MediaWiki talk:Editpage-head-copy-warn/Archive 1

Wording
"Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used and redistributed by other people at will." may imply that there are no limitations on how content can be reused. I agree with this assessment and note the copyright implications of such a statement, especially as the above reading contradicts our CC-BY-SA license on text (and whatever the image licenses are)
 * I was discussing the wording of the last sentence of this notice with a couple users at MRG's talk page, and Dpmuk. S/he Dpmuk suggested that the current wording

I was thinking the following wording would be preferable: "Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used and redistributed subject to certain terms and conditions." Firstly, this links directly to the relevant policy, which addresses issues on reusing text and images. Secondly, I've dropped the words "other people" as it implies that the contributor cannot edit again.

Any opinions as to whether the current wording needs to be changed? If yes, is this is a viable replacement, or are there any suggestions? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Just to add that it was Dpmuk, really, who noticed the inaccuracy in the language. I asked the legal department, who confirmed that a change in language would be more accurate. I support the change, which only adds a couple of words but seems far less likely to cause confusion. People can't actually redistribute the content at will. There are requirements. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Clarified the s/he bit. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I obviously agree that change is needed although I'm a little concerned that dropping other people may leave people thinking it's a statement about what the submitter can do. How about:

"Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used and redistributed, by anyone, subject to certain terms and conditions."
 * Oh and I'm a he. Dpmuk (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a good wording, except for the double commas around "by anyone". I don't think those are necessary. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough - I wasn't sure about them.  Grammar is definitely not one of my strong points! Dpmuk (talk) 16:31, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Why do we need the expansion, exactly? I mean, we already tell people about the TOUs. Ironholds (talk) 18:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong, I think it's better than the alternative ;p. But, really - we already tell people most of this stuff by "save page". Ironholds (talk) 18:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Because, in my opinion, the top statement suggests there's no restrictions whatsoever on reuse and it's far from clear that he bottom statement even concerns re-use given that it's worded in a way that suggests it's aimed at people submitting content rather than using content. I don't think we have to change the message but I do think we can make it clearer for people wishing to reuse content. Dpmuk (talk) 19:37, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Concur. If there's going to be a statement about reuse, I think we should be careful not to imply "at will" reuse is possible - it's not. There are conditions. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly. The current wording is misrepresentative of our current policies. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I support the proposed change. IANAL, but while I suspect the TOU would trump the wording of this edit notice, our goal isn't to be simply in the right in a legal proceeding, our goal is to avoid the legal proceeding. Someone not aware that they need to provide attribution might be mislead by the original version of the notice. The proposals make it clearer that there are some conditions.
 * On the wordsmithing, I thought the double comma helped clarify that "by anyone" refers to the three preceding verbs, not just "redistributed", but I'll defer to grammarians with more expertise.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  12:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a thought. A parenthetical, maybe? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * If there is no objection, I will change the message in about five days. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for edit
Please add spaces around the em dashes — it is more correct and readable. ï¿½ (talk) 17:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It is not correct, see MOS:DASH. Em-dashes are always unspaced; if you want a spaced dash, an en-dash may be used. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:24, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Edit request 9-11-17
Please update link target, change  to. Thank you, - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 17:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:44, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 1 January 2021
Change  (Content) to   ( Content), with a space after the image. Nardog (talk) 11:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ — xaosflux  Talk 16:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 25 March 2021
Remove  added without discussion per WP:BRD (see also MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext). Nardog (talk) 12:19, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * FYI in case there is a good reason to not BRD this? — xaosflux  Talk 15:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I wanted to make that template more professional-looking and draw attention to the reader. I don't see why it should be removed; what is the harm in having that image there?  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   16:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * is this a WP:IDONTLIKEIT for you, or is there more reason why you think it is bad for the reader? — xaosflux  Talk 16:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * As I said at MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext, I think it should at the very least use an image that doesn't require attribution, e.g. File:Information icon4.svg, so we can turn off the link, which must be confusing to newcomers. But my primary concern is the inflation of emphasis. The top of the editing page is already filled with notices vying for the user's attention. Once this is emphasized, people may be compelled to make editnotices stand out more, and it could end up looking like Arngren.net. I also doubt it actually results in drawing more attention; I bet it just reinforces banner blindness. If you're willing to revert Newarticletext because one user found it "distracting", what's stopping you from doing this? Nardog (talk) 09:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * on Newarticletext, I didn't revert the change, another admin did - and that was related to a complaint made the day the change was made, and that change (adding box wide coloring) was also significantly a larger change. Here at Editpage-head-copy-warn, this has baked in for 3 months already without issue - so that is what is different. Feel free to continue discussing though, I do like the idea of replacing it with a more free image if an image is warranted - but the current image is free and the click-ability on it doesn't seem to be in the way of workflows. Will leave this ER open though for at least another patrolling admin in the meantime. —  xaosflux  Talk 10:22, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Apologies for not inspecting the history of Newarticletext. I'm surprised you say "the click-ability on it doesn't seem to be in the way of workflows". I've clicked on images countless times believing it would open a page explaining what the notice is about in more detail, only to be led to the file description (or the Media Viewer nowadays). By the time the Media Viewer was rolled out I had learned my lesson, but it still happens occasionally, perhaps a few times a year. It's what you expect from UIs. Replacing it with an image not requiring attribution will allow turning the link off. Nardog (talk) 16:51, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have a suggested freer image? — xaosflux  Talk 02:30, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * File:Information icon4.svg, as I mentioned (and turns out uploaded by you!). Nardog (talk) 08:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * ha - I'm sure it was only for some technical reason. I've updated to the freer image and disabled the link on it, good? —  xaosflux  Talk 09:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I still object to having the icon at all but I recognize it's a bikeshed problem anyway. Nardog (talk) 12:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we remove the content reuse disclaimer?
I question whether there is a need for the final sentence in this notice, which currently reads Any work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions.

