Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or – for assistance – at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Use of Wikipedia text by other wikis without attribution

I wonder what our policy is about the wholesale copying of Wikipedia text by other wiki encyclopaedias without attribution? I recently came across this article at Mises Wiki and noticed that it appeared to be largely lifted from our own article on Full reserve banking. I looked for attribution to Wikipedia, and could not find it anywhere. Browsing through the other articles there, it appears to be a pretty general practice; they copy large amounts of text from our articles, and then apply a POV spin to it. Is this use allowed, or should we be doing something about it? LK (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting looking at it. I even learned a new word "Austro-libertarianism". I was looking for their licensing info, and it is nowhere to be found, though on their 5 pillars page it says

• "Mises Wiki is free content that any user can edit and any reader distribute. However, copyright laws must be respected, and plagiarism is not tolerated. Because all contributions are freely licensed, all of your contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed. As a result, no editor should think that he "owns" an article."

So perhaps a quick reminder might have some effect.

To directly answer your question though, I don't think that there is anything we can do about it, other than politely ask them to attribute Wikipedia. Perhaps if we got together everybody who contributed to an article, joined in a lawsuit and sued, we might get $10.37. You could ask the WMF lawyers, but do remember that they only can really give legal advice to the WMF. To editors they might be able to explain basic principles. Maybe we could take away their Media Wiki software? Actually, I don't think so. All the best. Smallbones (talk) 04:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've added a disclaimer on the page, and in fact we do attribute most Wikipedia material, this one appears to have been forgotten. Sorry for that.

Perhaps it ought to be reminded that Wikipedia explicitly wants others to use its material and there's probably a trillion other places that copy everything and don't attribute it either (which doesn't excuse us, just to point it out). Then someone modifies the original text by inserting POV, following the original resources and adding others, and things start getting into grey areas.

But sorry for rambling; it is a small wiki and we are actually trying to rewrite and replace everything from Wikipedia, it just might take some time... :)

In general, we do have original content developed independently from WP. If you come across some notable omissions just drop me a line and I'll add the disclaimers where necessary. Pestergaines (talk) 05:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In general, the first thing to do is to ask them nicely. As we see above, assuming good faith is often correct :-) - David Gerard (talk) 10:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic result. Thanks to Pestergaines, especially for pointing out the location of the licensing information. I hope nobody minded my attempts at humor. What follows is not an attempt at humor.

If I may extend this conversation to a related topic. Many people at WP are worried about declining editorship here. I think the A-L type of "fork" is a good antidote for this. Different folks, working on different 'pedias, even with different rules, but with compatible free licenses are free to operate in an editing environment that they consider to be best for them. Borrowing across 'pedias should be simple and quick (with some editing due to different rules of course), in effect making the whole complex one huge meta-encyclopedia (does anybody have a better word?). BTW this meta-pedia would be very stabile in its various forms, e.g. nobody could close it down for any reason (just a few of its parts) unless they close down the entire internet. About the only things now that I can suggest to make this happen would be explicit linking (e.g. in Wikipedia's left hand column (which would be controversial here), or at worst on talk pages) and easy borrowing/linking to Commons. The WMF might be able todo a better job pushing the free Media Wiki software, but they probably do an ok job now.

Maybe just talking about it a bit would help it to happen.

For a completely outrageous application of this idea, I suggest PRpedia. PR firms could borrow whatever they want from Wikipedia (with attribution of course), then fix it up however they want it. They might limit editorship to the firms involved or to their officially recognized PR firms and allow ownership of the articles (different strokes for different folks). This might allow Wikipedians to both borrow the content freely, AND to use it as a reliable source. The firms might take on the minimal cost just so a great pre-formatted Wikipedia article is ready to go, should any non-COI Wikipedia editor decide that their article is better than ours. I don't think they'd take on the minimal cost because they expect lots of folks to come read it directly - after all PR suffers from a certain lack of credibility. What they seem to want is to add some of their material to Wikipedia *because of our credibility*. But letting completely free access to editing by COIs is bound to reduce our credibility - Wikipedia might just become another PRpedia! Having the separate PRpedia and allowing non-COI editors to borrow their articles freely would certainly reduce that problem. Enuf said. Smallbones (talk) 17:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

