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Hi, I just noticed that you were previously involved in the copyright violation case[1] regarding the particular editor Arilang1234. I have recently left a notice on the Admins noticeboard regarding some recent issues concerning the editor, [2] such as using images with watermarks, and uploading videos from Youtube directly. Can you provide some clarification on the acceptable guidelines?60.242.159.224 (talk) 06:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I believe that current edits at the administrators' noticeboard may clarify, but in case not will explain that this situation is very different from the former. Images and media may be uploaded without permission from the copyright owner if they meet the criteria set out at WP:NFC. There are sometimes situations where images may be uploaded under "fair use rationales" that are disputed; steps for handling these are listed at the guide to image deletion. But it is not a copyright violation to upload such images in good faith, so long as a contributor is willing to learn from community correction on these issues. Watermarks are discouraged at WP:WATERMARK. Images that still have them can be tagged {{Watermark}}. It might be a good idea to politely let Arilang1234 know that images without watermark are preferred. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 April 2011

NANOCOAT deletion

Dear Moonriddengirl

You (and also Athanaera) deleted again my NANOCOAT text !! I still do not know what to do !! I explained the previous time that I WAS THE AUTHOR of this text which was recorded by Cordis, The European Commission website (NANOCOAT is an EU funded scientific project)from where it was copied and published somewhere and you say now that I copied this copy !! So I changed my introduction, my title and also the username to be coherent with your rules... and still I am deleted !! I do not know what to do to please your requests !? I AM OBLIGED TO MAKE A WIKIPEDIA PAGE by the European Commission who wants me, as NANOCOAT Coordinator, to disseminate widely !! but if you delete me each time that I make an attempt, I will not be able to fulfil this requirement... Can you please revise your position OR tell me what to do precisely (refering to your policy does not clarify my questionning !...) many thanks in advance... Pascal NEGRE NANOCOAT project Coordinator pascal@negre.be —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.80.83.60 (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I'm afraid that since Wikipedia has no means of verifying identity on account creation, we must have permission verified through external means. Instructions were provided at User talk:Pascal&dimitri for verifying permission; you may also see them at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.
However, please be aware that Wikipedia is not a web host. We are an online encyclopedia; while we are an open project that not only permits but encourages article editing by anyone, content must conform to our policies and guidelines. While an article on this project may well be appropriate for inclusion if it meets inclusion guidelines and can be verified through reliable sources and as long as its presentation is neutral. Even if you do verify authorization to license this content for modification and commercial reproduction, it is likely to be altered to meet Wikipedia's objectives. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Seven Springs (Enfield, Virginia)

Noticed your note on the page. I'd put some categories on it, a photo and part of a sentence, and hoped to return when I had some time to flesh out the entry. Glad you got it all cleaned up and sorted beforehand. :-) Always amazes me when I see this sort of stuff, but for brand-new folks I suppose one can chalk it up to not knowing better. Anyways, thanks. MarmadukePercy (talk) 21:41, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Yes, I think a lot of newcomers don't realize that text cannot be simply copied from other sources. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Reminds me of a story from a good ways back. When I was chiefly an investigative reporter, I broke a story about police brutality. Subsequently, after the uproar and the resulting grand jury investigation, the deputy sheriff in question brought a $10-million libel lawsuit against the newspaper I worked for. The company had counsel, of course, but in the meantime, a motorcycle hobbyist magazine had lifted the entire contents of my copy without attribution. When the suit was filed, they found themselves a party to the litigation. Ouch. Ultimately, a federal judge threw out the lawsuit, but not before it had cost the plagiarizers a good chunk of change. :-) MarmadukePercy (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Wow. Natural consequences make for well-learned lessons.[citation needed] Just one of the factors people tend not to think about when they lift other people's content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
You are exactly right. MarmadukePercy (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks...

Both for dealing with and the talk page analysis re Faeza Dawood. I read it, it made sense, and I learned something in the process. I appreciate that, as well as all the copyright work you do (I know I've handed you a fair number from the URBLP backlog, perhaps this year we'll finally get that wrestled to the ground for good.) Anyway, thanks.  :) --joe deckertalk to me 02:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. We wind up having to delete so much content for copyright problems that I'm always happy to find reverse copying. :D Those are my Agatha Christie moments! LOL. I'm glad you're tackling the URBLP backlog; I've tried referencing a few but tend to feel guilty if I stray from my copyright problems for too long. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:12, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Restore an image

Based on this discussion on my talk page, can you please restore whichever of these two images File:New-Defender-of-Tall-Buildings.jpg or File:Defender-of-Tall-Buildings.jpg, if it is identical to the source image and if it has the OTRS Ticket#2011040810000831 attached. I tagged both of these as redundant because they looked identical to File:Skyscraperman-cover.jpg which was in the article and which also has an OTRS ticket attached but is a slightly different image. The later will be unused when this one is put into the article Skyscraperman so it should probably be deleted when the newer image is restored. Thanks in advance. ww2censor (talk) 03:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That's a subtle change. It's barely visible. :O Maybe I'll FfD it. Would be much easier if the uploader would just request deletion, though. Hmm. I think I'll ask him about that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I vaguely remember there being some sticking point about which subtitle they wanted to be used on the cover, so it would be best to figure out which one they really want. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for restoring; everything looks good now, except the original should probably be deleted. All in all it would have been much easier for him to just upload the newer edition over the original image which would have saved all tagging, posting, etc. It was hardly worth the bother. Who would notice the difference? Both of us had to look twice to see the difference. I will let you ask if he wants to delete the original image. You can always refer back to my discussion with him. Thanks again. ww2censor (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Defender of tall buildings is what is wanted according to the discussion on my talk page. ww2censor (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, I already did approach him, so we'll see if they've ironed out which they want to use. I agree with you wholeheartedly that it all would have been much easier if uploaded over the original. :) Then they could go back and forth until they figure it out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I've tagged the image for deletion per his reply to your post on his talk page. ww2censor (talk) 01:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
So my little gallery is no longer needed. :) Thanks for pointing it out; I've deleted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Another "Which came first?" question

Hi, Moonriddengirl. If you can spare a moment, I'd be grateful it you could opine here as to how to proceed. Best thanks,  – OhioStandard (talk) 06:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Looking into it now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I'm convinced it evolved on Wikipedia. There is this significant edit in March 2007 which clearly our IP did not copy-paste, since he made a spello which he corrected immediately, here. Copyediting ([3], [4]) advances the idea of reverse copying. We also see later significant additions of text in April 2007 and August 2007. That evidence of natural evolution, coupled with the big tell that we've been growing the content at least since early 2007 while it refers to a 2008 tv show in the past tense, convinces me that they copied from us. :) I'll put a {{backwardscopy}} on the article talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, you're the best! I'll know how to sleuth this kind of thing myself, next time a question like this comes up. Cheers,  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
I enjoy figuring out that content is ours to keep. :) It so often goes the other way. I put more time into proving it than is strictly necessary to convince me because I once had a contributor come back to an article I had cleared and in spite of the evidence I had provided launch the copyright investigation all over again. That was a peculiar interaction. :/ I had a very hard time convincing this person, and I'm not sure I ever did. When I investigate these now, I try to imagine that I am attempting to persuade the most hardcore skeptic. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Handling of a repeat infringer

I have to run off and do work here in a little bit so I just wanted to run down my recent actions and see if you or a talk-page stalker had any corrections you/they think should be made. I ran across some of WikiEditor44 (talk · contribs)'s work last year and cleaned out a bunch of copyvio (see their talk page after my edits) and happened to notice them again recently and saw that they had been warned again more recently and created another verbatim copyvio (+sources and refs) just this weekend. I opened a CCI and blocked for a week - they clearly aren't learning from warnings, but they haven't been blocked before. Too long, too short? Did I miss anything else I should've done (or do something I shouldn't have)? I know I should be able to answer these myself, but as I said I have to run off now, so I'm dumping it in your lap for review. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the block seems perfectly appropriate. :/ Some people would block indef, but I don't generally like to do that straight out the gate. If this guy doesn't pick up on it this time, his next block is likely to be permanent. Let's hope that he pays attention. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair use

Could you take a look at the discussion at User talk:Trödel please - is he right? The YouTube video I removed was clearly a CNN broadcast. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 20:28, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) No, that's a WP:LINKVIO. If a reliable source embedded that link in an article which stood a chance at making a "fair use" defense of that 5 minute video, we might be able per policy to link to that. But we could not link directly to the video as our policy explains. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Image question

Please take only one.

Hey MRGirl, can I bother you for a moment? I have this 1977 facsimile of the medieval Lincoln Thornton Manuscript in front of me. I can't just scan a page and upload it to Commons, can I? Can I scan a detail (with Thornton's "signature" remark) and upload it to Wikipedia for the purpose of illustrating the article? Your help is much appreciated, as always. Drmies (talk) 20:20, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it a faithful facsimile? If so, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. would seem to apply. But, you know, I don't know where you live. National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute might look very different for User:Dcoetzee were he not American! If there's enough originality in the facsimile (whether that be footnotes or recoloring or anything like that) to constitute a derivative work, you'd have to treat it like any copyrighted content. You might want to run it by WP:MCQ just to be sure. :) Even then, it's very possible that you could use a detail under non-free content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:30, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, very faithful--photographic reproduction. I asked at MCQ. BTW, I live within driving distance of the Lady of Shalott. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I've only seen pre-Raphaelite paintings, but it looks lovely. :D You need to consider your own liability separate from what Wikipedia permits. We had a German user about a year and a half ago who was hit by a publisher in his country for copyright infringement for images he had uploaded to Wikipedia under NFC. They wanted to assess him $50 per image. I don't know what came of it, but the thing is that if a matter like that winds up in litigation, it winds up in litigation in Germany. The Wikimedia Foundation may be fine under U.S. laws, but the German editor can't shelter under U.S. laws. If I were you, before deciding to upload any images of the book, I'd take note of who published it and where. And think about the amount of risk that you, personally, are comfortable with.
You know, the fact that our copyright policy does not really address personal liability as a separate issue from WMF liability is something that I think we probably need to address. I've just been so busy lately in real life that I've not really felt like I should undertake anything major. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Lady, help me out. First of all, Graeme Bartlett at MCQ basically said "no problem". Right now, though, I'm looking at something else--this. From what I gather, this was saved from the BL website, and is in the PD in the USA. Is it really that simple? I mean, can I really just hit "save" on any manuscript image I find on the BL website and say "public domain"? Drmies (talk) 02:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, I'd have to say "probably" since there is no way that my nature and background would ever let me blithely issue a blanket "yes." :D As far as Wikipedia is concerned, if an image is public domain in the United States, we can have it, although we try to respect the copyright laws of other nations. Traditionally, this means that we treatcontent as copyrighted even if we don't have a formal copyright agreement with the nation, but that if the content would be public domain in the U.S. if we did, it's allowed on Wikipedia. Under Bridgeman, photographs which are intended to be no more than a faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art such as a painting or a manuscript page have insufficient creativity to attract new copyright. That means that it's the copyright of the original we consider, and if the original is public domain, we can have it. Images of this sort are also permitted on Commons (see). So, if the manuscript image on the BL website is of a PD manuscript and the image is afaithful reproduction without creativity, then, yes. You can just hit "save". As far as we're concerned. Where I can't advise you is in your personal level of risk. :/ Bridgeman governs Wikipedia, but it doesn't govern the whole world. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
MRG, thank you for taking the time to explain what must be obvious to you, and you've probably said this many times before to newbies like me--this is much more clear to me now. Please put a feather in your cap; you may use the bird I'm offering you. Drmies (talk) 17:48, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Note to self

Since the Wikimedia Foundation is having errors, at least in my region, I can't do this now, but as soon as I'm back online with any stability, I need to make sure that the vandalism of this IP has all been cleaned, as he introduced BLP problems into a variety of articles. OTRS complaint. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I tried to leave you a message that is completely lost. This is the second time, so yes there are server problems. I'm on the Pacific coast USA, and yesterday the site painfully slow, and today it is returning error pages most of the time..

If my "saving" of the page caused a problem, it is because of the server errors. Dijcks HotTub Pool 16:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we're having server issues. :) See this VPT note. Things seem to be resolved, knock wood. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ida Lupino

Hi. Connie Emerald's dates are confirmed by IMDB, find-a-grave here and elsewhere (though I don't see a free newspaper obit). It's also in Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre by Kurt Gänzl, p. 1266. The IP originally entered wrong dates, but we corrected them to these dates. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, okay, thanks for correcting them and thanks for letting me know. :) That guy was on quite an odd tear for a while there. Most of his vandalism seems to have been discovered and cleaned up, but a few lingered...including one that caused some real irritation. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello MG

I need advice about a picture I want to upload to Commons to illustrate a WP article. I have the full permission of the subject, who is one of the four joint copyright-holders (under Bosnian law). The image is taken from an interview with him filmed as part of a project in which he is one of the four participants = copyright-holders. He is in a position to be certain that none of his joint copyright-holders will disagree with him signing up on their behalf to whatever CR waiver Wikipedia requires, but being world-weary as I am, I'm certain that's not going to be enough. Can you help steer me across the reefs, please? Opbeith (talk) 21:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC) Additional detail: the image is a frontal view of him being interviewed, alone, against a featureless black background. Opbeith (talk) 21:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) First, I have to say that I have zero experience with Bosnian copyright law. But let me get the question out of the way: since the copyright holder of a picture is usually the photographer, do you know why he owns copyright in the image? Was it a work for hire situation or did he purchase rights? Once I know that, I'll trot the situation past OTRS to see if there's any input or if his individual waiver will be sufficient. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I think essentially there's a partnership between commissioners and photographers in a not-for-profit venture in which the photographers are liable to benefit from involvement/association with the subject's project. But I won't rely on guesswork, I'll get confirmation of the details.Opbeith (talk) 06:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Great. I wouldn't want to get information on one issue only to have it stall over the other. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:26, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Dramatica Copyvio Image

Encyclopedia Dramatica was recently shut down and switched to being Oh Internet, a cleaner, SFW website that has much the same use as ED, but without the porn. This upset quite a few ED users, who went and forked a lot of the information in ED onto a new website, at encyclopediadramatica.ch. There is a long discussion on the article talk page about including a link to .ch, but the consensus seems to be that there are no reliable sources discussing this forked article and, because it doesn't give attribution back to ED, the information it hosts is a copyright violation against ED (since ED's copyright policy is much like ours). There's the background for you. Anyways, a user recently uploaded File:Main Page - Encyclopedia Dramatica.png to Commons, which is of the new .ch fork website. However, it is not currently used in any article and isn't likely to be unless some reliable sources actually discuss this forked website, which isn't likely for some time. Thus, it is an image that isn't likely to be hosted on any article and it is also an image of information that is a copyright violation against ED. Therefore, I think it should be deleted, but i'm not sure which criteria to use to delete it. Do you have any input on that? SilverserenC 21:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to check ED's copyright policy. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, unlike Wikipedia, ED did not secure license for anyone to use the content, but only for themselves: [5]. ("you hereby grant ED a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to") I haven't been able to find anything in their terms of use that implies that the placement of text on the website gives others the right to use it or license it elsewhere, and thus the content would only be licenseable if the individual contributors licensed their content or if ED itself placed the image. It should be tagged for speedy deletion as a copyright problem...and it already has been, courtesy of User:VernoWhitney. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. You might want to keep on a lookout for repeats of that image or others being uploaded. The ED users that are now at .ch are trying to heavily spam Wikipedia with their new website. We've got it under control for now, but I don't doubt that they'll be back. SilverserenC 22:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
It's actually pretty funny that .ch even copyvio'ed the ED copyright page. SilverserenC 22:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
LOL! Yup, but handy for us. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

your view would be welcome

Hi, I would appreciate to hear your opinion in a discussion going on at help desk. It is at WP:HELPDESK#Criteria to keep a template?. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Opined. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Wael and Khaled

[6], [7], [8]. No surprise, but nice to see. Cheers, Ocaasi c 16:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That's great. Thanks for telling me. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

What`s your take on small categories?

Hi.

We are having a discussion on categories with 3 or less articles in it, and is starting to get sarcastic, perhaps is time for a mediator before it gets unfriendly, so if you have time and a well thought opinion on the matter.

Thanks in advance. Zidane tribal (talk) 16:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't personally have an opinion on them at this point, but I've suggested moving the discussion to a larger venue. The principle behind it doesn't just impact our project. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Cai Li Fo Removal of CopyVio

Moonriddengirl... Thank you!!!Clftruthseeking (talk) 00:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy that I was able to help. :) It's important to evaluate these situations, since often (I'm sorry to say) we are the ones at fault, but I'm always very happy to help set the record straight when it occurs that we are not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:06, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

BL MS JPG in PD?

That was fun. So--is this in the public domain? Can we rip this? Or does that little red tag with white print spoil the fun? FWIW, I uploaded File:Harley ms 2253 66v.pdf (from a 1965 facsimile edition of a 1340 manuscript) to Commons. It still needs cropping, but I don't have a PDF editor. Thanks MRG, Drmies (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't say what it is, so I can't be sure, but it certainly looks old. :D The little red tag with white print is insufficiently creative for copyright to convey. The watermark should be removed, though, if it can be. I think they aren't preferred. :) And good work! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:19, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Help/permission moving section in a discussion. Is this allowed?

If it is allowed, I would like to ask for your help in moving the discussion at this section "Here is a list of disputed edits for WP:3O" talk:vasectomy to the very bottom of the page. Can this be done? This is the only section where there is activity as relates to the dispute, and WP:3O.

