Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for a week.

« Archives, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80

How to handle plagiarism from Wikipedia?

Hey all, hope everyone here is doing well. Today I woke up to discover that a podcaster I follow had plagiarised part of an article I wrote, as well as parts of some other articles (some of which I had contributed to, others not). The podcaster did not cite their sources, nor did they make it clear that they were pulling whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, but they ran advertisements and plugged their patreon anyway. This is not the first time an article I wrote for Wikipedia has been plagiarised and profited off (earlier this year I noticed a youtuber had plagiarised an entire article I had written; I've also noticed journalists ripping off bits and pieces of other articles). Nor is this limited to articles, as I often see original maps people make for Wikimedia Commons reused without credit.

Obviously I'm not against people reusing and adapting the work we do here, as it's freely licensed under creative commons. But it bugs me that no attribution is provided, especially when it is required by the license; attribution is literally the least that is required. I would like attribution of Wikipedia to become more common and normalised, but I don't know how to push for people off-wiki to be more considerate of this. In my own case, the 'content creators' in question don't provide contact details, so I have no way of privately getting in touch with them. Cases in which I have been able to contact an organisation about their unattributed use of Wikipedia/Wikimedia content often get ignored, and the unattributed use continues. But I also have no interest in publicly naming and shaming these people, as I don't think it's constructive.

Does anyone here have advice for how to handle plagiarism from Wikipedia? Is there something we can do to push for more attribution? --Grnrchst (talk) 13:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly there are plenty of lazy sods who think that copying directly from Wikipedia is "research". This has happened with some of the articles that I have been involved with. It's rude, but hard to stop.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would start by writing to the podcaster and politely explaining to them that they are welcome to use the material but are required to provide attribution. They may simply be unaware of this and might be willing to comply if properly educated. Failing that, I assume the podcast was being streamed from some content delivery service like YouTube. You might have better luck writing to the service provider demanding that the offending material be taken down.

Realistically, crap like this happens all the time, and there's probably not a whole bunch we can do to prevent it. RoySmith (talk) 14:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To support RoySmith's point, for those who may not have seen it, here is a very long youtube video about youtube and plagiarism [1]. (Works just having it on as background audio.) CMD (talk) 14:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Funnily enough, plagiarism from Wikipedia comes up a couple times in that video. MJL also made a very good response video, which I think was a useful addition in the conversation of crediting Wikipedians. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll give that a listen. CMD (talk) 15:18, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, I figured it be an uphill battle trying to accomplish even minor changes on this front. As I can't find a way to contact the creator directly, sending an email to the hosting company may be the best I can do, but even then I doubt it'll lead to anything. Thanks for the advice, anyhow. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a copyright violation (e.g., exact wording), rather than plagiarism (stealing the ideas but using their own words), then you could look into a DMCA takedown notice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing: It was more-or-less word for word, with a couple tweaks here and there. I don't want the episode pulled, I really just want Wikipedia cited, but I can't figure out any way to get in direct contact with any of the people involved. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that the way to get in touch with them is a DMCA takedown notice. Having your platform take down the whole episode tends to attract attention. You could make it easy on them by suggesting a way to fix the problem (maybe they could add something like "This episode quotes Wikipedia in several places" to the end of the notes on the podcast?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious as to what the plagiarized article in question is. Often there is no majority authorship of an article (in terms of bytes added), which might complicate DMCA claims. Jay Cubby 18:35, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who contributed enough content to be copyrighted can issue a DMCA notice. The glaring problem with this approach is that the DMCA only applies if the copy is published in the United States. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What about servers or companies based in the States (perhaps I've misremembered what little I know of copyright law)? Jay Cubby 18:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JayCubby: It's an article I wrote 99.9% of, minus minor copyedits by other users. I'm cautious about revealing which one as I think it would make it easy to figure out the podcast in question, and I'd still prefer to handle this privately rather than go full hbomberguy. Also, having now gone through more of the episode, it's not just that one article that got text lifted from it; text was also copied in whole or in part, without attribution, from other Wikipedia articles I have contributed to (but didn't author) and an article on another website that publishes under a CC BY-NC-ND license. I don't know how I would handle notifying the other parties that got plagiarised either. I haven't combed through the entire episode yet, but already a sizeable portion consists of unattributed text, either identical to the source or with minor alterations. --Grnrchst (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One man deserves the credit, one man deserves the blame...

