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In general, I check in with Misplaced Pages under this account around 12:00 Coordinated Universal Time on weekdays. I try to check back in at least once more during the day. On weekends, I'm here more often. When you loaded this page, it was 17:53, 24 December 2024 UTC . Refresh your page to see what time it is now.

RAF Merryfield & possible copyvio

I went to the RAF Merryfield article to try to add some references and found much of the text is very similar to this site. It was added to wp in 2007 (diff) but I have no idea whether wp or the other site had the text first - should I add a copyvio label?— Rod 21:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) A quick search suggests that website is rather new (), but that's not definitive, because it could have come from somewhere else (meaning the website - they do sometimes move. :D). Their "About Us" page suggests that may be the case, as they claim to have been around since 2001. Given that, I want to take a look at the evolution of the content to see if I can tell which came first. --Moonriddengirl 12:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, typo at insertion point ("to he built") suggests it was either transcribed from a book or developed here naturally. That error is not on the external site. Excellent sign minutes later with small changes such as camp->airfield and August 24->24 August. The external site uses both of them. The "Ahhot" typo is a little concerning, though, as that kind of thing usually indicates a poorly digitized source - the scanner misreads the lower line of the "b". Also note "2$" for 26 and "September &" for "September 6". Here's more of that: "Ramshury" instead of "Ramsbury". But again a change is made ("with Merryfield" becomes "with the station"). I think the source you spotted copied from us, but if I could get inside of it, I'd be looking at UK Airfields of the Ninth, the source, for matches. :/ I don't suppose you have a copy of that book, do you? I'd love to eliminate that concern. Unfortunately, the contributor who added the article does have an early history of issues (see 1 and 2, for instance. There are other CSB notices, but I'm not checking those, having verified these two). I need to make sure that the content was not copied and that, if it was, the content is PD and properly attributed per current plagiarism guidelines. --Moonriddengirl 13:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. I don't have the UK Airfields of the Ninth book but did get the Berryman one out of the library - which prompted my interest in the article. Your expertise and tenaciousness in these queries is brilliant.— Rod 13:34, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've had a lot of practice. :D I guess I'll start with WP:REX. They can sometimes help. --Moonriddengirl 13:07, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Check back at REX, me. --Moonriddengirl 13:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

CCI question - prompted by recent Arb case

AGK made a comment at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)/Proposed_decision#Richard_Arthur_Norton_.281958-_.29.27s_copyright_historyRAN Arbcom that didn't match my, possibly incorrect, understanding.

I do not think the comment is crucial to the decision, so there is no urgency, but I want to make sure whether my understanding is correct.

The comment: On the face of it, CCI is less a dispute resolution process and more a method of building evidence for suspicions of widespread copyright abuse.

While accurate, I think it is incomplete, and may have led to some initial confusion about why some CCIs are open so long.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that we use the term CCI to cover two (overlapping) processes:

1. Investigation to determine whether an editor has widespread copyright issues, the result of which is a decision to either review selected contributions, or all (non-trivial)contributions
2. Cleanup phase (of either identified contributions, or all contributions)

The time it take for the investigation is relatively short, days or weeks, while the cleanup phase, unfortunately is much longer, covering months and years.

I do not propose making any changes to process, but if we were to start over, we might have delineated a CCI (investigation) and CCC(Copyright contributor cleanup, a term I just made up), and closed the CCI when the investigation phase is completed, then open the CCC for the cleanup process. Again, I do not propose this bureaucracy at this time, but at least one arb seemed to infer that because the investigation was still open after all this time, it meant something. In fact, it simply meant that we use the same three letters for both aspects.

I also see some discussion about whether RAN should be required to assist in the cleanup.

While I strongly feel that it would be nice if any such editor asked how they could help, and pitched in enthusiastically, I am very uncomfortable telling any volunteer they MUST affirmatively do anything. I have no problem telling them in no uncertain terms that they are not allowed to do some thing, but forcing volunteers to do anything eviscerates the meaning of the word.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I think AGK is fundamentally misunderstanding CCI. The way we envisioned CCI when we started writing it up, after hosting manual lists at WP:CCP, was simply as a method to determine, first, whether a user had enough issues that a comprehensive investigation of all of his contributions was needed, and if yes, to provide the systematic list of the contributions to check. Dispute resolution is not part of CCI. Your analysis of the two processes we use is spot on, but frankly, separating them into two distinct entities serves no practical purpose but has a high potential to fuel additional, and unnecessary drama.

The part about method to build evidence of suspicions (WTF does that even mean) seems like the short-sighted perspective you get from those arbitrators who essentially only use bans as remedies - after all, someone will eventually clean up, so why bother thinking about it? And if nobody does, it will make a full site ban much easier next time the same contributor ends up at arbitration. "Arbcom does not rule on content" to the letter. I'm glad some of the committee seem cut from a different cloth.

I think that unless we enforce policy to the strictest letter of the rule and simply indef anyone who was found to be cause of opening a formal investigation (then go for nuclear G5 / G12 / rollback cleanup), the way it is being run, while far from perfect, offers the best chance to involve the people who may know best where to look for their copy / pastes because they put it in there in the first place. When the preliminary check to decide whether to investigate all contribs gets separated out, it becomes too easy to go for full-blown outrage on the drama board, which will scare the contributor away. Flying Toaster or Rlevse are good examples of that. Had the factual check been carried out without turning the dial to 11, they might have stuck around and helped with most of the cleanup. To wit, the latter eventually did, a good year or more after the CCI was opened. What a waste of time.

A separate investigation becomes too much of a name and shame thing. And this concludes my monthly rant at something, anything, on wikipedia. MLauba 22:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

LOL! (at the monthly rant comment :))

Of course, MLauba is absolutely correct about the history of CCI, and I really have to agree with him about the imperative to keep drama down. It's painful for people to go through this process, in my observation, and most people who go through it weren't doing anything intentionally wrong. They simply didn't understand the way things are done (and this is true, in most cases, whether the issue is a potentially borderline one of close paraphrasing or the clearcut copy-paste...a look at the history of CCI shows that we get many cases of people from cultures that do not emphasize copyright). The last thing I ever wanted was to shame those people who were simply doing what they thought was right...the goal is simply to correct the habits and clean up any issues that may have been inadvertently caused. (I'm not motivated by a desire to shame the ones who were simply doing what they wanted even though they knew better...but my motivation to gentle the process is not such a driving factor there. :/ Generally, those people are gone by the time they get to CCI.)

The problem, of course, is that when people feel pain, they have an instinctive response to react defensively. And when people see their friends go through pain, they have an instinctive response to protect. Plenty of people don't go that route, of course, but when people do, the drama quotient soars. A simple, "Oh, this is wrong; we need to fix this" becomes a tug-of-war between "fault/no fault" as participants become increasingly hyperbolic in efforts to defend the contributor or to defend themselves as accusers by proving that the problem is serious. If we can keep everybody focused away from questions of blame and on the matter of corrective procedures, we seem to avoid that. That's why CCI was never envisioned to be a disciplinary process. Most people of good faith can and will learn to meet community standards re: copyright, and I think they're far more likely to do so if they are not torn apart in the process.

