should be banned from submitting articles. Taking a hard line is the only way to discourage this sort of practice.

In regards to rjanag's suggestion here, I don't see the need. I've never found it too dificult to figure out who approved/promoted articles when it's necessary to check, which thankfully isn't all that often, so I think this suggestion is overkill. When problems arise, what we need to do is identify the authors, reviewers and promoters, and point out the problem. These problems are I believe more an issue of education, of ensuring that reviewers are aware of the problems and are applying appropriate standards to their reviews.

I might also add that though one can hardly criticize someone for making a prolific contribution, I don't think it's necessarily been a good thing that Rlevse has been doing so much work at DYK in recent months, because when someone does too much, other editors tend to drift away, resulting in less overall scrutiny of the end product. When the burden of work is more equally shared, there tends to be a better outcome. Gatoclass (talk) 05:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

" DYK articles get more scrutiny than other new articles" - well I'd damn well hope so, they are after all the only new articles featured on the Main Page. Rd232 ^talk 10:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the question really is: "Do DYK articles get enough scrutiny?" There seems to be a bonus attached to getting a DYK, which might lead editors to cut corners.   Will Beback  talk  10:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing gets enough scrutiny on Wikipedia. It's the free project anyone can edit after all. There are always going to be mistakes. Gatoclass (talk) 13:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

This is now being discussed at WT:DYK here. SmartSE (talk) 18:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't confuse plagiarism and copyvio

There seems to be quite some confusion between plagiarism and copyvio, and the confusion detracts from addressing the issues at the right level. A few definitions then:

• Plagiarism is passing off someone else's work, intentionally or not, as one's own. It's first and foremost an ethical matter - refusing to give credit where credit is due. Plagiarism can and should be solved through attribution, provided the source is free for use (either Public Domain or a free license compatible with CC-BY-SA).
• Copyvio (wikipedia policy) is a particularly narrow interpretation of potential copyright infringement (under US law), and it is defined as the reproduction of content belonging to someone else, content that has not been released for reuse. It's first and foremost a potential legal matter, the theft of intellectual property. A copyvio can be solved either by obtaining permission from the owner or by removal.
• A passage of text can be plagiarized without being a copyvio. Similarly, an overly long quote of non-free text, even correctly attributed, may be a copyvio without being a case of plagiarism. Reproduction of text under copyright without attribution is both a copyvio and plagiarism.
• Special case: plagiarism of a CC-BY-SA, GFDL or similar source is always also a copyvio as these licenses allow reuse and modification of text but only under the explicit condition that the origin is attributed.

What is legally required of us is to identify and take down copyrighted material once we are made aware of its presence, and being able to demonstrate that we are making good faith efforts to do so. This applies to any text that can be identified as a copyvio. We have no legal obligation to remove plagiarized material that is not also a copyvio (verbatim copy / paste from Public Domain sources). I do however believe, in particular in regards to the amount of readers but also third parties that copy and re-use our text, that we do have a moral obligation to indicate where we got text from.

Where does this leave us in regards to DYK? My suggestion would be to structure the review process like we did when we overhauled WP:SCV about a year ago. Before the overhaul, CSB would list entries in chronological order and the reviewer would simply remove entries from the list after clearing them. Which made it difficult to track and verify a few months down the line if / when the article suddenly turned up at WP:CP. What we did was to move every day into a dedicated subpage, transclude those sub-pages on WP:SCV, and move to a review system where each entry is ticked off with an explicit review comment (we use specific templates for that, eg. {{CP}}). We now have visibility over the long term on what happens with an article flagged by one of the CSBs, can find out if an article that had been deleted has been recreated, verify if someone removed a listing out of process, or see if any new volunteer reviewers is missing stuff consistently and work with him to address that. I would suggest that a similar approach could work for DYKs: moving each day into subpages, then creating a short checklist for review: hook quality, hook verification, machine-based copyvio check (if the manual CSB check is too cumbersome, there is also a tool on the toolserver for the same purpose), manual cursory review of article text vs. online sources.

