Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism

Why is attribution of public domain established as compulsory by this guideline?
Public domain, by law, does not require attribution. Why does this page state that public domain must be attributed?

A thorough search on this guideline's history shows that this requirement was unilaterally added on June 2008 by @Franamax&mdash;a deceased editor. The requirement evolved to:


 * Whether copyright-expired or in the public domain for other reasons, material from public-domain sources is welcome on Wikipedia, but such material must be properly attributed.

The first question is why? The second question is, why is a guideline establishing a requirement? Are not guidelines principles that editors should attempt to follow rather than abide by?

IdlePheasant (talk) 05:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * All should be cited regardless if its free or not Verifiability. This is also a common practice in academic communities. As its best to always show/lead your readers to more infomation by providing a source. Plus best to prove it's not copyrighted by providing the source.-Moxy (talk) 06:00, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Plagiarism is plagiarism (even if it's not copyright violation). Wikipedia cites its sources, even if they are public domain. This lets the reader know where to go for more information, prevents bogus copyright claims against the content, and helps other editors verify the information. Kaldari (talk) 06:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Another good reason for providing attribution is so that our readers are made aware that you copied the prose rather than wrote it yourself. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 11:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with the criticisms made by User:IdlePheasant and User:108.201.29.108 below. And I will go much further: Citing sources has nothing to do with plagiarism. We would do that anyway for the purpose verification. This guideline wants us not only to cite sources, but to do so in a way that employs wording that deliberately promotes those sources. I also detect a desire to spam our articles (and spam is the only word for it) with huge numbers of attribution templates and similar devices (in addition to normal references) in order to make reference sections completely incomprehensible or at least very difficult to read (by adding huge amounts of irrelevant material under which the real references are to be buried), and in all cases a stylistic abomination, and huge numbers of scare quotes in order to make it look like we are casting unwarranted doubt on uncontroversial plain facts. Also a desire to annoy editors, and make articles look absurd, by requiring the use of attribution methods that do not normally appear (and possibly never appear) in professionally published encyclopedias or treatises or works of reference, etc, are far above and beyond what is normal, and in some cases are actually forbidden (eg WP:MOSLAW requires the use of mandatory or normal legal citations, with good reason) or are just plain ridiculous. Also a desire to slow the rate of content creation to a glacial pace, and introduce factual errors and unverifiable statements into the project, by requiring unnecessary rewriting of public domain material, and to provide a pathetic excuse to wikihound creators of otherwise valid content, and endlessly nit pick over trivial quibbles, in order to further the cause of deletionism and trolling. Yes, I think we can all see what is going on here. This guideline violates a large number of core policies and guidelines including NOTPROMO, COI, NOTBURO, POINT, IAR, NPOV, V, NOR, MOSLAW and so forth. The whole thing needs WP:TNT. James500 (talk) 03:03, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Noting for the record that the change by User:Franamax was part of the evolution of the document before it was embraced as a guideline via RFC in 2009; the document was adopted as a Wikipedia guideline by community consensus after the text was added. It was entirely within process. The attribution of bad faith motivation is also puzzling. To continue the slew of initiations, this passed an RFC. Certainly WP:CCC, but we should also remember WP:AGF. I was part of those discussions in 2009, and before. Nobody was trying to slow things down or create bad content or spam anything- and certainly not User:Franamax, who was an incredible contributor who dedicated years of his life to collegially building an online encyclopedia. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:26, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Plagiarism of Wikipedia
Is it correct that there is no central place to list instances of plagiarism of Wikipedia? I see that this issue has been discussed. What is current practice?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * @User:Bluerasberry as far as I know there is no central place. Usually if text is copied from a source then it is a copyright violation. If it is only slightly changed then it will still be a copyright violation. This is covered by using the talk page and the guidance at Copyright problems. If the text originates from a PD source or copyleft then follow this guidance. Often if it does not involved copyright and the editor has either left the project or is uncoprotive then just do it yourself. I do this all the time for text in Wikiepdia articles copied from PD sources that now appear on Wikisource (eg EB1911 or Dictionary of National Biography). -- PBS (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Acknowledged, that helps, thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:38, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I just found this article: Plagiarism from Wikipedia. fgnievinski (talk) 03:07, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Okay, enough time has passed and there seems to be no central place to discuss this. The topic is notable enough for a Wikipedia article that started. I started a Wikipedia internal documentation page to complement that - Plagiarism of Wikipedia. Thanks everyone.   Blue Rasberry   (talk)  09:29, 26 August 20&19 (UTC)
 * @User:Bluerasberry See also WP:BACKWARDSCOPY and the template backwardscopy. -- PBS (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Reverse Plagiarism
After editing the plagiarism article doing some research on "Reverse Plagiarism"/"attribution without copying" it made me wonder if wikipedia had a policy on this. I assume there is probably a fair amount of false attribution in wikipedia, so reverse plagiarism is almost certainly something that occurs. It seems like there should be a formal statement regarding the activity. I had some difficulty even getting the section on "Reverse Plagiarism" added since it is a relatively unknown term without significant research or reference sources - but after considering the issue, my gut feeling is it occurs much more often than we think. (And in retrospect I feel as if I almost inadvertently committed reverse plagiarism in order to increase the validity of reverse plagiarism itself and get it added as a section to the plagiarism article)

