I've been seeing a rise in in-article copyvios. Last night I got one
in [[Content managment system]]. I know that only some paragrahs have
these copyvios, and not entire articles, so complete rewirtes aren't
necessary. Thus, I'm attempting to write a script that
(a) opens tabs with "Special:Random" on them
(b) select the first setence from each paragraph (line break)
(c) Google the sentence
(d) If there are any exact matches not from en.wikipedia.org, put up a
little message for me to check and remove the copyvio.
(e) repeat.
Problem is, all I know is Applescript. If any of you Perl or
pywikipedia or AWB-types have another way of writing this, can someone
write it so the general community can use it to remove copyvios? (or
is this possible with AWB?)
Chris (Ccool2ax)
I just came across the following userpage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Blind14
which shows a "This user is a nazi"-userbox quite prominently,
depicting a swastika in a clearly non-enzyclopedic contect (i.e. as a
personal non-scientific reference / symbol of adherence). I'm not sure
about legislation in US but I wonder whether this could be an offense
against law. Feel free to comment on whether it is a violation of
Wikipedia policies, I won't comment this, as I didn't take part in the
Great Userboxes War.
Michael
Our fair use policy states -- correctly, I think -- that we should not
use fair use for generic images and should remove any non-licensed
images which can be reasonably re-created as free images. The goal
behind this was to discourage unnecessary invocations of the fair use
clause, as well as to encourage free content to be created whenever
possible.
That's all well and good. But does this mean that NO images of people
who are currently alive can be used under "fair use"? After all, if
they are alive, potentially one could take a picture of them and
license it as GFDL.
It sounds like an absurd interpretation of the intention of our "fair
use" policy to me, but this is how people have been insisting on
interpreting it at the Wikipedia:Fair Use talk page. I think this is
foolish on many levels -- it has absolutely nothing to do with either
legal issues or free content, it effectively results in the
jettisoning of many perfectly fine "fair use" images which just happen
to be of living people, and it focuses people attention on the most
immaterial fact-y aspects of "fair use" policy rather than trying to
actually understand how to implement it or why it works the way it
does. I think it is a policy which will cause more trouble that it
will benefits.
That particular interpretation of the policy slipped into the main
policy without any discussion.
I've given up on trying to participate in this discussion, though, as
it has, in my opinion, been hijacked by people who really just see
this as a way to get rid of "fair use" media on the English Wikipedia.
While I can see the ups and downs of "fair use" usage, I think that's
a separate issue that should not be what comes into play in
discussions of policy implementation. If the explicit desire is to get
rid of fair use alltogether, this should be handled in a direct
fashion, not in these indirect, five-and-dime approaches.
I'm just posting it here so that people who care about either our
"fair use" policy or about whether Wikipedia has sensible policies or
not can participate either way on the discussion. What disturbs me the
most about it is that many of these changes which will have vast
effects on the use of "fair use" media on Wikipedia are only being
discussed among a very small group of very interested people. In my
opinion if one is to make such a draconian rule as "no living people
allowed", one must gain a certain amount of legitimacy for it, either
by showing it to be in accord with a substantial popular opinion or
from our non-popular authority structures (i.e. by fiat of a
recognized authority).
Just FYI. Discussions taking place at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Fair_usehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_of_living_people
The criteria in question is FUC #1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use_criteria
You can find a long rant from me about it -- with more eloquence than
this little note here, in my opinion -- at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use_criteria#FUC.231_and_p…
At this point I don't care either way about it as I've gotten really
sick of even trying to participate in en policymaking especially in
the "fair use" area, as it has gotten clogged with extremists of all
opinions and nobody seems to have much of an interest in creating
sensible, rational policy (I'm aware not everyone will share my
interpretations or cocerns). I just want to open up the discussion a
bit so that people won't be surprised when the day comes that when
five people at WP:FU change our policies and start deleting images
left and right.
I don't think Wikipedia is a waste of time but it certainly caters to
those with time to waste.
FF
Hello Jimmy, i`m just a small writer from the Netherlands, and trying to
contribute in a category about fossils, and was always very happy to do so,
i have used immages from various sources, almost always products from
official institutes, like educational - and governemental, like Geological
Survey`s and state museums an d University`s from various countrys and
States of Amerika, I`m very surprised to hear that these images, no longer
are accepted, just because they are released in to the public for common
benefit, excluding the commercial ones, commercial in this optic says:
benefit from trade by one person or company, very disappointing, because i
don`t have any pictures left, never the less,
I realy would appriciate if you could tell me the reason of this "non
acception" because i really don`t undersand this, i do understand that
pictures have to be released from copyrights, so called copyleft, ok,
otherhands i understand that institutes who have putt a lot of energy and
probably even more money to get these pictures (as a result of
investigations and / or studies, they have released these images for the
benefit of the common, and do not ask a payment for these, otherhands they
"protect" the product of these hard work, from another making a profit out
of it, i think this is judgeable, to release they work and protecting it
from "abusing" it, all institutes work like this from Moskow to Mexico,
Universitys, researchcenters, and so-on,
At the other hand i always understand that wiki projects are a part of a
"non - commercial" institute, so by not accepting "non - commercial"
releases, I realy don`t understand this, about 120.000 images are to be
deleted ?? only in the Netherlands ther are no sustitutes for these pictures
because they are very specialised, it will cost a lot to make them
oureselves, I realy don`t see any explanation to this not-accepting, unless
somehow a part of the wiki concern do have a commercial benefit???? i`m very
concerned about this, because a lot of writers like myself - have no images
left, or have seen them "disappering" , if there are no images there is
nothing to write about................
like i said, i`m just a simple writer in the Netherlands, and teacher,
my English is not that well, i hope yoyu can read this,
best regards Henk Klaverkamp
h.klaverkamp(a)chello.nl
Stan Shebs wrote
>The
> hazard of asserting that women editors have something similarly
> distinctive to bring to WP, by virtue of gender alone, is that one is
> playing right into the stereotype of "women's topics" or "female
> viewpoints", and risks creating a sort of "pink collar" ghetto in WP
> that new female editors would be subtly (or not-so-subtly) steered towards.
