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[Incompatible licence conditions?]

This page says "Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."

But the page at Wikipedia:Copyrights says "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts."

This would seem to indicate that Wikipedia is applying conditions to the licence after the fact that the contributor hasn't agreed to. Unless I've missed something (which is possible), that's a serious problem. Irrevenant 11:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One character change

{{editprotected}} add * just after GFDL and add *<nowiki>*<nowiki>Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. to MediaWiki:Edittools.Geni 02:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest using an anchor link. For example:

[[#copyright|*]]

here, and

<nowiki /><span id="copyright" />*Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

to Edittools, if this change is correct, copyright-wise. Gracenotes^T § 02:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Done - added anchor link as well as reverse anchor link, plus nifty CSS highlighting when clicked. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-16 09:09Z

Remove asterisk.

{{Editprotected}}How about linking "GFDL" to #copyright, and then link Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License at the #copyright section? -- Jeandré, 2007-03-17t11:28z

 Done —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-17 11:47Z

I think all Wikipedians should be reminded each time they edit an article that Wikipedia is not a repository of links. I know that this is not Wikipedia's most important policy/guideline, but I have seen quite a few articles lately in which excessive external links seem to have been a problem. Among them have been pro-life and transsexualism. I don't know if it would be feasible to include a statement about this on the editing page, but it's just an idea.

Andrea Parton 04:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd that Wikipedia has a fairly weak copyright warning (compared to other Wikis), and we do get hundreds of copy and paste copyvios a day, so I think stronger wording is needed. Meta uses:

You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!

I would like to change the current wording to something like that. If there's no discussion in a day or two I will do it. --W.marsh 16:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen numerous Wikipedia pages that appear to have been copied, more or less directly, from copyrighted websites. I agree that a stronger warning is necessary. Andrea Parton 22:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No; the usage on meta is the MediaWiki default. The reason that isn't used is because we the current version is brief and concise, while conveying the same information. (See above discussion for why a short message, conveying the same info as a long one, is better.) In addition, we don't want to scare off any newcomers. Meta is very unlike Wikipedia; most people there are already experienced editors. On the other hand, we shouldn't discourage new people who stumble upon Wikipedia from editing because of a harsh and excessive warning when a much more polite and shorter one will suffice. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. People aren't getting the message that copying and pasting articles from random websites is not supposed to happen... doing newpage patrol or any kind of maintenence will make this rather clear. So it would seem that a better warning is needed. Moreover, many of these people will rewrite the article once warned about the copyright issues, it's just that we rarely warn them quickly enough, due to the massive flood of new pages. --W.marsh 01:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People will still submit copyrighted material, but a line must be drawn at how big and bold the warning should be. The briefer and more concise (while conveying the same information), the better. The current version does that, and the point is reiterated below the char box ("Only public domain resources can be copied without permission—this does not include most web pages."). I don't think there's a reason to change this wording. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I not being clear? The most popular Wiki should not have the weakest and least informative warnings. Most people don't think of copying and pasting random text as a copyvio, after all, they do it on their blog, forums, etc. and no one ever bats an eyebrow. The copyvio notice should tell them specifically not to do that. We get hundreds of copyvios every day... obviously the current warning isn't doing a good enough job, so I think we need to at least try something stronger and see if that helps. --W.marsh 14:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The question is, what is our goal with this warning? From my view, the goal is to protect Wikipedia from vicarious liability for coyright infringement, which the existing warning effectively does. Folks been warned - that's our duty. We hunt and knock out copyvios to make the encyclopedia better, but it is the poster of such material who bears whatever legal risk accompanies such posting. BD2412T 14:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But copyvios can cause a lot of problems. If they aren't detected, that can get slightly altered over time and eventually integrated into articles, and a year later we discover we have to scrap a good article because copyvio text is entrenched in it. Also it presents a poor picture of Wikipedia if people find lots of obvious copy and pastes from other websites sitting out in the open. I don't think we should be okay with hundreds of copyvios a day, many of them sitting undetected for months. --W.marsh 16:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I totally agree that copyvios can cause a lot of problems, having seen quite a few and removed some that were unnoticed initially. However, a line has to be drawn somewhere; we could easily ask a user to confirm ten times that what they submitted wasn't a copyvio. While that example is a bit extreme, I'm just using it to point out that the warning should convey the appropriate information in as consise a statement as possible. In addition, we also need to consider the ramifications of using an excessively blunt and strong statement; we don't want to scare away potential new contributors. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is a point where warnings are pointless, some people will never read them or care... but I don't think until we try it that we can say that a more informative notice wouldn't help, because most people don't mean to do anything wrong, they just don't see copying and pasting stuff as a copyvio. And right now, I don't think the article creation process does much to tell them that it is a copyvio... we have very soft messages, softer than the defaults, softer than most any Wiki out there... and our maintenence backlogs are bigger than the entire contents of almost any Wiki (partially) as a result. We should be careful of having soft, unhelpful messages... doing very little to help well intentioned people avoid creating bad articles is bad for the project long-term. --W.marsh 03:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The English Wikipedia is three times larger than the German Wikipedia, and gets twice as much traffic as all other Wikipedias combined. That might have something to do with the problems it's having. --Carnildo 07:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well duh, but I don't think having much softer warnings helps, especially considering our traffic level. Consider Commons [1] and Wikinews [2]. I honestly don't understand the resistance against a more obvious and helpful message on Wikipedia-en. --W.marsh 13:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said above, I don't disagree at all that copyvios are a problem and should absolutely not be allowed. However, I disagree that the proposed changes would be helpful: it makes a consise statement longer while saying the same thing, won't necessarily help reduce the problem, and is quite strong, scaring away potentially contributors. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't currently explain that copying and pasting IS a copyvio, like I've said. I think most "copyvios" are just simple misunderstands... many of which would be stopped with a better warning. So the proposed changes would be helpful. At least in my opinion. We'd only really know if we tried. --W.marsh 02:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the text further down does sort of explain that... not sure that everyknow knows what public domain means. Still, I think ginormous letters and more obvious placement might be our only hope... though I understand that would never happen. :-) --W.marsh 02:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add that copyrighted content will be deleted.