It largely duplicates the notice that already appears right above the publish changes button, MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning, which says By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. Given that, and the fact that this notice doesn't appear in VisualEditor, I doubt there is a legal need for it. Pinging (listed as the point person here)—is that correct?

Assuming I'm not mistaken about the legal aspect, that leaves only the editorial question of whether we want to include the disclaimer despite there being no legal need. And I don't think we do. The space above the editing window is some of the most valuable instructional space we have, so we should be using it for our most essential advice, and only for that advice, since every additional word we add makes it more likely that users will succumb to banner blindness and just skip it entirely. Most people who edit Wikipedia have a sense that they're not going to own the work they contribute, and for any who don't, that's what the notice above the publish button is for, so tough luck if they don't read it. Fundamentally, we just don't have a major problem with people being angry about reuse the same way we have a major problem with copyright violations and have a major problem with poor referencing. Taking out the sentence will place more emphasis on those far more important things and give us room to expand on them or make the text bigger if we wanted.

Thoughts? TL;DR: I suspect the final sentence about content reuse is not legally necessary, and it's far less important than copyright/sourcing, so let's consider removing it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:55, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I don't see any language like this in the mobile app, so it's likely not critical. However, the mobile app also doesn't include the GDFL, only CC BY-SA 3.0, so it's possible this is an unintentional oversight rather than something Legal considered. Vahurzpu (talk) 19:57, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we can remove it but I do not think we should. Some people don't grasp the fact that contributions can be used by others for any purpose and it is not reasonable to hide that in the obscure "you agree to..." small print. Johnuniq (talk) 05:24, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose, it should not have any legal implications - but seems like it is at least slightly informative and useful; not seeing any negatives to keeping it? — xaosflux  Talk 16:09, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * @Johnuniq and @Xaosflux, I have to strongly disagree. The question we too often ask ourselves when deciding interface questions is "Is anyone likely to find this even slightly helpful?" The answer is almost always yes, and that's how we've end up with bloated WP:CREEP everywhere across Wikipedia. The question we need to be asking ourselves instead is "Is this important enough to justify the attention it asks of users?" For a message this prominent, the bar is incredibly high. Per above, copyright and sourcing meet that bar, since they are vital lessons anyone contributing to Wikipedia needs to know. But a content reuse disclaimer? When was the last time anyone came to us angry about the way their Wikipedia contributions were reused? I'd estimate copyright/sourcing problems are hundreds of times as frequent. Every single word we shave off notices like this makes it more likely that users will actually read them and take in the truly important information about copyright/sourcing they contain, and I just don't see the justification for sacrificing that for this.
 * Another way to look at it is in terms of what we're missing out on when we prioritize the content reuse disclaimer. If we took it out, we might have room to explain what verifiability means (something newcomers don't know), or to note that content must take a neutral point of view, or that editors who have a COI should declare it. Any of those would be infinitely better uses of the space (particularly explaining verifiability, which is what I plan to propose next if this passes). &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:54, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I suppose the difference between head-copy and -copyrightwarning (besides that we shouldn't be touching the later) - is that this specifically spells out in plain language what the biggest impact to a random editor is for releasing their work under CCBYSA --- that it can be reused. To figure that out from the -copyrightwarning, they would actually have to read the license-and people don't tend to actually do that. —  xaosflux  Talk 19:01, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The point is that how WP:V and other policies work can be explained days or months after someone starts editing. However, once someone has contributed, they cannot change their mind after finding out that a random website can now sell T-shirts with their text on it. Johnuniq (talk) 23:13, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I should add that if I were Jimbo, there would be a mandatory system of tutorials (a polite form of "read this before editing"). It would automatically turn off for registered users after a certain number of edits (more than ten) and would be dismissable using a cookie for everyone. Johnuniq (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If someone doesn't understand copyright or the need to cite sources, they won't stick around for months—they'll get reverted and give up, which is disastrous if our goal is to recruit new editors. Point me to literally any instance in which a newcomer has gotten upset because their encyclopedic contributions were used on a t-shirt and maybe I'll reconsider my current stance that this ranks approximately 147th on the list of things we should communicate to newcomers, not 3rd.
 * Regarding the new editor experience, that's what WP:Growth Team features is focusing on. I don't know if they've considered having a pop-up tutorial, but MMiller could probably speak to that idea if you brought it up there. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:44, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I actually do know of someone who told me privately that the reason they stopped editing was that they were upset about their contributions being republished by AlphaScript and its ilk. The particular person is no longer with us but I still feel bad about the idea of outing them in public ... but I will say that they were a subject matter expert who had probably done most of the work they'd planned by that stage, anyway, and a second disclaimer or lack thereof wouldn't have helped either way. I think the issue was that they were an older academic who saw published books as sacred and the fact that AlphaScript mass-republished their content (and the content of many other Wikipedia editors) without their knowledge just completely messed with their head. They weren't the only person to react badly to the shenanigans of that publisher; they just had the most extreme reaction that I know about. Graham 87 10:10, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've run into editors who think they have an absolute right to remove their contributions. Maybe they didn't read the notice, but as it's there I was able to point them to it and explain they didn't have the right to insist upon its removal. Doug Weller  talk 12:32, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

