There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally, when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5 online obituaries and merging the contents without much paraphrasing. Much of the information in those sources is second-hand and often equally unreferenced.
Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should be referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the term "reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.
JFW
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
Fred
On Jul 19, 2005, at 4:30 AM, J.F. de Wolff wrote:
There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally, when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5 online obituaries and merging the contents without much paraphrasing. Much of the information in those sources is second- hand and often equally unreferenced.
Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should be referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the term "reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.
JFW
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Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view, namely that an article should always list as references exactly the sources that the editor had in front of herself while contributing to it.
I think that it's often more helpful for the reader to list other works. For example I often use my Icelandic books to find information, for example about bird species. But it's just not very useful for the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources under the References heading - but I prefer to do it only for subjects where there aren't any English books with the same information. For subjects like bird species where there are plenty of good works in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic sources is jarring and not appropriate (except, perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
And the separation into References and Further reading is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate. If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC) are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are listed as Further reading.
If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting point for further research. We should endeavour to list the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever we happened to have in front of us while writing.
Regards, Haukur
On 7/19/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view, namely that an article should always list as references exactly the sources that the editor had in front of herself while contributing to it.
I think that it's often more helpful for the reader to list other works. For example I often use my Icelandic books to find information, for example about bird species. But it's just not very useful for the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources under the References heading - but I prefer to do it only for subjects where there aren't any English books with the same information. For subjects like bird species where there are plenty of good works in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic sources is jarring and not appropriate (except, perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
And the separation into References and Further reading is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate. If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC) are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are listed as Further reading.
If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting point for further research. We should endeavour to list the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever we happened to have in front of us while writing.
Regards, Haukur
Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps just coming from a website!)
Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
Zoney
Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps just coming from a website!)
Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;) Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements on using good references in the proper way from the beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten off the ground.
Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all the better for it. I honestly don't know.
Regards, Haukur
On 7/19/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps just coming from a website!)
Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;) Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements on using good references in the proper way from the beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten off the ground.
Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all the better for it. I honestly don't know.
I am of the opinion that we should always reference sources if we're not writing directly from our own knowledge. If you have sources open in front of you, we should be open about disclosing that fact, and what sources those are. It doesn't matter if something is "common knowledge". If it's common enough, you wouldn't need any sources open in front of you. Inclusion of references includes foreign language sources, appropriately labeled, as you cannot assume that no user who understands Icelandic will ever read the articles.
Full references should be listed at the bottom of every article (ideally, even below the category listings) where they have very limited ability to distract the reader.
In an environment where anyone can edit at any time, anyone can make subtle changes to change the meaning of what is posted. It is therefore critical that we "show our work" so that if there is a drift in meaning over the edit history, someone can later follow back and find the intended meaning somewhere along the line.
Because we don't have professional, paid editorial boards reviewing the articles before public release, references are our ONLY source of authority on any issue. I, for one, don't trust unreferenced or poorly referenced articles. No reference, no authority. Even small articles benefit from references. See [[Zetor]] or [[40 mm grenade]] for examples. In fact, I won't make any significant content contribution to Wikipedia anymore without posting references, too.
Time spent in controversial articles such as [[Wal-Mart]] and [[FairTax]] watching others insert POV and OR time after time has convinced me that this is the only proper way to contribute content. Also, watching VfD, where several unreferenced articles about lesser known topics received near universal "delete" votes until someone actually researched the article and posted a reference or two, then all the votes change to "keep", has show me the correct way to add data.
Regarding the ever-changing nature of the internet; that is why I always include a date, such as "retrieved July 19, 2005" on the end of each of my online citations. Even if the Internet Wayback Machine cannot always find the point in history where I got the information, at least the readers can check to see if the reference material is out of date or not.
I am of the opinion that we should always reference sources if we're not writing directly from our own knowledge. If you have sources open in front of you, we should be open about disclosing that fact, and what sources those are.
Okay, I'll back up a little. I prefer to write on subjects where I'm something of an expert. That means I'm often writing from my own knowledge, acquired through the years from a number of sources. Then maybe I use a google search to look up a certain date. I come up with a mediocre website. When I list the references for the article I'd rather not list the website I looked up this one fact on. Instead I'll think "what would be a good English source for this?" and maybe list some book I read a year ago but don't have in front of me.
In happy cases, which is more often than not, I do have the book I want to reference right in front of me.
Inclusion of references includes foreign language sources, appropriately labeled, as you cannot assume that no user who understands Icelandic will ever read the articles.
Of course someone eventually might but that's not the point. The reference would be completely irrelevant information for the vast majority of readers. Worse, it would be misleading, implying that this Icelandic ornithology book contains something not found in numerous works in English. At best it belongs on the talk page or in the edit summary.
Citing non-English sources is, however, completely appropriate when corresponding English ones are lacking. There's nothing wrong with citing works in Hungarian on relatively obscure aspects of Hungarian history.
Full references should be listed at the bottom of every article (ideally, even below the category listings) where they have very limited ability to distract the reader.
I think a good bibliography can be an important part of the article and should be displayed reasonably prominently. The best bibliographies tell you a little bit about the books - look at [[User:Jallan]]'s bibliography for [[Norse mythology]].
A short overview on the major works on a subject is, when appropriate, one of the most useful things you can find in an introductory article.
Regards, Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps just coming from a website!)
Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;) Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements on using good references in the proper way from the beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten off the ground.
Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all the better for it. I honestly don't know.
That's speculative but a good point nevertheless. I suspect that you're right. Our first contributors may very well have been individuals who had a hard time with the confines of academia, but who still had something to say. The first point that had to be made was that absolutely anybody could contribute within the confines of a few very simple limitations like NPOV. That idea is totally subversive! That subversion has some very far reaching implications for the operation of the intellectual marketplace.
Once the public was empowered with the idea that everybody could contribute we had to look at our credibility, and that included looking at the things that academia did right. Asking, "Where does that idea come from?" is a part of what Academia does right. But we can back into that question without preconceptions. The social pressure of credentialization is no longer there. Our results do not depend on positive grades from a professor with the power to dictate that right or wrong depends on following his pet theories.
I believe in the idea of a Wikiversity, and have believed in the underlying concept since long before I heard of Wikipedia. For it to be succesful requires avoiding two dangers. On the one hand we need to avoid the conformist pressures of established systems; on the other hand we need to protect ourselves from lunatics.
Ec
If not now, when?
Fred
On Jul 19, 2005, at 9:37 AM, Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;) Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements on using good references in the proper way from the beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten off the ground.
Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all the better for it. I honestly don't know.
Regards, Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view, namely that an article should always list as references exactly the sources that the editor had in front of herself while contributing to it.
It is the proper thing to do to cite these as references.
I think that it's often more helpful for the reader to list other works. For example I often use my Icelandic books to find information, for example about bird species. But it's just not very useful for the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily avaiable to him. That is the beginning of dumbing down. If you used an Icelandic book that's fine; say so. Making things checkable does not imply easily chackable. Additional English references can also be mentioned.
Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources under the References heading - but I prefer to do it only for subjects where there aren't any English books with the same information. For subjects like bird species where there are plenty of good works in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic sources is jarring and not appropriate (except, perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
If the English works have the "same" information, you must have used them to know that. :-)
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
Having things unavailable after a couple of months is typical of life on the internet. That's why it's good to add hard copy references.
And the separation into References and Further reading is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate. If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC) are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are listed as Further reading.
I agree that there is not much point to having the two separate sections. The semantic difference between "references" and "further reading" is not that great.
If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting point for further research. We should endeavour to list the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever we happened to have in front of us while writing.
"Best works" is a matter of judgement. If you don't have access to them, how can you even judge if they are the best? If yoi write a whole new article what you have in front of you is the best reference you can provide.
Ec
I'd rather not spend much more time discussing this. Our differences in opinion are somewhat academic anyhow. In practice we all agree that Wikipedia's articles need more and better references.
But I personally think that trying to make every fact "checkable" through references at the bottom of the article is a chimera. In practice people don't fact-check articles by getting the books at the bottom and reading them through. People fact-check articles by seeing something that they think is wrong and then looking up the correct fact in a work of their choosing. That's our actual model of arriving at the truth and it works well most of the time.
A fact on a bird species I supply through an Icelandic ornithology book is only very marginally "more checkable" to 99.9% of Wikipedia's editors if I supply the name of the book. You're better off looking the relevant bird up in a book of your choosing.
To make the example more concrete here's the edit I'm thinking off. I was editing out of town (watching birds) a month ago and hadn't logged in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arctic_Tern&diff=16117224&...
As you can see I *did* supply the source in the edit history though I didn't find it worthy of the article itself. Interestingly no other editor has supplied any source at all.
Regards, Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view, namely that an article should always list as references exactly the sources that the editor had in front of herself while contributing to it.
It is the proper thing to do to cite these as references.
I think that it's often more helpful for the reader to list other works. For example I often use my Icelandic books to find information, for example about bird species. But it's just not very useful for the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily avaiable to him. That is the beginning of dumbing down. If you used an Icelandic book that's fine; say so. Making things checkable does not imply easily chackable.
I thing that the idea to make everything on Wikipedia "checkable" through references is a chimera. To begin with - when was the last time you fact-checked an article through the references at i
Additional English references can also be mentioned.
Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources under the References heading - but I prefer to do it only for subjects where there aren't any English books with the same information. For subjects like bird species where there are plenty of good works in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic sources is jarring and not appropriate (except, perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
If the English works have the "same" information, you must have used them to know that. :-)
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
Having things unavailable after a couple of months is typical of life on the internet. That's why it's good to add hard copy references.
And the separation into References and Further reading is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate. If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC) are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are listed as Further reading.
I agree that there is not much point to having the two separate sections. The semantic difference between "references" and "further reading" is not that great.
If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting point for further research. We should endeavour to list the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever we happened to have in front of us while writing.
"Best works" is a matter of judgement. If you don't have access to them, how can you even judge if they are the best? If yoi write a whole new article what you have in front of you is the best reference you can provide.
Ec
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Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
I'd rather not spend much more time discussing this. Our differences in opinion are somewhat academic anyhow. In practice we all agree that Wikipedia's articles need more and better references.
Absolutely.
But I personally think that trying to make every fact "checkable" through references at the bottom of the article is a chimera. In practice people don't fact-check articles by getting the books at the bottom and reading them through. People fact-check articles by seeing something that they think is wrong and then looking up the correct fact in a work of their choosing. That's our actual model of arriving at the truth and it works well most of the time.
If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and have it accepted. That's scary.
A fact on a bird species I supply through an Icelandic ornithology book is only very marginally "more checkable" to 99.9% of Wikipedia's editors if I supply the name of the book. You're better off looking the relevant bird up in a book of your choosing.
To make the example more concrete here's the edit I'm thinking off. I was editing out of town (watching birds) a month ago and hadn't logged in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arctic_Tern&diff=16117224&...
As you can see I *did* supply the source in the edit history though I didn't find it worthy of the article itself. Interestingly no other editor has supplied any source at all.
Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference? I think it would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the article. I have too many other things to occupy my time here without getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking was to reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada". That would give a different perspective, and I could add that as a further reference. An American could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian could also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room for references from the Southern Hemisphere.
The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily avaiable to him. That is the beginning of dumbing down. If you used an Icelandic book that's fine; say so. Making things checkable does not imply easily chackable.
I thing that the idea to make everything on Wikipedia "checkable" through references is a chimera. To begin with - when was the last time you fact-checked an article through the references at i
In en:wiktionary where I spend most of my time, I frequently check online references, or look for other listings of the word before I start arguing with the contributor that it appears to come from his imagination. Unfortunately many of these entries are from IPs that we may never see again. Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the responsibility of the contributor. Actually checking it is the responsibility of the reader. If the reader does not fulfill his responsibility it's not your fault.
