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Ongoing close paraphrasing concerns

Hello, Epeefleche. I was contacted via email with concerns of ongoing close paraphrasing issues with your edits since the opening of the WP:CCI for reviewing your contributions.

Unfortunately, it does seem that there are still issues, with the last example coming from just last week.

(In the third example, content is rearranged from the source, but still largely follows the language of the source; I have omitted the quotation, since it visually exaggerates the issue.) I did not thoroughly check any of these articles, and I certainly have not thoroughly checked all of your contributions. But I have spot-checked enough to note that while many passages seem to be fine, you are evidently still closely paraphrasing sources and still copying verbatim from some sources in a manner not permitted by copyright policy and non-free content policy and guideline, both of which require that - aside from brief and clearly marked quotations - content you take from copyrighted sources must be written in your own words. It is also a problem of Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism.

I am unsure if the problems are extensive enough to warrant expanding Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations/Epeefleche (although User:Diannaa and User:Wizardman may have input, having spent considerable time on that CCI), but am very concerned to see you still having issues in this area in spite of previous discussions about it. :( The last example was copy-pasted two weeks ago. I do not know if that small passage is the entirety of copy-pasting, although it may well be from that article, but even if a limited amount, it is still a violation of Misplaced Pages's standards. Citing your sources is not enough. --Moonriddengirl 21:02, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Epeefleche and Moonriddengirl. Normally we need five examples or copy vio to consider opening a case at CCI. I think the criterion should be the same for expanding one. There's already five clear examples listed above. Here's a couple more:

• Edits to Michael Russell (tennis) in November 2013: source says, "Earned All-American honors… His 39 singles match wins were a school record. Became the first freshman since Joey Blake of Arkansas in 1986 to win the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, defeating Middle Tennessee State’s Fred Niemeyer, 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, in the final." Edit says, "His 39 singles match wins were a school record, and he was the first freshman since 1986 to win the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, defeating Middle Tennessee State’s Fred Niemeyer in the final."
• Edits to H. David Kotz in February 2013:
  • Reuters says, "came to the agency in late 2007, with little expertise in securities law. But in the wake of the financial crisis, he was quickly thrust into the spotlight". Edit says" At the time, he had little expertise in securities law, but he was quickly pushed into the spotlight.
  • Source says: Williams concluded last September that Kotz violated ethics rules by overseeing probes that involved people with whom he had “personal relationships.” Edit says: Williams concluded in his Report that Kotz violated ethics rules by overseeing probes that involved people with whom he had conflicts of interest due to “personal relationships.”

These are examples only. What I'm seeing is ongoing copyright violations throughout, material bad enough that if I saw it in the course of a CCI investigation I would remove or paraphrase. I think there's enough to consider expanding the CCI to include material from the date the list was created (January 7, 2011) to the present day. For a newly discovered copyright violator, I would at this point notify that any further copyright problems would result in an immediate indef block. The consequences have to be the same for you, Epeefleche. Sorry, -- Diannaa (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• @Moon -- Hi; how have you been? I've been away for vacation, but see this now upon returning. I'll look into this seriously, with an eye towards remediation, as I think potential copyvio is a serious matter, and remit.

At the same time - you indicated that you were contacted off-wiki. In the interest of transparency, which I understand we strive for, who made the complaint you refer to? Best. Epeefleche (talk) 00:29, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

The person who raised the concerns is no longer an editor, but I do not believe that this matters, since the concerns are demonstrable independent of the person who raised them. They don't depend on subjective opinion, and the examples above were not identified by this former editor. In any event, I will expand the CCI. --Moonriddengirl 00:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

That's quite interesting. Thanks.

I had thought it is a wp objective to be transparent, and that this applies to the identity of the accuser when there is an accusation. Am I mistaken? And what harm is there in being transparent, and indicating who the former editor is?

I'm just back from vacation, and have started to look at your examples, and remediate the articles. But haven't had time to do more than start addressing them.

As to our standards -- I have a question. I've made over 150,000 edits. I think my editing level is actually fairly high the past three years in regard to copyvio.

