Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20130908

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Contributor copyright investigation

This CCI cleanup subpage has been opened because concerns of multiple point infringement have been substantiated and further steps are necessary to address the serious risk of copyright violation from the listed contributor. Listings are not intended to imply a presumption of bad faith on the part of any contributor, as copyright laws vary widely around the world and many contributors who violate Wikipedia's copyrights policy do so inadvertently through not understanding it or the United States' laws that govern it.

If you are here because of a note on an article's talk page explaining removal of text, please do not restore any removed text without first ensuring that the text does not duplicate, closely paraphrase or plagiarize from a previously published source. You are welcome to use sourced facts that may have been removed to create new content in your own words or to incorporate brief quotations of copyrighted material in accordance with the non-free content policy and guideline.

Instructions

All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to clean up. Contributors who are the subject of a contributor copyright investigation are among contributors with a history of copyright problems and so are not welcome to contribute to clean up of their own or others' copyright violations.

If contributors have been shown 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 they may be removed indiscriminately in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. Contributors who are the subject of a contributor copyright investigation are among contributors who have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation and so all of the below listed contributions may be removed indiscriminately. However, to avoid collateral damage, efforts should be made when possible to verify infringement before removal.

When every section is completed, please alter the listing for this CCI at Wikipedia:CCI#Open_investigations to include the tag "completed=yes". This will alert a clerk that the listing needs to be archived.

{{CCI-open|Contributor name|Day Month Year|completed=yes}}

Text

Examine the article or the diffs linked below.
If the contributor has added creative content, either evaluate it carefully for copyright concerns or remove it.

Evaluating for copyright concerns may include checking the listed sources, spot-checking using google, google books and other search engines and looking for major differences in writing style. The background may give some indication of the kinds of copyright concerns that have been previously detected. For older text, mirrors of Wikipedia content may make determining which came first difficult. It may be helpful to look for significant changes to the text after it was entered. Searching for the earlier form of text can help eliminate later mirrors. If you cannot determine which came first, text should be removed presumptively, since there is an established history of copying with the editor in question.
If you remove text presumptively, place {{subst:CCI|name=Contributor name}} on the article's talk page.
If you specifically locate infringement and remove it (or revert to a previous clean version), place {{subst:cclean}} on the article's talk page. The url parameter may be optionally used to indicate source.
If there is insufficient creative content on the page for it to survive the removal of the text or it is impossible to extricate from subsequent improvements, replace it with {{subst:copyvio}}, linking to the investigation subpage in the url parameter. List the article as instructed at the copyright problems board, but you do not need to notify the contributor. Your note on the CCI investigation page serves that purpose.
To tag an article created by the contributor for presumptive deletion, place {{subst:copyvio|url=see talk}} on the article's face and {{subst:CCId|name=Contributor name}} on the article's talk page. List the article as instructed at the copyright problems board, but you do not need to notify the contributor.

After examining an article:

replace the diffs after the colon on the listing with indication of whether problem was found (add {{y}}) or not (add {{n}}). If the article is blanked and may be deleted, please indicate as much after the {{y}}.
Follow with your username and the time to indicate to others that the article has been evaluated and appropriately addressed. This is automatically generated by four tildes (~~~~)

If a section is complete, consider collapsing it by placing {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}} beneath the section header and after the final listing.

Images

Examine the images below. For free images:
- Does the image look non-free? Is it likely the uploader is the copyright holder?
- Is the image properly licensed and sourced? Be aware of images that say "this image is licensed under X" without specifying who created it.
- Do a reverse image search using Google Images. Check the license of the source page. Compare the last modified time with the (Commons) upload time.
- Do a Google image search for phrases that describe the image's contents.
- See Wikipedia:Guide to image deletion#Addressing suspected copyright infringement on dealing with cases of possible image copyright infringement. There is no need to open a possibly unfree files listing. Administrators may delete images from multiple point infringers presumptively in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. Evaluators who are not administrators may section images into a "deletion requested" section for administrator attention.

For non-free images, determine whether each image meets our non-free content criteria.
- Note that Commons does not accept non-free content.
Annotate the listing with the action taken, e.g. if the image was tagged no source write "no source"; if the fair use claim is deemed ok you can write "OK fair use".

