Hello everyone,

I have 5 points I want to make.  I say them all in my personal capacity and are not directed at anyone but refer to things generally.

  1. Wikipedia, as an organic system that has generated encyclopedic content, is not one holistic entity as it has been commonly referred.  It is a collection/community of individuals with a shared interest in editing it.  Over the years it has also evolved a set of -by and large- well thought through rules and guidelines.  At least that is my observation of it.
  2. Copyright infringement and/or plagiarism is a serious issue, especially on Wikipedia where it can be hard to police.  Putting a tag on an article urgently pointing out the need to resolve any copyright violation issues is necessary to protect the rights of the original author of the copied content whilst maintaining the integrity of the article in question.  
  3. I am unconvinced that tagging the article violates the rights of the person who is the subject of the article.  Which is to say that I am unconvinced that it has the "huge potential to hurt the image of the subjects of these articles."  The tag refers to the copyright of the written content of an article and not the subject of the article.  They are two different things.  In the case of Rocky Dawuni it seems as though the tag worked; it seems as though the copyright issue has been resolved and the tag has been removed.  
  4. The best advice I feel I can give anyone who does not like something on Wikipedia and/or feels something is wrong on it is to "change it your self."  It encourages people to contribute to Wikipedia whilst also -in most cases- improves the quality of Wikipedia.  Asking for input or guidance on a specific issue is always a good thing but to expect other people to make changes to articles on your behalf is in many cases not the most effective way to make change happen.  There are exceptions to this such as when it requires an admin to make a change or if the article in question is about ones self. 
Having said all that perhaps there is a way the tag can be redesigned/deployed so as to reduce its apparent 'sledge hammer' effect on an article?

Cheers,

Douglas.

On 23 March 2015 at 20:25, TheAfricanDream Oral.Ofori <oralofori@gmail.com> wrote:

Well then something is definately wrong somewhere if Wikipedia is punishing the articles/authors and not realizing that their actions via those tags have a huge potential to hurt the image of the subjects of these articles, especially in cases involving actual persons :-(



 

Journalist/Publicist/Social Media Specialist/+12027069881 www.about.me/OralOfori

On Mar 23, 2015 2:13 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Le 23/03/15 18:59, TheAfricanDream Oral.Ofori a écrit :

Now if you Google Thomas Mensah, the first top 5 options the search will yield has Wikipedia at the lead and when you click on that Wikipedia option this is what you find as displayed in the screenshot attached.

The contents of that picture attached from a Google search is truly damaging to the image of the man even though it is meant for the author/s of that wiki piece. The man's name is boldly there and I worry because I called him up personally to get some info to help improve on the piece when it was first started as I liked the piece and felt I could help improve it by getting info from the subject himself.

My beef is still same, if we don't want to delete it then let's take it totally offline till it's repaired so it doesn't appear in wiki/Google search engine, or else some policy will have to change about how copyvio/core tags are placed on articles so as to protect the image of the individuals/subjects such articles are about because when the non-wiki public sees what is up now, they don't think about the author/s, they rather think about Wikipedia and the subject of the persons involved since their names still remain without a single text of their actual articles.

Browse to the page again now and see for yourselves my friends. I doubt I've ever seen any such tag anywhere on Wikipedia before.


Every article listed here has such a tag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_tagged_for_copyright_problems :-X

Anthere










Oral

Journalist/Publicist/Social Media Specialist/+12027069881 www.about.me/OralOfori

On Mar 23, 2015 4:06 AM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Le 22/03/15 20:22, TheAfricanDream Oral.Ofori a écrit :

I will like to ask your help in beginning proceedings to have the wiki article of Dr. Thomas Mensah totally deleted from Wikipedia and done as soon as possible.

This is because the page still comes up whenever you browse his name and it has that copyright tag there but displays nothing whatsover of his biography and achievements. Since Wikipedia is not displaying the bio of his work and achievements then I will ask that it deletes the page completely and his name off their servers as well because that tag implicating copyright issues is in itself defamatory to his character as a highly respected member of the global academic and scientific society.

