Wikipedia:Plagiarism/Plagiarism problems/Header

This page is for listing and discussing possible plagiarism problems involving text on Wikipedia. For pages which are suspected to be copyright violations, see Copyright problems.

Authors of material
If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, you may request immediate removal of the copyright violation or you may contact Wikipedia's designated agent under the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. See also Copyright problems

If you believe there is not copyright violation, or that whether copyright violation has occurred is in a gray area, but that your ideas or words are not attributed properly, please post here.

What is plagiarism in wikipedia
Plagiarism in Wikipedia is the use of ideas and/or wording with less attribution than is reasonably expected to be provided. Some cases are clearly plagiarism, as when a long passage is copied verbatim into Wikipedia from some other source, without giving credit to the original writers or that source in any way. (It may further be copyright violation, if the source is copyrighted, but this problems area is to deal with under-attribution of public domain, GFDL or other text where copyright issues are not present.) Other cases are a matter of judgement. Guidance is provided in Plagiarism, which is a relatively new but official Wikipedia guideline.

Plagiarism that does not infringe copyright
Wikipedia will naturally refer to and include some material that comes from outside sources. This material may be in the public domain, may be included under a fair use argument, or it may be under a license compatible with the license used on Wikipedia, the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Examples of public-domain works include text and images from United States Government publications, and older works—such as the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica—that are no longer, or never were, covered by copyright. Some further examples are at Category:Attribution templates.

Even when material is not covered by copyright, it is still important to state its origin, including its authors or creators. Failure to include the origin of a work is misleading and also makes it more difficult for readers and editors to refer to the material's source. It may also violate the terms of the GFDL.

Material that is plagiarised but which does not violate copyright does not need to be removed from Wikipedia if it can be properly sourced. Add appropriate source information to the article wherever possible, or move unsourced material to an article's talk page until sources can be found.

If an editor has copied text or figures into Wikipedia without proper attribution, politely refer him to Verifiability, Citing sources, and/or Help:Citations quick reference. Editors who have difficulties or questions about this guidance can be referred to the Help Desk. Editors engaged in ongoing plagiarism who do not respond to polite requests may be blocked from editing.

Repeated plagiarism violations
Contributors who repeatedly post material that violates attribution guidelines (and constitutes plagiarism) after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing to protect the project. (Copyright violaters have been blocked; the plagiarism guideline is new and has not yet directly led directly to any such blocks, although plagiarism may have been discussed and used as reason for blocking in other cases before this guideline was formally expressed.)

Instructions
Material whose presence on Wikipedia appears to constitute plagiarism (i.e. the material is not sourced with footnotes, verbatim passages are not put into quotes or blockquotes) should, as a general rule, be revised to provide adequate attribution for the ideas and wording, or removed.

{{tmbox|image=none|text=Blatant copyright infringements may be speedily deleted if:


 * Material was copied from another website which does not have a license compatible with Wikipedia;
 * There is no non-infringing content in the page history worth saving.
 * The text on Wikipedia really is an infringement of another source (Wikipedia has numerous mirrors — Make sure we're copying someone else, not the other way around)
 * Uploader does not assert permission, or the assertion is questionable

After notifying the uploading editor, add one of these to the page:
 * &#123;{db-copyvio | url=insert URL of source here}}
 * &#123;{db-copyvio | describe non-web source here}}

An administrator will examine the article and decide whether to delete it or not. You should not blank the page in this instance. }}

Instructions for special cases

 * Probable copyvios without a known source: If you suspect that an article contains a copyright violation, but you cannot find a source for the violation (so you can't be sure that it's a violation), do not list it here. Instead, place on the article's talk page, but replace FULL_URL with the full URL of the article version that you believe contains a violation. (To determine the URL, click on "Permanent link" in the toolbox area, and copy the URL.)

Alternatives to deletion
In addition to nominating potential copyright infringements for deletion, you may:
 * Rewrite the article, excluding copyrighted text. This is done on a temporary page at Talk:PAGENAME/Temp so that the original, copyright-infringing version can be deleted by an administrator and the rewrite copied over. If the original turns out to be non-infringing, these two can be merged.
 * Write to the owner and ask for permission. Check whether they gave or will give permission (or maybe they in fact posted it here!). Also see Example requests for permission, Confirmation of permission.
 * Where appropriate, please address the matter with the contributor who added the infringement. copyvio and db-g12, for speedy deletions, will generate a notice that you can paste on the contributor's page. Other notices can be found at Category:Wikipedia copyright maintenance templates.

Instructions for administrators
Pages should stay listed for a minimum of 7 days before they are checked and processed by administrators. See Copyright problems/Advice for admins for some help.

All pages tagged with copyvio are placed in Category:Possible copyright violations.