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
Some good news, Groove Squad been changed is it enough though?
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
Looks okay to me. Taking it off the list.
Edit: Also cleaned up Record Of Grancrest War.
edited 16th Feb '18 11:15:46 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Series.Weinerville has a description copy/pasted from the official website
.
The description of Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure is from the the first paragraph of the other wiki
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
The description of Aint Them Bodies Saints from The Other Wiki
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
Paging ~Mack Wilde to answer for ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
as well as David Lowery (which is not only a copy-paste from Wikipedia, but the laziest possible job of such I've seen yet).
No longer a forum herald
Oops, misspelled the name. Let's try again. ~Mack Wylde
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Edit nevermind
edited 10th Mar '18 1:22:49 AM by jormis29
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
Raphael Bob-Waksberg is copied from Wikipedia, the editor even left in the citation numbers
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
Oh, look, it's Mack Wylde...again. Time to visit ATT.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Bagani and The New Adventures of Ocean Girl need to be added to the list
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
Added the earlier ones from above to the list. Paging ~Pangaeas Most Wanted to discuss Bagini, and paging ~Wacky Meerkat to discuss The New Adventures of Ocean Girl.
I'll try to get to them when I have some time, but I'd appreciate any help in clearing out the list - it's getting a little bloated.
Edit: Pangaea has contacted me and is rewriting the page. We'll see how that goes.
edited 20th Mar '18 12:31:29 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
The Unknown
~The Laughing Fist c/p'd the description of WebAnimation.Nomad Of Nowhere directly from Rooster Teeth's official blurb from their website.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Fine I'll fix it.....
And done
edited 21st Mar '18 6:33:47 PM by TheLaughingFist
No longer a forum herald
Well, the evidence that people usually copy-paste because they lack English skills continues to build...
~The Laughing Fist, please check in with the Get Help with English Thread. You probably will want to start by bringing up the description you wrote for Nomad of Nowhere.
edited 21st Mar '18 7:39:18 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Is it okay to copy a list of off Wikipedia? I created the NOW That's What I Call Music! article and I copied the list of albums from Wikipedia. I'm not sure if that's allowed or not.
No longer a forum herald
Technically...yes, even if it's not something that's really detectable without knowing. Honestly, it's not that hard to tweak the formatting to be at least somewhat different.
Plus, you stretched that page to the point of absurdity - lists the length of those should have been put in folders to begin with.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
I was cleaning up some pages and noticed that the description for The Jim Jefferies Show and Jim Jefferies are from the beginning of their respective Wikipedia articles
I'm working on others right now
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
Messaging ~James Austin to come in and discuss those pages.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
I'll work on some of them now.
No longer a forum herald
Let's see...in regards to the show's page, I think you can do a little better than that. Try writing the description from scratch on a sandbox page, instead of just changing a few words.
Also, on further thought, I'm not sure we need the Creator/ page right now, if the guy's only notable work is this one show. All the important tropes could be handled through the show's page easily.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Bataan's description is from Wikipedia
Working on cleaning up List of Shows That Need Summary
No longer a forum herald
~k410ren, paging to discuss your creation of Film.Bataan.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Changed synopsis.
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and kills
...I'm starting to detect an overlap here with people who don't know proper English and people who copy-paste from Wikipedia...
Please go get some help in the English thread
. (If you keep editing with bad English, you will be forced to by way of being banned from editing.)
edited 7th Feb '18 5:12:32 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)