What could also work (and has been proposed above) is an input wizard for a new submission which includes a line "I hereby acknowledge that by submitting this article to DYK, I have verified, to the best of my ability, that no content has been copy / pasted from third party sources without explicit permission", which at least puts part of the onus on the nominator. Last but not least, in terms of workload, it may be naive of me but I don't see why we have to have a cycle with new hooks up every 6 hours. MLauba ^(Talk) 11:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

In my experience of DYK, and looking at the problems identified in this thread, it isn't the editors who nominate other editors work who we need to focus on. I have nominated a few hooks at DYK, most if not all were ones where I spotted a really well written article from a newbie. I don't see much point in discouraging that by raising the hurdles for nominators, and I suggest we focus instead on the authors, and trying to involve the wikiprojects. It is reasonable to expect that someone who approves a DYK hook has clicked on the reference and checked it isn't a close paraphrase of it. But it isn't reasonable to expect them to have access to the reliable sources on a subject and spot that an article cited to source A is actually a near copy of source B - though a member of a WikiProject might do that. ϢereSpielChequers 15:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Changing DYK and scrutinizing FAC

• Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Changing DYK
• Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Plagiarism issue
• Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Problem article (also Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1)

Plus, of course, Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, … It's interesting how comparatively quiet Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism is. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 15:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

There is/was some discussion at SandyGeorgia's talk page too, as well as Jimbo's, so yeah, like trying to follow, um...something with many bits all over the place (pick a metaphor). Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've always shyed away from DYK and FAC because, while their main-page-marketing strengths and editorial zing are straightforward and acknowledged, they quickly became contests run by bureaucracies, which always stir up unforeseen, harmfully warped outcomes, followed by the bitterness and bickering such mistakes bring. Please see also User:Antandrus/thoughts#Bureaucracies. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's pretty much what happens when three people get together to work on anything, on Wikipedia or off. --Moni3 (talk) 14:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Outcomes are always flawed. What I'm saying is, contests in and of themselves further skew outcomes and greatly so, because the pith becomes winning the contest. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Oddly I suppose, I agree with you that rewards are not the best motivations to get the best quality results. However, anyone who spends any amount of time working on a featured article--especially after it has been promoted--will understand getting a bronze star is like getting a free birthday party where they entertain you with bloodthirsty evil broken glass-toothed clowns. Perhaps the first one or two times an article is promoted it's like a reward. Then the changes to the article by people who have no clue what they're doing. Getting accused of ownership and warned (or blocked) for 3RR for maintaining information you know is right and writing you know is excellent. Then the main page day, which often is like square dancing with Reavers.

FAC is not a contest. Time spent on the talk page at FAC will show editors who take improving articles very seriously and although we all have our personal agendas and motivations, I find the majority of editors at FAC to have integrity. There are some who participate to compete with someone somewhere, but the system itself does not lend to encouraging that. I have my problems with FAC and its members, but I respect what they're doing. I always recommend working to get an FA for anyone unfamiliar with how it works. Or anyone who wants to know what square dancing with Reavers might be like. --Moni3 (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

FAC and DYK are not meant to be contests, but that's what they are, with their outcomes looming big, gleaming and daily on the mainpage. It's a trap. Please don't take anything I say here as a comment on anyone's integrity or good faith, I don't think these are much of a worry (other than the wonted noise of COI, in all its sundry stripes, each of us must deal with when editing en.WP content). Gwen Gale (talk) 14:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Individual editors make contests of processes, in DYK, FAC, RfA, AfD, Jimbo Wales' talk page, and ANI. Rewards come in different packages. I don't think it's FAC you're complaining about. It's probably human nature you're targeting, but ascribing competition problems specific to FAC indicates your view is too narrow and you're not terribly familiar with what goes on there. --Moni3 (talk) 16:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree fully. Wikipedia is a microcosm of (western) human society, and reflects the deficiencies associated with it. Perhaps we should start a RFC on how to improve human nature? Sasata (talk) 16:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about individual editors, human nature, rewards or anything else other than how FAC and DYK are set up in a way which yields the same, further skewed outcomes as contests do. If I've stirred up some thoughts among editors who like working on DYK and FAC, wonderful, if not, that's ok too. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you're right I suppose. Saying FAC is a contest that in no way reflects a microcosm of human nature shared all over Wikipedia is as right as saying the Swiss Alps influence people to have overconfidence in their perceptions of a venue where they have little experience. --Moni3 (talk) 19:05, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say that. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's get some facts down?

OK, so from what I've seen (please correct me if I'm wrong), there are two main issues: users who don't understand that close paraphrasing and plagiarizing aren't OK; and copyvios being missed during DYK/GA/FA reviews.

I think there's already way too much discussion going on about how to fix these issues, so much that one can no longer follow the discussions. What I am wondering about is, what do we do to prevent this in the future? Does the solution lie in blocking plagiarizing users, or in scrapping DYK, or in revising the review process? I'm just trying to understand just what we need to accomplish at this point. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to add that there is possibly also some disagreement, what exactly constitutes too close paraphrasing and (problematic) plagiarism in the WP sense. In addition there is priority issue, meaning that copyvio is much more important than any "plagiarism" not being a copyvio. So instead of mixing everything it might be a good idea to get a somewhat satisfying handle on the copyvio problems first, before dealing with plagiarism.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Rsleve retired? Wow. QQ ResMar 14:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

As a new DYK reviewer, my mind is getting more than a little boggled by the many threads of discussion going on, many personal disputes entering into it, and an overall lack of practical suggestions for the people who are actively reviewing. I have started using copyvio-detecting tools as part of the process, and hopefully I can help improve some of these problems. But I cannot give these articles a GA-level of review. I have to admit at this point that I feel the urge to high-tail out of DYK, and focus on other areas. Just my feelings at this point. The Interior(Talk) 01:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I hope you'll change your mind. :) It might seem overwhelming at this point, but it's really a worthwhile endeavor. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I think scrapping DYK would be a mistake. Copyright infringement and close paraphrasing that may not quite cross the line into copyright infringement but remain problematic are rampant on Wikipedia. (Frankly, if I were going to close something down for copyright issues, it would be articles related to television shows. People copy and paste content into them all the time. But I wouldn't suggest that, either; we just need to keep educating people.) I see the occasional former DYK show up in CCI or at CP, but I don't think I see them in high enough percentage to suggest that DYK is a significant contributing factor here. We probably do need to be more aggressive in blocking copyright infringers. (I myself gave a two week block recently to somebody I should have indeffed. :/) But copyright is complex, and people who show an effort should be given latitude to learn. Plagiarists, by contrast, can so easily repair the problem that only people who are willfully ignoring attribution requirements or flatly incompetent should persist after one or two warnings anyway. To help prevent this in the future, DYK reviewers might just be aware of potential issues. Certainly, they should see if content is copied in the hook when they verify it (if it isn't a print source). Other red flags that they could keep an eye out for: (1) in a new article, was there a Corensearchbot notice placed early in history? (2) Are there changes of competency in writing, with some content seeming professional or near-professional quality while other text is far beneath that standard? (3) Are there changes of tone in writing style, which might suggest that content has been copied from editorials or personal webpages? (4) Does the contributor have a history of copyright warnings? Honestly, I think one of the best things to do might be to create some kind of DYK problem template whereby a reviewer who finds such red flags can request additional review of the material in comparison to sources. That way, contributors who find red flags that worry them can get assistance from those who feel more confident researching such issues. The challenge would be creating an environment where the tag is not a deadly insult to the content creator. Not sure if that's even possible. People have a hard time responding dispassionately to plagiarism/copyright concerns. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your support and constructive advice re: detecting plagiarism, Moonriddengirl. The Interior(Talk) 19:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