Shouldn't our standard be the percentage of appropriate editing? Not cherry-picked instances, from many tens of thousands of edits? I would expect my percentage of pristine edits is much higher than the normal fare at wp. And would think we would want to encourage editors to contribute at a high level.

For example -- if an editor in 150,000 edits makes 100 typos, and another in 1,000 edits makes 90 typos ... and if we were to seek to eradicate typos ... we wouldn't, rationally, focus on the first editor and not the second.

Yet you are saying ... if an editor has five close paraphrases (in the gray area of wp:limited, some of which are single sentences, some of which have many immutable words such as names and numbers, some of which have been changed as to format but could be changed more ... in that circumstance, we have hit the magic five ... even if it is out of tens of thousands of edits. But if someone else writes three articles, which in their entirety have problems and reflect no effort to change format and where the problems go on for paragraph after paragraph, then that editor has not hit the number three and nothing is done (especially if no person whose name we conceal brings it to our attention).

Finally -- and this is something of some importance I believe -- what is the recourse where a particular editor (I only have this issue as to one editor), under guise of copyvio, makes edits that appear not to be appropriate?

Such as, for example: changing "X was born in place A on date b" ... by (believe it or not) deleting "place A"? With an edit summary claiming "copyvio".

I just this month raised this issue with Diannaa a number of times on talk pages, concerned about over-exuberant efforts that resulted in inappropriate deletions. And I understand that D does important work, which I support. But when the boundaries of propriety are passed -- to whom can an editor appeal? Surely, you would agree that we don't want George-Zimmerman-like over-exuberant abuses of power under the guise of copyvio. Many thanks. Epeefleche (talk) 07:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you may be misunderstanding the purpose of WP:CCI. Its only goal is to find and fix copyright violations, not to humiliate or punish the users who made them. Once it becomes apparent that a particular user has repeatedly produced copyright violations, an investigation is opened so that all of them can be discovered and corrected. It doesn't matter if the violations discovered before opening the investigation constitute 1% or 10% or 100% of the user's total infringements (or even of the user's total edits), because no matter the ratio, all the violations need to be fixed. Even one violation is too much; we can't overlook the violations of one user just because they happen to have also contributed a lot of non-infringing material. —Psychonaut (talk) 10:37, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Exactly as Psychonaut says.

The idea that we should expect people to contribute content within our copyright policies only a percentage of time is odd to me; we don't expect people to conform to WP:BLP or WP:V only a percentage of time. These policies govern our content and should be followed in every edit.

I don't really care who raises a question of copyright for me; my research into these issues is conducted independently and does not rely on the judgment of someone else. My magic number is not a "magic number" but simply a minimum threshold for asking other contributors to invest substantial time into the often tedious task of reviewing somebody else's work to make sure they have used their own language and not run afoul of Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism and Misplaced Pages:Copyrights. I did ask User:Diannaa and User:Wizardman if they had input on the appropriateness of reopening your CCI because they are both at this point likely far more familiar with your editing patterns than anyone else and would have an idea the scope of issues in the prior listing as well as the relationship to that pattern here.

Let me reiterate that the examples I presented are not necessarily exhaustive. My habit when looking for issues is to move on from an article when I find one. I don't then check other lines against other sources, unless I am involved in the cleanup.

I believe that WP:LIMITED may be causing some confusion. English is a word-rich language, and while you cannot put titles or technical jargon into other language (and do not need to), there are many ways to express most ideas. The examples given in that essay include some very basic facts, but even with those basic facts an effort was made to paraphrase. If you cannot reword a sentence or several sentences for some reason - if essential meaning would be lost - you do have the option to quote, with proper attribution, which satisfies both Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism and Misplaced Pages:Copyrights.

If you believe that the work is being done improperly, two points of potential appeal would be WP:AN or perhaps an RFC at WT:C or even WT:CCI. You can also list specific cases at WP:CP, which exists in part to review disputed copyright concerns, but given the backlog at that page I would recommend other avenues first. --Moonriddengirl 12:02, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

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