I am a bit worried that separating out CCI into a separate process for evaluation would encourage more drama. Right now, CCI is populated by a small, dedicated group of people who cleanup. Last time I looked, many of the evaluations were done by the incomparable User:MER-C, who I have always found to have a laser precision on the core issue - is cleanup needed or not? If the "evaluation of need" process were separated out, I think we'd have to do it very carefully...more like WP:RPP or WP:3RR (as I imagine it works) than WP:ANI. Because I agree whole-heartedly that incidents like with Rlevse must be avoided. Insofar as humanly possible, we need to do all we can to avoid these things turning into battles over the value of the contributor. Except where problems are persistent after clear explanation, the value of the contributor should always be fundamentally assumed. (I'm just getting rambly here, so I think I'll shut up now. What I'm inarticulately trying to get at is that these things go pear-shaped when people get hostile, supporters or detractors. The only way I've ever seen us achieve the best possible outcome - keep a contributor, fix the problem - is if we're all supportive of each other and the work.)

I agree with you, of course, SPhilbrick, on enforced participation. Most of those cases were the contributor has assisted have gone well, but anybody who has done significant time at WP:CP will probably have realized that salvaging a copyright problem is a whole lot harder than avoiding creating one to begin with. I've seen many a derivative work offered up as a rewrite, even from different editors who try to do a line-by-line salvage rather than a major restructuring. Some contributors seem to do better simply by starting from scratch, with new content. (And I have seen contributors do well that way...without naming names, one of my earliest serial issue experiences was with a guy who put a ton of time into learning how to properly paraphrase. Proud of him.) --Moonriddengirl 12:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

If both MLauba and MRG both thought I was proposing a separation, I can only conclude that I chose my words carelessly.

I had observed an arb making a comment, which I won't bother to track down, but the sense of it was surprise that an Investigation phase was taking so long. I confess I have thought of the CCI as the dispositive aspect, not the investigation phase, so I started to write that they had it all wrong. Luckily, I actually read CCI, and see that it does encompass both aspects. I don't mean to suggest that we should do a clean separation, I just wanted to make sure my understanding is correct that it does include both aspects, so it can take years to settle, but that doesn't mean it took years to conclude that there was a problem. As I was thinking it through, it may well have occurred to me that one should consider a separation, and maybe that guided my wording, but I agree separating the two aspects will led to more problems that it is worth.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:13, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

No, you chose your words carefully - I probably should have made clearer that I was trying to shed light on how the process ended up the way it was and my own reasoning why I consider it sounder than separate processes. And beyond the speculative thoughts, I think you raise a good issue - is the first sentence (and the whole lede) of WP:CCI clear enough to describe the purpose of the page and the process?

Obviously as a distant co-drafter of the whole thing, it is to my mind, but I remember some exchanges with MRG when we were working on it where the concepts we had formed in our own minds weren't exactly identical.

So questioning how it reads to others is always sound.

Of course, there's always the possibility that some would simply talk of it without ever having read anything about it (and I cannot rule out this possibility for the comment that sparked this present discussion). For these, the question becomes whether the name of the process, Contributor Copyright Investigation, adequately conveys what it is. I believe based on this discussion that it may be time to think about renaming it in a manner that makes clear that the real effort is on investigation of the contributions (rather than contributors) and subsequent cleanup. Perhaps simply renaming it to Contribution Copyright Investigation could do the trick. Otherwise, perhaps sprinkling in "large-scale" or "multiple" or something similar would do the trick better. Thoughts? MLauba 21:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I myself wasn't reacting to a suggestion from you that we divide but to the ideas in the notes. :) --Moonriddengirl 19:10, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka

Hello, hows it going? Could you have a look at Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. This article has a lot of problems with it, as well as it being a sensitive issue. Not much of it makes sense nor is there a proper structure to the article. I don't recommend deleting it right away as it is an important topic but can you clean it up as much as possible? Thanks--Blackknight12 (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I really don't have time. :/ Most of my volunteer time these days is dedicated to cleaning up copyright. There are a ton of articles I'd love to be writing myself, but that works feels too important and too neglected for me to really feel comfortable focusing on anything else right now. --Moonriddengirl 19:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I understand you, my days here lately have been taken up by cleaning up wikipedia as well. Is there someone you could recommend just out of curiosity?--Blackknight12 (talk) 09:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm afraid I'm not coming up with anybody who really focuses in that area. :/ Is there anyone else at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Sri Lanka who might be good with it? You might try handing out barnstars to people who will help at the Misplaced Pages:Reward board - I'm not sure how well that board actually functions, but it might appeal to people who like a challenge. Otherwise, I might recommend picking somebody who is active at WP:GA or who has a bunch good articles and appealing to them directly, to see if they have time and interest. Some of them, of course, are focused in certain areas, but I bet there are some out there who just like producing quality content. :) --Moonriddengirl 11:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Invitation

Hello Moonriddengirl, you are cordially invited to join the initiative Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians. We're a group of editors working to maintain and improve database of those editors who are no longer with us. All of these deceased Wikipedians have changed Misplaced Pages for the better in some way. Now, it is our turn to pay them tribute and obituaries. If you know any Misplaced Pages editor, who is no longer with us, but their name is not included in our list still, please let us know. Visit the project page for more information. Thanks! Tito Dutta (contact) 04:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Note: There might be typos or other errors in this invitation. Most probably you are the second editor who is receiving this "template-invitation". --Tito Dutta (contact) 04:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I just wanted to respond belatedly to say that I checked the list and that all of my friends who have passed on are listed on it. I am still grieving for one of them, and it is hard for me to visit the page for that reason, but I think it's a nice thing to do. :( --Moonriddengirl 11:45, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

POI characters thanks, and a cupcake for you!