If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and have it accepted. That's scary.
Wikipedia is based heavily on trust and assuming good faith. I trust other editors not to invent references and I don't do it myself. But if a sufficiently sophisticated troll were to try it I imagine it could go unnoticed for a very long time indeed. Eventually an expert on the topic would stumble on the nonexisting reference, be puzzled and try without success to look it up.
And - to any aspiring trolls out there - *please don't try this*. Let's just assume you could, okay? I mean, even articles on fictitious topics can stand unnoticed on Wikipedia for years. I've found several examples in Norse mythology articles - articles on gods apparently invented out of whole cloth. I don't think that is a troll-driven phenomenon, presumably most of these stem from fantasy literature which someone has in good faith mistaken for authentic mythology.
Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference? I think it would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the article. I have too many other things to occupy my time here without getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking was to reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada". That would give a different perspective, and I could add that as a further reference. An American could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian could also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room for references from the Southern Hemisphere.
An important difference is that your bird book is in English, like the encyclopedia we're writing. In any case, if I thought that the observation on the arctic tern which I added from the book was somehow unique to Iceland I would have added the book as a reference. Since I assume it isn't I didn't.
If I had created a reference section and put my book there, alone, it would have been misleading since it would imply that the article was written using this book as a source - not so, I only added one sentence and didn't really fact-check the rest. It would also imply that it is for some reason appropriate to cite an Icelandic source here. That is not so, in my opinion, since good English sources are available.
Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the responsibility of the contributor. Actually checking it is the responsibility of the reader. If the reader does not fulfill his responsibility it's not your fault.
Well, I wouldn't exactly be very helpful by supplying a source in a language which the typical reader of the article doesn't understand.
And I disagree with the model of references as something intended to protect the writer from accusations of making things up. I see them primarily as an aid to the reader in finding more information.
And again I'd like to emphasize that we probably agree more than we disagree on this. In most reference related situations we'd probably both do the same thing. I'm certainly never happy with an article until it has good references, even if it is short. Look at [[Lofn]] for an example.
Regards, Haukur
It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources, see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
Fred
On Jul 19, 2005, at 2:37 PM, Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and have it accepted. That's scary.
Wikipedia is based heavily on trust and assuming good faith. I trust other editors not to invent references and I don't do it myself. But if a sufficiently sophisticated troll were to try it I imagine it could go unnoticed for a very long time indeed. Eventually an expert on the topic would stumble on the nonexisting reference, be puzzled and try without success to look it up.
And - to any aspiring trolls out there - *please don't try this*. Let's just assume you could, okay? I mean, even articles on fictitious topics can stand unnoticed on Wikipedia for years. I've found several examples in Norse mythology articles - articles on gods apparently invented out of whole cloth. I don't think that is a troll-driven phenomenon, presumably most of these stem from fantasy literature which someone has in good faith mistaken for authentic mythology.
Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference? I think it would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the article. I have too many other things to occupy my time here without getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking was to reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada". That would give a different perspective, and I could add that as a further reference. An American could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian could also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room for references from the Southern Hemisphere.
An important difference is that your bird book is in English, like the encyclopedia we're writing. In any case, if I thought that the observation on the arctic tern which I added from the book was somehow unique to Iceland I would have added the book as a reference. Since I assume it isn't I didn't.
If I had created a reference section and put my book there, alone, it would have been misleading since it would imply that the article was written using this book as a source - not so, I only added one sentence and didn't really fact-check the rest. It would also imply that it is for some reason appropriate to cite an Icelandic source here. That is not so, in my opinion, since good English sources are available.
Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the responsibility of the contributor. Actually checking it is the responsibility of the reader. If the reader does not fulfill his responsibility it's not your fault.
