Wikipedia talk:Editor integrity

message: Visitors who come here through certain links might not get the full background.  Current Wikipedia policies have a blind spot on this topic: Wikipedia:Plagiarism redirects to Wikipedia:Citing sources, which devotes only one sentence to the topic of plagiarism.  Wikipedia:Copyrights is mostly a discussion of the GDFL license and copyright durations in various countries - its section on copyright violation presumes that readers already know how to identify copyright problems.  This proposal would become Wikipedia's equivalent of a university academic honesty statement.  Obviously, as of this writing, it needs editing and input.  Respectfully submitted, DurovaCharge! 01:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welcome 

message: I created this essay based on a discussion at the Village Pump at the direction of User:Durova as suggested here: .  Perhaps this will eventually rise to the level of a guideline; if not, other editors should still feel free to improve it or add comments to the talk page.  What do y'all think? --Jayron32 05:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the creation of this essay

message: I've added the draft version I've been working on.  It's substantially different in tone and direction because I envisioned a proposed guideline rather than an essay. DurovaCharge! 06:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: My cut/paste

message: Two of the most important sections haven't been written.  Currently, Wikipedia has no project space page devoted to either issue from the practical perspective of an editor who wishes to understand and respect these concepts.  Wikipedia:Plagiarism redirects to Wikipedia:Citing sources, which devotes only a single sentence to plagiarism.  The rest of the page discusses technical matters such as Harvard referencing and Wiki markup.  Wikipedia:Copyrights devotes most of its space to the nature of GDFL licensing and copyright duration in various countries.  One short section discusses what to do about copyright infringement at Wikipedia without defining what copyright infringement actually is.  The effect of these gaps is that editors who do not understand these principles and wish to abide by them cannot learn how to edit appropriately from a search in the Wikipedia namespace. DurovaCharge! 06:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing sections

message: Rather than post this to the project page I'll post this part here:
:Wikipedia editors have a responsibility to respect the integrity and intellectual property rights of the sources they draw upon when they create and improve encyclopedia pages.  This includes avoiding plagiarism, respecting copyright, and presenting appropriate citations. DurovaCharge! 06:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dig it!  I say go ahead and add it.  You might want to add something about misrepresentation of citations, such as "assure that the wikipedia text accurately represents the cited text" or something like that.  --Jayron32 06:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, keeping this simple for starters and just doing the cut and paste.  When you think of a good tweak for that part you want go ahead and change it.  I already tried several phrasings for the end of that statement.  Can't say I've nailed it yet. DurovaCharge! 07:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Draft introduction

message: The problem with some of the information you addedis that it is a rehash of the information on WP:CITE and WP:RS, which is what you said you are trying to avoid.  If it is undesirable to have Wikipedia:Plagarism redirect to WP:CITE then it is also undesirable to merely rehash the later in a rewrite of the former.  IMHO, the issue should be in creating a guideline for editors, admins, and beaurocrats to deal with academic dishonesty in the same way that guidelines exist for dealing with vandalism.  How to format a citation is largely a style issue, and is covered adequately elsewhere.  Making editors aware of the importance of citing their additions, and the consequences of a blatant, willful failure to do so, or to misrepresent sources in a dishonest way, is what I think the essay/guideline/policy here should be about.  Still, i do like the stuff you added about NPOV and incorrect use of citations.  That is what I was getting at here.  We need to get many more people involved here so we can see what concensus is on this issue.  --Jayron32 06:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that's one reason I was still toying with it.  There's also Wikipedia:Attribution in progress that may replace those.  The summaries, particularly the NPOV part, do reproduce a bit.  Yet I don't think I've seen any other page deal specifically with how to edit a previously cited passage or how to change a URL in a footnote.  I think the draft I posted could use a little trimming. DurovaCharge! 07:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the new sections 

message: Go ahead and change the tag.  My goal was that this would become a proposed guideline.  I did not think I had the cache' to make quite THAT bold a move.  My labeling this an essay was merely humility on my part.  If the goal is to eventually make this a guideline, change the tag as such.  --Jayron32 06:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. I suggest we keep this low profile for a couple of days to reconcile with other namespace pages. DurovaCharge! 07:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, gotta look up the template.  Maybe it's better to leave this an essay until it's ready for prime time. DurovaCharge! 08:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change of tag to Proposed Guideline 

