Forum:Attribution of content from WoWWiki on Wowpedia

Forums: Village pump → Attribution of content from WoWWiki on Wowpedia
(This topic is archived. Please do not edit this page!)

The template discussed below has been deleted. If you want it or something like it re-created, please discuss it with an admin first. FYI, I'm not an admin. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 9:30 PM PST 21 Nov 2010

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I created {{wwpage}} so you can quickly source from WoWWiki for the occasional content taken from there.

You use it like this:

== Sources ==

{{wwpage|source=|Zim'Torga Defender}}

...which gives:

Sources

Template:Wwpage

I hope we don't need to use it too much, but it makes it easy to properly attribute content from WoWWiki.

You will find candidates of content where this template will be useful at Template:Wwpage. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 9:12 AM PST 19 Nov 2010

Hmm, I don't think that's really necessary for small articles such as that, cause all that info can easily be gathered in-game, wowhead, or other database sites. Where as articles like Elemental Unrest, which has extensive info, mostly created by users can easily be identified as being copied between sites. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 22:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, copying data from Wowhead (or wherever) hardly counts as original content and thus doesn't need attributing. This wouldn't be an excuse for not attributing if something substantial was created there, but the way I look at it, when I implement changes that were made on WoWWiki, 99% of such changes were made by people who didn't know the site had moved, so I'm helping them and the community out. --Bellocois (talk) 07:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It is necessary, but people don't want to do it because they're lazy, just like alot of people don't choose a license when they upload images. I did this because sometimes I'm a different kind of lazy and rather than pretending I gathered it from another source, I just copy the already good page from WoWWiki, properly source it, and be done. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 4:42 PM PST 20 Nov 2010

The problem with blindly copying & pasting from wowwiki, is that wowwiki has a lot of incorrect information.  [Veteran of the Shifting Sands] has already been updated from the wowwiki version (which even cited the wrong achievement name), and no longer needs wowwiki citing. Someone should add the Wowwiki cite template in "Things to do" so that pages citing wowwiki can be checked, corrected, and then the cite can be removed. Ressy (talk) 00:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing you said removes the need or usefulness of this template. And, that someone could be YOU. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 5:28 PM PST 20 Nov 2010

I would prefer original pages rather than just copying from WoWWiki because the page was made there. Don't just copy WoWWiki pages, re-create them with the same data. I don't want to see that template having any more reason to be used. In fact, I'm planning to delete it because there should not be enough uses of it to merit a template. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 00:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Ahh Pcj, you never change. Whatever. You're the boss now. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 10:38 PM PST 20 Nov 2010

Although I agree that the template should never be needed, I don't think we should toss it out just yet. This represents a good discussion, at the least, on attribution and how we go about taking content from other sources. Also... legalities aside, WoWWiki may be more inclined to not delete their "this is taken from Wowpedia" template as long as we can say that we have a "this is taken from WoWWiki" template. If we delete this template, we are possibly driving them into doing the same. Only difference is, they will continue to copy stuff, without attributing it, while we attempt to take the higher road. Lets keep this template (but don't use it!) for a little while longer. D.D. Corkum (T / C) 15:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Legally, they can't just 'take' stuff from another site without citing where its from (ie wowpedia). If they do, we are well within our rights to revert the change or remove it altogether. Its understandable that they'll 'take' from this site since this one's being updated. But theres no reason why we should really NEED to take from wowwiki, with so many other sites offering up information on whatever we need. Ressy (talk) 16:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Future of WoWWiki vs. Wowpedia

Wait, don't delete the template yet! There's some important stuff on WoWWiki we might want to import, such as Cogsworth Boltbucket. Sorry, couldn't resist. It makes sense to let them put fanfic on that site and relegate the encyclopedia stuff here, no? There's clearly a small but growing community who are interested in staying on WoWWiki and making fanfic stuff - a potential admin even reported Fandyllic to the Violations page for trying to delete such things. Given there isn't a community of encyclopedia-editors there (even Deadlykris is just a custodian) these people technically represent WoWWiki's base now. --Bellocois (talk) 23:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