You deserve a treat for your always available helping hand! Drmargi (talk) 19:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, just a word of thanks for the help on List of Person of Interest characters. You're right about the template being clunky, but I managed to get the article tagged and the editor notified once I had sufficient time to fiddle with it all. I've directed the offending editor to the appropriate document, as you suggested, but I'm almost as big a neophyte as he in dealing with it all, so I may holler for help again. Meanwhile, a small token of thanks! --Drmargi (talk) 19:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! --Moonriddengirl 11:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

personal

Hello, the random nature of the universe has caused me to contact you. Hope you don't mind. I am seeking complex geometry for geodesic domes of high granularity and meandered into this space, discovering the complexity of wiki world for the first time. Why you? I liked your username and your self-description that "I have what some describe as a high tolerance for pointless activity." Good luck with your migraines. Hope to hear back, Ciao. 99.253.157.99 (talk) 10:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. :) The migraines are going rather well, courtesy of a medication regime that (knock wood) is working at the moment. Good luck with your quest! --Moonriddengirl 10:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Book reviews

Is this copyrighted? If so the article on the book The Zookeeper's Wife is a copy paste.Volunteer Marek 17:43, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Yes, it's copyright, and basically copied by that website from the publisher's blurb, also copyright. I've removed the material, re-written as a viable stub, and added a reference. I'm off now to add {{Cclean}} to the talk page. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

PS Checked the history, the copyvio wasn't by the creator of the article. It was added later by an IP . Voceditenore (talk) 06:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Marek and Voceditenore. :) Plot descriptions are a constant problem, I'm afraid. :/ --Moonriddengirl 10:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

USY Summer Programs

Hi, My name is Max Retik and I am an International General Board Member of the United Synogague Youth (USY). I'm a communications and publicity chair on the board here. (Proof of my position) I see that recently you deleted a large section on the 'USY' wikipedia page about 'Summer Programs.' In fact, after your edit, the entire article, including all links and bullet points, is gone. The wikipedia article under question relays a great deal of information about the programs to people who are wondering, and the fact that it is all now gone cannot be good in terms of: 1) People interested in learning more about the programs and 2) People looking to learn more about the organization, as the summer programs are very important to us.

You stated that the information was 'obviously not understood' because it was copied and pasted from the website. Well, not exactly true, you see. We just found that the best way to express the information was how it was worded on the site, and therefore suitable for the wikiperia entry as well.

In addition, I work on videos for the organization, which we're all very proud of (not to toot my own horn.) The links to my videos were also taken down off the entire page. I give full permission for these to be published and we wish for them to be restored as well as the other content.

I'd be more than happy to provide proof for anything that you thought was unfit for the page.

Otherwise, I'd really like to discuss the speedy restoration of the page to it's state on March 14th, 2013.

On behalf of the United Synogague Youth 2013 International General Board, I thank you, and look forward to your fast reply so that we can get this fixed. Thanks! -Publicity and Communications

96.242.50.9 (talk) 21:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

EDIT: The organization does grant permission to use all copied text from the website for use on the wikipedia page, to forward and advance the public's understanding of USY and all programs thereof.

96.242.50.9 (talk) 21:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Max Retik (talk) 21:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It is often not the case that text developed for website, especially one that is written by people close to the organization, is suitable for an encyclopedia article, where the goal is neutrality and the avoidance of promotional language. However, if that is the case, the text must be licensed for use, as copying or even close paraphrasing without permission is a copyright issue.

If that is the goal, a permission statement needs to be filed with OTRS. See

Donating copyrighted materials

for more details.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into that. I assure you, the material is completely neutral. We just want the information about the programs to be available to people who are curious about them. We're not trying to advertise here. Max Retik (talk) 21:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Sphilbrick, and Max, I'm sure that some of the content will be very helpful in updating the article once license is verified. However, some of it is not appropriate for Misplaced Pages - for instance, claims such as "Whether touring across North America on USY on Wheels or exploring Israel and/or parts of Europe on our various Israel Pilgrimage programs USY has something for everyone!", "Experience the beauty of Shabbat, learn about the power of Tzedakah, and gain inspiration through creative prayer and engaging interactive Jewish learning programs" and "This unusual melding of Jewish education and observance, the personal experience of meeting both Jews and non-Jews while traveling across the country, and the thrill of seeing the historical and exciting sights of North America, adds up to a growing and learning experience which has been unique to USY since 1960." are not really neutral - they are assessing the quality of the programs of USY and essentially promising a certain experience. They may be assessing it accurately, but that's beside the point - our core policy is that critical commentary on our subjects must come from neutral outside observers, and not from the subjects themselves. :) See WP:NPOV and WP:V. Misplaced Pages exists to neutrally summarize what reliable sources say about subjects. We are not a business resource - people can visit your website for that. The bulk of content in any article should be sourced to something other than its official site - that's why the article carries the tag it has now, asking for secondary and tertiary sources. With the pasted content, I'm afraid that issue is even more extreme. :/ Misplaced Pages:Identifying reliable sources may help. --Moonriddengirl 10:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Date

They must be misreading the date, although I'm beginning to suspect vandalism...well, if it keeps up. If it does keep up, I'll get it semi-protected. Kinda sad ending for her too.... Dreadstar ☥ 21:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. :/ If people had understood her psychosis in the first place, I can't help but wonder if something might have been done to stop it and to make her and his story come out differently. --Moonriddengirl 10:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Work for hire copyright

Since you're the expert, please see here. Is it true that all paid editors count under a "work for hire copyright", where their work is copyrighted to the company or individual they're working for, rather than to the editor themselves, meaning that any material they submit needs to be copyright released by the company or individual directly? If yes, this seems like something that should have been pointed out years ago. Silverseren 04:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) IANAL, but I believe that current practice would indeed be that paid writing done on behalf of a customer is work for hire unless there's a contract that specifies otherwise. And OTRS agents typically know that (or at least used to when I was one of them). MLauba 04:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there any real copyright issue though in relation to editing Misplaced Pages? Silverseren 04:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, assuming the content is written from scratch rather than copy /pasted from existing material, I'd say no quite emphatically. The moment he hits save, he licenses it under CC-BY-SA and the GFDL. Now it is possible that the employer would not be aware of this, but I'd posit that is none of our concern - however, if we start getting repeated takedown requests where some companies claim they're repudiating their deal with a paid editor because they weren't made aware of the licensing issues, paid editing will probably become much more difficult for everyone.

If it's copy / pasted from existing company material, WP:PERM applies as per usual. MLauba 06:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Though, a further question. The main reason it's being brought up appears to be because Arturo was asking subject matter experts (essentially, people more informed about the company's history than him) to look over his work and point out changes that needed to be made. Which, presumably, he then looked up sources for, since everything is properly sourced.

So, the question is, does Arturo have the right to release material himself that was contributed to by other people or do you have to get their permission too? And how does this all work when he's a paid editor and those experts are also paid people working for the company?

It seems to me that this shouldn't be that much of an issue, as we have a number of editors that get the input of subject matter experts all the time, like in writing featured articles. I suppose, like you noted, the only problem will be if any of those people who contributed ever show up and demand their contribution is removed. But I suppose that isn't an actual concern unless it actually happens, which isn't likely. Silverseren 06:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Fortunately, ideas and concepts cannot be copyrighted - what counts is the expression of these. If the feedback is given by the SME to the editor internally, I don't think it's Misplaced Pages's place to worry about how that translates into on-wiki text. If the SMEs interact directly on the talk pages, the same thing as above applies.

