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User talk:Sphilbrick
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Copyright issue?
If you are coming to open a discussion with me because I reverted an edit of yours as a copyright issue, please make sure your post includes a link to the article in question - not just the name of the article, a link. Then read the following:
I typically use an edit summary with "copyright issue re URL", or "cv URL". The URL identifies source material that matches your edit too closely.
Copy Within Wikipedia If you added material to an article which came from an existing article in Wikipedia, it is highly likely that this will be flagged as a potential copyright violation in our CopyPatrol software.
If you followed the best practices at Wikipedia:Copying_within_Wikipedia, you left an edit summary indicating the source, I will mark it as acceptable, and you are probably not reading this message. On the other hand, if you did not identify what you did in an edit summary, then I probably reverted the edit. However, the indicated source URL will not be the Wikipedia article, it will be be some site that copied from Wikipedia. (As a technical point, this is not a false positive because failing to follow best practices means that the attribution requirements have not been followed.) If the edit has been revision deleted, let me know so I can reverse it and you can provide the proper attribution. If it was not revision deleted but simply reverted, feel free to undo my revert, explaining carefully in the edit summary why you are doing so and add the proper attribution.
Other issues There are other reasons why your edit may have been reverted in error. I do a lot of reviews of flagged issues. In 1 to 2% of the cases, I do make a mistake and I'm happy to rectify it. Some sources of errors:
- Source page which has a full copyright notice at the bottom of the page but material within the page is properly licensed. Sometimes that license is buried in the page and sometimes on a separate page.
- Source material that is public domain but not clearly identified as such.
- Source material that is properly licensed but I somehow failed to notice the license
Could you advise me on next steps, please?
Hi Sphilbrick, I hope you don't mind me reaching out. I saw you listed on the recently active admins page and wanted to ask an Admin about a situation involving a BLP article. Turns out the article has a Connecticut connection, too.
There was recently a confirmed SPI investigation which found that two editors, who had been editing the same article, were likely the same person. The main account has received a one-week ban; the sock account is indefinitely banned.
The main account never disclosed a potential conflict of interest, despite being being prompted to do so, while the sock account had explicitly declared a COI on the article. Question: if a sock declares a COI, and another is found to be a puppet master, do we proceed with COI again, or is "Actual" at that stage?
The situation is complicated by the fact that, prior to the sockpuppets being uncovered, an admin had semi-protected the article due to a contested consensus, which I now believe was an artificial dispute manufactured by the same person editing under two accounts. The admin over-ruled me but did so in good faith after the BLP review request.
I'd appreciate any advice you could offer on the appropriate next steps. Specifically should I go through WP:COICOIN or is it already WP:ACTUALCOI? Does this follow through the issue of "consensus"? I don't want to bold when it comes to BLP, and would appreciate your view.
Many thanks. Mister 2026-22045-80 (talk) 13:31, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
- It was quite reasonable for you to look to the list of active admins. Unfortunately, I qualify for that because I been very active in issues involving copyright, but I have never been active in SPI issues. I did have some interest in COI years ago but I haven't worked in that area recently.
- The reason interesting points that if one editor has declared COI and found to be the same person as another editor doesn't that mean the other editor has a COI? Sounds reasonable but Wikipedia tends to follow a set of rules that bear a strong resemblance to common sense but occasionally have some codified rules that need to be followed. I've never encountered a situation Such as you describe. WP:AN Is the general noticeboard for issues requiring admin interaction but that board strongly encourages starting with more relevant as board if it exists. I haven't had any involvement with Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, that sounds like a decent place to start. Don't hesitate to throw me under the bus if someone complains you are in the wrong place, point out that you reached out to me and while I stopped short of definitively stating that this is the exact right place I did suggest it's a reasonable place to start. Sorry I can't be more helpful. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:19, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
April editathons at Women in Red
January 2020 at Women in Red
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Copyright violations on Chartered Institutes for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity
Thank you for flagging the copyright violation. I agree with the removal. However, there was other content that was removed that did not come from the website you flagged. This included infobox additions, a new section, and other text in the introduction not related to the vision/mission paragraphs.