They appear to be edit warring over adding ur gay to each other's pages. That says something about the state of the two wikis. --Thalios (talk · contr) 01:57, 22 November 2010

Cool, I got on the Violations page. Darn, my name got reverted off it. BTW, there is already a wiki for WoW fanfic: WoWRP. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 8:25 PM PST 21 Nov 2010

The point was leave them alone. They're not hurting anyone. --Bellocois (talk) 03:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, unless they change WoWWiki polices, they are violating the policy by putting fanfic in the main namespace. Try that here and see what happens. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 9:01 PM PST 21 Nov 2010

That was my point though... The WoWWiki community (what's left of it) is not the Wowpedia community... The fanfic people could help save a site that has otherwise died out. But I see you are an admin on that RP wiki, so I guess I understand your position, you don't want them stepping on your toes. That's understandable. --Bellocois (talk) 04:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WoWRP was supposed to follow Wowpedia to Curse I think, but the bureaucrat and founder there seems to have lost interest and I have no motivation to make it happen. I became an admin at WoWRP to make it work better with WoWWiki and have a place for fanfic folks to put their stuff, because around that time they were being treated pretty badly at WoWWiki. If you've looked at almost all the edits I've made at WoWWiki recently, you'll see the only time I've even mentioned WoWRP to another user is when they complained about me enforcing policy about fan fiction.

I'm trying to maintain the spirit of the post at Forum:Vandalising WoWWiki. While I won't really contribute significant content there, I still want to see it die gracefully. -- Fandyllic (talk · contribs) 9:27 PM PST 21 Nov 2010

That's understandable I guess. I was looking at it from a different angle is all, because there's no point in having the site stay open from an encyclopedia-perspective, so I thought fanfic people could breathe life into it... Thank you for explaining to me since I am new. I still think the users' suggestions over there make sense though. --Bellocois (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

If they want fanfic to be brought into the main namespace, they only have to ask. All it takes is community consensus as demonstrated through a series of votes to change the WoWWiki policy. But going ahead and posting personal fanfic when it is against policy (without making any attempt to change said policy using existing mechanisisms) is just not appropriate. D.D. Corkum (T / C) 04:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Er, attribution is attribution

'scuse me for resurrecting a topic I missed the first time around, but I think it's rather important.

Wowpedia and WoWWiki both hold articles written under the CC-BY-SA license. I'll point to the link provided while I'm editing this. The point being, attribution.

Let me take the arguments from the above:

• copying data from Wowhead (or wherever) hardly counts as original content and thus doesn't need attributing.
• I don't think [a template is] really necessary for small articles
• I would prefer original pages rather than just copying from WoWWiki...
• Legally, they can't just 'take' stuff from another site without citing where its from (ie wowpedia)

On the other side:

• people don't want to do it because they're lazy, just like alot of people don't choose a license when they upload images.
• WoWWiki may be more inclined to not delete their "this is taken from Wowpedia" template as long as we can say that we have a "this is taken from WoWWiki" template.

You will note, please, that the arguments don't match up with each other. With two exceptions, I find the lot of them foolish.

Facts are not copyrightable

"copying data" is correct only in this sense. Copying images, substantially copying user comments, both are covered under copyright. As well, simple attribution of facts should be considered here. If you take your 'fact' from comments on wowhead and don't attribute it, others here may assume it was original research and actually accord it fact status when you can't really attest to the truth of it. If you go to the game client and verify it for yourself, that's a different thing. But as one of the other arguments said, "people are lazy".

The "small article" side argues to "facts are not copyrighted". The majority of item articles (perhaps the largest portion of 'small articles we have) are 100% facts. I agree (exception 1) that attribution is irrelevant to them. The other half of "facts are not copyrightable" is "creative presentation of facts is". It is the creative content, the descriptions and links and "this is a reference to", etcetera where attribution may come into it.

Wowpedia should always have more original content.

