User talk:Moneytrees/Copyright RfC 2023

Some Ideas
Just wanted to put some ideas that I have.I believe the most important thing we need to do is make easier and less daunting for editors to start helping with copyright cleanup. Speaking from experience, we need a better way of teaching editors copyright. We simply do not have enough copyright editors to teach each person individually. There is not an easy way currently for people to start helping out. We could create a big copyright guide on Wikipedia explaining how to do basic copyright clean up. Make it easier for people to start helping. Show examples on cases you might encounter while cleaning up pages. We could link at the bottom more experienced editors or to the CCI channel on discord where they could ask questions if they're still confused. This will only cover simpler copyright clean up jobs like CopyPatrol and some CCI cases but it will make it easier for editors to start working on copyright. There won't be a easy way of teaching editors how to do more complex copyright clean up but we can make it easier for editors who want to start helping but find it too difficult to start. The point is it doesn’t matter which way we do it but we desperately need a better way of teaching editors.  — Signed, The4lines &#124;&#124;&#124;&#124; (Talk) (Contributions) 22:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I also think we should use presumptive removals and deletions much more with old and time consuming CCI's. I’m pretty sure I saw this suggested in the discord but I 100 percent agree that we shouldn’t waste our time with stuff that isn't worth our time. It will help us get through a lot of the longer and tedious CCIs we have in our backlog.


 * Lastly we have to definitely increase awareness and get more editors to help out, especially on the CCI backlog. There is no way currently we could start working on the backlog, it’s simply impossible. Hopefully with more people we could start working on the backlog. We would first have to make the CCI layout easier for editors to help with the clean up.


 * There are just some of my thoughts and ideas I have, feel free to comment. Thanks and  for drafting this up. Hopefully this is the beginning of change for copyright and brings to light to some of the problems we have to a larger audience. Signed, The4lines &#124;&#124;&#124;&#124; (Talk) (Contributions) 23:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I had some concern when I saw your suggestion for "presumptive removals and deletion". As I think about it more, I urge you to clarify whether that suggestion is directed at CopyPatrol or CCI. I'm more supportive in the context of CCI. That said, I am mulling over something that might be an easy task related to copypatrol. I trust we all agree that reverting a newbie editor over a copyright issue must be very deflating to their introduction to Wikipedia even when it is an accurate assessment, but potentially very deflating if it's a false positive, which is why I try hard to avoid false positives in close calls. Occasionally I find myself agonizing over a report that doesn't seem to be straightforward, and eventually checking the editors talk page only to find out they've been deemed for many copyright problems. Arguably, perhaps I should be checking the editors talk page early in the process but there's only so many things one can do first. I assume the copy patrol system ID keeps track of or could easily keep track of the number of edits by editor where action was taken recently. The report currently lists the editor's name, with the second line containing a link to the talk page and contributions, followed by  a third line with edit count. What if that third line also included a count of reports in say the last thirty days in which "page fixed" was recorded. I'm not suggesting a positive number means that the current edit cannot medically be reverted, but it does suggest one might want to look at the talk page before doing much research.  S Philbrick  (Talk)  20:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Sphilbrick I think that's a good idea for copypatrol, I think a function listing the number of times an editor has been "warned" would be helpful. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 04:21, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I interpret 4lines' suggestion as aimed at CCI only. We use PDEL sparingly at CP, especially on old unsourced but suspect stuff, but one could argue it's a WP:V or NPOV removal for those cases easily. Sennecaster  ( Chat ) 06:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Correct, I meant it aimed towards CCI. I have changed the wording to make it a bit more clear. I think having the number of times an editor has been warned would be incredibly helpful. — The4lines &#124;&#124;&#124;&#124; (Talk) (Contributions) 15:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm strongly supportive of the page with case study examples. One has to avoid BEANS, but I think it would be possible to identify quite a few simple cases. S Philbrick  (Talk)  19:58, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Moneytrees
(asking onwiki to hopefully make this clear to all) who in community tech have you talked to about this, and who from there would be useful to loop in on discussion here? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 03:09, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * TheresNoTime, a member of CommTech, saw the RFC draft notice posted on Discord in the #wpcci channel and made a comment about CommTech making a rewrite of EranBot with multiple maintainers. DanCherek also made a comment about the documentation of updated to CopyPatrol on Phab, and that any feature requests will be easy to implement once the revamp is finished. I came to the belief that some potential solutions from this RFC I/R/T CopyPatrol would either be redundant to the plans CommTech has, or could be handled at a later date. Sennecaster  ( Chat ) 21:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Prevention and avoidance should be the first lines of defense.
There are three major aspects to the problem:
 * 1) Wikipedia rules are stricter than US law,
 * 2) Contributors generally only find out that their work is non-compliant after it has been irrevocably published, and
 * 3) The detection and fixing of non-compliant material is difficult, time-consuming, and there are insufficient competent people working on it.

All three of these should be examined (and there may be things I have missed). Revising the requirements could reduce the amount of work to what is actually necessary, and may drive off fewer contributors as there should be less conflict, informing contributors of potential problems before the content is published on Wikipedia would probably reduce the amount of problematic material at source, and thirdly, the subject of this proposed RfC, which addresses fixing the problems after they have occurred. It would probably be a waste of time to suggest that the WMF, which theoretically exists to support the projects, should actually provide some support, but they might be persuaded more easily if the rules aligned more closely with US copyright law. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 04:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe someone in research could be persuaded to analyse the problem to identify where the most effective improvements could be made, otherwise they could be approached in parallel. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 05:07, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Possibly separate actual legally relevant copyright infringement/violation from WP:Close paraphrasing which is probably not actual legally defined copyright violation, as there may be more people willing to rephrase if there is just a tag and a link to a bot comparison on the page. It is the sort of thing one can do as a form of copyediting with no stress. It is the sort of thing I might do while browsing, like I do minor copyediting whenever the need is obvious and I have the time. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 15:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Posting new CCIs to AN
One thought I had was that instead of creating a new discussion every time a major CCI is opened, we could just transclude a running list of recently opened CCIs at the top of the page similar to User:MusikBot/ECPMonitor/Report. People might get annoyed if new CCI threads pop up all the time, but the approach I suggested might also ruin the point of increasing visibility. I think just creating a new thread for each "major" CCI would probably be better (what constitutes a major CCI could be hashed out later or just be at the discretion of whoever opens it), but I figured I should post my idea here for consideration. — SamX &#91;talk · contribs&#93; 21:23, 21 September 2023 (UTC)