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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 00:15, 28 November 2012 [1].

The Story of Miss Moppet

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The Story of Miss Moppet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Notified: Ruhrfisch, Moonriddengirl, MathewTownsend, WP:TFAR, WP:FAC

I am nominating this featured article to be delisted because the edit history may contain copyvio issues and the page will never be eligible for TFA. I don't see any need for discussion; should be a straightforward delisting. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • The background of this page is that it was written by Susanne2009NYC, a sock of banned user ItsLassieTime who was a serial copyright infringer. Substantial copy-vio was discovered with a substantial number of edits made to rewrite and remove the close paraphrasing and plagiarism. [2]and the article rewritten from top to bottom. Some months later all of the edits made by Susanne2009NYC were deleted. Recently the page was nominated for TFA. Given the history of the page it's probably best for it not to be on the main page, ever, and given its history probably best to delist it. As far as I can tell the only way to guarantee a clean history is to copy the existing version out of this page, delete the page, and begin anew (though don't know how the page history would be preserved). And additional problem is that all or most of the Beatrix Potter articles were written by the same user, so many of the article this page links to are similarly contaminated.
Truthkeeper, I recall this when it happened. I can oversight all the revdels - that way all the copyvio edits will disappear completely from the history - only the handful of oversighters can see them. At that point it can safely go even on the main page I would have said. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think because it was questioned: [3], [4], [5], [6], the community should be allowed to respond. I'll also notify MathewTownsend. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
From what I've heard though, wouldn't the copyvio still be there in the intermediate edits? --Rschen7754 01:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not if they were revdel-ed and/or OS-ed as well. Imzadi 1979 → 01:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can clear the copyvios out from the history - that's just a technical problem, and shouldn't be what determines whether or not it stays at FA. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But doesn't that violate our attribution rules? --Rschen7754 02:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the current version was so completely rewritten that none of the earlier edits contributed to the final version, then I would think they could safely be deleted as well. It might be a problem though if those edits actually contributed towards making the current article. Calathan (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment—the question should be, "is the article, as it stands at the present time, FA-level in terms of the FA criteria?" If so, then the article should be retained. If not, then the followup question is, "if the article is not up to that standard, can it be brought back up in a relatively straight-forward manner?" If the answer is still no, then we need to delist it. FARC can only solve the TFA question with a sledgehammer (removing the article's star) when a flyswatter may do (refusing to run it in the TFA slot). Even so, that question isn't really pertinent to what FAR/FARC aim to do: verify that articles still meet the criteria, revise them as needed or delist them as the last resort. Imzadi 1979 → 01:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I noticed the discussion at WP:TFA/R but didn't comment there. Anyway, I strongly disagree with the idea that an article should be delisted from being a featured article because of the article's past history. Maybe there is something about the situation I'm not quite understanding, but it seems completely nonsensical to me to delist the article after the problems with it have already been corrected. Either the article is of featured quality now or it isn't, and I don't see how copyright violations that have been removed from the article in any way matter for whether the current version should be featured. I also disagree with the notion that it shouldn't ever be able to be a TFA. Once all the copyright violations are gone, including any in any article that may be linked from this one, then I see absolutely no reason why it couldn't run at TFA. Calathan (talk) 02:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tomorrow I'll make list of articles that would involve. To rev-del all those pages is a good idea and if it can be done, would be very helpful. There are, however, a substantial number of pages involved if my memory is correct. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at the history, I think the issue is that the edits by Susanne2009NYC were revdel'd, but no others were, so susanne's net work is still visible, just not the incremental changes. Chris857 (talk) 02:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That makes a little more sense. I guess it depends on if the other edits can be RevDeled as well. Calathan (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing of Susanne's original work exists. Each sentence has been rewritten and all the quotes attributed, etc., so the page as it exists no longer contains the copyvio. If, however, the copyvio still exists in history, then all the edits to the page have to be rev-del'd - at which point we'll have a stub and worthy to be delisted. The technicalities confuse me; that's why I've placed it here. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, that's not correct. Once all of the previous revisions of the article that contain Susanne's work are deleted, then the copyvio has been removed from the past history. However, that doesn't remove content. The current revision would remain, plus any since the last of her work was removed. That wouldn't stub-ify the article in the least. Imzadi 1979 → 02:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cross-posting Iridescent's comment: Elen, as per my earlier comments on this I completely disagree that oversight is a solution. If Suzanne's edits are oversighted, the content will remain but will instead be attributed to whoever happened to touch the article after her. Thus, for instance, revdeleting this sequence of edits will still keep the copyvio in the history, but instead attribute uploading huge quantities of problematic to User:Parrot of Doom. The only thing which would fix the copyvio issue would be to revdelete every edit which contained any of the problematic content, which would destroy the article history and effectively mean deletion-and-recreation. As I said to Maggie, this is a situation where the legal requirements to "have no copyvios visible in the history" and "have all edits to the existing article attributed" are mutually exclusive, since some of the material in the current article was added to versions which still complain some of the copyvio content. As there's no solution that doesn't lead to both legal requirements and the terms of use being broken – and the WMF don't want to make the call as to whether to preserve the copyvios in the interests of attribution, or to destroy the attribution in the interests of deleting the copyvios, this either needs an Arbcom motion or a strong community consensus as to which way to go. Miss Moppet is only a test case because it happens to be the one to come to notice – there are many, many articles that would be affected if copyvios-in-the-history was enforced at policy says it should. – iridescent 18:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Truthkeeper (talk) 18:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Correction to my post quoted above following discussing with MRG; Wikipedia's policy is "The infringing text will remain in the page history for archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia Foundation to remove it". I think this reeks ethically – as the revdeletions mean the copyvios are now attributed to innocent third parties who happened to come along afterwards – but policy is clear. My advice would be to do an out of process delisting given that these are special circumstances; as I understand it, all those substantively involved in writing the current version feel that it should be delisted. – iridescent 19:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can revdel text and leave the attribution behind - there is no way it would look as if Parrot shoved a load of copyvio into the text, I don't know where you got that idea from. Or - to comply with what Maggie said - I can unrev the text, so both text and attribution are clear. Or I could suppress the lot, but this doesn't seem to be the norm.If an article can never be FA once it has been subject to copyvio, you really are blowing off both feet to spite your face (or some similar saying). Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's not like we're suppressed the fact of who's contributing/contributed to the article... the account names are all there in the history log, but we have suppressed the display of the old revisions. Imzadi 1979 → 22:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. It's common to revdel the text to stop some innocent adding it back in at a later date, not realising it's a copyvio. It still shows the name of the person who added it, just not the text. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Just want to be sure that what I said is understood. :) There is no policy that I know of that mandates removal of copyvio from history...but we do it routinely, anyway. It is very common in copyvio cleanup to rev-delete edits that contain substantial infringement. In extreme circumstances, we have deleted histories altogether and complied with licensing by providing a complete list of authors. As long as the names of contributors are retained, we are satisfying the attribution requirements set out in the Terms of Use. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:51, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I peer reviewed and supported this article at FAC when it was riddled with copyvios (and did not catch them). I then worked with Truthkeeper to clean it and we checked every source and rewrote the article. While the silver lining of the experience was getting to know and work with Truthkeeper, the whole copyvio mess left a bad taste in my mouth and I have not taken an article to FAC since. As I see it, there are two issues here:

  1. The more minor / article-specific issue can be framed as a question: Is the article OK in its current form? Although we did our best to clean it up, we believe it needs to be checked by third parties to make sure it is as in as good a shape as possible. If you like, it could be framed as the normal FAR question: "Does this article meet the FA standards?" (but that also depends on the next question...)
  2. The other issue is more general and could apply to multiple articles. It is perhaps best expressed as a set of questions. Given its history of copyvios, can this article ever truly be a FA? If it is a FA, could this article ever appear on the Main Page? Are there copyvios so egregious that they permanently taint an article and thereby render it incapable of being either an FA or TFA?

I hope this helps. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:25, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There should not be a separate standard for what a FA is and TFA is. If and article can pass the current FAC standard, it should be able to go straight to TFA.PumpkinSky talk 03:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In practice there has been a distinction between FAs and being capable of being TFA. Raul654 always said that there were a small number of FAs that he would not run on the Main Page as TFA (I am pretty sure Jenna Jameson was one of them). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 11:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a test case for that issue as well. I'll place a notification at FAC talk; perhaps we can draw in some more people and eventually try to reach consensus. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep If the only issue with this article is copyvios may appear in the history, and Elen can fix that, and the article is OK in its present form, then there is no reason to delist this article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cross post from WT:FAR, which is a better place to have this conversation. Mark Arsten (talk)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Only if they were copyvios, but I don't think that's been suggested for either of those articles. As long as they aren't copyvios, then there isn't a problem. The FA process should have confirmed that the edits are OK (not misusing sources, OR, etc) Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bit of a misconception here: first the FAC process initiated copyvio spotchecks only after the Miss Moppet affair which occurred much later than when these pages that were primarily written by Ottava Rima were brought through FAC. Also, the problem the pages that ILT worked on is that generally they are very good. There's a list of articles up-page, a brief glance will give a sense of the quality of work. S/he always used good sources etc., so the problems were hard to discern. As for these particular pages, there has been discussion somewhere in regards to those edits (maybe in this FARC?) and I believe the conclusion was the extent of the edits made to the two pages by the ILT sock were confined to copyedits. I'm fairly certain these edits have been scrutinized but will dig around a bit. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh jesus, are we dragging Ottava into this? Of all people Ottava would have spotted anything like that in a hairs breath. You can accuse him of a lot, but being unaware of sources is not one. Ceoil (talk) 02:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not bringing Ottava into it. And no, I don't think there's at all an issue w/ Ottava's pages. It's a distraction to the discussion at hand to be honest. Should prob be hatted. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:48, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No your not TK. Your trying to help, as usual. Just wondering what in the hell is Mathew's point. Seeing lots of clueness here. Seeing supposedly new editor mention ottava like this, off hand dont you know, its well. And boring, actually. calling Duck. Ceoil (talk) 07:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - It appears that discussion has stalled a bit, but I can't tell if there is a consensus to keep the article as featured, or if everyone is still considering. The two points posted above by Ruhrfisch might be a good starting point for further discussion. Dana boomer (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Dana for pushing this along. I meant to post something here today. Last night I cleaned The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, [7], taking a page at approx. 1600 words down to about 1100 words. Everything I removed was either very closely paraphrased or taken verbatim from the text. The good news is only about one third of the article needed to be deleted; the bad news is this is generally what I've found in all the Potter articles. To answer Ruhrfisch's question #2, I would say yes, the copyvios in the entire suite of articles that are linked from Miss Moppet, either in text or on the Potter template, are egregious enough to prevent this from running on the main page - at least until they've been cleared. The clearing is possible, but it's time consuming. That then brings me to question #1: I don't know the answer to that - hence bringing it up here. Should we move this to FARC (sorry, not sure how it works here ... ). One more thing to mention: for the most part the material in the entire suite of articles is taken from a single biography and with the amount of material that's been copied in verbatim, I'm also wondering about a threshold in terms of taking material from a single source (not sure this makes sense - but know what I'm trying to say). Truthkeeper (talk) 00:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry for weighing in so late-- here are my three cents for what they're worth.

  1. The purpose of this page is to determine if an article meets WP:WIAFA; I'm not seeing analysis or criticism to that end, so I'm guessing this should be kept FA. In the case of Grace Sherwood, it came to FAR so that the copyvio edits could be systematically revdel'd and it could be determined if an FA was still present-- in this case, the article has already been rewritten (for better or for worse).
  2. The issue of how to deal with the past copyvio is a more complex one, and unlikely to be resolved on this page. If it is determined that the current page meets standards, how to deal with the history is a problem to be determined by <someones> who deal with such things. We used to rely almost exclusively on MRG to resolve such issues, but now that she is wearing two hats, the situation is murky. What to do about the history is not FAR's problem.
  3. As to whether we should highlight an article on the mainpage when we know darn well the history of its first editor, and what will likely result if we do so, and considering there is no shortage of articles to be run on the mainpage-- of course not. Anyone who knows ILT knows we don't need to encourage more of this, and TK isn't clamoring to run this article TFA. Let's stop politicing and get back to work; is this article FA or not? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I am concerned, there is no reason why it should not be an FA, given that it meets all the FAC requirements, and the FAR should be closed forthwith. The article was nominated for TFA by a newbie editor who was completely unaware of the history. This is likely to recur. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Additional closing note - The consensus seems to be that the article as it currently stands is of FA quality, and that the edit history meets current WP standards for copyright compliance. However, there also appears to be a consensus that the article should not be run at TFA, possibly ever, but at least until copyright issues in related articles are cleared. I would hope that interested editors would help TK to clean up these articles. Dana boomer (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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