In the unlikely event someone would want to read more about the issue, see User:Pgallert/There is no plagiarism problem. One problem at DYK is the speed required to nominate: 5 days is not a long time if RL issues occur. I caught myself nominating an article that I know would need an obvious expansion and copyedit. I also submitted an article that I padded to get over the 1500 character threshold. I felt I would want to "pocket" the DYK anyway and improve the article later, because of the time restriction. From reviewing at DYK I am absolutely certain that many others occasionally feel that way. Do away with the strict "new content" restriction. --Pgallert (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Contests have deadlines. This is the kind of thing I was getting at in the thread above: Contests do skew outcomes in unforeseen, often harmful ways. As an aside, I think the new content rule for DYK was meant to stir up new articles (at a time when en.WP had far fewer topics than now). Perhaps that could do with some re-thinking. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It's odd that we have an easy way to get articles that are little more than stubs on the main page, but nothing equivalent for GAs. Hans Adler 10:45, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

This does make a good case for changing DYK rules to remove the "recently created or hugely increased" criteria, and instead require DYK hooks to be from good articles that have recently been fully scrutinised and agreed as meeting that standard, or have a particular relevance to the date and haven't been featured on the main page previously. . . dave souza, talk 11:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

In the news

It should also be noted that articles in the 'In the news' section have also had copyvio problems in the recent past. De Administrando Imperio (talk · contribs) was having so much success at getting detailed articles about terrorist incidents in this section of the main page that complaints were raised about too much weight being placed on this category of news stories. It turned out that the articles were largely blatant copyvios of the online news reports the articles cited after I blocked the editor in August after noticing a run of copyvios in new articles created by them including one linked from the main page at the time - discussion is is at Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 32#Copyvios. These copyvios should have been picked up during the process which lead to them being selected to appear on the main page (as a plug, any assistance with the cleanup at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/De Administrando Imperio would be great). Nick-D (talk) 07:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Is plagiarism a problem?

The essay User:Pgallert/There is no plagiarism problem is a bit confusing, contradicting its own title by writing "There is no plagiarism problem on Wikipedia. Plagiarism is dishonesty. A lie.... Using another author's language (the way they write, the words they use) about the subject they're credited for is what is commonly called 'close paraphrasing'. Close paraphrasing is plagiarism, even if it is attributed to the right source." It correctly notes that "Depending on how close the paraphrasing actually is it can develop into a copyright problem." Pgallert gave a useful summary of the issues at Jimbo's talk page:

I tried to shed some light on the proper definitions, particularly of plagiarism and close paraphrasing, here. Unfortunately our guidelines and essays in this area sometimes contribute more to the problem than to the solution. Hope mine is not one of them. In a nutshell: Close paraphrasing is always plagiarism, with or without attribution. That makes the EB1911 claim somewhat relative, but the template does more than referencing; it acknowledges the possibility that entire passages might have been copied over, and that irons out the plagiarism concerns. Detailed reasoning in my essay, cheers, --Pgallert (talk) 07:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing notes the tension between using your own words while still meeting Wikipedia:No original research policy and avoiding any change in meaning. Editors are required to convey the meaning of sources, paraphrasing them while avoiding excessively close paraphrasing. As has been shown, there's a big problem of slightly modified text, very close paraphrasing, becoming copyright violations. The fact that an experienced and valued editor crossed that line, undoubtedly with the best of intentions that the degree of paraphrasing was acceptable, shows the need for more clarity in guidance and policy, and more editor education.

