Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-10-03/Speedy copyvios

Two new criteria for speedy deletions were added this week. The first criterion for speedy deletion, allowing for the deletion of certain copyright violations, was added to the criteria this week, following a two-week voting period.

The new criterion states that blatant copyright violations may be speedily deleted. The proposal resulted from the immense backlog facing administrators at the copyright problems page, where violations would often sit unattended for weeks at a time. The vast majority of the time, there were no further edits of the article in question, resulting in articles being deleted in the same shape they were when they were listed. Thus, the massive backlog, combined with many administrators spending unnecessary amounts of time deleting the articles, caused Bluemoose to initiate the proposal.

The exact wording of the new criterion is as follows:


 * The following shall be a criterion for speedy deletion.


 * An article that is a blatant copyright violation and meets these parameters:


 * Material is unquestionably copied from the website of a commercial content provider (e.g. encyclopedia, news service).
 * The article and its entire history contains only copyright violation material, excluding tags, templates, and minor edits.
 * Uploader makes no assertion of permission or fair use, and none seems likely.
 * The material is identified within 48 hours of upload and is almost or totally un-wikified (to diminish mirror problem).


 * Notification: When tagging a page for deletion under this criterion, a user should notify the page's creator using wording similar to or an equivalent message. Before deleting any page under this criterion, an admin should verify that the page creator has been notifed -- if not, the admin should do so. If the creator was not logged in and did not use a consistent IP address, such notification is unneeded.

Similar attempts at adding criterion regarding copied contents have been tried in the past, but to no avail. A similar proposal, part of the multi-proposal addition to CSD criteria, was voted down in July of this year, mainly because the proposed criteria was too general in scope. Also, a similar measure was not passed in January, also because of the generality of the wording. Both times, Wikipedians feared that the wide range of the criterion gave users too much leeway and feared that the criterion would be used inappropriately.

This time, though, the proposal was worded in a specific manner, narrowing down the range. This, combined with the growing backlog on WP:CP, led to the proposal's approval.

The voting lasted two weeks, from 17 September to 1 October, 2005. Using the previous proposal's guidelines, the vote was only open to registered Wikipedians with over 50 edits at the opening of the vote. In addition, a 70% support was required to pass the proposal.

With 100 votes supporting (though two votes were later disregarded because the voters did not meet the guidelines), six opposing, and two neutral, the proposal was passed on 1 October. Most of the opposing and neutral voters were worried about loopholes in the proposal. "I have come across several instances in which people were accused of copyvios when in fact the material had been copied from the Wikipedia article. Since experienced editors have accused other experienced editors of copyvios on these grounds, I am unwilling to put that decision in the hands of a single admin," Guettarda commented. In addition, others were concerned that the criterion would encourage biting of new users, and that the criterion "broadens [the previous proposal] substantially." However, most people praised the proposal. "[The criterion] would relieve a lot of the unnecessary load on WP:CP," stated TenOfAllTrades. Others expressed their frustration at the current problem, and echoed TenOfAllTrades. "[I am] sick and tired of all this copyvio being cut-and-pasted into [Wikipedia]," declared Ral315.

The criterion was added to the official Wikipedia policy page as criterion A8.

A second criterion was also added, based on Jimbo's statement that all orphaned fair-use images could be deleted. The criterion encompasses images that were uploaded under the "fair-use" provision and are not used in any articles. The exact wording of the new criterion is as follows:


 * Copyrighted images uploaded without permission of the copyright holder, or under a license which does not permit commercial use, which are not currently used in any article, if more than seven days old (so-called "orphaned fair use images"). Reasonable exceptions may be made for images uploaded for an upcoming article.

Though similar to the new criterion regarding unsourced images, this criterion covers those images whose copyright status is claimed to be fair use, but are not used in any articles.