Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Iowa-class battleship/archive1

Extended discussion of extended discussion

Examination of the FAR and talk page history will show that I've been bold and moved extraneous discussion over to this talk. I then edited the sub-thread on the FAR page to what I considered the minimum necessary - sans accusations or back-and-forth, and what my best minimalist interpretation of the thread tells me to leave in.

I've done my best to defuse and clean up the main discussion page - if anyone disagrees, feel free to change or revert at will, I will not object! Franamax (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Extended discussion of doncram's comments

Comments by doncram
(numbering to allow easier reading; this is really just one comment:)

1. What attracts my attention is the use of DANFS material and the very small text note This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. at the very end of the references section. I think that the incorporation of public domain text into the article, with this small disclaimer, undermines the quality of this otherwise great and obviously well-researched and well-sourced article.
2. There is now only a guideline on plagiarism in draft form, and no explicit policy yet, in wikipedia on this issue. I am one who believes that any appearance of plagiarism is worth taking steps to avoid, and I hope that discussion here will eventually provide more explicit policy for featured and less-refined wikipedia articles. I think it should give specific guidelines that public domain sources should be treated like any other, with the important exception that very long quotes from PD text are possible, unlike for other sources where only shorter passages can be quoted under "fair use" rules.
3. I, and at least some others, believe that "incorporating" public domain text into an article without use of quotation marks and other treatment that is necessary for referencing non-public domain text is not good practice in general, and I further believe that it should be disallowed in featured articles. Although great swathes of wikipedia were built by pasting in public domain texts such as from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, it is also believed by some that there were mistakes in doing that, or that was a different time, and there is sentiment that different practices are needed.
4. One way that it compromises the value of wikipedia articles, that I focus upon, is that it makes others' reliance upon the articles difficult. How is a scholarly work, or a student term paper, supposed to cite a featured wikipedia article, as of a certain date, of mixed sourcing? With the public domain incorporation, it is not correct to cite the collective wikipedia editorship as being the author of some pithy phrase; the phrase may well have been the exact wording of the public domain text that should be credited instead. A conscientious consumer would need to understand the significance of the public domain disclaimer at the bottom of the article, and go and explore all of the DANFS articles mentioned, in order to ferret out how to credit properly any quote from the wikipedia article. This is an unreasonable burden, and it would be costly to try to educate those who would be conscientious of the necessary machinations.
5. Because I have analysed other ship articles, I am in a position to understand the meaning of the fine print notice, and to link that to the occurrences of DANFS mention within specific references further above. Without performing an exhaustive review, I believe that use of DANFS material is located in only a few locations in the article, specifically at the four instances of footnote 30, and the single instances of footnotes 40, 42, 44, 45, and 49. These are 9 instances from 5 footnotes out of a total of 110 footnotes in the article. It is possible that directly copied passages of DANFS material existed at those locations at one time, but have been combed over and revised so much that they are no longer recognizable as DANFS quotes. So it is also possible that only a very little editing would be required to treat the DANFS material like any other source (adding a quote or two of any particularly apt phrases, and rewording some other passages to avoid using DANFS's words).
6. I ask that the wikipedia editor, revising this article, give some consideration to the value of avoiding different treatment of the DANFS source material, and consider revising the article to allow fair removal of the small-print template about DANFS use. doncram (talk) 21:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• I have been reworking some of the references for this article and am not the article creator, nor was I involved in its writing. Given that, I don't know that the {{DANFS}} template is even appropriate on this article. In the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS), there generally are not articles about ship classes, so I'm not sure why the tag is in place. Specific information about each ship in this article is cited to each ship's entry in DANFS.
• With that said, making an accusation of plagiarism is a pretty extreme example of not assuming good faith on your part. If you have specific instances of plagiarism in this article, please list them so they may be corrected. Otherwise, please strike your comment, because it is entirely inappropriate. You and I (and others), have butted heads before over the use of attributed public domain text in Wikipedia. I am aware of your positions on the issue, and believe that they are against the general consensus in the Wikipedia project. Those discussion are best held in appropriate fora, and not here, where we are reviewing the featured status of this article. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• My attention was drawn here by a note at WT:Plagiarism. Ummm, Belhalla, do you have specific instances of "an accusation of plagiarism"? Please list them, or strike your comment. Doncram has simply referenced a nascent page on the specific subject of plagiarism and stated that the appearance of plagiarism is worth taking steps to avoid, then expanded on their concerns vis-a-vis this FAR. Where did the accusation come in? Is there some specific wording of Doncram's you object to, or do you object to an inference you have constructed yourself? And by the way, we welcome any and all input at the discussion on WP:Plagiarism - hopefully leaving any agendas at the door! Franamax (talk) 23:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Thank you for replying, and I am sorry that you take offense or believe that i am not assuming good faith. I really tried to word this comment better than in my entry into a previous ship featured article review discussion that I believe you refer to. I do not mean to cause offense, and I did not make an accusation, I made a request. I guess it was you that educated me there about what practices are being employed in writing ships articles at this high level. I don't know if you want me to spell it out further, but the potential relation of anything here to plagiarism is technical, on the level of choosing or not to avoid any appearance of under-crediting the public domain source. In the other article(s), a footnote to the DANFS source was attached to the end of each paragraph relying upon the DANFS source or incorporating text from it. I don't mean to imply anything negative about the editors there or here, who were and are scrupulously applying what they view, and what has been, the appropriate practices, and who are not trying to mislead or gain any credit. I, and some other wikipedians not present, differ in a view that such practice can shortchange the explicit credit that I believe is due the PD author for the actual wording employed, if text is incorporated and not reworded. The footnote reference is sufficient for conveying that the PD source is the source, but not for conveying credit for actual wording. Depending on the semantics of your definition of plagiarism, that can be an infraction. The rough rule I use, supported in an academic article that I ought to dig out and cite, is that plagiarism is when the degree of credit given is less than the degree of credit due. The potential problem here is not anyone's ill will, but a difference of opinion on what credit is due, if any, for any specific wording incorporated from the PD source.

