Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20150515

Instructions
All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to clean up. Contributors who are the subject of a contributor copyright investigation are among contributors with a history of copyright problems and so are not welcome to directly evaluate their own or others' copyright violations in CCIs. They are welcome to assist with rewriting any problems identified.

If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately in accordance with Copyright violations. Contributors who are the subject of a contributor copyright investigation are among contributors who have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation and so all of the below listed contributions may be removed indiscriminately. However, to avoid collateral damage, efforts should be made when possible to verify infringement before removal.

When every section is completed, please alter the listing for this CCI at CCI to include the tag "completed=yes". This will alert a clerk that the listing needs to be archived.

Text

 * Examine the article or the diffs linked below.
 * If the contributor has added creative content, either evaluate it carefully for copyright concerns or remove it.
 * Evaluating for copyright concerns may include checking the listed sources, spot-checking using google, google books and other search engines and looking for major differences in writing style. The background may give some indication of the kinds of copyright concerns that have been previously detected. For older text, mirrors of Wikipedia content may make determining which came first difficult. It may be helpful to look for significant changes to the text after it was entered. Searching for the earlier form of text can help eliminate later mirrors. If you cannot determine which came first, text should be removed presumptively, since there is an established history of copying with the editor in question.
 * If you remove text presumptively, place   on the article's talk page.
 * If you specifically locate infringement and remove it (or revert to a previous clean version), place   on the article's talk page. The url parameter may be optionally used to indicate source.
 * If there is insufficient creative content on the page for it to survive the removal of the text or it is impossible to extricate from subsequent improvements, replace it with, linking to the investigation subpage in the url parameter. List the article as instructed at the copyright problems board, but you do not need to notify the contributor. Your note on the CCI investigation page serves that purpose.
 * To tag an article created by the contributor for presumptive deletion, place  on the article's face and   on the article's talk page. List the article as instructed at the copyright problems board, but you do not need to notify the contributor.


 * After examining an article:
 * replace the diffs after the colon on the listing with indication of whether a problem was found (add y) or not (add n). If the article is blanked and may be deleted, please indicate as much after the y. The ? template may be used for articles where you were unable to determine whether or not a violation occurred, but are prepared to remove the article from consideration – either because the material is no longer present in the article, or it is adequately paraphrased so as to no longer be a violation (please specify which).
 * Follow with your username and the time to indicate to others that the article has been evaluated and appropriately addressed. This is automatically generated by four tildes ( ~ )


 * If a section is complete, consider collapsing it by placing collapse top and collapse bottom beneath the section header and after the final listing.

Images

 * Examine the images below. For free images:
 * Does the image look non-free? Is it likely the uploader is the copyright holder?
 * Is the image properly licensed and sourced? Be aware of images that say "this image is licensed under X" without specifying who created it.
 * Do a reverse image search using Google Images. Check the license of the source page. Compare the last modified time with the (Commons) upload time.
 * Do a Google image search for phrases that describe the image's contents.
 * See Guide to image deletion on dealing with cases of possible image copyright infringement. There is no need to open a possibly unfree files listing. Administrators may delete images from multiple point infringers presumptively in accordance with Copyright violations. Evaluators who are not administrators may section images into a "deletion requested" section for administrator attention.


 * For non-free images, determine whether each image meets our non-free content criteria.
 * Note that Commons does not accept non-free content.
 * Annotate the listing with the action taken, e.g. if the image was tagged no source write "no source"; if the fair use claim is deemed ok you can write "OK fair use".

Background
 BrillLyle request
 * Check requested by Moonriddengirl (talk)
 * There is a long-winded explanation of the issue at, but essentially it boils down to a combination of content copied without quotation marks and over-use of quotations. See Myer S. Kripke, for one example of unacknowledged copying from source, where my spot-check disclosed the following:
 * Source: NY Times
 * Source text: In a class on Jewish religion at the seminary, he met a student from Brooklyn named Dorothy Karp. They were married at the seminary in 1937, a week after he was ordained.
 * Article text: In a class on Jewish religion at the seminary, he met a student from Brooklyn named Dorothy Karp (who later became his wife). The class was taught by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement.[11] They were married at the seminary in 1937, a week after he was ordained
 * Article text: In a class on Jewish religion at the seminary, he met a student from Brooklyn named Dorothy Karp (who later became his wife). The class was taught by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement.[11] They were married at the seminary in 1937, a week after he was ordained


 * Source: philly.com
 * Source text: Susie Buffett was an admirer of Dorothy Kripke's book Let's Talk About God. When she discovered that the Kripkes lived nearby in Omaha, Susie Buffett introduced herself. A long friendship between the families began.
 * Article text: Investor Warren Buffett's wife, Susie Buffett was an admirer of Dorothy Kripke's book Let's Talk About God.[13] When she discovered that the Kripkes lived nearby in Omaha, Susie Buffett introduced herself. A long friendship between the families began.[14]


 * Source: Amerabbica
 * Source text: The seminary hosted their wedding in the courtyard and Rabbi Kripke had said that the gift was to repay them for their kindness.
 * Article text: The seminary hosted their wedding in the courtyard and Rabbi Kripke had said that the gift was to repay them for their kindness.

