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.
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.]
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 siteRecap.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
Lost in Space
Delete them and replace them with the notice I provided on the previous page.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I'm helping!
Maybe edit that notice into the OP for reference?
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
I'm helping!
Sorkin Relationship Moment outright says in the description that much of it was copied from a Websnark post
...
... the post is long, but the only part of it we immediately see copied in the TVT article is the fourth paragraph, "A Sorkin Relationship Moment is a moment where that person gets fed up and demands that the other people just stop it already. This is just too much. It is uncomfortable. It is unpleasant, and it is unfair." (e: Made our attempt to remove this part.)
Could use extra eyes to check on that...
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Jul 21st 2021 at 9:59:51 AM
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
Lost in Space
That trope has an extremely poor title. Yes, Aaron Sorkin is a popular writer but a tiny fraction of people will understand what it means.
Edited by Fighteer on Jul 21st 2021 at 11:00:19 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Hell, I read the description and I still have no idea what it's saying. And it only has 44 wicks... technically above the Not Thriving threshhold, but...
I might run a wick check on it. For now a trope talk discussion might suffice.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jul 21st 2021 at 11:02:16 AM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Inheritor of the Wing
Was directed here from ATT. All the playable character entries on Characters.Skullgirls Main Characters and Characters.Skullgirls DLC Characters had their descriptions ripped from the official site. The odd lone exception was Squigly, who had hers taken from the Skullgirls fan wikia instead.
I replaced all the entries with a commented-out notice, and commented out the playstyle descriptors too just in case those were ripped from somewhere. (Searching those playstyle descriptions didn't yield anything, though. If they're safe after all they can be re-commented.)
🏳️⚧️she/her | Vio Rhyse Alberia
Mr Warren's Profession outright states the description is taken from the book's blurb.
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Dunno about the rest of em, but I threw together the playstyle descriptor for Annie myself after a quick analysis.
Not sure if first-party vouching is worth anything here, but figured I might speak up.
Edited by DarthWalrus on Aug 1st 2021 at 12:48:23 PM
Mwa-ha-ha-ha.... yet ANOTHER page loaded with plagiarized content, and ZCE. Also, potholing Magnificent Bastard twice in a row note ? Is the guy like, a Magnificent X2 Bastard?
Anyway, Helios Eclipse plagiarized the shit out of this blog page
EDIT: Aha, the main page plagiarized its description as well. Notably from this review site
Second EDIT: Ugh, not again... description and intro from Le Gardenie is lifted from the other wiki
Third EDIT: Rule of Three strikes again! The intro to Fatal Chaos lifted from another wiki
Edited by RobertTYL on Aug 3rd 2021 at 3:32:00 AM
Lost in Space
- Characters.Helios Eclipse ran out of edit history so I can't see who added that content, but it's mostly ZCEs anyway. It also hasn't been meaningfully edited since at least 2013. It can be cut. Same with the main article.
- Manga.Le Gardenie hasn't had any meaningful content added since 2014.
- Manga.Fatal Chaos hasn't had any meaningful content added since 2014.
The Color of Pomegranates has its description copied from Wikipedia.
Alone In A Crowd admits to plagiarism in the description. I cutlist the page anyway since there are no tropes on it and the page was created in 2017, but is there anything else I should do while waiting for that to be handled?
Angry babby
And it uses First-Person Writing to boot. Woof...
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
The edit history has a bunch of snark removed from the original, too. The whole thing needs to be binned.
Angry babby
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is copy-pasted from the official Sony Pictures plot summary. Anybody wanna tweak it or should I try?
A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows still contain plagiarized content.
The (as of yet only) YMMV item on Meiji Tokyo Renka has its description copied from the YMMV subpage for Bungo to Alchemist, apparently by virtue of both works' having the same Historical Domain Character.
We can remove the last thing in the banner since it's been cut? Not sure for how long though.
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
10,000 grams of pure caffeine
(reposted from this ATT because I forgot I could post it here)
So...I read the page of the Friday Night Funkin' mod, The Blueballs Incident, then some time later I read the mod's wiki page in the Funkipedia Mods Wiki, and...I found plagiarism in the TVT page's Foil section from the latter page, stemming from how identical the text is, with the only changes being the title of the The Blueballs Incident mod.
Your link indicates that they plagiarized from us, so I think we should be good to keep it.
Yes, this edit even says that they copied it directly from TVT.
Angry babby
Are they allowed to do that?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
I'm helping!
TVT pages are released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license, but Fandom uses CC-BY-SA. So... don't think so?
Dunno what we'd do about it.
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Aug 14th 2021 at 11:03:26 AM
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
The description of VideoGame.Warface has parts copied from the game's website, according to the page itself. The history says these were added in 2014
.
Edited by KUnlimited on Jul 21st 2021 at 9:21:36 AM
Avatar by Butterscotch Arts. Used under license.