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Template:Did you know nominations/African Wildlife Foundation

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:11, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

African Wildlife Foundation

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West African Giraffes near Kouré, Niger

Created/expanded by Aymatth2 (talk). Self nom at 16:26, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  • There are possible problems with Close paraphrasing in this article. As an example here from ref#43 is "chimpanzees golden monkeys forest elephants and a rich variety of birds reptiles and amphibians" in the source and "chimpanzees golden monkeys forest elephants and many species of birds reptiles and amphibians" in the article. There are many more like that and I have only checked a few of the sources. Further, the USAID source has been copied extensively, providing seven large chunks of text, amounting to several hundred words. Presumably this is a Public Domain source, but I think that use of such large amounts of verbatim text is at least discouraged. Mikenorton (talk) 22:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
The USAID sources are public domain, as is common with US government agencies. See this FAQ and the cited pages. Inclusion of content from these sources is noted at the foot of the article. Much of it is well written, so there seemed no reason to paraphrase. This material provides 10%-15% of the article. It could be replaced with material from other sources, but I think USAID a good reliable independent source. I worked through all the other sources using the duplication detector, and am confident there are no significant problems. Some lists (mere facts) will be much the same, as in the example quoted. There is no reason to re-sequence them. Are there any specific examples where the article seems to violate copyright that should be fixed? Aymatth2 (talk) 22:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough about the USAID source, although I know there have been discussions here in the past about the use of PD sources, although I don't remember the outcome. I've changed the symbol to a question rather than a potential delete as I was perhaps being over cautious here, I take your point about lists of facts. I'm going to be out of internet contact for a few days, so perhaps someone else could give their view. Mikenorton (talk) 11:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Hook: Image seems fine. Interesting. The wording should be changed to "some pictured" as I doubt there are only 3 animals left in the entire species.
Article: Long enough, new enough. Well referenced. Removal of the content from USAID would leave more than 1500 characters, so it's okay. Paraphrasing (checks 1, 2, and 3) seems fine, with almost all near matches the names of the companies or places.
Summary: Good to go! Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Verbatim copying of government sources is still verbatim copying, even if not legally copyright violation. See Duplication Detector report. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

That's irrelevant: we have never prohibited copying text that is verifiably in the public domain. There's no way that it could be a copyright violation if it's legal. Nyttend (talk) 03:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Please don't cross out my comment. You'll notice I specifically said it was not a copyright violation. However, given that it does not use quotation marks or otherwise indicated that the material is copied verbatim, it's still plagiarism. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Wrong: plagiarism is uncited copying from a source. And yes, I observed your final clause; your first clause is meaningless if there are no legal problems with the text. Nyttend (talk) 03:53, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
No, that is one example of plagiarism, but not the only one possible. I fail to see how it is meaningless, although I'll admit it's a truism. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • With all due respect to Nikkimaria, isn't the policy/guideline that PD text and images are fine for use on Wikipedia? The DYK rules also do not say that articles containing PD text are illegible. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:13, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • As I noted above when doing the review, new content excluding USAID would be over 1500 characters, so in my opinion in meets the length guidelines for that part. Of course, if others disagree then so be it; the nominator should paraphrase the information from USAID. Has s/he been contacted? Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • "Articles containg PD text are illegible"? Why should we have to ask if the nominator is aware of the nominator's own nomination page? Anyway, it has never made sense to me that a reviewer can't easily refer to the criteria-- I've made this point 1e so it can be more easily referenced on review. A simple solution for the nominator is to quote the PD portion so we're not in the embarassing position of running a copy-paste from public domain on our main page (by definition, PD copy-pastes can't be Featured articles because Featured articles are supposed to e "Wikipedia's best work", which can't be cut-and-paste, and we shouldn't be highlighting someone else's work on the mainpage, even if it's legal). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, Sandy, you guys had several FAs (particularly articles about ships) that were mostly made up of copy-pasted PD material. What's more, a couple years ago when I opened an FAR on one to try to get it delisted, I had to endure a lot opposition from several FAC regulars. (Ultimately it was delisted anyway.) I am not trying to say this article should pass DYK (actually I would prefer not to express an opinion on this issue); I just wanted to point out that the FA criteria are not necessarily any more strict than DYK in this regard. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Not so currently, but that's not a discussion for this page-- I've responded on the thread at WT:DYK referenced by Crisco below, here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I had no idea this was controversial, since the USAID content was just a small part of the article, seemed quite well-written and complied with policy. But I have yanked it out. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
    Aymatth2: there was no need for removing that text - it is absolutely valid to use attributed PD texts, and DYK expansions are counted by substracting such copy/pastes. There is also no need for quotes, per WP:QUOTE: For free or public domain material do not use quote marks but the text must be attributed and given a footnote. The only concern is WP:PLAGIARISM contains an advice: if the text taken does not form the entire article, specifically mention the section requiring attribution. Thus if someone had adjusted the attribution template (or pointed to this note in the policy), I believe the issue would be easily resolved. Materialscientist (talk) 23:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • And as I noted above, even without the USAID text it meets the guidelines. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Maybe in theory the public domain text could have been kept, but the article was too long-winded anyway. It still is, but not quite as bad. I put it in for DYK because I liked the picture with the three giraffes more than because I thought the project specifics would interest people much. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
@Crisco/MS: it's not the "length -PD text" that's an issue here. Per the criteria linked by Cunard above: "Nominations should be original work (not inclusions of free data sources)". In any event, assuming the problem has been addressed then there is no longer an issue here (although I haven't rechecked). Nikkimaria (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I disagree with an overly strict interpretation of the letter of the rule. In an extreme example, by interpreting the rule by the letter a 20,000 character article could be discarded for using a single PD sentence. That's against the spirit of the rule. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
@Nikkimaria: in the past, we did allow PD-based articles, though they were not appreciated by some, and thus this rule was introduced. There is a good reason not to interpret it your way - we want better content, if it is achieved by proper use of PD texts - fine. We do not want editors to play silly games of removing the PD section so that the article passes the DYK check and then re-adding it after (this trick doesn't work if the whole article is PD, which we disallow). Materialscientist (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • To recheck the main USAID source, click on the link you added to the duplication detector (see above). For a more thorough check, compare the article to all 40+ sources. I did that before submitting. It takes about 20 minutes. I try to paraphrase, but when proofing later may see an awkward sentence and fix it, accidentally reverting to the original. So I generally recheck. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:42, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • And the result means...we're good to go or do we do...what? can anyone familiar with this nom comment? Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
  • The objection by user:Nikkimaria to including public domain material has been addressed by removing it all. As nominator and the one that did the pruning, I speak with authority. The question of whether this would be interesting to a wide audience remains open. Nice picture though. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
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