Talk:Ein Avdat/GA2

GA Reassessment

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As the template is insisting I substitute it even though I copied it directly from usage, I'm bystepping the unnecessary red tape and just explaining that this article has been delisted. The article contained extensive content duplicated from previously published sources with no indication of compatible license. No rewrite was proposed within the listing period at the copyright problems board, no efforts have evidently been made to verify permission, and the article has been stubbed accordingly. Any contributor interested in the article is welcome to rebuild it without copyright problems. Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article appears to have copyright violations with text taken verbatim from this website [1]. Here's the relevant Duplicate Detector: [2]. Some examples of text copied verbatim:

Article: The springs in Ein Avdat emerge from between horizontal layers of rocks, although the source of the water is still not known definitely. The current theory is that the springs come from flash flood water that has seeped down through the stream's bed gravel

Source: The springs in the Ein Avdat canyon emerge from between horizontal layers of rocks. The source of the water is still not known definitely. The region is arid, and during rainfall the runoff does not infiltrate, but drains away along the wadis. The current theory is that the springs come from flash flood water that has seeped down through the stream bed gravel.

Article: During the Hellenistic period the nearby city of Avdat became a station along the Nabatean Incense Route, an ancient trading route stretching across Egypt to India through the Arabian Peninsula. Other regions in the Negev were not inhabited and there was no agriculture at the time. (...) At this time the forts of the Incense Route became thriving cities with many public buildings along with farming at the outskirts,

Source: During the Hellenistic period, the nearby city of Avdat became a station along the Nabatean Spice route. Other regions in the Negev were not inhabited and there was no agriculture at the time. Between 37 B.C.E. and 70 C.E., the Nabatean Empire peaked as the forts of the Spice route became thriving cities with many public buildings along with farming at the outskirts.

Article: The place became easily accessible in the 1950s, after the establishment of the kibbutz Sde Boker in 1952, and the construction of Highway 40 leading to Eilat. The trail going through the canyon was constructed in 1956 and is now a part of the Israel National Trail, a hiking path that crosses the entire country of Israel.

Source: The place became easily accessible in the 1950s, after the establishment of the kibbutz Sdeh Boker and the road to Eilat. The trail going through it was constructed in 1956, and now it is the part of Israel National Trail.'

Article: In the area there is also a large concentration of flint tool remnants, samples of man-made knives and other hand held stones that is dating from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, and remains of a small settlement consisting of several round structures dating from the Bronze Age.

Source: By the head of nearby Ma'ale Divshon is a large concentration of flint tool remnants and samples of man-made knives and other hand held stones. The tools date to the Paleolithic end Mesolithic periods (60,000-10,000 years ago). Between Ein Avdat and Ein Mor, on a small hill in the canyon, there are remains of a small settlement consisting of several round structures from the Mid-Bronze I.

and so on. The source website lists Aviva Bar-Am, Israel Shalem, "Israel's Southern Landscapes" and Joel Roskin, Waterwalks in Israel: 40 new one-day walks and hikes as sources. The first one is a 1995 publication [3] so I'm assuming it's copyrighted. The second is from Jerusalem Post, 2000 [4]. The Wayback Machine indicates that the website predates (at least from Dec 2000 [5]) the text being added to the Wikipedia article (Jan 2009 [6]).

This is the only external source I checked but there seems to be a bit of copying also from here [7] (note that some of the text on that website overlaps with the other source) and here [8] (at first glance looks like a good bit). I have not checked the other sources in the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I am not sure I understand the problem. The dup detector compared it to http://mosaic.lk.net/g-einavdat.html#geog, but the article cites that as the source multiple times, so why is that not okay? BollyJeff || talk 18:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's a verbatim copy paste from a copyrighted source? Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So everything must be sourced, but you can't say exactly what's in the source. That's a fine line. How many ways can you really say "was formed only 80 000 years ago" without saying exactly "was formed only 80 000 years ago"? Should the author say 79,900 years instead? Can you recommend a WP:xx page that explains using sources that the author, and myself can read? BollyJeff || talk 19:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copying verbatim The springs in the Ein Avdat canyon emerge from between horizontal layers of rocks. The source of the water is still not known definitely. The region is arid, and during rainfall the runoff does not infiltrate, but drains away along the wadis. The current theory is that the springs come from flash flood water that has seeped down through the stream bed gravel. (and a bunch of other stuff) is a bit different than not paraphrasing was formed only 80 000 years ago.