Also, as much as I have no problem with any of the content in any part of the talk pages there, it may also be a good idea to simply archive most of it assuming we can reach some sort of consensus. I think we are making progress, so it may just happen.

It (our discussion) has become so long that no one will understand it, much less read it (or vice-versa). Maybe it can be archived as a separate section as relates to my discussions with the other editor? Dijcks HotTub Pool 21:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


Well, it's not really encouraged to rearrange talk pages; it will just cause more confusion to those who see the out-of-sequence edits. It's not really optimal that conversation isn't linear, but we might want to just muddle through it at the moment.
Once a conversation is concluded, it can certainly be archived. I archived everything before 2010 as stale. I didn't archive of the conversations between the two of you, as that might be received as a provocative act before the dispute is resolved. But once the dispute is resolved, there should be no problem with putting much of that page away. :)
I'm not sure if I follow your question about separate section, but generally archives are roughly chronological. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


I was referring to making a unique archive page with just the messages relative to the dispute, whilst leaving the other recent sections there, even though this means we would need to cut around a few sections that were mixed in such as the section on "VasClip".
Also, I've worked with the other editor to a mutual agreement of compromise [Here]. I emailed Philippe this morning (4/21), asking him to consider un-protecting the page. Things are on the right track, so the reasons for the protection are no longer an issue I think. Dijcks HotTub Pool 20:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Is there any reason that the dispute should be archived separately? It seems that placing it in the regular archive page, as such things are generally done, should be sufficient. Sometimes lengthy conversation, such as WP:RfCs are archived to themselves, but this one doesn't look like it's going to be that overwhelming. It'll probably be better just to tuck it away when it's finished with the other older content. :)
If you've e-mailed Philippe, then all we need do is wait for Philippe to respond. In the alternative, you can create a "sandbox" to work on the disputed section at the talk page. If you create a section specifically for drafting language, everyone can contribute to it.
By the way, though I missed this note, I did review the talk page of the article earlier today, and I'm pleased with how things are progressing. :) It does seem as though the two of you are coming to terms. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:42, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


As to separate archiving, not really, except that for the most part, it was a lot of unproductive fighting with little progress until recently. There's nothing there that I am ashamed of, except maybe not doing a better job of working with someone who's POV is different.
I do believe our discussions will continue, mainly because there is a bias in some of the content he would like to see printed. But, it will remain cordial and short because I will never allow myself to be sucked in to an argument again without taking advantage of the advice here and from another admin "whatamidoing". It's just not worth the amount of time and effort that it took to get where we are! I'd rather write and not fight! ..lesson learned~
As to Philippe, I sent him a private email, that he may not have received, given no response either way, unless he's chosen to simply not answer? Maybe you can give him a nudge? Thanks for the help all along. Dijcks HotTub Pool 17:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hawaiian monk seal

There seem to be numerous copyvios by a good-faith editor at this article. The article is in flux and being worked-on by a particular editor as I post this User Hawaiianmonkseal's contributions but still...they have lifted text straight from the various cited sources. I think this editor should have a warning or Notice or something placed on their talkpage but I'm not sure what be appropriate in this case. Your username came up in IRC as "(someone who) rocks with that stuff" so I'm posting here in the hopes you can assess what is going on with this article and help this editor out a bit. If you don't have the time, leave me a talkback/note and tell me what could best be done to help this editor follow Wikiepdia guidelines a little better and I'll do what I can. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) There's a lot of change going on in that article, and I've got limited time this afternoon. Any chance you can give me a few examples to save me hunting through myself? It would be very helpful. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Examples from Google searches of various phrases:

Some of the content seems to be lifted from:

But "The Hawaiian monk seal is among the most endangered of all seal species, although its cousin species the Mediterranean Monk Seal" is a close paraphase form an earlier blog:

I am starting to be somewhat unsure if the content is circular, in that the text is being lifted from Wikipedia and then gets repeated elsewhere until it appears again in Wikipedia, almost as if Wikipedia is cannibalizing itself. Am now trying to assess specifically what this latest editor has added. Shearonink (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

This can be hard to tell. :) Some of the content predates this user. The content duplicated at [9], quite extensive, was already in the article before the blog was started: [10]. The duplicated content in this was also present in the article at the time it was written. So both of those look like ours. Assessing specifically the contribs of this editor may be the best bet, but I know it's hard to do. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:34, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I've isolated out the new content s/he placed in his or her first edit, at User:Moonriddengirl/sandbox. I ran it through one of our mechanical detectors and haven't found anything. A spot check hasn't found anything either, yet. It may be a student paper or something of the sort. Sometimes large chunks of text appearing fully formed can suggest that. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:44, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I haven't found anything cut&pasted/lifted by this latest editor either, they seem to be doing a good job in the end. I think they added the text as a .doc file at first, that accounts for the somewhat random numbers appearing within the text (whereas they are actually supposed to be inline citations) which give the appearance of content being plagiarized from some other published source. I think all is well, but am keeping this article on my radar. Thanks for taking a look, Shearonink (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for being conscious of the issue. :D As many blatant copyright infringements as I've found parked in the project for years, I always appreciate contributors who check out questionable contribs, particularly when (like you) they're careful to look before leaping. Lovely blend of caution and consideration. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you get my message?

Hi, I left you a message yesterday here, hoping that maybe we can get the page unprotected. If we can do this, I can try to finish the bulk of text contribution this holiday weekend. Things have calmed down enough to where, at the very least we are both in to a more calm process of discussion while coming to consensus.. And the only to really find out is to get back to editing. thanks, Dijcks HotTub Pool 17:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I missed it! I'll go read it and reply now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
To keep it in one place, I answered to it here again! Dijcks HotTub Pool 17:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Need Help

Hello Moonriddengirl, this is Survir. Can you please help me with the following articles: (MERGE) Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series) and Pyaar mein twist to Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series); (DELETE) Rock N Roll Soniye because the concept was never made into series and it was scratched by the channel; (MERGE) Sapnon Se Bhare Naina and Sapnon Se Bhare Nena into Sapnon Se Bhare Naina this is the original title. Just one more question regarding how to write the title of series if it comes with a tagline. Example: Bhagonwali - Baante Apni Taqdeer, OR Bhagonwali: Baante Apni Taqdeer, OR Bhagonwali... Baante Apni Taqdeer. Which is more appropriate with the hypen, colon, or 3 dots. And, if you write a title with the 3 dots do you need to put a space after the 3 dots or you would just write them together, e.g. Bhagonwali...Baante Apni Taqdeer. Can you please help. Thank you. Your Friend Survir (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you please also move Karishma Ka Karishma into Karishma Kaa Karishma because the title is misspelled, and it is not letting me move the page. One more quick question: if the title of the series has exclamation mark or question mark, would you include that when starting a page on that article on wikipedia.Survir (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi, Survir. :) I have moved Karishma Ka Karishma to Karishma Kaa Karishma because Google supports that the latter is the the most commonly used name. I have not altered the article to show its new place; I'll leave that up to you.
I cannot delete Rock N Roll Soniye on request. You need to take it through one of the the deletion processes if you think the article should not exist. In this case, I would recommended "PROD". In case you've never done it before, Template:Proposed deletion has all the directions for how it's done. If nobody disagrees with you, the article will be deleted after a week.
As far as the merges, these you can do yourself. This is not a job that requires an administrator. Here's how:
  • Look at Pyaar mein twist and decide if there is any content that is worth incorporating into Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series). If there is, copy it and paste it into Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series) and (this part is very important) put into the edit summary Content copied from [[Pyaar mein twist]]. After you do that, turn Pyaar mein twist into a redirect by replacing the content with #REDIRECT [[Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series)]] {{R from merge}}. In your edit summary, write Content copied to [[Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series)]]. If you don't copy any content, you don't have to use the {{R from merge}} part. You can just turn it into a redirect. If you copy content, put {{copied}} on the talk pages of both articles: {{copied|from=Pyaar mein twist|to=Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series)}}
  • Follow the same procedure with Sapnon Se Bhare Naina and Sapnon Se Bhare Nena, except, obviously, that you put Content copied from [[Sapnon Se Bhare Nena]] when you paste the content and #REDIRECT [[Sapnon Se Bhare Naina]] {{R from merge}} when you turn the article into a redirect. When you copy content, put {{copied}} on the talk pages of the articles: {{copied|from=Sapnon Se Bhare Nena|to=Sapnon Se Bhare Naina}}
You are very good at catching this. :) I appreciate your keeping an eye out for all these redundant articles!
As far as which is the more appropriate punctuation, I'd go with the sources. If most of them use the dots, use the dots. If most of them use the hyphen, use the hyphen. It's recommended to use the dots (ellipses) all together; see WP:ELLIPSES. If the title series has an exclamation page or question mark, yes, you would include that. See the manual of style.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Post-Pyramidion Construction - copyvio and clearly not notable

The phrase "Post-Pyramidion Construction" is found only in this article, a website [11] and self-published book at Lulu.com [12]. I was thinking of taking it to AfD but then noticed that most if not all of the material is copyvio. The article is probably deletable on that ground, but then the editor might either get the material released from copyright or rewrite a non-copyvio version, which would I think be a waste of their time. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to go forward? Stub to remove copyvio and then AfD, or? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Either that or you blank it with the copyvio template and then list it. I've seen that done and should work just fine, so long as you explain that you are listing it to evaluate the topic and not the specific article, since recreation or permission won't take care of the larger concerns. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I was able to leave the intro, so that's ok. Dougweller (talk) 06:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Human Rights in Northern Cyprus

Hi Moonriddengirl. If you have time, could you please check the GFDL status of the recently created article Human Rights in Northern Cyprus which is the product of a copy and paste edit and add the necessary contributor acknowledgment under GFDL. I added a note at Talk:Human Rights in Northern Cyprus. Thank you. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 19:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The "Human rights" section was recently expanded and the main contributions are included in this diff. Thanks again. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 20:03, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'll certainly be happy to straighten out the attribution on that one. I need to figure out if it all came from Northern Cyprus or if it migrated from anywhere else. I'm recovering from a migraine at the moment (knock wood), but will take care of this pronto in the morning. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, the template you've added is perfect, except I guess you did it the hard way, copying it from another page. I guess this because when I followed the first link to the source article, it landed me at our article on Squirrel! I had not previously known this, but evidently the number of the "oldid" matters more than the title. I've corrected it. :) I see that you gave him absolutely the right template to caution him about this, and I have taken the final step of making a note in edit summary ([13]), so attribution is complete. Thanks for noticing and addressing this issue! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I thought I had addressed the squirrel business! But I guess that one escaped. :) Thank you very much for your expert advice and for following up. I hope the migraine disappears completely and never comes back. Take care. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 16:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Sarairasi

Hello again. I know this isn't exactly your speciality, but maybe you can point me in the right direction. The article Sarairasi has a section in it about Prominent Personalities. It's all personal stuff and no sign of a reference anywhere. I deleted the section some time ago, and others have done so since, but it keeps reappearing. It contains potentially libellous assessments of various inhabitants (one is described as a "2 time BLOCK HEAD"). Wikipedia cannot be publishing stuff like this! I could keep deleting it but I think there must be a better way… — Hebrides (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I've deleted it again for now, because I agree that Wikipedia can't be publishing stuff like that. It violates all kinds of policies, beginning with BLP. I think we may have to rely on a combination of cleanup and friendly cautioning, perhaps eventually elevating to semi-protection if the prior trend of shifting IPs adding it persists. I've put the article on my watchlist, so maybe I can help keep an eye on it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)I put it on my watchlist, too, when I saw this a few days ago; i just reverted the same material again and asked for protection at WP:RPP. Unlikely, but it would be great if this gets the editor to discuss the issue. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that didn't work, because the person who originally created the page, User:Durgeshkumarsingh, suddenly appeared (after having not edited since October 2010) to re-add the info. I reverted again, and left a very strongly worded message and detailed explanation on xyr talk page. As a note to both above, I consider this a clear WP:BLP violation, and thus removing it is not subject to WP:3RR in case that should become necessary. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. :) Actually it's working quite well. The shifting IPs made semi-protection necessary sooner rather than later, but that's okay. Either way, we now have a "face" attached to the edits, and we can talk to him. If he won't stop, it may be necessary for him to be blocked (which I can do, as my only involvement in this article is removing the unsourced BLP concerns). Your note to him is perfect. I think this is precisely when the combination of semi-protection and blocking work best. I agree with you that this is not a 3RR situation. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Starting a new article that is already redirected to an article

Hey Moonriddengirl, how you doin'? I want to start a new article on ruh khitch. At the moment when I search there is a redirect to photography with no mention that I can see. Could you advise me of the correct method for starting the article and dealing with the redirect. Also, not sure if you read my reply to your message on my talk page, but I would really like that edit gone, forever. Thanks Filmmaker2011 (talk) 08:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC).

Hey I'm in trouble again! I recently did a lot of work on the article Autuer Theory I made many decent improvements (I studied this post grad) and added a section. An editor with no other history removed the section. I'll admit it needs more work on citations and I do have a rather personal style that I'm trying to suppress, but I explained myself fully in the talk pages anticipating problems simply because of the fact that the question of authorial authority is a touchy one with writers who are over represented in theory about a practical art! Please look at it and advise me or even better help me with the presentation. I am putting a lot of work into this at the moment but I am being seriously put off by this kind of thing. Thanks again Filmmaker2011 (talk) 09:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the note. I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

List of highest-grossing Bollywood films

Hello Moonriddengirl.

Having seen your sandbox and your idea for an RfC, I would like to convey to you that your idea is an excellent and democratic one, and the RfC you have initiated i very crisp, clear and can make matters much better. I suggest that you please implement it as a full-fledged RfC so that all discussions about the said list can move to the RfC rather than clutter up the Talk page. It will also help in tying up many loose ends and help us understand one another.

With regards,

AnkitBhattTalk to me!!LifEnjoy 13:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, but one thing I need to be clear about: while she said that such lists as this one, when compiled from factual data, are clear of copyright concerns, she specifically said that this list is not usable, based on the information we have on its sourcing. My hope would be that we could reach a slightly more logical arrangement than a random selection from the list, but I don't know what we can hope for in such an RfC. Typically, response to copyright question is low, and consensus cannot override the larger issue she raises, per WP:CONEXCEPT. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, but you must agree that the present state of the list is pathetic and we, very strongly, need to bring back the list to it's former state. We have to begin a process of consulting, discussions, invitation of ideas and general brush-ups on peoples' views. Personally, I don't really care how this is done, but it is a must. AnkitBhattTalk to me!!LifEnjoy 15:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
We cannot bring the list back to its former state, unless by its former state you mean this one. Our attorney has told us that it is not safe to publish it as it was. Our only option is to make the best of the situation we have, which is that we are only able to incorporate a few of the listings unless we can get permission. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2011

A (hopefully) quick question for you, although I seem to recall that your main involvement is with text copyright rather than image copyright. If someone takes a photo of an official "portrait" and the original "portrait"" was created by an un-named third party in 1987, would it be fair for me to insist that I see some evidence that the portrait's creator has granted permission for re-use? I'm not sure if the portrait is a painting or, more likely, a photographic study. It is getting messy because it involves a "serial abuser" of image license issues whose first language is almost certainly not English and who seems unable or unwilling to provide proper answers to the questions which I have asked. - Sitush (talk) 15:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Yes; a picture of a picture is a derivative work if the original is not public domain or appropriately licensed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I will keep trying then! As it happens, I think it is a newspaper/magazine photo rather than a portrait in the sense that most people (certainly in N America and Europe) would use the word. - Sitush (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Update: - I've filed a query at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions#Derivative_work_of_item_in_an_Indian_museum. I'm convinced that I am correct in my opinion but, if only for the sake of completeness, I told the uploader that I'll ask someone to review. - Sitush (talk) 19:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Blatant uploader

If you are on, can you please have a look at DBelozersky's uploads, none of which have any source or copyright tag. I have already warned him twice but he still continues uploading. Most of these images look like derivative artwork images. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 17:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure. :) Off to look now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a bit urgent. I've tagged one for NPD and have left him a note. He seems to have stopped uploading for now; if he resumes without addressing these issues, I'll have to block him until we straighten things out. Hopefully, it won't come to that. Sometimes new contributors don't really understand that they are dealing with living human beings, and he may have intended to go back and add more information after finishing whatever he's up to.
Should you happen to notice the uploads resuming before I do, would you please drop me a note? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:46, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the usual quick response. You have become mt go to person, now that Skier Dude, and Fastily are basically gone. I am pretty sure this may just be an over enthusiastic newcomer who does not realise we are pretty strict about copyright and may not really understand its complexities, but you have guided him well; far better than I. I really wish the upload pages did not allow uploads without a proper recognised tag and some sort of source being provided, even if they were not quite correct as that would make patrolling new uploads a little easier. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 20:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm always happy to help if I can. And I'm honored to be your go-to person. :D I think your notes to him were fine. Sometimes it just takes a bit more. Your idea about upload pages seems like a good one. Is that a failed proposal, or might it actually fly at village pump? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Uploading Images

I am trying to make a Project Gallery for my article on Tronic Studio. I have full permission to use all Tronic material and I have asked the company owner to send an email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org verifying my permission. Since this is my first article of this type I would like some help with the copyrighting tags and how to make the images legal. The owner of the company is ok with releasing them into the public domain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DBelozersky (talk • contribs) 18:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I read the note and it was very helpful. I will edit all the pictures I have right now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DBelozersky (talk • contribs) 18:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

One more question

Would I use the same template for the Tronic logo image? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DBelozersky (talk • contribs) 18:46, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Image tag question

Hey, I uploaded an photo of this statue which and I was wondering what the appropriate tag was for this image. Sarujo (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

See here for licenses that you can use. I usually go with {{self}} as the license. Also consider adding {{Information}} to the page and uploading it to Commons as well. For an example, here is an image I took and licensed. Hope that helps.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) According to this local news report the statue was erected in 2004, so any image of the statue is a derivative work and subject to the US freedom of panorama restrictions which means the image is non-free and must therefore comply with the 10 non-free content policy criteria unless the photographer has the WP:CONSENT of the sculpture's creator. ww2censor (talk) 04:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm My mistake. More information on statue freedom of panorama here as well.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:15, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Love to come in and see work already done. :) NortyNort, I don't know if that's what you were doing, but I have myself focused on one aspect of a question only to overlook a larger aspect. Outcropping of my great talent for dealing with minutiae. I have to remind myself sometimes to look at the overall picture. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk)

Haha, okay, I didn't actually do a face-palm but I did sigh and uttered another word. I was aware of FOP but overlooked it in this case. Thanks for the encouragement.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
FWIW, I'm starting to talk to you in my notes at CP. With your helping out so much, I figured I might as well give you feedback if I see nuances that you might find helpful. :) If you want to follow up on anything I say there, please let me know here, because once I'm done with a day it's off my radar until somebody comes back later wanting to know why article X was deleted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I do look back at the addressed days, such as the 15th, and read comments for feedback/responses. Is there a central archive for the pages? I don't see them linked to anything other than the occasional user talk.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:15, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
No, they aren't archived. They just shuffle off to lurk about until needed. :) When somebody asks about an article I've deleted at CP, I do "what links here" at the redlink to find the specific CP page. Sometimes, when the issues are complex, I link to the daily listing in the deletion log. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Merle Hoffman

I received OTRS permission from Mary Lou Greenberg of ontheissuesmagazine.com for the text content in File:Merle Hoffman.pdf that was removed from this article in ticket 2011042610025067. – Adrignola talk 14:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

That one's a bit old. :) Give me a second to catch up. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, duly restored and tagged, though it was a bit of a challenge since it's not the usual model. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:35, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch! – Adrignola talk 16:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Revdel or not for copyvios?