In order to make clear that copyrighted content will not just sit there in what users think is the laissez-faire freedom of a wiki, it should be added that: "Content must not violate any copyright or it will be deleted." (emphasis added) Perhaps having "deleted" be in bold. —Centrx→talk • 04:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this would be a good idea. It would prevent (to a certain extent) new users from adding copyright content indiscriminately. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 10:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think the warning is long enough as it is, and that the "will be deleted", while true, isn't entirely necessary. JYolkowski // talk 21:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the length is the only issue I think. The purpose is, though, that under the current message a user will very well think "Whatever, I will still add it and, look there it is on the page. So nothing happened, yay, the message was a scare tactic and I got away with it." Saying it will be deleted tells them that there is an effective reason why there is no point in posting it: it will disappear. I do like the nice short current message though. —Centrx→talk • 03:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

can't we put thin in below "Your changes will be visible immediately."?Geni 19:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt many people read that now that the Insert character box is so big. There are a ton of copyvio's, almost all by well-meaning people who at least would not have uploaded the inevitably deleted copyvio, and best would have rewritten or summarized the addition and would not have been scared off by the rapid deleting response to their contributions. "Content must not violate any copyright" is clear from a professional or legal standpoint, but it doesn't make anyone pause to think that just about everything, including that website they just read, is copyrighted and can't be uploaded here. It would save a lot of everyone's time to have an effective message in the first place that informs them they can't upload that. Something like "Do not post text you copied from a website, it will be deleted." —Centrx→talk • 04:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It used to have a message DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!. Perhaps it does not need to be so capitally bold, but something strong is needed. —Centrx→talk • 04:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that the term deleted should be bolded as well as capitalized to emphasis the action which will be taken. This will definitely deter users on posting copyright content. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 14:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a note, on the other side of the coin, we should also not accept works that are *not* copyrighted (short of public domain). GFDL only works for copyrighted content. :-) Kim Bruning 15:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please explain why it is not right to accept works that are NOT copyrighted? Could the reason be that the copyright status of such works are unclear? --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 18:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GFDL and CC* are licences for copyrighted information. No copyright, no licence. :-) Kim Bruning 14:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As anyone who does newpage patrol can tell you, a lot of people aren't getting the message that pasting articles from other websites is rarely a good thing. Many people who do it don't see it as a copyvio, because hey, they do that on their blog, their favorite web forum, etc. and no one ever cares. So when we say "Don't violate a copyright" they say "Okay, I won't!" yet do it anyway. We can have gigantic warning text, similar to the image warning screen, and that would probably help explain what a copyvio actually is. But ultimately, as we see with images, some people are just gonna do it anyway... so the solution will unfortunatly just be that we have to deal with copyvios better. User:Where has a bot that maintains Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations, I think we need A) more patrollers there and B) maybe another bot, if Where thinks it would improve the yield.

We also should probably have a warning screen when someone tries to upload an article with no formatting. But that will essentially never happen..... --W.marsh 14:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please clarify why you think this will never happen? What are the negative consequences of having a warning screen? Would it discourage the newbies from staying in this project? --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 04:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well there's huge resistance towards changing the article creation process, for whatever reason. People think it would mean fewer articles if say, a screen said "You didn't format this article at all" and so on, or even if there was bigger warning text and so on. We still give people just a blank box and no real help... apparently there's little interest from the devs/powers that be in improving this situation. --W.marsh 05:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From WP:HD:

Does content on talk pages have to be based on verifiable sources? Does it have to be under the GFDL? The edit page says it does but that doesn't make sense. MUSICAL 10:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In response to this I tweaked the wording [3] (including adding "Article" to the first sentence) to:

Article content must not violate any copyright and must be based on verifiable sources. You agree to license all contributions under the GFDL.

BD2412 deleted "Article" [4] on the grounds that all contributions must not violate any copyrights. Does anyone object to:

You agree to not violate any copyright and to license your contributions under the GFDL. Articles must be based on verifiable sources.

If anyone can shorten the text, please do. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is my understanding that all content, whether on a user page, a talk page, wherever, must be released under the GFDL. Last year we banned a good contributor because he insisted on asserting a copyright interest in his talk page comments. As for verifiability, there are circumstances where this would apply to things not in the article space - some categories have headers which include assertions of fact, and the content of some templates has the same effect (e.g. if a template lists all the #1 songs by a band, I'd better be able to verify that this status applies to the songs so listed. Also, Portal space falls under the same constraints as article space - is there a term that captures all of the space where people can look for facty stuff? bd2412 T 21:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Content", in its technical, Wikipedic sense. Whilst precise enough in the "jargon", it's not so clear to newbies. -Splash - tk 21:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

e.g. not so clear to those at whom the warning is most directly aimed. bd2412 T 22:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I hearing the suggested version is not acceptable? I agree about all contributions being GFDL and mean for the suggested version to say this (I guess it could say all submissions rather than your contributions). Assuming the first sentence is OK, would we rather have the second sentence be more precise (but wordier), e.g. Encyclopedic content must be based on verifiable sources. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm, better, but that sounds like a truism - how about Encyclopedia content instead of Encyclopedic content? bd2412 T 13:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for missing the discussion, as I've been extremely busy and haven't had a chance to edit in quite a while... only two weeks late! :-) Seriously, though, I don't like the current version and wording. It seems like the discussion just dropped off suddenly after June became July. The current version sounds like a command (well, it is a command): it uses the imperative mood (twice), along with an exclamation point. The overall feel of the message is somewhat terse and "scary-sounding" to new users, while we should be promoting an opposite feeling: welcome to new contributors. I've gone ahead and been bold, rewording the message slightly while we (hopefully) continue the discussion. Thoughts? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Speedy_deletion_criterion_for_unsourced_articles of including a warning that unsourced content may be deleted. If this is done, it should be above the wiki mark-up, so that new editors will see it. There are several suggestions on wording. Septentrionalis 17:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A simple message, like adding to the "encyclopedic content must be verifiable: cite your sources or it may be removed." with a link to WP:CITE would probably suffice. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've already done this on MediaWiki:Newarticletext. As a blanket speedy deletion criteria the proposal is unworkable. This should not be displayed for all edits because there are many kinds of edits that would never warrant providing a source, and even for the ones that would it is not absolutely necessary that we put up a discouragement to editing. The bozos will still add their unsourced crap, but the kind of person who would actually be adding legitimate information would be the ones discouraged. —Centrx→talk • 21:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the goal is to get the editors, like I was, who mean well but forget that they have to specify where they got their information from. Not everyone adding good but unsourced information is a bozo, of course. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to having a policy of deleting all unsourced articles or all unsourced information. Adding a more explicit message about citing sources could be good, along the lines of "Please cite your sources", but nothing at all like "Any unsourced information will be deleted". —Centrx→talk • 22:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V already says that anything dubious and uncited may be removed, so it would be good to advise people what may happen if they don't cite, I think. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One text could be Unsourced information may be removed without notice. Since this is true now under WP:V, as NightGyr points out, it may be a kindness to say so. Note the may, as opposed to will in the copyvio notice. Septentrionalis 01:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with that. It might be a bit better to have Uncited information may be removed because I'm not sure "unsourced" is a real word, and we should try to keep this short. Thus (with a little rearranging to keep the GFDL release early), the whole text could be:

Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable; uncited information may be removed.

What does everyone think? Superm401 - Talk 00:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too long. We're trying to keep this short enough that people might actually read it. --Carnildo 03:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My favoured wording for this is "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL. Encyclopedic content must provide sources"; one word longer than the current version, and clearer about what is required. --ais523 16:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

What about situations where a person is helping by adding information, because regular editors of the article will notice it added and see a gap in the article coverage? Sometimes people don't have the sources right on hand, but they know the subject. Sources are needed, but the information should be there. Sometimes people don't even realize they can add a suggestion to the talk page. Also, we don't need people to add sources for re-wording or patently obvious descriptions. —Centrx→talk • 03:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Long term all information should have sources. Editors can achieve this by finding sources for info already in the article, or by removing unverified info (perhaps temporarily). Unverified ideas are probably best suggested on Talk. As for the warning itself, I like ais523's formulation. But a still shorter version could be:

How about a simple "Uncited information may be removed." ? Not too harsh. True. —Centrx→talk • 21:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Content that violates any copyright, or lacks sources, can be deleted. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." --Superm401 - Talk 02:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But copyright infringements will be deleted (though, to a lesser extent unsourced articles will be deleted—or they will get sources and no longer be "unsourced") —Centrx→talk • 01:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that this warning doesn't say people should credit sources if they are copying and pasting from them, even if that source has a free liscense. We've recently caught some flack for articles that do this and never mention where the text came from, as that is plagiarism. Also, many people upload stuff assuming they have permission, but never assert it... and this leads to a lot of wheel spinning as their stuff is quickly deleted.

I think better wording would help at least a little bit:

Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted. Credit any source you legally copy from in the article.

But that seems to convoluted... any ideas? --W.marsh 19:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just make it "Credit any source you legally copy." —Centrx→talk • 21:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I archived the page and added an archive box. --Meno25 05:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Attribution has replaced Wikipedia:Verifiability. Please replace "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." with "Encyclopedic content must be attributable to a reliable source." -- Jeandré, 2007-02-23t21:00z

Even better would be "Encyclopedic content must be attributed to a reliable source." -- Jeandré, 2007-02-23t21:08z

Done. Remember to use {{editprotected}} to get administrators' attention quicker. I only came here because I was going to make a similar change of my own accord! Picaroon 01:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I second the above, per heavy discussion on WP:ATT's talk page. >Radiant< 10:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend removing the link to Wikipedia:Attribution in favor of the old link to Wikipedia:Verifiability. As it stands right now, ATT is a proposed policy. Frise 06:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 06:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The footnote about GFDL (linking to MediaWiki:Edittools#copyright) seems slightly superfluous, might that be removed? In the interests of not overwhelming the editpage foot-instructions... We're used to its size (or hide it with css) but it's really quite overwhelming for new editors, as it currently is, and every reduction helps.

Also the superscript * causes an extra-large gap above the wordwrapped GFDL (at 1024x768 in firefox/linux): Example screenshot (see top left, above GFDL^*). Anything that can be done to shorten that line, would be beneficial. Thanks. --Quiddity 03:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think about adding a larger message under the current one to "Cite your sources"? —Centrx→talk • 18:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bad idea. The message is already getting too long to read. --Carnildo 03:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is to put it below the current message on a new line, and in larger letters. Anyway, if the issue is that the message is already too long, "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." can simply be replaced by "Cite your sources", which is much shorter and much clearer. It would also help with "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted.": all the people who copy text here from other websites do not read or understand "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted."; if they at least cite their sources—which is easy to understand and shorter—copyright infringements will be much easier to detect and delete. In trying to get a legalistic, passive-voiced message, we have instead a message that few read regardless of how short it is. —Centrx→talk • 02:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A larger font is even worse. Instead of just being too long to read, the text will be difficult to read as well. --Carnildo 07:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Section headers and article titles have a larger font and we still use those without trouble. Anyway, what about the other option, of replacing the third-person passive "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable" with "Cite your sources" or similar? —Centrx→talk • 04:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Section headers and article titles are meant to be read separately from the main text. The larger font size enables the user to focus on them or ignore them as appropriate. By putting two different fonts in close proximity as you are suggesting, you encourage people to read one or the other, but not both. --Carnildo 05:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but how about the other option of changing the somewhat cryptic "Encyclopedic contents must be verifiable" to something more like "Cite sources"? —Centrx→talk • 01:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, if you can get it past the pedants. It reads the way it does right now because some people felt that any other wording could be interpreted to mean that talkpage posts had to cite sources. --Carnildo 06:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should have been done a year and a half ago when it was brought up. Have a read of Wikipedia:Improving referencing efforts. 6000 to 8000 articles a month are tagged with {{unreferenced}}, there is a two-and-a-half-year backlog for that template that shows no signs of being cleared and a large proportion of our articles have either ^{[citation needed]} all over them (rarely addressed, usually ends up staying for months if not years) or worse, have unsourced dubious facts that aren't even labelled as such. We tell contributors in the warning below the edit box that their additions should be verifiable but this is somewhat vague: there is no explicit instruction to cite sources. I've gone ahead and added this in, as part of the sentence beginning "encyclopedic content" to address Carnildo's concern that people will think it applies to pages outside the article namespace. If anyone is worried about a creeping mess of policy reminders under the edit box they can always chop "be verifiable and" out of the warning: it's better to tell contributors their content must actually be verified, not just potentially verifiable. We supposedly remove unsourced material but in reality it's left in abundance for years. Templates like ^{[citation needed]} should exist to give contributors a chance: unsourced information left in for months should just be removed, as our own policies state. If an instruction to cite sources had been added to this messages in June 2007 it might have saved us some of the vast amount of unsourced bullshit that gets added and never challenged or removed. — Trilobite 01:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

crossposted to MediaWiki talk:Edittools#4 times now?