WMF Legal perspective
I tried to ping WMF Legal above, but they have not responded. Is there a different user or contact method we should be trying? I think it's important to have their input to confirm that this is a purely editorial question. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:58, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Note MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning - is the one with legal implications, but we're not talking about actually changing that - so we don't need to bring in WMF.  —  xaosflux  Talk 19:01, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Obviously I'm not the WMF lawyer - but you can observe the WMF defaults of these for example here: meta:MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning and here: meta:MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn - with our only customization of the former being that it points to local text instead of sending the editor to another site. — xaosflux  Talk 19:04, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, good to know; I'll take the combination of that and the fact that WMF hasn't responded to the ping as sufficient to establish that the message is not needed for legal reasons. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:11, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Changes to the universal editnotice
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Changes to the universal editnotice. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 23:49, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

2021-12-03 edit request
This discussion was closed (by me) with consensus to change this message to the following:

''Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable by reliable sources.''

Please implement this change. Thanks, Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 18:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ — xaosflux  Talk 16:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Tol, sorry I'm just seeing this now, but I think we might want to discuss the change from verifiable through citations to reliable sources at the VPR discussion to verifiable by reliable sources here. The former is longer, but I think it helps communicate the need to add citations somewhat better. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:26, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb: Oh no! I think I made a mistake while preparing the edit request — I'm pretty sure there was consensus for "citations to reliable sources". I'll open another edit request. Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 19:30, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Xaosflux might be able to handle it for us without another formal request. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb: Alright. I think the change would be from  to , right?  Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 19:33, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

part 2

 * The current entire message is:


 * What exactly do you want it to be changed to? (Just ping me on reply). — xaosflux  Talk 19:35, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:39, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep, that looks right. (ping Xaosflux) Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 19:40, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅. — xaosflux  Talk 19:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 03:54, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

language error
Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources. Is this the place for requesting correction of that text? Correct English is "references to" but "citations of reliable sources". --Espoo (talk) 09:26, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello the current message is:


 * Can you put exactly what you would like it changed to below (copy paste that synaxhighlight section above), then change answered=yes to answered=no above. — xaosflux  Talk 13:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * --Espoo (talk) 23:51, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ❌ I'm not sure about this one, the citation (Say where you got it) should direct a reader to the source of the information, the citation is a pointer, is not "of" the reliable source.  The linked aid also says ...must include an inline citation to a source.... Marking this as not-done as this is contested, consider it the same as being in step 3 of WP:BRD for any other page, discussion on this topic may certainly continue below and if support for new phrasing emerges anyone should feel free to reactivate the edit request.  You may want to advertise this discussion at more popular venues, such as WP:RSN.  Best regards, —  xaosflux  Talk 16:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * A citation in English is like a quote, which also is never "to" something, always "of" some content "from" some source, in other words from a written text (or speech). The current wording "citations to reliable sources" is embarrassingly illiterate and shows lack of familiarity with the word "citation". No native speaker would make that mistake with "quote" or "quotation".
 * Correct English is both "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations of reliable sources" and "...from reliable sources."--Espoo (talk) 22:16, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "to" or "from" sound better to me than "of". I don't feel particularly strongly about this. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:26, 13 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Input requested from Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. — xaosflux  Talk 01:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)