Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of plagiarism incidents


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The Bushranger One ping only 12:11, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

List of plagiarism incidents

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Per what TenOfAllTrades wrote here. Brustopher (talk) 16:39, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2015 November 27.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 17:03, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * For those curious what TenOfAllTrades wrote:


 * Pburka (talk) 17:06, 27 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - Most entries have reliable sources. If not they should be added or removed. Article topic is certainly news-worthy. Clean up doesn't mean delete. No article should be complete, it should only have notable entries, like all of Wikipedia. DreamGuy (talk) 19:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course AfD isn't cleanup. The issue is that there is no possible way to clean this article up. Could you imagine an article on this topic ever being brought to Featured List status? Nothing of value would be lost by deleting this article and we would be rid of the "random hodgepodge of mostly-politically-motivated additions" TenOfAllTrades refers to. Brustopher (talk) 20:53, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If you think it can't be cleaned up you just haven't tried. DreamGuy (talk) 20:35, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete, per nom. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 23:21, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete on basis of clear arguments of TenOfAllTrades. I have on too many times attempted to clean up inadequately sourced and probably defamatory assertions but been reverted by few-edit WP:Spas who appear to have axes to grind. I leave their contributions alone as I am unwilling to engage in continual edit wars. The list is always going to be a battleground for WP:BLP policy and is best removed. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2015 (UTC).
 * KeepComment . Rename  to List of plagiarism-related subjects - like in Draft:Index of plagiarism-related articles (see below). This is just one of many lists on controversial subjects. Yes, it is notable, and it can be sourced. Obviously, the list can be significantly expanded, however keeping at least the most significant cases still makes sense. My very best wishes (talk) 01:08, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per my quoted comment above.  This article will always be an attractive target for POV pushers and nuisance edits&mdash;but even if it weren't, it's intrinsically unable to be a good Wikipedia article. Inclusion criteria will be forever problematic.  If it were 'complete' in any meaningful sense, it would be a useless collection of hundreds or thousands of short blurbs, each utterly unrelated to one another except for the association with plagiarism (or an accusation thereof), with no 'natural' unifying scheme for organization and subcategorization.  If we instead try to limit the growth of the article to only the most 'important' incidents involving plagiarism, we'll be perpetually arguing over which scientists and politicians should be tarred.  In either case, there is a legitimate and serious ethical (not to mention WP:BLP, and even WP:WEIGHT) concern that we'll be calling out particular individuals and associating them with "plagiarism incidents" in search results.  The true statements above to the effect that individual entries in the article can be sourced rather miss the point of the problem. If one wants to read about plagiarism incidents, it makes far more sense to read about them in context, perhaps via the extant Category:Plagiarism controversies or some variation. It's certainly appropriate for Wikipedia to have an article on plagiarism, and to discuss incidents related to plagiarism within its pages; I am far from persuaded that Wikipedia is well-served by reduplicating that material as a collection of anecdotes in this particular article.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:53, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * One could easily fix this list by including all pages from the Category:Plagiarism controversies. Surprisingly, there are relatively few of them. Since we have the category, we can just as easily have the list. In a lot of cases, there is no any serious dispute if something was in fact a "plagiarism incident", hence this not anything intrinsically problematic. The plagiarism by itself is a very important phenomenon; having such list simply helps to explore the subject (few people know about the categories). If needed, it can be renamed to the List of plagiarism controversies (currently a redirect). My very best wishes (talk) 02:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * "Relatively few"? Are we looking at the same category? It has 245 pages in it, and is probably woefully incomplete.  I wouldn't call a random litany of hundreds of mutually unrelated incidents (from academics copying each others' papers, to reporters cribbing from Wikipedia, to politicians stealing stump speeches, to businesspeople ripping off commencement addresses, to songwriters lifting lyrics) condensed into one-paragraph anecdote form a useful or easy fix.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:03, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm... After quickly looking at these pages, it appears that 90% of them are not about plagiarism incidents, but about people and subjects that have been possibly involved in such incidents. Whatever, I have no strong opinion on this. My very best wishes (talk) 03:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. North America1000 02:33, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