Background

Valich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

More widespread problems with this contributor - who had copyright issues uncovered in the past - was brought to my attention by an editor who verified copying in two more articles. Following that note, I pulled up the list of articles the user had created and spot-checked in three. I found significant and persistent copying in the first two. I found the third had issues as well, although these were cleaned two years ago. Given the evidence, it seems we have no choice but to conduct a more complete investigation. Unfortunately, some of the content seems to have been taken from sources behind a paywall, which may make it difficult to exclude copying. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I read through about a dozen of the user's contributions in the articles where I could find them; all are copyright violations. It is hard to tell with some of the edits, they are all older, most of the literature is paywalled, although I have access, and a lot of it has been copied repeatedly by Wikipedia mirrors, making Wikipedia appear to be the original source. A few months ago I found a passage from an article (an article on cratons familiar to me) in a google search; it appeared to come from a Wikipedia article, although its original source was an obscure, important, but outdated tectonics article. It appears to me that all of his material is copied with a few word changes from the literature. Is it really necessary to investigate, which would take so long, rather than removing the material? I guess that all of it is copyrighted material from the scientific literature, done without real insight into the material being added, leaving Wikipedia with little in value to keep for the time that would be needed to check. --(AfadsBad (talk) 18:26, 8 September 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Yes, I think that it is necessary to check them all. Graeme Bartlett and I have found instances which after investigation (some behind the paywall) are not copyright violations. Obvious examples include a couple of edits where an original source is quoted and it is so marked, but for others no source could be found, and the style is consistent with that on his userpage, rather than a more scientific one. In other cases while I found the source that Valich used directly or very slightly paraphrased, that content has been replaced by others over time. Since the majority of his edits occurred in the 2006-2009 timeframe it is not surprising that much has been weeded out. In an individual case, I've found that it made more sense to rewrite what had become rather contorted sections that contained some of Valich's original edit, than to find where he got his information. This was true in the Phenocryst article, where the language used looked like it came right out of a textbook, but one that I didn't have access to. --Bejnar (talk) 04:12, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We should check the definitions found in Parker, Sybil P. (Ed.). 1997. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Geology and Mineralogy. : McGraw-Hill. and Bates, Robert L. and Julia A. Jackson (Eds.) 1994. Dictionary of Geological Terms. American Geological Institute - as these have been referenced for some of the articles.

Contribution survey

Valich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

This report covers contributions to 168 articles from timestamp 2006-05-23 22:34:00 UTC to timestamp 2009-05-03 22:24:17 UTC.

Articles 1 through 20

N Superior Craton: (40 edits, 40 major, +25854) Y Same issue as Baltic Shield. Redirected to Craton. bobrayner (talk) 18:37, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Red panda: Y final vestiges removed. --Bejnar (talk) 04:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Slave Craton: (13 edits, 13 major, +16883) Y, earlier cleanup of copyvio by another editor but some slipped through the net; now redirected to Canadian Shield. bobrayner (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Khumbu: (1 edits, 1 major, +15867) Y copyvio removed on 7 March 2010‎ Aqwis--Bejnar (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Kalahari Craton: Y Blanked. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Carnivoramorpha: Y Blanked. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Carnivomorpha: Y - see above. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Monzogranite: (2 edits, 2 major, +8634) (+8634)(+1151) The section on MGr rock types appears to have been taken from a report on the Sierra de Famatina in Argentina, but I haven't found it yet. --Bejnar (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Carnivora: (10 edits, 10 major, +8271) (+173)(+1259)(+426)(+367)(+2484)(+191)(+340)(+8271)(+935)
N Trans-Hudson orogeny: (15 edits, 15 major, +7634) (+1416)(+2127)(+3413)(+2067)(+1094)(+7634)(+2157)(+1636)(+1087)(+1920)(+1261)(+3356)(+182)(+1760)
N Zimbabwe Craton: (11 edits, 11 major, +6829) Y Same issue as Baltic Shield. Redirected to Craton. bobrayner (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC) Newly written stub substituted for redirect. --Bejnar (talk) 22:03, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Wyoming Craton: (5 edits, 5 major, +6191) (+6191)(+1658)(+496)(+909)(+2715)
Sinonyx: (2 edits, 2 major, +5774) (+5774)(+1010)
Hemicyonidae: Y blanked. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:06, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Canidae: (4 edits, 4 major, +4938) (+1200)(+1295)
Mesonychid: (2 edits, 2 major, +4800) (+4800)

At least from [1]. That all seems to be gone. I'm out of time to evaluate the rest of the text. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:15, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

N Leucogranite: Y Cleaned years ago. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
N Kaapvaal Craton: (19 edits, 19 major, +3835) (+873)(+1587)(+1884)(+183)(+838)(+778)(+1931)(+3835)(+1153)(+652)(+2571)(+707)(+1550)
Baltic Shield: (17 edits, 17 major, +3798) Y Some confirmed copying, the rest of the article just looks like it's copied from a source which I can't get behind a paywall. Redirected to Fennoscandia. bobrayner (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Cat gap: (6 edits, 6 major, +3738) (+3738)(+1252)(+2560)(+477)(+198)

Some content already removed that was taken from [2]. Other text has not been evaluated. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:26, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]