The Copy-Paste Cleanup Thread

Apparently some people find it easier to copy-paste text from other sources, including Wikipedia or the creator's original site, instead of coming up with their own text.

However, this could get the website in a ton of legal trouble for plagiarism and/or copyright violations. (Not to mention it's lazy writing to boot.) Since stopping that problem is a very high priority, and I've observed multiple cases of this problem as of late, let's give this its own dedicated clean-up thread. If you see any work, character, or recap descriptions that copy another source word-for-word, bring them up here if you're not sure how to immediately fix them.

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Moderator notice: If you cannot immediately rewrite plagiarized text, remove it and put in a placeholder note. A sample follows:

[This description was copied in violation of our [[Administrivia/AboutImagesAndCopyright Plagiarism]] policy. Please replace it with original writing.]

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Below is a list of currently known pages that suffer from this problem, and the source they copy from. (This list can be updated by mods or by me, Totemic Hero.) The ideal goal is to have these pages fixed within a week or two of finding out about the copy-paste. If we can't manage to come up with a fix in that time frame, then we'll probably have to outright Cut List said pages, because the site can't risk legal issues.

Currently known pages with copied text

Characters.Overwatch - Character descriptions partially copied from Blizzard's official site
Recap.American Horror Story - Recap descriptions mostly copied from the show's wiki
Recap.Charmed - A number of recap descriptions are copied from the show's wiki
Characters.Smite - Character descriptions transcribed from the character videos
Literature.Repairman Jack - Parts of work description copied from Wikipedia
Characters.Infinite Crisis - Parts copied from old version of official website (needs checking to see if still there)
WesternAnimation.Happy Ness The Secret Of The Loch - Description copied from VHS tape box
ComicBook.Alpha Gods - Part of work description copied from official website
Music.Among The Living - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Kurt Sutter - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Fanfic.Past Sins - Work description copied from host site
TabletopGame.Beyond The Supernatural - Work description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Van Beuren Studios - Description apparently copied from a blog
Main.Footnote Fever - Text of a number of examples copied from Wikipedia
WesternAnimation.Camberwick Green - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Series.Weinerville - Part of description copied from official website
Film.Yamashita The Tigers Treasure - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.David Lowery - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Raphael Bob Waksberg - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Kazuki Takahashi - Majority of description copied from Wikipedia
VideoGame.Action Taimanin - Many examples copied from the AllTheTropes wiki, including on subpages

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 25th 2023 at 5:26:38 AM

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Most of the recap pages for Charmed and American Horror Story, have text and images taken from the Charmed Wiki and American Horror Story Wiki's respectively.

Images aren't part of this problem, since those sites don't have the rights to those images any more than we do. And the Charmed pages don't appear to really copy anything from there outside of said images, so no problems there.

That said, yeah, the recaps for American Horror Story are too close to let stand. Adding that to the list.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Actually, whilst it doesn't appear to be all-the pages (I compared the recaps for the pilot episode to check), several of the recaps are taken word for word from the Charmed Wiki.

Compare the recap on Charmed S2E4 The Devil's Music to the text from this page.

Fair enough; I was just doing a quick drive-by check. Added. (It would help if you could list the specific pages out, though, because that way we don't have to comb through them again.)

edited 1st Sep '16 6:41:34 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Thanks for this thread. I recently had a conversation with another troper on this issue due to them copy-pasting something from another site but as I couldn't find any rule on whether this was actually allowed or not so let the subject drop. If it is the case that this practice is frowned upon however then I will go ahead an rewrite the copy-pasted entry.

The description of Van Beuren Studios is a copy-paste from an animation blog (the page itself seems to be down, but at least it's credited...). I don't know enough about the subject matter to do a proper write-up on it.

The description of Moab Is My Washpot is from Wikipedia, though it's credited at least.

edited 6th Sep '16 9:23:28 PM by Orbiting

It doesn't matter whether it's credited or not. It's already been established by the mods in Ask The Tropers that copy-paste from Wikipedia can't be allowed to stand.

With that said, I'm going to start heading out to respective work threads where possible and asking for volunteers to help write new descriptions in sandboxes. Let's start shrinking the list.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Many characters on Characters.Fate Grand Order and its subpages have their character descriptions copy-pasted from translations of their in-game profiles.

The text was taken fromthese two blogs

That's a bit of a borderline case, since it's a blend of original text and stuff from those sites. I'd like some other opinions on that before judging it to need cleanup.

In the meantime, Characters.Smite has been added (it copies from the game wiki).

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Actually they are transcripts of the god reveal trailers where they go over the lore and gameplay of each character.

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

"A blend" sounds like a derivative work to me, copyright-wise.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Noted and corrected.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

The work page description for LOL appears to have been copied from it's Wikipedia article.

The work page description for Repairman Jack is copied almost entirely from Wikipedia, and even advertises that. Points for honesty, I guess, but still, needs to be changed.

edited 28th Oct '16 7:34:33 AM by Derkhan

Added to the list. Even though it's not a clear simple copy-paste, license issues means we can't copy ANYTHING from Wikipedia, even if we modify it.

edited 28th Oct '16 7:44:24 AM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I confess that I copied and pasted the universe descriptions in Characters.Infinite Crisis from an earlier version of the official website for the MOBA.

Getting back on this now that the World Series is not eating my attention span.

I'll add to the list, but it would be better if you could fix it yourself. (You would know more about those characters than I would, that much I can tell you.)

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

The work page description for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is copied from a Deadline article, it says so on the work page.

Well, at least that one was pretty straight-forward to fix. I took care of it.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Happy Ness: The Secret of the Loch has a work page description that appears to be taken from the back of a VHS tape.

Well, technically I can't call this a copy-paste, but in spirit...hey, first time for everything.

Also, "Happy Ness"? Ugh.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

The Coldest War has a description which appears to be copied from Amazon [1].

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

A quick check shows the first book in that series also copies the Amazon blurb. At least it has a proper description outside of that...ugh, axing both of those.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)