If any one has an address to forward this request to then that will be greatly appreciated, else I say we do what we can as soon as we possibly can to see to the complete removal of Dr. Thomas Mensah from Wikipedia if they do not want his article there, rather than keep his name there and that of Rocky Dawuni under such defamatory circumstances.

I am open to whatever ideas anyone might have in seeing to the resolution of the above because Wikipedia or some editors there said it was going to take a week to resolve since the above page a were tagged for deletion on March 6, 2015 and it's been almost half a month now and they have not been completely removed: I speak as a concerned Ghanaian on this matter.


Hello

Here is the route I recommand to fix that issue.

1) go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_Mensah

2) rework the original article here, without any copyvio in there
There are two routes to do this
- the easiest (but less satisfactory) one: draft a short and clean version of the article, putting in there only non copyrighted content
- the longest (but more satisfactory) one: rewrite the current article (rephrase any sentence that was purely copy pasted from the original website)

3) contact an admin (or typically the guy who blanked the article and put the copyvio tag) and ask him if he is happy with new version

4) if no answer within a week, ask another admin to review the new version. Wait a week again

5) if no answer or if positive answer, copy the reworked text in the talk page in the article space

6) pray (or any appropriate gesture of self confort for you)

Ant








Thank you,

Oral Ofori

Journalist/Publicist/Social Media Specialist/+12027069881 www.about.me/OralOfori

On Mar 9, 2015 4:39 PM, "TheAfricanDream Oral.Ofori" <oralofori@gmail.com> wrote:

Lol, no thats not what the message was shooting for, mistyped that there and thanks for efforts. Shirts about to get wet here :-)

On Mar 9, 2015 4:26 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Excuse me ?
So... you suggest that *I* do the clean-up of the article to remove the copyvios that *YOU* guys added in it... and *THEN* hand it to you to improve ?
Or do you suggest that *I* go around look for some editors to improve the article ?

This is not what is going to happen...
If YOU guys want this article to exist, wet your shirt ;)

Ant

Le 09/03/15 20:01, TheAfricanDream Oral.Ofori a écrit :

Ok Florence, let me know when that Rocky becomes a substantial non-cooyvio so I delve into it and add a few touches to beef it up while I cross my fingers for some hope about the Thomas Mensah one too.








Thanks,
Oral

Journalist/Publicist/Social Media Specialist/+12027069881 www.about.me/OralOfori

On Mar 9, 2015 2:19 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Dawuni

That's temporary. I will redelete it afterwards.

Guys, if you want to recreate a new article using the non copyvio parts of this one, please do so in an intermediary space. Thanks

Ant

Le 09/03/15 09:45, rupert THURNER a écrit :

Hmmm..  I d love to have the history. It is not my text

Rupert

On Mar 8, 2015 7:44 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Hi

I copy pasted the entire text in my email two days ago Rupert...
You just need to copy paste it anywhere you feel it is best (online or not online).

Ant


Le 06/03/15 20:16, rupert THURNER a écrit :

Sure, if you could restore it, at least in my or Rex personal namespace...

On Mar 6, 2015 7:51 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:
Le 06/03/15 19:41, Florence Devouard a écrit :
Le 06/03/15 19:09, rupert THURNER a écrit :

Yes please do send this list and try to improve them,  and then tell me how pleasant this work was.

Contrary, for the rocky dawuni article I d be interested as well where the copyright infringement was. I do not like that without admin permission it is not possible to look this up...

Rupert



Also of interest in the conversation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=650110340#Copyvio_-_removal_of_tags_by_Spearmind


Otherwise... with a quick study of what is going on about the deletion spree, it seems that...
* in all articles, chunks are indeed copyvios. The chunks are smaller or bigger depending on each case.
* in many cases, the article is blanked in its entirety, then deleted.

Looks like it is a bit overkill to me. I see not why at least a stub could be kept.

Ant

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