Well, I wouldn't exactly be very helpful by supplying a source in a language which the typical reader of the article doesn't understand.
And I disagree with the model of references as something intended to protect the writer from accusations of making things up. I see them primarily as an aid to the reader in finding more information.
And again I'd like to emphasize that we probably agree more than we disagree on this. In most reference related situations we'd probably both do the same thing. I'm certainly never happy with an article until it has good references, even if it is short. Look at [[Lofn]] for an example.
Regards, Haukur
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Hello, Fred.
In response to a recent post of mine you wrote:
If not now, when?
Fred
And in response to another you wrote:
It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources, see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
Fred
I fail to understand the relevance of either of your comments. Everyone in the current discussion agrees that Wikipedia needs more and better references and I'm sure everyone is familiar with the policy page you point out. We have been discussing nuances of how, when, where and for what purpose we can best add which references, not the general principle of more references being a good thing.
Regards, Haukur
On 7/20/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources, see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
In far too many cases, the source is the editor.
I think the discussion here boils down to two concepts, which overlap to some degree.
Avoiding a charge of plagiarism by citing a source, especially where that source was used for major or fundamental portions of the article.
Providing useful sources for further reference.
This is just the way to prevent some more instruction creep: reinforce and enforce existing policies.
-Ben
On 7/19/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/20/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources, see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
In far too many cases, the source is the editor.
I think the discussion here boils down to two concepts, which overlap to some degree.
Avoiding a charge of plagiarism by citing a source, especially where that source was used for major or fundamental portions of the article.
Providing useful sources for further reference.
-- Peter in Canberra _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/20/05, Ben bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
This is just the way to prevent some more instruction creep: reinforce and enforce existing policies.
Yup. NOR and CITE cover the plagiarism issue.
However, I feel that asking people whose material we deem worthy of inclusion to become direct contributors to WP is something that could pay dividends. For example, I created an article on St John's Church in Richmond (where Patrick Henry made his fiery "liberty or death" speech, and in the process I looked up the church website for some historical information. I listed the website as a source, but after reading recent discussion here, I sent off an email to the contact address, suggesting they look over and contribute to the article. They would have access to information, photographs, all sorts of useful and unique information that could only enhance the article. At the very least, I think they would be honoured by a request to contribute.
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
On 7/20/05, Ben bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
This is just the way to prevent some more instruction creep: reinforce and enforce existing policies.
Yup. NOR and CITE cover the plagiarism issue.
Well, I beg to differ. As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
Now plagiarism is a very specific situation that is related to CITE, but I do not feel is identical to it. CITE refers to the facts or assertions in an article; plagiarism refers to the language. And if one editor reuses text in a Wikipedia article that is similar enough to its unattributed source that a Google search can reasonably identify it, then the question of a copyright infringement ensues.
And although the usual defence against a copyright infringement is to invoke "fair use", because no one recognizes plagiarism as fair use it therefore should be treated as a copyright violation -- unless the editor responsible properly adds cites/references either at the time of the edit -- or in a reasonably short period afterwards.
In short, plagiarism should be treated as a copyright violation, & should be explicitly covered in our policies under copyright. Does this seem reasonable to everyone?
***NOTE***: I will interpret silence as consent, & if no one objects, submit this as a proposed Wikipedia Policy.
Geoff
On 7/21/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Skyring wrote:
On 7/20/05, Ben bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
This is just the way to prevent some more instruction creep: reinforce and enforce existing policies.
Yup. NOR and CITE cover the plagiarism issue.
Well, I beg to differ. As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
Perhaps you are going in directions I'm not. Plagiarism is the unattributed use of material. If we cite our sources, then obviously re-using material is not plagiarism. It might be intellectual theft, but it's not plagiarism if it's atrributed.
Perhaps you are talking about copyright issues, and there are others here better fitter to talk about copyright than I.
That whole King James Bible issue was way outside my comfort zone!