Hi,

Sorry to bother you, but I noticed that you revdel'd the copyvio in the Chamblee, Georgia article which I had reverted to a non-copyvio state. Should I list any more copyvios I fix at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/RD1 Requests? I asked about this (amongst other things) in this thread and from the response, I thought it was only for material likely to be re-introduced. I am not trying to change anything I just want to know if what I am doing is correct?

regards,

ascidian | talk-to-me 21:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Everything you did was correct. The article had been listed at WP:CP by bot before you cleaned it, which is what drew me to it. I don't rev delete them all, but I tend to rev delete when the content is extensive and there seems to be a risk of its being inadvertently restored (...or advertently, for that matter). To give you one extreme example (sadly, I can't remember the name of the article), I once reverted a copyvio back to the last version before it had been introduced without even realizing that the content I had reverted to contained a substantial copyvio of a different source; it had been detected and cleaned at some point after the second vio's introduction. The more content there is and the longer it's there, the graver the risk that someone may take it from history without knowing that it was removed for a policy-based reason. I am also likely to rev delete extensive vios that have only been in the article for an edit or two. The real gray area comes with less extensive content that is intermingled with useful changes. The history of articles is valuable; there are all kinds of reasons why they should remain easily accessible (not the least so we can investigate other content concerns). It's a matter of balancing risk vs. benefit.--Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying (and for the speedy response). I'll bear that in mind. I know i'm not the most prolific user around here, but I do enjoy working in this area. If there is anything else I can do to help the project or improve, please let me know. regards, ascidian | talk-to-me 22:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
In the longer term, I'd like to explore this question further. MRG and I have discussed this previously and I've planned for a while to ssk the question of WMF legal counsel, if we have someone in place now and familiar with the issues. Of course they will reply "it all depends..." but maybe what follows the ellipsis will be informative. The question is whether we have a strict duty to "permanently" remove all instances of copyright violation when we find them, or whether our duty is to remove them from the current article. My interpretation is based on something I read on this site long ago, whether the violating material is "on public display". For an analogy, if I photocopy parts of a newspaper someone else bought and take them home for my own personal use, I likely have no copyright problem. If I tape those copies up on the windows of my house so that any passerby can read them as random information (not exercising my right to free speech on an issue, just putting the articles in the window), I will likely have more of a problem, and someone may tell me to take the pages off my window. But what if I put them in a big stack of papers piled on my front porch, and give no indication that you can get a free copy of a news article if you paw through all that paper? When anyone, admin or not, removes a copyvio from an article, it is still "available to the public" but IMO no longer "on public display" - it is in the history, but (I believe) a vanishingly small proportion of redaers are aware of that. Especially with web sources, to me it seems sufficient to note in a subsequent history revision "removed copyvio of <website>", so we neither hide nor perpetuate wrongdoing. This fine point matters to me for a few reasons: first, because I'm concerned whether my own approach (generally, just to remove the copyvios with an edit summary) may, theoretically or not, put the project at risk; second, because my doubts on this prevent me from spending much time on copycleaning, as I'm genuinely uncertain on this; and third because I recently urged an editor (NP) to just jump into a CCI and start doing. From my standpoint, I would tell any editor at all, if you see a copyvio, remove it. You will almost certainly have full backing if someone wants to restore it, probably the quickest response possible on this wiki. Serial and repeat copyviolators get shut down. The vexed question of whether each contributor in the copypatrolling area needs to either be, or refer cases to, an administrator - well, it's a vexed question... Franamax (talk) 22:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi, Franamax. I too was intrigued to read MRG's answer. Mostly to find out if anything has changed. I've considered your "vexed question" in the past. (Usually after an angry editor demanded that I revdel all copyvios). And I worried that we would eventually need to delete out all those old copyvio histories. Ugh. What a daunting task. But I found this statement atHelp:Page history#Copyright status of old page revisions which links to US Code Title 17.1.108. It seems that, essentially, we are okay if the copyrighted material is used for archival purposes only (i.e. our history pages). I feel that most critical issue with copyright infringement is the required demonstration that we are making a concerted effort to remove it -- which means having editors remove it on sight is our most important concern. The revdel of the history can remain a case-by-case issue. — CactusWriter (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Whoot. It's a party. :D I agree with CactusWriter that, from a legal standpoint, we have no issues. WMF actually goes above and beyond the call of OCILLA, and good on them for caring. Revdeletion is not about legal compliance; it's about protecting the articles from returning to former problems. This saves a lot of wasted time for copyright cleaners and for editors who may invest work in a tainted version of an article that can't be retained. It also protects our downstream reusers, to the best of our ability, who may not be able to easily remove content (say if they publish it in print). Any contributor who removes a copyright problem from an article is doing a good thing, whether the copyright problem in history is revdeleted or not. (In addition to edit summary, a note at the talk page is also a good idea, I think, in demonstrating our diligence.)
Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins (which in current version is largely written by me and CactusWriter. :)) says, with respect to restoring older versions of articles, "It may be a good idea to use Wikipedia:Revision deletion on the versions that contain the copyright infringement to help avoid inadvertent restoration in the future if the copyrighted content is extensive. Otherwise, so long as the infringing text is removed from the public face of the article, it may not need to be removed/deleted permanently unless the copyright holder complains via OTRS or unless other contributors persist in restoring it." (I don't remember which of us wrote that; could have been all him, could have been all me, could have been a combo. I'm too lazy to look. or to include markup. :D) In the days before rev deletion, we often "selectively deleted" the content. Before I got to it, the document said, "If the text in question is a minor part of the article, like a paragraph or a list: * Remove the text in question from the article and use an appropriate edit summary to explain. * A note on the article's talk page would also be helpful so other editors will not revert or add the text back to the article. If there are clean revisions in the history: * Delete the article, then use the undelete function to restore the untainted versions. * If the article has undergone significant expansion after the copyrighted text was inserted, you could edit the article after its restoration to add the appropriate text or images so the article will be up to date." The only difference, really, in then handling between now and then is that it is much easier than it was. With rev deletion, we keep the list of contributors, so we don't have to painstakingly attribute anymore. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:09, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I... have.... no... recollection of ever writing on that page. None. Zip. Zilch. In fact, I had half a mind to correct you until I looked at the history. (I must have edited it back when I still had a whole mind). Suffice it say, you wrote all the substance -- I added a couple of "the"s and "and"s, for effect. But it's nice to know that advice is still good. — CactusWriter (talk) 01:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
It probably wasn't that big a deal to you, but it was to me. :) I really appreciated your assistance there. If I remember you as having done more than you actually did and you a bit less, that's probably why. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

An actual copyvio question from me

Recently large blocks of text have been added to Sonny Barger and duly reverted as likely copyvios but this edit appears to confirm the suspicion as correct. The isbn # that was removed is for the book Hell's Angel: the life and times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club coauthored by Sonny Barger. Two additions have been by Dracula08 and more recently by an anonIP, which could of course be Dracula08. Is there any point in any form of protection or blocking, or shall we just keep watching? ww2censor (talk) 01:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I can understand your concerns, given the history of copyright issues of Dracula08. There are definitely issues with the use of quotes without page numbers, but I'm not sure if the rest of the text is problematic. It seems to be summary, and I don't know if it closely paraphrases the book or not. The main issue here, I think, is encouraging him to talk about it. I've left notes for him at both the IP and the registered username. I don't think protection or blocking is necessary at this point. I would be more inclined to protect the article if it persists so that he knows that he must discuss it than to block on the unconfirmed suspicion of copying. Could you please let me know if he persists without attempting to address concerns? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Heya

Hey Moonriddengirl....

Please see this request on my talk page. I'm going to punt this to you and let you make the call. I have no opinion. - Philippe 05:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It expired a few hours ago. :D FWIW, I think the protection went very well there. I have myself been inclined to protect "short", but in this case I've been able to observe that the time allowed for de-escalation and then the beginnings of what look like very productive discussion. I'm optimistic. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Expired a few hours ago? Way to reward my slacker behavior in not noticing the talk page request. :P I'm glad it worked... I don't frequently protect for a long period, but I thought in this case (or hoped, actually, not thought) that it would do as you say it might have. Win. - Philippe 01:09, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
PS - This was a particularly good comment from you. I appreciated the support you gave, even though you didn't totally agree with the action. Very collegial. - Philippe 01:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Collegiality is important. Beyond that, I trust your judgment. :D I can't say, though, that I didn't toally agree with the action even though the length of the protection was a surprise, because I had not really given much thought to how long a protection might need to be. Since I was there with my editor hat on, it wouldn't have been my call. :) I've tried to untangle content disputes before (I used to work WP:3O regularly but now just pitch in there occasionally), but, as you know, the copyright department is where you'll generally find me. That's a whole different set of complications. It was actually really eye-opening for me to see how well the approach is working. There are some admins who prefer to block contributors rather than lock an article, but for reasons I explained in the link earlier in this post, I don't think that's always a good idea. Neither is allowing the situation to escalate to the point where the conflict blossoms into a full-on edit war. Better that people unite in a common goal than that they keep pulling further apart. I'll do what I can to keep that happening. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Incitec Pivot article

Dear Moonriddengirl,

I noticed that the content on the Incitec Pivot site that my colleague Ltbaxter created in April last year has been deleted because it has been labelled possible copyright infringement. The text was taken from the Incite Pivot website on the behalf of the company itself. Can you please advise on the appropriate way for our company to go about posting information? We're interested in keeping our page as up-to-date as possible.

Thank you very much for your help. --JenZim (talk) 06:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)JenZim

Hello, and thank you for your note. As the talk page of the article advises, the way to clear the copyright concerns if you are affiliated with the company is to follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. If your company chooses to send an e-mail (one of the options mentioned on that page), the content will be restored as soon the e-mail is received and logged. If there are any concerns with the e-mail, the agent who receives it will request clarification. Generally, this process takes about a week. Alternatively, if you place a release on the official website, we can restore it more quickly, but you would need to let us know. Once the content has been removed (a week after notice to your colleague, here), it does require an administrator to restore it. If you place a note here telling me where we can find that release on your website, I can bring the material back swiftly.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the process. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:58, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Dear Moonriddengirl,

we updated our company information now and would like it to be displayed on Wikipedia. You can find it on our website: http://www.incitecpivot.com.au/company_profile_overview.cfm?CFID=3179712&CFTOKEN=16708268. I will also follow the official procedure and send and email to remove the copyright from that content. Thank you very much.

--119.225.119.38 (talk) 23:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)JenZim

National Council on Soviet Relations

I don't know if you stumbled across this on your own or not, but I wanted to make sure you saw the AN/I thread regarding that article's creator; the copyvio problems appear pervasive across his contributions. postdlf (talk) 14:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I did see it; I'm evaluating to see if we need a CCI. It looks likely at this point (I've just verified another), though his contributions are blessedly few. We're talking less than 100 articles, not upwards of 10,000. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Trying to lend a hand with this one. Just saw that you declared Incident at Map Grid 36-80 clean, but I'm not so certain. In the critical reception section, the passage "The Soviets are seen as brave and selfless, and heroically save the day." is lifted directly from page 114 of its cited source. The citation to Shaw doesn't appear to be a copyright violation, but I don't think it's supported by the text either (page 11 notes the films discussed in the work are "not necessarily the most representative"). Serpent's Choice (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Oh, thanks for finding that! Please wipe up the remainder. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
No worries. I pulled that copyvio (and OR) in favor of some sustainable text. This editor clearly had a strong tendency to copy-paste text, sometimes even single sentences from sources. I find tracking down at least blurb views of pretty much everything cited is sadly necessary (and slow). Serpent's Choice (talk) 16:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
After looking at the contribs in the now collapsed section, I have begun to suspect that everything with professional level English is going to be a problem. While certainly far more fluent in English than I am in any language save the one I was born to, it's obvious in certain syntax errors that he is not a native speaker. What I would and probably will do here once I catch up a bit more at WP:CP is identify what I can and then, on the basis of the pattern established there, begin to consider whether presumptive tags are necessary where copyright problems cannot be identified. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I strongly suspect, from my interactions with him at AFD and DRV, that anything with professional level English is absolutely a problem. Unfortunately, those aren't the only problems. Quite a few of these articles are sourced to Russian-language material. Unfortunately, many of those sources don't seem available online. Also, there's the small problem wherein I don't speak Russian! But even a dodgy machine translator like Google Translate makes it clear that there's a good bit of word-for-word copyright issues (or at least attempts at it) from these Russian sources, too. Serpent's Choice (talk) 16:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, issues like this are the reason why the copyright violation policy says, "If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately." :/ In those cases, we'll probably wind up having to place {{subst:copyvio|url=see talk}} on the article's face and {{subst:CCId|name=20110429}} on the article's talk page. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

While trying to check the validity (and copyright status) of one of this user's edits, I took a spin through the Russian Wikipedia. On the basis of edits that are precisely identical (except for translation), this en-editor is ru:Участник:Георгий Сердечный, who has been warned more than a few times for copyright violation, and sports blocks for disruptive editing and repeated copyright infringement (aside: they do really short blocks over there!). At this point, I'm regrettably treating passages sourced to Russian-language material that cannot be easily confirmed as clean to be presumptively flawed. Serpent's Choice (talk) 20:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Wow. That would be worth bringing up at the ANI report, I think, so that others can consider that in determining what to do going forward. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:05, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome!