Jay Cubby 00:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... would Wikipedia:Standard CC BY-SA violation letter be of help? Jay Cubby 01:17, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've found Wikipedia plagiarized in scientific journal articles. I have no tolerance for that and I contact the publishers directly. But little to nothing comes of it. In the one instance, I waited almost a year but nothing really happened. Upon pushing the matter, the publishers allowed the authors to make some trivial changes but there was no retraction. (See my banner notes at the top of Talk:Semi-empirical mass formula if you are interested in this example.) Fortunately, this kind of plagiarism may be common in less prestigious journals and by less prestigious authors from universities in countries that may not care about plagiarism of Western sources. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jason Quinn Wrong section? You wanted to post below? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was. Sorry about that. I moved my comment (along with yours) to the proper spot. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:12, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jason Quinn PS. Make sure to use PubPeer and comment on those articles! _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:04, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll check it out. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:12, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the publisher has a ... somewhat questionable reputation to put it politely. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:10, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some years ago, we found a source saying that the 20% of lowest-ranked journals had a higher risk of copyright violations. (They did tend to be journals from developing countries or otherwise with limited resources – think "Journal of the Tinyland Medical Society".) I have discouraged using journals from the lowest ranked quintile ever since. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:42, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, I'm pretty sure I've been the "benefactor" of scholarly citogenesis several times—uncited additions from a decade ago that I'm scouring for cites and pondering whether to rewrite from scratch, when I find a passage that pretty much has the same structure and specifics (uncontroversial stuff, mind) and I smile. I do wonder if I should be so happy, but I figure they're qualified to conduct original research and this isn't likely to introduce poor quality infomation. Remsense ‥ 论 04:48, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When the plagiarism is substantial, please remember to tag the talk page with {{backwardscopy}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous territory

Are there Indigenous territory in Ecuador, Suriname? What about Honduras, Guatemala, and Salvador? Kaiyr (talk) 05:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what specifically is being asked, but I'm fairly sure you didn't mean to ask it at the village pump? Remsense ‥ 论 05:26, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This might be a question for the Wikipedia:Reference desk. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suggested Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities on their talkpage. CMD (talk) 07:43, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good bet that all of the territory has been there longer than any colonizer. —Tamfang (talk) 21:18, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Query to find uncategorized Commons images used on a Wikipedia

Hello, before I added a category, this file was uncategorized on Commons, but was used on a page on the Greek language wikipedia. Maybe using Petscan?, is there a way of searching say all pages in the category Museums in Greece, and its subcategories, to list images used on those pages that are uncategorized in Commons? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 08:06, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Font query

My font on Wikipedia (page & edit window) has changed, don't know why, is this a site setting, a Chrome setting. I'm not sure where to search for the issue. Appreciate any input. Thanx, - FlightTime (open channel) 16:25, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would try WP:VPT as tech minded editors would probably know. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:58, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@FlightTime Mediawiki does not specify a specific font, it just tells your browser to use it's default sans-serif one. If your font has changed this will be due to your browser. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. - FlightTime (open channel) 23:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moving another user's essay to project space

I'd had it in mind for quite some time to write an essay in project space about announcements. I've seen entire sections consisting of sentences with the word "announced" in them, giving the impression that the subject's history consists not of events and actions at all but only of announcements that such events or actions were planned, leaving the reader to wonder whether any of them ever actually happened. I wanted to exhort people who add to an article, in November 2024, "In November 2024 it was announced that X would be joining the series as a regular character in the new season" to return after the new season begins and replace the text about the announcement with "In April 2025, X joined the series as a regular character" or, if X didn't join the series after all, to remove the sentence as probably irrelevant, unless some mention is to be made of why X's addition to the series didn't come to pass.

So one day recently I sat down to begin such an essay, but first checked the status of the obvious shortcut, WP:ANNOUNCED—and found that it already existed as a redirect to a user-space essay belonging to User:HuffTheWeevil. That essay is quite thorough and covers most of the ground that I had had in mind, and I think it would be useful to have it in project space. So, while noting that that user hadn't edited in over two years but thinking the might see and respond to a ping if they even read Wikipedia while logged in, I went to their talk page to leave basically the same message that I've written here, to ask if they would be averse to having their essay moved to project space.

That was four weeks ago, and there've been no edits in that time by the user. I was wondering whether it would be reasonable, without express permission, either to move or copy the essay to project space and retarget WP:ANNOUNCED there. Also, if that were to happen, I'm seeking a good title. Floating around in my head:

Largoplazo (talk) 17:35, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What a good notion! That type of language in articles irks me too. Especially personal life sections that read "they announced they were engaged, they announced the wedding date, they got married, they announced they were expecting, they had a baby" and so on. (Sorry I don't have an answer to your questions, but I do like the idea.) Schazjmd (talk) 23:25, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Articles about companies, particularly finance companies, drive me crazy in that way. You'd think from some of their articles that they're more noted for their announcements than for what they've actually done. "In October 2018, ABC announced that they were acquiring at 30% share in GHI. In February 2019, they announced the coming release of version 5 of their product." Did the GHI buy-in ever happen? Did they ever release version 5? Who knows??? The article doesn't say! Largoplazo (talk) 00:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even more annoying is when media happily passes on announcements, but fails to pay any attention when they actually happen, so we're left sourceless. Schazjmd (talk) 00:20, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To go off a bit on a tangent, this is like when the media report someone's arrest (which goes on to be covered here) and then never follow up (leaving Wikipedia readers in the lurch). Largoplazo (talk) 00:39, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]