Wikipedia talk:Copying within Wikipedia/Archive 3

Proper attribution
Please see the discussion at Template talk:Copied.

In some not insignificant number of cases, copying content from a donor article to a recipient article introduces a problem with attribution into the recipient article. This is illustrated in the discussion linked above. I propose the addition of a Particular concerns subsection in the Proper attribution section highlighting this concern (possibly among others) and discussing it in sufficient detail to include mention of approaches to avoidance of this problem. I'm not much of a wordsmith, but unless someone else does it first I'll probably take a whack at this. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC) I've added a subsection titled Material with multilevel attribution covering this into the Specific situations section of the article. Please improve as needed. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about this. Probably best to leave a note about it at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights for feedback. And to ping copyright experts such as Moonriddengirl. Moonriddengirl hasn't been on Wikipedia since May 2019, though. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:56, 1 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I left a note about here and here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:14, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * As noted in the linked discussion, we're talking about "attribution" in a sense different from license obligations and this issue has nothing to do with copyright. But it is good advice. There is an easy technical solution – User:Ucucha/HarvErrors – and I'd love to see it integrated into the user experience by default. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:55, 2 February 2020 (UTC)


 * @User:Wtmitchell This issue was already covered in Copying within Wikipedia. The primary reason is for copyright issues, the lack of failing to copy a cation in full is secondary (hence its placement in that section)_-- PBS (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've just removed this text as it confuses two meanings of "attribution": the one to do with verifiability from sources (as in WP:Attribution) with the one to do with provenance of text for copyright reasons as explained at Copyrights (for which this page is really a supplement). Now, of course it's good advice to tell people that when they copy something from one page to another they should be careful the copied text does not depend on anything that's left behind (that's a broad issue that's not restricted to cases of copied short citations whose bibliography entry has been left behind). But this has to do with the technicalities of copying and is beyond the scope of this  page, as it's currently set up. – Uanfala (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, as I wrote this I realised that this page has a few other subsections that are not specifically about preserving attribution (say, the one about content forking). Maybe a section similar to the one I've just removed could be added, but it needs to be stated in general terms as it's not just about stranded bibliography entries. – Uanfala (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it is coverd by the section "Other reasons for attributing text". -- PBS (talk) 17:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC announce: Attribution when copying within Wikipedia
There is an RfC about attribution when copying within Wikipedia here. Your input is welcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Link from webpage changed
As from many webpages on the wikipedia has been changed. Why it has been changed from here what was the reason. Rajiv Ranjan Bhakt (talk) 01:11, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Editing guideline advice at page top appears to discount the obligation to attribute
My understanding of Wikipedia's licensing requirements is that attribution must be provided when copying (or translating) within Wikipedia, and that because this has legal implications (based on law in the United States where WMF is based) it cannot be ignored, as even Wikipedia policy theoretically may be, in some cases. And yet, at the top of the page, it says that the page is an editing guideline, which "is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." This seems like a direct contradiction in the level of obligation of the attribution requirement explained lower on the page, and may be confusing to readers who come here.

Now, I'm aware that that verbiage comes from Template:Subcat guideline, and perhaps the "best treated with common sense" and "occasional exceptions" wording applies to the wording of the project page itself, and not to the obligation of editors to provide attribution when copying, which in my understanding has legal implications and admits no exceptions, ever. In my view, the template verbiage seems to imply that everything after it on the page is kinda optional; "follow this advice if you feel like". Is that what we want readers to take away from CWW? I'm not sure how to mitigate this, but I find that template boilerplate at the very top (therefore most likely to be seen) as problematic, and at best a confusing element, and at worst, a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who violates COPYRIGHT. How do we get across the point to editors (especially new ones) that attribution is not optional? (adding ). Mathglot (talk) 19:51, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Failing to give attribution is not a copyright violation per se, but rather a violation of the licensing terms.The wording in question is coming from the boilerplate Template:Subcat guideline. Perhaps for this page a customized banner could be created? — Diannaa (talk) 05:02, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Where attribution is not needed: "Bare references"
WP:Copying within Wikipedia includes an item for "Bare references". As far as I've found with searching, this means WP:Bare URLs only. WP:reFill and its predecessor User:Dispenser/Reflinks, which populate citation templates, dominate the search results for "bare references". Excluding them does not reveal a different meaning.

"Bare references" was present in the first revision of this page, but I was unable to find a contemporary source. WP:Bare URLs's version then did not mention "references".

At WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1104 (archived Flatscan (talk) 04:29, 29 July 2022 (UTC)), the item was interpreted as citation templates requiring attribution. I believe that this is usually not the case: fields like author and title are uncopyrightable facts. WP:Copyright in lists (essay) explains the distinction. That the tools mentioned above and User:Citation bot are effective is a point against creativity.