There are several. MyWikiBiz springs to mind. They don't have the cachet, the reputation, or the search engine power that the English Wikipedia has. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Is the GDFL license compatible? It looked a bit clunky with link-back requirements. Frankly I couldn't find anything worth copying at MyWikiBiz with a 10 minute search. I think that's a good indication of the credibility problem. If you don't have any standards, then everything goes downhill, and nobody reads you. Smallbones (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

If content is created for the explicit purpose of being ported into Wikipedia by impartial editors, we have AfC and sandboxes for that and I think this is basically the right approach. If someone wants a Wiki-format article that performs ok in search, but they don't want to learn/comply with Wikipedia's rules, MyWikiBiz provides an alternative. A lot of small businesses that don't meet notability requirements could create informative and useful articles on MyWikiBiz that could still perform ok in search, without undermining Wikipedia's rules.

I guess what I'm getting at, I don't see it as problematic content on MyWikiBiz is not suitable for Wikipedia, but really that's what it's there for. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 19:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see it as problematic either - for them. But I was suggesting above that it would be nice if there were multiple pedias out there that we could more-or-less copy freely (with reasonable checks and editing to meet our standards). User:WhatamIdoing suggested that MyWikiBiz might be one of these. I have to disagree with him - I wouldn't have any confidence in copying anything from there to here. It would take more time editing it properly than just starting from scratch.

As far as articles for creation and sandboxes, my only reservation is that we cannot verify that the company itself or their official PR agents have produced the material. Even if they state that explicitly on Wiki, how are we to know for sure? It seems to me, if they want to put out information, it's best that they put it out in their own names in places where we can verify where it came from. It might even work out that we can copy parts of an already-Wikified article as a reliable source. Wouldn't that be nice (with quotes if not modified by us, with checks and editing to our standards if modified by us)? AfC and sandboxes, of course have other uses, but reliable, direct-from-the-source, pre-Wikified material is not one of them. Smallbones (talk) 22:23, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

There are valid reasons for copying content from Wikipedia into other wikis, and I'll admit that I'm "guilty" of doing that more than a few times myself. Most of the situations where I've done that is for things like Wikia fansites where I've usually gone through the process of dewikifying the article (aka removing hyperlinks that are irrelevant) and sometimes adding things that may seem like fancruft to editors on Wikipedia (usually well justified I might add). Furthermore, many of those articles I put in hyperlinks that are proper in the context of that wiki and its database where adding those hyperlinks would be inappropriate here on Wikipedia. Generally it is just a small handful of articles that get copied over from Wikipedia and in the case of those fansite wikis such copied content is a stark minority of the site content, but it still can be very useful. A couple of those Wikia sites where this has happened are actually more popular than most of the Wikimedia sister projects, so it is not just a marginal activity either.

In the cases where I find such articles on wikis that I'm participating in (and sometimes acting as administrator) I go out of my way to include usually a hatnote or some other markup on those pages that clearly notes the content is derived from a Wikipedia article, and that is a practice I would encourage for other sites that perform a similar kind of content duplication. Even if you have added original content, it is still useful to note where the content originally came from.

I'll also note that in the early days of Wikipedia, a substantial amount of content was originally seeded from the public domain (aka no copyright) version of the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Yes, it was horribly out of date and the articles desperately needed to be cleaned up in terms of POV tone and other huge issues, but it did provide a basis for development of what we have today. On a rare occasion, I still do trip across such article that were created at that time, a few of which still haven't been fixed up I might add as well (mostly obscure topics that a 21st century reader isn't actively seeking on a regular basis). If you go into the back history of some of even the popular articles on Wikipedia, you may come across some of that original 1911 content as well (sort of fun to see how the articles have changed to do a massive page diff from 1911 to 2012).