I have reintroduced these elements onto the page. I will leave mission/vision absent.
COI on my profile. Happy to add elsewhere if needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Reece_at_CIMSPA
- While it may not seem like the right thing to do, it is convention, when identifying a copyright issue, to do a rollback, which sometimes picks up other copyright issues and sometimes picks up inrelated,a nd non-problematic issues. You are always welcome to restore the non-copyright issue edits.
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Ottoman Zeila: Revision history
can i undo and rewrite the little that was copied from a page thank you i will be waiting for your acceptenceSha19999 (talk) 12:48, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- You can't undo it but you are free to write text in your own words.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:51, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
i cant you have to let me undo and rewrite it took me half a day or you could do it Sha19999 (talk) 12:53, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I temporarily removed the revision deletion so you can check to see if anything can be salvaged that is not a copyright violation. Please let me know when you are down so I can restore it. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:15, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Women in Red February 2026
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--Lajmmoore (talk 22:50, 31 January 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Revdel request
Hi there, I saw you deleted Draft:Progress in Physics of Applied Materials for G11. Would you also please delete two revisions (special:diff/1336007660 and special:diff/1336013071) for the same copyrighted material? I believe it was posted there, before being copy/pasted to the now-deleted draft. Thanks in advance. • Quinn (talk) 15:49, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
- As an aside, I find it curious that a journal intended to be an open access journal with licensing for the Journal decided to have full copyright for the website talking about the Journal. I wonder if it was an oversight.
- I think I got them both. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:41, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
RE: Recent edit reversion due to copyright violation
Hello,
Thank you for bring this issue to my attention. Whilst I acknoledge that some portions of text used in my edit of the Perth Cultural Centre article were taken verbatim from the InHerit website (https://inherit.dplh.wa.gov.au/public/inventory/printsinglerecord/52543ad8-fb54-4a35-8e5b-5678895544d7), the majority of my edit was hand written and created from multiple sources, which I cited.
If you could please temporarily undelete my edit so I can view it, I would be happy to re-edit the text to ensure it is in alignment with Wikipedia's copyright policy. In future, I will use an external text editor when making large edits.
Thanks again,
Tigerten23 (talk) 23:24, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
- Done S Philbrick(Talk) 01:41, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks, it's all good now Tigerten23 (talk) 12:24, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Revdel plz?
Hello, I recently asked ScottishFinnishRadish for help with a revdel (my usual go-to), but it appears he is away for the moment. I just saw you revdel another copyvio on another page in my watchlist, and was wondering if you would mind helping with this one also? (copy/pasted from the source they included in the edit). Thank you! - Adolphus79 (talk) 17:32, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
- Done. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:10, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
- I did add some explanatory wording because the original editor did enclosed the material in quotation marks, which can be is an exception to the copyright concerns but in my opinion that wasn't justified in this case. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:17, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
- Yes, I saw your comment on their talk page, and I agree. If it hadn't been a literal copy/paste job, I might have tried to save it myself, but this case was just so blatant (not quoting parts of the source, but just copying the entire content) I felt this was the right decision. Thank you for your help. - Adolphus79 (talk) 18:59, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
- I did add some explanatory wording because the original editor did enclosed the material in quotation marks, which can be is an exception to the copyright concerns but in my opinion that wasn't justified in this case. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:17, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2026
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2026).
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- Due to the result of a recent motion, a rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard may impose an expanded topic ban on Israel, Israelis, Jews, Judaism, Palestine, Palestinians, Islam, and/or Arabs, if an editor's Arab-Israeli conflict topic ban is determined to be insufficient to prevent disruption. At least one diff per area expanded into should be cited.
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Bellum Jugurthinum reversion
Hi Philbrick, Couple questions about the edit reversion. Now I won't deny that the work is uncited and therefore prone to misinterpretation of copyright. However, I was under the impression that the Latin within Bellum Jugurthinum itself cannot be copyright. Happy to be corrected on that. Also for the source listed that conflicts with the edit I made; I've looked at the link and it's not the one I was using(which i've not cited because I was planning on back pedalling after the work was done) or at least it's not the same language, so personal verification is challenging. Bellum Jugurthinum Nomad'ih (talk) 16:39, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
- A couple comments.
- A good edit summary is always helpful. I do see that you did include an edit summary but it started with "SUPER WIP". I was going to state that I didn't know what that stood for but I'm guessing in context it means "work in progress".
- When I first got involved in Wikipedia (2008), it was not uncommon for many editors to use templates indicating that a section was "under construction". That approach was considered acceptable in the early years of Wikipedia but even in 2008 it was being phased out. I'm sure we could find examples of such templates for years after that but more and more editors felt it was not appropriate to identify articles for major sections of articles as being in progress. (There are some rare examples considered acceptable now which might cover very short periods of time, such as major rewrites or complicated merges.)
- Additionally, some leeway might be appropriate for major breaking news but let's face it an article about a document published in 14 BCE is not breaking news, and the notion that one should add a sub-optimal edit with the intention of cleaning it up in a few days doesn't really make sense.
- I hadn't looked at the article in full when I made my reversion but I've glanced at it to some extent and it looks like reasonably decent scholarship, all the more reason that if one wants to add a section it should be added when it's ready for prime time, not shoehorned in with a promise to clean it up later.
- All these words and I haven't yet addressed copyright. Copyright issues involving translated works can be problematic and while I've done a lot of work in the copyright arena, I'll defer to others if my understanding of the very specific rules regarding translations is not solid. Our tool identified a website containing the exact words you were using. I looked at those words, look for some indication that they were acceptably licensed and seeing no such license decided to revert. I'm aware that very old text is usually out of copyright but I think the rules are different for translations of that work. Whatever the case, the edit text should be properly attributed and surrounded by some context, not just a dump of some Latin without much motivation for inclusion.
- I had changed the visibility of your edit to make it not accessible to non-admins but I've changed that. Feel free to work on the section again but I strongly urge you to not just jam something in an promise to clean it up later. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:54, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Request restoration of a previously deleted file version
Greetings. Will you please restore the older version of: File:Poster for the fifth Salon de la Rose+Croix Point Sarluis.jpg? The file was was non-free, but it is now Public Domain. I would like to move it to Commons but it won't let me until the older version is restored. Rockfang (talk) 03:33, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
- Done S Philbrick(Talk) 14:29, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
Copyright violations in Gender pay gap
Dear @Sphilbrick: I believe there has been a mistake. My edition in Gender pay gap: I have used a publicly available article as a reference: which anyone can consult by following the link. It is not the lyrics of a song or a poem, but an academic work that invites debate and is therefore freely accessible. Most articles are published in indexed journals with limited access to paying readers. This is not the case here. According to Wikipedia's copyright policy: "Since most recently created works are protected by copyright, almost all Wikipedia articles that cite their sources include links to copyrighted material. It is not necessary to obtain permission from the copyright holder before including a link to copyrighted material, just as the author of a book does not need permission to cite another person's work in their bibliography." For all these reasons, I kindly request that my edit be restored, as I believe that the rules have been followed and that there is no copyright infringement. Thank you very much for your attention and for your competence in protecting Wikipedia, a public good... DamAzul (talk) 09:09, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
- I'm happy that you reached out to me. Sometimes when a new editor has an edit reverted, I never hear from them again. We can always use new editors to help accomplish the goals of the Wikipedia project.
- Thank you for citing a portion of the Wikipedia copyright policy. You cited the section related to linking which confirms that you do not have to get permission from the copyright holder to link to a source to be used in a citation. However that merely permits you to identify the source of material without getting permission does not in that it's okay to use the content exactly as is.
- Please look at the paragraph immediately above the one you cited. In particular, "Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, so long as you do not follow the source too closely. " (emphasis added)
- Our copyright detection tool found a 98.15% match between the source material in your edit which means it was not written in your own words. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:25, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
- @Sphilbrick, thank you very much for your reply. I will try to rephrase it... Is it possible to access that copyright detection tool? It would be very useful for my relationship with my students... Thanks again. DamAzul (talk) 09:19, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
- The tool can be found here:
- https://copypatrol.wmcloud.org/en
- However it is not structured as a tool that can be applied by you to existing articles are text. It runs in the background. I don't know the exact rules but my speculation based on observation is that it looks at all new edits or perhaps all edits meeting some criteria, and looks for comparisons to existing texts. He does not have the ability to identify if match text is out of copyright or otherwise acceptable, so it simply reports the match and then human editors like myself look at the comparison and determine next steps. S Philbrick(Talk) 17:16, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
- @Sphilbrick, thank you very much for your reply. I will try to rephrase it... Is it possible to access that copyright detection tool? It would be very useful for my relationship with my students... Thanks again. DamAzul (talk) 09:19, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
Bill Ackman
Hi Sphilbrick. I found your name at WP:WREQ - I'm looking for a responsible, uninvolved editor to implement consensus at Talk:Bill Ackman#Support of Israel section. The Gnome expressed concern that he is too involved to implement his own version of my initial proposal, which another editor wrote was "reasonable enough." Would you mind stepping in here? Thank you, FMatPSCM (talk) 15:12, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
- I added my name to that list when I was much more active as a general editor. In recent years I've wound down and do little more than copyright issues. I'm trying to ramp back up a little bit but I don't have the bandwidth for this, sorry. (I removed my name from the list.) S Philbrick(Talk) 16:33, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Listing for discussion of Template:WBB player statistics legend
Template:WBB player statistics legend has been listed for discussion, which may result in the template being merged or deleted by consensus. You are invited to comment on the proposed action at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. SportsGuy789 (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Women in Red - March 2026
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Trelewis Platform
Hi, HaydnMillerUK here, just wondering why the article I made is still named as a draft. You messaged me about copyright but didn't tell me which page it was so I'm assuming its the Trelewis Platform page. Please get back to me about the steps to making the page ive been working on so it can be published as an article and not a draft, cheers. HaydnMillerUK (talk) 00:26, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry, I have no involvement in the process to convert from draft to article. The best thing to do is to visit the teahouse.
- Experienced editors willing to help new editors hang out at the teahouse, where questions like this are answered:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions S Philbrick(Talk) 00:40, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2026
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- Following an RfC, the web archival service archive.today has been deprecated; links to the site should be removed.
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Protect
Please protect User talk:Psiĥedelisto thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 12:47, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- I don't understand. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:48, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- It's Fredrick Brennan's account, he died in January so there is no need for people to contact him. The guy behind 8chan. He is internet (in)famous so dumb people show up on his talkpage. Thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry, I know nothing about this. I'm curious why you contacted me — is there some reason you think I'm involved. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:57, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- WP:ANI got this nice recently active admin tool near the top. You happened to be at the top of the list. I don't think you have to watch the Q Into the Storm documentary and listen to all the QAA Podcast podcasts to get every single detail.
- Some dude died. Dumb people leave dumb messages on his usertalkpage. If you protect the usertalkpage they can't leave any dumb messages anymore. Polygnotus (talk) 13:00, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Wow, I did not know about that tool. I'll have to check it out. However, 95% of my activity recently copyright issues. I'm trying to keep reading AN ANI and the village pump so I have a clue about what's going on. I am aware that that it's a procedure to protect editors pages when death occurs, but I've never done it and did not feel comfortable I know what steps are to be taken as part of proper investigation. Sorry. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:29, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll ask someone else. Yeah that tool is very useful. The original developer left but it still works fine. Polygnotus (talk) 13:32, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Wow, I did not know about that tool. I'll have to check it out. However, 95% of my activity recently copyright issues. I'm trying to keep reading AN ANI and the village pump so I have a clue about what's going on. I am aware that that it's a procedure to protect editors pages when death occurs, but I've never done it and did not feel comfortable I know what steps are to be taken as part of proper investigation. Sorry. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:29, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry, I know nothing about this. I'm curious why you contacted me — is there some reason you think I'm involved. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:57, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- It's Fredrick Brennan's account, he died in January so there is no need for people to contact him. The guy behind 8chan. He is internet (in)famous so dumb people show up on his talkpage. Thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 73
Issue 73, January–February 2026
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team – 12:05, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
(This message was sent to User:Sphilbrick and is being posted here due to a redirect.)
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- The content of Wikipedia:Writing articles with large language models has been updated following a request for comment. It now prohibits using LLMs to generate content, with exceptions for translation and copy-editing.
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- Following a motion, the GSCASTE extended-confirmed restriction in the Indian military history case has been narrowed. It now applies to caste-related topics in South Asia, and the preemptive protection remedy has been amended accordingly.
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Mel Henke reversion - copyright
If you have a moment to help me improve my reviewing skills. I was just asked to help with reviews of recent changes to wiki articles unrelated to any of my own contributions. One of my first attempts yesterday was to review changes to Mel Henke. I just indicated "citation needed" for the new paragraph. You, with more experience and skills, reverted the changes because of copyright. Good work (I checked out your reference in edit summary). My question: how do you go about finding such infringements (=how do I do a better job of assessing editorial changes to articles I have no connection with)? Thanks for any advice to improve my skills. TanneC (talk) 15:07, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
- The number one issue is to write in your own words. That can be some exceptions, for example, sometimes an article is developed best illustrated by an exact quote from some source, but it has to be reasonably short be identified as a quote using quotation marks or quote blocks and attributed. Another exception is use of material that is in the public domain or acceptably licensed, but in those cases should be attributed. My reversion occurred because you included some text that appeared to be exactly the same as in https://www.spaceagepop.com/henke.htm
- Thanks for asking S Philbrick(Talk) 15:12, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
- I think you missed my point. I did not write (or copy/paste) any of the text in the Mel Henke article. I am just a relatively new disinterested editor, asked (by wikipedia, based on my own edits and corrections) to review potentially questionable edits. I added the "citation needed" template because I sensed something was wrong, but I didn't figure out what it was or how to find what was missing or copied. I understand about not copying and about careful attribution. That's not the issue. Please reread my question, which is "how did you know that there was a copyright problem?" Did you put all or some of the suspicious text into a search term or is there a better way? Thanks again for your guidance. TanneC (talk) 00:25, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- I already explained, I'll try again.
- My reversion occurred because you included some text that appeared to be exactly the same as in https://www.spaceagepop.com/henke.htm
- Can you explain how that happened? S Philbrick(Talk) 00:38, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- What makes you say that I was the one who added the "text that appeared to be exactly the same as in https://www.spaceagepop.com/henke.htm " I don't know how to be more clear: I did not do that. The editor who did that is: 2026-21670-49. That's not me. So, no, I cannot explain how that happened, other than to say that 2026-21670-49 copied directly from another website. NOT I. TanneC (talk) 02:19, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- My bad you are correct. I revert dozens of these every week and typically my reversion is immediately after the addition of material, so create a response and send it to the most recent editor but in this case you made an edit after the addition I accidentally sent the notification to the wrong editor. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:51, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- I'd like to expand on my prior answer. Whenever we detect a copyright violation, we want to remove the text subject to copy right. While one might imagine that this could be done in the surgical way, that's not the way it's done for several reasons. Editorially, removing only the problematic text leaves a hole, which must be repaired so that the remaining text flows properly. That's not a trivial undertaking, and it is much easier to revert to earlier version before the problem was introduced. A second reason is that we don't want to be problems in the history, because while most people are going to be reading the most recent version of an article, the software is designed so that one can make references to earlier versions of an article, including version that might have a copyright problem. For this reason we want to, not just remove the problem, but perform a revision deletion, so that versions in the history containing the problem are no longer accessible.
- This is potentially very tricky when there are edits following the introduction of a copyright problem. Repairing such problems years four months after it's detected can be extremely tricky editing. It's much more straightforward when it is caught soon after the introduction. Our copy patrol to identifies potential problems almost in real time, and volunteers review them sometimes, within minutes, and in most cases the problematic edit is the most recent edit. In such cases, reversion to the version prior to the introduction of the problem is fairly straightforward.
- If, however, a substantial edit occurs after the introduction of a problem more care must be taken. If the most recent edit is totally unrelated to the problematic edit, it can be set aside, and we added after the cleanup. In many cases, the most recent edit is an edit to the problematic material for doesn't matter if it's reverted. In other cases, it's a minor edit and not worth the effort to analyze examine and reintroduce. I noticed that your edit had an edit summary about punctuation, so I concluded without investigating that it was not worth the effort to investigate and get a complete reversion including your edit. I did make the mistake of sending the notification to the most recent editor which I have apologized.
- If your question is about what was wrong your edit which was swept up in the reversion I haven't even looked, and it is likely there are no issues.
- If you are wondering why you don't simply examine your edit, it was taken away as part of the revision deletion. It is technically possible to restore it to look at it but that's a fair bit of work. It's highly likely your edit was perfectly fine. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:31, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- You are so gracious to spend time explaining some of the issues involved with reversions and potential consequences. Thank you; you're a good teacher, and I'm now a more aware editor (though I've never reverted anyone's work, I understand how it can happen and what repercussions might result).
- My quick review of the Mel Henke article led to two changes: 1) (perhaps important) addition of the "citation needed" template for the paragraph lifted from another website (my only question to you was: how did YOU know or determine that it was lifted? – I only knew that something wasn't quite right) and 2) (very minor) change of two hyphens to an en dash in that problematic paragraph (now gone) – thus my editorial summary of "punctuation."
- Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my questions. TanneC (talk) 14:15, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- I see that I still haven't responded to one of your questions.
- We have a tool called copy patrol. https://copypatrol.wmcloud.org/en
- That tool looks at every single edit (I think, it's possible it skips over edits involving only a few characters). It looks at the added text, and then uses a tool called Turnitin, which I believe was originally developed to help teachers check for potential plagiarism. That tool searches to see if some subset of the added text matches something written elsewhere. If it does, it adds an entry to copy patrol. That entry requires human review, because the reason the text matches might not be a copyright issue. For example, if the added text was part of a quote, it will of course match exactly but quotes of limited length are exceptions to copyright laws. The text might match exactly but the copied text might be in the public domain or acceptably licensed. There are other legitimate reasons as well, many of which are not trivially subject to an algorithm which could indicate the added material is acceptable, so volunteers like myself review the report to determine whether the match is acceptable or requires reversion. We get several hundred of these reports every week, and there are less than a dozen active volunteers reviewing them. In fact, the single most active volunteer is dealing with some real life issues, so others are trying to step up, but that does mean we sometimes spend less time than we might like on any particular issue. The good news is that the very concept of a the wiki software means that if I make an assessment and it's wrong, it doesn't take long to reverse it. S Philbrick(Talk) 15:37, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- What makes you say that I was the one who added the "text that appeared to be exactly the same as in https://www.spaceagepop.com/henke.htm " I don't know how to be more clear: I did not do that. The editor who did that is: 2026-21670-49. That's not me. So, no, I cannot explain how that happened, other than to say that 2026-21670-49 copied directly from another website. NOT I. TanneC (talk) 02:19, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
- I think you missed my point. I did not write (or copy/paste) any of the text in the Mel Henke article. I am just a relatively new disinterested editor, asked (by wikipedia, based on my own edits and corrections) to review potentially questionable edits. I added the "citation needed" template because I sensed something was wrong, but I didn't figure out what it was or how to find what was missing or copied. I understand about not copying and about careful attribution. That's not the issue. Please reread my question, which is "how did you know that there was a copyright problem?" Did you put all or some of the suspicious text into a search term or is there a better way? Thanks again for your guidance. TanneC (talk) 00:25, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Politician's website not public domain?