As MLauba has pointed out, there aren't many editors dedicated to resolving the problems of copyright violations in article text. It's something we should all be doing, but it's difficult to know just where to draw the line. My strong recommendation is that plagiarism should be defined and the point at which it close paraphrasing become[s] a copyvio problem explained as part of Wikipedia:Copyright violations policy, which doesn't currently seem to touch on the matter. Beyond that, we have to decide if we want to set a more onerous minimum standard on plagiarism, or if we want to agree that it's sufficient to treat a good academic standard as a desirable aim which isn't really fully compatible with Wikipedia's aims. . dave souza, talk 12:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Specifically related to the definition of plagiarism, plagiarism is defined at Wikipedia:Plagiarism. Plagiarism and copyright violations are entirely separate things, so there isn't really a point at which plagiarism becomes a copyright violation. :) Something may be both a copyright problem and plagiarism. It may be only a copyright problem, if the content is fully attributed but still violates our copyright policies (as with overly extensive quotations). It may be only plagiarism if the content that isn't attributed is public domain. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, a good point. What I was trying to convey is that a good faith attempt to summarise a source can easily become plagiarism whenever the same phrases or sentence structure is used, and simply altering the sequence of phrases and changing a few words to synonyms is both plagiarism and a copyright problem. Maybe plagiarism that doesn't breach copyright is ok in Wikipedia, given our need to avoid original research, or perhaps we should carefully consider how much leeway is to be given to allowing obvious phrases or sentence constructions that would be reasonably acceptable under plagiarism standards. . . dave souza, talk 12:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand all these convolutions. Yes, copyright violations are a problem. And yes, the seperate problem of plagairism is also a problem, and a big one. What's needed is better review processes and less tolerance for serial plagarizers like rlevse (maybe mentorships with someone going over all their expansions/new article creations with a fine-tooth comb in userspace). Not only is plagarism a form of theft but it skews articles in its own right; one would presume the prose in articles reflects consensus/mainstream/accepted views on a topic, but when the prose is plagarized from one source, it often ends up lending undue weight to one author's (the original one, whose work and ideas were stolen) views and opinion.Bali ultimate (talk) 12:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Well the point is that plagiarism which does not represent some form copyvio or a case of insufficient is not considered a big problem by all, i. e. there is not a complete consensus on that issue. Also the potential problems you list are primarily not problems of plagiarism as such. If an article gives an undue or biased representation of topic, the primary issue is the undue representation of the article and not whether it was caused by plagiarism or the authors own work. There is however a clear consensus on copyvio and that it is are our most pressing problem. Hence it makes sense to deal with these issues separately and focus on procedures to the fix copyvio issue first. If we mix and combine both topics then potential controversies regarding plagiarism get dragged into the discussion and instead of working on an issue that all agree on, we might get an open debate somewhat blocking us from fixing in the copyvio problems in an efficient manner.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There are some really good examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrases here. --JN466 15:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Some thoughts in bullet form:

• Copyright violations in article space are a huge problem.
• Plagiarism is also a problem, although much less concerning.
• Copyright and plagiarism are often confused with each other.
• Most people understand neither copyright nor plagiarism, and the confusion between the two makes it worse.
• We are under a legal and moral obligation to minimise our copyright violations.
• Both copyright violations and plagiarism are symptoms of a fast/incompetent/lazy approach to producing text.
• We have a strong culture of staying close to our sources.
• In practice, staying close to the sources is increasingly interpreted in a fundamentalist way that paints even obviously equivalent rephrasings as OR.

Some ideas arising out of these thoughts:

• We need a single descriptive term for the kind of editing that is not allowed. Let's call it "text theft" for now.
• The new term will make it clear that we are not just rendering lip service to exterior expectations, nudge nudge, but that combatting text theft is a core part of our mission.
• We need a precise technical definition of text theft that everybody can understand.
• Practically all forms of text-related copyright violations and the stronger forms of plagiarism must be included in this definition.
• We need a single guideline, or preferably policy, on text theft.
• A user who is caught at text theft and does not help significantly in the resulting cleanup must be banned as a matter of course. Such a user is either extremely uncooperative or does not have the competence to edit.
• We must screen for text theft at some strategic points to make sure that nobody gets away with it for too long: DYK, GA, FA, random article checks, bots, RFA. We may not have to do this screening systematically; just encouraging it may be enough. The important thing is that in the long run you can't collect badges and honours for text theft.
• We need more tools for detecting text theft. Something like this would be useful. (Ideally we should get some kind of consolidated synopsis of all substantial positive text contributions by a given editor to a given article.) And maybe we can get some kind of site subscription to one of the online plagiarism detection systems.
• Maybe we can set up some kind of exam taking system. Then after a certain number of edits new users will be nudged to take the text theft test to see if they understand the definition and know how to avoid doing it. The test can of course be repeated. The result will by default be public, but users can choose to hide it. Some users will probably create userboxes to advertise their high score in this test. (This exam taking system could also be used for various other purposes. While we should obviously keep the exams related to our mission, I note that a similar system is in part responsible for the success of OkCupid. Such a system could help us to focus more on quality than on quantity. Wikiversity might also be interested.)
• It might be possible to market the "text police" as a superior entertainment for those kids who think "vandal fighting" isn't cool enough because everybody does it. We would need a JavaScript-based tool that facilitates some of the tasks, a nice big set of warning templates, some community pages, etc. Maybe that's a good idea. Maybe not. Hans Adler 13:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the last part I think we need particular caution. First we need assure that tools are tuned to our definition of text theft and not more general notions of plagiarism, many of the ready to use tools might look for the former rather than the latter. In that context it is also important to pay attention to a potentially high number of false positives. Meaning the "kids swarming out to catch text thieves" need to able to make sound judgment calls regarding the tool results, otherwise there is a danger that a larger number of productive and largely unproblematic authors will get pestered with (ultimately false) text theft allegations by "script kiddies". Such occurrences can become a big turn off for authors in the long run.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I kind of like the proposal overall, but I worry about the test and the "text police". In the time I've worked on copyvios on Wikipedia (over a year and a half full time), I've run into a lot of people who mean well, but just don't yet get it. They require deft handling to help them learn to do it properly without unduly embarrassing them and driving them away. Unlike vandals, most of these people really do mean well, and the potential for WP:BITE is a major concern to me. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I can see the concerns with the idea of "text police" ... but I don't see why the suggested optional "copyright understanding test" would cause the same problems. It is not going to go out and bite editors, they are just going to do it if they feel like it (which, for those who are supposedly driven to collect prizes and scores etc, they will). Surely it can only help to enable those who "just don't yet get it", to gain that understanding. I think it's a great idea. (Though I am perhaps ignoring the amount of time and effort it would take to set up.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

My problem with the test is not related to biting; that's my problem with the "text police". :) I didn't go into details about my problem with the test, but it boils down to the difficulty of conveying nuances of a highly subjective evaluation in a test form. Unless it's an essay test in which we give them a passage and ask them to paraphrase and then appoint a panel to review the paraphrase. (And, oh, the difficulties in that!) The question of when a paraphrase rises to the level of substantial similarity is one that is determined by a court-appointed reviewer; there is no means of objective analysis for that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that so many of the copyright questions we're faced with on Wikimedia projects have never been judged before a court anywhere. I've been doing copyright stuff on WP, albeit not at the intensity that MRG manages to dedicate to it, for more than five years now. I can attest to the problems of constructing a copyright policy that is both practical and intellectually coherent, while allowing us a safety margin to account for the fact that our interpretation of copyright law (which is all we have to go on) may be wrong and that our checkers are going to make mistakes in any case. The problems last weekend on DYK and TFA were entirely due to the fact that nobody was checking for copyvio on those processes – nor on many other WP processes either! – how anyone can believe that we're going to get more copyvio checking when we add yet another point onto the list of this to be checked (and argued about), I really can't see. Physchim62 (talk) 14:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

For me the point is that plagiarism is not a problem in itself. It is hard to have plagliarized text that isn't a problem in some other way, such as copyvio, NPOV, UNDUE, verifiability or simply encyclopedic style but, apart from that it is not a problem at all. The demonization of plagiarism is at best a distraction from loking for these other problems (whether they arise from plagiarism or not); at worst it is a significant waste of limited editor resources and a barrier to attracting new users (who are put off by the idea that Wikipedia is some kind of academic assignment). That's why WP:PLAGIARISM should simply be deleted. Physchim62 (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