message: I enjoy working with you, Durova, but we need to get more people involved in editing and commenting on this.  How do you propose we get the word out about this page?  --Jayron32 07:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that I'm more or less caught up on sysop chores I'll do the same things I did for WP:DE.  Thanks for taking the initiative.  Cheers, DurovaCharge! 00:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Left notices at Community Portal, Administrators' Noticeboard, Village Pump Proposals, and Requests for Comment.  Upgraded template to proposed guideline. DurovaCharge! 00:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need more eyes on this proposed guideline/essay 

message: My biggest problem with this is that the author seems to think Wikipedia is capitalized "WikiPedia". (It's not.)
My second criticism would be that it fails to significantly define what original thought is, despite its consistent use of the term. It says we don't publish it, but it doesn't say what original thought is. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 00:42, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw that while I was running a copyedit of the proposed guideline. That should be fixed now. Titoxd(?!?) 00:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: A thread worth watching. DurovaCharge! 01:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Wikipedia:Editor_integrity]] 

message: Two issues with the current draft:
* The entire "Collaboration at Wikipedia" section is founded on the bizarre premise that Wikipedia contributions are free from copyright; they are not (with the exception of those editors who choose to release their contributions into the public domain).  More importantly, attempting to draw the distinction that only people "outside of Wikipedia expect to be credited for the work they do" is incorrect, as the GFDL explicitly requires that Wikipedia contributors be properly credited (that being one of the main restrictions that it imposes on material licensed under it). 
* Why the requirement that people adding sources leave notes "BOTH on the article talk page, and on the talk page of the user in question"?  Unless there's something unusual about the circumstances, I don't see anything wrong with simply adding a source and leaving no notes at all; all this will do is make the lives of those who add sources more difficult, with seemingly little benefit.
Aside from that, this seems pretty decent (if a bit alarmist—"A single unsourced statement may not be academic dishonesty" indeed!). Kirill Lokshin 01:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the reason for the second one was to help really new users learn how to add sources (e.g. ), not to warn them. As for the GFDL requirements, they are much looser than the copyright most people are familiar with, but what you bring up is a valid point. Titoxd(?!?) 01:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two problems with the text 

message: To be honest, I feel that there are to many "must"'s in it. Combined with the additions to the banning policy it mentions, it reads to me more as a policy than a guideline.Crimsone 02:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What specific instances do you find objectionable? DurovaCharge! 03:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, I was somewhat tired last night and may have gotten it wrong. A few things seem to have changed since then also. Really, my main issue now is only that of blocking policy. Is it right for a proposed guideline to contain what seem to be additions to the blocking policy?
I'm also concerned about the specifics of it - "When confronted with blatant evidence of dishonesty, and assuming that ample warnings have gone unheeded for considerable time, the user should be blocked or banned" - is this not going to result in a whole lot more of all manner of trumped up accusations from either sides of content disputes?
That of course, and the fact that the article mentions Harvard referencing or the Chicago Manual of Style, but doesn't appear to make any mention of the cite system on wikipedia, or pointto/explain how to use it. Crimsone 11:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: WP:DE discussed specific blocking and banning when it was in the proposal stage.  I'd welcome any alterations that would insulate this proposal against exploitation.  Yet I do agree that instances which are demonstrably deliberate should be liable to the same set of remedies as other violations. DurovaCharge! 16:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Language

message: One idea I like that's grown out of the WP:AN thread is to rename this proposal Wikipedia:Editor integrity.  I wasn't entirely happy with "Editor honesty" when I proposed the page and the change would probably capture the spirit better.  Comments? DurovaCharge! 02:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: S, sounds much better. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 03:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does anyone mind if I change it? DurovaCharge! 05:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. DurovaCharge! 05:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Editor integrity" or "editor honesty" are both much broader terms than the matters addressed by this proposal, which are themselves oddly heterogeneous. At the risk of sounding overly literal-minded, what's wrong with co-opting Wikipedia:Plagiarism? That way the plagiarism info is concisely contained in one document, and the 'practical matters of copyright' can be moved to, say, a FAQ for WP:CITE. Opabinia regalis 07:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's certainly an idea worth considering and I gave that very thing some thought before proposing this.  WP:CITE is already very good for what it is: a nuts-and-bolts description.  The odd heterogeneity of this proposal is mainly stylistic: different parts were written by two different editors with very little cross-editing.  Our goal was the same: to create the equivalent of an academic integrity statement for Wikipedia. DurovaCharge! 13:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal name 

