18:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Rich Smith. This message is part of a mass mailing to people who appear active in reviewing articles for creation submissions. First of all, thank you for taking part in this important work! I'm sorry this message is a form letter – it really was the only way I could think of to covey the issue economically. Of course, this also means that I have not looked to see whether the matter is applicable to you in particular.

The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered.

If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.)

If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Wikipedia to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using {{db-g12|url=URL of source}}. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with {{subst:copyvio|url=URL of source}}.

Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors.

I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC).

       Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

You Have Email!

 
Hello, Rich Smith. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Thanks Lou, replied - RichT|C|E-Mail 15:08, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

19:31, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

17:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 December 2014

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation and please get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.

Views/Day Quality Title Content Headings Images Links Sources Tagged with…
2,645   Developing country (talk)   Add sources
969   Wade Barrett (talk) Add sources
27   Switchin' Kitten (talk)           Add sources
57   Narasapuram, West Godavari (talk)     Add sources
16   Kim Hughes (GC) (talk)         Add sources
1,403   Alberto Del Rio (talk) Add sources
4,449   Harvard University (talk) Cleanup
54   January 2014 Gulf Coast winter storm (talk)         Cleanup
4   Alun Leach-Jones (talk)           Cleanup
8   Performing arts of Australia (talk)       Expand
16   Calypso Cat (talk)           Expand
543   Building material (talk)   Expand
61   Glass brick (talk)         Unencyclopaedic
208   Ian Khama (talk)       Unencyclopaedic
2,914   Wonder Woman (talk) Unencyclopaedic
2,249   Hyderabad (talk) Merge
1,747   Computer data storage (talk)   Merge
919   Computer memory (talk)     Merge
174   Magnetoresistive random-access memory (talk)     Wikify
14   Roof window (talk)           Wikify
1   Giorgos Katsaounis (talk)           Wikify
2   Kings Community School (talk)           Orphan
9   Looney Tunes history (1997–present) (talk)           Orphan
1   2012–13 F91 Dudelange season (talk)         Orphan
3   Montville High School (Connecticut) (talk)           Stub
11   Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone (talk)           Stub
4   Pleasant Valley High School (Jacksonville, Alabama) (talk)           Stub
39   Ice milk (talk)           Stub
81   David Walsh (art collector) (talk)           Stub
26   Dimitris Saravakos (talk)         Stub

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 00:59, 15 December 2014 (UTC)