I agree. (exception 2) But we all know that that doesn't always happen. We 'steal' from wowhead, we take from forums, apropriate theorycrafter formulas wholesale. Many of us DO "gather original information", save screenshots, etc. But wishing we had 100% original content isn't going to make it so. And eliminating everything not originally researched for wowpedia will make it a much poorer place.

This is Wowpedia. We are Wowpedia.

Even though it was an argument in favor of keeping the template, we should not be considering reciprocity as part of the issue. Call me an idealist, but we should be doing The Right Thing on our own accord, not out of fear of what others may do. Attribution is the right thing to do, when content is taken from somewhere else.

Templates aren't just for large volume cases.

Templates can and are regularly used for very small volume cases. Case in point, Quest chain templates. Linked to by the quests involved and in a very few lucky cases by chain articles or "(zone) quests" pages. Templates are to make life easier for editors. If someone does appropriate something from wowwiki, a specific template would make such attribution easier. A valid argument can be made that the existing citation templates cover the case, specifically Template:Ref web. Interestingly, nobody actually mentioned that.

So no, I'm not advocating unequivocally for a specific attribution template. But I am arguing that the reasons presented for not having it were at best not to the point. Pcj, you want original research, not stuff copied from wowwiki. Would not a specific attribution template serve as a red flag for things that should be researched and written specifically for here?

The comments above this were written in November 2010, not long after the fork. I can understand that feelings ran high. However, as I said: Attribution is attribution. Arguing against making attribution easier is counterproductive even to the goals stated above, let alone behaving well for its own sake.

Another quality rant brought to you by --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 00:51, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Citation is different than attribution. You should never cite an encyclopedia as a source, though content from Wikipedia or similar imported in the CC-BY-SA license must be attributed. We attribute content from CC-BY-SA sites because that is the license of those sites. Other content falls under "fair use" or just because screenshots are really Blizzard's property in the end or whatever. Anyway, this is a old topic; I'm not advocating to only have Wowpedia-exclusive original research per se, I'm saying that generating the content ourselves will probably be much higher quality than anything that comes out of WoWWiki these days. There probably are some rare exceptions, but they'll: a) be largely un-missed in Wowpedia if they remain absent, or b) not worthy of an entire template just for one or two articles. I say justify the template by actually having a need for it before whining that it got deleted. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 03:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm positive I said this somewhere, but the license only requires that you attribute the content in the page history with a minimum of a link to the page where you got the info from. This leaves a permanent reminder which is visible in the page history, if not a visible one on the page. And I find that much more "powerful" an attribution, as one on the page could be removed by someone somewhen for some reason. --Sky (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Citation vs Attribution: Citation is attribution of fact, therefore a subspecies of attribution. Yes? To the extent I did not make that distinction, I stand corrected. While I agree with you that an editor putting original thought into an article will generate a higher quality of article, I disagree that you can take an average quality here and an average quality there and use that as a general rule. After all, it is the highest quality content that is most likely to be used/attributed. Cherry-picking, I think it is called.

Attribution via edit history: Really, I think that's where this discussion should have gone. "If you don't think much of a new template, then what alternatives are you suggesting?" I agree that edit history is a strong place to put attribution. It is unmistakable and durable ... if you are looking at the edit history. Attributing only in the edit history leads to a common assumption that said content is original to this site, though. The common reader does not look at the page history to see the provenance of the content. That's why we have the citation templates in the first place, isn't it?

On the other hand, Sky, you bring up a good point - look to the license to see the attribution standard. CC-BY-SA says...

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

While WoWiki copyright policy does not explicitly state a method of attribution, I expect that their standard for Fair Use of external content would be a minimum (reciprocal) standard. From a citation point of view, I would suggest that, for content attributed or cited from any wiki be linked to the page version it came from. As you stated, content on a wiki page can be removed by "someone somewhen" at whim. It's the version link that would be the durable reference.

There's another case that hasn't been brought up, though. Attribution "used by permission of author". Hasn't come up that I know of, but it's something to think about. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)