Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Resilient control systems

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Jujutacular ^talk 06:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resilient control systems

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This article was apparently originally copied wholesale from a government white paper, Resilient Control Systems: Next Generation Design Research, HSI 2009, Craig G. Rieger, David I. Gertman, Miles A. McQueen, May 2009, apparently by one of the authors. It not only constitutes plagiarism on our part but is primarily original research. Joja lozzo 17:59, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Since the article's creator added his own article, I think that qualifies as a big conflict of interest. Does copy vio still qualify if it's the author of the piece uploads his own work? Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79[reply]

The content is government public domain I think. It's more a matter of plaiarism than copyright problem. The COI is also an issue but not as critical in my view Joja lozzo 22:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct on the public domain of the transposed content, and as well, I am the original author/representative of said content. It represents a summarization of existing thought in the area, and to this end, I have added a number of additional, independent references to further address the "original research" and "conflict of interest" comments. --Crieger (talk) 03:05, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia content is original. It is a violation of policy to copy in content from another source. All the text copied from your whitepaper needs to be replaced. Adding sources does nothing to fix our plagiarism problem or the COI problem. It may be possible to prevent or delay deletion of the article by moving it to user space where all the content can be replaced but you'd have to be willing to do the work of rewriting it from scratch or maybe writing a short original summary that could be moved back into article space as the basis for a final article to be developed as a collaborative project with other editors. Joja lozzo 03:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we have such a policy. If a publication is in the public domain, its text may be freely used, also in Wikipedia articles. See the many articles transcluding attribution templates such as {{1911}}, {{1913}}, {{Bryan}}, {{EncyclopaediaBiblica}}, or {{Watkins}}, which often means the text has been copied over wholesale. --Lambiam 16:51, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Perhaps the article could use a few more attributions to the cited article to clarify that it's mostly from there? Provided that something's correctly cited, I don't see a problem with getting material from a public-domain source. Allens (talk) 21:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More sources will not change the fact that basically all the content is lifted from other sources. That's a major policy violation that can only be fixed by removing the content. Joja lozzo 23:48, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please show evidence for this being the policy with regard to a properly-referenced, public-domain source. Allens (talk) 02:21, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is central core policy. I referenced it in the intro above: WP:Plagiarism. Joja lozzo 16:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From there (emphasis mine; see Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain_sources): 'Whether copyright-expired or in the public domain for other reasons, material from public-domain sources is welcome on Wikipedia, but such material must be properly attributed. Public-domain attribution notices should not be removed from an article or simply replaced with inline citations unless it is verified that all phrasing and information from the public-domain source has been excised. The text may be attributed in the same way as it is for copyrighted material, but the source can also be copied directly into a Wikipedia article verbatim if it is cited and attributed through the use of an appropriate attribution template, or similar annotation, which is usually placed in a "References section" near the bottom of the page (see the section "Where to place attribution" for more details).' In other words, it simply needs better attribution in the References section... so unless you can show policy that overrides this (it's a content guideline, not policy), that's what needs to happen, not deletion or near-deletion via editing down into a stub. Allens (talk) 16:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are misapplying the policy. It's not intended to apply to a complete article or even major portions of an article. As the policy says we have to attribute the copied text to INL.gov and put it all in quote marks. What's the benefit for Wikipedia (or our readers) in reusing existing content wholesale? Why not just have a summary and a link to the whitepaper? See also Wikipedia:Copy-paste. Joja lozzo 22:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been totally rewritten and the wikipedia entry updated. The original deletion statement has been left for removal by the individual that applied it.--Crieger (talk) 00:44, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. See also Instrumentation, Control and Intelligent Systems created by the same account. An {{advert}} tag was removed. --Lambiam 14:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. That article is a copy/paste from the web site and it is copyrighted. I'll PROD it. At least the author provides links to the copy sources - that makes it easier to check out and is a sign of good faith. Joja lozzo 22:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The topic is an aspect of resilience engineering and there are several books about that such as Resilience Engineering in Practice. The field seems to support regular symposia and scholarly papers. We should encourage further development per our editing policy. Warden (talk) 12:08, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying the topic isn't a good one for the project but we cannot use material copied from another source. I think a good resolution would be to replace all the current content with a summary stub if there is someone who will take that on. If not, then we shoudl delete the article until someone is ready to write the article without copying from other sources. Joja lozzo 23:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I came here via an invitation posted on Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism by User:Jojalozzo. Allens is spot on with his/her analysis. In the "Where to place attribution" of WP:PLAGARISM there is an example which is similar to this one see Western Allied invasion of Germany#References it uses the template {{USGovernment}}. We have 187 similar templates see category:Attribution templates. US Government articles are not quite the same thing as PD documents, we have a moral obligation to attribute PD documents (and practical ones to do with plagiarism and issues and OR), but I suspect that we have legal obligation to clearly note the US Government's copyright even if it allows us to use the content freely, but even if we do not, WP:PLAGARISM mandates that we do. We have thousands and thousands of such articles and as it happens last month Jimbo asked how to attribute the article Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, which he could tell by the style of writing was a copy from somewhere else. So although there may be other reasons to delete this article, providing it is properly attributed and has inline citations to the author of the copied text, plagiarism is not one of them. -- PBS (talk) 00:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, PBS. I note that such articles don't use quote marks. Jojalozzo, as an academic (specifically, a professor who's been involved with cracking down on plagiarism... a rather unpleasant business) I do appreciate your desire to avoid plagiarism. But there is a reason to have it on Wikipedia already copied in, instead of just giving a link. It's to enable people to edit it and improve it. Allens (talk) 00:54, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have to be a little careful with our terminology here copying without acknowledging the copying is plagiarism, when adequate attribution is added the text is no longer plagiarised. With copyrighted material there are other legal concerns, but to give an example if I write the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable without acknowledgement then that is plagiarism, if for example I put it in quotes attribute it in-line "As Oscar Wilde one said 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable'." then it is not plagiarism. However it is a breach of WP:V because it is a quote and quotes must carry an inline citation. In the case of PD text or text that is copyright compliment with copying into Wikipedia, the consensus is that the text does not need quotes and providing it carries adequate attribution it is not plagiarism. This then allows the text to be mercilessly edited in the usual Wikipedia way. I think the reason some people object to this approach is the idea that all the text here shoudl originate from Wikiepedia editors. Personally I think that approach is a matter of not seeing the wood for the trees, because as I see it the project's goal is to create a free encyclopaedia not to write a free encyclopaedia (along the lines of the The Cathedral and the Bazaar "Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)." -- PBS (talk) 01:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. Is there an assumption that if the government publishes it then it's authoritative and immune to the problems of OR and SYN? If so, is there a similar assumption for all PD (1911) content or are there author/publisher filters we must apply? Joja lozzo 01:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No all text copied in as if it came from another Wikipedia article (so USG and EB1911 has to meet the content policy requirements. WP:PLAGARISM makes this clear:

If the external work is in the public domain, but contains an original idea, or is a primary source, then it may be necessary to alter the wording of the text (for example not including all the text from the original work, or quoting some sections, or specifically attributing to a specific source an opinion included in the text,) to meet the Wikipedia content policies of neutral point of view and Wikipedia:no original research (in particular the restrictions on the use of primary sources).

It is quite common for editors of EB1911 and the DNB etc to express opinions. I came across one recently in the ODNB I particularly liked "A small place in the footnotes of Romantic scholarship gives this pretentious ass a lingering reputation that his collections would never have justified".--PBS (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can see the benefit of incorporating PD content without quotation marks so we can "improve" it at will. Joja lozzo 01:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the good discussion. However, I went ahead and rewrote the article and updated the wikipedia entry. The original deletion statement has been left for removal by the individual that applied it.--184.155.147.128 (talk) 01:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that some of it is still probably too close a paraphrase to meet the copyright criteria. But I think it best we discuss that on the talk page of the article. -- PBS (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to PBS and Allens for the help with policy and to Creiger for great work on the article. I'll let the admins know they can close this. Joja lozzo 01:18, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see that the "...article is being considered for deletion..." statement is still on the entry. I had assumed the administrators would take care of removing it?--Crieger (talk) 11:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think they just need time to get to it. Joja lozzo 17:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.