In the other article, I did point out a number of specific phrases which I felt stood out as "quaint" or that I otherwise felt needed specific quoting or rewording. I guess it was you that suggested, there, for me to go ahead and make those changes if I thought it was important. However, it was a very loaded atmosphere then, at least partly my fault. I think it was MBK who had just prior judged I was being disruptive and specifically reverted and warned me NOT to identify DANFS quotes in another ship article, which I had begun marking as a first step to doing some rewriting, so I declined. Here, there are not DANFS phrasings that stand out to me, and i am not able to quickly identify passages that are from those 5 DANFS source articles. As I suggested above, there may be none left, while the presence of the disclaimer suggests there once was. If you would actually allow me, I would be happy to do a more careful review that could identify some overlaps requiring rewording. I would use an automated tool that supports identifying overlaps between multiple documents. However, I don't want to perform that exercise if the results would be rejected. If you see no value in adding a quote or two and rewording a bit here and there, in order to justify removing the PD text disclaimer phrase, then you would perhaps not want to agree to rewordings, and I don't want to invest the effort. To reiterate, I came here to ask you to put some value on doing rewordings, etc., in order to justify dropping the PD disclaimer. I hope this is not too grand, but I think that the wikipedia project would be served by some cooperation in this kind of endeavor.

With this clarification, I hope you do not mind too much my leaving the comment as written. I do believe that having the PD disclaimer suggests, by dint of the nature of its usage in numerous other articles, that this article includes text incorporated from the PD sources. I believe I explained well enough how I think that detracts in a small way from the quality -- the fitness for use -- of this article. And I am serious that I would be glad to invest effort in justifying its removal. doncram (talk) 00:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

• • To answer your question regarding DANFS: The tag appears here because the information appearing in the "ships" section for each of the six battleships draws from DANFS in a very broad sense to cite the battles the ships fought in during WWII and Korea, and in the case of Big J, Mo, and WisKy, there actions after the 1980s modernization. Here in the article the actual reference to DANFS is included because DANFS accuretly covers these battles in Korea and WWII, but to get the important info out the text I had to completely reword it all. This is not to say that your point doesn't hold merit: Large portions of the article histories for New Jersey, Missouri, Wisconsin Illinois, and Kentucky all pull from DANFS in a "copy and paste" sense, but that is not the case with this article. If you want you can check that out for yourself by following the links provided to the DANFS sites, you will see that what appears here and what is written there are radically different, enough s that any concerns you have regarding plagerism should be put to rest with regard to this this article and DANFS material. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

So the question here seems pretty simple: has the copy-pasted PD text been substantially rewritten to the point that the general reference is no longer required? Note that this extends beyond just the original wording to the original structure of the text. Also note that words such as "battleship" and "campaign" do not qualify as original wording, and simple timeline descriptions do not need attribution to the original PD authors. So what is left? Are there distinctive phrases remaining from the PD source, like "the old lady tiredly went once more forth to battle"? Is there a distinctive structure to the text that was copied from the PD source, telling a story rather than laying out temporal facts? If not, the footnote attributing to DANFS -IMO- should be removed - it has no justification. If those distinctive traces remain, they should be individually identified for purposes of FA review. Franamax (talk) 01:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Simply put, the answer to your question is yes, but I believe the cites to DANFS need to remain in. Understand that this article is part of a series, drawing material from each of the other six battleships for the ships section. Right now we could remove the {{DANFS}} template, but not the cites to the individual DANFS ships histories; as that would be in itself a form of plagerism by dening the role that DANFS material had in the building of the ship section. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I was just suggesting removal of the general DANFS template disclaimer, if there is no longer any use of "incorporated" but unquoted text. I was not suggesting removal of the separate DANFS references that support the facts. doncram (talk) 05:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the {{DANFS}} template from the article. Does this meet your request? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. I accept completely that your familiarity with the current text removes any need to perform the kind of automated cross-checking that I was offering to perform, and I am glad of that as it would not really have been very easy to do. doncram (talk) 05:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I believe that there might be a minor violation of WP:CANVASS by doncram at Wikipedia_talk:Plagiarism#Wikipedia:Featured_article_review.2FIowa_class_battleship.

I commented within this featured article review about seeking to avoid the appearance of plagiarism and putting some value on avoiding different treatment of DANFS public domain text. I hope i expressed it better this time; my comments in a couple other ship article reviews seemed to anger editors about any suggestion they were not doing the right thing, more than convince them of anything. Perhaps others would like to comment there also. doncram (talk) 21:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Block quote

Doncram, as has been said before, while your suggestions for improving the articles are welcome, accusing editors of plagarism and constantly trying to impose an agenda on public domain text are not welcome at the reviews. That is a policy-level discussion, not acceptable discussion for an article review as long as it is acceptable within Wikipedia policy for public domain text as it stands. -MBK₀₀₄ 01:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I for one categorically reject the implication of canvassing, and I again reject the statement above "accusing editors of plagiarism". To deal with the latter first, where on earth is the accusation of plagiarism? Diffs please - not recriminations, diffs.

As to canvassing, please review WP:CANVASS, it has a nice little matrix for comparison, score it out yourself. Asking for more views is not canvassing, if it is done in neutral fashion. Try actually reading WT:Plagiarism and note the wide variety of views expressed, there is probably no better place to solicit outside views on the very nuanced position Doncram is putting forth here.

Further note that I am the sole responder here from that post, I made my reason for participation known from the outset, I have taken a balanced viewpoint. I actually find it amusing to see the virulent response to any use of that awful, awful word - plagiarism ZOMG! There seem now to be two accusations here - one, accusing Doncram of accusations of plagiarism, the other, seemingly accusing me of meatpuppetry? If we're going to sling accusations around, let's pile'em on. It's a pity that a FAR should devolve to this - neutral comments should be taken in a neutral spirit. Franamax (talk) 02:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is my response to why I consider it canvassing, and I'll use the language from that page to qualify my remarks: I feel that the message fails the guidelines on two levels: Message and Audience (Neutrality and Partisanship). The message, while worded close to neutral does make reference to the editor who placed the message's prior activities in the arena and he knows that he has a reputation with editors of that type of article which is not the accepted norm and consensus. Hence the partisanship by placing it on WT:Plagarism by trying to bring in more editors to counteract the already known consensus against his view. I am not accusing you Franamax of meatpuppetry but unfortunately, you have been drawn in by this, yet another conflict between ship editors and doncram. As for the diff, how about I use doncram's post above: in #2 and #3 of his original post he places forth his view that PD text should not be allowed in FAs. He knows that this has not been approved by the FA editors and he knows that getting a consensus for this proposal would be difficult. Hence, why bring it up in the first place? He also knows that what he says in #1 will raise the ire of the involved editors of the article, which some would see as disruptive behavior in-line with his previous actions in this type of article and the reviews. Also, I propose moving this whole discussion to the talk page because it does not immediately affect the FA status of the article in question because of established consensus that will not change overnight or even during the course of this FAR. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept that the editor may have prior involvement and this may colour the discussion. My involvement is only to comment on the issues the editor raises, which I think are valid and deserving of consideration, regardless of their history. I really don't give a ship about this article itself - and having said that, I now must needs cast my eye wider I suppose :)

I'll defintely agree that this extended discussion is best moved to the talk page, providing that the mover can leave behind a decent summary of the issue - which I take to be the nature and extent of the blanket PD-attribution appearing in the references. That note does give me concern, since I'm not able to determine what exactly it applies to - so it fails WP:V on a narrow interpretation. Nevertheless, move away if all concerned are agreeable.References not footnotes, which crimps my arg a bit - but direct copying is nevertheless wrong if not attributed. Franamax (talk) 03:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

And to clarify, I think that some of your other points are debatable but I'll not contest them here if there's a chance that we can move this off to Talk and leave behind a neutral statement of the issue - so as to disrupt this FAR to the least degree possible whilst still recognizing that this deispute is relevant. Franamax (talk) 03:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

(above thread copied verbatim from FAR page so discussion can continue here if necessary) Franamax (talk) 05:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)