Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John A. Hilger/1

John A. Hilger

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.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted per unfixed close paraphrasing (see RoySmith's comment below). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:32, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Extensive copyvios. Earwig reports substantial exact matches from http://www.veterantributes.org/ and https://www.tshaonline.org/. This was noted on the article talk page last May, and it looks like somebody did some "cleanup" which consisted of minor edits to change exact matches into close paraphrases, so the actual extent of the problem is far worse than a naive reading of the Earwig report would lead you to believe.

Talk:John A. Hilger/GA1 has no discussion of the copyvio issue, which leads me to wonder if it was examined at all. Either the review did not include a scan for copyvio problems, or it did and the level of problem found was considered acceptable. It is unclear which alternative is more disturbing. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:32, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Definite close paraphrasing issues: Hilger enrolled at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in September 1926 pulled pretty much straight from the source as well as an air assault on an enemy stronghold near Sinuiju, North Korea, (both the copyrighted TSHA source), and concerns with the other source as well (although some of what Earwig flags is just really long proper names that can't be rephrased as it's the name of an organization). Looks like a expedited delist to me. Hog Farm _Talk 00:44, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I have to put my hand up as the GA reviewer, I was so focused on assessing other obvious issues that I identified, including source reliability, that I overlooked the copyright problem. That said, as HogFarm has noted, a lot of the overlap is in unit names/job titles and there is limited ability to alleviate this since copyright is around the expression of information, rather than the information itself. Zawed (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I have eliminated much. The rest is long titles and military jargon which cannot be removed. Bruxton (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

There is certainly going to be a lot of Earwig hits from things like "Operational Training Unit Bomb Group"; that's the name of a unit and clearly shouldn't be changed. But I understand that and that's not the problem. @Hog Farm gave one example above. Here's some other examples from the revision that passed the GA review:

• "In Chungking on April 30, Madame Chiang Kai-shek presented medals and posed for pictures with Doolittle, Hilger, and other crew members."
• "On April 30, in Chungking, Hilger, Doolittle and other crew members were decorated by Madame Chiang Kai-shek."

Earwig doesn't say anything about that, but it's clearly a sentence that was copied and then the word order shuffled around a bit to make it not show up in an automated scan.

• "Running low on fuel due to the early launch of the raid, the sixteen bombers failed to reach any of the designated safety zones in China. Although one aircraft and its crew landed in the Soviet Union and was taken prisoner, the crews in the fifteen other B-25s were forced to bail out of their planes before they crashed. In bailing out of his aircraft, Hilger was jolted from the opening of his parachute and suffered some sprains and minor injuries. Crew fourteen survived the ordeal. Of the eighty airmen that made up the Doolittle Raiders, the majority were rescued by friendly Chinese."
• ". Running low on fuel due to the early launch of the raid, the B-25s failed to reach any of the designated safety zones in China. Hilger and his crew bailed out over the city of Shangrao in Jiangxi Province, China. While bailing out of his aircraft, Hilger was jolted from the opening of his parachute and suffered some sprains and minor injuries. He and his crew linked up after the bailout and were helped through Japanese lines by Chinese guerrillas and civilians"

Earwig flagged bits and pieces of that, but between the bits Earwig flagged, there's more which is clearly copied and shuffled around a bit.

• "In retirement, Hilger accepted a position with the Atomic Energy Commission and lived for a time in Las Vegas, Nevada. In early 1982 he returned to Texas to live at the Air Force Village in San Antonio. On February 3, 1982, Brig. Gen. John Allen Hilger died at the age of seventy-three at Lackland Air Force Base. In accordance with his wishes, Hilger was cremated and his ashes scattered off the coast of Newport Beach, California, in the Pacific Ocean."
• "After his retirement from the military, Hilger served with the United States Atomic Energy Commission and lived for a time in Las Vegas, Nevada. In early 1982, after his full retirement, he settled at the Air Force Village in San Antonio, Texas. Hilger died on February 3, 1982, at the age of 73. In accordance to his wishes, his body was cremated and ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Newport Beach, California."

Again, bits and pieces noted by Earwig, but in between those bits and pieces are more text that's just the original source text warmed over and rearranged into two paragraphs instead of the original one. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I tried my best to make sure that the article did not suffer from copyright issues by paraphrasing the lines and information without from the source website. I paraphrased to make sure all the information was included especially all his military positions in order to pass GA-article status. I will try to reedit the mentioned paragraphs and any required editing so that it won't encounter any copyvio issues. Toadboy123 (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Toadboy123 before you do that, I suggest reading Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing#Substantial similarity. -- RoySmith (talk) 04:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I will read it and hopefully it will contribute to my understanding regarding close paraphrasing. Toadboy123 (talk) 05:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Regarding, "I paraphrased to make sure all the information was included especially all his military positions in order to pass GA-article status.", I should point out that "including all the information" is not a GA criteria. Wikipedia:Good article criteria says:

• Broad in its coverage:
  • it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
  • it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

If you're trying to include every assignment, every promotion, every posting, every available facet of his private life, that's going beyond the "main aspects", and may well be treading on "unnecessary detail". This is specifically called out in the explanatory note to WP:GACR: The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. It allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:34, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

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.