What I mean to say is that any salaried editors who creates text on his employer's behalf is basically acting as an authorized agent, regardless of how many other corporate sources he consults when he composes his text. Now for the avoidance of any doubt, if your CREWE (hope I got that right) initiative still exists and you document recommendations, you may probably want to clarify and make sure that both paid editors and their employers are aware that the text they post to Misplaced Pages is irrevocably licensed under two free licenses and the company will have no recourse to come back 6 months down the line and repudiate what their agent wrote. Just for the avoidance of any doubt. MLauba 07:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

IMHO, excellent feedback here, MLauba. :) Because I'm found of sources, where I can get them, I'll refer you, Silver, to US Circular 09, Works for Hire. Like MLauba, I am of the opinion that unless content is previously published, we have no need to verify that the editor has permission of the company to post here. If content is previously published, that's a different matter. --Moonriddengirl 10:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I did not notice this and actually posted it to Risker Talk page.

In this Elance Ad someone wants a Misplaced Pages page to be created do not think it has been created.But a line states in the Ad When placing a bid, please advise of your experience in Misplaced Pages and web2.0.All content will remain copyright of myself. Integrity is a key focus on this job as well. If you successful undertaken this role, there are more pages to upload after this one.One may need to sign into Elance to view the last 2 lines Job ID: 39154940. If you can Send the ad by email. Elance Service Agreement and as per Works for Hire this It states Owner of the Copyright in a Work Made for Hire .If a work is made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is the initial owner of the copyright unless both parties involved have signed a written agreement to the contrary. Most Elance ads ask for wiki pages to be created and the paid editors will be clicking the Save button and not the copyright owner and thus have not agreed to licensing under CC-BY-SA and the GFDL.Can there not be legal dispute over this in the future that they only asked to post in Misplaced Pages and the paid editor had no authority to release by CC-BY-SA and the GFDL .He is not copyright owner and ahs not clicked the save button or released under WP:ORTS.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 11:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

What MLauba was explaining above is that if they are hired to write Misplaced Pages articles, then they are acting in the scope of their employment - as an agent of the company - when they hit save. :) --Moonriddengirl 11:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I almost missed the legal dispute part of the question - I think not really, at least not as concerns us. Legally, WMF is protected by OCILLA. What would happen is that the company would contact the WMF and issue a takedown for the content. WMF would comply, and the material would be taken down. Reusers may be inconvenienced by the need to withdraw publication but are unlikely (imho and ianal) to face suit as they will have acted in good faith in using the content. The person who might be in legal jeopardy is the contributor, although I think it's highly doubtful. The Elance advertiser seems to be a bit...clueless, to be kind. --Moonriddengirl 11:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I notice that the sentence "All content will remain copyright of myself" doesn't appear in the ELANCE ad (at least in the part I could view). But what the prospective client is explicitly proposing is basically sockpuppetry and involves him disclosing his password to the editor he hires, who then disguises himself as the client when posting the article on Misplaced Pages:

I'd like a provider to use my existing account on Misplaced Pages (details will be provided to the successful applicant) to submit a page titled "The Arthritis Solution."

That strikes me as a huge no-no. Voceditenore (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yes. As I understand it, that's reason for block in itself. :/ --Moonriddengirl 11:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Woah. Moonriddengirl, you wrote "What would happen is that the company would contact the WMF and issue a takedown for the content. WMF would comply, and the material would be taken down." This seems quite odd, and I have some questions about this.

1. Are you saying we would take down the material as a practical matter, to avoid hassle, or that we'd be legally required to?
2. I assume that this would apply to anyone, not just corporations. Thus I can sign a contract with my brother specifying that he will pay me $1 and all my contribution are work for hire and the copyright devolves to him. Then if I leave the Misplaced Pages in a huff he can demand that all my 25,000 edits be removed? What am I missing here?
3. Also, what about if the copyrighted material has become intertwined with other editor's contributions over the years?
4. Also, you write "Reusers may be inconvenienced by the need to withdraw publication but are unlikely (imho and ianal) to face suit as they will have acted in good faith in using the content". This seems to imply that it is at least possible that Misplaced Pages material cannot actually be re-used by other entities (unless they have established that none of the material is held under a copyright superseding ours, which would be extremely difficult in practice). This seems a Very Big Deal indeed.

I've always assumed that clicking "Save Page" donates the material, superseding any prior agreements or contracts. If not, this is a huge problem and a potential existential crisis. Herostratus (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) I want to be clear that I'm speaking as Moonriddengirl here; I'm not saying anything I wouldn't have said two years ago, before I started working for the WMF. (Well, except for the bit about stuff that happened within the last two years. And all of that is public and still my opinion.) I believe that I am right, but if you want an official statement of any kind, I would need to put on my other hat and be conduit and not font of answer. :D

The Wikimedia Foundation is an online service provider and not a publisher. This is a good thing for us, because if WMF were a publisher then WMF would be responsible for what appears on Misplaced Pages - it would not be able to permit people to post instantly because it could be sued for libel or copyright infringements that are published on the site. Our functioning depends upon WMF being and remaining an OSP, because OSPs are protected by things like OCILLA. But one of the provisions of OCILLA is the Notice and take down. If an OSP chooses not to comply with a notice and take down, then they lose their protection as an OSP. I'm not going to say that the WMF never gives pushback, because that is demonstrably and publicly untrue. One of my favorite examples is the Tonga DMCA, which is one where the alleged copyright holder withdrew the DMCA takedown after certain facts were pointed out to them. It's one of my favorites, because I investigated that article and discovered those facts and because as long as I've been doing copyright work my favorite moments are those where I am able to keep the content because it's not a problem. :) (I often abbreviate "DMCA takedown request" as DMCA but am trying to avoid that here to prevent confusion. If I slip up, please keep that in mind. :)) When I said "WMF would comply", I was speaking very generally to the question of our legal jeopardy. Compliance is required by law unless the WMF chooses to take legal responsibility, but it is reasoned and not automatic. For a few other DMCAs takedown requests to consider, there's this one, which was filed by the uploader of the material and with which WMF complied, and this one, which was also withdrawn after certain facts were pointed out to the filer. (Even a DMCA request with which the WMF complies does not necessarily verify that copyright infringement has occurred, mind. At that point, people are still able to file counternotice and have the content restored, but they themselves take on legal liability. See one such. The only option the filer has at that point to prevent publication is to sue the individual who filed counternotice. Whenever content is removed under DMCA, the uploader is advised of this option; see, for instance, , which not only contains information on counternotice but more general information on the handling of DMCA takedowns. Also worth looking at: the 2012 list of DMCA takedown notices processed and the section on DMCA in our Terms of Use.)

Beyond the generalities of OSPs, I'll note that I do agree with MLauba above, that in this case the uploader is acting as an agent of the individual and is authorized to place the content. But there has been at least one case (one that I know of) where content was placed on Misplaced Pages without authorization of the publisher. It was placed by the author, but you cannot escape a prior contract with somebody else by entering into a new one, and as the publisher refused to join the license the material had to be removed. Pressing "save page" doesn't donate the material if you are not legally entitled to donate it. It must be yours, legally, to license or it is no different than if you are copying it from somebody else's website. For beans reasons, I prefer not to speculate on how contributors might try to abuse this legal fact, but I'll note that DMCA takedowns are filed under penalty of perjury. It is one of their required elements. I'll also note that anyone can file a counternotice (for more on these, see this decent overview), whereupon the legal and financial burden of enforcing your copyright claim is on you.

