Forum:Temporary forums/Clarifying T:DON'T COPY

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Proposal

As an alternative to the exhaustively lengthy forum opening posts that we've seen lately, I'll keep it brief: Timewalkerauthor has added a number of plot descriptions on Big Finish audio pages – an area where our wiki has historically been lacking. However, they also posted the summaries on their personal blog, and for this reason the summaries have been removed from the website. This was the reason given:

While it is not technically plagiarism, we at this wiki don't want material copied from other sites. We only want original material — why would someone come here to get information they can get somewhere else? We appreciate your contributions, but please don't copy material, even if written by yourself, from other sites.Admin quote accompanying removal

The problem with this logic is that there are many, many reasons why a user would come here to get information they could find elsewhere, from SEO to indexing to searchability. After all, this whole wiki started as a duplicate of Wikipedia's Doctor Who-related pages, and that never stopped us! This is no reason to remove accurate and properly-formatted information from the wiki. I ask that T:DON'T COPY be edited to specifically reject this reasoning and that Timewalkerauthor's summaries be restored. – n8 (☎) 20:14, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

To be clearer, the specific change I am suggesting is that Tardis:Plagiarism does not apply to an editor copying their own material from elsewhere, so long as it meets the wiki's standards. – n8 (☎) 20:24, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

I support this proposal. Pluto2☎ 16:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I support the proposal. OS25🤙☎️ 16:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

This is bizarre reasoning from Shambala especially given that people can copy the wiki at any time, provided that they properly credit. So why would they come to the wiki if they can get it elsewhere? Surely this entails that our licenses used are fundamentally incorrect! I'm baffled as to how this wasn't immediately pointed out, clearly support this proposal. (And, of course, we duplicate a ton of information from elsewhere. Just a bizarre notion.) Najawin ☎ 19:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Time God Eon ☎ 03:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I can see where the admin was coming from, back in the day when this policy was come up with the reasoning was basically to stop people copying from sites like the Doctor Who Reference Guide and other such sites, and also from copying from Wikipedia, as the idea was having differentiation between here and there.

I don't think any of us envisioned anyone writing it for their own sites, and also adding to it here.

I support this proposal, as long as there's wording in the policy that still protects against people randomly grabbing content from other sites. --Tangerineduel / talk 05:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Supported, so long as the scope is made clear. This should only clarify that T:DON'T COPY only applies to using other people's work, as Nate has added above.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 05:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, support. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 09:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Danniesen ☎ 10:27, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

This thread has been pretty uncontroversial with broad support and consensus. Therefore, I have updated T:DON'T COPY. Timewalkerauthor's summaries may be reinstated. There's not much more to say. Bongo50 ☎ 20:55, 24 April 2023 (UTC)