No problem at all. Although, Thehelpfulbot should get all the credit really for adding it to the pages you voted on! :D

The Helpful One 16:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl, thanks for your tireless work on copyright in Wikipedia. I happened upon a law firm that has appropriated Wikipedia articles in putting together its own commercial site: [14] is verbatim from Wikipedia's Contract circa 2010-10-24. There's no mention of Wikipedia (although they have kept the wikilinks!) and the only copyright information is "Copyright 2011. All rights reserved." The other pages in their "Practice Areas" sidebar aren't obviously from Wikipedia. Do such things get listed as forks and mirrors, or is there a separate place for simple copyright violations? --Amble (talk) 17:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's funny! And kind of appalling. I tend to list at "Mirrors and Forks" if it seems likely that somebody will find an article on their website and erroneously tag ours as a copyvio. If it's just a couple of pages, I'd use {{backwardscopy}} on the article talk pages. Was the "contract" article the only one you saw? We may just tag that. (I see that they may have borrowed from others, though: [15]. Somebody has, anyway.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
This was the only one that obviously matched the Wikipedia page. It is indeed quite appalling. I'll add a backwardscopy template on the talk page. Thanks. --Amble (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Review of Tronic Studio article

Could you please take a look at my Tronic Studio article and remove the template if it looks good? ~~DBelozersky —Preceding unsigned comment added by DBelozersky (talk • contribs) 18:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Committee on International Security and Arms Control

Hi Moonriddengirl, triggered by a recent update on Committee on International Security and Arms Control and being a bit longer on Wikipedia, I wonder if this article has big issues with copyvio? A lot of the content seems copy/paste of the official website, although some is outdated. But I don't know if there are special copy rules for national academy websites. Can you have a look? -- SchreyP (talk) 19:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) If they were a federal agency, their content would be public domain, but they aren't; their website says "Copyright © 2011. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved." If recent content has been pasted from the website, it should be reverted out pending verification of permission. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
P.S. I better clarify: if it's not recent, it's still a problem. We just generally handle it with {{copyvio}} rather than reverting. :D Let me know if you want help with that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I that case I'm afraid most of the content is copyvio :( What is the best approach here: go for deletion of this article or do a big cleaning. Anyway with the second option, I guess some iterations of this article must be deleted. Can you advice? I have not much experience yet in this matters. -- SchreyP (talk) 19:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
If most of the article is a copyvio, it's probably going to have to be replaced. The best thing to do is probably to blank the content and replace the article with {{subst:copyvio|url=website}} (specifying the url, of course, where I've put website :D). That will generate a big warning flag on the article which contains a couple of templates that you can paste where they need to go. One goes at today's page on WP:CP. One goes on the talk page of the contributor. They're both pretty obvious. :) It will also then link to a temporary page where, if you're feeling very generous, you can rewrite the article. :) After a week, if permission hasn't been provided, an admin (possibly me) will close the listing and replace the copyvio version of the article with the new one. If no new one is proposed, the article might just be deleted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
ok, thanks. I will try your advice. Exiting doing this for the first time :) -- SchreyP (talk) 19:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Just done. One more question: is it ok to remove also the categories on the article as I did, in this case just one, or should I have left that part? -- SchreyP (talk) 19:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I usually leave them because it saves the bots from noting the problem and people coming to fix them. But there's not really any set rule about it. :) Thanks for finding this, by the way, and following up. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
FYI, I have listed here a more in depth analysis which part from the wikipedia page is copied from which page on the official website -- SchreyP (talk) 15:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Oh, that's fabulous! Thank you. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:19, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Reformatting

Yeah, I'd wondered why that whole section was blockquoted. I kinda figured something like that had happened. Daniel Case (talk) 14:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Simone Rota

Someone started a PROD but not posted any notice in my talk page. And it was deleted. But in fact he is a notable player, and if lack of content, just simply notify me to rewrite it, instead of silently deleted. Would you like to restore the history and i will rewrite it. Matthew_hk tc 10:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry that you weren't notified. Personally, I think that should be a requirement, especially when the contributor is still active. But WP:PROD is rather tepid about that: "The article's creator or other significant contributors should ideally be left a message...." (sigh) PRODded articles can be overturned on request. I can userfy it for you...or I can just bring it back in article space, where you can do whatever improvements you see fit. After it is restored, it cannot be PRODded again, per policy, although it may be nominated for AfD. Which would you prefer? You want me to userfy it or put it back in article space? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I prefer article space. Matthew_hk tc 06:52, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
It's been restored. You may want to expand it quickly, as there is a chance it will be nominated for AfD. The {{ProdContested}} notice given to the PROD nominator mentions that option. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Creating a BLP almost three years ago with only an infobox and a one liner intro and only making a total of three other (minor) edits on the page then complaining about it over two months later after it was PRODed? Even if it was done "silently"? Hmmm... You would've expected a little more in the article by now as well, especially since Matthew all of a sudden says "he could rewrite it." But that's another thing, as you would be able to see in the revision history of the page, I've contributed to it and would've contributed more if there was actual coverage. But there's none except for stats sites which also contradict each other. Anyway, if it floats Matthew's boat to restore it, good for him right? I'll walk away. Banana Fingers (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Expand a little. Banana, you can discuss notability somewhere or request someone to expand the "article" which without content in WP:Footy, but not silently delete it. You did not notify WP:footy nor myself. Matthew_hk tc 10:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Jkirks uploaded three photos of basketball players from the 1940s and claimed that he took the pics (with a Canon digital camera no less), and that he was "releasing" them into the public domain. The photos in question were used for the Jimmy McNatt article. After a request had been placed on them for deletion per copyvio (at my request), they were eventually deleted per consensus. CommonsDelinker removed them today, and Jkirks tried to undo the edit, thinking the photos would reappear.

I reverted that edit of his, explaining that the pics were deleted in the edit summary. Literally less than 20 minutes later, the exact same 4 photographs were re-added to the article after Jkirks had re-uploaded them, except this time under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licensing. Will you please have these files speedily deleted, and explain to Jkirks that just because he takes a photograph of a photograph does not mean there is a transference of copyright ownership? Thank you in advance. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not an admin on Commons, but I can point it out at their admin noticeboard. :) I certainly will explain the issue in more detail at his talk page there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I just tagged all 4 for speedy deletion. <shrug> VernoWhitney (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I went ahead and asked User:Dcoetzee to take a look. My real question here, I guess, is what happens when people willfully reupload deleted content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Answer, they get blocked :-P This kind of active deception will not be tolerated. Images deleted as well. Dcoetzee 19:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick help. I feel like this situation is close to being resolved for good. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 May 2011

Barnstar

The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
for edits like this and edits I didn't know existed. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! :) There's a lot of work to do on Wikipedia, and I try to help out where I can. In terms of that, I also like to let people know that their work is appreciated. I'm always grateful when people take their time to help fix problems. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Tronic Studio

I'm very sorry about not responding but I don't think she got the email. Would it be possible for you to resend her the email at vivianrosenthal@tronicstudio.com? Thank you very much in advance!DBelozersky (talk) 16:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you so much for all your help!DBelozersky (talk) 16:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Nair

I have been trawling through the Nair article, for my sins. Indian articles are an absolute nightmare. Anyways, your advice on a possible copyvio would be appreciated. My suspicion is that upwards of 50% of this article is either that or plagiarism, this being a fairly typical figure for such articles in my experience.

The bit I have an immediate concern over occurred way back in March 2007, around 9th/10th March. The content under the Socio-political section heading includes. among other issues, the words "The impact of the market economy, the disappearance of traditional military training, the absorption of new values through the new system of education, the self-consciousness being generated among the lower castes and their cry for equality and privileges - all these factors brought about a decline of Nair dominance." The phrasing absolutely screams of a violation. I phrase things like that here, but not many Indian contributors do, and of course the article is mainly edited by them.

I can find the words on an Indian govt website which claims a copyright year of 2005. Can I trust that copyright year, or do you think it might be a standard page footer referring to the site design rather than the content? I am aware that the Indian government is not adverse to copyvios itself, and in this instance could just possibly be a mirror of WP. - Sitush (talk) 16:43, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Sorry that this issue exists, and I agree with you that the language is a powerful red flag. We can't ever, I'm afraid, trust the dates of copyright on websites. Frequently, these are site-wide and may not reflect the date of authorship at all. Some web masters seem to copy pages from their own domains, including copyright information.
The first thing I do in these cases is check Wayback. That archival system does not, unfortunately, help here. They don't have any record of that page. My next step is to look for signs of natural evolution. If changes to the content in our article make it more like that website, then there are greater odds that they took it from us than the other way around. I'll poke at it for a minute to see what I can find. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that I had already checked Wayback & found nothing there. The relevant bit of the WP article was a straight insert, and there were quite a few other bits inserted over that 24/48 hour time period also, which may mean more digging if this does look likely to be a vio. - Sitush (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
No problem. :) I'm doing the edit by edit check at the moment looking for the first alteration of that chunk of text. Haven't found it yet. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Still searching. So tedious! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Found it - here - Sitush (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, great! I'll compare that content to the current article and then to the source through our Duplication detector so I can see what, if anything, has changed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
I've poked at this content from every direction I can think of, including checking for phrases in [16] that were not added by that IP to see if there was ever any other duplication, and I cannot positively determine whether the content is ours or not. :/ In accordance with WP:C, that means we really need to replace the content with material that we are sure is clean. Not that we go about doing this for everything, but there are red flags in that content, it is published elsewhere, and we are exhorted to "if in doubt, write the content" ourselves. Do you feel up to replacing that suspect stretch of content with clean? If not, I'll remove it with an explanation of why at the talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't really know enough about the subject to source it, plus I have a lot of "fights" going on at other Indian articles at the moment. Some Indian editors trust my judgement in evaluating sources sufficiently to have agreed that I should mediate ... but in the majority of cases I'm dealing with IP editors etc who are really just POV pushing and it is a nightmare.
It gets worse on the Nair article, BTW. This edit includes exactly the same phrasing as this book. The book publication date is 2009 and the edit is 2008 ... but I'm pretty sure that I've either seen an earlier version of the book (it crops up in various articles I've already been involved with) or I've seen a paper on which the book was based.
Why someone from England, who has no connection with India at all other than enjoying the occasional curry, feels the urge to get involved in these articles is beyond me. I need someone to certify me as insane. - Sitush (talk) 18:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I pretty much had to rewrite Paravar for these sort of reasons. - Sitush (talk) 18:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The only good news there is that we don't have to presume copyvio of the book because Gyan Publishing House is a known mirror (Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Ghi#Gyan Publishing House). Unless we find a copy of the book that predates our article, we can assume that they took it from us. I'll go ahead and remove the content from that IP with an explanation at the talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
That is good news. I wasn't aware of a list of mirrors but just that one example is going to be very useful to me. - Sitush (talk) 18:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
A follow-up if you do not mind, please? The Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks article lists rediff.com as a problem source in relation to one article. I've had some doubts about it in the past but cannot recall where. Put simply, even though the lists only itemises one specific example of concern should it be taken to mean that Rediff is not deemed reliable across all WP articles? I've looked at WP:RSN & note that it appears four or five times there, which is not what I would describe as a "repeat offender" situation. - Sitush (talk) 21:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The fact that there is a single instance of mirror doesn't necessarily mean that's all there is, but I'll note that I once found copying of Wikipedia's content into an ESPN article. They are generally regarded as reliable, but evidently they had at least one less than ethical journalist. :) My general instinct would be not to eliminate an entire site if the copying is likely the action of one person, but it might be worth asking at WP:RSN again, with a focus on the mirroring issue if you have wider concerns. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
That sounds sensible - I was uncertain because of the attitude to Gyan. Anyways, thanks very much for your time spent regarding these issues. Much appreciated and I've learned something new! - Sitush (talk) 13:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

PR Image issues

Hi, Moonriffengirl. How is this issue going? I just noticed the talk was archived. Can we act upon these images? I ask because there are another group of Puerto Rico related images that I also believe are wrongly tagged as PD, but, given the temper of that project's users, I would prefer to resolve one issue per turn. --Damiens.rf 16:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Alas, we didn't get any more free images that I know of than were documented there. :/ Some of them may be retainable under non-free content policy, I suppose. I'd like to convert what I can before taking any others to PuF. I'm just never very comfortable with FURs for people, even dead ones, having encountered some bafflingly contradictory interpretation of the application to them in the past. :) The lack of source information for many of these images makes me all the more uneasy about trying to convert them, but I guess I'll have to go give it a go anyway.
You're fairly up on the way NFC images are currently handled, aren't you? For instance, File:Oscarcollazo.jpg looks like it could be a good for Oscar Collazo, but not Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s or Truman assassination attempt. Would you agree?
I've been waiting for Tony to return to Wikipedia, and I noticed that he had edited his page today. I need to move forward with that. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
I had forgotten about that conversation - I'm inclined to go through the images that teb728 retagged and list them at PUF again for broader community input given the ambiguity of their original release. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The ones to which he added {{PD-PRGov-PRSHP}}? That may be best. In terms of the NFC question re: the other images, what do you think? Should I try to convert what I can to FUR? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The Oscar Collazo examples you gave (and I believe this will be the same for many other images) is still problematic because of a lack of source. We know the image was used by the PR Institute of Culture and nothing more (or am I missing something?). Their policies state "algunos materiales han sido donados u obtenidos por individuos u organizaciones y su uso pudiera estar restringido. Este portal contiene información que es protegida por derechos de propiedad intelectual y derechos morales de autor." (google translation: some materials have been donated or obtained by individuals or organizations and their use would be restricted. This site contains information that is protected by intellectual property rights and moral rights.). We don't use non-free images like these.
(Google mistranslation above - should be translated "and their use may be restricted"; "would possibly be restricted" would be correct if there was a conditional phrase following)Opbeith (talk) 18:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
If you really want to wait for Tony's comeback, we can give it a try. But with all due respect, I don't see him being of much help here. He writes a lot about Puerto Ricans, but when it comes to image policies he's still an eternal newbie. I have been cleaning his mess for ages (and I say that with all due respect to him as a Wikipedian and person).
VernoWhitney, why would we need broad community consensus in a question that has been already nailed by our attorney. You know how rare it is for an attorney to give concrete legal advice as in this case? What more are we going to ask the community about? --Damiens.rf 17:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
We have the statement that the license isn't usable, but the images were originally tagged by me and then retagged by teb728 based on incomplete information and assumptions, so it's a question of whether or not they're usable under the still-valid {{PD-PRGov-PRSHP}} which they're currently tagged as. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, that's a different OTRS ticket, right? The one that says the images "are public domain if they were photographs developed as part of an HPF Sub grant sponsored by their Office". I see. I'm totally for a check on the validity of this ticket just as well. The template was created by the same user as the original problematic one, and he could have been equally confused. --Damiens.rf 17:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that's a different OTRS ticket - one that I approved actually, although if someone else wants to double-check whether it actually is sufficient or not that's perfectly fine by me. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yeah, the ones that are still in Category:Public domain images from the ICP need to be converted to non-free and have FURs added (and removed from some articles as you mentioned with your example). {{PD-PRGov-IPC}} should be sent through TfD (or just flat-out deleted) also to avoid future problems. I can put that on my todo list after messing around with {{Dual}} if your not comfortable with the FURs. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Any help you can offer with that would be greatly appreciated. :) I venture tentatively into FUR territory, except where I'm very confident of NFC application. I suppose we can add what source information we have and then tag it for more as needed? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, on my todo list then. Obviously we'd like to have the most accurate source information possible, but so long as we have something that's generally sufficient for non-free purposes, and any problems with individual images can always go through more discussion at FfD. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. :) I doubt I'll ever feel as comfortable with images as I do with text...although I've come a long way. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, most of the images in that category have now been successfully converted to non-free. There are 4 remaining where I felt no reasonable argument under WP:NFC could be made. I also tagged 2 of the images as replaceable fair use, sent one to FfD on similar grounds, sent one to PuF where it's a pre-1923 picture but there's no indication of publication date, sent the template to TfD and sent 2 collages incorporating non-free images to FfD. Now I'm working my way through the images that were retagged from IPC to PRSHP and then most everything should be set in motion. It looks like a review of User:Quazgaa's uploads may also be in order down the line depending upon the outcome(s) at PuF since they seem to have been rather liberal with their application of the PRSHP template. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Need your assistance

18:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC) Hi, Hope you are doing well, i need your assistance, can we talk over the phone, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bberry91077 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for your note. I've replied at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Copying an information table...

This question came up at the IRC help channel. Regarding this educational/scientific table [17] (image 1 halfway down the page):

1) Can we take a screenshot of it and upload it as an image? I'm assuming no since © 1991-2007 Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. All rights reserved.

2) Can we copy it verbatim into a table and cite it inline?

3) Can we paraphrase it without it being a) close paraphrasing or b) original research?