message: ...has serious problems. I understand from a skim above that this was cobbled together from two (or more?) editors' drafts, but this section sounds awkward, out of place, and sometimes just wrong. The remainder of the information here is good to bring to light, though it could benefit from more intuitive organization.
Section 3 talks explicitly about "academic dishonesty". Wikipedia is not academia, so academic dishonesty is only relevant as an analogy. There are practices here that would not be accepted in academia (it's not uncommon here to copy public-domain texts wholesale with attribution; that wouldn't pass as your term paper for History 101) and practices in academia that are controversial here (omitting citations for basic facts in a given field). 
This section also extensively conflates unsourced statements with those that are plagiarized or original research. To be honest, that's silly. I could write "The proteins Drosha and Pasha are binding partners", and that would be a very specific unsourced statement. But it isn't plagiarized (I just wrote it), and certainly isn't original research (it's quite simple to verify, from any number of sources). The example given in criterion 3 is likewise quite poor; the term "plagiarism" generally refers to the uncredited reproduction of substantial portions of a specific work, not just an uncited but originally-written synthesis of multiple other works. That is, writing "some feel George Washington was hypocritical..." would be unsourced and weasel-wordy, but certainly not plagiarism.
"Criteron 1" - just... no. Edits are edits and editors are editors. While the age and experience of an editor might affect how you approach them about their misguided edits, plagiarism and copyright violations are no more acceptable from a high schooler than from a post-graduate student. And no one here is asking for familiarity with specific citation formats. 
Generally, this proposal would probably be better served by cutting this section out entirely, or at best drastically shortening and rewording it. Opabinia regalis 07:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section 3... 

message: * On the concerns raised by User:Geni regarding the semantic differences between ethical, moral, and legal distinctions:
** Wikipedia is a community edited project, with the emphasis on community.  Any community needs to develop standards of ethical/moral/legal behavior.  There are community standards of "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" with regard to behavior within the community.  Regardless of whether such distinctions are ETHICAL distinctions, MORAL distinctions or LEGAL distinctions is moot.  We have standards of editor behavior here, and such standards include proper research techinques.  Any attempt to draw a semantic distinction around specific words to describe various shades of meaning between "NO-NO's" is just an attempt to obfuscate the issue.  Intentionally integrity violation is a NO-NO.  We need a clear policy/guideline/whatever that deals with this NO-NO. Again, semantic distinctions only serve to obfuscate the issue.  What we are looking for here is what constitutes the NO-NO, and what the proper response to violations of the NO-NO are.
* On the perceived spelling, gramatical, and semantic errors you find:
** Be Bold.  Fix them.
* On the problems with the section "Collaboration at Wikipedia"
** I was bold and changed the wording to something perhaps more agreeable.  How does the new version sound?
*On the lack of definition of original thought:
** Already a cornerstone policy of Wikipedia.  A link to WP:OR is all that is needed here.
*On the issues with Wikipedia's citing policy:
** Already amply covered elsewhere.  WP:CITE covers this.
*With regard to the use of the word academic in section 3:
**Wikipedia is a research-based venture.  Standards of integrity with regard to research are long established, and include a clear-cut definition of plagiarism and the consequences for the practice therof.  If it is simply a semantic problem that is hanging you up, please change the word to one more acceptable.  However, the concept is that Wikipedia is research-based, and thus carries with it all of the ethical/moral/legal (see above) whatnots associated with any research-based venture.
** Also, to other concerns raised by same editor: There is a third integrity concern here, which is the intentional misrepresentation of a source; which is no less dishonest than copyvios or plagiarism.  This essay/guideline/policy/whatever (see above) is a work in progress and cobled together from several places.  I think perhaps we need 3 sections; Copyright, Plagiarism, and Misrepresentation; all a 3 distinct problems that all deal with integrity.  Also, we need guidelines on WHAT to do when we think we have encountered integrity violations, and what the responses should be for editors and admins alike.  We need to be clear that we are not dealing with honest, newbie mistakes.  Just like our response to vandalism is measured and we always assume good faith, we need to do the same here.  However, when faced with voluminous evidence that an editor is acting in bad faith, and continues to comit integrity violations in light of attempts to educate said editor, then education needs to cease, and discipline needs to begin.  --Jayron32 04:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Responses to recent concerns 

