Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 02

Lunar sample displays
Did you know ... that samples of moon rock and lunar dust soil from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 missions, mounted on wooden plaque displays especially for Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Honduras, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Romania, Spain, and Sweden, plus the states of Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii (pictured), Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, and West Virginia, were later reported missing by many of the recipients?
 * Template:Did you know nominations/Apollo 11 lunar sample display, Apollo 17 lunar sample display (mainpage November 17, 2012)
 * Administrators%27 noticeboard/Archive349 Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:20, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Main articles
Used in all location articles (need to evaluate for WP:CWW):
 * 1) Apollo 11 lunar sample display   cleaned.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  04:07, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * First non-Coldwell content occurred at 521144264 02:02, November 3, 2012
 * Authorship
 * An excellent example of how writing suffers when one attempts to pad an article up to the DYK limit, cleaned, had all manner of copyvio, close paraphrasing, and source-to-text integrity issues (now to see if that has carried forward to the 27 articles listed below). May try to figure out how to transclude instead of clean each one. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  00:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Lunar basalt 70017   public domain not attributed, cleaned and removed uncited while at it. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  04:07, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * First non-Coldwell content occurred at 521074805 16:50, November 2, 2012
 * Authorship
 * 1) Apollo 17 lunar sample display  cleaned. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * First non-Coldwell content occurred at 521186675 11:04, November 3, 2012
 * Authorship

Sub-articles
All created on November 2 (before first non-Coldwell edit to shared main articles)
 * 1) Brazil 2012-11-02 10:57
 * 2) Canada 2012-11-02 11:04
 * 3) Cyprus 2012-11-02 11:06
 * 4) Honduras 2012-11-02 11:08
 * 5) Ireland 2012-11-02 11:10
 * 6) Malta 2012-11-02 11:12
 * 7) Netherlands 2012-11-02 11:14  PDel stubbed History section
 * 8) Nicaragua 2012-11-02 11:16  Pdel stubbed History section
 * 9) Norway 2012-11-02 11:18  Pdel stubbed History section
 * 10) Romania  Pdel stubbed History section
 * 11) Spain  Cleaned, google translate cut-and-paste
 * 12) Sweden  Pdel Stubbed History section
 * 13) Alaska  Partial Pdel Stubbed History section
 * Note to self, SPA ,
 * 1) Arkansas
 * 2) California
 * 3) Colorado
 * 4) Delaware
 * 5) Hawaii
 * 6) Illinois
 * 7) Missouri  Pdel per offline sources
 * 8) Nebraska  egregious, Pdel'd History section
 * This endured in main space for more than ten years. Isn't publishing private e-mail yet another form of copyvio? Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  18:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) New Jersey  egregious, Pdel'd History section
 * Another private message added to mainspace here. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  18:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) New Mexico
 * 2) New York
 * Personal correspondence since first version. Also here. As a (shocking) example, personal emails to Coldwell, revealing personal information, were used to support the content:
 * The New York State Museum also has no knowledge of its whereabouts.[8]
 * The 1 gram "Moon rock" particle specimen in its Lucite ball has been taken off, or came off, its place on the commemorative wooden plaque display. It is unknown why the Lucite ball is separated from the top of the lunar wooden display. The Lucite ball with the "Moon rock" particle specimen is not in a public viewing area at this time.[5]
 * 1) North Carolina 2012-11-02 13:08
 * 2) Oregon  2012-11-02 13:10  offline source, Pdel History section
 * 3) West Virginia  2012-11-02 13:13  close paraphrasing, cleaned.

Questions
this is going to be fun. Three articles were created and used as background/history information in 27 other articles. One might ask why the main content wasn't just transcluded to the 27 sub-articles, but it appears that word count at DYK came in to play.
 * 1) Best I can tell, there were no significant edits by other editors until after the sub-articles were created.  I started adding dates created, but I got rate-limited by the stats tool, and it's pretty clear he created them in alpha order anyway.  As described in the AN discussion, it appears from a cursory examination that most of 7&6's edits were technical (ref formatting, see also and the like).  Running  Who Wrote That? on a few random samples at the point just before they appeared on the mainpage seems to indicate that all of the words were Coldwell's.  Can we dispense with WP:CWW checks in this case, or is it necessary to trudge through each sub-article, diff-by-diff, to see if  for WP:CWW is needed ?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:46, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 2) ✅ https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lsc/70017.pdf is from the NASA Astromaterials newsletter, so  ? Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  22:10, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 3) Would it be better to simply put up the 27 sub-articles at AFD?  I am dismal at AFD, but creating this content in this way looks like an ill-advised attempt at gaming a DYK record for the number of hooks. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:39, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Too late; I've fixed them now (but doubt they ever should have been created). Sandy Georgia (Talk)  10:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) ✅  Re private email published by Coldwell to mainspace, I once saw  revdel and oversight similar on just a talk page, as not only a copyvio but an egregious breach of privacy.    A determination needs to be made if those two articles need REVDEL.
 * For Nebraska, it was in the first version of the article, and yet no one at DYK picked that up.
 * For New Jersey, ditto, first version, and passed DYK. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  18:50, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Private correspondence in articles
ADDENDUM: While I'm pretty confident of what I've said here, I'm going to refer this question to the Oversighters as a group, so you may get some additional thoughts on this topic posted here. Risker (talk) 02:00, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. There are so many things wrong with those edits highlighted above. First, the references are *unverifiable* because they're private emails between two individuals, not published information. So, the information included using those "references" does not meet even the minimal standards for verifiability. Second, since their included in the earliest versions of the articles, it's pretty much pointless to revdelete all the way back, let alone suppress them. They've been present in every backup of the system for 10 years, and as such are now widely disseminated throughout the internet. There's no putting this toothpaste back into the tube. I'll note we don't seem to have any complaint from the supposed other party to the email, which also colours the benefit of revision deletion. Sandy, you and the other team members seem to be doing a good job of removing the junk out of these articles. I will note that, if you come across a fairly recent (less than 6 months) email being used as a reference, those would probably meet revdelete and/or suppression thresholds. It's just that the longer things are out there, the less effective those tools are in addressing the issue, and simple removal from the article is probably the best bet. Hope this helps.  Risker (talk) 01:58, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Risker ... you are, as always, a gem! Sandy Georgia (Talk)  02:26, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey, if you could get me a list of pages that potentially need RD1 (I handled New Jersey but you have a lot of diffs to dig through!) I'll take a look and see what can/should be redacted. Primefac (talk) 08:43, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * the only other one (so far) with an email (exactly as New Jersey, in the first version) is Nebraska; thanks !! Sandy Georgia (Talk)  10:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorted, ta. Primefac (talk) 11:13, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

personal correspondence in the first version of New York lunar sample displays. I haven't removed it yet, so the entire history can be revdel'd. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * And more here. Now removed both RD1 away.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  00:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Done, cheers. Primefac (talk) 07:31, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Progress
So far (six and a half hours ), I have cleaned two of the three main articles (Apollo 11 lunar sample display and Lunar basalt 70017). I found the usual mix of OR, failed verification, misrepresented sources, very close paraphrasing to borderline cut-and-paste copyvio, and unattributed public domain text (along with lots of unnecessary wording looking to be padding for DYK purposes). After cleaning (which left not much), I created Template:Apollo 11 lunar sample display with clean content for Apollo 11, and replaced the Apollo 11 content at the 27 sub-articles with the template transcluded. So now it's all in one place (where it probably should have been to begin with) and at the least the Apollo 11 section of the 27 sub-articles is clean. I have not checked the 27 sub-articles for WP:CWW, as it appears on the surface that all copied content was written by the same editor (see above). Tomorrow I will do the same with the Apollo 17 content (check for copyright, clean, and put clean content in to a template to transclude the other 27). And after that, each of the 27 sub-articles still has to be examined. This was gaming of DYK that never should have happened; the articles are padded with unnecessary wording just to meet the DYK limit, and I hope there is less copyvio in the sub-articles. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  04:02, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Four more hours, Apollo 17 content clean, content at Template:Apollo 17 lunar sample display transcluded to sub-articles; next to the 27 sub-articles. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  18:32, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Seven more hours, non-US countries done, seven rewritten, five stubbed after finding so much copyvio in the others. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  01:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * see above. Everyone else working on this CCI might want to be aware that the same situation exists at the same mass DYK listed at Talk:Clover Hill Tavern (I can't find a DYK template), and that content might be carried between those articles. That is, it might be better for anyone working on those articles to do all of them, lest content is carried from article to article in that series. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  04:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've already done one of the Clover Hill ones, and have signed up to try to save another, so I'll try and take that (although the cleaning process will be slow, there's productive content I want to work on in my lessened wiki time as well). The Clover Hill situation seems less copied, as Sweeney Prizery for instance seems to share less content with the others. Hog Farm Talk 04:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I thought you'd have a handle on that one ... but I wonder if others like this are lurking? In the lunar samples, I'm looking at 30 articles with the same content. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  04:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Separate matter
WP:CWW (not Coldwell) at Colombia lunar sample displays; check others in template and deal with those. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  15:12, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ cut-and-paste copyvio and CWW (not Coldwell). Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  16:22, 7 February 2023 (UTC)