I'm wondering if we could reduce the 4 references to the GFDL in the editingfooter?

Anything that can be done to simplify and shorten this large instruction set, would be good. --Quiddity 05:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed 100%. — Omegatron 06:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if this system message supports ParserFunctions. If yes, we could make it "smarter" by looking at {{NAMESPACE}} like it's done e.g. in MediaWiki:Newarticletext. Then the current text wolud only be used in the main namespace, for talk pages it would say "remember to sign ...", and say some other useful things in other namespaces ∴ AlexSm 23:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC) {{editprotected}} I tried this in other project and it works. Can we please change this message for non-article namespaces? Something like[reply]

{{#switch:{{NAMESPACE}}
|{{ns:0}}=Content that violates any '''[[Wikipedia:Copyrights|copyright]]''' will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be '''[[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]]'''. You agree to license your contributions under the '''<span id="ref-copyright">[[#copyright|GFDL<sup>*</sup>]]</span>'''.
|{{TALKSPACE}}=This is a [[Wikipedia:Talk page|talk page]]. Remember to [[Wikipedia:signatures|sign]] your posts by typing four tildes: <charinsert>~~~~</charinsert>
|You agree to license your contributions under the '''<span id="ref-copyright">[[#copyright|GFDL<sup>*</sup>]]</span>'''.
}}

That is, current message for articles, "remember to sign" for talk spaces and just GFDL notice for other namespaces ∴ AlexSm 21:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mediawiki pages aren't watched very heavily. I think it would be better to ask about this on a village pump. The potential objection I see is that the GFDL applies to all contributions, including talk pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if no admin found this idea any good, I won't "fight" for it either. At least I implemented this in another language Wikipedia ∴ AlexSm 01:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Even on talk pages you need the line "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL". Jon513 (talk) 10:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, somebody already pointed mentioned this to me since then, so now I only propose to remove the other two sentences. —AlexSm 14:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We also need to have the line discouraging copyright violations (a copyvio on a talk page is still a copyvio), and I would prefer to keep the verifiability line too. Superm401 - Talk 12:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#COI_Warnings_must_be_put_on_all_pages_.28IMPORTANT.29, it seems perfectly reasonable to go ahead and add something. I suggest reordering the sentences and say:

Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL^*. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. We strongly advise against COI edits.

--Aude (talk) 22:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. This is not the place to list every Wikipedia policy. It's here as legal ass-covering so that people can't say they weren't aware that they were licensing their edits under the GFDL. --Carnildo 23:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous editors or newbies come here thinking "anyone can edit" and not aware of pitfalls like COI. We have Wikipedia:Congressional staffer edits, and now WikiScanner which can dig up stuff more easily and get people in trouble. Also, we have enough WP:VANITY, spam articles, people editing their own biographies, etc. We should make them more aware of these pitfalls before they make edits. Adding six words will help. Maybe it can be said in fewer words, maybe take out "strongly"? --Aude (talk) 00:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By my count, Wikipedia has eight non-obvious editing-related policies that people should be aware of before they edit articles. Is there any reason to elevate the conflict-of-interest guidelines over policies such as WP:NOR or WP:OWN? By the time we get all the "essential" policies and guidelines listed, this will be a multi-paragraph block of text that nobody will ever read. --Carnildo 01:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What are the consequences for someone that unknowingly violates WP:NOR, WP:OWN, etc? What are the potential consequences for someone that unknowingly violates COI? Especially from an IP address? Also, consequences for Wikipedia? --Aude (talk) 01:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Violating WP:OWN? Blocking. Violating WP:NOR? Blocking. Violating WP:COI? Embarassment. Consequences for Wikipedia? More publicity. --Carnildo 03:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the idea of whether that addition should be made - "COI" is not an acronym that the average person will understand, and I strongly oppose putting jargon in the interface.

That being ignored, this is a copyright warning, not a general warning - it should stay that way lest we fall down the slippery slope. Besides, the people who violate WP:COI seem often to ignore warnings given directly, let alone ones through the software.

On a personal note, I don't mind what this message says, as I have disabled it through CSS anyway. Nihiltres^{t.l} 20:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We're seeing a lot of "but I own the copyright!" sorts of complaints, and it takes a long time to make people realize that the GFDL is forever. As a result, I just changed the third sentence of this warning from "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL" to "You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the terms of the GFDL". (I am a bit iffy on the word "irrevocably"; it's not an easy term for beginning English speakers, and it's very legalistic, which might cause some native English speakers to gloss over it.)