I have no doubt that eventually Wikipedia will die as a project in the future, but I also think that in the 25th Century (or whenever it becomes an issue) what everybody is working on today will very likely seed such future compendiums of human knowledge just like Wikipedia has been gifted from a great many other sources to make what we have today. That many people are using Wikipedia to spread human knowledge should be viewed as a good thing. Failure to attribute and plagiarism in violation of the terms of the Wikipedia licenses is bad form, but conforming to Wikipedia licenses are pretty easy to do (since you don't need formal written permission to copy). --Robert Horning (talk) 21:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

"Even if you have added original content, it is still useful to note where the content originally came from". Er, no. It is a requirement that this is done. Then again, some other wikis seem to take a slightly 'creative' approach to the issue, even when the material concerned isn't even under a Creative Commons licence in the first place - e.g. this sort of thing:[1][2]. With things like that going on, regardless of what other wikis do with our content, we sure as hell shouldn't be trusting their content to meet the appropriate standards. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Copying a copyrighted article on copyright does take some cojones, so I won't accuse you of being grumpy ;-) As far as trusting somebody else's material, I think we do it all the time, within reason, and then cite it. More directly to the point, it's a question of can I A) just check the sources, remove doubtful material, add a bit of my own, and then polish it (sort of like editing Wikipedia, but more so)? or B) write the article from scratch? Or perhaps something in between? When it's possible, I'll take A) anytime. "Trust, but verify" might be the watchword here. But if the material isn't verifiable, of course you can't trust it. Smallbones (talk) 22:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll note that Wikimedia projects themselves haven't really been faithful in keeping to all of the terms of the various licenses, even when engaging in a transwiki effort to move content between various sister projects or even when page mergers have happened. Some admins are better than others at making mergers or think that a redirect is sufficient after content has been copied over and other various problems that have happened over the years. I could go on, but my point is that Wikipedia isn't perfect either. That a goal is in place to improve is certainly there, and raising standards is useful, be careful where you throw stones. Some of that was simply technical limitations due to weaknesses in the wiki software, but not always.

It is also a gray area when 80%-90% or even 99.9% of all of the content from the original source has been replaced and about the only thing left is the title of the article and maybe a couple numbers that can easily be derived from other sources. If the content has been gradually changed a sentence or paragraph at a time until it is completely different (or almost), is it still a derivative copyright that needs to be linked back to the "original" content that may not even be recognizable as the same? --Robert Horning (talk) 00:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Smallbones, my point was only that if a PR company wants to have "a wiki page" for a non-notable company, then there are options out there. I have no interest in porting the stuff back here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sad

Ah well. And I've told so many people how fast WP corrects itself. This [3] just made me sad. For ten months those assassin bugs have been attacking poor 'kayla', instead of their intended targets. I just came across this, and wanted to share it where I knew people would see it. (I fixed it, ofc, but first I had to make sure 'kayla' wasn't some obscure entemological term...) I don't guess any response is required; we all know the deal. So many articles, so little time... :) Eaglizard (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Poor Kayla :( Ryan Vesey 01:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we need an easter egg contest? See who can find the longest uncorrected vandalism. The winner gets the kayla award. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The article runs 30-40 hits a day, fwiw - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive_31#Highscore: Longest standing vandalism?. -.- mabdul 00:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

How to solve your Wikipedia "problem"

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but has anyone seen this article? [4] It's actually not that bad, but I was amused by statements that encourage you to "surreptitiously edit" your own page if someone is slandering you on your article. dci | TALK 00:28, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I observe that the account that created the article about the author appears to have rather a lot of sockpuppets - David Gerard (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The article is quite good until it gets to fighting fire with fire although I guess that method has worked for the author. He seems internet savvy and appears to have spent a lot of time on Wikipedia. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 00:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Otciapofa