The ease of hiding sources in books/non-digital media, or in long pdfs or articles, simply using them as "filler sources" seems to essentially be a form of reverse plagiarism, although it may also be simply false citation depending on what degree the attribution of the content is.

Anyway, just an idea that I was pondering that seems like it should be addressed. I welcome any contributions to the plagiarism article as well if anyone has any specific insight or if there is any additional research on the area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.110.209.50 (talk) 22:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing and plagiarism
Joe Roe, regarding this and this, do you have any thoughts on my statements in those edit summaries? I'm thinking of where WP:Close paraphrasing states, "Limited close paraphrasing is appropriate within reason, as is quoting, so long as the material is clearly attributed in the text. [...] Close paraphrasing without in-text attribution may constitute plagiarism, and when extensive (with or without in-text attribution) may also violate Wikipedia's copyright policy, which forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying an excessive amount of material directly from other sources." And also what Plagiarism and Close paraphrasing state.

If you reply, there is no need to ping me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Outside of Wikipedia, close paraphrasing is a phrase only used to describe a form of plagiarism. I explain it to students every year . The close qualifier is there to distinguish it from acceptable paraphrasing. Close paraphrasing is in line with this: it essentially says to treat close paraphrase like a quotation, so it can be used but only with clear, quote-like attribution, and/or from a public domain source, and should be avoided for the most part.
 * I thought Plagiarism misleadingly implied that close paraphrasing was acceptable – a way to "avoid plagiarism". The actual solution is not to closely paraphrase but to just paraphase. I don't think dropping the qualifier changes the meaning of that passage. It just avoids muddying the message with the technical term close paraphrase. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 06:00, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Joe Roe, thanks for replying. I only recently (yesterday) saw your reply after I'd logged off. This is where someone would say that I should have been okay with being pinged. But still, I don't need to be pinged to this page.


 * Regarding the matter at hand, I simply meant that WP:Close paraphrasing states, "Limited close paraphrasing is appropriate within reason, as is quoting, so long as the material is clearly attributed in the text." There are often cases where there are a limited number of ways to say the same thing. I understand that close paraphrasing shouldn't be the aim unless necessary or unless it's unlikely to be considered a serious issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:24, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Removing citations and plagarism
If an editor is adding valuable content while relying on a source they believe in good faith to be reliable, a citation is required to avoid plagiarism. So if another editor removes that citation because they believe it is not reliable enough, haven't they also committed plagiarism? Dhaluza (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That question seems to avoid the core issue. If the passage relied on an unreliable source so extensively, then the entire passage should probably be removed. Ideally an/many alternate reliable source(s) can be found. No piece of text on Wikipedia, save for quotes, should rely on a single unreliable source so heavily that it could not be replaced by a reliable source. I don't see what good faith has to do with anything here. Someone may well have added a paragraph or section based on an unreliable blog, fully believing it was an adequate source. That doesn't mean their good-faith mistake is now protected from scrutiny or exempt from WP:RS. 156.34.242.108 (talk) 00:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * By valuable content I meant that the content should remain because it is verifiable in other sources, so the source was reliable for the information cited. Naturally if the source is unreliable, then the content isn't valuable and should be removed.
 * To be more specific, assume an editor is citing a work authored by a subject matter expert from a publisher that is reliable on that subject and has not been questioned before. But after that content is added based on those good faith assumptions, the publisher is later questioned for publishing unreliable information on another subject, and the consensus is to depreciate that publisher in favor of more reliable ones. I believe removing the cite for an ancillary reason like that could constitute plagiarism if the original editor relied on that source when developing the content. The exception would be if the cited text was general knowledge in the subject area, so the original citation source was only for verifiability and was not actually a source of inspiration. Dhaluza (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Huh; I guess my count of the number of venues in which you're raging about HB's script was short. In any event, the sensible response to your question here is "Don't be absurd."   Ravenswing      18:56, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Dhaluza This issue came up with text copied from BCW project (by David Plant, 2001-15.) back in July 2009. The problem was that about a score of articles had text copied from that website. However that website uses a copyleft that is incompatible with Wikipedia (because it included no commercial copying). So I removed all the text from the articles that included text from that website. In most (all?) cases this involved deleting the article and rewriting it as the article had been created with text copied from the website.