See [9] [10] [11]. And this one's an essay, but as someone pointed out recently, it's an essay which describes a policy [12].Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer Marek is right: you must write in your own words. We take information from sources, but we do not take sentences from sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I did the original GAN assessment in February 2009 (see Talk:Ein Avdat/GA1). At that time, there were "problems" due to conflicting statements, "gaps" in information and lack of sources, which were all addressed during the review to my statisfaction, so I awarded GA-status. I did not comment on, nor pick up any copyright violations. The correspondance above highlights various direct correspondances between what is written in this article and what appears on various websites; and there are strong indications that the information on the Mosaic website predates the wiki article. However, I have not yet found any copyright or licencing statements on the Mosaic web site, so yes this article does appear to have verbatium copies of lines of text, but breach of copyright is not yet established. Removing the lines of text that appears to breach copyright would appear to make the article non-compliant with WP:WIAGA. Copyright is not my speciality, if a knowledgable editor is able to state that there are copyvio's (i.e. the lack of licencing and/or copyright statements on the Mosaic website) then the affending texts will need to be removed from this article and I will not raise any objections to GA-status being removed from this article. Pyrotec (talk) 18:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The mosaic website does list the references on which its text is based, Aviva Bar-Am, Israel Shalem, "Israel's Southern Landscapes" Joel Roskin, "Waterwalks in Israel: 40 new one-day walks and hikes", both of which are copyrighted.

Also see WP:Copy-paste:

"In 99.9% of cases, you may not copy-paste text from other sources into Wikipedia (short quotations aside), because it would violate copyright and/or constitute plagiarism."

and more specifically: "There are very few websites (and other sources) from which text can be copy-pasted without violating copyright – cases where the text is in the public domain or uses a Wikipedia-compatible license. (Even then, you have to acknowledge that you are copying; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism.) Copyright does not need to be asserted – if the source says nothing about licensing or copyright, you must treat it as copyrighted.".

And "As a general rule, DO NOT COPY-PASTE TEXT FROM OTHER WEBSITES. This includes...Websites without a copyright notice. If a work does not have a copyright notice, that does not mean that it may be freely used: if in doubt, assume you cannot use it." (with a footnote which explains that works without assertion of copyright also fall under copyright).Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well I did not write the article: and I'm no expert on copyvio, if and when it is necessary I go to User:Moonriddengirl for advice. It's your review: it you wish to claim copyright violations then its up to you to do something about it. There are mandatory procedures in wikipedia for copyright violation, but you have not yet implemented then in respect of this article. It appears that the sources used in this article are acknowledged via the citations, so it might not be plagiarism (but direct quotes should be placed in "quotation marks" to avoid any claims of plagiarism): but it may well be copyright violation. You are also possibly creating a circular arguement. If I read it correctly, your argument is that "the article has verbatium lines of text that are taken from the web site that originate in copyrighted sources referenced by the website". Well in that case, does not the website also violate the copyright of those sources, since I've seen no mention that copyright material exists on the website or that copyright material is being used with permission of the copyright owner(s)? That is not a "road I particularly wish to go down", but it appears to be a logical conclusion of your statements above. Pyrotec (talk) 19:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also responded to your attack at User talk:SandyGeorgia#Misallocation of effort. Pyrotec (talk) 22:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, what "attack" are you talking about? Pointing out that the article has copyvios in it? And I didn't even bring up your name until you commented here, and then only to point out the relevant portions of Wikipedia's copyright policies. And BTW, I don't think I had even REALIZED that you also did the GA review for Lajjun until just now, when you mentioned this fact on Sandy's page.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – I support the immediate delisting of the article based on these findings, but please put back the article as it was without the copyvios. Even without them it's a decent article that shouldn't be blanked like that. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 10:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.