Thanks for any thoughts. Cheers Ocaasi c 05:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) The guiding principle here is always degree of creativity. When information in graphs and tables is uncreative in its nature and in its presentation, we can have it. It's when either of those is creative that we run into issues. (See User:Moonriddengirl/Copyright in lists, which is still under development.) As a general rule of thumb, if neither presentation or information is creative, we may be able to have it or reproduce it. If presentation is creative but information is not, we can take the information and put it into a new presentation. If both are creative, we are limited to WP:NFC, which means we either have to make a "fair use" claim for it or paraphrase/summarize it.
It can be hard to assess creativity when you aren't familiar with the field, but I would be concerned about Table 1 there (nonetheless because I read "A comparison of biochemical to macroscopic components will show the possibilities of the former by analogy to the latter " and find myself having no idea what the author means). I do not know how the compiler of that table selected those elements or organized them; I don't know if the molecular examples compared to the technology are given tropes in the field or are innovative to the author. I don't know why "struts" are on top and "numerical control systems" are on bottom. I'm afraid that it may be creative on both levels.
Most likely, the best that we can do with the information is offer a summary, something akin to "In a 1981 paper, K. Eric Drexler created a table demonstrating functional analogies of technological systems to biochemical ones as a means of exploring additional potentials of the technology." (I'm guessing that's what he's doing. I'm not taking the time to read the whole thing. :)) "Among other examples, he suggested that, as units intended to move things, solenoids and actuators were comparable to conformation-changing proteins and actin/myosin."(cite) We can't reproduce the entire table in this way, but we can mention a few notable examples, more if we are "transforming" that information with critical expansion of Drexler's work.
(Sometimes the best way to determine if a list is creative is to go to the people who know the field. Generally, I ask the people at WikiProjects and get pretty good feedback. Not sure which project might be best here, if you wanted to explore whether the table really is uncreative.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

Hello Moonriddengirl, this is Survir. I just want to ask that can you have two seperate pages in wikipedia of a television programme that just changed the original title of the series, or do you just have one. For example, the following television serial Shubh Kadam which aired back in 2008-09 was named Kaisi Laagi Lagan first, but after 6 months of its launch the title of the series was changed to Shubh Kadam. So can we divide them into two seperate seasons and list them under "followed by" in infobox template or you just have one page with the current title? The directors of the series were also replaced after its name change. Moreover, when launched as Kaisi Laagi Lagan, it focused on college track, but when the couple tied the knot, the series was named Shubh Kadam. So what do you say...? Survir (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Survir. :) I'd say this is really a question for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television, but my own opinion would be that the title of the earlier version would stand as a redirect to the new title, which would document the entire history of the show. At least, I think this would be a proper handling if the show has the same story continuity and is not a spin off or a sequel. For example, American television show All in the Family launched a number of spin-offs, using some of the characters from the original: Maude (TV series), The Jeffersons, etc. It also had a sequel: Archie Bunker's Place. Each of these have new articles. However, the television show that started off as These Friends of Mine is described at Ellen (TV series), as Ellen is the better-known title. Black Sheep Squadron is known by its earlier, more famous title at Baa Baa Black Sheep (TV series). For one example where two titles are retained when a series is retitled, Good Morning, Miss Bliss has its own article, because the story changed enough that Saved by the Bell is regarded as a substantially different show. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

JS Group

Hi there MRG! There's a request at RPP for full protection of this page because of copyright concerns. I see that you've been involved in it. Could you give it a quick look over and see if protection is needed. I'll keep an eye on it in the mean time for 3RR etc. Thanks! GedUK  12:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure. :) I'm looking into it now. We have had copyright problems in the article, largely as part of the greater battle between pro- and anti- warriors who are attempting to use reliable sources to validate their views, but not necessarily doing so correctly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any signs of copyright problems in the latest batches of text, even those which have been removed. (I ran it through Earwig, which matched only quotes, and then did a spotcheck of a couple of the sources.) Some of them are overly promotional, but I think the contributor has taken on board the copyright concerns. We may wind up having to fully protect the page or block contributors for the content disputes, but I'm not sure we've reached that point yet. One of the contributors is doing a much better job lately of discussing concerns, although there are still COI issues. I'm reluctant to come down too fast for that kind of thing when it stems from an initial, legitimate BLP issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
(Chiming in) Agreed, I think we have made a lot of progress. Hopefully the article can expand and improve. If content disputes continue, I will seek another remedy.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
You're doing a great job there, NortyNort. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I try. You don't do too bad yourself! Whew. I hope your migraines have been getting better.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. :) They're nowhere near as severe as they used to be. Ocasionally, I get a doozy, but most of the time they're low grade annoyances even when they do appear. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, I knew you'd be on it :) GedUK  19:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Deer Isle

I just noticed that the majority of Deer Isle Bridge is taken directly from the HAER document linked at the bottom. As a work of the National Park Service, it's presumably public domain, but as a direct copy-paste, isn't it plagiarism? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

(Which raises questions about Ron Nelson (composer), which I likewise swiped from a USGov source...) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, the good news is that if it is plagiarism, it's every so easy to remedy on Wikipedia. All you need is the right attribution template. :) Off to look. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've located and added the proper template to Deer Isle Bridge. You want to drop one on Ron Nelson (composer)? They're all to be found at Category:United States government attribution templates. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Got it, much obliged. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

New content for Hindu Janajagruti Samiti

Hi Moonriddengirl, This is regarding "Hindu Janajagruti Samiti" article. Do you think below content looks ok to you ? I tried my best to take care of copyright concers which were raised with previous version of article. Apart from adding the references if there are any suggessions for improving this article upto wikipedia standards, Please let me know. Sanatany (talk) 03:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC) Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (Registration No. : 1540 / I-634) Establishment : Chhatrapati Shivaraya kept aside all the differences and united and formed an army of ‘mawlas’. He established ‘Hindvi Swaraj’ with the belief that it was the wish of God. Similarly, keeping aside the constraints of organizations, sects, castes etc. Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) was established, on the spur-of-the-moment, on the auspicious day of ‘Ghat-sthapana (Navaratri)’ [Ashwin Shu. Pratipada, 7th October 2002] for uniting Hindus and establishment of righteous Hindu Nation. Activities of HJS have now spread all over the country with the grace of God and support of devout Hindus. Aim: 1. To impart ‘Dharmashikshan’ to Hindus and motivate them to follow ‘Dharmacharan’. 2. To develop patriotism and love and respect towards Dharma among Hindus. 3. Protection of Nation and Dharma. 4. Unite Hindus for establishment of Hindu Nation Successful drive of Hindu unity : Hindu Dharmajagruti Sabha Hindu Dharmajagruti Sabhas are organized to create awareness among Hindus towards various attacks on Hindu Dharma; for uniting them and sow in them, the seed of establishment of Hindu Nation. In the last 3 years, more than 8,00,000 devout Hindus attended 750 such ‘sabhas’ held in 7 languages in 13 States. Outcome of the ‘sabhas’ : 1. Many pro-Hindu organizations came together for the sake of Dharma 2. Many youth members were freed from their addictions and joined activities related to protection of Dharma 3. In many villages, different factions forgot their differences and came together 4. Hindus, who were not part of any pro-Hindu groups, became active for establishment of Hindu Nation Activities related to ‘Dharmashikshan’ 1. ‘Dharmashikshan’ Classes : HJS conducts 600 weekly / fortnightly ‘Dharmashikshan’ classes wherein science behind various acts of ‘Dharmacharan’ like going to temple for ‘darshan’, apply ‘Tila’ on the forehead etc. is explained in detail. 2. ‘Dharma-satsangs’ telecast on TV channels : A series of ‘Dharma-satsangs’ titled ‘Science behind religious rituals/ acts’ has been prepared by HJS, in Hindi (in 200 parts of 25 minutes each) for reaching the knowledge of ‘Dharma’ to every house. Presently, these ‘Dharma-satsangs’ are being telecast on the national channel ‘Sudarshan’ and nearly 80,00,000 Hindus are getting benefit of these ‘Satsangs’ through local Cable Channels. ‘Prasar’ through ‘Dharmaphalaks (Display Boards)’ : Information on incidents related to attack on Hindu Dharma and oppression of Hindus besides current affairs and science behind celebrating various religious festivals is written on 1050 display boards regularly on behalf of HJS Social Activities HJS is also engaged in social activities like cleaning of temples, holding blood donation camps, aid to flood-affected citizens, planting of trees etc.

It is the duty of every Hindu to sacrifice something for Dharma ! It is necessary that everyone participates in the activities related to protection of Nation and Dharma. It is an appeal to Hindus that in case they are unable to devote time for such activities, they can at least offer donations every month and perform their duty towards Dharma.

HJS claims that their website www.HinduJagruti.org is one of the most-visited among all pro-Hindu websites in the world – 1,40,000 readers per month from 175 countries

  • Science behind religious rituals / acts with demonstrations
  • Solutions on attacks on Dharma
  • Latest activities related to protection of Hindu Dharma

Publishing of series of articles, VCDs etc. Active organization of awakened Hindus ! Will create Nation for Hindus ! Sanatany (talk) 03:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for your work towards revising this! In order to fully evaluate copyright concerns, I do need links to your sources, though. Can you provide those? Also, does the article end with the words "planting of trees etc."? The line makes it look as though what follows is separate, but I'm unsure if you mean that to be subsections of the same article. IF so, I'm afraid that content such as "It is the duty of every Hindu to sacrifice something for Dharma !" is probably inappropriate, even if true. What we try to do here is provide information that uninvolved sources have written about notable subjects. The article should focus primarily on what others have said about Hindu Janajagruti Samiti . --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Statues

Hi, a quick question please. Are most photographs of modern statues against Wiki-rules? The page Miguel Bejarano Moreno has two of his statues, and both images have been marked as candidates for deletion on commons as copyvio based on the "presumption" that they were copyrighted. I have no idea if that approach is valid, given that there are plenty of statue images, and we do not know if the statue was coprighted. Are all statues to be banished from commons? It would seem like a loss. Your comments on the commons page for these two will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid that we do have to presume modern sculptures are copyrighted, but that doesn't mean that Commons has to eliminate all of them. There is a concept in copyright law called Freedom of Panorama. These rules vary country by country, but in those countries that have them (not the U.S.) pictures of copyrighted statues may be permitted depending on where and how they are displayed. (See also Commons:Commons:Freedom of panorama.) I can't really weigh in on those deletion debates without knowing in which countries those statues are found and where they are displayed. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, and your links already provided useful information that answers the question. E.g. for the US there is a red flag for artwork and a green light for buildings. For Spain and Holland where those statues are, there is no red flag for artwork. You know a lot about these things, so I am glad I asked you first. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad if I could help. :) And I'm sorry if I misled you, I meant that pictures of copyrighted statues were not permitted if they were hosted in the U.S. I didn't mean to imply that nothing in the public in the U.S could be photographed, but I see that's how it came out. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
(Oh, looking at these statues and knowing where they are: one factor to consider here is that they are not shown in their surroundings, but isolated. I'm afraid that this may still be a problem under Neverthelands FOP. :/ I do not know if the Netherlands regard churches as "public" in their definition, but the Commons guideline specifically mentions that "the picture must show the work as it appears in the public place. (A photograph showing a sculpture in its surroundings is OK. Cutting out the sculpture and using only the image of the sculpture is not covered by article 18.)" --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Tronic Studio

Hey I'm sorry to bother you again but Tronic has not received the email yet, I just wanted to check the status...thanks in advance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DBelozersky (talk • contribs) 19:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Osama bin Laden

Hi, I took a little break from my "pet" project to contribute to the Osama bin Laden article, mainly the events surrounding his death. For the first time, I got a true taste of how incredible this system is of bringing together several interested contributors. I would write a few sentences, and within an hour it would morph in to this overall much better, more detailed content by virtue of everyone adding a bit, taking a way a bit, etc.. It really was fun to watch, and I was excited for the first time when working on content.

On the evening of May 1st, I thought I would "rush" over to the article, having been at the Television when the announcement came through, but um, NO, there were already several others typing away! It really was something. Interestingly, I had no prior interest in this subject content, but a little research, and help from others, and well, it's developed into (or added to) at least 4 forked articles, along-side this one.

I realize this is just an impromptu message, but your advice to check out other areas is what led me to it, so... ...thanks for the support and advice. Dijcks | InOut 00:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That's great! It can help to deal with the hard times if you know how the model works when it's at its best. :D Thanks for letting me know. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Netball reprise

I have been pressed to disclose further examples of the close paraphrasing. I left this. Could you advise as to what corrective action should be taken? Anything I would do would be viewed as provocation, but the table in Netball and the Olympic Movement is not properly attributed back to Women's sport at the Olympics. Footnote 5 in both articles is broken in exactly the same way. Finally the table itself is extremely problematic. Please help and advise. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) In this case, in terms of copying from one article to another, we're okay. The thing to do when you find duplicated content between articles is look to the point of origin. If its placed by a different user or contains content created by a different user, we would address it as recommended at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. When it's all by one, it's not an issue at all. So, it would be okay on that front anyway, but here there is an additional factor: it is effectively an extended quote. When a quotation is copied from one article to another, unless fresh creative content is brought with it, there's no attribution requirement at all to the person who placed the quote. Placing a quote in an article does not give one any copyright, so there are no attribution rights for it.
However, I agree with you that the table itself is problematic. The article reproduces it in structure and language, and I suspect that both are amply creative enough for protection. (See User:Moonriddengirl/Copyright in lists.) The question is whether the use of that content, which is fully cited, is too extensive for WP:NFC. I need to mull that one over to see what I think myself. I don't think it's a bright line case, although it is a legitimate question, and I may tag it {{non-free}} and invite discussion at the talk page of one or both of the articles. My gut feeling is that it may be okay for Women's sport at the Olympics, but not for Netball and the Olympic Movement, since parts of it are utterly irrelevant to the latter sport. I think this would fail our usual approach to NFC in respect of minimal usage necessary for our purposes and that quoting an excerpt from the table may be more appropriate. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
I generally agree with your analysis, which was based on the assumption that fn 5 correctly reflects the source. It does not. The footnote must point to the actual source not to an irrelevant random page. The table should be indicated as "reprinted from" or "quoted from". As presently stated, there is no indication that the table is a in effect a tabular block quote from the Olympics fact sheet. Who should fix this? If I take the initiative, it will provoke a topic ban. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
You may be overlooking that text, but it is there. :) Look at the sentence right above the table: "The table created at this meeting is provided below" --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Your comment is helpful, and reflects LauraHale very recent change. I hope she has a source for the table being "created at" the meeting. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Request

Hi there. Would you have time to please check the follwoing three additions to a BLP article (1, 2 & 3) for possible copyright violations? The edits consist of copied material from an external site, whereby the editor simply copied material from one site and pasted the content into the BLP article. In my view, this appears to be a WP:COPYVIO issue. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 09:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure. :) I'm off to look now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, two of the links are mostly block quotes. The first one is just three sentences; it is appropriately attributing a point of view (although it needed WP:INTEXT attribution). The second one is a bit more substantial, and I'm unsure if all of it is needed. I do not think it is a copyright problem, however, although the quote may be excessive. I'd encourage you to trim it as you see fit. The other edit [18], adding content from this link, is a problem. I've removed it and will speak to the contributor about it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks very much for taking the time to look into the issue. Amsaim (talk) 14:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately the editor who added the copyrighted material has re-added the material using close-paraphrasing in order to hide the copyright violation. Amsaim (talk) 08:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite often, close paraphrasing issues are not a result of an intent to hide copyright violations, but rather a result of people not realizing how far they must go in rewriting content in order to use it. :) In this case, I think given that the facts are basic we're probably okay. One of the best things to do where there are concerns about close paraphrasing, however, is to expand with additional content. I'll see if I can nudge it in that direction. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks again very much for your assistance & input. Amsaim (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Tronic Studio

Thank you very much can you please let me know as soon as you receive it?DBelozersky (talk) 18:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

More on Committee on International Security and Arms Control

Hi Moonriddengirl. You remember the copyright issues on Committee on International Security and Arms Control. I started a brand new article here, currently only stub level. So it can replace the old versions, since I presume those will be deleted. -- SchreyP (talk) 20:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Fabulous! Great work there, in analyzing the problem and rectifying it. :D Since today it's due for admin closure, i just went ahead and implemented your replacement text. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Hey, and thank you for your support and motivation in solving the first copyright problem I found :) And more thanks for the barnstar you gave for this! Very much appreciated! It will feel good today :) -- SchreyP (talk) 13:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

With well learned lessons from you (a belated TY) You will find this message on the talk page of Public image of Barack Obama: 2004 Speech "To whomever rewrote the section on his Democratic Convention speech in 2004, you have some serious copyright issues that need to be corrected immediately. — DocOfSoc • Talk • 13:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)" Some phrases are verbatim from the sourced article, which I had carefully rewritten in the first place. Have a good day. Namaste... — DocOfSoc • Talk • 13:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I was just about to reply to you on that talk, can you further specify where the text is so myself and other editors can check it?--NortyNort (Holla) 13:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Examples are always helpful, if you don't mind. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
I'll just fix them. Thanks! HMD! — DocOfSoc • Talk •

Thank you for your help

I was away from my machine and so did not notice the good work that you did for the page for Bioversity International. I will try to ensure that no more is copy-pasted without at least thinking about copyright issues. User:JeremyCherfas —Preceding undated comment added 12:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC).

aanchal newspaper

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Aanchal and http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Aanchal_newspaper there are two pages for same article -- one of them must be removedPaglakahinka (talk) 17:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. We have a contributor who has been hijacking an article about a film. I've put things straight, and hopefully that will be the end of it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Adrián_Terrazas-González#Copyright_problem_removed

You placed a reasonable explanatory message in this section and NortyNort took action to remove the Copyvio paste. Snce then, I've deleted re-additions of the same material 3 times, most recently a few minutes ago. That repetition gives me reason to assume it will soon be back; maybe needing more decisive action? AllyD (talk) 19:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! I've rev deleted it again and blocked the IP, since it is stable. This may do the trick. If not, we may have to semi-protect the page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Roy Orbison 1965.jpg

Can you take a look at this image to see if it really qualifies for public domain? I'm somewhat skeptical. The uploader justified it on my talk page here. I appreciate your assistance. --Moni3 (talk) 00:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I gave an answer there myself, but you might still want to opine as well. — Coren (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

Hi Moonriddengirl, I was planning on collecting a list of admins / experienced editors whom I could consult if there is something I need help with. If I need help with a copyright question, could I come directly to you? Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. Lots of people do. :) I also have some very knowledgeable talk page stalkers who can help, and if you come by with a question I can't answer, I'll do my best to find somebody who can. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. I do have one question that is bugging me, but it is not copyright related. I think I may have found a child-porn pic on Commons. I've reported it to the foundation and XFD'd it, but it's been a week and no reply. Do you know anyone on Commons who could deal with that? I tried contacting Bastique (on Commons) from the list of Admins, but no reply thusfar. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I suggest you contact m:Oversight#Users_with_oversight_rights. Yoenit (talk) 12:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Yoenit. I'll try the IRC. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Talk page stalkers rock. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:39, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed yours do. *gets out a 2kg steak* "Dinner!" Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
That won't be enough to feed all 429 of us. Yoenit (talk) 13:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
*Empties wallet buying steaks and bakso* Enjoy!Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

M. K. Rajakumar

I see from the talk page and the history that you have had issues with M. K. Rajakumar in October of last year. I have been hacking my way through this particular thorn hedge but am slowly giving up the will to continue. You managed to prune it back to c 7K but recently it has been > 100K and I have now got it back to c 60K but most of the rest is just essays, CVs etc. I am about to restore your October version and am flagging here just in case a bomb goes off over my head from irate IPs!  Velella  Velella Talk   23:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) semi-protected for a good while. MLauba (Talk) 23:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 May 2011

