Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Contributor copyright investigations page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 60 days

Hi, guys. User:Itsmejudith left a very sensible note at the talk page of Eugen Fischer:

This is going to be a nightmare. I wish we had known before that the text edited by Virago250 was a copyvio. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a really good idea to me. Before I start poking at people who make bots to ask them if there's any way to flag talk pages to let people know that an article is part of a pending CCI and that they can help (perhaps with a link to the instructions on the CCI page), I wanted to float it here and see if anybody thought it was a horrible idea for reasons that I haven't thought of. To me, it sounds kind of genius. :) Also, if anybody botty happens to see this and wants to weigh in on whether or not they can help make it happen, awesome.

In the interest of attracting comments, hi User:Wizardman, User:MER-C, User:Diannaa, User:Dana boomer, User:Voceditenore, User:Ymblanter, User:VernoWhitney, User:MLauba, and User:Madman. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The talk pages of all articles should be flagged IMO until it is dealt with. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea of flagging talk pages, although that would be a freaking lot of articles being flagged... According to AmaltheaBot, there are something over 66,000 articles pending investigation (man, that's depressing). Would the talk page tags be removed when the check was performed? By bot or by human? Tagging the talk pages might bring in more people to help, though... Dana boomer (talk) 21:23, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No objections, but I suggest placing another tag on the article because it is a problem our raders need to know about. MER-C 13:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure the notification system works as it should, Moonriddengirl, I certainly didn't get the red label alerting me to this discussion :) For mainspace, why not consider an editnotice instead? MLauba ^(Talk) 11:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, User:MLauba, that might be because I miscapitalized your name to begin with, so it didn't know who to notify? Maybe it doesn't notify when you edit a name. :) Anyway, this is looking a little complex - I think we'd need to figure out where the tag would go and what it would look like and how it would get removed. (For instance, could a bot remove it when the CCI is closed? Or is that one more task a CCI evaluator needs to do? The latter is probably not worth it. :/) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:50, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the best way to do that might be an opt-in situation, like doing it for a handful of CCIs first to get an idea of how it would work. It would not only get others involved ideally, but if we went the pick-and-choose route, we wouldn't have to throw it up on the CCIs where maybe 5% of the articles are an issue; doing a bot for those would be a timesink. Wizardman 15:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm probably talking out of my arse but I expect AWB would be a far more practical tool than a bot for the tagging or edit-notice activation? But aside from the feasability question, the probably tough question is indeed: where do you draw the line between leaving and tagging? The obvious cases of the serial violators who persist and come back to CCI multiple time with socks is pretty clear-cut, but there are also more marginal cases - one former arbitrator or a certain flying kitchen appliance come to mind as examples of edge cases. MLauba ^(Talk) 11:50, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know the difference between bots and AWB, but I like the idea of selectively choosing which ones to flag. It's a good point that some are borderline issues that don't require the widespread tagging and I would also be reluctant to shame good faith contributors who are actively editing. That needs careful handling. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If there is interest in such a task I could certainly run it. Anything I've read so far is simple enough considering that I already parse the case pages for the report. A few comments on the above ideas:

• Talk page tags are least intrusive, edit notice would work as well, article maintainance tag will be seen as too intrusive if added indiscriminately, i.e. for trivial diffs.
• From experience, it's always good to implement such new mass-tagging tasks slowly (even after approval). A handful of select CCIs, or only diffs that added a significant amount of text. And probably only a talk page tag for now.
• Bot can certainly remove the tag automatically once the diffs are handled, but edit notices would require an admin bot to automatically delete the notice pages again, or a semi-automatic process where an admin batch deletes them.
• AFAIK, to get an Echo notification an edit needs to add a valid username link as well as an unexpanded signature. ;)

Amalthea 13:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So what do we do now, User:Amalthea? Bot request group approval? :) I'd support a trial run on a CCI or two, talk page probably. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is entirely reasonable. I wouldn't go for an edit notice because adding and removal require admin attention. Mainspace tags should be reserved for the worst of the CCIs. What happens now? Coding, debugging and then a BRFA. MER-C 05:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, Tasks:

• Someone needs to design the talk page template. Besides some intro text pointing out the potential problem it should probably have more detailed information (collapsed?) or a link to a landing page that explains how to help out, the link to the relelvant CCI case pages, and possibly a list of the diffs (presumably helpful for editors trying to fix the issue, but a redundant list of diffs might also provoke duplicated effort).
• Someone needs to pick one or two CCIs that seem like good test cases, and have a look at a few of the diffs: Does it appear to make sense to tag all the article talk pages, or is some sort of cutoff a better idea (based on bytes added (simple) or amount of added text (harder), I'd assume)
• Unless someone else jumps on it I'll do the coding and the BRFA, I expect either next weekend or after Christmas.