I found this article, to be precise, this version today on the back of NPP queue. I am not exactly an unexperienced user, but this article survived for 30 days. (I made a brief attempt to reference it, but it was unsuccessfull, since I could not find any reasonable sources in five minutes). Not that I want to blame anybody, but (1) does it qualify as the record shortest article which made it for a month; (2) is this normal; (3) what I am expected to do with it provided I can not invest an hour in research in a topic I have no competence? Leave it in peace, PROD it, bring it to the attention of a Wikiproject? Sorry for trivial questions, this is indeed a kind of new experience for me.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:56, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Most sources indicate that this was the name of a Muskogee town, but maybe that's just the same thing? You could always try to expand it. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, expanding without sources is ... hmm ... I really do not know whether it was the same thing or not, really far from my expertise. Usually I indeed try at least to source an article.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be a place also known as Hickory Ground, which is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Elmore County, Alabama. Fences&Windows 23:54, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I posted notes to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alabama. Fences&Windows 23:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:53, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

User: Altairisfar has referenced it now. Reaching out to WikiProjects is often a good solution if your own searching is coming up blank or ambiguous. Fences&Windows 15:05, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Someone is currently adding wildly incorrect things to an article

The article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0lkay_G%C3%BCndo%C4%9Fan and their IP address is: 39.213.11.93

Ilkay Guendogan is a Turkish-German footballer who is not married to Alyssa Campanella. All of the items listed under "Personal Life" are untrue, and all the changes made by the user I mentioned are false.

I noticed this and didn't know how to report it, but this is the sort of stuff that needs to be stopped in order to keep Wikipedia credible. I hope some Wiki editors read this and take action. Thank you - a normal user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.194.88.218 (talk) 14:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Same with the one I looked at and reported88.104.135.120 (talk) 11:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep an eye on Alyssa Campanella, too. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Protection for sports athletes pages

The source is Yatchingworld.com Elaine bunting 20 things About Ben anslie which has no sources to state any of it is true88.104.135.120 (talk) 12:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

after taking a look at Ben ainslie wiki I realised their were mistakes in their and unreliable sourcing this is the case with most pages to do with sport I go on but I thought I must speak up about it now. So I changed the errors on his page and told the owner of the unreliable source it was partially wrong what she was saying. So can we have some sort of protection or someone to watch over like that robot bug thing thanks.88.104.135.120 (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It was in his personal life saying he's dating marit bouwmeester but I can't find any official source to say they are88.104.135.120 (talk) 11:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I won't rest till something is done to stop this happening again88.104.135.120 (talk) 12:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The folks who protect pages can be found at WP:RfPP. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:53, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok I will do you think my case is enough to get it protected88.104.135.120 (talk) 14:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorted this the Ben ainslie page has been protected and other actions have been taken by me for false info88.104.135.120 (talk) 19:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

From Wikipedia talk:Meetup: a proposal for a "traveling meetup"

It's my first time to post in the English Wikipedia's Village Pump in the seven years that I've been here, so I hope I'm doing this right. :P

Anyway, I was randomly browsing around when I saw Wikipedia talk:Meetup. Around two weeks ago, an anonymous user posted there, suggesting that the community stage a "traveling meetup" or caravan of sorts. While the idea is indeed interesting (though I'm currently not in Europe), I wonder how other people here might feel about this? --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 16:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Move discussions not exciting or intriguing anymore?

Well, recently, I've proposed a move on Dallas (1978 TV series), Melrose Place (1992 TV series), and The A.V. Club. I have learned that title 1 vs. title 2 is not very exciting anymore. Burma vs. Myammar (I nearly forgot Myammar)? Ivory Coast vs. Cote d'Ivoire (I forgot that name)? Even I have no power to rebute logical arguments. What can I do? --George Ho (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Err, was it ever exciting? Wouldn't a viewer tend to search for "Dallas TV" rather than "Dallas (1978 TV series)" or "Dallas (TV series)". Has anybody looked at reader search patterns for failed lookups? Or do we just assume the suggested topics list is sufficient? I'm just curious. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Just a thought, but perhaps there is not much strong opinion one way or the other on those proposed moves. If no one weighs in, it might mean they don't have any preference. Or it might mean the proposals just need a little more time to gain input. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

