On 7/19/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth(a)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. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

On 7/19/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth(a)hi.is> wrote: 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. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused

Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote: 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

Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote: It is the proper thing to do to cite these as references. 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. If the English works have the "same" information, you must have used them to know that. :-) 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. 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. "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

Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote: Absolutely. 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. 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. 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.

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:

On 7/20/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: 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

On 7/20/05, Ben <bratsche1(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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. -- Pete, wishing he was back in Richmond where it would be warmer than Canberra

On 7/21/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com> wrote: 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! -- Peter in Canberra

On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com> wrote: 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

Karl A. Krueger wrote: There's always 506 (c): I don't know if there have been any cases under that section. 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

(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: 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

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

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005, Matt Brown wrote: 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] Agreed. Even if it is nothing more than a section at CITE explaining that citing sources is also encouraged because it prevents plagiarism. Geoff

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:

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(a)ctelco.net> wrote: