Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Help desk/Archive 1 (section)

== Rude to delete? ==

Hello again everyone.

I've been wandering around the site for the last couple of days, mostly contributing photographs and correcting the occasional typo. Now I'd like to make my first textual contribution to the Wikipedia.

I'd like to extend the entry on [[Ko Samui]] and add one on the [[Ang Thong National Marine Park]]. I notice that the current entry on [[Ko Samui]] is almost verbatim copied from [http://www.kohsamui.org/samui.html here] (although I have no idea if this constitutes a copyright violation, as the two authors might well be the same person, or have permission) and I was wondering if it would be rude to delete this text and start it again from scratch.

Thanks! [[User:OwlofDoom|OwlofDoom]] 09:35, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

:Here's my personal opinion: yes, it is rude to outright delete a text, unless you leave some kind of note of explanation or justification on the talk page for that article. Friendlier to try and work with what is already up there, if you can, and to improve it. I would also hope that, should you choose to delete the text, the text you submit to replace it will be in some way better than what was there before: more accurate, more comprehensive, more encyclopedic, and/or clearly better written. --[[User:Woggly|Woggly]] 11:12, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

::Eek!  Your advice is quite right if the content isn't someone else's copyright, but if it is then we need to be super-careful - reworking isn't an option (see excessively long answer below). -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 11:36, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

:You're right to bring this up, and handling situations like this can be a delicate one.  If something really is a violation of another site's copyright then that's not something we can safely ignore (they could, after all, sue us).  So what I suggest you do in such circumstances is:
:#check that it really is the same content (sounds like you've done that)
:#check the remote party isn't crediting wikipedia (there's lots of mirrors and copies)
:#check its not mentioned on one of the pages linked to from [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]] (low, medium, high, undetermined) - some sites mirror wikipedia but "forget" to mention the fact (bad bad bad)
:#look through the edit history of the page, and see who contributed the suspicious content.  If it's a signed-in user, check to see if they're still active (many aren't) and see if the text was built slowly up (which suggests it was authored here) or was just dumped, in finished format, by someone.  Mostly anons and very new users are responsible for such dumps - more seasoned contributors know better (but equally some people write whole articles offline and upload them in a one-er, so a good article appearing wholesale isn't evidence, just indication).  If you're suspicious, leave a message on the talk page.
:#if your figure it's quite likely that the text is a copyright violation ("copyvio"), list it on [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems]] and follow the procedure noted there.
:Note that you ''shouldn't'' blank the violating text and start writing your new version - the potential violation is still in the edit history (which may be a legal problem in itself) and someone could accuse your new version of being a derivative work of the old one (even if it isn't).  Better to make a whole new article at a temp page (as the copyvio page describes) which can be substituted for the violating page if the original is indeed a violation. -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 11:34, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

::Hello again. It's not really the copyright violation I was concerned about. I was more concerned that it was difficult to expand the article without completely rewording what was already there. In my current draft, all the information from the original article is there, but none of the original author's words. Is this considered bad etiquette? The article was really a stub, but didn't carry a msg:stub tag. -- [[User:OwlofDoom|OwlofDoom]] 12:09, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

:::Thanks for doing the copyvio paperwork.  Your new version is (rather obviously) vastly superior.  It always pays to be delicate about making large changes - I confess I sometimes do things incrementally, adding details between existing stuff, then rewording existing stuff, then eventually zapping it.  I try to do this with a (utterly fake: I'm a genius) touch of humility (i.e. not making the change comment something crass like "overwrite third-rate crap with real quality work" or anything dumb like that).  No-one has complained yet (sukkas). -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 00:32, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

::Addendum: I've just checked and the content was originally contributed without wiki markup (except the link to the website which also displays this content) by a logged out user (213.114.144.224). The wiki markup was added three mins later by [[User:Evil saltine]]. -- [[User:OwlofDoom|OwlofDoom]] 12:18, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

:::That's a common signature of someone ignorant of our copyright policy thinking they're doing us a favour by adding stuff, even if they shouldn't add ''that'' stuff. Saltine is one of those Recent Changes junkies of whom we spoke. -- [[User:Finlay McWalter|Finlay McWalter]] | [[User talk:Finlay McWalter | Talk]] 00:32, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

::::We're not junkies! We can quit whenever we want to! [[User:Meelar|Meelar]] 11:50, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)