Advice please

There's a discussion at Talk:Air France Flight 447 re use of one or more sea-bottom images that would benefit from your insight. It seems the copyright is held, or at least asserted, by a French government organ, the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile. They are reportedly willing to have it reused, but not in such a way that it could be altered. I've not seen any policy statement on the inclusion of such images which is sufficiently clear for me. Could you please help shed some light there? Regards, LeadSongDog come howl! 16:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I'll take a look at it in the morning. The short answer is that we cannot use any image that does not permit modification unless we can make a "fair use" defense for it. Our image policies requires that both modification and commercial reuse be permitted, and a license that restricts either of those is, alas, just not usable. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. If you'd also then give some consideration to fair use, that would provide doubleplusgood helpfulsomeness. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I had meant to respond to this earlier, but it slipped my mind twice. I'm preparing for a trip, and I'm afraid I'm a bit scattered. :) Since you had asked for policy statement, Wikipedia:Image use policy says, "Images that are listed as for non-commercial use only, by permission, or which restrict derivatives are unsuitable for Wikipedia and will be deleted on sight, unless they are used under an appropriate non-free use rationale." This is the problem with importing images that cannot be altered. That means that the images must meet the 10 points of policy at Wikipedia:Non-free content if we are to use them. This can be tricky. Arguing "fair use" on images is most definitely not my strong point. What I would do, if I were you, is go to WT:NFC and just ask the contributors there if they think that one of those images is usable under policy. It would be helpful to give them a tiny bit of background on what the images are, as if they have to go read the article they're less likely to respond at all. :D I would identify specifically which image you want and why you think it's really necessary for the article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:21, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Help

Hello. Long time. Could you please advise on this? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry I forgot to answer you! I followed the link and saw that the situation is well in hand. I think that the contributors who are pitching in there are spot on and should resolve the problem nicely. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Moonriddengirl. I have just posted a message at User talk:Malhousto concerning an article which I have deleted, copyright being one of the issues. It was a classic case: CorenSearchBot posts a copyright warning, user posts a message saying "I own the copyright", article is deleted anyway, largely because it is promotional. I have seen this happen many times, and quite often the user has then gone to the trouble of giving copyright permission and recreating the article, only to see it deleted again because of other issues, most commonly promotion. I can well imagine, as no doubt you can, how frustrating this must be for someone who comes here in good faith, unaware of Wikipedia's policies, and has taken some trouble in trying to conform. I have been concerned about this issue for some time, and I always try to give a user a friendly warning to the effect "you can follow the instructions for donating copyright if you like, but my advice is that it is probably not worth it". The reason I have come to you now is that in this case I see that the user's talk page had a message copied from User:Moonriddengirl/vp, and I wondered if you might like to consider the possibility of adding a few words there to suggest that the user might like to consider other approaches, other than giving copyright permission. It also might be worth considering adding such comments to other copyright-related notices: what do you think? JamesBWatson (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that's probably a good idea. There's some vague suggestion in vp ("It may be necessary once permission is verified to address other concerns in the text, if it is otherwise inconsistent with our policies and guidelines.") and in at least one of the actual templates that content may be inappropriate, but I myself hate to see people wasting their time with permission when the content is never going to wash. I'll put some thought into it as my morning caffeine kicks in. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
The second message I put on the user's talk page was originally for the article's talk page but it was deleted prior to me hitting save page. I was trying to guide them in that direction as there were other problems with the article. I have seen this happen a few times as well, even after they get OTRS permission. I think the information already in vp plus some stronger words could be broken out into a small paragraph.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:10, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
What do you thins? Is this the right direction? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I think it's great. Any other needed clarifying comments can be given outside the template.--NortyNort (Holla) 22:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Personally I would have worded it a bit more strongly, to convey more clearly the message "it's likely to be a waste of your time giving copyright clearance as the material is very likely to be unsuitable on other grounds", though I wouldn't object to the new version. The problem with "any other needed clarifying comments can be given outside the template" is simply that the vast majority of users almost always simply post a templated message and don't bother to give further information. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:06, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Orbison, et. al.

I think I am the only one who was using this for images. I can provide a list of the ones which were uploaded using this and also the ones which were transferred to Commons. Personally don't see how this can be misused any more than anything else that's either free or non-free. Everything has a potential for misuse if someone wants to work hard enough at it, but that shouldn't stop the majority who work within the rules. One of the most common complaints I see from both registered users and non-registered ones is that with the current guidelines, many notable people's photos don't look anything like them when they were making movies, records, etc. My thought was that it was a way to work within guidelines and be able to provide this type of image. I can give you a list of the images on your talk page if that might help. We hope (talk) 01:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Just went into Media copyright archives from February of this year for the answer which sparked my interest in the process:

my question and the reply The file File:Scarabengine.jpg was changed on the basis of the collective works information. We hope (talk) 02:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

More research and I see that the editor who replied with the information had been using this rationale for magazine ads without specific notice of copyright at least since 2009, File:MITS Calculator 908DM 1974.jpg File:SWTPC 6800 Computer Oct 1977.jpg, so the reasoning and its use are not new to WP at all. We hope (talk) 02:33, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into this! I don't know what will wind up happening; at this point, I'd just recommend keeping an eye on the MCQ conversation and seeing what comes of it. If it doesn't resolve, I'll see if I can get further info when I come back from my trip. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Please Help

I have been poking around and have got to know that you are undisputedly the best copyright expert on Wiki. A user has continously been biting me I am in real need of help. He has reported all signatures I uploaded as copyright infringment and has listed them for deletion as you can see here Request you to spare an eye. Also, he has again and again tagged File:BuddhoBabu.jpg and File:BuddhadebBabu.jpg as PUF even though a consensus has been reached. I really request you to stop this non-sense and warn him. Requesting replies to both cases. GaneshBhakt (talk) 08:53, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm traveling at the moment and unsure how long I'll be able to access Wikipedia. If I don't get to finish looking into this before I lose my contact at this point, I'll look into it as soon as I am able. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've looked into the two at PuF. I'm afraid that you may be misunderstanding the way that board works. There is no consensus until the listing is closed by an administrator, who will evaluate the conversations within policy. (Sometimes, the closure may not conform to the majority view.) These may be open for a few days longer before an administrator gets to them. At that point, the administrator will box off the section, the way the section immediately above these images is blocked off.
As far as "biting" is concerned, I'm sorry if you feel that you have not been treated with the courtesy you deserve. Sometimes conversations on Wikipedia can become tense. However, do please remember that raising copyright concerns does not necessarily assume that you are intentionally doing anything wrong. We recognize that copyright laws and copyright policies on Wikipedia are complex. This is why there is a specific section on our "Assume good faith" policy talking about how copyright issues should be perceived, at WP:AGFC. It's important, though, when you think that somebody is not being as civil as they should be to try to come to accord with them politely yourself, to avoid unintentionally worsening conflict. It isn't "biting" to point out problems, although you may well feel that the problems could be pointed out more politely. In these cases, we recommend that you first try to overlook the issue and then gently point it out to them yourself. If they continue, you can ask for feedback at WP:WQA. Please see WP:C for more ideas.
I must run, so I need to wrap this up. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I'm not going to comment at the deletion pages but will offer this advise. In all instances you have not provided all the necessary information necessary to verify the image details. You really need to add a fully completed {{information}} template which looks like a bit like this:
{{Information | description = | source = | date = | author = | permission = | other_versions = }}
So fill in all the fields after the equal sign; source is the webpage where the image came from, date is date image was created not upload date, author and description are obvious, and the permission can be entered as a separate copyright tag below the template.
Regarding the signatures, you claimed the signatures are your own work but this is obviously false. You seem to state that you are the person who made the signature but if you made them yourself that would be forgery, so say who made the signature. For the two Babu images, there is a suspicion these are not your own images and the lack of the metatags which contain the photo details and can tend to confirm an uploader as being the source. You also use a template that does not exist. Do you have the original images? Hope that helps. ww2censor (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
I guess I have already specified the signature thing and that is out of question now as I have provided the link. Also, it is obvious that I created the signature files because we cannot upload paper to Wikipedia. And if someone uploads pictures which are dating back to 2001, I believe no one can provide metadata. GaneshBhakt (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Sounds like some wikilawyering to me; unless you are a magician, you did not make the original signatures even if you scanned images or copied them from websites. Technically you did not create the images, you may have created a digital image of it, so the author is the person whose signature it is and the source is the website you got it from, or state that you scanned an image. The Babu images now have good looking information templates though the closing admin may still decide to delete them if (s)he believes the argument made in the deletion nomination are substantiated. Anyway, good luck. ww2censor (talk) 04:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Lilford_Hall

You deleted in November 2010 major portions of the above wesite.

I have now given copyright permission to Wikipedia, so please reinstate the deleted portions of the above wesite asap.

If you need to contact me, please e-mail me at <redacted for privacy> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.122.77.185 (talk) 13:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your permission! I have replied to you at Talk:Lilford Hall, requesting a little more information. Hopefully, the matter will be resolved soon. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Elected committee

I've written up a draft here. The language is, of course, very general. In practice, you would expect that a committee could be elected to make new policies, or to edit certain policy pages on sensitive issues on which the community is too divided. Count Iblis (talk) 01:12, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. :) I probably won't get to look at it until I get back; typically, I don't sleep that well the night before flying somewhere, and I'd rather have my wits about me. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I just expanded the page a bit. If you have some ideas on improving it, you can edit it directly (gaining consensus will be difficult, so I'm not going to insist on very specific wordings, it would be good enough to get something along the general lines of the curent version adopted ). Count Iblis (talk) 00:58, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

African Conservation Foundation

African Conservation Foundation page deleted, but there was no copyright issue. Text has a Creative Commons license and use was approved by the organisation. Can the deletion be undone or should we recreate the page?

13:49, 18 August 2010 Moonriddengirl (talk | contribs) deleted "African Conservation Foundation" ‎ (Listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems for over seven days: http://www.africanconservation.org/content/view/23/34/)

Orokiet (talk) 13:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl is away from Wikipedia right now but I can help you out. The website does have a CC license but it is non-commercial (CC BY-NC-SA) and incompatible with Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA. See here for a compatibility chart.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:58, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Boue Soeurs

Hello Moonriddengirl - Your apology, on behalf of this hastily edited Forum, is appreciated and your encouragement along with that of others here, has inspired me to continue my work on Boue Soeurs. Just not on Wikipedia.

Regards, Ellen --Ellen Ada Goldberg (talk) 13:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Your excellence is requested

Your excellence is requested, when you are available and have the time. Could Haryana#Geography be a straight lift from this? I've ran it through dupe detector but couldn't make my mind up. - Sitush (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a copyvio, some of text for example was added here during a period of heavy editing on the article. The editor isn't active anymore but appears to have had some copyright problems during their tenure here. Since the copyvio was awhile ago, the original text has been modified a bit and it makes it harder to clean. I guess the good thing about User:Maheshkumaryadav's article splits is that they exposed a bunch of existing copyvios.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:35, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, although he added a shedload himself! I'll have to read up on how to deal with a mangled vio. Thank you, your highness (since the excellency is away) <g> - Sitush (talk) 04:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Agreed on that, it is often hard to tell when it is him or someone else. I removed the text from the Haryana article. If you need help working out copyright problems, WP:cv101 is a good place to start. No need for titles around here, haha. I am just a court jester and busy bee.--NortyNort (Holla) 05:28, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
I noticed the removal. Thanks also for the tip. - Sitush (talk) 05:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC) the humble tea boy
LOL! I'm glad you two were able to work this out. :D (And sort titles, too!) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Previously , on Langley High School (Oldbury), the entire copy of the school song lyrics were included; I removed them in this diff. I did so on both WP:NOT grounds (we don't quote primary texts in their entirety), and for the inclusion of the full lyrics being a potential copyright violation. Another editor (dynamic IP, signing as "Cresconian") objected, saying that the inclusion of songs was common in other UK school articles. I told him that the NOT issue could potentially be discussed, but that if it was a copyvio, there wasn't any possibility of including it. Cresconian was able to determine that the author of the song was J G Haworth, first Headmaster of the school, and that it was first published in the UK in 1928. As far as I can see from the copyright info, UK copyrights are protected for 70 years from the date of death of the author, or 70 years from the publication date if the author is unknown. In this case, we know the author, but not the death date (I assume, I'll check to be sure). Questions: First, have I pinned down the relevant issue? Second, (if yes on the first) assuming we can't easily find the death date, are we safe arguing this is out of copyright?

Mind you, even if we find that this song is out of copyright, I'll still be arguing against inclusion, but at least it's a possibility and one that can be resolved through consensus. I see above you're out for another day or two, which is fine, as this is not time sensitive, although if any TPS have the answer, feel free to let me know. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Had it been published just a few years earlier, it would have been public domain. :/ Probably because I'm jetlagged, it took me a bit of time to find this chart. :) You may want it to show to Cresconian. Here's the basic situation: if it was first published in the UK in 1928 without following US formalities and it had become public domain in the UK before January 1996, it's PD in the US Clearly, that can't be the case, since the author was still alive and publishing in 1928. It might also be PD in the US if it was published in the United States within 30 days of its original publication in the UK. PD would be determined then by whether it was published with proper notice and that notice was renewed. We'd need evidence of that publication. If it was not PD in the UK by January 1996, it will not be PD in the US until 95 years after its first publication--2024. This is true even if it has lapsed into public domain in the UK. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Found the conversation at your talk page. I'll just put this there. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:13, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks again very much! Your copyright advice is extraordinarily valuable and unbelievably extensive. I don't know how you do it. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant!

I think I may just have to link this on my userpage. Now, do you have any idea on how weyou author this process? LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:20, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

LOL! I have ideas, sure; viable ideas? Um....
I've been bandying about the notion of an elected body.... Actually, not so much that elected body. :) I have no concerns of bias myself with ArbCom, but I know that a lot of those advocating for reform fear bias among admins, and I think that most if not even all of ArbCom are admins. I've been thinking that an elected body consisting of a balanced group of admins and otherwise might vet admin abuse complaints, deciding which may merit advice or admonishment to an admin and which might merit sanctions (which they might be empowered to impose or which they might pass to ArbCom for adjudication). Of course, they'd also be able to dismiss frivolous complaints (either arising from misunderstanding what constitutes use of admin tools or simply from grievance over legit use of those tools).
Arbcom can, of course, address these matters themselves, but, as I said, I know there are deep-seated concerns that admins close ranks, and it seemed to me that representation might help alleviate those. It's a bit bureaucratic, but the current chaotic system of addressing things through ANI is certainly not an efficient and effective approach.
What do you think? Hopelessly cracked? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Possible copy/vio

Greetings. Could you please take a look at Mecca massacre, in particular, this part:

Khalid compiled a revealing letter of protest to Ruhollah Khomeini, asking that Khomeini urge his followers to show restraint but strongly hinting that the Great Mosque had been defiled by blasphemous Iranian pilgrims. According to Khalid, Iranian pilgrims in the Great Mosque had performed their ritual circumambulations while chanting "God is Great, Khomeini is great", and "God is One, Khomeini is one." There was no need for Khalid to elaborate on this charge. It was obvious (as far as Saudi Islam was concerned) that the Iranians' slogans constituted an excessive veneration of their Imam, regarded by Wahhabis as a form of polytheism. All this had aroused the "dissatisfaction and disgust" of other pilgrims, wrote Khalid to Khomeini. In fact, Khalid's letter distorted well-known Iranian revolutionary slogans. Iranian pilgrims had actually chanted "God is Great, Khomeini is leader." The Saudis had confused the Persian word for "leader" (rahbar) with the rhyming Arabic for "great" (akbar). The pilgrims' Arabic chant declared that "God is One, Khomeini is leader." Here, the Saudis had confused the Arabic for "one" (wāhid) with the rhyming Arabic for "leader" (qā'id).

And compare it to: [19].

