Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2017 October 3

3 October 2017
Prehistoric pottery in Great Britain, created by User:Bermicourt, lists no references and two pieces of literature, but is clearly taken completely from this page which should at least be acknowledged. Certainly towards the end, it seems to be too closely paraphrased still, even though some awkward sentences have been created in an attempt to avoid direct copying. Example:


 * "Toward the end of the Bronze Age and in the Iron Age, the quality and the range of pottery deteriorated significantly in certain areas. In Northern Britain they seem to have dispensed with their use altogether. During the Iron Age, southern Britain benefited to a certain extent from continental influences and the imports of fine Gallic ware, thrown on a wheel." (our article)


 * "Towards the end of the Bronze Age and going forward into the Iron Age the quality and range of pottery seems to deteriorate markedly, particularly in Northern Britain some areas of which seem to abandon its use entirely. During the Iron Age Southern Britain benefits to some extent from continental influences and the import of fine Gaulish wheel made pottery." (source)

I'm looking further at other creations by the same editor (e.g. Battle of Strasbourg (506), which is an unattributed translation of de:Schlacht bei Straßburg (506), but thought it best to mention this here already. Fram (talk) 12:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The source for this article is clearly listed on the talk page following the normal Wikipedia convention. Your suggestion that I deliberately paraphrased stuff from a site I have never seen is simply wrong and "assumes the worst". I translated it from the German Wiki article, fairly accurately it would seem.
 * Feel free to look through my 4,000 article creations. They are mostly translated from German Wikipedia as well and attributed to that source. BTW I've added the de.wiki source to the Battle of Strasbourg. HTH. Bermicourt (talk) 13:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * If you have translated the German article, then it seems that the German article has translated the website without attribution and you have blindly copied their text without actually checking whether what they wrote made any sense or was supported in the literature. I have already remarked upon this on your talk page: while the copyvio may (apart from a forgotten attribution yesterday) not be the real issue, we still have the major problem that you blindly translate articles without checkingwhat you are writing and whether the sources support the article in any way. Remember that dewiki is not a reliable source, and that you should base articles on reliable sources, not on the claim of someone else that they have checked and understood the sources. Fram (talk) 13:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The German article appears to be a copyright violation. For now, I have asked the creator of that article about it at de:Benutzer Diskussion:JEW. The English article will likely need to be rewritten or deleted. Wikipedia policy has long allowed translations of articles from other language Wikipedia, and this is not the place to engage in that debate, in any event. Calliopejen1 (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm really concerned about this German user and whether s/he has been creating tons of copyvios at de.wiki. Is de:Ringbarrows in Irland basically a direct translation of ? Are you able to assess whether the user's other articles are problematic? There is another user chiming in on that user's talk page but s/he seems overly defensive. I suspect there could be a major problem here given that this user is a highly prolific article creator. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've had a quick look at the articles in this field that I've translated recently. Abingdon ware is a stub and I modified the translation on the basis of an additional reference, having been prompted by Fram. So I think that's probably okay. Beacharra ware was created by User:JEW on German Wiki and appears to be an amalgam of sources which he (he uses "er" to describe himself) didn't reference. I've now sorted that out, so that should be okay too. Western Neolithic ware had minor input from JEW, but I'd also suggest a second look. Where the articles are stubs, it's relatively easy to remove any copyvio by a) proper referencing, b) rewriting and c) expanding to them with other references. Any large chunks of copied text should be removed and the subject summarised from more than one source. I'm happy to help with this where I've been involved as an editor. I certainly don't want to be associated with any copyvios. Hope that helps. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:04, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Any comment on de:Ringbarrows in Irland vs. ?  Not because you're in any way involved, but because I know you are able to judge this and I can't! I'm trying to follow up a bit on the de.wiki copyright board, and it would be nice to have an additional example in hand if appropriate. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:04, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes I would say that all the text of de:Ringbarrows in Irland is a translated copy of  apart from some text at the beginning and end which has been left out. Silly, because you can easily create articles like this from two or more sources by summarising and referencing their content without needing to copy them slavishly. Bermicourt (talk) 18:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ugh, what a mess. I left a note on de.wiki about this on their copyright page. I imagine that hundreds or thousands of articles may be affected. This is one of the most prolific editors I have ever encountered. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, both of you, for following on on this. While I was wrong to accuse Bermicourt of copyvio (sorry about that, there was copyvio but it wasn't by you), at least it has uncovered a potentially very serious problem, even if it is at dewiki. If I can help with this just let me know. Fram (talk) 19:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries. At least we identified it. Fortunately I haven't translated too many of this guys articles and, having checked some more from a while back, I can't see any obvious copyvios. But I'm now alert to the issue; if I come across anything; it'll get deleted or reported here. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * User:Butterypopcorn/sandbox ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from https://kar.kent.ac.uk/32021/.  Velella  Velella Talk 13:35, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I blanked this sandbox in two phases - once for copying I could confirm, then the rest (which I suspect may have been copied from offline sources). Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC)