[WikiEN-l] plagiarism

Tue Jul 19 11:45:28 UTC 2005

This is a good example of why we need a Wikipedia:Plagiarism page and  
policy. Since the 1911 Encyclopedia is in the public domain it may  
simply be copied as it is not a copyright violation to do so. But  
should I consult the current Britannica  regarding, say Liebnitz, I  
may find some important information which is not in the 1911 edition.  
For the sake of an example, suppose it is his theory of comedy... If  
I then write something in the Wikipedia article about Liebnitz's  
theory of comedy I should credit Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Although  
more likely I would take the info in Britannica as a clue to do some  
independent research, the results of which I would then cite.) Even  
with an article using material from the 1911 edition, if it is not  
cited as the source, there is plagiarism.  This confabulation of  
plagiarism and copyright violation is why we need a page which  
clearly explains plagiarism and our policy regarding it.

Fred

On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:21 PM, SCO Estmort wrote:

> About the plagiarism issue, there's nothing wrong with taking  
> information
> wholesale if 1) it's not copyvio 2) it's encylopedic and suits the
> encylopedic context. I personally think that if anyone finds their  
> text on
> Wikipedia and it was freely licensed or public domain, they  
> wouldn't mind
> anyway, as long as it was being used well (that's why they released  
> it under
> free license/public domain, no?), the only problem would be quality  
> and
> copyediting for language, which can be fixed easily. After all, we  
> do take
> things wholesale (with copyediting here and there) from the 1911  
> Encylopedia
> Britannica....and no doubt the article will evolve after that. If  
> anything,
> it seems all the policies are sufficient. Copyright, manual of style,
> reference to sources, and being encylopedic. There's no need for a
> "plagiarism" guideline. If anything, any problems with plagiarism  
> violates
> one these issues. If they don't (ie. like 1911 Britannica), then I  
> see no
> problem.
>
> Natalinasmpf
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