I would edit it myself, but unfortunately, most of my recent edits have been reverted, and I have been reminded to stay within the guidelines set by 3RR. Thank you. Unflavoured (talk) 20:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Moonriddengirl is away right now but I removed the text in question as it appears to be a copyright violation. The book was published in 1990 and the text added in 2007. In the future, you can report such cases at WP:CP.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, NortyNort. :) (I have a feeling I'll be saying that more than once this morning. :D) Just for future reference, Unflavoured, copyright cleanup is exempt from WP:3RR, but that's an exemption you want to invoke carefully. On very controversial articles in which you may seem to be involved, I would typically recommend removal once, with a clear explanation in edit summary and a note on the talk page ({{cclean}} works) followed by, if the content is returned, blanking the material by using {{copyvio}} (if you place a after the section, it won't blank the whole article). If that template is removed without clear action (such as removing the copyrighted content or proving that infringement is reversed), it's a good idea to track down an admin to help out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, for your further actions and for your advice. I will keep this in mind later, but I think I will simply edit at a slower pace so as not to encroach upon 3RR, regardless of whether or not it is warranted. Unflavoured (talk) 13:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The material in question are essential information to the context of the events. Unflavoured is trying to censor this information for purely POV reason, Copyvio is not his main concern. The material should be restored as attributed quotation per our copyright guidelines, which clearly states "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea.". Do you guys agree? Kurdo777 (talk) 13:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. We don't keep copyright problems around until they are fixed; they are removed unless they are fixed. The best means to handle this, as the template at the talk page advises, is to rewrite the material so that it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. We can't quote something just because we also want to present the material; use of non-free content needs to be transformative...it has to be used for good reason. (Some reasons are set out in the guideline which you quote.) Some of the smaller unattributed pasting I removed could probably be restored as an attributed quotation (although the sources cited seem to have been false; it was copied from Geocities which may not meet WP:V), but most of the content in the paragraph quoted above would need to be written from scratch. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
What do you think of my attempt to re-write/summarize the material in question. [20]?Kurdo777 (talk) 13:39, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Seems fine, overall. :) There is a problem with WP:V. Again, the content was taken from Geocities. I don't know who flagged it as coming from page 181 of the book, but at least the phrase "pollute the Great Mosque" is on page 184. (See [21]). It seems like whoever cited that source just used one of the pages from which material was drawn. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:46, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I fixed the page number and reworded the rest of the material in question. Cheers. Kurdo777 (talk) 14:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Please help clarify

I would like your opinion as an admin, please. Is my recent edit [22] in violation of 3RR ?! The last similar edit was [23], but this time I had taken care to make only a small expansion of the lede, which I had expected to be uncontroversial. Thank you. Unflavoured (talk) 14:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I feel like you're not quite giving me the full picture here. :) That's two edits; by definition it can't violate 3RR. You would need to show me all four suspect edits and, preferably, explain what you were reverting for me to give you an opinion. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
That is what I thought as well. My last 4 edits to Mecca Massacre (not including talk page, and an edit which added to the "External links") are: [24], [25], [26], and [27]. Thank you very much for your time. Unflavoured (talk) 15:16, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, again, I'm not seeing the full picture if I don't know what you were reverting. With a 3RR violation report, you would usually begin by showing the state of the article to which you were reverting with the first of those four edits. Having just gotten back from a trip, I'm trying to catch up on copyright issues and really don't have time to examine the article edit by edit. So I'll just address the principle. If in those four edits you were reverting fully or partially to an earlier state, then you may have violated 3RR in spirit, even though the diffs span a few minutes more than 24 hours. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
In one of these edits, I expanded the history section, adding new material. That was not a revert, so I hope I have not broken 3RR. My apologies for taking your time, and thank you for your response. Unflavoured (talk) 15:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
No apology needed; I'm just explaining why I'm not digging further into this myself. :) If, in one of those edits, you did not restore earlier content and those are the only edits you've made in the time period (excluding the one which added an EL, presumably for the first time), then you should not have any issues with 3RR. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Alright, thanks again. I will expand other parts of the article for now, and leave the disputed parts alone to a later date, when perhaps there is a calmer mood. Cheers !! Unflavoured (talk) 15:55, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Indian copyright/PD

I have just reverted a huge copy/paste at Rajya Sabha. My suspicion is that, with suitable attribution, it might actually have been ok but I was unsure and it really was a lot of text. I have found the relevant website's copyright notice, which is a PDF here. It is extremely short and to the point, so if/when you have a moment would it be possible for you to check it out for me, please?

If it is ok, as I suspect, then my next issue is how to correctly incorporate it in a valid manner. I have looked at the WP:PLAGIARISM section on public domain and cannot decide whether each section needs citing + a comment in the edit summary or whether there should be a general note in references (as I think I have seen done for some PD books in the past). Clueless, as usual. - Sitush (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Not at all clueless. :)
I'm afraid that license is not compatible with Wikipedia's; it restricts reproduction to non-commercial use only and requires that "material has to be reproduced accurately", which is problematic for permitting derivative works. Both commercial reuse and modification are required by our licenses.
If it were compatibly licensed, you have the option of going either way--section by section, or article as a whole. I usually go article as a whole when copying is extensive. If interspersed or controversial, I will sometimes attribute by section. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, damn. That opens a huge can of worms. Indian editors have long been insisting that the output of their government is in the public domain and can be used here without any issues at all. Since the copyright notice I provided comes from the website of the upper house of the Indian parliament ... it looks likely that they are wrong. Only 249,999 articles left to check, then. - Sitush (talk) 15:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Some government information from India is public domain. Give me a minute, and I'll give you a fuller picture. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay. This is from some of my older notes. :) Copyright rules of 1957, section 52(q) excludes as copyright violations the "reproduction or publication" of certain government works, although they explicitly require the retention of certain materials in subsection (ii). Reproduction in the absence of these materials is regarded as a copyright violation.

Specifically, it says that the following are not copyright violations:

(q) the reproduction or publication of-

(i) any matter which has been published in any Official Gazette except an Act of a Legislature;
(ii) any Act of a Legislature subject to the condition that such Act is reproduced or published together with any commentary thereon or any other original matter;
(iii) the report of any committee, commission, council, board or other like body appointed by the Government if such report has been laid on the Table of the Legislature, unless the reproduction or publication of such report is prohibited by the Government;

(iv) any judgement or order of a court, tribunal or other judicial authority, unless the reproduction or publication of such judgment or order is prohibited by the court, the tribunal or other judicial authority, as the case may be

So, some content of the government of India is free; some is not. Determining which is which can sometimes be challenging. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Those exceptions are not mentioned at commons:COM:L#India or commons:Template:PD-India. They should be. ww2censor (talk) 15:16, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree; I gave it a go (and here), but failing to get much response came back to my home Wiki. :/ (I also brought up the matter either in IRC or e-mail thread; I can't remember the details at this point.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Excellent stuff, as always. Who needs Wikipedia as a knowledge source when we have Moonriddengirl? <g> The 1957 rules section you quote actually makes a lot of sense to me: broadly speaking, it is placing in the PD all written transactions of the government and courts which were intended to form a part of the "public record". Unfortunately, the stuff I've seen does not fall within its scope & so, if I ever find it again, will either have to go or be rephrased. I seem to recall that this includes quite a lot of images. I am not going to win any popularity contest. - Sitush (talk) 15:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Excuse interuption - just to note we have had issues with Indian Public Domain images in the past as the Indian Right to Information Act gives free access to government data but nothing in the act says it can then be re-used for anything for example commercial activities. In the public domain means it is available to the public not to do with what they want which has been misunderstood by Indian uploaders. Images quoting the Right to Information Act have required fair use statements in the past. MilborneOne (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I had an example of that a few weeks ago. The Indian editor was not very pleased with me. - Sitush (talk) 15:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Sitush, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I'm afraid that I am doomed to disappoint you! There's quite a lot I don't know; although I learn more every day, I suspect that's not going to change anytime soon. :D Public domain is really too strong a word for what they're doing, even though I used it myself earlier in this conversation. Since there are conditions, the material is not entirely free. The biggest and most obvious exception, of course, is with Acts of Legislature, which must be published with commentary or other official matter. The sentence at Commons:Template:PD-India that says "Text of laws, judicial opinions, and other government reports are free from copyright" is just flat wrong.

User:MilborneOne, I've got a case up at PuF right now where the Press Information Bureau of India is just not quite liberal enough. Always a shame to have to disappoint people who think they're doing the right thing. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The PuF one is a clear as day! The problem there is likely to be that ppl read only the first sentence of the copyright section. - Sitush (talk) 15:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Request reinstallment of My God, help me to survive this deadly love and all associated images

The article looked well referenced. I'd like the chance to fix any problems. I was unaware of the fact they even had a "copyright problems" page and that the default was to delete if no one said anything. — BQZip01 — talk 21:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I can restore it to give you a chance to fix problems, but I'm afraid that the quality of referencing has never been the issue with this gentleman; the problem is that he has evidently made a habit of copying or directly translating content from copyrighted sources. :/ See Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20110429. In addition to some confirmed copying from a New York Times article (abstract here), another contributor found some copying or close paraphrasing from [28]. Incidentally, if you have interest in the area, this is not the only of his articles that has been deleted or that probably will be. The CCI shows some redlinks that are already gone; the bulk of his contributions will likely wind up being removed, although with the backlog in that department it may be a while. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't necessarily have an interest in that area, but I did comment on an image from the page that was up for deletion. To be clear, what exactly is the problem? If he cited the source he got it from, where's the issue? Did he not use quotes? Did he copy EVERYTHING verbatim from other sites? If that's the problem, we can simply rephrase each sentence in our own words while retaining the citations. Your thoughts? — BQZip01 — talk 23:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
We don't know what he copied verbatim and what he didn't in any given article; that's really part of the problem. We just know that he copied a lot. :/ You can certainly rewrite the content, but you can't do it sentence by sentence any more than you could do that with a published source for risk of creating a derivative work; that's where close paraphrasing becomes an issue. It's best to work a little more broadly than that, perhaps referring back to those sources that you can see and working with them as though you were the originator of the article. Where he draws from sources you can't see (or, if you're not fluent in Russian, can't read :D) it may be best to be more general and avoid going too heavily into close detail. I've saved a few of his articles by stubbing them down; sometimes that makes a good starting point. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2011

Copyvio issues with a six-year-old article

Hi Moonriddengirl, need your advice. Vivian Balakrishnan, an article on a Singaporean politician, has contained copyvio from his official profile since the very first edit to create the article in July 2005. Over the years the copyvio hasn't really been touched while the rest of the article has evolved. I've removed the portions that still offend (direct copy-and-pastes in most cases, with the occasional minor sentence structure change), but I'm not sure if RD1 is needed. I don't think it's feasible to RD1 every single revision dating back six years. What's normally done in such a case? Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 08:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Why do you think we copied from them and not the other way around? His official profile says it was published in March 2010. Yoenit (talk) 08:59, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
The Singaporean government has been updating its websites recently, including changing the looks of them (and possibly changing the underlying software used to publish the sites). I wouldn't trust the date at face value. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 09:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I found the 2006 version of his website on the internet archive [29], this does indeed appear to be a foundational copyvio. I will leave it to an admin whether or not to revdelete, but pages with significantly more revisions than this page have been revdeleted under RD1 in the past. Yoenit (talk) 09:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
For the record, there's an earlier version from Jan 06, with a copyright tag at the bottom noting April 2005 – before our article was created. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Hope nobody minds if I jump in here - rather than use the revdel tool on this one, I just deleted the article and then undeleted the most previous revisions only. The history is still available in deleted articles, so I think we're okay from a licensing perspective. This just seemed easier. - Philippe 10:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Unfortunately that is not how it works. Readers and non-admins can't see the deleted history and the material is thus not properly attributed. Yoenit (talk) 10:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Good morning all! (From where I'm sitting anyway. :D) CC-By-SA has been interpreted as requiring that we either maintain the history of the article or provide a complete list of prior contributors. But there's an alternative to revdeletion here: Wikipedia:Selective deletion. In other words, I would start with exactly what you did, Philippe. :) I'll finish off with that list. I'm on it --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:54, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Strange Passerby#copyvio? - we have an another admin, La goutte de pluie (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who steadfastly refuses to believe this is copyvio and says the Singaporean government committed copyvio of us, despite evidence to the contrary. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I just pointed him to this discussion. Yoenit (talk) 11:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the article for my usual tell-tale clues. :) I'll do a temporary move of the article top to get the deleted revisions off to themselves and do my usual trawl for signs of reverse infringement. The archived version of the article will be a great help. Would be much better with a definitive answer, but you take what you can get. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Well I am persuadable, hold on! I am saying we shouldn't jump the gun. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Looking for signs of reverse infringement is standard operating procedure. :) It happens way more frequently than people might imagine. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


I restored a few revisions (I skipped a lot of them -- I only restored big content changes) otherwise we will be blind without them being temporarily public. If you look at how the article evolved from the very beginning, it seems clear to me that they copyvio'ed us. For example, info about his leadership of the student unions was put up early 2006, but this doesn't appear on his earlier biographies in 2005 and 2006, and only appears in his 2010 biography. Actually what we probably have is an intimate copying off of one another -- the government has this annoying tendency of editing articles about their own ministers to make themselves look better. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
It's in his April 2005 biography, in the first paragraph. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've reseparated them. Please give me a couple of minutes to organize this so that we can evaluate it systematically. Restoring only some of the history is probably not the best idea; generally, it is the small edits (typo corrections, etc.) where we see evidence of reverse infringement. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Oops, I didn't know you were still analysing; okay I'll let you do your work. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, the history of the article is currently parked here: Vivian Balakrishnan/deleted revisions. If it turns out that the infringement is reversed, we can merge it back in. Generally, the biggest clues we'll find when archives cannot confirm that their publication predates (though it suggests they did) is looking for minute changes that alter the content into the form of the external site. This can be a bit tedious, but with enough of these we hit Occam's razor—the odds that somebody copied an external source with a few minor changes and that a couple of other editors came along later and happened to move it back to its original form are pretty small.

Now that the history is divided, let's take a look and see what we can see. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Preliminarily, I think this is a reverse infringement. The most significant factor so far: [30]. This sentence was added well after the foundation of the article and is present in the external site. Still looking; I like to be sure with these kinds of things. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm not seeing this, MRG. The April 2005 external site includes both lines. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:40, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Is that a pro-government editor just making the article conform to the government source? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Also the structure of the article starts here. Clearly, the current website copies that from us. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
That's merely adding headings to the article. The actual structuring of the article, sans-headings, was identical to the official external site. The fact that the current external site uses headings should not be taken as a fact to mean that they committed copyvio from us, when their original site was already structured as such. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's not April 2005; that's January 2006. :) The April 2005 date of copyright is not proof of authorship in 2005; many websites use a single date. The point is that it is highly unlikely that one user would copy parts of a copyrighted source and another user come in and add other parts of the same copyrighted source. When this happens, this offers us signs of natural evolution. The more people I find building on such content, the better, but sometimes we don't have a lot. I'm finding more evidence of reverse infringement. I'll set it out here so we can discuss it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Still, your diff above is from April 2006, MRG. There's at least some aspect of copyvio on WP's side, but possibly there may be two-way infringement? Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:49, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
There may be; that's happened before, too. Your January archive is earlier than the one I was working with. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
It also seems possible to me the situation you mention would occur if the first editor thought some information inappropriate for Wikipedia, but a second one not, therefore the second editor goes back and adds this. Unlikely, but possible. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
The earliest archived revision is January 2006, correct? I can't seem to go back any earlier. Vsion wrote (copied?) the base of that article in June 2005. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (be free) 11:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
That we currently have, correct. I'm trying to find an earlier one somehow. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Unfortunately, that doesn't prove anything. :/ Archives can have a significant lag before they store a site. While finding an earlier archive can be used to prove that we copied, lack of an archive can't prove that we didn't. The January 2006 archives makes verifying reverse infringement, if it occurred, much more difficult because there is a shorter range for natural evolution. Given that dated archive, I don't think we have enough to exclude our copyvio, but I'm looking at it from a few other angles. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

December 4, 2004, predating our article. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, good job! However did you find that? You do realize that I may be knocking on your door in the future when I find similarly complex cases? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
LOL! I'm surprised I didn't think about it earlier, actually. While we focussed on the recent editions of the external page, I was looking through the Singapore-specific (National Library-hosted) wayback machine. The earliest there, as we saw, was Jan 2006. Then I had the idea of taking that URL (a page which no longer exists) and putting that into the archive.org-hosted wayback machine, and it threw up results all the way back to August 2004. :) Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Genius! :D I'm off to catalog the history, then. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, the history is all stored at Talk:Vivian Balakrishnan/Attribution. Since you may run into such situations in the future, Strange Passerby, the reason it's stored in talk space is to avoid our readers reaching it through the "random article" navigation tool. :) I always protect these pages, since there are legal implications in altering them. The deleted article is stored at Vivian Balakrishnan/deleted revisions. It's there if it's ever needed, but not showing up for anybody if it's not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Been following this a little bit to see how it worked out. Anyway is that attribution page sufficient? The standard disclaimer when you edit states "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license" but that attribution list contains neither so could we still be breaking the licensing terms for those contributions and possibly leaving us in trouble with the contributors? Probably a more general concern than just this instance as I've seen it done before but I thought I'd ask here first as it's relevant. Dpmuk (talk) 12:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Just to note first, I've notified the contributor now. :)
In my interpretation, the hyperlink or URL refers to a hyperlink or URL to the article, which is what we require under Wikipedia:Reuse. The license itself only requires that we maintain a list of contributors, and WMF:Terms of use offers that as an option: "As an author, you agree to be attributed in any of the following fashions: a) through a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article or articles you contributed to, b) through a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) through a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.)" I think the list of authors should be okay. :) If we really worry that it could be misleading, we need to coordinate between ToU and whatever it is we call that text under the edit window. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I'd agree that the Terms of Use allow it and as it's linked from the warning we'll probably OK but as it's a little misleading I suggest the text of the warning needs changing. The text is at MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning but I have no idea about how to go about suggesting changes to that. Dpmuk (talk) 12:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I'll bring it up at the talk page there. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:02, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Okay, another angle we explore is the history of the contributor to see if the contributor has demonstrated confusion about copyright or had other issues with copyright. Here he seems not quite to understand why Wikipedia does not accept copyrighted content. This is also not definitive; not like when we see a long history of copyright warnings and deletions. But the way policy is written, if we cannot verify that content is free and there are legitimate reasons to believe that it may not be, we presume it is not. I don't mark something as a reverse infringement lightly. If I had found this at WP:CP and been left to work on it on my own, I would have concluded that we could not retain the content for that reason; I would have left the contributor a note explaining that we recognize the possibility that they copied from him, but that since we cannot prove that we could not retain the material. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

My God, help me to survive this deadly love

Hey, I'm a bit confused. You deleted this article's talk page as a G8 (talk page of a deleted page), although the page still exists; now, because the talk page was deleted, it's impossible to know what the page is supposed to be a copyvio of because you referred readers to the talk page rather than providing a URL. I'd like to help correct the copyvio problems, but since I don't know what they are, there's not much I can do. Mind helping out? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, sorry; the article was deleted, but I restored it to give more time to a contributor who wanted to help out with rewriting it. I didn't think about restoring the talk page, too. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh wow, I didn't realize it had been deleted. Yeah, it would be great if you could restore the talkpage too! Then I may be able to get on rewriting the copyvio'd sections. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is insanely slow loading for me today. :/ Okay, the talk page is back; if I'm remembering correctly, there was more info on this one at WP:CP as well; you can find the link to the actual day by following the "what links here" tag in the toolbox. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Great! Thank you. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. :) It always makes my day when people want to help rewrite copyright problem articles. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Toledo Chico edit history

