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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes, it's the same as this website
which may be hers.
That description is copied-pasted in numerous websites, from Goodreads to Amazon, so I'm not surprised some troper did the same.
Angry babby
The entire description of Gotham High is copy/pasted from an official description, made obvious by the gushing at the end.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
That was created by ~Estvyk last year.
The page, I assume, right?
"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”
Recap.The Good Fight S 02 E 12 was copied from Wikipedia (in addition to being a stub) and was created only today by ~Ymirsdaughter. I sent them a plagiarism notifier. Other recap pages they made for the show are likely also copied.
Also I went and rechecked Gotham High and that page was actually created by ~Yuunoa And Mikrul Shipper in the Literature namespace. I replaced the description with the placeholder.
On the MLP shipping fanfic rec page, the synopsis for Guppy Love is lifted from FIMFiction. Is that a problem?
Edited by Delibirda on Oct 29th 2021 at 2:27:59 PM
"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”
Veteran Editor IV
I'd say yes.
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)
Forgot to mention I meant it for a specific fic.
"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”
I'm helping!
The template on Fanfic Recommendations explicitly suggests using the fic's official synopsis...
If that's a problem, the template needs to be edited.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
The rec page in question. I put the synopsis in double quotes.
Hey, is Feralnette AU Big Fat Break copied from anywhere? It feels too detailed a thought out a description for a fanfic page.
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢
I googled parts of the text and couldn't find anything. It's possible that it's just a well-written description.
Except that it doesn't directly state what show it's a fic for.
"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”
It does now. Anyway, I don't think it's copied.
Aight.
Yeah, I edited it to fix that.
~Unsorched was just flagged in this ATT for poor grammar and complaining. I checked through their edit history only to find that they've added a bunch of recaps for Clarence that are entirely copied and pasted over from other sources.
All the summaries added
here, here and here were copied straight from IMDB here.
They've also created multiple stub pages where the only content is a copied and pasted summary and a couple of tropes.
Examples:
This was copied and pasted from here
This was copied and pasted from here
And this was copied and pasted from here.
I'm going to clear up the above text and have also sent a notifier.
Edited by Atlantis1930 on Oct 31st 2021 at 10:32:58 AM
Grin and bear it
Nukeli plagiarized both Recap pages for both The Great Mouse Detective and The Great Dictator. I'm going through the rest of their history for anything else, but those are the two major things.
I sent ~Donquill a notifer for copying the description for Evanesco from the source, but based on the messages they sent me and the fact that they've done this repeatedly, including after I explained to them that they shouldn't do that, they don't seem to be getting it.
Jason Webley apparently quotes a paragraph from Wikipedia. That section used to be in italics, but the italics tags were removed at some point which makes it unclear to readers where the quote even ends.
Just checking, a fanfic description, Copy-Pasted from the website, was taken down because 'Plagerism'. Am I correct in thinking fanfic descriptions do not count as plagerism, because 100% are not copyrighted? Can I put it back?
Lost in Space
Plagiarism has nothing to do with copyright. Any time you copy something someone else wrote and do not cite it, you are committing plagiarism. That's it, end of story.
For TV Tropes' purposes, we want original writing in all of our articles. Any reproduction of content must be: (a) cited, (b) clearly marked as a quote or citation, (c) an illustrative excerpt only, (d) not the majority of an example or article description.
Under specific circumstances, you can get permission to reproduce content but that doesn't exempt you from the other rules above.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 2nd 2021 at 8:07:33 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ah, how do I put it into the proper format then? Or do I just say
- A B C D - Fanfic description.
- Edit - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Fanfic.HuntersOfJustice The article in question, I put the description back for now to alter once I know what to do.
- Edit - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Fanfic.HuntersOfJustice
Edited by PurpleElement on Nov 2nd 2021 at 12:08:54 PM
Lost in Space
To be clear, if you are writing a fanfic recommendation or the description of an article in the fanfic namespace, you may not copy from another site, period. Use your own words.
If you want to copy a portion of the work's original description, you may indicate it with quote markup, like so.
— Fanfic author
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 2nd 2021 at 8:10:09 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"