It's a minor change, and it won't affect the people who gloss over everything anyway, but I think it could help reduce some of the silly complaints. Please feel free to rephrase or undo as appropriate. - Jredmond (talk) 15:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Insert objection to the length of the warning here. —Centrx→talk • 15:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're an admin, you can fix it. Be bold, etc. - Jredmond (talk) 15:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the length is now distinctly too long or especially important, or how it would be fixed other than by simply deleting "irrevocably" which is rather important. —Centrx→talk • 16:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V only requires that sources must be included for quotes and material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. In addition, WP:BLP implies tighter standards for certain info in biographies. Facts that do not fall into one of these special categories still must be verifiable (meaning that the facts already appear in print) but there is no requirement that an explicit reference must be provided. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*frustrated sigh* (at Wikipedia, not at you) I laid out a rationale for this change above and decided it was best to be bold, since the discussion had been had a year and a half ago and nothing came of it. I didn't think it would be particularly controversial. Given the overwhelming rate at which unsourced facts are introduced into Wikipedia I think there is a real problem to be addressed here and changing this notice would be a good way of doing it. I refer you to Jimbo's opinion on this, quoted on WP:V:

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.

And some policy from WP:CITE:

If a claim is doubtful but not harmful to the whole article or to Wikipedia, use the {{fact}} tag, but remember to go back and remove the claim if no source is produced within a reasonable time.

In reality this almost never happens, hence the two-and-a-half-year backlog. Even though, as you say, contributors may not be required to cite sources in all circumstances, don't you think it would be very strongly advisable for us to ask this of editors, given what has already been said by Jimbo and WP:CITE (so I'm not making up policy here)? How's this for a compromise?

Encyclopedic content must be verifiable, so please cite your sources.

It's not long-winded, it's accurate in that it makes citing sources a request to aid verifiability rather than a blanket requirement, and it would help to address the massive problem Wikipedia has with this. What do you think? — Trilobite 15:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The version with "please" sounds good to me. I agree with the sentiment of it. It was the "must" that I found difficult. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great, I'm glad you agree. I suppose the 'must' was technically inaccurate so I think this is an improvement. If there are no further objections here in the next day or two I'll make the change (at which point people will actually notice and someone will revert it back again...) — Trilobite 22:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pointless. The average content adder isn't going to learn the ref code any time soon. Therefor we stick to the general principle that shorter is better.Geni 20:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They don't need to. Haven't you ever seen articles where the contributor is unfamiliar with Wikipedia conventions and names their sources in a non-standard way, sometimes a note at the bottom of the article, sometimes even in the edit summary? Such partial attempts at referencing can be easily tidied by an experienced editor as part of the usual wikification process. They are greatly preferable to no sources at all, leading to an {{unreferenced}} or a sea of {{fact}}s which potentially stick around for years. I can't see what terrible harm adding five words to this message is going to do. We aren't adding a whole paragraph about ref templates here but a very brief word of advice, with a link to a page that explains things in detail for those who feel like following it. I think WP:CITE is a more useful page to link to than WP:V anyway - if people get the message that they really need to be saying where they got their information from they might think twice about adding stuff that's their own personal opinion or maybe their friend told them once. Are you suggesting that adding this short phrase will make no difference whatsoever to the constant flow of unsourced material? It is so bad that there is a two and a half year backlog of articles people have tagged as unreferenced that no one has got round to doing anything about. If you don't think an instruction to cite sources will make any difference why not get rid of the link to WP:V as well, since that presumably wouldn't be making any difference either? — Trilobite 02:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have but it's not exactly common and addming more text to the interface isn't going to change that. Most people don't consider citeing sources and nothing you can do willl change that.Geni 19:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then you could equally say that mentioning copyright and verifiability won't help. Do you want to remove the whole notice? Plenty of people ignore those instructions but we have them there anyway because clearly there will be some people who do pay attention. I don't see how you can state a priori that telling people to cite their sources right next to the edit box will do nothing to make anyone consider doing it. As far as I can see, five words is such a tiny addition that even a tiny improvement in the referencing of contributions would justify it. We have a huge backlog of unreferenced articles and yet no one has thought to inform in suitably explicit terms otherwise policy-ignorant people who click the edit button that they need to name their sources. It strikes me as crazy. — Trilobite 01:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But will it produce an improvement in the referencing of contributions? The longer the statement gets, the less likely it is that people will read it. --Carnildo (talk) 04:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's important to add a note on citing sources, as IPs and new users often - or rather, almost always - don't how how to properly cite sources. And it would probably increase sourcing, which is essential, especially for BLPs, as discussed at WT:CSD. What about something like this :
Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the GFDL^*.
Encyclopedic content must be verifiable, references are required for most claims, please cite your sources.