Hi Moonriddengirl, I saw your moving the edit history of Toledo Chico to Manga, Toledo Chico. I know about attribution per the CC-BY-SA license. I only wish to inform you that I have worked together with User:Dr. Blofeld to create articles for all of the (initially 79 smaller) barrios of Montevideo and we have been in agreement that some of them will have to be redirected to others of the series to end up with the 58 (actually it turned out to be 62) officialy recognized barrios. You will notice that most of my talk page contains discussion with Dr. Blofeld about Montevideo, barrios, etc. The small stubs I am redirecting to the composite articles were a serial work Dr. Blofeld did to start all 79 stubs. I am absolutely sure he has no CC-BY-SA license problem with my actions. Since there are more cases of such redirects in the series, I though I might save you some work by explaining this, but I may have missed the reason of your edit. Regards and thank you. Hoverfish Talk 14:32, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Unless Dr. Blofeld is the only contributor and explicitly releases his attribution rights on the articles, I'm afraid that you do have to provide attribution as set out in our terms of use. The license that Wikipedia uses is a legal matter; we can't presume that it's okay to copy his content, even if it probably is. He has to actually say that he is waiving those rights. Wherever possible, of course, as it would have been with that article, you should rather move than copy them. This will not only take care of attribution but will marginally decrease storage, as we won't be hosting the content under two different locations. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:37, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I will not do another copypaste rather than move. All the other cases in the series are simply redirects placed on the abandoned stubs, so nothing went missing there. Thanks again. Hoverfish Talk 14:47, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing Haida and Haida people

Hi, thanks for fixing Haida and Haida people. It was a pleasant surprise to see that today. I didn't know quite how to fix the pages, and didn't really have the time. Pfly (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure. :) Thanks for notifying us! I was very surprised to see the problem had resumed; we actually dealt with it in 2009. :/ I think we've not seen the last of it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering if you could help me with this. I want to include information from this table from this book [31] (page 71, if it doesn't take you to the page with the table do a search for the phrase "Liberties originally granted") - how do I do it without running afoul of copyright laws? I once asked a related question on Wikicommons about time-graphs and they said that as long as you got the data and you make the graph yourself, rather than copy/paste the graph, you're good. So can I just make that table in the relevant article using standard Wiki mark up and including all the info, arranged in a similar manner? Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Help:Table and Help:Wikitable will help you with the markup you need to make such a table. Personally I am not certain about the copyright of the 1930 data displayed in the book because Polish law has retroactively made some public domain items copyright again per commons:COM:L#Poland. MRG is more versed in that department. ww2censor (talk) 04:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the data themselves can be copyrighted, it's more about the presenting the data in a way which doesn't violate copyright.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:29, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't know if the 1930 book from which the table was drawn is PD or not. It depends a lot on other factors of publication, including whether the content was published in the U.S. within 30 days of its initial publication in Poland. If not, the Polish rules applied, and they are, as ww2censor notes, a bit complex. We need to know when the author died to begin to determine its copyright status. Presuming that the material is not PD because of the death of the author, copyright in such tables can exist in two elements: (a) information and/or (b) structure. I think informationally speaking we may be clear, although it's hard to say for sure without knowing how he arrived at those figures. If they are his educated guess, they could be copyrightable. If he took them from a 1918 book, they're clear.
If presentation is creative, then reproducing it in the same presentation even if with different markup to make it wouldn't clear copyright. It would be similar, say, to making an acrylic copy of an oil painting. :) Lists are creative to the extent that their compilers used subjectivity in organization them. This one concerns me a little bit, particularly in the classification of "Hungarians (and later, Italians)". This does not seem to be a category so common that just anybody would have made it. What I would do, if I were you, is introduce it as attributed text, rather than reproducing it as a table: "According to T. Landenburger, 14th century Cracow had a population of approximately 10,000, of which blahblahblah, while Kazimierz and Kleparz, with populations of 1,500 and 1,000 respectively, consisted entirely of ethnic Poles. The three cities combined, Landenburger says, had a population of about 15,000, of which 2,500 served in court, as soldiers or in the clergy.(site)" Of course, you prioritize whatever information is relevant to your point and can exclude altogether anything you don't care about. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Moonriddengirl, whilst looking through Milhist's list of unreferenced BLPs I came across Beryl E. Escott. The majority of the text came in on 18 November 2009 with this edit. It is essentially the same text as the author's profile on the publisher's website. Now as far as I can tell from the webarchive this profile existed before the WP page. (there isn't a grab of the Escott's page but there is a link of the main list of authors that hasn't changed in two years.) My question is should the whole page be deleted as almost every edit is therefore a derivative work of a copyrighted work? I wasn't sure of the correct procedure in these cases and hoped you might offer your assistance. Thanks, Woody (talk) 14:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Ordinarily, yes, but I bet we can stub that one and keep the list of publications. Looking into this more deeply.... --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:26, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Stubbed. The list of publications seems to be complete (now that I've updated it) and should be okay. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Looks great, thanks for that. Woody (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the problem and following up on it so that it could be repaired. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

airrunwesker

Hi! Most of the stuff on the Sayaa Irie page is false. I am correcting it! They are using bad links to verify incorrect information. I consider some of the information they posted damning! You are posting links to child porn! The elk hart books are now considers child porn in Japan! Please quit reposting it! I am reporting it! Delete all the elk hart stuff!

and the part about Garo Aida needs to be deleted. He is nothing more then a glorified pedophile! None of what is posted about him ever happened!


Sorry about the youtube stuff.

The problem is that wikipedia will not let me post every verifiable source. If the link is in Japanese, it usually does not allow me to post...

The stuff about Sweet Kiss and Chase I posted in correct and was verifiable... wikiepedia blocks the link because some of it is in Japanese!


All of the Chinese links are bad! They post bad information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.113.253.2 (talk) 14:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. Replying at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

well, I did what you asked, and all the bad information was reposted... AKB48 is suing the magazine for 150 mil. I do not understand why wikipedia keeps reposting the bad content relentlessly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Airrunwesker (talk • contribs) 06:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cort Webber SPAs and IPs

I'm strongly considering filing a SPI for all the behavioral puppetry that is going on here (Unrationally keeping, Not signing, being in the very first articles edited on Wikipedia). Could I count on a statement of support (or confirmation of the behavior)? Thanks Hasteur (talk) 21:36, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) There's obviously either some sock puppetry or meat puppetry or serious offline canvassing going on. I'll certainly support that I've observed the behavior if you do file a SPI, but I'm not sure how much could come of it, unless it turns out that some of the registered users are socks or also "voting" as IPs. In terms of their impact on the AfD, the admin who closes the listing really should take into account the behavior with or without a SPI. We've seen this kind of thing before. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Moon (or a helpful stalker), I had a quick question. I am planning on expanding the article for Chrisye, an Indonesian singer who died in 2006, but I wasn't sure how best to get fair-use material. I have some good pics of him when he was younger from Rolling Stone Indonesia (December 2009) that I can scan, and there is also his biography that has plenty of pictures that we might be able to use. I could also (theoretically) use screen shots from some of his music videos, but I am a little doubtful of that. There may also be some newspaper pictures. Would using these sources for pictures fall under fair-use? How could I best cite them? Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's a complicated question. :) I'm formatting my best response. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
LOL. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
I myself do not upload non-free images of people--living or dead. I've found the application of NFC confusing, and while I can conceive of situations where these images are more than "purely decorative" (for example, Klaus Nomi), most of the time it seems to me that a picture of a person (no matter who he is) does not "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic". Too, even if a person is dead, it seems to me that a free image might be found to represent him. I've had images of deceased people for which I've written FURs deleted as unusable while images that were in every respect I could see absolutely the same in function were retained. Since I can't make sense of it, I avoid it. :)
You are almost certainly right that you cannot use a screen shot from a music video in the article about him--not unless there's solid, defensible reason. (For example, I used a screen shot from a music video in the article on Body piercing, but I have reliable sources indicating that it was a pivotal moment in the history of body piercing, one that popularized the practice. I would defend that use. :)) If I were you and going to use a picture of a dead man in his article, I would first make sure that the image is not controlled by a press agency; having found out which ones are not, I would select the one that represents him at the height of his career. I would upload a low-res version of it—good enough to show up nicely in the article, but not to print—and tag it with {{Non-free fair use in}}. I would make sure that my summary includes all information on where it came from and who took it, and I would explain in my non-free use rationale that the image was selected to represent him at the point of peak notability, as a musician's notability does include image, and that as he is deceased a free picture of him is not believed to be obtainable. Mind you, I don't think I would upload an image of him at all, but I think that this approach is the common practice at this point. :/ You could always ask for more clarification at WT:NFC. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
So if I understand correctly it is possible to use the book or magazine, but I should be ready to defend my use of the picture(s). If only I lived in Jakarta... it would be oh so much easier to contact his family or people who have worked with him. But an audio clip from "Lilin-Lilin Kecil" (his signature song and another project...) to illustrate his singing voice would be fine? Thanks. Hope your trip went well. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:12, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
It is possible, under Wikipedia practice, depending on who took the picture. :) An audio sample is okay if it small enough and if it is included with sourced commentary. Your best bet is if the sourced commentary is actually discussing his voice in the passage in question. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Alright, thanks. Many of the pictures in his biography were taken by the author's husband, so attribution should be easy. Thanks again! Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Back again. I've finally finished expanding the Chrisye article. I was considering using this image, on page 139, to illustrate part of his early career. In really small text, it says "dok. pribadi" (personal documentation), which I am assuming to mean it is from Chrisye's private collection. Since I got it from the book, would I cite the book as the source, or would the pic be unlicensed? Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:25, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Hi. :) I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean "pic be unlicensed"; are you asking if it is free of copyright because of the method of publication? If so, no, that doesn't tell us anything about the copyright status of the image. We also don't know if it was used in the book with permission or not, if what you mean is "did the author of the book have a license?" I would be fully descriptive in your source, explaining where you go it and where they said they go it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I was thinking of number one (under a free license). Sorry, I wasn't thinking straight. The book is one of the singer's official biographies, so I don't doubt that he and his family allowed the picture's use. Thanks for the help. I uploaded the file File:Chrisye in 2006.jpg for the infobox, for which the copyright status is clearer (name of photographer is known, and no doubt about its license to be used in the book; the photographer is the author's husband). Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:09, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


Please excuse the diversion as I go off at a tangent and disagree strongly with what you said above about the use of pictures. Whatever the purely "informational content" contribution of a picture, surely ten million advertisers can't be mistaken - a picture enables the reader to engage more easily with associated text and so will almost always "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic" even if the mechanism involved is a sub-intellectual one. Other things being equal, that should be a basic argument in favour of legitimising the use of a picture in marginal cases.

If you of all people are unable to discern the determining principle that is being applied in cases of acceptance and rejection, that suggests that the evaluation procedure (guidelines, application of guidelines, whatever) needs fixing rather than that the use of pictures is to be avoided.

(To update you on the query I previously raised with you about the "joint copyright" issue relating to the picture of an article's subject. I haven't got back to you because the subject has decided it's all too complicated. It's not the end of the world as I'm sure there are other pictures to be found but a shame as it was a good picture.) Opbeith (talk) 08:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you on the inherent value of images; it's the uncertainty of policy/guideline that I have a problem with. :) (Who determines when a picture of person will "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic" and when it will not? Is the picture of a dead actor more significant to understand than that of an early 20th century investment banker? Does knowing what an investment banker who died in 1939 help us understand him?) Since images are outside of my "real" work, I tend to just recuse myself except from issues that seem pretty clear to me. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that there should be a presumption that the *first* picture illustrating any article will a priori significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic by allowing the vast majority of readers to engage significantly more easily with the text. I'd also add that knowing what anyone, even a dead investment banker, looks like consolidates the infrastructure of understanding - it serves to remind us that we are considering an individual, however dead, and not just an abstract concept representing a sequence of financial transactions. I completely understand the grounds for you recusing yourself, you seem to have far too much on your plate already! Opbeith (talk) 09:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Last year you properly deleted a large copied chunk of 28 Fundamental Beliefs.[32] However that leaves the article with an obvious hole, as now only 19 of the 28 Beliefs are listed, and the sub-articles have no where to link from. I'd like to add back the list the headings of the 28 sections which were deleted. That'd be the same as restoring the structure but leaving out all of the descriptive text. I'm not interested in theology and I don't want to have to learn about this topic to fix it, so I'm hoping that interested editors will fill in descriptions, or we could copy them in from the sub-articles. Do you think that'd be acceptable?   Will Beback  talk  06:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Eep! Sorry, Will. I saw this note this morning before my caffeine had kicked in and meant to get back to it, but it slipped my mind. At the time that the article was cleaned, there were none of the beliefs listed: [33]. The article simply described their existence. Somebody came in later and added in the 19 for some reason. :) The question about whether we can restore the headers seems to me a bit complex; they are copied from [34], too. I don't think I can give you a clear and definitive opinion on it. Personally, I think you could make a case that they constitute section "titles" and thus are not copyrightable under U.S. law, just as a list of song titles is not copyrightable or a list of titles of chapters in a book. I can't, however, say definitively that a court would support that reading if the use of the content was ever challenged. The sections aren't, after all, very long and presumably the sections were not created as stand-alone entities. If as an editor I encountered a list of those phrases in an article, I would not myself tag them as a copyright problem. While I follow the "when in doubt, write it yourself" principle, I am not enough in doubt to preemptively clean up something like that. However, if they showed up at CP, I would not personally take the responsibility of marking them copyright clear, either, in case of contributory issues. There's always a potential level of personal risk in addressing copyright problems on Wikipedia. :/ You might ask for further opinions at WT:C if my kind of hesitant "maybe" isn't strong enough for you. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:13, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your thorough and careful reply. I suppose "maybe" is as good as we can get for many copyright issues. I'm going to go out on a limb and restore the headers on the theory that they are not covered by copyright as being a list of items. Further, the text is so brief that there'd also be a fair use defense of using limited excerpts. If there are complaints I'll take responsibility for the decision.   Will Beback  talk  23:14, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

A process question

Hello expert. I've been deleting some CSD G12's but I saw one that I felt was a close enough call that I didn't feel comfortable either deleting it, or simply declaring it was fine. I offered some advice to the tagging editor here. I'd like to know if this is decent advice or if there is a better course. (I'm trying to figure out how to get advice from you without asking you to opine on whether the article is in violation, as I'd like that investigation to take it's course; I'm not trying to jump the queue.)--SPhilbrickT 20:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) That's a great approach with one suggestion: replace the {{db-g12}} with {{copyvio}} unless you feel that it's so much closer to fine than copyvio that another tag would do better, such as {{close paraphrasing}}. WP:CP is exactly where to take it if you don't think it's "unambiguous". If it keeps the {{db-g12}} on it, there are very good odds that it will be gone before the closure period, because we don't even look at them until they've been there a week (gives the contributors a chance to fix the problem first). --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks (and shaking my head once again at how fast you are. :) --SPhilbrickT 20:55, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Quick question

Referring to here, "No copyright is claimed on non-original or licensed material" is a no-no for pasting into Wikipedia, right?

(talk page stalker) That is just stating the obvious. Original material is not even mentioned, so we have to assume it is copyrighted. Note reverse copyright violations are very common with the find a grave website though. Yoenit (talk) 11:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes, right. :) They're just disavowing copyright fraud on their part, not releasing their original content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I figured that. The content in question is from here which looks to have originated on Findagrave.com. Thanks for the help Yoenit and Moonriddengirl.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

TV episode summary text from a press release – fair use?

Hi,
if you have a second (I'm sure this question has been answered before somewhere, but I couldn't find it): is it "WP:FAIR USE" to use a full quote of a two-sentence TV episode summary (released in a press release), considering that the episode has not aired yet?
Edit in question is here, and I found myself unable to transform the (deliberately) vague information while staying verifiable.
Cheers, Amalthea 11:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Haven't seen you for a while. :) Hope things are going well for you. Whether it's "fair use" is hard to say; it depends on so many factors. Typically, it's been interpreted as a "no" for Wikipedia articles because of our deliberate conservative approach to that line. One of the problems with episode summary lists is that those plots tend to multiply. The more we have, the more substantial our taking. Quotation marks get lost, and they get turned into derivative works. I can't tell you how many tv articles I've had to come in later and clear out all episode summaries because of that. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
All is well, thanks for asking, just more busy than I used to be.
My thought was that prior to publication of the source material, the summary can't be properly paraphrased without violating WP:V or WP:OR and it thus surely passes NFCC#1 and the rest (while we are conservative with non-free content, we still want to cover an encyclopedic topic exhaustively). But I can see where you're coming from – although I note that if the original non-free content isn't explicit in the page history, you'll buy the reduced number of incidents with increased difficulty in researching a close paraphrasing issue.
Apparently not as uncontentious as I thought it would be though (is it ever), and I don't really have the time now to look for some wider input to see where the community stands. When I do I'll let you know though.:)
Thanks, and have a nice day! Amalthea 08:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and congrats on your recent one hundred thousandth edit. ;) Amalthea
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