I don't think you have this right. Both CITE and plagiarism refers to facts or assertions. If the language is identical or nearly so there may also be a copyright violation. To use facts from any source without citing the source is plagiarism. Since Wikipedia requires that all information used be drawn from a reputable source any information included in Wikipedia for which no source is cited either technically violates the requirement that it be from a reputable source or that its source be cited. Of course, citing the source for common information makes no sense and is an exception.
Fred
On Jul 20, 2005, at 1:38 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:
Well, I beg to differ. As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
Now plagiarism is a very specific situation that is related to CITE, but I do not feel is identical to it. CITE refers to the facts or assertions in an article; plagiarism refers to the language. And if one editor reuses text in a Wikipedia article that is similar enough to its unattributed source that a Google search can reasonably identify it, then the question of a copyright infringement ensues.
And although the usual defence against a copyright infringement is to invoke "fair use", because no one recognizes plagiarism as fair use it therefore should be treated as a copyright violation -- unless the editor responsible properly adds cites/references either at the time of the edit -- or in a reasonably short period afterwards.
In short, plagiarism should be treated as a copyright violation, & should be explicitly covered in our policies under copyright. Does this seem reasonable to everyone?
***NOTE***: I will interpret silence as consent, & if no one objects, submit this as a proposed Wikipedia Policy.
Geoff
On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
I think you are confusing copyright infringement with plagiarism. We already have policies against copyright infringement, and enforce them fairly strictly. I think the rest of us were talking about the kind of plagiarism that did not involve copyright infringement.
I don't think there is any doubt about having zero tolerance for copyright infringement.
-Matt
On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 08:32:16AM -0700, Matt Brown wrote:
On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
I think you are confusing copyright infringement with plagiarism. We already have policies against copyright infringement, and enforce them fairly strictly. I think the rest of us were talking about the kind of plagiarism that did not involve copyright infringement.
This distinction is crucial. Plagiarism doesn't always involve copyright infringement, or any other legal offense. It's perfectly possible to plagiarize from the public domain: for instance, if I print up _Huckleberry Finn_ with my name on it instead of Mark Twain's, I'm not infringing copyright, but I'm certainly plagiarizing. Plagiarism is chiefly a matter of dishonesty or misrepresentation: purporting that something is one's own work when in fact it is not.
A case of copyright infringement doesn't become a non-infringing use when you cite your sources -- except in the edge case of certain copyright licenses which permit copying only if you cite the source. However, a case of plagiarism *almost always* becomes non-plagiarism if you cite your sources correctly: giving Mark Twain credit for his work.
Karl A. Krueger wrote:
On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 08:32:16AM -0700, Matt Brown wrote:
On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
I think you are confusing copyright infringement with plagiarism. We already have policies against copyright infringement, and enforce them fairly strictly. I think the rest of us were talking about the kind of plagiarism that did not involve copyright infringement.
This distinction is crucial. Plagiarism doesn't always involve copyright infringement, or any other legal offense. It's perfectly possible to plagiarize from the public domain: for instance, if I print up _Huckleberry Finn_ with my name on it instead of Mark Twain's, I'm not infringing copyright, but I'm certainly plagiarizing. Plagiarism is chiefly a matter of dishonesty or misrepresentation: purporting that something is one's own work when in fact it is not.
There's always 506 (c):
(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
I don't know if there have been any cases under that section.
A case of copyright infringement doesn't become a non-infringing use when you cite your sources -- except in the edge case of certain copyright licenses which permit copying only if you cite the source. However, a case of plagiarism *almost always* becomes non-plagiarism if you cite your sources correctly: giving Mark Twain credit for his work.
Giving credit is a matter of moral rights, which in some cases extend longer than copyrights. Courts are not always well equipped to deal with infringements of moral rights except with the heavy hand of criminal law. Courts can more easily reduce offences into monetary terms. There is nobody around with the personal standing to uphold Shakespeare's moral rights in a civil court.
Ec
On 7/22/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There is nobody around with the personal standing to uphold Shakespeare's moral rights in a civil court.
Let alone in a WP court.
