Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations

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Contributor copyright investigations

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Contributor copyright investigations (CCI) is a process for identifying users who have repeatedly committed copyright violations over long periods of time and review their contributions for any remaining issues. A CCI begins when an editor notices a large-scale pattern of copyright violations from a user and files a case request. Administrators or copyright clerks review the request and may open a full survey of their contributions, which will be reviewed and removed if suspected or confirmed to be a copyright violation.

CCI is intended for large-scale systematic copyright violations only. Persistent unattributed copying within Wikipedia or from compatibly licensed sources and translations from sister projects may also be raised here. To list individual articles or files for evaluation, see Wikipedia:Copyright problems or Wikipedia:Files for discussion; however, attempting resolution is not required prior to filing a CCI request.

When and how should a CCI be started?

At least five instances of clear copyvios (copy/pasting of unlicensed third party material; clear derivative works) is required to file a case. More may be required for issues like copying within Wikipedia or plagiarism from free sources. There are no other requirements for filing a CCI request, but listing diffs, sources, and warnings clearly and concisely is recommended.

New cases should be filed by placing the {{subst:CCI-request}} underneath the requests header below.

{{subst:CCI-request
|user = the user subject to the CCI
|evidence = your reasoning for opening the case
}}

Please remember to remain civil. Most contributors violate copyright policies due to misunderstandings rather than malicious intent. While it may be necessary to intervene to prevent future copyright issues, treating individuals discourteously is unhelpful. Good faith requests are welcome even if they should prove mistaken. However, this is a serious allegation and should not be made without evidence. Requests without evidence may be interpreted as harassment and will be removed by administrators or clerks.

After submitting a case, please notify the contributor by adding {{subst:CCI-notice}} ~~~~ to the bottom of their talk page. It is not necessary to notify individuals who are currently blocked for copyright infringement, even if temporarily.

Review of CCI requests

A CCI clerk or admin will review the request and determine if a full case is needed based off of the evidence presented, responses by the editor subject to a request, and their own brief survey. Clerks may request that an administrator review deleted contributions where necessary. If the evidence does not substantiate the concern, the CCI request will be declined, and then archived.

If a user has requested evaluation of your contributions here, please remember that the purpose of CCI is not to harass or embarrass you, but to keep Wikipedia compliant with copyright laws. If you believe that your contributions are not a copyright problem under Wikipedia's policies, please succinctly provide your rationale. If the user who made the request is proven mistaken, the request will be declined with a note. However, if a case is opened, you may best demonstrate your willingness to comply with Wikipedia's copyright policies by helping to identify and address the copyright issues you have caused.

Accepted cases

Upon accepting a case, a clerk or admin will create the appropriate contributor survey subpage and then populate the contribution data.

If contributors have been proven to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and thus removed indiscriminately, in accordance with our copyright violation policy. CCI tries to avoid significant collateral damage and generally reviews each article carefully, but presumptive wholesale removal is used if the effort required to review is much higher than reasonably expected.

To participate in cases, follow the link of one of the open cases. All contributors with no outstanding history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to clean up, and users who are listed here are encouraged to help clean up their own materials. Users subject to a CCI will not receive notices of articles or images that are deleted or blanked for copyright concerns during the investigation.

The {{y}} and {{n}} templates are used to confirm whether the edit was a copyright issue. The {{?}} template is used to indicate that the edit has already been either deleted or completely rewritten, and therefore not worth the effort. Upon completion, the CCI case will be archived.

Requests

Please add any suspected infringers below, following the format at How should a case be filed? above. A CCI clerk or administrator will review your request according to the instructions, then either open the case or close it.

Cheeseladder

Cheeseladder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Check requested by Dpmuk (talk)
I've removed sections from three articles - Littlehampton Lifeboat Station (found because it was a DYK at the time which I had to pull), RNLB Keith Anderson (ON 1106) and Talus Atlantic 85 DO-DO launch carriage - for copypaste and/or close paraphrasing concerns. So far I've not found any really long copies from a single source but rather shorter copies (but still long enough to be of concern) sometimes from multiple sources. This makes investigating hard (indeed none of these three should be considered done especially given the offline sources) but I fear we probably need to investigate all their edits and I've already spent too much time on this this evening. Dpmuk (talk) 01:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC) Dpmuk (talk) 01:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, investigating this. I grabbed an article at random from the contrib list, Royal Hotel, Norwich, and the first text string I searched for found a match at [1]. A fairly thorough spot-check found no additional sources, although I can't preclude print sources or content google didn't find. This article has a high correspondence rate to this source, but I'm not precluding backwards copying here. A spot-check of Talus MB-764 amphibious tractor and RNLB Margaret Russell Fraser (ON 1108) didn't find any issues. I did a really, really tight spot-check on Hunstanton Lifeboat Station and found nothing irregular (a few mirrors) except this. I'm not downloading those documents, as those websites behave very suspiciously, but unfortunately that looks like a pdf version at least related to a book that has been heavily cited in multiple articles ([2]). Happisburgh Lifeboat Station contains content copied from and closely paraphrased from [3], but a spotcheck finds no other issues.
  
  I am seeing a pattern of close paraphrasing here, but fortunately not much blatant copying. User:Cheeseladder, I see that here you indicate that any copying is unintentional - I don't doubt that's the case, but unfortunately unintentional copying is still a problem. On Wikipedia, only brief and clearly marked quotations can be copied from copyrighted sources; other material from such sources must be rewritten entirely in your own words. See Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. You can copy from public domain or compatibly licensed sources, but such copying must be clearly noted as copying to avoid Wikipedia:Plagiarism, as well as to comply with any licensing requirements that may exist. CCIs are resource heavy, but I am leaning towards agreeing that this is necessary, even though I think problems are probably somewhat limited. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to add to the workoad, but I think this one has to be accepted. A post here led me to User:Cheeseladder/Civil War, where I immediately found copying (brief but blatant) from here. Cheeseladder apparently has little or no understanding of our copyright policies. If, as I think Moonriddengirl believes, there isn't too much of concern here then this should be over quite quickly. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which passage from this website do you think I have copy-violated.

If it is the passage trying to retrieve the body of Ralph Fox is a fact recalled in several books and scripts of the incident. It is a Fact and not a copy viol. This is a stitch up by this editor because I criticised one of his fellow editors behaviour.Cheeseladder (talk) 11:46, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Raimundo Pastor

Raimundo Pastor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Check requested by Beland (talk)
User talk:Raimundo Pastor has piled up a number of copyright violation notifications. Beland (talk) 00:46, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Open investigations

Closed investigations

All closed investigations, as well as requests that were declined, can be found at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Archive.

Templates

See Category:CCI templates.

Template:CCI: placed on article talk pages to note cleanup
Template:CCId: placed on article talk pages when it has been tagged presumptively for deletion review in one week
Template:CCI-notice: to notify contributors of a new listing
Template:CCI-project: to notify a project of a CCI with which they may help
Template:CCI-request: to request new investigations
Template:CCI-open: to denote open CCI requests, this template should only be used by a clerk or administrator
Template:CCI update: to notify people who have assisted in a CCI that it is finished.

Put new listings under investigation requests, above.

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