Should the "Bare references" item be expanded to cover citation templates? Flatscan (talk) 04:54, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Citations and references aren't creative expression and thus do not need attribution when copied, no more than you'd need to attribute a math formula. I think that's global consensus already, and I think I've fixed the confusion in the text with this edit, but we'll see if it's reverted. Levivich (talk) 05:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's a question of scale. Copying a few references should never need attribution, but if you're dealing with a large bibliographic list there may have been judgement and creativity involved in how the entries were selected and presented. On the extreme end of the spectrum, I don't think anyone would dream of being able to get away with copying to Wikipedia the entirety of something like the multiple-volume Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World.
 * It's probably worth pointing out that satisfying legal requirements isn't the only reason why attribution should normally get provided. It's done to also acknowledge the originator of an idea, credit the work done (even when it hadn't been creative), and provide transparency and accountability (for cases when e.g. the original contributor turns out to have been a sock or a subtle POV-pusher). – Uanfala (talk) 09:42, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This page is only about copying within Wikipedia, and a bibliography like Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World is not a citation or a reference; that's a curated bibliography. I don't think we need to provide transparency or accountability about who was the first person to fill out a citation template for a particular citation (nor does the BY in CC-BY require it), and I don't think attributing such a thing will help us find socks or POV pushers. Levivich (talk) 13:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was copying within Wikipedia that I had in mind when I made the above comment. If you reuse a few citations from an aricle, you're obviously not required to credit those who formatted those citations (no-one here is suggesting that). But if you do copy a substantial bibliography, you'll be expected to provide attribution the same way you'd provide attribution for any other copied text. – Uanfala (talk) 14:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Why? Levivich (talk) 14:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I support Levivich's edit. Flatscan (talk) 04:29, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think 's edit should stand. When two articles use the same source, the citations should be the same. There is no discernable difference between a citation that was copied and one that was generated independently, if both are formatted correctly.  Schazjmd   (talk)  13:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There is a practical issue with half a reference being copied, because it is a short inline citation and the person copying forgets to copy over the full reference. Unless the original Wikipedia article is given it can be extremely difficult later to find the long reference that the short citation originally linked. -- PBS (talk) 09:02, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Section "Proper attribution" needs strengthening
Section, subsection says:

While this is sufficient in theory, in fact, I see even experienced editors occasionally crediting a Draft (e.g.), which, if not turned into an article, would disappear in six months. (Further, "mak[ing] a note of the copying on the talk page of the source article" won't work, if the source article is a Draft, or a user page such as a sandbox or user subpage. Probably the section, which already correctly notes the disadvantage of linked page attribution, should be strengthened by explicitly pointing out the cases where it is not likely to work, notably Draft space, and perhaps the others.

What should happen in those cases, is that *all* the editors who worked on the source page should be credited by linked userid in the attribution statement if the list of editors is not too long, which is likely to be the case for Draft, sandboxes, and user subpages, thus satisfying the ToU. In the rare cases where there are too many editors, probably the source page should be moved, perhaps directly to an archived Talk page of the destination article, and then the article attribution statement can link that page. (That may be so rare, that it's not worth bothering about mentioning it.) This would fulfill Wikimedia's ToU, without worrying about a draft page or other source page disappearing, along with its attribution history. Mathglot (talk) 05:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Confused...
Currently, under what material does not need attribution, it includes: material that has been deleted in full, with no copy kept on the public wiki. I thought it was clear that using deleted content is explicitly forbidden, though? So, I guess it doesn't need attribution, because you can't do it anyway, right? So should that part be removed? The term "public wiki" makes it seem like using articles from Deletionpedia or such would be allowed.

Furthermore, it says that attributing the first two is encouraged in reference to common expressions and idioms and basic mathematical and scientific formulae. Who would you attribute that too? That makes no sense. Why? I Ask (talk) 14:17, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I reverted your removal. This guideline, including the Where attribution is not needed section, applies to the copy being attributed back to the source's authors.
 * If the copy is deleted – using page deletion or WP:Revision deletion – attribution is not required. This may seem obvious, but removal or blanking is insufficient: the content can be restored from the history. Also see WP:Revision deletion, Username hiding (copyright attribution issues): All changes have been reverted and the text of all intervening revisions has been hidden.
 * For example, if an editor copies the Pythagorean equation from Pythagorean theorem, they are encouraged to follow Proper attribution even though it is not required.
 * Flatscan (talk) 05:29, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I get your first point, but I still disagree with the latter. Why would we encourage proper attribution to basic mathematical formulae? The whole reason we require attribution is for copyright issues which require, you know, new work to be protected (e.g., new text or even lists). But equations are uncopyrightable which is why they do not need attribution. There really not need to be even that line about encouragement where an editor pulled out 2 + 2 from here rather than Khan Academy. What is the purpose? Has anyone ever done it? Why? I Ask (talk) 05:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Your first paragraph does seem confused to me. We are talking about attributing content copied from a page, where that content was subsequently deleted from the article (thus, from the public-facing wiki), but still visible in the revision history of the page seventy-eleven edits ago back in last Octember: even *that* requires attribution, though you can't see it in the article. If, however, you get an ovesighter to definitively remove it from visibility even via the revision history, in which case no copy of it exists here anywhere, then you don't need to attribute it anymore. Does that make sense?
 * As to your point about equations: it's true that certain non-creative content which generally cannot be copyrighted (such as, say, publicly available populations of major cities) needn't be attributed, but determining which content falls into that bin is tricky, and it's much safer to attribute, if there's any doubt. Falling afoul of WP:COPYVIO more than once or twice is a good way to get blocked. If you feel confident of your skills in copyright law in the U.S. (where Wikimedia is headquartered) and in some cases in other countries (where the copyright holder may be), then you can worry less about it than the average editor. Lastly, I'm just another editor here, not a lawyer, and especially not a U.S. copyright attorney, so take my advice fwiw. Mathglot (talk) 06:07, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we may be in agreement on deleted content despite having difficulty communicating. I prefer to reserve "delete" for the admin tools and "remove" for the ordinary editor action. Oversighting the history works, but revision deletion is sufficient. Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Is this table clearer? Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)