Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems/2011 March 12

possible coi revert to copyvio template

User:Steven Walling has reverted a copyvio template at the Vancouver Voice. He asserts here that he wrote the material, but the material is marked here:

© 2011 Vancouver Voice
Vancouver Voice and VanVoice.com are owned and operated by News-Register Publishing Co., P.O. Box 727, McMinnville, OR 97128
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

User:Steven Walling on his user page identifies himself as formerly living in Portland Oregon and working currently for Wikimedia. According to this webpage, there is a Stephen Walling who works for the Wikimedia foundation and is a former contributing editor to the Vancouver Voice. Stephen Walling is also associated with Vancouver Voice former owner James Walling by both last name and in working for the Willamette Week ref1 and ref2.

The diff for the revert states, "Not copyvio if you do a copy/paste matching." Here is a "copy/paste" comparison of diff 251226253 with vanvoice.com/about-voice, which is one part of the copyvio issue:

In Spring of 2008, Walling signed a six-month Joint ~~Opperating Aggrement~~ Operating Agreement with the News-Register Publishing Company, a fourth-generation family-owned business based in McMinnville, Oregon. ~~[[News-Register]]~~ News-Register Publisher Jeb Bladine bought the paper outright from Walling in July. Ossie Bladine, former editor of ~~[[The Oregon Commentator]]~~ The Oregon Commentator at the University of Oregon, moved to Vancouver to become the paper's second editor-in-chief.

In January, of 2009, The ~~Vancouver~~ Voice ~~will change to a bi-monthly printing schedule~~ became a bi-weekly publication.

Unscintillating (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's not a possible COI. It's transparent, honest COI. You seem to think you have discovered some conspiracy or something. I have always been upfront about the fact that my brother started the paper and that I wrote the occasional piece for them. I think I even said so in the article. But I haven't ever been the paper's employee and I haven't written for them for more than four years, since they changed ownership. More importantly, that doesn't have anything to do with an issue of copyvio, and there is no copy-paste issue here. I myself removed a few sentences that were obviously rephrased from the About page and that were unreferenced (I didn't add them in the first place). But other than those, the content was written years before the current website copy even existed. How is that copyvio? It's hardly possible to have a copyright violation in text that existed before the copyrighted content was published. Steven Walling 02:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:COI and WP:Copyrights. Because the copyvio template was reverted without due process, I've carefully documented a copy/paste copyright issue with two paragraphs (and there is more). I've documented that the text is copyrighted, correctly or incorrectly, by News-Register Publishing Co. I've reasonably documented a possible coi associated with the revert. The two paragraphs deleted are not part of the section I originally marked as having a copyvio concern. Had the copyvio template not been reverted, this page would not be here. Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 04:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, you haven't documented that the article is chock full of copyrighted content. Of the several paragraphs of original text you removed, you have compared one definitively, and it's one that was added by an IP some time ago. All you had to do was delete that paragraph. Steven Walling 05:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I initially marked five paragraphs with a copyvio concern. I have now in detail documented two of these five paragraphs as being direct copies, and I ~~only~~ did this in response to respondent's denial that there were any problems at all, in an attempt to clarify that yes, there really are problems here. There are currently only six paragraphs in the article, since two unrelated paragraphs were deleted after I added the copyvio template. So currently the copyvio concern covers five of the six paragraphs in the article. I think that all respondent had to do was leave the template in place and do nothing, and this page would not be here. I think that all respondent has to do now is nothing (except assume good faith). Unscintillating (talk) 07:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you keep referring me as "the respondent" as if we were not having a conversation? Are you just not trying to be confrontational? It comes off as really weird and sort of condescending. Steven Walling 07:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Consider why the members of the House of Representatives always address the presiding officer and not other members. We are here to reason, not to discuss other people, ok? Unscintillating (talk) 07:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Comment Whether or not you define the disputed passage as copyvio, I can vouch for Steven--he's never tried to hide the fact he was once associated with this paper. So all the above sleuthing strikes me as pretty of strange, when I think you could have just dropped a note on his talk page or even contacted the Wikimedia Foundation. Now, on the other hand, have we actually shown that the new owners of the VV copied the Wikipedia article to use on their "about" page?! Valfontis (talk) 04:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(1) He says above, "I think I even said so in the article", but if so I have not seen it, nor does the vague reference help. (2) I could also have raised the issue on the talk page for the article. I chose to raise it here. Beyond that, the copyvio issue was raised at the AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Vancouver Voice, on March 6 without a response. I raised it again on March 12 at the AfD, but the AfD was closed early (while I was in the middle of posting my review) and I don't know that the closing admin ever saw my request to look at the copyvio issue. Unscintillating (talk) 07:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All you have to do is look in the history to see what I'm talking about: [1] Steven Walling 07:19, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Steven (with a "v", not a "ph") does work for the Wikimedia Foundation, and is the brother of the former owner of the Voice. Both these facts are well known among those of us that have worked with Steven, both online and offline, for several years. From my perspective, as a longtime and highly trusted member of the community, Steven's clear assertion that he wrote the material is enough for me, and I hope would carry some weight with many editors.

However, for anyone requiring proof, the Wayback Machine is a helpful tool. The article's history page shows that Steven's edits were mostly done in 2007; the Wayback Machine reveals that the Voice only put up a web page in late 2007, and that iteration of the web page did not even have an "about" link.

The most likely explanation is that the Voice, not Steven, copied the text in question. If anybody should be complaining, I'd say it's Steven (and maybe the other authors of the page), as it looks like his work has been misappropriated and tagged with an inaccurate copyright notice. -Pete (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, here's the earliest version of an "About Us" page I could find via the Wayback Machine: January 2009. -Pete (talk) 01:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]