Cenarium (talk) 21:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I oppose edit notice proliferation generally. Here I doubly oppose because the assumptions we make about who will source content, why and when are faulty. I suspect that a vast majority of new users or IP editors add content because they "know" it is true and don't bother citing it because the reference formatting is cumbersome, because it is 'common knowledge' in their discipline or because they are under what we would term the misapprehension that due to the nature of the wiki, someone else will come along to source it. Adding an edit notice will not change any of those mindsets and is likely (if it changes behavior at all) to just prevent a beneficial edit from being made. As much as it might infuriate all of us, we (the registered editors who are "active" on the project) represent a minority of the edits made to the encyclopedia and the norms we have established for sourcing content appear alien and binding to most people who aren't part of this little encultured group. If you don't believe me, ask someone who doesn't edit wikipedia how much of a given paragraph in an article needs an inline source. That doesn't mean that our opinions about sourcing are wrong (on the contrary, most peoples' assumptions about sourcing comes from reading books and the newspaper, two media which do not match our sourcing needs for various reasons and to varying degrees). It just means that we shouldn't expect the average new/non-frequent editor to share them. Adding a little note to the notice which appears under every edit made doesn't change this. Protonk (talk) 23:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Swap the penultimate comma for a semicolon and you have my support :D. This is not about forcing newbies to learn <ref>...</ref> tag syntax, this is about asking them to give us some clue about where they got their information from (and hopefully to help a few of them clock on to the fact that they must have actually got their information from somewhere). No matter how and where they put the reference, it's infinitely easier for an experienced editor to tidy it up than for them to find a whole new source from scratch. Happy‑melon 09:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• bad idea The vast majority of content added is added by people who don't have the time or inclination to add sources. And the vast majority of that content is fine and simply needs to be eventually sourced. This will simply discourage the addition of otherwise good content. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{editprotected}} Please change notice to:

Per the licensing transition.

Note, if we do end up mirroring the legal code on the site locally like with the GFDL, you may change the link. I also provided a link for the requesting permission and made things a bit more detailed. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: That's a huge difference to the current version, so this probably needs some discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am a sysop from Thai Wikipedia. Your new design is quite impressive, so we already adopted it here with some modification. --th:user:Taweetham 13:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, big templates like that so that we scare away any potential editor. Commons can use them, as they almost never actually edit content, and I really wonder how new users can find the 'save page' button there. Seriously though, the three lines from the message are legally sufficient and do their job well. No need for that. Cenarium (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's true considering your current English Copyrightwarning page. I don't think the new design is appropriate here since the text will be quadruple. However, for Thai Wikipedia, we have used such a very long text for some times, and we readily adopted your innovative design. Just want to tell ViperSnake151 that his stuff may not be useful here, but it useful for us. Thanks -- th:user:Taweetham17:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting longer. More and longer instructions means people are less likely to read them. Is there any way this can be shorter? --Apoc2400 (talk) 17:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have worked it down to three lines, although it wasn't the intent of my changes. Dekimasuよ! 03:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 be shortened to CC-BY-SA 3.0 ? Cenarium (talk) 16:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can try it and see if anyone minds. I left that one when I changed GFDL because I figured that people who are used to GFDL might not be familiar with Creative Commons licensing yet. Dekimasuよ! 16:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why does this provision of the license need to be stated here, where the particular provision of the license were never stated here before? If this message must state that contributors agree to be credited minimally, surely the message must state that the contributor agrees for his contributions to be re-used by anyone for any purpose, and other important provisions, but these provisions are substantially part of the GFDL and were never included in this message. —Centrx→talk • 01:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Take it up with Erik, he has a strong opinion about that bit. Dragons flight (talk) 02:21, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where is that opinion expressed if not here or at m:Licensing update? Why do you think there is any strong opinion on the inclusion of this provision? —Centrx→talk • 05:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

m:Talk:Licensing update/Implementation for one. Also at some length on one of the mailing lists (licom-l? foundation-l?), not sure which at the moment. Dragons flight (talk) 08:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find ample discussion of the provision itself, but no discussion of its inclusion in this message, or why it alone deserves special mention before all other provisions, where none were included before. The provision is present in the Terms of Use.

If this provision is unique because it alone is incorporated by the Creative Commons license, which lets the author reduce attribution under section 4(a), that fact and this provision may be better included at Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Presently, we can shorten and simplify this provision like:

You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

—Centrx→talk • 05:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that on Wikimedia Foundation wikis, this message is replaced by MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning as of June 29, 2009.--Eloquence* 21:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved the previous page and the talk to the appropriate location, and restored your version. -- Luk ^talk 09:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like the proper solution would be to move it back and mark as obsolete. I don't think meta:Licensing update/Implementation#Terms for edit screen allows for "content that violates any copyrights" and "verifiability" to be included in this message. — AlexSm 15:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't extra indications fall under the allowance for "Detailed instructions" mentioned below the main terms? Dekimasuよ! 15:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, individual communities are free to expand upon, stylize, and otherwise localize what appears here as long as they include at least the same basic elements provided by the WMF. Dragons flight (talk) 19:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I moved it both messages were identical (except for a comma). Keeping the proper history seemed like the right thing to do. -- Luk ^talk 15:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Why does a "copyright warning" interface message declare that "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable."? Rd232 ^talk 15:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, am I right in thinking that MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2 is also obsolete? Rd232 ^talk 15:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be replaced by this page, and MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary, and the 3 bulleted points at the end of MediaWiki:Edittools. There's quite a bit of redundancy between these 3 sets of warnings. Cleanup endorsed ;)