In terms of your other questions, these are ones I have commonly encountered in volunteer mode over the years - when copyrighted content is entered without license on Misplaced Pages and becomes enmeshed with subsequent edits of others, we unfortunately wind up with a derivative work, and the modifications to that content (never having been authorized) are lost along with the original. Generally, Wikipedians investigating copyright issues will remove or rewrite the material unless it has been modified to the point that the original is completely unrecognizable. This may or may not satisfy the courts, but I believe it's a good faith practice, and as a volunteer I'm content to let the copyright holder take it up with a higher authority than me at that point. If they want the content taken down, they have recourse to OCILLA.

It is a sad fact that copyright infringements placed on Misplaced Pages and other Wikimedia Commons projects are not legally released for reuse just because the uploader says so, anymore than if (say) you have legitimate possession of a car you buy from somebody who stole it. You may have no criminal intent, but you still don't get to keep the car. IMHO, our reuse policy needs to be clearer on this point - the closest it comes to making it is to say, "We try hard to identify the sources and licenses of all media such as text, images or sounds used in our encyclopedia articles. Still, we cannot guarantee that all media are used or marked correctly: if an image description page states that an image was in the public domain, you should still check yourself whether that claim appears correct and decide for yourself whether your use of the image would be fine under the laws applicable to you." The example is more limiting than the text it is illustrating, but at least the possibility of misidentification is mentioned. Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia does a better job here, I think: "While the copyright and licensing information supplied for each image is believed to be accurate, the Wikimedia Foundation does not provide any warranty regarding the copyright status or correctness of licensing terms. If you decide to reuse files from Commons, you should verify the copyright status of each image just as you would when obtaining images from other sources."

This is a very big deal, and this is one of the reasons that I believe that volunteer copyright work is so important (it was hard for me to trim the editorial I wrote on the issue to this brief coverage). When I put time into copyright cleanup, I am trying to protect the project, our editors and our reusers, as well as the copyright holders. --Moonriddengirl 11:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

In that case, it's clear any account making work-for-hire edits -- even talk page edits, which I believe are subject to the same licensing as article edits -- is not fully under the control of the person doing the actual typing. And this is expressly forbidden. "Misplaced Pages's policy is that usernames should not be shared between more than one individual". These accounts should thus be blocked on sight, and we need to start informing admins of this, I think. And if we don't do this, we need to change our advice to add something along the lines of "The Misplaced Pages accepts work-for-hire, and as result any given block of text might belong to someone else. And its often extremely difficult to figure out if this applies to given block of text or not. So if you reuse our material, You could be in for a quite unpleasant surprise somewhere down the line -- probably not, but you never know" (rendered into proper pseudo-legalese of course). Right? Herostratus (talk) 02:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, I think "work for hire" is a far lower risk than the standard copyvios that we process every day and that are littered throughout our website. People who are in a "work for hire" situation are, as noted above, acting as agents of their employers...there is no more or less reason to accept their content in good faith than there is anybody else's. If the content is previously published, we require a stronger licensing statement via OTRS or release on the website. And we accept emails from people acting as agents of their employers via OTRS every day granting permission for text. (And on a personal note: all those comments by that Maggie Dennis person in the section below? Work for hire. :)) People who reuse our material should be aware that there may be risks in doing so...as Commons does advise them and as we rather more vaguely hint. But, really, the only way to sew up our site so that there is no risk is to stop letting people post here who aren't vetted. :/ --Moonriddengirl 10:20, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

So you're going to try to get MRG's Maggie Dennis account blocked since it's a work for hire account? And all of the other WMF staffer accounts? Please do try, it would be hilarious. Silverseren 17:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's that hilarious Silver. I don't consider the integrity of the Misplaced Pages a funny joke. I understand your point that this would be politically difficult since you guys have the upper hand at this time, politically. Fair enough. Doesn't make you right, though. As to Maggie Dennis et al,

• Yes one can always find extreme outliers or minority cases for polemical purposes.
• No one has problem with Maggie Dennis. If you'll note at WP:PAIDWATCH it says the professors, GLAM participants, etc. are not considered problem (I added WMF employees just now).
• But if Maggie Dennis's account is problem, then it is and you can't handwave that away. One way to fix the problem would be to block Maggie Dennis, which would be stupid. Another way would be carve out an exemption for WMF employees and other special cases, which would be smart.

But I hadn't thought of WMF employees specifically, so thank you for bringing it up so that it can be (easily) handled. This is good collaboration and we can continue to move forward.

Moonriddengirl, I understand your points but can't generally agree. A big difference between work-for-hire and regular copyvios is that we explicitly allow and even encourage the former. I think if we had editors actively saying "bring me your copyvio material, and I'll find a way to sneak it into articles" and we knew that this was happening and deliberately did nothing, we'd be on pretty shaky ground, I think. Yes, it's a much lower risk as a practical matter so far because there's less of it and because the copyright owners are unlikely to object. (That could change if, let's say, an investigative reporter wrote a piece that included lengthy passages by, or directly copied from, an editor working for hire.) However, from a legal standpoint it's much worse since we're doing it on purpose, so why not sew up this loophole since it can be very easily done?

I really don't know what to say about "accept their content in good faith". I just... I guess we live in different worlds. Assuming good faith is fine up to point. Like all good things it can be taken too far. When I read the newspaper I differentiate between information in the stories and information in the ads. That doesn't mean the people writing the ads are bad people. It just means I understand they have a different reason than the reporters for writing.

I know we can't "sew up our site so that there is no risk", but that doesn't mean we should never do anything to improve the situation. One way would be a much stronger warning to readers that they would be foolish to re-use our material. Another way would be to close the loophole, which could be easily done and which our current policies actually require, arguably. Maybe there are other ways -- we could have little message above each affected paragraph that says "The following paragraph is work-for-hire. It is not to free to reuse and may express the views of rather than a neutral point of view" or something. If we think this through we can probably come up with a good solution. Shrugging it off it probably not the answer. Herostratus (talk) 18:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Shrugging it off is not the answer, but yelling that the sky is falling isn't either.

First and foremost, for the reusers, just like for anything else that includes intellectual property from third parties, it remains their own duty to do their own due diligence. You know that stock sentence we keep telling people with copyvio issues who think if it's available on the internet it must be public domain? "Assume anything is copyrighted unless explicitly demonstrated otherwise". It's valid for us, it's the same for the reuser. For every piece of content we provide. Work for hire or not.

The key point is, assuming a corporation were to repudiate original text contributed by a contractor under work-for-hire, and that text was indeed not published elsewhere prior, taking it down would be a matter of courtesy, not a legal obligation. That makes that text no different than anything else on wikipedia.