The argument is broken.
Sure, creating the editorial equivalent of traditional newspapers' Women's Pages is not only a generation out of date and patronising, it is nothing anyone with WP experience would want anything to do with.
But WP is a voluntary organisation, first and foremost. Discouraging women in any way is shooting ourselves in the feet, big time. Not just because slant in topic coverage will be harder to correct. But because women are (on average) better quality volunteers. Why else did we elect Angela and Anthere to the Board?
Charles
-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
Hi all,
Wikipedia started out with the idea that the person reading the
article should be helping to fix it. But we're really moving further
and further away from that, and defining a "Wikipedia community" that
works on the articles, and end users who just read them. For example,
we now tend to put many templates on the talk page (like "image
requested") rather than on the article itself. Similarly, metacomments
like "This section is not complete" are often put in HTML comments, or
just on the talk page, rather than being more visible.
Would anyone like to see this trend reversed? My girlfriend remarked
tonight that she had found two different articles on the same topic,
and was annoyed by it. I felt like saying, "why didn't you suggest a
merge?" But then realised that the steps involved are totally
unrealistic for the average passer by: edit the article, add
"{{mergefrom|...}}" to that article, then do the same for the other
article (but with "mergeto", then go and add your reasoning to the
talk page!
My suggestion: Get past the simplistic idea that since anyone can
"edit" any page, anyone can "fix" any article. They're not the same.
More concretely:
1) Put a big "Does this article need fixing?" link in a prominent
place on each article (perhaps only for logged-out users or newbies?)
2) Upon clicking it, present a list of common problems: Plagiarism,
factual error, duplicate article, incorrect name for article, missing
information...
3) Explain that the user can edit it themselves *if they're
interested*, or make it *very* easy for them to report the problem so
more experienced Wikipedians can fix it. "So fix it" is a fine
response from one oldbie to another - but not to a newbie.
Anyone agree with me here? Or have we passed the point where we
actively attempt to engage passers by to help us improve quality?
Steve
> From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp(a)gmail.com>
> On 11/30/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006(a)dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>> What I meant is that _in Wikipedia,_ uncited material is not high-
>> quality material.
>
> What do you mean by "high quality"?
Well, according to the verifiability policy, content is _not supposed
to go into Wikipedia at all_ unless it's sourced.
I'd say that content that isn't supposed to be in Wikipedia at all
can hardly be considered to be "high quality" _for Wikipedia_.
That's going to be my last reply, as it seems to me that basically
you do not agree with the verifiability policy.
Rather than going on a campaign to kill all new articles without
sufficient sourcing, would it be time to introduce article prefilling,
using the <inputbox> extension?
For an example, go to en.wikinews.org, type something into the "Start
a new article" box and hit "Create article". This example is created
using the wikitext:
<inputbox>
type=create
preload=Template:New_page
editintro=Template:New_article_intro
width=25
bgcolor=#f0f0ff
</inputbox>
Presumably we'd need this switched on for en:wp if it isn't already.
- d.
I noticed this too. But I tend to assume that these messages are like health warnings on cigarette packets: they become more extreme, because the moderate versions are ignored by the people they are really aimed at.
We may need to audit deletions. I'm becoming uneasy about the quick paths. But a great deal of discretionary deletion does need to happen.
Charles
-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/30/06, Tony Jacobs <gtjacobs(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> >To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted!
> >Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:21:21 -0500
> >
> >On 11/30/06, Tony Jacobs <gtjacobs(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > >On 11/30/06, Tony Jacobs <gtjacobs(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com>
> > > > > >Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> > > > > >To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> > > > > >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted!
> > > > > >Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:32:21 -0500
> > > > > >
> >
> >
> >I'd just like to remind people that Wikipedia was doing quite well in the
> >Age Before Required Sourcing.
> >
> >You may consider yourself a specialist "in well-sourced articles on
> topics
> >for which such sources exist" but don't tar me with that same brush.
> >
> >You use the words "we" and "us" a bit too cavalierly, I think. Wikipedia
> is
> >healthiest when it allows any number of motivations for contributors,
> >rather
> >than enforcing a Platonic model of the
> >perfect Wikipedian.
>
> You're reading a bit more into my words than I ever intended, but I'll lay
> off on the idealistic "we". I don't think Wikipedia is healthier without
> sourcing, but I'll allow for disagreement there. What we're dealing with
> is
> a conflict of visions of what Wikipedia ought to be. Do we strive for
> completeness and inclusiveness or for better sourcing and higher quality
> coverage? I identify more with the drive for quality, and I'm comfortable
> looking elsewhere for certain topics, which can't be covered in the way I
> think Wikipedia should.
Oh, I do think Wikipedia is healthier with sourcing. But I think you're
right -- I identify more with completeness than for restrictiveness. I think
the idea that quality and completeness have to be oppositional is a false
dilemma. I do believe that the current trend of mega-articles does grossly
exacerbate that conflict.