My words exactly, I think the suggested "text theft"-guideline is a good idea, but it exact wording might be a bit tricky, there might be a few items where we will not get a universal consensus for their inclusion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Physchim62, I know we agree on where the main focus should be, but I fundamentally disagree with the idea that WP:PLAGIARISM should be done away with altogether. We can find instances of plagiarism uproar on discussion boards recurring over years. We need to have solid guidance to avoid these issues—whatever standard the community embraces, it needs to be spelled out clearly so that we can avoid the waste of time. It should be solidly defined and widely understood. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes we need a clear guideline, but imho the problem is that for various reasons one could argue that the current WP:PLAG does not deliver that. Among them are the clash between are differences between the use of the term in the real world and its use in WP, being a constant source of irritation. Also much of the details it discusses ultimately fall back to other problems (being a special case copyvio, insufficient sources). From that perspective I really like the idea of WP "text theft" guideline or policy that helps to avoid much of the confusion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

One can argue that the moon is made of cheese, but that does not make it so. For example a lot of the plagiarism guideline is how to handle text copied into Wikipedia that has no copyright issues. But I think the place to discuss the contents of a guideline is on the talk page of the guideline not in a sub-page of ANI. -- PBS (talk) 07:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Physchim62 it is easy to plagiarise third party sources that contain no copyvio, NPOV, UNDUE, are verifiable and have an encyclopedic style. Just take a page from DNB (or any out of copyright reference book) on an obscure British noble, copy the text into Wikipeida, add sections and perhaps a new short lead, and do not use the {{DNB}} template or something similar. -- PBS (talk) 03:15, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The question is, why should we consider such a scenario as (big) problem? I do not see any conflicts with WP's primary goals here. I do see a problem regarding (somewhat personal) rewards/awards of WP and with people competing for them, but that's not an issue for "regular" articles or authors. Also I don't think it is reasonable to assume that for such every case a specific template is available nor that most authors are aware of them. What is is reasonable however, is to expect some form of sourcing for the content.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't really wish to address you points on this page Kmhkmh as we are also discussing similar points on Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism, I just wanted to present Physchim62 with an example where it is not hard to meet the other criteria and still copy in an article from else where. Like so much of Wikipedia there are areas like history, where there are far more sources and opportunities to do this than in some other disciplines such as computer science. But to address one specific point you have raised for others who are not aware of it. If there is not a specific attribution template available, there are two general purpose templates that can do the same thing see {{citation-attribution}} and This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.:

• One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: A book by A. man
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Another book by A. woman

These templates, can not only take a character string as parameter, they can also act as a wrapper for the standard citation templates such as {{cite book}} -- PBS (talk) 07:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that PBS doesn't spot that his example is a clear verifiability problem. That's what happens when you focus on the minor issues at the expense of the more important ones. That is why I call the plagiarism guideline "pernicious": it's the law of unintended consequences, well-meaning people actually doing more harm than good. Physchim62 (talk) 15:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