David Plant is an unreliable source. However on his website he provides his sources. So if you extract a fact (not a copy of the text) from his website you can use WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT until such time as you can find another source to support the fact. I have used this format many times for information on the Darryl Lundy website thepeerage.com. However be warned. Although most of Lundy's information is based on reliable secondary source so WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT is admissible, some of his "facts" are based on things like emails which of course makes Lundy an inadmissible source to support those "facts" on Wikipedia.

In the case of both Plant and Lundy, when cross checking their facts based on reliable sources, they are usually accurate. However there are a lot of internet websites where one can not trust a word that they write because WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT simply does not work (so delete the text as well as the citation to an unreliable source, but if the fact does not look too outlandish then for a few months will keep to the spirit of WP:V ""). Then there are those difficult ones like Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley, because he tends to cite primary sources and synthesise information from them. These are good examples because the first two authors work on their own articles in a similar way to Wikipedia editors. Creating text via reliable secondary sources. However Charles Cawley's text is often in breach of WP:PSTS and WP:SYNTH, and as such, is useless as a source for a Wikipedia article even if one uses WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT because the primary sources are not usually valid sources on Wikipedia.

-- PBS (talk) 15:52, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Proposal redirect Template:PD-notice to template:Source-attribution

 * See also: Templates for discussion/Log/2021 September 14

Until the templates for discussion conversation I did not remember that PD-notice existed. There are three templates with similar but different wording and their use is different. This guideline currently states:

The wording of citation-attribution, source-attribution the first is for use inside in-line citations, the latter for the references section at the bottom.
 * "One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a work now in the public domain:"
 * "This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:"

PD-notice outputs the text:
 * "This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain."

Both citation-attribution, source-attribution can either be place before a the text of the source. Or the source can be added as into the templates. This means that the text is usually a postscript to source. This is the standard layout in Category:Attribution templates.

The problem is that PD-notice although it can preceded the citation in many cases it has been used inline and placed after the text of the source. eg:

I propose that a bot job is run to change all the instances of   is altered to  . NB may in many instances be text citation and not a template citation, but in either case citation-attribution should come first. Where the format is   then simply change the to

Once that bot job is finished then PD-notice can be redirected to source-attribution. Thoughts? -- PBS (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a duplicate discussion to Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_October_3. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think given the nuances of the issue, and the fact that two of these templates have been part of the guideline documentation for over 10 years this is the better forum to discuss this, a point I made in the original previous TFD which closed just before I wrote this proposal. -- PBS (talk) 11:44, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

When I originally wrote Source-attribution and Citation-attribution—as I had done for many other templates such as EB1911—I could of written one template and had a switch as User:Primefac proposes. I did not do so because the two templates then ran the danger of people claiming WP:CITEVAR and editors unfamiliar with templates would be confused/intimidated by names parameters being used as switches. The intention was to keep the templates as simple as possible (no switches) so that no-one would have a reasonable objection to their use. Since then other templates such as ISBN have been created and accepted and not rejected. But like Source-attribution and Citation-attribution such templates do not take any parameters other than an unnamed one. With Source-attribution and Citation-attribution although they can wrap around an unnamed parameter, they can also be used as is just in front of a citation. If named parameters are added then (1) it becomes more complicated for an editor not familiar with templates to use them, (2) editors may complain under WP:CITEVAR (3) it actually makes a single template more complicated to write and hence maintain than two simpler templates. -- PBS (talk) 11:44, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

RFC regarding removal of CorenSearchBot from tools section
I want to establish a consensus regarding removing CorenSearchBot from tools section. The bot is no longer active, and it has last edited almost 6 years ago. There is also no chance that the bot will become active in the future. If it does, then we can add it back to the tools for detecting plagiarism. I want community consensus before removing its name. Or, there can be another alternative as well. Instead of removing it completely, we can strike it off, and give the reason for striking it off as a comment. ItcouldbepossibleTalk 05:23, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, just be bold and fix it There's no reason to confuse editors with obsolete tools that are no longer active. However, we should probably strike it out and provide a reason instead of just removing it. By the way, it's probably better if you didn't start this RFC, because there was no discussion on the topic prior to the RFC. You should have just been bold. Not every topic requires an RFC. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:25E9:7819:F430:D78 (talk) 23:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Write in your own words
This is probably too silly to include in any Wikipedia guidelines, but I can imagine trolls and vandals might take full advantage of the directions:

https://www.gocomics.com/fminus/2024/03/07

— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  19:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

PDF
“https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6ofuz1qwzji59p8fe4d78/File-03-04-2024-6-54-12-PM.txt?rlkey=z2c1uk0ovsvhnvjei1d9p5tef&dl”=“PDF” 46.222.159.247 (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2024 (UTC)