There's some discussion at MediaWiki talk:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary - I'm going to collate those links into a template, to put on the talkpage of each, so that I/we don't have to hunt to find them all... -- Quiddity (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People don't understand that when they write on wikipedia, they are basically amateur journalists, with no training about the legal issues surrounding defamation and libel law. I would highly recommend linking to the Electronic Frontier Foundation 'bloggers legal guide' or other similar guide material. This is a massive, gaping hole just waiting for the law to come crashing down on some hapless person who thought the internet was free.

Example: see en:Gutnick_v_Dow_Jones (an Australian man sued US Company 'Dow Jones' for defamation, over an article published on the internet. He sued in an Australian court where libel law was extremely favorable for plaintiffs).

Wikimedia is setting itself up for a lawsuit when some joe schmoe editor gets sued then sues wikimedia for not warning him/her. reposting with message board bump. Decora (talk) 20:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{edit protected}} MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning Could you remove the part about the WP:GFDL since text licensed under the GFDL is no longer compatible with Wikipedia and since WP:CC-BY-SA supersedes it. Regards, —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 10:18am • 23:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not so. Currently material is jointly licensed under both the GFDL and the CC-BY-SA, as you will see if you look at the copyright notice immediately under the editing box while you are editing. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That notice IS what I want edited, I understand full well a lot of material is dual licensed, however, per WP:CC-BY-SA the GFDL is no longer compatible with Wikipedia, if you take a look at the footer you will see it says,

"Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization."

Nowhere does it mention the GFDL, I understand that it's been like this since the CC-BY-SA dual license system was introduced. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 4:25pm • 05:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your premise is incorrect. Dual licensing is fully allowed, atm you are allowed to 'pick' the license under which you want to use the material, because the editors have granted you BOTH licenses. The compatibility issue that you point out, is with replacing one license with the other. So you cannot relicense pure CC-by-sa-3.0 material under the GFDL if you are not the original author, but the original author can grant you BOTH licenses at the same time. If you want people to only release all their material as CC-by-sa-3.0 when they commit, then you should probably raise a discussion on the Village pump, to get a wider consensus on the issue. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah thanks for the clarification :) Regards, —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 9:23pm • 10:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The legal department would like to implement new language that would appear on the editing page of the various Wikimedia sites. For example, on the editing page of Wikipedia, we propose replacing the following language:

You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. See the Terms of Use for details.

In its place, we would substitute:

By clicking the “Save Page” button, you are agreeing to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Please note that we would keep the preceding language: Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.

These changes are part of our ongoing review of the website, and we hope they help ensure even greater clarity and consistency in language throughout the sites. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:02, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds OK to me. Amalthea 07:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{editprotected}} For the link to the Terms of use, could an interwiki be used instead? [[wikimedia:Terms of Use]] Also, would linking to the respective onwiki pages for the CC-A/SA 3.0 and GFDL licenses be appropriate? —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 6:58pm • 08:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I follow, it's already using interwiki links to wmf:Terms of Use and wmf:Privacy policy. Regarding the links to the license texts, I presume it is necessary to link to the actual license you agree to with every edit; an encyclopedic article describing the licenses is likely not enough. It should be OK though to add hatnotes to the license text pages, pointing at the respective mainspace articles. Amalthea 13:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops nevermind, I need to clear my cache. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:04pm • 13:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hyperlink or URL sufficient?

Hi. :) A contributor at my talk page was a little concerned about potential confusion here, since attribution is not always given by a hyperlink or url. Since ToU is linked, the language is probably sufficient, but would it help to clarify matters to mention that a list of authors is also a possibility? Perhaps altering "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license" to something like "You agree that a list of authors or a hyperlink/URL are sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license"? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was the one that brought this up as I'd forgotten the full terms of use said an author list was OK and so was questioning some attribution where a list of authors had been used based on the text in this warning. I suspect many people won't read the full terms of use and it's not unreasonable, given the current language, to think that the URL/hyperlink method is the only method. I suspect technically we're OK given the linked terms of use but I think it would bring more clarity to normal editors if this was included. Dpmuk (talk) 13:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The text says, "By clicking the 'Save Page' button" but the actual button says "Save page". The capitalization is different. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:37, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]