Again, once an editor presses save, his contributions are licensed perpetually to Misplaced Pages. If there's no evidence of prior publication, whatever happens internal to a third party company is, quite frankly, none of our business.

What we can do, however, is to improve the guidance in WP:COI to point out in unambiguous language what editing here entails in terms of licensing. This is also something, I suspect, which will be mostly to the benefit of the drive-by freelance editor making sponsored edits than corporate employees. And that is easily fixed.

But the sky isn't falling, nor is there any new or earth-shattering discovery that comes off this discussion we're having here. I have previously warned several COI editors who were introducing copyvios and looking for giving permissions that once permission was granted, their employer would have no recourse to try and revoke it if in later edits, critical coverage was included in an article about them. It's pretty standard stuff, really.

And for any lurkers who may have thought that copyright and licensing was going to be the silver bullet to put an end to paid editing, I'm really sorry to disappoint, but they'll have to look elsewhere. It just isn't a BIG DEAL in terms of licensing management. In particular not when put in perspective of, say, fanboys who copy / paste detailed synopsis of their favourite TV series from other websites without permission. MLauba 02:41, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, but this contradicts what Moonriddengirl said. According to her, "once an editor presses save, his contributions are licensed perpetually to Misplaced Pages" is not true, and "whatever happens internal to a third party company is, quite frankly, none of our business" is not true. Specifically, what happens internal to a third party company is of great interest to the law. Pressing save does not override the typist's prior agreement that all his work belongs to his employer. "taking it down would be a matter of courtesy, not a legal obligation" is not true. The text belongs to the company that paid for it. They're as legally entitled to have it taken down as they are to have text copied from their website taken down.

I agree that as a practical matter, it's not likely to often be a problem, but it's still a big deal and we should get it right. And it could have practical implications. For instance, this HuffPost article doesn't reproduce and of Arturo at BP's Misplaced Pages writings. But even if they wanted to, they couldn't, beyond fair-use snippets. Because it belongs to BP. And if they did, BP could go after them with a takedown order, with which HuffPost would have to comply.

Most of our overtly allowed non-free material is fair-use images. For those it's reasonably easy to click over to see the license. For text it's not. This is distinctly unfriendly toward HuffPost or any other potential reuser of our material. Herostratus (talk) 03:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Herostratus, your entire argument is based on a confusion between ownership (copyright) and usage right (licensing). We don't care about whether the material is owned by an editor or a corporation. We only care about whether it is being properly licensed to us when inserted. And in the example you cite about Huffpost citing an editor's talk page, your analysis is wrong. Arturo at BP's words ARE licensed CC-BY-SA and can be quoted in full provided they're attributed. If BP went after Huffpost on copyright grounds for quoting the editor's words verbatim, that would become a good reason to consider a wholesale revert of everything Arturo ever posted to Misplaced Pages. But until this happens, this remains a purely hypothetical mind game that serves no practical purpose but imaginary point-scoring in a debate about paid editing that, quite frankly, doesn't interest me in the least.

Mostly because the shrillness of every side. And the endless grasping at straws in order to one-up each other. MLauba 04:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, is that where the tension enters this conversation? Herostratus, you might have missed the link I gave you above where a contributor to Commons issued a takedown for content he had uploaded and the WMF complied. There was no work for hire situation going on here. There are multiple legal complexities that may mean "'once an editor presses save, his contributions are licensed perpetually to Misplaced Pages' is not true". And I have no interest in publicly discussing what some of those are, because WP:BEANS. What has been pointed out above, though, and what you don't seem to be picking up is that hired editors are licensing their content as an agent of the company (under the same agency agreement by which their content is copyrighted to their company). One of the few circumstances that I can imagine where we might run into a situation wherein a company argues that a work for hire editor licensed the material illegally is if they were not hired to place the material on Misplaced Pages but stole it from internal documents to put it here. Anyone hired to manage a Misplaced Pages profile isn't going to fall into that situation. And I'm not even worried about mentioning this per WP:BEANS, because the odds of this happening seem incredibly slim. Should we make it more clear in our reuse policies that content may not be legally licensed? Sure. Commons does that better than we do, as I said above. But the big problem here is the garden variety copy-paste, not the small risk of an organization's agent stepping outside the scope of his agency. --Moonriddengirl 11:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Sockpuppet defense via technology

Hi, FYI: this, then this and now here. I think you are the only one who can make it happen... History2007 (talk) 14:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, History. :) I think you probably mean the "work" me and not the volunteer me. But I do have to say that I think you have the wrong impression of working at the WMF. Our engineers have long hours and they do have deadlines, and they work really hard to meet the goals that are set for them by the Board of Trustees, which is at least in part elected by the community. I also know a number of them who go well above and beyond. But if they turn their focus from what they've been tasked to do (like, say, mobile expansion), then they certainly would and should be fired. :) (In the nearly two years I've been at WMF, I've seen a number of people fired...but like most responsible companies, the WMF respects the dignity and privacy of these people and certainly doesn't publicly trounce them.)

I see that since you left this note, Oliver Keyes has followed up with you on your talk page and that there is some discussion about challenges to a bot approach and how they might be overcome. I strongly suspect that the best way to proceed with your ideas is to iron them out with community members and especially checkusers and see if you can come up with an approach that has strong consensus. With a clear and heavy consensus on a good approach, it's a lot easier to present an engineering request to the attention of the WMF and the Board for consideration. There's an alternative path, too, to tasking the WMF to do this directly - you mention giving money to the Cluebot creator. There's multiple forms of grants that might be appropriate. Community review is required, so, again, it would be really helpful to develop and demonstrate strong community consensus for an approach. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I did get a few responses. But really I can no longer be bothered. I only typed that message on Doug's page because the sock puppet was laughing at everyone and viewing them as Elmer Fudd. And I do feel like Elmer when chasing sock puppets on what I call "snail puppet investigations". They are slow, frustrating and a waste of life with the tools available. Conclusion: Time to give up on them... As on my user page, I have now achieved liberation and no longer slave away 12 hours a day here... So going back on WP:V and talking for ever again will get as much result as when Jorge Stolfi went there a month or two ago. What did he get: zero. What have I ever got on WP:V? zero. As the Pending changes quagmires showed, in the current format for this crowd sourced web site, major decisions are next to impossible because there are so many differing opinions. So, at some point enough is enough... I am not going to push the issue, bu may type more ideas on my own talk page for those who may want to read them. But I will not embark on a long journey to nowhere to change the culture at WMF. If you really want to know, my real frustration started with trying to help the WMF people with the user feed back tool, and dealing with them was just too slow on what I saw as a simple project. I just left it for them to do. And it seems that they are still working on it... But anyway, I am not going to spend more effort on this issue... Let those who like these current tools chase puppets with them... If the tools are antique, users can not be expected to use them. I will just note that I personally find the tools too hard to use to chase all these "Sock Wabbits"... History2007 (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I can sympathize. I've played whack-a-mole more than once with socks, particularly of serial copyright infringers. :/