Amalthea 10:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've started working on this now, lucky for me I've kept it vague with 'after Christmas'. ;)
Does anyone want to select a few good CCIs and think about wording for the template?
Amalthea 22:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here's three points I'd look at for a trial CCI to give this a shot on. One, picking a CCI that has enough articles to give a good sample size but not too many to make it overkill. The 200-300 range should work for this. Two, we should do a CCI that involves some more travelled articles just to see if it makes people take notice. Three, it should be a CCI where a good number of the edits are issues. The first two can be figured out with a cursory read, but the third one is tough if the investigations haven't had good progress on them. I'm not sure if there is an "ideal" CCI that has all three, but there's quite a few that fall into two of the three here. Perhaps it should be one where the issues are sourced and it's just copypaste issues to start as well. Or maybe I'm overthinking it and we should just pick one semi-randomly. Wizardman 03:11, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I did some trivial-diff removal from Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Patapsco913, and what's left is ~150 articles with a mix of popular pages and smaller ones. As a result this would probably be a good starting point. As for what to put on the template to note it, It might depend on each case. In this one everything's reffed, it's just that the information is copypasted from the ref, and should be reworded. Now, should we do more than just tag the talk pages? I ask since those aren't commonly viewed in most cases. I'd say tag the main one but I can see how that would be iffy. Wizardman 04:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be such a good idea. I was asking here if there was any chance it could be brought to the point of a trial. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Caracas 2000 -- what a mess! Could someone do whatever needs to be done to officially close it? Thanks! Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, thanks for wrapping that up Wizardman 00:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There was someone else that did this in the past (forgot who) claiming no copyright on many images from eday. As see here¸this is happening again ..are these ok --Moxy (talk) 20:29, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, in the previous discussion it was agreed that unmarked American publicity photos published earlier than 1978 are in the public domain, as at the time they were produced, the law required a conspicuous copyright notice. In the past discussion it was established that the uploader had verified that both the front and rear of the photos contained no copyright statement. I spot-checked a few of the uploads and it seems that they meet these conditions, or other conditions which would also place them in the public domain. The biggest problem, then, is that the images should be on Commons, not on Wikipedia. —Psychonaut (talk) 06:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I looked into this a bit more and found that the user is banned indefinitely from commons for this specific reason, thus why the images are here. O well will let others deal with this as I see at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Wikiwatcher1 this is a huge problem and I have not had any luck with this in the past. -- Moxy (talk) 22:35, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I've may have missed this somewhere on the main page, so apologies if I'm asking about something that's already covered.

I strongly support the elimination of copyright violations from Wikipedia, and congratulate you all for taking on a tedious and unlovely task. However, I feel that one of your colleagues has been perhaps over-zealous in his performance of his duties. How do I bring this to the attention of the appropriate forum, correct matters, and ensure that this does not happen again?

RomanSpa (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The appropriate forum in the first instance is the talk page of the user in question, or of whatever the specific page in dispute is. If after engaging with this user, you are unsatisfied that the problem has been or will be corrected, then here is probably the next best place to raise the issue. —Psychonaut (talk) 06:26, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He/she has indeed posted on the user talk page. Please see User talk:Justlettersandnumbers#Your Recent Edit to Education Theory. Comment welcome, here or there. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please take a look at the two requests that are currently outstanding? I'm not seeing anything major, and I don't have the energy to look deeper (and won't for the near future). MER-C 12:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, User:MER-C. I'm just seeing this. I'll of course be happy to help out. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:10, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One done. I'll do the other later, but am out of time. Days knocked off of WP:CP = 0. CCIs opened today = 2 Copyright work is such a rabbithole. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:07, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I'm hoping to address is a way to alert people dealing with a sockpuppet of a WP:CCI subject that copyright maybe an issue. Just today I opened a CCI for User:DendroNaja (a blocked sock of User:VeronicaPR) and have gradually discovered that these copyright issues stretch back years. Yesterday, I blocked yet another sock of User:FreshCorps916, who is blocked for serial copyright infringement. CCI has a scattering of these users, who persist in violating copyright through multiple accounts.

I believe that many people who show up at CCI are working in good faith and will contribute constructively after they understand our copyright policies and approaches (I've seen many of them do it), but this assumption of good faith doesn't extend to the ones who do it repeatedly, under multiple accounts. While I would be very unhappy if CCI became some kind of black mark on a typical user page, I think we would benefit from a tag for at least people who use multiple accounts so that those who find future socks are alerted to the need to list their contributions for review or proactive cleaning.

I wanted to broach the subject here before bringing it up perhaps at AN - I want to be sure that this has consensus and there isn't a better way. Realizing that this page isn't heavily trafficked, I'd really appreciate any thoughts. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:10, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How do I formally request than an investigation be closed? It seems that a bot has listed an enormous number of my contributions without any real intelligence behind the listings. The vast majority of them have turned up without any issues. My contributions deserve no more and no less scrutiny than anyone else's. If someone has a problem with any particulars ones, please go through the normal process of contacting me, and working with me together on them. Greg Bard (talk) 19:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]