(Sorry for not responding to this thread sooner. I've been very busy in the last few days, including losing my glasses & having to get them repalced.)
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Matt Brown wrote:
On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author or owner.
I think you are confusing copyright infringement with plagiarism. We already have policies against copyright infringement, and enforce them fairly strictly. I think the rest of us were talking about the kind of plagiarism that did not involve copyright infringement.
I don't think there is any doubt about having zero tolerance for copyright infringement.
Well, since at least one person thinks I am not clear about what I'm talking about, let's take a look at the article that prompted to ask for a disinterested opinion about plagiarism, [[1868 expedition to Ethiopia]]. Please take a look at the history of this article, & the source from which it is taken before reading further.
(Note: my concern for this article, & the whole question of plagiarism arose from trying to find a way to salvage something from this article: there are a lot of holes in our coverage of Ethiopia, & this submission helps to covers an important event of Ethiopian history. If it is deleted, I could replace it with content for which there is no question of copyright -- but that would take a long time for me to create, since I have a couple dozen other articles in the pipeline. So I would like to save myself some work -- & encourage a Wikipedian to keep contirbuting.)
Now, having examined the two documents, I hope we will all agree that the Wikipedia article has been derived from the other article, *but* acknowledge that some changes in the text have occured: the addition of a header paragraph, section headers, & some rephrasing. This article has wording unique to Wikipedia, yet it uses words or phrases from the parent document. Thus I feel that we are confronted with one of 3 cases:
* Conclude that, despite the changes made to the original test that this is a copyright violation because the original source can be recognized & delete it. However, if we do this, then we encounter the problem -- as Fred Bauer expressed it -- of ignoring whether the Wikipedian is guilty of nothing more than clumsiness in his rephrasing of the original.
* Conclude that the changes, as few as they are, meets the statutory requirement of creating new content, & keep the article. However, if we do that, then we are infringing in a visible way on the rights of the original author. I'm not entirely sure that simply adding an acknowledgement that we re-used the original author's words to the Wikipedia article will make everything honkey-dorey now.
* The third conclusion: this is plagiarism, not copyright infringement, not some original rephrasing or rewriting of a topic someone else has written about. By doing so, we acknowledge that the text exists in a state between our first two choices, which might not have become an issue if the Wikipedian had included in a reasonable time proper credit to her/his source.
Note: my use of the plagiarism to denote unattributed reuse of wording from another author falls within the understood use of that word. I would like to point to http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/definition.html, where the definition of plagiarism includes reuse of "ideas, words, or statements of another person without appropriate acknowledgment". Please carefully note the phrases "words or statements"; if someone can trace the source of a Wikipedia article thru a simple Google search, & there is no acknowledgement of the source, it is plagiarism, regardless how extensively the orginal article is rewritten.
And this problem will recur whenever a Wikipedian adapts material taken from another source, no matter where or how we draw the line between "original content" & "copyright violation". I feel it is better to acknowledge that there is a fuzzy boundary here, that the fuzziness should be acknowledged -- but a decision must be made whether to accept the problematic case into Wikipedia -- or delete it.
And yes, hard cases make bad law, but these are the cases that in the end get sent up to someone with more authority to make a decision on. I'd rather let a consensus of a large, informed & thoughtful group do it, than a small few who don't reflect the opinions of the Wikipedia community.
And if you are sick of listening to my tendentious whinging on this matter, then go to the appropriate page & register that you either agree or disagree with my opinion. Including the person who listed this article as a copyvio, only 3 people have expressed an opinion about the copyright status of this article: one person wants to remove the article, another wants to keep it, & my comment wondering about its status. If people add to the discussion, then I'll learn -- if nothing else -- that I'm mistaken about this whole issue.
Geoff
Geoff, it's not that we're attacking you or thinking you're whinging; it's simply that, although there is no EXPLICIT Wikipedia plagiarism policy, there are Wikipedia policies that effectively prohibit it; these being copyright policy and citing sources.