Obviously, you point out some significant issues. It is difficult to get change in place with such a large group. This is why I fear RFA reform may never happen. :/ Unfortunately, it still seems to be a reality of our work here...if a frustrating one. I'm not sure the solution to that. I also can understand that the process of working with WMF can seem slow for Wikipedians. It was a hard cultural adjustment for me when I started working with them, after years of living in Wiki time where things can move with lightning speed. I think sometimes it's still a challenge, but it does help keep me humble to know that I occasionally have let things slip myself due to focusing on other tasks. Not that I'm trying to say anything about the specific frustration you encountered, since I don't know the details, but simply to agree that I think it can be frustrating for Wikipedians used to dealing with Misplaced Pages time to suddenly run against organizational time. (It took me a long time as staff to allow myself not to answer email on Sunday, and sometimes I still do. :D) I think honestly that one of the strengths of crowd-sourcing is always going to be the potential for greater speed. There's less bureaucracy and - when it works well - manpower 24/7. I do believe WMF is better than most organizations at this, and it dos help that we have an international workforce, but there is still organizational...bulk (for lack of a better term) that sometimes gets in the way. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your frustrations and hope you can find some area of work that brings back the joy. :) I had sort of hoped to move away from so much focus on copyright so I could get back to at least some article writing, but, alas, the backlog there makes me feel bad. :P --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

But you know, stepping back a little, maybe this is the nature of crowd sourced environments. After a while there are so many people all trying to point to the "right direction" and all pointing in different directions that decision making on major issues just stops. I became aware of that when I saw the Pending Changes debates... In these cases either some central entity shows leadership, or decision making just grinds to a halt. Time will tell what will happen with this project... Only time will tell, given that it was an experiment that succeeded pretty well for several years (in fact beyond reasonable expectations). My hope would be for leadership from somewhere... So anyway, C'est la vie, but life goes on, of course.

One other item that relates to this, and I should probably mention to you (I said it on WP:V but of course quagmire triumphed) is that compared to 2007, the chance that an article is being watched by a "regular user" has dropped by 75%. Yes, in Jan 2007 articles were 75% more likely to be watched than in Jan 2013. I have the numbers. That is why I think either an "intelligent bot driven future" is accepted at WMF, or quality plummets. There are just not enough people to chase the Wabbits... History2007 (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, I left my final thoughts on my talk page about a WMF project to investigate "smart bots". But I will end that now and never talk about it again. It is the beginning of spring now, and reminds me of a year ago this time when I suggested to another user to to take it easy on Misplaced Pages and enjoy the spring. Alas he never got to see the first day of spring. C'est la vie. I think I should stop talking about this before I die myself. So I will leave it in your hands. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 16:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the way the WMF is structured, so apologies if I tell you things you already know, but I know that I was not aware of this at all before I started working there. Please note that this is all off the top of my head, based on my observations and understandings. I take full responsibility for any errors. :)

The engineering team at WMF has long-term goals that are set by the Board, often following some period of public discussion. See meta:Strategy. For several years now, those goals have been defined largely by the five year plan derived through the strategic planning push of 2009 which was Board approved in October 2010. You can read the plan here. Being flexible, Sue stopped to look at the plan and our implementation and began public speculation about a perceived need for a narrowing of focus (here) in October of last year. Notably, she mentioned in that document that engineering is one of our most overburdened departments. There's a billion things that they need to be doing, and not a billion of them to do it. The Board voted to approve that narrowed focus. Under it, engineering is mandated to focus on three things to advance the long-term goals set by the strategy document: (1) visual editor, (2) new editor engagement, and (3) mobile outreach. I believe it's not that Sue and the Board don't think other efforts (like important maintenance tasks) don't matter - I think they are trusting that our smart community (which includes developers such as User:Cobi, who created ClueBot because it was needed and he could) will continue working on these issues and finding and implementing solutions while they are focused on these other goals. Sue's perspective in that document seems to be that WMF doesn't have the resources to do everything and that they can't make significant grounds on the goals that have been prioritized for them if they don't focus the resources they have on meeting those goals.

I understand and respect what you say about leaving this. As I said above, I have been struggling with the responsibility of WP:CP myself (and very grateful for the others who work there, too!). So I'm not coming at this with a "you fix it" message in mind. :) I just hope to help clarify for you or anybody else who doesn't know why engineering is focused on what they are and why it takes community consensus to change that. You could take this to an engineer and convince her that this is the most important thing she should be doing, but she can't stop doing what she's being paid to do to work on it. That directive has to come from higher up, and it is more likely to come from higher up if there is a strong showing that this is a problem that the community can't solve and that it is worth shoving aside some of the other work they're doing and delaying meeting those goals. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

As I said on my talk spring is here and I will not be spending time debating this. But if you had not see that stat then it is likely most people have not. I will just give you the numbers and leave it at that:

The calculation is simple:

• In 2007: 48568/1560k = 31.1 editors for every 1,000 articles for midlevel editors
• In 2013: 33469/4133445= 8.09 editors for every 1,000 articles for midlevel editors

Hence:

• The Jan 2007/2013 ratio is: 31.1 / 8.09 = 3.84 more midlevel editors/page
• The March 2007/ Jan 2013 ratio is: 32.1 / 8.09 = 3.96 more midlevel editors/page

So in March 2007 there were approx 4 times more people watching pages than in Jan 2013. You can try the March 2013 numbers yourself next month. That is because the number of midlevel users is now 68% of what it used to be (33469 / 48568 = 68%) and a few million new articles have come in. So there are far less people watching now per article. And as tens of thousands of new articles get added every month, as I joked on my talk page the only solution may be this. And who knows, maybe that one will work now... It may be worth a try.

Anyway, I am going to stop now. But you could verify the numbers and show it to the board. But please be sure they are sitting down when they see it. And thanks for your well thought out answers as usual. History2007 (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

text Atelier Van Lieshout

Dear Moonriddengirl,

In response to your message: I am the actual writer of the text, which might circulate on a number of websites. However, if these website's claim to be copyright holders of this text, they are incorrect - I have simply provided them with this text to use, not to claim copyrights on it. I am not in the power, however, to force third parties to place a licence release on their websites.

I hope this resolves the matter.

Best regards,

Milou from RotterdamMiloufromrotterdam (talk) 21:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I've responded at your talk page. --Moonriddengirl 10:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Dear Moonriddengirl,

Thank you for your feedback, and the advice. I am indeed affiliated with Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL), since I work there as head of PR and PA to the founder. I am fully aware that this is not the ideal background in writing a Misplaced Pages article, and I would have been more than happy if others had started an article on AVL. However, this was not the case. Considering the fact that AVL is one of the Netherlands most well-known artists, and that we frequently got complaints about the fact that there was no entry on us on Misplaced Pages, I felt it was necessary to create one ourselves - which could then hopefully be extended by others.

