Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation

Why this is happening
Might it be helpful to specify it isn't just "we cannot legitimately continue to have Wikipedia publish the text of what we suspect will be a fair number of copyright violations, until we get around to reviewing each article" but also that we don't want editors to waste their time working on text which may be deleted at any time if it turns out it's a copyvio. Nil Einne (talk) 10:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The concern is copyvio not 'plagiarism'
The wording of this section should be changed to replace "copyright violation or plagiarism" with just "copyright violation". Wikimedia is not concerned about "plagiarism" as it doesn't exist as a legal concept, but it's only a questionable "ethical" issue.--Sum (talk) 19:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Note added: avoiding copyviol is a wikipedia's legal policy, while Plagiarism is only a guideline.--Sum (talk) 10:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)--Sum (talk) 10:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Regardless of Wikimedia's concerns, Wikipedia is also concerned with plagiarism and if something is plagiarized but not a copyright violation, we still should add appropriate attribution to the text. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi. While this particular endeavor does concern itself primarily with copyright violations, plagiarism is still a matter of concern to the project. We do, of course, have that guideline against plagiarism, but beyond that WMF board member Jimbo Wales has himself clarified the Wikimedia Foundation's stance on plagiarism at :


 * So we have long done, for example with banned contributor User:CarolSpears (see ). Within Wikipedia, Wales also stated, "There is no need nor intention to be vindictive, but at the same time, we can not tolerate plagiarism. Let me say quite firmly that for me, the legal issues are important, but far far far more important are the moral issues. We want to be able, all of us, to point at Wikipedia and say: we made it ourselves, fair and square." Given the very vocal expression of a board member, I don't think we can draw conclusions as to the WMF's stance. Too, plagiarism may be only a guideline, but it has long been a blockable offense as per CP. I'm not sure when that was added, but it predates my arrival at the board over two years ago. And, as I pointed out above, it is implemented. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a book
I saw a link to this page on the notices section on my watchlist and I am intrigued akin to staring intently at a police scene while walking past. I know it does not contribute in any way apart from satisfy the curiosity of interlopers like myself, but I found it quite cryptic as it does not say what fields where edited, what kind of copyright violation (copy-paste plag. I take it) and was it malicious or just uninformed? --Squidonius (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Contributions cross all areas of article development and consist of both copy-pasting and unusably close paraphrasing, where only a few words were altered. We can seldom be sure whether the problem is uninformed or malicious even when, as in this case, a contributor is notified multiple times of our copyright policies but persist. Some people don't understand the degree to which content must be rewritten or have a misunderstanding that there is a certain number of words they may copy safely. Some people that our copyright policy is pro forma and that violating is a victimless crime. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * See also wp:Contributor_copyright_investigations/Darius_Dhlomo. 69.111.195.229 (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Are all the relevant articles in the sports area?
Looking at the user's history, all the recent articles seem to be in the sports area. Can this problem be turned over to some sports-related wikiproject?

Many of the entries appear to be simple tables of sports results. That's pure data and not copyrightable in the US (see Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service). What's to be done there? --John Nagle (talk) 02:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * See Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo and Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/CCI where this ground is already covered. Uncle G (talk) 08:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Editors reverting Uncle G's copyvio notice without noting at CCI subpage
Be aware, that some editors just undo/revert Uncle G's copyvio notice without noting at CCI subpage. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 18:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you ask them not to or point them out so that I can ask them not to? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * - Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 18:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I know there's supposed to be some page we can watch to see how removes these tags, but I can't find it. :) This has gotten a bit sprawling. Do you know where it is? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I am just taking care of those article on my watch list. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 18:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, thanks anyway. :) Maybe somebody else will know. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Make the lists A-Z and I'll be happy to tag, instead of wading through random lists. TIA.  Lugnuts  (talk) 18:57, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It's Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Created articles list as in the infobox at the top of the associated page here. &#9786; I've been watching it quite a lot. Out of the many who have chipped in, and done good work, just two editors so far are problematic. Both of them, from what they say in their edit summaries, clearly didn't bother with review before reverting. A lot of other editors clearly have, though. There have been some amusing edit summaries: example. Uncle G (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a heads up: I am not marking my edits after the bot on the CCI listings yet. This is mainly to prevent a situation where I have to make hundreds of edits to each CCI page. However, I do promise to go back and mark them off when the majority of my initial sweep has been done. I've been leaving descriptive edit summary tags for every single edit I've made to these pages. So, it will be relatively straight forward for me to mark all the violations on the CCI pages in one go, then move on to manually marking all the articles I've crossed off. I'm not sure if this choice will annoy anyone, but I've set my priority to carefully get through hundreds of articles, rather than be more conscientious marking my footsteps. Is the bot run through all the created articles yet? I'd strongly recommend discussion before blanking the articles he edited but didn't create. SFB 02:46, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Descriptive edit summaries are good. See User:Moonriddengirl/CCI 'bot stalk report for why. Uncle G (talk) 15:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Great stuff. This is a major time-saver! SFB 16:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)