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 * Delete per Xxanthippe. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:11, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete or restrict. As a principle a summary page like this should only summarise information that is included in the relevant subject article on this wiki.  This would ensure that any RS or BLP issues have been addressed in the context of the subject page.Martinlc (talk) 09:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I was all set to oppose this but I find the administrator's rationale to be the most persuasive. Despite a fairly strongly worded intro this list isn't really as advertised, and it does seem to mix truly notable plagiarism events with "gotcha" anecdotes that are just trivial. I mean, the Barack Obama thing, for one, is so silly. And this list will always be like that, I think. I can't see it ever not being a POV magnet. Ideal solution might be to prune this back to something that lists major plagiarism incidents only, but I don't see anyone (including me) lining up to do that. I've no interest. Cut if back and it'll just grow again. The great thing about the category is that it should only group articles that meet our notability guidelines, so there's a built in safeguard that this odd list will never have. Good call by TenOfAllTrades, I think. Delete. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - per TenOfAllTrades. -   Cwobeel   (talk)  02:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete as list List articles are often problematic, especially where they can be used to coatrack the "issue of the day" or the like.  That noted,  the best solution here is deletion, as it is such a mélange as to be quite useless to readers.  And this is far from the only problematic such "list" ever found on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete as per WP:TNT. Such a list could exist, based on the existance of articles such as Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy, but I see no way to get from the current list to that list. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete -- Unfortunately plagiarism is far too common for such an article to be useful. Possibly we might merge the individual cases back to the bio articles and create a category, Category:Persons who have engaged in plagiarism.  I wish I could think of something shorter than that.  However I fear that we would run into POV problems, due to the possibility of unintentional plagiarism, or even the intentional (and appropriate) use of quotations giving rise to such an accusation.  If I copy one author it is plagiarism; if I make a compilation based on a dozen or two, it may be academic research.  Peterkingiron (talk) 19:22, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. Major WP:BLP minefield, which is far too much a battlefield for politically-motivated attack for its value to outweigh its headache-inducingness. Bearcat (talk) 23:11, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete: far too broadly defined, especially for a list with such potential BLP worries.—indopug (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete or completely rework into a list of notable events/incidents of plagiarism (no links to biographies) and no non-notable examples. I don't know how long or useful that list would be, though. As it is now, however, I have to agree with the problems of definition/scope and major WP:BLP issues detailed above. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 17:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - I've created Draft:Index of plagiarism-related articles and would welcome both improvements and feedback before I move it to the mainspace (and would be open to hear objections to the same). Note that I specified that it includes incidents/examples of plagiarism, but not biographies of plagiarists or alleged plagiarists. As an index its purpose is primarily a navigational aid, so it's possible a section for "Plagiarists and alleged plagiarists" is possible, based on local consensus for each article/bio, but given all the concerns here it seemed better to omit those to create a baseline. It is a significant topic that it makes sense to have a list about. Maybe a list of incidents like the present article isn't appropriate, but an index should be. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 17:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not keen on lists of allegations. Only rock-solidly proved cases should get into Wikipedia under WP:BLP. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:29, 2 December 2015 (UTC).


 * Rename and restrict: I would say a list of this is fine, but since plagiarism incidents have a broad coverage, why not rename to 'List of Notable Plagiarism incidents'? Also, after the rename, only notable plagiarism incidents are allowed to be included the list (where it contains at least two reliable sources) to reduce its coverage. Vincent60030 (talk) 08:26, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That has, in effect, been tried, and it doesn't work because all the axe-grinders insist that their own case is most notable. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:23, 3 December 2015 (UTC).
 * I guess I'll maintain my stand for now until there are more opinions. :) Vincent60030 (talk) 10:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is good suggestion. One should also realize that a lot of WP lists are highly incomplete (and may never be complete), but it does not mean that all such lists should be deleted. My very best wishes (talk) 04:31, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.