I have no intention for it to be to overtly 'promotional' or positive'. I already looked at the text with the idea to make it more 'neutral', so the extra advice on that is very welcome. I will definitely take them into account.

Regarding the copyright business: the official website for AVL is: www.ateliervanlieshout.com, but it doesn't feature a list of employees, so that won't link me to the company, I'm afraid. Do you have any other suggestions? On wikipedia, I'm wrinting under a pen name, to make matters more complicated. Any suggestions?

best

Milou from Rotterdam Miloufromrotterdam (talk) 16:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I was just wondering: might it not be beter to rewrite the text - again? That way, I could address both the copyright issues as well as the neutrality issues. However, before starting out with this, it would be useful for me to know how much the text has to differ from the original text? I've already rewritten it once, and apparently this was not enough to address the copyright issues. So how big would the changes need to be?

Please let me know,

Best regards

Miloufromrotterdam Miloufromrotterdam (talk) 12:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Aircraft

There is a deletion discussion for File:Redacted hot air balloon festival.jpg. I don't know if the answer is cut and dried and you or WMF legal may wish to weigh in on whether they are sculptures, derivatives of 2D copyright, utilitarian, de min, etc. We may need help in Spanish with the Mexican FOP law as well. File:Metlife snoopy two blimp.jpg is another example. Talk page stalkers are welcome too.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:07, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The Wikimedia Foundation legal team cannot advise on specific images, although they do sometimes provide general information on copyright issues. Their most recent input regarding the copyright status of costumes is found here. I note from your comments there that you may not be fully informed of who people are and what they do at WMF. :) User:Philippe is not a "legal type" at Misplaced Pages - he is Director of Community Advocacy and is not an attorney. He works closely with the attorney, is wicked smart and undoubtedly has a fair bit of experience with copyright matters at this point, but this is not his specialty. User:Hahnw is a legal intern who is no longer with us. You can see the full list of staff at a given time at wmf:Staff and contractors, including what everyone does. At this moment, indefinitely employed attorneys include Geoff Brigham, Luis Villa, Michelle Paulson, and Stephen LaPorte. We have several contract attorneys and several legal interns (who generally do the research on these questions) and a gorgeous mascot. :) If you have a general question related to copyright that you think is of sufficient impact to necessitate consultation with the legal team, I'm happy to carry that to them - that's part of my job - however, it may not come back before the closure of a deletion debate. Just let me know. --Moonriddengirl 10:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Since this conversation really falls more into my work area, I won't take part in that discussion personally. Let me know if you have any general questions for the legal team, again keeping in mind that they cannot give legal advice and may not weigh in on specific examples. I'm happy to ask if they can assign an intern to look into it. :) --Moonriddengirl 10:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I brought up a few points in the link above. Do unique hot air balloons qualify as copyrighed 3D sculptures and need FOP to upload images? Does the court decision making the batmobile design coyrightable affect or images of it? And images taken in Second Life that are 3D creations of real life copyrighted works. We may need new sections in the project page to clarify these issues.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Manifestations of Postmodernism

Hi, Moonriddengirl, please take a look. I placed template suspected copyright violation at the Manifestations of Postmodernism, but I'm afraid, this might not be fully adequate. The article was created on 30 July 2006 by Emomisfitkid (talk · contribs) – a single purpose account – with 22,285 bytes of instant copy. Interestingly enough, the article survived almost 7-years-worth of revisions without detection. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 17:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The article was created by cutting the material already in Postmodernism and pasting it into Manifestations of Postmodernism See . So if there is copyvio it's in the histories of both articles. :( Voceditenore (talk) 18:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoa! The article that was supposedly "copied" (International Journal of Arts) was published in 2012. If anything, this is a case of backwards copyvio. Take a look, comparing the 2006 WP article and the 2012 International Journal of Arts article. . Quite blatant. Voceditenore (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Good catch! Copyright © 2012 Scientific & Academic Publishing, supposedly written by Mohammad Khosravishakib of Lorestan University. I looked around. There was no earlier draft on record. Poeticbent talk 19:01, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Good catch. I've added the backwardscopy template to the article. I'll warrant we'll see plenty more of that from them. :/ I've received a ton of spam from that quote publisher unpublisher trying to solicit articles. Cf. . --Moonriddengirl 10:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

David R. Craig

You handled a copyvio on this article before, could you do so again? It appears the copyvio text has moved to David Craig Biography.Naraht (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow. done. Thanks for catching that it was back. :/ --Moonriddengirl 10:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanx.Naraht (talk) 10:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for you attention and guidelines on Khorasgan Azad University

Dear Moonriddengirl,

Thanks for you attention and guidelines. Do you mean I should ask the university to change the words in copyright license and then publish it on its site for referencing? If yes I would do so. I am from Iran and now we are in New Year (Nowruz) holidays. The university will be opened about 10-04-2013. Any how later I had talked one of Misplaced Pages Admins in chat room and he had guided me much and I set the passage regarding to his recommendations. Of course I know that I have many problems and I will try to solve them by doing your advises. I will do for copyright as you mentioned. I wish my article remain on Misplaced Pages for ever. Regards, Mehrnazar (talk) 20:12, 21 March 2013 (UTC)Mehrnazar

Replied at your talk page. :) --Moonriddengirl 10:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

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Hey MRG. Do you happen to remember this conversation? Would you still have any interest in doing that? :-) Ed  10:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Wiki.Gunjan

I have tagged two of his articles as copyvio and nominated a bunch of images for deletion at Commons. I think, he has misunderstood India's Right to Information Act! Could you check please? --Tito Dutta (contact) 15:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Ratan Jindal

OK, I'm stumped again.

On the surface, this is simple. Ratan Jindal has a paragraph which matches, word-for-work, the cited source

One presumes that Bloomberg Business Week isn't in the habit of borrowing from Misplaced Pages, so it seems obvious.

But not so fast.

The entry was added to Misplaced Pages in 2009

Wayback finds the Bloomberg site, but only an entry in 2012. That isn't definitive proof, but I need a little more to figure out which came first.

I note that the Misplaced Pages entry was added by Jindalstainless, either the subject or someone closely associated, so maybe it was written by the subject, and later sent to Bloomberg? If written by the subject, we might have a problem, but not necessarily a copyright problem.

I noticed that the Bloomberg link isn't a direct link, but a search string. I thought that if I could find a more direct link, I might find an older one in Wayback.

However, when I do a Google advanced search of the site, I can get a couple hits, but not that entry. I can't seem to find the entry on Businessweek's page.

So I've got evidence that it existed in 2012, but it was on Misplaced Pages in 2009. I don't think I can delete it for copyvio reasons with what I've found so far, but I am quite uncomfortable having an entry in Misplaced Pages, sourced to a 2012 item, but relating to a 2009 edit. Doesn't feel right.

I guess I can throw some possible COI tags at it, but I'd like to resolve the copyright question. Any other tricks up your sleeve?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)