What example and what verifiability problem? -- PBS (talk) 20:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• I'm going to reiterate Dave souza's comment: in many cases, the only thing than an editor can do is change the sentence structure because inserting a synonym unacceptably changes the meaning of the sentence, which is original research. I'll disclose that I'm the one who added the sentence mentioning the tension to the lead, and that I was fairly accused of plagiarism or copyright violations in one case. Therefore, an editor may be forced to adopt some tortured tense and awkward style to avoid copyright/plagiarism concerns or use extensive quoting. However, the close paraphrasing essay notes that when dealing with straight facts, there can be only one way to convey them - and therefore very close paraphrasing can be OK from a copyright perspective. Since Wikipedia articles are just collections of factual statements, one can imagine a lot of these types of sentences existing in an article. As long as the editor is upfront about their position on closely paraphrasing, I don't see this a big issue from a plagiarism perspective. The other alternative is to make our articles into collections of quotes, which I guess is something to think about. This requires that people approach articles with a different philosophy, though, since in school one is discouraged from quoting too extensively. I think it's also interesting that one of the editors who has expressed the most strident concern, SandyGeorgia, has also sung the praises of a good editor User:Eubulides whom I identified (during the nomination) as adding copyrighted material in the water fluoridation featured article. Part of the reason that I was accused of copyright violation was the influence of watching Eubulides edit. II | (t - c) 19:04, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I'm afraid you may have misread that; the essay does not say that there can be only one way to convey straight facts, because this is seldom true. English is a word rich language, and there are few sentences that are not outright formulaic that are entirely devoid of creativity. That we are non-fiction and fact-based doesn't really have much bearing on that; most factual sources are amply creative enough to clear the intentionally low threshold. What the essay currently says, verbatim, is "It is also permitted when there are only a limited number of ways to say the same thing. In general, sentences like 'Dr. John Smith earned his medical degree at State University' can be rephrased 'John Smith earned his M.D. at State University' without copyright problems." From a copyright standpoint, very close paraphrasing is only okay when (a) content is not creative or (b) the close paraphrasing meets fair use. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• Another way we can get into copyright problems is if the selection of facts in the original source is sufficiently creative to attract copyright. It's not a huge problem practically, but I've been worried about it in a couple of borderline copyvios I've come across. Physchim62 (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• Good point, Moonridden - I did summarize that inaccurately. My point is that when we are describing things as sources describe them, particularly in science (as well as law and often business), we often don't really have a lot of options in how to describe things. So, yes, in some cases there's some creativity in the authors' words, but we can't substitute our own creativity into the authors' words - at least, not without possibly misleading the reader as to what the source is saying. There are some words we can interchange (for example, "found" could be "discovered" or "determined", but many of the words are keywords with precise meanings, and in those cases there is only one way to say the fact (e.g., "x cleaves y" or "x is adsorbed into y"). Even a simple word like "cause" conveys a fairly particular meaning in science. With adjectives, where there are often lots of synonyms, but a different adjective generally changes the meaning. With that said, some of this concern probably has to do with unreasonably strict enforcement of original research - people should feel free to use "pretty" or "good-looking" when the source says "beautiful", for example. II | (t - c) 23:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

A similar problem in OTD

Editors have been promoting their own articles on OTD. Recently there has been a huge spate of Vietnam related articles put up by User:YellowMonkey. When some of these have been removed in the interest of balance, he has reinserted them. There has been a discussion on the main page talk page but despite being informed of it he has not engaged in this discussion, (it took place here).

It seems to me there is something very wrong with a system when an editor is able to put up his own articles for such front page exposure (and I am sure the kudos involved with this is part of the lure - and part of the problem); and then reverts attempts to change his selection. We need an OTD director, like we have Raul for FAs, so that such bias is not allowed. 86.152.23.135 (talk) 12:46, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Unless you're suggesting YM's articles are plagiarized, this isn't the place for this discussion. Try going through OTD first, and perhaps a broader forum if that doesn't work. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive behavior of the editor Hayleez

Hello, everyone! I hope I'm in the right place. I was attacked by the editor Hayleez, who recently tried to speedily delete my draft and also my user page. The edits were reverted by a more epxerienced editor Materialscientist. When I visited Hayleez I realized that this behavior is consistent and many other editors reverted his/her requests and warned him/her on many occassions. I believe requesting speedy delitions of the normal drafts pending reviews is very wrong and it is even worse in case of deleting user's personal pages, which seems like vandalism to me. I don't know it it comes from the user's Wikipedia protocol illiteracy or any other motivation, but it looks very alarming to me. --Habibiroyal (talk) 20:01, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Habibiroyal, I didn't attack you. I read the speedy deletion guidelines and thought that the draft and your user page were suitable for speedy deletion. I left you comments notifying that they were nominated for speedy deletion. I didn't attack you. The comments were friendly. Then when I saw that Materialscientist removed speedy deletion tags on these two pages, I realized that it was a mistake. I immediately removed my comments about those pages being nominated for speedy deletion on your talk page. I will make sure not to tag these and other articles and drafts that you create for speedy deletion ever again. Hayleez (talk) 20:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)