This may not be exhaustive; it was simply a spot-check, but as the article is not that long it could be. Passages copied tend to be brief, but so is surrounding material which increases the ratio of taking to original content. The user has also translated content from other language Wikipedias without required attribution, although I do not know how extensive this is. See. I would ask another administrator who works copyright to make the determination here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:56, 13 May 2015 (UTC) Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:56, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I have responded promptly and proactively to the issues brought to my attention by Moonriddengirl
 * The initial complaint of copyright violation was an actual mistake I acknowledged and fixed immediately, went on the IRC Help channel and got the assistance of an experienced editor Huon, who went through the edit history and saw that I had made the mistake and had resolved it adequately.
 * However, Justlettersandnumbers did NOT go through the edit history and only saw the initial violation. Instead of doing due diligence to investigate the issue, they said that they disagreed with Huon's evaluation and posted that on the copyright complaint board, which Mooriddengirl picked up as a task and began a review of my contributions.
 * I had found out during the process of addressing the initial violation that using quotations are not acceptable on Wikipedia, even though the quotes had extensive citations, something I had not realized. This is a misunderstanding on my part and I was trying to figure out how to work back through any of these quotefarm issues.
 * But then when the edits I had made, my contributions, went under review by Moonriddengirl, who also had not investigated the initial complaint, I was I think understandably upset. I addressed the issues she brought up as soon as possible, if not immediately.
 * I had retired my account because the whole experience has been so negative and in my opinion unfair. I decided to un-retire the user name and attempt to good will try to rejoin and hopefully address any further concerns. But within 12 hours of being back on Wikipedia I have been pushed to this new complaint area.
 * I would like to remain a Wikipedia editor but I am very unhappy. I understand this is not supposed to be a punishment process but I am not sure how else to approach this when I have tried to fix the issues brought to my attention, which I think is the best I can do. I have always tried to leave pages in better shape than I have found them, and have been an enthusiastic editor who I think has done some helpful work. But I am very discouraged and am again reconsidering being an editor. Please advise. BrillLyle (talk) 11:41, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Opening per . --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:59, 15 May 2015 (UTC)


 * So : I can see 16 instances out of 60 pages where you think there was copyright violation -- but in most of the instances, I had citations to the quotes and phrases. Are you starting to see that the so-called violations are not grave, that I have made significant improvements on all of these pages, and that this process was actually a misunderstanding?!? I really think this is a waste of your time and mine -- and again, no editor's work would withstand this type of scrutiny. BrillLyle (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * When working on CCI cases, I typically start at the bottom of the page. That's for two reasons. First, a script has organized the material so that the articles most likely to have copyright violations appear at the top of the page, and those least likely to contain violations are at the bottom. I prefer to start at the bottom, because the work initially goes quickly and many articles can be cleared in the first few days. The second reason for starting at the bottom is because the material there is simpler, and it gives me a feel for your own writing style and level of competence with the language so that the more complex material at the top can more readily be assessed as to whether you wrote it or copied it from somewhere. This aspect is less important in your investigation, because you have cited your sources; so far the sources are online and are accessible for me to view. Your comment that 16 out of sixty articles reviewed not justifying a review is not valid, in my opinion. Typically in a case of this size, each group of 20 articles from the bottom of the page will have two or fewer copyright issues (zero to ten percent). Sixteen problematic articles were found in the three sections checked at the bottom of the page (26 per cent), plus three out of the four articles checked so far at the top of the page have problems (75 per cent). This is higher that what I usually find, and demonstrates to me that there is indeed justification for a check. Almost all instances where you added prose, the material was copied directly from the source with little or no paraphrasing, and thus is a copyright violation (or in some instances, a violation of our non-free content policy, because purpose-written prose could easily have been substituted for direct quotations). Like you, I am aware that copyright violations are a serious problem on Wikipedia. However, the fact that undetected copyright violations exist does not justify adding more, and the fact that the problem is large should not deter us from cleaning up as much as we can as quickly as we can. In fact we have a moral and legal obligation to do so. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

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