message: As an ex-editor who gave up on the game about two months ago, I just have to say: damn. Has it really come to this? See the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 57. Peace.
:I'd have to agree with that. Look around: there is a lot of valuable, accurate, original, but unsourced content everywhere you look. A lot of citations are more or less CYA afterthoughts. And yet both of these facts are ways that Wikipedia progresses. In particular, I disagree with the injunction not to trans-cite a primary source when you got the fact through a secondary source. This is an encyclopedia and benefits from primary source references. I would, on the other hand, support a guideline that said "only trans-cite for basic facts which adhere to the highest standards of NPOV, and when you do, make a note to that effect in the talk page". Basic reaction: there is a need to cover these issues with a clear guideline but this is importing academic standards wholesale rather than creating wikipedian ones and thus ends up too restrictive down the line. --Homunq 05:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holy Smokes 

message: Since apparently some people are interpreting any mention of "intellectual property" to mean that this page need only talk about legal issues...
Why don't we remove the bulk of the copyright issues from here—a simple link to the existing copyright policy will suffice, and they do obscure much of the real point—and limit this page to discussing the other points of intellectual integrity (primarily the questions of plagiarism, proper attribution, and misrepresentation of sources)?  Then we'd no longer have to deal with the semantics of the entire legal/ethical/whatever question. Kirill Lokshin 17:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright versus other stuff 

message: Just stumbled across this proposal, & while it appears the discussion has fallen into a (hopefully momentary) lull, I'd like to make a few comments:
* The title "Editor integrity" implies to me that should be a code of ethics, & a broad category of topics. To paraphrase an old but hallowed code of ethics, "First, make no actions that harm Wikipedia." One might say this should be the policy in a nutshell. If you agree with this, then it would follow that editor integrity should extend to more than worries about copyright, plagarism, and properly citing appropriate sources.
* I find the example under "Chain of sources" a poor choice: the vast majority of birth and death dates are uncontroversial, & insisting that even uncontroversial facts must be cited imposes an unnecessary burden on editors. On the other hand, there is disagreement about some dates of events, & when this exists, it should be cited as well as the editor can do (ideally in the form "source X states this and these authorities defend it, source Y states that and those authorities defend it, and this third group argue other dates based on their analysis of sources X and Y").
* The last point leads to another consideration, which has been voiced above. I feel that the use of "must" in this proposal should be replaced with a more nuanced use of similar words like "ought", "may" & "should". The use of "must" implies that there are no exceptions to the condition it introduces; in some cases, rigid attention to a rule is not needed for ethical behavior, only a respect for it. I'd like to note that this nuance of language is currently practiced in a number of standards, for example such as those by the World Wide Web Consortium. -- llywrch 20:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: reply please go ahead and make these changes.  I have really "spent" myself on this essay, and am out of ideas.  If you have some fresh ideas, even an idea to completely overhaul it, go ahead and boldly change it as you see it.  If too many people disagree with your changes, we can easily change them back.  --Jayron32 04:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two comments 

message: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on integrity is interesting. The history of freedom and copyright and fair use is interesting. I doubt such controversial and ambiguous concepts make for a useful guideline. WAS 4.250 20:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Integrity and copyright

message: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ngangangese.  The creator of the article admits lying in the article to make the article appear more notable.  A clear integrity violation, and we need a clear policy on integrity to steer decisions on how to handle these situations, and also to refer people to to prevent these problems.  --Jayron32 02:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't need a policy to know how to deal with liars and anyone who does need a policy to know how to deal with liars should not be trusted to make important decisions. WAS 4.250 03:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An AFD you should read to establish a clear need for this guideline/policy 

message: This page appears overly lengthy to me, and restates known issues from several existing policies. I think it should be shortened by quite a lot, actually. If I understand it correctly, it says that Wikipedia editors should strive towards integrity, and in extreme cases can be blocked if they're not. Did I get that right? (Radiant) 15:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would agree.  The page has been cobbled together from mine and Durova's attempt to hammer this out.  Its obviously too long.  It has been on my list of things to do to rewrite it.  Maybe later tonight after I get through the rest of my watchlist I will get to that.  --Jayron32 03:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verbosity 

message: Can someone tell how Wikipedia's servers are protected against manipulation? --Efb8 (talk) 10:38, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Integrity of file servers