If plagiarism takes the form of copyright infringement, then it has to be deleted. There is no room for argument about this. We cannot place work under the GFDL without the permission of its author, and that's that.
If plagiarism does NOT qualify as copyright infringement, then it falls foul of WP:CITE. Citing one's sources is not an option on Wikipedia; it is policy.
All that said, it would not hurt to have a Wikipedia:Plagiarism policy that puts all that in one place.
-Matt
If plagiarism does NOT qualify as copyright infringement, then it falls foul of WP:CITE. Citing one's sources is not an option on Wikipedia; it is policy.
Last time I clicked on "random article" ten times in a row I did not get a single one which cited references. Citing one's sources may be policy but it is not strictly enforced policy.
Regards, Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
If plagiarism does NOT qualify as copyright infringement, then it falls foul of WP:CITE. Citing one's sources is not an option on Wikipedia; it is policy.
Last time I clicked on "random article" ten times in a row I did not get a single one which cited references. Citing one's sources may be policy but it is not strictly enforced policy.
It's a relatively recent policy. Since it wasn't always so it just means that many articles written before that don't have references.
Ec
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005, Matt Brown wrote:
Geoff, it's not that we're attacking you or thinking you're whinging; it's simply that, although there is no EXPLICIT Wikipedia plagiarism policy, there are Wikipedia policies that effectively prohibit it; these being copyright policy and citing sources.
That wasn't the intent of my response, Matt, & I'm sorry that I gave that impression.
My point in responding to you email (which I picked because I felt it summarized many points I wanted to address) was that whether or not I understood what plagiarism means, or whether this concept could be applied to Wikipedia, there is an actual case I feel it could apply to, & I think some input there would be helpful.
[snip]
All that said, it would not hurt to have a Wikipedia:Plagiarism policy that puts all that in one place.
Agreed. Even if it is nothing more than a section at CITE explaining that citing sources is also encouraged because it prevents plagiarism.
Geoff
Is it just me, or is this thing just plain overused? Make a nice "pruning project" maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Libertarianism
SV
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There is a difference between the references consulted in writing the article (required to avoid plagiarism) and the nice list of external resources recommended for further study.
Fred
On Jul 19, 2005, at 8:10 AM, Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view, namely that an article should always list as references exactly the sources that the editor had in front of herself while contributing to it.
I think that it's often more helpful for the reader to list other works. For example I often use my Icelandic books to find information, for example about bird species. But it's just not very useful for the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources under the References heading - but I prefer to do it only for subjects where there aren't any English books with the same information. For subjects like bird species where there are plenty of good works in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic sources is jarring and not appropriate (except, perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
And the separation into References and Further reading is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate. If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC) are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are listed as Further reading.
If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting point for further research. We should endeavour to list the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever we happened to have in front of us while writing.
Regards, Haukur
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On 7/19/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online obituaries I don't think listing those as references will be terribly useful. Typically half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months. It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful to the reader on the article page.
If half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months, then I think that is even more reason to include all of them as references. Otherwise, you run the risk of choosing the "wrong" references and having none to refer to later. Until and if Wikipedia ever adds a "references page" for each article, I believe references are "article page" items, not "talk page" items. (Although as I previously mentioned, I'd rather have them below the categories rather than above.)
I was always taught that if you can find the same fact in three sources that don't reference a common source then it's "common knowledge" (you could find that fact so many places it doesn't warrant referencing). So in this case if one or two obits had a really unique fact (one of mine had an anecdote about getting into a brawl outside Senate chambers and subsequently being politically discredited) then I would reference it, but if the rest of the bio you write contains facts that are in all five I wouldn't reference them but pick the good ones as further reading or external links.
Laura Scudder
On 7/19/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
Fred
On Jul 19, 2005, at 4:30 AM, J.F. de Wolff wrote:
There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally, when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5 online obituaries and merging the contents without much paraphrasing. Much of the information in those sources is second- hand and often equally unreferenced.
Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should be referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the term "reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.
JFW
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