Is a politician's website not a public news release not in the public domain?
A page I created was deleted based on a copyright issue. The page's content sourced only the politician's campaign website. KnRqxR (talk) 21:35, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
- Typically no. There might be counterexamples but I don't believe I've ever seen one. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:39, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
- What is a politicians website if not public domain?
- Will you point me to the definitions you are using for both? KnRqxR (talk) 21:53, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain S Philbrick(Talk) 21:54, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Destubathon of the Americas
You are invited to participate in the Destubathon of the Americas, a contest/editathon which will run from May 1 to May 31. The goal is to destub as many of our 475,000+ stubs for the Americas (from Alaska down to Chile) as possible. A good chance to have fun in expanding many of our old stale stubs and win up to £2000 ($2680) in Amazon vouchers for expanding stub articles. Sign up in the Contestants/participants section on the contest page if interested. Even if not interested in prizes you are still warmly welcome to participate in it as an editathon! Hopefully we can achieve something significant in the month of May together! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:35, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Curzon Ashton F.C. Logo 2018.png
Thanks for uploading File:Curzon Ashton F.C. Logo 2018.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of non-free use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:48, 26 April 2026 (UTC)
- Got it S Philbrick(Talk) 00:50, 27 April 2026 (UTC)
Women in Red – May 2026
Announcements from other communities:
Tip of the month:
Other ways to participate:
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--Chocmilk03 (talk) 04:50, 30 April 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Administrators' newsletter – May 2026
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2026).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversight changes
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
- Changes to user permissions made from Meta are now included in the local user permissions log (T6055).
- The autoconfirmed user group will soon be modified such that the four-day account age requirement begins when an account makes its first edit (T418484).
Arbitration
- The arbitration case SchroCat has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 15 April.
- Per a recent motion, appeals of blocks from the conflict-of-interest VRT queue are, by default, appealed on-wiki through the normal unblock process. However, they may be heard by the Committee if COIVRTers disagree on the interpretation of the evidence or believe ArbCom would be better suited to hear the appeal. Administrators are also advised that loosening or lifting such blocks without the consent of someone with access to the queue or ArbCom can be grounds for desysopping.
- Per a recent motion, restrictions issued directly by the Committee may now be enforced with blocks which work exactly like contentious topic blocks.
- The arbitration case Maghreb has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- The May 2026 administrator elections are scheduled to run from April 29 to May 19. The call for candidates ends May 5.
- The 2026 Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is scheduled to run from April 25 to June 1. Candidacy submissions close on May 10.
- A new noticeboard for non-urgent, batch page protection requests has been created, primarily for the enforcement of contentious topic restrictions.
Draft South Africa National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy 2026
@Sphilbrick:, thanks for the patrol and copyright notice left on the above page revision history. I accept that my summary of the “Core Pillars” section of the draft policy is very close to the page cited. This does not surprise me as the policy itself is in public domain and the law firm summarized the core policies themselves. I am actually surprised that they can claim copy right on this. But I am willing to work on that section. Would it be ok to put back the rest of the sections? For example the Reaction and Critique sections do not appear in the url page cited when reverting. Looking forward to helpful pointers on how to fix the errors. —-Thuvack | talk 20:46, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I run into many situations where someone uses some public domain texts and then slaps a copyright notice on the bottom of the page.
- One option is to put the core pillars information in a block quote, so we don't even have to deal with the whether it's subject to copyright or not as long as it's not too long.
- Yes feel free to restore anything else that wasn't part of the identify problematic material. It would be nice if we could use a scalpel but with only a handful of volunteers dealing with hundreds of reports we have to resort to a bit of a meat ax at times. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:11, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
- Understood and I do sympathize with your work loads and yes the tools could be better (But still better than what I have on my small language wiki as an admin). Thank you for the suggestion on using block quote. I will re instate the other sections gradually while I work on a more neutral summary of the core pillars section.—-Thuvack | talk 21:44, 15 May 2026 (UTC)