The Copy-Paste Cleanup Thread

What? We shouldn't force people to go to a different page to read the description. That's insane.

No. There is already a proper description of each character. The issue is that following the description is a [[note]] that contains a copy/paste of the official bios. That is the part I believe should be deleted.

Okay, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying we should just say "click here for the bio".

What's the stance on using quoted text for a description, like on the page for Check, Please! ?

Gotta go. We need to make our own description.

Finally got around to deleting the extra copy/paste Official Bio stuff from the Wreck-It Ralph pages.

The second paragraph of Fushigi no Kuni no Alice's description is copied from Wikipedia.

Monolaf317 copied a Fridge Horror entry for "Bluebird" on Fridge.Steven Universe Future from this Reddit post. A later troper added a link to the post, but it's still copied verbatim.

Here's a reword:

• Bluebird offering Steven clams, peanut butter and grass initially just seems to be another example of Gems not quite understanding how humans work... however, as Bluebird was out for revenge the moment she stepped in his house, and shellfish, peanuts, and grass are three of the most common human allergies, it's far more likely Bluebird was hoping Steven would get sick and die by eating the stuff.

Many of the descriptions on Characters.Caillou seem suspicious due to how they are written; are they copy-pasted from somewhere?

Literature.Gotham High is a copy of the blurb, wrong namespace and little to no example content

Copypaste here, I suspect:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/OvershadowedByControversy/RealLife

- Hadrian is the Roman Emperor associated with the longest period of peace and often labelled as one of the "Five Good Emperors". Although it is nevertheless true that his reign witnessed the brutal Bar-Kokhba Revolt in Judea, which resulted in over half a million victims and the majority of Judea's Jewish population getting killed, exiled, or enslaved, while Hadrian forbade Jews or Christians from entering Jerusalem and changed Judea's name to Syria-Palestina to erase any relationship between Jews and their homeland. Some view Haridan's actions as so brutal that they should get classified as genocide and theorise that Hadrian became the prototypical antisemitic "Evil King" in Jewish lore and rabbinic teachings, which often mention Hadrian with the epitaph "may his bones be crushed".

Seems to be copypasted from here: http://themillionhistory.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-gay-emperor-haphazardly-started-first.html

"Hadrian is the Roman emperor associated with the longest period of peace."

"However, while Hadrian (see his bust on the left) is often labelled as one of the “five good emperors”, it is nevertheless true that his reign witnessed a brutal war between Romans and Jews, which resulted in over half a million victims (according to Dio Cassio, although some modern historians believe this number to be exaggerated) and the general depopulation of Judea. "

"After the 2nd century Hadrian became the prototype of the antisemitic Evil King in every Jewish tale and in the teachings of rabbis, which often mention “Hadrian, may his bones be crushed”. "

"Several historians view the Roman actions as so brutal that these should be classified as genocide."

- Septimius Severus' rule saw a significant number of Christian and Jewish executions in the Roman Empire occur, rising from 1,000 to 3,000. Septimius saw the Roman law in a draconian light, which tolerated no other religion than the pagan one. For him, people who followed any other religions than the Roman religion should get persecuted outright. He had no fear of everyone except for his army, who could rebel against and depose him.

Blatant copy-paste from here: https://mentalitch.com/10-worst-and-craziest-roman-emperors-of-all-time/

"A significant number of Christian and Jewish executions in the Roman empire occurred during Septimius Severus’ rule, rising up to 1,000 to 3,000. It’s clear that Septimius saw the Roman law in a draconian light, which tolerated no other religion than the pagan one. For him, people who followed any other religions than the Roman religion should be persecuted outright. He had no fear of everyone except for his army, who could rebel against and depose him."

And I think there could be more.

I think this whole page itself might need a look, especially when the writing might get a bit more "eloquent".

The first nine recap pages of Little Witch Academia (2017) all copy their summaries from Wikipedia.

Edited by IukaSylvie on May 1st 2020 at 12:42:32 AM

How close does something have to be to the source to be problematic? I recently came across the following example on one of the the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar pages:

• Hellish Horse: Chaos Knights' dark chargers are hulking, muscular beasts whose breath is like cinder, and who are no less fierce than their riders.

The original text form the sourcebook is : "...these dark chargers are hulking muscular beasts whose breath is like cinder, and who are every bit as fierce as their riders."

There are a few changes but it is otherwise basically the same sentence.

I have edited the example to take it further from the source and the example was added too long ago to be worth sending a notifier to whoever added it but there are a few like this on that Work's pages and I am slowly going through them to rewrite things. I am mostly asking for future reference in case any more are added.

Fury of Dracula description is copied from two paragraphs from Wikipedia

The description of Anime.Alice In Wonderland JP seems to be partially plagiarized from Wikipedia.

Bringing this over from this ATT, Thor's Fight with the Giants has a description copy-pasted from Wikipedia.

Recap.A Clash Of Kings and Recap.A Storm Of Swords outright admit they copypasted from somewhere.

The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo's description seems to contain a copy-pasted segment.

Most of, if not all of the character descriptions on Characters.Molly Of Denali are likely copy-pasted as well, judging from the way they're written.

- If it's quoting a source like that, I'd just use —> quote notation and say something like As The Sourcebook Says...

Edited by Malady on Jun 10th 2020 at 1:46:19 AM

Shouldn't those be in the literature namespace ?

While there seems to have been some changes on both sides since it first caught my eye, I'm quite sure the Snowpiercer (2020) character page was initially copied from the Wikipedia entries of the characters. Some of the descriptions on the Tv tropes version still include stuff that is more fit for What Could Have Been, so the page could use a look by someone with a better grasp of who's who than I have regardless. While I watch the series, I never quite caught the name of some members of the cast.

Edited by Nazetrime on Jun 18th 2020 at 12:46:05 PM

Trivia.Ultima IV has (well, had, I just cut it) a section pasted almost directly from a walkthrough on gamefaqs.

Just to check, even if I'm charitable and assume that the editor who added it actually emailed the guide's author, it's physically impossible for an ad-funded site to actually meet that last condition, and possibly wouldn't even matter if we did, right?

The intro of Tsuritama admits it's copied from Sentai Filmworks' description.

The first paragraph from United Passions deliberately copies the official description, just to make fun of it.