"Dallas TV"? Really? That doesn't sound like an intuitive search, to me. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Shrug, so we have different intuitions. I suppose you go to Google and type, "Dallas (1978 TV series)"? Regards, RJH (talk) 19:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

From WT:WikiProject Disambiguation Well, I always assume that a general reader is either inept to realize things or less interested on further details. Therefore, I have disambiguated My Sister's Keeper (novel). (Amazingly, last year's numbers were stellar (at first), but this year's went worse.) Frankly, this is more to do with what a reader really needs and is interested in generally. A fan of a topic is different from general reader: he is more intelligent to me and has more common sense, right? If fan and general reader are not valid reasons, you don't suggest using mere policies and guidelines to prove point, am I correct? Policies and guidelines on titling articles are not thrilling, exciting, or intriguing. They can either change or stay the same, but a name is a name (duh!). Even arguing about disambiguating a name is more fun (Apu (The Simpsons) vs. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon) than about renaming a title (Burma vs. Myanmar, Men's rights vs. Men's rights movement) because... disambiguating a name is more complicated and thrilling than arguing about which natural name to use is simple yet degrading. --George Ho (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Seeing Wikipedia articles on Facebook and Google.

I have noticed that some people have their wikipedia biographies visible whenever you search for them on the right side of "Google," while some others don't and also the same thing is on Facebook- some people a have wikipedia page on Facebook blank with no photo, while some others have not only the photo but the description as well. I'm just wondering why is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelangel2012 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you'd have to ask Facebook and Google about that - we allow reuse but it's the individual reusers who choose whether/how to reuse our content. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

my graduation project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByY3CgR7-4E

Please help me fulfill the task and spread the word. Matanya (talk) 13:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Um, what are you trying to do? I couldn't understand the spoken dialog in the video. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 13:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:TOSCALE A new essay to address deceptive charts and graphs

I was looking at Talk:Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2012#Tax_returns and saw a chart which I noticed was visually deceptive. I wanted to address this issue, but considering the political nature of the article I thought finding a less combative example would be in order.

I've never written an essay before, so I've no idea if this is the correct place to introduce this, but may I present to you WP:TOSCALE.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  01:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You might want to link this advice at Wikipedia:Graphs and charts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American music

Can someone fix Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American music ? Archiving is broken. Something weird is going on, since setting archivebox to auto doesn't show archives, and MiszaBot is archiving to #7, without having a 1-6 ever existing. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 11:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I would just remove the code for the archive bot and manually move archove 7 to archive 1. Thepage looks low-traffic enough not to need a not archiving it. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Non admin reply - Not sure why it was doing that but it should be fixed now. I agree with your recommendation Beeblebrox. I moved the archive to 1, submitted the archive 7 redirect for CSD, removed the auto bot archiving code. If I missed anything let me know. Kumioko (talk) 00:15, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why there's so much autoarchiving going on on pages with no activity either. I figure it's got to slow down the bot, and load Wikipedia's servers as well. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please help the coolest gradution project ever!

I had a bet with my prof. I said I can make users donate over 1000 pics to commons. He was skeptic, and I decided This would be my graduation project in marketing. Let's prove him wrong! more details here. Please help! matanya • talk 02:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

How I can add google picture search tab

How I can add google picture search tab like in Commons are that I can search that are the picture founded from internet.--Musamies (talk) 11:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Should I edit anonymously?

I'm ready to do a rewrite of the Stuttering Treatment page. My company makes medical technology for speech clinics. Some of the published studies I want to reference used equipment made by my company. This creates a conflict of interest. My login is my real name and my user page provides real information about me. It looks like almost all editors use pseudonyms. Should I close my account and open a new account using a pseudonym? It seems unethical to try to hide a conflict of interest; but, on the other hand, there must be a reason why everyone else uses pseudonyms.--TDKehoe (talk) 20:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:AVOIDCOI. There are many reasons other than COI for people to use pseudonyms, including privacy and personal safety. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:03, 26 August 2012 (UTC)