Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2018 July 6

6 July 2018

 * Coalburn ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from http://www.scottish-places.info/towns/townfirst1014.html. Potential backwards copy, as the content was added in 2006. According to, the potential source was last modified in 2008. This potential copyright violation was reported in 2018070510006528 --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the Wayback Machine, the source content predates the creation of the article. I couldn't find this earlier because the URL changed. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 13:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. Revdelete request added for admin attention. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:49, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting support.svg Purged. Copyright problem removed from history. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:32, 16 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Eddie Adams ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) Section taken from here. here is the original edit. Same user did this with other pages too: here and here. Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:33, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others, no remaining infringement. I've done a run through the other contributions of this editor, some of it in the footsteps of – see, e.g., Barbara Smith Conrad, listed under today's date. However, I'd appreciate it if someone else would take a quick look too in case I /we have missed something;, might you have time for that? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:49, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm concerned about Talk:Walter_Cronkite and flagged the article for close paraphrasing, Justlettersandnumbers. I almost removed the section, and I'm not sure I made the right decision in not doing so. :/ Otherwise, I think this is ✅. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:18, 12 December 2018 (UTC)


 * St Mary's CBS (The Green) ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/the-kerryman-tralee-edition/20170927/283386242086541. Whole paragraphs copied from the source form most of the content. • Gene93k (talk) 03:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. Revdelete request added for admin attention. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting support.svg Purged. Copyright problem removed from history. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:34, 16 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Led Zeppelin-related articles, generally, including (not yet addressed) Presence (album), Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin III and probably more I haven't even found yet. Many such articles have large amounts of quotations and close paraphrasing on them which (in my personal opinion) makes the article very hard to read and skirt the line into becoming borderline copyvios. I've already cleaned up In Through the Out Door, Stairway to Heaven, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. I'm not naming specific editors because a) I don't know who put the close paraphrasing in and b) my priority is finding and fixing the content, not punishing whoever put it in (presumably in good faith) in the first place. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:03, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * , this is a fairly broad set of parameters to start from – could you be a bit more specific? I looked at what you removed from In Through the Out Door, which as far as I can see consisted only of properly-quoted material (which I agree was not the subject of any discussion in the text, was probably excessive by our non-free content guidelines and certainly didn't improve the readability of the page, but was not a copyvio as such). The Blame tool shows that at least some of that material was added by with  in April 2009; the same editor seems to have added quite a number of other quotations to other Led Zeppelin pages, and appears still to be active. Could discussion of those quotations with that editor be a way forward? But if you've come across any copying (as opposed to quoting) from copyright sources, please give some examples here. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:17, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not presented as one by clearly attributing the source and appearing as a quotation, but like you say, it's excessive. Since this report, I kick-started WikiProject Led Zeppelin to address this (and get some GAs out of it) and have addressed a bunch of close paraphrasing and excessive quotations, as has . I'm just beavering my way through the relevant articles. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:06, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's not quite true. In this diff, the paragraph on the left (from "After preparing the material" to "a conventional studio") is a complete word-for-word lift from Dave Lewis' book. It's just not obvious because the source is offline. I think needs to get into this discussion right now and explain himself before he runs the risk of being blocked for systematic copyright violations all over the place. Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)  20:06, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There is some close paraphrasing. For example, "Black Dog" included "In live performances, John Bonham eliminated the 5/4 variation so that Plant could perform his a cappella vocal interludes and then have the instruments return together synchronised", while the ref states "In live performance, Bonham eliminated the 5/4 variation so that Plant could perform his a capella vocal interludes and then have the instruments return together, properly synchronized". It was added by a since blocked sock puppet. I think these type of edits need to be reviewed for copyvios. —Ojorojo (talk) 01:08, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you have a brick wall I can bang my head against? The problem is, since the plagiarism is predominantly in offline sources, it makes it a very slow and difficult activity to just gauge the size of how bad this problem is. However, it does seem to be widespread. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  14:00, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Would it be OK to remove material added by blocked users that cannot be easily verified with online sources? It might speed up the process (and save my wall!). —Ojorojo (talk) 14:49, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Given we're uncovering blatant copyvios that have sat unaddressed for ten years, I would say "absolutely". If you get reverted, we'll revisit things then. I will get around to properly citing the album articles, but I tend to work at a glacial pace. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  14:56, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, it seems that I had underestimated the seriousness of this – sorry about that!, , can you clarify: was all the copyvio you've found added by the same user? Could you give a handful of examples (four or five, say)? If so, I think the next step should be a WP:CCI, where all the user's contribs can be clearly listed and systematically reviewed. With almost 40000 edits to nearly 27000 pages, I don't think any other approach has any chance of success (not that I have any hope of the CCI backlog suddenly getting cleared either). Ritchie, could you handle that? Otherwise, if you give me a few examples of the problem, I can make the request and ask someone else to open it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The one I flagged above was added by a very prolific sockpuppeteer, with only a fraction of accounts identified. Good luck to whomever wishes to pursue this. —Ojorojo (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I ran this by a week or so ago, and I think there's a general consensus we've got to file a CCI on at least the two editors identified here. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk)  <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  10:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Buckner F. Harris ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from https://web.archive.org/web/20170731091207/http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncwarren/harris-book/Chapter_Two.html. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 17:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: there's a rewrite of this, but it seems to have enough problems that it may be unusable. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. Temp page deleted — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Space fountain ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from Substantial portions of this article are copied or closely paraphrased from the source (which is the text of a 1995 book), dating back to the original article. –dlthewave ☎ 22:03, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Symbol redirect vote.svg Article redirected to non-infringing article. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)